She was interrupted -- her baby (I call him a baby, because his father and mother did, and because he was so little of his age, but I rather think he was eighteen months old) had fallen asleep some time before among his playthings; an uneasy, restless sleep; but of which Mary had been thankful, as his morning’s nap had been too short, and as she was so busy. But now he began to make such a strange crowing noise, just like a chair drawn heavily and gratingly along a kitchen-floor! His eyes were open, but expressive of nothing but pain.
‘Mother’s darling!’ said Mary, in terror, lifting him up. ‘Baby, try not to make that noise. Hush, hush, darling; what hurts him?’ But the noise came worse and worse.
‘Fanny! Fanny!’ Mary called in mortal fright, for her baby was almost black with his gasping breath, and she had no one to ask for aid or sympathy but her landlady’s daughter, a little girl of twelve or thirteen, who attended to the house in her mother’s absence, as daily cook in gentlemen’s families. Fanny was more especially considered the attendant of the upstairs lodgers (who paid for the use of the kitchen, ‘for Jenkins could not abide the smell of meat cooking’), but just now she was fortunately sitting at her afternoon’s work of darning stockings, and hearing Mrs Hodgson’s cry of terror, she ran to her sitting-room, and understood the case at a glance.
‘He’s got the croup! Oh, Mrs Hodgson, he’ll die as sure as fate. Little brother had it, and he died in no time. The doctor said he could do nothing for him -- it had gone too far. He said if we’d put him in a warm bath at first, it might have saved him; but, bless you! he was never half so bad as your baby.’ Unconsciously there mingled in her statement some of a child’s love of producing an effect; but the increasing danger was clear enough.
‘Oh, my baby! my baby! Oh, love, love! don’t look so ill; I cannot bear it. And my fire so low! There, I was thinking of home, and picking currants, and never minding the fire. Oh, Fanny! what is the fire like in the kitchen? Speak.’
‘Mother told me to screw it up, and throw some slack on as soon as Mrs Jenkins had done with it, and so I did. It’s very low and black. But, oh, Mrs Hodgson! let me run for the doctor -- I cannot abear to hear him, it’s so like little brother.’
Through her streaming tears Mary motioned her to go; and trembling, sinking, sick at heart, she laid her boy in his cradle, and ran to fill her kettle.
Mrs Jenkins, having cooked her husband’s snug little dinner, to which he came home; having told him her story of pussy’s beating, at which he was justly and dignifiedly (?) indignant, saying it was all of a piece with that abusive Examiner; having received the sausages, and turkey, and mince pies, which her husband had ordered; and cleaned up the room, and prepared everything for tea, and coaxed and duly bemoaned her cat (who had pretty nearly forgotten his beating, but very much enjoyed the petting); having done all these and many other things, Mrs Jenkins sat down to get up the real lace cap. Every thread was pulled out separately, and carefully stretched: when, what was that? Outside, in the street, a chorus of piping children’s voices sang the old carol she had heard a hundred times in the days of her youth: --
As Joseph was a walking he heard an angel sing,
‘This night shall be born our heavenly King.
He neither shall be born in housen nor in hall,
Nor in the place of Paradise, but in an ox’s stall.
He neither shall be clothed in purple nor in pall,
But all in fair linen, as were babies all:
He neither shall be rocked in silver nor in gold,
But in a wooden cradle that rocks on the mould,’ &c.
She got up and went to the window. There, below, stood the group of black little figures, relieved against the snow, which now enveloped everything. ‘For old sake’s sake,’ as she phrased it, she counted out a halfpenny apiece for the singers, out of the copper bag, and threw them down below.
The room had become chilly while she had been counting out and throwing down her money, so she stirred her already glowing fire, and sat down right before it -- but not to stretch her lace; like Mary Hodgson, she began to think over long-past days, on softening remembrances of the dead and gone, on words long forgotten, on holy stories heard at her mother’s knee.
‘I cannot think what’s come over me to-night,’ said she, half aloud, recovering herself by the sound of her own voice from her train of thought -- ‘My head goes wandering on them old times. I’m sure more texts have come into my head with thinking on my mother within this last half hour, than I’ve thought on for years and years. I hope I’m not going to die. Folks say, thinking too much on the dead betokens we’re going to join ‘em; I should be loth to go just yet -- such a fine turkey as we’ve got for dinner to-morrow, too!’
