And a grain or two perhaps is good;
But his, he makes me harshly feel,
Has got a little too much of steel.’
ANON.
‘Margaret!’ said Mr. Hale, as he returned from showing his guest downstairs; ‘I could not help watching your face with some anxiety, when Mr. Thornton made his confession1 of having been a shop-boy. I knew it all along from Mr. Bell; so I was aware of what was coming; but I half expected to see you get up and leave the room.’
‘Oh, papa! you don’t mean that you thought me so silly? I really liked that account of himself better than anything else he said. Everything else revolted me, from its hardness; but he spoke2 about himself so simply — with so little of the pretence3 that makes the vulgarity of shop-people, and with such tender respect for his mother, that I was less likely to leave the room then than when he was boasting about Milton, as if there was not such another place in the world; or quietly professing4 to despise people for careless, wasteful5 improvidence6, without ever seeming to think it his duty to try to make them different — to give them anything of the training which his mother gave him, and to which he evidently owes his position, whatever that may be. No! his statement of having been a shop-boy was the thing I liked best of all.’
‘I am surprised at you, Margaret,’ said her mother. ‘You who were always accusing people of being shoppy at Helstone! I don’t I think, Mr. Hale, you have done quite right in introducing such a person to us without telling us what he had been. I really was very much afraid of showing him how much shocked I was at some parts of what he said. His father “dying in miserable7 circumstances.” Why it might have been in the workhouse.’
‘I am not sure if it was not worse than being in the workhouse,’ replied her husband. ‘I heard a good deal of his previous life from Mr. Bell before we came here; and as he has told you a part, I will fill up what he left out. His father speculated wildly, failed, and then killed himself, because he could not bear the disgrace. All his former friends shrunk from the disclosures that had to be made of his dishonest gambling8 — wild, hopeless struggles, made with other people’s money, to regain9 his own moderate portion of wealth. No one came forwards to help the mother and this boy. There was another child, I believe, a girl; too young to earn money, but of course she had to be kept. At least, no friend came forwards immediately, and Mrs. Thornton is not one, I fancy, to wait till tardy10 kindness comes to find her out. So they left Milton. I knew he had gone into a shop, and that his earnings11, with some fragment of property secured to his mother, had been made to keep them for a long time. Mr. Bell said they absolutely lived upon water-porridge for years — how, he did not know; but long after the creditors13 had given up hope of any payment of old Mr. Thornton’s debts (if, indeed, they ever had hoped at all about it, after his suicide,) this young man returned to Milton, and went quietly round to each creditor12, paying him the first instalment of the money owing to him. No noise — no gathering14 together of creditors — it was done very silently and quietly, but all was paid at last; helped on materially by the circumstance of one of the creditors, a crabbed15 old fellow (Mr. Bell says), taking in Mr. Thornton as a kind of partner.’
‘That really is fine,’ said Margaret. ‘What a pity such a nature should be tainted16 by his position as a Milton manufacturer.’
‘How tainted?’ asked her father.
‘Oh, papa, by that testing everything by the standard of wealth. When he spoke of the mechanical powers, he evidently looked upon them only as new ways of extending trade and making money. And the poor men around him — they were poor because they were vicious — out of the pale of his sympathies because they had not his iron nature, and the capabilities17 that it gives him for being rich.’
‘Not vicious; he never said that. Improvident18 and self-indulgent were his words.’
Margaret was collecting her mother’s working materials, and preparing to go to bed. Just as she was leaving the room, she hesitated — she was inclined to make an acknowledgment which she thought would please her father, but which to be full and true must include a little annoyance19. However, out it came.
‘Papa, I do think Mr. Thornton a very remarkable20 man; but personally I don’t like him at all.’
‘And I do!’ said her father laughing. ‘Personally, as you call it, and all. I don’t set him up for a hero, or anything of that kind. But good night, child. Your mother looks sadly tired to-night, Margaret.’
