The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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was a more spirited and amusing companion to him than his mother had been, from her greater activity, and perhaps, also, from her originality of character, which often prompted her to perform her habitual actions in some new and racy manner. She was tender to lile Will when she was prompt and sharp with everybody else – with Michael most of all; for somehow the girl felt that, unprotected by her mother, she must keep up her own dignity, and not allow her lover to see how strong a hold he had upon her heart. He called her hard and cruel, and left her so; and she smiled softly to herself, when his back was turned, to think how little he guessed how deeply he was loved. For Susan was merely comely and fine looking; Michael was strikingly handsome, admired by all the girls for miles round, and quite enough of a country coxcomb to know it and plume himself accordingly. He was the second son of his father; the eldest would have High Beck farm, of course, but there was a good penny in the Kendal bank in store for Michael. When harvest was over, he went to Chapel Langdale to learn to dance; and at night, in his merry moods, he would do his steps on the flag floor of the Yew Nook kitchen, to the secret admiration of Susan, who had never learned dancing, but who flouted him perpetually, even while she admired, in accordance with the rule she seemed to have made for herself about keeping him at a distance so long as he lived under the same roof with her. One evening he sulked at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney corner with his arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily gazing into the wood fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard day’s labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low window seat, trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal light to enable her to finish stitching a shirt collar for Will, who lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the hearth to Michael, poking the burning wood from time to time with a long hazel stick to bring out the leap of glittering sparks.
“And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?” asked Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting his proficiency. “Does it help you plough, reap, or even climb the rocks to take a raven’s nest? If I were a man, I’d be ashamed to give in to such softness.”
“If you were a man, you’d be glad to do anything which made the pretty girls stand round and admire.”
“As they do to you, eh! Ho, Michael, that would not be my way o’ being a man!”
“What would then?” asked he, after a pause, during which he had expected in vain that she would go on with her sentence. No answer.
“I should not like you as a man, Susy; you’d be too hard and headstrong.”
“Am I hard and headstrong?” asked she, with as indifferent a tone as she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His quick ear detected the inflexion.
“No, Susy! You’re wilful at times, and that’s right enough. I don’t like a girl without spirit. There’s a mighty pretty girl comes to the dancing class; but she is all milk and water. Her eyes never flash like yours when you’re put out; why, I can see them flame across the kitchen like a cat’s in the dark. Now, if you were a man, I should feel queer before those looks of yours; as it is, I rather like them, because –”
“Because what?” asked she, looking up and perceiving that he had stolen close up to her.
“Because I can make all right in this way,” said he, kissing her suddenly.
“Can you?” said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp and panting, half with rage. “Take that, by way of proof that making right is none so easy.” And she boxed his ears pretty sharply. He went back to his seat discomfited and out of temper. She could no longer see to look, even if her face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled, but she did not choose to move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping attitude and pretended to go on sewing.
“Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-water,” muttered he, “but – Confound thee, lad! what art thou doing?” exclaimed Michael, as a great piece of burning wood was cast into his face by an unlucky poke of Will’s. “Thou great lounging, clumsy chap, I’ll teach thee better!” and with one or two good round kicks he sent the lad whimpering away into the back kitchen. When he had a little recovered himself from his passion, he saw Susan standing before him, her face looking strange and almost ghastly by the reversed position of the shadows, arising from the firelight shining upwards right under it.
“I tell thee what, Michael,” said she, “that lad’s motherless, but not friendless.”
“His own father leathers him, and why should not I, when he’s given me such a burn on my face?” said Michael, putting up his hand to his cheek as if in pain.
“His father’s his father, and there is nought more to be said. But if he did burn thee, it was by accident, and not o’ purpose; as thou kicked him, it’s a mercy if his ribs are not broken.”
“He howls loud enough, I’m sure. I might ha’ kicked many a lad twice as hard, and they’d ne’er ha’ said ought but ’damn ye;’ but yon lad must needs cry out like a stuck pig if one touches him;” replied Michael, sullenly.
Susan went back to the window seat, and looked absently out of the window at the drifting clouds for a minute or two, while her eyes filled with tears. Then she got up and made for the outer door which led into the back kitchen. Before she reached it, however, she heard a low voice, whose music made her thrill, say –
“Susan, Susan!”
Her heart melted within her, but it seemed like treachery to her poor boy, like faithlessness to her dead mother, to turn to her lover while the tears which he had caused to flow were yet unwiped on Will’s cheeks. So she seemed to take no heed, but passed into the darkness, and, guided by the sobs, she found her way to where Willie sat crouched among the disused tubs and churns.
“Come out wi’ me, lad;” and they went out into the orchard, where the fruit trees were bare of leaves, but ghastly in their tattered covering of grey moss: and the soughing November wind came with long sweeps over the fells till it rattled among the crackling boughs, underneath which the brother and sister sat in the dark; he in her lap, and she hushing his head against her shoulder.
“Thou should’st na’ play wi’ fire. It’s a naughty trick. Thoul’t suffer for it in worse ways nor this before thou’st done, I’m afeared. I should ha’ hit thee twice as lungeous kicks as Mike, if I’d been in his place. He did na’ hurt thee, I am sure,” she assumed, half as a question.
“Yes but he did. He turned me quite sick.” And he let his head fall languidly down on his sister’s breast.
“Come, lad! come, lad!” said she anxiously. “Be a man. It was not much that I saw. Why, when first the red cow came she kicked me far harder for offering to milk her before her legs were tied. See thee! here’s a peppermint drop, and I’ll make thee a pasty tonight; only don’t give way so, for it hurts me sore to think that Michael has done thee any harm, my pretty.”
Willie roused himself up, and put back the wet and ruffled hair from his heated face; and he and Susan rose up, and hand in hand went towards the house, walking slowly and quietly except for a kind of sob which Willie could not repress. Susan took him to the pump and washed his tear-stained face, till she thought she had obliterated all traces of the recent disturbance, arranging his curls for him, and then she kissed him tenderly, and led him in, hoping to find Michael in the kitchen, and make all straight between them. But the blaze had dropped down into darkness; the wood was a heap of grey ashes in which the sparks ran hither and thither; but even in the groping darkness Susan knew by the sinking at her heart that Michael was not there. She threw another brand on the hearth and lighted the candle, and sat down to her work in silence. Willie cowered on his stool by the side of the fire, eyeing his sister from time to time, and sorry and oppressed, he knew not why, by the sight of her grave, almost stern face. No one came. They two were in the house alone. The old woman who helped Susan with the household work had gone out for the night to some friend’s dwelling. William Dixon, the father, was up on the fells seeing after his sheep. Susan had no heart to prepare the evening meal.
“Susy, darling, are you angry with me?” said Willie, in his little piping, gentle voice.