by George Eliot
heavy-plated drawing-room candlestick, appeared at the turning of the passage
that led to the broader entrance.
See, she has on a light dress which sits loosely about her figure, but does not
disguise its liberal, graceful outline. A heavy mass of straight jetblack hair
has escaped from its fastening, and hangs over her shoulders. Her grandly-cut
features, pale with the natural paleness of a brunette, have premature lines
about them telling that the years have been lengthened by sorrow, and the
delicately-curved nostril, which seems made to quiver with the proud
consciousness of power and beauty, must have quivered to the heart-piercing
griefs which have given that worn look to the corners of the mouth. Her wide
open black eyes have a strangely fixed, sightless gaze, as she pauses at the
turning, and stands silent before her husband.
"I'll teach you to keep me waiting in the dark, you pale staring fool!"
advancing with his slow drunken step. "What, you've been drinking again, have
you? I'll beat you into your senses."
He laid his hand with a firm gripe on her shoulder, turned her round, and pushed
her slowly before him along the passage and through the dining-room door which
stood open on their left hand.
There was a portrait of Janet's mother, a grey-haired, dark-eyed old woman, in a
neatly-fluted cap, hanging over the mantelpiece. Surely the aged eyes take on a
look of anguish as they see Janet�not trembling, no! it would be better if she
trembled�standing stupidly unmoved in her great beauty, while the heavy arm is
lifted to strike her. The blow falls�another�and another. Surely the mother
hears that cry�"O Robert! pity! pity!"
Poor grey-haired woman! Was it for this you suffered a mother's pangs in your
lone widowhood five-and-thirty years ago? Was it for this you kept the little
worn morocco shoes Janet had first run in, and kissed them day by day when she
was away from you, a tall girl at school? Was it for this you looked proudly at
her when she came back to you in her rich pale beauty, like a tall white arum
that has just unfolded its grand pure curves to the sun?
The mother lies sleepless and praying in her lonely house, weeping the hard
tears of age, because she dreads this may be a cruel night for her child.
She too has a picture over her mantelpiece, drawn in chalk by Janet long years
ago. She looked at it before she went to bed. It is a head bowed beneath a
cross, and wearing a crown of thorns.
CHAPTER V.
It was half-past nine o'clock in the morning. The midsummer sun was already warm
on the roofs and weathercocks of Milby. The church-bells were ringing, and many
families were conscious of Sunday sensations, chiefly referable to the fact that
the daughters had come down to breakfast in their best frocks, and with their
hair particularly well dressed. For it was not Sunday, but Wednesday; and though
the Bishop was going to hold a Confirmation, and to decide whether or not there
should be a Sunday evening lecture in Milby, the sunbeams had the usual
working-day look to the haymakers already long out in the fields, and to laggard
weavers just "setting up" their week's "piece." The notion of its being Sunday
was the strongest in young ladies like Miss Phipps, who was going to accompany
her younger sister to the confirmation, and to wear a "sweetly pretty"
transparent bonnet with marabout feathers on the interesting occasion, thus
throwing into relief the suitable simplicity of her sister's attire, who was, of
course, to appear in a new white frock; or in the pupils at Miss Townley's, who
were absolved from all lessons, and were going to church to see the Bishop, and
to hear the Honourable and Rever-end Mr Prendergast, the rector, read prayers�a
high intellectual treat, as Miss Townley assured them. It seemed only natural
that a rector, who was honourable, should read better than old Mr Crewe, who was
only a curate, and not honourable; and when little Clara Robins wondered why
some clergymen were rectors and others not, Ellen Marriott assured her with
great confidence that it was only the clever men who were made rectors. Ellen
Marriott was going to be confirmed. She was a short, fair, plump girl, with blue
eyes and sandy hair, which was this morning arranged in taller cannon curls than
usual, for the reception of the Episcopal benediction, and some of the young
ladies thought her the prettiest girl in the school; but others gave the
preference to her rival, Maria Gardner, who was much taller, and had a lovely
"crop" of dark-brown ringlets, and who, being also about to take upon herself
the vows made in her name at her baptism, had oiled and twisted her ringlets
with especial care. As she seated herself at the breakfast-table before Miss
Townley's entrance to dispense the weak coffee, her crop excited so strong a
sensation that Ellen Marriott was at length impelled to look at it, and to say
with suppressed but bitter sarcasm, "Is that Miss Gardner's head?" "Yes," said
Maria, amiable and stuttering, and no match for Ellen in retort; "Th �th�this is
my head." "Then I don't admire it at all!" was the crushing rejoinder of Ellen,
followed by a murmur of approval among her friends. Young ladies, I suppose,
exhaust their sac of venom in this way at school. That is the reason why they
have such a harmless tooth for each other in after life.
