Cousin Phillis (6 page)

'Mr Ellison the Justice!—who lives in King Street? why, he drives his
carriage!' said I, doubting, yet exultant.

'Ay, lad, John Ellison. But that's no sign that I shall drive my
carriage. Though I should like to save thy mother walking, for she's
not so young as she was. But that's a long way off; anyhow. I reckon I
should start with a third profit. It might be seven hundred, or it
might be more. I should like to have the power to work out some fancies
o' mine. I care for that much more than for th' brass. And Ellison has
no lads; and by nature the business would come to thee in course o'
time. Ellison's lasses are but bits o' things, and are not like to come
by husbands just yet; and when they do, maybe they'll not be in the
mechanical line. It will be an opening for thee, lad, if thou art
steady. Thou'rt not great shakes, I know, in th' inventing line; but
many a one gets on better without having fancies for something he does
not see and never has seen. I'm right down glad to see that mother's
cousins are such uncommon folk for sense and goodness. I have taken the
minister to my heart like a brother; and she is a womanly quiet sort of
a body. And I'll tell you frank, Paul, it will be a happy day for me if
ever you can come and tell me that Phillis Holman is like to be my
daughter. I think if that lass had not a penny, she would be the making
of a man; and she'll have yon house and lands, and you may be her match
yet in fortune if all goes well.'

I was growing as red as fire; I did not know what to say, and yet I
wanted to say something; but the idea of having a wife of my own at
some future day, though it had often floated about in my own head,
sounded so strange when it was thus first spoken about by my father. He
saw my confusion, and half smiling said,—

'Well, lad, what dost say to the old father's plans? Thou art but
young, to be sure; but when I was thy age, I would ha' given my right
hand if I might ha' thought of the chance of wedding the lass I cared
for—'

'My mother?' asked I, a little struck by the change of his tone of
voice.

'No! not thy mother. Thy mother is a very good woman—none better. No!
the lass I cared for at nineteen ne'er knew how I loved her, and a year
or two after and she was dead, and ne'er knew. I think she would ha'
been glad to ha' known it, poor Molly; but I had to leave the place
where we lived for to try to earn my bread and I meant to come back but
before ever I did, she was dead and gone: I ha' never gone there since.
But if you fancy Phillis Holman, and can get her to fancy you, my lad,
it shall go different with you, Paul, to what it did with your father.'

I took counsel with myself very rapidly, and I came to a clear
conclusion. 'Father,' said I, 'if I fancied Phillis ever so much, she
would never fancy me. I like her as much as I could like a sister; and
she likes me as if I were her brother—her younger brother.'

I could see my father's countenance fall a little.

'You see she's so clever she's more like a man than a woman—she knows
Latin and Greek.'

'She'd forget 'em, if she'd a houseful of children,' was my father's
comment on this.

'But she knows many a thing besides, and is wise as well as learned;
she has been so much with her father. She would never think much of me,
and I should like my wife to think a deal of her husband.'

'It is not just book-learning or the want of it as makes a wife think
much or little of her husband,' replied my father, evidently unwilling
to give up a project which had taken deep root in his mind. 'It's a
something I don't rightly know how to call it—if he's manly, and
sensible, and straightforward; and I reckon you're that, my boy.'

'I don't think I should like to have a wife taller than I am, father,'
said I, smiling; he smiled too, but not heartily.

'Well,' said he, after a pause. 'It's but a few days I've been thinking
of it, but I'd got as fond of my notion as if it had been a new engine
as I'd been planning out. Here's our Paul, thinks I to myself, a good
sensible breed o' lad, as has never vexed or troubled his mother or me;
with a good business opening out before him, age nineteen, not so
bad-looking, though perhaps not to call handsome, and here's his
cousin, not too near cousin, but just nice, as one may say; aged
seventeen, good and true, and well brought up to work with her hands as
well as her head; a scholar—but that can't be helped, and is more her
misfortune than her fault, seeing she is the only child of scholar—and
as I said afore, once she's a wife and a she'll forget it all, I'll be
bound—with a good fortune in land and house when it shall please the
Lord to take her parents to himself; with eyes like poor Molly's for
beauty, a colour that comes and goes on a milk-white skin, and as
pretty a mouth—,

'Why, Mr Manning, what fair lady are you describing?' asked Mr
Holdsworth, who had come quickly and suddenly upon our tete-a-tete, and
had caught my father's last words as he entered the room. Both my
father and I felt rather abashed; it was such an odd subject for us to
be talking about; but my father, like a straightforward simple man as
he was, spoke out the truth.

