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Persuasion\r
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NORTHANGER ABBEY\r
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MANSFIELD PARK\r
\r
(1814)\r
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-EMMA\r
-\r
-By Jane Austen\r
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-VOLUME I\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER I\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home\r
-and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of\r
-existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very\r
-little to distress or vex her.\r
-\r
-She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate,\r
-indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been\r
-mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died\r
-too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of\r
-her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as\r
-governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.\r
-\r
-Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family, less as a\r
-governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly\r
-of Emma. Between _them_ it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before\r
-Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the\r
-mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint;\r
-and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been\r
-living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma\r
-doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but\r
-directed chiefly by her own.\r
-\r
-The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having\r
-rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too\r
-well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to\r
-her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived,\r
-that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.\r
-\r
-Sorrow came--a gentle sorrow--but not at all in the shape of any\r
-disagreeable consciousness.--Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s\r
-loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this\r
-beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any\r
-continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and\r
-herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer\r
-a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as\r
-usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost.\r
-\r
-The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston\r
-was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and\r
-pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering\r
-with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and\r
-promoted the match; but it was a black morning’s work for her. The want\r
-of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her\r
-past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had\r
-taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had\r
-devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how\r
-nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of\r
-gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven\r
-years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed\r
-Isabella’s marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a\r
-dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such\r
-as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing\r
-all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and\r
-peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of\r
-hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had\r
-such an affection for her as could never find fault.\r
-\r
-How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going\r
-only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the\r
-difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss\r
-Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic,\r
-she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She\r
-dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not\r
-meet her in conversation, rational or playful.\r
-\r
-The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had\r
-not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits;\r
-for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of\r
-mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though\r
-everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable\r
-temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.\r
-\r
-Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being\r
-settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily\r
-reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled\r
-through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from\r
-Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house,\r
-and give her pleasant society again.\r
-\r
-Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,\r
-to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and\r
-name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses\r
-were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many\r
-acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but\r
-not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even\r
-half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over\r
-it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it\r
-necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous\r
-man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and\r
-hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the\r
-origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet\r
-reconciled to his own daughter’s marrying, nor could ever speak of her\r
-but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection,\r
-when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his\r
-habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that\r
-other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much\r
-disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for\r
-them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the\r
-rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully\r
-as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was\r
-impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,\r
-\r
-“Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that\r
-Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”\r
-\r
-“I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such\r
-a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves\r
-a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for\r
-ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her\r
-own?”\r
-\r
-“A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own?\r
-This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my\r
-dear.”\r
-\r
-“How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We\r
-shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding\r
-visit very soon.”\r
-\r
-“My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could\r
-not walk half so far.”\r
-\r
-“No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage,\r
-to be sure.”\r
-\r
-“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a\r
-little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our\r
-visit?”\r
-\r
-“They are to be put into Mr. Weston’s stable, papa. You know we have\r
-settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last\r
-night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going\r
-to Randalls, because of his daughter’s being housemaid there. I only\r
-doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing,\r
-papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you\r
-mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!”\r
-\r
-“I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not\r
-have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am\r
-sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken\r
-girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always\r
-curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you\r
-have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock\r
-of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an\r
-excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor\r
-to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes\r
-over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will\r
-be able to tell her how we all are.”\r
-\r
-Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and\r
-hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably\r
-through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The\r
-backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked\r
-in and made it unnecessary.\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not\r
-only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly\r
-connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived\r
-about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome,\r
-and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their\r
-mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after\r
-some days’ absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were\r
-well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated\r
-Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which\r
-always did him good; and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and\r
-her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr.\r
-Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley,\r
-to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have\r
-had a shocking walk.”\r
-\r
-“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I\r
-must draw back from your great fire.”\r
-\r
-“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not\r
-catch cold.”\r
-\r
-“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”\r
-\r
-“Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain\r
-here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at\r
-breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding.”\r
-\r
-“By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what\r
-sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my\r
-congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you\r
-all behave? Who cried most?”\r
-\r
-“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ‘Tis a sad business.”\r
-\r
-“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say\r
-‘poor Miss Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it\r
-comes to the question of dependence or independence!--At any rate, it\r
-must be better to have only one to please than two.”\r
-\r
-“Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome\r
-creature!” said Emma playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I\r
-know--and what you would certainly say if my father were not by.”\r
-\r
-“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a\r
-sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”\r
-\r
-“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr.\r
-Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only\r
-myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know--in a\r
-joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults\r
-in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and\r
-though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew\r
-it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him\r
-really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by\r
-every body.\r
-\r
-“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no\r
-reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons\r
-to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a\r
-gainer.”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Emma, willing to let it pass--“you want to hear about\r
-the wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved\r
-charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks: not\r
-a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we\r
-were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every\r
-day.”\r
-\r
-“Dear Emma bears every thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr.\r
-Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am\r
-sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for.”\r
-\r
-Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. “It\r
-is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,” said Mr.\r
-Knightley. “We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could\r
-suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor’s\r
-advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor’s\r
-time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to\r
-her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow\r
-herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor\r
-must be glad to have her so happily married.”\r
-\r
-“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very\r
-considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you\r
-know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the\r
-right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may\r
-comfort me for any thing.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah!\r
-my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for\r
-whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more\r
-matches.”\r
-\r
-“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for\r
-other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such\r
-success, you know!--Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry\r
-again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who\r
-seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied\r
-either in his business in town or among his friends here, always\r
-acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful--Mr. Weston need not spend\r
-a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr.\r
-Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a\r
-promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the\r
-uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the\r
-subject, but I believed none of it.\r
-\r
-“Ever since the day--about four years ago--that Miss Taylor and I met\r
-with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted\r
-away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from\r
-Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match\r
-from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance,\r
-dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making.”\r
-\r
-“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success,’” said Mr. Knightley.\r
-“Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately\r
-spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring\r
-about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! But\r
-if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means\r
-only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I think it\r
-would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry\r
-her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why\r
-do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You\r
-made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be said.”\r
-\r
-“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?--I\r
-pity you.--I thought you cleverer--for, depend upon it a lucky guess is\r
-never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my\r
-poor word ‘success,’ which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so\r
-entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures;\r
-but I think there may be a third--a something between the do-nothing and\r
-the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s visits here, and given\r
-many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might\r
-not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield\r
-enough to comprehend that.”\r
-\r
-“A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational,\r
-unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their\r
-own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than\r
-good to them, by interference.”\r
-\r
-“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined\r
-Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not\r
-make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family\r
-circle grievously.”\r
-\r
-“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr.\r
-Elton, papa,--I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in\r
-Highbury who deserves him--and he has been here a whole year, and has\r
-fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him\r
-single any longer--and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day,\r
-he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office\r
-done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I\r
-have of doing him a service.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young\r
-man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any\r
-attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will\r
-be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to\r
-meet him.”\r
-\r
-“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley,\r
-laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better\r
-thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish\r
-and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a\r
-man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER II\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family,\r
-which for the last two or three generations had been rising into\r
-gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on\r
-succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed\r
-for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged,\r
-and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering\r
-into the militia of his county, then embodied.\r
-\r
-Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his\r
-military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire\r
-family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized,\r
-except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were\r
-full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend.\r
-\r
-Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her\r
-fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate--was\r
-not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the\r
-infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with\r
-due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much\r
-happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a\r
-husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due\r
-to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him;\r
-but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had\r
-resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother,\r
-but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother’s\r
-unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home.\r
-They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison\r
-of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at\r
-once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe.\r
-\r
-Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills,\r
-as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of\r
-the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years’ marriage, he\r
-was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain.\r
-From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy\r
-had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his\r
-mother’s, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature\r
-of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the\r
-little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance\r
-the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were\r
-overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and\r
-the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek,\r
-and his own situation to improve as he could.\r
-\r
-A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and\r
-engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in\r
-London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which\r
-brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury,\r
-where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation\r
-and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his\r
-life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy\r
-competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining\r
-Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as\r
-portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of\r
-his own friendly and social disposition.\r
-\r
-It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his\r
-schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth,\r
-it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could\r
-purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to;\r
-but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were\r
-accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained\r
-his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every\r
-probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had\r
-never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that,\r
-even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful\r
-a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the\r
-pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be\r
-chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.\r
-\r
-He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own;\r
-for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his\r
-uncle’s heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume\r
-the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore,\r
-that he should ever want his father’s assistance. His father had no\r
-apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her\r
-husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston’s nature to imagine that\r
-any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he\r
-believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and\r
-was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man\r
-had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as\r
-sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a\r
-kind of common concern.\r
-\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively\r
-curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little\r
-returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit\r
-his father had been often talked of but never achieved.\r
-\r
-Now, upon his father’s marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a\r
-most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a\r
-dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with\r
-Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now\r
-was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope\r
-strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new\r
-mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury\r
-included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received.\r
-“I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill\r
-has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter,\r
-indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and\r
-he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”\r
-\r
-It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course,\r
-formed a very favourable idea of the young man; and such a pleasing\r
-attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most\r
-welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation\r
-which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most\r
-fortunate woman; and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate\r
-she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial\r
-separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and\r
-who could ill bear to part with her.\r
-\r
-She knew that at times she must be missed; and could not think, without\r
-pain, of Emma’s losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour’s ennui,\r
-from the want of her companionableness: but dear Emma was of no feeble\r
-character; she was more equal to her situation than most girls would\r
-have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped\r
-would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and\r
-privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of\r
-Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking,\r
-and in Mr. Weston’s disposition and circumstances, which would make the\r
-approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in\r
-the week together.\r
-\r
-Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs.\r
-Weston, and of moments only of regret; and her satisfaction--her more\r
-than satisfaction--her cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent,\r
-that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize\r
-at his being still able to pity ‘poor Miss Taylor,’ when they left her\r
-at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away\r
-in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her\r
-own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse’s giving a gentle sigh,\r
-and saying, “Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay.”\r
-\r
-There was no recovering Miss Taylor--nor much likelihood of ceasing to\r
-pity her; but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse.\r
-The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by\r
-being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which\r
-had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach\r
-could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be\r
-different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit\r
-for any body; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them\r
-from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as\r
-earnestly tried to prevent any body’s eating it. He had been at the\r
-pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry\r
-was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one\r
-of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse’s life; and upon being applied to, he\r
-could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias\r
-of inclination) that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with\r
-many--perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an\r
-opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence\r
-every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten;\r
-and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.\r
-\r
-There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being\r
-seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr.\r
-Woodhouse would never believe it.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER III\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to\r
-have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from\r
-his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune,\r
-his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his\r
-own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much\r
-intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late\r
-hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but\r
-such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury,\r
-including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish\r
-adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not\r
-unfrequently, through Emma’s persuasion, he had some of the chosen and\r
-the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred;\r
-and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there\r
-was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a\r
-card-table for him.\r
-\r
-Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by\r
-Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege\r
-of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the\r
-elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse’s drawing-room, and the smiles\r
-of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away.\r
-\r
-After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were\r
-Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at\r
-the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and\r
-carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for\r
-either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it\r
-would have been a grievance.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old\r
-lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her\r
-single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the\r
-regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward\r
-circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree\r
-of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.\r
-Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having\r
-much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to\r
-make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into\r
-outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her\r
-youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted\r
-to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small\r
-income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman\r
-whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will\r
-and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body,\r
-was interested in every body’s happiness, quicksighted to every body’s\r
-merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with\r
-blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours\r
-and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and\r
-cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a\r
-recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was\r
-a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse,\r
-full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an\r
-establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of\r
-refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality,\r
-upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous\r
-pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real,\r
-honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of\r
-accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might\r
-be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little\r
-education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard’s\r
-school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was\r
-reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden,\r
-gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great\r
-deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own\r
-hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked\r
-after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who\r
-had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the\r
-occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr.\r
-Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat\r
-parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose\r
-a few sixpences by his fireside.\r
-\r
-These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to\r
-collect; and happy was she, for her father’s sake, in the power; though,\r
-as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of\r
-Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and\r
-very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the\r
-quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so\r
-spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.\r
-\r
-As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the\r
-present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most\r
-respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most\r
-welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew\r
-very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of\r
-her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no\r
-longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.\r
-\r
-Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed\r
-her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody\r
-had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of\r
-parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.\r
-She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and\r
-was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young\r
-ladies who had been at school there with her.\r
-\r
-She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort\r
-which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a\r
-fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great\r
-sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased\r
-with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the\r
-acquaintance.\r
-\r
-She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s\r
-conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not\r
-inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing,\r
-shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly\r
-grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed\r
-by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had\r
-been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement.\r
-Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those\r
-natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury\r
-and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were\r
-unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very\r
-good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the\r
-name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large\r
-farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very\r
-creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of\r
-them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the\r
-intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance\r
-to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she\r
-would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good\r
-society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an\r
-interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her\r
-own situation in life, her leisure, and powers.\r
-\r
-She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and\r
-listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the\r
-evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which\r
-always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and\r
-watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the\r
-fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse\r
-of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every\r
-thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted\r
-with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and\r
-help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an\r
-urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil\r
-scruples of their guests.\r
-\r
-Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse’s feelings were in sad warfare.\r
-He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his\r
-youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him\r
-rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would\r
-have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health\r
-made him grieve that they would eat.\r
-\r
-Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could,\r
-with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain\r
-himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to\r
-say:\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg\r
-boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg\r
-better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body\r
-else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of\r
-our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a\r
-_little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You\r
-need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the\r
-custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A\r
-_small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could\r
-disagree with you.”\r
-\r
-Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much\r
-more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular\r
-pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was\r
-quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage\r
-in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much\r
-panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with\r
-highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss\r
-Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands\r
-with her at last!\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IV\r
-\r
-\r
-Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick\r
-and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and\r
-telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so\r
-did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had\r
-very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect\r
-Mrs. Weston’s loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the\r
-shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long\r
-walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston’s marriage\r
-her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to\r
-Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore,\r
-one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable\r
-addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of\r
-her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs.\r
-\r
-Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful\r
-disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be\r
-guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself\r
-was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of\r
-appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no\r
-want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected.\r
-Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith’s being exactly the\r
-young friend she wanted--exactly the something which her home required.\r
-Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could\r
-never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different\r
-sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the\r
-object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet\r
-would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there\r
-was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing.\r
-\r
-Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who\r
-were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell\r
-every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma\r
-was obliged to fancy what she liked--but she could never believe that in\r
-the same situation _she_ should not have discovered the truth. Harriet\r
-had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what\r
-Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of\r
-the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the\r
-conversation--and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of\r
-Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied\r
-her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them,\r
-and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe\r
-the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her\r
-talkativeness--amused by such a picture of another set of beings,\r
-and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much\r
-exultation of Mrs. Martin’s having “_two_ parlours, two very good\r
-parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard’s\r
-drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived\r
-five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of\r
-them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch\r
-cow indeed; and of Mrs. Martin’s saying as she was so fond of it,\r
-it should be called _her_ cow; and of their having a very handsome\r
-summer-house in their garden, where some day next year they were all to\r
-drink tea:--a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen\r
-people.”\r
-\r
-For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate\r
-cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings\r
-arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and\r
-daughter, a son and son’s wife, who all lived together; but when it\r
-appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was\r
-always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing\r
-something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs.\r
-Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little\r
-friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not\r
-taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever.\r
-\r
-With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and\r
-meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,\r
-and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to\r
-speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening\r
-games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and\r
-obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her\r
-some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in\r
-every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd’s son into\r
-the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond\r
-of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very\r
-clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while\r
-she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in\r
-the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and\r
-sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and\r
-there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body\r
-to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he\r
-would make a good husband. Not that she _wanted_ him to marry. She was\r
-in no hurry at all.\r
-\r
-“Well done, Mrs. Martin!” thought Emma. “You know what you are about.”\r
-\r
-“And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send\r
-Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever\r
-seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three\r
-teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with\r
-her.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of\r
-his own business? He does not read?”\r
-\r
-“Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a\r
-good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the\r
-Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window\r
-seats--but he reads all _them_ to himself. But sometimes of an evening,\r
-before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the\r
-Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of\r
-Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of\r
-the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but\r
-he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.”\r
-\r
-The next question was--\r
-\r
-“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! not handsome--not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at\r
-first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know,\r
-after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and\r
-then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston.\r
-He has passed you very often.”\r
-\r
-“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having\r
-any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot,\r
-is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are\r
-precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.\r
-A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me;\r
-I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But\r
-a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as\r
-much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him;\r
-but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight.”\r
-\r
-“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know,\r
-indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine\r
-his age to be?”\r
-\r
-“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the\r
-23rd just a fortnight and a day’s difference--which is very odd.”\r
-\r
-“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is\r
-perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they\r
-are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably\r
-repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young\r
-woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very\r
-desirable.”\r
-\r
-“Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”\r
-\r
-“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not\r
-born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely\r
-to make--cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he\r
-might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family\r
-property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and\r
-so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in\r
-time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing\r
-yet.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no\r
-indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks\r
-of taking a boy another year.”\r
-\r
-“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does\r
-marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his\r
-sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected\r
-to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you\r
-to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly\r
-careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a\r
-gentleman’s daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by\r
-every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who\r
-would take pleasure in degrading you.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield,\r
-and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any\r
-body can do.”\r
-\r
-“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would\r
-have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent\r
-even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently\r
-well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd\r
-acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still\r
-be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn\r
-in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife,\r
-who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body\r
-but what had had some education--and been very well brought up. However,\r
-I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours--and I am sure I shall\r
-not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great\r
-regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very\r
-sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But\r
-if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not\r
-visit her, if I can help it.”\r
-\r
-Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no\r
-alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but\r
-she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious\r
-difficulty, on Harriet’s side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her\r
-own.\r
-\r
-They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the\r
-Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at\r
-her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was\r
-not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few\r
-yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye\r
-sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very\r
-neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no\r
-other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen,\r
-she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet’s\r
-inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily\r
-noticed her father’s gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr.\r
-Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was.\r
-\r
-They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be\r
-kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face,\r
-and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to\r
-compose.\r
-\r
-“Only think of our happening to meet him!--How very odd! It was quite\r
-a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not\r
-think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls\r
-most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet.\r
-He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it,\r
-but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well,\r
-Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him?\r
-Do you think him so very plain?”\r
-\r
-“He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing\r
-compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect\r
-much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so\r
-very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a\r
-degree or two nearer gentility.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel\r
-as real gentlemen.”\r
-\r
-“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been\r
-repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you\r
-must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield,\r
-you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I\r
-should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company\r
-with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior\r
-creature--and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him\r
-at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not\r
-you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and\r
-abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly\r
-unmodulated as I stood here.”\r
-\r
-“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and\r
-way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But\r
-Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Knightley’s air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to\r
-compare Mr. Martin with _him_. You might not see one in a hundred with\r
-_gentleman_ so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the\r
-only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston\r
-and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of _them_. Compare their\r
-manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent.\r
-You must see the difference.”\r
-\r
-“Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old\r
-man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.”\r
-\r
-“Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person\r
-grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not\r
-be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or\r
-awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later\r
-age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr.\r
-Weston’s time of life?”\r
-\r
-“There is no saying, indeed,” replied Harriet rather solemnly.\r
-\r
-“But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross,\r
-vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of\r
-nothing but profit and loss.”\r
-\r
-“Will he, indeed? That will be very bad.”\r
-\r
-“How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the\r
-circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended.\r
-He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing\r
-else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to\r
-do with books? And I have no doubt that he _will_ thrive, and be a very\r
-rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb\r
-_us_.”\r
-\r
-“I wonder he did not remember the book”--was all Harriet’s answer, and\r
-spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be\r
-safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her\r
-next beginning was,\r
-\r
-“In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton’s manners are superior to Mr.\r
-Knightley’s or Mr. Weston’s. They have more gentleness. They might be\r
-more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness,\r
-almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in _him_,\r
-because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to\r
-be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding\r
-sort of manner, though it suits _him_ very well; his figure, and look,\r
-and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set\r
-about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think\r
-a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a\r
-model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle.\r
-He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know\r
-whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us,\r
-Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are\r
-softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please\r
-you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?”\r
-\r
-She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr.\r
-Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and\r
-said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young\r
-farmer out of Harriet’s head. She thought it would be an excellent\r
-match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her\r
-to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body\r
-else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any\r
-body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had\r
-entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet’s coming to\r
-Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense\r
-of its expediency. Mr. Elton’s situation was most suitable, quite the\r
-gentleman himself, and without low connexions; at the same time, not of\r
-any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet.\r
-He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient\r
-income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known\r
-to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him\r
-as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any\r
-deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world.\r
-\r
-She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful\r
-girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was\r
-foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet’s there could be little\r
-doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual\r
-weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a\r
-young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very\r
-handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her,\r
-there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense\r
-with:--but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin’s riding\r
-about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by\r
-Mr. Elton’s admiration.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER V\r
-\r
-\r
-“I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr.\r
-Knightley, “of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I\r
-think it a bad thing.”\r
-\r
-“A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?--why so?”\r
-\r
-“I think they will neither of them do the other any good.”\r
-\r
-“You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a\r
-new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been\r
-seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently\r
-we feel!--Not think they will do each other any good! This will\r
-certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr.\r
-Knightley.”\r
-\r
-“Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing\r
-Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks\r
-exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday,\r
-and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a\r
-girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not\r
-allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live\r
-alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no\r
-man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of\r
-one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine\r
-your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman\r
-which Emma’s friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants\r
-to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more\r
-herself. They will read together. She means it, I know.”\r
-\r
-“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.\r
-I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of\r
-books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists\r
-they were--very well chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes\r
-alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew\r
-up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgment so much\r
-credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made\r
-out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of\r
-steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing\r
-requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the\r
-understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely\r
-affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.--You never could persuade her\r
-to read half so much as you wished.--You know you could not.”\r
-\r
-“I dare say,” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “that I thought so\r
-_then_;--but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma’s omitting\r
-to do any thing I wished.”\r
-\r
-“There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,”--said\r
-Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. “But I,”\r
- he soon added, “who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must\r
-still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest\r
-of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to\r
-answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always\r
-quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she\r
-was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her\r
-mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her\r
-mother’s talents, and must have been under subjection to her.”\r
-\r
-“I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on _your_\r
-recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse’s family and wanted another\r
-situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to\r
-any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said he, smiling. “You are better placed _here_; very fit for a\r
-wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to\r
-be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might\r
-not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to\r
-promise; but you were receiving a very good education from _her_, on the\r
-very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing\r
-as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I\r
-should certainly have named Miss Taylor.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to\r
-such a man as Mr. Weston.”\r
-\r
-“Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that\r
-with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We\r
-will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of\r
-comfort, or his son may plague him.”\r
-\r
-“I hope not _that_.--It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not\r
-foretell vexation from that quarter.”\r
-\r
-“Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma’s\r
-genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the\r
-young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But\r
-Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the\r
-very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows\r
-nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a\r
-flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.\r
-Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any\r
-thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful\r
-inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that _she_ cannot\r
-gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit\r
-with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined\r
-enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances\r
-have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma’s doctrines give any\r
-strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally\r
-to the varieties of her situation in life.--They only give a little\r
-polish.”\r
-\r
-“I either depend more upon Emma’s good sense than you do, or am more\r
-anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance.\r
-How well she looked last night!”\r
-\r
-“Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very\r
-well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma’s being pretty.”\r
-\r
-“Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect\r
-beauty than Emma altogether--face and figure?”\r
-\r
-“I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom\r
-seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial\r
-old friend.”\r
-\r
-“Such an eye!--the true hazle eye--and so brilliant! regular features,\r
-open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health,\r
-and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure!\r
-There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her\r
-glance. One hears sometimes of a child being ‘the picture of health;’\r
-now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of\r
-grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?”\r
-\r
-“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her\r
-all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise,\r
-that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome\r
-she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies\r
-another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of\r
-Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.”\r
-\r
-“And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not\r
-doing them any harm. With all dear Emma’s little faults, she is an\r
-excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder\r
-sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be\r
-trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no\r
-lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred\r
-times.”\r
-\r
-“Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and\r
-I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella.\r
-John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection,\r
-and Isabella always thinks as he does; except when he is not quite\r
-frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions\r
-with me.”\r
-\r
-“I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind;\r
-but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself,\r
-you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma’s\r
-mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any\r
-possible good can arise from Harriet Smith’s intimacy being made a\r
-matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any\r
-little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be\r
-expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly\r
-approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a\r
-source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to\r
-give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little\r
-remains of office.”\r
-\r
-“Not at all,” cried he; “I am much obliged to you for it. It is very\r
-good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often\r
-found; for it shall be attended to.”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about\r
-her sister.”\r
-\r
-“Be satisfied,” said he, “I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my\r
-ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella\r
-does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest;\r
-perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one\r
-feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!”\r
-\r
-“So do I,” said Mrs. Weston gently, “very much.”\r
-\r
-“She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just\r
-nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she\r
-cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love\r
-with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some\r
-doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts\r
-to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.”\r
-\r
-“There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution\r
-at present,” said Mrs. Weston, “as can well be; and while she is so\r
-happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which\r
-would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse’s account. I\r
-do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight\r
-to the state, I assure you.”\r
-\r
-Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own\r
-and Mr. Weston’s on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes\r
-at Randalls respecting Emma’s destiny, but it was not desirable to\r
-have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon\r
-afterwards made to “What does Weston think of the weather; shall we have\r
-rain?” convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about\r
-Hartfield.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VI\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet’s fancy a proper\r
-direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good\r
-purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr.\r
-Elton’s being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners;\r
-and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his\r
-admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating\r
-as much liking on Harriet’s side, as there could be any occasion for.\r
-She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton’s being in the fairest way of\r
-falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard\r
-to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could\r
-not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His\r
-perception of the striking improvement of Harriet’s manner, since her\r
-introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of\r
-his growing attachment.\r
-\r
-“You have given Miss Smith all that she required,” said he; “you have\r
-made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she\r
-came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are\r
-infinitely superior to what she received from nature.”\r
-\r
-“I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted\r
-drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the\r
-natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have\r
-done very little.”\r
-\r
-“If it were admissible to contradict a lady,” said the gallant Mr.\r
-Elton--\r
-\r
-“I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have\r
-taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before.”\r
-\r
-“Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded\r
-decision of character! Skilful has been the hand!”\r
-\r
-“Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition\r
-more truly amiable.”\r
-\r
-“I have no doubt of it.” And it was spoken with a sort of sighing\r
-animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased\r
-another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers,\r
-to have Harriet’s picture.\r
-\r
-“Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?” said she: “did you\r
-ever sit for your picture?”\r
-\r
-Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say,\r
-with a very interesting naivete,\r
-\r
-“Oh! dear, no, never.”\r
-\r
-No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed,\r
-\r
-“What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would\r
-give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself.\r
-You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great\r
-passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and\r
-was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or\r
-another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture,\r
-if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her\r
-picture!”\r
-\r
-“Let me entreat you,” cried Mr. Elton; “it would indeed be a delight!\r
-Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent\r
-in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could\r
-you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your\r
-landscapes and flowers; and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable\r
-figure-pieces in her drawing-room, at Randalls?”\r
-\r
-Yes, good man!--thought Emma--but what has all that to do with taking\r
-likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don’t pretend to be in raptures\r
-about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet’s face. “Well, if you give me\r
-such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do.\r
-Harriet’s features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult;\r
-and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines\r
-about the mouth which one ought to catch.”\r
-\r
-“Exactly so--The shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth--I have\r
-not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it,\r
-it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession.”\r
-\r
-“But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks\r
-so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering\r
-me? How completely it meant, ‘why should my picture be drawn?’”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still\r
-I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded.”\r
-\r
-Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made;\r
-and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the\r
-earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly,\r
-and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at\r
-portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might\r
-decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were\r
-displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and\r
-water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do\r
-every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than\r
-many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to.\r
-She played and sang;--and drew in almost every style; but steadiness\r
-had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of\r
-excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to\r
-have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either\r
-as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others\r
-deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often\r
-higher than it deserved.\r
-\r
-There was merit in every drawing--in the least finished, perhaps the\r
-most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there\r
-been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions\r
-would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness\r
-pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse’s performances must be capital.\r
-\r
-“No great variety of faces for you,” said Emma. “I had only my own\r
-family to study from. There is my father--another of my father--but the\r
-idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only\r
-take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston\r
-again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my\r
-kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her.\r
-There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!--and\r
-the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she\r
-would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw\r
-her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my\r
-attempts at three of those four children;--there they are, Henry and\r
-John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of\r
-them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them\r
-drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three\r
-or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take\r
-any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are\r
-coarser featured than any of mama’s children ever were. Here is my\r
-sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on\r
-the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would\r
-wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That’s very\r
-like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very\r
-good. Then here is my last,”--unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman\r
-in small size, whole-length--“my last and my best--my brother, Mr. John\r
-Knightley.--This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away\r
-in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not\r
-help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made\r
-a very good likeness of it--(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in\r
-thinking it _very_ like)--only too handsome--too flattering--but\r
-that was a fault on the right side”--after all this, came poor dear\r
-Isabella’s cold approbation of--“Yes, it was a little like--but to be\r
-sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble\r
-in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and\r
-altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish\r
-it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every\r
-morning visitor in Brunswick Square;--and, as I said, I did then\r
-forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet’s sake, or rather\r
-for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case _at_\r
-_present_, I will break my resolution now.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was\r
-repeating, “No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as\r
-you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives,” with so interesting a\r
-consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better\r
-leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the\r
-declaration must wait a little longer.\r
-\r
-She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be\r
-a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley’s, and was\r
-destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station\r
-over the mantelpiece.\r
-\r
-The sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not\r
-keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of\r
-youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no\r
-doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every\r
-touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze\r
-and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to\r
-it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her\r
-to employ him in reading.\r
-\r
-“If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness\r
-indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the\r
-irksomeness of Miss Smith’s.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace.\r
-She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; any thing less\r
-would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the\r
-smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress,\r
-and be charmed.--There was no being displeased with such an encourager,\r
-for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it\r
-was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his\r
-complaisance were unexceptionable.\r
-\r
-The sitting was altogether very satisfactory; she was quite enough\r
-pleased with the first day’s sketch to wish to go on. There was no want\r
-of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant\r
-to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more\r
-height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of\r
-its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling\r
-its destined place with credit to them both--a standing memorial of the\r
-beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both;\r
-with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton’s very promising\r
-attachment was likely to add.\r
-\r
-Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr. Elton, just as he ought,\r
-entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again.\r
-\r
-“By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the\r
-party.”\r
-\r
-The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction,\r
-took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the\r
-picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased,\r
-but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every\r
-criticism.\r
-\r
-“Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she\r
-wanted,”--observed Mrs. Weston to him--not in the least suspecting that\r
-she was addressing a lover.--“The expression of the eye is most correct,\r
-but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of\r
-her face that she has them not.”\r
-\r
-“Do you think so?” replied he. “I cannot agree with you. It appears\r
-to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a\r
-likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.”\r
-\r
-“You have made her too tall, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley.\r
-\r
-Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly\r
-added,\r
-\r
-“Oh no! certainly not too tall; not in the least too tall. Consider, she\r
-is sitting down--which naturally presents a different--which in short\r
-gives exactly the idea--and the proportions must be preserved, you know.\r
-Proportions, fore-shortening.--Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of\r
-such a height as Miss Smith’s. Exactly so indeed!”\r
-\r
-“It is very pretty,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “So prettily done! Just as your\r
-drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well\r
-as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems\r
-to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her\r
-shoulders--and it makes one think she must catch cold.”\r
-\r
-“But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer.\r
-Look at the tree.”\r
-\r
-“But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear.”\r
-\r
-“You, sir, may say any thing,” cried Mr. Elton, “but I must confess that\r
-I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of\r
-doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other\r
-situation would have been much less in character. The naivete of Miss\r
-Smith’s manners--and altogether--Oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep\r
-my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness.”\r
-\r
-The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few\r
-difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the\r
-order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste\r
-could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions,\r
-must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse\r
-could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of\r
-December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it\r
-was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. “Might he be trusted\r
-with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing\r
-it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how\r
-much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand.”\r
-\r
-“He was too good!--she could not endure the thought!--she would not give\r
-him such a troublesome office for the world,”--brought on the desired\r
-repetition of entreaties and assurances,--and a very few minutes settled\r
-the business.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give\r
-the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its\r
-safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of\r
-not being incommoded enough.\r
-\r
-“What a precious deposit!” said he with a tender sigh, as he received\r
-it.\r
-\r
-“This man is almost too gallant to be in love,” thought Emma. “I should\r
-say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of\r
-being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet\r
-exactly; it will be an ‘Exactly so,’ as he says himself; but he does\r
-sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could\r
-endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second.\r
-But it is his gratitude on Harriet’s account.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VII\r
-\r
-\r
-The very day of Mr. Elton’s going to London produced a fresh occasion\r
-for Emma’s services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield,\r
-as usual, soon after breakfast; and, after a time, had gone home to\r
-return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been\r
-talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something\r
-extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a\r
-minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to\r
-Mrs. Goddard’s, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and\r
-finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a\r
-little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on\r
-opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which\r
-she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was\r
-from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage.\r
-“Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what\r
-to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter,\r
-at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very\r
-much--but she did not know--and so, she was come as fast as she could to\r
-ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.--” Emma was half-ashamed of her\r
-friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful.\r
-\r
-“Upon my word,” she cried, “the young man is determined not to lose any\r
-thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can.”\r
-\r
-“Will you read the letter?” cried Harriet. “Pray do. I’d rather you\r
-would.”\r
-\r
-Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style\r
-of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no\r
-grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a\r
-gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and\r
-the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was\r
-short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety,\r
-even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood\r
-anxiously watching for her opinion, with a “Well, well,” and was at last\r
-forced to add, “Is it a good letter? or is it too short?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, indeed, a very good letter,” replied Emma rather slowly--“so\r
-good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his\r
-sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom\r
-I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if\r
-left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman;\r
-no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a\r
-woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural\r
-talent for--thinks strongly and clearly--and when he takes a pen in\r
-hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men.\r
-Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments\r
-to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet\r
-(returning it,) than I had expected.”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said the still waiting Harriet;--“well--and--and what shall I\r
-do?”\r
-\r
-“What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this\r
-letter?”\r
-\r
-“Yes.”\r
-\r
-“But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course--and\r
-speedily.”\r
-\r
-“Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.”\r
-\r
-“Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express\r
-yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not\r
-being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be\r
-unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude\r
-and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will\r
-present themselves unbidden to _your_ mind, I am persuaded. You need\r
-not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his\r
-disappointment.”\r
-\r
-“You think I ought to refuse him then,” said Harriet, looking down.\r
-\r
-“Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any\r
-doubt as to that? I thought--but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been\r
-under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel\r
-in doubt as to the _purport_ of your answer. I had imagined you were\r
-consulting me only as to the wording of it.”\r
-\r
-Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued:\r
-\r
-“You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect.”\r
-\r
-“No, I do not; that is, I do not mean--What shall I do? What would you\r
-advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do.”\r
-\r
-“I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do\r
-with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings.”\r
-\r
-“I had no notion that he liked me so very much,” said Harriet,\r
-contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her\r
-silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that\r
-letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say,\r
-\r
-“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman _doubts_ as\r
-to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse\r
-him. If she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly.\r
-It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with\r
-half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself,\r
-to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence\r
-you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind to--but if you would\r
-just advise me what I had best do--No, no, I do not mean that--As\r
-you say, one’s mind ought to be quite made up--One should not be\r
-hesitating--It is a very serious thing.--It will be safer to say ‘No,’\r
-perhaps.--Do you think I had better say ‘No?’”\r
-\r
-“Not for the world,” said Emma, smiling graciously, “would I advise you\r
-either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you\r
-prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most\r
-agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you\r
-hesitate? You blush, Harriet.--Does any body else occur to you at\r
-this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive\r
-yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this\r
-moment whom are you thinking of?”\r
-\r
-The symptoms were favourable.--Instead of answering, Harriet turned away\r
-confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was\r
-still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard.\r
-Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At\r
-last, with some hesitation, Harriet said--\r
-\r
-“Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well\r
-as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost\r
-made up my mind--to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?”\r
-\r
-“Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just\r
-what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to\r
-myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation\r
-in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would\r
-have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the\r
-consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest\r
-degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence;\r
-but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have\r
-visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you\r
-for ever.”\r
-\r
-Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her\r
-forcibly.\r
-\r
-“You could not have visited me!” she cried, looking aghast. “No, to be\r
-sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have\r
-been too dreadful!--What an escape!--Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not\r
-give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing\r
-in the world.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it\r
-must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society.\r
-I must have given you up.”\r
-\r
-“Dear me!--How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me\r
-never to come to Hartfield any more!”\r
-\r
-“Dear affectionate creature!--_You_ banished to Abbey-Mill Farm!--_You_\r
-confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I\r
-wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must\r
-have a pretty good opinion of himself.”\r
-\r
-“I do not think he is conceited either, in general,” said Harriet, her\r
-conscience opposing such censure; “at least, he is very good natured,\r
-and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard\r
-for--but that is quite a different thing from--and you know, though\r
-he may like me, it does not follow that I should--and certainly I must\r
-confess that since my visiting here I have seen people--and if one comes\r
-to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all,\r
-_one_ is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr.\r
-Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and\r
-his being so much attached to me--and his writing such a letter--but as\r
-to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be\r
-parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or\r
-because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”\r
-\r
-“Oh no;--and it is but a short letter too.”\r
-\r
-Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a “very\r
-true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish\r
-manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that\r
-her husband could write a good letter.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter; the thing is, to be always\r
-happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But\r
-how shall I do? What shall I say?”\r
-\r
-Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised\r
-its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her\r
-assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance\r
-being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence.\r
-The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a\r
-softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up\r
-with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at\r
-the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother\r
-and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not\r
-fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in\r
-her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all.\r
-\r
-This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business\r
-was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but\r
-Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by\r
-speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of\r
-Mr. Elton.\r
-\r
-“I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again,” was said in rather a\r
-sorrowful tone.\r
-\r
-“Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You\r
-are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill.”\r
-\r
-“And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but\r
-at Hartfield.”\r
-\r
-Some time afterwards it was, “I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much\r
-surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would--for\r
-Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a\r
-linen-draper.”\r
-\r
-“One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher\r
-of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an\r
-opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear\r
-valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she\r
-is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be\r
-among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I\r
-are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained\r
-themselves.”\r
-\r
-Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that\r
-people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly\r
-cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards\r
-the rejected Mr. Martin.\r
-\r
-“Now he has got my letter,” said she softly. “I wonder what they are all\r
-doing--whether his sisters know--if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy\r
-too. I hope he will not mind it so very much.”\r
-\r
-“Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully\r
-employed,” cried Emma. “At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing\r
-your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful\r
-is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times,\r
-allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name.”\r
-\r
-“My picture!--But he has left my picture in Bond-street.”\r
-\r
-“Has he so!--Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest\r
-Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bond-street till\r
-just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this\r
-evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family,\r
-it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those\r
-pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm\r
-prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy\r
-their imaginations all are!”\r
-\r
-Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VIII\r
-\r
-\r
-Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been\r
-spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have\r
-a bed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every\r
-respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible\r
-just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or\r
-two to Mrs. Goddard’s, but it was then to be settled that she should\r
-return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days.\r
-\r
-While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr.\r
-Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his\r
-mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was\r
-induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his\r
-own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley,\r
-who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short,\r
-decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and\r
-civil hesitations of the other.\r
-\r
-“Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not\r
-consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma’s advice and\r
-go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had\r
-better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony,\r
-Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people.”\r
-\r
-“My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me.”\r
-\r
-“I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to\r
-entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my\r
-three turns--my winter walk.”\r
-\r
-“You cannot do better, sir.”\r
-\r
-“I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a\r
-very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you\r
-have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think\r
-the sooner _you_ go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the\r
-garden door for you.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being\r
-immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more\r
-chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more\r
-voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before.\r
-\r
-“I cannot rate her beauty as you do,” said he; “but she is a\r
-pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her\r
-disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good\r
-hands she will turn out a valuable woman.”\r
-\r
-“I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be\r
-wanting.”\r
-\r
-“Come,” said he, “you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you\r
-that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl’s\r
-giggle; she really does you credit.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been\r
-of some use; but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they\r
-may. _You_ do not often overpower me with it.”\r
-\r
-“You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?”\r
-\r
-“Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she\r
-intended.”\r
-\r
-“Something has happened to delay her; some visitors perhaps.”\r
-\r
-“Highbury gossips!--Tiresome wretches!”\r
-\r
-“Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would.”\r
-\r
-Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said\r
-nothing. He presently added, with a smile,\r
-\r
-“I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that\r
-I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of\r
-something to her advantage.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed! how so? of what sort?”\r
-\r
-“A very serious sort, I assure you;” still smiling.\r
-\r
-“Very serious! I can think of but one thing--Who is in love with her?\r
-Who makes you their confidant?”\r
-\r
-Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton’s having dropt a hint.\r
-Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr.\r
-Elton looked up to him.\r
-\r
-“I have reason to think,” he replied, “that Harriet Smith will soon have\r
-an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:--Robert\r
-Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have\r
-done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.”\r
-\r
-“He is very obliging,” said Emma; “but is he sure that Harriet means to\r
-marry him?”\r
-\r
-“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to\r
-the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows\r
-I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe,\r
-considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether\r
-I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether\r
-I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice\r
-altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered\r
-(especially since _your_ making so much of her) as in a line of society\r
-above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear\r
-better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the\r
-purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every\r
-thing; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in\r
-the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and\r
-brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me\r
-that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he\r
-could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent\r
-him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he\r
-would have thought highly of me then; and, I dare say, left the house\r
-thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened\r
-the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow\r
-much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear\r
-to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs.\r
-Goddard’s to-day; and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking\r
-him at all a tiresome wretch.”\r
-\r
-“Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself\r
-through a great part of this speech, “how do you know that Mr. Martin\r
-did not speak yesterday?”\r
-\r
-“Certainly,” replied he, surprized, “I do not absolutely know it; but it\r
-may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?”\r
-\r
-“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what\r
-you have told me. He did speak yesterday--that is, he wrote, and was\r
-refused.”\r
-\r
-This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr.\r
-Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood\r
-up, in tall indignation, and said,\r
-\r
-“Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the\r
-foolish girl about?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! to be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man\r
-that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always\r
-imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”\r
-\r
-“Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the\r
-meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is\r
-so; but I hope you are mistaken.”\r
-\r
-“I saw her answer!--nothing could be clearer.”\r
-\r
-“You saw her answer!--you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your\r
-doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.”\r
-\r
-“And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not\r
-feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man,\r
-but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am rather surprized\r
-indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he\r
-does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever\r
-got over.”\r
-\r
-“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and\r
-with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is\r
-not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in\r
-situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are\r
-Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any\r
-connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of\r
-nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and\r
-certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder\r
-at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any\r
-information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and\r
-too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have\r
-no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have\r
-any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and\r
-that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account,\r
-as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that,\r
-as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as\r
-to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I\r
-could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there\r
-being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in\r
-good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well.\r
-The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the\r
-smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out\r
-upon her extreme good luck. Even _your_ satisfaction I made sure of.\r
-It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s\r
-leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember\r
-saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will\r
-think this a good match.’”\r
-\r
-“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any\r
-such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his\r
-merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend!\r
-Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom\r
-I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should\r
-think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are\r
-very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are\r
-not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently\r
-by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two,\r
-but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.--The sphere in\r
-which she moves is much above his.--It would be a degradation.”\r
-\r
-“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a\r
-respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”\r
-\r
-“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may\r
-be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay\r
-for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with\r
-whom she is brought up.--There can scarcely be a doubt that her father\r
-is a gentleman--and a gentleman of fortune.--Her allowance is\r
-very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or\r
-comfort.--That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me; that\r
-she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will\r
-deny.--She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”\r
-\r
-“Whoever might be her parents,” said Mr. Knightley, “whoever may have\r
-had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of\r
-their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After\r
-receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard’s\r
-hands to shift as she can;--to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard’s line,\r
-to have Mrs. Goddard’s acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought\r
-this good enough for her; and it _was_ good enough. She desired nothing\r
-better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had\r
-no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as\r
-happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of\r
-superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no\r
-friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded\r
-so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to\r
-him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any\r
-woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is\r
-the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had\r
-encouragement.”\r
-\r
-It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this\r
-assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject\r
-again.\r
-\r
-“You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before,\r
-are unjust to Harriet. Harriet’s claims to marry well are not so\r
-contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she\r
-has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her\r
-understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and\r
-supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured,\r
-let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not\r
-trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a\r
-beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an\r
-hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the\r
-subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall\r
-in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with\r
-such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought\r
-after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a\r
-claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim,\r
-comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and\r
-manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to\r
-be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in\r
-general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims\r
-a woman could possess.”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost\r
-enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply\r
-it as you do.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure!” cried she playfully. “I know _that_ is the feeling of\r
-you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every\r
-man delights in--what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his\r
-judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to\r
-marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just\r
-entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at\r
-because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No--pray let\r
-her have time to look about her.”\r
-\r
-“I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley\r
-presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive\r
-that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up\r
-with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that,\r
-in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.\r
-Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing\r
-so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss\r
-Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though\r
-she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to\r
-say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of\r
-connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity--and most prudent\r
-men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be\r
-involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let\r
-her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for\r
-ever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her\r
-to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large\r
-fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard’s all the rest\r
-of her life--or, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry\r
-somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the\r
-old writing-master’s son.”\r
-\r
-“We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there\r
-can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more\r
-angry. But as to my _letting_ her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible;\r
-she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any\r
-second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him,\r
-whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to\r
-say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there\r
-was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much\r
-against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to\r
-favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen\r
-any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her\r
-friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen\r
-nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not,\r
-while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case\r
-is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a\r
-gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!” cried Mr.\r
-Knightley.--“Robert Martin’s manners have sense, sincerity, and\r
-good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than\r
-Harriet Smith could understand.”\r
-\r
-Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was\r
-really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She\r
-did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better\r
-judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be;\r
-but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general,\r
-which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him\r
-sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.\r
-Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt\r
-on Emma’s side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was\r
-thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words.\r
-\r
-“Robert Martin has no great loss--if he can but think so; and I hope it\r
-will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known\r
-to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it\r
-is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;--and as\r
-a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it\r
-will be all labour in vain.”\r
-\r
-Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued,\r
-\r
-“Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man,\r
-and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make\r
-an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any\r
-body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is\r
-as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet’s.\r
-He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite\r
-wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved\r
-moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does\r
-not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great\r
-animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are\r
-intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.”\r
-\r
-“I am very much obliged to you,” said Emma, laughing again. “If I had\r
-set my heart on Mr. Elton’s marrying Harriet, it would have been very\r
-kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to\r
-myself. I have done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to\r
-equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.”\r
-\r
-“Good morning to you,”--said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was\r
-very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was\r
-mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had\r
-given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair,\r
-was provoking him exceedingly.\r
-\r
-Emma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more\r
-indistinctness in the causes of her’s, than in his. She did not always\r
-feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that\r
-her opinions were right and her adversary’s wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He\r
-walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She\r
-was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and\r
-the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet’s staying\r
-away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the\r
-young man’s coming to Mrs. Goddard’s that morning, and meeting with\r
-Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread\r
-of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when\r
-Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any\r
-such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which\r
-settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr.\r
-Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman’s\r
-friendship and woman’s feelings would not justify.\r
-\r
-He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered\r
-that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither\r
-with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of\r
-Mr. Knightley’s pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such\r
-a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she\r
-was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully\r
-to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have\r
-heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and\r
-Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to\r
-money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise\r
-to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the\r
-influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr.\r
-Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its\r
-effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming\r
-any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and\r
-more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure\r
-did not belong to Mr. Elton.\r
-\r
-Harriet’s cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not\r
-to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been\r
-telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great\r
-delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard’s to attend a sick child,\r
-and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was\r
-coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and\r
-found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road\r
-to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the\r
-whist-club night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr.\r
-Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it\r
-was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to\r
-persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not\r
-do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a _very_\r
-_particular_ way indeed, that he was going on business which he would\r
-not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a\r
-very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly\r
-precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure\r
-there must be a _lady_ in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton\r
-only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits.\r
-Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about\r
-Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, “that she did\r
-not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only\r
-knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the\r
-luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his\r
-equal for beauty or agreeableness.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IX\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with\r
-herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before\r
-he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks\r
-shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent.\r
-On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified\r
-and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.\r
-\r
-The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr.\r
-Elton’s return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common\r
-sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences\r
-of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet’s feelings, they were\r
-visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as\r
-her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied\r
-of Mr. Martin’s being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a\r
-contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.\r
-\r
-Her views of improving her little friend’s mind, by a great deal of\r
-useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few\r
-first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much\r
-easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination\r
-range and work at Harriet’s fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge\r
-her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary\r
-pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she\r
-was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing\r
-all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin\r
-quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with\r
-ciphers and trophies.\r
-\r
-In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are\r
-not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard’s, had written out\r
-at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it\r
-from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse’s help, to get a great many more.\r
-Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote\r
-a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first\r
-order, in form as well as quantity.\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the\r
-girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting\r
-in. “So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he\r
-wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time.”\r
- And it always ended in “Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”\r
-\r
-His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject,\r
-did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind; but he\r
-had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much,\r
-something, he thought, might come from that quarter.\r
-\r
-It was by no means his daughter’s wish that the intellects of Highbury\r
-in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one\r
-whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good\r
-enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she had\r
-the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections;\r
-and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that\r
-nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the\r
-sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest\r
-puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and\r
-rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade,\r
-\r
- My first doth affliction denote,\r
- Which my second is destin’d to feel\r
- And my whole is the best antidote\r
- That affliction to soften and heal.--\r
-\r
-made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some\r
-pages ago already.\r
-\r
-“Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?” said she; “that\r
-is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to\r
-you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his\r
-life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse”--he\r
-stopt a moment--“or Miss Smith could inspire him.”\r
-\r
-The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He\r
-called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table\r
-containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed\r
-to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his\r
-manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own.\r
-\r
-“I do not offer it for Miss Smith’s collection,” said he. “Being my\r
-friend’s, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye,\r
-but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it.”\r
-\r
-The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could\r
-understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found\r
-it easier to meet her eye than her friend’s. He was gone the next\r
-moment:--after another moment’s pause,\r
-\r
-“Take it,” said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards\r
-Harriet--“it is for you. Take your own.”\r
-\r
-But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it; and Emma, never\r
-loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself.\r
-\r
- To Miss--\r
-\r
- CHARADE.\r
-\r
- My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,\r
- Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.\r
- Another view of man, my second brings,\r
- Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
-\r
- But ah! united, what reverse we have!\r
- Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown;\r
- Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,\r
- And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
-\r
- Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,\r
- May its approval beam in that soft eye!\r
-\r
-She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through\r
-again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then\r
-passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while\r
-Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and\r
-dulness, “Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse\r
-charades. _Courtship_--a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This\r
-is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly--‘Pray, Miss Smith,\r
-give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my\r
-intentions in the same glance.’\r
-\r
- May its approval beam in that soft eye!\r
-\r
-Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye--of all epithets, the\r
-justest that could be given.\r
-\r
- Thy ready wit the word will soon supply.\r
-\r
-Humph--Harriet’s ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in\r
-love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the\r
-benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life\r
-you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade\r
-indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon\r
-now.”\r
-\r
-She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations,\r
-which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the\r
-eagerness of Harriet’s wondering questions.\r
-\r
-“What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?--what can it be? I have not an idea--I\r
-cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find\r
-it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it\r
-kingdom? I wonder who the friend was--and who could be the young lady.\r
-Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?\r
-\r
- And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
-\r
-Can it be Neptune?\r
-\r
- Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
-\r
-Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one\r
-syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh!\r
-Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?”\r
-\r
-“Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking\r
-of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend\r
-upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen.\r
-\r
-For Miss ------, read Miss Smith.\r
-\r
- My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,\r
- Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.\r
-\r
-That is _court_.\r
-\r
- Another view of man, my second brings;\r
- Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!\r
-\r
-That is _ship_;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream.\r
-\r
- But ah! united, (_courtship_, you know,) what reverse we have!\r
- Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown.\r
- Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,\r
- And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.\r
-\r
-A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application, which\r
-I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in\r
-comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of\r
-its being written for you and to you.”\r
-\r
-Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read\r
-the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not\r
-speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel.\r
-Emma spoke for her.\r
-\r
-“There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment,”\r
- said she, “that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton’s intentions. You\r
-are his object--and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I\r
-thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now, it\r
-is clear; the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on\r
-the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long\r
-have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened.\r
-I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were\r
-most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have\r
-really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my\r
-dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may\r
-well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing\r
-but good. It will give you every thing that you want--consideration,\r
-independence, a proper home--it will fix you in the centre of all your\r
-real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy\r
-for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in\r
-either of us.”\r
-\r
-“Dear Miss Woodhouse!”--and “Dear Miss Woodhouse,” was all that Harriet,\r
-with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did\r
-arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to\r
-her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she\r
-ought. Mr. Elton’s superiority had very ample acknowledgment.\r
-\r
-“Whatever you say is always right,” cried Harriet, “and therefore I\r
-suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not\r
-have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton,\r
-who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about _him_. He\r
-is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses--‘To Miss ------.’\r
-Dear me, how clever!--Could it really be meant for me?”\r
-\r
-“I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a\r
-certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to\r
-the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by\r
-matter-of-fact prose.”\r
-\r
-“It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure,\r
-a month ago, I had no more idea myself!--The strangest things do take\r
-place!”\r
-\r
-“When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted--they do indeed--and\r
-really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so\r
-evidently, so palpably desirable--what courts the pre-arrangement of\r
-other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form.\r
-You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one\r
-another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying\r
-will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a\r
-something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right\r
-direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.\r
-\r
- The course of true love never did run smooth--\r
-\r
-A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that\r
-passage.”\r
-\r
-“That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,--me, of all people,\r
-who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very\r
-handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to,\r
-quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body\r
-says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it;\r
-that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so\r
-excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has\r
-ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back\r
-to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!--The two Abbots and\r
-I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he\r
-was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look\r
-through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me\r
-look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he\r
-looked! He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole.”\r
-\r
-“This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be, must\r
-be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we\r
-are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to\r
-see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable character gives\r
-every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you settled in the same\r
-country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will\r
-be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the\r
-common phrase, be _well_ married, here is the comfortable fortune, the\r
-respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy\r
-them.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you. You understand\r
-every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This\r
-charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any\r
-thing like it.”\r
-\r
-“I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it\r
-yesterday.”\r
-\r
-“I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read.”\r
-\r
-“I never read one more to the purpose, certainly.”\r
-\r
-“It is as long again as almost all we have had before.”\r
-\r
-“I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things\r
-in general cannot be too short.”\r
-\r
-Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory\r
-comparisons were rising in her mind.\r
-\r
-“It is one thing,” said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--“to have\r
-very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is\r
-any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you\r
-must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like\r
-this.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin’s\r
-prose.\r
-\r
-“Such sweet lines!” continued Harriet--“these two last!--But how shall I\r
-ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?--Oh! Miss\r
-Woodhouse, what can we do about that?”\r
-\r
-“Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare\r
-say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will\r
-pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your soft eyes shall\r
-chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful\r
-charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good.”\r
-\r
-“Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not\r
-write it into your book.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! but those two lines are”--\r
-\r
---“The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private\r
-enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know,\r
-because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its\r
-meaning change. But take it away, and all _appropriation_ ceases, and a\r
-very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon\r
-it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his\r
-passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or\r
-neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be\r
-no possible reflection on you.”\r
-\r
-Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts,\r
-so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a\r
-declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree\r
-of publicity.\r
-\r
-“I shall never let that book go out of my own hands,” said she.\r
-\r
-“Very well,” replied Emma; “a most natural feeling; and the longer it\r
-lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming: you\r
-will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him\r
-so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any\r
-thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of\r
-gallantry towards us all!--You must let me read it to him.”\r
-\r
-Harriet looked grave.\r
-\r
-“My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.--You\r
-will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too\r
-quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning\r
-which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little\r
-tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not\r
-have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me\r
-than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has\r
-encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over\r
-this charade.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no--I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the\r
-recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of “Well, my dears, how does\r
-your book go on?--Have you got any thing fresh?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A\r
-piece of paper was found on the table this morning--(dropt, we suppose,\r
-by a fairy)--containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied\r
-it in.”\r
-\r
-She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and\r
-distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every\r
-part as she proceeded--and he was very much pleased, and, as she had\r
-foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion.\r
-\r
-“Aye, that’s very just, indeed, that’s very properly said. Very true.\r
-‘Woman, lovely woman.’ It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I\r
-can easily guess what fairy brought it.--Nobody could have written so\r
-prettily, but you, Emma.”\r
-\r
-Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very\r
-tender sigh, he added,\r
-\r
-“Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother\r
-was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can\r
-remember nothing;--not even that particular riddle which you have\r
-heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are\r
-several.\r
-\r
- Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,\r
- Kindled a flame I yet deplore,\r
- The hood-wink’d boy I called to aid,\r
- Though of his near approach afraid,\r
- So fatal to my suit before.\r
-\r
-And that is all that I can recollect of it--but it is very clever all\r
-the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the\r
-Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick’s, you know.”\r
-\r
-“Aye, very true.--I wish I could recollect more of it.\r
-\r
- Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.\r
-\r
-The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being\r
-christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here\r
-next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her--and what\r
-room there will be for the children?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes--she will have her own room, of course; the room she always\r
-has;--and there is the nursery for the children,--just as usual, you\r
-know. Why should there be any change?”\r
-\r
-“I do not know, my dear--but it is so long since she was here!--not\r
-since last Easter, and then only for a few days.--Mr. John Knightley’s\r
-being a lawyer is very inconvenient.--Poor Isabella!--she is sadly taken\r
-away from us all!--and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see\r
-Miss Taylor here!”\r
-\r
-“She will not be surprized, papa, at least.”\r
-\r
-“I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I\r
-first heard she was going to be married.”\r
-\r
-“We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is\r
-here.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, my dear, if there is time.--But--(in a very depressed tone)--she\r
-is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing.”\r
-\r
-“It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer--but it seems a case of\r
-necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th, and we\r
-ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time\r
-they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken\r
-out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this\r
-Christmas--though you know it is longer since they were with him, than\r
-with us.”\r
-\r
-“It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be\r
-anywhere but at Hartfield.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley’s claims on his\r
-brother, or any body’s claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing\r
-a little while, and then said,\r
-\r
-“But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so\r
-soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to\r
-stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! papa--that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I\r
-do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her\r
-husband.”\r
-\r
-This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse\r
-could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected\r
-by the idea of his daughter’s attachment to her husband, she immediately\r
-led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them.\r
-\r
-“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother\r
-and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children.\r
-We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she\r
-will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”\r
-\r
-“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be\r
-to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”\r
-\r
-“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the\r
-eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second,\r
-is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that\r
-the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I\r
-thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They\r
-are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will\r
-come and stand by my chair, and say, ‘Grandpapa, can you give me a bit\r
-of string?’ and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives\r
-were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with\r
-them very often.”\r
-\r
-“He appears rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle\r
-yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not\r
-think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if\r
-they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an\r
-affectionate father--certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate\r
-father. The children are all fond of him.”\r
-\r
-“And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a\r
-very frightful way!”\r
-\r
-“But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such\r
-enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of\r
-their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.”\r
-\r
-“Well, I cannot understand it.”\r
-\r
-“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot\r
-understand the pleasures of the other.”\r
-\r
-Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate\r
-in preparation for the regular four o’clock dinner, the hero of this\r
-inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could\r
-receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in\r
-his the consciousness of having made a push--of having thrown a die;\r
-and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible\r
-reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse’s party could be made\r
-up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest\r
-degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give\r
-way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his\r
-dining with him--had made such a point of it, that he had promised him\r
-conditionally to come.\r
-\r
-Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend\r
-on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged--she\r
-re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the\r
-paper from the table, she returned it--\r
-\r
-“Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank\r
-you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured\r
-to write it into Miss Smith’s collection. Your friend will not take it\r
-amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight\r
-lines.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather\r
-doubtingly--rather confused; said something about “honour,”--glanced at\r
-Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took\r
-it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an\r
-awkward moment, Emma smilingly said,\r
-\r
-“You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade\r
-must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman’s\r
-approbation while he writes with such gallantry.”\r
-\r
-“I have no hesitation in saying,” replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating\r
-a good deal while he spoke; “I have no hesitation in saying--at least\r
-if my friend feels at all as _I_ do--I have not the smallest doubt that,\r
-could he see his little effusion honoured as _I_ see it, (looking at the\r
-book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the\r
-proudest moment of his life.”\r
-\r
-After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think\r
-it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was\r
-a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to\r
-laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and\r
-the sublime of pleasure to Harriet’s share.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER X\r
-\r
-\r
-Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to\r
-prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the\r
-morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who\r
-lived a little way out of Highbury.\r
-\r
-Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane\r
-leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of\r
-the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr.\r
-Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about\r
-a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not\r
-very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had\r
-no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the\r
-present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility\r
-of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing\r
-eyes.--Emma’s remark was--\r
-\r
-“There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these\r
-days.”--Harriet’s was--\r
-\r
-“Oh, what a sweet house!--How very beautiful!--There are the yellow\r
-curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”\r
-\r
-“I do not often walk this way _now_,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but\r
-_then_ there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately\r
-acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part\r
-of Highbury.”\r
-\r
-Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage,\r
-and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors\r
-and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with\r
-Mr. Elton’s seeing ready wit in her.\r
-\r
-“I wish we could contrive it,” said she; “but I cannot think of any\r
-tolerable pretence for going in;--no servant that I want to inquire\r
-about of his housekeeper--no message from my father.”\r
-\r
-She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some\r
-minutes, Harriet thus began again--\r
-\r
-“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or\r
-going to be married! so charming as you are!”--\r
-\r
-Emma laughed, and replied,\r
-\r
-“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry;\r
-I must find other people charming--one other person at least. And I\r
-am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little\r
-intention of ever marrying at all.”\r
-\r
-“Ah!--so you say; but I cannot believe it.”\r
-\r
-“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be\r
-tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the\r
-question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person. I would rather not\r
-be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I\r
-must expect to repent it.”\r
-\r
-“Dear me!--it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”--\r
-\r
-“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall\r
-in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in\r
-love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.\r
-And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a\r
-situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want;\r
-consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much\r
-mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never\r
-could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and\r
-always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”\r
-\r
-“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”\r
-\r
-“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if\r
-I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly--so satisfied--so\r
-smiling--so prosing--so undistinguishing and unfastidious--and so apt\r
-to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry\r
-to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any\r
-likeness, except in being unmarried.”\r
-\r
-“But still, you will be an old maid! and that’s so dreadful!”\r
-\r
-“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty\r
-only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single\r
-woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old\r
-maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good\r
-fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant\r
-as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the\r
-candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very\r
-narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.\r
-Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and\r
-generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This\r
-does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and\r
-too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste\r
-of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not\r
-contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the\r
-world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody\r
-is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”\r
-\r
-“Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you\r
-grow old?”\r
-\r
-“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great\r
-many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more\r
-in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s\r
-usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they\r
-are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read\r
-more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for\r
-objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the\r
-great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil\r
-to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the\r
-children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough\r
-of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that\r
-declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every\r
-fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it\r
-suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My\r
-nephews and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me.”\r
-\r
-“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know you must have seen her\r
-a hundred times--but are you acquainted?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to\r
-Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit\r
-with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people\r
-half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane\r
-Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from\r
-her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round\r
-and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a\r
-stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of\r
-nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires\r
-me to death.”\r
-\r
-They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were\r
-superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor\r
-were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her\r
-counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways,\r
-could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic\r
-expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had\r
-done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and\r
-always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In\r
-the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she\r
-came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give\r
-comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of\r
-the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,\r
-\r
-“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make\r
-every thing else appear!--I feel now as if I could think of nothing but\r
-these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how\r
-soon it may all vanish from my mind?”\r
-\r
-“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing\r
-else.”\r
-\r
-“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said\r
-Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended\r
-the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them\r
-into the lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once\r
-more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still\r
-greater within.\r
-\r
-“Oh! dear, no,” said her companion.\r
-\r
-They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was\r
-passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma\r
-time only to say farther,\r
-\r
-“Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good\r
-thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion\r
-has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that\r
-is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can\r
-for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”\r
-\r
-Harriet could just answer, “Oh! dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined\r
-them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the\r
-first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit\r
-he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about\r
-what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to\r
-accompany them.\r
-\r
-“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma;\r
-“to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase\r
-of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the\r
-declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.”\r
-\r
-Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon\r
-afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one\r
-side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had\r
-not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of\r
-dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short,\r
-they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately\r
-stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing\r
-of her half-boot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the\r
-footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would\r
-follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time\r
-she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort\r
-of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the\r
-cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch\r
-broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to\r
-and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have\r
-been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design;\r
-and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without\r
-any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however,\r
-involuntarily: the child’s pace was quick, and theirs rather slow;\r
-and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in\r
-a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with\r
-animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma,\r
-having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back\r
-a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join\r
-them.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail;\r
-and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only\r
-giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his\r
-friend Cole’s, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese,\r
-the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the\r
-dessert.\r
-\r
-“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her\r
-consoling reflection; “any thing interests between those who love; and\r
-any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I\r
-could but have kept longer away!”\r
-\r
-They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage\r
-pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the\r
-house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and\r
-fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short,\r
-and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to\r
-entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to\r
-rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.\r
-\r
-“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to\r
-contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I\r
-hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop\r
-at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string,\r
-or any thing just to keep my boot on.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could\r
-exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and\r
-endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were\r
-taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind\r
-it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between\r
-them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive\r
-her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave\r
-the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton\r
-should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but\r
-by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make\r
-it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining\r
-room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be\r
-protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her\r
-appearance.\r
-\r
-The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most\r
-favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having\r
-schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point.\r
-He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that\r
-he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little\r
-gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.\r
-\r
-“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch, and\r
-will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”\r
-\r
-Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her\r
-ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been\r
-the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them\r
-forward to the great event.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XI\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma’s power\r
-to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her\r
-sister’s family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation,\r
-and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest;\r
-and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be\r
-expected--she did not herself expect--that any thing beyond occasional,\r
-fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might\r
-advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or\r
-other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure\r
-for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they\r
-will do for themselves.\r
-\r
-Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent\r
-from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest.\r
-Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been\r
-divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey; but all the holidays of\r
-this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children, and it was\r
-therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their\r
-Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be\r
-induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella’s sake; and\r
-who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in\r
-forestalling this too short visit.\r
-\r
-He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little\r
-of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some\r
-of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless;\r
-the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John\r
-Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids,\r
-all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival,\r
-the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed\r
-and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could\r
-not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even\r
-for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father\r
-were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal\r
-solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their\r
-having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and\r
-drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for,\r
-without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long\r
-a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance\r
-on them.\r
-\r
-Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet\r
-manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt\r
-up in her family; a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly\r
-attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a\r
-warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault\r
-in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any\r
-quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also\r
-much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful\r
-of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond\r
-of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry.\r
-They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong\r
-habit of regard for every old acquaintance.\r
-\r
-Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man;\r
-rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private\r
-character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally\r
-pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an\r
-ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a\r
-reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with\r
-such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects\r
-in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper\r
-must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she\r
-wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.\r
-\r
-He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong\r
-in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to\r
-Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have\r
-passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella’s sister,\r
-but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without\r
-praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal\r
-compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of\r
-all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful\r
-forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience\r
-that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse’s peculiarities and\r
-fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or\r
-sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John\r
-Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally\r
-a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma’s\r
-charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently\r
-to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of\r
-every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of\r
-necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality.\r
-They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a\r
-melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter’s attention\r
-to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.\r
-\r
-“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor--It is a grievous business.”\r
-\r
-“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her!\r
-And dear Emma, too!--What a dreadful loss to you both!--I have been so\r
-grieved for you.--I could not imagine how you could possibly do without\r
-her.--It is a sad change indeed.--But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”\r
-\r
-“Pretty well, my dear--I hope--pretty well.--I do not know but that the\r
-place agrees with her tolerably.”\r
-\r
-Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts\r
-of the air of Randalls.\r
-\r
-“Oh! no--none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my\r
-life--never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.”\r
-\r
-“Very much to the honour of both,” was the handsome reply.\r
-\r
-“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the\r
-plaintive tone which just suited her father.\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.--“Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they\r
-married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one,\r
-have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both,\r
-either at Randalls or here--and as you may suppose, Isabella, most\r
-frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston\r
-is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way,\r
-you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be\r
-aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be\r
-assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by\r
-any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated--which is the exact\r
-truth.”\r
-\r
-“Just as it should be,” said Mr. John Knightley, “and just as I hoped\r
-it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be\r
-doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I\r
-have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change\r
-being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have\r
-Emma’s account, I hope you will be satisfied.”\r
-\r
-“Why, to be sure,” said Mr. Woodhouse--“yes, certainly--I cannot\r
-deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty\r
-often--but then--she is always obliged to go away again.”\r
-\r
-“It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.--You quite\r
-forget poor Mr. Weston.”\r
-\r
-“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has\r
-some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the\r
-poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims\r
-of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella,\r
-she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all\r
-the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.”\r
-\r
-“Me, my love,” cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.--\r
-“Are you talking about me?--I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a\r
-greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for\r
-the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss\r
-Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting\r
-Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does\r
-not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever\r
-existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal\r
-for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry’s kite for him that\r
-very windy day last Easter--and ever since his particular kindness last\r
-September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o’clock at night,\r
-on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I\r
-have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better\r
-man in existence.--If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.”\r
-\r
-“Where is the young man?” said John Knightley. “Has he been here on this\r
-occasion--or has he not?”\r
-\r
-“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma. “There was a strong\r
-expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in\r
-nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”\r
-\r
-“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father.\r
-“He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very\r
-proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very\r
-well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one\r
-cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps--”\r
-\r
-“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”\r
-\r
-“Three-and-twenty!--is he indeed?--Well, I could not have thought\r
-it--and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well,\r
-time does fly indeed!--and my memory is very bad. However, it was an\r
-exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal\r
-of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept.\r
-28th--and began, ‘My dear Madam,’ but I forget how it went on; and it\r
-was signed ‘F. C. Weston Churchill.’--I remember that perfectly.”\r
-\r
-“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. John\r
-Knightley. “I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But\r
-how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is\r
-something so shocking in a child’s being taken away from his parents and\r
-natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with\r
-him. To give up one’s child! I really never could think well of any body\r
-who proposed such a thing to any body else.”\r
-\r
-“Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,” observed Mr.\r
-John Knightley coolly. “But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt\r
-what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather\r
-an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes\r
-things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other,\r
-depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his\r
-comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing\r
-whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection,\r
-or any thing that home affords.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had\r
-half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She\r
-would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and\r
-valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to\r
-himself, whence resulted her brother’s disposition to look down on\r
-the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was\r
-important.--It had a high claim to forbearance.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XII\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley was to dine with them--rather against the inclination of\r
-Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in\r
-Isabella’s first day. Emma’s sense of right however had decided it;\r
-and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had\r
-particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement\r
-between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper\r
-invitation.\r
-\r
-She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time\r
-to make up. Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been\r
-in the wrong, and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be\r
-out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had\r
-ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of\r
-friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children\r
-with her--the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who\r
-was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced\r
-about in her aunt’s arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave\r
-looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in\r
-the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the\r
-unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again;\r
-and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then\r
-a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the\r
-baby,\r
-\r
-“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.\r
-As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with\r
-regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”\r
-\r
-“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women,\r
-and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with\r
-them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always\r
-think alike.”\r
-\r
-“To be sure--our discordancies must always arise from my being in the\r
-wrong.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said he, smiling--“and reason good. I was sixteen years old when\r
-you were born.”\r
-\r
-“A material difference then,” she replied--“and no doubt you were much\r
-my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the\r
-lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal\r
-nearer?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--a good deal _nearer_.”\r
-\r
-“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we\r
-think differently.”\r
-\r
-“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by\r
-not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma,\r
-let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little\r
-Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old\r
-grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”\r
-\r
-“That’s true,” she cried--“very true. Little Emma, grow up a better\r
-woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited.\r
-Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good\r
-intentions went, we were _both_ right, and I must say that no effects on\r
-my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that\r
-Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed.”\r
-\r
-“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.\r
-\r
-“Ah!--Indeed I am very sorry.--Come, shake hands with me.”\r
-\r
-This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley\r
-made his appearance, and “How d’ye do, George?” and “John, how are\r
-you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that\r
-seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led\r
-either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the\r
-other.\r
-\r
-The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards\r
-entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and\r
-the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his\r
-daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally\r
-distinct, or very rarely mixing--and Emma only occasionally joining in\r
-one or the other.\r
-\r
-The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally\r
-of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative,\r
-and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally\r
-some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious\r
-anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at\r
-Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to\r
-give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting\r
-to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his\r
-life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change\r
-of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for\r
-wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality\r
-of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his\r
-willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries\r
-even approached a tone of eagerness.\r
-\r
-While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a\r
-full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.\r
-\r
-“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and\r
-interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her\r
-five children--“How long it is, how terribly long since you were here!\r
-And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early,\r
-my dear--and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.--You and\r
-I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all\r
-have a little gruel.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the\r
-Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;--and\r
-two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of\r
-gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every\r
-body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,\r
-\r
-“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South\r
-End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir--or we should not\r
-have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for\r
-the weakness in little Bella’s throat,--both sea air and bathing.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any\r
-good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though\r
-perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use\r
-to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once.”\r
-\r
-“Come, come,” cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, “I must\r
-beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;--I\r
-who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear\r
-Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and\r
-he never forgets you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! good Mr. Perry--how is he, sir?”\r
-\r
-“Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has\r
-not time to take care of himself--he tells me he has not time to take\r
-care of himself--which is very sad--but he is always wanted all round\r
-the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But\r
-then there is not so clever a man any where.”\r
-\r
-“And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow?\r
-I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He\r
-will be so pleased to see my little ones.”\r
-\r
-“I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask\r
-him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes,\r
-you had better let him look at little Bella’s throat.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any\r
-uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to\r
-her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr.\r
-Wingfield’s, which we have been applying at times ever since August.”\r
-\r
-“It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use\r
-to her--and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have\r
-spoken to--\r
-\r
-“You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,” said Emma, “I\r
-have not heard one inquiry after them.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! the good Bateses--I am quite ashamed of myself--but you mention\r
-them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs.\r
-Bates--I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children.--They\r
-are always so pleased to see my children.--And that excellent Miss\r
-Bates!--such thorough worthy people!--How are they, sir?”\r
-\r
-“Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a\r
-bad cold about a month ago.”\r
-\r
-“How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been\r
-this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more\r
-general or heavy--except when it has been quite an influenza.”\r
-\r
-“That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you\r
-mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy\r
-as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it\r
-altogether a sickly season.”\r
-\r
-“No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it _very_ sickly\r
-except--\r
-\r
-“Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always\r
-a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a\r
-dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!--and the\r
-air so bad!”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed--_we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is\r
-very superior to most others!--You must not confound us with London\r
-in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very\r
-different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be\r
-unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;--there is\r
-hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in:\r
-but _we_ are so remarkably airy!--Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of\r
-Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but\r
-after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different\r
-creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think\r
-you are any of you looking well at present.”\r
-\r
-“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those\r
-little nervous head-aches and palpitations which I am never entirely\r
-free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were\r
-rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a\r
-little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of\r
-coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I\r
-assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever\r
-sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that\r
-you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,” turning her eyes with\r
-affectionate anxiety towards her husband.\r
-\r
-“Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley\r
-very far from looking well.”\r
-\r
-“What is the matter, sir?--Did you speak to me?” cried Mr. John\r
-Knightley, hearing his own name.\r
-\r
-“I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking\r
-well--but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have\r
-wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you\r
-left home.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Isabella,”--exclaimed he hastily--“pray do not concern yourself\r
-about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and\r
-the children, and let me look as I chuse.”\r
-\r
-“I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,”\r
- cried Emma, “about your friend Mr. Graham’s intending to have a bailiff\r
-from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will\r
-not the old prejudice be too strong?”\r
-\r
-And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to\r
-give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing\r
-worse to hear than Isabella’s kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane\r
-Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that\r
-moment very happy to assist in praising.\r
-\r
-“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley.--“It\r
-is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment\r
-accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old\r
-grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always\r
-regret excessively on dear Emma’s account that she cannot be more at\r
-Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs.\r
-Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a\r
-delightful companion for Emma.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,\r
-\r
-“Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty\r
-kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a\r
-better companion than Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“I am most happy to hear it--but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so\r
-very accomplished and superior!--and exactly Emma’s age.”\r
-\r
-This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar\r
-moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not\r
-close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied\r
-a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting\r
-decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty\r
-severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with\r
-tolerably;--but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter\r
-had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in\r
-her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never\r
-had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth\r
-gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered\r
-it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a\r
-dangerous opening.\r
-\r
-“Ah!” said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her\r
-with tender concern.--The ejaculation in Emma’s ear expressed, “Ah!\r
-there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It\r
-does not bear talking of.” And for a little while she hoped he would not\r
-talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to\r
-the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes,\r
-however, he began with,\r
-\r
-“I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn,\r
-instead of coming here.”\r
-\r
-“But why should you be sorry, sir?--I assure you, it did the children a\r
-great deal of good.”\r
-\r
-“And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been\r
-to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to\r
-hear you had fixed upon South End.”\r
-\r
-“I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite\r
-a mistake, sir.--We all had our health perfectly well there, never\r
-found the least inconvenience from the mud; and Mr. Wingfield says it is\r
-entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may\r
-be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and\r
-his own brother and family have been there repeatedly.”\r
-\r
-“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.--Perry\r
-was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the\r
-sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by\r
-what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from\r
-the sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have\r
-consulted Perry.”\r
-\r
-“But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey;--only consider how\r
-great it would have been.--An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else\r
-should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to\r
-chuse between forty miles and an hundred.--Better not move at all,\r
-better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into\r
-a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very\r
-ill-judged measure.”\r
-\r
-Emma’s attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he\r
-had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her\r
-brother-in-law’s breaking out.\r
-\r
-“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do\r
-as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it\r
-any business of his, to wonder at what I do?--at my taking my family to\r
-one part of the coast or another?--I may be allowed, I hope, the use of\r
-my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.--I want his directions no more than\r
-his drugs.” He paused--and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only\r
-sarcastic dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and\r
-five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater\r
-expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as\r
-willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.”\r
-\r
-“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition--“very\r
-true. That’s a consideration indeed.--But John, as to what I was telling\r
-you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the\r
-right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive\r
-any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of\r
-inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly\r
-the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however,\r
-will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow\r
-morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me\r
-your opinion.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his\r
-friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been\r
-attributing many of his own feelings and expressions;--but the soothing\r
-attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and\r
-the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the\r
-other, prevented any renewal of it.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIII\r
-\r
-\r
-There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John\r
-Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning\r
-among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what\r
-she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing\r
-to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a\r
-delightful visit;--perfect, in being much too short.\r
-\r
-In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their\r
-mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too,\r
-there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no\r
-denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day;--even Mr. Woodhouse was\r
-persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of\r
-the party.\r
-\r
-How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he\r
-could, but as his son and daughter’s carriage and horses were actually\r
-at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on\r
-that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long\r
-to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for\r
-Harriet also.\r
-\r
-Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the\r
-only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as\r
-well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse’s habits and inclination being\r
-consulted in every thing.\r
-\r
-The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that\r
-Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent\r
-by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with\r
-a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs.\r
-Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called\r
-on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to\r
-Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard\r
-was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet\r
-herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her\r
-from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss\r
-without many tears.\r
-\r
-Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard’s\r
-unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr.\r
-Elton’s would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last\r
-tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most\r
-comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not\r
-advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard’s door, when she was met by Mr.\r
-Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly\r
-together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour\r
-of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might\r
-carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John\r
-Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest\r
-boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country\r
-run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice\r
-pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and\r
-proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend’s\r
-complaint;--“a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat\r
-about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs.\r
-Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often\r
-alarmed her with them.” Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as\r
-he exclaimed,\r
-\r
-“A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid\r
-infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of\r
-yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks.\r
-Why does not Perry see her?”\r
-\r
-Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this\r
-excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard’s experience and\r
-care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she\r
-could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist\r
-than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject,\r
-\r
-“It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like\r
-snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I\r
-should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from\r
-venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the\r
-cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great\r
-a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton,\r
-in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a\r
-little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and\r
-what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than\r
-common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make;\r
-which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind\r
-care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her’s,\r
-he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma,\r
-too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him\r
-impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with\r
-his muttering acknowledgment of its being “very cold, certainly very\r
-cold,” and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls,\r
-and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour\r
-of the evening.\r
-\r
-“You do quite right,” said she;--“we will make your apologies to Mr. and\r
-Mrs. Weston.”\r
-\r
-But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly\r
-offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton’s only\r
-objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt\r
-satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had\r
-his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment;\r
-never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when\r
-he next looked at her.\r
-\r
-“Well,” said she to herself, “this is most strange!--After I had got\r
-him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill\r
-behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men,\r
-especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining\r
-out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures,\r
-their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any\r
-thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most\r
-valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love\r
-with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine\r
-out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready\r
-wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.”\r
-\r
-Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him\r
-the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his\r
-manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while\r
-assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard’s for news of her fair\r
-friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting\r
-her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and\r
-he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of\r
-approbation much in his favour.\r
-\r
-After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began\r
-with--\r
-\r
-“I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr.\r
-Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With\r
-men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please,\r
-every feature works.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton’s manners are not perfect,” replied Emma; “but where there is\r
-a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great\r
-deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will\r
-have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect\r
-good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, “he seems\r
-to have a great deal of good-will towards you.”\r
-\r
-“Me!” she replied with a smile of astonishment, “are you imagining me to\r
-be Mr. Elton’s object?”\r
-\r
-“Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never\r
-occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!”\r
-\r
-“I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it\r
-is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your\r
-manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better\r
-look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.”\r
-\r
-“I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and\r
-I are very good friends, and nothing more;” and she walked on, amusing\r
-herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a\r
-partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high\r
-pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well\r
-pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in\r
-want of counsel. He said no more.\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in\r
-spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking\r
-from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest\r
-daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the\r
-weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own\r
-going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was\r
-cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe;\r
-and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow\r
-were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so\r
-overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world\r
-in a very short time.\r
-\r
-Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The\r
-preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of\r
-his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least,\r
-which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated\r
-nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the\r
-whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his\r
-discontent.\r
-\r
-“A man,” said he, “must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks\r
-people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as\r
-this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most\r
-agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest\r
-absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing\r
-people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people’s not staying\r
-comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such\r
-an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we\r
-should deem it;--and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing\r
-than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of\r
-the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view\r
-or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter\r
-that he can;--here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in\r
-another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said\r
-and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow.\r
-Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;--four horses and\r
-four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering\r
-creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had\r
-at home.”\r
-\r
-Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no\r
-doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the “Very true,\r
-my love,” which must have been usually administered by his travelling\r
-companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making\r
-any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being\r
-quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to\r
-talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening\r
-her lips.\r
-\r
-They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton,\r
-spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with\r
-pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and\r
-cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she\r
-began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from\r
-what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had\r
-been, “Much the same--not better.”\r
-\r
-“_My_ report from Mrs. Goddard’s,” said she presently, “was not so\r
-pleasant as I had hoped--‘Not better’ was _my_ answer.”\r
-\r
-His face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of\r
-sentiment as he answered.\r
-\r
-“Oh! no--I am grieved to find--I was on the point of telling you that\r
-when I called at Mrs. Goddard’s door, which I did the very last thing\r
-before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better,\r
-by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned--I\r
-had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I\r
-knew had been given her in the morning.”\r
-\r
-Emma smiled and answered--“My visit was of use to the nervous part of\r
-her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat;\r
-it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you\r
-probably heard.”\r
-\r
-“Yes--I imagined--that is--I did not--”\r
-\r
-“He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow\r
-morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is\r
-impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!”\r
-\r
-“Dreadful!--Exactly so, indeed.--She will be missed every moment.”\r
-\r
-This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really\r
-estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay\r
-when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things,\r
-and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment.\r
-\r
-“What an excellent device,” said he, “the use of a sheepskin for\r
-carriages. How very comfortable they make it;--impossible to feel cold\r
-with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have\r
-rendered a gentleman’s carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced\r
-and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way\r
-unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very\r
-cold afternoon--but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.--Ha!\r
-snows a little I see.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said John Knightley, “and I think we shall have a good deal of\r
-it.”\r
-\r
-“Christmas weather,” observed Mr. Elton. “Quite seasonable; and\r
-extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin\r
-yesterday, and prevent this day’s party, which it might very possibly\r
-have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been\r
-much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite\r
-the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites\r
-their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst\r
-weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing\r
-could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away\r
-till that very day se’nnight.”\r
-\r
-Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but\r
-said only, coolly,\r
-\r
-“I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls.”\r
-\r
-At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much\r
-astonished now at Mr. Elton’s spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed\r
-quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party.\r
-\r
-“We are sure of excellent fires,” continued he, “and every thing in the\r
-greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;--Mrs. Weston\r
-indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so\r
-hospitable, and so fond of society;--it will be a small party, but where\r
-small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any.\r
-Mr. Weston’s dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably;\r
-and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by\r
-two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with\r
-a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation,\r
-though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of\r
-London, may not quite enter into our feelings.”\r
-\r
-“I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir--I never dine with\r
-any body.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had\r
-been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will\r
-be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great\r
-enjoyment.”\r
-\r
-“My first enjoyment,” replied John Knightley, as they passed through the\r
-sweep-gate, “will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIV\r
-\r
-\r
-Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they\r
-walked into Mrs. Weston’s drawing-room;--Mr. Elton must compose his\r
-joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr.\r
-Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the\r
-place.--Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as\r
-happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons.\r
-Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the\r
-world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife; not any\r
-one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and\r
-understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the\r
-little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father\r
-and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston\r
-had not a lively concern; and half an hour’s uninterrupted communication\r
-of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life\r
-depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.\r
-\r
-This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day’s visit might not\r
-afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half-hour; but the\r
-very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful\r
-to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr.\r
-Elton’s oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that\r
-was enjoyable to the utmost.\r
-\r
-The misfortune of Harriet’s cold had been pretty well gone through\r
-before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough\r
-to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and\r
-Isabella’s coming, and of Emma’s being to follow, and had indeed just\r
-got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his\r
-daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost\r
-wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and\r
-welcome her dear Emma.\r
-\r
-Emma’s project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry\r
-to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her.\r
-The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards\r
-Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but\r
-was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and\r
-solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting\r
-him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal\r
-suggestion of “Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be\r
-possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from\r
-Harriet to me?--Absurd and insufferable!”--Yet he would be so anxious\r
-for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father,\r
-and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her\r
-drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly\r
-like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her\r
-good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet’s,\r
-in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively\r
-civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on\r
-amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton’s\r
-nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough\r
-to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son; she\r
-heard the words “my son,” and “Frank,” and “my son,” repeated several\r
-times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected\r
-that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could\r
-quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving\r
-question from her would have been awkward.\r
-\r
-Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma’s resolution of never\r
-marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr.\r
-Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently\r
-thought--especially since his father’s marriage with Miss Taylor--that\r
-if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age,\r
-character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the\r
-families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be\r
-a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though\r
-not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a\r
-situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could\r
-change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention\r
-of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and\r
-a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends’\r
-imaginations.\r
-\r
-With such sensations, Mr. Elton’s civilities were dreadfully ill-timed;\r
-but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very\r
-cross--and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly\r
-pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the\r
-substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston.--So it proved;--for\r
-when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston,\r
-at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of\r
-hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to\r
-her,\r
-\r
-“We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see\r
-two more here,--your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son--and\r
-then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me\r
-telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank.\r
-I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a\r
-fortnight.”\r
-\r
-Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure; and fully assented to\r
-his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party\r
-quite complete.\r
-\r
-“He has been wanting to come to us,” continued Mr. Weston, “ever since\r
-September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his\r
-own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between\r
-ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices.\r
-But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in\r
-January.”\r
-\r
-“What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so\r
-anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as\r
-yourself.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off.\r
-She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not\r
-know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is--(but this is\r
-quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other\r
-room. There are secrets in all families, you know)--The case is, that a\r
-party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and\r
-that Frank’s coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not\r
-put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family\r
-that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular\r
-dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in\r
-two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.\r
-I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing\r
-Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself:\r
-but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table)\r
-has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at\r
-Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been\r
-long in the practice of doing.”\r
-\r
-“I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case,” replied\r
-Emma; “but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he\r
-will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe.”\r
-\r
-“Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at\r
-the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow myself\r
-to speak ill of her, on Frank’s account; for I do believe her to be very\r
-fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of\r
-any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her\r
-way--allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing\r
-to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him,\r
-that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say\r
-it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in\r
-general; and the devil of a temper.”\r
-\r
-Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston,\r
-very soon after their moving into the drawing-room: wishing her joy--yet\r
-observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming.--\r
-Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be\r
-secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked\r
-of: “for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as\r
-Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr.\r
-Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs.\r
-Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world.”\r
-\r
-“My Emma!” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “what is the certainty\r
-of caprice?” Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending\r
-before--“You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means\r
-so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father\r
-thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt’s spirits and pleasure; in\r
-short, upon her temper. To you--to my two daughters--I may venture on\r
-the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered\r
-woman; and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him.”\r
-\r
-“Oh, Mrs. Churchill; every body knows Mrs. Churchill,” replied Isabella:\r
-“and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest\r
-compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must\r
-be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but\r
-it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any\r
-children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!”\r
-\r
-Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have\r
-heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve\r
-which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed,\r
-would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills\r
-from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own\r
-imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at\r
-present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon\r
-followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after\r
-dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor\r
-conversation was any thing to him; and gladly did he move to those with\r
-whom he was always comfortable.\r
-\r
-While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of\r
-saying,\r
-\r
-“And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means\r
-certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant,\r
-whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over, the better.”\r
-\r
-“Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even\r
-if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that\r
-some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine\r
-any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on\r
-the Churchills’ to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They\r
-are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no\r
-dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine.”\r
-\r
-“He ought to come,” said Emma. “If he could stay only a couple of days,\r
-he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man’s not having\r
-it in his power to do as much as that. A young _woman_, if she fall into\r
-bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants\r
-to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young _man_‘s being under such\r
-restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he\r
-likes it.”\r
-\r
-“One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before\r
-one decides upon what he can do,” replied Mrs. Weston. “One ought to\r
-use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one\r
-individual of any one family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must\r
-not be judged by general rules: _she_ is so very unreasonable; and every\r
-thing gives way to her.”\r
-\r
-“But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now,\r
-according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that\r
-while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she\r
-owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards _him_,\r
-she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes\r
-nothing at all.”\r
-\r
-“My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand\r
-a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way.\r
-I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it\r
-may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand _when_ it will\r
-be.”\r
-\r
-Emma listened, and then coolly said, “I shall not be satisfied, unless\r
-he comes.”\r
-\r
-“He may have a great deal of influence on some points,” continued Mrs.\r
-Weston, “and on others, very little: and among those, on which she is\r
-beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of\r
-his coming away from them to visit us.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XV\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his\r
-tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three\r
-companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of\r
-the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and\r
-convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last\r
-the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very\r
-good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma\r
-were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with\r
-scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them.\r
-\r
-Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by\r
-the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late\r
-improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his\r
-making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most\r
-friendly smiles.\r
-\r
-He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend--her fair,\r
-lovely, amiable friend. “Did she know?--had she heard any thing about\r
-her, since their being at Randalls?--he felt much anxiety--he must\r
-confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably.”\r
- And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much\r
-attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror\r
-of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him.\r
-\r
-But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he\r
-were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on\r
-Harriet’s--more anxious that she should escape the infection, than\r
-that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great\r
-earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick-chamber\r
-again, for the present--to entreat her to _promise_ _him_ not to venture\r
-into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion; and\r
-though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its\r
-proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude\r
-about her. She was vexed. It did appear--there was no concealing\r
-it--exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of\r
-Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable!\r
-and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston\r
-to implore her assistance, “Would not she give him her support?--would\r
-not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go\r
-to Mrs. Goddard’s till it were certain that Miss Smith’s disorder had\r
-no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise--would not she\r
-give him her influence in procuring it?”\r
-\r
-“So scrupulous for others,” he continued, “and yet so careless for\r
-herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and\r
-yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore\r
-throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?--Judge between us. Have not I\r
-some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid.”\r
-\r
-Emma saw Mrs. Weston’s surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an\r
-address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of\r
-first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and\r
-offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose.\r
-She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought\r
-must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a\r
-seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention.\r
-\r
-She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did\r
-another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room\r
-from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information\r
-of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing\r
-fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr.\r
-Woodhouse:\r
-\r
-“This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements,\r
-sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way\r
-through a storm of snow.”\r
-\r
-Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else\r
-had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized,\r
-and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston\r
-and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his\r
-son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly.\r
-\r
-“I admired your resolution very much, sir,” said he, “in venturing out\r
-in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon.\r
-Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and\r
-I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two’s snow can\r
-hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is\r
-blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other\r
-at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he\r
-had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest\r
-it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his\r
-hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely\r
-to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they\r
-would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that\r
-he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost\r
-good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for every body,\r
-calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance,\r
-every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the\r
-consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house.\r
-\r
-“What is to be done, my dear Emma?--what is to be done?” was Mr.\r
-Woodhouse’s first exclamation, and all that he could say for some\r
-time. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her\r
-representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of\r
-their having so many friends about them, revived him a little.\r
-\r
-His eldest daughter’s alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being\r
-blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full\r
-in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for\r
-adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager\r
-to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls,\r
-while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible\r
-accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.\r
-\r
-“You had better order the carriage directly, my love,” said she; “I dare\r
-say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we\r
-do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all\r
-afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes,\r
-you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that\r
-gives me cold.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed!” replied he. “Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most\r
-extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing\r
-does give you cold. Walk home!--you are prettily shod for walking home,\r
-I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses.”\r
-\r
-Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs.\r
-Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could\r
-not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away;\r
-and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had\r
-left the room immediately after his brother’s first report of the snow,\r
-came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine,\r
-and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their\r
-getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He\r
-had gone beyond the sweep--some way along the Highbury road--the snow\r
-was nowhere above half an inch deep--in many places hardly enough to\r
-whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the\r
-clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon\r
-over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there\r
-being nothing to apprehend.\r
-\r
-To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were\r
-scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father’s account, who\r
-was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous\r
-constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be\r
-appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at\r
-Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning\r
-home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay; and\r
-while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley\r
-and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus--\r
-\r
-“Your father will not be easy; why do not you go?”\r
-\r
-“I am ready, if the others are.”\r
-\r
-“Shall I ring the bell?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, do.”\r
-\r
-And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more,\r
-and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own\r
-house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and\r
-happiness when this visit of hardship were over.\r
-\r
-The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such\r
-occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr.\r
-Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal\r
-of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the\r
-discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. “He was\r
-afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella\r
-would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind.\r
-He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together\r
-as they could;” and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very\r
-slow and wait for the other carriage.\r
-\r
-Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he\r
-did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally;\r
-so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second\r
-carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them,\r
-and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been\r
-the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure,\r
-previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to\r
-him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but\r
-one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had\r
-been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he\r
-would want to be talking nonsense.\r
-\r
-To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was\r
-immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of\r
-the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they\r
-passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her\r
-subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton\r
-actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious\r
-opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known,\r
-hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but\r
-flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and\r
-unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short,\r
-very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It\r
-really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent\r
-diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself\r
-_her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say\r
-it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to\r
-restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must\r
-be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to\r
-the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the\r
-playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she\r
-replied,\r
-\r
-“I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget\r
-yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall\r
-be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please.”\r
-\r
-“Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly\r
-mean!”--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such\r
-boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with\r
-quickness,\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account\r
-for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak\r
-either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough\r
-to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.”\r
-\r
-But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at\r
-all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and\r
-having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and\r
-slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but\r
-acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he\r
-resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a\r
-favourable answer.\r
-\r
-As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his\r
-inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness,\r
-replied,\r
-\r
-“It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself\r
-too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can\r
-express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last\r
-month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily\r
-habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an\r
-unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible!\r
-Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object\r
-of such professions.”\r
-\r
-“Good Heaven!” cried Mr. Elton, “what can be the meaning of this?--Miss\r
-Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my\r
-existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never\r
-cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she\r
-has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very\r
-sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse!\r
-who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my\r
-honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of\r
-you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one\r
-else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has\r
-been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You\r
-cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--(in an accent meant to be\r
-insinuating)--I am sure you have seen and understood me.”\r
-\r
-It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which\r
-of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely\r
-overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence\r
-being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton’s sanguine state of mind, he\r
-tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed--\r
-\r
-“Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting\r
-silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.”\r
-\r
-“No, sir,” cried Emma, “it confesses no such thing. So far from having\r
-long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect\r
-to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you\r
-should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther\r
-from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of\r
-her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been\r
-very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not\r
-your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged\r
-ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have\r
-never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you\r
-have never thought seriously of her?”\r
-\r
-“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you.\r
-_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of\r
-girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish\r
-her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object\r
-to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think,\r
-quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal\r
-alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my\r
-visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I\r
-received--”\r
-\r
-“Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely\r
-mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my\r
-friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common\r
-acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake\r
-ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might\r
-have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware,\r
-probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you\r
-are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I\r
-trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.”\r
-\r
-He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite\r
-supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually\r
-deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer,\r
-for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If\r
-there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate\r
-awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the\r
-little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage\r
-turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves,\r
-all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another\r
-syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good\r
-night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under\r
-indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield.\r
-\r
-There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who\r
-had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage\r
-Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in\r
-strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as\r
-if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr.\r
-John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and\r
-attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her\r
-father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of\r
-gruel--perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the\r
-day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party,\r
-except herself.--But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and\r
-it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the\r
-usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVI\r
-\r
-\r
-The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think\r
-and be miserable.--It was a wretched business indeed!--Such an overthrow\r
-of every thing she had been wishing for!--Such a development of every\r
-thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--that was the worst\r
-of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or\r
-other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and\r
-she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in\r
-error--more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the\r
-effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.\r
-\r
-“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have\r
-borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--but poor\r
-Harriet!”\r
-\r
-How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never\r
-thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as\r
-she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she\r
-supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must\r
-have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so\r
-misled.\r
-\r
-The picture!--How eager he had been about the picture!--and the\r
-charade!--and an hundred other circumstances;--how clearly they had\r
-seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready\r
-wit”--but then the “soft eyes”--in fact it suited neither; it was\r
-a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such\r
-thick-headed nonsense?\r
-\r
-Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to\r
-herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere\r
-error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others\r
-that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the\r
-gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,\r
-till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean\r
-any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.\r
-\r
-To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the\r
-subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying\r
-that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley\r
-had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given,\r
-the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry\r
-indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his\r
-character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It\r
-was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many\r
-respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;\r
-proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little\r
-concerned about the feelings of others.\r
-\r
-Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his\r
-addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his\r
-proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,\r
-and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the\r
-arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was\r
-perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be\r
-cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or\r
-manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could\r
-hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less\r
-allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He\r
-only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse\r
-of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so\r
-easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody\r
-else with twenty, or with ten.\r
-\r
-But--that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware\r
-of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry\r
-him!--should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!--look down\r
-upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below\r
-him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no\r
-presumption in addressing her!--It was most provoking.\r
-\r
-Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her\r
-inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of\r
-such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that\r
-in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must\r
-know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at\r
-Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family--and that the\r
-Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was\r
-inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,\r
-to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from\r
-other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell\r
-Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had\r
-long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which\r
-Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he\r
-could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him\r
-to notice but his situation and his civility.--But he had fancied her\r
-in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and\r
-after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners\r
-and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop\r
-and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and\r
-obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real\r
-motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and\r
-delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.\r
-If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to\r
-wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken\r
-hers.\r
-\r
-The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was\r
-wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It\r
-was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what\r
-ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite\r
-concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.\r
-\r
-“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very\r
-much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for\r
-me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had\r
-not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I\r
-used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not\r
-to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done\r
-of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and\r
-chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the\r
-opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have\r
-attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.\r
-I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this\r
-disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body\r
-else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I\r
-could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer.”\r
-\r
-She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more\r
-serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be,\r
-and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and\r
-all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of\r
-future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the\r
-acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding\r
-eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some\r
-time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the\r
-conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.\r
-\r
-To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary\r
-gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of\r
-spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,\r
-and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough\r
-to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of\r
-softened pain and brighter hope.\r
-\r
-Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone\r
-to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to\r
-depend on getting tolerably out of it.\r
-\r
-It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in\r
-love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to\r
-disappoint him--that Harriet’s nature should not be of that superior\r
-sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there\r
-could be no necessity for any body’s knowing what had passed except the\r
-three principals, and especially for her father’s being given a moment’s\r
-uneasiness about it.\r
-\r
-These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow\r
-on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that\r
-might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.\r
-\r
-The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she\r
-could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his\r
-daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting\r
-or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered\r
-with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and\r
-thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every\r
-morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to\r
-freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse\r
-with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any\r
-more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s\r
-absenting himself.\r
-\r
-It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and though\r
-she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society\r
-or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with\r
-his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to\r
-hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from\r
-them,--\r
-\r
-“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?”\r
-\r
-These days of confinement would have been, but for her private\r
-perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited\r
-her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to\r
-his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his\r
-ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the\r
-rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging,\r
-and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of\r
-cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such\r
-an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as\r
-made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVII\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The\r
-weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr.\r
-Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay\r
-behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party\r
-set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor\r
-Isabella;--which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated\r
-on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently\r
-busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.\r
-\r
-The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr.\r
-Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with\r
-Mr. Elton’s best compliments, “that he was proposing to leave Highbury\r
-the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with\r
-the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few\r
-weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from\r
-various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal\r
-leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever\r
-retain a grateful sense--and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be\r
-happy to attend to them.”\r
-\r
-Emma was most agreeably surprized.--Mr. Elton’s absence just at this\r
-time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving\r
-it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it\r
-was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than\r
-in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded.\r
-She had not even a share in his opening compliments.--Her name was not\r
-mentioned;--and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an\r
-ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments, as\r
-she thought, at first, could not escape her father’s suspicion.\r
-\r
-It did, however.--Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so\r
-sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to\r
-the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a\r
-very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought\r
-and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse\r
-talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away\r
-with all her usual promptitude.\r
-\r
-She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason\r
-to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that\r
-she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of\r
-her other complaint before the gentleman’s return. She went to Mrs.\r
-Goddard’s accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary\r
-penance of communication; and a severe one it was.--She had to destroy\r
-all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding--to appear in\r
-the ungracious character of the one preferred--and acknowledge herself\r
-grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all\r
-her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last\r
-six weeks.\r
-\r
-The confession completely renewed her first shame--and the sight of\r
-Harriet’s tears made her think that she should never be in charity with\r
-herself again.\r
-\r
-Harriet bore the intelligence very well--blaming nobody--and in every\r
-thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion\r
-of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to\r
-her friend.\r
-\r
-Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost;\r
-and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on\r
-Harriet’s side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having\r
-any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton\r
-would have been too great a distinction.--She never could have deserved\r
-him--and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would\r
-have thought it possible.\r
-\r
-Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that\r
-no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma’s eyes--and\r
-she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and\r
-understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the\r
-superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for\r
-her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could\r
-do.\r
-\r
-It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and\r
-ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of\r
-being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of\r
-her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father’s claims, was\r
-to promote Harriet’s comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection\r
-in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield,\r
-and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and\r
-amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her\r
-thoughts.\r
-\r
-Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and\r
-she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in\r
-general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton\r
-in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet’s age,\r
-and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be\r
-made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton’s return, as\r
-to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance,\r
-without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.\r
-\r
-Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence\r
-of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth,\r
-prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet\r
-it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an\r
-inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend its\r
-continuing very long in equal force.\r
-\r
-If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and\r
-indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not\r
-imagine Harriet’s persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the\r
-recollection of him.\r
-\r
-Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for\r
-each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of\r
-effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each\r
-other, and make the best of it.\r
-\r
-Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs.\r
-Goddard’s; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great\r
-girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could\r
-have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or\r
-repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be\r
-found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of\r
-cure, there could be no true peace for herself.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVIII\r
-\r
-\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs.\r
-Weston’s fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For\r
-the present, he could not be spared, to his “very great mortification\r
-and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to\r
-Randalls at no distant period.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed--much more disappointed, in\r
-fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man\r
-had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever\r
-expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by\r
-any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure,\r
-and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and\r
-sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank’s coming two or three\r
-months later would be a much better plan; better time of year;\r
-better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay\r
-considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner.\r
-\r
-These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of\r
-a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of\r
-excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was\r
-to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself.\r
-\r
-Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr.\r
-Frank Churchill’s not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls.\r
-The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to\r
-be quiet, and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she\r
-should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express\r
-as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr.\r
-and Mrs. Weston’s disappointment, as might naturally belong to their\r
-friendship.\r
-\r
-She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite\r
-as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather\r
-more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then\r
-proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of\r
-such an addition to their confined society in Surry; the pleasure of\r
-looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the\r
-sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the\r
-Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement\r
-with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was\r
-taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making\r
-use of Mrs. Weston’s arguments against herself.\r
-\r
-“The Churchills are very likely in fault,” said Mr. Knightley, coolly;\r
-“but I dare say he might come if he would.”\r
-\r
-“I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but\r
-his uncle and aunt will not spare him.”\r
-\r
-“I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a\r
-point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof.”\r
-\r
-“How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose\r
-him such an unnatural creature?”\r
-\r
-“I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that\r
-he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little\r
-for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have\r
-always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than\r
-one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud,\r
-luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If\r
-Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it\r
-between September and January. A man at his age--what is he?--three or\r
-four-and-twenty--cannot be without the means of doing as much as that.\r
-It is impossible.”\r
-\r
-“That’s easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your\r
-own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the\r
-difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers\r
-to manage.”\r
-\r
-“It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four-and-twenty\r
-should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want\r
-money--he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so\r
-much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in\r
-the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some watering-place or other. A\r
-little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the\r
-Churchills.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, sometimes he can.”\r
-\r
-“And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever\r
-there is any temptation of pleasure.”\r
-\r
-“It is very unfair to judge of any body’s conduct, without an intimate\r
-knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior\r
-of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that\r
-family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs.\r
-Churchill’s temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew\r
-can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at\r
-others.”\r
-\r
-“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and\r
-that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and\r
-resolution. It is Frank Churchill’s duty to pay this attention to his\r
-father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he\r
-wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at\r
-once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill--‘Every sacrifice of\r
-mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience;\r
-but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by\r
-my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion.\r
-I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow.’--If he would say so to her\r
-at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no\r
-opposition made to his going.”\r
-\r
-“No,” said Emma, laughing; “but perhaps there might be some made to his\r
-coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to\r
-use!--Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you\r
-have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to\r
-your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to\r
-the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for\r
-him!--Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as\r
-loud as he could!--How can you imagine such conduct practicable?”\r
-\r
-“Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He\r
-would feel himself in the right; and the declaration--made, of course,\r
-as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner--would do him more\r
-good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he\r
-depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do.\r
-Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could\r
-trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do\r
-rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the\r
-world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and\r
-while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not\r
-thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for\r
-right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of\r
-manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would\r
-bend to his.”\r
-\r
-“I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but\r
-where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have\r
-a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great\r
-ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be\r
-transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill’s situation,\r
-you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for\r
-him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have\r
-a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early\r
-obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might\r
-not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set\r
-all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as\r
-strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so\r
-equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it.”\r
-\r
-“Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal\r
-exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.”\r
-\r
-“Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to\r
-understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly\r
-opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his\r
-life.”\r
-\r
-“Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first\r
-occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the\r
-will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of\r
-following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for\r
-the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he\r
-ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in\r
-their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their\r
-side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there\r
-would have been no difficulty now.”\r
-\r
-“We shall never agree about him,” cried Emma; “but that is nothing\r
-extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man:\r
-I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly,\r
-though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding,\r
-complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man’s\r
-perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some\r
-advantages, it will secure him many others.”\r
-\r
-“Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and\r
-of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely\r
-expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine\r
-flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade\r
-himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of\r
-preserving peace at home and preventing his father’s having any right to\r
-complain. His letters disgust me.”\r
-\r
-“Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else.”\r
-\r
-“I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy\r
-a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother’s\r
-place, but without a mother’s affection to blind her. It is on her\r
-account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly\r
-feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he\r
-would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether\r
-he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of\r
-considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to\r
-herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French,\r
-not in English. He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be\r
-very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings\r
-of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”\r
-\r
-“You seem determined to think ill of him.”\r
-\r
-“Me!--not at all,” replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; “I do not\r
-want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits\r
-as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal;\r
-that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.”\r
-\r
-“Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure\r
-at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and\r
-agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the\r
-bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a _sensation_ his\r
-coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the\r
-parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest--one object of\r
-curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak\r
-of nobody else.”\r
-\r
-“You will excuse my being so much over-powered. If I find him\r
-conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a\r
-chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.”\r
-\r
-“My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of\r
-every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally\r
-agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music;\r
-and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects\r
-which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as\r
-propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my\r
-idea of him.”\r
-\r
-“And mine,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “is, that if he turn out any\r
-thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What!\r
-at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company--the great man--the\r
-practised politician, who is to read every body’s character, and make\r
-every body’s talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to\r
-be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like\r
-fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not\r
-endure such a puppy when it came to the point.”\r
-\r
-“I will say no more about him,” cried Emma, “you turn every thing to\r
-evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no\r
-chance of agreeing till he is really here.”\r
-\r
-“Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced.”\r
-\r
-“But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for\r
-Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.”\r
-\r
-“He is a person I never think of from one month’s end to another,” said\r
-Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately\r
-talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be\r
-angry.\r
-\r
-To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a\r
-different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of\r
-mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the\r
-high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had\r
-never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit\r
-of another.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-VOLUME II\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER I\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma’s\r
-opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could\r
-not think that Harriet’s solace or her own sins required more; and\r
-she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they\r
-returned;--but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded,\r
-and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and\r
-receiving no other answer than a very plaintive--“Mr. Elton is so good\r
-to the poor!” she found something else must be done.\r
-\r
-They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates.\r
-She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was\r
-always sufficient reason for such an attention; Mrs. and Miss Bates\r
-loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few\r
-who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in\r
-that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of\r
-their scanty comforts.\r
-\r
-She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart,\r
-as to her deficiency--but none were equal to counteract the persuasion\r
-of its being very disagreeable,--a waste of time--tiresome women--and\r
-all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and\r
-third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore\r
-she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not\r
-passing their door without going in--observing, as she proposed it to\r
-Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite\r
-safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.\r
-\r
-The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied\r
-the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment,\r
-which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even\r
-gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was\r
-seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to\r
-Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready\r
-to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit,\r
-solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse’s\r
-health, cheerful communications about her mother’s, and sweet-cake from\r
-the beaufet--“Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten\r
-minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and _she_ had\r
-taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much;\r
-and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them\r
-the favour to eat a piece too.”\r
-\r
-The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton.\r
-There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton\r
-since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the\r
-letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much\r
-he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went,\r
-and how full the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball had been; and she went\r
-through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation\r
-that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet’s\r
-being obliged to say a word.\r
-\r
-This she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant,\r
-having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by\r
-any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses\r
-and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been\r
-prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually\r
-hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to\r
-the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes--Mr. Elton, I understand--certainly as to dancing--Mrs. Cole\r
-was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was--Mrs. Cole was so\r
-kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as\r
-she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a\r
-favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to\r
-shew her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much\r
-as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying,\r
-‘I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her\r
-time for writing;’ and when I immediately said, ‘But indeed we have, we\r
-had a letter this very morning,’ I do not know that I ever saw any body\r
-more surprized. ‘Have you, upon your honour?’ said she; ‘well, that is\r
-quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.’”\r
-\r
-Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest--\r
-\r
-“Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I\r
-hope she is well?”\r
-\r
-“Thank you. You are so kind!” replied the happily deceived aunt, while\r
-eagerly hunting for the letter.--“Oh! here it is. I was sure it could\r
-not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being\r
-aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately\r
-that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs.\r
-Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for\r
-it is such a pleasure to her--a letter from Jane--that she can never\r
-hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is,\r
-only just under my huswife--and since you are so kind as to wish to hear\r
-what she says;--but, first of all, I really must, in justice to\r
-Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter--only two pages you\r
-see--hardly two--and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses\r
-half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often\r
-says, when the letter is first opened, ‘Well, Hetty, now I think\r
-you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work’--don’t you,\r
-ma’am?--And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out\r
-herself, if she had nobody to do it for her--every word of it--I am sure\r
-she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed,\r
-though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see\r
-amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such\r
-a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says,\r
-when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong\r
-eyes to see as you do--and so much fine work as you have done too!--I\r
-only wish my eyes may last me as well.’”\r
-\r
-All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath;\r
-and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss\r
-Fairfax’s handwriting.\r
-\r
-“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates, highly gratified; “you who\r
-are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is\r
-nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s.\r
-My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. Ma’am,”\r
- addressing her, “do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say\r
-about Jane’s handwriting?”\r
-\r
-And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated\r
-twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was\r
-pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very\r
-rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax’s letter, and had almost\r
-resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss\r
-Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.\r
-\r
-“My mother’s deafness is very trifling you see--just nothing at all. By\r
-only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over,\r
-she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very\r
-remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me.\r
-Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all\r
-deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my\r
-mother’s time of life--and it really is full two years, you know, since\r
-she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as\r
-I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her\r
-now.”\r
-\r
-“Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?”\r
-\r
-“Oh yes; next week.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed!--that must be a very great pleasure.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so\r
-surprized; and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she\r
-will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see\r
-her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel\r
-Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very\r
-good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh\r
-yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is\r
-the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the\r
-common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or\r
-Wednesday.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my\r
-hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax to-day.”\r
-\r
-“So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been\r
-for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My\r
-mother is so delighted!--for she is to be three months with us at\r
-least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the\r
-pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are\r
-going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come\r
-over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the\r
-summer, but she is so impatient to see them again--for till she married,\r
-last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must\r
-make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say,\r
-but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter\r
-to her mother--or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but\r
-we shall see presently in Jane’s letter--wrote in Mr. Dixon’s name as\r
-well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would\r
-give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country\r
-seat, Baly-craig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great\r
-deal of its beauty; from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever\r
-heard about it from any body else; but it was very natural, you know,\r
-that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his\r
-addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for\r
-Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter’s\r
-not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all\r
-blame them; of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss\r
-Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word\r
-that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had\r
-taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane\r
-was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.”\r
-\r
-At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma’s\r
-brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the\r
-not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther\r
-discovery,\r
-\r
-“You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to\r
-come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship\r
-between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be\r
-excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”\r
-\r
-“Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been\r
-rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a\r
-distance from us, for months together--not able to come if any thing was\r
-to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want\r
-her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs.\r
-Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing\r
-than their _joint_ invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently;\r
-Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is\r
-a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at\r
-Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the\r
-sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have\r
-been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he\r
-had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit--\r
-(I can never think of it without trembling!)--But ever since we had the\r
-history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!”\r
-\r
-“But, in spite of all her friends’ urgency, and her own wish of seeing\r
-Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel\r
-and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should\r
-recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native\r
-air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.”\r
-\r
-“I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs.\r
-Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has\r
-no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be\r
-compared with Miss Fairfax.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not.\r
-There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely\r
-plain--but extremely elegant and amiable.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, that of course.”\r
-\r
-“Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November,\r
-(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long\r
-time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned\r
-it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so\r
-considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind\r
-friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air\r
-that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four\r
-months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great\r
-deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is\r
-unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do.”\r
-\r
-“It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world.”\r
-\r
-“And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells\r
-leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will\r
-find from Jane’s letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse,\r
-what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of\r
-her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and\r
-looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to\r
-me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane’s letters through\r
-to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for\r
-fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me\r
-to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution;\r
-but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I\r
-burst out, quite frightened, with ‘Bless me! poor Jane is ill!’--which\r
-my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed\r
-at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had\r
-fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does\r
-not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my\r
-guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The\r
-expense shall not be thought of; and though he is so liberal, and so\r
-fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for\r
-attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and\r
-family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I\r
-have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to\r
-her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better\r
-than I can tell it for her.”\r
-\r
-“I am afraid we must be running away,” said Emma, glancing at Harriet,\r
-and beginning to rise--“My father will be expecting us. I had no\r
-intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes,\r
-when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not\r
-pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so\r
-pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good\r
-morning.”\r
-\r
-And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained\r
-the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her\r
-against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of\r
-Jane Fairfax’s letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER II\r
-\r
-\r
-Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates’s youngest\r
-daughter.\r
-\r
-The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the ----regiment of infantry,\r
-and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope\r
-and interest; but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy\r
-remembrance of him dying in action abroad--of his widow sinking under\r
-consumption and grief soon afterwards--and this girl.\r
-\r
-By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on\r
-losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation,\r
-the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every\r
-probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught\r
-only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no\r
-advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what\r
-nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and\r
-warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.\r
-\r
-But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change\r
-to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded\r
-Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and\r
-farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe\r
-camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which\r
-he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the\r
-death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in\r
-his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice\r
-of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about\r
-Jane’s age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and\r
-growing a favourite with all; and before she was nine years old, his\r
-daughter’s great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real\r
-friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking\r
-the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period\r
-Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell’s family, and had lived with them\r
-entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time.\r
-\r
-The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the\r
-very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making\r
-independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel\r
-Campbell’s power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was\r
-handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter’s;\r
-but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of\r
-respectable subsistence hereafter.\r
-\r
-Such was Jane Fairfax’s history. She had fallen into good hands, known\r
-nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent\r
-education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people,\r
-her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline\r
-and culture; and Colonel Campbell’s residence being in London, every\r
-lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of\r
-first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy\r
-of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was,\r
-as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children,\r
-fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too\r
-much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote,\r
-and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was\r
-easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with\r
-them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of\r
-an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with\r
-only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own\r
-good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over.\r
-\r
-The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss\r
-Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from\r
-the circumstance of Jane’s decided superiority both in beauty and\r
-acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen\r
-by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the\r
-parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the\r
-marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often\r
-defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is\r
-moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of\r
-Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were\r
-acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had\r
-yet her bread to earn.\r
-\r
-This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be\r
-yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path\r
-of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had\r
-fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty\r
-should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had\r
-resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from\r
-all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace\r
-and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.\r
-\r
-The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such\r
-a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no\r
-exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for\r
-their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would\r
-be selfishness:--what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they\r
-began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the\r
-temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments\r
-of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however,\r
-affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying\r
-on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of\r
-their daughter’s marriage; and till she should have completely recovered\r
-her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so\r
-far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits,\r
-seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something\r
-more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with\r
-tolerable comfort.\r
-\r
-With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her\r
-aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths\r
-not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to\r
-Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with\r
-those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells,\r
-whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or\r
-treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they\r
-depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery\r
-of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to\r
-come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which\r
-had been so long promised it--Mr. Frank Churchill--must put up for the\r
-present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two\r
-years’ absence.\r
-\r
-Emma was sorry;--to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like\r
-through three long months!--to be always doing more than she wished,\r
-and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a\r
-difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was\r
-because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she\r
-wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly\r
-refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which\r
-her conscience could not quite acquit her. But “she could never get\r
-acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such\r
-coldness and reserve--such apparent indifference whether she pleased or\r
-not--and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!--and she was made\r
-such a fuss with by every body!--and it had been always imagined that\r
-they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every\r
-body had supposed they must be so fond of each other.” These were her\r
-reasons--she had no better.\r
-\r
-It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified\r
-by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any\r
-considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and\r
-now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’\r
-interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and\r
-manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane\r
-Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the\r
-highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost\r
-every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her\r
-figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between\r
-fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point\r
-out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and\r
-then, her face--her features--there was more beauty in them altogether\r
-than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing\r
-beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had\r
-never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to\r
-cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really\r
-needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was\r
-the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her\r
-principles, admire it:--elegance, which, whether of person or of mind,\r
-she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction,\r
-and merit.\r
-\r
-In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with\r
-twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering\r
-justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When\r
-she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty;\r
-when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was\r
-going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible\r
-to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every\r
-well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly\r
-probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had\r
-so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more\r
-pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on.\r
-Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon’s\r
-actions from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination\r
-had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single,\r
-successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously\r
-sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her\r
-friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be\r
-denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself\r
-effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of\r
-laborious duty.\r
-\r
-Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings,\r
-as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury\r
-afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she\r
-could wish to scheme about for her.\r
-\r
-These were charming feelings--but not lasting. Before she had committed\r
-herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax,\r
-or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than\r
-saying to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she is better than\r
-handsome!” Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother\r
-and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state.\r
-Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more\r
-tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration\r
-of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how\r
-little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice\r
-of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new\r
-workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane’s offences rose again.\r
-They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise\r
-which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an\r
-air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very\r
-superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so\r
-cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in\r
-a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was\r
-disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.\r
-\r
-If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on\r
-the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent\r
-on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon’s character, or her own value\r
-for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all\r
-general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished.\r
-It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw\r
-its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably _was_\r
-something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps,\r
-had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only\r
-to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.\r
-\r
-The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill\r
-had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a\r
-little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma\r
-procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”--“She believed\r
-he was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?”--“He was\r
-generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young\r
-man of information?”--“At a watering-place, or in a common London\r
-acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were\r
-all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than\r
-they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his\r
-manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER III\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma could not forgive her;--but as neither provocation nor resentment\r
-were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had\r
-seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was\r
-expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with\r
-Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might\r
-have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough\r
-to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to\r
-Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.\r
-\r
-“A very pleasant evening,” he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been\r
-talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers\r
-swept away;--“particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some\r
-very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting\r
-at one’s ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women;\r
-sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss\r
-Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing\r
-undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument\r
-at her grandmother’s, it must have been a real indulgence.”\r
-\r
-“I am happy you approved,” said Emma, smiling; “but I hope I am not\r
-often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.”\r
-\r
-“No, my dear,” said her father instantly; “_that_ I am sure you are not.\r
-There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing,\r
-you are too attentive. The muffin last night--if it had been handed\r
-round once, I think it would have been enough.”\r
-\r
-“No,” said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; “you are not often\r
-deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I\r
-think you understand me, therefore.”\r
-\r
-An arch look expressed--“I understand you well enough;” but she said\r
-only, “Miss Fairfax is reserved.”\r
-\r
-“I always told you she was--a little; but you will soon overcome all\r
-that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its\r
-foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.”\r
-\r
-“You think her diffident. I do not see it.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Emma,” said he, moving from his chair into one close by her,\r
-“you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant\r
-evening.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions; and\r
-amused to think how little information I obtained.”\r
-\r
-“I am disappointed,” was his only answer.\r
-\r
-“I hope every body had a pleasant evening,” said Mr. Woodhouse, in his\r
-quiet way. “I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I\r
-moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me.\r
-Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though\r
-she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs.\r
-Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane\r
-Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a\r
-very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening\r
-agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.”\r
-\r
-“True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.”\r
-\r
-Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the\r
-present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question--\r
-\r
-“She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one’s eyes from.\r
-I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to\r
-express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose\r
-thoughts were on the Bates’s, said--\r
-\r
-“It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a\r
-great pity indeed! and I have often wished--but it is so little one can\r
-venture to do--small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon--Now we\r
-have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg;\r
-it is very small and delicate--Hartfield pork is not like any other\r
-pork--but still it is pork--and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure\r
-of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without\r
-the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast\r
-pork--I think we had better send the leg--do not you think so, my dear?”\r
-\r
-“My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it.\r
-There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and\r
-the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like.”\r
-\r
-“That’s right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but\r
-that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it\r
-is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle\r
-boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a\r
-little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.”\r
-\r
-“Emma,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “I have a piece of news for you.\r
-You like news--and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will\r
-interest you.”\r
-\r
-“News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?--why do you smile\r
-so?--where did you hear it?--at Randalls?”\r
-\r
-He had time only to say,\r
-\r
-“No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,” when the door was\r
-thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full\r
-of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest.\r
-Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another\r
-syllable of communication could rest with him.\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse--I\r
-come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You\r
-are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be\r
-married.”\r
-\r
-Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so\r
-completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a\r
-little blush, at the sound.\r
-\r
-“There is my news:--I thought it would interest you,” said Mr.\r
-Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what\r
-had passed between them.\r
-\r
-“But where could _you_ hear it?” cried Miss Bates. “Where could you\r
-possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I\r
-received Mrs. Cole’s note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least\r
-ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I\r
-was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was\r
-standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so\r
-afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would\r
-go down and see, and Jane said, ‘Shall I go down instead? for I think\r
-you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.’--‘Oh!\r
-my dear,’ said I--well, and just then came the note. A Miss\r
-Hawkins--that’s all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley,\r
-how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told\r
-Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins--”\r
-\r
-“I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just\r
-read Elton’s letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly.”\r
-\r
-“Well! that is quite--I suppose there never was a piece of news more\r
-generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My\r
-mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand\r
-thanks, and says you really quite oppress her.”\r
-\r
-“We consider our Hartfield pork,” replied Mr. Woodhouse--“indeed it\r
-certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot\r
-have a greater pleasure than--”\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good\r
-to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth\r
-themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us.\r
-We may well say that ‘our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.’ Well, Mr.\r
-Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter; well--”\r
-\r
-“It was short--merely to announce--but cheerful, exulting, of course.”--\r
-Here was a sly glance at Emma. “He had been so fortunate as to--I forget\r
-the precise words--one has no business to remember them. The information\r
-was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By\r
-his style, I should imagine it just settled.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton going to be married!” said Emma, as soon as she could speak.\r
-“He will have every body’s wishes for his happiness.”\r
-\r
-“He is very young to settle,” was Mr. Woodhouse’s observation. “He had\r
-better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We\r
-were always glad to see him at Hartfield.”\r
-\r
-“A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!” said Miss Bates, joyfully;\r
-“my mother is so pleased!--she says she cannot bear to have the poor old\r
-Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have\r
-never seen Mr. Elton!--no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see\r
-him.”\r
-\r
-Jane’s curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to\r
-occupy her.\r
-\r
-“No--I have never seen Mr. Elton,” she replied, starting on this appeal;\r
-“is he--is he a tall man?”\r
-\r
-“Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say\r
-‘yes,’ Mr. Knightley ‘no;’ and Miss Bates and I that he is just the\r
-happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax,\r
-you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in\r
-Highbury, both in person and mind.”\r
-\r
-“Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young\r
-man--But, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he\r
-was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,--I dare say, an\r
-excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother--wanting\r
-her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my\r
-mother is a little deaf, you know--it is not much, but she does not\r
-hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He\r
-fancied bathing might be good for it--the warm bath--but she says it did\r
-him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel.\r
-And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It\r
-is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do.\r
-Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles,\r
-such very good people; and the Perrys--I suppose there never was a\r
-happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir,” turning\r
-to Mr. Woodhouse, “I think there are few places with such society as\r
-Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.--My dear\r
-sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is\r
-pork--a roast loin of pork--”\r
-\r
-“As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted\r
-with her,” said Emma, “nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it\r
-cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks.”\r
-\r
-Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings,\r
-Emma said,\r
-\r
-“You are silent, Miss Fairfax--but I hope you mean to take an interest\r
-in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late\r
-on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss\r
-Campbell’s account--we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr.\r
-Elton and Miss Hawkins.”\r
-\r
-“When I have seen Mr. Elton,” replied Jane, “I dare say I shall be\r
-interested--but I believe it requires _that_ with me. And as it is some\r
-months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn\r
-off.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse,”\r
- said Miss Bates, “four weeks yesterday.--A Miss Hawkins!--Well, I had\r
-always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that\r
-I ever--Mrs. Cole once whispered to me--but I immediately said, ‘No, Mr.\r
-Elton is a most worthy young man--but’--In short, I do not think I am\r
-particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it.\r
-What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if\r
-Mr. Elton should have aspired--Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so\r
-good-humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does\r
-Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs.\r
-John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you\r
-know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in\r
-person--tall, and with that sort of look--and not very talkative.”\r
-\r
-“Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all.”\r
-\r
-“Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand.\r
-One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is\r
-not, strictly speaking, handsome?”\r
-\r
-“Handsome! Oh! no--far from it--certainly plain. I told you he was\r
-plain.”\r
-\r
-“My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain,\r
-and that you yourself--”\r
-\r
-“Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard,\r
-I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the\r
-general opinion, when I called him plain.”\r
-\r
-“Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does\r
-not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my\r
-dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most\r
-agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole’s;\r
-but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home\r
-directly--I would not have you out in a shower!--We think she is the\r
-better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not\r
-attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for\r
-any thing but _boiled_ pork: when we dress the leg it will be another\r
-thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming\r
-too. Well, that is so very!--I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be\r
-so kind as to give her your arm.--Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!--Good\r
-morning to you.”\r
-\r
-Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while\r
-he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry--and to\r
-marry strangers too--and the other half she could give to her own view\r
-of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece\r
-of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she\r
-was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it--and all that she could hope\r
-was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing\r
-it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely\r
-to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!--and upon its\r
-beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would\r
-be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard’s, and that the intelligence would\r
-undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation.\r
-\r
-The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes,\r
-when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which\r
-hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the “Oh! Miss\r
-Woodhouse, what do you think has happened!” which instantly burst forth,\r
-had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was\r
-given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in\r
-listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to\r
-tell. “She had set out from Mrs. Goddard’s half an hour ago--she had\r
-been afraid it would rain--she had been afraid it would pour down\r
-every moment--but she thought she might get to Hartfield first--she\r
-had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the\r
-house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she\r
-would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem\r
-to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain,\r
-and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as\r
-she could, and took shelter at Ford’s.”--Ford’s was the principal\r
-woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united; the shop\r
-first in size and fashion in the place.--“And so, there she had\r
-set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes,\r
-perhaps--when, all of a sudden, who should come in--to be sure it was\r
-so very odd!--but they always dealt at Ford’s--who should come in, but\r
-Elizabeth Martin and her brother!--Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I\r
-thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting\r
-near the door--Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy\r
-with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly,\r
-and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the\r
-shop; and I kept sitting near the door!--Oh! dear; I was so miserable!\r
-I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away\r
-you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the\r
-world but there.--Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse--well, at last, I fancy, he\r
-looked round and saw me; for instead of going on with her buyings, they\r
-began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and\r
-I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me--(do\r
-you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)--for presently she came forward--came\r
-quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands,\r
-if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I\r
-could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to _try_ to be very\r
-friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no\r
-more what I said--I was in such a tremble!--I remember she said she\r
-was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to\r
-hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting\r
-away--and then--only think!--I found he was coming up towards me\r
-too--slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and\r
-so he came and spoke, and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling\r
-dreadfully, you know, one can’t tell how; and then I took courage, and\r
-said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got\r
-three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was\r
-going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole’s\r
-stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh!\r
-dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was\r
-very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went\r
-back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables--I believe I did--but\r
-I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse,\r
-I would rather done any thing than have it happen: and yet, you know,\r
-there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and\r
-so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and\r
-make me comfortable again.”\r
-\r
-Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in\r
-her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly\r
-comfortable herself. The young man’s conduct, and his sister’s, seemed\r
-the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet\r
-described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection\r
-and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be\r
-well-meaning, worthy people before; and what difference did this make\r
-in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of\r
-course, he must be sorry to lose her--they must be all sorry. Ambition,\r
-as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped\r
-to rise by Harriet’s acquaintance: and besides, what was the value of\r
-Harriet’s description?--So easily pleased--so little discerning;--what\r
-signified her praise?\r
-\r
-She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering\r
-all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt\r
-on,\r
-\r
-“It might be distressing, for the moment,” said she; “but you seem to\r
-have behaved extremely well; and it is over--and may never--can never,\r
-as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about\r
-it.”\r
-\r
-Harriet said, “very true,” and she “would not think about it;” but still\r
-she talked of it--still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at\r
-last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry\r
-on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution;\r
-hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only\r
-amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet--such a conclusion of\r
-Mr. Elton’s importance with her!\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton’s rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel\r
-the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour\r
-before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation\r
-was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity,\r
-wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins,\r
-which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in\r
-her fancy.\r
-\r
-Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It\r
-had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any\r
-influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get\r
-at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the\r
-courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the\r
-brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard’s; and a twelvemonth\r
-might pass without their being thrown together again, with any\r
-necessity, or even any power of speech.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IV\r
-\r
-\r
-Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting\r
-situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of\r
-being kindly spoken of.\r
-\r
-A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins’s name was first mentioned in\r
-Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have\r
-every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly\r
-accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived\r
-to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits,\r
-there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian\r
-name, and say whose music she principally played.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and\r
-mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what\r
-appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right\r
-lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He\r
-had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged to another--and\r
-to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such\r
-circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay\r
-and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse,\r
-and defying Miss Smith.\r
-\r
-The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of\r
-perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune,\r
-of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some\r
-dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not\r
-thrown himself away--he had gained a woman of 10,000 l. or thereabouts;\r
-and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity--the first hour of\r
-introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice;\r
-the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress\r
-of the affair was so glorious--the steps so quick, from the accidental\r
-rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green’s, and the party at Mrs.\r
-Brown’s--smiles and blushes rising in importance--with consciousness and\r
-agitation richly scattered--the lady had been so easily impressed--so\r
-sweetly disposed--had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase,\r
-been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally\r
-contented.\r
-\r
-He had caught both substance and shadow--both fortune and affection, and\r
-was just the happy man he ought to be; talking only of himself and\r
-his own concerns--expecting to be congratulated--ready to be laughed\r
-at--and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young\r
-ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more\r
-cautiously gallant.\r
-\r
-The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to\r
-please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and\r
-when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which\r
-a certain glance of Mrs. Cole’s did not seem to contradict, that when he\r
-next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.\r
-\r
-During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough\r
-to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression\r
-of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now\r
-spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder\r
-that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so\r
-inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that,\r
-except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable\r
-humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured\r
-of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave\r
-her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most\r
-satisfaction.\r
-\r
-The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must\r
-certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be\r
-prevented--many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A _Mrs._ _Elton_ would\r
-be an excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink\r
-without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility\r
-again.\r
-\r
-Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough\r
-for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury--handsome\r
-enough--to look plain, probably, by Harriet’s side. As to connexion,\r
-there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted\r
-claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article,\r
-truth seemed attainable. _What_ she was, must be uncertain; but _who_\r
-she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not\r
-appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior. She brought no name, no\r
-blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters\r
-of a Bristol--merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole\r
-of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it\r
-was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very\r
-moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath;\r
-but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the\r
-father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained--in the law\r
-line--nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than\r
-that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma\r
-guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise.\r
-And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder\r
-sister, who was _very_ _well_ _married_, to a gentleman in a _great_\r
-_way_, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the\r
-history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.\r
-\r
-Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had\r
-talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out\r
-of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet’s\r
-mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he\r
-certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin\r
-would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure\r
-her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always\r
-in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this\r
-reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him\r
-somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times every\r
-day Harriet was sure _just_ to meet with him, or _just_ to miss him,\r
-_just_ to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, _just_ to have something\r
-occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of\r
-surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about\r
-him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who\r
-saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as\r
-the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every\r
-guess--all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the\r
-arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and\r
-furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was\r
-receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept\r
-alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss\r
-Hawkins’s happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed\r
-attached!--his air as he walked by the house--the very sitting of his\r
-hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!\r
-\r
-Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her\r
-friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind,\r
-Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton\r
-predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful\r
-as a check to the other. Mr. Elton’s engagement had been the cure of\r
-the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the\r
-knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth\r
-Martin’s calling at Mrs. Goddard’s a few days afterwards. Harriet had\r
-not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written\r
-in the very style to touch; a small mixture of reproach, with a great\r
-deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much\r
-occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return,\r
-and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in\r
-person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were\r
-forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again,\r
-Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best\r
-for her to return Elizabeth Martin’s visit.\r
-\r
-How that visit was to be acknowledged--what would be necessary--and\r
-what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration.\r
-Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would\r
-be ingratitude. It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the\r
-acquaintance--!\r
-\r
-After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than\r
-Harriet’s returning the visit; but in a way that, if they had\r
-understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal\r
-acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the\r
-Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again\r
-so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous\r
-recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree\r
-of intimacy was chosen for the future.\r
-\r
-She could think of nothing better: and though there was something in it\r
-which her own heart could not approve--something of ingratitude, merely\r
-glossed over--it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER V\r
-\r
-\r
-Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her\r
-friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard’s, her evil stars had led her\r
-to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev.\r
-Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of\r
-being lifted into the butcher’s cart, which was to convey it to where\r
-the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk\r
-and the direction, was consequently a blank.\r
-\r
-She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be\r
-put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between\r
-espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which\r
-had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to\r
-revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her\r
-to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined\r
-her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour.\r
-She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who\r
-was married, and settled in Donwell.\r
-\r
-The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again;\r
-and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and\r
-unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the\r
-gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with\r
-her seemingly with ceremonious civility.\r
-\r
-Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was\r
-feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to\r
-understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating.\r
-She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her\r
-doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had\r
-been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin’s\r
-saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had\r
-brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very\r
-room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There\r
-were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.\r
-_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour,\r
-the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same\r
-regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they\r
-were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect,\r
-as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage\r
-reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness\r
-of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given\r
-to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months\r
-ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might\r
-resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She\r
-would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had\r
-the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a\r
-_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she\r
-have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be\r
-separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much\r
-to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little\r
-consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to\r
-procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The\r
-refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary.\r
-\r
-It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither\r
-“master nor mistress was at home;” they had both been out some time; the\r
-man believed they were gone to Hartfield.\r
-\r
-“This is too bad,” cried Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall\r
-just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so\r
-disappointed.” And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her\r
-murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being\r
-the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage\r
-stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were\r
-standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of\r
-them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston\r
-immediately accosted her with,\r
-\r
-“How d’ye do?--how d’ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad\r
-to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this\r
-morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at\r
-Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be\r
-so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I\r
-was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have\r
-just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall\r
-enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could\r
-wish.”\r
-\r
-There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the\r
-influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston’s, confirmed as it all was\r
-by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not\r
-less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was\r
-enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in\r
-their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits.\r
-The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in\r
-the rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now\r
-be talked of no more.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which\r
-allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command,\r
-as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened,\r
-and smiled, and congratulated.\r
-\r
-“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.\r
-\r
-Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his\r
-wife.\r
-\r
-“We had better move on, Mr. Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the\r
-girls.”\r
-\r
-“Well, well, I am ready;”--and turning again to Emma, “but you must\r
-not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only\r
-had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing\r
-extraordinary:”--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were\r
-speaking a very different conviction.\r
-\r
-Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a\r
-manner that appropriated nothing.\r
-\r
-“Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o’clock,” was Mrs.\r
-Weston’s parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only\r
-for her.\r
-\r
-“Four o’clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three,” was Mr.\r
-Weston’s quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.\r
-Emma’s spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore\r
-a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as\r
-before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least\r
-must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw\r
-something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.\r
-\r
-“Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?”--was a\r
-question, however, which did not augur much.\r
-\r
-But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma\r
-was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.\r
-\r
-The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston’s faithful\r
-pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o’clock, that\r
-she was to think of her at four.\r
-\r
-“My dear, dear anxious friend,”--said she, in mental soliloquy, while\r
-walking downstairs from her own room, “always overcareful for every\r
-body’s comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets,\r
-going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.”\r
- The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “‘Tis twelve;\r
-I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this\r
-time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the\r
-possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him\r
-soon.”\r
-\r
-She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her\r
-father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few\r
-minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank’s\r
-being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his\r
-very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her\r
-share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure.\r
-\r
-The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually\r
-before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had\r
-been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height,\r
-air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great\r
-deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father’s; he looked quick and\r
-sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was\r
-a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her\r
-that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted\r
-they soon must be.\r
-\r
-He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the\r
-eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel\r
-earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.\r
-\r
-“I told you yesterday,” cried Mr. Weston with exultation, “I told you\r
-all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I\r
-used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help\r
-getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in\r
-upon one’s friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal\r
-more than any little exertion it needs.”\r
-\r
-“It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it,” said the young\r
-man, “though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far;\r
-but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing.”\r
-\r
-The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency.\r
-Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the\r
-conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased\r
-with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly\r
-allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to\r
-Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself\r
-to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but\r
-one’s _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That\r
-he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before,\r
-passed suspiciously through Emma’s brain; but still, if it were a\r
-falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had\r
-no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a\r
-state of no common enjoyment.\r
-\r
-Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening\r
-acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--“Was she a\r
-horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large\r
-neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were\r
-several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was\r
-it a musical society?”\r
-\r
-But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance\r
-proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while\r
-their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his\r
-mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much\r
-warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his\r
-father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional\r
-proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it\r
-worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise\r
-beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but,\r
-undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood\r
-what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. “His father’s\r
-marriage,” he said, “had been the wisest measure, every friend must\r
-rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing\r
-must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on\r
-him.”\r
-\r
-He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor’s merits,\r
-without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it\r
-was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse’s\r
-character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor’s. And at last, as if\r
-resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its\r
-object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of\r
-her person.\r
-\r
-“Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for,” said he; “but I\r
-confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a\r
-very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that\r
-I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston.”\r
-\r
-“You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings,”\r
- said Emma; “were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with\r
-pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such\r
-words. Don’t let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty\r
-young woman.”\r
-\r
-“I hope I should know better,” he replied; “no, depend upon it, (with a\r
-gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom\r
-I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my\r
-terms.”\r
-\r
-Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from\r
-their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind,\r
-had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered\r
-as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more\r
-of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were\r
-agreeable.\r
-\r
-She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick\r
-eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy\r
-expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was\r
-confident that he was often listening.\r
-\r
-Her own father’s perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the\r
-entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion,\r
-was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from\r
-approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting\r
-to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from\r
-the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of\r
-any two persons’ understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it\r
-were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could\r
-now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a\r
-glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all\r
-his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr.\r
-Frank Churchill’s accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils\r
-of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed\r
-anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which,\r
-however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till\r
-after another night.\r
-\r
-A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--“He must be going.\r
-He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for\r
-Mrs. Weston at Ford’s, but he need not hurry any body else.” His son,\r
-too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,\r
-\r
-“As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity\r
-of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore\r
-may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with\r
-a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near\r
-Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty,\r
-I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not\r
-the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any\r
-family of that name?”\r
-\r
-“To be sure we do,” cried his father; “Mrs. Bates--we passed her\r
-house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted\r
-with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl\r
-she is. Call upon her, by all means.”\r
-\r
-“There is no necessity for my calling this morning,” said the young man;\r
-“another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance\r
-at Weymouth which--”\r
-\r
-“Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done\r
-cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;\r
-any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw\r
-her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed\r
-with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough\r
-to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.”\r
-\r
-The son looked convinced.\r
-\r
-“I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,” said Emma; “she is a very\r
-elegant young woman.”\r
-\r
-He agreed to it, but with so quiet a “Yes,” as inclined her almost to\r
-doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort\r
-of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought\r
-only ordinarily gifted with it.\r
-\r
-“If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,” said she,\r
-“I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and\r
-hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an\r
-aunt who never holds her tongue.”\r
-\r
-“You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?” said Mr.\r
-Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; “then give\r
-me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young\r
-lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very\r
-worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely\r
-glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to\r
-shew you the way.”\r
-\r
-“My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.”\r
-\r
-“But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown,\r
-quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many\r
-houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk,\r
-unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you\r
-had best cross the street.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could,\r
-and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, “My good friend,\r
-this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees\r
-it, and as to Mrs. Bates’s, he may get there from the Crown in a hop,\r
-step, and jump.”\r
-\r
-They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a\r
-graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained\r
-very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now\r
-engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full\r
-confidence in their comfort.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VI\r
-\r
-\r
-The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs.\r
-Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had\r
-been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till\r
-her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk,\r
-immediately fixed on Highbury.--“He did not doubt there being very\r
-pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always\r
-chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury,\r
-would be his constant attraction.”--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood\r
-for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with\r
-him. They walked thither directly.\r
-\r
-Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for\r
-half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew\r
-nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her,\r
-therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in\r
-arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in\r
-company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him\r
-was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends\r
-for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It\r
-was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his\r
-duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to\r
-her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as\r
-a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma\r
-to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of\r
-the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour\r
-or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards\r
-in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield\r
-sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse’s ear; and when their going farther was\r
-resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole\r
-village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than\r
-Emma could have supposed.\r
-\r
-Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He\r
-begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and\r
-which had been the home of his father’s father; and on recollecting that\r
-an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of\r
-her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in\r
-some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they\r
-shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must\r
-be very like a merit to those he was with.\r
-\r
-Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it\r
-could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting\r
-himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of\r
-insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him\r
-justice.\r
-\r
-Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though\r
-the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses\r
-were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any\r
-run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by\r
-any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of\r
-the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for\r
-a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly\r
-populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such\r
-brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for\r
-which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established\r
-among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately\r
-interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of\r
-passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed\r
-windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities,\r
-and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault\r
-in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it\r
-was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the\r
-very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every\r
-fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived\r
-the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in\r
-Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction\r
-that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted\r
-to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be\r
-persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could\r
-not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars\r
-were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that\r
-the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there\r
-would be the smallest difficulty in every body’s returning into their\r
-proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent\r
-on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of\r
-the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills.\r
-He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social\r
-inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of\r
-Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his\r
-indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of\r
-mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap.\r
-It was but an effusion of lively spirits.\r
-\r
-At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown;\r
-and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma\r
-recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had\r
-paid it.\r
-\r
-“Yes, oh! yes”--he replied; “I was just going to mention it. A very\r
-successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much\r
-obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken\r
-me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I\r
-was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes\r
-would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and\r
-I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there\r
-was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found,\r
-when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had\r
-been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour.\r
-The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before.”\r
-\r
-“And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?”\r
-\r
-“Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look\r
-ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies\r
-can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so\r
-pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most\r
-deplorable want of complexion.”\r
-\r
-Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax’s\r
-complexion. “It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not\r
-allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and\r
-delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of\r
-her face.” He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had\r
-heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him\r
-nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where\r
-features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all;\r
-and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not\r
-attempt to describe what the effect was.\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Emma, “there is no disputing about taste.--At least you\r
-admire her except her complexion.”\r
-\r
-He shook his head and laughed.--“I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her\r
-complexion.”\r
-\r
-“Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?”\r
-\r
-At this moment they were approaching Ford’s, and he hastily exclaimed,\r
-“Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of\r
-their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he\r
-says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s.\r
-If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove\r
-myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must\r
-buy something at Ford’s. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say\r
-they sell gloves.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will\r
-be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because\r
-you were Mr. Weston’s son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford’s, and your\r
-popularity will stand upon your own virtues.”\r
-\r
-They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of “Men’s Beavers”\r
- and “York Tan” were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he\r
-said--“But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me,\r
-you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_\r
-_patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of\r
-public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in\r
-private life.”\r
-\r
-“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her\r
-party at Weymouth.”\r
-\r
-“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a\r
-very unfair one. It is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree\r
-of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I\r
-shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But\r
-her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very\r
-reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any\r
-body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance\r
-with her.”\r
-\r
-“May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so\r
-well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a\r
-little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set.\r
-Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly,\r
-warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”\r
-\r
-“You know Miss Fairfax’s situation in life, I conclude; what she is\r
-destined to be?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do.”\r
-\r
-“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling;\r
-“remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say\r
-when you speak of Miss Fairfax’s situation in life. I will move a little\r
-farther off.”\r
-\r
-“I certainly do forget to think of _her_,” said Emma, “as having ever\r
-been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend.”\r
-\r
-He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.\r
-\r
-When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, “Did\r
-you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank\r
-Churchill.\r
-\r
-“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to\r
-Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began.\r
-She plays charmingly.”\r
-\r
-“You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who\r
-could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with\r
-considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am\r
-excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right\r
-of judging of any body’s performance.--I have been used to hear her’s\r
-admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a\r
-man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to\r
-her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman\r
-to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down\r
-instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other.\r
-That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof.”\r
-\r
-“Proof indeed!” said Emma, highly amused.--“Mr. Dixon is very musical,\r
-is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you,\r
-than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a\r
-very strong proof.”\r
-\r
-“Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger\r
-than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable\r
-to me. I could not excuse a man’s having more music than love--more ear\r
-than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.\r
-How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?”\r
-\r
-“It was her very particular friend, you know.”\r
-\r
-“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger\r
-preferred than one’s very particular friend--with a stranger it might\r
-not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend\r
-always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor\r
-Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland.”\r
-\r
-“You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she\r
-really did not seem to feel it.”\r
-\r
-“So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But\r
-be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or\r
-dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt\r
-it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous\r
-distinction.”\r
-\r
-“As to that--I do not--”\r
-\r
-“Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax’s\r
-sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human\r
-being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she\r
-was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses.”\r
-\r
-“There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--”\r
- he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, “however, it is\r
-impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might\r
-all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness\r
-outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be\r
-a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct\r
-herself in critical situations, than I can be.”\r
-\r
-“I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children\r
-and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be\r
-intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited\r
-her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a\r
-little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take\r
-disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was,\r
-by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I\r
-never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved.”\r
-\r
-“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he. “Oftentimes very\r
-convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve,\r
-but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”\r
-\r
-“Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction\r
-may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an\r
-agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of\r
-conquering any body’s reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss\r
-Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think\r
-ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual\r
-cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea\r
-about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to\r
-conceal.”\r
-\r
-He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and\r
-thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him,\r
-that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was\r
-not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some\r
-of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better\r
-than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings\r
-warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr.\r
-Elton’s house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at,\r
-and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not\r
-believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for\r
-having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not\r
-think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample\r
-room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who\r
-wanted more.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about.\r
-Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many\r
-advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no\r
-judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma,\r
-in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking\r
-about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in\r
-life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the\r
-inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper’s room, or\r
-a bad butler’s pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe\r
-could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would\r
-willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VII\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma’s very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the\r
-following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have\r
-his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and\r
-he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner,\r
-but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut.\r
-There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over\r
-on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it\r
-which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of\r
-plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart,\r
-which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity,\r
-extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be\r
-doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his\r
-father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear\r
-in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only\r
-called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs.\r
-Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as\r
-quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that “all young\r
-people would have their little whims.”\r
-\r
-With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit\r
-hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston\r
-was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made\r
-himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He\r
-appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and\r
-lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal\r
-decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of\r
-talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were\r
-left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he\r
-acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to\r
-speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for\r
-such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to\r
-denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination\r
-had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her,\r
-of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own\r
-indifference--(for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the\r
-honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint\r
-acquaintance.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must\r
-have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her\r
-extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so\r
-much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him\r
-harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, “all young people would have their\r
-little whims.”\r
-\r
-There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so\r
-leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of\r
-Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made\r
-for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so\r
-often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be\r
-softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley.\r
-The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was\r
-silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself,\r
-over a newspaper he held in his hand, “Hum! just the trifling, silly\r
-fellow I took him for.” She had half a mind to resent; but an instant’s\r
-observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his\r
-own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass.\r
-\r
-Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and\r
-Mrs. Weston’s visit this morning was in another respect particularly\r
-opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma\r
-want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly\r
-the advice they gave.\r
-\r
-This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in\r
-Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and\r
-unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade,\r
-and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country,\r
-they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little\r
-company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had\r
-brought them a considerable increase of means--the house in town had\r
-yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With\r
-their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their\r
-inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number\r
-of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were,\r
-in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield.\r
-Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body\r
-for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the\r
-single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma\r
-could hardly suppose they would presume to invite--neither Donwell, nor\r
-Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt _her_ to go, if they did;\r
-and she regretted that her father’s known habits would be giving\r
-her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very\r
-respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not\r
-for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit\r
-them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from\r
-herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.\r
-\r
-But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks\r
-before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her\r
-very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their\r
-invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs.\r
-Weston’s accounting for it with “I suppose they will not take the\r
-liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,” was not quite\r
-sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of\r
-refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there,\r
-consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred\r
-again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted\r
-to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They\r
-had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before,\r
-and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might\r
-not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare\r
-possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits; and\r
-her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be\r
-intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.\r
-\r
-It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at\r
-Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first\r
-remark, on reading it, was that “of course it must be declined,” she so\r
-very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their\r
-advice for her going was most prompt and successful.\r
-\r
-She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely\r
-without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so\r
-properly--there was so much real attention in the manner of it--so much\r
-consideration for her father. “They would have solicited the honour\r
-earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding-screen from\r
-London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of\r
-air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour\r
-of his company.” Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being\r
-briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting\r
-his comfort--how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be\r
-depended on for bearing him company--Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked\r
-into an acquiescence of his daughter’s going out to dinner on a day now\r
-near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for _his_\r
-going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be\r
-too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned.\r
-\r
-“I am not fond of dinner-visiting,” said he--“I never was. No more is\r
-Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole\r
-should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come\r
-in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us--take us\r
-in their afternoon walk; which they might do, as our hours are so\r
-reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the\r
-evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any\r
-body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine\r
-with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take\r
-care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what\r
-it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy.” Then turning to Mrs.\r
-Weston, with a look of gentle reproach--“Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not\r
-married, you would have staid at home with me.”\r
-\r
-“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “as I took Miss Taylor away, it is\r
-incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs.\r
-Goddard in a moment, if you wish it.”\r
-\r
-But the idea of any thing to be done in a _moment_, was increasing,\r
-not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse’s agitation. The ladies knew better how\r
-to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately\r
-arranged.\r
-\r
-With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking\r
-as usual. “He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard\r
-for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James\r
-could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written\r
-to Mrs. Cole.”\r
-\r
-“You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say\r
-that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline\r
-their obliging invitation; beginning with my _compliments_, of course.\r
-But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be\r
-done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be\r
-wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never\r
-been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have\r
-no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there,\r
-you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again;\r
-and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late.\r
-You will get very tired when tea is over.”\r
-\r
-“But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many\r
-people talking at once. You will not like the noise.”\r
-\r
-“But, my dear sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “if Emma comes away early, it will\r
-be breaking up the party.”\r
-\r
-“And no great harm if it does,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “The sooner every\r
-party breaks up, the better.”\r
-\r
-“But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma’s going\r
-away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured\r
-people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must\r
-feel that any body’s hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss\r
-Woodhouse’s doing it would be more thought of than any other person’s in\r
-the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am\r
-sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have\r
-been your neighbours these _ten_ years.”\r
-\r
-“No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston; I am much obliged to\r
-you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any\r
-pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole\r
-never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but\r
-he is bilious--Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means\r
-of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure,\r
-rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a\r
-little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You\r
-will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends.”\r
-\r
-“Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no\r
-scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am\r
-only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being\r
-exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you\r
-know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by\r
-yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time--and the idea of\r
-that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit\r
-up.”\r
-\r
-He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that,\r
-if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if\r
-hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should\r
-sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that every\r
-thing were safe in the house, as usual.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VIII\r
-\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father’s dinner\r
-waiting, it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious\r
-for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection\r
-which could be concealed.\r
-\r
-He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very\r
-good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had\r
-done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion\r
-of face; no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits.\r
-He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him,\r
-Emma thus moralised to herself:--\r
-\r
-“I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things\r
-do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent\r
-way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.--It\r
-depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is\r
-_not_ a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this\r
-differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or\r
-been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of\r
-a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own\r
-vanities.--No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly.”\r
-\r
-With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for\r
-a longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and by\r
-inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing\r
-how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air;\r
-and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were\r
-now seeing them together for the first time.\r
-\r
-She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr.\r
-Cole’s; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr.\r
-Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than\r
-his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole.\r
-\r
-Her father’s comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs.\r
-Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left\r
-the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after\r
-dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her\r
-dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping\r
-them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever\r
-unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged\r
-them to practise during the meal.--She had provided a plentiful dinner\r
-for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat\r
-it.\r
-\r
-She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole’s door; and was pleased to see\r
-that it was Mr. Knightley’s; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses,\r
-having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and\r
-independence, was too apt, in Emma’s opinion, to get about as he could,\r
-and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey.\r
-She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from\r
-her heart, for he stopped to hand her out.\r
-\r
-“This is coming as you should do,” said she; “like a gentleman.--I am\r
-quite glad to see you.”\r
-\r
-He thanked her, observing, “How lucky that we should arrive at the same\r
-moment! for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether\r
-you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.--You\r
-might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner.”\r
-\r
-“Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of\r
-consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be\r
-beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but\r
-with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern; I always\r
-observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. _Now_ you have\r
-nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You\r
-are not striving to look taller than any body else. _Now_ I shall really\r
-be very happy to walk into the same room with you.”\r
-\r
-“Nonsensical girl!” was his reply, but not at all in anger.\r
-\r
-Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as\r
-with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could\r
-not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for.\r
-When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of\r
-admiration were for her, from both husband and wife; the son approached\r
-her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object,\r
-and at dinner she found him seated by her--and, as she firmly believed,\r
-not without some dexterity on his side.\r
-\r
-The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper\r
-unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of\r
-naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox’s family,\r
-the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the\r
-evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already,\r
-at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be\r
-general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could\r
-fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour.\r
-The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was\r
-the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of\r
-her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found\r
-it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy,\r
-received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been\r
-calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had\r
-been struck by the sight of a pianoforte--a very elegant looking\r
-instrument--not a grand, but a large-sized square pianoforte; and the\r
-substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of\r
-surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations\r
-on Miss Bates’s, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from\r
-Broadwood’s the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and\r
-niece--entirely unexpected; that at first, by Miss Bates’s account,\r
-Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could\r
-possibly have ordered it--but now, they were both perfectly satisfied\r
-that it could be from only one quarter;--of course it must be from\r
-Colonel Campbell.\r
-\r
-“One can suppose nothing else,” added Mrs. Cole, “and I was only\r
-surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems,\r
-had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it.\r
-She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as\r
-any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse\r
-to surprize her.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her; every body who spoke on the\r
-subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell,\r
-and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were\r
-enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still\r
-listen to Mrs. Cole.\r
-\r
-“I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me\r
-more satisfaction!--It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who\r
-plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite\r
-a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine\r
-instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves\r
-a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole,\r
-I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the\r
-drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little\r
-girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of\r
-it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not\r
-any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old\r
-spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.--I was saying this to\r
-Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so\r
-particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself\r
-in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so\r
-obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that\r
-really is the reason why the instrument was bought--or else I am sure\r
-we ought to be ashamed of it.--We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse\r
-may be prevailed with to try it this evening.”\r
-\r
-Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing\r
-more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole’s, turned\r
-to Frank Churchill.\r
-\r
-“Why do you smile?” said she.\r
-\r
-“Nay, why do you?”\r
-\r
-“Me!--I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell’s being so rich\r
-and so liberal.--It is a handsome present.”\r
-\r
-“Very.”\r
-\r
-“I rather wonder that it was never made before.”\r
-\r
-“Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before.”\r
-\r
-“Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument--which must\r
-now be shut up in London, untouched by any body.”\r
-\r
-“That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs.\r
-Bates’s house.”\r
-\r
-“You may _say_ what you chuse--but your countenance testifies that your\r
-_thoughts_ on this subject are very much like mine.”\r
-\r
-“I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for\r
-acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably\r
-suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what\r
-there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can\r
-be?”\r
-\r
-“What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must\r
-know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and\r
-perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young\r
-woman’s scheme than an elderly man’s. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I\r
-told you that your suspicions would guide mine.”\r
-\r
-“If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend _Mr_. Dixon in\r
-them.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Dixon.--Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the\r
-joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you\r
-know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had\r
-entertained before.--I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions\r
-of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either\r
-that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune\r
-to fall in love with _her_, or that he became conscious of a little\r
-attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing\r
-exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for\r
-her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells\r
-to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance;\r
-there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her\r
-native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.--In the summer it might\r
-have passed; but what can any body’s native air do for them in the\r
-months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would\r
-be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare\r
-say in her’s. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though\r
-you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what\r
-they are.”\r
-\r
-“And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon’s\r
-preference of her music to her friend’s, I can answer for being very\r
-decided.”\r
-\r
-“And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?--A water\r
-party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her.”\r
-\r
-“He did. I was there--one of the party.”\r
-\r
-“Were you really?--Well!--But you observed nothing of course, for it\r
-seems to be a new idea to you.--If I had been there, I think I should\r
-have made some discoveries.”\r
-\r
-“I dare say you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that\r
-Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught\r
-her.--It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and\r
-alarm was very great and much more durable--indeed I believe it was\r
-half an hour before any of us were comfortable again--yet that was too\r
-general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be\r
-observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made\r
-discoveries.”\r
-\r
-The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share\r
-in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and\r
-obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table\r
-was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly\r
-right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said,\r
-\r
-“The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know\r
-a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall\r
-soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.”\r
-\r
-“And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must\r
-conclude it to come from the Campbells.”\r
-\r
-“No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is\r
-not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She\r
-would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have\r
-convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr.\r
-Dixon is a principal in the business.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings\r
-carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed\r
-you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as\r
-paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world.\r
-But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it\r
-should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in\r
-no other light than as an offering of love.”\r
-\r
-There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed\r
-real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects\r
-took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert\r
-succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the\r
-usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright\r
-silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the\r
-other--nothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news,\r
-and heavy jokes.\r
-\r
-The ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other\r
-ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree\r
-of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her\r
-dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and\r
-the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light,\r
-cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many\r
-alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed\r
-affection. There she sat--and who would have guessed how many tears she\r
-had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and\r
-seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say\r
-nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax\r
-did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been\r
-glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the\r
-mortification of having loved--yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in\r
-vain--by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself\r
-beloved by the husband of her friend.\r
-\r
-In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her.\r
-She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the\r
-secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair,\r
-and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the\r
-subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of\r
-consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush\r
-of guilt which accompanied the name of “my excellent friend Colonel\r
-Campbell.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested\r
-by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her\r
-perseverance in dwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and\r
-to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish\r
-of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the\r
-fair heroine’s countenance.\r
-\r
-They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first\r
-of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the\r
-handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates\r
-and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle,\r
-where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would\r
-not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking.\r
-She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him\r
-to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard\r
-what each thought of the other. “He had never seen so lovely a face, and\r
-was delighted with her naivete.” And she, “Only to be sure it was paying\r
-him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a\r
-little like Mr. Elton.” Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned\r
-from her in silence.\r
-\r
-Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first\r
-glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech.\r
-He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room--hated\r
-sitting long--was always the first to move when he could--that his\r
-father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over\r
-parish business--that as long as he had staid, however, it had been\r
-pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike,\r
-sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether--thought it\r
-so abundant in agreeable families--that Emma began to feel she had been\r
-used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the\r
-society in Yorkshire--the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe,\r
-and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as\r
-Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their\r
-visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and\r
-that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even\r
-chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going;\r
-that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though\r
-he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without\r
-considerable address _at_ _times_, that he could get away, or introduce\r
-an acquaintance for a night.\r
-\r
-She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at\r
-its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at\r
-home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did\r
-not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his\r
-aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing\r
-it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could\r
-_with_ _time_ persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which\r
-his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to\r
-go abroad--had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel--but she\r
-would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. _Now_, he said,\r
-he was beginning to have no longer the same wish.\r
-\r
-The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be\r
-good behaviour to his father.\r
-\r
-“I have made a most wretched discovery,” said he, after a short pause.--\r
-“I have been here a week to-morrow--half my time. I never knew days fly\r
-so fast. A week to-morrow!--And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself.\r
-But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!--I hate the\r
-recollection.”\r
-\r
-“Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out\r
-of so few, in having your hair cut.”\r
-\r
-“No,” said he, smiling, “that is no subject of regret at all. I have\r
-no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be\r
-seen.”\r
-\r
-The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself\r
-obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When\r
-Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before,\r
-she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss\r
-Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite.\r
-\r
-“What is the matter?” said she.\r
-\r
-He started. “Thank you for rousing me,” he replied. “I believe I have\r
-been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a\r
-way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw\r
-any thing so outree!--Those curls!--This must be a fancy of her own. I\r
-see nobody else looking like her!--I must go and ask her whether it\r
-is an Irish fashion. Shall I?--Yes, I will--I declare I will--and you\r
-shall see how she takes it;--whether she colours.”\r
-\r
-He was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss\r
-Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady,\r
-as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in\r
-front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing.\r
-\r
-Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston.\r
-\r
-“This is the luxury of a large party,” said she:--“one can get near\r
-every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk\r
-to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like\r
-yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how\r
-Miss Bates and her niece came here?”\r
-\r
-“How?--They were invited, were not they?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes--but how they were conveyed hither?--the manner of their\r
-coming?”\r
-\r
-“They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?”\r
-\r
-“Very true.--Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad\r
-it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and\r
-cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw\r
-her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and\r
-would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could\r
-not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room,\r
-and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess\r
-how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made\r
-my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be\r
-at her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making\r
-her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you\r
-may be sure. ‘Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!’--but with many,\r
-many thanks--‘there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley’s\r
-carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.’ I was quite\r
-surprized;--very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprized. Such a\r
-very kind attention--and so thoughtful an attention!--the sort of thing\r
-that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his\r
-usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their\r
-accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not\r
-have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse\r
-for assisting them.”\r
-\r
-“Very likely,” said Emma--“nothing more likely. I know no man more\r
-likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing--to do any thing\r
-really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a\r
-gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane\r
-Fairfax’s ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;--and for\r
-an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on\r
-more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day--for we arrived\r
-together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that\r
-could betray.”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, smiling, “you give him credit for more simple,\r
-disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss\r
-Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never\r
-been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable\r
-it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane\r
-Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!--What do you say to\r
-it?”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!” exclaimed Emma. “Dear Mrs. Weston, how\r
-could you think of such a thing?--Mr. Knightley!--Mr. Knightley must not\r
-marry!--You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?--Oh! no,\r
-no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley’s\r
-marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you\r
-should think of such a thing.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want\r
-the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry--but the idea has\r
-been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to\r
-marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry’s account, a boy of six\r
-years old, who knows nothing of the matter?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.--Mr.\r
-Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt\r
-it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!”\r
-\r
-“Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well\r
-know.”\r
-\r
-“But the imprudence of such a match!”\r
-\r
-“I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability.”\r
-\r
-“I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than\r
-what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would\r
-be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the\r
-Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax--and is always glad to\r
-shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making.\r
-You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no,\r
-no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so\r
-mad a thing.”\r
-\r
-“Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune,\r
-and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.”\r
-\r
-“But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the\r
-least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?--He\r
-is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and\r
-his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of\r
-his brother’s children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up\r
-his time or his heart.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves\r
-Jane Fairfax--”\r
-\r
-“Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am\r
-sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, laughing, “perhaps the greatest good he could\r
-do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home.”\r
-\r
-“If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a\r
-very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss\r
-Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking\r
-him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?--‘So very\r
-kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!’\r
-And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother’s old\r
-petticoat. ‘Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still\r
-it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that\r
-their petticoats were all very strong.’”\r
-\r
-“For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience.\r
-And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed\r
-by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and\r
-if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and\r
-drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad\r
-connexion for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have\r
-heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The\r
-interest he takes in her--his anxiety about her health--his concern that\r
-she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself\r
-so warmly on those points!--Such an admirer of her performance on the\r
-pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen\r
-to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred\r
-to me--this pianoforte that has been sent here by somebody--though\r
-we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the\r
-Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting\r
-him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in\r
-love.”\r
-\r
-“Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not\r
-think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does\r
-nothing mysteriously.”\r
-\r
-“I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener\r
-than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of\r
-things, occur to him.”\r
-\r
-“Very well; and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told\r
-her so.”\r
-\r
-“There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong\r
-notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when\r
-Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner.”\r
-\r
-“You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it; as you have\r
-many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment--I\r
-believe nothing of the pianoforte--and proof only shall convince me that\r
-Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.”\r
-\r
-They combated the point some time longer in the same way; Emma rather\r
-gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most\r
-used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room shewed them\r
-that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation;--and at the same\r
-moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the\r
-honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her\r
-conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that\r
-he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very\r
-pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to\r
-lead, she gave a very proper compliance.\r
-\r
-She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than\r
-she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in\r
-the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany\r
-her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by\r
-surprize--a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her\r
-pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual\r
-followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect\r
-knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing\r
-of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang\r
-together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss\r
-Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could\r
-attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own.\r
-\r
-With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the\r
-numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again.\r
-They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the\r
-sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half\r
-Emma’s mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of\r
-Mrs. Weston’s suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices\r
-gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley’s\r
-marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil\r
-in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley;\r
-consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the children--a most\r
-mortifying change, and material loss to them all;--a very great\r
-deduction from her father’s daily comfort--and, as to herself, she could\r
-not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs.\r
-Knightley for them all to give way to!--No--Mr. Knightley must never\r
-marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.\r
-\r
-Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They\r
-talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly\r
-very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have\r
-struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his\r
-kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in\r
-the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only\r
-his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.\r
-\r
-“I often feel concern,” said she, “that I dare not make our carriage\r
-more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but\r
-you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put-to\r
-for such a purpose.”\r
-\r
-“Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,” he\r
-replied;--“but you must often wish it, I am sure.” And he smiled with\r
-such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another\r
-step.\r
-\r
-“This present from the Campbells,” said she--“this pianoforte is very\r
-kindly given.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” he replied, and without the smallest apparent\r
-embarrassment.--“But they would have done better had they given\r
-her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not\r
-enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have\r
-expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.”\r
-\r
-From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had\r
-had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were\r
-entirely free from peculiar attachment--whether there were no actual\r
-preference--remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane’s\r
-second song, her voice grew thick.\r
-\r
-“That will do,” said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud--“you have\r
-sung quite enough for one evening--now be quiet.”\r
-\r
-Another song, however, was soon begged for. “One more;--they would not\r
-fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.”\r
- And Frank Churchill was heard to say, “I think you could manage this\r
-without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the\r
-song falls on the second.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley grew angry.\r
-\r
-“That fellow,” said he, indignantly, “thinks of nothing but shewing off\r
-his own voice. This must not be.” And touching Miss Bates, who at that\r
-moment passed near--“Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing\r
-herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on\r
-her.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to\r
-be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther\r
-singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse\r
-and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within\r
-five minutes) the proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew\r
-where--was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every\r
-thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston,\r
-capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible\r
-waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to\r
-Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top.\r
-\r
-While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off,\r
-Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on\r
-her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr.\r
-Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he\r
-were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur\r
-something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs.\r
-Cole--he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else,\r
-and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.\r
-\r
-Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and\r
-she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than\r
-five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of\r
-it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a\r
-partner. They were a couple worth looking at.\r
-\r
-Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was\r
-growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother’s\r
-account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again,\r
-they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.\r
-\r
-“Perhaps it is as well,” said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to\r
-her carriage. “I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing\r
-would not have agreed with me, after yours.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IX\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit\r
-afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she\r
-might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must\r
-be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted\r
-the Coles--worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!--And left a\r
-name behind her that would not soon die away.\r
-\r
-Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two\r
-points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not\r
-transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of\r
-Jane Fairfax’s feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it\r
-had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission\r
-to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made\r
-it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her\r
-tongue.\r
-\r
-The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax; and\r
-there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the\r
-inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily\r
-grieve over the idleness of her childhood--and sat down and practised\r
-vigorously an hour and a half.\r
-\r
-She was then interrupted by Harriet’s coming in; and if Harriet’s praise\r
-could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted.\r
-\r
-“Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!”\r
-\r
-“Don’t class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her’s,\r
-than a lamp is like sunshine.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! dear--I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite\r
-as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body\r
-last night said how well you played.”\r
-\r
-“Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The\r
-truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised,\r
-but Jane Fairfax’s is much beyond it.”\r
-\r
-“Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or\r
-that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole\r
-said how much taste you had; and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal\r
-about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any\r
-taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.--There is no\r
-understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you\r
-know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to\r
-teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into\r
-any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?”\r
-\r
-“Just as they always do--very vulgar.”\r
-\r
-“They told me something,” said Harriet rather hesitatingly; “but it is\r
-nothing of any consequence.”\r
-\r
-Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its\r
-producing Mr. Elton.\r
-\r
-“They told me--that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday.”\r
-\r
-“Oh!”\r
-\r
-“He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to\r
-dinner.”\r
-\r
-“Oh!”\r
-\r
-“They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know\r
-what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there\r
-again next summer.”\r
-\r
-“She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should\r
-be.”\r
-\r
-“She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at\r
-dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry\r
-him.”\r
-\r
-“Very likely.--I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar\r
-girls in Highbury.”\r
-\r
-Harriet had business at Ford’s.--Emma thought it most prudent to go with\r
-her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in\r
-her present state, would be dangerous.\r
-\r
-Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always\r
-very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins\r
-and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.--Much could\r
-not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;--Mr.\r
-Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the\r
-office-door, Mr. Cole’s carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a\r
-stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she\r
-could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with\r
-his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full\r
-basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling\r
-children round the baker’s little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she\r
-knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough\r
-still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with\r
-seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.\r
-\r
-She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons\r
-appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into\r
-Highbury;--to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the\r
-first place at Mrs. Bates’s; whose house was a little nearer\r
-Randalls than Ford’s; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their\r
-eye.--Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the\r
-agreeableness of yesterday’s engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to\r
-the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call\r
-on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument.\r
-\r
-“For my companion tells me,” said she, “that I absolutely promised Miss\r
-Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it\r
-myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I\r
-am going now.”\r
-\r
-“And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope,” said\r
-Frank Churchill, “to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield--if\r
-you are going home.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was disappointed.\r
-\r
-“I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased.”\r
-\r
-“Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps--I may be equally in the\r
-way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always\r
-sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; and\r
-Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to\r
-do?”\r
-\r
-“I am here on no business of my own,” said Emma; “I am only waiting for\r
-my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home.\r
-But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument.”\r
-\r
-“Well--if you advise it.--But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should\r
-have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an\r
-indifferent tone--what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs.\r
-Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be\r
-palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world\r
-at a civil falsehood.”\r
-\r
-“I do not believe any such thing,” replied Emma.--“I am persuaded that\r
-you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but\r
-there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite\r
-otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax’s opinion last night.”\r
-\r
-“Do come with me,” said Mrs. Weston, “if it be not very disagreeable to\r
-you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards.\r
-We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It\r
-will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it.”\r
-\r
-He could say no more; and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him,\r
-returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates’s door. Emma watched them in,\r
-and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,--trying, with all\r
-the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain\r
-muslin it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue ribbon, be\r
-it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At\r
-last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel.\r
-\r
-“Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard’s, ma’am?” asked Mrs.\r
-Ford.--“Yes--no--yes, to Mrs. Goddard’s. Only my pattern gown is at\r
-Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then,\r
-Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.--And I could take the pattern gown\r
-home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly--so it had better go\r
-to Hartfield--at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels,\r
-Mrs. Ford, could not you?”\r
-\r
-“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two\r
-parcels.”\r
-\r
-“No more it is.”\r
-\r
-“No trouble in the world, ma’am,” said the obliging Mrs. Ford.\r
-\r
-“Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you\r
-please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard’s--I do not know--No, I\r
-think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and\r
-take it home with me at night. What do you advise?”\r
-\r
-“That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield,\r
-if you please, Mrs. Ford.”\r
-\r
-“Aye, that will be much best,” said Harriet, quite satisfied, “I should\r
-not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard’s.”\r
-\r
-Voices approached the shop--or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs.\r
-Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.\r
-\r
-“My dear Miss Woodhouse,” said the latter, “I am just run across to\r
-entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while,\r
-and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How\r
-do you do, Miss Smith?--Very well I thank you.--And I begged Mrs. Weston\r
-to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.”\r
-\r
-“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are--”\r
-\r
-“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well;\r
-and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?--I am so glad\r
-to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.--Oh!\r
-then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me\r
-just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so\r
-very happy to see her--and now we are such a nice party, she cannot\r
-refuse.--‘Aye, pray do,’ said Mr. Frank Churchill, ‘Miss Woodhouse’s\r
-opinion of the instrument will be worth having.’--But, said I, I shall\r
-be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.--‘Oh,’ said\r
-he, ‘wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;’--For, would you\r
-believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in\r
-the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother’s spectacles.--The rivet\r
-came out, you know, this morning.--So very obliging!--For my mother had\r
-no use of her spectacles--could not put them on. And, by the bye, every\r
-body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said\r
-so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did,\r
-but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing,\r
-then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came\r
-to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I,\r
-Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your\r
-mistress’s spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis\r
-sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the\r
-Wallises, always--I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be\r
-uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing\r
-but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value\r
-of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know?\r
-Only three of us.--besides dear Jane at present--and she really eats\r
-nothing--makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened\r
-if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats--so I\r
-say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the\r
-middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so\r
-well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took\r
-the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet\r
-him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before--I have so often\r
-heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only\r
-way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We\r
-have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent\r
-apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these\r
-ladies will oblige us.”\r
-\r
-Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at\r
-last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,\r
-\r
-“How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before.\r
-I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane\r
-came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well--only a\r
-little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”\r
-\r
-“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in\r
-the street.\r
-\r
-Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.\r
-\r
-“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.--Oh! my mother’s\r
-spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! ‘Oh!’ said he,\r
-‘I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind\r
-excessively.’--Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must\r
-say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected,\r
-he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston,\r
-most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could....\r
-‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort\r
-excessively.’ I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out\r
-the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very\r
-obliging as to take some, ‘Oh!’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing\r
-in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking\r
-home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so\r
-very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they\r
-are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice--only\r
-we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us\r
-promise to have them done three times--but Miss Woodhouse will be so\r
-good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest\r
-sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell--some of Mr.\r
-Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and\r
-certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his\r
-trees--I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was\r
-always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the\r
-other day--for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating\r
-these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed\r
-them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I\r
-am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply; for\r
-I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me\r
-keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more,\r
-before they get good for nothing.’ So I begged he would not--for really\r
-as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great\r
-many left--it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept\r
-for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more,\r
-so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when\r
-he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me--No, I should not say\r
-quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite\r
-distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished\r
-I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear,\r
-I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William\r
-Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of\r
-apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down\r
-and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose.\r
-William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see\r
-him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it\r
-was all the apples of _that_ sort his master had; he had brought them\r
-all--and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did\r
-not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had\r
-sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit\r
-than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their\r
-being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be\r
-able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid\r
-her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for\r
-Mrs. Hodges _would_ be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks\r
-were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told\r
-me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley\r
-know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted\r
-to keep it from Jane’s knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it\r
-before I was aware.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors\r
-walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to,\r
-pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.\r
-\r
-“Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take\r
-care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase--rather darker\r
-and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss\r
-Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss\r
-Smith, the step at the turning.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER X\r
-\r
-\r
-The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was\r
-tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment,\r
-slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near\r
-her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax,\r
-standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.\r
-\r
-Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy\r
-countenance on seeing Emma again.\r
-\r
-“This is a pleasure,” said he, in rather a low voice, “coming at least\r
-ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be\r
-useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.”\r
-\r
-“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? you would not\r
-earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”\r
-\r
-“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied, “I have been\r
-assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily,\r
-it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see\r
-we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be\r
-persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.”\r
-\r
-He contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently\r
-employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make\r
-her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready\r
-to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready,\r
-Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet\r
-possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she\r
-must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not\r
-but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve\r
-never to expose them to her neighbour again.\r
-\r
-At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the\r
-powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs.\r
-Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again; Emma\r
-joined her in all her praise; and the pianoforte, with every proper\r
-discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise.\r
-\r
-“Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ,” said Frank Churchill, with a\r
-smile at Emma, “the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of\r
-Colonel Campbell’s taste at Weymouth; and the softness of the upper\r
-notes I am sure is exactly what he and _all_ _that_ _party_ would\r
-particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his\r
-friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you\r
-think so?”\r
-\r
-Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had\r
-been speaking to her at the same moment.\r
-\r
-“It is not fair,” said Emma, in a whisper; “mine was a random guess. Do\r
-not distress her.”\r
-\r
-He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little\r
-doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again,\r
-\r
-“How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this\r
-occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder\r
-which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument’s coming to\r
-hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going\r
-forward just at this time?--Do you imagine it to be the consequence\r
-of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only\r
-a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon\r
-contingencies and conveniences?”\r
-\r
-He paused. She could not but hear; she could not avoid answering,\r
-\r
-“Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell,” said she, in a voice of\r
-forced calmness, “I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be\r
-all conjecture.”\r
-\r
-“Conjecture--aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one\r
-conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this\r
-rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard\r
-at work, if one talks at all;--your real workmen, I suppose, hold their\r
-tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word--Miss\r
-Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the\r
-pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed\r
-for the present.”\r
-\r
-He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter; to escape a\r
-little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss\r
-Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more.\r
-\r
-“If you are very kind,” said he, “it will be one of the waltzes we\r
-danced last night;--let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them\r
-as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we\r
-danced no longer; but I would have given worlds--all the worlds one ever\r
-has to give--for another half-hour.”\r
-\r
-She played.\r
-\r
-“What felicity it is to hear a tune again which _has_ made one\r
-happy!--If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth.”\r
-\r
-She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something\r
-else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning\r
-to Emma, said,\r
-\r
-“Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?--Cramer.--And here\r
-are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might\r
-expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of\r
-Colonel Campbell, was not it?--He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music\r
-here. I honour that part of the attention particularly; it shews it to\r
-have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done; nothing\r
-incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it.”\r
-\r
-Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused;\r
-and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains\r
-of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness,\r
-there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the\r
-amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.--This\r
-amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very\r
-reprehensible feelings.\r
-\r
-He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.--Emma\r
-took the opportunity of whispering,\r
-\r
-“You speak too plain. She must understand you.”\r
-\r
-“I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least\r
-ashamed of my meaning.”\r
-\r
-“But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea.”\r
-\r
-“I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now\r
-a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does\r
-wrong, she ought to feel it.”\r
-\r
-“She is not entirely without it, I think.”\r
-\r
-“I do not see much sign of it. She is playing _Robin_ _Adair_ at this\r
-moment--_his_ favourite.”\r
-\r
-Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr.\r
-Knightley on horse-back not far off.\r
-\r
-“Mr. Knightley I declare!--I must speak to him if possible, just to\r
-thank him. I will not open the window here; it would give you all cold;\r
-but I can go into my mother’s room you know. I dare say he will come\r
-in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet\r
-so!--Our little room so honoured!”\r
-\r
-She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the\r
-casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley’s attention, and every\r
-syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as\r
-if it had passed within the same apartment.\r
-\r
-“How d’ ye do?--how d’ye do?--Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you\r
-for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready\r
-for us. Pray come in; do come in. You will find some friends here.”\r
-\r
-So began Miss Bates; and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in\r
-his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say,\r
-\r
-“How is your niece, Miss Bates?--I want to inquire after you all, but\r
-particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?--I hope she caught no cold\r
-last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is.”\r
-\r
-And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear\r
-her in any thing else. The listeners were amused; and Mrs. Weston gave\r
-Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in\r
-steady scepticism.\r
-\r
-“So obliged to you!--so very much obliged to you for the carriage,”\r
- resumed Miss Bates.\r
-\r
-He cut her short with,\r
-\r
-“I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! dear, Kingston--are you?--Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she\r
-wanted something from Kingston.”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for _you_?”\r
-\r
-“No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?--Miss\r
-Woodhouse and Miss Smith; so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte.\r
-Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in.”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said he, in a deliberating manner, “for five minutes, perhaps.”\r
-\r
-“And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!--Quite delightful;\r
-so many friends!”\r
-\r
-“No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on\r
-to Kingston as fast as I can.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you.”\r
-\r
-“No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the\r
-pianoforte.”\r
-\r
-“Well, I am so sorry!--Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last\r
-night; how extremely pleasant.--Did you ever see such dancing?--Was not\r
-it delightful?--Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw any\r
-thing equal to it.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss\r
-Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes.\r
-And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should\r
-not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs.\r
-Weston is the very best country-dance player, without exception,\r
-in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say\r
-something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to\r
-hear it.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence--so\r
-shocked!--Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!”\r
-\r
-“What is the matter now?”\r
-\r
-“To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had\r
-a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked!\r
-Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You\r
-should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never\r
-can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it\r
-would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the\r
-room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is\r
-going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing....”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said Jane, “we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was\r
-open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must\r
-have heard every thing to be sure. ‘Can I do any thing for you at\r
-Kingston?’ said he; so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you\r
-be going?--You seem but just come--so very obliging of you.”\r
-\r
-Emma found it really time to be at home; the visit had already lasted\r
-long; and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived\r
-to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could\r
-allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield\r
-gates, before they set off for Randalls.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XI\r
-\r
-\r
-It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been\r
-known of young people passing many, many months successively, without\r
-being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue\r
-either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the\r
-felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it\r
-must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again;\r
-and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded\r
-to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young\r
-people in schemes on the subject. Frank’s was the first idea; and his\r
-the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the\r
-difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance.\r
-But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how\r
-delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for\r
-doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane\r
-Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked\r
-aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in\r
-to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions\r
-of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that\r
-Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little\r
-the largest.\r
-\r
-His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole’s\r
-should be finished there--that the same party should be collected,\r
-and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr.\r
-Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston\r
-most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance;\r
-and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who\r
-there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space\r
-to every couple.\r
-\r
-“You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss\r
-Coxes five,” had been repeated many times over. “And there will be the\r
-two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley.\r
-Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and\r
-Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five\r
-couple there will be plenty of room.”\r
-\r
-But soon it came to be on one side,\r
-\r
-“But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think\r
-there will.”\r
-\r
-On another,\r
-\r
-“And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to\r
-stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it.\r
-It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the\r
-thought of the moment.”\r
-\r
-Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother’s, and\r
-must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert\r
-would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was\r
-put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family\r
-of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance\r
-who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple\r
-would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what\r
-possible manner they could be disposed of.\r
-\r
-The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. “Might not\r
-they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?” It seemed the\r
-best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a\r
-better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about\r
-the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of\r
-health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be\r
-persevered in.\r
-\r
-“Oh! no,” said he; “it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not\r
-bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold.\r
-So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would\r
-be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do\r
-not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very\r
-thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite\r
-the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening,\r
-and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the\r
-draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not\r
-quite the thing!”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of\r
-it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now\r
-closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only\r
-in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on\r
-Frank Churchill’s part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before\r
-had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured\r
-to be made out quite enough for ten.\r
-\r
-“We were too magnificent,” said he. “We allowed unnecessary room. Ten\r
-couple may stand here very well.”\r
-\r
-Emma demurred. “It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be\r
-worse than dancing without space to turn in?”\r
-\r
-“Very true,” he gravely replied; “it was very bad.” But still he went on\r
-measuring, and still he ended with,\r
-\r
-“I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple.”\r
-\r
-“No, no,” said she, “you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful\r
-to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be\r
-dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!”\r
-\r
-“There is no denying it,” he replied. “I agree with you exactly. A crowd\r
-in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures\r
-in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having\r
-proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be\r
-a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am\r
-rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.”\r
-\r
-Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little\r
-self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of\r
-dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.\r
-Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to\r
-pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference,\r
-and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their\r
-acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough.\r
-\r
-Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered\r
-the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of\r
-the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.\r
-\r
-“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination\r
-for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors\r
-of my father’s little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a\r
-thought of my father’s, which waits only your approbation to be acted\r
-upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances\r
-of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the\r
-Crown Inn?”\r
-\r
-“The Crown!”\r
-\r
-“Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot,\r
-my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there.\r
-Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful\r
-welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no\r
-objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel.\r
-Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls\r
-rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you\r
-were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_\r
-to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you\r
-consent?”\r
-\r
-“It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for\r
-myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could\r
-be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?”\r
-\r
-She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully\r
-comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were\r
-necessary to make it acceptable.\r
-\r
-“No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much\r
-worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous;\r
-never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they\r
-had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown\r
-in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a\r
-very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere.”\r
-\r
-“I was going to observe, sir,” said Frank Churchill, “that one of the\r
-great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger\r
-of any body’s catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at\r
-Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but\r
-nobody else could.”\r
-\r
-“Sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, “you are very much mistaken\r
-if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is\r
-extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how\r
-the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father’s house.”\r
-\r
-“From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no\r
-occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it\r
-is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon\r
-heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief.”\r
-\r
-“Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of\r
-opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never\r
-heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither\r
-your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer\r
-it.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a\r
-window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have\r
-often known it done myself.”\r
-\r
-“Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I\r
-live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However,\r
-this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it\r
-over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One\r
-cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so\r
-obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what\r
-can be done.”\r
-\r
-“But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--”\r
-\r
-“Oh!” interrupted Emma, “there will be plenty of time for talking every\r
-thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at\r
-the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be\r
-so near their own stable.”\r
-\r
-“So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever\r
-complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could\r
-be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be\r
-trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight.”\r
-\r
-“I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be\r
-under Mrs. Weston’s care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole.”\r
-\r
-“There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who\r
-is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many\r
-years ago, when I had the measles? ‘If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to\r
-wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.’ How often have I\r
-heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!”\r
-\r
-“Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor\r
-little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have\r
-been very bad, but for Perry’s great attention. He came four times a day\r
-for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which\r
-was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope\r
-whenever poor Isabella’s little ones have the measles, she will send for\r
-Perry.”\r
-\r
-“My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment,” said Frank\r
-Churchill, “examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there\r
-and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you\r
-might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was\r
-desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to\r
-them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing\r
-satisfactorily without you.”\r
-\r
-Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father,\r
-engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people\r
-set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and\r
-very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he,\r
-finding every thing perfect.\r
-\r
-“Emma,” said she, “this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places\r
-you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and\r
-forlorn than any thing I could have imagined.”\r
-\r
-“My dear, you are too particular,” said her husband. “What does all that\r
-signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as\r
-clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our\r
-club-nights.”\r
-\r
-The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know\r
-when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to\r
-himself, “Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.”\r
-\r
-One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain.\r
-It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom’s being built,\r
-suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was\r
-the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted\r
-as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary\r
-by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable\r
-supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the\r
-purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward\r
-passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs.\r
-Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage;\r
-and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being\r
-miserably crowded at supper.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches,\r
-&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched\r
-suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was\r
-pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and\r
-Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of\r
-expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,\r
-\r
-“I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know.”\r
-\r
-And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through\r
-the passage, was calling out,\r
-\r
-“You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a\r
-mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs.”\r
-\r
-“I wish,” said Mrs. Weston, “one could know which arrangement our guests\r
-in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing\r
-must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, very true,” cried Frank, “very true. You want your neighbours’\r
-opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief\r
-of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call\r
-upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know\r
-whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of\r
-the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council.\r
-Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?”\r
-\r
-“Well--if you please,” said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, “if you think\r
-she will be of any use.”\r
-\r
-“You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates,” said Emma. “She\r
-will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She\r
-will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting\r
-Miss Bates.”\r
-\r
-“But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing\r
-Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know.”\r
-\r
-Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it\r
-his decided approbation.\r
-\r
-“Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at\r
-once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer\r
-person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates.\r
-We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be\r
-happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both.”\r
-\r
-“Both sir! Can the old lady?”...\r
-\r
-“The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great\r
-blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.\r
-Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both.” And\r
-away he ran.\r
-\r
-Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt,\r
-and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and\r
-a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it\r
-much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here\r
-ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at\r
-least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and\r
-chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left\r
-as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs.\r
-Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already\r
-written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight,\r
-which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to\r
-be.\r
-\r
-Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must.\r
-As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer\r
-character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general\r
-and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another\r
-half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms,\r
-some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the\r
-future. The party did not break up without Emma’s being positively\r
-secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without\r
-her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, “He has asked her, my\r
-dear. That’s right. I knew he would!”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XII\r
-\r
-\r
-One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely\r
-satisfactory to Emma--its being fixed for a day within the granted\r
-term of Frank Churchill’s stay in Surry; for, in spite of Mr. Weston’s\r
-confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the\r
-Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his\r
-fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take\r
-their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were\r
-entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and\r
-hoping in uncertainty--at the risk--in her opinion, the great risk, of\r
-its being all in vain.\r
-\r
-Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His\r
-wish of staying longer evidently did not please; but it was not opposed.\r
-All was safe and prosperous; and as the removal of one solicitude\r
-generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her\r
-ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley’s provoking\r
-indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or\r
-because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he\r
-seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its\r
-exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement.\r
-To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply,\r
-than,\r
-\r
-“Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this\r
-trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say\r
-against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.--Oh! yes,\r
-I must be there; I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as\r
-I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins’s\r
-week’s account; much rather, I confess.--Pleasure in seeing\r
-dancing!--not I, indeed--I never look at it--I do not know who\r
-does.--Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.\r
-Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very\r
-different.”\r
-\r
-This Emma felt was aimed at her; and it made her quite angry. It was not\r
-in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so\r
-indignant; he was not guided by _her_ feelings in reprobating the ball,\r
-for _she_ enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made\r
-her animated--open hearted--she voluntarily said;--\r
-\r
-“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball.\r
-What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with\r
-_very_ great pleasure.”\r
-\r
-It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred\r
-the society of William Larkins. No!--she was more and more convinced\r
-that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great\r
-deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his side--but no\r
-love.\r
-\r
-Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two\r
-days of joyful security were immediately followed by the over-throw of\r
-every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew’s\r
-instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell--far too unwell to do without\r
-him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband)\r
-when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual\r
-unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of\r
-herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle,\r
-and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.\r
-\r
-The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs.\r
-Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone\r
-within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt,\r
-to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but\r
-for her own convenience.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston added, “that he could only allow himself time to hurry to\r
-Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there\r
-whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him; and that he might be\r
-expected at Hartfield very soon.”\r
-\r
-This wretched note was the finale of Emma’s breakfast. When once it had\r
-been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The\r
-loss of the ball--the loss of the young man--and all that the young man\r
-might be feeling!--It was too wretched!--Such a delightful evening as\r
-it would have been!--Every body so happy! and she and her partner the\r
-happiest!--“I said it would be so,” was the only consolation.\r
-\r
-Her father’s feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of\r
-Mrs. Churchill’s illness, and wanted to know how she was treated; and as\r
-for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed; but they\r
-would all be safer at home.\r
-\r
-Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared; but if this\r
-reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want\r
-of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away\r
-almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He\r
-sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing\r
-himself, it was only to say,\r
-\r
-“Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst.”\r
-\r
-“But you will come again,” said Emma. “This will not be your only visit\r
-to Randalls.”\r
-\r
-“Ah!--(shaking his head)--the uncertainty of when I may be able to\r
-return!--I shall try for it with a zeal!--It will be the object of\r
-all my thoughts and cares!--and if my uncle and aunt go to town this\r
-spring--but I am afraid--they did not stir last spring--I am afraid it\r
-is a custom gone for ever.”\r
-\r
-“Our poor ball must be quite given up.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! that ball!--why did we wait for any thing?--why not seize the\r
-pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,\r
-foolish preparation!--You told us it would be so.--Oh! Miss Woodhouse,\r
-why are you always so right?”\r
-\r
-“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much\r
-rather have been merry than wise.”\r
-\r
-“If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends\r
-on it. Do not forget your engagement.”\r
-\r
-Emma looked graciously.\r
-\r
-“Such a fortnight as it has been!” he continued; “every day more\r
-precious and more delightful than the day before!--every day making\r
-me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at\r
-Highbury!”\r
-\r
-“As you do us such ample justice now,” said Emma, laughing, “I will\r
-venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first?\r
-Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure\r
-you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in\r
-coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury.”\r
-\r
-He laughed rather consciously; and though denying the sentiment, Emma\r
-was convinced that it had been so.\r
-\r
-“And you must be off this very morning?”\r
-\r
-“Yes; my father is to join me here: we shall walk back together, and I\r
-must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring\r
-him.”\r
-\r
-“Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss\r
-Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates’s powerful, argumentative mind might have\r
-strengthened yours.”\r
-\r
-“Yes--I _have_ called there; passing the door, I thought it better. It\r
-was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained\r
-by Miss Bates’s being absent. She was out; and I felt it impossible not\r
-to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one _must_\r
-laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my\r
-visit, then”--\r
-\r
-He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.\r
-\r
-“In short,” said he, “perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can hardly be\r
-quite without suspicion”--\r
-\r
-He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew\r
-what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely\r
-serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in\r
-the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,\r
-\r
-“You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit,\r
-then”--\r
-\r
-He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting\r
-on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard\r
-him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had _cause_ to sigh.\r
-He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments\r
-passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said,\r
-\r
-“It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to\r
-Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm”--\r
-\r
-He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.--He was more\r
-in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might\r
-have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse\r
-soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed.\r
-\r
-A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr.\r
-Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of\r
-procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that\r
-was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he\r
-might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.\r
-\r
-“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation.\r
-I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged\r
-Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise\r
-it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really\r
-interested in the absent!--she will tell me every thing. In her letters\r
-I shall be at dear Highbury again.”\r
-\r
-A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the\r
-speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been\r
-the notice--short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry\r
-to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his\r
-absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too\r
-much.\r
-\r
-It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his\r
-arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to\r
-the last two weeks--indescribable spirit; the idea, the expectation\r
-of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his\r
-attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy\r
-fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common\r
-course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had\r
-_almost_ told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of\r
-affection he might be subject to, was another point; but at present\r
-she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious\r
-preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest,\r
-made her think that she _must_ be a little in love with him, in spite of\r
-every previous determination against it.\r
-\r
-“I certainly must,” said she. “This sensation of listlessness,\r
-weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself,\r
-this feeling of every thing’s being dull and insipid about the house!--\r
-I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I\r
-were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to\r
-others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank\r
-Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening\r
-with his dear William Larkins now if he likes.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say\r
-that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have\r
-contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he\r
-was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable\r
-kindness added,\r
-\r
-“You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out\r
-of luck; you are very much out of luck!”\r
-\r
-It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest\r
-regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure\r
-was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from\r
-headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball\r
-taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was\r
-charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of\r
-ill-health.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIII\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas\r
-only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good\r
-deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing\r
-Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever\r
-in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and\r
-quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were\r
-his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to\r
-Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit\r
-herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed\r
-for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and,\r
-pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and\r
-farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or\r
-working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close\r
-of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing\r
-elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his\r
-side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside\r
-into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their\r
-parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this,\r
-it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of\r
-her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never\r
-to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle\r
-than she could foresee in her own feelings.\r
-\r
-“I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_,” said\r
-she.--“In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is\r
-there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not\r
-really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will\r
-not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I\r
-should be sorry to be more.”\r
-\r
-Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings.\r
-\r
-“_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very\r
-much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection\r
-continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most\r
-inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I\r
-imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he\r
-had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been\r
-so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and\r
-language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must\r
-be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing\r
-what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look\r
-upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon\r
-his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine\r
-them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short,\r
-makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I\r
-shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a\r
-good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives,\r
-and I shall have been let off easily.”\r
-\r
-When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and\r
-she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her\r
-at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had\r
-undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving\r
-the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the\r
-affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable,\r
-and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed\r
-attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of\r
-apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs.\r
-Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast\r
-between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was\r
-just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more\r
-might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm\r
-of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than\r
-once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a\r
-compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in\r
-the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any\r
-such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of\r
-her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all\r
-conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these\r
-words--“I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss\r
-Woodhouse’s beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus\r
-to her.” This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was\r
-remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects\r
-as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated;\r
-Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own\r
-imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again.\r
-\r
-Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material\r
-part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned\r
-to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could\r
-still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her.\r
-Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more\r
-interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation\r
-and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which\r
-clothed it, the “beautiful little friend,” suggested to her the\r
-idea of Harriet’s succeeding her in his affections. Was it\r
-impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in\r
-understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness\r
-of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the\r
-probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For\r
-Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed.\r
-\r
-“I must not dwell upon it,” said she.--“I must not think of it. I know\r
-the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have\r
-happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it\r
-will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested\r
-friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure.”\r
-\r
-It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet’s behalf, though it\r
-might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter\r
-was at hand. As Frank Churchill’s arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton’s\r
-engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest\r
-had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill’s\r
-disappearance, Mr. Elton’s concerns were assuming the most irresistible\r
-form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr.\r
-Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter\r
-from Enscombe before “Mr. Elton and his bride” was in every body’s\r
-mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound.\r
-She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet’s\r
-mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength.\r
-With Mr. Weston’s ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of\r
-insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had\r
-not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual\r
-approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all.\r
-\r
-Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the\r
-reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could\r
-give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had\r
-a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work\r
-to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed\r
-to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened\r
-submissively, and said “it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse\r
-described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not\r
-think about them any longer” but no change of subject could avail, and\r
-the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as\r
-before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground.\r
-\r
-“Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr.\r
-Elton’s marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_.\r
-You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into.\r
-It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure\r
-you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will\r
-be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of\r
-forgetting it.”\r
-\r
-Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager\r
-exclamation. Emma continued,\r
-\r
-“I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk\r
-less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I\r
-would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my\r
-comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your\r
-duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of\r
-others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity.\r
-These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very\r
-important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act\r
-upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration.\r
-I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes\r
-have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what\r
-would be kind by me.”\r
-\r
-This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of\r
-wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really\r
-loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence\r
-of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to\r
-what was right and support her in it very tolerably.\r
-\r
-“You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want\r
-gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do\r
-for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!”\r
-\r
-Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and\r
-manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so\r
-well, nor valued her affection so highly before.\r
-\r
-“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to\r
-herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness\r
-of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the\r
-clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It\r
-is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally\r
-beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but\r
-I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the\r
-charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change\r
-you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female\r
-breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a\r
-hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man’s wife--it is invaluable. I\r
-mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIV\r
-\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be\r
-interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and\r
-it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to\r
-settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or\r
-not pretty at all.\r
-\r
-Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make\r
-her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a\r
-point of Harriet’s going with her, that the worst of the business might\r
-be gone through as soon as possible.\r
-\r
-She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to\r
-which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to\r
-lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts\r
-would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was\r
-not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but\r
-she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit\r
-was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation\r
-of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to\r
-form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the\r
-nothing-meaning terms of being “elegantly dressed, and very pleasing.”\r
-\r
-She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault,\r
-but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.--\r
-She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there\r
-was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty;\r
-but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma\r
-thought at least it would turn out so.\r
-\r
-As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not\r
-permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an\r
-awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man\r
-had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman\r
-was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the\r
-privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to\r
-depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr.\r
-Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just\r
-married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had\r
-been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as\r
-little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as\r
-could be.\r
-\r
-“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” said Harriet, when they had quitted the\r
-house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; “Well, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she\r
-very charming?”\r
-\r
-There was a little hesitation in Emma’s answer.\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman.”\r
-\r
-“I think her beautiful, quite beautiful.”\r
-\r
-“Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown.”\r
-\r
-“I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and\r
-she came in his way.”\r
-\r
-“I dare say,” returned Harriet, sighing again, “I dare say she was very\r
-much attached to him.”\r
-\r
-“Perhaps she might; but it is not every man’s fate to marry the woman\r
-who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this\r
-the best offer she was likely to have.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said Harriet earnestly, “and well she might, nobody could ever\r
-have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as\r
-superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different\r
-thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and\r
-admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown\r
-himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman,\r
-just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her ‘Augusta.’ How\r
-delightful!”\r
-\r
-When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see\r
-more and judge better. From Harriet’s happening not to be at Hartfield,\r
-and her father’s being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter\r
-of an hour of the lady’s conversation to herself, and could composedly\r
-attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that\r
-Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and\r
-thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very\r
-superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert\r
-and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people,\r
-and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that\r
-her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.\r
-\r
-Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself,\r
-she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it\r
-might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of\r
-her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the\r
-alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.\r
-\r
-The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, “My brother\r
-Mr. Suckling’s seat;”--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The\r
-grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was\r
-modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed\r
-by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or\r
-imagine. “Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the\r
-likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room\r
-at Maple Grove; her sister’s favourite room.”--Mr. Elton was appealed\r
-to.--“Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy\r
-herself at Maple Grove.”\r
-\r
-“And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the\r
-staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really\r
-could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very\r
-delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to\r
-as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little\r
-sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who\r
-sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home.\r
-Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will\r
-understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like\r
-what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of\r
-matrimony.”\r
-\r
-Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient\r
-for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself.\r
-\r
-“So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the\r
-grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like.\r
-The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand\r
-very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse\r
-of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in\r
-mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People\r
-who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing\r
-in the same style.”\r
-\r
-Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that\r
-people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the\r
-extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack\r
-an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply,\r
-\r
-“When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you\r
-have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you\r
-know. Surry is the garden of England.”\r
-\r
-“Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many\r
-counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as\r
-Surry.”\r
-\r
-“No, I fancy not,” replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile.\r
-“I never heard any county but Surry called so.”\r
-\r
-Emma was silenced.\r
-\r
-“My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer\r
-at farthest,” continued Mrs. Elton; “and that will be our time for\r
-exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare\r
-say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four\r
-perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage,\r
-we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They\r
-would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the\r
-year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their\r
-bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable.\r
-When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr.\r
-Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King’s-Weston\r
-twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their\r
-first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind\r
-here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?”\r
-\r
-“No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very\r
-striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we\r
-are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home\r
-than engage in schemes of pleasure.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can\r
-be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple\r
-Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol,\r
-‘I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must\r
-go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau\r
-without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will,\r
-would never stir beyond the park paling.’ Many a time has she said so;\r
-and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary,\r
-when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very\r
-bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in\r
-a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I\r
-perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking\r
-towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father’s state of health must be a great\r
-drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend\r
-Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse\r
-good.”\r
-\r
-“My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any\r
-benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you,\r
-does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! that’s a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the\r
-waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath\r
-life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place,\r
-that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse’s spirits,\r
-which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its\r
-recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell\r
-on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally\r
-understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived\r
-so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best\r
-society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of\r
-acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have\r
-always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any\r
-attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public\r
-with.”\r
-\r
-It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea\r
-of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an\r
-_introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend\r
-of Mrs. Elton’s--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the\r
-help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss\r
-Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed!\r
-\r
-She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have\r
-given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; “but their going to Bath was\r
-quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that\r
-the place might suit her better than her father.” And then, to prevent\r
-farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly.\r
-\r
-“I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions,\r
-a lady’s character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known\r
-that you are a superior performer.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior\r
-performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial\r
-a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of\r
-music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid\r
-of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is\r
-_mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play\r
-delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction,\r
-comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got\r
-into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to\r
-me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at\r
-Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I\r
-honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future\r
-home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be\r
-disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had\r
-been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension.\r
-When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_\r
-_world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of\r
-retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was\r
-not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had\r
-no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite\r
-independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I\r
-really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any\r
-sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every\r
-luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not\r
-necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. ‘But,’ said I,\r
-‘to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a\r
-musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life\r
-would be a blank to me.’”\r
-\r
-“We cannot suppose,” said Emma, smiling, “that Mr. Elton would hesitate\r
-to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and\r
-I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be\r
-pardoned, in consideration of the motive.”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to\r
-find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little\r
-concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a\r
-musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours.\r
-Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall\r
-not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be\r
-particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in\r
-practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against\r
-them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music.”\r
-\r
-“But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger,\r
-surely?”\r
-\r
-“I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance,\r
-I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the\r
-instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs.\r
-Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs.\r
-Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my\r
-word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with\r
-Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has\r
-many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this\r
-morning shut up with my housekeeper.”\r
-\r
-“But every thing of that kind,” said Emma, “will soon be in so regular a\r
-train--”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Mrs. Elton, laughing, “we shall see.”\r
-\r
-Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing\r
-more to say; and, after a moment’s pause, Mrs. Elton chose another\r
-subject.\r
-\r
-“We have been calling at Randalls,” said she, “and found them both at\r
-home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely.\r
-Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite\r
-with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is\r
-something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one\r
-directly. She was your governess, I think?”\r
-\r
-Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly\r
-waited for the affirmative before she went on.\r
-\r
-“Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very\r
-lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman.”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Weston’s manners,” said Emma, “were always particularly good.\r
-Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest\r
-model for any young woman.”\r
-\r
-“And who do you think came in while we were there?”\r
-\r
-Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and\r
-how could she possibly guess?\r
-\r
-“Knightley!” continued Mrs. Elton; “Knightley himself!--Was not it\r
-lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never\r
-seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.’s,\r
-I had a great curiosity. ‘My friend Knightley’ had been so often\r
-mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my\r
-caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend.\r
-Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I\r
-think, a very gentleman-like man.”\r
-\r
-Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could\r
-breathe.\r
-\r
-“Insufferable woman!” was her immediate exclamation. “Worse than I had\r
-supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have\r
-believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call\r
-him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart,\r
-vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her\r
-resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.\r
-Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether\r
-he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could\r
-not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to\r
-form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs.\r
-Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a\r
-gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond\r
-my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank\r
-Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he\r
-would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first\r
-person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes\r
-as regularly into my mind!”--\r
-\r
-All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father\r
-had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons’ departure, and was\r
-ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending.\r
-\r
-“Well, my dear,” he deliberately began, “considering we never saw her\r
-before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she\r
-was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little\r
-quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe\r
-I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and\r
-poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved\r
-young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think\r
-he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not\r
-having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I\r
-said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to\r
-have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews\r
-what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage\r
-Lane.”\r
-\r
-“I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you.”\r
-\r
-“Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her\r
-if possible. It was being very deficient.”\r
-\r
-“But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why\r
-should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to\r
-be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you\r
-make so much of them.”\r
-\r
-“No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always\r
-wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially,\r
-is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you\r
-know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who\r
-they may.”\r
-\r
-“Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what\r
-is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to\r
-such vanity-baits for poor young ladies.”\r
-\r
-“My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere\r
-common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any\r
-encouragement to people to marry.”\r
-\r
-Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand\r
-_her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton’s offences, and long, very long,\r
-did they occupy her.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XV\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill\r
-opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as\r
-Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared\r
-whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant,\r
-and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment,\r
-but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior\r
-knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood;\r
-and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs.\r
-Elton’s consequence only could surpass.\r
-\r
-There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from\r
-his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air\r
-of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury,\r
-as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her\r
-new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging,\r
-following the lead of Miss Bates’s good-will, or taking it for granted\r
-that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed\r
-herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton’s praise\r
-passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss\r
-Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with\r
-a good grace of her being “very pleasant and very elegantly dressed.”\r
-\r
-In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at\r
-first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the\r
-little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew\r
-back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and\r
-though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was\r
-necessarily increasing Emma’s dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr.\r
-Elton’s, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and\r
-negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet’s cure; but the\r
-sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very\r
-much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet’s attachment had been\r
-an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under\r
-a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him,\r
-had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object\r
-of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be\r
-always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which\r
-they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in\r
-contemptuous treatment of Harriet.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not\r
-merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to\r
-recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied\r
-with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without\r
-solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and\r
-befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the\r
-third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton’s knight-errantry\r
-on the subject.--\r
-\r
-“Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave\r
-about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and\r
-ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very\r
-extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely\r
-well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she\r
-is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word,\r
-I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated\r
-to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour\r
-to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers\r
-must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those\r
-charming lines of the poet,\r
-\r
- ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,\r
- ‘And waste its fragrance on the desert air.’\r
-\r
-We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax.”\r
-\r
-“I cannot think there is any danger of it,” was Emma’s calm answer--“and\r
-when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax’s situation and\r
-understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I\r
-have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such\r
-obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed\r
-with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it.\r
-I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she\r
-feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I\r
-must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for\r
-timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those\r
-who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure\r
-you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more\r
-than I can express.”\r
-\r
-“You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of\r
-Miss Fairfax’s acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer\r
-than yourself, can shew her any other attention than”--\r
-\r
-“My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to\r
-act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will\r
-follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_\r
-have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style\r
-which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the\r
-least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to\r
-send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_\r
-than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of\r
-thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been\r
-used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the\r
-other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple\r
-Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not\r
-at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my\r
-resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have\r
-her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall\r
-have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly\r
-on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very\r
-extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit\r
-her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my\r
-brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her\r
-extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears\r
-will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners\r
-of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often\r
-indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a\r
-seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties.”\r
-\r
-“Poor Jane Fairfax!”--thought Emma.--“You have not deserved this. You\r
-may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment\r
-beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs.\r
-Elton!--‘Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.’ Heavens! Let me not suppose\r
-that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour,\r
-there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman’s tongue!”\r
-\r
-Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively\r
-addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a “dear Miss\r
-Woodhouse.” The change on Mrs. Elton’s side soon afterwards appeared,\r
-and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular\r
-friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton’s guidance, the very active\r
-patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general\r
-way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done.\r
-\r
-She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates’s gratitude for\r
-Mrs. Elton’s attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless\r
-simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the\r
-most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and\r
-condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma’s only surprize\r
-was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs.\r
-Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons,\r
-sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was\r
-astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or\r
-the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as\r
-the Vicarage had to offer.\r
-\r
-“She is a riddle, quite a riddle!” said she.--“To chuse to remain here\r
-month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the\r
-mortification of Mrs. Elton’s notice and the penury of her conversation,\r
-rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her\r
-with such real, generous affection.”\r
-\r
-Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells\r
-were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had\r
-promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh\r
-invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss\r
-Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly.\r
-Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends\r
-contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had\r
-declined it!\r
-\r
-“She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing\r
-this invitation,” was Emma’s conclusion. “She must be under some sort\r
-of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great\r
-fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be\r
-with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she\r
-consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle.”\r
-\r
-Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before\r
-the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this\r
-apology for Jane.\r
-\r
-“We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage,\r
-my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a\r
-good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We\r
-must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for\r
-what she goes to.”\r
-\r
-“You are right, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “Miss Fairfax\r
-is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton.\r
-Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen\r
-her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from\r
-Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her.”\r
-\r
-Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she\r
-was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently\r
-replied,\r
-\r
-“Such attentions as Mrs. Elton’s, I should have imagined, would rather\r
-disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton’s invitations I should\r
-have imagined any thing but inviting.”\r
-\r
-“I should not wonder,” said Mrs. Weston, “if Miss Fairfax were to have\r
-been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt’s eagerness in\r
-accepting Mrs. Elton’s civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may\r
-very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater\r
-appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in\r
-spite of the very natural wish of a little change.”\r
-\r
-Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few\r
-minutes silence, he said,\r
-\r
-“Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does\r
-not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the\r
-difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken\r
-amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common\r
-civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more\r
-early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we\r
-may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently.\r
-And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be\r
-sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind\r
-and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the\r
-respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably\r
-never fell in Mrs. Elton’s way before--and no degree of vanity can\r
-prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if\r
-not in consciousness.”\r
-\r
-“I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax,” said Emma. Little Henry\r
-was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her\r
-irresolute what else to say.\r
-\r
-“Yes,” he replied, “any body may know how highly I think of her.”\r
-\r
-“And yet,” said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon\r
-stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried\r
-on--“And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it\r
-is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or\r
-other.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick\r
-leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or\r
-some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered,\r
-\r
-“Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me\r
-a hint of it six weeks ago.”\r
-\r
-He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not\r
-herself know what to think. In a moment he went on--\r
-\r
-“That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare\r
-say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall\r
-never ask her.”\r
-\r
-Emma returned her friend’s pressure with interest; and was pleased\r
-enough to exclaim,\r
-\r
-“You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you.”\r
-\r
-He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which\r
-shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said,\r
-\r
-“So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?”\r
-\r
-“No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making,\r
-for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now,\r
-meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any\r
-idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest\r
-wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come\r
-in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, “No,\r
-Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take\r
-me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure\r
-you.” And soon afterwards, “Jane Fairfax is a very charming young\r
-woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has\r
-not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. “Well,” said\r
-she, “and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken;\r
-he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or\r
-wittier than his neighbours.”\r
-\r
-“In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and\r
-wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what\r
-she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough\r
-in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for\r
-Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts\r
-her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument\r
-weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation\r
-of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of\r
-Miss Fairfax’s mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton’s\r
-acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her\r
-being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding.\r
-I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor\r
-with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be\r
-continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her\r
-a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring\r
-parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau.”\r
-\r
-“Jane Fairfax has feeling,” said Mr. Knightley--“I do not accuse her\r
-of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her\r
-temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control;\r
-but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than\r
-she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my\r
-supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax\r
-and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no\r
-thought beyond.”\r
-\r
-“Well, Mrs. Weston,” said Emma triumphantly when he left them, “what do\r
-you say now to Mr. Knightley’s marrying Jane Fairfax?”\r
-\r
-“Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the\r
-idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it\r
-were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVI\r
-\r
-\r
-Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was\r
-disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and\r
-evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed\r
-in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were\r
-never to have a disengaged day.\r
-\r
-“I see how it is,” said she. “I see what a life I am to lead among you.\r
-Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite\r
-the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very\r
-formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a\r
-disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have\r
-been at a loss.”\r
-\r
-No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties\r
-perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for\r
-dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at\r
-the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury\r
-card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a\r
-good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew\r
-them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring\r
-she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which\r
-her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and\r
-unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the\r
-evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the\r
-refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.\r
-\r
-Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at\r
-Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she\r
-should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful\r
-resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for\r
-ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the\r
-usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself,\r
-with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him.\r
-\r
-The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the\r
-Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of\r
-course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must\r
-be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with\r
-equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased\r
-by Harriet’s begging to be allowed to decline it. “She would rather not\r
-be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite\r
-able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling\r
-uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would\r
-rather stay at home.” It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had\r
-she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the\r
-fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to\r
-give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the\r
-very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.--\r
-Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she\r
-was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often\r
-been.--Mr. Knightley’s words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane\r
-Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her.\r
-\r
-“This is very true,” said she, “at least as far as relates to me, which\r
-was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and\r
-always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will\r
-never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her\r
-greater attention than I have done.”\r
-\r
-Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all\r
-happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet\r
-over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little\r
-Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some\r
-weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and\r
-staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day\r
-of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being\r
-put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening\r
-so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the\r
-utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma\r
-apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not\r
-being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without\r
-falling in with a dinner-party.\r
-\r
-She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by\r
-representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet\r
-he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very\r
-immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to\r
-have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her\r
-instead of his brother.\r
-\r
-The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John\r
-Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and\r
-must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the\r
-evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease;\r
-and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the\r
-philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the\r
-chief of even Emma’s vexation.\r
-\r
-The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John\r
-Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being\r
-agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they\r
-waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton,\r
-as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in\r
-silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella’s information--but\r
-Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk\r
-to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk\r
-with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was\r
-natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said,\r
-\r
-“I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am\r
-sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you\r
-turned directly.”\r
-\r
-“I went only to the post-office,” said she, “and reached home before the\r
-rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when\r
-I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk\r
-before breakfast does me good.”\r
-\r
-“Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine.”\r
-\r
-“No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out.”\r
-\r
-Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied,\r
-\r
-“That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards\r
-from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry\r
-and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The\r
-post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have\r
-lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going\r
-through the rain for.”\r
-\r
-There was a little blush, and then this answer,\r
-\r
-“I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every\r
-dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing\r
-older should make me indifferent about letters.”\r
-\r
-“Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent.\r
-Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very\r
-positive curse.”\r
-\r
-“You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of\r
-friendship.”\r
-\r
-“I have often thought them the worst of the two,” replied he coolly.\r
-“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am\r
-very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I\r
-can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than\r
-to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which\r
-makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every\r
-body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again;\r
-and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office,\r
-I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than\r
-to-day.”\r
-\r
-“When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years,”\r
- said John Knightley, “I meant to imply the change of situation which\r
-time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will\r
-generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily\r
-circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old\r
-friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence\r
-you may have as many concentrated objects as I have.”\r
-\r
-It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant “thank\r
-you” seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear\r
-in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was\r
-now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such\r
-occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular\r
-compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest\r
-urbanity, said,\r
-\r
-“I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning\r
-in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies\r
-are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their\r
-complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind\r
-solicitude about me.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I\r
-hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very\r
-old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You\r
-do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I\r
-are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest\r
-satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield.”\r
-\r
-The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he\r
-had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy.\r
-\r
-By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her\r
-remonstrances now opened upon Jane.\r
-\r
-“My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the\r
-rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do\r
-such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you.”\r
-\r
-Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold.\r
-\r
-“Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know\r
-how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston,\r
-did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our\r
-authority.”\r
-\r
-“My advice,” said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, “I certainly do\r
-feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable\r
-as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly\r
-careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think\r
-requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even\r
-half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough\r
-again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too\r
-reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again,” eagerly rejoined Mrs.\r
-Elton. “We will not allow her to do such a thing again:”--and nodding\r
-significantly--“there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed.\r
-I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning\r
-(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and\r
-bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from\r
-_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept\r
-such an accommodation.”\r
-\r
-“You are extremely kind,” said Jane; “but I cannot give up my early\r
-walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk\r
-somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have\r
-scarcely ever had a bad morning before.”\r
-\r
-“My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is\r
-(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing\r
-without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston,\r
-you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter\r
-myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I\r
-meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as\r
-settled.”\r
-\r
-“Excuse me,” said Jane earnestly, “I cannot by any means consent to such\r
-an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand\r
-were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am\r
-not here, by my grandmama’s.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to\r
-employ our men.”\r
-\r
-Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of\r
-answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley.\r
-\r
-“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.--“The\r
-regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do,\r
-and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”\r
-\r
-“It is certainly very well regulated.”\r
-\r
-“So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that\r
-a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the\r
-kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose,\r
-actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad\r
-hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder.”\r
-\r
-“The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness\r
-of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther\r
-explanation,” continued he, smiling, “they are paid for it. That is\r
-the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served\r
-well.”\r
-\r
-The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual\r
-observations made.\r
-\r
-“I have heard it asserted,” said John Knightley, “that the same sort\r
-of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master\r
-teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine\r
-the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very\r
-little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can\r
-get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not\r
-always known their writing apart.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said his brother hesitatingly, “there is a likeness. I know what\r
-you mean--but Emma’s hand is the strongest.”\r
-\r
-“Isabella and Emma both write beautifully,” said Mr. Woodhouse; “and\r
-always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston”--with half a sigh and half a\r
-smile at her.\r
-\r
-“I never saw any gentleman’s handwriting”--Emma began, looking also at\r
-Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending\r
-to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, “Now, how am\r
-I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once\r
-before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout\r
-phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that\r
-would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce\r
-his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and\r
-better.--Now for it.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--“Mr. Frank Churchill\r
-writes one of the best gentleman’s hands I ever saw.”\r
-\r
-“I do not admire it,” said Mr. Knightley. “It is too small--wants\r
-strength. It is like a woman’s writing.”\r
-\r
-This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against\r
-the base aspersion. “No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a\r
-large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any\r
-letter about her to produce?” No, she had heard from him very lately,\r
-but having answered the letter, had put it away.\r
-\r
-“If we were in the other room,” said Emma, “if I had my writing-desk, I\r
-am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you\r
-remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?”\r
-\r
-“He chose to say he was employed”--\r
-\r
-“Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince\r
-Mr. Knightley.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill,” said Mr.\r
-Knightley dryly, “writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of\r
-course, put forth his best.”\r
-\r
-Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was\r
-ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be\r
-allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying--\r
-\r
-“Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way.”\r
-\r
-Jane’s solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma.\r
-She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether\r
-the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it\r
-_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full\r
-expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been\r
-in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a\r
-glow both of complexion and spirits.\r
-\r
-She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the\r
-expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue’s end--but she\r
-abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt\r
-Jane Fairfax’s feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the\r
-room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the\r
-beauty and grace of each.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVII\r
-\r
-\r
-When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, Emma found it\r
-hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties;--with so\r
-much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross\r
-Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to\r
-be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton\r
-left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she\r
-soon began again; and though much that passed between them was in a\r
-half-whisper, especially on Mrs. Elton’s side, there was no avoiding\r
-a knowledge of their principal subjects: The post-office--catching\r
-cold--fetching letters--and friendship, were long under discussion;\r
-and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant\r
-to Jane--inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to\r
-suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton’s meditated activity.\r
-\r
-“Here is April come!” said she, “I get quite anxious about you. June\r
-will soon be here.”\r
-\r
-“But I have never fixed on June or any other month--merely looked\r
-forward to the summer in general.”\r
-\r
-“But have you really heard of nothing?”\r
-\r
-“I have not even made any inquiry; I do not wish to make any yet.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early; you are not aware of the\r
-difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing.”\r
-\r
-“I not aware!” said Jane, shaking her head; “dear Mrs. Elton, who can\r
-have thought of it as I have done?”\r
-\r
-“But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know\r
-how many candidates there always are for the _first_ situations. I saw\r
-a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of\r
-Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications; every\r
-body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle.\r
-Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all\r
-houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge’s is the one I would most wish to see\r
-you in.”\r
-\r
-“Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer,”\r
- said Jane. “I must spend some time with them; I am sure they will want\r
-it;--afterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would\r
-not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present.”\r
-\r
-“Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me\r
-trouble; but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be\r
-more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in\r
-a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the look-out\r
-for any thing eligible.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to\r
-her; till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body\r
-trouble.”\r
-\r
-“But, my dear child, the time is drawing near; here is April, and June,\r
-or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before\r
-us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve,\r
-and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence,\r
-is not obtained at a moment’s notice; indeed, indeed, we must begin\r
-inquiring directly.”\r
-\r
-“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no\r
-inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When\r
-I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being\r
-long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry\r
-would soon produce something--Offices for the sale--not quite of human\r
-flesh--but of human intellect.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at\r
-the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to\r
-the abolition.”\r
-\r
-“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane;\r
-“governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely\r
-different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to\r
-the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But\r
-I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by\r
-applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with\r
-something that would do.”\r
-\r
-“Something that would do!” repeated Mrs. Elton. “Aye, _that_ may suit\r
-your humble ideas of yourself;--I know what a modest creature you are;\r
-but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any\r
-thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family\r
-not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of\r
-life.”\r
-\r
-“You are very obliging; but as to all that, I am very indifferent;\r
-it would be no object to me to be with the rich; my mortifications, I\r
-think, would only be the greater; I should suffer more from comparison.\r
-A gentleman’s family is all that I should condition for.”\r
-\r
-“I know you, I know you; you would take up with any thing; but I shall\r
-be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite\r
-on my side; with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the\r
-first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name\r
-your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family\r
-as much as you chose;--that is--I do not know--if you knew the harp, you\r
-might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;--yes, I\r
-really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what\r
-you chose;--and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and\r
-comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest.”\r
-\r
-“You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such\r
-a situation together,” said Jane, “they are pretty sure to be equal;\r
-however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted\r
-at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am\r
-obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing\r
-nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I\r
-shall remain where I am, and as I am.”\r
-\r
-“And I am quite serious too, I assure you,” replied Mrs. Elton gaily,\r
-“in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to\r
-watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us.”\r
-\r
-In this style she ran on; never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr.\r
-Woodhouse came into the room; her vanity had then a change of object,\r
