'Haworth's.' A novel

Front matter

"HAWORTH'S." VOL. "HAWORTH'S" % leiti BT FRANCES HODGSON BURNETT ACTHOR OF "THAT LASS 0' LOWRIEV IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. bonbon MACMILLAN AND CO. 1879. {The Rights of Translation and of Reproduction are reserved.] gnngag CLAY AND TAYLOR, PRINTERS CONTENTS OF YOL. II. CHAPTEE I. PAGE MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DDCON . . . . 1 CHAPTEE H. haworth's defender 12 CHAPTEE III. CHRISTIAN MURDOCH 21 CHAPTEE IV. " A SEED SOWN " ** ; CHAPTEE V. " A CLIMAX " 45 CHAPTEE VI. " I AM NOT READY FOR IT YET " CONTENTS. VI CHAPTEE Vn. PAGE " SETTLING AN ACCOUNT " 74 CHAPTEE Vm. " A SUMMER AFTERNOON " 88 CHAPTEE IX. " GOD BLESS YOU I " 99 CHAPTEE X. "IT IS DONE WITH" .. 108 CHAPTEE XI. " LOOK out ! " 119 CHAPTEE XH. " IT HAS ALL BEEN A LIE " . . . . . . 135 CHAPTEE XIII. " ANOTHER MAN ! " 145 CHAPTEE XIV. " EVEN " CONTENTS.

VII CHAPTEE XV. PAGE " WHY DO YOU CRY FOR ME?" 159 CHAPTEE XVI. " IT IS WORSE THAN I THOUGHT " . . . . 168 CHAPTEE XVH. ONCE AGAIN 178 CHAPTEE XVm. A FOOTSTEP 186 CHAPTEE XIX. FINISHED 196 CHAPTEE XX. " IF AUGHT'S FOR ME, REMEMBER IT " . . . . 205 CHAPTEE XXI. AN AFTER-DINNER SPEECH 219 CHAPTEE XXH. " TH' ON'Y ONE AS ISNA A FOO' CONTENTS. CHAPTEE XXIH. PAGE " HAWORTH'S IS DONE WITH " 242 CHAPTEE XXIV. " A BIT O' GOOD BLACK " 262 CHAPTEE XXV. " IT WILL BE TO YOU " "HAWOKTH'S."

Chapter I. Mrs

HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. About this time a change appeared in little Mrs. Haworth. Sometimes when they sat together, Haworth found himself looking up suddenly and feeling that her eyes were fixed upon him, and at such times she invariably met his glance with a timid, startled expression, and released herself from it as soon as she had the power. She had never been so tender and lavish with her innocent caresses, but there was continuously a tremulous watchfulness in her manner, which was almost suggestive of fear. It was not fear of him, however. She clung to him with all the strength of her love. At night when he returned home, however late, he was sure of finding her waiting patiently for him, and in the morning VOL. II. B " haworth's." [oh. when he left the house he was never so early that she was not at his service.

The man began to quail before her, and grow restless in secret, and he haunted, when he awakened in the night, by his remembrance of her. " She is on the look-out for something," he said to himself, fearfully. " What have they been saying to her 1 " On her part, when she sat alone, she used to try and think the matter out, and set it straight and account for it. " It's the strikes," she said, " as has set them agen him and made 'em hard an' forgetful of all he's done. They'd never have spoke so if they'd been theirselves." She could scarcely have told what she had heard, or how the first blow had struck home. She only knew that here and there she had heard at first a rough jeer and then a terrible out spoken story, which, in spite of her disbelief, filled her with dread. The man who first flun« the ib-flavoured story at her stopped half-way through it, the words dying on his lips at the sight of her face.

I] 3 MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. It happened in one of her pensioner's cottages, and she rose from her chair trembling. " I didn't think," she said, with unconscious pathos, "as the world could be so ignorant and wicked." But as the ill-feebng became more violent, she met with the same story again and again, and often with new and worse versions in forms she could not combat. She began to be haunted by vague memories of things she had not compre hended. A sense of pain fobowed her. She was afraid, at times, to go to the cottages, lest she should be confronted with something which would overwhelm her. Then she began to search her son's face with a sense of finding some strangeness in it. She watched him wistfully when he had so far forgotten her presence as to be almost unconscious of it.

