MEN AND GENTLEMEN.
“Old and young, boy, let ’em all eat, I have it;
Let ’em have ten tire of teeth a-piece, I care not.”
ROLLO, DUKE OF NORMANDY.
Margaret went home so painfully occupied with what she had heard and
seen that she hardly knew how to rouse herself up to the duties which
awaited her; the necessity for keeping up a constant flow of cheerful
conversation for her mother, who, now that she was unable to go out,
always looked to Margaret’s return from the shortest walk as bringing in
some news.
“And can your factory friend come on Thursday to see you dressed?”
“She was so ill I never thought of asking her,” said Margaret,
dolefully.
“Dear! Everybody is ill now, I think,” said Mrs. Hale, with a little of
the jealousy which one invalid is apt to feel of another. “But it must
be very sad to be ill in one of those little back streets.” (Her kindly
nature prevailing, and the old Helstone habits of thought returning.)
“It’s bad enough here. What could you do for her, Margaret? Mr. Thornton
has sent me some of his old port wine since you went out. Would a bottle
of that do her good, think you?”
“No, mamma! I don’t believe they are very poor,—at least, they don’t
speak as if they were; and, at any rate, Bessy’s illness is
consumption—she won’t want wine. Perhaps, I might take her a little
preserve, made of our dear Helstone fruit. No! there’s another family to
whom I should like to give—Oh mamma, mamma! how am I to dress up in my
finery, and go off and away to smart parties, after the sorrow I’ve seen
to-day?” exclaimed Margaret, bursting the bounds she had preordained for
herself before she came in, and telling her mother what she had seen and
heard at Higgins’s cottage.
It distressed Mrs. Hale excessively. It made her restlessly irritated
till she could do something. She directed Margaret to pack up a basket
in the very drawing-room, to be sent there and then to the family; and
was almost angry with her for saying, that it would not signify if it
did not go till morning, as she knew Higgins had provided for their
immediate wants, and she herself had left money with Bessy. Mrs. Hale
called her unfeeling for saying this; and never gave herself
breathing-time till the basket was sent out of the house. Then she said:
“After all, we may have been doing wrong. It was only the last time Mr.
Thornton was here that he said, those were no true friends who helped to
prolong the struggle by assisting the turn-outs. And this Boucher-man
was a turn-out, was he not?”
The question was referred to Mr. Hale by his wife, when he came
upstairs, fresh from giving a lesson to Mr. Thornton, which had ended in
conversation, as was their wont. Margaret did not care if their gifts
had prolonged the strife; she did not think far enough for that, in her
present excited state.
Mr. Hale listened, and tried to be as calm as a judge; he recalled all
that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr.
Thornton’s lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. His wife
and daughter had not only done quite right in this instance, but he did
not see for a moment how they could have done otherwise. Nevertheless,
as a general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as the
strike, if prolonged, must end in the masters bringing hands from a
distance (if, indeed, the final result were not, as it had often been
before, the invention of some machine which would diminish the need of
hands at all), why, it was clear enough that the kindest thing was to
refuse all help which might bolster them up in their folly. But as to
this Boucher, he would go and see him the first thing in the morning,
and try and find out what could be done for him.
Mr. Hale went the next morning, as he proposed. He did not find Boucher
at home, but he had a long talk with his wife; promised to ask for an
Infirmary order for her; and, seeing the plenty provided by Mrs. Hale, and
somewhat lavishly used by the children, who were masters downstairs in
their father’s absence, he came back with a more consoling and cheerful
account than Margaret had dared to hope for; indeed, what she had said
the night before had prepared her father for so much worse a state of
things that, by a re-action of his imagination, he described all as
better than it really was.
“But I will go again, and see the man himself,” said Mr. Hale. “I hardly
know as yet how to compare one of these houses with our Helstone
cottages. I see furniture here which our labourers would never have
thought of buying, and food commonly used which they would consider
luxuries; yet for these very families there seems no other resource now
that their weekly wages are stopped, but the pawn-shop. One had need to
learn a different standard, up here in Milton.”
Bessy, too, was rather better this day. Still she was so weak that she
seemed to have entirely forgotten her wish to see Margaret dressed—if,
indeed, that had not been the feverish desire of a half delirious state.