-and Emma heard her saying in the same half-whisper to Jane,\r
-\r
-“Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!--Only think of his\r
-gallantry in coming away before the other men!--what a dear creature\r
-he is;--I assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint,\r
-old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease;\r
-modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish\r
-you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I\r
-began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I\r
-am rather a favourite; he took notice of my gown. How do you like\r
-it?--Selina’s choice--handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it\r
-is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being\r
-over-trimmed--quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments\r
-now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like\r
-a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style\r
-of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the\r
-minority, I believe; few people seem to value simplicity of dress,--show\r
-and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a\r
-trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will\r
-look well?”\r
-\r
-The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr.\r
-Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner,\r
-and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much\r
-expected by the best judges, for surprize--but there was great joy. Mr.\r
-Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry\r
-to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.--That\r
-a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day\r
-of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile\r
-to another man’s house, for the sake of being in mixed company till\r
-bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise\r
-of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been\r
-in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been\r
-still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had\r
-been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!--Such a man, to\r
-quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the\r
-evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!--Could\r
-he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there\r
-would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather\r
-than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement,\r
-then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it\r
-even of _him_.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was\r
-exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being\r
-principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was\r
-making himself agreeable among the rest; and having satisfied the\r
-inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all\r
-her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread\r
-abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family\r
-communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he\r
-had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in\r
-the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself; he\r
-had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it.\r
-\r
-“Read it, read it,” said he, “it will give you pleasure; only a few\r
-lines--will not take you long; read it to Emma.”\r
-\r
-The two ladies looked over it together; and he sat smiling and talking\r
-to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to\r
-every body.\r
-\r
-“Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say\r
-to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne,\r
-my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In\r
-town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as\r
-impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most\r
-likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all\r
-nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us\r
-again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come,\r
-and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted.\r
-Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read\r
-it all? Put it up, put it up; we will have a good talk about it some\r
-other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the\r
-circumstance to the others in a common way.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks\r
-and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was\r
-happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and\r
-open; but Emma could not speak so fluently. _She_ was a little occupied\r
-in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her\r
-agitation, which she rather thought was considerable.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative\r
-to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say,\r
-and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial\r
-communication of what the whole room must have overheard already.\r
-\r
-It was well that he took every body’s joy for granted, or he might\r
-not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly\r
-delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to\r
-be made happy;--from them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but\r
-she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have\r
-been too positive an interruption; and finding himself close to Mrs.\r
-Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject\r
-with her.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVIII\r
-\r
-\r
-“I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you,”\r
- said Mr. Weston.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her\r
-by such a hope, smiled most graciously.\r
-\r
-“You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume,” he\r
-continued--“and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr.\r
-Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great\r
-pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage.”\r
-\r
-“You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.--\r
-He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a\r
-letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my\r
-son’s hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it\r
-was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I\r
-hardly ever get a letter.”\r
-\r
-“And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr.\r
-Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most\r
-dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours\r
-follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we\r
-married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could\r
-not have believed it of you!”\r
-\r
-“Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs.\r
-Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry,\r
-merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to\r
-town directly, on Mrs. Churchill’s account--she has not been well the\r
-whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to\r
-move southward without loss of time.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a\r
-considerable journey.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than\r
-from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people\r
-of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr.\r
-Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice\r
-in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four\r
-horses.”\r
-\r
-“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that\r
-Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the\r
-sofa for a week together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he\r
-said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having\r
-both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know, speaks a great degree of\r
-weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to\r
-sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly,\r
-delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You\r
-must grant me that.”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my\r
-own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable\r
-antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you,\r
-if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you\r
-would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill’s making incredible exertions to\r
-avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have\r
-caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets;\r
-an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?”\r
-\r
-“Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine\r
-lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land\r
-for”--\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with,\r
-\r
-“Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure\r
-you. Do not run away with such an idea.”\r
-\r
-“Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough\r
-a fine lady as any body ever beheld.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly.\r
-It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was\r
-_not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of\r
-it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr.\r
-Weston went on.\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but\r
-this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and\r
-therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health\r
-now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would\r
-not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs.\r
-Churchill’s illness.”\r
-\r
-“If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to\r
-Clifton?” “She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for\r
-her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now\r
-been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she\r
-begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very\r
-retired.”\r
-\r
-“Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from\r
-the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You\r
-seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And\r
-Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy\r
-that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in\r
-herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot\r
-have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many\r
-myself as to be quite independent of society.”\r
-\r
-“Frank was here in February for a fortnight.”\r
-\r
-“So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society\r
-of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call\r
-myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being\r
-such a creature in the world.”\r
-\r
-This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr.\r
-Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,\r
-\r
-“My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible.\r
-Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston’s letters lately have been full\r
-of very little else than Mrs. Elton.”\r
-\r
-He had done his duty and could return to his son.\r
-\r
-“When Frank left us,” continued he, “it was quite uncertain when we\r
-might see him again, which makes this day’s news doubly welcome. It has\r
-been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion\r
-he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn\r
-up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully\r
-desponding. ‘How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed\r
-that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?’ and so forth--I always\r
-felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see.\r
-I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things\r
-are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”\r
-\r
-“Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to\r
-a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because\r
-things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity\r
-which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that\r
-he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen’s saffron robe\r
-would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those\r
-gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had\r
-disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to\r
-me quite in despair.”\r
-\r
-She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly\r
-seized the opportunity of going on.\r
-\r
-“You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill\r
-is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than\r
-Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable\r
-prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the\r
-season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at\r
-the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and\r
-never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best\r
-of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather;\r
-there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we\r
-intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I\r
-do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the\r
-sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or\r
-to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than\r
-having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the\r
-state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be\r
-pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally\r
-thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston’s\r
-partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most\r
-gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him.”\r
-\r
-“And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion\r
-will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr.\r
-Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one\r
-of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly\r
-guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall\r
-judge of him.--I am no flatterer.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston was musing.\r
-\r
-“I hope,” said he presently, “I have not been severe upon poor Mrs.\r
-Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but\r
-there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to\r
-speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant,\r
-Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have\r
-met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid\r
-to her. She was the instigator. Frank’s mother would never have been\r
-slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride\r
-is nothing to his wife’s: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort\r
-of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless\r
-and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what\r
-inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood.\r
-She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman;\r
-but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill’d\r
-them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is\r
-an upstart.”\r
-\r
-“Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite\r
-a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to\r
-people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who\r
-are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give\r
-themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them\r
-directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and\r
-encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs,\r
-and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families.\r
-A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West\r
-Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from\r
-Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston.\r
-One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something\r
-direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the\r
-Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and\r
-yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to\r
-my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest\r
-neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven\r
-years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I\r
-believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed\r
-the purchase before his death.”\r
-\r
-They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having\r
-said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away.\r
-\r
-After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr.\r
-Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers,\r
-and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed\r
-little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which\r
-nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits\r
-which would have made her prefer being silent.\r
-\r
-Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to\r
-leave them early the next day; and he soon began with--\r
-\r
-“Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the\r
-boys; but you have your sister’s letter, and every thing is down at full\r
-length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than\r
-her’s, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to\r
-recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic\r
-them.”\r
-\r
-“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma, “for I shall do all\r
-in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and\r
-happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”\r
-\r
-“And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again.”\r
-\r
-“That is very likely. You think so, do not you?”\r
-\r
-“I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even\r
-may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to\r
-increase as much as they have done lately.”\r
-\r
-“Increase!”\r
-\r
-“Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a\r
-great difference in your way of life.”\r
-\r
-“Difference! No indeed I am not.”\r
-\r
-“There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than\r
-you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only\r
-one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen\r
-before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you\r
-mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought\r
-an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole’s, or balls at the\r
-Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your\r
-goings-on, is very great.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said his brother quickly, “it is Randalls that does it all.”\r
-\r
-“Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less\r
-influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that\r
-Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg\r
-you to send them home.”\r
-\r
-“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them\r
-be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word,” exclaimed Emma, “you amuse me! I should like to know how\r
-many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of\r
-the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to\r
-attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have\r
-they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of,\r
-which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John\r
-Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at\r
-once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to\r
-Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from\r
-Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I\r
-cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt\r
-Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better\r
-with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she\r
-is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself\r
-or settling his accounts.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without\r
-difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton’s beginning to talk to him.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-VOLUME III\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER I\r
-\r
-\r
-A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the\r
-nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She\r
-was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all\r
-apprehensive or embarrassed; it was for him. Her own attachment had\r
-really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of;--but\r
-if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the\r
-two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had\r
-taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two\r
-months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before\r
-her:--caution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did\r
-not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be\r
-incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his.\r
-\r
-She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration.\r
-That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present\r
-acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something\r
-decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a\r
-crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil\r
-state.\r
-\r
-It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen,\r
-before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill’s\r
-feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been\r
-imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down\r
-for a couple of hours; he could not yet do more; but as he came from\r
-Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick\r
-observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she\r
-must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt\r
-of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt\r
-of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness\r
-in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was\r
-less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably\r
-of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable\r
-effect.\r
-\r
-He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed\r
-delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories: and he\r
-was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read\r
-his comparative difference. He was not calm; his spirits were evidently\r
-fluttered; there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed\r
-a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief\r
-on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying\r
-away to make other calls in Highbury. “He had seen a group of old\r
-acquaintance in the street as he passed--he had not stopped, he would\r
-not stop for more than a word--but he had the vanity to think they would\r
-be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer\r
-at Hartfield, he must hurry off.” She had no doubt as to his being less\r
-in love--but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed\r
-like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a\r
-dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting\r
-himself with her long.\r
-\r
-This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days.\r
-He was often hoping, intending to come--but was always prevented. His\r
-aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at\r
-Randall’s. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was\r
-to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no\r
-service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was\r
-really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at\r
-Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked\r
-back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a\r
-year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care\r
-and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many\r
-years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all\r
-his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary,\r
-or that she was as strong as ever.\r
-\r
-It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could\r
-not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and\r
-suffering; and by the ten days’ end, her nephew’s letter to Randalls\r
-communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to\r
-Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of\r
-an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A\r
-ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit\r
-expected from the change.\r
-\r
-Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement,\r
-and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months\r
-before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friends--for the\r
-house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with\r
-the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he\r
-could even wish.\r
-\r
-Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was\r
-considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She\r
-hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston’s own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted.\r
-It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be\r
-really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to\r
-a young man?--An hour’s ride. He would be always coming over. The\r
-difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make\r
-the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen\r
-miles--nay, eighteen--it must be full eighteen to Manchester-street--was\r
-a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be\r
-spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in\r
-London; he might as well be at Enscombe; but Richmond was the very\r
-distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer!\r
-\r
-One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this\r
-removal,--the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before,\r
-but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now,\r
-however, it was absolutely to be; every preparation was resumed, and\r
-very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from\r
-Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and\r
-that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twenty-four hours at\r
-any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston’s ball was to be a real thing. A very few to-morrows stood\r
-between the young people of Highbury and happiness.\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him.\r
-May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to\r
-spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely\r
-hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any\r
-thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER II\r
-\r
-\r
-No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached,\r
-the day arrived; and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank\r
-Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before\r
-dinner, and every thing was safe.\r
-\r
-No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room\r
-at the Crown was to witness it;--but it would be better than a\r
-common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his\r
-entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves,\r
-for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of\r
-the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him,\r
-and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man’s company.\r
-She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the\r
-Randalls party just sufficiently before them.\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not\r
-say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening.\r
-They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should\r
-be; and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another\r
-carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great\r
-surprize. “So unreasonably early!” she was going to exclaim; but she\r
-presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming,\r
-like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston’s judgment; and\r
-they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins,\r
-who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing\r
-earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company\r
-might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory\r
-inspection.\r
-\r
-Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston\r
-depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man\r
-who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first\r
-distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but\r
-a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher\r
-character.--General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a\r
-man what he ought to be.--She could fancy such a man. The whole party\r
-walked about, and looked, and praised again; and then, having nothing\r
-else to do, formed a sort of half-circle round the fire, to observe\r
-in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though\r
-_May_, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant.\r
-\r
-Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston’s fault that the number of privy\r
-councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates’s door\r
-to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be\r
-brought by the Eltons.\r
-\r
-Frank was standing by her, but not steadily; there was a restlessness,\r
-which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to\r
-the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,--impatient\r
-to begin, or afraid of being always near her.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton was spoken of. “I think she must be here soon,” said he. “I\r
-have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her.\r
-It cannot be long, I think, before she comes.”\r
-\r
-A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately; but coming back,\r
-said,\r
-\r
-“I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen\r
-either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward.”\r
-\r
-Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared; and all the smiles and the proprieties\r
-passed.\r
-\r
-“But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax!” said Mr. Weston, looking about. “We\r
-thought you were to bring them.”\r
-\r
-The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma\r
-longed to know what Frank’s first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be; how\r
-he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of\r
-graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion,\r
-by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed.\r
-\r
-In a few minutes the carriage returned.--Somebody talked of rain.--“I\r
-will see that there are umbrellas, sir,” said Frank to his father:\r
-“Miss Bates must not be forgotten:” and away he went. Mr. Weston was\r
-following; but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion\r
-of his son; and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself,\r
-though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing.\r
-\r
-“A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you\r
-I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely\r
-pleased with him.--You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him\r
-a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and\r
-approve--so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism.\r
-You must know I have a vast dislike to puppies--quite a horror of them.\r
-They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor\r
-me had ever any patience with them; and we used sometimes to say very\r
-cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them\r
-much better.”\r
-\r
-While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston’s attention was chained; but\r
-when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies\r
-just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. “I have no doubt of its being our\r
-carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so\r
-extremely expeditious!--I believe we drive faster than any body.--What\r
-a pleasure it is to send one’s carriage for a friend!--I understand you\r
-were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary.\r
-You may be very sure I shall always take care of _them_.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into\r
-the room; and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs.\r
-Weston’s to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood\r
-by any one who looked on like Emma; but her words, every body’s words,\r
-were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in\r
-talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her\r
-being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was\r
-heard,\r
-\r
-“So very obliging of you!--No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not\r
-care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares--Well!--(as soon\r
-as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!--This is\r
-admirable!--Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could\r
-not have imagined it.--So well lighted up!--Jane, Jane, look!--did you\r
-ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin’s\r
-lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as\r
-I came in; she was standing in the entrance. ‘Oh! Mrs. Stokes,’ said\r
-I--but I had not time for more.” She was now met by Mrs. Weston.--“Very\r
-well, I thank you, ma’am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear\r
-it. So afraid you might have a headache!--seeing you pass by so often,\r
-and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed.\r
-Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!--excellent\r
-time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most\r
-comfortable carriage.--Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you,\r
-Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note,\r
-or we should have been.--But two such offers in one day!--Never were\r
-such neighbours. I said to my mother, ‘Upon my word, ma’am--.’ Thank\r
-you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse’s. I made her\r
-take her shawl--for the evenings are not warm--her large new shawl--\r
-Mrs. Dixon’s wedding-present.--So kind of her to think of my mother!\r
-Bought at Weymouth, you know--Mr. Dixon’s choice. There were three\r
-others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel\r
-Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did\r
-not wet your feet?--It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:--but\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely--and there was a mat to step\r
-upon--I shall never forget his extreme politeness.--Oh! Mr. Frank\r
-Churchill, I must tell you my mother’s spectacles have never been in\r
-fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of\r
-your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank\r
-Churchill?--Ah! here’s Miss Woodhouse.--Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do\r
-you do?--Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite\r
-in fairy-land!--Such a transformation!--Must not compliment, I know\r
-(eyeing Emma most complacently)--that would be rude--but upon my word,\r
-Miss Woodhouse, you do look--how do you like Jane’s hair?--You are\r
-a judge.--She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her\r
-hair!--No hairdresser from London I think could.--Ah! Dr. Hughes I\r
-declare--and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a\r
-moment.--How do you do? How do you do?--Very well, I thank you. This\r
-is delightful, is not it?--Where’s dear Mr. Richard?--Oh! there he is.\r
-Don’t disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How\r
-do you do, Mr. Richard?--I saw you the other day as you rode through\r
-the town--Mrs. Otway, I protest!--and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway\r
-and Miss Caroline.--Such a host of friends!--and Mr. George and Mr.\r
-Arthur!--How do you do? How do you all do?--Quite well, I am much\r
-obliged to you. Never better.--Don’t I hear another carriage?--Who can\r
-this be?--very likely the worthy Coles.--Upon my word, this is charming\r
-to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!--I am\r
-quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for me--never take coffee.--A\r
-little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,--no hurry--Oh! here it comes.\r
-Every thing so good!”\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma; and as soon as Miss\r
-Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse\r
-of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind\r
-her.--He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not\r
-determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look,\r
-compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently\r
-wanting to be complimented herself--and it was, “How do you like\r
-my gown?--How do you like my trimming?--How has Wright done my\r
-hair?”--with many other relative questions, all answered with patient\r
-politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, “Nobody can think less of dress in\r
-general than I do--but upon such an occasion as this, when every body’s\r
-eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westons--who I have\r
-no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honour--I would not wish\r
-to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except\r
-mine.--So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.--We shall\r
-see if our styles suit.--A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill.\r
-I like him very well.”\r
-\r
-At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not\r
-but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear\r
-more;--and the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till\r
-another suspension brought Mrs. Elton’s tones again distinctly\r
-forward.--Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming,\r
-\r
-“Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?--I was\r
-this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for\r
-tidings of us.”\r
-\r
-“Jane!”--repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and\r
-displeasure.--“That is easy--but Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I\r
-suppose.”\r
-\r
-“How do you like Mrs. Elton?” said Emma in a whisper.\r
-\r
-“Not at all.”\r
-\r
-“You are ungrateful.”\r
-\r
-“Ungrateful!--What do you mean?” Then changing from a frown to a\r
-smile--“No, do not tell me--I do not want to know what you mean.--Where\r
-is my father?--When are we to begin dancing?”\r
-\r
-Emma could hardly understand him; he seemed in an odd humour. He walked\r
-off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and\r
-Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be\r
-laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton\r
-must be asked to begin the ball; that she would expect it; which\r
-interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.--Emma\r
-heard the sad truth with fortitude.\r
-\r
-“And what are we to do for a proper partner for her?” said Mr. Weston.\r
-“She will think Frank ought to ask her.”\r
-\r
-Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise; and\r
-boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect\r
-approbation of--and it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting _him_\r
-to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to\r
-persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.--Mr. Weston and Mrs.\r
-Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed.\r
-Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always\r
-considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make\r
-her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this\r
-time, in vanity completely gratified; for though she had intended to\r
-begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston\r
-might be his son’s superior.--In spite of this little rub, however,\r
-Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length\r
-of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours\r
-of unusual festivity before her.--She was more disturbed by Mr.\r
-Knightley’s not dancing than by any thing else.--There he was, among\r
-the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing,--not\r
-classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who\r
-were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were\r
-made up,--so young as he looked!--He could not have appeared to greater\r
-advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall,\r
-firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of\r
-the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body’s eyes;\r
-and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of\r
-young men who could be compared with him.--He moved a few steps nearer,\r
-and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner,\r
-with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the\r
-trouble.--Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile; but\r
-in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom\r
-better, and could like Frank Churchill better.--He seemed often\r
-observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her\r
-dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel\r
-afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner.\r
-They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank\r
-Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable.\r
-\r
-The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant\r
-attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed\r
-happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom\r
-bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in\r
-the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very\r
-recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually\r
-are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.--The two\r
-last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partner;--the\r
-only young lady sitting down;--and so equal had been hitherto the\r
-number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the\r
-wonder!--But Emma’s wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton\r
-sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible\r
-to be avoided: she was sure he would not--and she was expecting him\r
-every moment to escape into the card-room.\r
-\r
-Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where\r
-the sitters-by were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front\r
-of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining\r
-it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or\r
-speaking to those who were close to her.--Emma saw it. She was not yet\r
-dancing; she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore\r
-leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw\r
-it all. When she was half-way up the set, the whole group were exactly\r
-behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch; but Mr.\r
-Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which\r
-just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston; and she perceived that\r
-his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only\r
-listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.--The\r
-kind-hearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say,\r
-“Do not you dance, Mr. Elton?” to which his prompt reply was, “Most\r
-readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me.”\r
-\r
-“Me!--oh! no--I would get you a better partner than myself. I am no\r
-dancer.”\r
-\r
-“If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance,” said he, “I shall have great\r
-pleasure, I am sure--for, though beginning to feel myself rather an old\r
-married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very\r
-great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs.\r
-Gilbert.”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady\r
-disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancing--Miss Smith.” “Miss\r
-Smith!--oh!--I had not observed.--You are extremely obliging--and if I\r
-were not an old married man.--But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston.\r
-You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your\r
-command--but my dancing days are over.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston said no more; and Emma could imagine with what surprize and\r
-mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the\r
-amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.--She looked round for a moment; he\r
-had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself\r
-for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him\r
-and his wife.\r
-\r
-She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her\r
-face might be as hot.\r
-\r
-In another moment a happier sight caught her;--Mr. Knightley leading\r
-Harriet to the set!--Never had she been more surprized, seldom more\r
-delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude,\r
-both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him; and though\r
-too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could\r
-catch his eye again.\r
-\r
-His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good;\r
-and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for\r
-the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment\r
-and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features\r
-announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever,\r
-flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted) very\r
-foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though\r
-growing very like her;--_she_ spoke some of her feelings, by observing\r
-audibly to her partner,\r
-\r
-“Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very good-natured,\r
-I declare.”\r
-\r
-Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from\r
-that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and\r
-taking up her spoon.\r
-\r
-“Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?--Here is your tippet. Mrs.\r
-Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will\r
-be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done--One door\r
-nailed up--Quantities of matting--My dear Jane, indeed you must.\r
-Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!--so\r
-gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!--Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I\r
-said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and\r
-nobody missed me.--I set off without saying a word, just as I told you.\r
-Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a\r
-vast deal of chat, and backgammon.--Tea was made downstairs, biscuits\r
-and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some\r
-of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were\r
-amused, and who were your partners. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘I shall not forestall\r
-Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell\r
-you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton,\r
-I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.’ My dear\r
-sir, you are too obliging.--Is there nobody you would not rather?--I am\r
-not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and\r
-me on the other!--Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is\r
-going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!--Beautiful lace!--Now we\r
-all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!--Well, here we\r
-are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no,\r
-there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd!\r
-I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any\r
-thing equal to the comfort and style--Candles everywhere.--I was telling\r
-you of your grandmama, Jane,--There was a little disappointment.--The\r
-baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know; but there\r
-was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at\r
-first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled\r
-enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves\r
-better than sweetbread and asparagus--so she was rather disappointed,\r
-but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of\r
-its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much\r
-concerned!--Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have\r
-supposed any thing!--Such elegance and profusion!--I have seen nothing\r
-like it since--Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere,\r
-so that Jane is not in a draught. Where _I_ sit is of no consequence.\r
-Oh! do you recommend this side?--Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill--only\r
-it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house\r
-cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes\r
-for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but\r
-it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning.”\r
-\r
-Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper;\r
-but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited\r
-him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his\r
-reprobation of Mr. Elton’s conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness;\r
-and Mrs. Elton’s looks also received the due share of censure.\r
-\r
-“They aimed at wounding more than Harriet,” said he. “Emma, why is it\r
-that they are your enemies?”\r
-\r
-He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added,\r
-“_She_ ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may\r
-be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma,\r
-that you did want him to marry Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“I did,” replied Emma, “and they cannot forgive me.”\r
-\r
-He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he\r
-only said,\r
-\r
-“I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections.”\r
-\r
-“Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell\r
-me I am wrong?”\r
-\r
-“Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong,\r
-I am sure the other tells you of it.”\r
-\r
-“I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is\r
-a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I\r
-was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a\r
-series of strange blunders!”\r
-\r
-“And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the\r
-justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has\r
-chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which\r
-Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless\r
-girl--infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a\r
-woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected.”\r
-\r
-Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of\r
-Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again.\r
-\r
-“Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all\r
-doing?--Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy!\r
-Every body is asleep!”\r
-\r
-“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.”\r
-\r
-“Whom are you going to dance with?” asked Mr. Knightley.\r
-\r
-She hesitated a moment, and then replied, “With you, if you will ask\r
-me.”\r
-\r
-“Will you?” said he, offering his hand.\r
-\r
-“Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are\r
-not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”\r
-\r
-“Brother and sister! no, indeed.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER III\r
-\r
-\r
-This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable\r
-pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which\r
-she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely\r
-glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the\r
-Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much\r
-alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was\r
-peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few\r
-minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the\r
-occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward\r
-to another happy result--the cure of Harriet’s infatuation.--From\r
-Harriet’s manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the\r
-ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly\r
-opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior\r
-creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could\r
-harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious\r
-courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for\r
-supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther\r
-requisite.--Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and\r
-Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer\r
-must be before her!\r
-\r
-She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he\r
-could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was\r
-to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it.\r
-\r
-Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all\r
-to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up\r
-for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa,\r
-when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons entered whom she\r
-had never less expected to see together--Frank Churchill, with Harriet\r
-leaning on his arm--actually Harriet!--A moment sufficed to convince\r
-her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white\r
-and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.--The iron gates and the\r
-front-door were not twenty yards asunder;--they were all three soon in\r
-the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away.\r
-\r
-A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered,\r
-and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the\r
-suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted\r
-with the whole.\r
-\r
-Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs.\r
-Goddard’s, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and\r
-taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough\r
-for safety, had led them into alarm.--About half a mile beyond Highbury,\r
-making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became\r
-for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies\r
-had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small\r
-distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a\r
-party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and\r
-Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling\r
-on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at\r
-the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury.\r
-But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp\r
-after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such\r
-a return of it as made her absolutely powerless--and in this state, and\r
-exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.\r
-\r
-How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more\r
-courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could\r
-not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children,\r
-headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent\r
-in look, though not absolutely in word.--More and more frightened, she\r
-immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a\r
-shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.--She\r
-was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away--but her\r
-terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather\r
-surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.\r
-\r
-In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and\r
-conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his\r
-leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance\r
-at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced\r
-him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road,\r
-a mile or two beyond Highbury--and happening to have borrowed a pair\r
-of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to\r
-restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a\r
-few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being\r
-on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The\r
-terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then\r
-their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet\r
-eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength\r
-enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome.\r
-It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other\r
-place.\r
-\r
-This was the amount of the whole story,--of his communication and of\r
-Harriet’s as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.--He dared\r
-not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him\r
-not another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her\r
-safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people\r
-in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful\r
-blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself.\r
-\r
-Such an adventure as this,--a fine young man and a lovely young woman\r
-thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain\r
-ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at\r
-least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician\r
-have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and\r
-heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been\r
-at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?--How much\r
-more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and\r
-foresight!--especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her\r
-mind had already made.\r
-\r
-It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever\r
-occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no\r
-rencontre, no alarm of the kind;--and now it had happened to the very\r
-person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing\r
-to pass by to rescue her!--It certainly was very extraordinary!--And\r
-knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this\r
-period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his\r
-attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton.\r
-It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting\r
-consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be\r
-strongly recommending each to the other.\r
-\r
-In the few minutes’ conversation which she had yet had with him, while\r
-Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror,\r
-her naivete, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a\r
-sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet’s\r
-own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the\r
-abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was\r
-to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted.\r
-She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of\r
-interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme.\r
-It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed.\r
-\r
-Emma’s first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of\r
-what had passed,--aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but\r
-she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour\r
-it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those\r
-who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in\r
-the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night’s\r
-ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat,\r
-and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their\r
-promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort\r
-to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his\r
-neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss\r
-Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had\r
-the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very\r
-indifferent--which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well,\r
-and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had\r
-an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man,\r
-for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent\r
-illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.\r
-\r
-The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took\r
-themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have\r
-walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history\r
-dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her\r
-nephews:--in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and\r
-John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the\r
-gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the\r
-slightest particular from the original recital.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IV\r
-\r
-\r
-A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one\r
-morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down\r
-and hesitating, thus began:\r
-\r
-“Miss Woodhouse--if you are at leisure--I have something that I should\r
-like to tell you--a sort of confession to make--and then, you know, it\r
-will be over.”\r
-\r
-Emma was a good deal surprized; but begged her to speak. There was a\r
-seriousness in Harriet’s manner which prepared her, quite as much as her\r
-words, for something more than ordinary.\r
-\r
-“It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish,” she continued, “to have\r
-no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered\r
-creature in _one_ _respect_, it is very fit that you should have\r
-the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is\r
-necessary--I am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and\r
-I dare say you understand me.”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” said Emma, “I hope I do.”\r
-\r
-“How I could so long a time be fancying myself!...” cried Harriet,\r
-warmly. “It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary\r
-in him now.--I do not care whether I meet him or not--except that of the\r
-two I had rather not see him--and indeed I would go any distance round\r
-to avoid him--but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire\r
-her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and\r
-all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable--I shall\r
-never forget her look the other night!--However, I assure you, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.--No, let them be ever so happy together,\r
-it will not give me another moment’s pang: and to convince you that I\r
-have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroy--what I ought to\r
-have destroyed long ago--what I ought never to have kept--I know that\r
-very well (blushing as she spoke).--However, now I will destroy it\r
-all--and it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you\r
-may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel\r
-holds?” said she, with a conscious look.\r
-\r
-“Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?”\r
-\r
-“No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have valued\r
-very much.”\r
-\r
-She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words _Most_\r
-_precious_ _treasures_ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.\r
-Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within\r
-abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,\r
-which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but,\r
-excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister.\r
-\r
-“Now,” said Harriet, “you _must_ recollect.”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed I do not.”\r
-\r
-“Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what\r
-passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last\r
-times we ever met in it!--It was but a very few days before I had my\r
-sore throat--just before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley came--I think the\r
-very evening.--Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new\r
-penknife, and your recommending court-plaister?--But, as you had none\r
-about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took\r
-mine out and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he\r
-cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he\r
-gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making\r
-a treasure of it--so I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now\r
-and then as a great treat.”\r
-\r
-“My dearest Harriet!” cried Emma, putting her hand before her face,\r
-and jumping up, “you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear.\r
-Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now; all, except your saving this\r
-relic--I knew nothing of that till this moment--but the cutting the\r
-finger, and my recommending court-plaister, and saying I had none\r
-about me!--Oh! my sins, my sins!--And I had plenty all the while in my\r
-pocket!--One of my senseless tricks!--I deserve to be under a continual\r
-blush all the rest of my life.--Well--(sitting down again)--go on--what\r
-else?”\r
-\r
-“And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected\r
-it, you did it so naturally.”\r
-\r
-“And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake!”\r
- said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided\r
-between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, “Lord\r
-bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a\r
-piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I\r
-never was equal to this.”\r
-\r
-“Here,” resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, “here is something\r
-still more valuable, I mean that _has_ _been_ more valuable, because\r
-this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister\r
-never did.”\r
-\r
-Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an\r
-old pencil,--the part without any lead.\r
-\r
-“This was really his,” said Harriet.--“Do not you remember one\r
-morning?--no, I dare say you do not. But one morning--I forget exactly\r
-the day--but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before _that_\r
-_evening_, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was\r
-about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about\r
-brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out\r
-his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and\r
-it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the\r
-table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it; and, as soon as I\r
-dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment.”\r
-\r
-“I do remember it,” cried Emma; “I perfectly remember it.--Talking\r
-about spruce-beer.--Oh! yes--Mr. Knightley and I both saying we\r
-liked it, and Mr. Elton’s seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I\r
-perfectly remember it.--Stop; Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was\r
-not he? I have an idea he was standing just here.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.--It is very odd, but I cannot\r
-recollect.--Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I\r
-am now.”--\r
-\r
-“Well, go on.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! that’s all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to say--except that\r
-I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see\r
-me do it.”\r
-\r
-“My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in\r
-treasuring up these things?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, simpleton as I was!--but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I\r
-could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you\r
-know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it was--but\r
-had not resolution enough to part with them.”\r
-\r
-“But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the court-plaister?--I have not\r
-a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the court-plaister might be\r
-useful.”\r
-\r
-“I shall be happier to burn it,” replied Harriet. “It has a disagreeable\r
-look to me. I must get rid of every thing.--There it goes, and there is\r
-an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton.”\r
-\r
-“And when,” thought Emma, “will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill?”\r
-\r
-She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already\r
-made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had _told_ no\r
-fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet’s.--About a fortnight\r
-after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite\r
-undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the\r
-information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course\r
-of some trivial chat, “Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise\r
-you to do so and so”--and thought no more of it, till after a minute’s\r
-silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, “I shall never\r
-marry.”\r
-\r
-Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a\r
-moment’s debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied,\r
-\r
-“Never marry!--This is a new resolution.”\r
-\r
-“It is one that I shall never change, however.”\r
-\r
-After another short hesitation, “I hope it does not proceed from--I hope\r
-it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Elton indeed!” cried Harriet indignantly.--“Oh! no”--and Emma could\r
-just catch the words, “so superior to Mr. Elton!”\r
-\r
-She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no\r
-farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--Perhaps\r
-Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did; or perhaps if she were\r
-totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too\r
-much; and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such\r
-an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly\r
-resolved.--She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at\r
-once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always\r
-best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any\r
-application of the sort; and it would be safer for both, to have the\r
-judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.--She was decided,\r
-and thus spoke--\r
-\r
-“Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your\r
-resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from\r
-an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your\r
-superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose--\r
-Indeed I am not so mad.--But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a\r
-distance--and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of\r
-the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so\r
-proper, in me especially.”\r
-\r
-“I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you\r
-was enough to warm your heart.”\r
-\r
-“Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!--The very\r
-recollection of it, and all that I felt at the time--when I saw him\r
-coming--his noble look--and my wretchedness before. Such a change! In\r
-one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness!”\r
-\r
-“It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.--Yes,\r
-honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.--But that\r
-it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not\r
-advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage\r
-for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be\r
-wisest in you to check your feelings while you can: at any rate do not\r
-let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be\r
-observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I\r
-give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on\r
-the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I\r
-know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very\r
-wrong before; we will be cautious now.--He is your superior, no doubt,\r
-and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but\r
-yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been\r
-matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not\r
-have you too sanguine; though, however it may end, be assured your\r
-raising your thoughts to _him_, is a mark of good taste which I shall\r
-always know how to value.”\r
-\r
-Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was\r
-very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend.\r
-Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mind--and it must be\r
-saving her from the danger of degradation.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER V\r
-\r
-\r
-In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon\r
-Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The\r
-Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use\r
-to be made of their barouche-landau; and Jane Fairfax was still at her\r
-grandmother’s; and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again\r
-delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely\r
-to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able\r
-to defeat Mrs. Elton’s activity in her service, and save herself from\r
-being hurried into a delightful situation against her will.\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly\r
-taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike\r
-him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit\r
-of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing\r
-declared it; his own attentions, his father’s hints, his mother-in-law’s\r
-guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and\r
-indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him\r
-to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley\r
-began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He\r
-could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between\r
-them--he thought so at least--symptoms of admiration on his side, which,\r
-having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely\r
-void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma’s errors\r
-of imagination. _She_ was not present when the suspicion first arose.\r
-He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons’; and he\r
-had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from\r
-the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was\r
-again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen;\r
-nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and\r
-his fire at twilight,\r
-\r
-“Myself creating what I saw,”\r
-\r
-brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private\r
-liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane.\r
-\r
-He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend\r
-his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk; he joined\r
-them; and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like\r
-themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the\r
-weather threatened rain; Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates\r
-and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united; and, on\r
-reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of\r
-visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in\r
-and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately; and\r
-after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened\r
-to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse’s most\r
-obliging invitation.\r
-\r
-As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback.\r
-The gentlemen spoke of his horse.\r
-\r
-“By the bye,” said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, “what\r
-became of Mr. Perry’s plan of setting up his carriage?”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, “I did not know that he ever had\r
-any such plan.”\r
-\r
-“Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago.”\r
-\r
-“Me! impossible!”\r
-\r
-“Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what\r
-was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was\r
-extremely happy about it. It was owing to _her_ persuasion, as she\r
-thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You\r
-must remember it now?”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment.”\r
-\r
-“Never! really, never!--Bless me! how could it be?--Then I must have\r
-dreamt it--but I was completely persuaded--Miss Smith, you walk as if\r
-you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home.”\r
-\r
-“What is this?--What is this?” cried Mr. Weston, “about Perry and a\r
-carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can\r
-afford it. You had it from himself, had you?”\r
-\r
-“No, sir,” replied his son, laughing, “I seem to have had it from\r
-nobody.--Very odd!--I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston’s having\r
-mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all\r
-these particulars--but as she declares she never heard a syllable of\r
-it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer.\r
-I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away--and when I have gone\r
-through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Perry.”\r
-\r
-“It is odd though,” observed his father, “that you should have had such\r
-a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you\r
-should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry’s setting up his carriage! and\r
-his wife’s persuading him to it, out of care for his health--just\r
-what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other; only a little\r
-premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream!\r
-And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream\r
-certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent.\r
-Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think?”\r
-\r
-Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to\r
-prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr.\r
-Weston’s hint.\r
-\r
-“Why, to own the truth,” cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain\r
-to be heard the last two minutes, “if I must speak on this subject,\r
-there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might have--I do not mean\r
-to say that he did not dream it--I am sure I have sometimes the oddest\r
-dreams in the world--but if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge\r
-that there was such an idea last spring; for Mrs. Perry herself\r
-mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as\r
-ourselves--but it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only\r
-thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should\r
-have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning\r
-because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don’t you remember\r
-grandmama’s telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we\r
-had been walking to--very likely to Randalls; yes, I think it was to\r
-Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my mother--indeed\r
-I do not know who is not--and she had mentioned it to her in confidence;\r
-she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go\r
-beyond: and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that\r
-I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having\r
-never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before\r
-I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now and\r
-then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like\r
-Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it _she_ never betrayed the least\r
-thing in the world. Where is she?--Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember\r
-Mrs. Perry’s coming.--Extraordinary dream, indeed!”\r
-\r
-They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley’s eyes had preceded Miss\r
-Bates’s in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill’s face, where\r
-he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had\r
-involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy\r
-with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited\r
-at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank\r
-Churchill the determination of catching her eye--he seemed watching her\r
-intently--in vain, however, if it were so--Jane passed between them\r
-into the hall, and looked at neither.\r
-\r
-There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be\r
-borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the\r
-large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and\r
-which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her\r
-father to use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke, on which two of his\r
-daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly,\r
-and nobody seemed in a hurry to move.\r
-\r
-“Miss Woodhouse,” said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind\r
-him, which he could reach as he sat, “have your nephews taken away their\r
-alphabets--their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it?\r
-This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather\r
-as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one\r
-morning. I want to puzzle you again.”\r
-\r
-Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table\r
-was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much\r
-disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words\r
-for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness\r
-of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had\r
-often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had\r
-occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting,\r
-with tender melancholy, over the departure of the “poor little boys,”\r
- or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how\r
-beautifully Emma had written it.\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight\r
-glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to\r
-Emma, Jane opposite to them--and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them\r
-all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little\r
-apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile\r
-pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and\r
-buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of\r
-looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after\r
-every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to\r
-work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The\r
-word was _blunder_; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a\r
-blush on Jane’s cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible.\r
-Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be,\r
-was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his\r
-favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some\r
-decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet\r
-him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and\r
-trick. It was a child’s play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank\r
-Churchill’s part.\r
-\r
-With great indignation did he continue to observe him; with great alarm\r
-and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short\r
-word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He\r
-saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining,\r
-though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure;\r
-for she said, “Nonsense! for shame!” He heard Frank Churchill next say,\r
-with a glance towards Jane, “I will give it to her--shall I?”--and as\r
-clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. “No, no, you\r
-must not; you shall not, indeed.”\r
-\r
-It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without\r
-feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed\r
-over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate\r
-civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley’s excessive curiosity\r
-to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment\r
-for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it\r
-to be _Dixon_. Jane Fairfax’s perception seemed to accompany his;\r
-her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning,\r
-the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was\r
-evidently displeased; looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed\r
-more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, “I did not\r
-know that proper names were allowed,” pushed away the letters with even\r
-an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word\r
-that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the\r
-attack, and turned towards her aunt.\r
-\r
-“Aye, very true, my dear,” cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken\r
-a word--“I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be\r
-going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking\r
-for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good\r
-night.”\r
-\r
-Jane’s alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had\r
-preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but\r
-so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley\r
-thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards\r
-her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards\r
-looking for her shawl--Frank Churchill was looking also--it was growing\r
-dusk, and the room was in confusion; and how they parted, Mr. Knightley\r
-could not tell.\r
-\r
-He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of\r
-what he had seen; so full, that when the candles came to assist his\r
-observations, he must--yes, he certainly must, as a friend--an anxious\r
-friend--give Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her\r
-in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was\r
-his duty.\r
-\r
-“Pray, Emma,” said he, “may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the\r
-poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the\r
-word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the\r
-one, and so very distressing to the other.”\r
-\r
-Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true\r
-explanation; for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was\r
-really ashamed of having ever imparted them.\r
-\r
-“Oh!” she cried in evident embarrassment, “it all meant nothing; a mere\r
-joke among ourselves.”\r
-\r
-“The joke,” he replied gravely, “seemed confined to you and Mr.\r
-Churchill.”\r
-\r
-He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather\r
-busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in\r
-doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interference--fruitless\r
-interference. Emma’s confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to\r
-declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her,\r
-to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference,\r
-rather than her welfare; to encounter any thing, rather than the\r
-remembrance of neglect in such a cause.\r
-\r
-“My dear Emma,” said he at last, with earnest kindness, “do you\r
-think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the\r
-gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?”\r
-\r
-“Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.--Why\r
-do you make a doubt of it?”\r
-\r
-“Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or\r
-that she admired him?”\r
-\r
-“Never, never!” she cried with a most open eagerness--“Never, for the\r
-twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could\r
-it possibly come into your head?”\r
-\r
-“I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between\r
-them--certain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be\r
-public.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can\r
-vouchsafe to let your imagination wander--but it will not do--very sorry\r
-to check you in your first essay--but indeed it will not do. There is no\r
-admiration between them, I do assure you; and the appearances which\r
-have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstances--feelings\r
-rather of a totally different nature--it is impossible exactly to\r
-explain:--there is a good deal of nonsense in it--but the part which is\r
-capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far\r
-from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in\r
-the world can be. That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I\r
-can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman’s\r
-indifference.”\r
-\r
-She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction\r
-which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have\r
-prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his\r
-suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a\r
-circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet\r
-hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much\r
-irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute\r
-fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse’s tender habits required almost\r
-every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty\r
-leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VI\r
-\r
-\r
-After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs.\r
-Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification\r
-of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such\r
-importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at\r
-present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted\r
-to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings’ coming had\r
-been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health\r
-seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs.\r
-Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much\r
-increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was\r
-by the approach of it.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal\r
-of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all\r
-wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought\r
-at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing\r
-need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though\r
-the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the\r
-autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was\r
-to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the\r
-idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what\r
-every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed\r
-to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the\r
-chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a\r
-quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and\r
-preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the\r
-Eltons and the Sucklings.\r
-\r
-This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but\r
-feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston\r
-that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had\r
-failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that\r
-as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she\r
-had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great\r
-dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly\r
-aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done\r
-without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and\r
-she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which\r
-she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would\r
-probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs.\r
-Elton’s party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her\r
-outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her\r
-reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston’s temper.\r
-\r
-“I am glad you approve of what I have done,” said he very comfortably.\r
-“But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without\r
-numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its\r
-own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not\r
-leave her out.”\r
-\r
-Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.\r
-\r
-It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton\r
-was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to\r
-pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing\r
-into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days,\r
-before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured\r
-on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton’s resources were\r
-inadequate to such an attack.\r
-\r
-“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” she cried.--“And such weather\r
-for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What\r
-are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing\r
-done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful\r
-exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston.”\r
-\r
-“You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. “That may\r
-be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening\r
-fast.”\r
-\r
-If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so,\r
-for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the “Oh! I should like\r
-it of all things,” was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was\r
-famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation:\r
-but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt\r
-the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again\r
-and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely\r
-gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment\r
-as she chose to consider it.\r
-\r
-“You may depend upon me,” said she. “I certainly will come. Name your\r
-day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?”\r
-\r
-“I cannot name a day,” said he, “till I have spoken to some others whom\r
-I would wish to meet you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady\r
-Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me.”\r
-\r
-“I hope you will bring Elton,” said he: “but I will not trouble you to\r
-give any other invitations.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid\r
-of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment.\r
-Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave\r
-it all to me. I will invite your guests.”\r
-\r
-“No,”--he calmly replied,--“there is but one married woman in the world\r
-whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and\r
-that one is--”\r
-\r
-“--Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.\r
-\r
-“No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such\r
-matters myself.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! you are an odd creature!” she cried, satisfied to have no one\r
-preferred to herself.--“You are a humourist, and may say what you\r
-like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her\r
-aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting\r
-the Hartfield family. Don’t scruple. I know you are attached to them.”\r
-\r
-“You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss\r
-Bates in my way home.”\r
-\r
-“That’s quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It\r
-is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I\r
-shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging\r
-on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be\r
-more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be\r
-no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about\r
-your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under\r
-trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out\r
-of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural\r
-and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?”\r
-\r
-“Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have\r
-the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of\r
-gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is\r
-best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating\r
-strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house.”\r
-\r
-“Well--as you please; only don’t have a great set out. And, by the bye,\r
-can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be\r
-sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect\r
-anything--”\r
-\r
-“I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.”\r
-\r
-“Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely\r
-clever.”\r
-\r
-“I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and\r
-would spurn any body’s assistance.”\r
-\r
-“I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on\r
-donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I\r
-really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life\r
-I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever\r
-so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at\r
-home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in\r
-winter there is dirt.”\r
-\r
-“You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is\r
-never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if\r
-you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole’s. I would wish every thing to\r
-be as much to your taste as possible.”\r
-\r
-“That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.\r
-Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the\r
-warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.--Yes,\r
-believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in\r
-the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please\r
-me.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He\r
-wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;\r
-and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to\r
-eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the\r
-specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at\r
-Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.\r
-\r
-He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for\r
-his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two\r
-years. “Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go\r
-very well; and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls\r
-walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now,\r
-in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again\r
-exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and\r
-any other of his neighbours.--He could not see any objection at all to\r
-his, and Emma’s, and Harriet’s going there some very fine morning. He\r
-thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite them--very kind\r
-and sensible--much cleverer than dining out.--He was not fond of dining\r
-out.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body’s most ready concurrence. The\r
-invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like\r
-Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment\r
-to themselves.--Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of\r
-pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to\r
-join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could\r
-have been dispensed with.--Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that\r
-he should be glad to see him; and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in\r
-writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come.\r
-\r
-In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to\r
-Box Hill was again under happy consideration; and at last Donwell was\r
-settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,--the weather appearing\r
-exactly right.\r
-\r
-Under a bright mid-day sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was\r
-safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of\r
-this al-fresco party; and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the\r
-Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was\r
-happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what\r
-had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not\r
-to heat themselves.--Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on\r
-purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when\r
-all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and\r
-sympathiser.\r
-\r
-It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was\r
-satisfied of her father’s comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look\r
-around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular\r
-observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must\r
-ever be so interesting to her and all her family.\r
-\r
-She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with\r
-the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed\r
-the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming,\r
-characteristic situation, low and sheltered--its ample gardens\r
-stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with\r
-all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight--and its abundance\r
-of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance\r
-had rooted up.--The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike\r
-it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many\r
-comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.--It was just what it ought\r
-to be, and it looked what it was--and Emma felt an increasing respect\r
-for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted\r
-in blood and understanding.--Some faults of temper John Knightley had;\r
-but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them\r
-neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were\r
-pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it\r
-was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the\r
-strawberry-beds.--The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank\r
-Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond; and Mrs. Elton,\r
-in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket,\r
-was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or\r
-talking--strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or\r
-spoken of.--“The best fruit in England--every body’s favourite--always\r
-wholesome.--These the finest beds and finest sorts.--Delightful to\r
-gather for one’s self--the only way of really enjoying them.--Morning\r
-decidedly the best time--never tired--every sort good--hautboy\r
-infinitely superior--no comparison--the others hardly eatable--hautboys\r
-very scarce--Chili preferred--white wood finest flavour of all--price\r
-of strawberries in London--abundance about Bristol--Maple\r
-Grove--cultivation--beds when to be renewed--gardeners thinking exactly\r
-different--no general rule--gardeners never to be put out of their\r
-way--delicious fruit--only too rich to be eaten much of--inferior\r
-to cherries--currants more refreshing--only objection to gathering\r
-strawberries the stooping--glaring sun--tired to death--could bear it no\r
-longer--must go and sit in the shade.”\r
-\r
-Such, for half an hour, was the conversation--interrupted only once by\r
-Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her son-in-law, to\r
-inquire if he were come--and she was a little uneasy.--She had some\r
-fears of his horse.\r
-\r
-Seats tolerably in the shade were found; and now Emma was obliged\r
-to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.--A\r
-situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had\r
-received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not\r
-with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and\r
-splendour it fell short only of them: it was with a cousin of Mrs.\r
-Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove.\r
-Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks,\r
-every thing--and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with\r
-immediately.--On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph--and she\r
-positively refused to take her friend’s negative, though Miss Fairfax\r
-continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any\r
-thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge\r
-before.--Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an\r
-acquiescence by the morrow’s post.--How Jane could bear it at all, was\r
-astonishing to Emma.--She did look vexed, she did speak pointedly--and\r
-at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a\r
-removal.--“Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the\r
-gardens--all the gardens?--She wished to see the whole extent.”--The\r
-pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear.\r
-\r
-It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered,\r
-dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one\r
-another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which\r
-stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed\r
-the finish of the pleasure grounds.--It led to nothing; nothing but a\r
-view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed\r
-intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to\r
-the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be\r
-the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and\r
-the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at\r
-nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper\r
-form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of\r
-considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at\r
-the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the\r
-Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and\r
-handsome curve around it.\r
-\r
-It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure,\r
-English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being\r
-oppressive.\r
-\r
-In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and\r
-towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet\r
-distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and\r
-Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There\r
-had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and\r
-turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant\r
-conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry\r
-to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now\r
-she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of\r
-prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in\r
-blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the\r
-wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He\r
-was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma\r
-received a smile which seemed to say, “These are my own concerns. I have\r
-a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of\r
-introducing Robert Martin.”--She did not suspect him. It was too old\r
-a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They\r
-took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most\r
-refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day.\r
-\r
-The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they\r
-were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs.\r
-Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself\r
-uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing\r
-that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to\r
-coming, with more than common certainty. “His aunt was so much better,\r
-that he had not a doubt of getting over to them.”--Mrs. Churchill’s\r
-state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such\r
-sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable\r
-dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say,\r
-that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was\r
-prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under\r
-consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion.\r
-\r
-The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see\r
-what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far\r
-as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at\r
-any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr.\r
-Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part\r
-of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him,\r
-stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that\r
-Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and\r
-variety which her spirits seemed to need.\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse’s\r
-entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals,\r
-shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been\r
-prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness\r
-had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused.\r
-Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them\r
-all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than\r
-in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and\r
-methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma\r
-walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments’ free observation of\r
-the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when\r
-Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a\r
-look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there\r
-was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in\r
-quest of.\r
-\r
-“Will you be so kind,” said she, “when I am missed, as to say that I am\r
-gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it\r
-is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted,\r
-and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any\r
-body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the\r
-ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be\r
-missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am\r
-gone?”\r
-\r
-“Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury\r
-alone?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty\r
-minutes.”\r
-\r
-“But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my\r
-father’s servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be\r
-round in five minutes.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And\r
-for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to\r
-guard others!”\r
-\r
-She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, “That\r
-can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the\r
-carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already.”\r
-\r
-“I am,”--she answered--“I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of\r
-fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know\r
-at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are\r
-exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have\r
-my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary.”\r
-\r
-Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into\r
-her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and\r
-watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was\r
-grateful--and her parting words, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of\r
-being sometimes alone!”--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and\r
-to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her,\r
-even towards some of those who loved her best.\r
-\r
-“Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!” said Emma, as she turned back into\r
-the hall again. “I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of\r
-their just horrors, the more I shall like you.”\r
-\r
-Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only\r
-accomplished some views of St. Mark’s Place, Venice, when Frank\r
-Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had\r
-forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston\r
-would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right\r
-who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by\r
-a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had\r
-lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming,\r
-till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and\r
-how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have\r
-come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing\r
-like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him\r
-like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was\r
-intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the\r
-slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse’s fire, looking very deplorable.\r
-\r
-“You will soon be cooler, if you sit still,” said Emma.\r
-\r
-“As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be\r
-spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be\r
-going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I\r
-came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!”\r
-\r
-Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill’s\r
-state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of\r
-humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be\r
-his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often\r
-the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking\r
-some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the\r
-dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door.\r
-\r
-“No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him\r
-hotter.” In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and\r
-muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her\r
-attention to her father, saying in secret--\r
-\r
-“I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man\r
-who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet’s sweet easy temper\r
-will not mind it.”\r
-\r
-He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came\r
-back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners, like\r
-himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their\r
-employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late.\r
-He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them; and,\r
-at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking\r
-over views in Swisserland.\r
-\r
-“As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad,” said he. “I shall\r
-never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my\r
-sketches, some time or other, to look at--or my tour to read--or my\r
-poem. I shall do something to expose myself.”\r
-\r
-“That may be--but not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to\r
-Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England.”\r
-\r
-“They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for\r
-her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I\r
-assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I\r
-shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I\r
-want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating\r
-eyes may fancy--I am sick of England--and would leave it to-morrow, if\r
-I could.”\r
-\r
-“You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few\r
-hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay?”\r
-\r
-“_I_ sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do\r
-not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted\r
-in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate\r
-person.”\r
-\r
-“You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and\r
-eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of\r
-cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on\r
-a par with the rest of us.”\r
-\r
-“No--I shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure.”\r
-\r
-“We are going to Box Hill to-morrow;--you will join us. It is not\r
-Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of\r
-a change. You will stay, and go with us?”\r
-\r
-“No, certainly not; I shall go home in the cool of the evening.”\r
-\r
-“But you may come again in the cool of to-morrow morning.”\r
-\r
-“No--It will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross.”\r
-\r
-“Then pray stay at Richmond.”\r
-\r
-“But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you\r
-all there without me.”\r
-\r
-“These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your\r
-own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more.”\r
-\r
-The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected.\r
-With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill; others\r
-took it very composedly; but there was a very general distress and\r
-disturbance on Miss Fairfax’s disappearance being explained. That it was\r
-time for every body to go, concluded the subject; and with a short final\r
-arrangement for the next day’s scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill’s\r
-little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last\r
-words to Emma were,\r
-\r
-“Well;--if _you_ wish me to stay and join the party, I will.”\r
-\r
-She smiled her acceptance; and nothing less than a summons from Richmond\r
-was to take him back before the following evening.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VII\r
-\r
-\r
-They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward\r
-circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in\r
-favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating\r
-safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good\r
-time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with\r
-the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr.\r
-Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there.\r
-Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body\r
-had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount\r
-of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits,\r
-a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much\r
-into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of\r
-Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill.\r
-And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed\r
-at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and\r
-Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable\r
-as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the\r
-hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties,\r
-too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any\r
-cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove.\r
-\r
-At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank\r
-Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked\r
-without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing\r
-what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet\r
-should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable.\r
-\r
-When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better,\r
-for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object.\r
-Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her.\r
-To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared\r
-for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay\r
-and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission\r
-to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating\r
-period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation,\r
-meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must\r
-have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very\r
-well describe. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together\r
-excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and\r
-to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to\r
-Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any\r
-real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had\r
-expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked\r
-him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship,\r
-admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning\r
-back her heart. She still intended him for her friend.\r
-\r
-“How much I am obliged to you,” said he, “for telling me to come\r
-to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all\r
-the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you\r
-were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you\r
-deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come.”\r
-\r
-“Don’t say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me.”\r
-\r
-“It is hotter to-day.”\r
-\r
-“Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day.”\r
-\r
-“You are comfortable because you are under command.”\r
-\r
-“Your command?--Yes.”\r
-\r
-“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had,\r
-somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own\r
-management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always\r
-with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command\r
-rather than mine.”\r
-\r
-“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a\r
-motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always\r
-with me. You are always with me.”\r
-\r
-“Dating from three o’clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not\r
-begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”\r
-\r
-“Three o’clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you\r
-first in February.”\r
-\r
-“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody\r
-speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking\r
-nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.”\r
-\r
-“I say nothing of which I am ashamed,” replied he, with lively\r
-impudence. “I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill\r
-hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side,\r
-and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February.” And then\r
-whispering--“Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do\r
-to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies\r
-and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is,\r
-presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking\r
-of?”\r
-\r
-Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great\r
-deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse’s presiding; Mr.\r
-Knightley’s answer was the most distinct.\r
-\r
-“Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all\r
-thinking of?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, no”--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--“Upon no\r
-account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt\r
-of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking\r
-of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing\r
-at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of\r
-knowing.”\r
-\r
-“It is a sort of thing,” cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, “which _I_\r
-should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though,\r
-perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any\r
-circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--”\r
-\r
-Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply,\r
-\r
-“Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard\r
-of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every\r
-body knows what is due to _you_.”\r
-\r
-“It will not do,” whispered Frank to Emma; “they are most of them\r
-affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I\r
-am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of\r
-knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires\r
-something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here\r
-are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very\r
-entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one\r
-thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two\r
-things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she\r
-engages to laugh heartily at them all.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy.\r
-‘Three things very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I\r
-shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth,\r
-shan’t I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every\r
-body’s assent)--Do not you all think I shall?”\r
-\r
-Emma could not resist.\r
-\r
-“Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be\r
-limited as to number--only three at once.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not\r
-immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not\r
-anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.\r
-\r
-“Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr.\r
-Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very\r
-disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”\r
-\r
-“I like your plan,” cried Mr. Weston. “Agreed, agreed. I will do my\r
-best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?”\r
-\r
-“Low, I am afraid, sir, very low,” answered his son;--“but we shall be\r
-indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way.”\r
-\r
-“No, no,” said Emma, “it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr.\r
-Weston’s shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me\r
-hear it.”\r
-\r
-“I doubt its being very clever myself,” said Mr. Weston. “It is too much\r
-a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are\r
-there, that express perfection?”\r
-\r
-“What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never\r
-guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?”\r
-\r
-Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very\r
-indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and\r
-enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch\r
-the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr.\r
-Knightley gravely said,\r
-\r
-“This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston\r
-has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body\r
-else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused,” said Mrs. Elton; “_I_\r
-really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had\r
-an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all\r
-pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know\r
-who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very\r
-well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of\r
-place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer.\r
-Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty\r
-things at every body’s service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a\r
-great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to\r
-judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please,\r
-Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing\r
-clever to say--not one of us.\r
-\r
-“Yes, yes, pray pass _me_,” added her husband, with a sort of sneering\r
-consciousness; “_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss\r
-Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for\r
-nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?”\r
-\r
-“With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot.\r
-Come, Jane, take my other arm.”\r
-\r
-Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off.\r
-“Happy couple!” said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of\r
-hearing:--“How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they\r
-did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew\r
-each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to\r
-any real knowledge of a person’s disposition that Bath, or any public\r
-place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is\r
-only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as\r
-they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it\r
-is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man\r
-has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest\r
-of his life!”\r
-\r
-Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own\r
-confederates, spoke now.\r
-\r
-“Such things do occur, undoubtedly.”--She was stopped by a cough. Frank\r
-Churchill turned towards her to listen.\r
-\r
-“You were speaking,” said he, gravely. She recovered her voice.\r
-\r
-“I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances\r
-do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be\r
-very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is\r
-generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to\r
-mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness\r
-must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate\r
-acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.”\r
-\r
-He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon\r
-afterwards said, in a lively tone,\r
-\r
-“Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I\r
-marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to\r
-Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body\r
-fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at\r
-his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate\r
-her.”\r
-\r
-“And make her like myself.”\r
-\r
-“By all means, if you can.”\r
-\r
-“Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife.”\r
-\r
-“She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else.\r
-I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come\r
-to you for my wife. Remember.”\r
-\r
-Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every\r
-favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described?\r
-Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished.\r
-He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say?\r
-Referring the education to her seemed to imply it.\r
-\r
-“Now, ma’am,” said Jane to her aunt, “shall we join Mrs. Elton?”\r
-\r
-“If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was\r
-ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall\r
-soon overtake her. There she is--no, that’s somebody else. That’s one\r
-of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I\r
-declare--”\r
-\r
-They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston,\r
-his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man’s spirits\r
-now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of\r
-flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about\r
-with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended\r
-to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The\r
-appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the\r
-carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and\r
-preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_\r
-carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive\r
-home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of\r
-pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people,\r
-she hoped never to be betrayed into again.\r
-\r
-While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He\r
-looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said,\r
-\r
-“Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a\r
-privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it.\r
-I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be\r
-so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to\r
-a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought\r
-it possible.”\r
-\r
-Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off.\r
-\r
-“Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it.\r
-It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me.”\r
-\r
-“I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of\r
-it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what\r
-candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your\r
-forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for\r
-ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be\r
-so irksome.”\r
-\r
-“Oh!” cried Emma, “I know there is not a better creature in the world:\r
-but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most\r
-unfortunately blended in her.”\r
-\r
-“They are blended,” said he, “I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous,\r
-I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over\r
-the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless\r
-absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any\r
-liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma,\r
-consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk\r
-from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must\r
-probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was\r
-badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had\r
-seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you\r
-now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her,\r
-humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom\r
-(certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment\r
-of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from\r
-pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can;\r
-satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and\r
-trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you\r
-can do now.”\r
-\r
-While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was\r
-ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had\r
-misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her\r
-tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself,\r
-mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on\r
-entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching\r
-herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in\r
-apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a\r
-difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses\r
-were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with\r
-what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and\r
-every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been\r
-expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so\r
-agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was\r
-most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no\r
-denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal,\r
-so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill\r
-opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without\r
-saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness!\r
-\r
-Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel\r
-it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary\r
-to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself,\r
-fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running\r
-down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to\r
-check them, extraordinary as they were.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER VIII\r
-\r
-\r
-The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma’s thoughts all the\r
-evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could\r
-not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways,\r
-might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was\r
-a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational\r
-satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than\r
-any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father,\r
-was felicity to it. _There_, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she\r
-was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and\r
-feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and\r
-confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any\r
-severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart.\r
-She hoped no one could have said to her, “How could you be so unfeeling\r
-to your father?--I must, I will tell you truths while I can.” Miss\r
-Bates should never again--no, never! If attention, in future, could do\r
-away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss,\r
-her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact;\r
-scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true\r
-contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should\r
-be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse.\r
-\r
-She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that\r
-nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she\r
-might see Mr. Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in\r
-while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be\r
-ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers.\r
-Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not.\r
-\r
-“The ladies were all at home.” She had never rejoiced at the sound\r
-before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs,\r
-with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of\r
-deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule.\r
-\r
-There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking.\r
-She heard Miss Bates’s voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the\r
-maid looked frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a\r
-moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both\r
-escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of,\r
-looking extremely ill; and, before the door had shut them out, she heard\r
-Miss Bates saying, “Well, my dear, I shall _say_ you are laid down upon\r
-the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough.”\r
-\r
-Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not\r
-quite understand what was going on.\r
-\r
-“I am afraid Jane is not very well,” said she, “but I do not know; they\r
-_tell_ me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently,\r
-Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am\r
-very little able--Have you a chair, ma’am? Do you sit where you like? I\r
-am sure she will be here presently.”\r
-\r
-Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment’s fear of Miss Bates\r
-keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came--“Very happy and\r
-obliged”--but Emma’s conscience told her that there was not the same\r
-cheerful volubility as before--less ease of look and manner. A very\r
-friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a\r
-return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate.\r
-\r
-“Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!--I suppose you have heard--and\r
-are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in\r
-me--(twinkling away a tear or two)--but it will be very trying for us\r
-to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful\r
-headache just now, writing all the morning:--such long letters, you\r
-know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. ‘My dear,’ said\r
-I, ‘you will blind yourself’--for tears were in her eyes perpetually.\r
-One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though\r
-she is amazingly fortunate--such a situation, I suppose, as no\r
-young woman before ever met with on first going out--do not think us\r
-ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune--(again\r
-dispersing her tears)--but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a\r
-headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel\r
-any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To\r
-look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have\r
-secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to you--she is\r
-not able--she is gone into her own room--I want her to lie down upon the\r
-bed. ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:’\r
-but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that\r
-she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will\r
-be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your\r
-kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite\r
-ashamed--but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that\r
-we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not\r
-know any body was coming. ‘It is only Mrs. Cole,’ said I, ‘depend upon\r
-it. Nobody else would come so early.’ ‘Well,’ said she, ‘it must be\r
-borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.’ But then Patty\r
-came in, and said it was you. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘it is Miss Woodhouse: I am\r
-sure you will like to see her.’--‘I can see nobody,’ said she; and\r
-up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you\r
-waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. ‘If you must go, my\r
-dear,’ said I, ‘you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the\r
-bed.’”\r
-\r
-Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing\r
-kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted\r
-as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but\r
-pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of\r
-the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on\r
-seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear\r
-to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and\r
-solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected\r
-from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for\r
-Miss Fairfax’s advantage and comfort as possible. “It must be a severe\r
-trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel\r
-Campbell’s return.”\r
-\r
-“So very kind!” replied Miss Bates. “But you are always kind.”\r
-\r
-There was no bearing such an “always;” and to break through her dreadful\r
-gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of--\r
-\r
-“Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?”\r
-\r
-“To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge\r
-of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any\r
-situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps,\r
-Mrs. Suckling’s own family, and Mrs. Bragge’s; but Mrs. Smallridge is\r
-intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four\r
-miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove.”\r
-\r
-“Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--”\r
-\r
-“Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She\r
-would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, ‘No;’ for when Jane\r
-first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning\r
-we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided\r
-against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly\r
-as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel\r
-Campbell’s return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any\r
-engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over\r
-again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her\r
-mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw\r
-farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in\r
-such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane’s answer; but she\r
-positively declared she would _not_ write any such denial yesterday, as\r
-Jane wished her; she would wait--and, sure enough, yesterday evening it\r
-was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not\r
-the least idea!--Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that\r
-upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge’s situation, she\r
-had come to the resolution of accepting it.--I did not know a word of it\r
-till it was all settled.”\r
-\r
-“You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton?”\r
-\r
-“Yes, all of us; Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon\r
-the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. ‘You _must_\r
-_all_ spend your evening with us,’ said she--‘I positively must have you\r
-_all_ come.’”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Knightley was there too, was he?”\r
-\r
-“No, not Mr. Knightley; he declined it from the first; and though I\r
-thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him\r
-off, he did not;--but my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and\r
-a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss\r
-Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed\r
-rather fagged after the morning’s party. Even pleasure, you know, is\r
-fatiguing--and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have\r
-enjoyed it. However, _I_ shall always think it a very pleasant party,\r
-and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it.”\r
-\r
-“Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been\r
-making up her mind the whole day?”\r
-\r
-“I dare say she had.”\r
-\r
-“Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her\r
-friends--but I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is\r
-possible--I mean, as to the character and manners of the family.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing\r
-in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and\r
-Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal\r
-and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton’s acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most\r
-delightful woman!--A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove--and as\r
-to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there\r
-are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with\r
-such regard and kindness!--It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of\r
-pleasure.--And her salary!--I really cannot venture to name her salary\r
-to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would\r
-hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! madam,” cried Emma, “if other children are at all like what I\r
-remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of\r
-what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly\r
-earned.”\r
-\r
-“You are so noble in your ideas!”\r
-\r
-“And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you?”\r
-\r
-“Very soon, very soon, indeed; that’s the worst of it. Within a\r
-fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not\r
-know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and\r
-say, Come ma’am, do not let us think about it any more.”\r
-\r
-“Her friends must all be sorry to lose her; and will not Colonel and\r
-Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their\r
-return?”\r
-\r
-“Yes; Jane says she is sure they will; but yet, this is such a situation\r
-as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished\r
-when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when\r
-Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was\r
-before tea--stay--no, it could not be before tea, because we were\r
-just going to cards--and yet it was before tea, because I remember\r
-thinking--Oh! no, now I recollect, now I have it; something happened\r
-before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before\r
-tea, old John Abdy’s son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I\r
-have a great regard for him; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-seven\r
-years; and now, poor old man, he is bed-ridden, and very poorly with the\r
-rheumatic gout in his joints--I must go and see him to-day; and so will\r
-Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John’s son came to\r
-talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish; he is very well to do\r
-himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing\r
-of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help;\r
-and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been\r
-telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to\r
-Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened\r
-before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this\r
-circumstance was to her; but as without supposing it possible that she\r
-could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill’s\r
-going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence.\r
-\r
-What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the\r
-accumulation of the ostler’s own knowledge, and the knowledge of the\r
-servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond\r
-soon after the return of the party from Box Hill--which messenger,\r
-however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had\r
-sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable\r
-account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming\r
-back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having\r
-resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse\r
-seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the\r
-Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy\r
-going a good pace, and driving very steady.\r
-\r
-There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it\r
-caught Emma’s attention only as it united with the subject which already\r
-engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill’s importance in\r
-the world, and Jane Fairfax’s, struck her; one was every thing, the\r
-other nothing--and she sat musing on the difference of woman’s destiny,\r
-and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss\r
-Bates’s saying,\r
-\r
-“Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become\r
-of that?--Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.--‘You\r
-must go,’ said she. ‘You and I must part. You will have no business\r
-here.--Let it stay, however,’ said she; ‘give it houseroom till Colonel\r
-Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for\r
-me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.’--And to this day, I do\r
-believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter’s.”\r
-\r
-Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of\r
-all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing,\r
-that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough;\r
-and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of\r
-the good wishes which she really felt, took leave.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER IX\r
-\r
-\r
-Emma’s pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted;\r
-but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr.\r
-Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting\r
-with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner\r
-decidedly graver than usual, said,\r
-\r
-“I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare,\r
-and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend\r
-a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say,\r
-besides the ‘love,’ which nobody carries?”\r
-\r
-“Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?”\r
-\r
-“Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time.”\r
-\r
-Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time,\r
-however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends\r
-again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father\r
-began his inquiries.\r
-\r
-“Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my\r
-worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very\r
-much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs.\r
-and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so\r
-attentive to them!”\r
-\r
-Emma’s colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a\r
-smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr.\r
-Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in\r
-her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that\r
-had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.--\r
-He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in\r
-another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common\r
-friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not\r
-herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps,\r
-have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly\r
-was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or\r
-other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why\r
-he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not\r
-perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not\r
-stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was\r
-that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it\r
-happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him,\r
-of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the\r
-attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left\r
-them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the\r
-alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but\r
-now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance.\r
-\r
-Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she\r
-had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure\r
-to talk over Jane Fairfax’s situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither\r
-would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she\r
-knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened\r
-at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been\r
-pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not\r
-be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished\r
-gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered\r
-his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she\r
-found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier!\r
-\r
-In the hope of diverting her father’s thoughts from the disagreeableness\r
-of Mr. Knightley’s going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on\r
-horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her\r
-news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified;\r
-it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He\r
-had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax’s going out as governess, and\r
-could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley’s going to London had\r
-been an unexpected blow.\r
-\r
-“I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably\r
-settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say\r
-her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry\r
-situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to\r
-be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor’s always was with me.\r
-You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor\r
-was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be\r
-induced to go away after it has been her home so long.”\r
-\r
-The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else\r
-into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the\r
-death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason\r
-to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty\r
-hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any\r
-thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short\r
-struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more.\r
-\r
-It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of\r
-gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the\r
-surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where\r
-she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops\r
-to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be\r
-disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.\r
-Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was\r
-now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully\r
-justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The\r
-event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of\r
-imaginary complaints.\r
-\r
-“Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal:\r
-more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the\r
-temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what\r
-would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill’s loss would be\r
-dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it.”--Even Mr.\r
-Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, “Ah! poor woman,\r
-who would have thought it!” and resolved, that his mourning should be as\r
-handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her\r
-broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it\r
-would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also\r
-a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill,\r
-the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and\r
-compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might\r
-be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment\r
-all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have\r
-nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared\r
-by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his\r
-nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form\r
-the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel\r
-no certainty of its being already formed.\r
-\r
-Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command.\r
-What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma\r
-was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character,\r
-and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance.\r
-They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill’s death with mutual\r
-forbearance.\r
-\r
-Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all\r
-that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill\r
-was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the\r
-departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very\r
-old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a\r
-visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for\r
-Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible\r
-on Emma’s side.\r
-\r
-It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose\r
-prospects were closing, while Harriet’s opened, and whose engagements\r
-now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her\r
-kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely\r
-a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she\r
-had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she\r
-would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted\r
-to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify\r
-respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day\r
-at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused,\r
-and by a verbal message. “Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;”\r
- and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared\r
-that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against\r
-her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe\r
-headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the\r
-possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge’s at the time proposed.\r
-Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite\r
-gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing\r
-touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension\r
-of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had\r
-undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself,\r
-though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her\r
-present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous\r
-disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it\r
-otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must\r
-acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that\r
-description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were,\r
-in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived\r
-more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern;\r
-grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some\r
-way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from\r
-her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational\r
-conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the\r
-following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language\r
-she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any\r
-hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry’s decided\r
-opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only\r
-in this short note:\r
-\r
-“Miss Fairfax’s compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any\r
-exercise.”\r
-\r
-Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was\r
-impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed\r
-indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best\r
-counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the\r
-answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates’s,\r
-in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not\r
-do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing\r
-with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest\r
-service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in\r
-vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was\r
-quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her\r
-worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers;\r
-but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear\r
-that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in.\r
-“Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any\r
-body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and\r
-Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but,\r
-except them, Jane would really see nobody.”\r
-\r
-Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys,\r
-and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could\r
-she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and\r
-only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece’s appetite and diet,\r
-which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates\r
-was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any\r
-thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing\r
-they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was\r
-distasteful.\r
-\r
-Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an\r
-examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality\r
-was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half\r
-an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss\r
-Bates, but “dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent\r
-back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on\r
-her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing.”\r
-\r
-When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering\r
-about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of\r
-the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any\r
-exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage,\r
-she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was\r
-resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry.\r
-Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable\r
-from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and\r
-inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little\r
-credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but\r
-she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of\r
-being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy\r
-to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen\r
-into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to\r
-reprove.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER X\r
-\r
-\r
-One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill’s decease, Emma was\r
-called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who “could not stay five minutes,\r
-and wanted particularly to speak with her.”--He met her at the\r
-parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of\r
-his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father,\r
-\r
-“Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be\r
-possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you.”\r
-\r
-“Is she unwell?”\r
-\r
-“No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the\r
-carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you\r
-know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?”\r
-\r
-“Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what\r
-you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not\r
-ill?”\r
-\r
-“Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in\r
-time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!”\r
-\r
-To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something\r
-really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was\r
-well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father,\r
-that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of\r
-the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls.\r
-\r
-“Now,”--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--“now\r
-Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened.”\r
-\r
-“No, no,”--he gravely replied.--“Don’t ask me. I promised my wife to\r
-leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not\r
-be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon.”\r
-\r
-“Break it to me,” cried Emma, standing still with terror.--“Good\r
-God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick\r
-Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it\r
-is.”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed you are mistaken.”--\r
-\r
-“Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest\r
-friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you\r
-by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment.”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word, Emma.”--\r
-\r
-“Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that\r
-it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be\r
-_broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?”\r
-\r
-“Upon my honour,” said he very seriously, “it does not. It is not in\r
-the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of\r
-Knightley.”\r
-\r
-Emma’s courage returned, and she walked on.\r
-\r
-“I was wrong,” he continued, “in talking of its being _broke_ to you.\r
-I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern\r
-you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my\r
-dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don’t\r
-say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much\r
-worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls.”\r
-\r
-Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She\r
-asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and\r
-that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money\r
-concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the\r
-circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond\r
-had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural\r
-children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very\r
-undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more\r
-than an animating curiosity.\r
-\r
-“Who is that gentleman on horseback?” said she, as they\r
-proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret,\r
-than with any other view.\r
-\r
-“I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I\r
-assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this\r
-time.”\r
-\r
-“Has your son been with you, then?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind.”\r
-\r
-For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded\r
-and demure,\r
-\r
-“Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did.”\r
-\r
-They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--“Well, my dear,” said\r
-he, as they entered the room--“I have brought her, and now I hope you\r
-will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in\r
-delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me.”--And Emma distinctly\r
-heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--“I have\r
-been as good as my word. She has not the least idea.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation,\r
-that Emma’s uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she\r
-eagerly said,\r
-\r
-“What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I\r
-find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been\r
-walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense.\r
-Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your\r
-distress, whatever it may be.”\r
-\r
-“Have you indeed no idea?” said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice.\r
-“Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to\r
-hear?”\r
-\r
-“So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess.”\r
-\r
-“You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;”\r
- (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) “He has\r
-been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is\r
-impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a\r
-subject,--to announce an attachment--”\r
-\r
-She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of\r
-Harriet.\r
-\r
-“More than an attachment, indeed,” resumed Mrs. Weston; “an\r
-engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will\r
-any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are\r
-engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!”\r
-\r
-Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed,\r
-\r
-“Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?”\r
-\r
-“You may well be amazed,” returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes,\r
-and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover--\r
-“You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn\r
-engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and\r
-kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but\r
-themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so\r
-wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost\r
-incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him.”\r
-\r
-Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two\r
-ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and\r
-poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require\r
-confirmation, repeated confirmation.\r
-\r
-“Well,” said she at last, trying to recover herself; “this is a\r
-circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at\r
-all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either\r
-of them came to Highbury?”\r
-\r
-“Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very\r
-much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we\r
-cannot excuse.”\r
-\r
-Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, “I will not pretend _not_ to\r
-understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured\r
-that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are\r
-apprehensive of.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma’s countenance was as\r
-steady as her words.\r
-\r
-“That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my\r
-present perfect indifference,” she continued, “I will farther tell you,\r
-that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I\r
-did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay,\r
-was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder.\r
-Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past,\r
-for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may\r
-believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find\r
-utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good\r
-than any thing else in the world could do.\r
-\r
-“Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself,” said she. “On\r
-this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you\r
-might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.--\r
-Imagine what we have been feeling on your account.”\r
-\r
-“I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful\r
-wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston;\r
-and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he\r
-to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners\r
-so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as\r
-he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering\r
-attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to\r
-another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could\r
-he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong,\r
-very wrong indeed.”\r
-\r
-“From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--”\r
-\r
-“And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness!\r
-to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman,\r
-before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity,\r
-which I can neither comprehend nor respect.”\r
-\r
-“There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly.\r
-He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a\r
-quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow\r
-the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been\r
-misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed,\r
-seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very\r
-possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct.”\r
-\r
-“Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much\r
-beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him\r
-in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright\r
-integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of\r
-trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of\r
-his life.”\r
-\r
-“Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong\r
-in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having\r
-many, very many, good qualities; and--”\r
-\r
-“Good God!” cried Emma, not attending to her.--“Mrs. Smallridge, too!\r
-Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by\r
-such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her\r
-even to think of such a measure!”\r
-\r
-“He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit\r
-him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at\r
-least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I\r
-know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do\r
-not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of\r
-what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him\r
-to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on\r
-his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of\r
-concealment that had been carrying on so long.”\r
-\r
-Emma began to listen better.\r
-\r
-“I am to hear from him soon,” continued Mrs. Weston. “He told me at\r
-parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which\r
-seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let\r
-us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It\r
-may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to\r
-be understood. Don’t let us be severe, don’t let us be in a hurry to\r
-condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am\r
-satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious\r
-for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must\r
-both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and\r
-concealment.”\r
-\r
-“_His_ sufferings,” replied Emma dryly, “do not appear to have done him\r
-much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?”\r
-\r
-“Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a\r
-difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family!\r
-While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a\r
-hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in\r
-the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite\r
-to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue\r
-influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very\r
-little persuasion.”\r
