Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell

by Elizabeth Gaskell

  ‘Mr Corbet’s!’ said Livingstone, below his breath, and he turned and went away; this time for good. But Ellinor recovered. She knew she was recovering, when day after day she felt involuntary strength and appetite return. Her body seemed stronger than her will; for that would have induced her to creep into her grave, and shut her eyes for ever on this world, so full of troubles.

  She lay, for the most part, with her eyes closed, very still and quiet; but she thought with the intensity of one who seeks for lost peace, and cannot find it. She began to see that if in the mad impulses of that mad nightmare of horror, they had all strengthened each other, and dared to be frank and open, confessing a great fault, a greater disaster, a greater woe - which in the first instance was hardly a crime - their future course, though sad and sorrowful, would have been a simple and straightforward one to tread. But it was not for her to undo what was done, and to reveal the error and shame of a father. Only she, turning anew to God, in the solemn and quiet watches of the night, made a covenant, that in her conduct, her own personal individual life, she would act loyally and truthfully. And as for the future, and all the terrible chances involved in it, she would leave it in His hands - if, indeed (and here came in the Tempter), He would watch over one whose life hereafter must seem based upon a lie. Her only plea, offered ‘standing afar off,’ was, ‘The lie is said and done and over - it was not for my own sake. Can filial piety be so overcome by the rights of justice and truth, as to demand of me that I should reveal my father’s guilt?’

  Her father’s severe, sharp punishment began. He knew why she suffered, what made her young strength fatter and tremble, what made her life seen nigh about to be quenched in death. Yet he could not take his sorrow and care in the natural manner. He was obliged to think how every word and deed would be construed. He fancied that people were watching him with suspicious eyes, when nothing was further from their thoughts. For once let the ‘public’ of any place be possessed by an idea, it is more difficult to dislodge it than anyone imagines who has not tried. If Mr Wilkins had gone into Hamley Marketplace, and proclaimed himself guilty of the manslaughter of Mr Dunster - nay, if he had detailed all the circumstances - the people would have exclaimed, ‘Poor man, he is crazed by this discovery of the unworthiness of the man he trusted so; and no wonder - it was such a thing to have done - to have defrauded his partner to such an extent, and then have made off to America!’

  For many small circumstances, which I do not stop to detail here, went far to prove this, as we know, unfounded supposition; and Mr Wilkins, who was known, from his handsome boyhood, through his comely manhood, up to the present time, by all the people in Hamley, was an object of sympathy and respect to everyone who saw him, as he passed by, old, and lorn, and haggard before his time, all through the evil conduct of one, London-bred, who was as a hard, unlovely stranger to the popular mind of this little country town.

  Mr Wilkins’s own servants liked him. The workings of his temptations were such as they could understand. If he had been hot-tempered, he had also been generous, or I should rather say careless and lavish with his money. And now that he was cheated and impoverished by his partner’s delinquency, they thought it no wonder that he drank long and deep in the solitary evenings which he passed at home. It was not that he was without invitations. Everyone came forward to testify their respect for him by asking him to their houses. He had probably never been so universally popular since his father’s death. But, as he said, he did not care to go into society while his daughter was so ill - he had no spirits for company.

  But if anyone had cared to observe his conduct at home, and to draw conclusions from it, they could have noticed that, anxious as he was about Ellinor, he rather avoided than sought her presence, now that her consciousness and memory were restored. Nor did she ask for, or wish for him. The presence of each was a burden to the other. Oh, sad and woeful night of May - overshadowing the coming summer months with gloom and bitter remorse!

  CHAPTER VIII

  Still youth prevailed over all. Ellinor got well, as I have said, even when she would fain have died. And the afternoon came when she left her room. Miss Monro would gladly have made a festival of her recovery, and have had her conveyed into the unused drawing-room. But Ellinor begged that she might be taken into the library - into the schoolroom - anywhere (thought she) not looking on the side of the house on the flower-garden, which she had felt in all her illness as a ghastly pressure, lying within sight of those very windows, through which the morning sun streamed right upon her bed - like the accusing angel, bringing all hidden things to light.

