North And South

“As angels in some brighter dreams Call to the soul when man doth sleep, So some strange thoughts transcend our wonted themes, And into glory peep.” Henry Vaughan. Mrs. Hale was curiously amused and interested by the idea of the Thornton dinner party. She kept wondering about the details, with something of the simplicity of a little child, who wants to have all its anticipated pleasure described beforehand. But the monotonous life led by invalids often makes them like children, inasmuch as they have neither of them any sense of proportion in events, and seem each to believe that the walls and curtains which shut in their world, and shut out everything else, must of necessity be larger than anything hidden beyond. Besides Mrs. Hale had had her vanities as a girl; had perhaps unduly felt their mortification when she became a poor clergyman’s wife;—they had been smothered and kept down; but they were not extinct; and she liked to think of seeing Margaret dressed for a party, and discussed what she should wear, with an unsettled anxiety that amused Margaret, who had been more accustomed to society in her one year in Harley Street than her mother in five and twenty years of Helstone.

“Then you think you shall wear your white silk. Are you sure it will fit? It’s nearly a year since Edith was married!”

“Oh, yes, mamma! Mrs. Murray made it, and it’s sure to be right; it may be a straw’s breadth shorter or longer-waisted, according to my having grown fat or thin. But I don’t think I’ve altered in the least.”

“Hadn’t you better let Dixon see it? It may have gone yellow with lying by.”

“If you like, mamma. But if the worst comes to the worst, I’ve a very nice pink gauze which Aunt Shaw gave me, only two or three months before Edith was married. That can’t have gone yellow.”

“No! but it may have faded.”

“Well! then I’ve a green silk. I feel more as if it was the embarrassment of riches.”

“I wish I knew what you ought to wear,” said Mrs. Hale, nervously.

Margaret’s manner changed instantly. “Shall I go and put them on one after another, mamma, and then you could see which you liked best?”

“But—yes! perhaps that will be best.”

So off Margaret went. She was very much inclined to play some pranks when she was dressed up at such an unusual hour; to make her rich white silk balloon out into a cheese, to retreat backwards from her mother as if she were the queen; but when she found that these freaks of hers were regarded as interruptions to the serious business, and as such annoyed her mother, she became grave and sedate. What had possessed the world (her world) to fidget so about her dress, she could not understand; but that very afternoon, on naming her engagement to Bessy Higgins (apropos of the servant that Mrs. Thornton had promised to enquire about), Bessy quite roused up at the intelligence.

“Dear! and are you going to dine at Thornton’s at Marlborough Mills?”

“Yes, Bessy. Why are you so surprised?”

“Oh, I dunno. But they visit wi’ a’ th’ first folk in Milton.”

“And you don’t think we’re quite the first folk in Milton, eh, Bessy?”

Bessy’s cheeks flushed a little at her thought being thus easily read.

“Well,” said she, “yo’ see, they thinken a deal o’ money here; and I reckon yo’ve not getten much.”

“No,” said Margaret, “that’s very true. But we are educated people, and have lived amongst educated people. Is there anything so wonderful, in our being asked out to dinner by a man who owns himself inferior to my father by coming to him to be instructed? I don’t mean to blame Mr. Thornton. Few drapers’ assistants, as he was once, could have made themselves what he is.”

“But can yo’ give dinners back, in yo’re small house? Thornton’s house is three times as big.”

“Well, I think we could manage to give Mr. Thornton a dinner back, as you call it. Perhaps not in such a large room, nor with so many people. But I don’t think we’ve thought about it at all in that way.”

“I never thought yo’d be dining with Thorntons,” repeated Bessy. “Why, the mayor hissel’ dines there; and the members of Parliament and all.”

“I think, I could support the honour of meeting the mayor of Milton.”

“But them ladies dress so grand!” said Bessy, with an anxious look at Margaret’s print gown, which her Milton eyes appraised at sevenpence a yard.

Margaret’s face dimpled up into a merry laugh. “Thank you, Bessy, for thinking so kindly about my looking nice among all the smart people. But I’ve plenty of grand gowns,—a week ago, I should have said they were far too grand for anything I should ever want here. But as I’m to dine at Mr. Thornton’s, and perhaps to meet the mayor, I shall put on my very best gown, you may be sure.”

“What win yo’ wear?” asked Bessy, somewhat relieved.

“White silk,” said Margaret. “A gown I had for a cousin’s wedding, a year ago.”

“That’ll do!” said Bessy, falling back in her chair. “I should be loth to have yo’ looked down upon.”

“Oh! I’ll be fine enough, if that will save me from being looked down upon in Milton.”

“I wish I could see you dressed up,” said Bessy. “I reckon, yo’re not what folk would ca’ pretty; yo’ve not red and white enough for that. But dun yo’ know, I ha’ dreamt of yo’, long afore ever I seed yo’.”

