Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  Meanwhile she went on living at Ford Bank, quite unconscious of the state of her father’s affairs, but sunk into a deep, plaintive melancholy, which affected her looks and the tones of her voice in such a manner as to distress Miss Monro exceedingly. It was not that the good lady did not quite acknowledge the great cause her pupil had for grieving - deserted by her lover, her father dead - but that she could not bear the outward signs of how much these sorrows had told on Ellinor. Her love for the poor girl was infinitely distressed by seeing the daily wasting away, the constant heavy depression of spirits, and she grew impatient of the continual pain of sympathy. If Miss Monro could have done something to relieve Ellinor of her woe she would have been less inclined to scold her for giving way to it.

  The time came when Miss Monro could act; and after that, there was no more irritation on her part. When all hope of Ellinor’s having anything beyond the house and grounds of Ford Bank was gone; when it was proved that of all the legacies bequeathed by Mr Wilkins not one farthing could ever be paid; when it came to be a question how far the beautiful pictures and other objects of art in the house were not legally the property of unsatisfied creditors, the state of her father’s affairs was communicated to Ellinor as delicately as Mr Ness knew how.

  She was drooping over her work - she always drooped now - and she left off sewing to listen to him, leaning her head on the arm which rested on the table. She did not speak when he had ended his statement. She was silent for whole minutes afterwards; he went on speaking out of very agitation and awkwardness.

  ‘It was all the rascal Dunster’s doing, I’ve no doubt,’ said he, trying to account for the entire loss of Mr Wilkins’s fortune.

  To his surprise she lifted up her white stony face, and said slowly and faintly, but with almost solemn calmness:

  ‘Mr Ness, you must never allow Mr Dunster to be blamed for this!’

  ‘My dear Ellinor, there can be no doubt about it. Your father himself always referred to the losses he had sustained by Dunster’s disappearance.’

  Ellinor covered her face with her hands. ‘God forgive us all,’ she said, and relapsed into the old unbearable silence. Mr Ness had undertaken to discuss her future plans with her, and he was obliged to go on.

  ‘Now, my dear child - I have known you since you were quite a little girl, you know - we must try not to give way to feeling’ - he himself was choking; she was quite quiet - ‘but think what is to be done. You will have the rent of this house; and we have a very good offer for it - a tenant on lease of seven years at a hundred and twenty pounds a year --’

  ‘I will never let this house,’ said she, standing up suddenly, and as if defying him.

  ‘Not let Ford Bank! Why? I don’t understand it - I can’t have been clear - Ellinor, the rent of this house is all you will have to live on!’

  ‘I can’t help it, I can’t leave this house. Oh, Mr Ness, I can’t leave this house.’

  ‘My dear child, you shall not be hurried - I know how hardly all these things are coming upon you (and I wish I had never seen Corbet, with all my heart I do!)’ - this was almost to himself, but she must have heard it, for she quivered all over - ‘but leave this house you must. You must eat, and the rent of this house must pay for your food; you must dress, and there is nothing but the rent to clothe you. I will gladly have you to stay at the parsonage as long as ever you like; but, in fact, the negotiations with Mr Osbaldistone, the gentleman who offers to take the house, are nearly completed --’

  ‘It is my house!’ said Ellinor, fiercely. ‘I know it is settled on me.

  ‘No, my dear. It is held in trust for you by Sir Frank Holster and Mr Johnson; you to receive all moneys and benefits accruing from it’ - he spoke gently, for he almost thought her head was turned - ‘but you remember you are not of age, and Mr Johnson and I have full power.’

  Ellinor sat down, helpless.

  ‘Leave me,’ she said, at length. ‘You are very kind, but you don’t know all. I cannot stand any more talking now,’ she added faintly.

  Mr Ness bent over her and kissed her forehead, and withdrew without another word. He went to Miss Monro.

  ‘Well! and how did you find her?’ was her first inquiry, after the usual greetings had passed between them. ‘It is really quite sad to see how she gives way; I speak to her, and speak to her, and tell her how she is neglecting all her duties, and it does no good.’

