The Mill on the Floss
Page 7
Chapter VII
Enter the Aunts and Uncles
The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was notthe least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. Tulliver'sarm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied that for a woman offifty she had a very comely face and figure, though Tom and Maggieconsidered their aunt Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true shedespised the advantages of costume, for though, as she often observed,no woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new thingsout before her old ones. Other women, if they liked, might have theirbest thread-lace in every wash; but when Mrs. Glegg died, it would befound that she had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of herwardrobe in the Spotted Chamber than ever Mrs. Wooll of St. Ogg's hadbought in her life, although Mrs. Wooll wore her lace before it waspaid for. So of her curled fronts: Mrs. Glegg had doubtless theglossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls invarious degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look out on the week-dayworld from under a crisp and glossy front would be to introduce a mostdreamlike and unpleasant confusion between the sacred and the secular.Occasionally, indeed, Mrs. Glegg wore one of her third-best fronts ona week-day visit, but not at a sister's house; especially not at Mrs.Tulliver's, who, since her marriage, had hurt her sister's feelingsgreatly by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs. Glegg observed toMrs. Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with a husband alwaysgoing to law, might have been expected to know better. But Bessy wasalways weak!
So if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, shehad a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cuttingallusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blond curls, separated fromeach other by a due wave of smoothness on each side of the parting.Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times at sister Glegg'sunkindness on the subject of these unmatronly curls, but theconsciousness of looking the handsomer for them naturally administeredsupport. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the houseto-day,--untied and tilted slightly, of course--a frequent practice ofhers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor:she didn't know what draughts there might be in strange houses. Forthe same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just toher shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formedchest, while her long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ ofmiscellaneous frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashionsof those times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg'sslate-colored silk gown must have been; but from certainconstellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor aboutit suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that itbelonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have comerecently into wear.
Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the many-doubledchain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. Tulliver, who had justreturned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be byother people's clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve byhers.
"I don't know what ails sister Pullet," she continued. "It used to bethe way in our family for one to be as early as another,--I'm sure itwas so in my poor father's time,--and not for one sister to sit halfan hour before the others came. But if the ways o' the family arealtered, it sha'n't be _my_ fault; _I'll_ never be the one to comeinto a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder _at_ sisterDeane,--she used to be more like me. But if you'll take my advice,Bessy, you'll put the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back,because folks are late as ought to ha' known better."
"Oh dear, there's no fear but what they'll be all here in time,sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone. "The dinnerwon't be ready till half-past one. But if it's long for you to wait,let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o' wine."
"Well, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with a bitter smile and a scarcelyperceptible toss of her head, "I should ha' thought you'd known yourown sister better. I never _did_ eat between meals, and I'm not goingto begin. Not but what I hate that nonsense of having your dinner athalf-past one, when you might have it at one. You was never brought upin that way, Bessy."
"Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr. Tulliver doesn't like his dinner beforetwo o'clock, but I put it half an hour earlier because o' you."
"Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands,--they're for puttingeverything off; they'll put the dinner off till after tea, if they'vegot wives as are weak enough to give in to such work; but it's a pityfor you, Bessy, as you haven't got more strength o' mind. It'll bewell if your children don't suffer for it. And I hope you've not goneand got a great dinner for us,--going to expense for your sisters, as'ud sooner eat a crust o' dry bread nor help to ruin you withextravagance. I wonder you don't take pattern by your sister Deane;she's far more sensible. And here you've got two children to providefor, and your husband's spent your fortin i' going to law, and'slikely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, as you could make brothof for the kitchen," Mrs. Glegg added, in a tone of emphatic protest,"and a plain pudding, with a spoonful o' sugar, and no spice, 'ud befar more becoming."
With sister Glegg in this humor, there was a cheerful prospect for theday. Mrs. Tulliver never went the length of quarrelling with her, anymore than a water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating mannercan be said to quarrel with a boy who throws stones. But this point ofthe dinner was a tender one, and not at all new, so that Mrs. Tullivercould make the same answer she had often made before.
"Mr. Tulliver says he always _will_ have a good dinner for his friendswhile he can pay for it," she said; "and he's a right to do as helikes in his own house, sister."
"Well, Bessy, _I_ can't leave your children enough out o' my savingsto keep 'em from ruin. And you mustn't look to having any o' Mr.Glegg's money, for it's well if I don't go first,--he comes of along-lived family; and if he was to die and leave me well for my life,he'd tie all the money up to go back to his own kin."
