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The Half-Brothers
by Elizabeth Gaskell
March, 2001 [Etext #2532]
The Project Gutenberg Etext of The Half-Brothers by Elizabeth Gaskell
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THE HALF-BROTHERS.
My mother was twice married. She never spoke of her first husband,
and it is only from other people that I have learnt what little I
know about him. I believe she was scarcely seventeen when she was
married to him: and he was barely one-and-twenty. He rented a small
farm up in Cumberland, somewhere towards the sea-coast; but he was
perhaps too young and inexperienced to have the charge of land and
cattle: anyhow, his affairs did not prosper, and he fell into ill
health, and died of consumption before they had been three years man
and wife, leaving my mother a young widow of twenty, with a little
child only just able to walk, and the farm on her hands for four
years more by the lease, with half the stock on it dead, or sold off
one by one to pay the more pressing debts, and with no money to
purchase more, or even to buy the provisions needed for the small
consumption of every day. There was another child coming, too; and
sad and sorry, I believe, she was to think of it. A dreary winter
she must have had in her lonesome dwelling, with never another near
it for miles around; her sister came to bear her company, and they
two planned and plotted how to make every penny they could raise go
as far as possible. I can't tell you how it happened that my little
sister, whom I never saw, came to sicken and die; but, as if my poor
mother's cup was not full enough, only a fortnight before Gregory was
born the little girl took ill of scarlet fever, and in a week she lay
dead. My mother was, I believe, just stunned with this last blow.
My aunt has told me that she did not cry; aunt Fanny would have been
thankful if she had; but she sat holding the poor wee lassie's hand
and looking in her pretty, pale, dead face, without so much as
shedding a tear. And it was all the same, when they had to take her
away to be buried. She just kissed the child, and sat her down in
the window-seat to watch the little black train of people
(neighbours--my aunt, and one far-off cousin, who were all the
friends they could muster) go winding away amongst the snow, which
had fallen thinly over the country the night before. When my aunt
came back from the funeral, she found my mother in the same place,
and as dry-eyed as ever. So she continued until after Gregory was
born; and, somehow, his coming seemed to loosen the tears, and she
cried day and night, till my aunt and the other watcher looked at
each other in dismay, and would fain have stopped her if they had but
known how. But she bade them let her alone, and not be over-anxious,
for every drop she shed eased her brain, which had been in a terrible
state before for want of the power to cry. She seemed after that to
think of nothing but her new little baby; she had hardly appeared to
remember either her husband or her little daughter that lay dead in
Brigham churchyard--at least so aunt Fanny said, but she was a great
talker, and my mother was very silent by nature, and I think aunt
Fanny may have been mistaken in believing that my mother never
thought of her husband and child just because she never spoke about
them. Aunt Fanny was older than my mother, and had a way of treating
her like a child; but, for all that, she was a kind, warm-hearted
creature, who thought more of her sister's welfare than she did of
her own and it was on her bit of money that they principally lived,
and on what the two could earn by working for the great Glasgow
sewing-merchants. But by-and-by my mother's eye-sight began to fail.
It was not that she was exactly blind, for she could see well enough
to guide herself about the house, and to do a good deal of domestic
work; but she could no longer do fine sewing and earn money. It must
have been with the heavy crying she had had in her day, for she was
but a young creature at this time, and as pretty a young woman, I
have heard people say, as any on the country side. She took it sadly
to heart that she could no longer gain anything towards the keep of
herself and her child. My aunt Fanny would fain have persuaded her
that she had enough to do in managing their cottage and minding
Gregory; but my mother knew that they were pinched, and that aunt
Fanny herself had not as much to eat, even of the commonest kind of
food, as she could have done with; and as for Gregory, he was not a
strong lad, and needed, not more food--for he always had enough,
whoever went short--but better nourishment, and more flesh-meat. One
day--it was aunt Fanny who told me all this about my poor mother,
long after her death--as the sisters were sitting together, aunt
Fanny working, and my mother hushing Gregory to sleep, William
Preston, who was afterwards my father, came in. He was reckoned an
old bachelor; I suppose he was long past forty, and he was one of the
wealthiest farmers thereabouts, and had known my grandfather well,
and my mother and my aunt in their more prosperous days. He sat
down, and began to twirl his hat by way of being agreeable; my aunt
Fanny talked, and he listened and looked at my mother. But he said
very little, either on that visit, or on many another that he paid
before he spoke out what had been the real purpose of his calling so
often all along, and from the very first time he came to their house.