-\r
-“Ah!” thought Emma, “he would have done as much for Harriet.”\r
-\r
-“This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this\r
-morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates’s, I fancy, some time--and\r
-then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle,\r
-to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you,\r
-he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much\r
-agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite\r
-a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In\r
-addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so\r
-very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was\r
-every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal.”\r
-\r
-“And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such\r
-perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of\r
-the engagement?”\r
-\r
-Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush.\r
-\r
-“None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in\r
-the world but their two selves.”\r
-\r
-“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the\r
-idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a\r
-very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of\r
-hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with\r
-professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret\r
-to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring,\r
-completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth\r
-and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been\r
-carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and\r
-words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the\r
-consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not\r
-perfectly agreeable!”\r
-\r
-“I am quite easy on that head,” replied Mrs. Weston. “I am very sure\r
-that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not\r
-have heard.”\r
-\r
-“You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you\r
-imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady.”\r
-\r
-“True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss\r
-Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and\r
-as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe.”\r
-\r
-At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window,\r
-evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him\r
-in; and, while he was coming round, added, “Now, dearest Emma, let me\r
-intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease,\r
-and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of\r
-it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It\r
-is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that,\r
-why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for\r
-Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such\r
-steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her\r
-credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of\r
-this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may\r
-be said in her situation for even that error!”\r
-\r
-“Much, indeed!” cried Emma feelingly. “If a woman can ever be\r
-excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane\r
-Fairfax’s.--Of such, one may almost say, that ‘the world is not their’s,\r
-nor the world’s law.’”\r
-\r
-She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance,\r
-exclaiming,\r
-\r
-“A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a\r
-device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of\r
-guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half\r
-your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of\r
-condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate\r
-you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the\r
-most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter.”\r
-\r
-A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as\r
-right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was\r
-immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook\r
-her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in\r
-a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think\r
-the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what\r
-could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they\r
-had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again\r
-with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly\r
-reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank\r
-could possibly have done.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XI\r
-\r
-\r
-“Harriet, poor Harriet!”--Those were the words; in them lay the\r
-tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted\r
-the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very\r
-ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_\r
-behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him. It was the\r
-scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet’s account, that gave the\r
-deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the\r
-dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken\r
-prophetically, when he once said, “Emma, you have been no friend\r
-to Harriet Smith.”--She was afraid she had done her nothing but\r
-disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this\r
-instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of\r
-the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise\r
-never have entered Harriet’s imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged\r
-her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever\r
-given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty\r
-of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have\r
-prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence\r
-would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought\r
-to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend’s\r
-happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed\r
-her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him,\r
-and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring\r
-for her.--“But, with common sense,” she added, “I am afraid I have had\r
-little to do.”\r
-\r
-She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry\r
-with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.--As for Jane\r
-Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present\r
-solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need\r
-no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health\r
-having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her\r
-days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and\r
-happy, and prosperous.--Emma could now imagine why her own attentions\r
-had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No\r
-doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane’s eyes she had been a rival;\r
-and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be\r
-repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack,\r
-and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She\r
-understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from\r
-the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that\r
-Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her\r
-desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little\r
-sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful\r
-that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first.\r
-Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought; and\r
-judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet’s mind, producing\r
-reserve and self-command, it would.--She must communicate the painful\r
-truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had\r
-been among Mr. Weston’s parting words. “For the present, the whole\r
-affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of\r
-it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost;\r
-and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.”--Emma had\r
-promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.\r
-\r
-In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost\r
-ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate\r
-office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by\r
-herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her,\r
-she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick\r
-on hearing Harriet’s footstep and voice; so, she supposed, had poor Mrs.\r
-Weston felt when _she_ was approaching Randalls. Could the event of\r
-the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!--But of that, unfortunately,\r
-there could be no chance.\r
-\r
-“Well, Miss Woodhouse!” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room--“is\r
-not this the oddest news that ever was?”\r
-\r
-“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or\r
-voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.\r
-\r
-“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!--you\r
-need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me\r
-himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret;\r
-and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you,\r
-but he said you knew it.”\r
-\r
-“What did Mr. Weston tell you?”--said Emma, still perplexed.\r
-\r
-“Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill\r
-are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one\r
-another this long while. How very odd!”\r
-\r
-It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet’s behaviour was so extremely odd,\r
-that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared\r
-absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or\r
-disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at\r
-her, quite unable to speak.\r
-\r
-“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her?--You,\r
-perhaps, might.--You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every\r
-body’s heart; but nobody else--”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent.\r
-Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached\r
-to another woman at the very time that I was--tacitly, if not\r
-openly--encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?--I never\r
-had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank\r
-Churchill’s having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very\r
-sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”\r
-\r
-“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution\r
-me?--You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill.”\r
-\r
-“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied\r
-Emma, smiling; “but you do not mean to deny that there was a time--and\r
-not very distant either--when you gave me reason to understand that you\r
-did care about him?”\r
-\r
-“Him!--never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?”\r
- turning away distressed.\r
-\r
-“Harriet!” cried Emma, after a moment’s pause--“What do you mean?--Good\r
-Heaven! what do you mean?--Mistake you!--Am I to suppose then?--”\r
-\r
-She could not speak another word.--Her voice was lost; and she sat down,\r
-waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.\r
-\r
-Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from\r
-her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was\r
-in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma’s.\r
-\r
-“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have\r
-misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him--but considering\r
-how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have\r
-thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person.\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in\r
-the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should\r
-have been so mistaken, is amazing!--I am sure, but for believing that\r
-you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I\r
-should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost,\r
-to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more\r
-wonderful things had happened; that there had been matches of greater\r
-disparity (those were your very words);--I should not have dared to\r
-give way to--I should not have thought it possible--But if _you_, who\r
-had been always acquainted with him--”\r
-\r
-“Harriet!” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely--“Let us understand\r
-each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you\r
-speaking of--Mr. Knightley?”\r
-\r
-“To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else--and so\r
-I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as\r
-possible.”\r
-\r
-“Not quite,” returned Emma, with forced calmness, “for all that you then\r
-said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost\r
-assert that you had _named_ Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service\r
-Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the\r
-gipsies, was spoken of.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!”\r
-\r
-“My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on\r
-the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment;\r
-that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely\r
-natural:--and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to\r
-your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had\r
-been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.--The impression of it is\r
-strong on my memory.”\r
-\r
-“Oh, dear,” cried Harriet, “now I recollect what you mean; but I\r
-was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the\r
-gipsies--it was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some\r
-elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance--of Mr.\r
-Knightley’s coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not\r
-stand up with me; and when there was no other partner in the room. That\r
-was the kind action; that was the noble benevolence and generosity; that\r
-was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every\r
-other being upon earth.”\r
-\r
-“Good God!” cried Emma, “this has been a most unfortunate--most\r
-deplorable mistake!--What is to be done?”\r
-\r
-“You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At\r
-least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the\r
-other had been the person; and now--it _is_ possible--”\r
-\r
-She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.\r
-\r
-“I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse,” she resumed, “that you should feel a\r
-great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must\r
-think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But\r
-I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing--that if--strange as it may\r
-appear--. But you know they were your own words, that _more_ wonderful\r
-things had happened, matches of _greater_ disparity had taken place than\r
-between Mr. Frank Churchill and me; and, therefore, it seems as if such\r
-a thing even as this, may have occurred before--and if I should be so\r
-fortunate, beyond expression, as to--if Mr. Knightley should really--if\r
-_he_ does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will\r
-not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But\r
-you are too good for that, I am sure.”\r
-\r
-Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at\r
-her in consternation, and hastily said,\r
-\r
-“Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley’s returning your affection?”\r
-\r
-“Yes,” replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully--“I must say that I\r
-have.”\r
-\r
-Emma’s eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating,\r
-in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient\r
-for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers,\r
-once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched--she\r
-admitted--she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse\r
-that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank\r
-Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having\r
-some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an\r
-arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!\r
-\r
-Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same\r
-few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed\r
-her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How\r
-inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been\r
-her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her\r
-with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the\r
-world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all\r
-these demerits--some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense\r
-of justice by Harriet--(there would be no need of _compassion_ to the\r
-girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required\r
-that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the\r
-resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent\r
-kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost\r
-extent of Harriet’s hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done\r
-nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily\r
-formed and maintained--or to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose\r
-counsels had never led her right.--Rousing from reflection, therefore,\r
-and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more\r
-inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which\r
-had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was\r
-quite sunk and lost.--Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and\r
-themselves.\r
-\r
-Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad\r
-to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and\r
-such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give\r
-the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.--Emma’s\r
-tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than\r
-Harriet’s, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her\r
-mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such\r
-a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing\r
-emotions, must create.--She listened with much inward suffering, but\r
-with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.--Methodical, or well\r
-arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it\r
-contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of\r
-the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--especially with the\r
-corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of\r
-Mr. Knightley’s most improved opinion of Harriet.\r
-\r
-Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since\r
-those two decisive dances.--Emma knew that he had, on that occasion,\r
-found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at\r
-least from the time of Miss Woodhouse’s encouraging her to think of him,\r
-Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he\r
-had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner\r
-towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!--Latterly she had been\r
-more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together,\r
-he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very\r
-delightfully!--He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it\r
-to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to\r
-almost the same extent.--Harriet repeated expressions of approbation\r
-and praise from him--and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement\r
-with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for\r
-being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous,\r
-feelings.--She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he\r
-had dwelt on them to her more than once.--Much that lived in Harriet’s\r
-memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from\r
-him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment\r
-implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected,\r
-by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour’s relation,\r
-and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed\r
-undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to\r
-be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without\r
-some degree of witness from Emma herself.--The first, was his walking\r
-with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they\r
-had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as\r
-she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself--and at first,\r
-he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done\r
-before, in a very particular way indeed!--(Harriet could not recall\r
-it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her\r
-affections were engaged.--But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared\r
-likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about\r
-farming:--The second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half\r
-an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of\r
-his being at Hartfield--though, when he first came in, he had said that\r
-he could not stay five minutes--and his having told her, during their\r
-conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against\r
-his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as\r
-Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to _her_. The superior degree of\r
-confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her\r
-severe pain.\r
-\r
-On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a\r
-little reflection, venture the following question. “Might he not?--Is\r
-not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of\r
-your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--he might have\r
-Mr. Martin’s interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with\r
-spirit.\r
-\r
-“Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I\r
-know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it.”\r
-\r
-When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss\r
-Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope.\r
-\r
-“I never should have presumed to think of it at first,” said she, “but\r
-for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour\r
-be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may\r
-deserve him; and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so\r
-very wonderful.”\r
-\r
-The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings,\r
-made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma’s side, to enable her to say\r
-on reply,\r
-\r
-“Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last\r
-man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his\r
-feeling for her more than he really does.”\r
-\r
-Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so\r
-satisfactory; and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which\r
-at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her\r
-father’s footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too\r
-much agitated to encounter him. “She could not compose herself--\r
-Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;”--with most ready\r
-encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another\r
-door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of\r
-Emma’s feelings: “Oh God! that I had never seen her!”\r
-\r
-The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her\r
-thoughts.--She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had\r
-rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a\r
-fresh surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to\r
-her.--How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had\r
-been thus practising on herself, and living under!--The blunders, the\r
-blindness of her own head and heart!--she sat still, she walked about,\r
-she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every\r
-posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had\r
-been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had\r
-been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she\r
-was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of\r
-wretchedness.\r
-\r
-To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first\r
-endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father’s\r
-claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind.\r
-\r
-How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling\r
-declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun?--\r
-When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank\r
-Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?--She looked back;\r
-she compared the two--compared them, as they had always stood in her\r
-estimation, from the time of the latter’s becoming known to her--and as\r
-they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--oh! had it, by\r
-any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.--She\r
-saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr.\r
-Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not\r
-been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself,\r
-in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a\r
-delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart--and, in short, that she had\r
-never really cared for Frank Churchill at all!\r
-\r
-This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was\r
-the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which\r
-she reached; and without being long in reaching it.--She was most\r
-sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed\r
-to her--her affection for Mr. Knightley.--Every other part of her mind\r
-was disgusting.\r
-\r
-With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every\r
-body’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every\r
-body’s destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and\r
-she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. She had\r
-brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr.\r
-Knightley.--Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on\r
-her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning; for his\r
-attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of\r
-Harriet’s;--and even were this not the case, he would never have known\r
-Harriet at all but for her folly.\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--It was a union to distance every\r
-wonder of the kind.--The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax\r
-became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no\r
-surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or\r
-thought.--Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--Such an elevation on her\r
-side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it\r
-must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers,\r
-the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the mortification and\r
-disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.--Could\r
-it be?--No; it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from\r
-impossible.--Was it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities\r
-to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps\r
-too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?--Was\r
-it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent,\r
-incongruous--or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct\r
-the human fate?\r
-\r
-Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she\r
-ought, and where he had told her she ought!--Had she not, with a\r
-folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the\r
-unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable\r
-in the line of life to which she ought to belong--all would have been\r
-safe; none of this dreadful sequel would have been.\r
-\r
-How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to\r
-Mr. Knightley!--How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such\r
-a man till actually assured of it!--But Harriet was less humble, had\r
-fewer scruples than formerly.--Her inferiority, whether of mind or\r
-situation, seemed little felt.--She had seemed more sensible of Mr.\r
-Elton’s being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr.\r
-Knightley’s.--Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at\r
-pains to give Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself?--Who but\r
-herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible,\r
-and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?--If\r
-Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XII\r
-\r
-\r
-Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known\r
-how much of her happiness depended on being _first_ with Mr. Knightley,\r
-first in interest and affection.--Satisfied that it was so, and feeling\r
-it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the\r
-dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had\r
-been.--Long, very long, she felt she had been first; for, having no\r
-female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims\r
-could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far\r
-he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for\r
-many years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent\r
-or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him,\r
-insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would\r
-not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her own--but still,\r
-from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he\r
-had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to\r
-improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature\r
-had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear\r
-to him; might she not say, very dear?--When the suggestions of hope,\r
-however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not\r
-presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy\r
-of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley.\r
-_She_ could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of\r
-blindness in his attachment to _her_. She had received a very recent\r
-proof of its impartiality.--How shocked had he been by her behaviour to\r
-Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her\r
-on the subject!--Not too strongly for the offence--but far, far too\r
-strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and\r
-clear-sighted goodwill.--She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name\r
-of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was\r
-now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at\r
-times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be\r
-overrating his regard for _her_.--Wish it she must, for his sake--be the\r
-consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life.\r
-Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she\r
-believed she should be perfectly satisfied.--Let him but continue the\r
-same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to\r
-all the world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious\r
-intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be\r
-fully secured.--Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be\r
-incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt\r
-for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not\r
-marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley.\r
-\r
-It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed; and she\r
-hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least\r
-be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.--She should see them\r
-henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had\r
-hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how\r
-to admit that she could be blinded here.--He was expected back every\r
-day. The power of observation would be soon given--frightfully soon it\r
-appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she\r
-resolved against seeing Harriet.--It would do neither of them good,\r
-it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.--She was\r
-resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had\r
-no authority for opposing Harriet’s confidence. To talk would be only to\r
-irritate.--She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg\r
-that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield; acknowledging it to\r
-be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of _one_\r
-topic had better be avoided; and hoping, that if a few days were allowed\r
-to pass before they met again, except in the company of others--she\r
-objected only to a tete-a-tete--they might be able to act as if they\r
-had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.--Harriet submitted, and\r
-approved, and was grateful.\r
-\r
-This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma’s\r
-thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them,\r
-sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours--Mrs. Weston, who had\r
-been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her\r
-way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to\r
-relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview.\r
-\r
-Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates’s, and gone through his\r
-share of this essential attention most handsomely; but she having then\r
-induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with\r
-much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter\r
-of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates’s parlour, with all the encumbrance of\r
-awkward feelings, could have afforded.\r
-\r
-A little curiosity Emma had; and she made the most of it while her\r
-friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal\r
-of agitation herself; and in the first place had wished not to go at all\r
-at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and\r
-to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr.\r
-Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement’s becoming known; as,\r
-considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid\r
-without leading to reports:--but Mr. Weston had thought differently; he\r
-was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her\r
-family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it;\r
-or if it were, that it would be of any consequence; for “such things,”\r
- he observed, “always got about.” Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston\r
-had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in short--and very\r
-great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had\r
-hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn\r
-how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heart-felt\r
-satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her\r
-daughter--who proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a\r
-gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly\r
-respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation;\r
-thought so much of Jane; so much of every body, and so little of\r
-themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss\r
-Fairfax’s recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to\r
-invite her to an airing; she had drawn back and declined at first, but,\r
-on being pressed had yielded; and, in the course of their drive,\r
-Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her\r
-embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject.\r
-Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception,\r
-and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling\r
-towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but\r
-when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the\r
-present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was\r
-convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her\r
-companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been,\r
-and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject.\r
-\r
-“On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so\r
-many months,” continued Mrs. Weston, “she was energetic. This was one\r
-of her expressions. ‘I will not say, that since I entered into the\r
-engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have\r
-never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:’--and the quivering lip,\r
-Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart.”\r
-\r
-“Poor girl!” said Emma. “She thinks herself wrong, then, for having\r
-consented to a private engagement?”\r
-\r
-“Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed\r
-to blame herself. ‘The consequence,’ said she, ‘has been a state of\r
-perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment\r
-that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no\r
-expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all\r
-my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken,\r
-and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me\r
-ought not to be.’ ‘Do not imagine, madam,’ she continued, ‘that I was\r
-taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the\r
-care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own;\r
-and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances\r
-may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel\r
-Campbell.’”\r
-\r
-“Poor girl!” said Emma again. “She loves him then excessively, I\r
-suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be\r
-led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her\r
-judgment.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him.”\r
-\r
-“I am afraid,” returned Emma, sighing, “that I must often have\r
-contributed to make her unhappy.”\r
-\r
-“On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she\r
-probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the\r
-misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural\r
-consequence of the evil she had involved herself in,” she said, “was\r
-that of making her _unreasonable_. The consciousness of having done\r
-amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious\r
-and irritable to a degree that must have been--that had been--hard for\r
-him to bear. ‘I did not make the allowances,’ said she, ‘which I ought\r
-to have done, for his temper and spirits--his delightful spirits, and\r
-that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other\r
-circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to\r
-me, as they were at first.’ She then began to speak of you, and of the\r
-great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush\r
-which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had\r
-an opportunity, to thank you--I could not thank you too much--for every\r
-wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had\r
-never received any proper acknowledgment from herself.”\r
-\r
-“If I did not know her to be happy now,” said Emma, seriously, “which,\r
-in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she\r
-must be, I could not bear these thanks;--for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there\r
-were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss\r
-Fairfax!--Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this\r
-is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting\r
-particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is\r
-very good--I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune\r
-should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers.”\r
-\r
-Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought\r
-well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him\r
-very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a\r
-great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much\r
-to urge for Emma’s attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or\r
-to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended\r
-with, “We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know,\r
-but I hope it will soon come,” she was obliged to pause before she\r
-answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at\r
-all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for.\r
-\r
-“Are you well, my Emma?” was Mrs. Weston’s parting question.\r
-\r
-“Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me\r
-intelligence of the letter as soon as possible.”\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston’s communications furnished Emma with more food for\r
-unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her\r
-sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted\r
-not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the\r
-envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.\r
-Had she followed Mr. Knightley’s known wishes, in paying that attention\r
-to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her\r
-better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured\r
-to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all\r
-probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her\r
-now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as\r
-an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what\r
-was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;\r
-that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax’s confidence on this\r
-important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as\r
-she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the\r
-abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she\r
-had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so\r
-unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a\r
-subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane’s feelings, by the\r
-levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill’s. Of all the sources of evil\r
-surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded\r
-that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a\r
-perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without\r
-her having stabbed Jane Fairfax’s peace in a thousand instances; and on\r
-Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no\r
-more.\r
-\r
-The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.\r
-The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and\r
-nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was\r
-despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights\r
-the longer visible.\r
-\r
-The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably\r
-comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter’s side, and by\r
-exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded\r
-her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston’s\r
-wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea,\r
-and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of\r
-Hartfield’s attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly\r
-be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the\r
-approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them,\r
-no pleasures had been lost.--But her present forebodings she feared\r
-would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now,\r
-was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that\r
-might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that\r
-might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be\r
-comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the\r
-spirits only of ruined happiness.\r
-\r
-The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than\r
-herself; and Mrs. Weston’s heart and time would be occupied by it.\r
-They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband\r
-also.--Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss\r
-Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to\r
-Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe.\r
-All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the\r
-loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or\r
-of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer\r
-coming there for his evening comfort!--No longer walking in at all\r
-hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their’s!--How was\r
-it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet’s sake;\r
-if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet’s society\r
-all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first,\r
-the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best\r
-blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma’s wretchedness but\r
-the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her\r
-own work?\r
-\r
-When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from\r
-a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a\r
-few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation\r
-or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better\r
-conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might\r
-be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it\r
-would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and\r
-leave her less to regret when it were gone.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIII\r
-\r
-\r
-The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and\r
-the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at\r
-Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a\r
-softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was\r
-summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma\r
-resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite\r
-sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after\r
-a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they\r
-might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry’s coming in soon after\r
-dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time\r
-in hurrying into the shrubbery.--There, with spirits freshened, and\r
-thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr.\r
-Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.--It\r
-was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had\r
-been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles\r
-distant.--There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She\r
-must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The\r
-“How d’ye do’s” were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after\r
-their mutual friends; they were all well.--When had he left them?--Only\r
-that morning. He must have had a wet ride.--Yes.--He meant to walk with\r
-her, she found. “He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was\r
-not wanted there, preferred being out of doors.”--She thought he neither\r
-looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it,\r
-suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his\r
-plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had\r
-been received.\r
-\r
-They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking\r
-at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to\r
-give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to\r
-speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for\r
-encouragement to begin.--She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the\r
-way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could\r
-not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She\r
-considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began--\r
-\r
-“You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather\r
-surprize you.”\r
-\r
-“Have I?” said he quietly, and looking at her; “of what nature?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding.”\r
-\r
-After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he\r
-replied,\r
-\r
-“If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that\r
-already.”\r
-\r
-“How is it possible?” cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards\r
-him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called\r
-at Mrs. Goddard’s in his way.\r
-\r
-“I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and\r
-at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened.”\r
-\r
-Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more\r
-composure,\r
-\r
-“_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have\r
-had your suspicions.--I have not forgotten that you once tried to give\r
-me a caution.--I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice\r
-and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness.”\r
-\r
-For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having\r
-excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within\r
-his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone\r
-of great sensibility, speaking low,\r
-\r
-“Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.--Your own excellent\r
-sense--your exertions for your father’s sake--I know you will not allow\r
-yourself--.” Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more\r
-broken and subdued accent, “The feelings of the warmest\r
-friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel!”--And in a louder,\r
-steadier tone, he concluded with, “He will soon be gone. They will soon\r
-be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate.”\r
-\r
-Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter\r
-of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied,\r
-\r
-“You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.--\r
-I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was\r
-going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed\r
-of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may\r
-well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason\r
-to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”\r
-\r
-“Emma!” cried he, looking eagerly at her, “are you, indeed?”--but\r
-checking himself--“No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased\r
-that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret, indeed! and\r
-it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment\r
-of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your affections were not\r
-farther entangled!--I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure\r
-myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that\r
-there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to\r
-deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name of man.--And is he to be rewarded\r
-with that sweet young woman?--Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable\r
-creature.”\r
-\r
-“Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--“I\r
-am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your\r
-error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I\r
-have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been\r
-at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural\r
-for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--But I never\r
-have.”\r
-\r
-He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would\r
-not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his\r
-clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in\r
-his opinion. She went on, however.\r
-\r
-“I have very little to say for my own conduct.--I was tempted by his\r
-attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.--An old story,\r
-probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my\r
-sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up\r
-as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation.\r
-He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found\r
-him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the\r
-causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity\r
-was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some\r
-time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing.--I thought\r
-them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side.\r
-He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been\r
-attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He\r
-never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real\r
-situation with another.--It was his object to blind all about him; and\r
-no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except\r
-that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I\r
-was somehow or other safe from him.”\r
-\r
-She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her\r
-conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she\r
-could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone,\r
-he said,\r
-\r
-“I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.--I can suppose,\r
-however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has\r
-been but trifling.--And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he\r
-may yet turn out well.--With such a woman he has a chance.--I have no\r
-motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be\r
-involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him\r
-well.”\r
-\r
-“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma; “I believe\r
-them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached.”\r
-\r
-“He is a most fortunate man!” returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. “So\r
-early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a\r
-wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such\r
-a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation,\r
-has before him!--Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested\r
-love, for Jane Fairfax’s character vouches for her disinterestedness;\r
-every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as\r
-regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important;\r
-equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her\r
-heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it\r
-will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.--A man would always\r
-wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from;\r
-and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must,\r
-I think, be the happiest of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the\r
-favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets\r
-with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even\r
-weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought\r
-round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found\r
-her superior.--His aunt is in the way.--His aunt dies.--He has only to\r
-speak.--His friends are eager to promote his happiness.--He had used\r
-every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him.--He is a\r
-fortunate man indeed!”\r
-\r
-“You speak as if you envied him.”\r
-\r
-“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”\r
-\r
-Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence\r
-of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if\r
-possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally\r
-different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for\r
-breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,\r
-\r
-“You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I\r
-see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma,\r
-I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the\r
-next moment.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a\r
-little time, consider, do not commit yourself.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not\r
-another syllable followed.\r
-\r
-Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in\r
-her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen.\r
-She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give\r
-just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence,\r
-relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more\r
-intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.--They had\r
-reached the house.\r
-\r
-“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.\r
-\r
-“No,”--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which\r
-he still spoke--“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not\r
-gone.” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--“I stopped you\r
-ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you\r
-pain.--But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or\r
-to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as\r
-a friend, indeed, you may command me.--I will hear whatever you like. I\r
-will tell you exactly what I think.”\r
-\r
-“As a friend!”--repeated Mr. Knightley.--“Emma, that I fear is a\r
-word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?--I\r
-have gone too far already for concealment.--Emma, I accept your\r
-offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to\r
-you as a friend.--Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”\r
-\r
-He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression\r
-of his eyes overpowered her.\r
-\r
-“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever\r
-the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved\r
-Emma--tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said.”--She could\r
-really say nothing.--“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation;\r
-“absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.”\r
-\r
-Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The\r
-dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most\r
-prominent feeling.\r
-\r
-“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed; and in a tone of\r
-such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably\r
-convincing.--“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it\r
-more. But you know what I am.--You hear nothing but truth from me.--I\r
-have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other\r
-woman in England would have borne it.--Bear with the truths I would\r
-tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The\r
-manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have\r
-been a very indifferent lover.--But you understand me.--Yes, you see,\r
-you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present,\r
-I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”\r
-\r
-While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful\r
-velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to\r
-catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet’s\r
-hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a\r
-delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every\r
-thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet\r
-had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her\r
-agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all\r
-received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time\r
-for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there\r
-was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and\r
-to resolve that it need not, and should not.--It was all the service\r
-she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of\r
-sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his\r
-affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the\r
-two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at\r
-once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not\r
-marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and\r
-with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that\r
-could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her\r
-friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her\r
-judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever\r
-been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal\r
-and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke\r
-then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought,\r
-of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to shew there need not\r
-be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at\r
-one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence,\r
-as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear\r
-him.--The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of\r
-taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had\r
-just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!--She felt its\r
-inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,\r
-and seek no farther explanation.\r
-\r
-Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;\r
-seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a\r
-little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is\r
-mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.--Mr.\r
-Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she\r
-possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.\r
-\r
-He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had\r
-followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come,\r
-in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement, with no\r
-selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an\r
-opening, to soothe or to counsel her.--The rest had been the work of\r
-the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The\r
-delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,\r
-of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth\r
-to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but\r
-it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of\r
-eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his\r
-attempt to attach her.--The superior hopes which gradually opened were\r
-so much the more enchanting.--The affection, which he had been asking\r
-to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!--Within half\r
-an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to\r
-something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name.\r
-\r
-_Her_ change was equal.--This one half-hour had given to each the same\r
-precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same\r
-degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.--On his side, there had been\r
-a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation,\r
-of Frank Churchill.--He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank\r
-Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably\r
-enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill\r
-that had taken him from the country.--The Box Hill party had decided\r
-him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again\r
-such permitted, encouraged attentions.--He had gone to learn to be\r
-indifferent.--But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much\r
-domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form\r
-in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking\r
-inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before\r
-him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.--He had\r
-stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning’s\r
-post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.--Then, with the gladness\r
-which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never\r
-believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much\r
-fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no\r
-longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly\r
-after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures,\r
-faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.\r
-\r
-He had found her agitated and low.--Frank Churchill was a villain.--\r
-He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s\r
-character was not desperate.--She was his own Emma, by hand and word,\r
-when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank\r
-Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIV\r
-\r
-\r
-What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from\r
-what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hope for\r
-a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of\r
-happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be\r
-greater when the flutter should have passed away.\r
-\r
-They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often\r
-it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallen on the same\r
-shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the\r
-western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing\r
-like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her\r
-usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive\r
-daughter.\r
-\r
-Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the\r
-breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously\r
-hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could he have seen the\r
-heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the\r
-most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest\r
-perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either,\r
-he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had\r
-received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment,\r
-totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return.\r
-\r
-As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma’s fever continued;\r
-but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and\r
-subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax\r
-for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points\r
-to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some\r
-alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling\r
-the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort\r
-of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father,\r
-it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley\r
-would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most\r
-solemn resolution of never quitting her father.--She even wept over\r
-the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an\r
-engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of\r
-drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How\r
-to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare\r
-her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;\r
-how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity\r
-and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and\r
-again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever\r
-surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still\r
-avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by\r
-letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed\r
-just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme\r
-more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation\r
-for her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;\r
-and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did\r
-not think it in Harriet’s nature to escape being benefited by novelty\r
-and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate,\r
-it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom\r
-every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the\r
-evil day, when they must all be together again.\r
-\r
-She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which\r
-left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking\r
-up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half\r
-an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,\r
-literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a\r
-proper share of the happiness of the evening before.\r
-\r
-He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the\r
-slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was\r
-brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it\r
-must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now\r
-in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she\r
-wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding\r
-any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.--It must be\r
-waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a\r
-note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to\r
-Mrs. Weston.\r
-\r
-“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the\r
-enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely\r
-a doubt of its happy effect.--I think we shall never materially disagree\r
-about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We\r
-are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little\r
-nervousness I have been feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks\r
-on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never\r
-own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east\r
-wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday\r
-afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last\r
-night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.\r
-\r
- “Yours ever,\r
- “A. W.”\r
-\r
- [To Mrs. Weston.]\r
-\r
-\r
- WINDSOR-JULY.\r
-MY DEAR MADAM,\r
-\r
-“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be\r
-expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and\r
-indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of\r
-even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But\r
-I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage\r
-rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be\r
-humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for\r
-pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,\r
-and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You\r
-must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I\r
-first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which\r
-was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place\r
-myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.\r
-I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,\r
-I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and\r
-casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my\r
-difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to\r
-require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we\r
-parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the\r
-creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I\r
-should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your\r
-hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every\r
-thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,\r
-perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of\r
-good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her\r
-promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,\r
-I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband’s son, and\r
-the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no\r
-inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See\r
-me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to\r
-Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have\r
-been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till\r
-Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you\r
-will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father’s compassion, by\r
-reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long\r
-I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very\r
-happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to\r
-reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal,\r
-the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which\r
-excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With\r
-the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss\r
-Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest\r
-humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his\r
-opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour\r
-to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to\r
-assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than\r
-an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately\r
-thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but\r
-I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been\r
-convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any\r
-selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is,\r
-she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and\r
-that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me,\r
-was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with\r
-an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.\r
-We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those\r
-attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse\r
-began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight,\r
-I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was\r
-within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not\r
-without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me,\r
-at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her\r
-quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,\r
-whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it\r
-did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it.\r
-I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude\r
-for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct\r
-towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation\r
-of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against\r
-Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and\r
-procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes\r
-of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly\r
-affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as\r
-myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,\r
-you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to\r
-get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.\r
-If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of\r
-the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that\r
-its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never\r
-have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The\r
-delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam,\r
-is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly\r
-hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her.\r
-She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never\r
-was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own\r
-merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw,\r
-I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but\r
-as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion\r
-of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread\r
-of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without\r
-delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few\r
-minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and\r
-I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or\r
-misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her\r
-excellence and patience, and my uncle’s generosity, I am mad with joy:\r
-but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little\r
-I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her\r
-again!--But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me\r
-to encroach.--I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard\r
-all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail\r
-yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness\r
-with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event\r
-of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the\r
-happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,\r
-but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to\r
-lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she\r
-would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and\r
-refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered\r
-into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off\r
-abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over\r
-the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of\r
-my letter what it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying\r
-retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that\r
-my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly\r
-blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My\r
-plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was\r
-displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand\r
-occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even\r
-cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and\r
-subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have\r
-escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.--\r
-Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--_There_ every little\r
-dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;\r
-I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she\r
-would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then\r
-thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very\r
-natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the\r
-world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable\r
-particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a\r
-proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?--Had we\r
-been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must\r
-have been suspected.--I was mad enough, however, to resent.--I doubted\r
-her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when,\r
-provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect\r
-of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been\r
-impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in\r
-a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear\r
-madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and\r
-I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with\r
-you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with\r
-her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to\r
-be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her\r
-coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first\r
-advances.--I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of\r
-the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly\r
-suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon\r
-her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she\r
-found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that\r
-officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the\r
-bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel\r
-with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards\r
-myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it\r
-which that woman has known.--‘Jane,’ indeed!--You will observe that I\r
-have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you.\r
-Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between\r
-the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the\r
-insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon\r
-have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me\r
-entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet\r
-again.--_She_ _felt_ _the_ _engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_\r
-_repentance_ _and_ _misery_ _to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.--This\r
-letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt’s death. I\r
-answered it within an hour; but from the confusion of my mind, and the\r
-multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of\r
-being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in\r
-my writing-desk; and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but\r
-a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was\r
-rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily; but I\r
-made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful\r
-in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor; and two\r
-days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all\r
-returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her\r
-extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last; and\r
-adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued,\r
-and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate\r
-arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe\r
-conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly\r
-command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would\r
-forward them after that period to her at--: in short, the full direction\r
-to Mr. Smallridge’s, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the\r
-name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had\r
-been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character\r
-which I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained, as to\r
-any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its\r
-anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten\r
-me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actually detected my\r
-own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be\r
-done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I\r
-could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were\r
-in my favour; the late event had softened away his pride, and he was,\r
-earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying;\r
-and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I\r
-might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.--I\r
-felt that it would be of a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity\r
-me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my\r
-suspense while all was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached\r
-Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her\r
-wan, sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my\r
-knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance\r
-of finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I was not\r
-disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very\r
-reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is\r
-done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment’s\r
-uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will\r
-release you; but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand\r
-thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for\r
-the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.--If you think me in\r
-a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss\r
-W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one\r
-respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe\r
-myself,\r
-\r
- Your obliged and affectionate Son,\r
-\r
- F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XV\r
-\r
-\r
-This letter must make its way to Emma’s feelings. She was obliged, in\r
-spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the\r
-justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name,\r
-it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting,\r
-and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject\r
-could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard\r
-for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of\r
-love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone\r
-through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had\r
-been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had\r
-suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and\r
-so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that\r
-there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must\r
-have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever.\r
-\r
-She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again,\r
-she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston’s wishing it to\r
-be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so\r
-much to blame in his conduct.\r
-\r
-“I shall be very glad to look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I\r
-will take it home with me at night.”\r
-\r
-But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she\r
-must return it by him.\r
-\r
-“I would rather be talking to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a\r
-matter of justice, it shall be done.”\r
-\r
-He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, “Had I been offered\r
-the sight of one of this gentleman’s letters to his mother-in-law a few\r
-months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference.”\r
-\r
-He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a\r
-smile, observed, “Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his\r
-way. One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s. We will not be\r
-severe.”\r
-\r
-“It will be natural for me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my\r
-opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you.\r
-It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--”\r
-\r
-“Not at all. I should wish it.”\r
-\r
-Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.\r
-\r
-“He trifles here,” said he, “as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong,\r
-and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the\r
-engagement.--‘His father’s disposition:’--he is unjust, however, to his\r
-father. Mr. Weston’s sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright\r
-and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort\r
-before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss\r
-Fairfax was here.”\r
-\r
-“And I have not forgotten,” said Emma, “how sure you were that he might\r
-have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you\r
-were perfectly right.”\r
-\r
-“I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had\r
-_you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him.”\r
-\r
-When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it\r
-aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the\r
-head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as\r
-the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady\r
-reflection, thus--\r
-\r
-“Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous\r
-game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of\r
-his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and\r
-regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have\r
-fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue,\r
-that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert\r
-the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more\r
-and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each\r
-other?”\r
-\r
-Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet’s account,\r
-which she could not give any sincere explanation of.\r
-\r
-“You had better go on,” said she.\r
-\r
-He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That\r
-was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether\r
-the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A\r
-boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing to give a\r
-woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense\r
-with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument’s\r
-coming if she could.”\r
-\r
-After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill’s\r
-confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for\r
-more than a word in passing.\r
-\r
-“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”--was then his remark. “You did behave\r
-very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through\r
-what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his\r
-persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of right,\r
-he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.--He had induced her\r
-to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and\r
-uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from\r
-suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend\r
-with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have\r
-respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were\r
-all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she\r
-had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she\r
-should have been in such a state of punishment.”\r
-\r
-Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew\r
-uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was\r
-deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read,\r
-however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and,\r
-excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear\r
-of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.\r
-\r
-“There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the\r
-Eltons,” was his next observation.--“His feelings are natural.--What!\r
-actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to\r
-be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a\r
-view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most\r
-extraordinary--”\r
-\r
-“Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers.”\r
-\r
-“I hope he does,” replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter.\r
-“‘Smallridge!’--What does this mean? What is all this?”\r
-\r
-“She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge’s children--a\r
-dear friend of Mrs. Elton’s--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the\r
-bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”\r
-\r
-“Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of\r
-Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter\r
-the man writes!”\r
-\r
-“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.”\r
-\r
-“Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in\r
-finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of\r
-her. ‘Dearer, much dearer than ever.’ I hope he may long continue to\r
-feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal\r
-thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--‘Happier than I\r
-deserve.’ Come, he knows himself there. ‘Miss Woodhouse calls me the\r
-child of good fortune.’--Those were Miss Woodhouse’s words, were they?--\r
-And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune!\r
-That was your name for him, was it?”\r
-\r
-“You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still\r
-you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I\r
-hope it does him some service with you.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of\r
-inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion\r
-in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he\r
-is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it\r
-may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very\r
-ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the\r
-steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk\r
-to you of something else. I have another person’s interest at present\r
-so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill.\r
-Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work\r
-on one subject.”\r
-\r
-The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike\r
-English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love\r
-with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the\r
-happiness of her father. Emma’s answer was ready at the first word.\r
-“While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible\r
-for her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however,\r
-was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr.\r
-Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any\r
-other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most\r
-deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to\r
-remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but\r
-his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself\r
-long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation\r
-would be a risk of her father’s comfort, perhaps even of his life, which\r
-must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he felt\r
-that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the\r
-sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any\r
-respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield;\r
-that so long as her father’s happiness--in other words, his life--required\r
-Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.\r
-\r
-Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing\r
-thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such\r
-an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all\r
-the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must\r
-be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that\r
-in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there\r
-would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it,\r
-and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no\r
-reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had\r
-given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had\r
-been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his\r
-thoughts to himself.\r
-\r
-“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure\r
-William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you\r
-ask mine.”\r
-\r
-She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised,\r
-moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good\r
-scheme.\r
-\r
-It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in\r
-which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never\r
-struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as\r
-heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must\r
-of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only\r
-gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in\r
-detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley’s\r
-marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had\r
-wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt.\r
-\r
-This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at\r
-Hartfield--the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became.\r
-His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual\r
-good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the\r
-periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!--Such a partner in\r
-all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of\r
-melancholy!\r
-\r
-She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing\r
-of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend,\r
-who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family\r
-party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere\r
-charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in\r
-every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction\r
-from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a\r
-dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a\r
-peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of\r
-unmerited punishment.\r
-\r
-In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is,\r
-supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr.\r
-Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure;--not\r
-like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly\r
-considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped\r
-than now; and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she\r
-could be in love with more than _three_ men in one year.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVI\r
-\r
-\r
-It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as\r
-herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by\r
-letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet!\r
-\r
-Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without\r
-reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there\r
-was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style,\r
-which increased the desirableness of their being separate.--It might be\r
-only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have\r
-been quite without resentment under such a stroke.\r
-\r
-She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella’s invitation; and she was\r
-fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting\r
-to invention.--There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and\r
-had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was\r
-delighted to be of use; any thing of ill health was a recommendation to\r
-her--and though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was\r
-quite eager to have Harriet under her care.--When it was thus settled\r
-on her sister’s side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her\r
-very persuadable.--Harriet was to go; she was invited for at least a\r
-fortnight; she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage.--It was\r
-all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick\r
-Square.\r
-\r
-Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley’s visits; now she could\r
-talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense\r
-of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her\r
-when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might\r
-at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings\r
-which she had led astray herself.\r
-\r
-The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard’s, or in London, made perhaps\r
-an unreasonable difference in Emma’s sensations; but she could not think\r
-of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must\r
-be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself.\r
-\r
-She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place\r
-in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before\r
-her, one which _she_ only could be competent to make--the confession of\r
-her engagement to her father; but she would have nothing to do with it\r
-at present.--She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston\r
-were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this\r
-period among those she loved--and the evil should not act on herself\r
-by anticipation before the appointed time.--A fortnight, at least, of\r
-leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating,\r
-delight, should be hers.\r
-\r
-She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an\r
-hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.--She ought\r
-to go--and she was longing to see her; the resemblance of their present\r
-situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a\r
-_secret_ satisfaction; but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect\r
-would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any\r
-thing Jane might communicate.\r
-\r
-She went--she had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not\r
-been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had\r
-been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the\r
-worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.--The fear of being still\r
-unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to\r
-wait in the passage, and send up her name.--She heard Patty announcing\r
-it; but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so\r
-happily intelligible.--No; she heard nothing but the instant reply of,\r
-“Beg her to walk up;”--and a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs\r
-by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her\r
-were felt sufficient.--Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely,\r
-so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth; there was\r
-every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted.--\r
-She came forward with an offered hand; and said, in a low, but very\r
-feeling tone,\r
-\r
-“This is most kind, indeed!--Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me\r
-to express--I hope you will believe--Excuse me for being so entirely\r
-without words.”\r
-\r
-Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the\r
-sound of Mrs. Elton’s voice from the sitting-room had not checked\r
-her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her\r
-congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which\r
-accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs.\r
-Elton elsewhere; but she was in a humour to have patience with every\r
-body; and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the\r
-rencontre would do them no harm.\r
-\r
-She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton’s thoughts, and\r
-understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in\r
-Miss Fairfax’s confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was\r
-still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in\r
-the expression of her face; and while paying her own compliments to Mrs.\r
-Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady’s replies, she saw\r
-her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she\r
-had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into\r
-the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods,\r
-\r
-“We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want\r
-opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I\r
-only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is\r
-not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet\r
-creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.--But not a word\r
-more. Let us be discreet--quite on our good behaviour.--Hush!--You\r
-remember those lines--I forget the poem at this moment:\r
-\r
- “For when a lady’s in the case,\r
- “You know all other things give place.”\r
-\r
-Now I say, my dear, in _our_ case, for _lady_, read----mum! a word to\r
-the wise.--I am in a fine flow of spirits, an’t I? But I want to set\r
-your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.--_My_ representation, you see, has\r
-quite appeased her.”\r
-\r
-And again, on Emma’s merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates’s\r
-knitting, she added, in a half whisper,\r
-\r
-“I mentioned no _names_, you will observe.--Oh! no; cautious as a\r
-minister of state. I managed it extremely well.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every\r
-possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of\r
-the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with,\r
-\r
-“Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is\r
-charmingly recovered?--Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest\r
-credit?--(here was a side-glance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my\r
-word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!--Oh! if you had\r
-seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!”--And when Mrs. Bates\r
-was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, “We do not say a word\r
-of any _assistance_ that Perry might have; not a word of a certain young\r
-physician from Windsor.--Oh! no; Perry shall have all the credit.”\r
-\r
-“I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse,” she\r
-shortly afterwards began, “since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant\r
-party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not\r
-seem--that is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.--So\r
-it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think\r
-it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our\r
-collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the\r
-fine weather lasts?--It must be the same party, you know, quite the\r
-same party, not _one_ exception.”\r
-\r
-Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being\r
-diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting,\r
-she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say\r
-every thing.\r
-\r
-“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.--It is impossible\r
-to say--Yes, indeed, I quite understand--dearest Jane’s prospects--that\r
-is, I do not mean.--But she is charmingly recovered.--How is Mr.\r
-Woodhouse?--I am so glad.--Quite out of my power.--Such a happy little\r
-circle as you find us here.--Yes, indeed.--Charming young man!--that\r
-is--so very friendly; I mean good Mr. Perry!--such attention to\r
-Jane!”--And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight\r
-towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a\r
-little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter,\r
-which was now graciously overcome.--After a few whispers, indeed, which\r
-placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said,\r
-\r
-“Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long, that\r
-anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise; but, the truth\r
-is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me\r
-here, and pay his respects to you.”\r
-\r
-“What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--That will\r
-be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and\r
-Mr. Elton’s time is so engaged.”\r
-\r
-“Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning to\r
-night.--There is no end of people’s coming to him, on some pretence or\r
-other.--The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always\r
-wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without\r
-him.--‘Upon my word, Mr. E.,’ I often say, ‘rather you than I.--I do\r
-not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had\r
-half so many applicants.’--Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect\r
-them both to an unpardonable degree.--I believe I have not played a bar\r
-this fortnight.--However, he is coming, I assure you: yes, indeed, on\r
-purpose to wait on you all.” And putting up her hand to screen her\r
-words from Emma--“A congratulatory visit, you know.--Oh! yes, quite\r
-indispensable.”\r
-\r
-Miss Bates looked about her, so happily--!\r
-\r
-“He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself\r
-from Knightley; but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep\r
-consultation.--Mr. E. is Knightley’s right hand.”\r
-\r
-Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, “Is Mr. Elton\r
-gone on foot to Donwell?--He will have a hot walk.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and\r
-Cole will be there too; but one is apt to speak only of those who\r
-lead.--I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way.”\r
-\r
-“Have not you mistaken the day?” said Emma. “I am almost certain that\r
-the meeting at the Crown is not till to-morrow.--Mr. Knightley was at\r
-Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day,” was the abrupt answer, which\r
-denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton’s side.--“I do\r
-believe,” she continued, “this is the most troublesome parish that ever\r
-was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove.”\r
-\r
-“Your parish there was small,” said Jane.\r
-\r
-“Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject\r
-talked of.”\r
-\r
-“But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard\r
-you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge; the\r
-only school, and not more than five-and-twenty children.”\r
-\r
-“Ah! you clever creature, that’s very true. What a thinking brain you\r
-have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we\r
-could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce\r
-perfection.--Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that _some_\r
-people may not think _you_ perfection already.--But hush!--not a word,\r
-if you please.”\r
-\r
-It seemed an unnecessary caution; Jane was wanting to give her words,\r
-not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw.\r
-The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very\r
-evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look.\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her\r
-sparkling vivacity.\r
-\r
-“Very pretty, sir, upon my word; to send me on here, to be an\r
-encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!--But\r
-you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should\r
-not stir till my lord and master appeared.--Here have I been sitting\r
-this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal\r
-obedience--for who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted?”\r
-\r
-Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away.\r
-His civilities to the other ladies must be paid; but his subsequent\r
-object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the\r
-walk he had had for nothing.\r
-\r
-“When I got to Donwell,” said he, “Knightley could not be found. Very\r
-odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the\r
-message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one.”\r
-\r
-“Donwell!” cried his wife.--“My dear Mr. E., you have not been to\r
-Donwell!--You mean the Crown; you come from the meeting at the Crown.”\r
-\r
-“No, no, that’s to-morrow; and I particularly wanted to see Knightley\r
-to-day on that very account.--Such a dreadful broiling morning!--I went\r
-over the fields too--(speaking in a tone of great ill-usage,) which made\r
-it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you\r
-I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The\r
-housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.--Very\r
-extraordinary!--And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps\r
-to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.--Miss\r
-Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!--Can you explain it?”\r
-\r
-Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary,\r
-indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him.\r
-\r
-“I cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife\r
-ought to do,) “I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of\r
-all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to\r
-be forgotten!--My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am\r
-sure he must.--Not even Knightley could be so very eccentric;--and his\r
-servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case: and very likely\r
-to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed,\r
-extremely awkward and remiss.--I am sure I would not have such a\r
-creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And\r
-as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.--She promised\r
-Wright a receipt, and never sent it.”\r
-\r
-“I met William Larkins,” continued Mr. Elton, “as I got near the house,\r
-and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not\r
-believe him.--William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what\r
-was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the\r
-speech of him. I have nothing to do with William’s wants, but it really\r
-is of very great importance that _I_ should see Knightley to-day; and it\r
-becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should\r
-have had this hot walk to no purpose.”\r
-\r
-Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In\r
-all probability she was at this very time waited for there; and Mr.\r
-Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards\r
-Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins.\r
-\r
-She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to\r
-attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs; it gave her\r
-an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say,\r
-\r
-“It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you\r
-not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to\r
-introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might\r
-have been strictly correct.--I feel that I should certainly have been\r
-impertinent.”\r
-\r
-“Oh!” cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought\r
-infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual\r
-composure--“there would have been no danger. The danger would have\r
-been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than\r
-by expressing an interest--. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more\r
-collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very\r
-great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those\r
-of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not\r
-disgusted to such a degree as to--I have not time for half that I could\r
-wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for\r
-myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately--in short, if your\r
-compassion does not stand my friend--”\r
-\r
-“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and\r
-taking her hand. “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you\r
-might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted\r
-even--”\r
-\r
-“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.--So\r
-cold and artificial!--I had always a part to act.--It was a life of\r
-deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you.”\r
-\r
-“Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.\r
-Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done\r
-quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you\r
-have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”\r
-\r
-“Very.”\r
-\r
-“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--just as\r
-I begin to know you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here\r
-till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”\r
-\r
-“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma,\r
-smiling--“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”\r
-\r
-The smile was returned as Jane answered,\r
-\r
-“You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I\r
-am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill\r
-at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of\r
-deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing\r
-more to wait for.”\r
-\r
-“Thank you, thank you.--This is just what I wanted to be assured\r
-of.--Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and\r
-open!--Good-bye, good-bye.”\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVII\r
-\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston’s friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the\r
-satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by\r
-knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in\r
-wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with\r
-any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s\r
-sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father\r
-and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew\r
-older--and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence--to\r
-have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks\r
-and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston--no\r
-one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be\r
-quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have\r
-their powers in exercise again.\r
-\r
-“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she\r
-continued--“like La Baronne d’Almane on La Comtesse d’Ostalis, in Madame\r
-de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little\r
-Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”\r
-\r
-“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than\r
-she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will\r
-be the only difference.”\r
-\r
-“Poor child!” cried Emma; “at that rate, what will become of her?”\r
-\r
-“Nothing very bad.--The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable\r
-in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my\r
-bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all\r
-my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be\r
-severe on them?”\r
-\r
-Emma laughed, and replied: “But I had the assistance of all your\r
-endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether\r
-my own sense would have corrected me without it.”\r
-\r
-“Do you?--I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:--Miss Taylor\r
-gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite\r
-as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what\r
-right has he to lecture me?--and I am afraid very natural for you to\r
-feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did\r
-you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the\r
-tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without\r
-doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors,\r
-have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least.”\r
-\r
-“I am sure you were of use to me,” cried Emma. “I was very often\r
-influenced rightly by you--oftener than I would own at the time. I\r
-am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be\r
-spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her\r
-as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is\r
-thirteen.”\r
-\r
-“How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your\r
-saucy looks--‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I\r
-may, or I have Miss Taylor’s leave’--something which, you knew, I\r
-did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad\r
-feelings instead of one.”\r
-\r
-“What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches\r
-in such affectionate remembrance.”\r
-\r
-“‘Mr. Knightley.’--You always called me, ‘Mr. Knightley;’ and, from\r
-habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want\r
-you to call me something else, but I do not know what.”\r
-\r
-“I remember once calling you ‘George,’ in one of my amiable fits, about\r
-ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as\r
-you made no objection, I never did it again.”\r
-\r
-“And cannot you call me ‘George’ now?”\r
-\r
-“Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but ‘Mr. Knightley.’ I\r
-will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by\r
-calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise,” she added presently, laughing\r
-and blushing--“I will promise to call you once by your Christian name.\r
-I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in\r
-which N. takes M. for better, for worse.”\r
-\r
-Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important\r
-service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the\r
-advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly\r
-follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a\r
-subject.--She could not enter on it.--Harriet was very seldom mentioned\r
-between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being\r
-thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy,\r
-and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were\r
-declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other\r
-circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that\r
-her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on\r
-Isabella’s letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being\r
-obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to\r
-the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.\r
-\r
-Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be\r
-expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which\r
-appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but,\r
-since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet\r
-different from what she had known her before.--Isabella, to be sure,\r
-was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing\r
-with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma’s comforts and\r
-hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s being to stay longer;\r
-her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John\r
-Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain\r
-till they could bring her back.\r
-\r
-“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley. “Here is\r
-his answer, if you like to see it.”\r
-\r
-It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma\r
-accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know\r
-what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her\r
-friend was unmentioned.\r
-\r
-“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley,\r
-“but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have,\r
-likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making\r
-flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in\r
-her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”\r
-\r
-“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the\r
-letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the\r
-good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not\r
-without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as\r
-you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different\r
-construction, I should not have believed him.”\r
-\r
-“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--”\r
-\r
-“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,”\r
- interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--“much less, perhaps, than\r
-he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the\r
-subject.”\r
-\r
-“Emma, my dear Emma--”\r
-\r
-“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother\r
-does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret,\r
-and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing\r
-_you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on\r
-your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not\r
-sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once.--His tender compassion towards\r
-oppressed worth can go no farther.”\r
-\r
-“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as\r
-John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be\r
-happy together. I am amused by one part of John’s letter--did you notice\r
-it?--where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by\r
-surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the\r
-kind.”\r
-\r
-“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having\r
-some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly\r
-unprepared for that.”\r
-\r
-“Yes, yes--but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my\r
-feelings. What has he been judging by?--I am not conscious of any\r
-difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at\r
-this time for my marrying any more than at another.--But it was so, I\r
-suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them\r
-the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much\r
-as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, ‘Uncle seems\r
-always tired now.’”\r
-\r
-The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other\r
-persons’ reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently\r
-recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse’s visits, Emma having it in view that\r
-her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to\r
-announce it at home, and then at Randalls.--But how to break it to her\r
-father at last!--She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr.\r
-Knightley’s absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have\r
-failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come\r
-at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.--She was\r
-forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a\r
-more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself.\r
-She must not appear to think it a misfortune.--With all the spirits she\r
-could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then,\r
-in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be\r
-obtained--which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty,\r
-since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all--she and Mr.\r
-Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the\r
-constant addition of that person’s company whom she knew he loved, next\r
-to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world.\r
-\r
-Poor man!--it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried\r
-earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of\r
-having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be\r
-a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella,\r
-and poor Miss Taylor.--But it would not do. Emma hung about him\r
-affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must\r
-not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them\r
-from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not\r
-going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing\r
-no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she\r
-was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr.\r
-Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.--Did\r
-he not love Mr. Knightley very much?--He would not deny that he did,\r
-she was sure.--Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr.\r
-Knightley?--Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters,\r
-who so glad to assist him?--Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached\r
-to him?--Would not he like to have him always on the spot?--Yes. That\r
-was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should\r
-be glad to see him every day;--but they did see him every day as it\r
-was.--Why could not they go on as they had done?\r
-\r
-Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled; but the worst was overcome,\r
-the idea was given; time and continual repetition must do the rest.--To\r
-Emma’s entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley’s, whose fond\r
-praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome; and he was soon\r
-used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.--They had all\r
-the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest\r
-approbation; and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to\r
-consider the subject in the most serviceable light--first, as a settled,\r
-and, secondly, as a good one--well aware of the nearly equal importance\r
-of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse’s mind.--It was agreed\r
-upon, as what was to be; and every body by whom he was used to be\r
-guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness; and having some\r
-feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some\r
-time or other--in another year or two, perhaps--it might not be so very\r
-bad if the marriage did take place.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she\r
-said to him in favour of the event.--She had been extremely surprized,\r
-never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she\r
-saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in\r
-urging him to the utmost.--She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as\r
-to think he deserved even her dearest Emma; and it was in every respect\r
-so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one\r
-respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible,\r
-so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely\r
-have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself\r
-been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it\r
-long ago.--How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma\r
-would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr.\r
-Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such\r
-an arrangement desirable!--The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr.\r
-Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband’s plans and her own, for\r
-a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe\r
-and Hartfield had been a continual impediment--less acknowledged by Mr.\r
-Weston than by herself--but even he had never been able to finish\r
-the subject better than by saying--“Those matters will take care of\r
-themselves; the young people will find a way.” But here there was\r
-nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was\r
-all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name.\r
-It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without\r
-one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it.\r
-\r
-Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections\r
-as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could\r
-increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have\r
-outgrown its first set of caps.\r
-\r
-The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread; and Mr. Weston\r
-had his five minutes share of it; but five minutes were enough to\r
-familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.--He saw the advantages\r
-of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife;\r
-but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he\r
-was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it.\r
-\r
-“It is to be a secret, I conclude,” said he. “These matters are always a\r
-secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be\r
-told when I may speak out.--I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion.”\r
-\r
-He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that\r
-point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest\r
-daughter?--he must tell her; and Miss Bates being present, it passed,\r
-of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately\r
-afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they\r
-had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it\r
-would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening\r
-wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity.\r
-\r
-In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and\r
-others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their\r
-all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys;\r
-and another might predict disagreements among their servants; but yet,\r
-upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one\r
-habitation, the Vicarage.--There, the surprize was not softened by any\r
-satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife;\r
-he only hoped “the young lady’s pride would now be contented;” and\r
-supposed “she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could;” and,\r
-on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, “Rather\r
-he than I!”--But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.--“Poor\r
-Knightley! poor fellow!--sad business for him.”--She was extremely\r
-concerned; for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good\r
-qualities.--How could he be so taken in?--Did not think him at all in\r
-love--not in the least.--Poor Knightley!--There would be an end of all\r
-pleasant intercourse with him.--How happy he had been to come and dine\r
-with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.--Poor\r
-fellow!--No more exploring parties to Donwell made for _her_. Oh!\r
-no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every\r
-thing.--Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that\r
-she had abused the housekeeper the other day.--Shocking plan, living\r
-together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who\r
-had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first\r
-quarter.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XVIII\r
-\r
-\r
-Time passed on. A few more to-morrows, and the party from London would\r
-be arriving. It was an alarming change; and Emma was thinking of it one\r
-morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when\r
-Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the\r
-first chat of pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began\r
-with,\r
-\r
-“I have something to tell you, Emma; some news.”\r
-\r
-“Good or bad?” said she, quickly, looking up in his face.\r
-\r
-“I do not know which it ought to be called.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not\r
-to smile.”\r
-\r
-“I am afraid,” said he, composing his features, “I am very much afraid,\r
-my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.”\r
-\r
-“Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases\r
-or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too.”\r
-\r
-“There is one subject,” he replied, “I hope but one, on which we do not\r
-think alike.” He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on\r
-her face. “Does nothing occur to you?--Do not you recollect?--Harriet\r
-Smith.”\r
-\r
-Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though\r
-she knew not what.\r
-\r
-“Have you heard from her yourself this morning?” cried he. “You have, I\r
-believe, and know the whole.”\r
-\r
-“No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me.”\r
-\r
-“You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet\r
-Smith marries Robert Martin.”\r
-\r
-Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared--and her eyes,\r
-in eager gaze, said, “No, this is impossible!” but her lips were closed.\r
-\r
-“It is so, indeed,” continued Mr. Knightley; “I have it from Robert\r
-Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago.”\r
-\r
-She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement.\r
-\r
-“You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were\r
-the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one\r
-or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not\r
-talk much on the subject.”\r
-\r
-“You mistake me, you quite mistake me,” she replied, exerting herself.\r
-“It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I\r
-cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say,\r
-that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he\r
-has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it.”\r
-\r
-“I mean that he has done it,” answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but\r
-determined decision, “and been accepted.”\r
-\r
-“Good God!” she cried.--“Well!”--Then having recourse to her workbasket,\r
-in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite\r
-feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be\r
-expressing, she added, “Well, now tell me every thing; make this\r
-intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was\r
-more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how\r
-has it been possible?”\r
-\r
-“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago,\r
-and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send\r
-to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was\r
-asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were\r
-going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our\r
-brother and sister, Henry, John--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could\r
-not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused;\r
-and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day--which he\r
-did--and in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an\r
-opportunity of speaking to Harriet; and certainly did not speak\r
-in vain.--She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is\r
-deserving. He came down by yesterday’s coach, and was with me this\r
-morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first\r
-on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of\r
-the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much\r
-longer history when you see her.--She will give you all the minute\r
-particulars, which only woman’s language can make interesting.--In our\r
-communications we deal only in the great.--However, I must say, that\r
-Robert Martin’s heart seemed for _him_, and to _me_, very overflowing;\r
-and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that\r
-on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John\r
-Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry;\r
-and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith\r
-rather uneasy.”\r
-\r
-He stopped.--Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she\r
-was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness.\r
-She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed\r
-him; and after observing her a little while, he added,\r
-\r
-“Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you\r
-unhappy; but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His\r
-situation is an evil--but you must consider it as what satisfies your\r
-friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him\r
-as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight\r
-you.--As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend\r
-in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is\r
-saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.--You laugh at me about William\r
-Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin.”\r
-\r
-He wanted her to look up and smile; and having now brought herself not\r
-to smile too broadly--she did--cheerfully answering,\r
-\r
-“You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think\r
-Harriet is doing extremely well. _Her_ connexions may be worse than\r
-_his_. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they\r
-are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You\r
-cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared\r
-I was!--for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined\r
-against him, much more, than she was before.”\r
-\r
-“You ought to know your friend best,” replied Mr. Knightley; “but I\r
-should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be\r
-very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”\r
-\r
-Emma could not help laughing as she answered, “Upon my word, I believe\r
-you know her quite as well as I do.--But, Mr. Knightley, are you\r
-perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright _accepted_ him.\r
-I could suppose she might in time--but can she already?--Did not you\r
-misunderstand him?--You were both talking of other things; of business,\r
-shows of cattle, or new drills--and might not you, in the confusion of\r
-so many subjects, mistake him?--It was not Harriet’s hand that he was\r
-certain of--it was the dimensions of some famous ox.”\r
-\r
-The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert\r
-Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma’s feelings, and so strong\r
-was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet’s\r
-side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis,\r
-“No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin,” that she was\r
-really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature.\r
-It could not be otherwise.\r
-\r
-“Do you dare say this?” cried Mr. Knightley. “Do you dare to suppose me\r
-so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?--What do\r
-you deserve?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with\r
-any other; and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are\r
-you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and\r
-Harriet now are?”\r
-\r
-“I am quite sure,” he replied, speaking very distinctly, “that he\r
-told me she had accepted him; and that there was no obscurity, nothing\r
-doubtful, in the words he used; and I think I can give you a proof that\r
-it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew\r
-of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of\r
-her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done,\r
-than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he\r
-said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day.”\r
-\r
-“I am perfectly satisfied,” replied Emma, with the brightest smiles,\r
-“and most sincerely wish them happy.”\r
-\r
-“You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before.”\r
-\r
-“I hope so--for at that time I was a fool.”\r
-\r
-“And I am changed also; for I am now very willing to grant you all\r
-Harriet’s good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for\r
-Robert Martin’s sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much\r
-in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often\r
-talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes,\r
-indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor\r
-Martin’s cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations,\r
-I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good\r
-notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in\r
-the affections and utility of domestic life.--Much of this, I have no\r
-doubt, she may thank you for.”\r
-\r
-“Me!” cried Emma, shaking her head.--“Ah! poor Harriet!”\r
-\r
-She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more\r
-praise than she deserved.\r
-\r
-Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her\r
-father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a\r
-state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be\r
-collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she\r
-had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she\r
-could be fit for nothing rational.\r
-\r
-Her father’s business was to announce James’s being gone out to put the\r
-horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she\r
-had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing.\r
-\r
-The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be\r
-imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of\r
-Harriet’s welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for\r
-security.--What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of\r
-him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.\r
-Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility\r
-and circumspection in future.\r
-\r
-Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her\r
-resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the\r
-very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the\r
-doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet!\r
-\r
-Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would be a\r
-pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.\r
-\r
-High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the\r
-reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would\r
-soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to\r
-practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him\r
-that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to\r
-welcome as a duty.\r
-\r
-In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father; not\r
-always listening, but always agreeing to what he said; and, whether in\r
-speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his\r
-being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be\r
-disappointed.\r
-\r
-They arrived.--Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawing-room:--but hardly\r
-had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks\r
-for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the\r
-blind, of two figures passing near the window.\r
-\r
-“It is Frank and Miss Fairfax,” said Mrs. Weston. “I was just going to\r
-tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He\r
-stays till to-morrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the\r
-day with us.--They are coming in, I hope.”\r
-\r
-In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to\r
-see him--but there was a degree of confusion--a number of embarrassing\r
-recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a\r
-consciousness which at first allowed little to be said; and having all\r
-sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that\r
-Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long\r
-felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane,\r
-would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the\r
-party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a\r
-want of subject or animation--or of courage and opportunity for Frank\r
-Churchill to draw near her and say,\r
-\r
-“I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message\r
-in one of Mrs. Weston’s letters. I hope time has not made you less\r
-willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said.”\r
-\r
-“No, indeed,” cried Emma, most happy to begin, “not in the least. I am\r
-particularly glad to see and shake hands with you--and to give you joy\r
-in person.”\r
-\r
-He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with\r
-serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness.\r
-\r
-“Is not she looking well?” said he, turning his eyes towards Jane.\r
-“Better than she ever used to do?--You see how my father and Mrs. Weston\r
-doat upon her.”\r
-\r
-But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after\r
-mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of\r
-Dixon.--Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing.\r
-\r
-“I can never think of it,” she cried, “without extreme shame.”\r
-\r
-“The shame,” he answered, “is all mine, or ought to be. But is it\r
-possible that you had no suspicion?--I mean of late. Early, I know, you\r
-had none.”\r
-\r
-“I never had the smallest, I assure you.”\r
-\r
-“That appears quite wonderful. I was once very near--and I wish I\r
-had--it would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong\r
-things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no\r
-service.--It would have been a much better transgression had I broken\r
-the bond of secrecy and told you every thing.”\r
-\r
-“It is not now worth a regret,” said Emma.\r
-\r
-“I have some hope,” resumed he, “of my uncle’s being persuaded to pay a\r
-visit at Randalls; he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells\r
-are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust,\r
-till we may carry her northward.--But now, I am at such a distance from\r
-her--is not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?--Till this morning, we have not\r
-once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me?”\r
-\r
-Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay\r
-thought, he cried,\r
-\r
-“Ah! by the bye,” then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the\r
-moment--“I hope Mr. Knightley is well?” He paused.--She coloured and\r
-laughed.--“I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish\r
-in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.--I assure you that\r
-I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.--He is\r
-a man whom I cannot presume to praise.”\r
-\r
-Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style; but\r
-his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane,\r
-and his next words were,\r
-\r
-“Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and\r
-yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a\r
-most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most\r
-distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.--Just colour\r
-enough for beauty.”\r
-\r
-“I have always admired her complexion,” replied Emma, archly; “but\r
-do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so\r
-pale?--When we first began to talk of her.--Have you quite forgotten?”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no--what an impudent dog I was!--How could I dare--”\r
-\r
-But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help\r
-saying,\r
-\r
-“I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you\r
-had very great amusement in tricking us all.--I am sure you had.--I am\r
-sure it was a consolation to you.”\r
-\r
-“Oh! no, no, no--how can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most\r
-miserable wretch!”\r
-\r
-“Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a\r
-source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us\r
-all in.--Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the\r
-truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same\r
-situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.”\r
-\r
-He bowed.\r
-\r
-“If not in our dispositions,” she presently added, with a look of true\r
-sensibility, “there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids\r
-fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.”\r
-\r
-“True, true,” he answered, warmly. “No, not true on your side. You can\r
-have no superior, but most true on mine.--She is a complete angel. Look\r
-at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her\r
-throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.--You will\r
-be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my\r
-uncle means to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set.\r
-I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be\r
-beautiful in her dark hair?”\r
-\r
-“Very beautiful, indeed,” replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he\r
-gratefully burst out,\r
-\r
-“How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent\r
-looks!--I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should\r
-certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.”\r
-\r
-The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account\r
-of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the\r
-infant’s appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish,\r
-but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending\r
-for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been\r
-almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had\r
-been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly\r
-interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for\r
-thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done\r
-it. “She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the\r
-slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be\r
-too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps,\r
-that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now,\r
-very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had\r
-seen it.”\r
-\r
-Frank Churchill caught the name.\r
-\r
-“Perry!” said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss\r
-Fairfax’s eye. “My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr.\r
-Perry?--Has he been here this morning?--And how does he travel now?--Has\r
-he set up his carriage?”\r
-\r
-Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the\r
-laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really\r
-hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.\r
-\r
-“Such an extraordinary dream of mine!” he cried. “I can never think of\r
-it without laughing.--She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see\r
-it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do\r
-not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter,\r
-which sent me the report, is passing under her eye--that the whole\r
-blunder is spread before her--that she can attend to nothing else,\r
-though pretending to listen to the others?”\r
-\r
-Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly\r
-remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet\r
-steady voice,\r
-\r
-“How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!--They\r
-_will_ sometimes obtrude--but how you can court them!”\r
-\r
-He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but\r
-Emma’s feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving\r
-Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she\r
-felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really\r
-regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more\r
-sensible of Mr. Knightley’s high superiority of character. The happiness\r
-of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated\r
-contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-CHAPTER XIX\r
-\r
-\r
-If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a\r
-momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her\r
-attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from\r
-unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the\r
-recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party\r
-from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour\r
-alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfied--unaccountable\r
-as it was!--that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley,\r
-and was now forming all her views of happiness.\r
-\r
-Harriet was a little distressed--did look a little foolish at first:\r
-but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and\r
-self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with\r
-the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the\r
-fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend’s\r
-approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by\r
-meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.--Harriet was\r
-most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley’s, and the\r
-dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight.\r
-But what did such particulars explain?--The fact was, as Emma could now\r
-acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin; and that his\r
-continuing to love her had been irresistible.--Beyond this, it must ever\r
-be unintelligible to Emma.\r
-\r
-The event, however, was most joyful; and every day was giving her fresh\r
-reason for thinking so.--Harriet’s parentage became known. She proved\r
-to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the\r
-comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to\r
-have always wished for concealment.--Such was the blood of gentility\r
-which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!--It was likely to\r
-be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what\r
-a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley--or for the\r
-Churchills--or even for Mr. Elton!--The stain of illegitimacy,\r
-unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.\r
-\r
-No objection was raised on the father’s side; the young man was treated\r
-liberally; it was all as it should be: and as Emma became acquainted\r
-with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully\r
-acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could\r
-bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet’s\r
-happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home he\r
-offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and\r
-improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her,\r
-and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for safety,\r
-and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into\r
-temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable\r
-and happy; and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the\r
-world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a\r
-man;--or, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself.\r
-\r
-Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins,\r
-was less and less at Hartfield; which was not to be regretted.--The\r
-intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change\r
-into a calmer sort of goodwill; and, fortunately, what ought to be,\r
-and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural\r
-manner.\r
-\r
-Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw\r
-her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as\r
-no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them,\r
-could impair.--Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton,\r
-but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on\r
-herself.--Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of\r
-the three, were the first to be married.\r
-\r
-Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the\r
-comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.--The Mr. Churchills\r
-were also in town; and they were only waiting for November.\r
-\r
-The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by\r
-Emma and Mr. Knightley.--They had determined that their marriage ought\r
-to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to\r
-allow them the fortnight’s absence in a tour to the seaside, which was\r
-the plan.--John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in\r
-approving it. But Mr. Woodhouse--how was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced\r
-to consent?--he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a\r
-distant event.\r
-\r
-When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were\r
-almost hopeless.--A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.--He\r
-began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it--a very\r
-promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he\r
-was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter’s\r
-courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know\r
-him fancying himself neglected; and though her understanding almost\r
-acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when\r
-once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she\r
-hesitated--she could not proceed.\r
-\r
-In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden\r
-illumination of Mr. Woodhouse’s mind, or any wonderful change of his\r
-nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another\r
-way.--Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house was robbed one night of all her\r
-turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in\r
-the neighbourhood also suffered.--Pilfering was _housebreaking_ to Mr.\r
-Woodhouse’s fears.--He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his\r
-son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every\r
-night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the\r
-Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them\r
-protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.--But Mr. John Knightley must\r
-be in London again by the end of the first week in November.\r
-\r
-The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary,\r
-cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the\r
-moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day--and Mr. Elton was called\r
-on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to\r
-join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse.\r
-\r
-The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have\r
-no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars\r
-detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very\r
-inferior to her own.--“Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a\r
-most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it.”--But,\r
-in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence,\r
-the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the\r
-ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.\r
-\r
-\r
-\r
-FINIS\r
+EMMA
+
+By Jane Austen
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME I
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Emma Woodhouse, handsome, clever, and rich, with a comfortable home
+and happy disposition, seemed to unite some of the best blessings of
+existence; and had lived nearly twenty-one years in the world with very
+little to distress or vex her.
+
+She was the youngest of the two daughters of a most affectionate,
+indulgent father; and had, in consequence of her sister’s marriage, been
+mistress of his house from a very early period. Her mother had died
+too long ago for her to have more than an indistinct remembrance of
+her caresses; and her place had been supplied by an excellent woman as
+governess, who had fallen little short of a mother in affection.
+
+Sixteen years had Miss Taylor been in Mr. Woodhouse’s family, less as a
+governess than a friend, very fond of both daughters, but particularly
+of Emma. Between _them_ it was more the intimacy of sisters. Even before
+Miss Taylor had ceased to hold the nominal office of governess, the
+mildness of her temper had hardly allowed her to impose any restraint;
+and the shadow of authority being now long passed away, they had been
+living together as friend and friend very mutually attached, and Emma
+doing just what she liked; highly esteeming Miss Taylor’s judgment, but
+directed chiefly by her own.
+
+The real evils, indeed, of Emma’s situation were the power of having
+rather too much her own way, and a disposition to think a little too
+well of herself; these were the disadvantages which threatened alloy to
+her many enjoyments. The danger, however, was at present so unperceived,
+that they did not by any means rank as misfortunes with her.
+
+Sorrow came--a gentle sorrow--but not at all in the shape of any
+disagreeable consciousness.--Miss Taylor married. It was Miss Taylor’s
+loss which first brought grief. It was on the wedding-day of this
+beloved friend that Emma first sat in mournful thought of any
+continuance. The wedding over, and the bride-people gone, her father and
+herself were left to dine together, with no prospect of a third to cheer
+a long evening. Her father composed himself to sleep after dinner, as
+usual, and she had then only to sit and think of what she had lost.
+
+The event had every promise of happiness for her friend. Mr. Weston
+was a man of unexceptionable character, easy fortune, suitable age, and
+pleasant manners; and there was some satisfaction in considering
+with what self-denying, generous friendship she had always wished and
+promoted the match; but it was a black morning’s work for her. The want
+of Miss Taylor would be felt every hour of every day. She recalled her
+past kindness--the kindness, the affection of sixteen years--how she had
+taught and how she had played with her from five years old--how she had
+devoted all her powers to attach and amuse her in health--and how
+nursed her through the various illnesses of childhood. A large debt of
+gratitude was owing here; but the intercourse of the last seven
+years, the equal footing and perfect unreserve which had soon followed
+Isabella’s marriage, on their being left to each other, was yet a
+dearer, tenderer recollection. She had been a friend and companion such
+as few possessed: intelligent, well-informed, useful, gentle, knowing
+all the ways of the family, interested in all its concerns, and
+peculiarly interested in herself, in every pleasure, every scheme of
+hers--one to whom she could speak every thought as it arose, and who had
+such an affection for her as could never find fault.
+
+How was she to bear the change?--It was true that her friend was going
+only half a mile from them; but Emma was aware that great must be the
+difference between a Mrs. Weston, only half a mile from them, and a Miss
+Taylor in the house; and with all her advantages, natural and domestic,
+she was now in great danger of suffering from intellectual solitude. She
+dearly loved her father, but he was no companion for her. He could not
+meet her in conversation, rational or playful.
+
+The evil of the actual disparity in their ages (and Mr. Woodhouse had
+not married early) was much increased by his constitution and habits;
+for having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of
+mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years; and though
+everywhere beloved for the friendliness of his heart and his amiable
+temper, his talents could not have recommended him at any time.
+
+Her sister, though comparatively but little removed by matrimony, being
+settled in London, only sixteen miles off, was much beyond her daily
+reach; and many a long October and November evening must be struggled
+through at Hartfield, before Christmas brought the next visit from
+Isabella and her husband, and their little children, to fill the house,
+and give her pleasant society again.
+
+Highbury, the large and populous village, almost amounting to a town,
+to which Hartfield, in spite of its separate lawn, and shrubberies, and
+name, did really belong, afforded her no equals. The Woodhouses
+were first in consequence there. All looked up to them. She had many
+acquaintance in the place, for her father was universally civil, but
+not one among them who could be accepted in lieu of Miss Taylor for even
+half a day. It was a melancholy change; and Emma could not but sigh over
+it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it
+necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous
+man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and
+hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the
+origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet
+reconciled to his own daughter’s marrying, nor could ever speak of her
+but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection,
+when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his
+habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that
+other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much
+disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for
+them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the
+rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully
+as she could, to keep him from such thoughts; but when tea came, it was
+impossible for him not to say exactly as he had said at dinner,
+
+“Poor Miss Taylor!--I wish she were here again. What a pity it is that
+Mr. Weston ever thought of her!”
+
+“I cannot agree with you, papa; you know I cannot. Mr. Weston is such
+a good-humoured, pleasant, excellent man, that he thoroughly deserves
+a good wife;--and you would not have had Miss Taylor live with us for
+ever, and bear all my odd humours, when she might have a house of her
+own?”
+
+“A house of her own!--But where is the advantage of a house of her own?
+This is three times as large.--And you have never any odd humours, my
+dear.”
+
+“How often we shall be going to see them, and they coming to see us!--We
+shall be always meeting! _We_ must begin; we must go and pay wedding
+visit very soon.”
+
+“My dear, how am I to get so far? Randalls is such a distance. I could
+not walk half so far.”
+
+“No, papa, nobody thought of your walking. We must go in the carriage,
+to be sure.”
+
+“The carriage! But James will not like to put the horses to for such a
+little way;--and where are the poor horses to be while we are paying our
+visit?”
+
+“They are to be put into Mr. Weston’s stable, papa. You know we have
+settled all that already. We talked it all over with Mr. Weston last
+night. And as for James, you may be very sure he will always like going
+to Randalls, because of his daughter’s being housemaid there. I only
+doubt whether he will ever take us anywhere else. That was your doing,
+papa. You got Hannah that good place. Nobody thought of Hannah till you
+mentioned her--James is so obliged to you!”
+
+“I am very glad I did think of her. It was very lucky, for I would not
+have had poor James think himself slighted upon any account; and I am
+sure she will make a very good servant: she is a civil, pretty-spoken
+girl; I have a great opinion of her. Whenever I see her, she always
+curtseys and asks me how I do, in a very pretty manner; and when you
+have had her here to do needlework, I observe she always turns the lock
+of the door the right way and never bangs it. I am sure she will be an
+excellent servant; and it will be a great comfort to poor Miss Taylor
+to have somebody about her that she is used to see. Whenever James goes
+over to see his daughter, you know, she will be hearing of us. He will
+be able to tell her how we all are.”
+
+Emma spared no exertions to maintain this happier flow of ideas, and
+hoped, by the help of backgammon, to get her father tolerably
+through the evening, and be attacked by no regrets but her own. The
+backgammon-table was placed; but a visitor immediately afterwards walked
+in and made it unnecessary.
+
+Mr. Knightley, a sensible man about seven or eight-and-thirty, was not
+only a very old and intimate friend of the family, but particularly
+connected with it, as the elder brother of Isabella’s husband. He lived
+about a mile from Highbury, was a frequent visitor, and always welcome,
+and at this time more welcome than usual, as coming directly from their
+mutual connexions in London. He had returned to a late dinner, after
+some days’ absence, and now walked up to Hartfield to say that all were
+well in Brunswick Square. It was a happy circumstance, and animated
+Mr. Woodhouse for some time. Mr. Knightley had a cheerful manner, which
+always did him good; and his many inquiries after “poor Isabella” and
+her children were answered most satisfactorily. When this was over, Mr.
+Woodhouse gratefully observed, “It is very kind of you, Mr. Knightley,
+to come out at this late hour to call upon us. I am afraid you must have
+had a shocking walk.”
+
+“Not at all, sir. It is a beautiful moonlight night; and so mild that I
+must draw back from your great fire.”
+
+“But you must have found it very damp and dirty. I wish you may not
+catch cold.”
+
+“Dirty, sir! Look at my shoes. Not a speck on them.”
+
+“Well! that is quite surprising, for we have had a vast deal of rain
+here. It rained dreadfully hard for half an hour while we were at
+breakfast. I wanted them to put off the wedding.”
+
+“By the bye--I have not wished you joy. Being pretty well aware of what
+sort of joy you must both be feeling, I have been in no hurry with my
+congratulations; but I hope it all went off tolerably well. How did you
+all behave? Who cried most?”
+
+“Ah! poor Miss Taylor! ‘Tis a sad business.”
+
+“Poor Mr. and Miss Woodhouse, if you please; but I cannot possibly say
+‘poor Miss Taylor.’ I have a great regard for you and Emma; but when it
+comes to the question of dependence or independence!--At any rate, it
+must be better to have only one to please than two.”
+
+“Especially when _one_ of those two is such a fanciful, troublesome
+creature!” said Emma playfully. “That is what you have in your head, I
+know--and what you would certainly say if my father were not by.”
+
+“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a
+sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”
+
+“My dearest papa! You do not think I could mean _you_, or suppose Mr.
+Knightley to mean _you_. What a horrible idea! Oh no! I meant only
+myself. Mr. Knightley loves to find fault with me, you know--in a
+joke--it is all a joke. We always say what we like to one another.”
+
+Mr. Knightley, in fact, was one of the few people who could see faults
+in Emma Woodhouse, and the only one who ever told her of them: and
+though this was not particularly agreeable to Emma herself, she knew
+it would be so much less so to her father, that she would not have him
+really suspect such a circumstance as her not being thought perfect by
+every body.
+
+“Emma knows I never flatter her,” said Mr. Knightley, “but I meant no
+reflection on any body. Miss Taylor has been used to have two persons
+to please; she will now have but one. The chances are that she must be a
+gainer.”
+
+“Well,” said Emma, willing to let it pass--“you want to hear about
+the wedding; and I shall be happy to tell you, for we all behaved
+charmingly. Every body was punctual, every body in their best looks: not
+a tear, and hardly a long face to be seen. Oh no; we all felt that we
+were going to be only half a mile apart, and were sure of meeting every
+day.”
+
+“Dear Emma bears every thing so well,” said her father. “But, Mr.
+Knightley, she is really very sorry to lose poor Miss Taylor, and I am
+sure she _will_ miss her more than she thinks for.”
+
+Emma turned away her head, divided between tears and smiles. “It
+is impossible that Emma should not miss such a companion,” said Mr.
+Knightley. “We should not like her so well as we do, sir, if we could
+suppose it; but she knows how much the marriage is to Miss Taylor’s
+advantage; she knows how very acceptable it must be, at Miss Taylor’s
+time of life, to be settled in a home of her own, and how important to
+her to be secure of a comfortable provision, and therefore cannot allow
+herself to feel so much pain as pleasure. Every friend of Miss Taylor
+must be glad to have her so happily married.”
+
+“And you have forgotten one matter of joy to me,” said Emma, “and a very
+considerable one--that I made the match myself. I made the match, you
+know, four years ago; and to have it take place, and be proved in the
+right, when so many people said Mr. Weston would never marry again, may
+comfort me for any thing.”
+
+Mr. Knightley shook his head at her. Her father fondly replied, “Ah!
+my dear, I wish you would not make matches and foretell things, for
+whatever you say always comes to pass. Pray do not make any more
+matches.”
+
+“I promise you to make none for myself, papa; but I must, indeed, for
+other people. It is the greatest amusement in the world! And after such
+success, you know!--Every body said that Mr. Weston would never marry
+again. Oh dear, no! Mr. Weston, who had been a widower so long, and who
+seemed so perfectly comfortable without a wife, so constantly occupied
+either in his business in town or among his friends here, always
+acceptable wherever he went, always cheerful--Mr. Weston need not spend
+a single evening in the year alone if he did not like it. Oh no! Mr.
+Weston certainly would never marry again. Some people even talked of a
+promise to his wife on her deathbed, and others of the son and the
+uncle not letting him. All manner of solemn nonsense was talked on the
+subject, but I believed none of it.
+
+“Ever since the day--about four years ago--that Miss Taylor and I met
+with him in Broadway Lane, when, because it began to drizzle, he darted
+away with so much gallantry, and borrowed two umbrellas for us from
+Farmer Mitchell’s, I made up my mind on the subject. I planned the match
+from that hour; and when such success has blessed me in this instance,
+dear papa, you cannot think that I shall leave off match-making.”
+
+“I do not understand what you mean by ‘success,’” said Mr. Knightley.
+“Success supposes endeavour. Your time has been properly and delicately
+spent, if you have been endeavouring for the last four years to bring
+about this marriage. A worthy employment for a young lady’s mind! But
+if, which I rather imagine, your making the match, as you call it, means
+only your planning it, your saying to yourself one idle day, ‘I think it
+would be a very good thing for Miss Taylor if Mr. Weston were to marry
+her,’ and saying it again to yourself every now and then afterwards, why
+do you talk of success? Where is your merit? What are you proud of? You
+made a lucky guess; and _that_ is all that can be said.”
+
+“And have you never known the pleasure and triumph of a lucky guess?--I
+pity you.--I thought you cleverer--for, depend upon it a lucky guess is
+never merely luck. There is always some talent in it. And as to my
+poor word ‘success,’ which you quarrel with, I do not know that I am so
+entirely without any claim to it. You have drawn two pretty pictures;
+but I think there may be a third--a something between the do-nothing and
+the do-all. If I had not promoted Mr. Weston’s visits here, and given
+many little encouragements, and smoothed many little matters, it might
+not have come to any thing after all. I think you must know Hartfield
+enough to comprehend that.”
+
+“A straightforward, open-hearted man like Weston, and a rational,
+unaffected woman like Miss Taylor, may be safely left to manage their
+own concerns. You are more likely to have done harm to yourself, than
+good to them, by interference.”