The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an interruptionhighly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sisterPullet; it must be sister Pullet, because the sound was that of afour-wheel.
Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth atthe thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on thatsubject.
Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped beforeMrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that she shouldshed a few more before getting out; for though her husband and Mrs.Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat still and shook her headsadly, as she looked through her tears at the vague distance.
"Why, whativer is the matter, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. She was notan imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the largetoilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly broken forthe second time.
There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs. Pulletslowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glanceat Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome silk dress frominjury. Mr. Pullet was a small man, with a high nose, small twinklingeyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black and a whitecravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higherprinciple than that of mere personal ease. He bore about the samerelation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves,abundant mantle, and a large befeathered and beribboned bonnet, as asmall fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.
It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexityintroduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization, thesight of a fashionably dressed female in grief. From the sorrow of aHottentot to that of a woman in large buckram sleeves, with severalbracelets on each arm, an architectural bonnet, and delicate ribbonstrings, what a long series of gradations! In the enlightened child ofcivilization the abandonment characteristic of grief is checked andvaried in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problemto the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blindedby the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too-devious step througha door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deepc
onsciousness of this possibility produces a composition of forces bywhich she takes a line that just clears the door-post. Perceiving thatthe tears are hurrying fast, she unpins her strings and throws themlanguidly backward, a touching gesture, indicative, even in thedeepest gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when cap-strings willonce more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with herhead leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet,she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all thingselse a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively ather bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studiedfortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more ina calm and healthy state.
Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety, about thelatitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculousto an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and a half acrossthe shoulders), and having done that sent the muscles of her face inquest of fresh tears as she advanced into the parlor where Mrs. Gleggwas seated.
"Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?" said Mrs. Glegg,rather sharply, as they shook hands.
Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind, beforeshe answered,--
"She's gone," unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric.
"It isn't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver.
"Died the day before yesterday," continued Mrs. Pullet; "an' her legswas as thick as my body,"' she added, with deep sadness, after apause. "They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they say youmight ha' swum in it, if you'd liked."
"Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoever she may be," saidMrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind naturallyclear and decided; "but I can't think who you're talking of, for mypart."
"But _I_ know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; "andthere isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as it's oldMrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands."
"Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance as I've everheared of," said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as wasproper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on otheroccasions.
"She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they was likebladders. And an old lady as had doubled her money over and overagain, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had herpocket with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn't manyold _par_ish'ners like her, I doubt."
"And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon," observedMr. Pullet.
"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, "she'd another complaint ever so many yearsbefore she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make out what itwas. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, shesaid, 'Mrs. Pullet, if ever you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.'She _did_ say so," added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again;"those were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday, andPullet's bid to the funeral."
"Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit ofrational remonstrance,--"Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting andinjuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your poorfather never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o' thefamily as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than this, ifwe'd heared as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making hiswill."
Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and ratherflattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. Itwas not everybody who could afford to cry so much about theirneighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married agentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying andeverything else to the highest pitch of respectability.
"Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though," said Mr.Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanctionhis wife's tears; "ours is a rich parish, but they say there's nobodyelse to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she'sleft no leggicies to speak on,--left it all in a lump to her husband'snevvy."
"There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then," said Mrs. Glegg, "ifshe'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor work whenthat's all you've got to pinch yourself for. Not as I'm one o' thoseas 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at interest thanother folks had reckoned; but it's a poor tale when it must go out o'your own family."
"I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered sufficientlyto take off her veil and fold it carefully, "it's a nice sort o' manas Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's troubled with theasthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o'clock. He told me aboutit himself--as free as could be--one Sunday when he came to ourchurch. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in histalk,--quite a gentleman sort o' man. I told him there wasn't manymonths in the year as I wasn't under the doctor's hands. And he said,'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said,--the verywords. Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea thatthere were but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pinkmixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and weakstuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts ateighteenpence. "Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now.Did you see as the cap-box was put out?" she added, turning to herhusband.
Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, andhastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission.
"They'll bring it upstairs, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, wishing to goat once, lest Mrs. Glegg should begin to explain her feelings aboutSophy's being the first Dodson who ever ruined her constitution withdoctor's stuff.