  ‘She has had to bear a still further sorrow today,’ said Mr Ness. ‘On the part of Mr Johnson and myself I have a very painful duty to perform to you as well as to her. Mr Wilkins has died insolvent. I grieve to say there is no hope of your ever receiving any of your annuity!’

  Miss Monro looked very blank, Many happy little visions faded away in those few moments; then she roused up and said, ‘I am but forty; I have a good fifteen years of work in me left yet, thank God. Insolvent! Do you mean he has left no money?’

  ‘Not a farthing. The creditors may be thankful if they are fully paid.’

  ‘And Ellinor?’

  ‘Ellinor will have the rent of this house, which is hers by right of her mother’s settlement, to live on.’

  ‘How much will that be?’

  ‘One hundred and twenty pounds.’

  Miss Monro’s lips went into a form prepared for whistling. Mr Ness continued:

  ‘She is at present unwilling enough to leave this house, poor girl. It is but natural; but she has no power in the matter, even were there any other course open to her. I can only say how glad, how honoured, I shall feel by as long a visit as you and she can be prevailed upon to pay me at the parsonage.’

  ‘Where is Mr Corbet?’ said Miss Monro.

  ‘I do not know. After breaking off his engagement he wrote me a long letter, explanatory, as he called it; exculpatory, as I termed it. I wrote back, curtly enough, saying that I regretted the breaking off of an intercourse which had always been very pleasant to me, but that he must be aware that, with my intimacy with the family at Ford Bank, it would be both awkward and unpleasant to all parties if he and I remained on our previous footing. Who is that going past the window? Ellinor riding?’

  Miss Monro went to the window. ‘Yes! I am thankful to see her on horseback again. It was only this morning I advised her to have a ride!’

  ‘Poor Dixon! he will suffer, too; his legacy can no more be paid than the others; and it is not many young ladies who will be as content to have so old-fashioned a groom riding after them as Ellinor seems to be.’

  As soon as Mr Ness had left, Miss Monro went to her desk and wrote a long letter to some friends she had at the cathedral town of East Chester, where she had spent some happy years of her former life. Her thoughts had gone back to this time even while Mr Ness had been speaking; for it was there her father had lived, and it was after his death that her cares in search of a subsistence had begun. But the recollections of the peaceful years spent there were stronger than the remembrance of the weeks of sorrow and care; and, while Ellinor’s marriage had seemed a probable event, she had made many a little plan of returning to her native place, and obtaining what daily teaching she could there meet with, and the friends to whom she was now writing had promised her their aid. She thought that as Ellinor had to leave Ford Bank, a home at a distance might be more agreeable to her, and she went on to plan that they should live together, if possible, on her earnings, and the small income that would be Ellinor’s. Miss Monro loved her pupil so dearly, that, if her own pleasure only were to be consulted, this projected life would be more agreeable to her than if Mr Wilkins’s legacy had set her in independence, with Ellinor away from her, married, and with interests in which her former governess had but little part.

  As soon as Mr Ness had left her, Ellinor rang the bell, and startled the servant who answered it by her sudden sharp desire to have the horses at the door as soon as possible, and to tell Dixon to be ready to go out with her.

  She felt that she must speak to him, and in her nervous state she wanted to be out on th
e free broad common, where no one could notice or remark their talk. It was long since she had ridden, and much wonder was excited by the sudden movement in kitchen and stable-yard. But Dixon went gravely about his work of preparation, saying nothing.

  They rode pretty hard till they reached Monk’s Heath, six or seven miles away from Hamley. Ellinor had previously determined that here she would talk over the plan Mr Ness had proposed to her with Dixon, and lie seemed to understand her without any words passing between them. When she reined in he rode up to her, and met the gaze of her sad eyes with sympathetic, wistful silence.

  ‘Dixon,’ said she, ‘they say I must leave Ford Bank.’

  ‘I was afeared on it, from all I’ve heerd say i’ the town since the master’s death.’

  ‘Then you’ve heard - then you know - that papa has left hardly any money - my poor dear Dixon, you won’t have your legacy, and I never thought of that before!’

  ‘Never heed, never heed,’ said he, eagerly; ‘I couldn’t have touched it if it had been there, for the taking it would ha’ seemed too like --’ Blood-money, he was going to say, but he stopped in time. She guessed the meaning, though not the word he would have used.