Margaret could not help comparing this strange dressing of hers, to go
where she did not care to be—her heart heavy with various
anxieties—with the old, merry, girlish toilettes that she and Edith had
performed scarcely more than a year ago. Her only pleasure now in
decking herself out was in thinking that her mother would take delight
in seeing her dressed. She blushed when Dixon, throwing the drawing-room
door open, made an appeal for admiration.
“Miss Hale looks well, ma’am,—doesn’t she? Mrs. Shaw’s coral couldn’t
have come in better. It just gives the right touch of colour, ma’am.
Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too pale.”
Margaret’s black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed rather to
be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness compressed into
massive coils, that encircled her head like a crown, and then were
gathered into a large spiral knot behind. She kept its weight together
by two large coral pins, like small arrows for length. Her white silk
sleeves were looped up with strings of the same material, and on her
neck, just below the base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay
heavy coral beads.
“Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of the old
Barrington assemblies,—taking you as Lady Beresford used to take me.”
Margaret kissed her mother for this little burst of maternal vanity; but
she could hardly smile at it, she felt so much out of spirits.
“I would rather stay at home with you,—much rather, mamma.”
“Nonsense, darling! Be sure you notice the dinner well. I shall like to
hear how they manage these things in Milton. Particularly the second
course, dear. Look what they have instead of game.”
Mrs. Hale would have been more than interested,—she would have been
astonished, if she had seen the sumptuousness of the dinner-table and
its appointments. Margaret, with her London cultivated taste, felt the
number of delicacies to be oppressive; one half of the quantity would
have been enough, and the effect tighter and more elegant. But it was
one of Mrs. Thornton’s rigorous laws of hospitality, that of each
separate dainty enough should be provided for all the guests to partake,
if they felt inclined. Careless to abstemiousness in her daily habits,
it was part of her pride to set a feast before such of her guests as
cared for it. Her son shared this feeling. He had never known—though he
might have imagined, and had the capability to relish—any kind of
society but that which depended on an exchange of superb meals: and even
now, though he was denying himself the personal expenditure of an
unnecessary sixpence, and had more than once regretted that the
invitations for this dinner had been sent out, still, as it was to be,
he was glad to see the old magnificence of preparation.
Margaret and her father were the first to arrive. Mr. Hale was anxiously
punctual to the time specified. There was no one upstairs in the
drawing-room but Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. Every cover was taken off, and
the apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a brilliantly
flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with ornament, until it
became a weariness to the eye, and presented a strange contrast to the
bald ugliness of the look-out into the great mill-yard, where wide
folding gates were thrown open for the admission of carriages. The mill
loomed high on the left-hand side of the windows, casting a shadow down
from its many stories, which darkened the summer evening before its
time.
“My son was engaged up to the last moment on business. He will be here
directly, Mr. Hale. May I beg you to take a seat?”
Mr. Hale was standing at one of the windows as Mrs. Thornton spoke. He
turned away, saying,
“Don’t you find such close neighbourhood to the mill rather unpleasant
at times?”
She drew herself up:
“Never. I am not become so fine as to desire to forget the source of my
son’s wealth and power. Besides, there is not such another factory in
Milton. One room alone is two hundred and twenty square yards.”
“I meant that the smoke and the noise—the constant going out and coming
in of the workpeople, might be annoying!”
“I agree with you, Mr. Hale!” said Fanny. “There is a continual smell of
steam and oily machinery—and the noise is perfectly deafening.”