Mrs. Tulliver was fond of going upstairs with her sister Pullet, andlooking thoroughly at her cap before she put it on her head, anddiscussing millinery in general. This was part of Bessy's weaknessthat stirred Mrs. Glegg's sisterly compassion: Bessy went far too welldressed, considering; and she was too proud to dress her child in thegood clothing her sister Glegg gave her from the primeval strata ofher wardrobe; it was a sin and a shame to buy anything to dress thatchild, if it wasn't a pair of shoes. In this particular, however, Mrs.Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs. Tulliver hadreally made great efforts to induce Maggie to wear a leghorn bonnetand a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg's, but the resultshad been such that Mrs. Tulliver was obliged to bury them in hermaternal bosom; for Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nastydye, had taken an opportunity of basting it together with the roastbeef the first Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, shehad subsequently pumped on the bonnet with its green ribbons, so as togive it a general resemblance to a sage cheese garnished with witheredlettuces. I must urge in excuse for Maggie, that Tom had laughed ather in the bonnet, and said she looked like an old Judy. Aunt Pullet,too, made presents of clothes, but these were always pretty enough toplease Maggie as well as her mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs. Tullivercertainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return ofpreference; but Mrs. Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty, awkwardchildren; she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pitythey weren't as good and as pretty as sister Deane's child. Maggie andTom, on their part, thought their aunt Pullet tolerable, chieflybecause she was not their aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go morethan once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his unclestipped him that once, of course; but at his aunt Pullet's there were agreat many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred thevisit to her. Maggie shuddered at the toads, and dreamed of themhorribly, but she liked her uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. Still,it was agreed by the sisters, in Mrs. Tulliver's absence, that theTulliver blood did not mix well with the Dodson blood; that, in fact,poor Bessy's children were Tullivers, and that Tom, notwithstanding hehad the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as "contrairy" as hisfather. As for Maggie, she was the picture of her aunt Moss, Mr.Tulliver's sister,--a large-boned woman, who had married as poorly ascould be; had no china, and had a husband who had much ado to pay hisrent. But when Mrs. Pullet was a
lone with Mrs. Tulliver upstairs, theremarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs. Glegg, and theyagreed, in confidence, that there was no knowing what sort of frightsister Jane would come out next. But their _tete-a-tete_ was curtailedby the appearance of Mrs. Deane with little Lucy; and Mrs. Tulliverhad to look on with a silent pang while Lucy's blond curls wereadjusted. It was quite unaccountable that Mrs. Deane, the thinnest andsallowest of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child, whomight have been taken for Mrs. Tulliver's any day. And Maggie alwayslooked twice as dark as usual when she was by the side of Lucy.
She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden with theirfather and their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off verycarelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl,rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee.Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous, and tosuperficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie though aconnoisseur might have seen "points" in her which had a higher promisefor maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrastbetween a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put upthe neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about herwas neat,--her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; herlittle straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows,rather darker than her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked upwith shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely ayear older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight.
She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any largerthan children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just likeLucy, with a little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in herhand--only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy's form.
"Oh, Lucy," she burst out, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tomand me, won't you? Oh, kiss her, Tom."
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her--no;he came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole,than saying, "How do you do?" to all those aunts and uncles. He stoodlooking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air andsemi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,--very much asif they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degreeof undress that was quite embarrassing.
"Heyday!" said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. "Do little boys andgells come into a room without taking notice of their uncles andaunts? That wasn't the way when _I_ was a little gell."
"Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver,looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to whisper to Maggie acommand to go and have her hair brushed.
"Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children, are you?"said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud, emphatic way, as she took theirhands, hurting them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeksmuch against their desire. "Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go toboarding-schools should hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tomdeclined that pleasure apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away."Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on yourshoulder."
Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud, emphatic way, as if sheconsidered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic; it was a means, shethought, of making them feel that they were accountable creatures, andmight be a salutary check on naughty tendencies. Bessy's children wereso spoiled--they'd need have somebody to make them feel their duty.
"Well, my dears," said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate voice, "yougrow wonderful fast. I doubt they'll outgrow their strength," sheadded, looking over their heads, with a melancholy expression, attheir mother. "I think the gell has too much hair. I'd have it thinnedand cut shorter, sister, if I was you; it isn't good for her health.It's that as makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't wonder. Don't youthink so, sister Deane?"
"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting her lipsclose again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye.
