The Complete Works (Illustrated Edition). Elizabeth Gaskell
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standing on the flower-beds.
“Maggie! Maggie! Come down and let me in. For your life, don’t make any noise. No one must know.”
Maggie turned sick. Something was wrong, evidently; and she was weak and weary. However, she stole down the old creaking stairs, and undid the heavy bolt, and let her brother in. She felt that his dress was quite wet, and she led him, with cautious steps, into the kitchen, and shut the door, and stirred the fire, before she spoke. He sank into a chair, as if worn out with fatigue. She stood, expecting some explanation. But when she saw he could not speak, she hastened to make him a cup of tea; and, stooping down, took off his wet boots, and helped him off with his coat, and brought her own plaid to wrap round him. All this time her heart sunk lower and lower. He allowed her to do what she liked, as if he were an automaton; his head and his arms hung loosely down, and his eyes were fixed, in a glaring way, on the fire. When she brought him some tea, he spoke for the first time; she could not hear what he said till he repeated it, so husky was his voice.
“Have you no brandy?”
She had the key of the little wine-cellar, and fetched up some. But as she took a tea-spoon to measure if out, he tremblingly clutched at the bottle, and shook down a quantity into the empty tea-cup, and drank it off at one gulp. He fell back again in his chair; but in a few minutes he roused himself, and seemed stronger.
“Edward, dear Edward, what is the matter?” said Maggie, at last; for he got up, and was staggering toward the outer door, as if he were going once more into the rain, and dismal morning-twilight.
He looked at her fiercely as she laid her hand on his arm.
“Confound you! Don’t touch me. I’ll not be kept here, to be caught and hung!”
For an instant she thought he was mad.
“Caught and hung!” she echoed. “My poor Edward! what do you mean?”
He sat down suddenly on a chair, close by him, and covered his face with his hands. When he spoke, his voice was feeble and imploring.
“The police are after me, Maggie! What must I do? Oh! can you hide me? Can you save me?”
He looked wild, like a hunted creature. Maggie stood aghast. He went on:
“My mother! — Nancy! Where are they? I was wet through and starving, and I came here. Don’t let them take me, Maggie, till I’m stronger, and can give battle.”
“Oh! Edward! Edward! What are you saying?” said Maggie, sitting down on the dresser, in absolute, bewildered despair. “What have you done?”
“I hardly know. I’m in a horrid dream. I see you think I’m mad. I wish I were. Won’t Nancy come down soon? You must hide me.”
“Poor Nancy is ill in bed!” said Maggie.
“Thank God,” said he. “There’s one less. But my mother will be up soon, will she not?”
“Not yet,” replied Maggie. “Edward, dear, do try and tell me what you have done. Why should the police be after you?”
“Why, Maggie,” said he with a kind of forced, unnatural laugh, “they say I’ve forged.”
“And have you?” asked Maggie, in a still, low tone of quiet agony.
He did not answer for some time, but sat, looking on the floor with unwinking eyes. At last he said, as if speaking to himself:
“If I have, it’s no more than others have done before, and never been found out. I was but borrowing money. I meant to repay it. If I had asked Mr. Buxton, he would have lent it me.”
“Mr. Buxton!” said Maggie.
“Yes!” answered he, looking sharply and suddenly up at her. “Your future father-inlaw. My father’s old friend. It is he that is hunting me to death! No need to look so white and horror-struck, Maggie! It’s the way of the world, as I might have known, if I had not been a blind fool.”
“Mr. Buxton!” she whispered, faintly.
“Oh, Maggie!” said he, suddenly throwing himself at her feet, “save me! You can do it. Write to Frank, and make him induce his father to let me off. I came to see you, my sweet, merciful sister! I knew you would save me. Good God! What noise is that? There are steps in the yard!”
And before she could speak, he had rushed into the little china closet, which opened out of the parlor, and crouched down in the darkness. It was only the man who brought their morning’s supply of milk from a neighboring farm. But when Maggie opened the kitchen door, she saw how the cold, pale light of a winter’s day had filled the air.
“You’re late with your shutters today, miss,” said the man. “I hope Nancy has not been giving you all a bad night. Says I to Thomas, who came with me to the gate, ‘It’s many a year since I saw them parlor shutters barred up at half-past eight.’”
Maggie went, as soon as he was gone, and opened all the low windows, in order that they might look as usual. She wondered at her own outward composure, while she felt so dead and sick at heart. Her mother would soon get up; must she be told? Edward spoke to her now and then from his hiding-place. He dared not go back into the kitchen, into which the few neighbors they had were apt to come, on their morning’s way to Combehurst, to ask if they could do any errands there for Mrs. Browne or Nancy. Perhaps a quarter of an hour or so had elapsed since the first alarm, when, as Maggie was trying to light the parlor fire, in order that the doctor, when he came, might find all as usual, she heard the click of the garden gate, and a man’s step coming along the walk. She ran up stairs to wash away the traces of the tears which had been streaming down her face as she went about her work, before she opened the door. There, against the watery light of the rainy day without, stood Mr. Buxton. He hardly spoke to her, but pushed past her, and entered the parlor. He sat down, looking as if he did not know what he was doing. Maggie tried to keep down her shivering alarm. It was long since she had seen him; and the old idea of his kind, genial disposition, had been sadly disturbed by what she had heard from Frank, of his severe proceedings against his unworthy tenantry; and now, if he was setting the police in search of Edward, he was indeed to be dreaded; and with Edward so close at hand, within earshot! If the china fell! He would suspect nothing from that; it would only be her own terror. If her mother came down! But, with all these thoughts, she was very still, outwardly, as she sat waiting for him to speak.
“Have you heard from your brother lately?” asked he, looking up in an angry and disturbed manner. “But I’ll answer for it he has not been writing home for some time. He could not, with the guilt he has had on his mind. I’ll not believe in gratitude again. There perhaps was such a thing once; but now-a-days the more you do for a person, the surer they are to turn against you, and cheat you. Now, don’t go white and pale. I know you’re a good girl in the main; and I’ve been lying awake all night, and I’ve a deal to say to you. That scoundrel of a brother of yours!”
Maggie could not ask (as would have been natural, if she had been ignorant) what Edward had done. She knew too well. But Mr. Buxton was too full of his own thoughts and feelings to notice her much.
“Do you know he has been like the rest? Do you know he has been cheating me — forging my name? I don’t know what besides. It’s well for him that they’ve altered the laws, and he can’t be hung for it” (a dead heavy weight was removed from Maggie’s mind), “but Mr. Henry is going to transport him. It’s worse than Crayston. Crayston only ploughed up the turf, and did not pay rent, and sold the timber, thinking I should never miss it. But your brother has gone and forged my name He had received all the purchase-money, while he only gave me half, and said the rest was to come afterward. And the ungrateful scoundrel has gone and given a forged receipt! You might have knocked me down with a straw when Mr. Henry told me about it all last night. ‘Never talk to me of virtue and such humbug again,’ I said, ‘I’ll never believe in them. Every one is for what he can get.’ However, Mr. Henry wrote to the superintendent of police at Woodchester; and has gone over himself this morning to see after it. But to think of your father having such a son!”
“Oh