“Mother,” then said Will, “why will you keep on thinking she’s alive? If she were but dead, we need never name her name again. We’ve never heard on her since father wrote her that letter; we never knew whether she got it or not. She’d left her place before then. Many a one dies in—”
“Oh, my lad! dunnot speak so to me, or my heart will break outright,” said his mother, with a sort of cry. Then she calmed herself, for she to persuade him to her own belief. “Thou never asked, and thou’rt too like thy father for me to tell without asking—but it were all to be near Lizzie’s old place that I settled down on this side o’ Manchester; and the very day at after we came, I went to her old missus, and asked to speak a word wi’ her. I had a strong mind to cast it up to her, that she should ha’ sent my poor lass away, without telling on it to us first; but she were in black, and looked so sad I could na’ find in my heart to threep it up. But I did ask her a bit about our Lizzie. The master would have turned her away at a day’s warning (he’s gone to t’other place; I hope he’ll meet wi’ more mercy there than he showed our Lizzie—I do), and when the missus asked her should she write to us, she says Lizzie shook her head; and when she speered at her again, the poor lass went down on her knees, and begged her not, for she said it would break my heart (as it has done, Will—God knows it has),” said the poor mother, choking with her struggle to keep down her hard overmastering grief, “and her father would curse her—Oh, God, teach me to be patient.” She could not speak for a few minutes—“and the lass threatened, and said she’d go drown herself in the canal, if the missus wrote home—and so—
“Well! I’d got a trace of my child—the missus thought she’d gone to th’ workhouse to be nursed; and there I went—and there, sure enough, she had been—and they’d turned her out as she were strong, and told her she were young enough to work—but whatten kind o’ work would be open to her, lad, and her baby to keep?”
Will listened to his mother’s tale with deep sympathy, not unmixed with the old bitter shame. But the opening of her heart had unlocked his, and after awhile he spoke—
“Mother! I think I’d e’en better go home. Tom can stay wi’ thee. I know I should stay too, but I cannot stay in peace so near—her—without to see her—Susan Palmer, I mean.”
“Has the old Mr. Palmer thou telled me on a daughter?” asked Mrs. Leigh.
“Ay, he has. And I love her above a bit. And it’s because I love her I want to leave Manchester. That’s all.”
Mrs. Leigh tried to understand this speech for some time, but found it difficult of .
“Why shouldst thou not tell her thou lov’st her? Thou’rt a likely lad, and sure o’ work. Thou’lt have Upclose at my death; and as for that, I could let thee have it now, and keep mysel’ by doing a bit of charring. It seems to me a very sort o’ way of winning her to think of leaving Manchester.”
“Oh, mother, she’s so gentle and so good—she’s downright holy. She’s never known a touch of sin; and can I ask her to marry me, knowing what we do about Lizzie, and fearing worse? I doubt if one like her could ever care for me; but if she knew about my sister, it would put a between us, and she’d up at the thought of crossing it. You don’t know how good she is, mother!”
“Will, Will! if she’s so good as thou say’st, she’ll have pity on such as my Lizzie. If she has no pity for such, she’s a cruel Pharisee, and thou’rt best without her.”
But he only shook his head, and sighed; and for the time the conversation dropped.
But a new idea sprang up in Mrs. Leigh’s head. She thought that she would go and see Susan Palmer, and speak up for Will, and tell her the truth about Lizzie; and according to her pity for the poor sinner, would she be or unworthy of him. She resolved to go the very next afternoon, but without telling any one of her plan. Accordingly she looked out the Sunday clothes she had never before had the heart to since she came to Manchester, but which she now desired to appear in, in order to do credit to Will. She put on her old-fashioned black mode , trimmed with real lace; her cloth cloak, which she had had ever since she was married; and, always spotlessly clean, she set on her unauthorised embassy. She knew the Palmers lived in Crown Street, though where she had heard it she could not tell; and modestly asking her way, she arrived in the street about a quarter to four o’clock. She stopped to the exact number, and the woman whom she addressed told her that Susan Palmer’s school would not be loosed till four, and asked her to step in and wait until then at her house.
“For,” said she, smiling, “them that wants Susan Palmer wants a kind friend of ours; so we, in a manner, call cousins. Sit down, missus, sit down. I’ll wipe the chair, so that it shanna dirty your cloak. My mother used to wear them bright cloaks, and they’re right gradely things again a green field.”
“Han ye known Susan Palmer long?” asked Mrs. Leigh, pleased with the of her cloak.
“Ever since they comed to live in our street. Our Sally goes to her school.”
“Whatten sort of a lass is she, for I ha’ never seen her?”
“Well, as for looks, I cannot say. It’s so long since I first knowed her, that I’ve clean forgotten what I thought of her then. My master says he never saw such a smile for gladdening the heart. But maybe it’s not looks you’re asking about. The best thing I can say of her looks is, that she’s just one a stranger would stop in the street to ask help from if he needed it. All the little childer creeps as close as they can to her; she’ll have as many as three or four hanging to her all at once.”
“Is she cocket at all?”
“Cocket, bless you! you never saw a creature less set up in all your life. Her father’s cocket enough. No! she’s not cocket any way. You’ve not heard much of Susan Palmer, I reckon, if you think she’s cocket. She’s just one to come quietly in, and do the very thing most wanted; little things, maybe, that any one could do, but that few would think on, for another. She’ll bring her thimble wi’ her, and mend up after the childer o’ nights; and she writes all Betty Harker’s letters to her grandchild out at service; and she’s in nobody’s way, and that’s a great matter, I take it. Here’s the childer running past! School is loosed. You’ll find her now, missus, ready to hear and to help. But we none on us frab her by going near her in school-time.”
Poor Mrs. Leigh’s heart began to beat, and she could almost have turned round and gone home again. Her country breeding had made her shy of strangers, and this Susan Palmer appeared to her like a real born lady by all accounts. So she knocked with a timid feeling at the indicated door, and when it was opened, dropped a simple curtsey without speaking. Susan had her little niece in her arms, curled up with fond against her breast, but she put her gently down to the ground, and instantly placed a chair in the best corner of the room for Mrs. Leigh, when she told her who she was. “It’s not Will as has asked me to come,” said the mother, apologetically; “I’d a wish just to speak to you myself!”
Susan coloured up to her temples, and stooped to pick up the little girl. In a minute or two Mrs. Leigh began again.
“Will thinks you would na respect us if you knew all; but I think you could na help feeling for us in the sorrow God has put upon us; so I just put on my bonnet, and came off unknownst to the lads. Every one says you’re very good, and that the Lord has keeped you from falling from His ways; but maybe you’ve never yet been tried and as some is. I’m perhaps speaking too plain, but my heart’s welly broken, and I can’t be choice in my words as them who are happy can. Well now! I’ll tell you the truth. Will you to hear it, but I’ll just tell it you. You mun know—” but here the poor woman’s words failed her, and she could do nothing but sit rocking herself backwards and forwards, with sad eyes, straight-gazing into Susan’s face, as if they tried to tell the tale of agony which the quivering lips refused to utter. Those wretched, eyes forced the tears down Susan’s cheeks, and, as if this sympathy gave the mother strength, she went on in a low voice—“I had a daughter once, my heart’s darling. Her father thought I made too much on her, and that she’d grow staying at home; so he said she mun go among strangers and learn to rough it. She were young, and liked the thought of seeing a bit of the world; and her father heard on a place in Manchester. Well! I’ll not weary you. That poor girl were led astray; and first thing we heard on it, was when a letter of her father’s was sent back by he............