This year’s excessive summer heat got me thinking about Gaskell’s reference to summer weather in North and South. Instantly, I thought of two scenes, and later realized another. Incredibly, the story begins with summer, climaxes in the summer, and ends in the summer!
I’m not sure why Gaskell chose to make it summer when these events happened or if it was just coincidence, but I found it fascinating to discover this detail.
The story opens just days before Edith’s wedding. There’s no mention of the time of year in the first chapter, but it’s in this scene that Margaret famously tells Henry that she imagines a summer summer wedding for herself:
“…I should like it to be a very fine summer morning; and I should like to walk to church through the shade of trees…”
The BBC’s Margaret Hale takes a nap in a grassy field.
It’s not until the second chapter that we learn that Edith’s wedding was in July. After the whirlwind of Edith’s wedding is over, Mr. Hale and Margaret head home for Helstone:
“It was the latter part of July when Margaret returned home. The forest trees were all one dark full, dusky green; the ferns below them caught all the slanting sunbeams; the weather was sultry and broodingly still.”
Margaret spends the rest of the summer happy to be home in her native Helstone, tromping around and enjoying nature.
Alas, much can change in a year, and by the next summer Margaret is living in a completely different world. It’s a summer evening when she and her father attend the Thorntons’ famous annual dinner party in Milton where there’s talk of the strike. And just a few days later she goes to ask about a waterbed for her mother….
It was about two miles from their house in Crampton Crescent to Marlbourough Street. It was too hot to walk very quickly. An August sun beat straight down into the street at three o’clock in the afternoon.
We all know what happens next! The chaos of the riot and the subsequent ill-fated proposal create the climax at the middle of the novel and in the film adaptation. Would you have guessed it was supposed to be summer during those pivotal scenes? Although in the film it looked rather gray out (that’s English weather for you!), I suppose Margaret wearing a white dress would be an indication that it was summer.
Doesn’t look like a hot and sunny August day here.
Tragedy upon tragedy falls upon Margaret in the year following the proposal: Bessy dies the very next day, Mrs. Hale dies that autumn, and Mr. Hale passes on in his sleep the following spring. So where is Margaret when the third summer of the story rolls around? London. With no family left in Milton, she’s whisked to the house of luxury where the story all began.
The timeline from this point on is rather blurred in the mini-series. It would seem that Margaret isn’t in London long before she finds out Marlbourough Mills is shuttered and runs to Milton only to end up finding Thornton at the train station (swoon!).
But in the novel, more than a year passes before they meet again. And, of course, in the book they don’t meet at the station, but in London. Margaret has just come back doing charity work for the poor when Edith tells her about a last-minute surprise guest arriving for dinner:
It was a hot summer’s evening. Edith came into Margaret’s bedroom…
“Oh, Margaret! Here you are! I have been so wanting you…. But how your cheeks are flushed with the heat, poor child! But only think what Henry has done; really he exceeds brother-in-law’s limits. Just when my party was made up so beautifully…..there has Henry come, with an apology it is true, and making use of your name for an excuse, and asked me if he may bring that Mr. Thornton of Milton—your tenant, you know—who is in London about some law business. It will spoil my number, quite.”
“I don’t mind dinner. I don’t want any,” said Margaret, in a low voice…..
“No, no! That will never do. You do look wretchedly white, to be sure, but that is just the heat, and we can’t do without you…”
Ah, poor Edith! She has no clue whatsoever that Margaret is in love with Thornton. She’ll soon find out…
I adore the final two chapters of the book! In fact, I chose to re-write the ending from Thornton’s point of view as my contribution to the short story collection in Falling for Mr. Thornton.
So to summer-ize (wink), here’s the rundown of where Margaret was during the summers of North and South:
London/Helstone: Margaret is 18
Milton: Margaret is 19
London: Margaret is 20
London: Margaret is 21
It’s fascinating to realize that Margaret only lived in Milton for less than a year and a half!
For a more comprehensive timeline of events, you can look here.
Do you have any theories about Gaskell’s use of the summer for her most dramatic scenes? I, for one, am glad that it was just too dang hot for Mr. Thornton on the train so that he appears in his shirtsleeves (gasp!) in that final scene. Thank you, Mrs. Gaskell and the BBC production team, for this particular gift! Sigh.
Margaret seems mesmerized by the vision of an exposed neckline. Where is the cravat?!
P. S. If I’ve piqued your interest in reading or re-reading the book, there’s a lovely Facebook group about to begin reading and discussing a chapter a day of North and South. You’re welcome to join the Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell Reading Room for their September/October read.