Sylvia's Lovers Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  ‘Poor man who was so hungry. Is he not hungry now?’

  ‘No,’ said Hester, softly. ‘The former things are passed away6—and he is gone where there is no more sorrow, and no more pain.’

  But then she broke down into weeping and crying. Sylvia sat up and looked at her.

  ‘Why do yo' cry, Hester?’ she said. ‘Yo' niver said that yo' wouldn't forgive him as long as yo' lived. Yo' niver broke the heart of him that loved yo’, and let him almost starve at yo'r very door. Oh, Philip! my Philip tender and true.’

  Then Hester came round and closed the sad half-open eyes; kissing the calm brow with a long farewell kiss. As she did so, her eye fell on a black ribbon round his neck. She partly lifted it out; to it was hung a half-crown piece.

  ‘This is the piece he left at William Darley's to be bored,’ said she, ‘not many days ago.’

  Bella had crept to her mother's arms as a known haven in this strange place; and the touch of his child loosened the fountains of her tears. She stretched out her hand for the black ribbon, put it round her own neck; after a while she said,

  ‘If I live very long, and try hard to be very good all that time, do yo' think, Hester, as God will let me to him where he is?’

  Monkshaven is altered now into a rising bathing place. Yet, standing near the site of widow Dobson's house on a summer's night, at the ebb of a spring-tide, you may hear the waves come lapping up the shelving shore with the same ceaseless, ever-recurrent sound as that which Philip listened to in the pauses between life and death.

  And so it will be until ‘there shall be no more sea’.7

  But the memory of man fades away. A few old people can still tell you the tradition of the man who died in a cottage somewhere about this spot,—died of starvation while his wife lived in hard-hearted plenty not two good stone-throws away. This is the form into which popular feeling, and ignorance of the real facts, have moulded the story. Not long since a lady went to the ‘Public Baths’,8 a handsome stone building erected on the very site of widow Dobson's cottage, and finding all the rooms engaged she sat down and had some talk with the bathing woman; and, as it chanced, the conversation fell on Philip Hepburn and the legend of his fate.

  ‘I knew an old man when I was a girl,’ said the bathing woman, ‘as could niver abide to hear t' wife blamed. He would say nothing again' th' husband; he used to say as it were not fit for men to be judging; that she had had her sore trial, as well as Hepburn hisself.’

  The lady asked, ‘What became of the wife?’

  ‘She was a pale, sad woman, allays dressed in black. I can just remember her when I was a little child, but she died before her daughter was well grown up; and Miss Rose took t' lassie, as had always been like her own.’

  ‘Miss Rose?’

  ‘Hester Rose! have yo' niver heared of Hester Rose, she as founded t' alms-houses for poor disabled sailors and soldiers on t' Horncastle road? There's a piece o' stone in front to say that “This building is erected in memory of P. H.”—and some folk will have it P. H. stands for t' name o' th' man as was starved to death.’

  ‘And the daughter?’

  ‘One o' t' Fosters, them as founded t' Old Bank, left her a vast o' money; and she were married to a distant cousin of theirs, and went off to settle in America many and many a year ago.’

  THE END

  NOTES

  These notes are chiefly designed to elucidate the text and make it more accessible to late twentieth-century readers. I am indebted to the pioneering work done in this respect by Andrew Sanders in his World's Classics edition of 1982.

  TITLE-PAGE

  ‘Oh for thy voice ..’: this epigraph to the novel was suggested by Gaskell's daughter, Meta, and is taken from section LVI of Tennyson's In Memoriam (1850). In its reference to knowledge and reconciliation after death it is particularly appropriate to the closing scenes of the story.

  CHAPTER 1: Monkshaven

  1 Monkshaven: the north-eastern coastal market town of Whitby, which Gaskell visited in November 1859 when it was a growing resort of about 11,000 inhabitants.

  2 a throneless queen: an obscure reference. The only queen connected with Whitby was Eanfleda, wife of King Oswy of Northumbria, who committed her daughter, Aelfleda, to the care of Hilda, Abbess of Whitby. In his History of Whitby (1817), George Young mentions that Aelfleda took the first recorded voyage from Whitby when she sailed to Coquet Isle, off the coast of Northumberland, in the summer of 684 to visit the hermit, Cuthbert, later Bishop of Lindisfarne.

  3 the Dee… German Ocean: Whitby is actually on the River Esk. The German Ocean is the North Sea, known by this name until the late nineteenth century.

