Chapter II: Articles and Sketches (11)

“It is such a pity!” said she, “that I was born when I was. I should so have liked to belong to this generation.”

“That’s sometimes my own feeling,” said he. “So many new views seem to be opened in science, that I should like, if it were possible, to live till their reality was ascertained, and one saw what they led to. But I don’t suppose that’s your reason, my dear, for wishing to be twenty or thirty years younger.”

“No, indeed. And I did not put it in that hard, unpleasant way; I only said I should like to belong to this generation. To tell the truth, I was thinking of Cynthia. Without vanity, I believe I was as pretty as she is—when I was a girl, I mean; I had not her dark eyelashes, but then my nose was straighter. And now look at the difference! I have to live in a little country town with three servants, and no carriage; and she with her inferior good looks will live in Sussex Place, and keep a man and a brougham, and I don’t know what. But the fact is, in this generation there are so many more rich young men than there were when I was a girl.”

“Oh, oh! so that’s your reason, is it, my dear? If you had been young now you might have married somebody as well off as Walter?”

“Yes!” said she. “I think that was my idea. Of course, I should have liked him to be you. I always think if you had gone to the Bar you might have succeeded better, and lived in London, too. I don’t think Cynthia cares much where she lives, yet you see it has come to her.”

“What has—London?”

“Oh, you dear, facetious man. Now that’s just the thing to have captivated a jury. I don’t believe Walter will ever be so clever as you are. Yet he can take Cynthia to Paris, and abroad, and everywhere. I only hope all this indulgence won’t develop the faults in Cynthia’s character. It’s a week since we heard from her, and I did write so particularly to ask her for the autumn fashions before I bought my new bonnet. But riches are a great snare.”

“Be thankful you are spared temptation, my dear.”

“No, I’m not. Everybody likes to be tempted. And, after all, it’s very easy to resist temptation, if one wishes.”

“I don’t find it so easy,” said her husband.

“Here’s medicine for you, mamma,” said Molly, entering with a letter held up in her hand. “A letter from Cynthia.”

“Oh, you dear little messenger of good news! There was one of the heathen deities in Mangnall’s Questions whose office it was to bring news. The letter is dated from Calais. They’re coming home! She’s bought me a shawl and a bonnet! The dear creature! Always thinking of others before herself: good fortune cannot spoil her. They’ve a fortnight left of their holiday! Their house is not quite ready; they’re coming here. Oh, now, Mr. Gibson, we must have the new dinner-service at Watt’s I’ve set my heart on so long! ‘Home’ Cynthia calls this house. I’m sure it has been a home to her, poor darling! I doubt if there is another man in the world who would have treated his step-daughter like dear papa! And, Molly, you must have a new gown.”

“Come, come! Remember I belong to the last generation,” said Mr. Gibson.

“And Cynthia won’t mind what I wear,” said Molly, bright with pleasure at the thought of seeing her again.

“No! but Walter will. He has such a quick eye for dress, and I think I rival papa; if he is a good stepfather, I’m a good stepmother, and I could not bear to see my Molly shabby, and not looking her best. I must have a new gown too. It won’t do to look as if we had nothing but the dresses which we wore at the wedding!”

But Molly stood out against the new gown for herself, and urged that if Cynthia and Walter were to come to visit them often, they had better see them as they really were, in dress, habits, and appointments. When Mr. Gibson had left the room, Mrs. Gibson softly reproached Molly for her obstinacy.

“You might have allowed me to beg for a new gown for you, Molly, when you knew how much I admired that figured silk at Brown’s the other day. And now, of course, I can’t be so selfish as to get it for myself, and you to have nothing. You should learn to understand the wishes of other people. Still, on the whole, you are a dear, sweet girl, and I only wish—well, I know what I wish; only dear papa does not like it to be talked about. And now cover me up close, and let me go to sleep, and dream about my dear Cynthia and my new shawl!”

Cousin Phillis

From _Cousin Phillis_, first published as a serial in the
_Cornhill Magazine_ from November, 1863, to February, 1864,
and afterwards issued in book form in 1865. This exquisite
prose idyll represents Mrs. Gaskell’s best work, and has
been described as “a gem without a flaw”; as a short story
it is certainly a model. The breath of the open country is
ever around it. The places so graphically described are
associated with Mrs. Gaskell’s maternal grandfather’s farm at
Sandlebridge, near Knutsford.