One night, having thrown himself upon a sofa and fallen into a weary sleep, he suddenly started up from it to find her stand ing close by him, looking down, her face pale, her locked fingers moving nervously. "What is it?" he exclaimed. "What ails you i B " haworth's." 4 [cit. He was startled by her falling upon her knees at his side, crying, and laying her shaking hand upon his shoulder. " You wras having a bad dream, my dear," she said, — "a bad dream. I — I scarcely knowed your face, Jem — it was so altered." He sank back upon his cushions and stared at her. He knew he had been having no bad dream. His dreams were not half so evil and bitter when he slept as they were in these days when he wakened. " You always had such a good face, Jem," she said, " and such a kind one. When you was a boy " He stopped her almost sullenly.

" I'm not a boy now," he said. " That's put away and done with." " No," she answered, " that's true, my dear ; but you've lived an innocent life, an' — an' never done no wrong — no more than you did when you was one. And your face was so altered." Her voice died away into a silence which, somehow, neither of them could break. It was Granny Dixon who revealed the truth I.] MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. in its barest form. Perhaps no man nor woman in Broxton knew more of it than this respectable ancient matron. Haworth and his iniquities had been the spice of her later life. The fact that his name was being mentioned in a conversation never escaped her ; she discovered it as if by magic, and invariably commanded that the inci dent under discussion be repeated at the top of the reciter's voice for her benefit, occasionally somewhat to the confusion of the honest matron in question.

How it had happened that she had not be trayed all to Mrs. Haworth at once was a mystery to remain unsolved. During the little woman's visits to the cottage, Mrs. Briarley existed in a chronic condition of fear and trembling. " She'b be out wi' it some o' these days, mark me," she would quaver to Janey. " An' th' Lord knows, I would na be theer fur nowt when she does." But she did not do it at first. Mrs. Briarley had a secret conviction that the fact that she did not do so was due entirely to iniquity. She had " haworth's." [CH. seen her sit peering from under her brows at thefr guest as the simple creature poured forth her loving praise of her son, and at such times it was always Mrs. Briarley's province to repeat the conversation for her benefit. "Ay," Mrs. Dixon would comment with an evd smile, "that's him!

That's Haworth! He's a noice chap — is Haworth. / know him." Mrs. Haworth learned in time to fear her and to speak timidly in her presence, rarely referring to the subject of her boy's benefactions. " Only as it wouldn't be nat'ral," she said once to Mrs. Briarley, "I should thiuk she was set agen him." " Eh ! bless us," was Mrs. Briarley's answer. " Yo' need na moind her. She's set agen ivverybody. She's th' nowtest owd piece i' Christendom." A few days after Haworth had awakened to find his mother standing near him, Mrs. Haworth paid a visit to the Briarleys. She took with her a basket, which the poor of Broxton had loner since learned to know. In this case it contained '■] MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. stockings for the little Briarleys and a dress or so for the baby. When she had bestowed her gifts and seated herself, she turned to Granny Dixon with some tremor of manner.

" I hope you're well, ma'am," she said. Granny Dixon made no reply. She sat bent over in her chair, regarding her for a few seconds with unblinking gaze. Then she slowly pointed wdth her thin, crooked finger to the little pre sents. " He sent 'em, did he ? " she trumpeted forth. " Haworth ? " Mrs. Haworth quaded before her. " Yes, ma'am," she answered, " leastways — Granny Dixon stopped her. " He did nowt o' th' soart," she cried. " Tha'rt leein' ! " The little woman made an effort to rise, turned pale, and sat down again. " Ma'am " she began. Granny Dixon's eyes sparkled. " Tha'rt leein'," she repeated. " He's th' worst chap i' England, an' aw Broxton knows it." " haworth's." [CH. Her victim uttered a low cry of pain. Mrs. Briarley had left the room, and there was no one to help her. All the hints and jeers she had heard rushed back to her, but she struggled to stand up against them.

" It ain't true," she said. " It ain't— true." Granny Dixon was just beginning to enjoy herself. A difference of opinion with Mrs. Briarley, which had occurred a short time before, had prepared her for the occasion. She knew that nothing would so much demoralise her rela tive and hostess as this iniquitous outbreak. " They've been warnin' me to keep quiet an' not tell thee," she answered, "but I towd 'em I'd teb thee when I wur i' th' humour, an' I'm i' th' humour now. Will Ffrench wur a devil, but he's a bigger one yet. He kep' thee away because he did na want thee to know. He set aw th' place by the ears. A decent woman would na cross his doorstep, nor a decent mon, fur aw his brass — afore tha coom. Th' lot as he used to ha' down fro' Lunnen an' Manchester wur a shame to th' town. Tee seed 'em — women in paint and feathers, an' men as decent lasses hide fro'.

