3. Hearings of Heartbreak in Heston
Chapter 3
Hearings of Heartbreak in Heston
T he train arrived in the railway of Heston, and Mr. Lennox and I departed it.
“There is not much to Heston,” Mr. Lennox explained to me, “it is just one long straggling street that runs parallel to the seashore.”
“Be careful, Mr. Lennox,” I said, “or I would think that you are an enemy of the sea.”
“It might be because I am. For some reason, I have never inherited the love for water and sand the way that other people do. Give me the dirt of London streets and the grind and grindstone of industrial images.”
“I was raised to be a creature of nature,” I replied, “and so a creature of nature I will be.”
As a porter followed us with our luggage (which was not much, because we also carried our own), we disembarked, and I hoped to meet the faces of friendly people.
“Elizabeth!”
I turned to where my name was called, and further down the railway branch, was my friend, Margaret Hale. Putting my bags down, I raced up to her and folded my arms around her.
Surprised by this, she hesitated before she placed her arms around me as well. This led to me laughing.
“Still very reserved, I see?”
“You understand me very well,” she said as we released each other, “it is just my way. Oh, Elizabeth, I am happy to see you.”
“You very much had better be,” I assured her.
She looked behind me and her expressions ran from extreme to extreme. First, she had suffered a great shock. Next, it was familiarity. I turned to where she was looking, and it was at Mr. Lennox.
“Mr. Lennox,” she remarked as he tipped his hat to her.
“Miss Margaret,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I did not expect you.”
“When I discovered that Miss Bennet was coming to join you in Heston, I thought it fitting to be her chaperone. I am only here for a mere couple of hours before I take another train on to Sunderland, to visit a client who requested my presence.”
“Even the North has urged you to leave the comforts of town,” Margaret responded. Her tone was careful, and her words were even. Looking between them both, I got the sense that there was something I was unaware of.
“Yes, it has. You are looking very well, Miss Margaret. The seaside does you good.”
“I thank you. I freely admit that I have found a new love for the sea.” Margaret picked up one of my bags, I picked up another and Mr. Lennox carried my third, as we walked to the hotel.
As we walked, I looked out and saw the sea crashing across the sand in the distance, and I immediately wished that I could go and see it on a closer inspection.
“I am sure that you will like it here,” Margaret assured me, “I cannot wait to take you along the crashing of the waves.”
“It is a pity that the weather is not warm enough for sea-bathing,” Mr. Lennox said. “With such handsome young ladies, I daresay that nothing could be more agreeable.”
“Still an enemy of the sea?” I asked.
“Still,” he confirmed.
When we reached the hotel, Margaret took me up to the room that her father rented and soon I was reunited with her mother and father, Reverend and Mrs. Hale.
“Reverend and Mrs. Hale.” I greeted them warmly, and they smiled at me, in turn. When taking one look at Mrs. Hale, I felt that she was ill, in one form or another. Although, I never recalled Mrs. Hale being anything else but fragile in the whole time that I knew her. Therefore, perhaps I ought not to have been surprised. Yet she was a very kind woman, who suffered from nerves and disappointment, therefore, I had nothing against her.
“Elizabeth,” Mrs. Hale professed, kissing me on the cheek. “It is a delight to see you.”
“We were told that you are coming to Milton with us,” Reverend Hale said, “and good afternoon, Mr. Lennox.”
“Yes, I am,” I replied, soberly. “Now that my sisters and I have to make our way in the world, it is best not to avoid our fate of finding a profession. But rather, it was my time to walk up to it.”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Hale said, covering her mouth with her hand. “I heard about your parents. You poor dear. To lose them both in a carriage accident!”
“Yes,” I replied, trying to even out my breathing, so that I wouldn’t cry. “It was very hard…it was…”
When sensing that I had no words for how I felt, Margaret grabbed my hand and held it. This bit of affection warmed me.