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough; there'snothing ails her. There's red wheat as well as white, for that matter,and some like the dark grain best. But it 'ud be as well if Bessy 'udhave the child's hair cut, so as it 'ud lie smooth."
A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast, but it wasarrested by the desire to know from her aunt Deane whether she wouldleave Lucy behind. Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy come to seethem. After various reasons for refusal, Mrs. Deane appealed to Lucyherself.
"You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?"
"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very pink all overher little neck.
"Well done, Lucy! Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr.Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of _physique_ to beseen in all ranks of English society,--bald crown, red whiskers, fullforehead, and general solidity without heaviness. You may see noblemenlike Mr. Deane, and you may see grocers or day-laborers like him; butthe keenness of his brown eyes was less common than his contour.
He held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now and thenexchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver, whose box was onlysilver-mounted, so that it was naturally a joke between them that Mr.Tulliver wanted to exchange snuff-boxes also. Mr. Deane's box had beengiven him by the superior partners in the firm to which he belonged,at the same time that they gave him a share in the business, inacknowledgment of his valuable services as manager. No man was thoughtmore highly of in St. Ogg's than Mr. Deane; and some persons were evenof opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once held to have made theworst match of all the Dodson sisters, might one day ride in a bettercarriage, and live in a better house, even than her sister Pullet.There was no knowing where a man would stop, who had got his foot intoa great mill-owning, shipowning business like that of Guest & Co.,with a banking concern attached. And Mrs. Deane, as her intimatefemale friends observed, was proud and "having" enough; _she_ wouldn'tlet her husband stand still in the world for want of spurring.
"Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whisperingin her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's staying was settled, "goand get your hair brushed, do, for shame. I told you not to come inwithout going to Martha first, you know I did."
"Tom come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as shepassed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.
"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outsidethe door. "There's something I want to do before dinner."
"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom, whoseimagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect.
"Oh yes, there is time for this; _do_ come, Tom."
Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go atonce to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors.
"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened.
Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straightacross the middle of her forehead.
"Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'dbetter not cut any more off."
Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking, and hecouldn't help feeling it was rather good fun; Maggie would look soqueer.
"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her owndaring, and anxious to finish the deed.
"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in anadmonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors.
"Never mind, make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with herfoot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.
The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a ladwho had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony'smane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair ofscissors meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One deliciousgrinding snip, and then another and another, and the hinder-locks fellheavily on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, unevenmanner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she hademerged from a wood into the open plain.
Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly ather own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks aboutit, and something also of the triumph she should have over her motherand her aunts by this very decided course of action she didn't wanther hair to look pretty,--that was out of the question,--she onlywanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find faultwith her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she waslike an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in theglass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie'scheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little.
"Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom."Oh, my!"
"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate tone, with anoutburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.
"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? Ishall go down: I can smell the dinner going in."
He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of theirrevocable which was almost an every-day experience of her smallsoul. She could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that itwas very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think moreabout her hair than ever; for Maggie rushed to her deeds withpassionate impulse, and then saw not only their consequences, but whatwould have happened if they had not been done, with all the detail andexaggerated circumstance of an active imagination. Tom never did thesame sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctivediscernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; andso it happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexiblethan Maggie, his mother hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom didmake a mistake of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it: he"didn't mind." If he broke the lash of his father's gigwhip by lashingthe gate, he couldn't help it,--the whip shouldn't have got caught inthe hinge. If Tom Tulliver whipped a gate, he was convinced, not thatthe whipping of gates by all boys was a justifiable act, but that he,Tom Tulliver, was justifiable in whipping that particular gate, and hewasn't going to be sorry. But Maggie, as she stood crying before theglass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endurethe severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, andMartha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles,would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every oneelse would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have satwith Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! Whatcould she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among herblack locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial,perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to thinkof Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was notless bitter to Maggie--perhaps it was even more bitter--than what weare fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life."Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by,"is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us inour childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have beengrown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tinybare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother ornurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancyof that moment and weep over it, as we do over the rememberedsufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen momentshas left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blentthemselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth andmanhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of ourchildren with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Isthere any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, notmerely with a memory _of_ what he did and what happened to him, ofwhat he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but withan intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then,when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt whenhis school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitchthe ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in theholidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell fromidleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defianceinto sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him havea tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age hadgone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that earlybitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectivelessconception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we shouldnot pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.
"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, enteringthe room hurriedly. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never _see_such a fright!"
"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. "Go away!"
