Books: Half a Life Time Ago
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Elizabeth Gaskell >> Half a Life Time Ago
*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*
This etext was prepared by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
from the 1896 "Lizzie Leigh and Other Tales" Macmillan and Co. edition.
HALF A LIFE-TIME AGO.
by Elizabeth Gaskell
CHAPTER I.
Half a life-time ago, there lived in one of the Westmoreland dales a
single woman, of the name of Susan Dixon. She was owner of the small
farm-house where she resided, and of some thirty or forty acres of
land by which it was surrounded. She had also an hereditary right to
a sheep-walk, extending to the wild fells that overhang Blea Tarn.
In the language of the country she was a Stateswoman. Her house is
yet to be seen on the Oxenfell road, between Skelwith and Coniston.
You go along a moorland track, made by the carts that occasionally
came for turf from the Oxenfell. A brook babbles and brattles by the
wayside, giving you a sense of companionship, which relieves the deep
solitude in which this way is usually traversed. Some miles on this
side of Coniston there is a farmstead--a gray stone house, and a
square of farm-buildings surrounding a green space of rough turf, in
the midst of which stands a mighty, funereal umbrageous yew, making a
solemn shadow, as of death, in the very heart and centre of the light
and heat of the brightest summer day. On the side away from the
house, this yard slopes down to a dark-brown pool, which is supplied
with fresh water from the overflowings of a stone cistern, into which
some rivulet of the brook before-mentioned continually and
melodiously falls bubbling. The cattle drink out of this cistern.
The household bring their pitchers and fill them with drinking-water
by a dilatory, yet pretty, process. The water-carrier brings with
her a leaf of the hound's-tongue fern, and, inserting it in the
crevice of the gray rock, makes a cool, green spout for the sparkling
stream.
The house is no specimen, at the present day, of what it was in the
lifetime of Susan Dixon. Then, every small diamond pane in the
windows glittered with cleanliness. You might have eaten off the
floor; you could see yourself in the pewter plates and the polished
oaken awmry, or dresser, of the state kitchen into which you entered.
Few strangers penetrated further than this room. Once or twice,
wandering tourists, attracted by the lonely picturesqueness of the
situation, and the exquisite cleanliness of the house itself, made
their way into this house-place, and offered money enough (as they
thought) to tempt the hostess to receive them as lodgers. They would
give no trouble, they said; they would be out rambling or sketching
all day long; would be perfectly content with a share of the food
which she provided for herself; or would procure what they required
from the Waterhead Inn at Coniston. But no liberal sum--no fair
words--moved her from her stony manner, or her monotonous tone of
indifferent refusal. No persuasion could induce her to show any more
of the house than that first room; no appearance of fatigue procured
for the weary an invitation to sit down and rest; and if one more
bold and less delicate did so without being asked, Susan stood by,
cold and apparently deaf, or only replying by the briefest
monosyllables, till the unwelcome visitor had departed. Yet those
with whom she had dealings, in the way of selling her cattle or her
farm produce, spoke of her as keen after a bargain--a hard one to
have to do with; and she never spared herself exertion or fatigue, at
market or in the field, to make the most of her produce. She led the
hay-makers with her swift, steady rake, and her noiseless evenness of
motion. She was about among the earliest in the market, examining
samples of oats, pricing them, and then turning with grim
satisfaction to her own cleaner corn.
She was served faithfully and long by those who were rather her
fellow-labourers than her servants. She was even and just in her
dealings with them. If she was peculiar and silent, they knew her,
and knew that she might be relied on. Some of them had known her
from her childhood; and deep in their hearts was an unspoken--almost
unconscious--pity for her, for they knew her story, though they never
spoke of it.