+
+“Emma never thinks of herself, if she can do good to others,” rejoined
+Mr. Woodhouse, understanding but in part. “But, my dear, pray do not
+make any more matches; they are silly things, and break up one’s family
+circle grievously.”
+
+“Only one more, papa; only for Mr. Elton. Poor Mr. Elton! You like Mr.
+Elton, papa,--I must look about for a wife for him. There is nobody in
+Highbury who deserves him--and he has been here a whole year, and has
+fitted up his house so comfortably, that it would be a shame to have him
+single any longer--and I thought when he was joining their hands to-day,
+he looked so very much as if he would like to have the same kind office
+done for him! I think very well of Mr. Elton, and this is the only way I
+have of doing him a service.”
+
+“Mr. Elton is a very pretty young man, to be sure, and a very good young
+man, and I have a great regard for him. But if you want to shew him any
+attention, my dear, ask him to come and dine with us some day. That will
+be a much better thing. I dare say Mr. Knightley will be so kind as to
+meet him.”
+
+“With a great deal of pleasure, sir, at any time,” said Mr. Knightley,
+laughing, “and I agree with you entirely, that it will be a much better
+thing. Invite him to dinner, Emma, and help him to the best of the fish
+and the chicken, but leave him to chuse his own wife. Depend upon it, a
+man of six or seven-and-twenty can take care of himself.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Mr. Weston was a native of Highbury, and born of a respectable family,
+which for the last two or three generations had been rising into
+gentility and property. He had received a good education, but, on
+succeeding early in life to a small independence, had become indisposed
+for any of the more homely pursuits in which his brothers were engaged,
+and had satisfied an active, cheerful mind and social temper by entering
+into the militia of his county, then embodied.
+
+Captain Weston was a general favourite; and when the chances of his
+military life had introduced him to Miss Churchill, of a great Yorkshire
+family, and Miss Churchill fell in love with him, nobody was surprized,
+except her brother and his wife, who had never seen him, and who were
+full of pride and importance, which the connexion would offend.
+
+Miss Churchill, however, being of age, and with the full command of her
+fortune--though her fortune bore no proportion to the family-estate--was
+not to be dissuaded from the marriage, and it took place, to the
+infinite mortification of Mr. and Mrs. Churchill, who threw her off with
+due decorum. It was an unsuitable connexion, and did not produce much
+happiness. Mrs. Weston ought to have found more in it, for she had a
+husband whose warm heart and sweet temper made him think every thing due
+to her in return for the great goodness of being in love with him;
+but though she had one sort of spirit, she had not the best. She had
+resolution enough to pursue her own will in spite of her brother,
+but not enough to refrain from unreasonable regrets at that brother’s
+unreasonable anger, nor from missing the luxuries of her former home.
+They lived beyond their income, but still it was nothing in comparison
+of Enscombe: she did not cease to love her husband, but she wanted at
+once to be the wife of Captain Weston, and Miss Churchill of Enscombe.
+
+Captain Weston, who had been considered, especially by the Churchills,
+as making such an amazing match, was proved to have much the worst of
+the bargain; for when his wife died, after a three years’ marriage, he
+was rather a poorer man than at first, and with a child to maintain.
+From the expense of the child, however, he was soon relieved. The boy
+had, with the additional softening claim of a lingering illness of his
+mother’s, been the means of a sort of reconciliation; and Mr. and Mrs.
+Churchill, having no children of their own, nor any other young creature
+of equal kindred to care for, offered to take the whole charge of the
+little Frank soon after her decease. Some scruples and some reluctance
+the widower-father may be supposed to have felt; but as they were
+overcome by other considerations, the child was given up to the care and
+the wealth of the Churchills, and he had only his own comfort to seek,
+and his own situation to improve as he could.
+
+A complete change of life became desirable. He quitted the militia and
+engaged in trade, having brothers already established in a good way in
+London, which afforded him a favourable opening. It was a concern which
+brought just employment enough. He had still a small house in Highbury,
+where most of his leisure days were spent; and between useful occupation
+and the pleasures of society, the next eighteen or twenty years of his
+life passed cheerfully away. He had, by that time, realised an easy
+competence--enough to secure the purchase of a little estate adjoining
+Highbury, which he had always longed for--enough to marry a woman as
+portionless even as Miss Taylor, and to live according to the wishes of
+his own friendly and social disposition.
+
+It was now some time since Miss Taylor had begun to influence his
+schemes; but as it was not the tyrannic influence of youth on youth,
+it had not shaken his determination of never settling till he could
+purchase Randalls, and the sale of Randalls was long looked forward to;
+but he had gone steadily on, with these objects in view, till they were
+accomplished. He had made his fortune, bought his house, and obtained
+his wife; and was beginning a new period of existence, with every
+probability of greater happiness than in any yet passed through. He had
+never been an unhappy man; his own temper had secured him from that,
+even in his first marriage; but his second must shew him how delightful
+a well-judging and truly amiable woman could be, and must give him the
+pleasantest proof of its being a great deal better to choose than to be
+chosen, to excite gratitude than to feel it.
+
+He had only himself to please in his choice: his fortune was his own;
+for as to Frank, it was more than being tacitly brought up as his
+uncle’s heir, it had become so avowed an adoption as to have him assume
+the name of Churchill on coming of age. It was most unlikely, therefore,
+that he should ever want his father’s assistance. His father had no
+apprehension of it. The aunt was a capricious woman, and governed her
+husband entirely; but it was not in Mr. Weston’s nature to imagine that
+any caprice could be strong enough to affect one so dear, and, as he
+believed, so deservedly dear. He saw his son every year in London, and
+was proud of him; and his fond report of him as a very fine young man
+had made Highbury feel a sort of pride in him too. He was looked on as
+sufficiently belonging to the place to make his merits and prospects a
+kind of common concern.
+
+Mr. Frank Churchill was one of the boasts of Highbury, and a lively
+curiosity to see him prevailed, though the compliment was so little
+returned that he had never been there in his life. His coming to visit
+his father had been often talked of but never achieved.
+
+Now, upon his father’s marriage, it was very generally proposed, as a
+most proper attention, that the visit should take place. There was not a
+dissentient voice on the subject, either when Mrs. Perry drank tea with
+Mrs. and Miss Bates, or when Mrs. and Miss Bates returned the visit. Now
+was the time for Mr. Frank Churchill to come among them; and the hope
+strengthened when it was understood that he had written to his new
+mother on the occasion. For a few days, every morning visit in Highbury
+included some mention of the handsome letter Mrs. Weston had received.
+“I suppose you have heard of the handsome letter Mr. Frank Churchill
+has written to Mrs. Weston? I understand it was a very handsome letter,
+indeed. Mr. Woodhouse told me of it. Mr. Woodhouse saw the letter, and
+he says he never saw such a handsome letter in his life.”
+
+It was, indeed, a highly prized letter. Mrs. Weston had, of course,
+formed a very favourable idea of the young man; and such a pleasing
+attention was an irresistible proof of his great good sense, and a most
+welcome addition to every source and every expression of congratulation
+which her marriage had already secured. She felt herself a most
+fortunate woman; and she had lived long enough to know how fortunate
+she might well be thought, where the only regret was for a partial
+separation from friends whose friendship for her had never cooled, and
+who could ill bear to part with her.
+
+She knew that at times she must be missed; and could not think, without
+pain, of Emma’s losing a single pleasure, or suffering an hour’s ennui,
+from the want of her companionableness: but dear Emma was of no feeble
+character; she was more equal to her situation than most girls would
+have been, and had sense, and energy, and spirits that might be hoped
+would bear her well and happily through its little difficulties and
+privations. And then there was such comfort in the very easy distance of
+Randalls from Hartfield, so convenient for even solitary female walking,
+and in Mr. Weston’s disposition and circumstances, which would make the
+approaching season no hindrance to their spending half the evenings in
+the week together.
+
+Her situation was altogether the subject of hours of gratitude to Mrs.
+Weston, and of moments only of regret; and her satisfaction--her more
+than satisfaction--her cheerful enjoyment, was so just and so apparent,
+that Emma, well as she knew her father, was sometimes taken by surprize
+at his being still able to pity ‘poor Miss Taylor,’ when they left her
+at Randalls in the centre of every domestic comfort, or saw her go away
+in the evening attended by her pleasant husband to a carriage of her
+own. But never did she go without Mr. Woodhouse’s giving a gentle sigh,
+and saying, “Ah, poor Miss Taylor! She would be very glad to stay.”
+
+There was no recovering Miss Taylor--nor much likelihood of ceasing to
+pity her; but a few weeks brought some alleviation to Mr. Woodhouse.
+The compliments of his neighbours were over; he was no longer teased by
+being wished joy of so sorrowful an event; and the wedding-cake, which
+had been a great distress to him, was all eat up. His own stomach
+could bear nothing rich, and he could never believe other people to be
+different from himself. What was unwholesome to him he regarded as unfit
+for any body; and he had, therefore, earnestly tried to dissuade them
+from having any wedding-cake at all, and when that proved vain, as
+earnestly tried to prevent any body’s eating it. He had been at the
+pains of consulting Mr. Perry, the apothecary, on the subject. Mr. Perry
+was an intelligent, gentlemanlike man, whose frequent visits were one
+of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouse’s life; and upon being applied to, he
+could not but acknowledge (though it seemed rather against the bias
+of inclination) that wedding-cake might certainly disagree with
+many--perhaps with most people, unless taken moderately. With such an
+opinion, in confirmation of his own, Mr. Woodhouse hoped to influence
+every visitor of the newly married pair; but still the cake was eaten;
+and there was no rest for his benevolent nerves till it was all gone.
+
+There was a strange rumour in Highbury of all the little Perrys being
+seen with a slice of Mrs. Weston’s wedding-cake in their hands: but Mr.
+Woodhouse would never believe it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Mr. Woodhouse was fond of society in his own way. He liked very much to
+have his friends come and see him; and from various united causes, from
+his long residence at Hartfield, and his good nature, from his fortune,
+his house, and his daughter, he could command the visits of his
+own little circle, in a great measure, as he liked. He had not much
+intercourse with any families beyond that circle; his horror of late
+hours, and large dinner-parties, made him unfit for any acquaintance but
+such as would visit him on his own terms. Fortunately for him, Highbury,
+including Randalls in the same parish, and Donwell Abbey in the parish
+adjoining, the seat of Mr. Knightley, comprehended many such. Not
+unfrequently, through Emma’s persuasion, he had some of the chosen and
+the best to dine with him: but evening parties were what he preferred;
+and, unless he fancied himself at any time unequal to company, there
+was scarcely an evening in the week in which Emma could not make up a
+card-table for him.
+
+Real, long-standing regard brought the Westons and Mr. Knightley; and by
+Mr. Elton, a young man living alone without liking it, the privilege
+of exchanging any vacant evening of his own blank solitude for the
+elegancies and society of Mr. Woodhouse’s drawing-room, and the smiles
+of his lovely daughter, was in no danger of being thrown away.
+
+After these came a second set; among the most come-at-able of whom were
+Mrs. and Miss Bates, and Mrs. Goddard, three ladies almost always at
+the service of an invitation from Hartfield, and who were fetched and
+carried home so often, that Mr. Woodhouse thought it no hardship for
+either James or the horses. Had it taken place only once a year, it
+would have been a grievance.
+
+Mrs. Bates, the widow of a former vicar of Highbury, was a very old
+lady, almost past every thing but tea and quadrille. She lived with her
+single daughter in a very small way, and was considered with all the
+regard and respect which a harmless old lady, under such untoward
+circumstances, can excite. Her daughter enjoyed a most uncommon degree
+of popularity for a woman neither young, handsome, rich, nor married.
+Miss Bates stood in the very worst predicament in the world for having
+much of the public favour; and she had no intellectual superiority to
+make atonement to herself, or frighten those who might hate her into
+outward respect. She had never boasted either beauty or cleverness. Her
+youth had passed without distinction, and her middle of life was devoted
+to the care of a failing mother, and the endeavour to make a small
+income go as far as possible. And yet she was a happy woman, and a woman
+whom no one named without good-will. It was her own universal good-will
+and contented temper which worked such wonders. She loved every body,
+was interested in every body’s happiness, quicksighted to every body’s
+merits; thought herself a most fortunate creature, and surrounded with
+blessings in such an excellent mother, and so many good neighbours
+and friends, and a home that wanted for nothing. The simplicity and
+cheerfulness of her nature, her contented and grateful spirit, were a
+recommendation to every body, and a mine of felicity to herself. She was
+a great talker upon little matters, which exactly suited Mr. Woodhouse,
+full of trivial communications and harmless gossip.
+
+Mrs. Goddard was the mistress of a School--not of a seminary, or an
+establishment, or any thing which professed, in long sentences of
+refined nonsense, to combine liberal acquirements with elegant morality,
+upon new principles and new systems--and where young ladies for enormous
+pay might be screwed out of health and into vanity--but a real,
+honest, old-fashioned Boarding-school, where a reasonable quantity of
+accomplishments were sold at a reasonable price, and where girls might
+be sent to be out of the way, and scramble themselves into a little
+education, without any danger of coming back prodigies. Mrs. Goddard’s
+school was in high repute--and very deservedly; for Highbury was
+reckoned a particularly healthy spot: she had an ample house and garden,
+gave the children plenty of wholesome food, let them run about a great
+deal in the summer, and in winter dressed their chilblains with her own
+hands. It was no wonder that a train of twenty young couple now walked
+after her to church. She was a plain, motherly kind of woman, who
+had worked hard in her youth, and now thought herself entitled to the
+occasional holiday of a tea-visit; and having formerly owed much to Mr.
+Woodhouse’s kindness, felt his particular claim on her to leave her neat
+parlour, hung round with fancy-work, whenever she could, and win or lose
+a few sixpences by his fireside.
+
+These were the ladies whom Emma found herself very frequently able to
+collect; and happy was she, for her father’s sake, in the power; though,
+as far as she was herself concerned, it was no remedy for the absence of
+Mrs. Weston. She was delighted to see her father look comfortable, and
+very much pleased with herself for contriving things so well; but the
+quiet prosings of three such women made her feel that every evening so
+spent was indeed one of the long evenings she had fearfully anticipated.
+
+As she sat one morning, looking forward to exactly such a close of the
+present day, a note was brought from Mrs. Goddard, requesting, in most
+respectful terms, to be allowed to bring Miss Smith with her; a most
+welcome request: for Miss Smith was a girl of seventeen, whom Emma knew
+very well by sight, and had long felt an interest in, on account of
+her beauty. A very gracious invitation was returned, and the evening no
+longer dreaded by the fair mistress of the mansion.
+
+Harriet Smith was the natural daughter of somebody. Somebody had placed
+her, several years back, at Mrs. Goddard’s school, and somebody
+had lately raised her from the condition of scholar to that of
+parlour-boarder. This was all that was generally known of her history.
+She had no visible friends but what had been acquired at Highbury, and
+was now just returned from a long visit in the country to some young
+ladies who had been at school there with her.
+
+She was a very pretty girl, and her beauty happened to be of a sort
+which Emma particularly admired. She was short, plump, and fair, with a
+fine bloom, blue eyes, light hair, regular features, and a look of great
+sweetness, and, before the end of the evening, Emma was as much pleased
+with her manners as her person, and quite determined to continue the
+acquaintance.
+
+She was not struck by any thing remarkably clever in Miss Smith’s
+conversation, but she found her altogether very engaging--not
+inconveniently shy, not unwilling to talk--and yet so far from pushing,
+shewing so proper and becoming a deference, seeming so pleasantly
+grateful for being admitted to Hartfield, and so artlessly impressed
+by the appearance of every thing in so superior a style to what she had
+been used to, that she must have good sense, and deserve encouragement.
+Encouragement should be given. Those soft blue eyes, and all those
+natural graces, should not be wasted on the inferior society of Highbury
+and its connexions. The acquaintance she had already formed were
+unworthy of her. The friends from whom she had just parted, though very
+good sort of people, must be doing her harm. They were a family of the
+name of Martin, whom Emma well knew by character, as renting a large
+farm of Mr. Knightley, and residing in the parish of Donwell--very
+creditably, she believed--she knew Mr. Knightley thought highly of
+them--but they must be coarse and unpolished, and very unfit to be the
+intimates of a girl who wanted only a little more knowledge and elegance
+to be quite perfect. _She_ would notice her; she would improve her; she
+would detach her from her bad acquaintance, and introduce her into good
+society; she would form her opinions and her manners. It would be an
+interesting, and certainly a very kind undertaking; highly becoming her
+own situation in life, her leisure, and powers.
+
+She was so busy in admiring those soft blue eyes, in talking and
+listening, and forming all these schemes in the in-betweens, that the
+evening flew away at a very unusual rate; and the supper-table, which
+always closed such parties, and for which she had been used to sit and
+watch the due time, was all set out and ready, and moved forwards to the
+fire, before she was aware. With an alacrity beyond the common impulse
+of a spirit which yet was never indifferent to the credit of doing every
+thing well and attentively, with the real good-will of a mind delighted
+with its own ideas, did she then do all the honours of the meal, and
+help and recommend the minced chicken and scalloped oysters, with an
+urgency which she knew would be acceptable to the early hours and civil
+scruples of their guests.
+
+Upon such occasions poor Mr. Woodhouse’s feelings were in sad warfare.
+He loved to have the cloth laid, because it had been the fashion of his
+youth, but his conviction of suppers being very unwholesome made him
+rather sorry to see any thing put on it; and while his hospitality would
+have welcomed his visitors to every thing, his care for their health
+made him grieve that they would eat.
+
+Such another small basin of thin gruel as his own was all that he could,
+with thorough self-approbation, recommend; though he might constrain
+himself, while the ladies were comfortably clearing the nicer things, to
+say:
+
+“Mrs. Bates, let me propose your venturing on one of these eggs. An egg
+boiled very soft is not unwholesome. Serle understands boiling an egg
+better than any body. I would not recommend an egg boiled by any body
+else; but you need not be afraid, they are very small, you see--one of
+our small eggs will not hurt you. Miss Bates, let Emma help you to a
+_little_ bit of tart--a _very_ little bit. Ours are all apple-tarts. You
+need not be afraid of unwholesome preserves here. I do not advise the
+custard. Mrs. Goddard, what say you to _half_ a glass of wine? A
+_small_ half-glass, put into a tumbler of water? I do not think it could
+disagree with you.”
+
+Emma allowed her father to talk--but supplied her visitors in a much
+more satisfactory style, and on the present evening had particular
+pleasure in sending them away happy. The happiness of Miss Smith was
+quite equal to her intentions. Miss Woodhouse was so great a personage
+in Highbury, that the prospect of the introduction had given as much
+panic as pleasure; but the humble, grateful little girl went off with
+highly gratified feelings, delighted with the affability with which Miss
+Woodhouse had treated her all the evening, and actually shaken hands
+with her at last!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Harriet Smith’s intimacy at Hartfield was soon a settled thing. Quick
+and decided in her ways, Emma lost no time in inviting, encouraging, and
+telling her to come very often; and as their acquaintance increased, so
+did their satisfaction in each other. As a walking companion, Emma had
+very early foreseen how useful she might find her. In that respect
+Mrs. Weston’s loss had been important. Her father never went beyond the
+shrubbery, where two divisions of the ground sufficed him for his long
+walk, or his short, as the year varied; and since Mrs. Weston’s marriage
+her exercise had been too much confined. She had ventured once alone to
+Randalls, but it was not pleasant; and a Harriet Smith, therefore,
+one whom she could summon at any time to a walk, would be a valuable
+addition to her privileges. But in every respect, as she saw more of
+her, she approved her, and was confirmed in all her kind designs.
+
+Harriet certainly was not clever, but she had a sweet, docile, grateful
+disposition, was totally free from conceit, and only desiring to be
+guided by any one she looked up to. Her early attachment to herself
+was very amiable; and her inclination for good company, and power of
+appreciating what was elegant and clever, shewed that there was no
+want of taste, though strength of understanding must not be expected.
+Altogether she was quite convinced of Harriet Smith’s being exactly the
+young friend she wanted--exactly the something which her home required.
+Such a friend as Mrs. Weston was out of the question. Two such could
+never be granted. Two such she did not want. It was quite a different
+sort of thing, a sentiment distinct and independent. Mrs. Weston was the
+object of a regard which had its basis in gratitude and esteem. Harriet
+would be loved as one to whom she could be useful. For Mrs. Weston there
+was nothing to be done; for Harriet every thing.
+
+Her first attempts at usefulness were in an endeavour to find out who
+were the parents, but Harriet could not tell. She was ready to tell
+every thing in her power, but on this subject questions were vain. Emma
+was obliged to fancy what she liked--but she could never believe that in
+the same situation _she_ should not have discovered the truth. Harriet
+had no penetration. She had been satisfied to hear and believe just what
+Mrs. Goddard chose to tell her; and looked no farther.
+
+Mrs. Goddard, and the teachers, and the girls and the affairs of
+the school in general, formed naturally a great part of the
+conversation--and but for her acquaintance with the Martins of
+Abbey-Mill Farm, it must have been the whole. But the Martins occupied
+her thoughts a good deal; she had spent two very happy months with them,
+and now loved to talk of the pleasures of her visit, and describe
+the many comforts and wonders of the place. Emma encouraged her
+talkativeness--amused by such a picture of another set of beings,
+and enjoying the youthful simplicity which could speak with so much
+exultation of Mrs. Martin’s having “_two_ parlours, two very good
+parlours, indeed; one of them quite as large as Mrs. Goddard’s
+drawing-room; and of her having an upper maid who had lived
+five-and-twenty years with her; and of their having eight cows, two of
+them Alderneys, and one a little Welch cow, a very pretty little Welch
+cow indeed; and of Mrs. Martin’s saying as she was so fond of it,
+it should be called _her_ cow; and of their having a very handsome
+summer-house in their garden, where some day next year they were all to
+drink tea:--a very handsome summer-house, large enough to hold a dozen
+people.”
+
+For some time she was amused, without thinking beyond the immediate
+cause; but as she came to understand the family better, other feelings
+arose. She had taken up a wrong idea, fancying it was a mother and
+daughter, a son and son’s wife, who all lived together; but when it
+appeared that the Mr. Martin, who bore a part in the narrative, and was
+always mentioned with approbation for his great good-nature in doing
+something or other, was a single man; that there was no young Mrs.
+Martin, no wife in the case; she did suspect danger to her poor little
+friend from all this hospitality and kindness, and that, if she were not
+taken care of, she might be required to sink herself forever.
+
+With this inspiriting notion, her questions increased in number and
+meaning; and she particularly led Harriet to talk more of Mr. Martin,
+and there was evidently no dislike to it. Harriet was very ready to
+speak of the share he had had in their moonlight walks and merry evening
+games; and dwelt a good deal upon his being so very good-humoured and
+obliging. He had gone three miles round one day in order to bring her
+some walnuts, because she had said how fond she was of them, and in
+every thing else he was so very obliging. He had his shepherd’s son into
+the parlour one night on purpose to sing to her. She was very fond
+of singing. He could sing a little himself. She believed he was very
+clever, and understood every thing. He had a very fine flock, and, while
+she was with them, he had been bid more for his wool than any body in
+the country. She believed every body spoke well of him. His mother and
+sisters were very fond of him. Mrs. Martin had told her one day (and
+there was a blush as she said it,) that it was impossible for any body
+to be a better son, and therefore she was sure, whenever he married, he
+would make a good husband. Not that she _wanted_ him to marry. She was
+in no hurry at all.
+
+“Well done, Mrs. Martin!” thought Emma. “You know what you are about.”
+
+“And when she had come away, Mrs. Martin was so very kind as to send
+Mrs. Goddard a beautiful goose--the finest goose Mrs. Goddard had ever
+seen. Mrs. Goddard had dressed it on a Sunday, and asked all the three
+teachers, Miss Nash, and Miss Prince, and Miss Richardson, to sup with
+her.”
+
+“Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of information beyond the line of
+his own business? He does not read?”
+
+“Oh yes!--that is, no--I do not know--but I believe he has read a
+good deal--but not what you would think any thing of. He reads the
+Agricultural Reports, and some other books that lay in one of the window
+seats--but he reads all _them_ to himself. But sometimes of an evening,
+before we went to cards, he would read something aloud out of the
+Elegant Extracts, very entertaining. And I know he has read the Vicar of
+Wakefield. He never read the Romance of the Forest, nor The Children of
+the Abbey. He had never heard of such books before I mentioned them, but
+he is determined to get them now as soon as ever he can.”
+
+The next question was--
+
+“What sort of looking man is Mr. Martin?”
+
+“Oh! not handsome--not at all handsome. I thought him very plain at
+first, but I do not think him so plain now. One does not, you know,
+after a time. But did you never see him? He is in Highbury every now and
+then, and he is sure to ride through every week in his way to Kingston.
+He has passed you very often.”
+
+“That may be, and I may have seen him fifty times, but without having
+any idea of his name. A young farmer, whether on horseback or on foot,
+is the very last sort of person to raise my curiosity. The yeomanry are
+precisely the order of people with whom I feel I can have nothing to do.
+A degree or two lower, and a creditable appearance might interest me;
+I might hope to be useful to their families in some way or other. But
+a farmer can need none of my help, and is, therefore, in one sense, as
+much above my notice as in every other he is below it.”
+
+“To be sure. Oh yes! It is not likely you should ever have observed him;
+but he knows you very well indeed--I mean by sight.”
+
+“I have no doubt of his being a very respectable young man. I know,
+indeed, that he is so, and, as such, wish him well. What do you imagine
+his age to be?”
+
+“He was four-and-twenty the 8th of last June, and my birthday is the
+23rd just a fortnight and a day’s difference--which is very odd.”
+
+“Only four-and-twenty. That is too young to settle. His mother is
+perfectly right not to be in a hurry. They seem very comfortable as they
+are, and if she were to take any pains to marry him, she would probably
+repent it. Six years hence, if he could meet with a good sort of young
+woman in the same rank as his own, with a little money, it might be very
+desirable.”
+
+“Six years hence! Dear Miss Woodhouse, he would be thirty years old!”
+
+“Well, and that is as early as most men can afford to marry, who are not
+born to an independence. Mr. Martin, I imagine, has his fortune entirely
+to make--cannot be at all beforehand with the world. Whatever money he
+might come into when his father died, whatever his share of the family
+property, it is, I dare say, all afloat, all employed in his stock, and
+so forth; and though, with diligence and good luck, he may be rich in
+time, it is next to impossible that he should have realised any thing
+yet.”
+
+“To be sure, so it is. But they live very comfortably. They have no
+indoors man, else they do not want for any thing; and Mrs. Martin talks
+of taking a boy another year.”
+
+“I wish you may not get into a scrape, Harriet, whenever he does
+marry;--I mean, as to being acquainted with his wife--for though his
+sisters, from a superior education, are not to be altogether objected
+to, it does not follow that he might marry any body at all fit for you
+to notice. The misfortune of your birth ought to make you particularly
+careful as to your associates. There can be no doubt of your being a
+gentleman’s daughter, and you must support your claim to that station by
+every thing within your own power, or there will be plenty of people who
+would take pleasure in degrading you.”
+
+“Yes, to be sure, I suppose there are. But while I visit at Hartfield,
+and you are so kind to me, Miss Woodhouse, I am not afraid of what any
+body can do.”
+
+“You understand the force of influence pretty well, Harriet; but I would
+have you so firmly established in good society, as to be independent
+even of Hartfield and Miss Woodhouse. I want to see you permanently
+well connected, and to that end it will be advisable to have as few odd
+acquaintance as may be; and, therefore, I say that if you should still
+be in this country when Mr. Martin marries, I wish you may not be drawn
+in by your intimacy with the sisters, to be acquainted with the wife,
+who will probably be some mere farmer’s daughter, without education.”
+
+“To be sure. Yes. Not that I think Mr. Martin would ever marry any body
+but what had had some education--and been very well brought up. However,
+I do not mean to set up my opinion against yours--and I am sure I shall
+not wish for the acquaintance of his wife. I shall always have a great
+regard for the Miss Martins, especially Elizabeth, and should be very
+sorry to give them up, for they are quite as well educated as me. But
+if he marries a very ignorant, vulgar woman, certainly I had better not
+visit her, if I can help it.”
+
+Emma watched her through the fluctuations of this speech, and saw no
+alarming symptoms of love. The young man had been the first admirer, but
+she trusted there was no other hold, and that there would be no serious
+difficulty, on Harriet’s side, to oppose any friendly arrangement of her
+own.
+
+They met Mr. Martin the very next day, as they were walking on the
+Donwell road. He was on foot, and after looking very respectfully at
+her, looked with most unfeigned satisfaction at her companion. Emma was
+not sorry to have such an opportunity of survey; and walking a few
+yards forward, while they talked together, soon made her quick eye
+sufficiently acquainted with Mr. Robert Martin. His appearance was very
+neat, and he looked like a sensible young man, but his person had no
+other advantage; and when he came to be contrasted with gentlemen,
+she thought he must lose all the ground he had gained in Harriet’s
+inclination. Harriet was not insensible of manner; she had voluntarily
+noticed her father’s gentleness with admiration as well as wonder. Mr.
+Martin looked as if he did not know what manner was.
+
+They remained but a few minutes together, as Miss Woodhouse must not be
+kept waiting; and Harriet then came running to her with a smiling face,
+and in a flutter of spirits, which Miss Woodhouse hoped very soon to
+compose.
+
+“Only think of our happening to meet him!--How very odd! It was quite
+a chance, he said, that he had not gone round by Randalls. He did not
+think we ever walked this road. He thought we walked towards Randalls
+most days. He has not been able to get the Romance of the Forest yet.
+He was so busy the last time he was at Kingston that he quite forgot it,
+but he goes again to-morrow. So very odd we should happen to meet! Well,
+Miss Woodhouse, is he like what you expected? What do you think of him?
+Do you think him so very plain?”
+
+“He is very plain, undoubtedly--remarkably plain:--but that is nothing
+compared with his entire want of gentility. I had no right to expect
+much, and I did not expect much; but I had no idea that he could be so
+very clownish, so totally without air. I had imagined him, I confess, a
+degree or two nearer gentility.”
+
+“To be sure,” said Harriet, in a mortified voice, “he is not so genteel
+as real gentlemen.”
+
+“I think, Harriet, since your acquaintance with us, you have been
+repeatedly in the company of some such very real gentlemen, that you
+must yourself be struck with the difference in Mr. Martin. At Hartfield,
+you have had very good specimens of well educated, well bred men. I
+should be surprized if, after seeing them, you could be in company
+with Mr. Martin again without perceiving him to be a very inferior
+creature--and rather wondering at yourself for having ever thought him
+at all agreeable before. Do not you begin to feel that now? Were not
+you struck? I am sure you must have been struck by his awkward look and
+abrupt manner, and the uncouthness of a voice which I heard to be wholly
+unmodulated as I stood here.”
+
+“Certainly, he is not like Mr. Knightley. He has not such a fine air and
+way of walking as Mr. Knightley. I see the difference plain enough. But
+Mr. Knightley is so very fine a man!”
+
+“Mr. Knightley’s air is so remarkably good that it is not fair to
+compare Mr. Martin with _him_. You might not see one in a hundred with
+_gentleman_ so plainly written as in Mr. Knightley. But he is not the
+only gentleman you have been lately used to. What say you to Mr. Weston
+and Mr. Elton? Compare Mr. Martin with either of _them_. Compare their
+manner of carrying themselves; of walking; of speaking; of being silent.
+You must see the difference.”
+
+“Oh yes!--there is a great difference. But Mr. Weston is almost an old
+man. Mr. Weston must be between forty and fifty.”
+
+“Which makes his good manners the more valuable. The older a person
+grows, Harriet, the more important it is that their manners should not
+be bad; the more glaring and disgusting any loudness, or coarseness, or
+awkwardness becomes. What is passable in youth is detestable in later
+age. Mr. Martin is now awkward and abrupt; what will he be at Mr.
+Weston’s time of life?”
+
+“There is no saying, indeed,” replied Harriet rather solemnly.
+
+“But there may be pretty good guessing. He will be a completely gross,
+vulgar farmer, totally inattentive to appearances, and thinking of
+nothing but profit and loss.”
+
+“Will he, indeed? That will be very bad.”
+
+“How much his business engrosses him already is very plain from the
+circumstance of his forgetting to inquire for the book you recommended.
+He was a great deal too full of the market to think of any thing
+else--which is just as it should be, for a thriving man. What has he to
+do with books? And I have no doubt that he _will_ thrive, and be a very
+rich man in time--and his being illiterate and coarse need not disturb
+_us_.”
+
+“I wonder he did not remember the book”--was all Harriet’s answer, and
+spoken with a degree of grave displeasure which Emma thought might be
+safely left to itself. She, therefore, said no more for some time. Her
+next beginning was,
+
+“In one respect, perhaps, Mr. Elton’s manners are superior to Mr.
+Knightley’s or Mr. Weston’s. They have more gentleness. They might be
+more safely held up as a pattern. There is an openness, a quickness,
+almost a bluntness in Mr. Weston, which every body likes in _him_,
+because there is so much good-humour with it--but that would not do to
+be copied. Neither would Mr. Knightley’s downright, decided, commanding
+sort of manner, though it suits _him_ very well; his figure, and look,
+and situation in life seem to allow it; but if any young man were to set
+about copying him, he would not be sufferable. On the contrary, I think
+a young man might be very safely recommended to take Mr. Elton as a
+model. Mr. Elton is good-humoured, cheerful, obliging, and gentle.
+He seems to me to be grown particularly gentle of late. I do not know
+whether he has any design of ingratiating himself with either of us,
+Harriet, by additional softness, but it strikes me that his manners are
+softer than they used to be. If he means any thing, it must be to please
+you. Did not I tell you what he said of you the other day?”
+
+She then repeated some warm personal praise which she had drawn from Mr.
+Elton, and now did full justice to; and Harriet blushed and smiled, and
+said she had always thought Mr. Elton very agreeable.
+
+Mr. Elton was the very person fixed on by Emma for driving the young
+farmer out of Harriet’s head. She thought it would be an excellent
+match; and only too palpably desirable, natural, and probable, for her
+to have much merit in planning it. She feared it was what every body
+else must think of and predict. It was not likely, however, that any
+body should have equalled her in the date of the plan, as it had
+entered her brain during the very first evening of Harriet’s coming to
+Hartfield. The longer she considered it, the greater was her sense
+of its expediency. Mr. Elton’s situation was most suitable, quite the
+gentleman himself, and without low connexions; at the same time, not of
+any family that could fairly object to the doubtful birth of Harriet.
+He had a comfortable home for her, and Emma imagined a very sufficient
+income; for though the vicarage of Highbury was not large, he was known
+to have some independent property; and she thought very highly of him
+as a good-humoured, well-meaning, respectable young man, without any
+deficiency of useful understanding or knowledge of the world.
+
+She had already satisfied herself that he thought Harriet a beautiful
+girl, which she trusted, with such frequent meetings at Hartfield, was
+foundation enough on his side; and on Harriet’s there could be little
+doubt that the idea of being preferred by him would have all the usual
+weight and efficacy. And he was really a very pleasing young man, a
+young man whom any woman not fastidious might like. He was reckoned very
+handsome; his person much admired in general, though not by her,
+there being a want of elegance of feature which she could not dispense
+with:--but the girl who could be gratified by a Robert Martin’s riding
+about the country to get walnuts for her might very well be conquered by
+Mr. Elton’s admiration.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+“I do not know what your opinion may be, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr.
+Knightley, “of this great intimacy between Emma and Harriet Smith, but I
+think it a bad thing.”
+
+“A bad thing! Do you really think it a bad thing?--why so?”
+
+“I think they will neither of them do the other any good.”
+
+“You surprize me! Emma must do Harriet good: and by supplying her with a
+new object of interest, Harriet may be said to do Emma good. I have been
+seeing their intimacy with the greatest pleasure. How very differently
+we feel!--Not think they will do each other any good! This will
+certainly be the beginning of one of our quarrels about Emma, Mr.
+Knightley.”
+
+“Perhaps you think I am come on purpose to quarrel with you, knowing
+Weston to be out, and that you must still fight your own battle.”
+
+“Mr. Weston would undoubtedly support me, if he were here, for he thinks
+exactly as I do on the subject. We were speaking of it only yesterday,
+and agreeing how fortunate it was for Emma, that there should be such a
+girl in Highbury for her to associate with. Mr. Knightley, I shall not
+allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live
+alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and, perhaps no
+man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of
+one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life. I can imagine
+your objection to Harriet Smith. She is not the superior young woman
+which Emma’s friend ought to be. But on the other hand, as Emma wants
+to see her better informed, it will be an inducement to her to read more
+herself. They will read together. She means it, I know.”
+
+“Emma has been meaning to read more ever since she was twelve years old.
+I have seen a great many lists of her drawing-up at various times of
+books that she meant to read regularly through--and very good lists
+they were--very well chosen, and very neatly arranged--sometimes
+alphabetically, and sometimes by some other rule. The list she drew
+up when only fourteen--I remember thinking it did her judgment so much
+credit, that I preserved it some time; and I dare say she may have made
+out a very good list now. But I have done with expecting any course of
+steady reading from Emma. She will never submit to any thing
+requiring industry and patience, and a subjection of the fancy to the
+understanding. Where Miss Taylor failed to stimulate, I may safely
+affirm that Harriet Smith will do nothing.--You never could persuade her
+to read half so much as you wished.--You know you could not.”
+
+“I dare say,” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “that I thought so
+_then_;--but since we have parted, I can never remember Emma’s omitting
+to do any thing I wished.”
+
+“There is hardly any desiring to refresh such a memory as _that_,”--said
+Mr. Knightley, feelingly; and for a moment or two he had done. “But I,”
+ he soon added, “who have had no such charm thrown over my senses, must
+still see, hear, and remember. Emma is spoiled by being the cleverest
+of her family. At ten years old, she had the misfortune of being able to
+answer questions which puzzled her sister at seventeen. She was always
+quick and assured: Isabella slow and diffident. And ever since she
+was twelve, Emma has been mistress of the house and of you all. In her
+mother she lost the only person able to cope with her. She inherits her
+mother’s talents, and must have been under subjection to her.”
+
+“I should have been sorry, Mr. Knightley, to be dependent on _your_
+recommendation, had I quitted Mr. Woodhouse’s family and wanted another
+situation; I do not think you would have spoken a good word for me to
+any body. I am sure you always thought me unfit for the office I held.”
+
+“Yes,” said he, smiling. “You are better placed _here_; very fit for a
+wife, but not at all for a governess. But you were preparing yourself to
+be an excellent wife all the time you were at Hartfield. You might
+not give Emma such a complete education as your powers would seem to
+promise; but you were receiving a very good education from _her_, on the
+very material matrimonial point of submitting your own will, and doing
+as you were bid; and if Weston had asked me to recommend him a wife, I
+should certainly have named Miss Taylor.”
+
+“Thank you. There will be very little merit in making a good wife to
+such a man as Mr. Weston.”
+
+“Why, to own the truth, I am afraid you are rather thrown away, and that
+with every disposition to bear, there will be nothing to be borne. We
+will not despair, however. Weston may grow cross from the wantonness of
+comfort, or his son may plague him.”
+
+“I hope not _that_.--It is not likely. No, Mr. Knightley, do not
+foretell vexation from that quarter.”
+
+“Not I, indeed. I only name possibilities. I do not pretend to Emma’s
+genius for foretelling and guessing. I hope, with all my heart, the
+young man may be a Weston in merit, and a Churchill in fortune.--But
+Harriet Smith--I have not half done about Harriet Smith. I think her the
+very worst sort of companion that Emma could possibly have. She knows
+nothing herself, and looks upon Emma as knowing every thing. She is a
+flatterer in all her ways; and so much the worse, because undesigned.
+Her ignorance is hourly flattery. How can Emma imagine she has any
+thing to learn herself, while Harriet is presenting such a delightful
+inferiority? And as for Harriet, I will venture to say that _she_ cannot
+gain by the acquaintance. Hartfield will only put her out of conceit
+with all the other places she belongs to. She will grow just refined
+enough to be uncomfortable with those among whom birth and circumstances
+have placed her home. I am much mistaken if Emma’s doctrines give any
+strength of mind, or tend at all to make a girl adapt herself rationally
+to the varieties of her situation in life.--They only give a little
+polish.”
+
+“I either depend more upon Emma’s good sense than you do, or am more
+anxious for her present comfort; for I cannot lament the acquaintance.
+How well she looked last night!”
+
+“Oh! you would rather talk of her person than her mind, would you? Very
+well; I shall not attempt to deny Emma’s being pretty.”
+
+“Pretty! say beautiful rather. Can you imagine any thing nearer perfect
+beauty than Emma altogether--face and figure?”
+
+“I do not know what I could imagine, but I confess that I have seldom
+seen a face or figure more pleasing to me than hers. But I am a partial
+old friend.”
+
+“Such an eye!--the true hazle eye--and so brilliant! regular features,
+open countenance, with a complexion! oh! what a bloom of full health,
+and such a pretty height and size; such a firm and upright figure!
+There is health, not merely in her bloom, but in her air, her head, her
+glance. One hears sometimes of a child being ‘the picture of health;’
+now, Emma always gives me the idea of being the complete picture of
+grown-up health. She is loveliness itself. Mr. Knightley, is not she?”
+
+“I have not a fault to find with her person,” he replied. “I think her
+all you describe. I love to look at her; and I will add this praise,
+that I do not think her personally vain. Considering how very handsome
+she is, she appears to be little occupied with it; her vanity lies
+another way. Mrs. Weston, I am not to be talked out of my dislike of
+Harriet Smith, or my dread of its doing them both harm.”
+
+“And I, Mr. Knightley, am equally stout in my confidence of its not
+doing them any harm. With all dear Emma’s little faults, she is an
+excellent creature. Where shall we see a better daughter, or a kinder
+sister, or a truer friend? No, no; she has qualities which may be
+trusted; she will never lead any one really wrong; she will make no
+lasting blunder; where Emma errs once, she is in the right a hundred
+times.”
+
+“Very well; I will not plague you any more. Emma shall be an angel, and
+I will keep my spleen to myself till Christmas brings John and Isabella.
+John loves Emma with a reasonable and therefore not a blind affection,
+and Isabella always thinks as he does; except when he is not quite
+frightened enough about the children. I am sure of having their opinions
+with me.”
+
+“I know that you all love her really too well to be unjust or unkind;
+but excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if I take the liberty (I consider myself,
+you know, as having somewhat of the privilege of speech that Emma’s
+mother might have had) the liberty of hinting that I do not think any
+possible good can arise from Harriet Smith’s intimacy being made a
+matter of much discussion among you. Pray excuse me; but supposing any
+little inconvenience may be apprehended from the intimacy, it cannot be
+expected that Emma, accountable to nobody but her father, who perfectly
+approves the acquaintance, should put an end to it, so long as it is a
+source of pleasure to herself. It has been so many years my province to
+give advice, that you cannot be surprized, Mr. Knightley, at this little
+remains of office.”
+
+“Not at all,” cried he; “I am much obliged to you for it. It is very
+good advice, and it shall have a better fate than your advice has often
+found; for it shall be attended to.”
+
+“Mrs. John Knightley is easily alarmed, and might be made unhappy about
+her sister.”
+
+“Be satisfied,” said he, “I will not raise any outcry. I will keep my
+ill-humour to myself. I have a very sincere interest in Emma. Isabella
+does not seem more my sister; has never excited a greater interest;
+perhaps hardly so great. There is an anxiety, a curiosity in what one
+feels for Emma. I wonder what will become of her!”
+
+“So do I,” said Mrs. Weston gently, “very much.”
+
+“She always declares she will never marry, which, of course, means just
+nothing at all. But I have no idea that she has yet ever seen a man she
+cared for. It would not be a bad thing for her to be very much in love
+with a proper object. I should like to see Emma in love, and in some
+doubt of a return; it would do her good. But there is nobody hereabouts
+to attach her; and she goes so seldom from home.”
+
+“There does, indeed, seem as little to tempt her to break her resolution
+at present,” said Mrs. Weston, “as can well be; and while she is so
+happy at Hartfield, I cannot wish her to be forming any attachment which
+would be creating such difficulties on poor Mr. Woodhouse’s account. I
+do not recommend matrimony at present to Emma, though I mean no slight
+to the state, I assure you.”
+
+Part of her meaning was to conceal some favourite thoughts of her own
+and Mr. Weston’s on the subject, as much as possible. There were wishes
+at Randalls respecting Emma’s destiny, but it was not desirable to
+have them suspected; and the quiet transition which Mr. Knightley soon
+afterwards made to “What does Weston think of the weather; shall we have
+rain?” convinced her that he had nothing more to say or surmise about
+Hartfield.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+Emma could not feel a doubt of having given Harriet’s fancy a proper
+direction and raised the gratitude of her young vanity to a very good
+purpose, for she found her decidedly more sensible than before of Mr.
+Elton’s being a remarkably handsome man, with most agreeable manners;
+and as she had no hesitation in following up the assurance of his
+admiration by agreeable hints, she was soon pretty confident of creating
+as much liking on Harriet’s side, as there could be any occasion for.
+She was quite convinced of Mr. Elton’s being in the fairest way of
+falling in love, if not in love already. She had no scruple with regard
+to him. He talked of Harriet, and praised her so warmly, that she could
+not suppose any thing wanting which a little time would not add. His
+perception of the striking improvement of Harriet’s manner, since her
+introduction at Hartfield, was not one of the least agreeable proofs of
+his growing attachment.
+
+“You have given Miss Smith all that she required,” said he; “you have
+made her graceful and easy. She was a beautiful creature when she
+came to you, but, in my opinion, the attractions you have added are
+infinitely superior to what she received from nature.”
+
+“I am glad you think I have been useful to her; but Harriet only wanted
+drawing out, and receiving a few, very few hints. She had all the
+natural grace of sweetness of temper and artlessness in herself. I have
+done very little.”
+
+“If it were admissible to contradict a lady,” said the gallant Mr.
+Elton--
+
+“I have perhaps given her a little more decision of character, have
+taught her to think on points which had not fallen in her way before.”
+
+“Exactly so; that is what principally strikes me. So much superadded
+decision of character! Skilful has been the hand!”
+
+“Great has been the pleasure, I am sure. I never met with a disposition
+more truly amiable.”
+
+“I have no doubt of it.” And it was spoken with a sort of sighing
+animation, which had a vast deal of the lover. She was not less pleased
+another day with the manner in which he seconded a sudden wish of hers,
+to have Harriet’s picture.
+
+“Did you ever have your likeness taken, Harriet?” said she: “did you
+ever sit for your picture?”
+
+Harriet was on the point of leaving the room, and only stopt to say,
+with a very interesting naivete,
+
+“Oh! dear, no, never.”
+
+No sooner was she out of sight, than Emma exclaimed,
+
+“What an exquisite possession a good picture of her would be! I would
+give any money for it. I almost long to attempt her likeness myself.
+You do not know it I dare say, but two or three years ago I had a great
+passion for taking likenesses, and attempted several of my friends, and
+was thought to have a tolerable eye in general. But from one cause or
+another, I gave it up in disgust. But really, I could almost venture,
+if Harriet would sit to me. It would be such a delight to have her
+picture!”
+
+“Let me entreat you,” cried Mr. Elton; “it would indeed be a delight!
+Let me entreat you, Miss Woodhouse, to exercise so charming a talent
+in favour of your friend. I know what your drawings are. How could
+you suppose me ignorant? Is not this room rich in specimens of your
+landscapes and flowers; and has not Mrs. Weston some inimitable
+figure-pieces in her drawing-room, at Randalls?”
+
+Yes, good man!--thought Emma--but what has all that to do with taking
+likenesses? You know nothing of drawing. Don’t pretend to be in raptures
+about mine. Keep your raptures for Harriet’s face. “Well, if you give me
+such kind encouragement, Mr. Elton, I believe I shall try what I can do.
+Harriet’s features are very delicate, which makes a likeness difficult;
+and yet there is a peculiarity in the shape of the eye and the lines
+about the mouth which one ought to catch.”
+
+“Exactly so--The shape of the eye and the lines about the mouth--I have
+not a doubt of your success. Pray, pray attempt it. As you will do it,
+it will indeed, to use your own words, be an exquisite possession.”
+
+“But I am afraid, Mr. Elton, Harriet will not like to sit. She thinks
+so little of her own beauty. Did not you observe her manner of answering
+me? How completely it meant, ‘why should my picture be drawn?’”
+
+“Oh! yes, I observed it, I assure you. It was not lost on me. But still
+I cannot imagine she would not be persuaded.”
+
+Harriet was soon back again, and the proposal almost immediately made;
+and she had no scruples which could stand many minutes against the
+earnest pressing of both the others. Emma wished to go to work directly,
+and therefore produced the portfolio containing her various attempts at
+portraits, for not one of them had ever been finished, that they might
+decide together on the best size for Harriet. Her many beginnings were
+displayed. Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and
+water-colours had been all tried in turn. She had always wanted to do
+every thing, and had made more progress both in drawing and music than
+many might have done with so little labour as she would ever submit to.
+She played and sang;--and drew in almost every style; but steadiness
+had always been wanting; and in nothing had she approached the degree of
+excellence which she would have been glad to command, and ought not to
+have failed of. She was not much deceived as to her own skill either
+as an artist or a musician, but she was not unwilling to have others
+deceived, or sorry to know her reputation for accomplishment often
+higher than it deserved.
+
+There was merit in every drawing--in the least finished, perhaps the
+most; her style was spirited; but had there been much less, or had there
+been ten times more, the delight and admiration of her two companions
+would have been the same. They were both in ecstasies. A likeness
+pleases every body; and Miss Woodhouse’s performances must be capital.
+
+“No great variety of faces for you,” said Emma. “I had only my own
+family to study from. There is my father--another of my father--but the
+idea of sitting for his picture made him so nervous, that I could only
+take him by stealth; neither of them very like therefore. Mrs. Weston
+again, and again, and again, you see. Dear Mrs. Weston! always my
+kindest friend on every occasion. She would sit whenever I asked her.
+There is my sister; and really quite her own little elegant figure!--and
+the face not unlike. I should have made a good likeness of her, if she
+would have sat longer, but she was in such a hurry to have me draw
+her four children that she would not be quiet. Then, here come all my
+attempts at three of those four children;--there they are, Henry and
+John and Bella, from one end of the sheet to the other, and any one of
+them might do for any one of the rest. She was so eager to have them
+drawn that I could not refuse; but there is no making children of three
+or four years old stand still you know; nor can it be very easy to take
+any likeness of them, beyond the air and complexion, unless they are
+coarser featured than any of mama’s children ever were. Here is my
+sketch of the fourth, who was a baby. I took him as he was sleeping on
+the sofa, and it is as strong a likeness of his cockade as you would
+wish to see. He had nestled down his head most conveniently. That’s very
+like. I am rather proud of little George. The corner of the sofa is very
+good. Then here is my last,”--unclosing a pretty sketch of a gentleman
+in small size, whole-length--“my last and my best--my brother, Mr. John
+Knightley.--This did not want much of being finished, when I put it away
+in a pet, and vowed I would never take another likeness. I could not
+help being provoked; for after all my pains, and when I had really made
+a very good likeness of it--(Mrs. Weston and I were quite agreed in
+thinking it _very_ like)--only too handsome--too flattering--but
+that was a fault on the right side”--after all this, came poor dear
+Isabella’s cold approbation of--“Yes, it was a little like--but to be
+sure it did not do him justice. We had had a great deal of trouble
+in persuading him to sit at all. It was made a great favour of; and
+altogether it was more than I could bear; and so I never would finish
+it, to have it apologised over as an unfavourable likeness, to every
+morning visitor in Brunswick Square;--and, as I said, I did then
+forswear ever drawing any body again. But for Harriet’s sake, or rather
+for my own, and as there are no husbands and wives in the case _at_
+_present_, I will break my resolution now.”
+
+Mr. Elton seemed very properly struck and delighted by the idea, and was
+repeating, “No husbands and wives in the case at present indeed, as
+you observe. Exactly so. No husbands and wives,” with so interesting a
+consciousness, that Emma began to consider whether she had not better
+leave them together at once. But as she wanted to be drawing, the
+declaration must wait a little longer.
+
+She had soon fixed on the size and sort of portrait. It was to be
+a whole-length in water-colours, like Mr. John Knightley’s, and was
+destined, if she could please herself, to hold a very honourable station
+over the mantelpiece.
+
+The sitting began; and Harriet, smiling and blushing, and afraid of not
+keeping her attitude and countenance, presented a very sweet mixture of
+youthful expression to the steady eyes of the artist. But there was no
+doing any thing, with Mr. Elton fidgeting behind her and watching every
+touch. She gave him credit for stationing himself where he might gaze
+and gaze again without offence; but was really obliged to put an end to
+it, and request him to place himself elsewhere. It then occurred to her
+to employ him in reading.
+
+“If he would be so good as to read to them, it would be a kindness
+indeed! It would amuse away the difficulties of her part, and lessen the
+irksomeness of Miss Smith’s.”
+
+Mr. Elton was only too happy. Harriet listened, and Emma drew in peace.
+She must allow him to be still frequently coming to look; any thing less
+would certainly have been too little in a lover; and he was ready at the
+smallest intermission of the pencil, to jump up and see the progress,
+and be charmed.--There was no being displeased with such an encourager,
+for his admiration made him discern a likeness almost before it
+was possible. She could not respect his eye, but his love and his
+complaisance were unexceptionable.
+
+The sitting was altogether very satisfactory; she was quite enough
+pleased with the first day’s sketch to wish to go on. There was no want
+of likeness, she had been fortunate in the attitude, and as she meant
+to throw in a little improvement to the figure, to give a little more
+height, and considerably more elegance, she had great confidence of
+its being in every way a pretty drawing at last, and of its filling
+its destined place with credit to them both--a standing memorial of the
+beauty of one, the skill of the other, and the friendship of both;
+with as many other agreeable associations as Mr. Elton’s very promising
+attachment was likely to add.
+
+Harriet was to sit again the next day; and Mr. Elton, just as he ought,
+entreated for the permission of attending and reading to them again.
+
+“By all means. We shall be most happy to consider you as one of the
+party.”
+
+The same civilities and courtesies, the same success and satisfaction,
+took place on the morrow, and accompanied the whole progress of the
+picture, which was rapid and happy. Every body who saw it was pleased,
+but Mr. Elton was in continual raptures, and defended it through every
+criticism.
+
+“Miss Woodhouse has given her friend the only beauty she
+wanted,”--observed Mrs. Weston to him--not in the least suspecting that
+she was addressing a lover.--“The expression of the eye is most correct,
+but Miss Smith has not those eyebrows and eyelashes. It is the fault of
+her face that she has them not.”
+
+“Do you think so?” replied he. “I cannot agree with you. It appears
+to me a most perfect resemblance in every feature. I never saw such a
+likeness in my life. We must allow for the effect of shade, you know.”
+
+“You have made her too tall, Emma,” said Mr. Knightley.
+
+Emma knew that she had, but would not own it; and Mr. Elton warmly
+added,
+
+“Oh no! certainly not too tall; not in the least too tall. Consider, she
+is sitting down--which naturally presents a different--which in short
+gives exactly the idea--and the proportions must be preserved, you know.
+Proportions, fore-shortening.--Oh no! it gives one exactly the idea of
+such a height as Miss Smith’s. Exactly so indeed!”
+
+“It is very pretty,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “So prettily done! Just as your
+drawings always are, my dear. I do not know any body who draws so well
+as you do. The only thing I do not thoroughly like is, that she seems
+to be sitting out of doors, with only a little shawl over her
+shoulders--and it makes one think she must catch cold.”
+
+“But, my dear papa, it is supposed to be summer; a warm day in summer.
+Look at the tree.”
+
+“But it is never safe to sit out of doors, my dear.”
+
+“You, sir, may say any thing,” cried Mr. Elton, “but I must confess that
+I regard it as a most happy thought, the placing of Miss Smith out of
+doors; and the tree is touched with such inimitable spirit! Any other
+situation would have been much less in character. The naivete of Miss
+Smith’s manners--and altogether--Oh, it is most admirable! I cannot keep
+my eyes from it. I never saw such a likeness.”
+
+The next thing wanted was to get the picture framed; and here were a few
+difficulties. It must be done directly; it must be done in London; the
+order must go through the hands of some intelligent person whose taste
+could be depended on; and Isabella, the usual doer of all commissions,
+must not be applied to, because it was December, and Mr. Woodhouse
+could not bear the idea of her stirring out of her house in the fogs of
+December. But no sooner was the distress known to Mr. Elton, than it
+was removed. His gallantry was always on the alert. “Might he be trusted
+with the commission, what infinite pleasure should he have in executing
+it! he could ride to London at any time. It was impossible to say how
+much he should be gratified by being employed on such an errand.”
+
+“He was too good!--she could not endure the thought!--she would not give
+him such a troublesome office for the world,”--brought on the desired
+repetition of entreaties and assurances,--and a very few minutes settled
+the business.
+
+Mr. Elton was to take the drawing to London, chuse the frame, and give
+the directions; and Emma thought she could so pack it as to ensure its
+safety without much incommoding him, while he seemed mostly fearful of
+not being incommoded enough.
+
+“What a precious deposit!” said he with a tender sigh, as he received
+it.
+
+“This man is almost too gallant to be in love,” thought Emma. “I should
+say so, but that I suppose there may be a hundred different ways of
+being in love. He is an excellent young man, and will suit Harriet
+exactly; it will be an ‘Exactly so,’ as he says himself; but he does
+sigh and languish, and study for compliments rather more than I could
+endure as a principal. I come in for a pretty good share as a second.
+But it is his gratitude on Harriet’s account.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+The very day of Mr. Elton’s going to London produced a fresh occasion
+for Emma’s services towards her friend. Harriet had been at Hartfield,
+as usual, soon after breakfast; and, after a time, had gone home to
+return again to dinner: she returned, and sooner than had been
+talked of, and with an agitated, hurried look, announcing something
+extraordinary to have happened which she was longing to tell. Half a
+minute brought it all out. She had heard, as soon as she got back to
+Mrs. Goddard’s, that Mr. Martin had been there an hour before, and
+finding she was not at home, nor particularly expected, had left a
+little parcel for her from one of his sisters, and gone away; and on
+opening this parcel, she had actually found, besides the two songs which
+she had lent Elizabeth to copy, a letter to herself; and this letter was
+from him, from Mr. Martin, and contained a direct proposal of marriage.
+“Who could have thought it? She was so surprized she did not know what
+to do. Yes, quite a proposal of marriage; and a very good letter,
+at least she thought so. And he wrote as if he really loved her very
+much--but she did not know--and so, she was come as fast as she could to
+ask Miss Woodhouse what she should do.--” Emma was half-ashamed of her
+friend for seeming so pleased and so doubtful.
+
+“Upon my word,” she cried, “the young man is determined not to lose any
+thing for want of asking. He will connect himself well if he can.”
+
+“Will you read the letter?” cried Harriet. “Pray do. I’d rather you
+would.”
+
+Emma was not sorry to be pressed. She read, and was surprized. The style
+of the letter was much above her expectation. There were not merely no
+grammatical errors, but as a composition it would not have disgraced a
+gentleman; the language, though plain, was strong and unaffected, and
+the sentiments it conveyed very much to the credit of the writer. It was
+short, but expressed good sense, warm attachment, liberality, propriety,
+even delicacy of feeling. She paused over it, while Harriet stood
+anxiously watching for her opinion, with a “Well, well,” and was at last
+forced to add, “Is it a good letter? or is it too short?”
+
+“Yes, indeed, a very good letter,” replied Emma rather slowly--“so
+good a letter, Harriet, that every thing considered, I think one of his
+sisters must have helped him. I can hardly imagine the young man whom
+I saw talking with you the other day could express himself so well, if
+left quite to his own powers, and yet it is not the style of a woman;
+no, certainly, it is too strong and concise; not diffuse enough for a
+woman. No doubt he is a sensible man, and I suppose may have a natural
+talent for--thinks strongly and clearly--and when he takes a pen in
+hand, his thoughts naturally find proper words. It is so with some men.
+Yes, I understand the sort of mind. Vigorous, decided, with sentiments
+to a certain point, not coarse. A better written letter, Harriet
+(returning it,) than I had expected.”
+
+“Well,” said the still waiting Harriet;--“well--and--and what shall I
+do?”
+
+“What shall you do! In what respect? Do you mean with regard to this
+letter?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“But what are you in doubt of? You must answer it of course--and
+speedily.”
+
+“Yes. But what shall I say? Dear Miss Woodhouse, do advise me.”
+
+“Oh no, no! the letter had much better be all your own. You will express
+yourself very properly, I am sure. There is no danger of your not
+being intelligible, which is the first thing. Your meaning must be
+unequivocal; no doubts or demurs: and such expressions of gratitude
+and concern for the pain you are inflicting as propriety requires, will
+present themselves unbidden to _your_ mind, I am persuaded. You need
+not be prompted to write with the appearance of sorrow for his
+disappointment.”
+
+“You think I ought to refuse him then,” said Harriet, looking down.
+
+“Ought to refuse him! My dear Harriet, what do you mean? Are you in any
+doubt as to that? I thought--but I beg your pardon, perhaps I have been
+under a mistake. I certainly have been misunderstanding you, if you feel
+in doubt as to the _purport_ of your answer. I had imagined you were
+consulting me only as to the wording of it.”
+
+Harriet was silent. With a little reserve of manner, Emma continued:
+
+“You mean to return a favourable answer, I collect.”
+
+“No, I do not; that is, I do not mean--What shall I do? What would you
+advise me to do? Pray, dear Miss Woodhouse, tell me what I ought to do.”
+
+“I shall not give you any advice, Harriet. I will have nothing to do
+with it. This is a point which you must settle with your feelings.”
+
+“I had no notion that he liked me so very much,” said Harriet,
+contemplating the letter. For a little while Emma persevered in her
+silence; but beginning to apprehend the bewitching flattery of that
+letter might be too powerful, she thought it best to say,
+
+“I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman _doubts_ as
+to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse
+him. If she can hesitate as to ‘Yes,’ she ought to say ‘No’ directly.
+It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with
+half a heart. I thought it my duty as a friend, and older than yourself,
+to say thus much to you. But do not imagine that I want to influence
+you.”
+
+“Oh! no, I am sure you are a great deal too kind to--but if you would
+just advise me what I had best do--No, no, I do not mean that--As
+you say, one’s mind ought to be quite made up--One should not be
+hesitating--It is a very serious thing.--It will be safer to say ‘No,’
+perhaps.--Do you think I had better say ‘No?’”
+
+“Not for the world,” said Emma, smiling graciously, “would I advise you
+either way. You must be the best judge of your own happiness. If you
+prefer Mr. Martin to every other person; if you think him the most
+agreeable man you have ever been in company with, why should you
+hesitate? You blush, Harriet.--Does any body else occur to you at
+this moment under such a definition? Harriet, Harriet, do not deceive
+yourself; do not be run away with by gratitude and compassion. At this
+moment whom are you thinking of?”
+
+The symptoms were favourable.--Instead of answering, Harriet turned away
+confused, and stood thoughtfully by the fire; and though the letter was
+still in her hand, it was now mechanically twisted about without regard.
+Emma waited the result with impatience, but not without strong hopes. At
+last, with some hesitation, Harriet said--
+
+“Miss Woodhouse, as you will not give me your opinion, I must do as well
+as I can by myself; and I have now quite determined, and really almost
+made up my mind--to refuse Mr. Martin. Do you think I am right?”
+
+“Perfectly, perfectly right, my dearest Harriet; you are doing just
+what you ought. While you were at all in suspense I kept my feelings to
+myself, but now that you are so completely decided I have no hesitation
+in approving. Dear Harriet, I give myself joy of this. It would
+have grieved me to lose your acquaintance, which must have been the
+consequence of your marrying Mr. Martin. While you were in the smallest
+degree wavering, I said nothing about it, because I would not influence;
+but it would have been the loss of a friend to me. I could not have
+visited Mrs. Robert Martin, of Abbey-Mill Farm. Now I am secure of you
+for ever.”
+
+Harriet had not surmised her own danger, but the idea of it struck her
+forcibly.
+
+“You could not have visited me!” she cried, looking aghast. “No, to be
+sure you could not; but I never thought of that before. That would have
+been too dreadful!--What an escape!--Dear Miss Woodhouse, I would not
+give up the pleasure and honour of being intimate with you for any thing
+in the world.”
+
+“Indeed, Harriet, it would have been a severe pang to lose you; but it
+must have been. You would have thrown yourself out of all good society.
+I must have given you up.”
+
+“Dear me!--How should I ever have borne it! It would have killed me
+never to come to Hartfield any more!”
+
+“Dear affectionate creature!--_You_ banished to Abbey-Mill Farm!--_You_
+confined to the society of the illiterate and vulgar all your life! I
+wonder how the young man could have the assurance to ask it. He must
+have a pretty good opinion of himself.”
+
+“I do not think he is conceited either, in general,” said Harriet, her
+conscience opposing such censure; “at least, he is very good natured,
+and I shall always feel much obliged to him, and have a great regard
+for--but that is quite a different thing from--and you know, though
+he may like me, it does not follow that I should--and certainly I must
+confess that since my visiting here I have seen people--and if one comes
+to compare them, person and manners, there is no comparison at all,
+_one_ is so very handsome and agreeable. However, I do really think Mr.
+Martin a very amiable young man, and have a great opinion of him; and
+his being so much attached to me--and his writing such a letter--but as
+to leaving you, it is what I would not do upon any consideration.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you, my own sweet little friend. We will not be
+parted. A woman is not to marry a man merely because she is asked, or
+because he is attached to her, and can write a tolerable letter.”
+
+“Oh no;--and it is but a short letter too.”
+
+Emma felt the bad taste of her friend, but let it pass with a “very
+true; and it would be a small consolation to her, for the clownish
+manner which might be offending her every hour of the day, to know that
+her husband could write a good letter.”
+
+“Oh! yes, very. Nobody cares for a letter; the thing is, to be always
+happy with pleasant companions. I am quite determined to refuse him. But
+how shall I do? What shall I say?”
+
+Emma assured her there would be no difficulty in the answer, and advised
+its being written directly, which was agreed to, in the hope of her
+assistance; and though Emma continued to protest against any assistance
+being wanted, it was in fact given in the formation of every sentence.
+The looking over his letter again, in replying to it, had such a
+softening tendency, that it was particularly necessary to brace her up
+with a few decisive expressions; and she was so very much concerned at
+the idea of making him unhappy, and thought so much of what his mother
+and sisters would think and say, and was so anxious that they should not
+fancy her ungrateful, that Emma believed if the young man had come in
+her way at that moment, he would have been accepted after all.
+
+This letter, however, was written, and sealed, and sent. The business
+was finished, and Harriet safe. She was rather low all the evening, but
+Emma could allow for her amiable regrets, and sometimes relieved them by
+speaking of her own affection, sometimes by bringing forward the idea of
+Mr. Elton.
+
+“I shall never be invited to Abbey-Mill again,” was said in rather a
+sorrowful tone.
+
+“Nor, if you were, could I ever bear to part with you, my Harriet. You
+are a great deal too necessary at Hartfield to be spared to Abbey-Mill.”
+
+“And I am sure I should never want to go there; for I am never happy but
+at Hartfield.”
+
+Some time afterwards it was, “I think Mrs. Goddard would be very much
+surprized if she knew what had happened. I am sure Miss Nash would--for
+Miss Nash thinks her own sister very well married, and it is only a
+linen-draper.”
+
+“One should be sorry to see greater pride or refinement in the teacher
+of a school, Harriet. I dare say Miss Nash would envy you such an
+opportunity as this of being married. Even this conquest would appear
+valuable in her eyes. As to any thing superior for you, I suppose she
+is quite in the dark. The attentions of a certain person can hardly be
+among the tittle-tattle of Highbury yet. Hitherto I fancy you and I
+are the only people to whom his looks and manners have explained
+themselves.”
+
+Harriet blushed and smiled, and said something about wondering that
+people should like her so much. The idea of Mr. Elton was certainly
+cheering; but still, after a time, she was tender-hearted again towards
+the rejected Mr. Martin.
+
+“Now he has got my letter,” said she softly. “I wonder what they are all
+doing--whether his sisters know--if he is unhappy, they will be unhappy
+too. I hope he will not mind it so very much.”
+
+“Let us think of those among our absent friends who are more cheerfully
+employed,” cried Emma. “At this moment, perhaps, Mr. Elton is shewing
+your picture to his mother and sisters, telling how much more beautiful
+is the original, and after being asked for it five or six times,
+allowing them to hear your name, your own dear name.”
+
+“My picture!--But he has left my picture in Bond-street.”
+
+“Has he so!--Then I know nothing of Mr. Elton. No, my dear little modest
+Harriet, depend upon it the picture will not be in Bond-street till
+just before he mounts his horse to-morrow. It is his companion all this
+evening, his solace, his delight. It opens his designs to his family,
+it introduces you among them, it diffuses through the party those
+pleasantest feelings of our nature, eager curiosity and warm
+prepossession. How cheerful, how animated, how suspicious, how busy
+their imaginations all are!”
+
+Harriet smiled again, and her smiles grew stronger.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Harriet slept at Hartfield that night. For some weeks past she had been
+spending more than half her time there, and gradually getting to have
+a bed-room appropriated to herself; and Emma judged it best in every
+respect, safest and kindest, to keep her with them as much as possible
+just at present. She was obliged to go the next morning for an hour or
+two to Mrs. Goddard’s, but it was then to be settled that she should
+return to Hartfield, to make a regular visit of some days.
+
+While she was gone, Mr. Knightley called, and sat some time with Mr.
+Woodhouse and Emma, till Mr. Woodhouse, who had previously made up his
+mind to walk out, was persuaded by his daughter not to defer it, and was
+induced by the entreaties of both, though against the scruples of his
+own civility, to leave Mr. Knightley for that purpose. Mr. Knightley,
+who had nothing of ceremony about him, was offering by his short,
+decided answers, an amusing contrast to the protracted apologies and
+civil hesitations of the other.
+
+“Well, I believe, if you will excuse me, Mr. Knightley, if you will not
+consider me as doing a very rude thing, I shall take Emma’s advice and
+go out for a quarter of an hour. As the sun is out, I believe I had
+better take my three turns while I can. I treat you without ceremony,
+Mr. Knightley. We invalids think we are privileged people.”
+
+“My dear sir, do not make a stranger of me.”
+
+“I leave an excellent substitute in my daughter. Emma will be happy to
+entertain you. And therefore I think I will beg your excuse and take my
+three turns--my winter walk.”
+
+“You cannot do better, sir.”
+
+“I would ask for the pleasure of your company, Mr. Knightley, but I am a
+very slow walker, and my pace would be tedious to you; and, besides, you
+have another long walk before you, to Donwell Abbey.”
+
+“Thank you, sir, thank you; I am going this moment myself; and I think
+the sooner _you_ go the better. I will fetch your greatcoat and open the
+garden door for you.”
+
+Mr. Woodhouse at last was off; but Mr. Knightley, instead of being
+immediately off likewise, sat down again, seemingly inclined for more
+chat. He began speaking of Harriet, and speaking of her with more
+voluntary praise than Emma had ever heard before.
+
+“I cannot rate her beauty as you do,” said he; “but she is a
+pretty little creature, and I am inclined to think very well of her
+disposition. Her character depends upon those she is with; but in good
+hands she will turn out a valuable woman.”
+
+“I am glad you think so; and the good hands, I hope, may not be
+wanting.”
+
+“Come,” said he, “you are anxious for a compliment, so I will tell you
+that you have improved her. You have cured her of her school-girl’s
+giggle; she really does you credit.”
+
+“Thank you. I should be mortified indeed if I did not believe I had been
+of some use; but it is not every body who will bestow praise where they
+may. _You_ do not often overpower me with it.”
+
+“You are expecting her again, you say, this morning?”
+
+“Almost every moment. She has been gone longer already than she
+intended.”
+
+“Something has happened to delay her; some visitors perhaps.”
+
+“Highbury gossips!--Tiresome wretches!”
+
+“Harriet may not consider every body tiresome that you would.”
+
+Emma knew this was too true for contradiction, and therefore said
+nothing. He presently added, with a smile,
+
+“I do not pretend to fix on times or places, but I must tell you that
+I have good reason to believe your little friend will soon hear of
+something to her advantage.”
+
+“Indeed! how so? of what sort?”
+
+“A very serious sort, I assure you;” still smiling.
+
+“Very serious! I can think of but one thing--Who is in love with her?
+Who makes you their confidant?”
+
+Emma was more than half in hopes of Mr. Elton’s having dropt a hint.
+Mr. Knightley was a sort of general friend and adviser, and she knew Mr.
+Elton looked up to him.
+
+“I have reason to think,” he replied, “that Harriet Smith will soon have
+an offer of marriage, and from a most unexceptionable quarter:--Robert
+Martin is the man. Her visit to Abbey-Mill, this summer, seems to have
+done his business. He is desperately in love and means to marry her.”
+
+“He is very obliging,” said Emma; “but is he sure that Harriet means to
+marry him?”
+
+“Well, well, means to make her an offer then. Will that do? He came to
+the Abbey two evenings ago, on purpose to consult me about it. He knows
+I have a thorough regard for him and all his family, and, I believe,
+considers me as one of his best friends. He came to ask me whether
+I thought it would be imprudent in him to settle so early; whether
+I thought her too young: in short, whether I approved his choice
+altogether; having some apprehension perhaps of her being considered
+(especially since _your_ making so much of her) as in a line of society
+above him. I was very much pleased with all that he said. I never hear
+better sense from any one than Robert Martin. He always speaks to the
+purpose; open, straightforward, and very well judging. He told me every
+thing; his circumstances and plans, and what they all proposed doing in
+the event of his marriage. He is an excellent young man, both as son and
+brother. I had no hesitation in advising him to marry. He proved to me
+that he could afford it; and that being the case, I was convinced he
+could not do better. I praised the fair lady too, and altogether sent
+him away very happy. If he had never esteemed my opinion before, he
+would have thought highly of me then; and, I dare say, left the house
+thinking me the best friend and counsellor man ever had. This happened
+the night before last. Now, as we may fairly suppose, he would not allow
+much time to pass before he spoke to the lady, and as he does not appear
+to have spoken yesterday, it is not unlikely that he should be at Mrs.
+Goddard’s to-day; and she may be detained by a visitor, without thinking
+him at all a tiresome wretch.”
+
+“Pray, Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, who had been smiling to herself
+through a great part of this speech, “how do you know that Mr. Martin
+did not speak yesterday?”
+
+“Certainly,” replied he, surprized, “I do not absolutely know it; but it
+may be inferred. Was not she the whole day with you?”
+
+“Come,” said she, “I will tell you something, in return for what
+you have told me. He did speak yesterday--that is, he wrote, and was
+refused.”
+
+This was obliged to be repeated before it could be believed; and Mr.
+Knightley actually looked red with surprize and displeasure, as he stood
+up, in tall indignation, and said,
+
+“Then she is a greater simpleton than I ever believed her. What is the
+foolish girl about?”
+
+“Oh! to be sure,” cried Emma, “it is always incomprehensible to a man
+that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always
+imagines a woman to be ready for any body who asks her.”
+
+“Nonsense! a man does not imagine any such thing. But what is the
+meaning of this? Harriet Smith refuse Robert Martin? madness, if it is
+so; but I hope you are mistaken.”
+
+“I saw her answer!--nothing could be clearer.”
+
+“You saw her answer!--you wrote her answer too. Emma, this is your
+doing. You persuaded her to refuse him.”
+
+“And if I did, (which, however, I am far from allowing) I should not
+feel that I had done wrong. Mr. Martin is a very respectable young man,
+but I cannot admit him to be Harriet’s equal; and am rather surprized
+indeed that he should have ventured to address her. By your account, he
+does seem to have had some scruples. It is a pity that they were ever
+got over.”
+
+“Not Harriet’s equal!” exclaimed Mr. Knightley loudly and warmly; and
+with calmer asperity, added, a few moments afterwards, “No, he is
+not her equal indeed, for he is as much her superior in sense as in
+situation. Emma, your infatuation about that girl blinds you. What are
+Harriet Smith’s claims, either of birth, nature or education, to any
+connexion higher than Robert Martin? She is the natural daughter of
+nobody knows whom, with probably no settled provision at all, and
+certainly no respectable relations. She is known only as parlour-boarder
+at a common school. She is not a sensible girl, nor a girl of any
+information. She has been taught nothing useful, and is too young and
+too simple to have acquired any thing herself. At her age she can have
+no experience, and with her little wit, is not very likely ever to have
+any that can avail her. She is pretty, and she is good tempered, and
+that is all. My only scruple in advising the match was on his account,
+as being beneath his deserts, and a bad connexion for him. I felt that,
+as to fortune, in all probability he might do much better; and that as
+to a rational companion or useful helpmate, he could not do worse. But I
+could not reason so to a man in love, and was willing to trust to there
+being no harm in her, to her having that sort of disposition, which, in
+good hands, like his, might be easily led aright and turn out very well.
+The advantage of the match I felt to be all on her side; and had not the
+smallest doubt (nor have I now) that there would be a general cry-out
+upon her extreme good luck. Even _your_ satisfaction I made sure of.
+It crossed my mind immediately that you would not regret your friend’s
+leaving Highbury, for the sake of her being settled so well. I remember
+saying to myself, ‘Even Emma, with all her partiality for Harriet, will
+think this a good match.’”
+
+“I cannot help wondering at your knowing so little of Emma as to say any
+such thing. What! think a farmer, (and with all his sense and all his
+merit Mr. Martin is nothing more,) a good match for my intimate friend!
+Not regret her leaving Highbury for the sake of marrying a man whom
+I could never admit as an acquaintance of my own! I wonder you should
+think it possible for me to have such feelings. I assure you mine are
+very different. I must think your statement by no means fair. You are
+not just to Harriet’s claims. They would be estimated very differently
+by others as well as myself; Mr. Martin may be the richest of the two,
+but he is undoubtedly her inferior as to rank in society.--The sphere in
+which she moves is much above his.--It would be a degradation.”
+
+“A degradation to illegitimacy and ignorance, to be married to a
+respectable, intelligent gentleman-farmer!”
+
+“As to the circumstances of her birth, though in a legal sense she may
+be called Nobody, it will not hold in common sense. She is not to pay
+for the offence of others, by being held below the level of those with
+whom she is brought up.--There can scarcely be a doubt that her father
+is a gentleman--and a gentleman of fortune.--Her allowance is
+very liberal; nothing has ever been grudged for her improvement or
+comfort.--That she is a gentleman’s daughter, is indubitable to me; that
+she associates with gentlemen’s daughters, no one, I apprehend, will
+deny.--She is superior to Mr. Robert Martin.”
+
+“Whoever might be her parents,” said Mr. Knightley, “whoever may have
+had the charge of her, it does not appear to have been any part of
+their plan to introduce her into what you would call good society. After
+receiving a very indifferent education she is left in Mrs. Goddard’s
+hands to shift as she can;--to move, in short, in Mrs. Goddard’s line,
+to have Mrs. Goddard’s acquaintance. Her friends evidently thought
+this good enough for her; and it _was_ good enough. She desired nothing
+better herself. Till you chose to turn her into a friend, her mind had
+no distaste for her own set, nor any ambition beyond it. She was as
+happy as possible with the Martins in the summer. She had no sense of
+superiority then. If she has it now, you have given it. You have been no
+friend to Harriet Smith, Emma. Robert Martin would never have proceeded
+so far, if he had not felt persuaded of her not being disinclined to
+him. I know him well. He has too much real feeling to address any
+woman on the haphazard of selfish passion. And as to conceit, he is
+the farthest from it of any man I know. Depend upon it he had
+encouragement.”
+
+It was most convenient to Emma not to make a direct reply to this
+assertion; she chose rather to take up her own line of the subject
+again.
