Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell - Delphi Classics (Illustrated) (eBook)

Elizabeth Gaskell (Autor)

Elizabeth Gaskell (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2017
90 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-1-78877-027-9 (ISBN)

Infos

This eBook features the unabridged text of 'Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell - Delphi Classics (Illustrated)' from the bestselling edition of 'The Complete Works of Elizabeth Gaskell'.

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Textauszug

PART II

Cousin Holman gave me the weekly county newspaper to read aloud to her, while she mended stockings out of a high piled-up basket, Phillis helping her mother. I read and read, unregardful of the words I was uttering, thinking of all manner of other things; of the bright colour of Phillis’s hair, as the afternoon sun fell on her bending head; of the silence of the house, which enabled me to hear the double tick of the old clock which stood half-way up the stairs; of the variety of inarticulate noises which cousin Holman made while I read, to show her sympathy, wonder, or horror at the newspaper intelligence. The tranquil monotony of that hour made me feel as if I had lived for ever, and should live for ever droning out paragraphs in that warm sunny room, with my two quiet hearers, and the curled-up pussy cat sleeping on the hearth-rug, and the clock on the house-stairs perpetually clicking out the passage of the moments. By-and-by Betty the servant came to the door into the kitchen, and made a sign to Phillis, who put her half-mended stocking down, and went away to the kitchen without a word. Looking at cousin Holman a minute or two afterwards, I saw that she had dropped her chin upon her breast, and had fallen fast asleep. I put the newspaper down, and was nearly following her example, when a waft of air from some unseen source, slightly opened the door of communication with the kitchen, that Phillis must have left unfastened; and I saw part of her figure as she sate by the dresser, peeling apples with quick dexterity of finger, but with repeated turnings of her head towards some book lying on the dresser by her. I softly rose, and as softly went into the kitchen, and looked over her shoulder; before she was aware of my neighbourhood, I had seen that the book was in a language unknown to me, and the running title was L’Inferno. Just as I was making out the relationship of this word to ‘infernal’, she started and turned round, and, as if continuing her thought as she spoke, she sighed out, —

‘Oh! it is so difficult! Can you help me?’ putting her finger below a line.

‘Me! I! I don’t even know what language it is in!’

‘Don’t you see it is Dante?’ she replied, almost petulantly; she did so want help.

‘Italian, then?’ said I, dubiously; for I was not quite sure.

‘Yes. And I do so want to make it out. Father can help me a little, for he knows Latin; but then he has so little time.’

‘You have not much, I should think, if you have often to try and do two things at once, as you are doing now.

‘Oh! that’s nothing! Father bought a heap of old books cheap. And I knew something about Dante before; and I have always liked Virgil so much. Paring apples is nothing, if I could only make out this old Italian. I wish you knew it.’

‘I wish I did,’ said I, moved by her impetuosity of tone. ‘If, now, only Mr Holdsworth were here; he can speak Italian like anything, I believe.’

‘Who is Mr Holdsworth?’ said Phillis, looking up.

‘Oh, he’s our head engineer. He’s a regular first-rate fellow! He can do anything;’ my hero-worship and my pride in my chief all coming into play. Besides, if I was not clever and book-learned myself, it was something to belong to some one who was.

‘How is it that he speaks Italian?’ asked Phillis.

‘He had to make a railway through Piedmont, which is in Italy, I believe; and he had to talk to all the workmen in Italian; and I have heard him say that for nearly two years he had only Italian books to read in the queer outlandish places he was in.’

‘Oh, dear!’ said Phillis; ‘I wish—’ and then she stopped. I was not quite sure whether to say the next thing that came into my mind; but I said it.

‘Could I ask him anything about your book, or your difficulties?’

She was silent for a minute or so, and then she made reply, —

‘No! I think not. Thank you very much, though. I can generally puzzle a thing out in time. And then, perhaps, I remember it better than if some one had helped me. I’ll put it away now, and you must move off, for I’ve got to make the paste for the pies; we always have a cold dinner on Sabbaths.’

‘But I may stay and help you, mayn’t I?’