  ‘No, not that,’ said she; ‘his will was dated years before. But oh, Dixon, what must I do? They will make me leave Ford Bank, I see. I think the trustees have half let it already.’

  ‘But you’ll have the rent on’t, I reckon?’ asked he, anxiously. ‘I’ve many a time heerd ‘em say as it was settled on the missus first, and then on you.’

  ‘Oh, yes, it is not that; but, you know, under the beech-tree --’

  ‘Ay!’ said he, heavily. ‘It’s been oftentimes on my mind, waking, and I think there’s ne’er a night as I don’t dream of it.’

  ‘But how can I leave it?’ Ellinor cried, ‘They may do a hundred things - may dig up the shrubbery. Oh! Dixon, I feel as if it was sure to be found out! Oh! Dixon, I cannot bear any more blame on papa - it will kill me - and such a dreadful thing, too!’

  Dixon’s face fell into the lines of habitual pain that it had always assumed of late years whenever he was thinking or remembering anything.

  ‘They must ne’er ha’ reason to speak ill of the dead, that’s for certain,’ said he. ‘The Wilkinses have been respected in Hamley all my lifetime, and all my father’s before me, and - surely, missy, there’s ways and means of tying tenants up from alterations both in the house and out of it, and I’d beg the trustees, or whatever they’s called, to be very particular, if I was you, and not have a thing touched either in the house, or the gardens, or the meadows, or the stables. I think, wi’ a word from you, they’d maybe keep me on i’ the stables, and I could look after things a bit. and the Day o’ Judgment will come at last, when all our secrets will be made known wi’out our having the trouble and the shame o’ telling ‘em. I’m getting rayther tired o’ this world, Miss Ellinor.’

  ‘Don’t talk so,’ said Ellinor, tenderly. ‘I know how sad it is, but, oh! remember how I shall want a friend when you’re gone, to advise me as you have done today. You’re not feeling ill, Dixon, are you?’ she continued, anxiously.

  ‘No! I’m hearty enough, and likely for t’ live. Father was eighty-one, and mother above the seventies, when they died. It’s only my heart as is got to feel so heavy; and as for that matter, so is yours, I’ll be bound. And it’s a comfort to us both if we can serve him as is dead by any care of ours, for he were such a bright handsome lad, with such a cheery face, as never should ha’ known shame.’

  They rode on without much more speaking. Ellinor was silently planning for Dixon, and he, not caring to look forward to the future, was bringing up before his fancy the time, thirty years ago, when he had first entered the elder Mr Wilkins’s service as stable-lad, and pretty Molly, the scullery-maid, was his daily delight. Pretty Molly lay buried in Hamley churchyard, and few living, except Dixon, could have gone straight to her grave.

  CHAPTER XI

  In a few days Miss Monro obtained a most satisfactory reply to her letter of inquiries as to whether a daily governess could find employment in East Chester. For once, the application seemed to have come just at the right time. The canons were most of them married men, with young families; those at present in residence welcomed the idea of such instruction as Miss Monro could offer for their children, and could almost answer for their successors in office. This was a great step gained. Miss Monro, the daughter of the precentor to this very cathedral, had a secret unwillingness to being engaged as a teacher by any wealthy tradesman there; but, to be received into the canons’ families in almost any capacity, was like going home. Moreover, besides the empty honour of the thing, there were many small pieces of patronage in the gift of the chapter - such as a small house opening on to the Close, which had formerly belonged to the verger, but which was now vacant, and was offered to Miss Monro at a nominal rent.