One Sunday, however, my aunt Fanny stayed away from church, and took
care of the child, and my mother went alone. When she came back, she
ran straight upstairs, without going into the kitchen to look at
Gregory or speak any word to her sister, and aunt Fanny heard her cry
as if her heart was breaking; so she went up and scolded her right
well through the bolted door, till at last she got her to open it.
And then she threw herself on my aunt's neck, and told her that
William Preston had asked her to marry him, and had promised to take
good charge of her boy, and to let him want for nothing, neither in
the way of keep nor of education, and that she had consented. Aunt
Fanny was a good deal shocked at this; for, as I have said, she had
often thought that my mother had forgotten her first husband very
quickly, and now here was proof positive of it, if she could so soon
think of marrying again. Besides as aunt Fanny used to say, she
herself would have been a far more suitable match for a man of
William Preston's age than Helen, who, though she was a widow, had
not seen her four-and-twentieth summer. However, as aunt Fanny said,
they had not asked her advice; and there was much to be said on the
other side of the question. Helen's eyesight would never be good for
much again, and as William Preston's wife she would never need to do
anything, if she chose to sit with her hands before her; and a boy
was a great charge to a widowed mother; and now there would be a
decent steady man to see after him. So, by-and-by, aunt Fanny seemed
to take a brighter view of the marriage than did my mother herself,
who hardly ever looked up, and never smiled after the day when she
promised William Preston to be his wife. But much as she had loved
Gregory before, she seemed to love him more now. She was continually
talking to him when they were alone, though he was far too young to
understand her moaning words, or give her any comfort, except by his
caresses.
At last William Preston and she were wed; and she went to be mistress
of a well-stocked house, not above half-an-hour's walk from where
aunt Fanny lived. I believe she did all that she could to please my
father; and a more dutiful wife, I have heard him himself say, could
never have been. But she did not love him, and he soon found it out.
She loved Gregory, and she did not love him. Perhaps, love would
have come in time, if he had been patient enough to wait; but it just
turned him sour to see how her eye brightened and her colour came at
the sight of that little child, while for him who had given her so
much, she had only gentle words as cold as ice. He got to taunt her
with the difference in her manner, as if that would bring love: and
he took a positive dislike to Gregory,--he was so jealous of the
ready love that always gushed out like a spring of fresh water when
he came near. He wanted her to love him more, and perhaps that was
all well and good; but he wanted her to love her child less, and that
was an evil wish. One day, he gave way to his temper, and cursed and
swore at Gregory, who had got into some mischief, as children will;
my mother made some excuse for him; my father said it was hard enough
to have to keep another man's child, without having it perpetually
held up in its naughtiness by his wife, who ought to be always in the
same mind that he was; and so from little they got to more; and the
end of it was, that my mother took to her bed before her time, and I
was born that very day. My father was glad, and proud, and sorry,
all in a breath; glad and proud that a son was born to him; and sorry
for his poor wife's state, and to think how his angry words had
brought it on. But he was a man who liked better to be angry than
sorry, so he soon found out that it was all Gregory's fault, and owed
him an additional grudge for having hastened my birth. He had
another grudge against him before long. My mother began to sink the
day after I was born. My father sent to Carlisle for doctors, and
would have coined his heart's blood into gold to save her, if that
could have been; but it could not. My aunt Fanny used to say
sometimes, that she thought that Helen did not wish to live, and so
just let herself die away without trying to take hold on life; but
when I questioned her, she owned that my mother did all the doctors
bade her do, with the same sort of uncomplaining patience with which
she had acted through life. One of her last requests was to have
Gregory laid in her bed by my side, and then she made him take hold
of my little hand. Her husband came in while she was looking at us
so, and when he bent tenderly over her to ask her how she felt now,
and seemed to gaze on us two little half-brothers, with a grave sort
of kindness, she looked up in his face and smiled, almost her first
smile at him; and such a sweet smile! as more besides aunt Fanny have
said. In an hour she was dead. Aunt Fanny came to live with us. It
was the best thing that could be done. My father would have been
glad to return to his old mode of bachelor life, but what could he do
with two little children? He needed a woman to take care of him, and
who so fitting as his wife's elder sister? So she had the charge of
me from my birth; and for a time I was weakly, as was but natural,
and she was always beside me, night and day watching over me, and my
father nearly as anxious as she. For his land had come down from
father to son for more than three hundred years, and he would have
cared for me merely as his flesh and blood that was to inherit the
land after him. But he needed something to love, for all that, to
most people, he was a stern, hard man, and he took to me as, I fancy,
he had taken to no human being before--as he might have taken to my
mother, if she had had no former life for him to be jealous of. I
loved him back again right heartily. I loved all around me, I
believe, for everybody was kind to me. After a time, I overcame my
original weakness of constitution, and was just a bonny, strong-
looking lad whom every passer-by noticed, when my father took me with
him to the nearest town.