“Nonsense, Bessy!”

“Ay, but I did. Yo’r very face,—looking wi’ yo’r clear steadfast eyes out o’ th’ darkness, wi’ yo’r hair blown off from yo’r brow, and going out like rays round yo’r forehead, which was just as smooth and straight as it is now,—and yo’ always came to give me strength, which I seemed to gather out o’ yo’r deep comforting eyes,—and yo’ was drest in shining raiment—just as yo’r going to be drest. So, yo’ see, it was yo’!”

“Nay, Bessy,” said Margaret, gently, “it was but a dream.”

“And why might na I dream a dream in my affliction as well as others? Did not many a one i’ the Bible? Ay, and see visions too! Why, even my father thinks a deal o’ dreams! I tell yo’ again, I saw yo’ as plainly, coming swiftly towards me, wi’ yo’r hair blown back wi’ the very swiftness o’ the motion, just like the way it grows, a little standing off like; and the white shining dress on yo’ve getten to wear. Let me come and see yo’ in it. I want to see yo’ and touch yo’ as in very deed yo’ were in my dream.”

“My dear Bessy, it is quite a fancy of yours.”

“Fancy or no fancy,—yo’ve come, as I knew yo’ would, when I saw yo’r movement in my dream,—and when yo’re here about me, I reckon I feel easier in my mind, and comforted, just as a fire comforts one on a dree day. Yo’ said it were on th’ twenty-first; please God, I’ll come and see yo’.”

“Oh Bessy! you may come and welcome; but don’t talk so—it really makes me sorry. It does indeed.”

“Then I’ll keep it to mysel’, if I bite my tongue out. Not but what it’s true for all that.”

Margaret was silent. At last she said, “Let us talk about it sometimes, if you think it true. But not now. Tell me, has your father turned out?”

“Ay!” said Bessy heavily—in a manner very different from that she had spoken in but a minute or two before. “He and many another,—all Hamper’s men,—and many a one besides. Th’ women are as bad as th’ men, in their savageness, this time. Food is high,—and they mun have food for their childer, I reckon. Suppose Thorntons sent ’em their dinner out,—th’ same money, spent on potatoes and meal, would keep many a crying baby quiet, and hush up its mother’s heart for a bit!”

“Don’t speak so!” said Margaret. “You’ll make me feel wicked and guilty in going to this dinner.”

“No!” said Bessy. “Some’s pre-elected to sumptuous feasts, and purple and fine linen,—may be yo’re one on ’em. Others toil and moil all their lives long—and the very dogs are not pitiful in our days, as they were in the days of Lazarus. But if yo’ ask me to cool yo’re tongue wi’ th’ tip of my finger, I’ll come across the great gulf to yo’ just for th’ thought o’ what yo’ve been to me here.”

“Bessy; you’re very feverish! I can tell it in the touch of your hand, as well us in what you’re saying. It won’t be division enough, in that awful day, that some of us have been beggars here, and some of us have been rich,—we shall not be judged by that poor accident, but by our faithful following of Christ.”

Margaret got up, and found some water; and soaking her pocket-handkerchief in it, she laid the cool wetness on Bessy’s forehead, and began to chafe the stone-cold feet. Bessy shut her eyes, and allowed herself to be soothed. At last she said,

“Yo’d ha’ been deaved out o’ yo’r five wits, as well as me, if yo’d had one body after another coming in to ask for father, and staying to tell me each one their tale. Some spoke o’ deadly hatred, and made my blood run cold wi’ the terrible things they said o’ th’ masters,—but more, being women, kept plaining, plaining (wi’ the tears running down their cheeks, and never wiped away, nor heeded), of the price o’ meat, and how their childer could na sleep at nights for th’ hunger.”

“And do they think the strike will mend this?” asked Margaret.

“They say so,” replied Bessy. “They do say trade has been good for long, and the masters has made no end o’ money; how much father doesn’t know, but, in course, th’ Union does; and, as it is natural, they wanted their share o’ th’ profits, now that food is getting dear; and th’ Union says they’ll not be doing their duty if they don’t make th’ masters give ’em their share. But masters has getten th’ upper hand somehow; and I’m feared they’ll keep it now and evermore. It’s like th’ great battle o’ Armageddon, the way they keep on, grinning and fighting at each other, till even while they fight, they are picked off into the pit.”

Just then, Nicholas Higgins came in. He caught his daughter’s last words.

“Ay! and I’ll fight on too; and I’ll got it this time. It’ll not take long for to make ’em give in, for they’ve getten a pretty lot of orders, all under contract; and they’ll soon find out they’d better give us our five per cent. than lose the profit they’ll gain; let alone the fine for not fulfilling the contract. Aha my masters! I know who’ll win.”