THE SHADOW OF HOME
The house which was the end of Emily's journey was situated two miles
outside the town of Dunfield, on the high road going southward, just
before it enters upon a rising tract of common land known as the Heath.
It was one of a row of two-storied dwellings, built of glazed brick,
each with a wide projecting window on the right hand of the front door,
and with a patch of garden railed in from the road, the row being part
of a straggling colony which is called Banbrigg. Immediately opposite
these houses stood an ecclesiastical edifice of depressing appearance,
stone-built, wholly without ornament, presenting a corner to the
highway, a chapel-of-ease for worshippers unable to go as far as
Dunfield in the one direction or the village of Pendal in the other.
Scattered about were dwelling-houses old and new; the former being
cottages of the poorest and dirtiest kind, the latter brick structures
of the most unsightly form, evidently aiming at constituting themselves
into a thoroughfare, and, in point of fact, already rejoicing in the
name of Regent Street. There was a public-house, or rather, as it
frankly styled itself in large letters on the window, a dram-shop; and
there were two or three places for the sale of very miscellaneous
articles, exhibiting the same specimens of discouraging stock throughout
the year. At no season, and under no advantage of sky, was Banbrigg a
delectable abode. Though within easy reach of country which was not
without rural aspects, it was marked too unmistakably with the squalor
of a manufacturing district. Its existence impressed one as casual; it
was a mere bit of Dunfield got away from the main mass, and having
brought its dirt with it. The stretch of road between it and the bridge
by which the river was crossed into Dunfield had in its long, hard
ugliness something dispiriting. Though hedges bordered it here and
there, they were stunted and grimed; though fields were seen on this
side and on that, the grass had absorbed too much mill-smoke to exhibit
wholesome verdure; it was fed upon by sheep and cows, seemingly turned
in to be out of the way till needed for slaughter, and by the sorriest
of superannuated horses. The land was blighted by the curse of what we
name--using a word as ugly as the thing it represents--industrialism.
As the cab brought her along this road from Dunfield station, Emily
thought of the downs, the woodlands, the fair pastures of Surrey. There
was sorrow at her heart, even a vague tormenting fear. It would be hard
to find solace in Banbrigg.
Hither her parents had come to live when she was thirteen years old, her
home having previously been in another and a larger manufacturing town.
Her father was a man marked for ill-fortune: it pursued him from his
entrance into the world, and would inevitably--you read it in his
face--hunt him into a sad grave. He was the youngest of a large family;
his very birth had been an added misery to a household struggling with
want. His education was of the slightest; at twelve years of age he was
already supporting himself, or, one would say, keeping himself above the
point of starvation; and at three-and-twenty--the age when Wilfrid Athel
is entering upon life in the joy of freedom--was ludicrously bankrupt, a
petty business he had established being sold up for a debt something
short of as many pounds as he had years. He drifted into indefinite
mercantile clerkships, an existence possibly preferable to that of the
fourth circle of Inferno, and then seemed at length to have fallen upon
a piece of good luck, such as, according to a maxim of pathetic optimism
wherewith he was wont to cheer himself, must come to every man sooner or
later--provided he do not die of hunger whilst it is on the way. He
married a schoolmistress, one Miss Martin, who was responsible for the
teaching of some twelve or fifteen children of tender age, and who, what
was more, owned the house in which she kept school. The result was that
James Hood once more established himself in business, or rather in
several businesses, vague, indescribable, save by those who are unhappy
enough to understand such matters--a commission agency, a life insurance
agency and a fire insurance ditto, I know not what. Yet the semblance of
prosperity was fleeting. As if connection with him meant failure, his
wife's school, which she had not abandoned (let us employ negative terms
in speaking of this pair), began to fall off; ultimately no school was
left. It did in truth appear that Miss Martin had suffered something in
becoming Mrs. Hood. At her marriage she was five-and-twenty, fairly
good-looking, in temper a trifle exigent perhaps, sanguine, and capable
of exertion; she could not claim more than superficial instruction, but
taught reading and writing with the usual success which attends teachers
of these elements. After the birth of her first child, Emily, her moral
nature showed an unaccountable weakening; the origin was no doubt
physical, but in story-telling we dwell very much on the surface of
things; it is not permitted us to describe human nature too accurately.
The exigence of her temper became something generally described by a
harsher term; she lost her interest in the work which she had
unwillingly entrusted for a time to an assistant; she found the
conditions of her life hard. Alas, they grew harder. After Emily, two
children were successively born; fate was kind to them, and neither
survived infancy. Their mother fell into fretting, into hysteria; some
change in her life seemed imperative, and at length she persuaded her
husband to quit the town in which they lived, and begin life anew
elsewhere. Begin life anew! James Hood was forty years old; he
possessed, as the net result of his commercial enterprises, a capital of
a hundred and thirty pounds. The house, of course, could be let, and
would bring five-and-twenty pounds a year. This it was resolved to do.
He had had certain dealings in Dunfield, and in Dunfield he would strike
his tent--that is to say, in Banbrigg, whence he walked daily to a
little office in the town. Rents were lower in Banbrigg, and it was
beyond the range of certain municipal taxings.
Mrs. Hood possessed still her somewhat genteel furniture. One article
was a piano, and upon this she taught Emily her notes. It had been a
fairly good piano once, but the keys had become very loose. They were
looser than ever, now that Emily tried to play on them, on her return
from Surrey.