  And when Ellinor was better still, when the Bath-chair had been sent up for her use, by some kindly old maid, out of Hamley, she still petitioned that it might be kept on the lawn or town side of the house, away from the flower-garden.

  One day she almost screamed, when, as she was going to the front door, she saw Dixon standing ready to draw her, instead of Fletcher, the servant who usually went. But she checked all demonstration of feeling; although it was the first time she had seen him since he and she and one more had worked their hearts out in hard bodily labour.

  He looked so stern and ill! Cross, too, which she had never seen him before.

  As soon as they were out of immediate sight of the windows, she asked him to stop, forcing herself to speak to him.

  ‘Dixon, you look very poorly,’ she said, trembling as she spoke.

  ‘Ay!’ said he. ‘We didn’t think much of it at the time, did we, Miss Nelly? But it’ll be the death on us, I’m thinking. It has aged me above a bit. All my fifty years afore were but as a forenoon of child’s play to that night. Measter, too - I could a-bear a good deal, but measter cuts through the stable-yard, and past me, wi’out a word, as if I was poison, or a stinking foumart. It’s that as is worst, Miss Nelly, it is.’

  And the poor man brushed some tears from his eyes with the back of his withered, furrowed hand. Ellinor caught the infection, and cried outright, sobbed like a child, even while she held out her little white thin band to his grasp. For as soon as he saw her emotion, he was penitent for what he had said.

  ‘Don’t now - don’t,’ was all he could think of to say.

  ‘Dixon!’ said she at length, ‘you must not mind it. You must try not to mind it. I see he does not like to be reminded of that, even by seeing me. He tries never to be alone with me. My poor old Dixon, it has spoilt my life for me; for I don’t think he loves me any more.

  She sobbed as if her heart would break; and now it was Dixon’s turn to be comforter.

  ‘Ah, dear, my blessing, he loves you above everything. It’s only he can’t a-bear the sight of us, as is but natural. And if he doesn’t fancy being alone with you, there’s always one as does, and that’s a comfort at the worst of times. And don’t ye fret about what I said a minute ago. I were put out because measter all but pushed me out of his way this morning, without never a word. But I were an old fool for telling ye. And I’ve really forgotten why I told Fletcher I’d drag ye a bit about today. Th’ gardener is beginning for to wonder as you don’t want to see th’ annuals and bedding-out things as you were so particular about in May. And I thought I’d just have a word wi’ ye, and then if you’d let me, we’d go together just once round th’ flower-garden, just to say you’ve been, you know, and to give them chaps a bit of praise. You’ll only have to look on the beds, my pretty, and it must be done some time. So come along!’

  He began to pull resolutely in the direction of the flower-garden. Ellinor bit her lips to keep in the cry of repugnance that rose to them. As Dixon stopped to unlock the door, he said:

  ‘It’s not hardness, nothing like it; I’ve waited till I heerd you were better; but it’s in for a penny in for a pound wi’ us all; and folk may talk; and bless your little brave heart, you’ll stand a deal for your father’s sake, and so will I, though I do feel it above a bit, when he puts out his hand as if to keep me off, and I only going to speak to him about Clipper’s knees; though I’ll
own I had wondered many a day when I was to have the good-morrow master never missed sin’ he were a boy till --

  ‘Well! and now you’ve seen the beds, and can say they looked mighty pretty, and is done all as you wished; and we’re got out again, and breathing fresher air than yon sun-baked hole, with its smelling flowers, not half so wholesome to snuff at as good stable-dung.’

  So the good man chattered on; not without the purpose of giving Ellinor time to recover herself, and partly also to drown his own cares, which lay heavier on his heart than he could say. But he thought himself rewarded by Ellinor’s thanks, and warm pressure of his hard hand as she got out at the front door, and bade him goodbye.

