North and South · Chapter 38 (2/2)

“No, Miss Hale,” said Mrs. Thornton, her truthfulness causing her to arrest the confession Margaret was on the point of making, though her curiosity was itching to hear it. “Stop. Mr. Thornton has told me nothing. You do not know my son. You are not worthy to know him. He said this. Listen, young lady, that you may understand, if you can, what sort of a man you rejected. This Milton manufacturer, his great tender heart scorned as it was scorned, said to me only last night, ‘Go to her. I have good reason to know that she is in some strait arising out of some attachment; and she needs womanly counsel.’ I believe those were his very words. Farther than that⁠—beyond admitting the fact of your being at the Outwood station with a gentleman, on the evening of the twenty-sixth⁠—he has said nothing⁠—not one word against you. If he has knowledge of anything which should make you sob so, he keeps it to himself.”

Margaret’s face was still hidden in her hands, the fingers of which were wet with tears. Mrs. Thornton was a little mollified.

“Come, Miss Hale. There may be circumstances, I’ll allow, that, if explained, may take off from the seeming impropriety.”

Still no answer. Margaret was considering what to say; she wished to stand well with Mrs. Thornton; and yet she could not, might not, give any explanation. Mrs. Thornton grew impatient.

“I shall be sorry to break off an acquaintance; but for Fanny’s sake⁠—as I told my son, if Fanny had done so we should consider it a great disgrace⁠—and Fanny might be led away⁠—”

“I can give you no explanation,” said Margaret, in a low voice. “I have done wrong, but not in the way you think or know about. I think Mr. Thornton judges me more mercifully than you;”⁠—she had hard work to keep herself from choking with her tears⁠—“but, I believe, madam, you mean to do rightly.”

“Thank you,” said Mrs. Thornton, drawing herself up; “I was not aware that my meaning was doubted. It is the last time I shall interfere. I was unwilling to consent to do it, when your mother asked me. I had not approved of my son’s attachment to you, while I only suspected it. You did not appear to me worthy of him. But when you compromised yourself as you did at the time of the riot, and exposed yourself to the comments of servants and workpeople, I felt it was no longer right to set myself against my son’s wish of proposing to you⁠—a wish, by the way, which he had always denied entertaining until the day of the riot.” Margaret winced, and drew in her breath with a long, hissing sound; of which, however, Mrs. Thornton took no notice. “He came; you had apparently changed your mind. I told my son yesterday, that I thought it possible, short as was the interval, you might have heard or learnt something of this other lover⁠—”

“What must you think of me, madam?” asked Margaret, throwing her head back with proud disdain, till her throat curved outwards like a swan’s. “You can say nothing more, Mrs. Thornton. I decline every attempt to justify myself for anything. You must allow me to leave the room.”

And she swept out of it with the noiseless grace of an offended princess. Mrs. Thornton had quite enough of natural humour to make her feel the ludricrousness of the position in which she was left. There was nothing for it but to show herself out. She was not particularly annoyed at Margaret’s way of behaving. She did not care enough for her for that. She had taken Mrs. Thornton’s remonstrance to the full as keenly to heart as that lady expected; and Margaret’s passion at once mollified her visitor, far more than any silence or reserve could have done. It showed the effect of her words. “My young lady,” thought Mrs. Thornton to herself; “you’ve a pretty good temper of your own. If John and you had come together, he would have had to keep a tight hand over you, to make you know your place. But I don’t think you will go a-walking again with your beau, at such an hour of the day, in a hurry. You’ve too much pride and spirit in you for that. I like to see a girl fly out at the notion of being talked about. It shows they’re neither giddy, nor bold by nature. As for that girl, she might be bold, but she’d never be giddy. I’ll do her that justice. Now as to Fanny, she’d be giddy, and not bold. She’s no courage in her, poor thing!”

Mr. Thornton was not spending the morning so satisfactorily as his mother. She, at any rate, was fulfilling her determined purpose. He was trying to understand where he stood; what damage the strike had done him. A good deal of his capital was locked up in new and expensive machinery; and he had also bought cotton largely, with a view to some great orders which he had in hand. The strike had thrown him terribly behindhand, as to the completion of these orders. Even with his own accustomed and skilled workpeople, he would have had some difficulty in fulfilling his engagements; as it was, the incompetence of the Irish hands, who had to be trained to their work, at a time requiring unusual activity, was a daily annoyance.

It was not a favourable hour for Higgins to make his request. But he had promised Margaret to do it at any cost. So, though every moment added to his repugnance, his pride, and his sullenness of temper, he stood leaning against the dead wall, hour after hour, first on one leg, then on the other. At last the latch was sharply lifted, and out came Mr. Thornton.

“I want for to speak to yo’, sir.”

“Can’t stay now, my man. I’m too late as it is.”

“Well, sir, I reckon I can wait till yo’ come back.”

Mr. Thornton was halfway down the street. Higgins sighed. But it was no use. To catch him in the street, was his only chance of seeing “the measter!” if he had rung the lodge bell or even gone up to the house to ask for him, he would have been referred to the overlooker. So he stood still again, vouchsafing no answer, but a short nod of recognition to the few men who knew and spoke to him, as the crowd drove out the mill-yard at dinnertime, and scowling with all his might at the Irish “knobsticks” who had just been imported. At last Mr. Thornton returned.

“What! you there still!”

“Ay, sir, I mun speak to yo’.”

“Come in here, then. Stay, we’ll go across the yard; the men are not come back, and we shall have it to ourselves. These good people, I see, are at dinner;” said he, closing the door of the porter’s lodge.