At home I was the darling of my aunt, the tenderly-beloved of my
father, the pet and plaything of the old domestics, the "young
master" of the farm-labourers, before whom I played many a lordly
antic, assuming a sort of authority which sat oddly enough, I doubt
not, on such a baby as I was.
Gregory was three years older than I. Aunt Fanny was always kind to
him in deed and in action, but she did not often think about him, she
had fallen so completely into the habit of being engrossed by me,
from the fact of my having come into her charge as a delicate baby.
My father never got over his grudging dislike to his stepson, who had
so innocently wrestled with him for the possession of my mother's
heart. I mistrust me, too, that my father always considered him as
the cause of my mother's death and my early delicacy; and utterly
unreasonable as this may seem, I believe my father rather cherished
his feeling of alienation to my brother as a duty, than strove to
repress it. Yet not for the world would my father have grudged him
anything that money could purchase. That was, as it were, in the
bond when he had wedded my mother. Gregory was lumpish and loutish,
awkward and ungainly, marring whatever he meddled in, and many a hard
word and sharp scolding did he get from the people about the farm,
who hardly waited till my father's back was turned before they rated
the stepson. I am ashamed--my heart is sore to think how I fell into
the fashion of the family, and slighted my poor orphan step-brother.
I don't think I ever scouted him, or was wilfully ill-natured to him;
but the habit of being considered in all things, and being treated as
something uncommon and superior, made me insolent in my prosperity,
and I exacted more than Gregory was always willing to grant, and
then, irritated, I sometimes repeated the disparaging words I had
heard others use with regard to him, without fully understanding
their meaning. Whether he did or not I cannot tell. I am afraid he
did. He used to turn silent and quiet--sullen and sulky, my father
thought it: stupid, aunt Fanny used to call it. But every one said
he was stupid and dull, and this stupidity and dullness grew upon
him. He would sit without speaking a word, sometimes, for hours;
then my father would bid him rise and do some piece of work, maybe,
about the farm. And he would take three or four tellings before he
would go. When we were sent to school, it was all the same. He
could never be made to remember his lessons; the school-master grew
weary of scolding and flogging, and at last advised my father just to
take him away, and set him to some farm-work that might not be above
his comprehension. I think he was more gloomy and stupid than ever
after this, yet he was not a cross lad; he was patient and good-
natured, and would try to do a kind turn for any one, even if they
had been scolding or cuffing him not a minute before. But very often
his attempts at kindness ended in some mischief to the very people he
was trying to serve, owing to his awkward, ungainly ways. I suppose
I was a clever lad; at any rate, I always got plenty of praise; and
was, as we called it, the cock of the school. The schoolmaster said
I could learn anything I chose, but my father, who had no great
learning himself, saw little use in much for me, and took me away
betimes, and kept me with him about the farm. Gregory was made into
a kind of shepherd, receiving his training under old Adam, who was
nearly past his work. I think old Adam was almost the first person
who had a good opinion of Gregory. He stood to it that my brother
had good parts, though he did not rightly know how to bring them out;
and, for knowing the bearings of the Fells, he said he had never seen
a lad like him. My father would try to bring Adam round to speak of
Gregory's faults and shortcomings; but, instead of that, he would
praise him twice as much, as soon as he found out what was my
father's object.
One winter-time, when I was about sixteen, and Gregory nineteen, I
was sent by my father on an errand to a place about seven miles
distant by the road, but only about four by the Fells. He bade me
return by the road, whichever way I took in going, for the evenings
closed in early, and were often thick and misty; besides which, old
Adam, now paralytic and bedridden, foretold a downfall of snow before
long. I soon got to my journey's end, and soon had done my business;
earlier by an hour, I thought, than my father had expected, so I took
the decision of the way by which I would return into my own hands,
and set off back again over the Fells, just as the first shades of
evening began to fall. It looked dark and gloomy enough; but
everything was so still that I thought I should have plenty of time
to get home before the snow came down. Off I set at a pretty quick
pace. But night came on quicker. The right path was clear enough in
the day-time, although at several points two or three exactly similar
diverged from the same place; but when there was a good light, the
traveller was guided by the sight of distant objects,--a piece of
rock,--a fall in the ground--which were quite invisible to me now. I
plucked up a brave heart, however, and took what seemed to me the
right road. It was wrong, nevertheless, and led me whither I knew
not, but to some wild boggy moor where the solitude seemed painful,
intense, as if never footfall of man had come thither to break the
silence. I tried to shout--with the dimmest possible hope of being
heard--rather to reassure myself by the sound of my own voice; but my
voice came husky and short, and yet it dismayed me; it seemed so
weird and strange, in that noiseless expanse of black darkness.