Margaret had noticed her mother’s jaded21 appearance with anxiety for some time past, and this remark of her father’s sent her up to bed with a dim fear lying like a weight on her heart. The life in Milton was so different from what Mrs. Hale had been accustomed to live in Helstone, in and out perpetually into the fresh and open air; the air itself was so different, deprived of all revivifying principle as it seemed to be here; the domestic worries pressed so very closely, and in so new and sordid22 a form, upon all the women in the family, that there was good reason to fear that her mother’s health might be becoming seriously affected23. There were several other signs of something wrong about Mrs. Hale. She and Dixon held mysterious consultations24 in her bedroom, from which Dixon would come out crying and cross, as was her custom when any distress25 of her mistress called upon her sympathy. Once Margaret had gone into the chamber26 soon after Dixon left it, and found her mother on her knees, and as Margaret stole out she caught a few words, which were evidently a prayer for strength and patience to endure severe bodily suffering. Margaret yearned27 to re-unite the bond of intimate confidence which had been broken by her long residence at her aunt Shaw’s, and strove by gentle caresses28 and softened29 words to creep into the warmest place in her mother’s heart. But though she received caresses and fond words back again, in such profusion30 as would have gladdened her formerly31, yet she felt that there was a secret withheld32 from her, and she believed it bore serious reference to her mother’s health. She lay awake very long this night, planning how to lessen33 the evil influence of their Milton life on her mother. A servant to give Dixon permanent assistance should be got, if she gave up her whole time to the search; and then, at any rate, her mother might have all the personal attention she required, and had been accustomed to her whole life. Visiting register offices, seeing all manner of unlikely people, and very few in the least likely, absorbed Margaret’s time and thoughts for several days. One afternoon she met Bessy Higgins in the street, and stopped to speak to her.
‘Well, Bessy, how are you? Better, I hope, now the wind has changed.’
‘Better and not better, if yo’ know what that means.’
‘Not exactly,’ replied Margaret, smiling.
‘I’m better in not being torn to pieces by coughing o’nights, but I’m weary and tired o’ Milton, and longing34 to get away to the land o’ Beulah; and when I think I’m farther and farther off, my heart sinks, and I’m no better; I’m worse.’ Margaret turned round to walk alongside of the girl in her feeble progress homeward. But for a minute or two she did not speak. At last she said in a low voice,
‘Bessy, do you wish to die?’ For she shrank from death herself, with all the clinging to life so natural to the young and healthy.
Bessy was silent in her turn for a minute or two. Then she replied,
‘If yo’d led the life I have, and getten as weary of it as I have, and thought at times, “maybe it’ll last for fifty or sixty years — it does wi’ some,”— and got dizzy and dazed, and sick, as each of them sixty years seemed to spin about me, and mock me with its length of hours and minutes, and endless bits o’ time — oh, wench! I tell thee thou’d been glad enough when th’ doctor said he feared thou’d never see another winter.’
‘Why, Bessy, what kind of a life has yours been?’
‘Nought35 worse than many others, I reckon. Only I fretted36 again it, and they didn’t.’
‘But what was it? You know, I’m a stranger here, so perhaps I’m not so quick at understanding what you mean as if I’d lived all my life at Milton.’
‘If yo’d ha’ come to our house when yo’ said yo’ would, I could maybe ha’ told you. But father says yo’re just like th’ rest on ’em; it’s out o’ sight out o’ mind wi’ you.’
‘I don’t know who the rest are; and I’ve been very busy; and, to tell the truth, I had forgotten my promise —’
‘Yo’ offered it! we asked none of it.’
‘I had forgotten what I said for the time,’ continued Margaret quietly. ‘I should have thought of it again when I was less busy. May I go with you now?’ Bessy gave a quick glance at Margaret’s face, to see if the wish expressed was really felt. The sharpness in her eye turned to a wistful longing as she met Margaret’s soft and friendly gaze.
‘I ha’ none so many to care for me; if yo’ care yo’ may come.
So they walked on together in silence. As they turned up into a small court, opening out of a squalid street, Bessy said,
‘Yo’ll not be daunted37 if father’s at home, and speaks a bit gruffish at first. He took a mind to ye, yo’ see, and he thought a deal o’ your coming to see us; and just because he liked yo’ he were vexed39 and put about.’
‘Don’t fear, Bessy.’
But Nicholas was not at home when they entered. A great slatternly girl, not so old as Bessy, but taller and stronger, was busy at the wash-tub, knocking about the furniture in a rough capable way, but altogether making so much noise that Margaret shrunk, out of sympathy with poor Bessy, who had sat down on the first chair, as if completely tired out with her walk. Margaret asked the sister for a cup of water, and while she ran to fetch it (knocking down the fire-irons, and tumbling over a chair in her way), she unloosed Bessy’s bonnet40 strings41, to relieve her catching42 breath.
‘Do you think such life as this is worth caring for?’ gasped43 Bessy, at last. Margaret did not speak, but held the water to her lips. Bessy took a long and feverish44 draught45, and then fell back and shut her eyes. Margaret heard her murmur46 to herself: ‘They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.’
