North And South √ (Project K.)

Chapter 38: Promises Fulfilled

'Miss Hale is no friend of mine. Mr. Hale is my friend.'

'I am glad to hear you say so, for if she had been your friend, what Betsy says would have annoyed you.'

'Let me hear it,' said he, with the extreme quietness of manner he had been assuming for the last few days.

'Betsy says, that the night on which her lover—I forget his name—for she always calls him "he"—— '

'Leonards.'

'The night on which Leonards was last seen at the station—when he was last seen on duty, in fact—Miss Hale was there, walking about with a young man who, Betsy believes, killed Leonards by some blow or push.'

'Leonards was not killed by any blow or push.'

'How do you know?'

'Because I distinctly put the question to the surgeon of the Infirmary. He told me there was an internal disease of long standing, caused by Leonards' habit of drinking to excess; that the fact of his becoming rapidly worse while in a state of intoxication, settled the question as to whether the last fatal attack was caused by excess of drinking, or the fall.'

'The fall! What fall?'

'Caused by the blow or push of which Betsy speaks.'

'Then there was a blow or push?'

'I believe so.'

'And who did it?'

'As there was no inquest, in consequence of the doctor's opinion, I cannot tell you.'

'But Miss Hale was there?'

No answer.

'And with a young man?'

Still no answer. At last he said: 'I tell you, mother, that there was no inquest—no inquiry. No judicial inquiry, I mean.'

'Betsy says that Woolmer (some man she knows, who is in a grocer's shop out at Crampton) can swear that Miss Hale was at the station at that hour, walking backwards and forwards with a young man.'

'I don't see what we have to do with that. Miss Hale is at liberty to please herself.'

'I'm glad to hear you say so,' said Mrs. Thornton, eagerly. 'It certainly signifies very little to us—not at all to you, after what has passed! but I—I made a promise to Mrs. Hale, that I would not allow her daughter to go wrong without advising and remonstrating with her. I shall certainly let her know my opinion of such conduct.'

'I do not see any harm in what she did that evening,' said Mr. Thornton, getting up, and coming near to his mother; he stood by the chimney-piece with his face turned away from the room.

'You would not have approved of Fanny's being seen out, after dark, in rather a lonely place, walking about with a young man. I say nothing of the taste which could choose the time, when her mother lay unburied, for such a promenade. Should you have liked your sister to have been noticed by a grocer's assistant for doing so?'

'In the first place, as it is not many years since I myself was a draper's assistant, the mere circumstance of a grocer's assistant noticing any act does not alter the character of the act to me. And in the next place, I see a great deal of difference between Miss Hale and Fanny. I can imagine that the one may have weighty reasons, which may and ought to make her overlook any seeming Impropriety in her conduct. I never knew Fanny have weighty reasons for anything. Other people must guard her. I believe Miss Hale is a guardian to herself.'

'A pretty character of your sister, indeed! Really, John, one would have thought Miss Hale had done enough to make you clear-sighted. She drew you on to an offer, by a bold display of pretended regard for you,—to play you off against this very young man, I've no doubt. Her whole conduct is clear to me now. You believe he is her lover, I suppose—you agree to that.'