Suddenly the air was filled thick with dusky flakes, my face and
hands were wet with snow. It cut me off from the slightest knowledge
of where I was, for I lost every idea of the direction from which I
had come, so that I could not even retrace my steps; it hemmed me in,
thicker, thicker, with a darkness that might be felt. The boggy soil
on which I stood quaked under me if I remained long in one place, and
yet I dared not move far. All my youthful hardiness seemed to leave
me at once. I was on the point of crying, and only very shame seemed
to keep it down. To save myself from shedding tears, I shouted--
terrible, wild shouts for bare life they were. I turned sick as I
paused to listen; no answering sound came but the unfeeling echoes.
Only the noiseless, pitiless snow kept falling thicker, thicker--
faster, faster! I was growing numb and sleepy. I tried to move
about, but I dared not go far, for fear of the precipices which, I
knew, abounded in certain places on the Fells. Now and then, I stood
still and shouted again; but my voice was getting choked with tears,
as I thought of the desolate helpless death I was to die, and how
little they at home, sitting round the warm, red, bright fire, wotted
what was become of me,--and how my poor father would grieve for me--
it would surely kill him--it would break his heart, poor old man!
Aunt Fanny too--was this to be the end of all her cares for me? I
began to review my life in a strange kind of vivid dream, in which
the various scenes of my few boyish years passed before me like
visions. In a pang of agony, caused by such remembrance of my short
life, I gathered up my strength and called out once more, a long,
despairing, wailing cry, to which I had no hope of obtaining any
answer, save from the echoes around, dulled as the sound might be by
the thickened air. To my surprise I heard a cry--almost as long, as
wild as mine--so wild that it seemed unearthly, and I almost thought
it must be the voice of some of the mocking spirits of the Fells,
about whom I had heard so many tales. My heart suddenly began to
beat fast and loud. I could not reply for a minute or two. I nearly
fancied I had lost the power of utterance. Just at this moment a dog
barked. Was it Lassie's bark--my brother's collie?--an ugly enough
brute, with a white, ill-looking face, that my father always kicked
whenever he saw it, partly for its own demerits, partly because it
belonged to my brother. On such occasions, Gregory would whistle
Lassie away, and go off and sit with her in some outhouse. My father
had once or twice been ashamed of himself, when the poor collie had
yowled out with the suddenness of the pain, and had relieved himself
of his self-reproach by blaming my brother, who, he said, had no
notion of training a dog, and was enough to ruin any collie in
Christendom with his stupid way of allowing them to lie by the
kitchen fire. To all which Gregory would answer nothing, nor even
seem to hear, but go on looking absent and moody.
Yes! there again! It was Lassie's bark! Now or never! I lifted up
my voice and shouted "Lassie! Lassie! for God's sake, Lassie!"
Another moment, and the great white-faced Lassie was curving and
gambolling with delight round my feet and legs, looking, however, up
in my face with her intelligent, apprehensive eyes, as if fearing
lest I might greet her with a blow, as I had done oftentimes before.
But I cried with gladness, as I stooped down and patted her. My mind
was sharing in my body's weakness, and I could not reason, but I knew
that help was at hand. A gray figure came more and more distinctly
out of the thick, close-pressing darkness. It was Gregory wrapped in
his maud.
"Oh, Gregory!" said I, and I fell upon his neck, unable to speak
another word. He never spoke much, and made me no answer for some
little time. Then he told me we must move, we must walk for the dear
life--we must find our road home, if possible; but we must move, or
we should be frozen to death.
"Don't you know the way home?" asked I.
"I thought I did when I set out, but I am doubtful now. The snow
blinds me, and I am feared that in moving about just now, I have lost
the right gait homewards."
He had his shepherd's staff with him, and by dint of plunging it
before us at every step we took--clinging close to each other, we
went on safely enough, as far as not falling down any of the steep
rocks, but it was slow, dreary work. My brother, I saw, was more
guided by Lassie and the way she took than anything else, trusting to
her instinct. It was too dark to see far before us; but he called
her back continually, and noted from what quarter she returned, and
shaped our slow steps accordingly. But the tedious motion scarcely
kept my very blood from freezing. Every bone, every fibre in my body
seemed first to ache, and then to swell, and then to turn numb with
the intense cold. My brother bore it better than I, from having been
more out upon the hills. He did not speak, except to call Lassie. I
strove to be brave, and not complain; but now I felt the deadly fatal
sleep stealing over me.