Business did not thrive in Dunfield; yet there was more than ever need
that it should, for to neglect Emily's education would be to deal
cruelly with the child--she would have nothing else to depend upon in
her battle with the world. Poor Emily A feeble, overgrown child, needing
fresh air, which she could not get, needing food of a better kind, just
as unattainable. Large-eyed, thin-checked Emily; she, too, already in
the clutch of the great brute world, the helpless victim of a
civilisation which makes its food of those the heart most pities. How
well if her last sigh had been drawn in infancy, if she had lain with
the little brother and sister in that gaunt, grimy cemetery, under the
shadow of mill chimneys! She was reserved for other griefs; for
consolations, it is true, but--
Education she did get, by hook or by crook; there was dire pinching to
pay for it, and, too well knowing this, the child strove her utmost to
use the opportunities offered her. Each morning going into Dunfield,
taking with her some sandwiches that were called dinner, walking home
again by tea-time, tired, hungry--ah, hungry No matter the weather, she
must walk her couple of miles--it was at least so far to the school. In
winter you saw her set forth with her waterproof and umbrella, the
too-heavy bag of books on her arm; sometimes the wind and rain beating
as if to delay her--they, too, cruel. In summer the hot days tried her
perhaps still more; she reached home in the afternoon well-nigh
fainting, the books were so heavy. Who would not have felt kindly to
her? So gentle she was, so dreadfully shy and timid, her eyes so eager,
so full of unconscious pathos. 'Hood's little girl,' said the people on
the way who saw her pass daily, and, however completely strangers, they
said it with a certain kindness of tone and meaning. A little thing that
happened one day--take it as an anecdote. On her way to school she
passed some boys who were pelting a most wretched dog, a poor, scraggy
beast driven into a corner. Emily, so timid usually she could not raise
her eyes before a stranger, stopped, quivering all over, _commanded_
them to cease their brutality, divine compassion become a heroism. The
boys somehow did her bidding, and walked on together. Emily stayed
behind, opened her bag, threw something for the dog to eat. It was half
her dinner.
Her mind braced itself. She had a passionate love of learning; all books
were food to her. Fortunately there was the library of the Mechanics'
Institute; but for that she would have come short of mental sustenance,
for her father had never been able to buy mole than a dozen volumes, and
these all dealt with matters of physical science. The strange things she
read, books which came down to her from the shelves with a thickness of
dust upon them; histories of Greece and Rome ('Not much asked for,
these,' said the librarian), translations of old classics, the Koran,
Mosheim's 'Ecclesiastical History,' works of Swedenborg, all the poetry
she could lay hands on, novels not a few. One day she asked for a book
on 'Gymnoblastic Hydroids'; the amazing title in the catalogue had
filled her with curiosity; she must know the meaning of everything. She
was not idle, Emily.
But things in the home were going from bad to worse. When Emily was
sixteen, her father scarcely knew where to look for each day's dinner.
Something must be done. Activity took a twofold direction. First of all,
Emily got work as a teacher in an infant's school. It was at her own
motion; she could bear her mother's daily querulousness no longer; she
must take some step. She earned a mere trifle; but it was earning,
instead of being a source of expense. And in the meantime she worked on
for certain examinations which it would benefit her to have passed. The
second thing done was that her father abandoned his office, and obtained
a place in the counting-house of a worsted-mill, under the firm of
Dagworthy and Son. His salary was small, but the blessing of it was its
certainty; the precariousness of his existence had all but driven poor
Hood mad. There came a season of calm. Emily's sphere of work extended
itself; the school only took her mornings, and for the afternoon there
was proposed to her the teaching of the little Baxendales. The
Baxendales were well-to-do people; the father was, just then, mayor of
Dunfield, the mother was related to the member of Parliament for the
town. We have had mention of them as connections of Beatrice Redwing.
At nineteen she for the first time left home. Through the Baxendales she
obtained the position of governess in a family residing in Liverpool,
and remained with them till she went to London, to the Athels. These
three years in Liverpool were momentous for her; they led her from
girlhood to womanhood, and established her character. Her home was in
the house of a prosperous ship-owner, a Lancashire man, outwardly a
blustering good-tempered animal, yet with an inner light which showed
itself in his love of books and pictures, in his easy walking under the
burden of self-acquired riches, in a certain generous freedom which
marked his life and thoughts. His forename was Laurence: Emily, in
letters to her father, used to call him Lorenzo the Magnificent, a title
which became him well enough. In the collection of works of art he was
really great; he must have spent appalling sums annually on his picture
gallery and the minor ornaments scattered about his house. He had a
personal acquaintance, through his pecuniary dealings, with the foremost
artists of the day; he liked to proclaim the fact and describe the men.
To Emily the constant proximity of these pictures was a priceless
advantage; the years she spent among them were equivalent to a
university course. Moreover, she enjoyed, as with the Athels later, a
free command of books; here began her acquaintance with the most modern
literature, which was needful to set her thoughts in order, to throw
into right perspective her previous miscellaneous reading, and to mark
out her way in the future. Her instinctive craving for intellectual
beauty acquired a reflective consistency; she reformed her ideals, found
the loveliness of much that in her immaturity had seemed barren, put
aside, with gentle firmness, much that had appeared indispensable to her
moral life. The meanings which she attached to that word 'moral' largely
modified themselves, that they should do so was the note of her
progress. Her prayer was for 'beauty in the inward soul,' which, if it
grew to be her conviction, was greatly--perhaps wholly--dependent on
the perception of external beauty. The development of beauty in the soul
would mean a life of ideal purity; all her instincts pointed to such a
life; her passionate motives converged on the one end of spiritual
chastity.
