‘It was Mr. Thornton,’ said Mr. Hale. They were glad to have drawn him into the conversation.
‘Mr. Thornton!’ said Margaret, a little surprised. ‘I thought — — ’
‘Well, little one, what did you think?’ asked Frederick, as she did not finish her sentence.
‘Oh, only,’ said she, reddening and looking straight at him, ‘I fancied you meant some one of a different class, not a gentleman; somebody come on an errand.’
‘He looked like some one of that kind,’ said Frederick, carelessly. ‘I took him for a shopman, and he turns out a manufacturer.’
Margaret was silent. She remembered how at first, before she knew his character, she had spoken and thought of him just as Frederick was doing. It was but a natural impression that was made upon him, and yet she was a little annoyed by it. She was unwilling to speak; she wanted to make Frederick understand what kind of person Mr. Thornton was — but she was tongue-tied.
Mr. Hale went on. ‘He came to offer any assistance in his power, I believe. But I could not see him. I told Dixon to ask him if he would like to see you — I think I asked her to find you, and you would go to him. I don’t know what I said.’
‘He has been a very agreeable acquaintance, has he not?’ asked Frederick, throwing the question like a ball for any one to catch who chose.
‘A very kind friend,’ said Margaret, when her father did not answer.
Frederick was silent for a time. At last he spoke:
‘Margaret, it is painful to think I can never thank those who have shown you kindness. Your acquaintances and mine must be separate. Unless, indeed, I run the chances of a court-martial, or unless you and my father would come to Spain.’ He threw out this last suggestion as a kind of feeler; and then suddenly made the plunge. ‘You don’t know how I wish you would. I have a good position — the chance of a better,’ continued he, reddening like a girl. ‘That Dolores Barbour that I was telling you of, Margaret — I only wish you knew her; I am sure you would like — no, love is the right word, like is so poor — you would love her, father, if you knew her. She is not eighteen; but if she is in the same mind another year, she is to be my wife. Mr. Barbour won’t let us call it an engagement. But if you would come, you would find friends everywhere, besides Dolores. Think of it, father. Margaret, be on my side.’
‘No — no more removals for me,’ said Mr. Hale. ‘One removal has cost me my wife. No more removals in this life. She will be here; and here will I stay out my appointed time.’
‘Oh, Frederick,’ said Margaret, ‘tell us more about her. I never thought of this; but I am so glad. You will have some one to love and care for you out there. Tell us all about it.’
‘In the first place, she is a Roman Catholic. That’s the only objection I anticipated. But my father’s change of opinion — nay, Margaret, don’t sigh.’
Margaret had reason to sigh a little more before the conversation ended. Frederick himself was Roman Catholic in fact, though not in profession as yet. This was, then, the reason why his sympathy in her extreme distress at her father’s leaving the Church had been so faintly expressed in his letters. She had thought it was the carelessness of a sailor; but the truth was, that even then he was himself inclined to give up the form of religion into which he had been baptised, only that his opinions were tending in exactly the opposite direction to those of his father. How much love had to do with this change not even Frederick himself could have told. Margaret gave up talking about this branch of the subject at last; and, returning to the fact of the engagement, she began to consider it in some fresh light:
‘But for her sake, Fred, you surely will try and clear yourself of the exaggerated charges brought against you, even if the charge of mutiny itself be true. If there were to be a court-martial, and you could find your witnesses, you might, at any rate, show how your disobedience to authority was because that authority was unworthily exercised.’
Mr. Hale roused himself up to listen to his son’s answer.
‘In the first place, Margaret, who is to hunt up my witnesses? All of them are sailors, drafted off to other ships, except those whose evidence would go for very little, as they took part, or sympathised in the affair. In the next place, allow me to tell you, you don’t know what a court-martial is, and consider it as an assembly where justice is administered, instead of what it really is — a court where authority weighs nine-tenths in the balance, and evidence forms only the other tenth. In such cases, evidence itself can hardly escape being influenced by the prestige of authority.’