  4 High Street: by the time of Gaskell's visit this was called Church Street; she is here using its earlier name. See Introduction for the verisimilitude of her portrayal of Whitby and its locale.

  5 hereditary state… wild bleak moors: Gaskell had recently completed her Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857) and would have been familiar with a similar social and topographical environment in West Yorkshire.

  6 the unsavoury yet adventurous trade: the whaling industry, flourishing in Whitby at the period of the novel's setting, had virtually ceased by the 1830s. The ‘unsavoury' smell refers to the odour of blubber being rendered into oil in the melting-houses.

  7 ‘staithes’: Scandinavian term, common in the north-east, denoting a quay for landing boats.

  8 scaur: variant of ‘scar‘; cliff or steep rock-face.

  9 railroads: the first local railway, from Whitby to Pickering, opened in 1836 and was horse-drawn; this was replaced by steam and extended in 1845.

  10 ‘old man’: southernwood (Artemisia abrotanum), also called ‘lad's love‘, hardy deciduous shrub with fragrant aromatic smell and sour taste, native of southern Europe. Formerly much cultivated for medicinal purposes and for masking unpleasant domestic smells. The Oxford English Dictionary (citing Sylvia's Lovers) suggests that its vernacular name may refer to its hoary foliage.

  11 the great annual horse-fairs: the largest horse-fair in Britain at this time was held in Horncastle, Lincolnshire, mentioned in the novel in relation to horses in Chapter VIII. Other important ones occurred in Lincoln, Howden (East Yorkshire) and Helmsley (mentioned in Young).

  12 the American war: the main conflict between Britain and the American colonies, who were demanding an independent legislature, occurred between 1775 and 1781; a peace treaty was eventually signed in 1783. Many sailors were pressed into service during this period, as Daniel Robson describes in Chapter IV

  13 Men were kidnapped… again: foreshadows one of the main events of the novel.

  14 Lord Thurlow: Edward, 1st Baron Thurlow (1731–1806), appointed Lord Chancellor in 1778 and earlier solicitor-general and attorney-general, was known for his wilful and violent temperament. Vol. VII of Lord Campbell's Lives of the Lord Chancellors (1845–7) describes how he was arrested by the press-gang while disguised as a sailor. (Sanders.)

  15 statute fair or ‘mop’: fair or gathering held annually in certain towns and villages for the hiring of servants or labourers.

  16 warm the heart of a Quaker: Quakers were known for their calm demeanour and pacifist principles, as later references in the story indicate.

  17 Lieutenant Atkinson: Lieutenant W. H. Atkinson was the Keeper of the Whitby Rendezvous at the time of the 1793 riots (see Appendix 1).

  18 ‘varmint’: variant of ‘vermin’; objectionable, troublesome or mischievous person.

  19 the Randyvow-house: corruption of ‘rendezvous’, i.e. the public house where the press-gang established its local headquarters. The original was probably an inn in Haggersgate kept in 1793 by a John Cooper, but in the novel the Mariners' Arms seems to be sited in High Street, close to the Fosters' shop.

  CHAPTER II: Home from Greenland

  1 October… 1796: Gaskell appears to have got her dates confused, since in Chapter XII, about fifteen months after this scene, the date is given as New Year 1796. More precise his
torical references elsewhere in the story would suggest that it begins in 1793. See Graham Handley, Notes and Queries, 1965 (in Bibliography), and Sanders, Appendix B.

  2 Sylvia Robson: real names of Whitby residents used in the novel include Robson, Foster, Rose, Darley, Fishburn, and Dawson. Gaskell probably got many of these from Young.

  3 the nine-tails of a ‘cat’: ‘cat-o‘-nine-tails‘, knotted whip used to discipline refractory sailors.

  4 bran-new: variant of ‘brand-new’, i.e. marked with a brand mark as a sign of quality.

  5 duffle: from Duffel, town near Antwerp; coarse woollen cloth with thick nap or pile.

  6 a little sultana: wife of Eastern potentate, most commonly portrayed seated in a cross-legged position.

  7 gumption: common sense, shrewdness.

  8 worsted: from name of Norfolk parish; fabric made from well-twisted yarn spun from long-staple wool.

  9 Wednesday: according to Young and others, since 1445 market day in Whitby was Saturday. By the time of Gaskell's visit, this market was held in the Market Place in High Gate, the upper end of Church Street. The Butter Cross mentioned here is fictional.