Margaret bent47 over and said, ‘Bessy, don’t be impatient with your life, whatever it is — or may have been. Remember who gave it you, and made it what it is!’ She was startled by hearing Nicholas speak behind her; he had come in without her noticing him.
‘Now, I’ll not have my wench preached to. She’s bad enough as it is, with her dreams and her methodee fancies, and her visions of cities with goulden gates and precious stones. But if it amuses her I let it abe, but I’m none going to have more stuff poured into her.’
‘But surely,’ said Margaret, facing round, ‘you believe in what I said, that God gave her life, and ordered what kind of life it was to be?’
‘I believe what I see, and no more. That’s what I believe, young woman. I don’t believe all I hear — no! not by a big deal. I did hear a young lass make an ado about knowing where we lived, and coming to see us. And my wench here thought a deal about it, and flushed up many a time, when hoo little knew as I was looking at her, at the sound of a strange step. But hoo’s come at last — and hoo’s welcome, as long as hoo’ll keep from preaching on what hoo knows nought about.’ Bessy had been watching Margaret’s face; she half sate48 up to speak now, laying her hand on Margaret’s arm with a gesture of entreaty49. ‘Don’t be vexed wi’ him — there’s many a one thinks like him; many and many a one here. If yo’ could hear them speak, yo’d not be shocked at him; he’s a rare good man, is father — but oh!’ said she, falling back in despair, ‘what he says at times makes me long to die more than ever, for I want to know so many things, and am so tossed about wi’ wonder.’
‘Poor wench — poor old wench — I’m loth to vex38 thee, I am; but a man mun speak out for the truth, and when I see the world going all wrong at this time o’ day, bothering itself wi’ things it knows nought about, and leaving undone50 all the things that lie in disorder51 close at its hand — why, I say, leave a’ this talk about religion alone, and set to work on what yo’ see and know. That’s my creed52. It’s simple, and not far to fetch, nor hard to work.’
But the girl only pleaded the more with Margaret.
‘Don’t think hardly on him — he’s a good man, he is. I sometimes think I shall be moped wi’ sorrow even in the City of God, if father is not there.’ The feverish colour came into her cheek, and the feverish flame into her eye. ‘But you will be there, father! you shall! Oh! my heart!’ She put her hand to it, and became ghastly pale.
Margaret held her in her arms, and put the weary head to rest upon her bosom53. She lifted the thin soft hair from off the temples, and bathed them with water. Nicholas understood all her signs for different articles with the quickness of love, and even the round-eyed sister moved with laborious54 gentleness at Margaret’s ‘hush!’ Presently the spasm55 that foreshadowed death had passed away, and Bessy roused herself and said —
‘I’ll go to bed — it’s best place; but,’ catching at Margaret’s gown, ‘yo’ll come again — I know yo’ will — but just say it!’
‘I will come tomorrow, said Margaret.
Bessy leant back against her father, who prepared to carry her upstairs; but as Margaret rose to go, he struggled to say something: ‘I could wish there were a God, if it were only to ask Him to bless thee.’
Margaret went away very sad and thoughtful.
She was late for tea at home. At Helstone unpunctuality at meal-times was a great fault in her mother’s eyes; but now this, as well as many other little irregularities, seemed to have lost their power of irritation56, and Margaret almost longed for the old complainings.
‘Have you met with a servant, dear?’
‘No, mamma; that Anne Buckley would never have done.’
‘Suppose I try,’ said Mr. Hale. ‘Everybody else has had their turn at this great difficulty. Now let me try. I may be the Cinderella to put on the slipper57 after all.’
Margaret could hardly smile at this little joke, so oppressed was she by her visit to the Higginses.
‘What would you do, papa? How would you set about it?’
‘Why, I would apply to some good house-mother to recommend me one known to herself or her servants.’
‘Very good. But we must first catch our house-mother.’
‘You have caught her. Or rather she is coming into the snare58, and you will catch her tomorrow, if you’re skilful59.’
‘What do you mean, Mr. Hale?’ asked his wife, her curiosity aroused.
‘Why, my paragon60 pupil (as Margaret calls him), has told me that his mother intends to call on Mrs. and Miss Hale tomorrow.’
‘Mrs. Thornton!’ exclaimed Mrs. Hale.
‘The mother of whom he spoke to us?’ said Margaret.