A VISIT TO HOPE FARM

“Make up your mind, and go off and see what this farmer-minister is like, and come back and tell me—I should like to hear.”…

I went along the lane, I recollect, switching at all the taller roadside weeds, till, after a turn or two, I found myself close in front of the Hope Farm. There was a garden between the house and the shady, grassy lane; I afterwards found that this garden was called the court; perhaps because there was a low wall round it, with an iron railing on the top of the wall, and two great gates between pillars crowned with stone balls for a state entrance to the flagged path leading up to the front door. It was not the habit of the place to go in either by these great gates or by the front door; the gates, indeed, were locked, as I found, though the door stood wide open. I had to go round by a side-path lightly worn on a broad grassy way, which led past the court-wall, past a horse-mount, half covered with stonecrop and a little wild yellow fumitory, to another door—“the curate,” as I found it was termed by the master of the house, while the front door, “handsome and all for show,” was termed the “rector.” I knocked with my hand upon the “curate” door; a tall girl, about my own age, as I thought, came and opened it, and stood there silent, waiting to know my errand. I see her now—Cousin Phillis. The westering sun shone full upon her, and made a slanting stream of light into the room within. She was dressed in dark blue cotton of some kind; up to her throat, down to her wrists, with a little frill of the same wherever it touched her white skin. And such a white skin as it was! I have never seen the like. She had light hair, nearer yellow than any other colour. She looked me steadily in the face with large, quiet eyes, wondering, but untroubled by the sight of a stranger. I thought it odd, that so old, so full-grown as she was, she should wear a pinafore over her gown.

Before I had quite made up my mind what to say in reply to her mute inquiry of what I wanted there, a woman’s voice called out, “Who is it, Phillis? If it is anyone for butter-milk send them round to the back door.”

I thought I could rather speak to the owner of that voice than to the girl before me; so I passed her, and stood at the entrance of a room, hat in hand, for this side-door opened straight into the hall or house-place where the family sate when work was done. There was a brisk little woman of forty or so ironing some huge muslin cravats under the light of a long vine-shaded casement window. She looked at me distrustfully till I began to speak. “My name is Paul Manning,” said I; but I saw she did not know the name. “My mother’s name was Moneypenny,” said I—“Margaret Moneypenny.”

“And she married one John Manning, of Birmingham,” said Mrs. Holman eagerly. “And you’ll be her son. Sit down! I am right glad to see you. To think of your being Margaret’s son! Why, she was almost a child not so long ago. Well, to be sure, it is five-and-twenty years ago. And what brings you into these parts?”

She sate herself down, as if oppressed by her curiosity as to all the five-and-twenty years that had passed since she had seen my mother. Her daughter Phillis took up her knitting—a man’s long grey worsted stocking, I remember—and knitted away without looking at her work. I felt that the steady gaze of those deep grey eyes was upon me, though once, when I stealthily raised mine to hers, she was examining something on the wall above my head.

When I had answered all my cousin Holman’s questions, she heaved a long breath, and said, “To think of Margaret Moneypenny’s boy being in our house! I wish the minister was here. Phillis, in what field is thy father to-day?”

“In the five-acre; they are beginning to cut the corn.”

“He’ll not like being sent for then, else I should have liked you to have seen the minister. But the five-acre is a good step off. You shall have a glass of wine and a bit of cake before you stir from this house, though. You’re bound to go, you say, or else the minister comes in mostly when the men have their four o’clock.”

“I must go—I ought to have been off before now.”

“Here, then, Phillis, take the keys.” She gave her daughter some whispered directions, and Phillis left the room.

“She is my cousin, is she not?” I asked. I knew she was, but somehow I wanted to talk of her, and did not know how to begin.

“Yes—Phillis Holman. She is our only child—now.”

Either from that “now,” or from a strange momentary wistfulness in her eyes, I knew that there had been more children, who were now dead.

“How old is Cousin Phillis?” said I, scarcely venturing on the new name, it seemed too prettily familiar for me to call her by it; but Cousin Holman took no notice of it, answering straight to the purpose.

“Seventeen last May-Day; but the minister does not like to hear me calling it May-Day,” said she, checking herself with a little awe. “Phillis was seventeen on the first day of May last,” she repeated in an emended edition.

“And I am nineteen in another month,” thought I to myself; I don’t know why.

Then Phillis came in, carrying a tray with wine and cake upon it.