One ever-present fear she had to strive with in her progress toward
serene convictions. The misery of her parents' home haunted her, and by
no effort could she expel the superstition that she had only escaped
from that for a time, that its claws would surely overtake her and fix
themselves again in her flesh. Analysing her own nature, she discerned,
or thought she did, a lack of independent vigour; it seemed as if she
were too reliant on external circumstances; she dreaded what might
follow if their assistance were withdrawn. To be sure she had held her
course through the countless discouragements of early years; but that,
in looking back, seemed no assurance for the future; her courage, it
appeared to her, had been of the unconscious kind, and might fail her
when she consciously demanded it. As a child she had once walked in her
sleep, had gone forth from the house, and had, before she was awakened,
crossed the narrow footing of a canal-lock, a thing her nervousness
would not allow her to do at other times. This became to her a figure.
The feat she had performed when mere vital instinct guided her, she
would have failed in when attempting it with the full understanding of
its danger. Suppose something happened which put an end to her
independence--failure of health, some supreme calamity at home--could
she hold on in the way of salvation? Was she capable of conscious
heroism? Could her soul retain its ideal of beauty if environed by
ugliness?
The vice of her age--nay, why call it a vice?--the necessary issue of
that intellectual egoism which is the note of our time, found as good
illustration in this humble life as in men and women who are the
mouthpieces of a civilisation. Pre occupied with problems of her own
relation to the world, she could not enjoy without thought in the rear,
ever ready to trouble her with suggestions of unreality. Her distresses
of conscience were all the more active for being purely human; in her
soul dwelt an immense compassion, which, with adequate occasion, might
secure to itself such predominance as to dwarf into inefficiency her
religion of culture. It was exquisite misery to conceive, as, from inner
observation, she so well could, some demand of life which would make her
ideals appear the dreams of bygone halcyon days, useless and worse amid
the threats of gathering tempest. An essentially human apprehension, be
it understood. The vulgarities of hysterical pietism Emily had never
known; she did not fear the invasion of such blight as that; the thought
of it was noisome to her. Do you recall a kind of trouble that came upon
her, during that talk in the hollow, when Wilfrid suggested the case of
her being called upon to make some great sacrifice in her father's
behalf? It was an instance of the weakness I speak of; the fact of
Wilfrid's putting forward such a thought had in that moment linked her
to him with precious bonds of sympathy, till she felt as if he had seen
into the most secret places of her heart. She dreaded the force of her
compassionateness. That dog by the roadside; how the anguish of its eyes
had haunted her through the day I It was the revolt of her whole being
against the cruelty inherent in life. That evening she could not read
the book she had in hand; its phrases seemed to fall into triviality.
Yet--she reasoned at a later time--it should not have been so; the
haggard gaze of fate should not daunt one; pity is but an element in the
soul's ideal of order, it should not usurp a barren sovereignty. It is
the miserable contradiction in our lot that the efficiency of the
instincts of beauty-worship waits upon a force of individuality
attainable only by a sacrifice of sensibility. Emily divined this. So it
was that she came to shun the thought of struggle, to seek an abode
apart from turbid conditions of life. She was bard at work building for
her soul its 'lordly pleasure-house,' its Palace of Art. Could she, poor
as she was, dependent, bound by such obvious chains to the gross earth,
hope to abide in her courts and corridors for ever?...
Friday was the day of her arrival at Banbrigg. On the Saturday afternoon
she hoped to enjoy a walk with her father; he would reach home from the
mill shortly after two o'clock, and would then have his dinner. Mrs.
Hood dined at one, and could not bring herself to alter the hour for
Saturday; it was characteristic of her. That there might be no culinary
cares on Sunday morning, she always cooked her joint of meat on the last
day of the week; partaking of it herself at one o'clock, she cut slices
for her husband and kept them warm, with vegetables, in the oven. This
was not selfishness in theory, however much it may have been so in
practice; it merely meant that she was unable to introduce variation
into a mechanical order; and, as her husband never dreamed of
complaining, Mrs. Hood could see in the arrangement no breach of the
fitness of things, even though it meant that poor Hood never sat down to
a freshly cooked meal from one end of the year to the other. To Emily it
was simply a detestable instance of the worst miseries she had to endure
at home. Coming on this first day, it disturbed her much. She knew the
uselessness, the danger, of opposing any traditional habit, but her
appetite at one o'clock was small.
Mrs. Hood did not keep a servant in the house; she engaged a charwoman
once a week, and did all the work at other times herself. This was not
strictly necessary; the expense of such a servant as would have answered
purposes could just have been afforded; again and again Emily had
entreated to be allowed to pay a girl out of her own earnings. Mrs. Hood
steadily refused. No, she had _once_ known what it was to have luxuries
about her (that was naturally before her marriage), but those days were
gone by. She thus entailed upon herself a great deal of labour, at once
repugnant to her tastes and ill-suited to the uncertainty of her health,
but all this was forgotten in the solace of possessing a standing
grievance, one obvious at all moments, to be uttered in a sigh, to be
emphasised by the affectation of cheerfulness. The love which was
Emily's instinct grew chill in the presence of such things.