The only other candidate for confirmation at Miss Townley's was Mary Dunn, a
draper's daughter in Milby, and a distant relation of the Miss Linnets. Her pale
lanky hair could never be coaxed into permanent curl, and this morning the heat
had brought it down to its natural condition of lankiness earlier than usual.
But that was not what made her sit melancholy and apart at the lower end of the
form. Her parents were admirers of Mr Tryan, and had been persuaded, by the Miss
Linnets' influence, to insist that their daughter should be prepared for
confirmation by him, over and above the preparation given to Miss Townley's
pupils by Mr Crewe. Poor Mary Dunn! I am afraid she thought it too heavy a price
to pay for these spiritual advantages, to be excluded from every game at ball,
to be obliged to walk with none but little girls�in fact, to be the object of an
aversion that nothing short of an incessant supply of plum-cakes would have
neutralised. And Mrs Dunn was of opinion that plum-cake was unwholesome. The
anti-Tryanite spirit, you perceive, was very strong at Miss Townley's, imported
probably by day scholars, as well as encouraged by the fact that that clever
woman was herself strongly opposed to innovation, and remarked every Sunday that
Mr Crewe had preached an "excellent discourse." Poor Mary Dunn dreaded the
moment when school-hours would be over, for then she was sure to be the butt of
those very explicit remarks which, in young ladies' as well as young gentlemen's
seminaries, constitute the most subtle and delicate form of the innuendo. "I'd
never be a Tryanite, would you?" "O here comes the lady that knows so much more
about religion than we do!" "Some people think themselves so very pious!"
It is really surprising that young ladies
should not be thought competent to the
same curriculum as young gentlemen. I observe that their powers of sarcasm are
quite equal; and if there had been a genteel academy for young gentlemen at
Milby, I am inclined to think that, notwithstanding Euclid and the classics, the
party spirit there would not have exhibited itself in more pungent irony, or
more incisive satire, than was heard in Miss Townley's seminary. But there was
no such academy, the existence of the grammar-school under Mr Crewe's
superintendence probably discouraging speculations of that kind; and the genteel
youths of Milby were chiefly come home for the midsummer holidays from distant
schools. Several of us had just assumed coat-tails, and the assumption of new
responsibilities apparently following as a matter of course, we were among the
candidates for confirmation. I wish I could say that the solemnity of our
feelings was on a level with the solemnity of the occasion; but unimaginative
boys find it difficult to recognise apostolical institutions in their developed
form, and I fear our chief emotion concerning the ceremony was a sense of
sheepishness, and our chief opinion, the speculative and heretical position,
that it ought to be confined to the girls. It was a pity, you will say; but it
is the way with us men in other crises, that come a long while after
confirmation. The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us, and we see
nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they
are gone.
But, as I said, the morning was sunny, the bells were ringing, the ladies of
Milby were dressed in their Sunday garments.
And who is this bright-looking woman walking with hasty step along Orchard
Street so early, with a large nosegay in her hand? Can it be Janet Dempster, on
whom we looked with such deep pity, one sad midnight, hardly a fortnight ago?