  Ellinor had once more sunk into her old depressed passive state; Mr Ness and Miss Monro, modest and undecided as they both were in general, had to fix and arrange everything for her. Her great interest seemed to be in the old servant Dixon, and her great pleasure to lie in seeing him, and talking over old times; so her two friends talked about her, little knowing what a bitter, stinging pain her ‘pleasure’ was. In vain Ellinor tried to plan how they could take Dixon with them to East Chester. If he had been a woman it would have been a feasible step; but they were only to keep one servant, and Dixon, capable and versatile as he was, would not do for that servant. All this was what passed through Ellinor’s mind: it is still a question whether Dixon would have felt his love of his native place, with all its associations and remembrances, or his love for Ellinor, the stronger. But he was not put to the proof; he was only told that he must leave, and, seeing Ellinor’s extreme grief at the idea of their separation, he set himself to comfort her by every means in his power, reminding her, with tender choice of words, how necessary it was that he should remain on the spot, in Mr Osbaldistone’s service, in order to frustrate, by any small influence he might have, every project of alteration in the garden that contained the dreadful secret. He persisted in this view, though Ellinor repeated, with pertinacious anxiety, the care which Mr Johnson had taken, in drawing up the lease, to provide against any change or alteration being made in the present disposition of the house or grounds.

  People in general were rather astonished at the eagerness Miss Wilkins showed to sell all the Ford Bank furniture. Even Miss Monro was a little scandalized at this want of sentiment, although she said nothing about it; indeed justified the step, by telling everyone how wisely Ellinor was acting, as the large, handsome tables and chairs would be very much out of place and keeping with the small, oddly-shaped rooms of their future home in East Chester Close. None knew how strong was the instinct of self-preservation, it may almost be called, which impelled Ellinor to shake off, at any cost of present pain, the incubus of a terrible remembrance. She wanted to go into an unhaunted dwelling in a free, unknown country - she felt as if it was her only chance of sanity. Sometimes she thought her senses would not hold together till the time when all these arrangements were ended. But she did not speak to anyone about her feelings, poor child - to whom could she speak on the subject but to Dixon? Nor did she define them to herself. All she knew was, that she was as nearly going mad as possible; and if she did, she feared that she might betray her father’s guilt. All this time she never cried, or varied from her dull, passive demeanour. And they were blessed tears of relief that she shed when Miss Monro, herself weeping bitterly, told her to put her head out of the post-chaise window, for at the next turning of the road they would catch the last glimpse of Hamley church spire.

  Late one October evening, Ellinor had her first sight of East Chester Close, where she was to pass the remainder of her life. Miss Monro had been backwards and forwards between Hamley and East Chester more than once, while Ellinor remained at the parsonage; so she had not only the pride of proprietorship in the whole of the beautiful city,
but something of the desire of hospitably welcoming Ellinor to their joint future home.

  ‘Look! the fly must take us a long round, because of our luggage; but behind these high old walls are the canons’ gardens. That high-pitched roof, with the clumps of stonecrop on the walls near it, is Canon Wilson’s, whose four little girls I am to teach. Hark! the great cathedral clock. How proud I used to be of its great boom when I was a child! I thought all the other church clocks in the town sounded so shrill and poor after that, which I considered mine especially. There are rooks flying home to the elms in the Close. I wonder if they are the same that used to be there when I was a girl. They say the rook is a very long-lived bird, and I feel as if I could swear to the way they are cawing. Ay, you may smile, Ellinor, but I understand now those lines of Gray’s you used to say so prettily -

  I feel the gales that from ye blow,

  A momentary bless bestow,

  And breathe a second spring.

  Now, dear, you must get out. This flagged walk leads to our front door; but our back rooms, which are the pleasantest, look on to the Close, and the cathedral, and the lime-tree walk, and the deanery, and the rookery.’

  It was a mere slip of a house; the kitchen being wisely placed close to the front door, and so reserving the pretty view for the little dining-room, out of which a glass-door opened into a small walled-in garden, which had again an entrance into the Close. Upstairs was a bedroom to the front, which Miss Monro had taken for herself, because, as she said, she had old associations with the back of every house in the High Street, while Ellinor mounted to the pleasant chamber above the tiny drawing-room, both of which looked on to the vast and solemn cathedral, and the peaceful dignified Close. East Chester Cathedral is Norman, with a low, massive tower, a grand, majestic nave, and a choir full of stately historic tombs. The whole city is so quiet and decorous a place, that the perpetual daily chants and hymns of praise seemed to sound far and wide over the roofs of the houses. Ellinor soon became a regular attendant at all the morning and evening services. The sense of worship calmed and soothed her aching weary heart, and to be punctual to the cathedral hours she roused and exerted herself, when probably nothing else would have been sufficient to this end.