“I have heard noise that was called music far more deafening. The
engine-room is at the street-end of the factory; we hardly hear it,
except in summer weather, when all the windows are open; and as for the
continual murmur of the workpeople, it disturbs me no more than the
humming of a hive of bees. If I think of it at all, I connect it with my
son, and feel how all belongs to him, and that his is the head that
directs it. Just now, there are no sounds to come from the mill; the
hands have been ungrateful enough to turn out, as perhaps you have
heard. But the very business (of which I spoke when you entered), had
reference to the steps he is going to take to make them learn their
place.” The expression on her face, always stern, deepened into dark
anger, as she said this. Nor did it clear away when Mr. Thornton entered
the room; for she saw in an instant, the weight of care and anxiety
which he could not shake off, although his guests received from him a
greeting that appeared both cheerful and cordial. He shook hands with
Margaret. He knew it was the first time their hands had met, though she
was perfectly unconscious of the fact. He inquired after Mrs. Hale, and
heard Mr. Hale’s sanguine, hopeful account; and, glancing to Margaret,
to understand how far she agreed with her father, he saw that no
dissenting shadow crossed her face. And as he looked with this
intention, he was struck anew with her great beauty. He had never seen
her in such dress before; and yet now it appeared that such elegance of
attire was so befitting her noble figure and lofty serenity of
countenance that she ought to go always thus apparelled. She was talking
to Fanny; about what he could not hear; but he saw his sister’s restless
way of continually arranging some part of her gown, her wandering eyes,
now glancing here, now there, but without any purpose in her
observation; and he contrasted them uneasily with the large soft eyes
that looked forth steadily at one object, as if from out their light
beamed some gentle influence of repose: the curving lines of the red
lips, just parted in the interest of listening to what her companion
said—the head a little bent forwards, so as to make a long sweeping
line from the summit, where the light caught on the glossy raven hair,
to the smooth ivory tip of the shoulder; the round white arms, and taper
hands, laid lightly across each other, but perfectly motionless in their
pretty attitude. Mr. Thornton sighed as he took in all this with one of
his sudden comprehensive glances. And then he turned his back to the
young ladies, and threw himself, with an effort, but with all his heart
and soul, into a conversation with Mr. Hale.
More people came—more and more. Fanny left Margaret’s side and helped
her mother to receive her guests. Mr. Thornton felt that in this influx
no one was speaking to Margaret, and was restless under this apparent
neglect. But he never went near her himself; he did not look at her.
Only, he knew what she was doing—or not doing—better than he knew the
movements of any one else in the room. Margaret was so unconscious of
herself, and so much amused by watching other people, that she never
thought whether she was left unnoticed or not. Somebody took her down to
dinner; she did not catch the name; nor did he seem much inclined to
talk to her. There was a very animated conversation going on among the
gentlemen; the ladies, for the most part, were silent, employing
themselves in taking notes of the dinner and criticising each other’s
dresses. Margaret caught the clue to the general conversation, grew
interested and listened attentively. Mr. Horsfall, the stranger, whose
visit to the town was the original germ of the party, was asking
questions relative to the trade and manufactures of the place; and the
rest of the gentlemen—all Milton men—were giving him answers and
explanations. Some dispute arose, which was warmly contested; it was
referred to Mr. Thornton, who had hardly spoken before; but who now
gave an opinion, the grounds of which were so clearly stated that even
the opponents yielded. Margaret’s attention was thus called to her host;
his whole manner, as master of the house, and entertainer of his
friends, was so straightforward, yet simple and modest, as to be
thoroughly dignified. Margaret thought she had never seen him to so much
advantage. When he had come to their house, there had been always
something, either of over-eagerness or of that kind of vexed annoyance
which seemed ready to pre-suppose that he was unjustly judged, and yet
felt too proud to try and make himself better understood. But now, among
his fellows, there was no uncertainty as to his position. He was
regarded by them as a man of great force of character; of power in many
ways. There was no need to struggle for their respect. He had it, and he
knew it; and the security of this gave a fine grand quietness to his
voice and ways, which Margaret had missed before.
He was not in the habit of talking to ladies; and what he did say was a
little formal. To Margaret herself he hardly spoke at all. She was
surprised to think how much she enjoyed this dinner. She knew enough now
to understand many local interests—nay, even some of the technical
words employed by the eager millowners. She silently took a very decided
part in the question they were discussing. At any rate, they talked in
desperate earnest,—not in the used-up style that wearied her so in the
old London parties. She wondered that, with all this dwelling on the
manufacturers and trade of the place, no allusion was made to the strike
then pending. She did not yet know how coolly such things were taken by
the masters, as having only one possible end. To be sure, the men were
cutting their own throats, as they had done many a time before; but if
they would be fools, and put themselves into the hands of a rascally set
of paid delegates, they must take the consequence. One or two thought
Thornton looked out of spirits; and, of course, he must lose by this
turn-out. But it was an accident that might happen to themselves any
day; and Thornton was as good to manage a strike as any one; for he was
as iron a chap as any in Milton. The hands had mistaken their man in
trying that dodge on him. And they chuckled inwardly at the idea of the
workmen’s discomfiture and defeat, in their attempt to alter one iota of
what Thornton had decreed.