“Well,” Reverend Hale said, “I prayed for your family when I heard the news. The only solace I can suffice is that Margaret has gained you as a companion. I hope that we will be family enough for you.”
“That is a great kindness, Reverend,” I cajoled, “I would like that.”
“Oh, I suppose that my title must be changed. I fear that it is not Reverend Hale anymore, but only Mr. Hale.”
“Of course,” I rushed out, recalling that he relinquished his title as reverend, giving up his livelihood and coming to Milton to become a professor. “Forgive me, it is merely a habit.”
“No apologies are necessary; that is what you are used to labelling me as.”
We all sat down to coffee and refreshment.
In the brief time that Mr. Lennox stayed with us, Margaret spoke with him as little as possible. When watching them, I had time to analyze them both. More and more, I learned that there was something between them that went unspoken. It was an awkwardness that lurked underneath.
After a couple hours, Mr. Lennox took his leave of us to catch the train to Sunderland, and I was left to the Hales. Immediately, I wished to speak to Margaret alone, but it was proper to sit with the entire family.
I liked Mr. Hale, always had and always would. While Mrs. Hale was a nice woman, I couldn’t ignore my memory of her. She was a woman who never found true contentment since I knew her. In any state that she was in, there was always something lacking.
She was born with the name Maria Beresford, and she was a lovely young woman, living in more cosmopolitan areas, in a comfortable home, where she could enjoy balls and parties quite often. Then she had the fate of falling in love with a clergyman of modest income. Both were madly in love with each other, despite that their lives, habits, and expectations were entirely different. Mrs. Hale was meant for a more affluent man of the world, and Mr. Hale needed to have a more practical wife, who had a sturdier disposition and was of more robust health. But alas. They fell in love with each other, and the rest was history. Miss Beresford became Mrs. Hale, she moved with her loyal servant, Dixon, to Helstone, a rural village in the South, and she didn’t stop complaining about her life ever since.
Now, Mr. Hale was no longer to live there, but rather they were decamping and moving to the North. This did not deflate Mrs. Hale’s complaints, but only augmented them. She was sad to leave London and move to Helstone, and now she was sad to leave Helstone and move to Milton.
This showed very soon after I arrived, and her words were supported by Dixon, her trusty and constant servant. Dixon was a large woman, who was Mrs. Hale’s personal servant since Mrs. Hale was a very young woman. There was a bond between them that was stronger than iron.
“What say you to this all, Miss?” Dixon asked me, as an aside.
“To what, Dixon?” I asked.
“To this sad business of the master removing us from Helstone, abandoning his income and security, to decamp us to a cursed place in the North.”
“Dixon,” I whispered, “you know that I have no input on that matter. How would you feel if Mr. Hale heard you speaking like this?”
“I wish I could give him a piece of my mind, if it were only my place,” she huffed, and then she went about her business.
At last, Margaret and I were able to have some time to ourselves. The first thing I did was give her the shawl that Edith offered as a present.
“Oh, Edith,” Margaret said, holding up the shawl. “She knows that I don’t need this where I am going—and it does nothing else but make me miss her.” She wrapped the shawl around her shoulders. “She would make a fine lady of me yet. Yes, I miss her terribly.”
Knowing that I was an active sort, Margaret offered to walk along the sea with me, since she knew that I was excited to do it.
“I wonder what it’s like,” I began, thinking of Mrs. Hale and Dixon, “to be a man married to a woman who has a constant servant as one’s companion. It is as if Mr. Hale has married a woman, where there will always be another woman to crowd their intimacy.” Margaret gave me a look. “I know what you are thinking. That I am overstepping my bounds and being too forward.”
“I do not deny that you are correct,” she acknowledged, “it would be foolish of me to ignore the veracity of that. Dixon loves my mother, but she doesn’t always mind her words.”
“But to be a husband where there will always be another person closer to your wife than yourself… I wonder what that is like? Then again, Mr. Hale is very patient. Perhaps more than I would be. Mind you, I do harbor a deep affection for Dixon. But I cannot help but observe things as I may.”