He stopped to speak to the overlooker. The latter said in a low tone:

“I suppose you know, sir, that that man is Higgins, one of the leaders of the Union; he that made that speech in Hurstfield.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Mr. Thornton, looking round sharply at his follower. Higgins was known to him by name as a turbulent spirit.

“Come along,” said he, and his tone was rougher than before. “It is men such as this,” thought he, “who interrupt commerce and injure the very town they live in: mere demagogues, lovers of power at whatever cost to others.”

“Well, sir! what do you want with me?” said Mr. Thornton, facing round at him, as soon as they were in the countinghouse of the mill.

“My name is Higgins⁠—”

“I know that,” broke in Mr. Thornton. “What do you want, Mr. Higgins? That’s the question.”

“I want work.”

“Work! You’re a pretty chap to come asking me for work. You don’t want impudence, that’s very clear.”

“I’ve getten enemies and backbiters, like my betters; but I ne’er heerd o’ ony of them calling me o’er-modest,” said Higgins. His blood was a little roused by Mr. Thornton’s manner, more than by his words.

Mr. Thornton saw a letter addressed to himself on the table. He took it up and read it through. At the end, he looked up and said, “What are you waiting for?”

“An answer to th’ question I axed.”

“I gave it you before. Don’t waste any more of your time.”

“Yo’ made a remark, sir, on my impudence’ but I were taught that it was manners to say either ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ when I were axed a civil question. I should be thankfu’ to yo’ if yo’d give me work. Hamper will speak to my being a good hand.”

“I’ve a notion you’d better not send me to Hamper to ask for a character, my man. I might hear more than you’d like.”

“I’d take th’ risk. Worst they could say of me is, that I did what I thought best, even to my own wrong.”

“You’d better go and try them, then, and see whether they’ll give you work. I’ve turned off upwards of a hundred of my best hands, for no other fault than following you and such as you; and d’ye think I’ll take you on? I might as well put a firebrand into the midst of the cotton-waste.”

Higgins turned away: then the recollection of Boucher came over him, and he faced round with the greatest concession he could persuade himself to make.

“I’d promise yo’, measter, I’d not speak a word as could do harm, if so be yo’ did right by us; and I’d promise more: I’d promise that when I seed yo’ going wrong, and acting unfair, I’d speak to yo’ in private first; and that would be a fair warning. If yo’ and I did na agree in our opinion o’ your conduct, yo’ might turn me off at an hour’s notice.”

“Upon my word, you don’t think small beer of yourself! Hamper has had a loss of you. How came he to let you and your wisdom go?”

“Well, we parted wi’ mutual dissatisfaction. I wouldn’t gi’e the pledge they were asking; and they wouldn’t have me at no rate. So I’m free to make another engagement; and as I said before, though I should na’ say it, I’m a good hand, measter, and a steady man⁠—specially when I can keep fro’ drink; and that I shall do now, if I ne’er did afore.”

“That you may have more money laid up for another strike, I suppose?”

“No! I’d be thankful if I was free to do that; it’s for to keep th’ widow and childer of a man who was drove mad by them knobsticks o’ yourn; put out of his place by a Paddy that did na know weft fro’ warp.”

“Well! you’d better turn to something else, if you’ve any such good intention in your head. I shouldn’t advise you to stay in Milton: you’re too well known here.”

“If it were summer,” said Higgins, “I’d take to Paddy’s work, and go as a navvy, or haymaking, or summat, and ne’er see Milton again. But it’s winter, and th’ childer will clem.”

“A pretty navvy you’d make! why you couldn’t do half a day’s work at digging against an Irishman.”

“I’d only charge half-a-day for th’ twelve hours, if I could only do half-a-day’s work in th’ time. Yo’re not knowing of any place, where they could gi’ me a trial, away fro’ the mills, if I’m such a firebrand? I’d take any wage they thought I was worth, for the sake of those childer.”

“Don’t you see what you would be? You’d be a knobstick. You’d be taking less wages than the other labourers⁠—all for the sake of another man’s children. Think how you’d abuse any poor fellow who was willing to take what he could get to keep his own children. You and your Union would soon be down upon him. No! no! if it’s only for the recollection of the way in which you’ve used the poor knobsticks before now, I say No! to your question. I’ll not give you work. I won’t say, I don’t believe your pretext for coming and asking for work; I know nothing about it. It may be true, or it may not. It’s a very unlikely story, at any rate. Let me pass. I’ll not give you work. There’s your answer.”

“I hear, sir. I would na ha’ troubled you’, but that I were bid to come, by one as seemed to think yo’d getten some place in your heart. Hoo were mistook, and I were misled. But I’m not the first man as is misled by a woman.”

“Tell her to mind her own business the next time, instead of taking up your time and mine too. I believe women are at the bottom of every plague in this world. Be off with you.”

“I’m obleeged to you for a’ yo’r kindness, measter, and most of a’ for yo’r civil way o’ saying goodbye.”

Mr. Thornton did not deign a reply. But, looking out of the window a minute later, he was struck with the lean, bent figure going out of the yard; the heavy walk was in strange contrast with the resolute, clear determination of the man to speak to him. He crossed to the porter’s lodge:

“How long has that man Higgins been waiting to speak to me?”

“He was outside the gate before eight o’clock, sir. I think he’s been there ever since.”

“And it is now⁠—?”

“Just one, sir.”

“Five hours,” thought Mr. Thornton; “it’s a long time for a man to wait, doing nothing but first hoping and then fearing.”