  The break to her days of weary monotony was the letters she constantly received from Mr Corbet. And yet, here again lurked the sting. He was all astonishment and indignation at Mr Dunster’s disappearance, or rather flight to America. And now that she was growing stronger, he did not scruple to express curiosity respecting the details, never doubting but that she was perfectly acquainted with much that he wanted to know; although he had too much delicacy to question her on the point which was most important of all in his eyes, namely, how far it had affected Mr Wilkins’s worldly prospects; for the report prevalent in Hamley had reached London, that Mr Dunster had made away with, or carried off, trust-property to a considerable extent, for all which Mr Wilkins would of course he liable.

  It was hard work for Ralph Corbet to keep from seeking direct information on this head from Mr Ness, or, indeed, from Mr Wilkins himself. But he restrained himself, knowing that in August he should be able to make all these inquiries personally. Before the end of the Long Vacation he had hoped to marry Ellinor; that was the time which had been planned by them when they had met in the early spring before her illness and all this misfortune happened. But now, as he wrote to his father, nothing could be definitively arranged until he had paid his visit to Hamley, and seen the state of affairs.

  Accordingly, one Saturday in August, he came to Ford Bank, this time as a visitor to Ellinor’s home, instead of to his old quarters at Mr Ness’s.

  The house was still as if asleep in the full heat of the afternoon sun, as Mr Corbet drove up. The window-blinds were down; the front door wide open, great stands of heliotrope and roses and geraniums stood just within the shadow of the hall; but through all the silence his approach seemed to excite no commotion. He thought it strange that he had not been watched for, that Ellinor did not come running out to meet him, that she allowed Fletcher to come and attend to his luggage, and usher him into the library just like any common visitor, any morning-caller. He stiffened himself up into a moment’s indignant coldness of manner. But it vanished in an instant when, on the door being opened, he saw Ellinor standing, holding by the table, looking for his appearance with almost panting anxiety. He thought of nothing then but her evident weakness, her changed looks, for which no account of her illness had prepared him. For she was deadly white, lips and all; and her dark eyes seemed unnaturally enlarged, while the caves in which they were set were strangely deep and hollow. Her hair, too, had been cut off pretty closely; she did not usually wear a cap, but with some faint idea of making herself look better in his eye, she had put one on this day, and the effect was that she seemed to be forty years of age; but one instant after he had come in, her pale face was flooded with crimson, and her eyes were full of tears. She had hard work to keep herself from going into hysterics, but she instinctively knew how much he would hate a scene, and she checked herself in time.

  ‘Oh,’ she murmured, ‘I am so glad to see you; it is such a comfort, such an infinite pleasure.’ And so she went on, cooing out words over him, and stroking his hair with her thin fingers. While he rather tried to avert his eyes, he was so much afraid of betraying how much he thought her altered.

  But when she came down, dressed for dinner, this sense of her change was diminished to him. Her short brown hair had already a little wave, and was ornamented by some black lace; she wore a large black lace shawl - it had been her mother’s of old - over some delicate-coloured muslin dress; her face was slightly flushed, and had the tints of a wild rose; her lips kept pale and trembling with involuntary motion, it is true; and as the lovers stood together, hand in hand, by the window, he was aware of a, little convulsive twitching at every noise, even while she seemed gazing in tranquil pleasure on the long smooth slope of the newly-mown lawn, stretching down to the little brook that prattled merrily over the stones on its merry course to Hamley town.

  He felt a stronger twitch than ever before. even while his ear, less delicate than hers, could distinguish no peculiar sound. About two minutes after Mr Wilkins entered the room. He came up to Mr Corbet with warm welcome: some of it real, some of it assumed. He talked volubly to him, taking little or no notice of Ellinor, who dropped into the background, and sat down on the sofa by Miss Monro; for on this day they were all to dine together. Ralph Corbet thought that Mr Wilkins was aged; but no wonder, after all his anxiety of various kinds: Mr Dunster’s flight and reported defalcations, Ellinor’s illness, of the seriousness of which her lover was now convinced by her appearance.