A I.] MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. good un' wur he ? Ay, he wur a good un, for sure." She sat and chuckled a moment, thinking of Sararann's coming terror and confusion. She had no objection to Haworth's moral lapses herself, but she meant to make the most of them while she was at it. She saw nothing of the anguish in the face from which all the fresh, almost girlish colour had faded. "An yo' did na know as they wur na gentle folk," she proclaimed again. " Tha thowt they wur ladies an' gentlemen when tha coom in on 'em th' fust neet tha set foot i' th' house. A noice batch o' ladies they wur ! An' he passed 'em off on thee ! He wur sharp enow fur that, trust him. Ladies, bless us ! I heard tell on it — an' so did aw Broxton." The wounded creature gathered all her strength to rise from her chair.

She stood pressing her hands against her heart, swaying and deadly pale. " He has been a good son to me," she said. " A good son — an' I can't believe it. You wouldn't yourself if — you was his mother, an' knew him as — as I do." " haworth's." [CH. She made her way to the door just as Mrs. Briarley came in. One glance told that excellent matron that the long - dreaded calamity had arrived. " What's she been up to ? " she demanded. " Lord ha' mercy ! what's she been up to now 1 " " She's been tebin' me," faltered the departing guest, " that my son's a bad man an' a shame to me. Let me go, ma'am — for I've never heard talk like this before — an' its made me a bit weak an' — queer." And she slipped past and was gone. Mrs. Briarley's patience deserted her. A full sense of what Granny Dixon's worst might be burst in upon her; a remembrance of her own manifold wrongs and humiliations added itself to this sense ; for the moment discretion ceased to appear the better part of valour.

" What has tha been sayin' ? " she cried. " What has tha been sayin' ? Out wi' it." " I've been telling her what tha wur afeared to tell her," chuckled Mrs. Dixon, with exultation. " I towd thee I would, an' I've done it." Mrs. Briarley made no more ado. She set the '■] 11 MRS. HAWORTH AND GRANNY DIXON. baby down upon an adjacent chair with a resonant sound, and then fell upon the miserable old woman and seizing her by the shoulders shook her untd her cap flew off and danced upon her back, and her mouth opened and shut as if worked by a spring. " Tha brazent, hard-hearted besom, tha ! " she cried as she shook. " Tha ill-farrant nowt, tha ! as nivver did no good i' thy days, an' can na bear as no one else should. I dunnot care if I nivver see thy brass as long as I live. If tha wur noine i'stead o' ninety-five I'd give thee a hidin', tha brazent, hard-hearted owd piece !

" Her strength faded her and she loosened her hold and sat down and wept aloud behind the baby, and Mrs. Dixon fell back in her chair, an unpleasant heap, without breath to speak a word or strength to do anything but clutch wildly at her cap, ancl so remained shrunken and staring. " haworth's." 12 [CH.

Chapter II. Haworth's Defender

Mrs. Haworth made her way along the streets with weak and lagging steps. She had been a brisk walker in the clays of her country life, ancl even now was fonder of going here and there on foot than of riding in state, as her son would have preferred. But now the way before her seemed long. She knew where she was going. " There's one of 'em as knows an' will tell me," she said to herself. " She can't have no cruel feeling against him, bein' a lady, an' knowin' him so well. An' if it's true — not as I believe it, Jem, my dear, for I don't — she'll break it to me gentle." " Not as I believe, Jem, my dear, for I don't," she said to herself again and again. Her mind went back to the first hour of his life, when he had lain, a strong-limbed child, on haworth's defender. II.] 13 her weak arm, the one comfort given to her out of her wretched marriage.

She thought of him again as he had been a lad, growing and thriving in spite of hunger and cold, growing and thriving in spite of cruelty and wrong which broke her health and threw her helpless upon charity. He had been sharper and bolder than other boys, and always steadfast to his determination. " He was always good to me," she said. " Chdd an' man he's never forgot me, or been unmindful. If there'd have been wrong in his life, who'd have been liker to see it than me ? " It was to Rachel Ffrench she was going, and when at last she reached the end of her journey, and was walking up the pathway to the house, Rachel Ffrench, who stood at the window, sawr her, and was moved to wonder by her pallor and feebleness. The spring sunshine was so bright outside that the room seemed quite dark when she came into it, and even after she had seated her self the only light in it seemed to emanate from the figure of Miss Ffrench herself, who stood opposite to her in a dress of some thin white stuff " haworth's." [CH. and with strongly fragrant yellow hyacinths at her neck and in her hand.

