The Complete Works (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Gaskell
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the table, listening.
“Tell me more,” he said, at every pause.
“I think I have told you all now,” said Maggie, at last. “At least, it is all I recollect at present; but if I think of anything more, I will be sure and tell you.”
“Thank you; do.” He was silent for some time.
“Erminia is coming home at Christmas. She is not to go back to Paris again. She will live with us. I hope you and she will be great friends, Maggie.”
“Oh yes,” replied she. “I think we are already. At least we were last Christmas. You know it is a year since I have seen her.”
“Yes; she went to Switzerland with Mademoiselle Michel, instead of coming home the last time. Maggie, I must go, now. My father will be waiting dinner for me.”
“Dinner! I was going to ask if you would not stay to tea. I hear mamma stirring about in her room. And Nancy is getting things ready, I see. Let me go and tell mamma. She will not be pleased unless she sees you. She has been very sorry for you all,” added she, dropping her voice.
Before he could answer, she ran up stairs.
Mrs. Browne came down.
“Oh, Mr. Frank! Have you been sitting in the dark? Maggie, you ought to have rung for candles! Ah! Mr. Frank, you’ve had a sad loss since I saw you here — let me see — in the last week of September. But she was always a sad invalid; and no doubt your loss is her gain. Poor Mr. Buxton, too! How is he? When one thinks of him, and of her years of illness, it seems like a happy release.”
She could have gone on for any length of time, but Frank could not bear this ruffling up of his soothed grief, and told her that his father was expecting him home to dinner.
“Ah! I am sure you must not disappoint him. He’ll want a little cheerful company more than ever now. You must not let him dwell on it, Mr. Frank, but turn his thoughts another way by always talking of other things. I am sure if I had some one to speak to me in a cheerful, pleasant way, when poor dear Mr. Browne died, I should never have fretted after him as I did; but the children were too young, and there was no one to come and divert me with any news. If I’d been living in Combehurst, I am sure I should not have let my grief get the better of me as I did. Could you get up a quiet rubber in the evenings, do you think?”
But Frank had shaken hands and was gone. As he rode home he thought much of sorrow, and the different ways of bearing it. He decided that it was sent by God for some holy purpose, and to call out into existence some higher good; and he thought that if it were faithfully taken as His decree there would be no passionate, despairing resistance to it; nor yet, if it were trustfully acknowledged to have some wise end, should we dare to baulk it, and defraud it by putting it on one side, and, by seeking the distractions of worldly things, not let it do its full work. And then he returned to his conversation with Maggie. That had been real comfort to him. What an advantage it would be to Erminia to have such a girl for a friend and companion!
It was rather strange that, having this thought, and having been struck, as I said, with Maggie’s appearance while she stood in the door-way (and I may add that this impression of her unobtrusive beauty had been deepened by several succeeding interviews), he should reply as he did to Erminia’s remark, on first seeing Maggie after her return from France.
“How lovely Maggie is growing! Why, I had no idea she would ever turn out pretty. Sweet-looking she always was; but now her style of beauty makes her positively distinguished. Frank! speak! is not she beautiful?”
“Do you think so?” answered he, with a kind of lazy indifference, exceedingly gratifying to his father, who was listening with some eagerness to his answer. That day, after dinner, Mr. Buxton began to ask his opinion of Erminia’s appearance.
Frank answered at once:
“She is a dazzling little creature. Her complexion looks as if it were made of cherries and milk; and, it must be owned, the little lady has studied the art of dress to some purpose in Paris.”
Mr. Buxton was nearer happiness at this reply than he had ever been since his wife’s death; for the only way he could devise to satisfy his reproachful conscience towards his neglected and unhappy sister, was to plan a marriage between his son and her child. He rubbed his hands and drank two extra glasses of wine.
“We’ll have the Brownes to dinner, as usual, next Thursday,” said he, “I am sure your mother would have been hurt if we had omitted it; it is now nine years since they began to come, and they have never missed one Christmas since. Do you see any objection, Frank?”
“None at all, sir,” answered he. “I intend to go up to town soon after Christmas, for a week or ten days, on my way to Cambridge. Can I do anything for you?”
“Well, I don’t know. I think I shall go up myself some day soon. I can’t understand all these lawyer’s letters, about the purchase of the Newbridge estate; and I fancy I could make more sense out of it all, if I saw Mr. Hodgson.”
“I wish you would adopt my plan, of having an agent, sir. Your affairs are really so complicated now, that they would take up the time of an expert man of business. I am sure all those tenants at Dumford ought to be seen after.”
“I do see after them. There’s never a one that dares cheat me, or that would cheat me if they could. Most of them have lived under the Buxtons for generations. They know that if they dared to take advantage of me, I should come down upon them pretty smartly.”
“Do you rely upon their attachment to your family — or on their idea of your severity?”
“On both. They stand me instead of much trouble in account-keeping, and those eternal lawyers’ letters some people are always dispatching to their tenants. When I’m cheated, Frank, I give you leave to make me have an agent, but not till then. There’s my little Erminia singing away, and nobody to hear her.”
Chapter V.
Christmas–Day was strange and sad. Mrs. Buxton had always contrived to be in the drawing-room, ready to receive them all after dinner. Mr. Buxton tried to do away with his thoughts of her by much talking; but every now and then he looked wistfully toward the door. Erminia exerted herself to be as lively as she could, in order, if possible, to fill up the vacuum. Edward, who had come over from Woodchester for a walk, had a good deal to say; and was, unconsciously, a great assistance with his never-ending flow of rather clever small-talk. His mother felt proud of her son, and his new waistcoat, which was far more conspicuously of the latest fashion than Frank’s could be said to be. After dinner, when Mr. Buxton and the two young men were left alone, Edward launched out still more. He thought he was impressing Frank with his knowledge of the world, and the world’s ways. But he was doing all in his power to repel one who had never been much attracted toward him. Worldly success was his standard of merit. The end seemed with him to justify the means; if a man prospered, if was not necessary to scrutinize his conduct too closely. The law was viewed in its lowest aspect; and yet with a certain cleverness, which preserved Edward from being intellectually contemptible. Frank had entertained some idea of studying for a barrister himself: not so much as a means of livelihood as to gain some idea of the code which makes and shows a nation’s conscience: but Edward’s details of the ways in which the letter so often baffles the spirit, made him recoil. With some anger against himself, for viewing the profession with disgust, because it was degraded by those who embraced it, instead of looking upon it as what might be ennobled and purified into a vast intelligence by high and pure-minded men, he got up abruptly and left the room.
The girls were sitting over the drawing-room fire, with unlighted candles on the table, talking, he felt, about his mother; but when he came in they rose, and changed their tone. Erminia went to the piano, and sang her newest and choicest French airs. Frank was gloomy and silent; but when she changed into more solemn music his mood was softened, Maggie’s