‘But is it not worth trying, to see how much evidence might be discovered and arrayed on your behalf? At present, all those who knew you formerly, believe you guilty without any shadow of excuse. You have never tried to justify yourself, and we have never known where to seek for proofs of your justification. Now, for Miss Barbour’s sake, make your conduct as clear as you can in the eye of the world. She may not care for it; she has, I am sure, that trust in you that we all have; but you ought not to let her ally herself to one under such a serious charge, without showing the world exactly how it is you stand. You disobeyed authority — that was bad; but to have stood by, without word or act, while the authority was brutally used, would have been infinitely worse. People know what you did; but not the motives that elevate it out of a crime into an heroic protection of the weak. For Dolores’ sake, they ought to know.’
‘But how must I make them know? I am not sufficiently sure of the purity and justice of those who would be my judges, to give myself up to a court-martial, even if I could bring a whole array of truth-speaking witnesses. I can’t send a bellman about, to cry aloud and proclaim in the streets what you are pleased to call my heroism. No one would read a pamphlet of self-justification so long after the deed, even if I put one out.’
‘Will you consult a lawyer as to your chances of exculpation?’ asked Margaret, looking up, and turning very red.
‘I must first catch my lawyer, and have a look at him, and see how I like him, before I make him into my confidant. Many a briefless barrister might twist his conscience into thinking, that he could earn a hundred pounds very easily by doing a good action — in giving me, a criminal, up to justice.’
‘Nonsense, Frederick! — because I know a lawyer on whose honour I can rely; of whose cleverness in his profession people speak very highly; and who would, I think, take a good deal of trouble for any of — of Aunt Shaw’s relations Mr. Henry Lennox, papa.’
‘I think it is a good idea,’ said Mr. Hale. ‘But don’t propose anything which will detain Frederick in England. Don’t, for your mother’s sake.’
‘You could go to London to-morrow evening by a night-train,’ continued Margaret, warming up into her plan. ‘He must go to-morrow, I’m afraid, papa,’ said she, tenderly; ‘we fixed that, because of Mr. Bell, and Dixon’s disagreeable acquaintance.’
‘Yes; I must go to-morrow,’ said Frederick decidedly.
Mr. Hale groaned. ‘I can’t bear to part with you, and yet I am miserable with anxiety as long as you stop here.’
‘Well then,’ said Margaret, ‘listen to my plan. He gets to London on Friday morning. I will — you might — no! it would be better for me to give him a note to Mr. Lennox. You will find him at his chambers in the Temple.’
‘I will write down a list of all the names I can remember on board the Orion. I could leave it with him to ferret them out. He is Edith’s husband’s brother, isn’t he? I remember your naming him in your letters. I have money in Barbour’s hands. I can pay a pretty long bill, if there is any chance of success Money, dear father, that I had meant for a different purpose; so I shall only consider it as borrowed from you and Margaret.’
‘Don’t do that,’ said Margaret. ‘You won’t risk it if you do. And it will be a risk only it is worth trying. You can sail from London as well as from Liverpool?’
‘To be sure, little goose. Wherever I feel water heaving under a plank, there I feel at home. I’ll pick up some craft or
other to take me off, never fear. I won’t stay twenty-four hours in London, away from you on the one hand, and from somebody else on the other.’
It was rather a comfort to Margaret that Frederick took it into his head to look over her shoulder as she wrote to Mr. Lennox. If she had not been thus compelled to write steadily and concisely on, she might have hesitated over many a word, and been puzzled to choose between many an expression, in the awkwardness of being the first to resume the intercourse of which the concluding event had been so unpleasant to both sides. However, the note was taken from her before she had even had time to look it over, and treasured up in a pocket-book, out of which fell a long lock of black hair, the sight of which caused Frederick’s eyes to glow with pleasure.
‘Now you would like to see that, wouldn’t you?’ said he. ‘No! you must wait till you see her herself She is too perfect to be known by fragments. No mean brick shall be a specimen of the building of my palace.’