+
+“You are a very warm friend to Mr. Martin; but, as I said before,
+are unjust to Harriet. Harriet’s claims to marry well are not so
+contemptible as you represent them. She is not a clever girl, but she
+has better sense than you are aware of, and does not deserve to have her
+understanding spoken of so slightingly. Waiving that point, however, and
+supposing her to be, as you describe her, only pretty and good-natured,
+let me tell you, that in the degree she possesses them, they are not
+trivial recommendations to the world in general, for she is, in fact, a
+beautiful girl, and must be thought so by ninety-nine people out of an
+hundred; and till it appears that men are much more philosophic on the
+subject of beauty than they are generally supposed; till they do fall
+in love with well-informed minds instead of handsome faces, a girl, with
+such loveliness as Harriet, has a certainty of being admired and sought
+after, of having the power of chusing from among many, consequently a
+claim to be nice. Her good-nature, too, is not so very slight a claim,
+comprehending, as it does, real, thorough sweetness of temper and
+manner, a very humble opinion of herself, and a great readiness to
+be pleased with other people. I am very much mistaken if your sex in
+general would not think such beauty, and such temper, the highest claims
+a woman could possess.”
+
+“Upon my word, Emma, to hear you abusing the reason you have, is almost
+enough to make me think so too. Better be without sense, than misapply
+it as you do.”
+
+“To be sure!” cried she playfully. “I know _that_ is the feeling of
+you all. I know that such a girl as Harriet is exactly what every
+man delights in--what at once bewitches his senses and satisfies his
+judgment. Oh! Harriet may pick and chuse. Were you, yourself, ever to
+marry, she is the very woman for you. And is she, at seventeen, just
+entering into life, just beginning to be known, to be wondered at
+because she does not accept the first offer she receives? No--pray let
+her have time to look about her.”
+
+“I have always thought it a very foolish intimacy,” said Mr. Knightley
+presently, “though I have kept my thoughts to myself; but I now perceive
+that it will be a very unfortunate one for Harriet. You will puff her up
+with such ideas of her own beauty, and of what she has a claim to, that,
+in a little while, nobody within her reach will be good enough for her.
+Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief. Nothing
+so easy as for a young lady to raise her expectations too high. Miss
+Harriet Smith may not find offers of marriage flow in so fast, though
+she is a very pretty girl. Men of sense, whatever you may chuse to
+say, do not want silly wives. Men of family would not be very fond of
+connecting themselves with a girl of such obscurity--and most prudent
+men would be afraid of the inconvenience and disgrace they might be
+involved in, when the mystery of her parentage came to be revealed. Let
+her marry Robert Martin, and she is safe, respectable, and happy for
+ever; but if you encourage her to expect to marry greatly, and teach her
+to be satisfied with nothing less than a man of consequence and large
+fortune, she may be a parlour-boarder at Mrs. Goddard’s all the rest
+of her life--or, at least, (for Harriet Smith is a girl who will marry
+somebody or other,) till she grow desperate, and is glad to catch at the
+old writing-master’s son.”
+
+“We think so very differently on this point, Mr. Knightley, that there
+can be no use in canvassing it. We shall only be making each other more
+angry. But as to my _letting_ her marry Robert Martin, it is impossible;
+she has refused him, and so decidedly, I think, as must prevent any
+second application. She must abide by the evil of having refused him,
+whatever it may be; and as to the refusal itself, I will not pretend to
+say that I might not influence her a little; but I assure you there
+was very little for me or for any body to do. His appearance is so much
+against him, and his manner so bad, that if she ever were disposed to
+favour him, she is not now. I can imagine, that before she had seen
+any body superior, she might tolerate him. He was the brother of her
+friends, and he took pains to please her; and altogether, having seen
+nobody better (that must have been his great assistant) she might not,
+while she was at Abbey-Mill, find him disagreeable. But the case
+is altered now. She knows now what gentlemen are; and nothing but a
+gentleman in education and manner has any chance with Harriet.”
+
+“Nonsense, errant nonsense, as ever was talked!” cried Mr.
+Knightley.--“Robert Martin’s manners have sense, sincerity, and
+good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than
+Harriet Smith could understand.”
+
+Emma made no answer, and tried to look cheerfully unconcerned, but was
+really feeling uncomfortable and wanting him very much to be gone. She
+did not repent what she had done; she still thought herself a better
+judge of such a point of female right and refinement than he could be;
+but yet she had a sort of habitual respect for his judgment in general,
+which made her dislike having it so loudly against her; and to have him
+sitting just opposite to her in angry state, was very disagreeable.
+Some minutes passed in this unpleasant silence, with only one attempt
+on Emma’s side to talk of the weather, but he made no answer. He was
+thinking. The result of his thoughts appeared at last in these words.
+
+“Robert Martin has no great loss--if he can but think so; and I hope it
+will not be long before he does. Your views for Harriet are best known
+to yourself; but as you make no secret of your love of match-making, it
+is fair to suppose that views, and plans, and projects you have;--and as
+a friend I shall just hint to you that if Elton is the man, I think it
+will be all labour in vain.”
+
+Emma laughed and disclaimed. He continued,
+
+“Depend upon it, Elton will not do. Elton is a very good sort of man,
+and a very respectable vicar of Highbury, but not at all likely to make
+an imprudent match. He knows the value of a good income as well as any
+body. Elton may talk sentimentally, but he will act rationally. He is
+as well acquainted with his own claims, as you can be with Harriet’s.
+He knows that he is a very handsome young man, and a great favourite
+wherever he goes; and from his general way of talking in unreserved
+moments, when there are only men present, I am convinced that he does
+not mean to throw himself away. I have heard him speak with great
+animation of a large family of young ladies that his sisters are
+intimate with, who have all twenty thousand pounds apiece.”
+
+“I am very much obliged to you,” said Emma, laughing again. “If I had
+set my heart on Mr. Elton’s marrying Harriet, it would have been very
+kind to open my eyes; but at present I only want to keep Harriet to
+myself. I have done with match-making indeed. I could never hope to
+equal my own doings at Randalls. I shall leave off while I am well.”
+
+“Good morning to you,”--said he, rising and walking off abruptly. He was
+very much vexed. He felt the disappointment of the young man, and was
+mortified to have been the means of promoting it, by the sanction he had
+given; and the part which he was persuaded Emma had taken in the affair,
+was provoking him exceedingly.
+
+Emma remained in a state of vexation too; but there was more
+indistinctness in the causes of her’s, than in his. She did not always
+feel so absolutely satisfied with herself, so entirely convinced that
+her opinions were right and her adversary’s wrong, as Mr. Knightley. He
+walked off in more complete self-approbation than he left for her. She
+was not so materially cast down, however, but that a little time and
+the return of Harriet were very adequate restoratives. Harriet’s staying
+away so long was beginning to make her uneasy. The possibility of the
+young man’s coming to Mrs. Goddard’s that morning, and meeting with
+Harriet and pleading his own cause, gave alarming ideas. The dread
+of such a failure after all became the prominent uneasiness; and when
+Harriet appeared, and in very good spirits, and without having any
+such reason to give for her long absence, she felt a satisfaction which
+settled her with her own mind, and convinced her, that let Mr.
+Knightley think or say what he would, she had done nothing which woman’s
+friendship and woman’s feelings would not justify.
+
+He had frightened her a little about Mr. Elton; but when she considered
+that Mr. Knightley could not have observed him as she had done, neither
+with the interest, nor (she must be allowed to tell herself, in spite of
+Mr. Knightley’s pretensions) with the skill of such an observer on such
+a question as herself, that he had spoken it hastily and in anger, she
+was able to believe, that he had rather said what he wished resentfully
+to be true, than what he knew any thing about. He certainly might have
+heard Mr. Elton speak with more unreserve than she had ever done, and
+Mr. Elton might not be of an imprudent, inconsiderate disposition as to
+money matters; he might naturally be rather attentive than otherwise
+to them; but then, Mr. Knightley did not make due allowance for the
+influence of a strong passion at war with all interested motives. Mr.
+Knightley saw no such passion, and of course thought nothing of its
+effects; but she saw too much of it to feel a doubt of its overcoming
+any hesitations that a reasonable prudence might originally suggest; and
+more than a reasonable, becoming degree of prudence, she was very sure
+did not belong to Mr. Elton.
+
+Harriet’s cheerful look and manner established hers: she came back, not
+to think of Mr. Martin, but to talk of Mr. Elton. Miss Nash had been
+telling her something, which she repeated immediately with great
+delight. Mr. Perry had been to Mrs. Goddard’s to attend a sick child,
+and Miss Nash had seen him, and he had told Miss Nash, that as he was
+coming back yesterday from Clayton Park, he had met Mr. Elton, and
+found to his great surprize, that Mr. Elton was actually on his road
+to London, and not meaning to return till the morrow, though it was the
+whist-club night, which he had been never known to miss before; and Mr.
+Perry had remonstrated with him about it, and told him how shabby it
+was in him, their best player, to absent himself, and tried very much to
+persuade him to put off his journey only one day; but it would not
+do; Mr. Elton had been determined to go on, and had said in a _very_
+_particular_ way indeed, that he was going on business which he would
+not put off for any inducement in the world; and something about a
+very enviable commission, and being the bearer of something exceedingly
+precious. Mr. Perry could not quite understand him, but he was very sure
+there must be a _lady_ in the case, and he told him so; and Mr. Elton
+only looked very conscious and smiling, and rode off in great spirits.
+Miss Nash had told her all this, and had talked a great deal more about
+Mr. Elton; and said, looking so very significantly at her, “that she did
+not pretend to understand what his business might be, but she only
+knew that any woman whom Mr. Elton could prefer, she should think the
+luckiest woman in the world; for, beyond a doubt, Mr. Elton had not his
+equal for beauty or agreeableness.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Mr. Knightley might quarrel with her, but Emma could not quarrel with
+herself. He was so much displeased, that it was longer than usual before
+he came to Hartfield again; and when they did meet, his grave looks
+shewed that she was not forgiven. She was sorry, but could not repent.
+On the contrary, her plans and proceedings were more and more justified
+and endeared to her by the general appearances of the next few days.
+
+The Picture, elegantly framed, came safely to hand soon after Mr.
+Elton’s return, and being hung over the mantelpiece of the common
+sitting-room, he got up to look at it, and sighed out his half sentences
+of admiration just as he ought; and as for Harriet’s feelings, they were
+visibly forming themselves into as strong and steady an attachment as
+her youth and sort of mind admitted. Emma was soon perfectly satisfied
+of Mr. Martin’s being no otherwise remembered, than as he furnished a
+contrast with Mr. Elton, of the utmost advantage to the latter.
+
+Her views of improving her little friend’s mind, by a great deal of
+useful reading and conversation, had never yet led to more than a few
+first chapters, and the intention of going on to-morrow. It was much
+easier to chat than to study; much pleasanter to let her imagination
+range and work at Harriet’s fortune, than to be labouring to enlarge
+her comprehension or exercise it on sober facts; and the only literary
+pursuit which engaged Harriet at present, the only mental provision she
+was making for the evening of life, was the collecting and transcribing
+all the riddles of every sort that she could meet with, into a thin
+quarto of hot-pressed paper, made up by her friend, and ornamented with
+ciphers and trophies.
+
+In this age of literature, such collections on a very grand scale are
+not uncommon. Miss Nash, head-teacher at Mrs. Goddard’s, had written out
+at least three hundred; and Harriet, who had taken the first hint of it
+from her, hoped, with Miss Woodhouse’s help, to get a great many more.
+Emma assisted with her invention, memory and taste; and as Harriet wrote
+a very pretty hand, it was likely to be an arrangement of the first
+order, in form as well as quantity.
+
+Mr. Woodhouse was almost as much interested in the business as the
+girls, and tried very often to recollect something worth their putting
+in. “So many clever riddles as there used to be when he was young--he
+wondered he could not remember them! but he hoped he should in time.”
+ And it always ended in “Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.”
+
+His good friend Perry, too, whom he had spoken to on the subject,
+did not at present recollect any thing of the riddle kind; but he
+had desired Perry to be upon the watch, and as he went about so much,
+something, he thought, might come from that quarter.
+
+It was by no means his daughter’s wish that the intellects of Highbury
+in general should be put under requisition. Mr. Elton was the only one
+whose assistance she asked. He was invited to contribute any really good
+enigmas, charades, or conundrums that he might recollect; and she had
+the pleasure of seeing him most intently at work with his recollections;
+and at the same time, as she could perceive, most earnestly careful that
+nothing ungallant, nothing that did not breathe a compliment to the
+sex should pass his lips. They owed to him their two or three politest
+puzzles; and the joy and exultation with which at last he recalled, and
+rather sentimentally recited, that well-known charade,
+
+ My first doth affliction denote,
+ Which my second is destin’d to feel
+ And my whole is the best antidote
+ That affliction to soften and heal.--
+
+made her quite sorry to acknowledge that they had transcribed it some
+pages ago already.
+
+“Why will not you write one yourself for us, Mr. Elton?” said she; “that
+is the only security for its freshness; and nothing could be easier to
+you.”
+
+“Oh no! he had never written, hardly ever, any thing of the kind in his
+life. The stupidest fellow! He was afraid not even Miss Woodhouse”--he
+stopt a moment--“or Miss Smith could inspire him.”
+
+The very next day however produced some proof of inspiration. He
+called for a few moments, just to leave a piece of paper on the table
+containing, as he said, a charade, which a friend of his had addressed
+to a young lady, the object of his admiration, but which, from his
+manner, Emma was immediately convinced must be his own.
+
+“I do not offer it for Miss Smith’s collection,” said he. “Being my
+friend’s, I have no right to expose it in any degree to the public eye,
+but perhaps you may not dislike looking at it.”
+
+The speech was more to Emma than to Harriet, which Emma could
+understand. There was deep consciousness about him, and he found
+it easier to meet her eye than her friend’s. He was gone the next
+moment:--after another moment’s pause,
+
+“Take it,” said Emma, smiling, and pushing the paper towards
+Harriet--“it is for you. Take your own.”
+
+But Harriet was in a tremor, and could not touch it; and Emma, never
+loth to be first, was obliged to examine it herself.
+
+ To Miss--
+
+ CHARADE.
+
+ My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
+ Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.
+ Another view of man, my second brings,
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!
+
+ But ah! united, what reverse we have!
+ Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown;
+ Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.
+
+ Thy ready wit the word will soon supply,
+ May its approval beam in that soft eye!
+
+She cast her eye over it, pondered, caught the meaning, read it through
+again to be quite certain, and quite mistress of the lines, and then
+passing it to Harriet, sat happily smiling, and saying to herself, while
+Harriet was puzzling over the paper in all the confusion of hope and
+dulness, “Very well, Mr. Elton, very well indeed. I have read worse
+charades. _Courtship_--a very good hint. I give you credit for it. This
+is feeling your way. This is saying very plainly--‘Pray, Miss Smith,
+give me leave to pay my addresses to you. Approve my charade and my
+intentions in the same glance.’
+
+ May its approval beam in that soft eye!
+
+Harriet exactly. Soft is the very word for her eye--of all epithets, the
+justest that could be given.
+
+ Thy ready wit the word will soon supply.
+
+Humph--Harriet’s ready wit! All the better. A man must be very much in
+love, indeed, to describe her so. Ah! Mr. Knightley, I wish you had the
+benefit of this; I think this would convince you. For once in your life
+you would be obliged to own yourself mistaken. An excellent charade
+indeed! and very much to the purpose. Things must come to a crisis soon
+now.”
+
+She was obliged to break off from these very pleasant observations,
+which were otherwise of a sort to run into great length, by the
+eagerness of Harriet’s wondering questions.
+
+“What can it be, Miss Woodhouse?--what can it be? I have not an idea--I
+cannot guess it in the least. What can it possibly be? Do try to find
+it out, Miss Woodhouse. Do help me. I never saw any thing so hard. Is it
+kingdom? I wonder who the friend was--and who could be the young lady.
+Do you think it is a good one? Can it be woman?
+
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.
+
+Can it be Neptune?
+
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!
+
+Or a trident? or a mermaid? or a shark? Oh, no! shark is only one
+syllable. It must be very clever, or he would not have brought it. Oh!
+Miss Woodhouse, do you think we shall ever find it out?”
+
+“Mermaids and sharks! Nonsense! My dear Harriet, what are you thinking
+of? Where would be the use of his bringing us a charade made by a friend
+upon a mermaid or a shark? Give me the paper and listen.
+
+For Miss ------, read Miss Smith.
+
+ My first displays the wealth and pomp of kings,
+ Lords of the earth! their luxury and ease.
+
+That is _court_.
+
+ Another view of man, my second brings;
+ Behold him there, the monarch of the seas!
+
+That is _ship_;--plain as it can be.--Now for the cream.
+
+ But ah! united, (_courtship_, you know,) what reverse we have!
+ Man’s boasted power and freedom, all are flown.
+ Lord of the earth and sea, he bends a slave,
+ And woman, lovely woman, reigns alone.
+
+A very proper compliment!--and then follows the application, which
+I think, my dear Harriet, you cannot find much difficulty in
+comprehending. Read it in comfort to yourself. There can be no doubt of
+its being written for you and to you.”
+
+Harriet could not long resist so delightful a persuasion. She read
+the concluding lines, and was all flutter and happiness. She could not
+speak. But she was not wanted to speak. It was enough for her to feel.
+Emma spoke for her.
+
+“There is so pointed, and so particular a meaning in this compliment,”
+ said she, “that I cannot have a doubt as to Mr. Elton’s intentions. You
+are his object--and you will soon receive the completest proof of it. I
+thought it must be so. I thought I could not be so deceived; but now, it
+is clear; the state of his mind is as clear and decided, as my wishes on
+the subject have been ever since I knew you. Yes, Harriet, just so long
+have I been wanting the very circumstance to happen that has happened.
+I could never tell whether an attachment between you and Mr. Elton were
+most desirable or most natural. Its probability and its eligibility have
+really so equalled each other! I am very happy. I congratulate you, my
+dear Harriet, with all my heart. This is an attachment which a woman may
+well feel pride in creating. This is a connexion which offers nothing
+but good. It will give you every thing that you want--consideration,
+independence, a proper home--it will fix you in the centre of all your
+real friends, close to Hartfield and to me, and confirm our intimacy
+for ever. This, Harriet, is an alliance which can never raise a blush in
+either of us.”
+
+“Dear Miss Woodhouse!”--and “Dear Miss Woodhouse,” was all that Harriet,
+with many tender embraces could articulate at first; but when they did
+arrive at something more like conversation, it was sufficiently clear to
+her friend that she saw, felt, anticipated, and remembered just as she
+ought. Mr. Elton’s superiority had very ample acknowledgment.
+
+“Whatever you say is always right,” cried Harriet, “and therefore I
+suppose, and believe, and hope it must be so; but otherwise I could not
+have imagined it. It is so much beyond any thing I deserve. Mr. Elton,
+who might marry any body! There cannot be two opinions about _him_. He
+is so very superior. Only think of those sweet verses--‘To Miss ------.’
+Dear me, how clever!--Could it really be meant for me?”
+
+“I cannot make a question, or listen to a question about that. It is a
+certainty. Receive it on my judgment. It is a sort of prologue to
+the play, a motto to the chapter; and will be soon followed by
+matter-of-fact prose.”
+
+“It is a sort of thing which nobody could have expected. I am sure,
+a month ago, I had no more idea myself!--The strangest things do take
+place!”
+
+“When Miss Smiths and Mr. Eltons get acquainted--they do indeed--and
+really it is strange; it is out of the common course that what is so
+evidently, so palpably desirable--what courts the pre-arrangement of
+other people, should so immediately shape itself into the proper form.
+You and Mr. Elton are by situation called together; you belong to one
+another by every circumstance of your respective homes. Your marrying
+will be equal to the match at Randalls. There does seem to be a
+something in the air of Hartfield which gives love exactly the right
+direction, and sends it into the very channel where it ought to flow.
+
+ The course of true love never did run smooth--
+
+A Hartfield edition of Shakespeare would have a long note on that
+passage.”
+
+“That Mr. Elton should really be in love with me,--me, of all people,
+who did not know him, to speak to him, at Michaelmas! And he, the very
+handsomest man that ever was, and a man that every body looks up to,
+quite like Mr. Knightley! His company so sought after, that every body
+says he need not eat a single meal by himself if he does not chuse it;
+that he has more invitations than there are days in the week. And so
+excellent in the Church! Miss Nash has put down all the texts he has
+ever preached from since he came to Highbury. Dear me! When I look back
+to the first time I saw him! How little did I think!--The two Abbots and
+I ran into the front room and peeped through the blind when we heard he
+was going by, and Miss Nash came and scolded us away, and staid to look
+through herself; however, she called me back presently, and let me
+look too, which was very good-natured. And how beautiful we thought he
+looked! He was arm-in-arm with Mr. Cole.”
+
+“This is an alliance which, whoever--whatever your friends may be, must
+be agreeable to them, provided at least they have common sense; and we
+are not to be addressing our conduct to fools. If they are anxious to
+see you _happily_ married, here is a man whose amiable character gives
+every assurance of it;--if they wish to have you settled in the same
+country and circle which they have chosen to place you in, here it will
+be accomplished; and if their only object is that you should, in the
+common phrase, be _well_ married, here is the comfortable fortune, the
+respectable establishment, the rise in the world which must satisfy
+them.”
+
+“Yes, very true. How nicely you talk; I love to hear you. You understand
+every thing. You and Mr. Elton are one as clever as the other. This
+charade!--If I had studied a twelvemonth, I could never have made any
+thing like it.”
+
+“I thought he meant to try his skill, by his manner of declining it
+yesterday.”
+
+“I do think it is, without exception, the best charade I ever read.”
+
+“I never read one more to the purpose, certainly.”
+
+“It is as long again as almost all we have had before.”
+
+“I do not consider its length as particularly in its favour. Such things
+in general cannot be too short.”
+
+Harriet was too intent on the lines to hear. The most satisfactory
+comparisons were rising in her mind.
+
+“It is one thing,” said she, presently--her cheeks in a glow--“to have
+very good sense in a common way, like every body else, and if there is
+any thing to say, to sit down and write a letter, and say just what you
+must, in a short way; and another, to write verses and charades like
+this.”
+
+Emma could not have desired a more spirited rejection of Mr. Martin’s
+prose.
+
+“Such sweet lines!” continued Harriet--“these two last!--But how shall I
+ever be able to return the paper, or say I have found it out?--Oh! Miss
+Woodhouse, what can we do about that?”
+
+“Leave it to me. You do nothing. He will be here this evening, I dare
+say, and then I will give it him back, and some nonsense or other will
+pass between us, and you shall not be committed.--Your soft eyes shall
+chuse their own time for beaming. Trust to me.”
+
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, what a pity that I must not write this beautiful
+charade into my book! I am sure I have not got one half so good.”
+
+“Leave out the two last lines, and there is no reason why you should not
+write it into your book.”
+
+“Oh! but those two lines are”--
+
+--“The best of all. Granted;--for private enjoyment; and for private
+enjoyment keep them. They are not at all the less written you know,
+because you divide them. The couplet does not cease to be, nor does its
+meaning change. But take it away, and all _appropriation_ ceases, and a
+very pretty gallant charade remains, fit for any collection. Depend upon
+it, he would not like to have his charade slighted, much better than his
+passion. A poet in love must be encouraged in both capacities, or
+neither. Give me the book, I will write it down, and then there can be
+no possible reflection on you.”
+
+Harriet submitted, though her mind could hardly separate the parts,
+so as to feel quite sure that her friend were not writing down a
+declaration of love. It seemed too precious an offering for any degree
+of publicity.
+
+“I shall never let that book go out of my own hands,” said she.
+
+“Very well,” replied Emma; “a most natural feeling; and the longer it
+lasts, the better I shall be pleased. But here is my father coming: you
+will not object to my reading the charade to him. It will be giving him
+so much pleasure! He loves any thing of the sort, and especially any
+thing that pays woman a compliment. He has the tenderest spirit of
+gallantry towards us all!--You must let me read it to him.”
+
+Harriet looked grave.
+
+“My dear Harriet, you must not refine too much upon this charade.--You
+will betray your feelings improperly, if you are too conscious and too
+quick, and appear to affix more meaning, or even quite all the meaning
+which may be affixed to it. Do not be overpowered by such a little
+tribute of admiration. If he had been anxious for secrecy, he would not
+have left the paper while I was by; but he rather pushed it towards me
+than towards you. Do not let us be too solemn on the business. He has
+encouragement enough to proceed, without our sighing out our souls over
+this charade.”
+
+“Oh! no--I hope I shall not be ridiculous about it. Do as you please.”
+
+Mr. Woodhouse came in, and very soon led to the subject again, by the
+recurrence of his very frequent inquiry of “Well, my dears, how does
+your book go on?--Have you got any thing fresh?”
+
+“Yes, papa; we have something to read you, something quite fresh. A
+piece of paper was found on the table this morning--(dropt, we suppose,
+by a fairy)--containing a very pretty charade, and we have just copied
+it in.”
+
+She read it to him, just as he liked to have any thing read, slowly and
+distinctly, and two or three times over, with explanations of every
+part as she proceeded--and he was very much pleased, and, as she had
+foreseen, especially struck with the complimentary conclusion.
+
+“Aye, that’s very just, indeed, that’s very properly said. Very true.
+‘Woman, lovely woman.’ It is such a pretty charade, my dear, that I
+can easily guess what fairy brought it.--Nobody could have written so
+prettily, but you, Emma.”
+
+Emma only nodded, and smiled.--After a little thinking, and a very
+tender sigh, he added,
+
+“Ah! it is no difficulty to see who you take after! Your dear mother
+was so clever at all those things! If I had but her memory! But I can
+remember nothing;--not even that particular riddle which you have
+heard me mention; I can only recollect the first stanza; and there are
+several.
+
+ Kitty, a fair but frozen maid,
+ Kindled a flame I yet deplore,
+ The hood-wink’d boy I called to aid,
+ Though of his near approach afraid,
+ So fatal to my suit before.
+
+And that is all that I can recollect of it--but it is very clever all
+the way through. But I think, my dear, you said you had got it.”
+
+“Yes, papa, it is written out in our second page. We copied it from the
+Elegant Extracts. It was Garrick’s, you know.”
+
+“Aye, very true.--I wish I could recollect more of it.
+
+ Kitty, a fair but frozen maid.
+
+The name makes me think of poor Isabella; for she was very near being
+christened Catherine after her grandmama. I hope we shall have her here
+next week. Have you thought, my dear, where you shall put her--and what
+room there will be for the children?”
+
+“Oh! yes--she will have her own room, of course; the room she always
+has;--and there is the nursery for the children,--just as usual, you
+know. Why should there be any change?”
+
+“I do not know, my dear--but it is so long since she was here!--not
+since last Easter, and then only for a few days.--Mr. John Knightley’s
+being a lawyer is very inconvenient.--Poor Isabella!--she is sadly taken
+away from us all!--and how sorry she will be when she comes, not to see
+Miss Taylor here!”
+
+“She will not be surprized, papa, at least.”
+
+“I do not know, my dear. I am sure I was very much surprized when I
+first heard she was going to be married.”
+
+“We must ask Mr. and Mrs. Weston to dine with us, while Isabella is
+here.”
+
+“Yes, my dear, if there is time.--But--(in a very depressed tone)--she
+is coming for only one week. There will not be time for any thing.”
+
+“It is unfortunate that they cannot stay longer--but it seems a case of
+necessity. Mr. John Knightley must be in town again on the 28th, and we
+ought to be thankful, papa, that we are to have the whole of the time
+they can give to the country, that two or three days are not to be taken
+out for the Abbey. Mr. Knightley promises to give up his claim this
+Christmas--though you know it is longer since they were with him, than
+with us.”
+
+“It would be very hard, indeed, my dear, if poor Isabella were to be
+anywhere but at Hartfield.”
+
+Mr. Woodhouse could never allow for Mr. Knightley’s claims on his
+brother, or any body’s claims on Isabella, except his own. He sat musing
+a little while, and then said,
+
+“But I do not see why poor Isabella should be obliged to go back so
+soon, though he does. I think, Emma, I shall try and persuade her to
+stay longer with us. She and the children might stay very well.”
+
+“Ah! papa--that is what you never have been able to accomplish, and I
+do not think you ever will. Isabella cannot bear to stay behind her
+husband.”
+
+This was too true for contradiction. Unwelcome as it was, Mr. Woodhouse
+could only give a submissive sigh; and as Emma saw his spirits affected
+by the idea of his daughter’s attachment to her husband, she immediately
+led to such a branch of the subject as must raise them.
+
+“Harriet must give us as much of her company as she can while my brother
+and sister are here. I am sure she will be pleased with the children.
+We are very proud of the children, are not we, papa? I wonder which she
+will think the handsomest, Henry or John?”
+
+“Aye, I wonder which she will. Poor little dears, how glad they will be
+to come. They are very fond of being at Hartfield, Harriet.”
+
+“I dare say they are, sir. I am sure I do not know who is not.”
+
+“Henry is a fine boy, but John is very like his mama. Henry is the
+eldest, he was named after me, not after his father. John, the second,
+is named after his father. Some people are surprized, I believe, that
+the eldest was not, but Isabella would have him called Henry, which I
+thought very pretty of her. And he is a very clever boy, indeed. They
+are all remarkably clever; and they have so many pretty ways. They will
+come and stand by my chair, and say, ‘Grandpapa, can you give me a bit
+of string?’ and once Henry asked me for a knife, but I told him knives
+were only made for grandpapas. I think their father is too rough with
+them very often.”
+
+“He appears rough to you,” said Emma, “because you are so very gentle
+yourself; but if you could compare him with other papas, you would not
+think him rough. He wishes his boys to be active and hardy; and if
+they misbehave, can give them a sharp word now and then; but he is an
+affectionate father--certainly Mr. John Knightley is an affectionate
+father. The children are all fond of him.”
+
+“And then their uncle comes in, and tosses them up to the ceiling in a
+very frightful way!”
+
+“But they like it, papa; there is nothing they like so much. It is such
+enjoyment to them, that if their uncle did not lay down the rule of
+their taking turns, whichever began would never give way to the other.”
+
+“Well, I cannot understand it.”
+
+“That is the case with us all, papa. One half of the world cannot
+understand the pleasures of the other.”
+
+Later in the morning, and just as the girls were going to separate
+in preparation for the regular four o’clock dinner, the hero of this
+inimitable charade walked in again. Harriet turned away; but Emma could
+receive him with the usual smile, and her quick eye soon discerned in
+his the consciousness of having made a push--of having thrown a die;
+and she imagined he was come to see how it might turn up. His ostensible
+reason, however, was to ask whether Mr. Woodhouse’s party could be made
+up in the evening without him, or whether he should be in the smallest
+degree necessary at Hartfield. If he were, every thing else must give
+way; but otherwise his friend Cole had been saying so much about his
+dining with him--had made such a point of it, that he had promised him
+conditionally to come.
+
+Emma thanked him, but could not allow of his disappointing his friend
+on their account; her father was sure of his rubber. He re-urged--she
+re-declined; and he seemed then about to make his bow, when taking the
+paper from the table, she returned it--
+
+“Oh! here is the charade you were so obliging as to leave with us; thank
+you for the sight of it. We admired it so much, that I have ventured
+to write it into Miss Smith’s collection. Your friend will not take it
+amiss I hope. Of course I have not transcribed beyond the first eight
+lines.”
+
+Mr. Elton certainly did not very well know what to say. He looked rather
+doubtingly--rather confused; said something about “honour,”--glanced at
+Emma and at Harriet, and then seeing the book open on the table, took
+it up, and examined it very attentively. With the view of passing off an
+awkward moment, Emma smilingly said,
+
+“You must make my apologies to your friend; but so good a charade
+must not be confined to one or two. He may be sure of every woman’s
+approbation while he writes with such gallantry.”
+
+“I have no hesitation in saying,” replied Mr. Elton, though hesitating
+a good deal while he spoke; “I have no hesitation in saying--at least
+if my friend feels at all as _I_ do--I have not the smallest doubt that,
+could he see his little effusion honoured as _I_ see it, (looking at the
+book again, and replacing it on the table), he would consider it as the
+proudest moment of his life.”
+
+After this speech he was gone as soon as possible. Emma could not think
+it too soon; for with all his good and agreeable qualities, there was
+a sort of parade in his speeches which was very apt to incline her to
+laugh. She ran away to indulge the inclination, leaving the tender and
+the sublime of pleasure to Harriet’s share.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Though now the middle of December, there had yet been no weather to
+prevent the young ladies from tolerably regular exercise; and on the
+morrow, Emma had a charitable visit to pay to a poor sick family, who
+lived a little way out of Highbury.
+
+Their road to this detached cottage was down Vicarage Lane, a lane
+leading at right angles from the broad, though irregular, main street of
+the place; and, as may be inferred, containing the blessed abode of Mr.
+Elton. A few inferior dwellings were first to be passed, and then, about
+a quarter of a mile down the lane rose the Vicarage, an old and not
+very good house, almost as close to the road as it could be. It had
+no advantage of situation; but had been very much smartened up by the
+present proprietor; and, such as it was, there could be no possibility
+of the two friends passing it without a slackened pace and observing
+eyes.--Emma’s remark was--
+
+“There it is. There go you and your riddle-book one of these
+days.”--Harriet’s was--
+
+“Oh, what a sweet house!--How very beautiful!--There are the yellow
+curtains that Miss Nash admires so much.”
+
+“I do not often walk this way _now_,” said Emma, as they proceeded, “but
+_then_ there will be an inducement, and I shall gradually get intimately
+acquainted with all the hedges, gates, pools and pollards of this part
+of Highbury.”
+
+Harriet, she found, had never in her life been inside the Vicarage,
+and her curiosity to see it was so extreme, that, considering exteriors
+and probabilities, Emma could only class it, as a proof of love, with
+Mr. Elton’s seeing ready wit in her.
+
+“I wish we could contrive it,” said she; “but I cannot think of any
+tolerable pretence for going in;--no servant that I want to inquire
+about of his housekeeper--no message from my father.”
+
+She pondered, but could think of nothing. After a mutual silence of some
+minutes, Harriet thus began again--
+
+“I do so wonder, Miss Woodhouse, that you should not be married, or
+going to be married! so charming as you are!”--
+
+Emma laughed, and replied,
+
+“My being charming, Harriet, is not quite enough to induce me to marry;
+I must find other people charming--one other person at least. And I
+am not only, not going to be married, at present, but have very little
+intention of ever marrying at all.”
+
+“Ah!--so you say; but I cannot believe it.”
+
+“I must see somebody very superior to any one I have seen yet, to be
+tempted; Mr. Elton, you know, (recollecting herself,) is out of the
+question: and I do _not_ wish to see any such person. I would rather not
+be tempted. I cannot really change for the better. If I were to marry, I
+must expect to repent it.”
+
+“Dear me!--it is so odd to hear a woman talk so!”--
+
+“I have none of the usual inducements of women to marry. Were I to fall
+in love, indeed, it would be a different thing! but I never have been in
+love; it is not my way, or my nature; and I do not think I ever shall.
+And, without love, I am sure I should be a fool to change such a
+situation as mine. Fortune I do not want; employment I do not want;
+consequence I do not want: I believe few married women are half as much
+mistress of their husband’s house as I am of Hartfield; and never, never
+could I expect to be so truly beloved and important; so always first and
+always right in any man’s eyes as I am in my father’s.”
+
+“But then, to be an old maid at last, like Miss Bates!”
+
+“That is as formidable an image as you could present, Harriet; and if
+I thought I should ever be like Miss Bates! so silly--so satisfied--so
+smiling--so prosing--so undistinguishing and unfastidious--and so apt
+to tell every thing relative to every body about me, I would marry
+to-morrow. But between _us_, I am convinced there never can be any
+likeness, except in being unmarried.”
+
+“But still, you will be an old maid! and that’s so dreadful!”
+
+“Never mind, Harriet, I shall not be a poor old maid; and it is poverty
+only which makes celibacy contemptible to a generous public! A single
+woman, with a very narrow income, must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old
+maid! the proper sport of boys and girls, but a single woman, of good
+fortune, is always respectable, and may be as sensible and pleasant
+as any body else. And the distinction is not quite so much against the
+candour and common sense of the world as appears at first; for a very
+narrow income has a tendency to contract the mind, and sour the temper.
+Those who can barely live, and who live perforce in a very small, and
+generally very inferior, society, may well be illiberal and cross. This
+does not apply, however, to Miss Bates; she is only too good natured and
+too silly to suit me; but, in general, she is very much to the taste
+of every body, though single and though poor. Poverty certainly has not
+contracted her mind: I really believe, if she had only a shilling in the
+world, she would be very likely to give away sixpence of it; and nobody
+is afraid of her: that is a great charm.”
+
+“Dear me! but what shall you do? how shall you employ yourself when you
+grow old?”
+
+“If I know myself, Harriet, mine is an active, busy mind, with a great
+many independent resources; and I do not perceive why I should be more
+in want of employment at forty or fifty than one-and-twenty. Woman’s
+usual occupations of hand and mind will be as open to me then as they
+are now; or with no important variation. If I draw less, I shall read
+more; if I give up music, I shall take to carpet-work. And as for
+objects of interest, objects for the affections, which is in truth the
+great point of inferiority, the want of which is really the great evil
+to be avoided in _not_ marrying, I shall be very well off, with all the
+children of a sister I love so much, to care about. There will be enough
+of them, in all probability, to supply every sort of sensation that
+declining life can need. There will be enough for every hope and every
+fear; and though my attachment to none can equal that of a parent, it
+suits my ideas of comfort better than what is warmer and blinder. My
+nephews and nieces!--I shall often have a niece with me.”
+
+“Do you know Miss Bates’s niece? That is, I know you must have seen her
+a hundred times--but are you acquainted?”
+
+“Oh! yes; we are always forced to be acquainted whenever she comes to
+Highbury. By the bye, _that_ is almost enough to put one out of conceit
+with a niece. Heaven forbid! at least, that I should ever bore people
+half so much about all the Knightleys together, as she does about Jane
+Fairfax. One is sick of the very name of Jane Fairfax. Every letter from
+her is read forty times over; her compliments to all friends go round
+and round again; and if she does but send her aunt the pattern of a
+stomacher, or knit a pair of garters for her grandmother, one hears of
+nothing else for a month. I wish Jane Fairfax very well; but she tires
+me to death.”
+
+They were now approaching the cottage, and all idle topics were
+superseded. Emma was very compassionate; and the distresses of the poor
+were as sure of relief from her personal attention and kindness, her
+counsel and her patience, as from her purse. She understood their ways,
+could allow for their ignorance and their temptations, had no romantic
+expectations of extraordinary virtue from those for whom education had
+done so little; entered into their troubles with ready sympathy, and
+always gave her assistance with as much intelligence as good-will. In
+the present instance, it was sickness and poverty together which she
+came to visit; and after remaining there as long as she could give
+comfort or advice, she quitted the cottage with such an impression of
+the scene as made her say to Harriet, as they walked away,
+
+“These are the sights, Harriet, to do one good. How trifling they make
+every thing else appear!--I feel now as if I could think of nothing but
+these poor creatures all the rest of the day; and yet, who can say how
+soon it may all vanish from my mind?”
+
+“Very true,” said Harriet. “Poor creatures! one can think of nothing
+else.”
+
+“And really, I do not think the impression will soon be over,” said
+Emma, as she crossed the low hedge, and tottering footstep which ended
+the narrow, slippery path through the cottage garden, and brought them
+into the lane again. “I do not think it will,” stopping to look once
+more at all the outward wretchedness of the place, and recall the still
+greater within.
+
+“Oh! dear, no,” said her companion.
+
+They walked on. The lane made a slight bend; and when that bend was
+passed, Mr. Elton was immediately in sight; and so near as to give Emma
+time only to say farther,
+
+“Ah! Harriet, here comes a very sudden trial of our stability in good
+thoughts. Well, (smiling,) I hope it may be allowed that if compassion
+has produced exertion and relief to the sufferers, it has done all that
+is truly important. If we feel for the wretched, enough to do all we can
+for them, the rest is empty sympathy, only distressing to ourselves.”
+
+Harriet could just answer, “Oh! dear, yes,” before the gentleman joined
+them. The wants and sufferings of the poor family, however, were the
+first subject on meeting. He had been going to call on them. His visit
+he would now defer; but they had a very interesting parley about
+what could be done and should be done. Mr. Elton then turned back to
+accompany them.
+
+“To fall in with each other on such an errand as this,” thought Emma;
+“to meet in a charitable scheme; this will bring a great increase
+of love on each side. I should not wonder if it were to bring on the
+declaration. It must, if I were not here. I wish I were anywhere else.”
+
+Anxious to separate herself from them as far as she could, she soon
+afterwards took possession of a narrow footpath, a little raised on one
+side of the lane, leaving them together in the main road. But she had
+not been there two minutes when she found that Harriet’s habits of
+dependence and imitation were bringing her up too, and that, in short,
+they would both be soon after her. This would not do; she immediately
+stopped, under pretence of having some alteration to make in the lacing
+of her half-boot, and stooping down in complete occupation of the
+footpath, begged them to have the goodness to walk on, and she would
+follow in half a minute. They did as they were desired; and by the time
+she judged it reasonable to have done with her boot, she had the comfort
+of farther delay in her power, being overtaken by a child from the
+cottage, setting out, according to orders, with her pitcher, to fetch
+broth from Hartfield. To walk by the side of this child, and talk to
+and question her, was the most natural thing in the world, or would have
+been the most natural, had she been acting just then without design;
+and by this means the others were still able to keep ahead, without
+any obligation of waiting for her. She gained on them, however,
+involuntarily: the child’s pace was quick, and theirs rather slow;
+and she was the more concerned at it, from their being evidently in
+a conversation which interested them. Mr. Elton was speaking with
+animation, Harriet listening with a very pleased attention; and Emma,
+having sent the child on, was beginning to think how she might draw back
+a little more, when they both looked around, and she was obliged to join
+them.
+
+Mr. Elton was still talking, still engaged in some interesting detail;
+and Emma experienced some disappointment when she found that he was only
+giving his fair companion an account of the yesterday’s party at his
+friend Cole’s, and that she was come in herself for the Stilton cheese,
+the north Wiltshire, the butter, the celery, the beet-root, and all the
+dessert.
+
+“This would soon have led to something better, of course,” was her
+consoling reflection; “any thing interests between those who love; and
+any thing will serve as introduction to what is near the heart. If I
+could but have kept longer away!”
+
+They now walked on together quietly, till within view of the vicarage
+pales, when a sudden resolution, of at least getting Harriet into the
+house, made her again find something very much amiss about her boot, and
+fall behind to arrange it once more. She then broke the lace off short,
+and dexterously throwing it into a ditch, was presently obliged to
+entreat them to stop, and acknowledged her inability to put herself to
+rights so as to be able to walk home in tolerable comfort.
+
+“Part of my lace is gone,” said she, “and I do not know how I am to
+contrive. I really am a most troublesome companion to you both, but I
+hope I am not often so ill-equipped. Mr. Elton, I must beg leave to stop
+at your house, and ask your housekeeper for a bit of ribband or string,
+or any thing just to keep my boot on.”
+
+Mr. Elton looked all happiness at this proposition; and nothing could
+exceed his alertness and attention in conducting them into his house and
+endeavouring to make every thing appear to advantage. The room they were
+taken into was the one he chiefly occupied, and looking forwards; behind
+it was another with which it immediately communicated; the door between
+them was open, and Emma passed into it with the housekeeper to receive
+her assistance in the most comfortable manner. She was obliged to leave
+the door ajar as she found it; but she fully intended that Mr. Elton
+should close it. It was not closed, however, it still remained ajar; but
+by engaging the housekeeper in incessant conversation, she hoped to make
+it practicable for him to chuse his own subject in the adjoining
+room. For ten minutes she could hear nothing but herself. It could be
+protracted no longer. She was then obliged to be finished, and make her
+appearance.
+
+The lovers were standing together at one of the windows. It had a most
+favourable aspect; and, for half a minute, Emma felt the glory of having
+schemed successfully. But it would not do; he had not come to the point.
+He had been most agreeable, most delightful; he had told Harriet that
+he had seen them go by, and had purposely followed them; other little
+gallantries and allusions had been dropt, but nothing serious.
+
+“Cautious, very cautious,” thought Emma; “he advances inch by inch, and
+will hazard nothing till he believes himself secure.”
+
+Still, however, though every thing had not been accomplished by her
+ingenious device, she could not but flatter herself that it had been
+the occasion of much present enjoyment to both, and must be leading them
+forward to the great event.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+Mr. Elton must now be left to himself. It was no longer in Emma’s power
+to superintend his happiness or quicken his measures. The coming of her
+sister’s family was so very near at hand, that first in anticipation,
+and then in reality, it became henceforth her prime object of interest;
+and during the ten days of their stay at Hartfield it was not to be
+expected--she did not herself expect--that any thing beyond occasional,
+fortuitous assistance could be afforded by her to the lovers. They might
+advance rapidly if they would, however; they must advance somehow or
+other whether they would or no. She hardly wished to have more leisure
+for them. There are people, who the more you do for them, the less they
+will do for themselves.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley, from having been longer than usual absent
+from Surry, were exciting of course rather more than the usual interest.
+Till this year, every long vacation since their marriage had been
+divided between Hartfield and Donwell Abbey; but all the holidays of
+this autumn had been given to sea-bathing for the children, and it was
+therefore many months since they had been seen in a regular way by their
+Surry connexions, or seen at all by Mr. Woodhouse, who could not be
+induced to get so far as London, even for poor Isabella’s sake; and
+who consequently was now most nervously and apprehensively happy in
+forestalling this too short visit.
+
+He thought much of the evils of the journey for her, and not a little
+of the fatigues of his own horses and coachman who were to bring some
+of the party the last half of the way; but his alarms were needless;
+the sixteen miles being happily accomplished, and Mr. and Mrs. John
+Knightley, their five children, and a competent number of nursery-maids,
+all reaching Hartfield in safety. The bustle and joy of such an arrival,
+the many to be talked to, welcomed, encouraged, and variously dispersed
+and disposed of, produced a noise and confusion which his nerves could
+not have borne under any other cause, nor have endured much longer even
+for this; but the ways of Hartfield and the feelings of her father
+were so respected by Mrs. John Knightley, that in spite of maternal
+solicitude for the immediate enjoyment of her little ones, and for their
+having instantly all the liberty and attendance, all the eating and
+drinking, and sleeping and playing, which they could possibly wish for,
+without the smallest delay, the children were never allowed to be long
+a disturbance to him, either in themselves or in any restless attendance
+on them.
+
+Mrs. John Knightley was a pretty, elegant little woman, of gentle, quiet
+manners, and a disposition remarkably amiable and affectionate; wrapt
+up in her family; a devoted wife, a doating mother, and so tenderly
+attached to her father and sister that, but for these higher ties, a
+warmer love might have seemed impossible. She could never see a fault
+in any of them. She was not a woman of strong understanding or any
+quickness; and with this resemblance of her father, she inherited also
+much of his constitution; was delicate in her own health, over-careful
+of that of her children, had many fears and many nerves, and was as fond
+of her own Mr. Wingfield in town as her father could be of Mr. Perry.
+They were alike too, in a general benevolence of temper, and a strong
+habit of regard for every old acquaintance.
+
+Mr. John Knightley was a tall, gentleman-like, and very clever man;
+rising in his profession, domestic, and respectable in his private
+character; but with reserved manners which prevented his being generally
+pleasing; and capable of being sometimes out of humour. He was not an
+ill-tempered man, not so often unreasonably cross as to deserve such a
+reproach; but his temper was not his great perfection; and, indeed, with
+such a worshipping wife, it was hardly possible that any natural defects
+in it should not be increased. The extreme sweetness of her temper
+must hurt his. He had all the clearness and quickness of mind which she
+wanted, and he could sometimes act an ungracious, or say a severe thing.
+
+He was not a great favourite with his fair sister-in-law. Nothing wrong
+in him escaped her. She was quick in feeling the little injuries to
+Isabella, which Isabella never felt herself. Perhaps she might have
+passed over more had his manners been flattering to Isabella’s sister,
+but they were only those of a calmly kind brother and friend, without
+praise and without blindness; but hardly any degree of personal
+compliment could have made her regardless of that greatest fault of
+all in her eyes which he sometimes fell into, the want of respectful
+forbearance towards her father. There he had not always the patience
+that could have been wished. Mr. Woodhouse’s peculiarities and
+fidgetiness were sometimes provoking him to a rational remonstrance or
+sharp retort equally ill-bestowed. It did not often happen; for Mr. John
+Knightley had really a great regard for his father-in-law, and generally
+a strong sense of what was due to him; but it was too often for Emma’s
+charity, especially as there was all the pain of apprehension frequently
+to be endured, though the offence came not. The beginning, however, of
+every visit displayed none but the properest feelings, and this being of
+necessity so short might be hoped to pass away in unsullied cordiality.
+They had not been long seated and composed when Mr. Woodhouse, with a
+melancholy shake of the head and a sigh, called his daughter’s attention
+to the sad change at Hartfield since she had been there last.
+
+“Ah, my dear,” said he, “poor Miss Taylor--It is a grievous business.”
+
+“Oh yes, sir,” cried she with ready sympathy, “how you must miss her!
+And dear Emma, too!--What a dreadful loss to you both!--I have been so
+grieved for you.--I could not imagine how you could possibly do without
+her.--It is a sad change indeed.--But I hope she is pretty well, sir.”
+
+“Pretty well, my dear--I hope--pretty well.--I do not know but that the
+place agrees with her tolerably.”
+
+Mr. John Knightley here asked Emma quietly whether there were any doubts
+of the air of Randalls.
+
+“Oh! no--none in the least. I never saw Mrs. Weston better in my
+life--never looking so well. Papa is only speaking his own regret.”
+
+“Very much to the honour of both,” was the handsome reply.
+
+“And do you see her, sir, tolerably often?” asked Isabella in the
+plaintive tone which just suited her father.
+
+Mr. Woodhouse hesitated.--“Not near so often, my dear, as I could wish.”
+
+“Oh! papa, we have missed seeing them but one entire day since they
+married. Either in the morning or evening of every day, excepting one,
+have we seen either Mr. Weston or Mrs. Weston, and generally both,
+either at Randalls or here--and as you may suppose, Isabella, most
+frequently here. They are very, very kind in their visits. Mr. Weston
+is really as kind as herself. Papa, if you speak in that melancholy way,
+you will be giving Isabella a false idea of us all. Every body must be
+aware that Miss Taylor must be missed, but every body ought also to be
+assured that Mr. and Mrs. Weston do really prevent our missing her by
+any means to the extent we ourselves anticipated--which is the exact
+truth.”
+
+“Just as it should be,” said Mr. John Knightley, “and just as I hoped
+it was from your letters. Her wish of shewing you attention could not be
+doubted, and his being a disengaged and social man makes it all easy. I
+have been always telling you, my love, that I had no idea of the change
+being so very material to Hartfield as you apprehended; and now you have
+Emma’s account, I hope you will be satisfied.”
+
+“Why, to be sure,” said Mr. Woodhouse--“yes, certainly--I cannot
+deny that Mrs. Weston, poor Mrs. Weston, does come and see us pretty
+often--but then--she is always obliged to go away again.”
+
+“It would be very hard upon Mr. Weston if she did not, papa.--You quite
+forget poor Mr. Weston.”
+
+“I think, indeed,” said John Knightley pleasantly, “that Mr. Weston has
+some little claim. You and I, Emma, will venture to take the part of the
+poor husband. I, being a husband, and you not being a wife, the claims
+of the man may very likely strike us with equal force. As for Isabella,
+she has been married long enough to see the convenience of putting all
+the Mr. Westons aside as much as she can.”
+
+“Me, my love,” cried his wife, hearing and understanding only in part.--
+“Are you talking about me?--I am sure nobody ought to be, or can be, a
+greater advocate for matrimony than I am; and if it had not been for
+the misery of her leaving Hartfield, I should never have thought of Miss
+Taylor but as the most fortunate woman in the world; and as to slighting
+Mr. Weston, that excellent Mr. Weston, I think there is nothing he does
+not deserve. I believe he is one of the very best-tempered men that ever
+existed. Excepting yourself and your brother, I do not know his equal
+for temper. I shall never forget his flying Henry’s kite for him that
+very windy day last Easter--and ever since his particular kindness last
+September twelvemonth in writing that note, at twelve o’clock at night,
+on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I
+have been convinced there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better
+man in existence.--If any body can deserve him, it must be Miss Taylor.”
+
+“Where is the young man?” said John Knightley. “Has he been here on this
+occasion--or has he not?”
+
+“He has not been here yet,” replied Emma. “There was a strong
+expectation of his coming soon after the marriage, but it ended in
+nothing; and I have not heard him mentioned lately.”
+
+“But you should tell them of the letter, my dear,” said her father.
+“He wrote a letter to poor Mrs. Weston, to congratulate her, and a very
+proper, handsome letter it was. She shewed it to me. I thought it very
+well done of him indeed. Whether it was his own idea you know, one
+cannot tell. He is but young, and his uncle, perhaps--”
+
+“My dear papa, he is three-and-twenty. You forget how time passes.”
+
+“Three-and-twenty!--is he indeed?--Well, I could not have thought
+it--and he was but two years old when he lost his poor mother! Well,
+time does fly indeed!--and my memory is very bad. However, it was an
+exceeding good, pretty letter, and gave Mr. and Mrs. Weston a great deal
+of pleasure. I remember it was written from Weymouth, and dated Sept.
+28th--and began, ‘My dear Madam,’ but I forget how it went on; and it
+was signed ‘F. C. Weston Churchill.’--I remember that perfectly.”
+
+“How very pleasing and proper of him!” cried the good-hearted Mrs. John
+Knightley. “I have no doubt of his being a most amiable young man. But
+how sad it is that he should not live at home with his father! There is
+something so shocking in a child’s being taken away from his parents and
+natural home! I never could comprehend how Mr. Weston could part with
+him. To give up one’s child! I really never could think well of any body
+who proposed such a thing to any body else.”
+
+“Nobody ever did think well of the Churchills, I fancy,” observed Mr.
+John Knightley coolly. “But you need not imagine Mr. Weston to have felt
+what you would feel in giving up Henry or John. Mr. Weston is rather
+an easy, cheerful-tempered man, than a man of strong feelings; he takes
+things as he finds them, and makes enjoyment of them somehow or other,
+depending, I suspect, much more upon what is called society for his
+comforts, that is, upon the power of eating and drinking, and playing
+whist with his neighbours five times a week, than upon family affection,
+or any thing that home affords.”
+
+Emma could not like what bordered on a reflection on Mr. Weston, and had
+half a mind to take it up; but she struggled, and let it pass. She
+would keep the peace if possible; and there was something honourable and
+valuable in the strong domestic habits, the all-sufficiency of home to
+himself, whence resulted her brother’s disposition to look down on
+the common rate of social intercourse, and those to whom it was
+important.--It had a high claim to forbearance.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Mr. Knightley was to dine with them--rather against the inclination of
+Mr. Woodhouse, who did not like that any one should share with him in
+Isabella’s first day. Emma’s sense of right however had decided it;
+and besides the consideration of what was due to each brother, she had
+particular pleasure, from the circumstance of the late disagreement
+between Mr. Knightley and herself, in procuring him the proper
+invitation.
+
+She hoped they might now become friends again. She thought it was time
+to make up. Making-up indeed would not do. _She_ certainly had not been
+in the wrong, and _he_ would never own that he had. Concession must be
+out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had
+ever quarrelled; and she hoped it might rather assist the restoration of
+friendship, that when he came into the room she had one of the children
+with her--the youngest, a nice little girl about eight months old, who
+was now making her first visit to Hartfield, and very happy to be danced
+about in her aunt’s arms. It did assist; for though he began with grave
+looks and short questions, he was soon led on to talk of them all in
+the usual way, and to take the child out of her arms with all the
+unceremoniousness of perfect amity. Emma felt they were friends again;
+and the conviction giving her at first great satisfaction, and then
+a little sauciness, she could not help saying, as he was admiring the
+baby,
+
+“What a comfort it is, that we think alike about our nephews and nieces.
+As to men and women, our opinions are sometimes very different; but with
+regard to these children, I observe we never disagree.”
+
+“If you were as much guided by nature in your estimate of men and women,
+and as little under the power of fancy and whim in your dealings with
+them, as you are where these children are concerned, we might always
+think alike.”
+
+“To be sure--our discordancies must always arise from my being in the
+wrong.”
+
+“Yes,” said he, smiling--“and reason good. I was sixteen years old when
+you were born.”
+
+“A material difference then,” she replied--“and no doubt you were much
+my superior in judgment at that period of our lives; but does not the
+lapse of one-and-twenty years bring our understandings a good deal
+nearer?”
+
+“Yes--a good deal _nearer_.”
+
+“But still, not near enough to give me a chance of being right, if we
+think differently.”
+
+“I have still the advantage of you by sixteen years’ experience, and by
+not being a pretty young woman and a spoiled child. Come, my dear Emma,
+let us be friends, and say no more about it. Tell your aunt, little
+Emma, that she ought to set you a better example than to be renewing old
+grievances, and that if she were not wrong before, she is now.”
+
+“That’s true,” she cried--“very true. Little Emma, grow up a better
+woman than your aunt. Be infinitely cleverer and not half so conceited.
+Now, Mr. Knightley, a word or two more, and I have done. As far as good
+intentions went, we were _both_ right, and I must say that no effects on
+my side of the argument have yet proved wrong. I only want to know that
+Mr. Martin is not very, very bitterly disappointed.”
+
+“A man cannot be more so,” was his short, full answer.
+
+“Ah!--Indeed I am very sorry.--Come, shake hands with me.”
+
+This had just taken place and with great cordiality, when John Knightley
+made his appearance, and “How d’ye do, George?” and “John, how are
+you?” succeeded in the true English style, burying under a calmness that
+seemed all but indifference, the real attachment which would have led
+either of them, if requisite, to do every thing for the good of the
+other.
+
+The evening was quiet and conversable, as Mr. Woodhouse declined cards
+entirely for the sake of comfortable talk with his dear Isabella, and
+the little party made two natural divisions; on one side he and his
+daughter; on the other the two Mr. Knightleys; their subjects totally
+distinct, or very rarely mixing--and Emma only occasionally joining in
+one or the other.
+
+The brothers talked of their own concerns and pursuits, but principally
+of those of the elder, whose temper was by much the most communicative,
+and who was always the greater talker. As a magistrate, he had generally
+some point of law to consult John about, or, at least, some curious
+anecdote to give; and as a farmer, as keeping in hand the home-farm at
+Donwell, he had to tell what every field was to bear next year, and to
+give all such local information as could not fail of being interesting
+to a brother whose home it had equally been the longest part of his
+life, and whose attachments were strong. The plan of a drain, the change
+of a fence, the felling of a tree, and the destination of every acre for
+wheat, turnips, or spring corn, was entered into with as much equality
+of interest by John, as his cooler manners rendered possible; and if his
+willing brother ever left him any thing to inquire about, his inquiries
+even approached a tone of eagerness.
+
+While they were thus comfortably occupied, Mr. Woodhouse was enjoying a
+full flow of happy regrets and fearful affection with his daughter.
+
+“My poor dear Isabella,” said he, fondly taking her hand, and
+interrupting, for a few moments, her busy labours for some one of her
+five children--“How long it is, how terribly long since you were here!
+And how tired you must be after your journey! You must go to bed early,
+my dear--and I recommend a little gruel to you before you go.--You and
+I will have a nice basin of gruel together. My dear Emma, suppose we all
+have a little gruel.”
+
+Emma could not suppose any such thing, knowing as she did, that both the
+Mr. Knightleys were as unpersuadable on that article as herself;--and
+two basins only were ordered. After a little more discourse in praise of
+gruel, with some wondering at its not being taken every evening by every
+body, he proceeded to say, with an air of grave reflection,
+
+“It was an awkward business, my dear, your spending the autumn at South
+End instead of coming here. I never had much opinion of the sea air.”
+
+“Mr. Wingfield most strenuously recommended it, sir--or we should not
+have gone. He recommended it for all the children, but particularly for
+the weakness in little Bella’s throat,--both sea air and bathing.”
+
+“Ah! my dear, but Perry had many doubts about the sea doing her any
+good; and as to myself, I have been long perfectly convinced, though
+perhaps I never told you so before, that the sea is very rarely of use
+to any body. I am sure it almost killed me once.”
+
+“Come, come,” cried Emma, feeling this to be an unsafe subject, “I must
+beg you not to talk of the sea. It makes me envious and miserable;--I
+who have never seen it! South End is prohibited, if you please. My dear
+Isabella, I have not heard you make one inquiry about Mr. Perry yet; and
+he never forgets you.”
+
+“Oh! good Mr. Perry--how is he, sir?”
+
+“Why, pretty well; but not quite well. Poor Perry is bilious, and he has
+not time to take care of himself--he tells me he has not time to take
+care of himself--which is very sad--but he is always wanted all round
+the country. I suppose there is not a man in such practice anywhere. But
+then there is not so clever a man any where.”
+
+“And Mrs. Perry and the children, how are they? do the children grow?
+I have a great regard for Mr. Perry. I hope he will be calling soon. He
+will be so pleased to see my little ones.”
+
+“I hope he will be here to-morrow, for I have a question or two to ask
+him about myself of some consequence. And, my dear, whenever he comes,
+you had better let him look at little Bella’s throat.”
+
+“Oh! my dear sir, her throat is so much better that I have hardly any
+uneasiness about it. Either bathing has been of the greatest service to
+her, or else it is to be attributed to an excellent embrocation of Mr.
+Wingfield’s, which we have been applying at times ever since August.”
+
+“It is not very likely, my dear, that bathing should have been of use
+to her--and if I had known you were wanting an embrocation, I would have
+spoken to--
+
+“You seem to me to have forgotten Mrs. and Miss Bates,” said Emma, “I
+have not heard one inquiry after them.”
+
+“Oh! the good Bateses--I am quite ashamed of myself--but you mention
+them in most of your letters. I hope they are quite well. Good old Mrs.
+Bates--I will call upon her to-morrow, and take my children.--They
+are always so pleased to see my children.--And that excellent Miss
+Bates!--such thorough worthy people!--How are they, sir?”
+
+“Why, pretty well, my dear, upon the whole. But poor Mrs. Bates had a
+bad cold about a month ago.”
+
+“How sorry I am! But colds were never so prevalent as they have been
+this autumn. Mr. Wingfield told me that he has never known them more
+general or heavy--except when it has been quite an influenza.”
+
+“That has been a good deal the case, my dear; but not to the degree you
+mention. Perry says that colds have been very general, but not so heavy
+as he has very often known them in November. Perry does not call it
+altogether a sickly season.”
+
+“No, I do not know that Mr. Wingfield considers it _very_ sickly
+except--
+
+“Ah! my poor dear child, the truth is, that in London it is always
+a sickly season. Nobody is healthy in London, nobody can be. It is a
+dreadful thing to have you forced to live there! so far off!--and the
+air so bad!”
+
+“No, indeed--_we_ are not at all in a bad air. Our part of London is
+very superior to most others!--You must not confound us with London
+in general, my dear sir. The neighbourhood of Brunswick Square is very
+different from almost all the rest. We are so very airy! I should be
+unwilling, I own, to live in any other part of the town;--there is
+hardly any other that I could be satisfied to have my children in:
+but _we_ are so remarkably airy!--Mr. Wingfield thinks the vicinity of
+Brunswick Square decidedly the most favourable as to air.”
+
+“Ah! my dear, it is not like Hartfield. You make the best of it--but
+after you have been a week at Hartfield, you are all of you different
+creatures; you do not look like the same. Now I cannot say, that I think
+you are any of you looking well at present.”
+
+“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir; but I assure you, excepting those
+little nervous head-aches and palpitations which I am never entirely
+free from anywhere, I am quite well myself; and if the children were
+rather pale before they went to bed, it was only because they were a
+little more tired than usual, from their journey and the happiness of
+coming. I hope you will think better of their looks to-morrow; for I
+assure you Mr. Wingfield told me, that he did not believe he had ever
+sent us off altogether, in such good case. I trust, at least, that
+you do not think Mr. Knightley looking ill,” turning her eyes with
+affectionate anxiety towards her husband.
+
+“Middling, my dear; I cannot compliment you. I think Mr. John Knightley
+very far from looking well.”
+
+“What is the matter, sir?--Did you speak to me?” cried Mr. John
+Knightley, hearing his own name.
+
+“I am sorry to find, my love, that my father does not think you looking
+well--but I hope it is only from being a little fatigued. I could have
+wished, however, as you know, that you had seen Mr. Wingfield before you
+left home.”
+
+“My dear Isabella,”--exclaimed he hastily--“pray do not concern yourself
+about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and
+the children, and let me look as I chuse.”
+
+“I did not thoroughly understand what you were telling your brother,”
+ cried Emma, “about your friend Mr. Graham’s intending to have a bailiff
+from Scotland, to look after his new estate. What will it answer? Will
+not the old prejudice be too strong?”
+
+And she talked in this way so long and successfully that, when forced to
+give her attention again to her father and sister, she had nothing
+worse to hear than Isabella’s kind inquiry after Jane Fairfax; and Jane
+Fairfax, though no great favourite with her in general, she was at that
+moment very happy to assist in praising.
+
+“That sweet, amiable Jane Fairfax!” said Mrs. John Knightley.--“It
+is so long since I have seen her, except now and then for a moment
+accidentally in town! What happiness it must be to her good old
+grandmother and excellent aunt, when she comes to visit them! I always
+regret excessively on dear Emma’s account that she cannot be more at
+Highbury; but now their daughter is married, I suppose Colonel and Mrs.
+Campbell will not be able to part with her at all. She would be such a
+delightful companion for Emma.”
+
+Mr. Woodhouse agreed to it all, but added,
+
+“Our little friend Harriet Smith, however, is just such another pretty
+kind of young person. You will like Harriet. Emma could not have a
+better companion than Harriet.”
+
+“I am most happy to hear it--but only Jane Fairfax one knows to be so
+very accomplished and superior!--and exactly Emma’s age.”
+
+This topic was discussed very happily, and others succeeded of similar
+moment, and passed away with similar harmony; but the evening did not
+close without a little return of agitation. The gruel came and supplied
+a great deal to be said--much praise and many comments--undoubting
+decision of its wholesomeness for every constitution, and pretty
+severe Philippics upon the many houses where it was never met with
+tolerably;--but, unfortunately, among the failures which the daughter
+had to instance, the most recent, and therefore most prominent, was in
+her own cook at South End, a young woman hired for the time, who never
+had been able to understand what she meant by a basin of nice smooth
+gruel, thin, but not too thin. Often as she had wished for and ordered
+it, she had never been able to get any thing tolerable. Here was a
+dangerous opening.
+
+“Ah!” said Mr. Woodhouse, shaking his head and fixing his eyes on her
+with tender concern.--The ejaculation in Emma’s ear expressed, “Ah!
+there is no end of the sad consequences of your going to South End. It
+does not bear talking of.” And for a little while she hoped he would not
+talk of it, and that a silent rumination might suffice to restore him to
+the relish of his own smooth gruel. After an interval of some minutes,
+however, he began with,
+
+“I shall always be very sorry that you went to the sea this autumn,
+instead of coming here.”
+
+“But why should you be sorry, sir?--I assure you, it did the children a
+great deal of good.”
+
+“And, moreover, if you must go to the sea, it had better not have been
+to South End. South End is an unhealthy place. Perry was surprized to
+hear you had fixed upon South End.”
+
+“I know there is such an idea with many people, but indeed it is quite
+a mistake, sir.--We all had our health perfectly well there, never
+found the least inconvenience from the mud; and Mr. Wingfield says it is
+entirely a mistake to suppose the place unhealthy; and I am sure he may
+be depended on, for he thoroughly understands the nature of the air, and
+his own brother and family have been there repeatedly.”
+
+“You should have gone to Cromer, my dear, if you went anywhere.--Perry
+was a week at Cromer once, and he holds it to be the best of all the
+sea-bathing places. A fine open sea, he says, and very pure air. And, by
+what I understand, you might have had lodgings there quite away from
+the sea--a quarter of a mile off--very comfortable. You should have
+consulted Perry.”
+
+“But, my dear sir, the difference of the journey;--only consider how
+great it would have been.--An hundred miles, perhaps, instead of forty.”
+
+“Ah! my dear, as Perry says, where health is at stake, nothing else
+should be considered; and if one is to travel, there is not much to
+chuse between forty miles and an hundred.--Better not move at all,
+better stay in London altogether than travel forty miles to get into
+a worse air. This is just what Perry said. It seemed to him a very
+ill-judged measure.”
+
+Emma’s attempts to stop her father had been vain; and when he
+had reached such a point as this, she could not wonder at her
+brother-in-law’s breaking out.
+
+“Mr. Perry,” said he, in a voice of very strong displeasure, “would do
+as well to keep his opinion till it is asked for. Why does he make it
+any business of his, to wonder at what I do?--at my taking my family to
+one part of the coast or another?--I may be allowed, I hope, the use of
+my judgment as well as Mr. Perry.--I want his directions no more than
+his drugs.” He paused--and growing cooler in a moment, added, with only
+sarcastic dryness, “If Mr. Perry can tell me how to convey a wife and
+five children a distance of an hundred and thirty miles with no greater
+expense or inconvenience than a distance of forty, I should be as
+willing to prefer Cromer to South End as he could himself.”
+
+“True, true,” cried Mr. Knightley, with most ready interposition--“very
+true. That’s a consideration indeed.--But John, as to what I was telling
+you of my idea of moving the path to Langham, of turning it more to the
+right that it may not cut through the home meadows, I cannot conceive
+any difficulty. I should not attempt it, if it were to be the means of
+inconvenience to the Highbury people, but if you call to mind exactly
+the present line of the path.... The only way of proving it, however,
+will be to turn to our maps. I shall see you at the Abbey to-morrow
+morning I hope, and then we will look them over, and you shall give me
+your opinion.”
+
+Mr. Woodhouse was rather agitated by such harsh reflections on his
+friend Perry, to whom he had, in fact, though unconsciously, been
+attributing many of his own feelings and expressions;--but the soothing
+attentions of his daughters gradually removed the present evil, and
+the immediate alertness of one brother, and better recollections of the
+other, prevented any renewal of it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+There could hardly be a happier creature in the world than Mrs. John
+Knightley, in this short visit to Hartfield, going about every morning
+among her old acquaintance with her five children, and talking over what
+she had done every evening with her father and sister. She had nothing
+to wish otherwise, but that the days did not pass so swiftly. It was a
+delightful visit;--perfect, in being much too short.
+
+In general their evenings were less engaged with friends than their
+mornings; but one complete dinner engagement, and out of the house too,
+there was no avoiding, though at Christmas. Mr. Weston would take no
+denial; they must all dine at Randalls one day;--even Mr. Woodhouse was
+persuaded to think it a possible thing in preference to a division of
+the party.
+
+How they were all to be conveyed, he would have made a difficulty if he
+could, but as his son and daughter’s carriage and horses were actually
+at Hartfield, he was not able to make more than a simple question on
+that head; it hardly amounted to a doubt; nor did it occupy Emma long
+to convince him that they might in one of the carriages find room for
+Harriet also.
+
+Harriet, Mr. Elton, and Mr. Knightley, their own especial set, were the
+only persons invited to meet them;--the hours were to be early, as
+well as the numbers few; Mr. Woodhouse’s habits and inclination being
+consulted in every thing.
+
+The evening before this great event (for it was a very great event that
+Mr. Woodhouse should dine out, on the 24th of December) had been spent
+by Harriet at Hartfield, and she had gone home so much indisposed with
+a cold, that, but for her own earnest wish of being nursed by Mrs.
+Goddard, Emma could not have allowed her to leave the house. Emma called
+on her the next day, and found her doom already signed with regard to
+Randalls. She was very feverish and had a bad sore throat: Mrs. Goddard
+was full of care and affection, Mr. Perry was talked of, and Harriet
+herself was too ill and low to resist the authority which excluded her
+from this delightful engagement, though she could not speak of her loss
+without many tears.
+
+Emma sat with her as long as she could, to attend her in Mrs. Goddard’s
+unavoidable absences, and raise her spirits by representing how much Mr.
+Elton’s would be depressed when he knew her state; and left her at last
+tolerably comfortable, in the sweet dependence of his having a most
+comfortless visit, and of their all missing her very much. She had not
+advanced many yards from Mrs. Goddard’s door, when she was met by Mr.
+Elton himself, evidently coming towards it, and as they walked on slowly
+together in conversation about the invalid--of whom he, on the rumour
+of considerable illness, had been going to inquire, that he might
+carry some report of her to Hartfield--they were overtaken by Mr. John
+Knightley returning from the daily visit to Donwell, with his two eldest
+boys, whose healthy, glowing faces shewed all the benefit of a country
+run, and seemed to ensure a quick despatch of the roast mutton and rice
+pudding they were hastening home for. They joined company and
+proceeded together. Emma was just describing the nature of her friend’s
+complaint;--“a throat very much inflamed, with a great deal of heat
+about her, a quick, low pulse, &c. and she was sorry to find from Mrs.
+Goddard that Harriet was liable to very bad sore-throats, and had often
+alarmed her with them.” Mr. Elton looked all alarm on the occasion, as
+he exclaimed,
+
+“A sore-throat!--I hope not infectious. I hope not of a putrid
+infectious sort. Has Perry seen her? Indeed you should take care of
+yourself as well as of your friend. Let me entreat you to run no risks.
+Why does not Perry see her?”
+
+Emma, who was not really at all frightened herself, tranquillised this
+excess of apprehension by assurances of Mrs. Goddard’s experience and
+care; but as there must still remain a degree of uneasiness which she
+could not wish to reason away, which she would rather feed and assist
+than not, she added soon afterwards--as if quite another subject,
+
+“It is so cold, so very cold--and looks and feels so very much like
+snow, that if it were to any other place or with any other party, I
+should really try not to go out to-day--and dissuade my father from
+venturing; but as he has made up his mind, and does not seem to feel the
+cold himself, I do not like to interfere, as I know it would be so great
+a disappointment to Mr. and Mrs. Weston. But, upon my word, Mr. Elton,
+in your case, I should certainly excuse myself. You appear to me a
+little hoarse already, and when you consider what demand of voice and
+what fatigues to-morrow will bring, I think it would be no more than
+common prudence to stay at home and take care of yourself to-night.”
+
+Mr. Elton looked as if he did not very well know what answer to make;
+which was exactly the case; for though very much gratified by the kind
+care of such a fair lady, and not liking to resist any advice of her’s,
+he had not really the least inclination to give up the visit;--but Emma,
+too eager and busy in her own previous conceptions and views to hear him
+impartially, or see him with clear vision, was very well satisfied with
+his muttering acknowledgment of its being “very cold, certainly very
+cold,” and walked on, rejoicing in having extricated him from Randalls,
+and secured him the power of sending to inquire after Harriet every hour
+of the evening.
+
+“You do quite right,” said she;--“we will make your apologies to Mr. and
+Mrs. Weston.”
+
+But hardly had she so spoken, when she found her brother was civilly
+offering a seat in his carriage, if the weather were Mr. Elton’s only
+objection, and Mr. Elton actually accepting the offer with much prompt
+satisfaction. It was a done thing; Mr. Elton was to go, and never had
+his broad handsome face expressed more pleasure than at this moment;
+never had his smile been stronger, nor his eyes more exulting than when
+he next looked at her.
+
+“Well,” said she to herself, “this is most strange!--After I had got
+him off so well, to chuse to go into company, and leave Harriet ill
+behind!--Most strange indeed!--But there is, I believe, in many men,
+especially single men, such an inclination--such a passion for dining
+out--a dinner engagement is so high in the class of their pleasures,
+their employments, their dignities, almost their duties, that any
+thing gives way to it--and this must be the case with Mr. Elton; a most
+valuable, amiable, pleasing young man undoubtedly, and very much in love
+with Harriet; but still, he cannot refuse an invitation, he must dine
+out wherever he is asked. What a strange thing love is! he can see ready
+wit in Harriet, but will not dine alone for her.”
+
+Soon afterwards Mr. Elton quitted them, and she could not but do him
+the justice of feeling that there was a great deal of sentiment in his
+manner of naming Harriet at parting; in the tone of his voice while
+assuring her that he should call at Mrs. Goddard’s for news of her fair
+friend, the last thing before he prepared for the happiness of meeting
+her again, when he hoped to be able to give a better report; and
+he sighed and smiled himself off in a way that left the balance of
+approbation much in his favour.
+
+After a few minutes of entire silence between them, John Knightley began
+with--
+
+“I never in my life saw a man more intent on being agreeable than Mr.
+Elton. It is downright labour to him where ladies are concerned. With
+men he can be rational and unaffected, but when he has ladies to please,
+every feature works.”
+
+“Mr. Elton’s manners are not perfect,” replied Emma; “but where there is
+a wish to please, one ought to overlook, and one does overlook a great
+deal. Where a man does his best with only moderate powers, he will
+have the advantage over negligent superiority. There is such perfect
+good-temper and good-will in Mr. Elton as one cannot but value.”
+
+“Yes,” said Mr. John Knightley presently, with some slyness, “he seems
+to have a great deal of good-will towards you.”
+
+“Me!” she replied with a smile of astonishment, “are you imagining me to
+be Mr. Elton’s object?”
+
+“Such an imagination has crossed me, I own, Emma; and if it never
+occurred to you before, you may as well take it into consideration now.”
+
+“Mr. Elton in love with me!--What an idea!”
+
+“I do not say it is so; but you will do well to consider whether it
+is so or not, and to regulate your behaviour accordingly. I think your
+manners to him encouraging. I speak as a friend, Emma. You had better
+look about you, and ascertain what you do, and what you mean to do.”
+
+“I thank you; but I assure you you are quite mistaken. Mr. Elton and
+I are very good friends, and nothing more;” and she walked on, amusing
+herself in the consideration of the blunders which often arise from a
+partial knowledge of circumstances, of the mistakes which people of high
+pretensions to judgment are for ever falling into; and not very well
+pleased with her brother for imagining her blind and ignorant, and in
+want of counsel. He said no more.
+
+Mr. Woodhouse had so completely made up his mind to the visit, that in
+spite of the increasing coldness, he seemed to have no idea of shrinking
+from it, and set forward at last most punctually with his eldest
+daughter in his own carriage, with less apparent consciousness of the
+weather than either of the others; too full of the wonder of his own
+going, and the pleasure it was to afford at Randalls to see that it was
+cold, and too well wrapt up to feel it. The cold, however, was severe;
+and by the time the second carriage was in motion, a few flakes of snow
+were finding their way down, and the sky had the appearance of being so
+overcharged as to want only a milder air to produce a very white world
+in a very short time.
+
+Emma soon saw that her companion was not in the happiest humour. The
+preparing and the going abroad in such weather, with the sacrifice of
+his children after dinner, were evils, were disagreeables at least,
+which Mr. John Knightley did not by any means like; he anticipated
+nothing in the visit that could be at all worth the purchase; and the
+whole of their drive to the vicarage was spent by him in expressing his
+discontent.
+
+“A man,” said he, “must have a very good opinion of himself when he asks
+people to leave their own fireside, and encounter such a day as
+this, for the sake of coming to see him. He must think himself a most
+agreeable fellow; I could not do such a thing. It is the greatest
+absurdity--Actually snowing at this moment!--The folly of not allowing
+people to be comfortable at home--and the folly of people’s not staying
+comfortably at home when they can! If we were obliged to go out such
+an evening as this, by any call of duty or business, what a hardship we
+should deem it;--and here are we, probably with rather thinner clothing
+than usual, setting forward voluntarily, without excuse, in defiance of
+the voice of nature, which tells man, in every thing given to his view
+or his feelings, to stay at home himself, and keep all under shelter
+that he can;--here are we setting forward to spend five dull hours in
+another man’s house, with nothing to say or to hear that was not said
+and heard yesterday, and may not be said and heard again to-morrow.
+Going in dismal weather, to return probably in worse;--four horses and
+four servants taken out for nothing but to convey five idle, shivering
+creatures into colder rooms and worse company than they might have had
+at home.”
