Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  Suddenly, Prudence rose up from her truckle-bed in the dim corner of the room. They had not thought that she was awake; but she had been listening long.

  ‘Cousin Lois may go out and meet Satan by the brookside, if she will; but, if thou goest, Faith, I will tell mother - ay, and I will tell Pastor Tappau, too. Hold thy stories, Cousin Lois; I am afeared of my very life. I would rather never be wed at all, than feel the touch of the creature that would take the apple out of my hand, as I held it over my left shoulder.’ The excited girl gave a loud scream of terror at the image her fancy had conjured up. Faith and Lois sprang out towards her, flying across the moon-lit room in their white night-gowns. At the same instant, summoned by the same cry, Grace Hickson came to her child.

  ‘Hush! hush!’ said Faith, authoritatively.

  ‘What is it, my wench?’ asked Grace. While Lois, feeling as if she had done all the mischief, kept silence.

  ‘Take her away, take her away!’ screamed Prudence. ‘Look over her shoulder - her left shoulder - the Evil One is there now, I see him stretching over for the half-bitten apple.’

  ‘What is it she says?’ said Grace austerely.

  ‘She is dreaming,’ said Faith; ‘Prudence, hold thy tongue.’ And she pinched the child severely, while Lois more tenderly tried to soothe the alarms she felt that she had conjured up.

  ‘Be quiet, Prudence,’ said she, ‘and go to sleep! I will stay by thee, till thou hast gone off into slumber.’

  ‘No, no! go away!’ sobbed Prudence, who was really terrified at first, but was now assuming more alarm than she felt, from the pleasure she received at perceiving herself the centre of attention. ‘Faith shall stay by me, not you, wicked English witch!’

  So Faith sat by her sister; and Grace, displeased and perplexed, withdrew to her own bed, purposing to inquire more into the matter in the morning. Lois only hoped it might all be forgotten by that time, and resolved never to talk again of such things. But an event happened in the remaining hours of the night to change the current of affairs. While Grace had been absent from her room, her husband had had another paralytic stroke: whether he, too, had been alarmed by that eldritch scream no one could ever know. By the faint light of the rush-candle burning at the bed-side, his wife perceived that a great change had taken place in his aspect on her return: the irregular breathing came almost like snorts - the end was drawing near. The family were roused, and all help given that either the doctor or experience could suggest. But before the late November morning-light, all was ended for Ralph Hickson.

  The whole of the ensuing day, they sat or moved in darkened rooms, and spoke few words, and those below their breath. Manasseh kept at home, regretting his father, no doubt, but showing little emotion. Faith was the child that bewailed her loss most grievously; she had a warm heart, hidden away somewhere under her moody exterior, and her father had shown her far more passive kindness than ever her mother had done; for Grace made distinct favourites of Manasseh, her only son, and Prudence, her youngest child. Lois was about as unhappy as any of them; for she had felt strongly drawn towards her uncle as her kindest friend, and the sense of his loss renewed the old sorrow she had experienced at her own parent’s death. But she had no time and no place to cry in. On her devolved many of the cares which it would have seemed indecorous in the nearer relatives to interest themselves in enough to take an active part: the change required in their dress, the household preparations for the sad feast of the funeral - Lois had to arrange all under her aunt’s stern direction.

  But, a day or two afterwards - the last day before the funeral - she went into the yard to fetch in some faggots for the oven; it was a solemn, beautiful, starlit evening, and some sudden sense of desolation in the midst of the vast universe thus revealed touched Lois’s heart, and she sat down behind the wood-stack, and cried very plentiful tears.

  She was startled by Manasseh, who suddenly turned the corner of the stack, and stood before her.

  ‘Lois crying!’

  ‘Only a little,’ she said, rising up, and gathering her bundle of faggots; for she dreaded being questioned by her grim, impassive cousin. To her surprise, he laid his hand on her arm, and said -

  ‘Stop one minute. Why art thou crying, cousin?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, just like a child questioned in like manner; and she was again on the point of weeping. ‘My father was very kind to thee, Lois; I do not wonder that thou grievest after him. But the Lord who taketh away can restore tenfold. I will be as kind as my father - yea, kinder. This is not a time to talk of marriage and giving in marriage. But after we have buried our dead, I wish to speak to thee.’