“Still a studier of humanity, Elizabeth?”
I gave her a quizzical look.
“And you are not?”
She smiled slightly.
“I suppose both you and I are guilty of that habit.”
“There’s nothing to be guilty over.”
I picked up a handful of sand and let it slip through my fingers.
“So, how have you all found Heston?”
“Oh, I love it,” she answered. “When we arrived, we were glad to take the first clean, cheerful room that we met. For the first time in so many days I have felt at rest. There is a dreaminess in the rest, too, which makes it still more perfect and luxurious to repose in. The distant sea, lapping the sandy shore with measured sound, and seeing new scenes and new faces…it’s helping me recover from the aches and pains that come from having to leave one’s home and be so much uprooted from everything that one knows.”
Realizing that she might not have been as empathetic to my situation, her expression changed to humility and sympathy.
“Elizabeth, I am so sorry. I am talking of myself and my own misfortunes when you are undergoing much worse.”
“It is well to speak of yourself,” I assured her. “You know that I am not made of such weak stuff that I cannot hear tell of another person’s agonies. You and I both have been banished from our homes.”
“My situation came from father choosing to leave Helstone, despite that he felt as if he might as well have been forced out. With you, you had no choice in the matter.”
“You weren’t given much of a choice either.”
She looked ahead, toward the sea.
“I suppose you are right on that score. We both of us had to silence ourselves and do our duty. However, I still have my parents.”
“And I do not. Yes, that is harder. I miss them every day.”
“And father gave up our home. Whereas, with you, Mr. Collins couldn’t help but return with a vengeance in his heart and…he dared call himself a clergyman! Men like him perhaps are the reason that my father wanted independence.”
“Yes, we all want freedom, in one form or another.”
“That’s why I cannot despise my father. I cannot deny understanding the need to be able to order one’s own life.”
“I understand that as well. I do not deny hating Mr. Collins when he drove us from our home. Perhaps, I still do, in my heart. I forget—did I ever write to you about how he proposed to Charlotte Lucas after his failed proposal to me?”
Margaret’s head shot around, surprised.
“He did?”
“Yes, he did.”
“But, from the way that you write, you didn’t tell me that she got married.”
“Because she didn’t. Out of respect for me, she politely declined the offer.”
“She did? That was noble of her.”
“Noble indeed. Charlotte didn’t wish to hurt me, so she was willing to risk her future instead. I am beholden to her, now more than ever.”
“Did Sir William and Lady Lucas ever discover this?”
“Yes, they did. However, Lady Lucas is unlike how mama was; she didn’t torment Charlotte night and day on the matter. She was initially upset, but eventually accepted Charlotte’s reasons and, of course, Sir William eventually held no disdain for his eldest daughter. I just…”
“What?”
“It’s hard knowing that your friend might forever be single, because of loyalty for you. And to add to all that, she is loyal to a woman who was forced to leave the county when her cousin moved into Longbourn with his bride.”
“If you and Charlotte Lucas rejected Mr. Collins, then who did he wed?”
“A Miss Letitia Morgan. She was one of his parishioners in Hunsford. Two weeks after our parents died, Mr. Collins wrote to us to inform us of him and his wife’s arrival in a month’s time. Once they got there, they spent every day giving subtle hints of asking us when we were going to visit our other relatives. It became too much to be born eventually, so each of us relied on our experiences and inquired of work elsewhere. Lydia got married to the first officer who made her an offer, and now she follows her husband’s regiment.”
“Kitty works in Milton as a chambermaid and Jane is a governess?”
“Yes. Mary also has skills to be a governess, but she works in my uncle’s factory.”
“In Cheapside?”
“Yes, it is,” I replied. “Mary was always the one who could lend herself to a profession the easiest. It’s weighing her down now, but she will always endure. For the rest of us, it has been quite a transition. Excepting Lydia, who got the life that she wanted.”