  10 creepie-stools: low stools.

  11 deal: plank of wood, of fir or pine, sawn to specific dimensions.

  12 skeps: round-bottomed trays or baskets for holding fishing-lines or local produce. Butter skeps were circular straw boxes with rimmed lids in which butter was packed for market.

  13 lamiter: cripple or deformed person.

  14 T' Resolution: both Young and Scoresby (Account of the Arctic Regions, 1820) list ‘the Resolution of Whitby' (not built until 1803), but Gaskell was not consistent in her usage of real names, e.g. in Chapter IX, Kinraid's ship, the Johnof Hull, is an amalgam of the John of Greenock and the Thomas of Hull, both referred to by Scoresby.

  15 specksioneer: chief harpooner on a whaling ship who also supervised the cutting-up of the whale's blubber.

  16 Weel may the keel row: Newcastle song, perhaps heard by Gaskell during her stay in the city, 1829–31, after her father's death. John Bell's Rhymes of Northern Bards (1812) may also have provided her with the source for some of the songs reproduced in the novel. See Sanders, Appendix A.

  17 t' huxsters: variant of ‘huckster’, retailer of small goods at booth or stall, person ready to make profit in mean or petty way.

  18 Charley Kinraid: in the manuscript, until the end of Volume I (which, unlike the printed versions, ends with Chapter XII, ‘New Year's Fête’) the name ‘Charley Kinraid' has been substituted for an obliterated original. This original has several forms and is difficult to decipher, but seems to vary between Sandy, Alick and Allen (?)Macpherlie. Jenny Uglow reads the last name as ‘Macphraille' (Elizabeth Gaskell, p. 666, n. 9).

  CHAPTER III: Buying a New Cloak

  1 Foster's shop: the original of this was a linen and sailcloth maker's business, established in Whitby in 1756 by a Quaker, Jonathan Sanders, and carried on by his grandsons, Jonathan and Joseph Sanders, the former of whom also started a bank on the premises in 1779. The Quakers were the ruling powers in the commercial life of Whitby in the eighteenth century.

  2 Hester Rose: Gaskell stayed at a Mrs Rose's while she was in Whitby. She had also used the name ‘Hester Rose' in her story, ‘The Crooked Branch‘, published in Household Words in December 1859.

  3 fishing cobles: light, flat-bottomed boats, chiefly found in the north-east, with square stem and lug sail, used by local pilots and fishermen.

  4 Mr John: the first edition has Jeremiah' here and throughout this chapter, obviously a mistake since Gaskell has already explained that John lives in the shop, while his brother lives in a house of his own. This is an instance of the general confusion over names in the various versions of the novel, perhaps as a result of its piecemeal composition. A note detailing ‘Directions to the Printer' in Gaskell's hand, appended to the manuscript, calls attention to this:

  She [EG] would… be very much obliged to him [the printer] if he would look over the proofs of the 1st and 2nd volumes, and see whether the name Jonathan or Jeremiah was decided upon in them, for that of the brother of John Foster; and if he would then correct the wrong name in the 3rd vol.

  Not only are there many such inconsistencies in the first edition, corrected in the second (in Chapters XXXVI and XLIII, for example, John' should read ‘Jeremiah‘), but the manuscript itself reveals Gaskell's apparent inability to remember the names of her characters. In Chapter XXI, the manuscript has ‘all Jonathan's domestic affairs' and ‘our Jonathan’, changed in the first edition to ‘Jeremiah‘, and then finally to John' in the second and subsequent editions. There is similar confusion in Chapters XXXVI and XXXVII, and in several places in the manuscript Gaskell actually inserts a query over the name, clearly herself unsure of her final choice.

  5 rage… like the very heathen: Psalm 2:1: ‘Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?’

  CHAPTER IV: Philip Hepburn

  1 sea-wrack: seaweed or other marine vegetation, cast ashore by waves or growing on the shore.

  2 Haytersbank Farm: earlier parts of the manuscript have ‘Hayter's Bank‘. For proposed originals for this building, see Introduction, pp. x–xi.

  3 a Cumberland woman: Gaskell's earlier short story, ‘Cumberland Sheep Shearers‘, in Household Words (January 1853), shows her interest in this region. Sanders's suggestion (p.523) that she tried to authenticate Bell Robson's regional dialect by substituting ‘master' for ‘measter' in the second and later editions of the novel, however, is not borne out, since not only does Bell use both forms in the corrected text, but there is throughout an overall variability in the versions of this word, reflecting its regional fluidity.