  Lois did not cry now; but she shrank with affright. What did her cousin mean? She would far rather that he had been angry with her for unreasonable grieving, for folly.

  She avoided him carefully - as carefully as she could, without seeming to dread him - for the next few days. Sometimes, she thought it must have been a bad dream; for, if there had been no English lover in the case, no other man in the whole world, she could never have thought of Manasseh as her husband; indeed, till now, there had been nothing in his words or actions to suggest such an idea. Now it had been suggested, there was no telling how much she loathed him. He might be good, and pious - he doubtless was - but his dark, fixed eyes, moving so slowly and heavily, his lank, black hair, his grey, coarse skin, all made her dislike him now - all his personal ugliness and ungainliness struck on her senses with a jar, since those few words spoken behind the hay-stack.

  She knew that, sooner or later, the time must come for further discussion of this subject; but, like a coward, she tried to put it off by clinging to her aunt’s apron-string, for she was sure that Grace Hickson had far different views for her only son. As, indeed, she had; for she was an ambitious, as well as a religious, woman; and, by an early purchase of land in Salem village, the Hicksons had become wealthy people, without any great exertions of their own - partly, also, by the silent process of accumulation; for they had never cared to change their manner of living, from the time when it had been suitable to a far smaller income than that which they at present enjoyed. So much for worldly circumstances. As for their worldly character, it stood as high. No one could say a word against any of their habits or actions. Their righteousness and godliness were patent to every one’s eyes. So Grace Hickson thought herself entitled to pick and choose among the maidens, before she should meet with one fitted to be Manasseh’s wife. None in Salem came up to her imaginary standard. She had it in her mind even at this very time, so soon after her husband’s death, to go to Boston, and take counsel with the leading ministers there, with worthy Mr Cotton Mather at their head, and see if they could tell her of a well-favoured and godly young maiden in their congregations worthy of being the wife of her son. But, besides good looks and godliness, the wench must have good birth and good wealth, or Grace Hickson would have put her contemptuously on one side. When once this paragon was found, and the ministers had approved, Grace anticipated no difficulty on her son’s part. So Lois was right in feeling that her aunt would dislike any speech of marriage between Manasseh and herself

  But the girl was brought to bay one day, in this wise. Manasseh had ridden forth on some business, which every one said would occupy him the whole day; but, meeting the man with whom he had to transact his affairs, he returned earlier than any one expected. He missed Lois from the keeping-room, where his sisters were spinning, almost immediately. His mother sat by at her knitting; he could see Nattee in the kitchen through the open door. He was too reserved to ask where Lois was; but he quietly sought till he found her, in the great loft, already piled with winter stores of fruit and vegetables. Her aunt had sent her there to examine the apples one by one, and pick out such as were unsound for immediate use. She was stooping down, and intent upon this work, and was hardly aware of his approach, until she lifted up her head and saw him standing close before her. She dropped the apple she was holding, went a little paler than her wont, an
d faced him in silence.

  ‘Lois,’ he said, ‘thou rememberest the words that I spoke while we yet mourned over my father. I think that I am called to marriage now, as the head of this household. And I have seen no maiden so pleasant in my sight as thou art, Lois!’ He tried to take her hand. But she put it behind her with a childish shake of her head, and, half crying, said -

  ‘Please, Cousin Manasseh, do not say this to me! I dare say you ought to be married, being the head of the household now; but I don’t want to be married. I would rather not.’

  ‘That is well spoken,’ replied he; frowning a little, nevertheless. ‘I should not like to take to wife an over-forward maiden, ready to jump at wedlock. Besides, the congregation might talk, if we were to be married too soon after my father’s death. We have, perchance, said enough, even now. But I wished thee to have thy mind set at ease as to thy future well-doing. Thou wilt have leisure to think of it, and to bring thy mind more fully round to it.’ Again he held out his hand. This time she took hold of it with a free, frank gesture.

  ‘I owe you somewhat for your kindness to me ever since I came, Cousin Manasseh; and I have no way of paying you but by telling you truly I can love you as a dear friend, if you will let me, but never as a wife.’