“You once wrote to me that Lydia used to wish to be the first one to get married. That way, she could usher you to all the balls as a chaperone.”
“She got her wish,” I smiled sadly. “But there may never be any balls to usher us to.”
Margaret took my hand, empathetic.
“Dear Elizabeth. You all deserve better.”
“Thank you. I suppose, in life, we are given everything and end it with losing everything. But I wish that if everything had to be taken away from us, it should be taken slowly. Not taken all at once.”
“Yes. That would be the best. But life just couldn’t help itself.”
“By the way, I couldn’t help but notice that you and Mr. Lennox were apprehensive on that score. Or was I mistaken?”
“Oh, you are not mistaken at all. We didn’t part ways well.”
“Did he say something untoward to you once?”
“A bit. He proposed marriage to me.”
I stopped walking in my tracks.
“What!”
“Yes,” Margaret confessed, “he proposed to me. And I rejected him. Like you with Mr. Collins, I am a jilter.”
“Yes, we are,” I acknowledged. “Would you be willing to tell me the entire story?”
“Only if you promise me that I will not have to repeat it again. You know that I do not care to talk much about romance.”
“Cross my heart.”
“Very well. Here’s what happened…”
We walked on, with her telling me her story. Months ago, Mr. Lennox had traveled to Helstone, specifically to propose marriage to her. She refused him, and they had been awkward ever since. Fortunately , Lennox was not her cousin who tried to remove her from her home. But it happened all the same. We walked on, each being a woman who rejected the proposal of a man.
In the short time that we remained in Heston, it was indeed heaven on earth. The seaside provided me with the very same peace that Margaret began to find there.
Even though Mr. and Mrs. Hale knew about all the tragedies that struck my family over the last five months, they still were willing to allow me to retell the tale of our misfortunes and offer me all the feelings of empathy that they could muster. I had no choice but to relive the loss of my parents, out loud. And they were patient in re-hearing it.
Being a true clergyman (though no longer one) who stood by the courage of his convictions, Mr. Hale’s condolences for my cause were more heartfelt.
Mrs. Hale was wonderful, but it was evident that she sympathized with my tales of woe, because they matched her own. Often, she compared our fates because it justified her own state.
“I know how you feel, dear Elizabeth,” she would say, patting my hand, “because it is how I felt when leaving Helstone for a place that I’ve heard horrible stories about. Our moving was decided without my feelings being considered. It was most unfair.”
“But I recall you always not enjoying the weather or conditions in Helstone,” I pointed out. “I thought this change would have been refreshing for you.”
“It does not. One day, my dear, you will learn: the devil you know is better than the devil you don’t.”
On the last day that we were to remain by the sea, Margaret and I laid a blanket on the sand and watched the waves crashing against the shore.
How at peace we both were!
“I don’t want to leave,” she uttered. “I don’t want to leave this place.”
“Neither do I. For a time, it helped me forget about my mother and father being gone. This place has that much of a calming effect.”
“But the future must be met, however stern and iron it be.”
“We will persevere. We must promise ourselves that.”
“Yes. We must.”
“No matter what rocky shores we are dashed against, I am determined that we shall live.” I gave her a side glance. “Do not make a liar out of me.”
Margaret half-smiled.
On the day of departure, we were four in number. With our bags packed away in the compartment, we took the train to Milton.
As we did so, the sky began to change, and it was ominous.
Up ahead of us, we saw smoke in the skies, even more darkened as the Fall season began to reach its apex. Then we soon saw long, straight, hopeless streets of regularly built houses, all small and of brick. Here and there, were oblong-shaped factories, like a hen among her chickens, puffing out black unparliamentary smoke, and was the explanation for the clouds that we saw over the town.
At last, the train reached the railway station and we saw a view of Milton from the window.
“Dear lord,” Mrs. Hale said, “this is worse than anything I imagined.”
We all were silent for a brief time.
“Well, that’s one way to greet a city,” I professed.
Now we got our very first look at Milton, the industrial town to be our new home.