"I can go no farther," I said, in a drowsy tone. I remember I
suddenly became dogged and resolved. Sleep I would, were it only for
five minutes. If death were to be the consequence, sleep I would.
Gregory stood still. I suppose, he recognized the peculiar phase of
suffering to which I had been brought by the cold.
"It is of no use," said he, as if to himself. "We are no nearer home
than we were when we started, as far as I can tell. Our only chance
is in Lassie. Here! roll thee in my maud, lad, and lay thee down on
this sheltered side of this bit of rock. Creep close under it, lad,
and I'll lie by thee, and strive to keep the warmth in us. Stay!
hast gotten aught about thee they'll know at home?"
I felt him unkind thus to keep me from slumber, but on his repeating
the question, I pulled out my pocket-handkerchief, of some showy
pattern, which Aunt Fanny had hemmed for me--Gregory took it, and
tied it round Lassie's neck.
"Hie thee, Lassie, hie thee home!" And the white-faced ill-favoured
brute was off like a shot in the darkness. Now I might lie down--now
I might sleep. In my drowsy stupor I felt that I was being tenderly
covered up by my brother; but what with I neither knew nor cared--I
was too dull, too selfish, too numb to think and reason, or I might
have known that in that bleak bare place there was nought to wrap me
in, save what was taken off another. I was glad enough when he
ceased his cares and lay down by me. I took his hand.
"Thou canst not remember, lad, how we lay together thus by our dying
mother. She put thy small, wee hand in mine--I reckon she sees us
now; and belike we shall soon be with her. Anyhow, God's will be
done."
"Dear Gregory," I muttered, and crept nearer to him for warmth. He
was talking still, and again about our mother, when I fell asleep.
In an instant--or so it seemed--there were many voices about me--many
faces hovering round me--the sweet luxury of warmth was stealing into
every part of me. I was in my own little bed at home. I am thankful
to say, my first word was "Gregory?"
A look passed from one to another--my father's stern old face strove
in vain to keep its sternness; his mouth quivered, his eyes filled
slowly with unwonted tears.
"I would have given him half my land--I would have blessed him as my
son,--oh God! I would have knelt at his feet, and asked him to
forgive my hardness of heart."
I heard no more. A whirl came through my brain, catching me back to
death.
I came slowly to my consciousness, weeks afterwards. My father's
hair was white when I recovered, and his hands shook as he looked
into my face.
We spoke no more of Gregory. We could not speak of him; but he was
strangely in our thoughts. Lassie came and went with never a word of
blame; nay, my father would try to stroke her, but she shrank away;
and he, as if reproved by the poor dumb beast, would sigh, and be
silent and abstracted for a time.
Aunt Fanny--always a talker--told me all. How, on that fatal night,
my father,--irritated by my prolonged absence, and probably more
anxious than he cared to show, had been fierce and imperious, even
beyond his wont, to Gregory; had upbraided him with his father's
poverty, his own stupidity which made his services good for nothing--
for so, in spite of the old shepherd, my father always chose to
consider them. At last, Gregory had risen up, and whistled Lassie
out with him--poor Lassie, crouching underneath his chair for fear of
a kick or a blow. Some time before, there had been some talk between
my father and my aunt respecting my return; and when aunt Fanny told
me all this, she said she fancied that Gregory might have noticed the
coming storm, and gone out silently to meet me. Three hours
afterwards, when all were running about in wild alarm, not knowing
whither to go in search of me--not even missing Gregory, or heeding
his absence, poor fellow--poor, poor fellow!--Lassie came home, with
my handkerchief tied round her neck. They knew and understood, and
the whole strength of the farm was turned out to follow her, with
wraps, and blankets, and brandy, and every thing that could be
thought of. I lay in chilly sleep, but still alive, beneath the rock
that Lassie guided them to. I was covered over with my brother's
plaid, and his thick shepherd's coat was carefully wrapped round my
feet. He was in his shirt-sleeves--his arm thrown over me--a quiet
smile (he had hardly ever smiled in life) upon his still, cold face.
My father's last words were, "God forgive me my hardness of heart
towards the fatherless child!"
And what marked the depth of his feeling of repentance, perhaps more
than all, considering the passionate love he bore my mother, was
this: we found a paper of directions after his death, in which he
desired that he might lie at the foot of the grave, in which, by his
desire, poor Gregory had been laid with OUR MOTHER.
End of the Project Gutenberg eText The Half-Brothers