The Complete Novels of Elizabeth Gaskell. Elizabeth Gaskell
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remember this hour, and how you denied your only brother’s request. May you ask my forgiveness with your dying breath, and may I be there to deny it you.”
“Wait a minute!” said Maggie, springing up, rapidly. “Edward, don’t curse me with such terrible words till all is done. Mother, I implore you to keep him here. Hide him — do what you can to conceal him. I will have one more trial.” She snatched up her bonnet, and was gone, before they had time to think or speak to arrest her.
On she flew along the Combehurst road. As she went, the tears fell like rain down her face, and she talked to herself.
“He should not have said so. No! he should not have said so. We were the only two.” But still she pressed on, over the thick, wet, brown heather. She saw Mr. Buxton coming; and she went still quicker. The rain had cleared off, and a yellow watery gleam of sunshine was struggling out. She stopped or he would have passed her unheeded; little expecting to meet her there.
“I wanted to see you,” said she, all at once resuming her composure, and almost assuming a dignified manner. “You must not go down to our house; we have sorrow enough there. Come under these fir-trees, and let me speak to you.”
“I hope you have thought of what I said, and are willing to do what I asked you.”
“No!” said she. “I have thought and thought. I did not think in a selfish spirit, though they say I did. I prayed first. I could not do that earnestly, and be selfish, I think. I cannot give up Frank. I know the disgrace; and if he, knowing all, thinks fit to give me up, I shall never say a word, but bow my head, and try and live out my appointed days quietly and cheerfully. But he is the judge, not you; nor have I any right to do what you ask me.” She stopped, because the agitation took away her breath.
He began in a cold manner:—“I am very sorry. The law must take its course. I would have saved my son from the pain of all this knowledge, and that which he will of course feel in the necessity of giving up his engagement. I would have refused to appear against your brother, shamefully ungrateful as he has been. Now you cannot wonder that I act according to my agent’s advice, and prosecute your brother as if he were a stranger.”
He turned to go away. He was so cold and determined that for a moment Maggie was timid. But she then laid her hand on his arm.
“Mr. Buxton,” said she, “you will not do what you threaten. I know you better. Think! My father was your old friend. That claim is, perhaps, done away with by Edward’s conduct. But I do not believe you can forget it always. If you did fulfill the menace you uttered just now, there would come times as you grew older, and life grew fainter and fainter before you — quiet times of thought, when you remembered the days of your youth, and the friends you then had and knew; — you would recollect that one of them had left an only son, who had done wrong — who had sinned — sinned against you in his weakness — and you would think then — you could not help it — how you had forgotten mercy in justice — and, as justice required he should be treated as a felon, you threw him among felons — where every glimmering of goodness was darkened for ever. Edward is, after all, more weak than wicked; — but he will become wicked if you put him in prison, and have him transported. God is merciful — we cannot tell or think how merciful. Oh, sir, I am so sure you will be merciful, and give my brother — my poor sinning brother — a chance, that I will tell you all. I will throw myself upon your pity. Edward is even now at home — miserable and desperate; — my mother is too much stunned to understand all our wretchedness — for very wretched we are in our shame.”
As she spoke the wind arose and shivered in the wiry leaves of the fir-trees, and there was a moaning sound as of some Ariel imprisoned in the thick branches that, tangled overhead, made a shelter for them. Either the noise or Mr. Buxton’s fancy called up an echo to Maggie’s voice — a pleading with her pleading — a sad tone of regret, distinct yet blending with her speech, and a falling, dying sound, as her voice died away in miserable suspense.
It might be that, formed as she was by Mrs. Buxton’s care and love, her accents and words were such as that lady, now at rest from all sorrow, would have used; — somehow, at any rate, the thought flashed into Mr. Buxton’s mind, that as Maggie spoke, his dead wife’s voice was heard, imploring mercy in a clear, distinct tone, though faint, as if separated from him by an infinite distance of space. At least, this is the account Mr. Buxton would have given of the manner in which the idea of his wife became present to him, and what she would have wished him to do a powerful motive in his conduct. Words of hers, long ago spoken, and merciful, forgiving expressions made use of in former days to soften him in some angry mood, were clearly remembered while Maggie spoke; and their influence was perceptible in the change of his tone, and the wavering of his manner henceforward.
“And yet you will not save Frank from being involved in your disgrace,” said he; but more as if weighing and deliberating on the case than he had ever spoken before.
“If Frank wishes it, I will quietly withdraw myself out of his sight forever; — I give you my promise, before God, to do so. I shall not utter one word of entreaty or complaint. I will try not to wonder or feel surprise; — I will bless him in every action of his future life — but think how different would be the disgrace he would voluntarily incur to my poor mother’s shame, when she wakens up to know what her child has done! Her very torper about it now is more painful than words can tell.”
“What could Edward do?” asked Mr. Buxton. “Mr. Henry won’t hear of my passing over any frauds.”
“Oh, you relent!” said Maggie, taking his hand, and pressing it. “What could he do? He could do the same, whatever it was, as you thought of his doing, if I had written that terrible letter.”
“And you’ll be willing to give it up, if Frank wishes, when he knows all?” asked Mr. Buxton.
She crossed her hands and drooped her head, but answered steadily.
“Whatever Frank wishes, when he knows all, I will gladly do. I will speak the truth. I do not believe that any shame surrounding me, and not in me, will alter Frank’s love one title.”
“We shall see,” said Mr. Buxton. “But what I thought of Edward’s doing, in case — Well never mind! (seeing how she shrunk back from all mention of the letter he had asked her to write,)— was to go to America, out of the way. Then Mr. Henry would think he had escaped, and need never be told of my coenivance. I think he would throw up the agency, if he were; and he’s a very clever man. If Ned is in England, Mr. Henry will ferret him out. And, besides, this affair is so blown, I don’t think he could return to his profession. What do you say to this, Maggie?”
“I will tell my mother. I must ask her. To me it seems most desirable. Only, I fear he is very ill; and it seems lonely; but never mind! We ought to be thankful to you forever. I cannot tell you how I hope and trust he will live to show you what your goodness has made him.”
“But you must lose no time. If Mr. Henry traces him; I can’t answer for myself. I shall have no good reason to give, as I should have had, if I could have told him that Frank and you were to be as strangers to each other. And even then I should have been afraid, he is such a determined fellow; but uncommonly clever. Stay!” said he, yielding to a sudden and inexplicable desire to see Edward, and discover if his criminality had in any way changed his outward appearance. “I’ll go with you. I can hasten things. If Edward goes, he must be off, as soon as possible, to Liverpool, and leave no trace. The next packet sails the day after tomorrow. I noted it down from the Times.”
Maggie and he sped along the road. He spoke his thoughts aloud:
“I wonder if he will be grateful to me for this. Not that I ever mean to look for gratitude again. I mean to try, not to care for anybody but Frank. ‘Govern men by outward force,’ says Mr. Henry. He is an uncommonly clever man, and he says, the longer he lives, the more he is convinced of the badness of men. He always looks for it now, even in those who are the best, apparently.”
Maggie was too anxious to answer, or even to attend to him. At the top of the slope she asked him to wait while she ran down and told the result of her conversation with him.