Knock, knock, knock, at the door, as fast as knuckles could go. And then, as if the comer could not wait, the door was opened, and Mary Hodgson stood there as white as death.
‘Mrs Jenkins! -- oh, your kettle is boiling, thank God! Let me have the water for my baby, for the love of God! He’s got croup, and is dying!’
Mrs Jenkins turned on her chair with a wooden inflexible look on her face, that (between ourselves) her husband knew and dreaded for all his pompous dignity.
‘I’m sorry I can’t oblige you, ma’am; my kettle is wanted for my husband’s tea. Don’t be afeared, Tommy, Mrs Hodgson won’t venture to intrude herself where she’s not desired. You’d better send for the doctor, ma’am, instead of wasting your time in wringing your hands, ma’am -- my kettle is engaged.’
Mary clasped her hands together with passionate force, but spoke no word of entreaty to that wooden face -- that sharp, determined voice; but, as she turned away, she prayed for strength to bear the coming trial, and strength to forgive Mrs Jenkins.
Mrs Jenkins watched her go away meekly, as one who has no hope, and then she turned upon herself as sharply as she ever did on any one else.
‘What a brute I am, Lord forgive me! What’s my husband’s tea to a baby’s life? In croup, too, where time is everything. You crabbed old vixen, you! -- any one may know you never had a child!’
She was down stairs (kettle in hand) before she had finished her self-upbraiding; and when in Mrs Hodgson’s room, she rejected all thanks (Mary had not the voice for many words), saying, stiffly, ‘I do it for the poor babby’s sake, ma’am, hoping he may live to have mercy to poor dumb beasts, if he does forget to lock his cupboards.’
But she did everything, and more than Mary, with her young inexperience, could have thought of. She prepared the warm bath, and tried it with her husband’s own thermometer (Mr Jenkins was as punctual as clockwork in noting down the temperature of every day). She let his mother place her baby in the tub, still preserving the same rigid, affronted aspect, and then she went upstairs without a word. Mary longed to ask her to stay, but dared not; though, when she left the room, the tears chased each other down her cheeks faster than ever. Poor young mother! how she counted the minutes till the doctor should come. But, before he came, down again stalked Mrs Jenkins, with something in her hand.
‘I’ve seen many of these croup-fits, which, I take it, you’ve not, ma’am. Mustard plaisters is very sovereign, put on the throat; I’ve been up and made one, ma’am, and, by your leave, I’ll put it on the poor little fellow.’
Mary could not speak, but she signed her grateful assent.
It began to smart while they still kept silence; and he looked up to his mother as if seeking courage from her looks to bear the stinging pain; but she was softly crying, to see him suffer, and her want of courage reacted upon him, and he began to sob aloud. Instantly Mrs Jenkins’s apron was up, hiding her face: ‘Peep-bo, baby,’ said she, as merrily as she could. His little face brightened, and his mother having once got the cue, the two women kept the little fellow amused, until his plaister had taken effect.
‘He’s better, -- oh, Mrs Jenkins, look at his eyes! how different! And he breathes quite softly -- ‘
As Mary spoke thus, the doctor entered. He ex
amined his patient. Baby was really better.
‘It has been a sharp attack, but the remedies you have applied have been worth all the Pharmacopoeia an hour later. -- I shall send a powder,’ &c. &c.
Mrs Jenkins stayed to hear this opinion; and (her heart wonderfully more easy) was going to leave the room, when Mary seized her hand and kissed it; she could not speak her gratitude. Mrs Jenkins looked affronted and awkward, and as if she must go upstairs and wash her hand directly.
But, in spite of these sour looks, she came softly down an hour or so afterwards to see how baby was.
The little gentleman slept well after the fright he had given his friends; and on Christmas morning, when Mary awoke and looked at the sweet little pale face lying on her arm, she could hardly realize the danger he had been in.
When she came down (later than usual), she found the household in a commotion. What do you think had happened? Why, pussy had been a traitor to his best friend, and eaten up some of Mr Jenkins’s own especial sausages; and gnawed and tumbled the rest so, that they were not fit to be eaten! There were no bounds to that cat’s appetite! he would have eaten his own father if he had been tender enough. And now Mrs Jenkins stormed and cried -- ‘Hang the cat!’