" You are tired," she said. " You should not have walked." The woman looked up at her timidly. " It isn't that," she answered. " It's somethin' else." She suddenly stretched forth her hands into the water. " I've came here to hear about my boy," she said. " I want to hear from one as knows the truth, an' — will tell me." Miss Ffrench was not of a sympathetic nature. There existed few young women with more nerve and self-poise at trying times, and she had not at any previous period been specially touched by Mrs. Haworth ; but just now she was distressed singularly. "What do you want to know," she asked, " that I can tell you ? " She was not prepared for what happened next, and she lost a little placidity through it. The simple, loving creature fell at her feet and caught hold of her dress, sobbing. haworth's defender. 15 II.]

" He's thirty-three years old," she cried, " an' I've never seen the day when he's give me a hurt. He's been the pride of my life an' the hope of it. I've looked up to him and prayed for him an' believed in him — an' they say he's black with shameful sin — an' I don't know him, nor never did, for he's deceived me from first to last." The yellow hyacinths fell from Miss Ffrench's hand on the carpet, and she looked down at them instead of at the upturned face. " Who said it ? " she asked. But she was not answered. " If it's true — not that I believe it, for I don't — if it's true, what is there left for me, as loved and honoured him — where's my son I thanked God for day an' night ? Where's my boy as paid me for all I bore ? He's never been — he's never been at all. I've never been his mother nor he's never been my son.

If it's true — not as I believe it, for I don't — where is he 'I " Miss Ffrench bent down and picked up her hyacinths. She wondered, as she bent down, what her reply would be. " haworth's." 16 [CH. "Will you believe me?" she asked, as she rose up again. " Yes, ma'am," she was answered ; " I know I may do it — thank God ! " "Yes, you may," said Miss Ffrench, without flinching in the least. " I can have no feeling for or against him. I can have no end to serve, one way or the other. It is not true. It is a lie. He is ab you have believed." She helped her to rise, and made her sit down again in an easy-chair, and then herself with drew a little, and stood leaning against the window, looking at her. " He has done more good in Broxton than any other man who lives," she said. " He has made it what it is.

The people who hate him and speak ill of him are those he has benefited most. It is the way of their class, I have heard before, and now I believe it to be true. They have said wrorse things of men who deserve them as little as he does. He has enemies whom he has conquered, and they wdl never forgive him." She discovered a good many things to say, having once begun, and she actually found a haworth's defender. II.] 17 kind of epicurean enjoyment in saying them in a manner the most telling. She always liked to do a thing very web. But, notwithstanding this, the time seemed rather long before she was left alone to think the matter over. Before she had said many words her visitor was another woman. Life's colour came back to her, and she sat crying softly, tears of sheer joy and relief. "I knowed it couldn't be true," she said.

"I knowed it, an' oh ! thank you, ma'am, with all a mother's heart ! " "To think," she said, smiling and sobbing, "as I should have been so wicked as to let it weio-h on me, when I knowed so well as it couldn't never be. I should be almost 'shamed to look him in the face if I didn't know how good he was, an' how ready he'd be to forgive me. When at last she was gone, Miss Ffrench threw herself into the chair she had left, rather languidly. She was positively tired. As she did so she heard a sound. She rose VOL. II. C " haworth's." [CH. hastily and turned towards the folding-doors lead ing into the adjoining room. They had been partiaby closed, and as she turned they were pushed aside and some one came through them. It was Jem Haworth. He was haggard and dishevelled, and as he approached her he walked unsteadily.

" I was in there through it all," he said, "and I heard every word." She was herself again, at once. She knew she had not been herself ten minutes before. " Well," she said. He came up and stood near her — an almost abject tremor upon him. " Will you listen to what I have got to say ? " he said. She made a cold gesture of assent. " If she'd gone to some and heard what they had to tell," he said, " it would have killed her. It's well she came here." She saw the dark colour rush to his face and knew what was coming. " It's all true, by " he burst out, " every word of it ! " haworth's defender. II.] 19 " When I was in there," he went on, with a gesture towards the other room, " I swore I'd teb you. Make the best and the worst of it. It's all true — that and more." He sat down in a chair and rested his forehead on his hands.

"Things has begun to go again me," he said. " They never did before. I've been used to tell myself there was a kind of luck in keeping it from her. Th' day it comes on her, full force, I'm done for. I said in there that you should know, at least. It's all true." " I knew it was true," remarked Miss Ffrench, " all the time." " You knew ! " he cried out. " You ! ' " I have known it from the first," she an swered. " Did you think it was a secret ? " He turned hot and cold as he looked at her. " Then, by George, you'd a reason for saying what you did. AVhat was it ? " She remained silent, looking out of the open window across the flower-bright garden. She watched a couple of yellow butterflies eddying above a purple hyacinth for several seconds C " haworth's." [CH. before she spoke, and then did so slowly and absently.