Yes; the time had been when that tall, gaunt, hard-featured, angular
woman--who never smiled, and hardly ever spoke an unnecessary word--
had been a fine-looking girl, bright-spirited and rosy; and when the
hearth at the Yew Nook had been as bright as she, with family love
and youthful hope and mirth. Fifty or fifty-one years ago, William
Dixon and his wife Margaret were alive; and Susan, their daughter,
was about eighteen years old--ten years older than the only other
child, a boy named after his father. William and Margaret Dixon were
rather superior people, of a character belonging--as far as I have
seen--exclusively to the class of Westmoreland and Cumberland
statesmen--just, independent, upright; not given to much speaking;
kind-hearted, but not demonstrative; disliking change, and new ways,
and new people; sensible and shrewd; each household self-contained,
and its members having little curiosity as to their neighbours, with
whom they rarely met for any social intercourse, save at the stated
times of sheep-shearing and Christmas; having a certain kind of sober
pleasure in amassing money, which occasionally made them miserable
(as they call miserly people up in the north) in their old age;
reading no light or ephemeral literature, but the grave, solid books
brought round by the pedlars (such as the "Paradise Lost" and
"Regained,'" "The Death of Abel," "The Spiritual Quixote," and "The
Pilgrim's Progress"), were to be found in nearly every house: the
men occasionally going off laking, i.e. playing, i.e. drinking for
days together, and having to be hunted up by anxious wives, who dared
not leave their husbands to the chances of the wild precipitous
roads, but walked miles and miles, lantern in hand, in the dead of
night, to discover and guide the solemnly-drunken husband home; who
had a dreadful headache the next day, and the day after that came
forth as grave, and sober, and virtuous looking as if there were no
such thing as malt and spirituous liquors in the world; and who were
seldom reminded of their misdoings by their wives, to whom such
occasional outbreaks were as things of course, when once the
immediate anxiety produced by them was over. Such were--such are--
the characteristics of a class now passing away from the face of the
land, as their compeers, the yeomen, have done before them. Of such
was William Dixon. He was a shrewd clever farmer, in his day and
generation, when shrewdness was rather shown in the breeding and
rearing of sheep and cattle than in the cultivation of land. Owing
to this character of his, statesmen from a distance from beyond
Kendal, or from Borrowdale, of greater wealth than he, would send
their sons to be farm-servants for a year or two with him, in order
to learn some of his methods before setting up on land of their own.
When Susan, his daughter, was about seventeen, one Michael Hurst was
farm-servant at Yew Nook. He worked with the master, and lived with
the family, and was in all respects treated as an equal, except in
the field. His father was a wealthy statesman at Wythburne, up
beyond Grasmere; and through Michael's servitude the families had
become acquainted, and the Dixons went over to the High Beck sheep-
shearing, and the Hursts came down by Red Bank and Loughrig Tarn and
across the Oxenfell when there was the Christmas-tide feasting at Yew
Nook. The fathers strolled round the fields together, examined
cattle and sheep, and looked knowing over each other's horses. The
mothers inspected the dairies and household arrangements, each openly
admiring the plans of the other, but secretly preferring their own.
Both fathers and mothers cast a glance from time to time at Michael
and Susan, who were thinking of nothing less than farm or dairy, but
whose unspoken attachment was, in all ways, so suitable and natural a
thing that each parent rejoiced over it, although with characteristic
reserve it was never spoken about--not even between husband and wife.
Susan had been a strong, independent, healthy girl; a clever help to
her mother, and a spirited companion to her father; more of a man in
her (as he often said) than her delicate little brother ever would
have. He was his mother's darling, although she loved Susan well.
There was no positive engagement between Michael and Susan--I doubt
whether even plain words of love had been spoken; when one winter-
time Margaret Dixon was seized with inflammation consequent upon a
neglected cold. She had always been strong and notable, and had been
too busy to attend to the early symptoms of illness. It would go
off, she said to the woman who helped in the kitchen; or if she did
not feel better when they had got the hams and bacon out of hand, she
would take some herb-tea and nurse up a bit. But Death could not
wait till the hams and bacon were cured: he came on with rapid
strides, and shooting arrows of portentous agony. Susan had never
seen illness--never knew how much she loved her mother till now, when
she felt a dreadful, instinctive certainty that she was losing her.
Her mind was thronged with recollections of the many times she had
slighted her mother's wishes; her heart was full of the echoes of
careless and angry replies that she had spoken. What would she not
now give to have opportunities of service and obedience, and trials
of her patience and love, for that dear mother who lay gasping in
torture! And yet Susan had been a good girl and an affectionate
daughter.
The sharp pain went off, and delicious ease came on; yet still her
mother sunk. In the midst of this languid peace she was dying. She
motioned Susan to her bedside, for she could only whisper; and then,
while the father was out of the room, she spoke as much to the eager,
hungering eyes of her daughter by the motion of her lips, as by the
slow, feeble sounds of her voice.