  He flung her hand away, but did not take his eyes off her face, though his glance was lowering and gloomy. He muttered something which she did not quite hear; and so she went on bravely, although she kept trembling a little, and had much ado to keep from crying.

  Pleae, let me tell you all! There was a young man in Barford - nay, Manasseh, I cannot speak if you are so angry; it is hard work to tell you anyhow - he said that he wanted to marry me; but I was poor, and his father would have none of it; and I do not want to marry any one; but, if I did, it would be’ - Her voice dropped, and her blushes told the rest. Manasseh stood looking at her with sullen, hollow eyes, that had a gathering touch of wildness in them; and then he said -

  ‘It is borne in upon me - verily, I see it as in a vision - that thou must be my spouse, and no other man’s. Thou canst not escape what is fore-doomed. Months ago, when I set myself to read the old godly books in which my soul used to delight until thy coming; I saw no letter of printer’s ink marked upon the page, but I saw a gold and ruddy type of some unknown language, the meaning whereof was whispered into my soul; it was, ‘Marry Lois! marry Lois!’ And, when my father died, I knew it was the beginning of the end. It is the Lord’s will, Lois, and thou canst not escape from it.’ And again he would have taken her hand, and drawn her towards him. But this time she eluded him with ready movement.

  ‘I do not acknowledge it to be the Lord’s will, Manasseh,’ said she. ‘It is not “borne in upon me,” as you Puritans call it, that I am to be your wife. I am none so set upon wedlock as to take you, even though there be no other chance for me. For I do not care for you as I ought to care for my husband. But I could have cared for you very much as a cousin - as a kind cousin.’

  She stopped speaking; she could not choose the right words with which to speak to him of her gratitude and friendliness, which yet could never be any feeling nearer and dearer, no more than two parallel lines can ever meet.

  But he was so convinced by what he considered the spirit of prophecy, that Lois was to be his wife, that he felt rather more indignant at what he considered to be her resistance to the preordained decree, than really anxious as to the result. Again he tried to convince her that neither he nor she had any choice in the matter, by saying -

  ‘The voice said unto me “Marry Lois;” and I said, “I will, Lord. “‘

  ‘But,’ Lois replied, ‘the voice, as you call it, has never spoken such a word to me.’

  ‘Lois,’ he answered solemnly, ‘it will speak. And then wilt thou obey, even as Samuel did?’

  ‘No; indeed I cannot!’ she answered briskly. ‘I may take a dream to be the truth, and hear my own fancies, if I think about them too long. But I cannot marry any one from obedience.’

  ‘Lois, Lois, thou art as yet unregenerate; but I have seen thee in a vision as one of the elect, robed in white. As yet thy faith is too weak for thee to obey meekly; but it shall not always be so. I will pray that thou mayest see thy preordained course. Meanwhile, I will smooth away all worldly obstacles.’

  ‘Cousin Manasseh! Cousin Manasseh!’ cried Lois after him, as he was leaving the room, ‘come back! I cannot put it in strong enough words. Manasseh, there is no power in heaven or earth that can make me love thee enough to marry thee, or to wed thee without such love. And this I say solemnly, because it is better that this should end at once.’

  For a moment he was staggered; then he lifted up his hands, and said -

  ‘God forgive thee thy blasphemy! Remember Hazael, who said, “Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?” and went straight and did it, because his evil courses were fixed and appointed for him from before the foundation of the world. And shall not thy paths be laid out among the godly, as it hath been foretold to me?’