  He would fain have spoken more to her during the dinner that ensued, but Mr Wilkins absorbed all his attention, talking and questioning on subjects that left the ladies out of the conversation almost perpetually. Mr Corbet recognized his host’s fine tact, even while his persistence in talking annoyed him. He was quite sure that Mr Wilkins was anxious to spare his daughter any exertion beyond that - to which, indeed, she seemed scarcely equal - of sitting at the head of the table. And the more her father talked - so fine an observer was Mr Corbet - the more silent and depressed Ellinor appeared. But by-and-by he accounted for this inverse ratio of gaiety, as he perceived how quickly Mr Wilkins had his glass replenished. And here, again, Mr Corbet drew his conclusions, from the silent way in which, without a word or a sign from his master, Fletcher gave him more wine continually - wine that was drained off at once.

  ‘Six glasses of sherry before dessert,’ thought Mr Corbet to himself. ‘Bad habit - no wonder Ellinor looks grave.’ And when the gentlemen were left alone, Mr Wilkins helped himself even still more freely; yet without the slightest effect on the clearness and brilliancy of his conversation. He had always talked well and racily, that Ralph knew, and in this power he now recognized a temptation to which he feared that his future father-in-law had succumbed. And yet, while he perceived that this gift led into temptation, he coveted it for himself; for he was perfectly aware that this fluency, this happy choice of epithets, was the one thing he should fail in when he began to enter into the more active career of his profession. But after some time spent in listening, and admiring, with this little feeling of envy lurking in the background, Mr Corbet became aware of Mr Wilkins’s increasing confusion of ideas, and rather unnatural merriment; and, with a sudden revulsion from admiration to disgust, he rose up to go into the library, where Ellinor and Miss Monro were sitting. Mr Wilkins accompanied him, laughing and talking somewhat loudly. Was Ellinor aware of her father’s state? Of that Mr Corbet could not be sure. She looked up with grave sad eyes as they came into the room, but with no apparent sensation of surprise, annoyance, or shame. When her glance met her father’s, Mr Corbet noticed that it seemed to sober the latter immediately. He sat down near the open window, and did not speak, but sighed heavily from time to time. Miss Monro took up a book, in order to leave the young people to themselves; and after a little low murmured conversation, Ellinor went upstairs to put on her things for a stroll through the meadows, by the riverside.

  They were sometimes sauntering along in the lovely summer twilight, now resting on some grassy hedgerow bank, or standing still, looking at the great barges, with their crimson sails, lazily floating down the river, making ripples on the glassy opal surface of the water. They did not talk very much; Ellinor seemed disinclined for the exertion; and her lover was thinking over Mr Wilkins’s behaviour, with some surprise and distaste of the habit
so evidently growing upon him.

  They came home, looking serious and tired: yet they could not account for their fatigue by the length of their walk; and Miss Monro, forgetting Autolycus’s song, kept fidgeting about Ellinor, and wondering how it was she looked so pale, if she had only been as far as the Ash meadow. To escape from this wonder, Ellinor went early to bed. Mr Wilkins was gone, no one knew where, and Ralph and Miss Monro were left to a half-hour’s tête-à-tête. He thought he could easily account for Ellinor’s languor, if, indeed, she bad perceived as much as he had done of her father’s state, when they had come into the library after dinner. But there were many details which he was anxious to hear from a comparatively indifferent person, and as soon as he could, he passed on from the conversation about Ellinor’s health, to inquiries as to the whole affair of Mr Dunster’s disappearance.

  Next to her anxiety about Ellinor, Miss Monro liked to dilate on the mystery connected with Mr Dunster’s flight; for that was the word she employed without hesitation, as she gave him the account of the event universally received and believed in by the people of Hamley. How Mr Dunster had never been liked by anyone; how everybody remembered that he could never look them straight in the face; how he always seemed to be hiding something that he did not want to have known; how he had drawn a large sum (exact quantity unknown) out of the county bank, only the day before he left Hamley, doubtless in preparation for his escape; how someone had told Mr Wilkins he had seen a man just like Dunster lurking about the docks at Liverpool, about two days after he had left his lodgings, but that this someone, being in a hurry, had not cared to stop and speak to the man; how that the affairs in the office were discovered to he in such a sad state; that it was no wonder that Mr Dunster had absconded - he that had been so trusted by poor dear Mr Wilkins. Money gone no one knew how or where.’