" I don't know the reason," she said. " It was a strange thing for me to do." " It wasn't to save me aught," he returned. " That's plain enough." "No," she answered, "it was not to save you. I am not given to pitying people, but I think that for the time I wTanted to save her. It was a strange thing," she said softly, " for me to do."

Chapter III. Christian Murdoch

She had never spoken to Murdoch openly of his secret labour. He was always conscious that she knew and understood ; he had seen her knowledge in her face almost from the first, but they had exchanged no words on the subject. He had never wavered from his resolve since he had made it. Whatever his tasks had been in the day, or however late his return was at night, he did not rest until he had given a certain number of hours to this work. Often Christian and his mother, wakening long after midnight, heard him moving about in his closed room. He grew gaunt and hollow-eyed, but he did not speak of what he was doing, and they never knew whether he was hopeful or despairing. Without seeing very much of the two women, he stdl found himself led to think of them " haworth's." [CH. constantly. He was vaguely conscious that since their interview In the graveyard he had never felt free from Christian Murdoch.

More than once her mother's words came back to him wdth startling force. "She sits and looks on and says nothing. She asks nothing, but her eyes force me to speak." He always knew that she was watching him. Often he looked up and met her glance, and somehow it was always a kind of shock to him. He knew that she was wondering and asking herself questions she could not ask him. " If I gave it up or flagged," he told himself, " she would know without my saying a word." There had grown in her a beauty of a dark, foreign type. The delicate olive of her skin and the dense blackness of her eyes and hair caused her to be considered a novelty worth com menting upon by the men of Broxton society, which was of a highly critical nature. She went out a great deal as the spring advanced, and began to know the place and people better.

She developed a pathetic eagerness to make friends and understand those around her. One day she went alone to Broxton Chapel, and after sitting through one of Mr. Higgins's most sulphurous sermons, came home in a brooding mood. " Why did you go ? " Murdoch was roused to ask. "I thought," she answered, "it might make me better. I thought I would try." Not long afterward, when he had gone out of the house and she was left sitting with Mrs. Murdoch, she suddenly looked up from the carpet on which her eyes had been fixed and asked her a question. " Is it true that I am beginning to be very handsome ? " she demanded. "Yes," answered Mrs. Murdoch, "it is true." A dark cloud settled upon her face and her eyes feb again. " I heard some men in the street speak aloud to each other about it," she said.

" Do they speak so of all women who are handsome ? " " I don't know," her companion replied, sur veying her critically and with some anxiety. " haworth's." 24 LCH. "They used to speak so of— her" she said, slowly. "She was a beautiful woman. They were always tebing her of it again and again, and I used to go and look at myself in the glass and be glad that I was thin and dark and ugly, and that they laughed at me. I wanted to be hideous. Once, when I was a child, a man said, ' Never mind, she will be a beauty some day — like her mother ! ' and I flew at him and struck him, and then I ran away to my room and fell down upon my knees and said the first prayer I ever said in my life. I said, ' Oh, God ! — if there is a God — strike me dead ! Oh, God ! — if there is a God — strike me dead ! ' " The woman who listened shuddered.

"Am I bke — anybody ?" she said next. " I do not know," she was answered. " I could not tell myself if I were," she said. " I have watched for it so long that I should not see it if it had come. I look every day. Perhaps I am and do not know. Perhaps that is why they look at me in the street, and speak of me aloud as I go by." Her voice fell into a whisper. She threw herself on her knees and laid her head upon the woman's lap. " Cover me with your arms," she said. "Cover me so that you may not see my face." She was constantly moved to these strange outbursts of feeling in these days. A few nights later, as he sat at work after midnight, Murdoch fancied that he heard a sound out side his door. He went to it and opened it, and found himself confronting the girl as she sat crouched upon the lowest step of the stairway.

" What are you doing here ? " he asked. " I could not go to sleep," she answered. " I could not stop thinking of what you were doing. It seemed as if 1 should have a little share in it if I were here. Are you," — almost timidly, — " are you tired ? " "Yes," he answered, " I am tired." " Are you — any nearer ? " " Sometimes I think so, — but so did he." She rose slowly. " I will go away," she said. " It would only disturb you to know I was here." " haworth's." 26 [CH. She moved a step upward and then paused uncertainly. " You told me once," she said, " that there was no reason why I should not be as good and happy as any other woman. Are you sure of what you said ? " " For God's sake do not doubt it in that way," he said. She stood looking down at him, one hand resting upon the balustrade, her dark eyes wild with some strange emotion.