Saturday was from of old a day of ills. The charwoman was in the house,
and Mrs. Hood went about in a fatigued way, coming now and then to the
sitting-room, sinking into a chair, letting her head fall back with
closed eyes. Emily had, of course, begged to be allowed to give
assistance, but her mother declared that there was nothing whatever she
could do.
'Shut the door,' she said, 'and then you won't hear the scrubbing so
plainly. I can understand that it annoys you; I used to have the same
feeling, but I've accustomed myself. You might play something; it would
keep away your thoughts.'
'But I don't want to keep away my thoughts,' exclaimed Emily, with a
laugh. 'I want to help you so that you will have done the sooner.'
'No, no, my dear; you are not used to it. You'll tell me when you'd like
something to eat if you get faint.'
'I am not likely to grow faint, mother, if I do nothing.'
'Well, well; I have a sinking feeling now and then, I thought you might
be the same.'
Just when his dinner in the oven had had time to grow crusty, Mr. Hood
arrived. He was a rather tall man, of sallow complexion, with greyish
hair. The peculiarly melancholy expression of his face was due to the
excessive drooping of his eyelids under rounded brows; beneath the eyes
were heavy lines; he generally looked like one who has passed through a
night of sleepless grief. He wore a suit of black, which had for several
years been his reserve attire, till it grew too seamy for use on
Sundays. The whole look of the man was saddening; to pass him in the
street as a stranger was to experience a momentary heaviness of heart.
He had very long slender fingers--Emily's matchless hand in a
rudimentary form--and it seemed to be a particular solicitude to keep
them scrupulously clean; he frequently examined them, and appeared to
have a pleasure in handling things in a dainty way--the pages of a
book, for instance. When he smiled it was obviously with effort--a
painful smile, for all that an exceedingly gentle one. In his voice
there was the same gentleness, a self-suppression, as it were; his way
of speaking half explained his want of success in life.
Emily was standing at the window in expectation of his coming. As soon
as he reached the iron gate in front of the house she ran to open the
door for him. He did not quicken his step, even stopped to close the
gate with deliberate care, but if his face could ever be said to light
up, it did so as he bent to the girl's kiss. She took his hat from him,
and went to see that his dinner was made ready.
'How fine it is!' he said in his subdued tone, when he came downstairs
and stood by the table stroking his newly washed hands. 'Shall we have a
walk before tea-time? Mother is too busy, I'm afraid.'
Mrs. Hood came into the room shortly, and seated herself in the usual
way.
'Did you bring the cake?' she asked, when her presence had caused
silence for a few moments.
'The cake?' he repeated in surprise.
'Didn't I ask you to bring a cake? I suppose my memory is going; I meant
to, and thought I mentioned it at breakfast. I shall have nothing for
Emily's tea.'
Emily protested that it was needless to get unusual things on her
account.
'We must do what we can to make you comfortable, my dear. I can't keep a
table like that you are accustomed to, but that I know you don't expect.
Which way are you going to walk this afternoon? If you pass a shop you
might get a cake, or buns, whichever you like.'
'Well, I thought we might have a turn over the Heath,' said Mr. Hood.
'However, we'll see what we can do.'
A thought of some anxious kind appeared suddenly to strike Mrs. Hood;
she leaned forward in her chair, seemed to listen, then started up and
out of the room.
Emily sat where she could not see her father eating; it pained,
exasperated her to be by him whilst he made such a meal. He ate slowly,
with thought of other things; at times his eye wandered to the window,
and he regarded the sky in a brooding manner. He satisfied his hunger
without pleasure, apparently with indifference. Shortly after three
o'clock the two started for their walk. Not many yards beyond the house
the road passed beneath a railway bridge, then over a canal, and at once
entered upon the common. The Heath formed the long side of a slowly
rising hill; at the foot the road divided itself into two branches, and
the dusty tracks climbed at a wide angle with each other. The one which
Emily and her father pursued led up to stone quarries, which had been
for a long time in working, and, skirting these, to the level ground
above them, which was the end of the region of furze and bracken. Here
began a spacious tract of grassy common; around it were houses of
pleasant appearance, one or two meriting the name of mansion. In one of
them dwelt Mr. Richard Dagworthy, the mill-owner, in whose
counting-house James Hood earned his living. He alone represented the
firm of Dagworthy and Son; his father had been dead two years, and more
recently he had become a widower, his wife leaving him one child still
an infant.
At the head of the quarries the two paused to look back upon Dunfield.
The view from this point was extensive, and would have been interesting
but for the existence of the town itself. It was seen to lie in a broad
valley, along which a river flowed; the remoter districts were
pleasantly wooded, and only the murkiness in the far sky told that a yet
larger centre of industry lurked beyond the horizon. Dunfield offered no
prominent features save the chimneys of its factories and its fine
church, the spire of which rose high above surrounding buildings; over
all hung a canopy of foul vapour, heavy, pestiferous. Take in your
fingers a spray from one of the trees even here on the Heath, and its
touch left a soil.
'How I wish you could see the views from the hills in Surrey!' Emily
exclaimed when they had stood in silence. 'I can imagine nothing more
delightful in English scenery. It realises my idea of perfect rural
beauty, as I got it from engravings after the landscape painters. Oh,
you shall go there with me some day.'