‘Mrs. Thornton; the only mother he has, I believe,’ said Mr. Hale quietly.
‘I shall like to see her. She must be an uncommon61 person, her mother added.
‘Perhaps she may have a relation who might suit us, and be glad of our place. She sounded to be such a careful economical person, that I should like any one out of the same family.’
‘My dear,’ said Mr. Hale alarmed. ‘Pray don’t go off on that idea. I fancy Mrs. Thornton is as haughty62 and proud in her way, as our little Margaret here is in hers, and that she completely ignores that old time of trial, and poverty, and economy, of which he speaks so openly. I am sure, at any rate, she would not like strangers to know anything about It.’
‘Take notice that is not my kind of haughtiness63, papa, if I have any at all; which I don’t agree to, though you’re always accusing me of it.’
‘I don’t know positively64 that it is hers either; but from little things I have gathered from him, I fancy so.’
They cared too little to ask in what manner her son had spoken about her. Margaret only wanted to know if she must stay in to receive this call, as it would prevent her going to see how Bessy was, until late in the day, since the early morning was always occupied in household affairs; and then she recollected65 that her mother must not be left to have the whole weight of entertaining her visitor.
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1
confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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2
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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3
pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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professing
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| 声称( profess的现在分词 )； 宣称； 公开表明； 信奉 | |
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5
wasteful
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| adj.（造成）浪费的，挥霍的 | |
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improvidence
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| n.目光短浅 | |
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7
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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8
gambling
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| n.赌博；投机 | |
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9
regain
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| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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tardy
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| adj.缓慢的，迟缓的 | |
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earnings
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| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
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creditor
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| n.债仅人，债主，贷方 | |
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creditors
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| n.债权人，债主( creditor的名词复数 ) | |
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14
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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crabbed
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| adj.脾气坏的；易怒的；（指字迹）难辨认的；（字迹等）难辨认的v.捕蟹( crab的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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16
tainted
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| adj.腐坏的；污染的；沾污的；感染的v.使变质( taint的过去式和过去分词 )；使污染；败坏；被污染，腐坏，败坏 | |
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capabilities
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| n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力 | |
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improvident
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| adj.不顾将来的，不节俭的，无远见的 | |
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19
annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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jaded
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| adj.精疲力竭的；厌倦的；（因过饱或过多而）腻烦的；迟钝的 | |
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sordid
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| adj.肮脏的，不干净的，卑鄙的，暗淡的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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consultations
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| n.磋商（会议）( consultation的名词复数 )；商讨会；协商会；查找 | |
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distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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caresses
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| 爱抚，抚摸( caress的名词复数 ) | |
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softened
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| （使）变软( soften的过去式和过去分词 )； 缓解打击； 缓和； 安慰 | |
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profusion
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| n.挥霍；丰富 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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withheld
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| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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lessen
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| vt.减少，减轻；缩小 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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nought
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| n.／adj.无，零 | |
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fretted
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| 焦躁的，附有弦马的，腐蚀的 | |
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daunted
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| 使（某人）气馁，威吓( daunt的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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vex
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| vt.使烦恼，使苦恼 | |
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vexed
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| adj.争论不休的；（指问题等）棘手的；争论不休的问题；烦恼的v.使烦恼( vex的过去式和过去分词 )；使苦恼；使生气；详细讨论 | |
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40
bonnet
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| n.无边女帽；童帽 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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catching
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| adj.易传染的，有魅力的，迷人的，接住 | |
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43
gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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44
feverish
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| adj.发烧的，狂热的，兴奋的 | |
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45
draught
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| n.拉，牵引，拖；一网（饮，吸，阵)；顿服药量，通风；v.起草，设计 | |
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46
murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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47
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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sate
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| v.使充分满足 | |
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49
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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50
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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51
disorder
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| n.紊乱，混乱；骚动，骚乱；疾病，失调 | |
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52
creed
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| n.信条；信念，纲领 | |
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53
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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54
laborious
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| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
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55
spasm
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| n.痉挛，抽搐；一阵发作 | |
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56
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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slipper
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| n.拖鞋 | |
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58
snare
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| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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59
skilful
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| (=skillful)adj.灵巧的，熟练的 | |
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paragon
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| n.模范，典型 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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62
haughty
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| adj.傲慢的，高傲的 | |
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63
haughtiness
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| n.傲慢；傲气 | |
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64
positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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65
recollected
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| adj.冷静的；镇定的；被回忆起的；沉思默想的v.记起，想起( recollect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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