"But I tell you you're to come down, Miss, this minute; your mothersays so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand toraise her from the floor.
"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resistingKezia's arm. "I sha'n't come."
"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia,going out again.
"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room tenminutes after, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lotso' goodies, and mother says you're to come. What are you crying for,you little spooney?"
Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had beencrying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was thedinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter.
But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and didnot feel that Maggie's grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; buthe went and put his head near her, and said in a lower, comfortingtone,--
"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding whenI've had mine, and a custard and things?"
"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little moretolerable.
"Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door andsaid, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert,--nuts,you know, and cowslip wine."
Maggie's tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her.His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her suffering, andnuts with cowslip wine began to assert their legitimate influence.
Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she madeher way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder againstthe frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar. Shesaw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were thecustards on a side-table; it was too much. She slipped in and wenttoward the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than sherepented and wished herself back again.
Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a"turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with themost serious results to the table-cloth. For Kezia had not betrayedthe reason of Maggie's refusal to come down, not liking to give hermistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thoughtthere was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, whichwas inflicting its own punishment by depriving Maggie of half herdinner.
Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same point asher own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn, while uncleGlegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,--
"Heyday! what little gell's this? Why, I don't know her. Is it somelittle gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?"
"Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr. Tulliver in anundertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. Did you everknow such a little hussy as it is?"
"Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny," said UnclePullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an observation which wasfelt to be so lacerating.
"Fie, for shame!" said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest tone ofreproof. "Little gells as cut their own hair should be whipped and fedon bread and water
,--not come and sit down with their aunts anduncles."
"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn to thisdenunciation, "she must be sent to jail, I think, and they'll cut therest of her hair off there, and make it all even."
"She's more like a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in a pityingtone; "it's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; theboy's fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life to be sobrown."
"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs.Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.
Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision.Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power ofdefiance, and Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by therecent appearance of the pudding and custard. Under this impression,he whispered, "Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant tobe friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in herignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, herheart swelled, and getting up from her chair, she ran to her father,hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.
"Come, come, my wench," said her father, soothingly, putting his armround her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if itplagued you; give over crying; father'll take your part."
Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of thesemoments when her father "took her part"; she kept them in her heart,and thought of them long years after, when every one else said thather father had done very ill by his children.
"How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, in aloud "aside," to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be the ruin of her, if youdon't take care. _My_ father never brought his children up so, else weshould ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are."
Mrs. Tulliver's domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to have reachedthe point at which insensibility begins. She took no notice of hersister's remark, but threw back her capstrings and dispensed thepudding, in mute resignation.
With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for thechildren were told they might have their nuts and wine in thesummer-house, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out amongthe budding bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animalsgetting from under a burning glass.
Mrs. Tulliver had her special reason for this permission: now thedinner was despatched, and every one's mind disengaged, it was theright moment to communicate Mr. Tulliver's intention concerning Tom,and it would be as well for Tom himself to be absent. The childrenwere used to hear themselves talked of as freely as if they werebirds, and could understand nothing, however they might stretch theirnecks and listen; but on this occasion Mrs. Tulliver manifested anunusual discretion, because she had recently had evidence that thegoing to school to a clergyman was a sore point with Tom, who lookedat it as very much on a par with going to school to a constable. Mrs.Tulliver had a sighing sense that her husband would do as he liked,whatever sister Glegg said, or sister Pullet either; but at least theywould not be able to say, if the thing turned out ill, that Bessy hadfallen in with her husband's folly without letting her own friendsknow a word about it.
"Mr. Tulliver," she said, interrupting her husband in his talk withMr. Deane, "it's time now to tell the children's aunts and uncles whatyou're thinking of doing with Tom, isn't it?"
"Very well," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, "I've no objections totell anybody what I mean to do with him. I've settled," he added,looking toward Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane,--"I've settled to send him toa Mr. Stelling, a parson, down at King's Lorton, there,--an uncommonclever fellow, I understand, as'll put him up to most things."
There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the company, such asyou may have observed in a country congregation when they hear anallusion to their week-day affairs from the pulpit. It was equallyastonishing to the aunts and uncles to find a parson introduced intoMr. Tulliver's family arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he couldhardly have been more thoroughly obfuscated if Mr. Tulliver had saidthat he was going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor; for uncle Pulletbelonged to that extinct class of British yeoman who, dressed in goodbroadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church, and ate aparticularly good dinner on Sunday, without dreaming that the Britishconstitution in Church and State had a traceable origin any more thanthe solar system and the fixed stars.