Her father smiled and shook his head a little.
'Perhaps,' he said; and added a favourite phrase of his, 'while there is
life there is hope.'
'Of course there is,' rejoined Emily, with gaiety which was unusual in
her. 'No smoke; the hills blue against a lovely sky! trees covered to
the very roots with greenness; rich old English homes and cottages--oh,
you know the kind your ideal of a cottage--low tiled roofs, latticed
windows, moss and lichen and climbing flowers. Farmyards sweet with hay,
and gleaming dairies. That country is my home!'
With how rich a poetry it clothed itself in her remembrance, the land of
milk and honey, indeed, her heart's home. It was all but impossible to
keep the secret of her joy, yet she had resolved to do so, and her
purpose held firm.
'I am very glad indeed that you are so happy there,' sail her father,
looking at her with that quiet absorption in another's mood of which he
was so capable. 'But it will be London through the winter. You haven't
told me much about London; but then you were there so short a time.'
'But I saw much. Mrs. Rossall could not have been kinder; for the first
few days it was almost as if I had been a visitor; I was taken
everywhere.'
'I should like to see London before I die,' mused her father. 'Somehow I
have never managed to get so far.'
'Oh, we will see it together some day.'
'There's one thing,' said Mr. Hood, reflectively, 'that I wish
especially to see, and that is Holborn Viaduct. It must be a wonderful
piece of engineering; I remember thinking it out at the time it was
constructed. Of course you have seen it?'
'I am afraid not. We are very far away from the City. But I will go and
see it on the first opportunity.'
'Do, and send me a full description.'
His thoughts reverted to the views before them.
'After all, this isn't so bad. There's a great advantage in living so
near the Heath. I'm sure the air here is admirable; don't you smell how
fresh it is? And then, one gets fond of the place one's lived in for
years. I believe I should find it hard to leave Dunfield.'
Emily smiled gently.
'I wonder,' he pursued, 'whether you have the kind of feeling that came
to me just then? It struck me that, suppose anything happened that would
enable us to go and live in another place, there would be a sort of
ingratitude, something like a shabby action, in turning one's back on
the old spot. I don't like to feel unkind even to a town.'
The girl glanced at him with meaning eyes. Here was an instance of the
sympathetic relations of which she had spoken to Wilfrid; in these words
was disclosed the origin of the deepest sensibilities of her own nature.
They pursued their walk, across the common and into a tree-shaded lane.
Emily tried to believe that this at length was really the country; there
were no houses in view, meadows lay on either hand, the leafage was
thick. But it was not mere prejudice which saw in every object a
struggle with hard conditions, a degeneration into coarseness, a blight.
The quality of the earth was probably poor to begin with; the herbage
seemed of gross fibre; one would not risk dipping a finger in the stream
which trickled by the roadside, it suggested an impure source. And
behold, what creatures are these coming along the lane, where only
earth-stained rustics should be met? Two colliers, besmutted wretches,
plodding homeward from the 'pit' which is half a mile away. Yes, their
presence was in keeping with the essential character of the scene.
'One might have had a harder life,' mused Mr. Hood aloud, when the
pitmen were gone by.
'I think there's a fallacy in that,' replied Emily. 'Their life is
probably not hard at all. I used to feel that pity, but I have reasoned
myself out of it. They are really happy, for they know nothing of their
own degradation.'
'By the bye,' said her father presently, 'how is young Mr. Athel, the
young fellow who had to come home from college?'
'He is quite well again, I think,' was Emily's reply.
'I suppose, poor fellow, he has a very weak constitution?'
'Oh no, I think not.'
'What is he studying for? Going into the Church?'
Emily laughed; it was a relief to do so.
'Isn't it strange,' she said, 'how we construct an idea of an unknown
person from some circumstance or piece of description? I see exactly
what your picture of Mr. Athel is: a feeble and amiable young man, most
likely with the shocking voice with which curates sometimes read the
lessons--'
She broke off and laughed again.
'Well,' said her father, 'I admit I thought of him a little in that
way--I scarcely know why.'
'You could hardly have been further from the truth. Try to imagine the
intellectual opposite of such a young man, and you--That will be far
more like Mr. Athel.'
'He isn't conceited? My want of experience has an unfortunate tendency
to make me think of young fellows in his position as unbearably vain. It
must be so hard to avoid it.'
'Perhaps it is, if they have the common misfortune to be born without
brains.'
Other subjects engaged their attention.
'When do you take your holiday, father?' Emily asked.
'I think about the middle of this month. It won't be more than a week or
ten days.'
'Don't you think you ought to go to Cleethorpes, if only for a day or
two?'
To suggest any other place of summer retreat would have been too
alarming. Mr. Hood's defect of imagination was illustrated in this
matter; he had been somehow led, years ago, to pay a visit to
Cleethorpes, and since then that one place represented for him the
seaside. Others might be just as accessible and considerably more
delightful, but it did not even occur to him to vary. It would have cost
him discomfort to do so, the apprehension of entering upon the unknown.
The present was the third summer which had passed without his quitting
home. Anxiety troubled his countenance as Emily made the proposal.
'Not this year, I think,' he said, as if desirous of passing the subject
by.