'I've been telling Paul of Ellison's offer, and saying how good an
opening it made for him—'

'I wish I'd as good,' said Mr Holdsworth. 'But has the business a
"pretty mouth"?

'You're always so full of your joking, Mr Holdsworth,' said my father.
'I was going to say that if he and his cousin Phillis Holman liked to
make it up between them, I would put no spoke in the wheel.'

'Phillis Holman!' said Mr Holdsworth. 'Is she the daughter of the
minister-farmer out at Heathbridge? Have I been helping on the course
of true love by letting you go there so often? I knew nothing of it.'

'There is nothing to know,' said I, more annoyed than I chose to show.
'There is no more true love in the case than may be between the first
brother and sister you may choose to meet. I have been telling father
she would never think of me; she's a great deal taller and cleverer;
and I'd rather be taller and more learned than my wife when I have one.'

'And it is she, then, that has the pretty mouth your father spoke
about? I should think that would be an antidote to the cleverness and
learning. But I ought to apologize for breaking in upon your last
night; I came upon business to your father.'

And then he and my father began to talk about many things that had no
interest for me just then, and I began to go over again my conversation
with my father. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that I had
spoken truly about my feelings towards Phillis Holman. I loved her
dearly as a sister, but I could never fancy her as my wife. Still less
could I think of her ever—yes, condescending, that is the
word—condescending to marry me. I was roused from a reverie on what I
should like my possible wife to be, by hearing my father's warm praise
of the minister, as a most unusual character; how they had got back
from the diameter of driving-wheels to the subject of the Holmans I
could never tell; but I saw that my father's weighty praises were
exciting some curiosity in Mr Holdsworth's mind; indeed, he said,
almost in a voice of reproach,—

'Why, Paul, you never told me what kind of a fellow this
minister-cousin of yours was!'

'I don't know that I found out, sir,' said I. 'But if I had, I don't
think you'd have listened to me, as you have done to my father.'

'No! most likely not, old fellow,' replied Mr Holdsworth, laughing. And
again and afresh I saw what a handsome pleasant clear face his was; and
though this evening I had been a bit put out with him—through his
sudden coming, and his having heard my father's open-hearted
confidence—my hero resumed all his empire over me by his bright merry
laugh.

And if he had not resumed his old place that night, he would have done
so the next day, when, after my father's departure, Mr Holdsworth spoke
about him with such just respect for his character, such ungrudging
admiration of his great mechanical genius, that I was compelled to say,
almost unawares,—

'Thank you, sir. I am very much obliged to you.'

'Oh, you're not at all. I am only speaking the truth. Here's a
Birmingham workman, self-educated, one may say—having never associated
with stimulating minds, or had what advantages travel and contact with
the world may be supposed to afford—working out his own thoughts into
steel and iron, making a scientific name for himself—a fortune, if it
pleases him to work for money—and keeping his singleness of heart, his
perfect simplicity of manner; it puts me out of patience to think of my
expensive schooling, my travels hither and thither, my heaps of
scientific books, and I have done nothing to speak of. But it's
evidently good blood; there's that Mr Holman, that cousin of yours,
made of the same stuff'

'But he's only cousin because he married my mother's second cousin,'
said I.

'That knocks a pretty theory on the head, and twice over, too. I should
like to make Holman's acquaintance.'

'I am sure they would be so glad to see you at Hope Farm,' said I,
eagerly. 'In fact, they've asked me to bring you several times: only I
thought you would find it dull.'