It was rather dull for Margaret after dinner. She was glad when the
gentlemen came, not merely because she caught her father’s eye to
brighten her sleepiness up; but because she could listen to something
larger and grander than the petty interests which the ladies had been
talking about. She liked the exultation in the sense of power which
these Milton men had. It might be rather rampant in its display, and
savour of boasting; but still they seemed to defy the old limits of
possibility, in a kind of fine intoxication, caused by the recollection
of what had been achieved, and what yet should be. If in her cooler
moments she might not approve of the spirit in all things, still there
was much to admire in their forgetfulness of themselves and the present,
in their anticipated triumphs over all inanimate matter at some future
time which none of them would live to see. She was rather startled when
Mr. Thornton spoke to her close at her elbow:
“I could see you were on our side in our discussion at dinner,—were you
not, Miss Hale?”
“Certainly. But then I know so little about it. I was surprised,
however, to find from what Mr. Horsfall said, that there were others who
thought in so diametrically opposite a manner, as the Mr. Morison he
spoke about. He cannot be a gentleman—is he?”
“I am not quite the person to decide on another’s gentlemanliness, Miss
Hale. I mean, I don’t quite understand your application of the word. But
I should say that this Morison is no true man. I don’t know who he is; I
merely judge him from Mr. Horsfall’s account.”
“I suspect my ‘gentleman’ includes your ‘true man.’”
“And a great deal more, you would imply. I differ from you. A man is to
me a higher and a completer being than a gentleman.”
“What do you mean?” asked Margaret. “We must understand the words
differently.”
“I take it that ‘gentleman’ is a term that only describes a person in
his relation to others; but when we speak of him as ‘a man,’ we consider
him not merely with regard to his fellow-men, but in relation to
himself,—to life—to time—to eternity. A cast-away lonely as Robinson
Crusoe—a prisoner immured in a dungeon for life—nay, even a saint in
Patmos, has his endurance, his strength, his faith, best described by
being spoken of as ‘a man.’ I am rather weary of this word
‘gentlemanly,’ which seems to me to be often inappropriately used, and
often, too, with such exaggerated distortion of meaning, while the full
simplicity of the noun ‘man,’ and the adjective ‘manly’ are
acknowledged—that I am induced to class it with the cant of the day.”
Margaret thought a moment—but before she could speak her slow
conviction, he was called away by some of the eager manufacturers, whose
speeches she could not hear, though she could guess at their import by
the short clear answers Mr. Thornton gave, which came steady and firm as
the boom of a distant minute gun. They were evidently talking of the
turn-out, and suggesting what course had best be pursued. She heard Mr.
Thornton say:
“That has been done.” Then came a hurried murmur, in which two or three
joined.
“All those arrangements have been made.”
Some doubts were implied, some difficulties named by Mr. Slickson, who
took hold of Mr. Thornton’s arm, the better to impress his words. Mr.
Thornton moved slightly away, lifted his eyebrows a very little, and
then replied:
“I take the risk. You need not join in it unless you choose.” Still some
more fears were urged.
“I’m not afraid of anything so dastardly as incendiarism. We are open
enemies; and I can protect myself from any violence that I apprehend.
And I will assuredly protect all others who come to me for work. They
know my determination by this time, as well and as fully as you do.”
Mr. Horsfall took him a little on one side, as Margaret conjectured, to
ask him some other question about the strike; but, in truth, it was to
inquire who she herself was—so quiet, so stately, and so beautiful.
“A Milton lady?” asked he, as the name was given.
“No! from the south of England—Hampshire, I believe,” was the cold,
indifferent answer.
Mrs. Slickson was catechising Fanny on the same subject.
“Who is that fine distinguished-looking girl? a sister of Mr.
Horsfall’s?”
“Oh dear, no! That is Mr. Hale, her father, talking now to Mr. Stephens.
He gives lessons; that is to say, he reads with young men. My brother
John goes to him twice a week, and so he begged mamma to ask them here,
in hopes of getting him known. I believe we have some of their
prospectuses, if you would like to have one.”
“Mr. Thornton! Does he really find time to read with a tutor, in the
midst of all his business,—and this abominable strike in hand as well?”
Fanny was not sure, from Mrs. Slickson’s manner, whether she ought to be
proud or ashamed of her brother’s conduct; and, like all people who try
and take other people’s “ought” for the rule of their feelings, she was
inclined to blush for any singularity of action. Her shame was
interrupted by the dispersion of the guests.