'Father, what possible objection can there be to my bearing the expense
of a week at Cleethorpes? You know how well I can afford it; indeed I
should like to go; it is rather unkind of you to refuse.'
This was an old subject of discussion. Since Emily had lived away from
home, not only her father, but her mother just as strenuously, had
refused to take from her any of the money that she earned. It had been
her habit at first indirectly to overcome this resistance by means of
substantial presents in holiday time; but she found such serious
discomfort occasioned by the practice that most reluctantly she had
abandoned it. For the understanding of the Hoods' attitude in this
matter, it must be realised how deeply their view of life was coloured
by years of incessant preoccupation with pecuniary difficulties. The
hideous conception of existence which regards each individual as
fighting for his own hand, striving for dear life against every other
individual, was ingrained in their minds by the inveterate bitterness of
their own experience; when Emily had become a woman, and was gone forth
to wrest from the adverse world her own subsistence, her right to what
she earned was indefeasible, and affection itself protested against her
being mulcted for their advantage. As for the slight additional expense
of her presence at home during the holidays, she must not be above
paying a visit to her parents; the little inconsistency was amiable
enough. Father and mother both held forth to her in the same tone: 'You
have the battle of life before you; it is a terrible one, and the world
is relentless. Not only is it your right, but your very duty, to spare
every penny you can; for, if anything happened to prevent your earning
money, you would become a burden upon us--a burden we would gladly
strive to bear, but the thought of which would be very hard for
yourself. If, on the other hand, your mother were left a widow, think
how dreadful it would be if you could give her no assistance. You are
wrong in spending one farthing more than your absolute needs require; to
say you do it in kindness to us is a mere mistake of yours.' The logic
was not to be encountered; it was as irresistible as the social
conditions which gave it birth. Emily had abandoned discussion on these
points; such reasoning cost her sickness of heart. In practice she
obeyed her parents' injunctions, for she herself was hitherto only too
well aware of the fate which might come upon her in consequence of the
most trifling mishap; she knew that no soul in the world save her
parents would think it a duty to help her, save in the way of bare
charity. Naturally her old point of view was now changed; it was this
that led her to revive the discussion with her father, and to speak in a
tone which Mr. Hood heard with some surprise.
'Next year, perhaps, Emily,' he said. 'After Surrey, I don't think you
can really need another change. I am delighted to see how well you look.
I, too, am remarkably well, and I can't help thinking your mother gets
stronger. How do you find her looking?'
'Better than usual, I really think. All the same, it is clearly
impossible for you and her to live on year after year without any kind
of change.'
'Oh, my dear, we don't feel it. It's so different with older people; a
change rather upsets us than otherwise. You know how nervous your mother
gets when she is away from home.'
Their walk brought them round again to the top of the Heath. Mr. Hood
looked at his watch, and found that it was time to be moving homewards.
Tea was punctually at five. Mrs. Hood would take it ill if they were
late, especially on Saturday.
As they walked across the smooth part of the upper common, looking at
the houses around, they saw coming towards them a gentleman followed by
three dogs. He was dressed in a light tweed suit, and brandished a
walking-stick, as if animal spirits possessed him strongly.
'Why, here comes Mr. Dagworthy,' remarked Mr. Hood, in a low tone,
though the other was still at a considerable distance. 'He generally
goes off somewhere on Saturday afternoon. What a man he is for dogs! I
believe he keeps twenty or thirty at the house there.'
Emily evinced just a little self-consciousness. It was possible that Mr.
Dagworthy would stop to speak, for she had become, in a measure,
acquainted with him in the preceding spring. She was at home then for a
few weeks before her departure for London, and the Baxendales, who had
always shown her much kindness, invited her to an evening party, at
which Dagworthy was present. He had chatted with her on that occasion.
Yes, he was going to speak. He was a man of five-and-thirty, robust,
rather florid, with eyes which it was not disagreeable to meet, though
they gazed with embarrassing persistency, and a mouth which he would
have done well to leave under the natural shelter of a moustache; it was
at once hard and sensual. The clean-shaving of his face gave his
appearance a youthfulness to which his tone of speech did not
correspond.
'How do you do, Miss Hood? Come once more into our part of the world,
then? You have been in London, I hear.'
It was the tone of a man long accustomed to have his own way in life,
and not overmuch troubled with delicacies of feeling. His address could
not be called disrespectful, but the smile which accompanied it
expressed a sort of good-natured patronage, perhaps inevitable in such a
man when speaking to his clerk's daughter. The presence of the clerk
himself very little concerned him. He kept his eyes steadily on the
girl's face, examining her with complete frankness. His utterance was
that of an educated man, but it had something of the Yorkshire accent, a
broadness which would have distressed the ear in a drawing-room.
Emily replied that she had been in London; it did not seem necessary to
enter into details.
'Pleasant afternoon, isn't it? Makes one want to get away to the moors.
I suppose you will be off somewhere soon with your family, Mr. Hood?'
He would not have employed the formal prefix to his clerk's name but for
Emily's presence; the father knew that, and felt grateful.
'Not this year, I think, sir,' he replied, with perfect cheerfulness.
Of the three dogs that accompanied Dagworthy, one was a handsome collie.
This animal came snuffing at Emily's hand, and involuntarily, glad
perhaps to have a pretence for averting her face, she caressed the silky
ears.