“We keep a house-servant,” said Cousin Holman, “but it is churning day, and she is busy.” It was meant as a little proud apology for her daughter’s being the handmaiden.

“I like doing it, mother,” said Phillis, in her grave, full voice.

I felt as if I were somebody in the Old Testament—who, I could not recollect—being served and waited upon by the daughter of the host. Was I like Abraham’s steward, when Rebekah gave him to drink at the well? I thought Isaac had not gone the pleasantest way to work in winning him a wife. But Phillis never thought about such things. She was a stately, gracious young woman, in the dress and with the simplicity of a child.

As I had been taught, I drank to the health of my new-found cousin and her husband; and then I ventured to name my Cousin Phillis with a little bow of my head towards her; but I was too awkward to look and see how she took my compliment. “I must go now,” said I, rising.

The Dawn of Love

From _Cousin Phillis_, 1865

“He had never spoken much about you before, but the sudden going away unlocked his heart, and he told me how he loved you, and how he hoped on his return that you might be his wife.”

“Don’t,” said she, almost gasping out the word, which she had tried once or twice before to speak; but her voice had been choked. Now she put her hand backwards; she had quite turned away from me, and felt for mine. She gave it a soft lingering pressure; and then she put her arms down on the wooden division, and laid her head on it, and cried quiet tears. I did not understand her at once, and feared lest I had mistaken the whole case, and only annoyed her. I went up to her. “Oh, Phillis, I am so sorry—I thought you would, perhaps, have cared to hear it; he did talk so feelingly, as if he did love you so much, and somehow I thought it would give you pleasure.”

She lifted up her head and looked at me. Such a look! Her eyes, glittering with tears as they were, expressed an almost heavenly happiness; her tender mouth was curved with rapture—her colour vivid and blushing; but as if she was afraid her face expressed too much, more than the thankfulness to me she was essaying to speak, she hid it again almost immediately. So it was all right then, and my conjecture was well-founded. I tried to remember something more to tell her of what he had said, but again she stopped me.

“Don’t,” she said. She still kept her face covered and hidden. In half a minute she added, in a very low voice, “Please, Paul, I think I would rather not hear any more—I don’t mean but what I have—but what I am very much obliged—only—only, I think I would rather hear the rest from himself when he comes back.”

And then she cried a little more, in quite a different way. I did not say any more, I waited for her. By-and-by she turned towards me—not meeting my eyes, however; and putting her hand in mine just as if we were two children, she said, “We had best go back now—I don’t look as if I had been crying, do I?”

“You look as if you had a bad cold,” was all the answer I made.

“Oh! but I am—I am quite well, only cold; and a good run will warm me. Come along, Paul.”

So we ran, hand in hand, till, just as we were on the threshold of the house, she stopped:

“Paul, please, we won’t speak about _that_ again.”

* * * * *

I never saw her so lovely, or so happy. I think she hardly knew why she was so happy all the time. I can see her now, standing under the budding branches of the grey trees, over which a tinge of green seemed to be deepening day after day, her sunbonnet fallen back on her neck, her hands full of delicate wood-flowers, quite unconscious of my gaze, but intent on sweet mockery of some bird in neighbouring bush or tree. She had the art of warbling, and replying to the notes of different birds, and knew their song, their habits and ways, more accurately than anyone else I ever knew. She had often done it at my request the spring before; but this year she really gurgled, and whistled, and warbled just as they did, out of the very fulness and joy of her heart. She was more than ever the very apple of her father’s eye; her mother gave her both her own share of love and that of the dead child, who had died in infancy. I have heard Cousin Holman murmur, after a long dreamy look at Phillis, and tell herself how like she was growing to Johnnie, and soothe herself with plaintive, inarticulate sounds, and many gentle shakes of the head, for the aching sense of loss she would never get over in this world. The old servants about the place had the dumb loyal attachment to the child of the land common to most agricultural labourers; not often stirred into activity or expression. My Cousin Phillis was like a rose that had come to full bloom on the sunny side of a lonely house, sheltered from storms. I have read in some book of poetry:

“A maid whom there were none to praise,
And very few to love.”

And somehow those lines always remind me of Phillis; yet they were not true of her either. I never heard her praised; and out of her own household there were very few to love her; but though no one spoke out their appreciation, she always did right in her parents’ eyes, out of her natural simple goodness and wisdom.

III

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