CHAPTER XXXII
MISCHANCES
‘What! remain to be
Denounced — dragged, it may be, in chains.’
WERNER.
All the next day they sate together — they three. Mr. Hale hardly ever spoke but when his children asked him questions, and forced him, as it were, into the present. Frederick’s grief was no more to be seen or heard; the first paroxysm had passed over, and now he was ashamed of having been so battered down by emotion; and though his sorrow for the loss of his mother was a deep real feeling, and would last out his life, it was never to be spoken of again. Margaret, not so passionate at first, was more suffering now. At times she cried a good deal; and her manner, even when speaking on indifferent things, had a mournful tenderness about it, which was deepened whenever her looks fell on Frederick, and she thought of his rapidly approaching departure. She was glad he was going, on her father’s account, however much she might grieve over it on her own. The anxious terror in which Mr. Hale lived lest his son should be detected and captured, far out-weighed the pleasure he derived from his presence. The nervousness had increased since Mrs. Hale’s death, probably because he dwelt upon it more exclusively. He started at every unusual sound; and was never comfortable unless Frederick sate out of the immediate view of any one entering the room. Towards evening he said:
‘You will go with Frederick to the station, Margaret? I shall want to know he is safely off. You will bring me word that he is clear of Milton, at any rate?’
‘Certainly,’ said Margaret. ‘I shall like it, if you won’t be lonely without me, papa.’
‘No, no! I should always be fancying some one had known him, and that he had been stopped, unless you could tell me you had seen him off. And go to the Outwood station. It is quite as near, and not so many people about. Take a cab there. There is less risk of his being seen. What time is your train, Fred?’
‘Ten minutes past six; very nearly dark. So what will you do,
Margaret?’
‘Oh, I can manage. I am getting very brave and very hard. It is a well-lighted road all the way home, if it should be dark. But I was out last week much later.’
Margaret was thankful when the parting was over — the parting from the dead mother and the living father. She hurried Frederick into the cab, in order to shorten a scene which she saw was so bitterly painful to her father, who would accompany his son as he took his last look at his mother. Partly in consequence of this, and partly owing to one of the very common mistakes in the ‘Railway Guide’ as to the times when trains arrive at the smaller stations, they found, on reaching Outwood, that they had nearly twenty minutes to spare. The booking-office was not open, so they could not even take the ticket. They accordingly went down the flight of steps that led to the level of the ground below the railway. There was a broad cinder-path diagonally crossing a field which lay along-side of the carriage-road, and they went there to walk backwards and forwards for the few minutes they had to spare.
Margaret’s hand lay in Frederick’s arm. He took hold of it affectionately.
‘Margaret! I am going to consult Mr. Lennox as to the chance of exculpating myself, so that I may return to England whenever I choose, more for your sake than for the sake of any one else. I can’t bear to think of your lonely position if anything should happen to my father. He looks sadly changed — terribly shaken. I wish you could get him to think of the Cadiz plan, for many reasons. What could you do if he were taken away? You have no friend near. We are curiously bare of relations.’
Margaret could hardly keep from crying at the tender anxiety with which Frederick was bringing before her an event which she herself felt was not very improbable, so severely had the cares of the last few months told upon Mr. Hale. But she tried to rally as she said:
‘There have been such strange unexpected changes in my life during these last two years, that I feel more than ever that it is not worth while to calculate too closely what I should do if any future event took place. I try to think only upon the present.’ She paused; they were standing still for a moment, close on the field side of the stile leading into the road; the setting sun fell on their faces. Frederick held her hand in his, and looked with wistful anxiety into her face, reading there more care and trouble than she would betray by words. She went on:
‘We shall write often to one another, and I will promise — for I see it will set your mind at ease — to tell you every worry I have. Papa is’ — she started a little, a hardly visible start — but Frederick felt the sudden motion of the hand he held, and turned his full face to the road, along which a horseman was slowly riding, just passing the very stile where they stood. Margaret bowed; her bow was stiffly returned.