Yes; no other woman in Milby has those searching black eyes, that tall graceful
unconstrained figure, set off by her simple muslin dress and black lace shawl,
that massy black hair now so neatly braided in glossy contrast with the white
satin ribbons of her modest cap and bonnet. No other woman has that sweet
speaking smile, with which she nods to Jonathan Lamb, the old parish clerk. And,
ah!�now she comes nearer�there are those sad lines about the mouth and eyes on
which that sweet smile plays like sunbeams on the storm-beaten beauty of the
full and ripened corn.
She is turning out of Orchard Street, and making her way as fast as she can to
her mother's house, a pleasant cottage facing a roadside meadow from which the
hay is being carried. Mrs Raynor has had her breakfast, and is seated in her
arm-chair reading, when Janet opens the door, saying, in her most playful
voice,�
"Please, mother, I'm come to show myself to you before I go to the Parsonage.
Have I put on my pretty cap and bonnet to satisfy you?"
Mrs Raynor looked over her spectacles, and met her daughter's glance with eyes
as dark and loving as her own. She was a much smaller woman than Janet, both in
figure and feature, the chief resemblance lying in the eyes and the clear
brunette complexion. The mother's hair had long been grey, and was gathered
under the neatest of caps, made by her own clever fingers, as all Janet's caps
and bonnets were too. They were well-practised fingers, for Mrs Raynor had
supported herself in her widowhood by keeping a millinery establishment, and in
this way had earned money enough to give her daughter what was then thought a
first-rate education, as well as to save a sum which, eked out by her
son-in-law, sufficed to support her in her solitary old age. Always the same
clean, neat old lady, dressed in black silk, was Mrs Raynor: a patient, brave
woman, who bowed with resignation under the burden of remembered sorrow, and
bore with meek fortitude the new load that the new days brought with them.
"Your bonnet wants pulling a trifle forwarder, my child," she said, smiling, and
taking off her spectacles, while Janet at once knelt down before her, and waited
to be "set to rights," as she would have done when she was a child. "You're
going straight to Mrs Crewe's, I suppose? Are those flowers to garnish the
dishes?"
"No, indeed, mother. This is a nosegay for the middle of the table. I've sent up
the dinner-service and the ham we had cooked at our house yesterday, and Betty
is coming directly with the garnish and the plate. We shall get our good Mrs
Crewe through her troubles famously. Dear tiny woman! You should have seen her
lift up her hands yesterday, and pray heaven to take her before ever she should
have another collation to get ready for the Bishop. She said, 'It's bad enough
to have the Archdeacon, though he doesn't want half so many jelly-glasses. I
wouldn't mind, Janet, if it was to feed all the old hungry cripples in Milby;
but so much trouble and expense for people who eat too much every day of their
lives!' We had such a cleaning and furbishing-up of the sitting-room yesterday!
Nothing will ever do away with the smell of Mr Crewe's pipes, you know; but we
have thrown it into the background, with yellow soap and dry lavender. And now I
must run away. You will come to church, mother?"
"Yes, my dear, I wouldn't lose such a pretty sight. It does my old eyes good to
see so many fresh young faces. Is your husband going?"
"Yes, Robert will be there. I've made him as neat as a new pin this morning, and
he says the Bishop will think him too buckish by half. I took him into Mammy
Dempster's room to show himself. We hear Tryan is making sure of the Bishop's
support; but we shall see. I would give my crooked guinea, and all the luck it
will ever bring me, to have him beaten, for I can't endure the sight of the man
coming to harass dear old Mr and Mrs Crewe in their last days. Preaching the
Gospel indeed! That is the best Gospel that makes everybody happy and
comfortable, isn't it, mother?"
"Ah, child, I'm afraid there's no Gospel will do that here below."
"Well, I can do something to comfort Mrs Crewe, at least; so give me a kiss, and
good-by till church-time."