It is melancholy, but true, that Mr. Pullet had the most confused ideaof a bishop as a sort of a baronet, who might or might not be aclergyman; and as the rector of his own parish was a man of highfamily and fortune, the idea that a clergyman could be a schoolmasterwas too remote from Mr. Pullet's experience to be readily conceivable.I know it is difficult for people in these instructed times to believein uncle Pullet's ignorance; but let them reflect on the remarkableresults of a great natural faculty under favoring circumstances. Anduncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for ignorance. He was thefirst to give utterance to his astonishment.
"Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for?" he said,with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr. Glegg and Mr.Deane, to see if they showed any signs of comprehension.
"Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I canmake out," said poor Mr. Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzlingworld, laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity."Jacobs at th' academy's no parson, and he's done very bad by the boy;and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be tosomebody different to Jacobs. And this Mr. Stelling, by what I canmake out, is the sort o' man I want. And I mean my boy to go to him atMidsummer," he concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-boxand taking a pinch.
"You'll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, Tulliver?The clergymen have highish notions, in general," said Mr. Deane,taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain aneutral position.
"What! do you think the parson'll teach him to know a good sample o'wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver?" said Mr. Glegg, who wasfond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it wasnot only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view ofthings.
"Why, you see, I've got a plan i' my head about Tom," said Mr.Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass.
"Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it's seldom as I am," saidMrs. Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, "I should like to know whatgood is to come to the boy by bringin' him up above his fortin."
"Why," said Mr. Tulliver, not looking at Mrs. Glegg, but at the malepart of his audience, "you see, I've made up my mind not to bring Tomup to my own business. I've had my thoughts about it all along, and Imade up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and _his_ son. I mean toput him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I wantto give him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyers and folks,and put me up to a notion now an' then."
Mrs. Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips,that smiled in mingled pity and scorn.
"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after thatintroductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers alone."
"Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such asthat at Market Bewley?" said Mr. Deane.
"No, nothing of that," said Mr. Tulliver. "He won't take more than twoor three pupils, and so he'll have the more time to attend to 'em, youknow."
"Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner; they can't learn much ata time when there's so many of 'em," said uncle Pullet, feeling thathe was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter.
"But he'll want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg.
"Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that's all," said Mr. Tulliver, withsome pride at his own spirited course. "But then, you know, it's aninvestment; Tom's eddication 'ull be so much capital to him."
"Ay, there's something in that," said Mr. Glegg. "Well well, neighborTulliver, you may be right, you may be right:
'When land is gone and money's spent, Then learning is
most excellent.'
"I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But usthat have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighborPullet?" Mr. Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant.
"Mr. Glegg, I wonder _at_ you," said his wife. "It's very unbecomingin a man o' your age and belongings."
"What's unbecoming, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg, winking pleasantly atthe company. "My new blue coat as I've got on?"
"I pity your weakness, Mr. Glegg. I say it's unbecoming to be making ajoke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin."
"If you mean me by that," said Mr. Tulliver, considerably nettled,"you needn't trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my ownaffairs without troubling other folks."
"Bless me!" said Mr. Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, "why,now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send _his_son--the deformed lad--to a clergyman, didn't they, Susan?" (appealingto his wife).
"I can give no account of it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Deane, closing herlips very tightly again. Mrs. Deane was not a woman to take part in ascene where missiles were flying.
"Well," said Mr. Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully, that Mrs.Glegg might see he didn't mind her, "if Wakem thinks o' sending hisson to a clergyman, depend on it I shall make no mistake i' sendingTom to one. Wakem's as big a scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, but heknows the length of every man's foot he's got to deal with. Ay, ay,tell me who's Wakem's butcher, and I'll tell you where to get yourmeat."
"But lawyer Wakem's son's got a hump-back," said Mrs. Pullet, who feltas if the whole business had a funereal aspect; "it's more nat'ral tosend _him_ to a clergyman."
"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observation witherroneous plausibility, "you must consider that, neighbor Tulliver;Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any business. Wakem 'ull make agentleman of him, poor fellow."
"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a tone which implied that herindignation would fizz and ooze a little, though she was determined tokeep it corked up, "you'd far better hold your tongue. Mr. Tulliverdoesn't want to know your opinion nor mine either. There's folks inthe world as know better than everybody else."