Christmas Day, too! and all the shops shut! ‘What was turkey without sausages?’ gruffly asked Mr Jenkins.
‘Oh, Jem!’ whispered Mary, ‘hearken what a piece of work he’s making about sausages, -- I should like to take Mrs Jenkins up some of mother’s; they’re twice as good as bought sausages.’
‘I see no objection, my dear. Sausages do not involve intimacies, else his politics are what I can no ways respect.’
‘But, oh, Jem, if you had seen her last night about baby! I’m sure she may scold me for ever, and I’ll not answer. I’d even make her cat welcome to the sausages.’ The tears gathered to Mary’s eyes as she kissed her boy.
‘Better take ‘em upstairs, my dear, and give them to the cat’s mistress.’ And Jem chuckled at his saying.
Mary put them on a plate, but still she loitered.
‘What must I say, Jem? I never know.’
‘Say -- I hope you’ll accept of these sausages, as my mother -- no, that’s not grammar; -- say what comes uppermost, Mary, it will be sure to be right.’
So Mary carried them upstairs and knocked at the door; and when told to ‘come in,’ she looked very red, but went up to Mrs Jenkins, saying, ‘Please take these. Mother made them.’ And was away before an answer could be given.
Just as Hodgson was ready to go to church, Mrs Jenkins came downstairs, and called Fanny. In a minute, the latter entered the Hodgsons’ room, and delivered Mr and Mrs Jenkins’s compliments and they would be particular glad if Mr and Mrs Hodgson would eat their dinner with them.
‘And carry baby upstairs in a shawl, be sure,’ added Mrs Jenkins’s voice in the passage, close to the door, whither she had followed her messenger. There was no discussing the matter, with the certainty of every word being overheard.
Mary looked anxiously at her husband. She remembered his saying saying he did not approve of Mr Jenkins’s politics.
‘Do you think it would do for baby?’ asked he.
‘Oh, yes,’ answered she, eagerly; ‘I would wrap him up so warm.’
‘And I’ve got our room up to sixty-five already, for all it’s so frosty,’ added the voice outside.
Now, how do you think they settled the matter? The very best way in the world. Mr and Mrs Jenkins came down into the Hodgsons’ room, and dined there. Turkey at the top, roast beef at the bottom, sausages at one side, potatoes at the other. Second course, plum-pudding at the top, and mince pies at the bottom.
And after dinner, Mrs Jenkins would have baby on her knee; and he seemed quite to take to her; she declared he was admiring the real lace on her cap, but Mary thought (though she did not say so) that he was pleased by her kind looks and coaxing words. Then he was wrapped up and carried carefully upstairs to tea, in Mrs Jenkins’s room. And after tea, Mrs Jenkins, and Mary, and her husband, found out each other’s mutual liking for music, and sat singing old glees and catches, till I don’t know what o’clock, without one word of politics or newspapers.
Before they parted, Mary had coaxed pussy on to her knee; for Mrs Jenkins would not part with baby, who was sleeping on her lap.
‘When you’re busy, bring him to me. Do, now, it will be a real favour. I know you must have a deal to do, with another coming; let him come up to me. I’ll take the greatest of cares of him; pretty darling, how sweet he looks when he’s asleep!’
When the couples were once more alone, the husbands unburdened their minds to their wives.
Mr Jenkins said to his -- ‘Do you know, Burgess tried to make me believe Hodgson was such a fool as to put paragraphs into the Examiner now and then; but I see he knows his place, and has got too much sense to do any such thing.’
Hodgson said -- ‘Mary, love, I almost fancy from Jenkins’s way of speaking (so much civiler than I expected), he guesses I wrote that “Pro Bono” and the “Rose-bud,” -- at any rate, I’ve no objection to your naming it, if the subject should come uppermost; I should like him to know I’m a literary man.’
Well! I’ve ended my tale; I hope you don’t think it too long; but, before I go, just let me say one thing.
If any of you have any quarrels, or misunderstandings, or coolnesses, or cold shoulders, or shynesses, or tiffs, or miffs, or huffs, with any one else, just make friends before Christmas, -- you will be so much merrier if you do.