  He went away; and for a minute or two Lois felt as if his words must come true, and that, struggle as she would, hate her doom as she would, she must become his wife; and, under the circumstances, many a girl would have succumbed to her apparent fate. Isolated from all previous connections, hearing no word from England, living in the heavy, monotonous routine of a family with one man for head, and this man esteemed a hero by most of those around him, simply because he was the only man in the family - these facts alone would have formed strong presumptions that most girls would have yielded to the offers of such a one. But, besides this, there was much to tell upon the imagination in those days, in that place and time. It was prevalently believed that there were manifestations of spiritual influence - of the direct influence both of good and bad spirits - constantly to be perceived in the course of men’s lives. Lots were drawn, as guidance from the Lord; the Bible was opened, and the leaves allowed to fall apart; and the first text the eye fell upon was supposed to be appointed from above as a direction. Sounds were heard that could not be accounted for; they were made by the evil spirits not yet banished from the desert-places of which they had so long held possession. Sights, inexplicable and mysterious, were dimly seen - Satan, in some shape, seeking whom he might devour. And, at the beginning of the long winter season, such whispered tales, such old temptations and hauntings, and devilish terrors, were supposed to be peculiarly rife. Salem was, as it were, snowed up, and left to prey upon itself The long, dark evenings; the dimly-lighted rooms; the creaking passages, where heterogeneous articles were piled away, out of the reach of the keen-piercing frost, and where occasionally, in the dead of night, a sound was heard, as of some heavy falling body, when, next morning, everything appeared to be in its right place (so accustomed are we to measure noises by comparison with themselves, and not with the absolute stillness of the night-season); the white mist, coming nearer and nearer to the windows every evening in strange shapes, like phantoms - all these, and many other circumstances: such as the distant fall of mighty trees in the mysterious forests girdling them round; the faint whoop and cry of some Indian seeking his camp, and unwittingly nearer to the white man’s settlement than either he or they would have liked, could they have chosen; the hungry yells of the wild beasts approaching the cattle-pens - these were the things which made that winter life in Salem, in the memorable time of 1691-2, seem strange, and haunted, and terrific to many; peculiarly weird and awful to the English girl, in her first year’s sojourn in America.

  And now, imagine Lois worked upon perpetually by Manasseh’s conviction that it was decreed that she should be his wife, and you will see that she was not without courage and spirit to resist as she did, steadily, firmly, and yet sweetly, Take one instance out of many, when her nerves were subjected to a shock - slight in relation, it is true; but then remember that she had been all day, and for many days, shut up within doors, in a dull light that at midday was almost dark with a long-continued snowstorm. Evening was coming on
, and the wood fire was more cheerful than any of the human beings surrounding it; the monotonous whirr of the smaller spinning-wheels had been going on all day, and the store of flax downstairs was nearly exhausted: when Grace Hickson bade Lois fetch down some more from the store room, before the light so entirely waned away that it could not be found without a candle, and a candle it would be dangerous to carry into that apartment full of combustible materials, especially at this time of hard frost, when every drop of water was locked up and bound in icy hardness. So Lois went, half-shrinking from the long passage that led to the stairs leading up into the store room, for it was in this passage that the strange night-sounds were heard, which every one had begun to notice, and speak about in lowered tones. She sang, however, as she went, ‘to keep her courage up,’ in a subdued voice, the evening hymn she had so often sung in Barford church -

  ‘Glory to Thee, my God, this night;’

  and so it was, I suppose, that she never heard the breathing or motion of any creature near her, till, just as she was loading herself with flax to carry down, she heard some one - it was Manasseh - say close to her car;

  ‘Has the voice spoken yet? Speak, Lois! Has the voice spoken yet to thee - that speaketh to me day and night, “Marry Lois”?’

  She started and turned a little sick, but spoke almost directly in a brave, clear manner -

  ‘No, Cousin Manasseh! And it never will.’

  ‘Then I must wait yet longer,’ he replied hoarsely, as if to himself. ‘But all submission - all submission.’

  At last, a break came upon the monotony of the long, dark winter. The parishioners once more raised the discussion whether - the parish extending as it did - it was not absolutely necessary for Pastor Tappau to have help. This question had been mooted once before; and then Pastor Tappau had acquiesced in the necessity, and all had gone on smoothly for some months after the appointment of his assistant; until a feeling had sprung up on the part of the elder minister, which might have been called jealousy of the younger, if so godly a man as Pastor Tappau could have been supposed to entertain so evil a passion. However that might be, two parties were speedily formed; the younger and more ardent being in favour of Mr Nolan, the elder and more persistent - and, at the time, the more numerous - clinging to the old, grey-headed, dogmatic Mr Tappau, who had married them, baptized their children, and was to them, literally, as a ‘pillar of the church.’ So Mr Nolan left Salem, carrying away with him, possibly, more hearts than that of Faith Hickson’s; but certainly she had never been the same creature since.