"Why, I should think that's you, if we're to trust your own tale,"said Mr. Tulliver, beginning to boil up again.
"Oh, _I_ say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. "My advice hasnever been asked, and I don't give it."
"It'll be the first time, then," said Mr. Tulliver. "It's the onlything you're over-ready at giving."
"I've been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven't been over-readyat giving," said Mrs. Glegg. "There's folks I've lent money to, asperhaps I shall repent o' lending money to kin."
"Come, come, come," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr. Tulliver wasnot to be hindered of his retort.
"You've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said; "and you've had yourfive per cent, kin or no kin."
"Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, "drink your wine, and let megive you some almonds and raisins."
"Bessy, I'm sorry for you," said Mrs. Glegg, very much with thefeeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of diverting his barktoward the man who carries no stick. "It's poor work talking o'almonds and raisins."
"Lors, sister Glegg, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Pullet,beginning to cry a little. "You may be struck with a fit, getting sored in the face after dinner, and we are but just out o' mourning, allof us,--and all wi' gowns craped alike and just put by; it's very badamong sisters."
"I should think it _is_ bad," said Mrs. Glegg. "Things are come to afine pass when one sister invites the other to her house o' purpose toquarrel with her and abuse her."
"Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable," said Mr. Glegg.
But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by no means saidenough to satisfy his anger, burst out again.
"Who wants to quarrel with you?" he said. "It's you as can't letpeople alone, but must be gnawing at 'em forever. _I_ should neverwant to quarrel with any woman if she kept her place."
"My place, indeed!" said Mrs. Glegg, getting rather more shrill."There's your betters, Mr. Tulliver, as are dead and in their grave,treated me with a different sort o' respect to what you do; _though_I've got a husband as'll sit by and see me abused by them as 'ud neverha' had the chance if there hadn't been them in our family as marriedworse than they might ha' done."
"If you talk o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, "my family's as good asyours, and better, for it hasn't got a damned ill-tempered woman init!"
"Well," said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, "I don't know whetheryou think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr. Glegg;but I'm not going to stay a minute longer in this house. You can staybehind, and come home with the gig, and I'll walk home."
"Dear heart, dear heart!" said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy tone, as hefollowed his wife out of the room.
"Mr. Tulliver, how could you talk so?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with thetears in her eyes.
"Let her go," said Mr. Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount oftears. "Let her go, and the sooner the better; she won't be trying todomineer over _me_ again in a hurry."
"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Tulliver, helplessly, "do you think it 'udbe any use for you to go after her and try to pacify her?"
"Better not, better not," said Mr. Deane. "You'll make it up anotherday."
"Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?" said Mrs.Tulliver, drying her eyes.
No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mr. Tulliver felt verymuch as if the air had been cleared of obtrusive flies now the womenwere out of the room. There were few things he liked better than achat with Mr. Deane, whose close application to business allowed thepleasure very rarely. Mr. Deane, he considered, was the "knowingest"man of his acquaintance, and he had besides a ready causticity oftongue that made an agreeable supplement to Mr. Tulliver's owntendency that way, which had remained in rather an inarticulatecondition. And now the women were gone, they could carry on theirserious talk without frivolous interruption. They could exchange theirviews concerning the Duke of Wellington, whose conduct in the CatholicQuestion had thrown such an entirely new light on his character; andspeak slightingly of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which hewould never have won if there hadn't been a great many Englishmen athis back, not to speak of Blucher and the Prussians, who, as Mr.Tulliver had heard from a person of particular knowledge in thatmatter, had come up in the very nick of time; though here there was aslight dissidence, Mr. Deane remarking that he was not disposed togive much credit to the Prussians,--the build of their vessels,together with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzicbeer, inclining him to form rather a low view of Prussian pluckgenerally. Rather beaten on this ground, Mr. Tulliver proceeded toexpress his fears that the country could never again be what it usedto be; but Mr. Deane, attached to a firm of which the returns were onthe increase, naturally took a more lively view of the present, andhad some details to give concerning the state of the imports,especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr. Tulliver'simagination by throwing into more distant perspective the period whenthe country would become utterly the prey of Papists and Radicals, andthere would be no more chance for honest men.
Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to these highmatters. He didn't understand politics himself,--thought they were anatural gift,--but by what he could make out, this Duke of Wellingtonwas no better than he should be.