I ask it of you for the sake of that old angelic song, heard so many years ago by the shepherds, keeping watch by night, on Bethlehem Heights.
(1848)
CLOPTON HALL
“I wonder if you know Clopton Hall, about a mile from Stratford-on-Avon. Will you allow me to tell you of a very happy day I once spent there? I was at school in the neighbourhood, and one of my schoolfellows was the daughter of a Mr. W --, who then lived at Clopton. Mrs. W -- asked a party of the girls to go and spend a long afternoon, and we set off one beautiful autumn day, full of delight and wonder respecting the place we were going to see. We passed through desolate half-cultivated fields, till we came within sight of the house - a large, heavy, compact, square brick building, of that deep, dead red almost approaching to purple. In front was a large formal court, with the massy pillars surmounted with two grim monsters; but the walls of the court were broken down, and the grass grew as rank and wild within the enclosure as in the raised avenue walk down which we had come. The flowers were tangled with nettles, and it was only as we approached the house that we saw the single yellow rose and the Austrian briar trained into something like order round the deep-set diamond-paned windows. We trooped into the hall, with its tesselated marble floor, hung round with strange portraits of people who had been in their graves two hundred years at least; yet the colours were so fresh, and in some instances they were so life-like, that looking merely at the faces, I almost fancied the originals might be sitting in the parlour beyond. More completely to carry us back, as it were, to the days of the civil wars, there was a sort of military map hung up, well finished with pen and ink, shewing the stations of the respective armies, and with old-fashioned writing beneath, the names of the principal towns, setting forth the strength of the garrison, etc. In this hall we were met by our kind hostess, and told we might ramble where we liked, in the house or out of the house, taking care to be in the ‘recessed parlour’ by tea-time. I preferred to wander up the wide shelving oak staircase, with its massy balustrade all crumbling and worm-eaten. The family then residing at the hall did not occupy one-half - no, not one-third of the rooms; and the old-fashioned furniture was undisturbed in the greater part of them. In one of the bed-rooms (said to be haunted), and which, with its close pent-up atmosphere and the long-shadows of evening creeping on, gave me an ‘eirie’ feeling, hung a portrait so singularly beautiful! a sweet-looking girl, with paly gold hair combed back from her forehead and falling in wavy ringlets
on her neck, and with eyes that ‘looked like violets filled with dew,’ for there was the glittering of unshed tears before their deep dark blue - and that was the likeness of Charlotte Clopton, about whom there was so fearful a legend told at Stratford church. In the time of some epidemic, the sweating-sickness or the plague, this young girl had sickened, and to all appearance died. She was buried with fearful haste in the vaults of Clopton chapel, attached to Stratford church, but the sickness was not stayed. In a few days another of the Cloptons died, and him they bore to the ancestral vault; but as they descended the gloomy stairs, they saw by the torchlight, Charlotte Clopton in her grave-clothes leaning against the wall; and when they looked nearer, she was indeed dead, but not before, in the agonies of despair and hunger, she had bitten a piece from her white round shoulder! Of course, she had walked ever since. This was ‘Charlotte’s chamber,’ and beyond Charlotte’s chamber was a state-chamber carpeted with the dust of many years, and darkened by the creepers which had covered up the windows, and even forced themselves in luxuriant daring through the broken panes. Beyond, again, there was an old Catholic chapel, with a chaplain’s room, which had been walled up and forgotten till within the last few years. I went in on my hands and knees, for the entrance was very low. I recollect little in the chapel; but in the chaplain’s room were old, and I should think rare, editions of many books, mostly folios. A large yellow-paper copy of Dryden’s ‘All for Love, or the World Well Lost,’ date 1686, caught my eye, and is the only one I particularly remember. Every here and there, as I wandered, I came upon a fresh branch of a staircase, and so numerous were the crooked, half-lighted passages, that I wondered if I could find my way back again. There was a curious carved old chest in one of these passages, and with girlish curiosity I tried to open it; but the lid was too heavy, till I persuaded one of my companions to help me, and when it was opened, what do you think we saw? - BONES! - but whether human, whether the remains of the lost bride, we did not stay to see, but ran off in partly feigned, and partly real terror.
Delphi Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell Page 410