"Susan, lass, thou must not fret. It is God's will, and thou wilt
have a deal to do. Keep father straight if thou canst; and if he
goes out Ulverstone ways, see that thou meet him before he gets to
the Old Quarry. It's a dree bit for a man who has had a drop. As
for lile Will"--Here the poor woman's face began to work and her
fingers to move nervously as they lay on the bed-quilt--"lile Will
will miss me most of all. Father's often vexed with him because he's
not a quick strong lad; he is not, my poor lile chap. And father
thinks he's saucy, because he cannot always stomach oat-cake and
porridge. There's better than three pound in th' old black tea-pot
on the top shelf of the cupboard. Just keep a piece of loaf-bread by
you, Susan dear, for Will to come to when he's not taken his
breakfast. I have, may be, spoilt him; but there'll be no one to
spoil him now."
She began to cry a low, feeble cry, and covered up her face that
Susan might not see her. That dear face! those precious moments
while yet the eyes could look out with love and intelligence. Susan
laid her head down close by her mother's ear.
"Mother I'll take tent of Will. Mother, do you hear? He shall not
want ought I can give or get for him, least of all the kind words
which you had ever ready for us both. Bless you! bless you! my own
mother."
"Thou'lt promise me that, Susan, wilt thou? I can die easy if
thou'lt take charge of him. But he's hardly like other folk; he
tries father at times, though I think father'll be tender of him when
I'm gone, for my sake. And, Susan, there's one thing more. I never
spoke on it for fear of the bairn being called a tell-tale, but I
just comforted him up. He vexes Michael at times, and Michael has
struck him before now. I did not want to make a stir; but he's not
strong, and a word from thee, Susan, will go a long way with
Michael."
Susan was as red now as she had been pale before; it was the first
time that her influence over Michael had been openly acknowledged by
a third person, and a flash of joy came athwart the solemn sadness of
the moment. Her mother had spoken too much, and now came on the
miserable faintness. She never spoke again coherently; but when her
children and her husband stood by her bedside, she took lile Will's
hand and put it into Susan's, and looked at her with imploring eyes.
Susan clasped her arms round Will, and leaned her head upon his
little curly one, and vowed within herself to be as a mother to him.
Henceforward she was all in all to her brother. She was a more
spirited and amusing companion to him than his mother had been, from
her greater activity, and perhaps, also, from her originality of
character, which often prompted her to perform her habitual actions
in some new and racy manner. She was tender to lile Will when she
was prompt and sharp with everybody else--with Michael most of all;
for somehow the girl felt that, unprotected by her mother, she must
keep up her own dignity, and not allow her lover to see how strong a
hold he had upon her heart. He called her hard and cruel, and left
her so; and she smiled softly to herself, when his back was turned,
to think how little he guessed how deeply he was loved. For Susan
was merely comely and fine looking; Michael was strikingly handsome,
admired by all the girls for miles round, and quite enough of a
country coxcomb to know it and plume himself accordingly. He was the
second son of his father; the eldest would have High Beck farm, of
course, but there was a good penny in the Kendal bank in store for
Michael. When harvest was over, he went to Chapel Langdale to learn
to dance; and at night, in his merry moods, he would do his steps on
the flag floor of the Yew Nook kitchen, to the secret admiration of
Susan, who had never learned dancing, but who flouted him
perpetually, even while she admired, in accordance with the rule she
seemed to have made for herself about keeping him at a distance so
long as he lived under the same roof with her. One evening he sulked
at some saucy remark of hers; he sitting in the chimney corner with
his arms on his knees, and his head bent forwards, lazily gazing into
the wood-fire on the hearth, and luxuriating in rest after a hard
day's labour; she sitting among the geraniums on the long, low
window-seat, trying to catch the last slanting rays of the autumnal
light to enable her to finish stitching a shirt-collar for Will, who
lounged full length on the flags at the other side of the hearth to
Michael, poking the burning wood from time to time with a long hazel-
stick to bring out the leap of glittering sparks.
"And if you can dance a threesome reel, what good does it do ye?"
asked Susan, looking askance at Michael, who had just been vaunting
his proficiency. "Does it help you plough, reap, or even climb the
rocks to take a raven's nest? If I were a man, I'd be ashamed to
give in to such softness."
"If you were a man, you'd be glad to do anything which made the
pretty girls stand round and admire."
"As they do to you, eh! Ho, Michael, that would not be my way o'
being a man!"