'Not at all. I can't go yet though, even if you do get me an
invitation; for the — Company want me to go to the — Valley, and
look over the ground a bit for them, to see if it would do for a branch
line; it's a job which may take me away for some time; but I shall be
backwards and forwards, and you're quite up to doing what is needed in
my absence; the only work that may be beyond you is keeping old Jevons
from drinking.' He went on giving me directions about the management of
the men employed on the line, and no more was said then, or for several
months, about his going to Rope Farm. He went off into — Valley, a
dark overshadowed dale, where the sun seemed to set behind the hills
before four o'clock on midsummer afternoon. Perhaps it was this that
brought on the attack of low fever which he had soon after the
beginning of the new year; he was very ill for many weeks, almost many
months; a married sister—his only relation, I think—came down from
London to nurse him, and I went over to him when I could, to see him,
and give him 'masculine news,' as he called it; reports of the progress
of the line, which, I am glad to say, I was able to carry on in his
absence, in the slow gradual way which suited the company best, while
trade was in a languid state, and money dear in the market. Of course,
with this occupation for my scanty leisure, I did not often go over to
Hope Farm. Whenever I did go, I met with a thorough welcome; and many
inquiries were made as to Holdsworth's illness, and the progress of his
recovery.

At length, in June I think it was, he was sufficiently recovered to
come back to his lodgings at Eltham, and resume part at least of his
work. His sister, Mrs Robinson, had been obliged to leave him some
weeks before, owing to some epidemic amongst her own children. As long
as I had seen Mr Holdsworth in the rooms at the little inn at
Hensleydale, where I had been accustomed to look upon him as an
invalid, I had not been aware of the visible shake his fever had given
to his health. But, once back in the old lodgings, where I had always
seen him so buoyant, eloquent, decided, and vigorous in former days, my
spirits sank at the change in one whom I had always regarded with a
strong feeling of admiring affection. He sank into silence and
despondency after the least exertion; he seemed as if he could not make
up his mind to any action, or else that, when it was made up, he lacked
strength to carry out his purpose. Of course, it was but the natural
state of slow convalescence, after so sharp an illness; but, at the
time, I did not know this, and perhaps I represented his state as more
serious than it was to my kind relations at Hope Farm; who, in their
grave, simple, eager way, immediately thought of the only help they
could give.

'Bring him out here,' said the minister. 'Our air here is good to a
proverb; the June days are fine; he may loiter away his time in the
hay-field, and the sweet smells will be a balm in themselves—better
than physic.'

'And,' said cousin Holman, scarcely waiting for her husband to finish
his sentence, 'tell him there is new milk and fresh eggs to be had for
the asking; it's lucky Daisy has just calved, for her milk is always as
good as other cows' cream; and there is the plaid room with the morning
sun all streaming in.' Phillis said nothing, but looked as much
interested in the project as any one. I took it upon myself. I wanted
them to see him; him to know them. I proposed it to him when I got
home. He was too languid after the day's fatigue, to be willing to make
the little exertion of going amongst strangers; and disappointed me by
almost declining to accept the invitation I brought. The next morning
it was different; he apologized for his ungraciousness of the night
before; and told me that he would get all things in train, so as to be
ready to go out with me to Hope Farm on the following Saturday.

'For you must go with me, Manning,' said he; 'I used to be as impudent
a fellow as need be, and rather liked going amongst strangers, and
making my way; but since my illness I am almost like a girl, and turn
hot and cold with shyness, as they do, I fancy.'

So it was fixed. We were to go out to Hope Farm on Saturday afternoon;
and it was also understood that if the air and the life suited Mr
Holdsworth, he was to remain there for a week or ten days, doing what
work he could at that end of the line, while I took his place at Eltham
to the best of my ability. I grew a little nervous, as the time drew
near, and wondered how the brilliant Holdsworth would agree with the
quiet quaint family of the minister; how they would like him, and many
of his half-foreign ways. I tried to prepare him, by telling him from
time to time little things about the goings-on at Hope Farm.