‘Oh, yes; not that you can help at all, but I like to have you with me.’ I was both flattered and annoyed at this straightforward avowal. I was pleased that she liked me; but I was young coxcomb enough to have wished to play the lover, and I was quite wise enough to perceive that if she had any idea of the kind in her head she would never have spoken out so frankly. I comforted myself immediately, however, by finding out that the grapes were sour. A great tall girl in a pinafore, half a head taller than I was, reading books that I had never heard of, and talking about them too, as of far more interest than any mere personal subjects; that was the last day on which I ever thought of my dear cousin Phillis as the possible mistress of my heart and life. But we were all the greater friends for this idea being utterly put away and buried out of sight.

Late in the evening the minister came home from Hornby. He had been calling on the different members of his flock; and unsatisfactory work it had proved to him, it seemed from the fragments that dropped out of his thoughts into his talk.

‘I don’t see the men; they are all at their business, their shops, or their warehouses; they ought to be there. I have no fault to find with them; only if a pastor’s teaching or words of admonition are good for anything, they are needed by the men as much as by the women.’

‘Cannot you go and see them in their places of business, and remind them of their Christian privileges and duties, minister?’ asked cousin Holman, who evidently thought that her husband’s words could never be out of place.

‘No!’ said he, shaking his head. ‘I judge them by myself. If there are clouds in the sky, and I am getting in the hay just ready for loading, and rain sure to come in the night, I should look ill upon brother Robinson if he came into the field to speak about serious things.’

‘But, at any rate, father, you do good to the women, and perhaps they repeat what you have said to them to their husbands and children?’

‘It is to be hoped they do, for I cannot reach the men directly; but the women are apt to tarry before coming to me, to put on ribbons and gauds; as if they could hear the message I bear to them best in their smart clothes. Mrs Dobson to-day — Phillis, I am thankful thou dost not care for the vanities of dress!’ Phillis reddened a little as she said, in a low humble voice, —

‘But I do, father, I’m afraid. I often wish I could wear pretty-coloured ribbons round my throat like the squire’s daughters.’

‘It’s but natural, minister!’ said his wife; ‘I’m not above liking a silk gown better than a cotton one myself!’

‘The love of dress is a temptation and a snare,’ said he, gravely. ‘The true adornment is a meek and quiet spirit. And, wife,’ said he, as a sudden thought crossed his mind, ‘in that matter I, too, have sinned. I wanted to ask you, could we not sleep in the grey room, instead of our own?’

‘Sleep in the grey room? — change our room at this time o’ day?’ cousin Holman asked, in dismay.

‘Yes,’ said he. ‘It would save me from a daily temptation to anger. Look at my chin!’ he continued; ‘I cut it this morning — I cut it on Wednesday when I was shaving; I do not know how many times I have cut it of late, and all from impatience at seeing Timothy Cooper at his work in the yard.’

‘He’s a downright lazy tyke!’ said cousin Holman. ‘He’s not worth his wage. There’s but little he can do, and what he can do, he does badly.’

‘True,’ said the minister. ‘He is but, so to speak, a half-wit; and yet he has got a wife and children.’

‘More shame for him!’

‘But that is past change. And if I turn him off; no one else will take him on. Yet I cannot help watching him of a morning as he goes sauntering about his work in the yard; and I watch, and I watch, till the old Adam rises strong within me at his lazy ways, and some day, I am afraid, I shall go down and send him about his business — let alone the way in which he makes me cut myself while I am shaving — and then his wife and children will starve. I wish we could move to the grey room.’

I do not remember much more of my first visit to the Hope Farm. We went to chapel in Heathbridge, slowly and decorously walking along the lanes, ruddy and tawny with the colouring of the coming autumn. The minister walked a little before us, his hands behind his back, his head bent down, thinking about the discourse to be delivered to his people, cousin Holman said; and we spoke low and quietly, in order not to interrupt his thoughts. But I could not help noticing the respectful greetings which he received from both rich and poor as we went along; greetings which he acknowledged with a kindly wave of his hand, but with no words of reply. As we drew near the town, I could see some of the young fellows we met cast admiring looks on Phillis; and that made me look too. She had on a white gown, and a short black silk cloak, according to the fashion of the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 17.7.2017
• Reihe/Serie: Delphi Parts Edition (Elizabeth Gaskell)
• Reihe/Serie: Delphi Parts Edition (Elizabeth Gaskell)
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Anthologien
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Klassiker / Moderne Klassiker
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: Bronte • cranford • Eliot • Mary • North • Penguin • wives
• ISBN-10: 1-78877-027-7 / 1788770277
• ISBN-13: 978-1-78877-027-9 / 9781788770279