The Complete Short Stories of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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in his case as she did in Michael’s, she would have learnt that he was dead and buried more than a month before. It was well, too, that in her weak state of convalescence (which lasted long after this first day of consciousness) her perceptions were not sharp enough to observe the sad change that had taken place in Willie. His bodily strength returned, his appetite was something enormous, but his eyes wandered continually; his regard could not be arrested; his speech became slow, impeded, and incoherent. People began to say that the fever had taken away the little wit Willie Dixon had ever possessed and that they feared that he would end in being a “natural,” as they call an idiot in the Dales.
The habitual affection and obedience to Susan lasted longer than any other feeling that the boy had had previous to his illness; and, perhaps, this made her be the last to perceive what every one else had long anticipated. She felt the awakening rude when it did come. It was in this wise:
One Jane evening, she sat out of doors under the yew tree, knitting. She was pale still from her recent illness; and her languor, joined to the fact of her black dress, made her look more than usually interesting. She was no longer the buoyant self-sufficient Susan, equal to every occasion. The men were bringing in the cows to be milked, and Michael was about in the yard giving orders and directions with somewhat the air of a master, for the farm belonged of right to Willie, and Susan had succeeded to the guardianship of her brother. Michael and she were to be married as soon as she was strong enough – so, perhaps, his authoritative manner was justified; but the labourers did not like it, although they said little. They remembered a stripling on the farm, knowing far less than they did, and often glad to shelter his ignorance of all agricultural matters behind their superior knowledge. They would have taken orders from Susan with far more willingness; nay, Willie himself might have commanded them; and from the old hereditary feeling toward the owners of land, they would have obeyed him with far greater cordiality than they now showed to Michael. But Susan was tired with even three rounds of knitting, and seemed not to notice, or to care, how things went on around her; and Willie – poor Willie! – there he stood lounging against the doorsill, enormously grown and developed, to be sure, but with restless eyes and ever open mouth, and every now and then setting up a strange kind of howling cry, and then smiling vacantly to himself at the sound he had made. As the two old labourers passed him, they looked at each other ominously, and shook their heads.
“Willie, darling,” said Susan, “don’t make that noise – it makes my head ache.”
She spoke feebly, and Willie did not seem to hear; at any rate, he continued his howl from time to time.
“Hold thy noise, wilt ’a?” said Michael, roughly, as he passed near him, and threatening him with his fist. Susan’s back was turned to the pair. The expression of Willie’s face changed from vacancy to fear, and he came shambling up to Susan, who put her arm round him, and, as if protected by that shelter, he began making faces at Michael. Susan saw what was going on, and, as if now first struck by the strangeness of her brother’s manner, she looked anxiously at Michael for an explanation. Michael was irritated at Willie’s defiance of him, and did not mince the matter.
“It’s just that the fever has left him silly – he never was as wise as other folk, and now I doubt if he will ever get right.”
Susan did not speak, but she went very pale, and her lip quivered. She looked long and wistfully at Willie’s face, as he watched the motion of the ducks in the great stable pool. He laughed softly to himself every now and then.
“Willie likes to see the ducks go overhead,” said Susan, instinctively adopting the form of speech she would have used to a young child.
“Willie, boo! Willie, boo!” he replied, clapping his hands, and avoiding her eye.
“Speak properly, Willie,” said Susan, making a strong effort at self-control, and trying to arrest his attention.
“You know who I am – tell me my name!” She grasped his arm almost painfully tight to make him attend. Now he looked at her, and, for an instant, a gleam of recognition quivered over his face; but the exertion was evidently painful, and he began to cry at the vainness of the effort to recall her name. He hid his face upon her shoulder with the old affectionate trick of manner. She put him gently away, and went into the house into her own little bedroom. She locked the door, and did not reply at all to Michael’s calls for her, hardly spoke to old Peggy, who tried to tempt her out to receive some homely sympathy, and through the open easement there still came the idiotic sound of “Willie, boo! Willie, boo!”
Chapter 3
After the stun of the blow came the realisation of the consequences. Susan would sit for hours trying patiently to recall and piece together fragments of recollection and consciousness in her brother’s mind. She would let him go and pursue some senseless bit of play, and wait until she could catch his eye or his attention again, when she would resume her self-imposed task. Michael complained that she never had a word for him, or a minute of time to spend with him now; but she only said she must try, while there was yet a chance, to bring back her brother’s lost wits. As for marriage in this state of uncertainty, she had no heart to think of it. Then Michael stormed, and absented himself for two or three days; but it was of no use. When he came back, he saw that she had been crying till her eyes were all swollen up, and he gathered from Peggy’s scoldings (which she did not spare him) that Susan had eaten nothing since he went away. But she was as inflexible as ever.
“Not just yet. Only not just yet. And don’t say again that I do not love you,” said she, suddenly hiding herself in his arms.
And so matters went on through August. The crop of oats was gathered in; the wheat field was not ready as yet, when one fine day Michael drove up in a borrowed shandry, and offered to take Willie a ride. His manner, when Susan asked him where he was going to, was rather confused; but the answer was straight and clear enough.
He had business in Ambleside. He would never lose sight of the lad, and have him back safe and sound before dark. So Susan let him go.
Before night they were at home again: Willie in high delight at a little rattling paper windmill that Michael had bought for him in the street, and striving to imitate this new sound with perpetual buzzings. Michael, too, looked pleased. Susan knew the look, although afterwards she remembered that he had tried to veil it from her, and had assumed a grave appearance of sorrow whenever he caught her eye. He put up his horse; for, although he had three miles further to go, the moon was up – the bonny harvest moon – and he did not care how late he had to drive on such a road by such a light. After the supper which Susan had prepared for the travellers was over, Peggy went upstairs to see Willie safe in bed; for he had to have the same care taken of him that a little child of four years old requires.
Michael drew near to Susan.
“Susan,” said he, “I took Will to see Dr. Preston, at Kendal. He’s the first doctor in the county. I thought it were better for us – for you – to know at once what chance there were for him.”
“Well!” said Susan, looking eagerly up. She saw the same strange glance of satisfaction, the same instant change to apparent regret and pain. “What did he say?” said she. “Speak! can’t you?”
“He said he would never get better of his weakness.”
“Never!”
“No; never. It’s a long word, and hard to bear. And there’s worse to come, dearest. The doctor thinks he will get badder from year to year. And he said, if he was us – you – he would send him off in time to Lancaster Asylum. They’ve ways there both of keeping such people in order and making them happy. I only tell you what he said,” continued he, seeing the gathering storm in her face.
“There was no harm in his saying it,” she replied, with great self-constraint, forcing herself to speak coldly instead of angrily. “Folk is welcome to their opinions.”
They sat silent for a minute