The mother leaned back in her chair when Janet was gone, and sank into a painful
reverie. When our life is a continuous trial, the moments of respite seem only
to substitute the heaviness of dread for the heaviness of actual suffering: the
curtain of cloud seems parted an instant only that we may measure all its horror
as it hangs low, black, and imminent, in contrast with the transient brightness;
the water-drops that visit the parched lips in the desert, bear with them only
the keen imagination of thirst. Janet looked glad and tender now�but what scene
of misery was coming next? She was too like the cistus flowers in the little
garden before the window, that, with the shades of evening, might lie with the
delicate white and glossy dark of their petals trampled in the roadside dust.
When the sun had sunk, and the twilight was deepening, Janet might be sitting
there, heated, maddened, sobbing out her griefs with selfish passion, and wildly
wishing herself dead
.
Mrs Raynor had been reading about the lost sheep, and the joy there is in heaven
over the sinner that repenteth. Surely the eternal love she believed in through
all the sadness of her lot, would not leave her child to wander farther and
farther into the wilderness till there was no turning�the child so lovely, so
pitiful to others, so good, till she was goaded into sin by woman's bitterest
sorrows! Mrs Raynor had her faith and her spiritual comforts, though she was not
in the least evangelical, and knew nothing of doctrinal zeal. I fear most of Mr.
Tryan's hearers would have considered her destitute of saving knowledge, and I
am quite sure she had no well-defined views on justification. Nevertheless, she
read her Bible a great deal, and thought she found divine lessons there�how to
bear the cross meekly, and be merciful. Let us hope that there is a saving
ignorance, and that Mrs Raynor was justified without knowing exactly how.
She tried to have hope and trust, though it was hard to believe that the future
would be anything else than the harvest of the seed that was being sown before
her eyes. But always there is seed being sown silently and unseen, and
everywhere there come sweet flowers without our foresight or labour. We reap
what we sow, but Nature has love over and above that justice, and gives us
shadow and blossom and fruit that spring from no planting of ours.
CHAPTER VI.
Most people must have agreed with Mrs Raynor that the Confirmation that day was
a pretty sight, at least when those slight girlish forms and fair young faces
moved in a white rivulet along the aisles, and flowed into kneeling semicircles
under the light of the great chancel window, softened by patches of dark old
painted glass; and one would think that to look on while a pair of venerable
hands pressed such young heads, and a venerable face looked upward for a
blessing on them, would be very likely to make the heart swell gently, and to
moisten the eyes. Yet I remember the eyes seemed very dry in Milby church that
day, not-withstanding that the Bishop was an old man, and probably venerable
(for though he was not an eminent Grecian, he was the brother of a Whig lord);
and I think the eyes must have remained dry, because he had small delicate
womanish hands adorned with ruffles, and, instead of laying them on the girls'
heads, just let them hover over each in quick succession, as if it were not
etiquette to touch them, and as if the laying on of hands were like the
theatrical embrace�part of the play, and not to be really believed in. To be
sure, there were a great many heads, and the Bishop's time was limited.
Moreover, a wig can, under no circumstances, be affecting, except in rare cases
of illusion; and copious lawn-sleeves cannot be expected to go directly to any
heart except a washer-woman's.
I know, Ned Phipps who knelt against me, and I am sure made me behave much worse
than I should have done without him, whispered that he thought the Bishop was a
"guy," and I certainly remember thinking that Mr Prendergast looked much more
dignified with his plain white surplice and black hair. He was a tall commanding
man, and read the Liturgy in a strikingly sonorous and uniform voice, which I
tried to imitate the next Sunday at home, until my little sister began to cry,
and said I was "yoaring at her."
Mr Tryan sat in a pew near the pulpit with several other clergymen. He looked
pale, and rubbed his hand over his face and pushed back his hair oftener than
usual. Standing in the aisle close to him, and repeating the responses with
edifying loudness, was Mr Budd, churchwarden and delegate, with a white staff in
his hand and a backward bend of his small head and person, such as, I suppose,
he considered suitable to a friend of sound religion. Conspicuous in the
gallery, too, was the tall figure of Mr Dempster, whose professional avocations