‘Who is that?’ said Frederick, almost before he was out of hearing. Margaret was a little drooping, a little flushed, as she replied:
‘Mr. Thornton; you saw him before, you know.’
‘Only his back. He is an unprepossessing-looking fellow. What a scowl he has!’
‘Something has happened to vex him,’ said Margaret, apologetically. ‘You would not have thought him unprepossessing if you had seen him with mamma.’
‘I fancy it must be time to go and take my ticket. If I had known how dark it would be, we wouldn’t have sent back the cab, Margaret.’
‘Oh, don’t fidget about that. I can take a cab here, if I like; or go back by the rail-road, when I should have shops and people and lamps all the way from the Milton station-house. Don’t think of me; take care of yourself. I am sick with the thought that Leonards may be in the same train with you. Look well into the carriage before you get in.’
They went back to the station. Margaret insisted upon going into the full light of the flaring gas inside to take the ticket. Some idle-looking young men were lounging about with the stationmaster. Margaret thought she had seen the face of one of them before, and returned him a proud look of offended dignity for his somewhat impertinent stare of undisguised admiration. She went hastily to her brother, who was standing outside, and took hold of his arm. ‘Have you got your bag? Let us walk about here on the platform,’ said she, a little flurried at the idea of so soon being left alone, and her bravery oozing out rather faster than she liked to acknowledge even to herself. She heard a step following them along the flags; it stopped when they stopped, looking out along the line and hearing the whizz of the coming train. They did not speak; their hearts were too full. Another moment, and the train would be here; a minute more, and he would be gone. Margaret almost repented the urgency with which she had entreated him to go to London; it was throwing more chances of detection in his way. If he had sailed for Spain by Liverpool, he might have been off in two or three hours.
Frederick turned round, right facing the lamp, where the gas darted up in vivid anticipation of the train. A man in the dress of a railway porter started forward; a bad-looking man, who seemed to have drunk himself into a state of brutality, although his senses were in perfect order.
‘By your leave, miss!’ said he, pushing Margaret rudely o
n one side, and seizing Frederick by the collar.
‘Your name is Hale, I believe?’
In an instant — how, Margaret did not see, for everything danced before her eyes — but by some sleight of wrestling, Frederick had tripped him up, and he fell from the height of three or four feet, which the platform was elevated above the space of soft ground, by the side of the railroad. There he lay.
‘Run, run!’ gasped Margaret. ‘The train is here. It was Leonards, was it? oh, run! I will carry your bag.’ And she took him by the arm to push him along with all her feeble force. A door was opened in a carriage — he jumped in; and as he leant out t say, ‘God bless you, Margaret!’ the train rushed past her; an she was left standing alone. She was so terribly sick and faint that she was thankful to be able to turn into the ladies’ waiting-room, and sit down for an instant. At first she could do nothing but gasp for breath. It was such a hurry; such a sickening alarm; such a near chance. If the train had not been there at the moment, the man would have jumped up again and called for assistance to arrest him. She wondered if the man had got up: she tried to remember if she had seen him move; she wondered if he could have been seriously hurt. She ventured out; the platform was all alight, but still quite deserted; she went to the end, and looked over, somewhat fearfully. No one was there; and then she was glad she had made herself go, and inspect, for otherwise terrible thoughts would have haunted her dreams. And even as it was, she was so trembling and affrighted that she felt she could not walk home along the road, which did indeed seem lonely and dark, as she gazed down upon it from the blaze of the station. She would wait till the down train passed and take her seat in it. But what if Leonards recognised her as Frederick’s companion! She peered about, before venturing into the booking-office to take her ticket. There were only some railway officials standing about; and talking loud to one another.
‘So Leonards has been drinking again!’ said one, seemingly in authority. ‘He’ll need all his boasted influence to keep his place this time.’
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 147