'Fine head, isn't it, Miss Hood?' said Dagworthy at once, causing her to
remove her hand quickly. 'Ay, but I've a finer collie than that. Just
walk in with me, will you?' he added, after a scarcely perceptible
pause. 'I always like to show off my dogs. You're in no hurry, I
suppose? Just come and have a look at the kennels.'
Emily was deeply annoyed, both because such a visit was in itself
distasteful to her, and on account of the irritation which she knew the
delay would cause her mother. She did not for a moment expect her father
to refuse; his position would not allow him to do so. Mr. Hood, in fact,
murmured thanks, after a mere half glance at his daughter, and the three
walked together to Dagworthy's house, the entrance to which was not
fifty yards from where they were standing.
The dwelling was neither large nor handsome, but it stood in a fine
garden and had an air of solid well-being. As soon as they had passed
the gates, they were met by a middle-aged woman carrying a child of two
years old, an infant of wonderfully hearty appearance. At the sight of
its father it chuckled and crowed. Dagworthy took it from the woman's
arms, and began a game which looked not a little dangerous; with
surprising strength and skill, he tossed it up some feet into the air,
caught it as it descended, tossed it up again. The child shrieked with
delight, for all that the swift descent positively stopped its breath,
and made a hiatus in the screaming.
'Theer, that's abaht enough, Mr. Richard,' said the woman, in broad
dialect, when the child had gone up half a dozen times; she was nervous,
and kept holding out her arms involuntarily. 'Ah doan't ovver much fancy
that kind o' laakin. What's more, he's allus reight dahn fratchy after a
turn o' that. See nah, he'll nivver want you to stop. Do a' done nah,
Mr. Richard.'
'Here you are then; take him in, and tell them I want some tea; say I
have friends with me.'
The child was carried away, roaring obstreperously, and Dagworthy,
laughing at the vocal power displayed, led the way round to the back of
the house. Here had been constructed elaborate kennels; several dogs
were pacing in freedom about the clean yard, and many more were chained
up. Much information was imparted to the visitors concerning the more
notable animals; some had taken prizes at shows, others were warranted
to do so, one or two had been purchased at fancy prices. Mr. Hood now
and then put a question, as in duty bound to do; Emily restricted her
speech to the absolutely necessary replies.
Dagworthy conducted them into the house. It appeared to be furnished in
a solid, old-fashioned way, and the ornaments, though few, were such as
might better have been dispensed with. Old Dagworthy had come to live
here some five-and-twenty years previously, having before that occupied
a small house in conjunction with his mill. He had been one of the
'worthies' of Dunfield, and in his time did a good deal of useful work
for the town. Personally, he was anything but amiable, being devoid of
education and refinement, and priding himself on his spirit of
independence, which exhibited itself in mere boorishness. Though
anything but miserly, he had, where his interests were concerned, an
extraordinary cunning and pertinacity; he was universally regarded as
one of the shrewdest men of business in that part of Yorkshire, and
report credited him with any number of remarkable meannesses. It was
popularly said that 'owd Dick Dagworthy' would shrink from no dirty
trick to turn a sixpence, but was as likely as not to give it away as
soon as he had got it. His son had doubtless advanced the character of
the stock, and, putting aside the breeding of dogs, possessed many
tastes of which the old man had no notion; none the less, he was
credited with not a little of his father's spirit in business. In
practical affairs he was shrewd and active; he never--as poor Hood might
have testified--paid a man in his employ a penny more than there was
need, and fell far short of the departed Dagworthy's generosity; to be
at his mercy in a pecuniary transaction was to expect and to receive
none. For all that, there was something in the man which hinted at
qualities beneath the surface; a glance, a tone, now and then, which
seemed on the point of revealing a hidden humanity.
When he chose, he could be courteous; he was so at present, as he
requested Emily and her father to seat themselves in a large homely room
which looked out upon the garden. The woman who had carried the child
reappeared and poured out cups of tea. When she had left the room--
'I must ask you to excuse the roughness of my establishment, Miss Hood,'
he said. 'I have to make shift for the resent with Mrs. Jenkins. She
isn't as refined as she might e, but she's been with us here for more
than twelve years, and I should be sorry to replace her with any other
servant.'
Pieces of bread and butter of somewhat undue solidity were offered.
Emily 'declined anything but the cup of tea. She was very ill at ease,
though she succeeded in suppressing any manifestation of it; Dagworthy
kept his gaze on her constantly.
'Now I know you didn't care very much about the dogs,' he said to her
presently. 'I think I've got something here that will be rather more in
your line.'
He brought from a corner of the room a large portfolio, set it upon a
chair in front of Emily, and exposed its contents. These were a number
of fine photographs of continental cathedrals and churches.
'I bought these when I took my run through France and Germany last
year,' he explained. 'I've something of a turn for architecture, I
believe; at all events, I know I like a fine building, and I like to
find out all I can about it.'
He went through the collection, with remarks which proved that he had
certainly attained a rudimentary knowledge of the subject, and that his
appreciation was often keen when his technical understanding might be at
fault.
'The worst of it is,' he said, at one point, with a modesty which was a
new feature in his conversation, 'I can't pronounce the names properly.
Now, how do you read that, Miss Hood? To be sure; I know it when I hear
it. Have you ever been in France?'
The negative reply came.
'You'd like to see the old-fashioned streets in which some of these
churches stand.'
