The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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went in search of the boy. She sought in byre and barn, through the orchard, where indeed in this leafless wintertime there was no great concealment; up into the room where the wool was usually stored in the later summer, and at last she found him, sitting at bay, like some hunted creature, up behind the wood stack.
“What are ye gone for, lad, and me seeking you everywhere?” asked she, breathless.
“I did not know you would seek me. I’ve been away many a time, and no one has cared to seek me,” said he, crying afresh.
“Nonsense,” replied Susan, “don’t be so foolish, ye little good-for-nought.” But she crept up to him in the hole he had made underneath the great, brown sheafs of wood, and squeezed herself down by him. “What for should folk seek after you, when you get away from them whenever you can?” asked she.
“They don’t want me to stay. Nobody wants me. If I go with father, he says I hinder more than I help. You used to like to have me with you. But now, you’ve taken up with Michael, and you’d rather I was away; and I can just bide away; but I cannot stand Michael jeering at me. He’s got you to love him and that might serve him.”
“But I love you, too, dearly, lad!” said she, putting her arm round his neck.
“Which on us do you like best?” said he, wistfully, after a little pause, putting her arm away, so that he might look in her face, and see if she spoke truth.
She went very red.
“You should not ask such questions. They are not fit for you to ask, nor for me to answer.”
“But mother bade you love me!” said he, plaintively.
“And so I do. And so I ever will do. Lover nor husband shall come betwixt thee and me, lad – ne’er a one of them. That I promise thee (as I promised mother before), in the sight of God and with her hearkening now, if ever she can hearken to earthly word again. Only I cannot abide to have thee fretting, just because my heart is large enough for two.”
“And thou’lt love me always?”
“Always, and ever. And the more – the more thou’lt love Michael,” said she, dropping her voice.
“I’ll try,” said the boy, sighing, for he remembered many a harsh word and blow of which his sister knew nothing. She would have risen up to go away, but he held her tight, for here and now she was all his own, and he did not know when such a time might come again. So the two sat crouched up and silent, till they heard the horn blowing at the field gate, which was the summons home to any wanderers belonging to the farm, and at this hour of the evening, signified that supper was ready. Then the two went in.
Chapter 2
Susan and Michael were to be married in April. He had already gone to take possession of his new farm, three or four miles away from Yew Nook – but that is neighbouring, according to the acceptation of the word in that thinly populated district, – when William Dixon fell ill. He came home one evening, complaining of headache and pains in his limbs, but seemed to loathe the posset which Susan prepared for him; the treacle posset which was the homely country remedy against an incipient cold. He took to his bed with a sensation of exceeding weariness, and an odd, unusual looking back to the days of his youth, when he was a lad living with his parents, in this very house.
The next morning he had forgotten all his life since then, and did not know his own children; crying, like a newly weaned baby, for his mother to come and soothe away his terrible pain. The doctor from Coniston said it was the typhus fever, and warned Susan of its infectious character, and shook his head over his patient. There were no near friends to come and share her anxiety; only good, kind old Peggy, who was faithfulness itself, and one or two labourers’ wives, who would fain have helped her, had not their hands been tied by their responsibility to their own families. But, somehow, Susan neither feared nor flagged. As for fear, indeed, she had no time to give way to it, for every energy of both body and mind was required. Besides, the young have had too little experience of the danger of infection to dread it much. She did indeed wish, from time to time, that Michael had been at home to have taken Willie over to his father’s at High Beck; but then, again, the lad was docile and useful to her, and his fecklessness in many things might make him harshly treated by strangers; so, perhaps, it was as well that Michael was away at Appleby fair, or even beyond that – gone into Yorkshire after horses.
Her father grew worse; and the doctor insisted on sending over a nurse from Coniston. Not a professed nurse – Coniston could not have supported such a one; but a widow who was ready to go where the doctor sent her for the sake of the payment. When she came, Susan suddenly gave way; she was felled by the fever herself, and lay unconscious for long weeks. Her consciousness returned to her one spring afternoon; early spring: April, – her wedding month. There was a little fire burning in the small corner grate, and the flickering of the blaze was enough for her to notice in her weak state. She felt that there was some one sitting on the window side of her bed, behind the curtain, but she did not care to know who it was; it was even too great a trouble for her languid mind to consider who it was likely to be. She would rather shut her eyes, and melt off again into the gentle luxury of sleep. The next time she wakened, the Coniston nurse perceived her movement, and made her a cup of tea, which she drank with eager relish; but still they did not speak, and once more Susan lay motionless – not asleep, but strangely, pleasantly conscious of all the small chamber and household sounds; the fall of a cinder on the hearth, the fitful singing of the half-empty kettle, the cattle tramping out to field again after they had been milked, the aged step on the creaking stair – old Peggy’s, as she knew. It came to her door; it stopped; the person outside listened for a moment, and then lifted the wooden latch, and looked in. The watcher by the bedside arose, and went to her. Susan would have been glad to see Peggy’s face once more, but was far too weak to turn, so she lay and listened.
“How is she?” whispered one trembling, aged voice.
“Better,” replied the other. “She’s been awake, and had a cup of tea. She’ll do now.”
“Has she asked after him?”
“Hush! No; she has not spoken a word.”
“Poor lass! poor lass!”
The door was shut. A weak feeling of sorrow and self-pity came over Susan. What was wrong? Whom had she loved? And dawning, dawning, slowly rose the sun of her former life, and all particulars were made distinct to her. She felt that some sorrow was coming to her, and cried over it before she knew what it was, or had strength enough to ask. In the dead of night, – and she had never slept again, – she softly called to the watcher, and asked –
“Who?”
“Who what?” replied the woman, with a conscious affright, ill veiled by a poor assumption of ease. “Lie still, there’s a darling, and go to sleep. Sleep’s better for you than all the doctor’s stuff.”
“Who?” repeated Susan. “Something is wrong. Who?”
“Oh, dear!” said the woman. “There’s nothing wrong. Willie has taken the turn, and is doing nicely.”
“Father?”
“Well! he’s all right now,” she answered, looking another way, as if seeking for something.
“Then it’s Michael! Oh, me! oh, me!” She set up a succession of weak, plaintive, hysterical cries before the nurse could pacify her, by declaring that Michael had been at the house not three hours before to ask after her, and looked as well and as hearty as ever man did.
“And you heard of no harm to him since?” inquired Susan.
“Bless the lass, no, for sure! I’ve ne’er heard his name named since I saw him go out of the yard as stout a man as ever trod shoe leather.”
It was well, as the nurse said afterwards