"What would then?" asked he, after a pause, during which he had
expected in vain that she would go on with her sentence. No answer.
"I should not like you as a man, Susy; you'd be too hard and
headstrong."
"Am I hard and headstrong?" asked she, with as indifferent a tone as
she could assume, but which yet had a touch of pique in it. His
quick ear detected the inflexion.
"No, Susy! You're wilful at times, and that's right enough. I don't
like a girl without spirit. There's a mighty pretty girl comes to
the dancing class; but she is all milk and water. Her eyes never
flash like yours when you're put out; why, I can see them flame
across the kitchen like a cat's in the dark. Now, if you were a man,
I should feel queer before those looks of yours; as it is, I rather
like them, because--"
"Because what?" asked she, looking up and perceiving that he had
stolen close up to her.
"Because I can make all right in this way," said he, kissing her
suddenly.
"Can you?" said she, wrenching herself out of his grasp and panting,
half with rage. "Take that, by way of proof that making right is
none so easy." And she boxed his ears pretty sharply. He went back
to his seat discomfited and out of temper. She could no longer see
to look, even if her face had not burnt and her eyes dazzled, but she
did not choose to move her seat, so she still preserved her stooping
attitude and pretended to go on sewing.
"Eleanor Hebthwaite may be milk-and-water," muttered he, "but--
Confound thee, lad! what art thou doing?" exclaimed Michael, as a
great piece of burning wood was cast into his face by an unlucky poke
of Will's. "Thou great lounging, clumsy chap, I'll teach thee
better!" and with one or two good round kicks he sent the lad
whimpering away into the back-kitchen. When he had a little
recovered himself from his passion, he saw Susan standing before him,
her face looking strange and almost ghastly by the reversed position
of the shadows, arising from the firelight shining upwards right
under it.
"I tell thee what, Michael," said she, "that lad's motherless, but
not friendless."
"His own father leathers him, and why should not I, when he's given
me such a burn on my face?" said Michael, putting up his hand to his
cheek as if in pain.
"His father's his father, and there is nought more to be said. But
if he did burn thee, it was by accident, and not o' purpose; as thou
kicked him, it's a mercy if his ribs are not broken."
"He howls loud enough, I'm sure. I might ha' kicked many a lad twice
as hard, and they'd ne'er ha' said ought but 'damn ye;' but yon lad
must needs cry out like a stuck pig if one touches him;" replied
Michael, sullenly.
Susan went back to the window-seat, and looked absently out of the
window at the drifting clouds for a minute or two, while her eyes
filled with tears. Then she got up and made for the outer door which
led into the back-kitchen. Before she reached it, however, she heard
a low voice, whose music made her thrill, say -
"Susan, Susan!"
Her heart melted within her, but it seemed like treachery to her poor
boy, like faithlessness to her dead mother, to turn to her lover
while the tears which he had caused to flow were yet unwiped on
Will's cheeks. So she seemed to take no heed, but passed into the
darkness, and, guided by the sobs, she found her way to where Willie
sat crouched among the disused tubs and churns.
"Come out wi' me, lad;" and they went out into the orchard, where the
fruit-trees were bare of leaves, but ghastly in their tattered
covering of gray moss: and the soughing November wind came with long
sweeps over the fells till it rattled among the crackling boughs,
underneath which the brother and sister sat in the dark; he in her
lap, and she hushing his head against her shoulder.
"Thou should'st na' play wi' fire. It's a naughty trick. Thoul't
suffer for it in worse ways nor this before thou'st done, I'm
afeared. I should ha' hit thee twice as lungeous kicks as Mike, if
I'd been in his place. He did na' hurt thee, I am sure," she
assumed, half as a question.
"Yes but he did. He turned me quite sick." And he let his head fall
languidly down on his sister's breast.
"Come, lad! come, lad!" said she anxiously. "Be a man. It was not
much that I saw. Why, when first the red cow came she kicked me far
harder for offering to milk her before her legs were tied. See thee!
here's a peppermint-drop, and I'll make thee a pasty to-night; only
don't give way so, for it hurts me sore to think that Michael has
done thee any harm, my pretty."