As soon as it was possible to do so, Emily looked meaningly at her
father, and he, just as anxious to be on his way homeward, rose for
leave-taking. Dagworthy offered no opposition; he went with them to the
gates, and shook hands with both, then stood gazing after them as they
walked across the common.
'Well, I never knew young Dagworthy anything like that before,' said Mr.
Hood, when they were at some distance from the gate. 'I couldn't believe
it when he asked us to go into the house.'
'I'm afraid mother will be very uneasy,' was Emily's reply.
'Yes, my dear, I'm afraid she will; let's walk sharply. But he was
really uncommonly pleasant; I shall think a good deal better of him than
I have done.'
This was the only aspect of the afternoon's adventure which presented
itself to Mr. Hood. Emily was divided between relief at having got away
from that persistent gaze and apprehension of what might meet them on
their arrival at home. The latter feeling was only too well justified.
Mrs. Hood sat in the kitchen, the window darkened. When speech was at
length elicited from her, it appeared that a headache to which she was
subject had come on in its severest form. Emily was at once active with
remedies, not that any of those that she urged were likely to avail
themselves, but because she was well aware that the more solicitude she
showed the sooner her mother would resume her ordinary state. Mrs. Hood
begged to be left to herself; let them have their tea and leave her in
the kitchen, she was best there, out of people's way; it would soon be
bedtime, the evening was practically gone. In the course of half an hour
she was at length prevailed upon to come into the sitting-room, and even
to taste a cup of tea. At first she had paid no attention to the reasons
alleged for the unpunctuality; little by little she began to ask
questions on her own account, petulantly but with growing interest.
Still, the headache was not laid aside, and all spent a very dolorous
evening.
In the relation these things have their humorous side; Emily may be
excused if she was slow to appreciate it. She knew very well that the
crisis meant for her father several days of misery, and perhaps in her
youthful energy she was disposed to make too little allowance for her
mother, whose life had been so full of hardship, and who even now was
suffering from cares and anxieties the worst of which her daughter was
not allowed to perceive. After the girl's early departure to her bedroom
the other two sat talking drearily; after one of her headaches Mrs. Hood
always dwelt in conversation on the most wretched features of her life,
with despairing forecast. Poor woman, there was little of a brighter
kind to occupy her thoughts. Two occasions of grave anxiety were at
present troubling her, and, though he spoke of them less, her husband in
no less a degree. It had just been announced to them that at the ensuing
Christmas their rent would be raised, and at the same time the tenant
who had for years occupied the house which they owned in the town of
Barnhill had given notice of departure. There was a certain
grotesqueness in the fact of James Hood being a proprietor of real
estate. Twice an attempt had been made to sell the house in question,
but no purchaser could be found; the building was in poor repair, was
constantly entailing expense to the landlord, and, in the event of its
becoming unoccupied, would doubtless wait long for another tenant. This
event had come about, or would in a couple of months, and the loss of
that five-and-twenty pounds a year would make the difficulty of
existence yet more desperate. Once more an attempt at sale must be made,
in itself involving outlays which, however petty, could ill be borne;
and to sell, even if it could be done, meant a serious loss of income.
'What did it mean, do you think?' Mrs. Hood asked, recurring to the
subject of Dagworthy and his astonishing behaviour. She put the question
dispiritedly, not venturing to hope for a solution that would help her
to a more cheerful frame of mind.
Hood scarcely dared to utter the words which came into his mind.
'You remember that they met at the Baxendales'--'
'How did Emily behave?' the mother next inquired.
'She was very quiet. I don't think she liked it. We must bear in mind
the kind of society she is used to. Young Dagworthy won't seem of much
account to her, I fancy.'
'But he has had a good education, hasn't he?'
'Pretty good, I suppose. He confessed to us, though, that he couldn't
pronounce French words.'
'It's quite certain,' said Mrs. Hood, 'he wouldn't have invited you in
if you had been alone.'
'Certain enough,' was the reply, in a tone wholly disinterested. 'But it
must have been just a fancy, a whim. Things of that kind don't happen
nowadays.'
'Not to us, at all events,' murmured the other dejectedly.
'Well, there must come what will,' she added, leaning her head back once
more, and losing interest in the subject. 'I hope nothing and expect
nothing.'
Alas, these two sitting together in the dull little room, speaking in
disjointed phrases of despondency, exchanging no look, no word of mutual
kindness, had they not once loved each other, with the love of youth and
hope? Had it not once been enough to sit through long evenings and catch
with eagerness each other's lightest word? Time had robbed them of
youth, and the injustice of the world's order had starved love to less
than a shadow of itself, to a more habit of common suffering. Tender
memories were buried in the grave of children whom the resources of ever
so modest a fortune would have kept alive; the present was a mere
struggle to support existence, choking the impulses of affection. One
would not murmur at the kindly order of life, whereby passion gives
place to gentle habitudes, and the fiery soul of youth tames itself to
comely gravity; but that love and joy, the delights of eager sense and
of hallowed aspiration, should be smothered in the foul dust of a brute
combat for bread, that the stinted energies of early years should change
themselves to the blasted hopes of failing manhood in a world made ill
by human perverseness, this is not easily--it may be, not well--borne
with patience. Put money in thy purse; and again, put money in thy
purse; for, as the world is ordered, to lack current coin is to lack the
privileges of humanity, and indigence is the death of the soul.