  4 clap-bread: oatmeal cake or biscuit, beaten thin and baked.

  5 ‘turf cakes’: currant teacakes, baked in a covered iron pan over burning turves or peat, also known as ‘fat rascals‘.

  6 ‘singing hinnies’: rich currant cakes baked on a griddle, so called from singing noise emitted during cooking.

  7 bishopped: from a northern proverb about burnt milk, ‘The bishop has put his foot into it‘, i.e. episcopal authority which can burn whom it chooses.

  8 Hollands: grain spirit, manufactured in the Netherlands; Dutch gin.

  9 agate: about, around, in the way.

  10 whittle: knife, sometimes small pocket one.

  11 breeched: i.e. put in breeches, sign of male child's entry into boyhood.

  12 my vote to Measter Cholmley: an anachronism, since Whitby did not become a borough until the 1832 Reform Bill. The Cholmleys were a prominent local family; the present Tolbooth or Town Hall was erected by Nathaniel Cholmley in 1788.

  CHAPTER V: Story of the Press-gang

  1 dree: difficult, tedious.

  2 Madame de Maintenon: Françoise d‘Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon (1635-1719), mistress, later wife, of Louis XIV and governess to his children. Amusing such an egocentric and authoritarian man was no easy task for her, as the due de Saint-Simon describes in his Mémoires. (Sanders.)

  3 Martinmas: 11 November.

  4 fettle: mend, finish, make ready (cf. ‘in fine fettle’).

  5 fause: from ‘false’; cunning, deceitful.

  6 Solomon… Queen o' Sheba: in the story of the Queen of Sheba's visit to Solomon (2 Chronicles, 9:1–12), the Queen comes to Jerusalem ‘to prove Solomon with hard questions' about his behaviour and reputed wealth. Satisfied with what she discovers, she gives him gold, spices and jewels; in return, ‘King Solomon gave to the Queen of Sheba all her desire, whatsoever she asked.’

  7 cachinnation: loud or immoderate laughter.

  8 permiskus: casual, careless (‘promiscuous‘).

  9 strike: measure of varying number of bushels, often referring to unit proportion of malt in beer or ale.

  10 nateral: ‘natural’, fool, idiot, one deficient in intellect.

  11 silk buttons: a statute of 1721 had prohibited cloth-covered buttons in order to encourage the man
ufacture of metal ones, but there had been more recent attempts to reverse this ruling. (Sanders.)

  12 taxing me: of the taxes to which Robson refers, the window tax was first levied in England in 1697 (repealed 1851) and the salt tax was introduced in 1702 (repealed 1825).

  13 moither: bother, annoy.

  14 a kind of domestic Jupiter: the marital union of Jupiter and Juno was characterized by constant battles for supremacy. The reference here suggests Robson's desire to maintain his own patriarchal superiority.

  15 tender: vessel commissioned to attend a man-of-war for supplying stores, conveying dispatches, etc.

  16 waur nor: worse than.

  17 i' th' Ameriky war: the manuscript has ‘when we'd war wi' Amerikay'; the change in the printed editions appears to be editorially derived, though the reason for it is unclear. The same substitution occurs in Chapter VIII.

  CHAPTER VI: The Sailor's Funeral

  1 Measter Fishburn's daughters: according to Chadwick (p. 267), Thomas Fish-burn, first mentioned in Chapter II, was a prominent shipbuilder and the richest man in Whitby at the time of the story.

  2 galraverging: making an uproar, gadding about.

  3 scrimpit: cut short, curtailed.

  4 fear of ‘the heat o' th' sun… rages’: imprecise rendering of the opening lines of Guiderius' song in Cymbeline, Act IV scene ii

  Fear no more the heat o' the sun,

  Nor the furious winter's rages.

  5 deliverance… death: from the Litany in the Book of Common Prayer: ‘From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death, Good Lord deliver us.’

  6 ‘for remembrance’: from Ophelia's mad ravings in Hamlet, Act IV, scene v: ‘There's rosemary, that's for remembrance.’

  7 the accustomed time for the funerals: Young states that the usual hour for burials in Whitby is 3 p.m. from Michaelmas to Lady-Day, and 5 p.m. for the rest of the year, adding that several genteel families in the area bury their dead at 7 or 8 a.m.

  8 The church: see Introduction for Gaskell's reproduction of local detail here.