Willie roused himself up, and put back the wet and ruffled hair from
his heated face; and he and Susan rose up, and hand-in-hand went
towards the house, walking slowly and quietly except for a kind of
sob which Willie could not repress. Susan took him to the pump and
washed his tear-stained face, till she thought she had obliterated
all traces of the recent disturbance, arranging his curls for him,
and then she kissed him tenderly, and led him in, hoping to find
Michael in the kitchen, and make all straight between them. But the
blaze had dropped down into darkness; the wood was a heap of gray
ashes in which the sparks ran hither and thither; but even in the
groping darkness Susan knew by the sinking at her heart that Michael
was not there. She threw another brand on the hearth and lighted the
candle, and sat down to her work in silence. Willie cowered on his
stool by the side of the fire, eyeing his sister from time to time,
and sorry and oppressed, he knew not why, by the sight of her grave,
almost stern face. No one came. They two were in the house alone.
The old woman who helped Susan with the household work had gone out
for the night to some friend's dwelling. William Dixon, the father,
was up on the fells seeing after his sheep. Susan had no heart to
prepare the evening meal.
"Susy, darling, are you angry with me?" said Willie, in his little
piping, gentle voice. He had stolen up to his sister's side. "I
won't never play with the fire again; and I'll not cry if Michael
does kick me. Only don't look so like dead mother--don't--don't--
please don't!" he exclaimed, hiding his face on her shoulder.
"I'm not angry, Willie," said she. "Don't be feared on me. You want
your supper, and you shall have it; and don't you be feared on
Michael. He shall give reason for every hair of your head that he
touches--he shall."
When William Dixon came home he found Susan and Willie sitting
together, hand-in-hand, and apparently pretty cheerful. He bade them
go to bed, for that he would sit up for Michael; and the next
morning, when Susan came down, she found that Michael had started an
hour before with the cart for lime. It was a long day's work; Susan
knew it would be late, perhaps later than on the preceding night,
before he returned--at any rate, past her usual bed-time; and on no
account would she stop up a minute beyond that hour in the kitchen,
whatever she might do in her bed-room. Here she sat and watched till
past midnight; and when she saw him coming up the brow with the
carts, she knew full well, even in that faint moonlight, that his
gait was the gait of a man in liquor. But though she was annoyed and
mortified to find in what way he had chosen to forget her, the fact
did not disgust or shock her as it would have done many a girl, even
at that day, who had not been brought up as Susan had, among a class
who considered it no crime, but rather a mark of spirit, in a man to
get drunk occasionally. Nevertheless, she chose to hold herself very
high all the next day when Michael was, perforce, obliged to give up
any attempt to do heavy work, and hung about the out-buildings and
farm in a very disconsolate and sickly state. Willie had far more
pity on him than Susan. Before evening, Willie and he were fast,
and, on his side, ostentatious friends. Willie rode the horses down
to water; Willie helped him to chop wood. Susan sat gloomily at her
work, hearing an indistinct but cheerful conversation going on in the
shippon, while the cows were being milked. She almost felt irritated
with her little brother, as if he were a traitor, and had gone over
to the enemy in the very battle that she was fighting in his cause.
She was alone with no one to speak to, while they prattled on
regardless if she were glad or sorry.
Soon Willie burst in. "Susan! Susan! come with me; I've something
so pretty to show you. Round the corner of the barn--run! run!" (He
was dragging her along, half reluctant, half desirous of some change
in that weary day. Round the corner of the barn; and caught hold of
by Michael, who stood there awaiting her.
"O Willie!" cried she "you naughty boy. There is nothing pretty--
what have you brought me here for? Let me go; I won't be held."
"Only one word. Nay, if you wish it so much, you may go," said
Michael, suddenly loosing his hold as she struggled. But now she was
free, she only drew off a step or two, murmuring something about
Willie.
"You are going, then?" said Michael, with seeming sadness. "You
won't hear me say a word of what is in my heart."
"How can I tell whether it is what I should like to hear?" replied
she, still drawing back.
"That is just what I want you to tell me; I want you to hear it and
then to tell me whether you like it or not."
"Well, you may speak," replied she, turning her back, and beginning
to plait the hem of her apron.
He came close to her ear.
"I'm sorry I hurt Willie the other night. He has forgiven me. Can
you?"
"You hurt him very badly," she replied. "But you are right to be
sorry. I forgive you."
"Stop, stop!" said he, laying his hand upon her arm. "There is
something more I've got to say. I want you to be my--what is it they
call it, Susan?"
"I don't know," said she, half-laughing, but trying to get away with
all her might now; and she was a strong girl, but she could not
manage it.