+
+Emma did not find herself equal to give the pleased assent, which no
+doubt he was in the habit of receiving, to emulate the “Very true,
+my love,” which must have been usually administered by his travelling
+companion; but she had resolution enough to refrain from making
+any answer at all. She could not be complying, she dreaded being
+quarrelsome; her heroism reached only to silence. She allowed him to
+talk, and arranged the glasses, and wrapped herself up, without opening
+her lips.
+
+They arrived, the carriage turned, the step was let down, and Mr. Elton,
+spruce, black, and smiling, was with them instantly. Emma thought with
+pleasure of some change of subject. Mr. Elton was all obligation and
+cheerfulness; he was so very cheerful in his civilities indeed, that she
+began to think he must have received a different account of Harriet from
+what had reached her. She had sent while dressing, and the answer had
+been, “Much the same--not better.”
+
+“_My_ report from Mrs. Goddard’s,” said she presently, “was not so
+pleasant as I had hoped--‘Not better’ was _my_ answer.”
+
+His face lengthened immediately; and his voice was the voice of
+sentiment as he answered.
+
+“Oh! no--I am grieved to find--I was on the point of telling you that
+when I called at Mrs. Goddard’s door, which I did the very last thing
+before I returned to dress, I was told that Miss Smith was not better,
+by no means better, rather worse. Very much grieved and concerned--I
+had flattered myself that she must be better after such a cordial as I
+knew had been given her in the morning.”
+
+Emma smiled and answered--“My visit was of use to the nervous part of
+her complaint, I hope; but not even I can charm away a sore throat;
+it is a most severe cold indeed. Mr. Perry has been with her, as you
+probably heard.”
+
+“Yes--I imagined--that is--I did not--”
+
+“He has been used to her in these complaints, and I hope to-morrow
+morning will bring us both a more comfortable report. But it is
+impossible not to feel uneasiness. Such a sad loss to our party to-day!”
+
+“Dreadful!--Exactly so, indeed.--She will be missed every moment.”
+
+This was very proper; the sigh which accompanied it was really
+estimable; but it should have lasted longer. Emma was rather in dismay
+when only half a minute afterwards he began to speak of other things,
+and in a voice of the greatest alacrity and enjoyment.
+
+“What an excellent device,” said he, “the use of a sheepskin for
+carriages. How very comfortable they make it;--impossible to feel cold
+with such precautions. The contrivances of modern days indeed have
+rendered a gentleman’s carriage perfectly complete. One is so fenced
+and guarded from the weather, that not a breath of air can find its way
+unpermitted. Weather becomes absolutely of no consequence. It is a very
+cold afternoon--but in this carriage we know nothing of the matter.--Ha!
+snows a little I see.”
+
+“Yes,” said John Knightley, “and I think we shall have a good deal of
+it.”
+
+“Christmas weather,” observed Mr. Elton. “Quite seasonable; and
+extremely fortunate we may think ourselves that it did not begin
+yesterday, and prevent this day’s party, which it might very possibly
+have done, for Mr. Woodhouse would hardly have ventured had there been
+much snow on the ground; but now it is of no consequence. This is quite
+the season indeed for friendly meetings. At Christmas every body invites
+their friends about them, and people think little of even the worst
+weather. I was snowed up at a friend’s house once for a week. Nothing
+could be pleasanter. I went for only one night, and could not get away
+till that very day se’nnight.”
+
+Mr. John Knightley looked as if he did not comprehend the pleasure, but
+said only, coolly,
+
+“I cannot wish to be snowed up a week at Randalls.”
+
+At another time Emma might have been amused, but she was too much
+astonished now at Mr. Elton’s spirits for other feelings. Harriet seemed
+quite forgotten in the expectation of a pleasant party.
+
+“We are sure of excellent fires,” continued he, “and every thing in the
+greatest comfort. Charming people, Mr. and Mrs. Weston;--Mrs. Weston
+indeed is much beyond praise, and he is exactly what one values, so
+hospitable, and so fond of society;--it will be a small party, but where
+small parties are select, they are perhaps the most agreeable of any.
+Mr. Weston’s dining-room does not accommodate more than ten comfortably;
+and for my part, I would rather, under such circumstances, fall short by
+two than exceed by two. I think you will agree with me, (turning with
+a soft air to Emma,) I think I shall certainly have your approbation,
+though Mr. Knightley perhaps, from being used to the large parties of
+London, may not quite enter into our feelings.”
+
+“I know nothing of the large parties of London, sir--I never dine with
+any body.”
+
+“Indeed! (in a tone of wonder and pity,) I had no idea that the law had
+been so great a slavery. Well, sir, the time must come when you will
+be paid for all this, when you will have little labour and great
+enjoyment.”
+
+“My first enjoyment,” replied John Knightley, as they passed through the
+sweep-gate, “will be to find myself safe at Hartfield again.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Some change of countenance was necessary for each gentleman as they
+walked into Mrs. Weston’s drawing-room;--Mr. Elton must compose his
+joyous looks, and Mr. John Knightley disperse his ill-humour. Mr.
+Elton must smile less, and Mr. John Knightley more, to fit them for the
+place.--Emma only might be as nature prompted, and shew herself just as
+happy as she was. To her it was real enjoyment to be with the Westons.
+Mr. Weston was a great favourite, and there was not a creature in the
+world to whom she spoke with such unreserve, as to his wife; not any
+one, to whom she related with such conviction of being listened to and
+understood, of being always interesting and always intelligible, the
+little affairs, arrangements, perplexities, and pleasures of her father
+and herself. She could tell nothing of Hartfield, in which Mrs. Weston
+had not a lively concern; and half an hour’s uninterrupted communication
+of all those little matters on which the daily happiness of private life
+depends, was one of the first gratifications of each.
+
+This was a pleasure which perhaps the whole day’s visit might not
+afford, which certainly did not belong to the present half-hour; but the
+very sight of Mrs. Weston, her smile, her touch, her voice was grateful
+to Emma, and she determined to think as little as possible of Mr.
+Elton’s oddities, or of any thing else unpleasant, and enjoy all that
+was enjoyable to the utmost.
+
+The misfortune of Harriet’s cold had been pretty well gone through
+before her arrival. Mr. Woodhouse had been safely seated long enough
+to give the history of it, besides all the history of his own and
+Isabella’s coming, and of Emma’s being to follow, and had indeed just
+got to the end of his satisfaction that James should come and see his
+daughter, when the others appeared, and Mrs. Weston, who had been almost
+wholly engrossed by her attentions to him, was able to turn away and
+welcome her dear Emma.
+
+Emma’s project of forgetting Mr. Elton for a while made her rather sorry
+to find, when they had all taken their places, that he was close to her.
+The difficulty was great of driving his strange insensibility towards
+Harriet, from her mind, while he not only sat at her elbow, but
+was continually obtruding his happy countenance on her notice, and
+solicitously addressing her upon every occasion. Instead of forgetting
+him, his behaviour was such that she could not avoid the internal
+suggestion of “Can it really be as my brother imagined? can it be
+possible for this man to be beginning to transfer his affections from
+Harriet to me?--Absurd and insufferable!”--Yet he would be so anxious
+for her being perfectly warm, would be so interested about her father,
+and so delighted with Mrs. Weston; and at last would begin admiring her
+drawings with so much zeal and so little knowledge as seemed terribly
+like a would-be lover, and made it some effort with her to preserve her
+good manners. For her own sake she could not be rude; and for Harriet’s,
+in the hope that all would yet turn out right, she was even positively
+civil; but it was an effort; especially as something was going on
+amongst the others, in the most overpowering period of Mr. Elton’s
+nonsense, which she particularly wished to listen to. She heard enough
+to know that Mr. Weston was giving some information about his son; she
+heard the words “my son,” and “Frank,” and “my son,” repeated several
+times over; and, from a few other half-syllables very much suspected
+that he was announcing an early visit from his son; but before she could
+quiet Mr. Elton, the subject was so completely past that any reviving
+question from her would have been awkward.
+
+Now, it so happened that in spite of Emma’s resolution of never
+marrying, there was something in the name, in the idea of Mr.
+Frank Churchill, which always interested her. She had frequently
+thought--especially since his father’s marriage with Miss Taylor--that
+if she _were_ to marry, he was the very person to suit her in age,
+character and condition. He seemed by this connexion between the
+families, quite to belong to her. She could not but suppose it to be
+a match that every body who knew them must think of. That Mr. and Mrs.
+Weston did think of it, she was very strongly persuaded; and though
+not meaning to be induced by him, or by any body else, to give up a
+situation which she believed more replete with good than any she could
+change it for, she had a great curiosity to see him, a decided intention
+of finding him pleasant, of being liked by him to a certain degree, and
+a sort of pleasure in the idea of their being coupled in their friends’
+imaginations.
+
+With such sensations, Mr. Elton’s civilities were dreadfully ill-timed;
+but she had the comfort of appearing very polite, while feeling very
+cross--and of thinking that the rest of the visit could not possibly
+pass without bringing forward the same information again, or the
+substance of it, from the open-hearted Mr. Weston.--So it proved;--for
+when happily released from Mr. Elton, and seated by Mr. Weston,
+at dinner, he made use of the very first interval in the cares of
+hospitality, the very first leisure from the saddle of mutton, to say to
+her,
+
+“We want only two more to be just the right number. I should like to see
+two more here,--your pretty little friend, Miss Smith, and my son--and
+then I should say we were quite complete. I believe you did not hear me
+telling the others in the drawing-room that we are expecting Frank.
+I had a letter from him this morning, and he will be with us within a
+fortnight.”
+
+Emma spoke with a very proper degree of pleasure; and fully assented to
+his proposition of Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Smith making their party
+quite complete.
+
+“He has been wanting to come to us,” continued Mr. Weston, “ever since
+September: every letter has been full of it; but he cannot command his
+own time. He has those to please who must be pleased, and who (between
+ourselves) are sometimes to be pleased only by a good many sacrifices.
+But now I have no doubt of seeing him here about the second week in
+January.”
+
+“What a very great pleasure it will be to you! and Mrs. Weston is so
+anxious to be acquainted with him, that she must be almost as happy as
+yourself.”
+
+“Yes, she would be, but that she thinks there will be another put-off.
+She does not depend upon his coming so much as I do: but she does not
+know the parties so well as I do. The case, you see, is--(but this is
+quite between ourselves: I did not mention a syllable of it in the other
+room. There are secrets in all families, you know)--The case is, that a
+party of friends are invited to pay a visit at Enscombe in January; and
+that Frank’s coming depends upon their being put off. If they are not
+put off, he cannot stir. But I know they will, because it is a family
+that a certain lady, of some consequence, at Enscombe, has a particular
+dislike to: and though it is thought necessary to invite them once in
+two or three years, they always are put off when it comes to the point.
+I have not the smallest doubt of the issue. I am as confident of seeing
+Frank here before the middle of January, as I am of being here myself:
+but your good friend there (nodding towards the upper end of the table)
+has so few vagaries herself, and has been so little used to them at
+Hartfield, that she cannot calculate on their effects, as I have been
+long in the practice of doing.”
+
+“I am sorry there should be any thing like doubt in the case,” replied
+Emma; “but am disposed to side with you, Mr. Weston. If you think he
+will come, I shall think so too; for you know Enscombe.”
+
+“Yes--I have some right to that knowledge; though I have never been at
+the place in my life.--She is an odd woman!--But I never allow myself
+to speak ill of her, on Frank’s account; for I do believe her to be very
+fond of him. I used to think she was not capable of being fond of
+any body, except herself: but she has always been kind to him (in her
+way--allowing for little whims and caprices, and expecting every thing
+to be as she likes). And it is no small credit, in my opinion, to him,
+that he should excite such an affection; for, though I would not say
+it to any body else, she has no more heart than a stone to people in
+general; and the devil of a temper.”
+
+Emma liked the subject so well, that she began upon it, to Mrs. Weston,
+very soon after their moving into the drawing-room: wishing her joy--yet
+observing, that she knew the first meeting must be rather alarming.--
+Mrs. Weston agreed to it; but added, that she should be very glad to be
+secure of undergoing the anxiety of a first meeting at the time talked
+of: “for I cannot depend upon his coming. I cannot be so sanguine as
+Mr. Weston. I am very much afraid that it will all end in nothing. Mr.
+Weston, I dare say, has been telling you exactly how the matter stands?”
+
+“Yes--it seems to depend upon nothing but the ill-humour of Mrs.
+Churchill, which I imagine to be the most certain thing in the world.”
+
+“My Emma!” replied Mrs. Weston, smiling, “what is the certainty
+of caprice?” Then turning to Isabella, who had not been attending
+before--“You must know, my dear Mrs. Knightley, that we are by no means
+so sure of seeing Mr. Frank Churchill, in my opinion, as his father
+thinks. It depends entirely upon his aunt’s spirits and pleasure; in
+short, upon her temper. To you--to my two daughters--I may venture on
+the truth. Mrs. Churchill rules at Enscombe, and is a very odd-tempered
+woman; and his coming now, depends upon her being willing to spare him.”
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Churchill; every body knows Mrs. Churchill,” replied Isabella:
+“and I am sure I never think of that poor young man without the greatest
+compassion. To be constantly living with an ill-tempered person, must
+be dreadful. It is what we happily have never known any thing of; but
+it must be a life of misery. What a blessing, that she never had any
+children! Poor little creatures, how unhappy she would have made them!”
+
+Emma wished she had been alone with Mrs. Weston. She should then have
+heard more: Mrs. Weston would speak to her, with a degree of unreserve
+which she would not hazard with Isabella; and, she really believed,
+would scarcely try to conceal any thing relative to the Churchills
+from her, excepting those views on the young man, of which her own
+imagination had already given her such instinctive knowledge. But at
+present there was nothing more to be said. Mr. Woodhouse very soon
+followed them into the drawing-room. To be sitting long after
+dinner, was a confinement that he could not endure. Neither wine nor
+conversation was any thing to him; and gladly did he move to those with
+whom he was always comfortable.
+
+While he talked to Isabella, however, Emma found an opportunity of
+saying,
+
+“And so you do not consider this visit from your son as by any means
+certain. I am sorry for it. The introduction must be unpleasant,
+whenever it takes place; and the sooner it could be over, the better.”
+
+“Yes; and every delay makes one more apprehensive of other delays. Even
+if this family, the Braithwaites, are put off, I am still afraid that
+some excuse may be found for disappointing us. I cannot bear to imagine
+any reluctance on his side; but I am sure there is a great wish on
+the Churchills’ to keep him to themselves. There is jealousy. They
+are jealous even of his regard for his father. In short, I can feel no
+dependence on his coming, and I wish Mr. Weston were less sanguine.”
+
+“He ought to come,” said Emma. “If he could stay only a couple of days,
+he ought to come; and one can hardly conceive a young man’s not having
+it in his power to do as much as that. A young _woman_, if she fall into
+bad hands, may be teased, and kept at a distance from those she wants
+to be with; but one cannot comprehend a young _man_‘s being under such
+restraint, as not to be able to spend a week with his father, if he
+likes it.”
+
+“One ought to be at Enscombe, and know the ways of the family, before
+one decides upon what he can do,” replied Mrs. Weston. “One ought to
+use the same caution, perhaps, in judging of the conduct of any one
+individual of any one family; but Enscombe, I believe, certainly must
+not be judged by general rules: _she_ is so very unreasonable; and every
+thing gives way to her.”
+
+“But she is so fond of the nephew: he is so very great a favourite. Now,
+according to my idea of Mrs. Churchill, it would be most natural, that
+while she makes no sacrifice for the comfort of the husband, to whom she
+owes every thing, while she exercises incessant caprice towards _him_,
+she should frequently be governed by the nephew, to whom she owes
+nothing at all.”
+
+“My dearest Emma, do not pretend, with your sweet temper, to understand
+a bad one, or to lay down rules for it: you must let it go its own way.
+I have no doubt of his having, at times, considerable influence; but it
+may be perfectly impossible for him to know beforehand _when_ it will
+be.”
+
+Emma listened, and then coolly said, “I shall not be satisfied, unless
+he comes.”
+
+“He may have a great deal of influence on some points,” continued Mrs.
+Weston, “and on others, very little: and among those, on which she is
+beyond his reach, it is but too likely, may be this very circumstance of
+his coming away from them to visit us.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Mr. Woodhouse was soon ready for his tea; and when he had drank his
+tea he was quite ready to go home; and it was as much as his three
+companions could do, to entertain away his notice of the lateness of
+the hour, before the other gentlemen appeared. Mr. Weston was chatty and
+convivial, and no friend to early separations of any sort; but at last
+the drawing-room party did receive an augmentation. Mr. Elton, in very
+good spirits, was one of the first to walk in. Mrs. Weston and Emma
+were sitting together on a sofa. He joined them immediately, and, with
+scarcely an invitation, seated himself between them.
+
+Emma, in good spirits too, from the amusement afforded her mind by
+the expectation of Mr. Frank Churchill, was willing to forget his late
+improprieties, and be as well satisfied with him as before, and on his
+making Harriet his very first subject, was ready to listen with most
+friendly smiles.
+
+He professed himself extremely anxious about her fair friend--her fair,
+lovely, amiable friend. “Did she know?--had she heard any thing about
+her, since their being at Randalls?--he felt much anxiety--he must
+confess that the nature of her complaint alarmed him considerably.”
+ And in this style he talked on for some time very properly, not much
+attending to any answer, but altogether sufficiently awake to the terror
+of a bad sore throat; and Emma was quite in charity with him.
+
+But at last there seemed a perverse turn; it seemed all at once as if he
+were more afraid of its being a bad sore throat on her account, than on
+Harriet’s--more anxious that she should escape the infection, than
+that there should be no infection in the complaint. He began with great
+earnestness to entreat her to refrain from visiting the sick-chamber
+again, for the present--to entreat her to _promise_ _him_ not to venture
+into such hazard till he had seen Mr. Perry and learnt his opinion; and
+though she tried to laugh it off and bring the subject back into its
+proper course, there was no putting an end to his extreme solicitude
+about her. She was vexed. It did appear--there was no concealing
+it--exactly like the pretence of being in love with her, instead of
+Harriet; an inconstancy, if real, the most contemptible and abominable!
+and she had difficulty in behaving with temper. He turned to Mrs. Weston
+to implore her assistance, “Would not she give him her support?--would
+not she add her persuasions to his, to induce Miss Woodhouse not to go
+to Mrs. Goddard’s till it were certain that Miss Smith’s disorder had
+no infection? He could not be satisfied without a promise--would not she
+give him her influence in procuring it?”
+
+“So scrupulous for others,” he continued, “and yet so careless for
+herself! She wanted me to nurse my cold by staying at home to-day, and
+yet will not promise to avoid the danger of catching an ulcerated sore
+throat herself. Is this fair, Mrs. Weston?--Judge between us. Have not I
+some right to complain? I am sure of your kind support and aid.”
+
+Emma saw Mrs. Weston’s surprize, and felt that it must be great, at an
+address which, in words and manner, was assuming to himself the right of
+first interest in her; and as for herself, she was too much provoked and
+offended to have the power of directly saying any thing to the purpose.
+She could only give him a look; but it was such a look as she thought
+must restore him to his senses, and then left the sofa, removing to a
+seat by her sister, and giving her all her attention.
+
+She had not time to know how Mr. Elton took the reproof, so rapidly did
+another subject succeed; for Mr. John Knightley now came into the room
+from examining the weather, and opened on them all with the information
+of the ground being covered with snow, and of its still snowing
+fast, with a strong drifting wind; concluding with these words to Mr.
+Woodhouse:
+
+“This will prove a spirited beginning of your winter engagements,
+sir. Something new for your coachman and horses to be making their way
+through a storm of snow.”
+
+Poor Mr. Woodhouse was silent from consternation; but every body else
+had something to say; every body was either surprized or not surprized,
+and had some question to ask, or some comfort to offer. Mrs. Weston
+and Emma tried earnestly to cheer him and turn his attention from his
+son-in-law, who was pursuing his triumph rather unfeelingly.
+
+“I admired your resolution very much, sir,” said he, “in venturing out
+in such weather, for of course you saw there would be snow very soon.
+Every body must have seen the snow coming on. I admired your spirit; and
+I dare say we shall get home very well. Another hour or two’s snow can
+hardly make the road impassable; and we are two carriages; if one is
+blown over in the bleak part of the common field there will be the other
+at hand. I dare say we shall be all safe at Hartfield before midnight.”
+
+Mr. Weston, with triumph of a different sort, was confessing that he
+had known it to be snowing some time, but had not said a word, lest
+it should make Mr. Woodhouse uncomfortable, and be an excuse for his
+hurrying away. As to there being any quantity of snow fallen or likely
+to fall to impede their return, that was a mere joke; he was afraid they
+would find no difficulty. He wished the road might be impassable, that
+he might be able to keep them all at Randalls; and with the utmost
+good-will was sure that accommodation might be found for every body,
+calling on his wife to agree with him, that with a little contrivance,
+every body might be lodged, which she hardly knew how to do, from the
+consciousness of there being but two spare rooms in the house.
+
+“What is to be done, my dear Emma?--what is to be done?” was Mr.
+Woodhouse’s first exclamation, and all that he could say for some
+time. To her he looked for comfort; and her assurances of safety, her
+representation of the excellence of the horses, and of James, and of
+their having so many friends about them, revived him a little.
+
+His eldest daughter’s alarm was equal to his own. The horror of being
+blocked up at Randalls, while her children were at Hartfield, was full
+in her imagination; and fancying the road to be now just passable for
+adventurous people, but in a state that admitted no delay, she was eager
+to have it settled, that her father and Emma should remain at Randalls,
+while she and her husband set forward instantly through all the possible
+accumulations of drifted snow that might impede them.
+
+“You had better order the carriage directly, my love,” said she; “I dare
+say we shall be able to get along, if we set off directly; and if we
+do come to any thing very bad, I can get out and walk. I am not at all
+afraid. I should not mind walking half the way. I could change my shoes,
+you know, the moment I got home; and it is not the sort of thing that
+gives me cold.”
+
+“Indeed!” replied he. “Then, my dear Isabella, it is the most
+extraordinary sort of thing in the world, for in general every thing
+does give you cold. Walk home!--you are prettily shod for walking home,
+I dare say. It will be bad enough for the horses.”
+
+Isabella turned to Mrs. Weston for her approbation of the plan. Mrs.
+Weston could only approve. Isabella then went to Emma; but Emma could
+not so entirely give up the hope of their being all able to get away;
+and they were still discussing the point, when Mr. Knightley, who had
+left the room immediately after his brother’s first report of the snow,
+came back again, and told them that he had been out of doors to examine,
+and could answer for there not being the smallest difficulty in their
+getting home, whenever they liked it, either now or an hour hence. He
+had gone beyond the sweep--some way along the Highbury road--the snow
+was nowhere above half an inch deep--in many places hardly enough to
+whiten the ground; a very few flakes were falling at present, but the
+clouds were parting, and there was every appearance of its being soon
+over. He had seen the coachmen, and they both agreed with him in there
+being nothing to apprehend.
+
+To Isabella, the relief of such tidings was very great, and they were
+scarcely less acceptable to Emma on her father’s account, who
+was immediately set as much at ease on the subject as his nervous
+constitution allowed; but the alarm that had been raised could not be
+appeased so as to admit of any comfort for him while he continued at
+Randalls. He was satisfied of there being no present danger in returning
+home, but no assurances could convince him that it was safe to stay; and
+while the others were variously urging and recommending, Mr. Knightley
+and Emma settled it in a few brief sentences: thus--
+
+“Your father will not be easy; why do not you go?”
+
+“I am ready, if the others are.”
+
+“Shall I ring the bell?”
+
+“Yes, do.”
+
+And the bell was rung, and the carriages spoken for. A few minutes more,
+and Emma hoped to see one troublesome companion deposited in his own
+house, to get sober and cool, and the other recover his temper and
+happiness when this visit of hardship were over.
+
+The carriage came: and Mr. Woodhouse, always the first object on such
+occasions, was carefully attended to his own by Mr. Knightley and Mr.
+Weston; but not all that either could say could prevent some renewal
+of alarm at the sight of the snow which had actually fallen, and the
+discovery of a much darker night than he had been prepared for. “He was
+afraid they should have a very bad drive. He was afraid poor Isabella
+would not like it. And there would be poor Emma in the carriage behind.
+He did not know what they had best do. They must keep as much together
+as they could;” and James was talked to, and given a charge to go very
+slow and wait for the other carriage.
+
+Isabella stept in after her father; John Knightley, forgetting that he
+did not belong to their party, stept in after his wife very naturally;
+so that Emma found, on being escorted and followed into the second
+carriage by Mr. Elton, that the door was to be lawfully shut on them,
+and that they were to have a tete-a-tete drive. It would not have been
+the awkwardness of a moment, it would have been rather a pleasure,
+previous to the suspicions of this very day; she could have talked to
+him of Harriet, and the three-quarters of a mile would have seemed but
+one. But now, she would rather it had not happened. She believed he had
+been drinking too much of Mr. Weston’s good wine, and felt sure that he
+would want to be talking nonsense.
+
+To restrain him as much as might be, by her own manners, she was
+immediately preparing to speak with exquisite calmness and gravity of
+the weather and the night; but scarcely had she begun, scarcely had they
+passed the sweep-gate and joined the other carriage, than she found her
+subject cut up--her hand seized--her attention demanded, and Mr. Elton
+actually making violent love to her: availing himself of the precious
+opportunity, declaring sentiments which must be already well known,
+hoping--fearing--adoring--ready to die if she refused him; but
+flattering himself that his ardent attachment and unequalled love and
+unexampled passion could not fail of having some effect, and in short,
+very much resolved on being seriously accepted as soon as possible. It
+really was so. Without scruple--without apology--without much apparent
+diffidence, Mr. Elton, the lover of Harriet, was professing himself
+_her_ lover. She tried to stop him; but vainly; he would go on, and say
+it all. Angry as she was, the thought of the moment made her resolve to
+restrain herself when she did speak. She felt that half this folly must
+be drunkenness, and therefore could hope that it might belong only to
+the passing hour. Accordingly, with a mixture of the serious and the
+playful, which she hoped would best suit his half and half state, she
+replied,
+
+“I am very much astonished, Mr. Elton. This to _me_! you forget
+yourself--you take me for my friend--any message to Miss Smith I shall
+be happy to deliver; but no more of this to _me_, if you please.”
+
+“Miss Smith!--message to Miss Smith!--What could she possibly
+mean!”--And he repeated her words with such assurance of accent, such
+boastful pretence of amazement, that she could not help replying with
+quickness,
+
+“Mr. Elton, this is the most extraordinary conduct! and I can account
+for it only in one way; you are not yourself, or you could not speak
+either to me, or of Harriet, in such a manner. Command yourself enough
+to say no more, and I will endeavour to forget it.”
+
+But Mr. Elton had only drunk wine enough to elevate his spirits, not at
+all to confuse his intellects. He perfectly knew his own meaning; and
+having warmly protested against her suspicion as most injurious, and
+slightly touched upon his respect for Miss Smith as her friend,--but
+acknowledging his wonder that Miss Smith should be mentioned at all,--he
+resumed the subject of his own passion, and was very urgent for a
+favourable answer.
+
+As she thought less of his inebriety, she thought more of his
+inconstancy and presumption; and with fewer struggles for politeness,
+replied,
+
+“It is impossible for me to doubt any longer. You have made yourself
+too clear. Mr. Elton, my astonishment is much beyond any thing I can
+express. After such behaviour, as I have witnessed during the last
+month, to Miss Smith--such attentions as I have been in the daily
+habit of observing--to be addressing me in this manner--this is an
+unsteadiness of character, indeed, which I had not supposed possible!
+Believe me, sir, I am far, very far, from gratified in being the object
+of such professions.”
+
+“Good Heaven!” cried Mr. Elton, “what can be the meaning of this?--Miss
+Smith!--I never thought of Miss Smith in the whole course of my
+existence--never paid her any attentions, but as your friend: never
+cared whether she were dead or alive, but as your friend. If she
+has fancied otherwise, her own wishes have misled her, and I am very
+sorry--extremely sorry--But, Miss Smith, indeed!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse!
+who can think of Miss Smith, when Miss Woodhouse is near! No, upon my
+honour, there is no unsteadiness of character. I have thought only of
+you. I protest against having paid the smallest attention to any one
+else. Every thing that I have said or done, for many weeks past, has
+been with the sole view of marking my adoration of yourself. You
+cannot really, seriously, doubt it. No!--(in an accent meant to be
+insinuating)--I am sure you have seen and understood me.”
+
+It would be impossible to say what Emma felt, on hearing this--which
+of all her unpleasant sensations was uppermost. She was too completely
+overpowered to be immediately able to reply: and two moments of silence
+being ample encouragement for Mr. Elton’s sanguine state of mind, he
+tried to take her hand again, as he joyously exclaimed--
+
+“Charming Miss Woodhouse! allow me to interpret this interesting
+silence. It confesses that you have long understood me.”
+
+“No, sir,” cried Emma, “it confesses no such thing. So far from having
+long understood you, I have been in a most complete error with respect
+to your views, till this moment. As to myself, I am very sorry that you
+should have been giving way to any feelings--Nothing could be farther
+from my wishes--your attachment to my friend Harriet--your pursuit of
+her, (pursuit, it appeared,) gave me great pleasure, and I have been
+very earnestly wishing you success: but had I supposed that she were not
+your attraction to Hartfield, I should certainly have thought you judged
+ill in making your visits so frequent. Am I to believe that you have
+never sought to recommend yourself particularly to Miss Smith?--that you
+have never thought seriously of her?”
+
+“Never, madam,” cried he, affronted in his turn: “never, I assure you.
+_I_ think seriously of Miss Smith!--Miss Smith is a very good sort of
+girl; and I should be happy to see her respectably settled. I wish
+her extremely well: and, no doubt, there are men who might not object
+to--Every body has their level: but as for myself, I am not, I think,
+quite so much at a loss. I need not so totally despair of an equal
+alliance, as to be addressing myself to Miss Smith!--No, madam, my
+visits to Hartfield have been for yourself only; and the encouragement I
+received--”
+
+“Encouragement!--I give you encouragement!--Sir, you have been entirely
+mistaken in supposing it. I have seen you only as the admirer of my
+friend. In no other light could you have been more to me than a common
+acquaintance. I am exceedingly sorry: but it is well that the mistake
+ends where it does. Had the same behaviour continued, Miss Smith might
+have been led into a misconception of your views; not being aware,
+probably, any more than myself, of the very great inequality which you
+are so sensible of. But, as it is, the disappointment is single, and, I
+trust, will not be lasting. I have no thoughts of matrimony at present.”
+
+He was too angry to say another word; her manner too decided to invite
+supplication; and in this state of swelling resentment, and mutually
+deep mortification, they had to continue together a few minutes longer,
+for the fears of Mr. Woodhouse had confined them to a foot-pace. If
+there had not been so much anger, there would have been desperate
+awkwardness; but their straightforward emotions left no room for the
+little zigzags of embarrassment. Without knowing when the carriage
+turned into Vicarage Lane, or when it stopped, they found themselves,
+all at once, at the door of his house; and he was out before another
+syllable passed.--Emma then felt it indispensable to wish him a good
+night. The compliment was just returned, coldly and proudly; and, under
+indescribable irritation of spirits, she was then conveyed to Hartfield.
+
+There she was welcomed, with the utmost delight, by her father, who
+had been trembling for the dangers of a solitary drive from Vicarage
+Lane--turning a corner which he could never bear to think of--and in
+strange hands--a mere common coachman--no James; and there it seemed as
+if her return only were wanted to make every thing go well: for Mr.
+John Knightley, ashamed of his ill-humour, was now all kindness and
+attention; and so particularly solicitous for the comfort of her
+father, as to seem--if not quite ready to join him in a basin of
+gruel--perfectly sensible of its being exceedingly wholesome; and the
+day was concluding in peace and comfort to all their little party,
+except herself.--But her mind had never been in such perturbation; and
+it needed a very strong effort to appear attentive and cheerful till the
+usual hour of separating allowed her the relief of quiet reflection.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+The hair was curled, and the maid sent away, and Emma sat down to think
+and be miserable.--It was a wretched business indeed!--Such an overthrow
+of every thing she had been wishing for!--Such a development of every
+thing most unwelcome!--Such a blow for Harriet!--that was the worst
+of all. Every part of it brought pain and humiliation, of some sort or
+other; but, compared with the evil to Harriet, all was light; and
+she would gladly have submitted to feel yet more mistaken--more in
+error--more disgraced by mis-judgment, than she actually was, could the
+effects of her blunders have been confined to herself.
+
+“If I had not persuaded Harriet into liking the man, I could have
+borne any thing. He might have doubled his presumption to me--but poor
+Harriet!”
+
+How she could have been so deceived!--He protested that he had never
+thought seriously of Harriet--never! She looked back as well as
+she could; but it was all confusion. She had taken up the idea, she
+supposed, and made every thing bend to it. His manners, however, must
+have been unmarked, wavering, dubious, or she could not have been so
+misled.
+
+The picture!--How eager he had been about the picture!--and the
+charade!--and an hundred other circumstances;--how clearly they had
+seemed to point at Harriet. To be sure, the charade, with its “ready
+wit”--but then the “soft eyes”--in fact it suited neither; it was
+a jumble without taste or truth. Who could have seen through such
+thick-headed nonsense?
+
+Certainly she had often, especially of late, thought his manners to
+herself unnecessarily gallant; but it had passed as his way, as a mere
+error of judgment, of knowledge, of taste, as one proof among others
+that he had not always lived in the best society, that with all the
+gentleness of his address, true elegance was sometimes wanting; but,
+till this very day, she had never, for an instant, suspected it to mean
+any thing but grateful respect to her as Harriet’s friend.
+
+To Mr. John Knightley was she indebted for her first idea on the
+subject, for the first start of its possibility. There was no denying
+that those brothers had penetration. She remembered what Mr. Knightley
+had once said to her about Mr. Elton, the caution he had given,
+the conviction he had professed that Mr. Elton would never marry
+indiscreetly; and blushed to think how much truer a knowledge of his
+character had been there shewn than any she had reached herself. It
+was dreadfully mortifying; but Mr. Elton was proving himself, in many
+respects, the very reverse of what she had meant and believed him;
+proud, assuming, conceited; very full of his own claims, and little
+concerned about the feelings of others.
+
+Contrary to the usual course of things, Mr. Elton’s wanting to pay his
+addresses to her had sunk him in her opinion. His professions and his
+proposals did him no service. She thought nothing of his attachment,
+and was insulted by his hopes. He wanted to marry well, and having the
+arrogance to raise his eyes to her, pretended to be in love; but she was
+perfectly easy as to his not suffering any disappointment that need be
+cared for. There had been no real affection either in his language or
+manners. Sighs and fine words had been given in abundance; but she could
+hardly devise any set of expressions, or fancy any tone of voice, less
+allied with real love. She need not trouble herself to pity him. He
+only wanted to aggrandise and enrich himself; and if Miss Woodhouse
+of Hartfield, the heiress of thirty thousand pounds, were not quite so
+easily obtained as he had fancied, he would soon try for Miss Somebody
+else with twenty, or with ten.
+
+But--that he should talk of encouragement, should consider her as aware
+of his views, accepting his attentions, meaning (in short), to marry
+him!--should suppose himself her equal in connexion or mind!--look down
+upon her friend, so well understanding the gradations of rank below
+him, and be so blind to what rose above, as to fancy himself shewing no
+presumption in addressing her!--It was most provoking.
+
+Perhaps it was not fair to expect him to feel how very much he was her
+inferior in talent, and all the elegancies of mind. The very want of
+such equality might prevent his perception of it; but he must know that
+in fortune and consequence she was greatly his superior. He must
+know that the Woodhouses had been settled for several generations at
+Hartfield, the younger branch of a very ancient family--and that the
+Eltons were nobody. The landed property of Hartfield certainly was
+inconsiderable, being but a sort of notch in the Donwell Abbey estate,
+to which all the rest of Highbury belonged; but their fortune, from
+other sources, was such as to make them scarcely secondary to Donwell
+Abbey itself, in every other kind of consequence; and the Woodhouses had
+long held a high place in the consideration of the neighbourhood which
+Mr. Elton had first entered not two years ago, to make his way as he
+could, without any alliances but in trade, or any thing to recommend him
+to notice but his situation and his civility.--But he had fancied her
+in love with him; that evidently must have been his dependence; and
+after raving a little about the seeming incongruity of gentle manners
+and a conceited head, Emma was obliged in common honesty to stop
+and admit that her own behaviour to him had been so complaisant and
+obliging, so full of courtesy and attention, as (supposing her real
+motive unperceived) might warrant a man of ordinary observation and
+delicacy, like Mr. Elton, in fancying himself a very decided favourite.
+If _she_ had so misinterpreted his feelings, she had little right to
+wonder that _he_, with self-interest to blind him, should have mistaken
+hers.
+
+The first error and the worst lay at her door. It was foolish, it was
+wrong, to take so active a part in bringing any two people together. It
+was adventuring too far, assuming too much, making light of what
+ought to be serious, a trick of what ought to be simple. She was quite
+concerned and ashamed, and resolved to do such things no more.
+
+“Here have I,” said she, “actually talked poor Harriet into being very
+much attached to this man. She might never have thought of him but for
+me; and certainly never would have thought of him with hope, if I had
+not assured her of his attachment, for she is as modest and humble as I
+used to think him. Oh! that I had been satisfied with persuading her not
+to accept young Martin. There I was quite right. That was well done
+of me; but there I should have stopped, and left the rest to time and
+chance. I was introducing her into good company, and giving her the
+opportunity of pleasing some one worth having; I ought not to have
+attempted more. But now, poor girl, her peace is cut up for some time.
+I have been but half a friend to her; and if she were _not_ to feel this
+disappointment so very much, I am sure I have not an idea of any body
+else who would be at all desirable for her;--William Coxe--Oh! no, I
+could not endure William Coxe--a pert young lawyer.”
+
+She stopt to blush and laugh at her own relapse, and then resumed a more
+serious, more dispiriting cogitation upon what had been, and might be,
+and must be. The distressing explanation she had to make to Harriet, and
+all that poor Harriet would be suffering, with the awkwardness of
+future meetings, the difficulties of continuing or discontinuing the
+acquaintance, of subduing feelings, concealing resentment, and avoiding
+eclat, were enough to occupy her in most unmirthful reflections some
+time longer, and she went to bed at last with nothing settled but the
+conviction of her having blundered most dreadfully.
+
+To youth and natural cheerfulness like Emma’s, though under temporary
+gloom at night, the return of day will hardly fail to bring return of
+spirits. The youth and cheerfulness of morning are in happy analogy,
+and of powerful operation; and if the distress be not poignant enough
+to keep the eyes unclosed, they will be sure to open to sensations of
+softened pain and brighter hope.
+
+Emma got up on the morrow more disposed for comfort than she had gone
+to bed, more ready to see alleviations of the evil before her, and to
+depend on getting tolerably out of it.
+
+It was a great consolation that Mr. Elton should not be really in
+love with her, or so particularly amiable as to make it shocking to
+disappoint him--that Harriet’s nature should not be of that superior
+sort in which the feelings are most acute and retentive--and that there
+could be no necessity for any body’s knowing what had passed except the
+three principals, and especially for her father’s being given a moment’s
+uneasiness about it.
+
+These were very cheering thoughts; and the sight of a great deal of snow
+on the ground did her further service, for any thing was welcome that
+might justify their all three being quite asunder at present.
+
+The weather was most favourable for her; though Christmas Day, she
+could not go to church. Mr. Woodhouse would have been miserable had his
+daughter attempted it, and she was therefore safe from either exciting
+or receiving unpleasant and most unsuitable ideas. The ground covered
+with snow, and the atmosphere in that unsettled state between frost and
+thaw, which is of all others the most unfriendly for exercise, every
+morning beginning in rain or snow, and every evening setting in to
+freeze, she was for many days a most honourable prisoner. No intercourse
+with Harriet possible but by note; no church for her on Sunday any
+more than on Christmas Day; and no need to find excuses for Mr. Elton’s
+absenting himself.
+
+It was weather which might fairly confine every body at home; and though
+she hoped and believed him to be really taking comfort in some society
+or other, it was very pleasant to have her father so well satisfied with
+his being all alone in his own house, too wise to stir out; and to
+hear him say to Mr. Knightley, whom no weather could keep entirely from
+them,--
+
+“Ah! Mr. Knightley, why do not you stay at home like poor Mr. Elton?”
+
+These days of confinement would have been, but for her private
+perplexities, remarkably comfortable, as such seclusion exactly suited
+her brother, whose feelings must always be of great importance to
+his companions; and he had, besides, so thoroughly cleared off his
+ill-humour at Randalls, that his amiableness never failed him during the
+rest of his stay at Hartfield. He was always agreeable and obliging,
+and speaking pleasantly of every body. But with all the hopes of
+cheerfulness, and all the present comfort of delay, there was still such
+an evil hanging over her in the hour of explanation with Harriet, as
+made it impossible for Emma to be ever perfectly at ease.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley were not detained long at Hartfield. The
+weather soon improved enough for those to move who must move; and Mr.
+Woodhouse having, as usual, tried to persuade his daughter to stay
+behind with all her children, was obliged to see the whole party
+set off, and return to his lamentations over the destiny of poor
+Isabella;--which poor Isabella, passing her life with those she doated
+on, full of their merits, blind to their faults, and always innocently
+busy, might have been a model of right feminine happiness.
+
+The evening of the very day on which they went brought a note from Mr.
+Elton to Mr. Woodhouse, a long, civil, ceremonious note, to say, with
+Mr. Elton’s best compliments, “that he was proposing to leave Highbury
+the following morning in his way to Bath; where, in compliance with
+the pressing entreaties of some friends, he had engaged to spend a few
+weeks, and very much regretted the impossibility he was under, from
+various circumstances of weather and business, of taking a personal
+leave of Mr. Woodhouse, of whose friendly civilities he should ever
+retain a grateful sense--and had Mr. Woodhouse any commands, should be
+happy to attend to them.”
+
+Emma was most agreeably surprized.--Mr. Elton’s absence just at this
+time was the very thing to be desired. She admired him for contriving
+it, though not able to give him much credit for the manner in which it
+was announced. Resentment could not have been more plainly spoken than
+in a civility to her father, from which she was so pointedly excluded.
+She had not even a share in his opening compliments.--Her name was not
+mentioned;--and there was so striking a change in all this, and such an
+ill-judged solemnity of leave-taking in his graceful acknowledgments, as
+she thought, at first, could not escape her father’s suspicion.
+
+It did, however.--Her father was quite taken up with the surprize of so
+sudden a journey, and his fears that Mr. Elton might never get safely to
+the end of it, and saw nothing extraordinary in his language. It was a
+very useful note, for it supplied them with fresh matter for thought
+and conversation during the rest of their lonely evening. Mr. Woodhouse
+talked over his alarms, and Emma was in spirits to persuade them away
+with all her usual promptitude.
+
+She now resolved to keep Harriet no longer in the dark. She had reason
+to believe her nearly recovered from her cold, and it was desirable that
+she should have as much time as possible for getting the better of
+her other complaint before the gentleman’s return. She went to Mrs.
+Goddard’s accordingly the very next day, to undergo the necessary
+penance of communication; and a severe one it was.--She had to destroy
+all the hopes which she had been so industriously feeding--to appear in
+the ungracious character of the one preferred--and acknowledge herself
+grossly mistaken and mis-judging in all her ideas on one subject, all
+her observations, all her convictions, all her prophecies for the last
+six weeks.
+
+The confession completely renewed her first shame--and the sight of
+Harriet’s tears made her think that she should never be in charity with
+herself again.
+
+Harriet bore the intelligence very well--blaming nobody--and in every
+thing testifying such an ingenuousness of disposition and lowly opinion
+of herself, as must appear with particular advantage at that moment to
+her friend.
+
+Emma was in the humour to value simplicity and modesty to the utmost;
+and all that was amiable, all that ought to be attaching, seemed on
+Harriet’s side, not her own. Harriet did not consider herself as having
+any thing to complain of. The affection of such a man as Mr. Elton
+would have been too great a distinction.--She never could have deserved
+him--and nobody but so partial and kind a friend as Miss Woodhouse would
+have thought it possible.
+
+Her tears fell abundantly--but her grief was so truly artless, that
+no dignity could have made it more respectable in Emma’s eyes--and
+she listened to her and tried to console her with all her heart and
+understanding--really for the time convinced that Harriet was the
+superior creature of the two--and that to resemble her would be more for
+her own welfare and happiness than all that genius or intelligence could
+do.
+
+It was rather too late in the day to set about being simple-minded and
+ignorant; but she left her with every previous resolution confirmed of
+being humble and discreet, and repressing imagination all the rest of
+her life. Her second duty now, inferior only to her father’s claims, was
+to promote Harriet’s comfort, and endeavour to prove her own affection
+in some better method than by match-making. She got her to Hartfield,
+and shewed her the most unvarying kindness, striving to occupy and
+amuse her, and by books and conversation, to drive Mr. Elton from her
+thoughts.
+
+Time, she knew, must be allowed for this being thoroughly done; and
+she could suppose herself but an indifferent judge of such matters in
+general, and very inadequate to sympathise in an attachment to Mr. Elton
+in particular; but it seemed to her reasonable that at Harriet’s age,
+and with the entire extinction of all hope, such a progress might be
+made towards a state of composure by the time of Mr. Elton’s return, as
+to allow them all to meet again in the common routine of acquaintance,
+without any danger of betraying sentiments or increasing them.
+
+Harriet did think him all perfection, and maintained the non-existence
+of any body equal to him in person or goodness--and did, in truth,
+prove herself more resolutely in love than Emma had foreseen; but yet
+it appeared to her so natural, so inevitable to strive against an
+inclination of that sort _unrequited_, that she could not comprehend its
+continuing very long in equal force.
+
+If Mr. Elton, on his return, made his own indifference as evident and
+indubitable as she could not doubt he would anxiously do, she could not
+imagine Harriet’s persisting to place her happiness in the sight or the
+recollection of him.
+
+Their being fixed, so absolutely fixed, in the same place, was bad for
+each, for all three. Not one of them had the power of removal, or of
+effecting any material change of society. They must encounter each
+other, and make the best of it.
+
+Harriet was farther unfortunate in the tone of her companions at Mrs.
+Goddard’s; Mr. Elton being the adoration of all the teachers and great
+girls in the school; and it must be at Hartfield only that she could
+have any chance of hearing him spoken of with cooling moderation or
+repellent truth. Where the wound had been given, there must the cure be
+found if anywhere; and Emma felt that, till she saw her in the way of
+cure, there could be no true peace for herself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Mr. Frank Churchill did not come. When the time proposed drew near, Mrs.
+Weston’s fears were justified in the arrival of a letter of excuse. For
+the present, he could not be spared, to his “very great mortification
+and regret; but still he looked forward with the hope of coming to
+Randalls at no distant period.”
+
+Mrs. Weston was exceedingly disappointed--much more disappointed, in
+fact, than her husband, though her dependence on seeing the young man
+had been so much more sober: but a sanguine temper, though for ever
+expecting more good than occurs, does not always pay for its hopes by
+any proportionate depression. It soon flies over the present failure,
+and begins to hope again. For half an hour Mr. Weston was surprized and
+sorry; but then he began to perceive that Frank’s coming two or three
+months later would be a much better plan; better time of year;
+better weather; and that he would be able, without any doubt, to stay
+considerably longer with them than if he had come sooner.
+
+These feelings rapidly restored his comfort, while Mrs. Weston, of
+a more apprehensive disposition, foresaw nothing but a repetition of
+excuses and delays; and after all her concern for what her husband was
+to suffer, suffered a great deal more herself.
+
+Emma was not at this time in a state of spirits to care really about Mr.
+Frank Churchill’s not coming, except as a disappointment at Randalls.
+The acquaintance at present had no charm for her. She wanted, rather, to
+be quiet, and out of temptation; but still, as it was desirable that she
+should appear, in general, like her usual self, she took care to express
+as much interest in the circumstance, and enter as warmly into Mr.
+and Mrs. Weston’s disappointment, as might naturally belong to their
+friendship.
+
+She was the first to announce it to Mr. Knightley; and exclaimed quite
+as much as was necessary, (or, being acting a part, perhaps rather
+more,) at the conduct of the Churchills, in keeping him away. She then
+proceeded to say a good deal more than she felt, of the advantage of
+such an addition to their confined society in Surry; the pleasure of
+looking at somebody new; the gala-day to Highbury entire, which the
+sight of him would have made; and ending with reflections on the
+Churchills again, found herself directly involved in a disagreement
+with Mr. Knightley; and, to her great amusement, perceived that she was
+taking the other side of the question from her real opinion, and making
+use of Mrs. Weston’s arguments against herself.
+
+“The Churchills are very likely in fault,” said Mr. Knightley, coolly;
+“but I dare say he might come if he would.”
+
+“I do not know why you should say so. He wishes exceedingly to come; but
+his uncle and aunt will not spare him.”
+
+“I cannot believe that he has not the power of coming, if he made a
+point of it. It is too unlikely, for me to believe it without proof.”
+
+“How odd you are! What has Mr. Frank Churchill done, to make you suppose
+him such an unnatural creature?”
+
+“I am not supposing him at all an unnatural creature, in suspecting that
+he may have learnt to be above his connexions, and to care very little
+for any thing but his own pleasure, from living with those who have
+always set him the example of it. It is a great deal more natural than
+one could wish, that a young man, brought up by those who are proud,
+luxurious, and selfish, should be proud, luxurious, and selfish too. If
+Frank Churchill had wanted to see his father, he would have contrived it
+between September and January. A man at his age--what is he?--three or
+four-and-twenty--cannot be without the means of doing as much as that.
+It is impossible.”
+
+“That’s easily said, and easily felt by you, who have always been your
+own master. You are the worst judge in the world, Mr. Knightley, of the
+difficulties of dependence. You do not know what it is to have tempers
+to manage.”
+
+“It is not to be conceived that a man of three or four-and-twenty
+should not have liberty of mind or limb to that amount. He cannot want
+money--he cannot want leisure. We know, on the contrary, that he has so
+much of both, that he is glad to get rid of them at the idlest haunts in
+the kingdom. We hear of him for ever at some watering-place or other. A
+little while ago, he was at Weymouth. This proves that he can leave the
+Churchills.”
+
+“Yes, sometimes he can.”
+
+“And those times are whenever he thinks it worth his while; whenever
+there is any temptation of pleasure.”
+
+“It is very unfair to judge of any body’s conduct, without an intimate
+knowledge of their situation. Nobody, who has not been in the interior
+of a family, can say what the difficulties of any individual of that
+family may be. We ought to be acquainted with Enscombe, and with Mrs.
+Churchill’s temper, before we pretend to decide upon what her nephew
+can do. He may, at times, be able to do a great deal more than he can at
+others.”
+
+“There is one thing, Emma, which a man can always do, if he chuses, and
+that is, his duty; not by manoeuvring and finessing, but by vigour and
+resolution. It is Frank Churchill’s duty to pay this attention to his
+father. He knows it to be so, by his promises and messages; but if he
+wished to do it, it might be done. A man who felt rightly would say at
+once, simply and resolutely, to Mrs. Churchill--‘Every sacrifice of
+mere pleasure you will always find me ready to make to your convenience;
+but I must go and see my father immediately. I know he would be hurt by
+my failing in such a mark of respect to him on the present occasion.
+I shall, therefore, set off to-morrow.’--If he would say so to her
+at once, in the tone of decision becoming a man, there would be no
+opposition made to his going.”
+
+“No,” said Emma, laughing; “but perhaps there might be some made to his
+coming back again. Such language for a young man entirely dependent, to
+use!--Nobody but you, Mr. Knightley, would imagine it possible. But you
+have not an idea of what is requisite in situations directly opposite to
+your own. Mr. Frank Churchill to be making such a speech as that to
+the uncle and aunt, who have brought him up, and are to provide for
+him!--Standing up in the middle of the room, I suppose, and speaking as
+loud as he could!--How can you imagine such conduct practicable?”
+
+“Depend upon it, Emma, a sensible man would find no difficulty in it. He
+would feel himself in the right; and the declaration--made, of course,
+as a man of sense would make it, in a proper manner--would do him more
+good, raise him higher, fix his interest stronger with the people he
+depended on, than all that a line of shifts and expedients can ever do.
+Respect would be added to affection. They would feel that they could
+trust him; that the nephew who had done rightly by his father, would do
+rightly by them; for they know, as well as he does, as well as all the
+world must know, that he ought to pay this visit to his father; and
+while meanly exerting their power to delay it, are in their hearts not
+thinking the better of him for submitting to their whims. Respect for
+right conduct is felt by every body. If he would act in this sort of
+manner, on principle, consistently, regularly, their little minds would
+bend to his.”
+
+“I rather doubt that. You are very fond of bending little minds; but
+where little minds belong to rich people in authority, I think they have
+a knack of swelling out, till they are quite as unmanageable as great
+ones. I can imagine, that if you, as you are, Mr. Knightley, were to be
+transported and placed all at once in Mr. Frank Churchill’s situation,
+you would be able to say and do just what you have been recommending for
+him; and it might have a very good effect. The Churchills might not have
+a word to say in return; but then, you would have no habits of early
+obedience and long observance to break through. To him who has, it might
+not be so easy to burst forth at once into perfect independence, and set
+all their claims on his gratitude and regard at nought. He may have as
+strong a sense of what would be right, as you can have, without being so
+equal, under particular circumstances, to act up to it.”
+
+“Then it would not be so strong a sense. If it failed to produce equal
+exertion, it could not be an equal conviction.”
+
+“Oh, the difference of situation and habit! I wish you would try to
+understand what an amiable young man may be likely to feel in directly
+opposing those, whom as child and boy he has been looking up to all his
+life.”
+
+“Our amiable young man is a very weak young man, if this be the first
+occasion of his carrying through a resolution to do right against the
+will of others. It ought to have been a habit with him by this time, of
+following his duty, instead of consulting expediency. I can allow for
+the fears of the child, but not of the man. As he became rational, he
+ought to have roused himself and shaken off all that was unworthy in
+their authority. He ought to have opposed the first attempt on their
+side to make him slight his father. Had he begun as he ought, there
+would have been no difficulty now.”
+
+“We shall never agree about him,” cried Emma; “but that is nothing
+extraordinary. I have not the least idea of his being a weak young man:
+I feel sure that he is not. Mr. Weston would not be blind to folly,
+though in his own son; but he is very likely to have a more yielding,
+complying, mild disposition than would suit your notions of man’s
+perfection. I dare say he has; and though it may cut him off from some
+advantages, it will secure him many others.”
+
+“Yes; all the advantages of sitting still when he ought to move, and
+of leading a life of mere idle pleasure, and fancying himself extremely
+expert in finding excuses for it. He can sit down and write a fine
+flourishing letter, full of professions and falsehoods, and persuade
+himself that he has hit upon the very best method in the world of
+preserving peace at home and preventing his father’s having any right to
+complain. His letters disgust me.”
+
+“Your feelings are singular. They seem to satisfy every body else.”
+
+“I suspect they do not satisfy Mrs. Weston. They hardly can satisfy
+a woman of her good sense and quick feelings: standing in a mother’s
+place, but without a mother’s affection to blind her. It is on her
+account that attention to Randalls is doubly due, and she must doubly
+feel the omission. Had she been a person of consequence herself, he
+would have come I dare say; and it would not have signified whether
+he did or no. Can you think your friend behindhand in these sort of
+considerations? Do you suppose she does not often say all this to
+herself? No, Emma, your amiable young man can be amiable only in French,
+not in English. He may be very ‘amiable,’ have very good manners, and be
+very agreeable; but he can have no English delicacy towards the feelings
+of other people: nothing really amiable about him.”
+
+“You seem determined to think ill of him.”
+
+“Me!--not at all,” replied Mr. Knightley, rather displeased; “I do not
+want to think ill of him. I should be as ready to acknowledge his merits
+as any other man; but I hear of none, except what are merely personal;
+that he is well-grown and good-looking, with smooth, plausible manners.”
+
+“Well, if he have nothing else to recommend him, he will be a treasure
+at Highbury. We do not often look upon fine young men, well-bred and
+agreeable. We must not be nice and ask for all the virtues into the
+bargain. Cannot you imagine, Mr. Knightley, what a _sensation_ his
+coming will produce? There will be but one subject throughout the
+parishes of Donwell and Highbury; but one interest--one object of
+curiosity; it will be all Mr. Frank Churchill; we shall think and speak
+of nobody else.”
+
+“You will excuse my being so much over-powered. If I find him
+conversable, I shall be glad of his acquaintance; but if he is only a
+chattering coxcomb, he will not occupy much of my time or thoughts.”
+
+“My idea of him is, that he can adapt his conversation to the taste of
+every body, and has the power as well as the wish of being universally
+agreeable. To you, he will talk of farming; to me, of drawing or music;
+and so on to every body, having that general information on all subjects
+which will enable him to follow the lead, or take the lead, just as
+propriety may require, and to speak extremely well on each; that is my
+idea of him.”
+
+“And mine,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “is, that if he turn out any
+thing like it, he will be the most insufferable fellow breathing! What!
+at three-and-twenty to be the king of his company--the great man--the
+practised politician, who is to read every body’s character, and make
+every body’s talents conduce to the display of his own superiority; to
+be dispensing his flatteries around, that he may make all appear like
+fools compared with himself! My dear Emma, your own good sense could not
+endure such a puppy when it came to the point.”
+
+“I will say no more about him,” cried Emma, “you turn every thing to
+evil. We are both prejudiced; you against, I for him; and we have no
+chance of agreeing till he is really here.”
+
+“Prejudiced! I am not prejudiced.”
+
+“But I am very much, and without being at all ashamed of it. My love for
+Mr. and Mrs. Weston gives me a decided prejudice in his favour.”
+
+“He is a person I never think of from one month’s end to another,” said
+Mr. Knightley, with a degree of vexation, which made Emma immediately
+talk of something else, though she could not comprehend why he should be
+angry.
+
+To take a dislike to a young man, only because he appeared to be of a
+different disposition from himself, was unworthy the real liberality of
+mind which she was always used to acknowledge in him; for with all the
+high opinion of himself, which she had often laid to his charge, she had
+never before for a moment supposed it could make him unjust to the merit
+of another.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME II
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+Emma and Harriet had been walking together one morning, and, in Emma’s
+opinion, had been talking enough of Mr. Elton for that day. She could
+not think that Harriet’s solace or her own sins required more; and
+she was therefore industriously getting rid of the subject as they
+returned;--but it burst out again when she thought she had succeeded,
+and after speaking some time of what the poor must suffer in winter, and
+receiving no other answer than a very plaintive--“Mr. Elton is so good
+to the poor!” she found something else must be done.
+
+They were just approaching the house where lived Mrs. and Miss Bates.
+She determined to call upon them and seek safety in numbers. There was
+always sufficient reason for such an attention; Mrs. and Miss Bates
+loved to be called on, and she knew she was considered by the very few
+who presumed ever to see imperfection in her, as rather negligent in
+that respect, and as not contributing what she ought to the stock of
+their scanty comforts.
+
+She had had many a hint from Mr. Knightley and some from her own heart,
+as to her deficiency--but none were equal to counteract the persuasion
+of its being very disagreeable,--a waste of time--tiresome women--and
+all the horror of being in danger of falling in with the second-rate and
+third-rate of Highbury, who were calling on them for ever, and therefore
+she seldom went near them. But now she made the sudden resolution of not
+passing their door without going in--observing, as she proposed it to
+Harriet, that, as well as she could calculate, they were just now quite
+safe from any letter from Jane Fairfax.
+
+The house belonged to people in business. Mrs. and Miss Bates occupied
+the drawing-room floor; and there, in the very moderate-sized apartment,
+which was every thing to them, the visitors were most cordially and even
+gratefully welcomed; the quiet neat old lady, who with her knitting was
+seated in the warmest corner, wanting even to give up her place to
+Miss Woodhouse, and her more active, talking daughter, almost ready
+to overpower them with care and kindness, thanks for their visit,
+solicitude for their shoes, anxious inquiries after Mr. Woodhouse’s
+health, cheerful communications about her mother’s, and sweet-cake from
+the beaufet--“Mrs. Cole had just been there, just called in for ten
+minutes, and had been so good as to sit an hour with them, and _she_ had
+taken a piece of cake and been so kind as to say she liked it very much;
+and, therefore, she hoped Miss Woodhouse and Miss Smith would do them
+the favour to eat a piece too.”
+
+The mention of the Coles was sure to be followed by that of Mr. Elton.
+There was intimacy between them, and Mr. Cole had heard from Mr. Elton
+since his going away. Emma knew what was coming; they must have the
+letter over again, and settle how long he had been gone, and how much
+he was engaged in company, and what a favourite he was wherever he went,
+and how full the Master of the Ceremonies’ ball had been; and she went
+through it very well, with all the interest and all the commendation
+that could be requisite, and always putting forward to prevent Harriet’s
+being obliged to say a word.
+
+This she had been prepared for when she entered the house; but meant,
+having once talked him handsomely over, to be no farther incommoded by
+any troublesome topic, and to wander at large amongst all the Mistresses
+and Misses of Highbury, and their card-parties. She had not been
+prepared to have Jane Fairfax succeed Mr. Elton; but he was actually
+hurried off by Miss Bates, she jumped away from him at last abruptly to
+the Coles, to usher in a letter from her niece.
+
+“Oh! yes--Mr. Elton, I understand--certainly as to dancing--Mrs. Cole
+was telling me that dancing at the rooms at Bath was--Mrs. Cole was so
+kind as to sit some time with us, talking of Jane; for as soon as
+she came in, she began inquiring after her, Jane is so very great a
+favourite there. Whenever she is with us, Mrs. Cole does not know how to
+shew her kindness enough; and I must say that Jane deserves it as much
+as any body can. And so she began inquiring after her directly, saying,
+‘I know you cannot have heard from Jane lately, because it is not her
+time for writing;’ and when I immediately said, ‘But indeed we have, we
+had a letter this very morning,’ I do not know that I ever saw any body
+more surprized. ‘Have you, upon your honour?’ said she; ‘well, that is
+quite unexpected. Do let me hear what she says.’”
+
+Emma’s politeness was at hand directly, to say, with smiling interest--
+
+“Have you heard from Miss Fairfax so lately? I am extremely happy. I
+hope she is well?”
+
+“Thank you. You are so kind!” replied the happily deceived aunt, while
+eagerly hunting for the letter.--“Oh! here it is. I was sure it could
+not be far off; but I had put my huswife upon it, you see, without being
+aware, and so it was quite hid, but I had it in my hand so very lately
+that I was almost sure it must be on the table. I was reading it to Mrs.
+Cole, and since she went away, I was reading it again to my mother, for
+it is such a pleasure to her--a letter from Jane--that she can never
+hear it often enough; so I knew it could not be far off, and here it is,
+only just under my huswife--and since you are so kind as to wish to hear
+what she says;--but, first of all, I really must, in justice to
+Jane, apologise for her writing so short a letter--only two pages you
+see--hardly two--and in general she fills the whole paper and crosses
+half. My mother often wonders that I can make it out so well. She often
+says, when the letter is first opened, ‘Well, Hetty, now I think
+you will be put to it to make out all that checker-work’--don’t you,
+ma’am?--And then I tell her, I am sure she would contrive to make it out
+herself, if she had nobody to do it for her--every word of it--I am sure
+she would pore over it till she had made out every word. And, indeed,
+though my mother’s eyes are not so good as they were, she can see
+amazingly well still, thank God! with the help of spectacles. It is such
+a blessing! My mother’s are really very good indeed. Jane often says,
+when she is here, ‘I am sure, grandmama, you must have had very strong
+eyes to see as you do--and so much fine work as you have done too!--I
+only wish my eyes may last me as well.’”
+
+All this spoken extremely fast obliged Miss Bates to stop for breath;
+and Emma said something very civil about the excellence of Miss
+Fairfax’s handwriting.
+
+“You are extremely kind,” replied Miss Bates, highly gratified; “you who
+are such a judge, and write so beautifully yourself. I am sure there is
+nobody’s praise that could give us so much pleasure as Miss Woodhouse’s.
+My mother does not hear; she is a little deaf you know. Ma’am,”
+ addressing her, “do you hear what Miss Woodhouse is so obliging to say
+about Jane’s handwriting?”
+
+And Emma had the advantage of hearing her own silly compliment repeated
+twice over before the good old lady could comprehend it. She was
+pondering, in the meanwhile, upon the possibility, without seeming very
+rude, of making her escape from Jane Fairfax’s letter, and had almost
+resolved on hurrying away directly under some slight excuse, when Miss
+Bates turned to her again and seized her attention.
+
+“My mother’s deafness is very trifling you see--just nothing at all. By
+only raising my voice, and saying any thing two or three times over,
+she is sure to hear; but then she is used to my voice. But it is very
+remarkable that she should always hear Jane better than she does me.
+Jane speaks so distinct! However, she will not find her grandmama at all
+deafer than she was two years ago; which is saying a great deal at my
+mother’s time of life--and it really is full two years, you know, since
+she was here. We never were so long without seeing her before, and as
+I was telling Mrs. Cole, we shall hardly know how to make enough of her
+now.”
+
+“Are you expecting Miss Fairfax here soon?”
+
+“Oh yes; next week.”
+
+“Indeed!--that must be a very great pleasure.”
+
+“Thank you. You are very kind. Yes, next week. Every body is so
+surprized; and every body says the same obliging things. I am sure she
+will be as happy to see her friends at Highbury, as they can be to see
+her. Yes, Friday or Saturday; she cannot say which, because Colonel
+Campbell will be wanting the carriage himself one of those days. So very
+good of them to send her the whole way! But they always do, you know. Oh
+yes, Friday or Saturday next. That is what she writes about. That is
+the reason of her writing out of rule, as we call it; for, in the
+common course, we should not have heard from her before next Tuesday or
+Wednesday.”
+
+“Yes, so I imagined. I was afraid there could be little chance of my
+hearing any thing of Miss Fairfax to-day.”
+
+“So obliging of you! No, we should not have heard, if it had not been
+for this particular circumstance, of her being to come here so soon. My
+mother is so delighted!--for she is to be three months with us at
+least. Three months, she says so, positively, as I am going to have the
+pleasure of reading to you. The case is, you see, that the Campbells are
+going to Ireland. Mrs. Dixon has persuaded her father and mother to come
+over and see her directly. They had not intended to go over till the
+summer, but she is so impatient to see them again--for till she married,
+last October, she was never away from them so much as a week, which must
+make it very strange to be in different kingdoms, I was going to say,
+but however different countries, and so she wrote a very urgent letter
+to her mother--or her father, I declare I do not know which it was, but
+we shall see presently in Jane’s letter--wrote in Mr. Dixon’s name as
+well as her own, to press their coming over directly, and they would
+give them the meeting in Dublin, and take them back to their country
+seat, Baly-craig, a beautiful place, I fancy. Jane has heard a great
+deal of its beauty; from Mr. Dixon, I mean--I do not know that she ever
+heard about it from any body else; but it was very natural, you know,
+that he should like to speak of his own place while he was paying his
+addresses--and as Jane used to be very often walking out with them--for
+Colonel and Mrs. Campbell were very particular about their daughter’s
+not walking out often with only Mr. Dixon, for which I do not at all
+blame them; of course she heard every thing he might be telling Miss
+Campbell about his own home in Ireland; and I think she wrote us word
+that he had shewn them some drawings of the place, views that he had
+taken himself. He is a most amiable, charming young man, I believe. Jane
+was quite longing to go to Ireland, from his account of things.”
+
+At this moment, an ingenious and animating suspicion entering Emma’s
+brain with regard to Jane Fairfax, this charming Mr. Dixon, and the
+not going to Ireland, she said, with the insidious design of farther
+discovery,
+
+“You must feel it very fortunate that Miss Fairfax should be allowed to
+come to you at such a time. Considering the very particular friendship
+between her and Mrs. Dixon, you could hardly have expected her to be
+excused from accompanying Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”
+
+“Very true, very true, indeed. The very thing that we have always been
+rather afraid of; for we should not have liked to have her at such a
+distance from us, for months together--not able to come if any thing was
+to happen. But you see, every thing turns out for the best. They want
+her (Mr. and Mrs. Dixon) excessively to come over with Colonel and Mrs.
+Campbell; quite depend upon it; nothing can be more kind or pressing
+than their _joint_ invitation, Jane says, as you will hear presently;
+Mr. Dixon does not seem in the least backward in any attention. He is
+a most charming young man. Ever since the service he rendered Jane at
+Weymouth, when they were out in that party on the water, and she, by the
+sudden whirling round of something or other among the sails, would have
+been dashed into the sea at once, and actually was all but gone, if he
+had not, with the greatest presence of mind, caught hold of her habit--
+(I can never think of it without trembling!)--But ever since we had the
+history of that day, I have been so fond of Mr. Dixon!”
+
+“But, in spite of all her friends’ urgency, and her own wish of seeing
+Ireland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?”
+
+“Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel
+and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should
+recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native
+air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately.”
+
+“I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs.
+Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has
+no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be
+compared with Miss Fairfax.”
+
+“Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not.
+There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely
+plain--but extremely elegant and amiable.”
+
+“Yes, that of course.”
+
+“Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November,
+(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long
+time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned
+it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so
+considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind
+friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air
+that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four
+months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great
+deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is
+unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do.”
+
+“It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world.”
+
+“And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells
+leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will
+find from Jane’s letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse,
+what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of
+her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and
+looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to
+me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane’s letters through
+to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for
+fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me
+to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution;
+but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I
+burst out, quite frightened, with ‘Bless me! poor Jane is ill!’--which
+my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed
+at. However, when I read on, I found it was not near so bad as I had
+fancied at first; and I make so light of it now to her, that she does
+not think much about it. But I cannot imagine how I could be so off my
+guard. If Jane does not get well soon, we will call in Mr. Perry. The
+expense shall not be thought of; and though he is so liberal, and so
+fond of Jane that I dare say he would not mean to charge any thing for
+attendance, we could not suffer it to be so, you know. He has a wife and
+family to maintain, and is not to be giving away his time. Well, now I
+have just given you a hint of what Jane writes about, we will turn to
+her letter, and I am sure she tells her own story a great deal better
+than I can tell it for her.”
+
+“I am afraid we must be running away,” said Emma, glancing at Harriet,
+and beginning to rise--“My father will be expecting us. I had no
+intention, I thought I had no power of staying more than five minutes,
+when I first entered the house. I merely called, because I would not
+pass the door without inquiring after Mrs. Bates; but I have been so
+pleasantly detained! Now, however, we must wish you and Mrs. Bates good
+morning.”
+
+And not all that could be urged to detain her succeeded. She regained
+the street--happy in this, that though much had been forced on her
+against her will, though she had in fact heard the whole substance of
+Jane Fairfax’s letter, she had been able to escape the letter itself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+Jane Fairfax was an orphan, the only child of Mrs. Bates’s youngest
+daughter.
+
+The marriage of Lieut. Fairfax of the ----regiment of infantry,
+and Miss Jane Bates, had had its day of fame and pleasure, hope
+and interest; but nothing now remained of it, save the melancholy
+remembrance of him dying in action abroad--of his widow sinking under
+consumption and grief soon afterwards--and this girl.
+
+By birth she belonged to Highbury: and when at three years old, on
+losing her mother, she became the property, the charge, the consolation,
+the foundling of her grandmother and aunt, there had seemed every
+probability of her being permanently fixed there; of her being taught
+only what very limited means could command, and growing up with no
+advantages of connexion or improvement, to be engrafted on what
+nature had given her in a pleasing person, good understanding, and
+warm-hearted, well-meaning relations.
+
+But the compassionate feelings of a friend of her father gave a change
+to her destiny. This was Colonel Campbell, who had very highly regarded
+Fairfax, as an excellent officer and most deserving young man; and
+farther, had been indebted to him for such attentions, during a severe
+camp-fever, as he believed had saved his life. These were claims which
+he did not learn to overlook, though some years passed away from the
+death of poor Fairfax, before his own return to England put any thing in
+his power. When he did return, he sought out the child and took notice
+of her. He was a married man, with only one living child, a girl, about
+Jane’s age: and Jane became their guest, paying them long visits and
+growing a favourite with all; and before she was nine years old, his
+daughter’s great fondness for her, and his own wish of being a real
+friend, united to produce an offer from Colonel Campbell of undertaking
+the whole charge of her education. It was accepted; and from that period
+Jane had belonged to Colonel Campbell’s family, and had lived with them
+entirely, only visiting her grandmother from time to time.
+
+The plan was that she should be brought up for educating others; the
+very few hundred pounds which she inherited from her father making
+independence impossible. To provide for her otherwise was out of Colonel
+Campbell’s power; for though his income, by pay and appointments, was
+handsome, his fortune was moderate and must be all his daughter’s;
+but, by giving her an education, he hoped to be supplying the means of
+respectable subsistence hereafter.
+
+Such was Jane Fairfax’s history. She had fallen into good hands, known
+nothing but kindness from the Campbells, and been given an excellent
+education. Living constantly with right-minded and well-informed people,
+her heart and understanding had received every advantage of discipline
+and culture; and Colonel Campbell’s residence being in London, every
+lighter talent had been done full justice to, by the attendance of
+first-rate masters. Her disposition and abilities were equally worthy
+of all that friendship could do; and at eighteen or nineteen she was,
+as far as such an early age can be qualified for the care of children,
+fully competent to the office of instruction herself; but she was too
+much beloved to be parted with. Neither father nor mother could promote,
+and the daughter could not endure it. The evil day was put off. It was
+easy to decide that she was still too young; and Jane remained with
+them, sharing, as another daughter, in all the rational pleasures of
+an elegant society, and a judicious mixture of home and amusement, with
+only the drawback of the future, the sobering suggestions of her own
+good understanding to remind her that all this might soon be over.
+
+The affection of the whole family, the warm attachment of Miss
+Campbell in particular, was the more honourable to each party from
+the circumstance of Jane’s decided superiority both in beauty and
+acquirements. That nature had given it in feature could not be unseen
+by the young woman, nor could her higher powers of mind be unfelt by the
+parents. They continued together with unabated regard however, till the
+marriage of Miss Campbell, who by that chance, that luck which so often
+defies anticipation in matrimonial affairs, giving attraction to what is
+moderate rather than to what is superior, engaged the affections of
+Mr. Dixon, a young man, rich and agreeable, almost as soon as they were
+acquainted; and was eligibly and happily settled, while Jane Fairfax had
+yet her bread to earn.
+
+This event had very lately taken place; too lately for any thing to be
+yet attempted by her less fortunate friend towards entering on her path
+of duty; though she had now reached the age which her own judgment had
+fixed on for beginning. She had long resolved that one-and-twenty
+should be the period. With the fortitude of a devoted novitiate, she had
+resolved at one-and-twenty to complete the sacrifice, and retire from
+all the pleasures of life, of rational intercourse, equal society, peace
+and hope, to penance and mortification for ever.
+
+The good sense of Colonel and Mrs. Campbell could not oppose such
+a resolution, though their feelings did. As long as they lived, no
+exertions would be necessary, their home might be hers for ever; and for
+their own comfort they would have retained her wholly; but this would
+be selfishness:--what must be at last, had better be soon. Perhaps they
+began to feel it might have been kinder and wiser to have resisted the
+temptation of any delay, and spared her from a taste of such enjoyments
+of ease and leisure as must now be relinquished. Still, however,
+affection was glad to catch at any reasonable excuse for not hurrying
+on the wretched moment. She had never been quite well since the time of
+their daughter’s marriage; and till she should have completely recovered
+her usual strength, they must forbid her engaging in duties, which, so
+far from being compatible with a weakened frame and varying spirits,
+seemed, under the most favourable circumstances, to require something
+more than human perfection of body and mind to be discharged with
+tolerable comfort.
+
+With regard to her not accompanying them to Ireland, her account to her
+aunt contained nothing but truth, though there might be some truths
+not told. It was her own choice to give the time of their absence to
+Highbury; to spend, perhaps, her last months of perfect liberty with
+those kind relations to whom she was so very dear: and the Campbells,
+whatever might be their motive or motives, whether single, or double, or
+treble, gave the arrangement their ready sanction, and said, that they
+depended more on a few months spent in her native air, for the recovery
+of her health, than on any thing else. Certain it was that she was to
+come; and that Highbury, instead of welcoming that perfect novelty which
+had been so long promised it--Mr. Frank Churchill--must put up for the
+present with Jane Fairfax, who could bring only the freshness of a two
+years’ absence.
+
+Emma was sorry;--to have to pay civilities to a person she did not like
+through three long months!--to be always doing more than she wished,
+and less than she ought! Why she did not like Jane Fairfax might be a
+difficult question to answer; Mr. Knightley had once told her it was
+because she saw in her the really accomplished young woman, which she
+wanted to be thought herself; and though the accusation had been eagerly
+refuted at the time, there were moments of self-examination in which
+her conscience could not quite acquit her. But “she could never get
+acquainted with her: she did not know how it was, but there was such
+coldness and reserve--such apparent indifference whether she pleased or
+not--and then, her aunt was such an eternal talker!--and she was made
+such a fuss with by every body!--and it had been always imagined that
+they were to be so intimate--because their ages were the same, every
+body had supposed they must be so fond of each other.” These were her
+reasons--she had no better.
+
+It was a dislike so little just--every imputed fault was so magnified
+by fancy, that she never saw Jane Fairfax the first time after any
+considerable absence, without feeling that she had injured her; and
+now, when the due visit was paid, on her arrival, after a two years’
+interval, she was particularly struck with the very appearance and
+manners, which for those two whole years she had been depreciating. Jane
+Fairfax was very elegant, remarkably elegant; and she had herself the
+highest value for elegance. Her height was pretty, just such as almost
+every body would think tall, and nobody could think very tall; her
+figure particularly graceful; her size a most becoming medium, between
+fat and thin, though a slight appearance of ill-health seemed to point
+out the likeliest evil of the two. Emma could not but feel all this; and
+then, her face--her features--there was more beauty in them altogether
+than she had remembered; it was not regular, but it was very pleasing
+beauty. Her eyes, a deep grey, with dark eye-lashes and eyebrows, had
+never been denied their praise; but the skin, which she had been used to
+cavil at, as wanting colour, had a clearness and delicacy which really
+needed no fuller bloom. It was a style of beauty, of which elegance was
+the reigning character, and as such, she must, in honour, by all her
+principles, admire it:--elegance, which, whether of person or of mind,
+she saw so little in Highbury. There, not to be vulgar, was distinction,
+and merit.
+
+In short, she sat, during the first visit, looking at Jane Fairfax with
+twofold complacency; the sense of pleasure and the sense of rendering
+justice, and was determining that she would dislike her no longer. When
+she took in her history, indeed, her situation, as well as her beauty;
+when she considered what all this elegance was destined to, what she was
+going to sink from, how she was going to live, it seemed impossible
+to feel any thing but compassion and respect; especially, if to every
+well-known particular entitling her to interest, were added the highly
+probable circumstance of an attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she had
+so naturally started to herself. In that case, nothing could be more
+pitiable or more honourable than the sacrifices she had resolved on.
+Emma was very willing now to acquit her of having seduced Mr. Dixon’s
+actions from his wife, or of any thing mischievous which her imagination
+had suggested at first. If it were love, it might be simple, single,
+successless love on her side alone. She might have been unconsciously
+sucking in the sad poison, while a sharer of his conversation with her
+friend; and from the best, the purest of motives, might now be
+denying herself this visit to Ireland, and resolving to divide herself
+effectually from him and his connexions by soon beginning her career of
+laborious duty.
+
+Upon the whole, Emma left her with such softened, charitable feelings,
+as made her look around in walking home, and lament that Highbury
+afforded no young man worthy of giving her independence; nobody that she
+could wish to scheme about for her.
+
+These were charming feelings--but not lasting. Before she had committed
+herself by any public profession of eternal friendship for Jane Fairfax,
+or done more towards a recantation of past prejudices and errors, than
+saying to Mr. Knightley, “She certainly is handsome; she is better than
+handsome!” Jane had spent an evening at Hartfield with her grandmother
+and aunt, and every thing was relapsing much into its usual state.
+Former provocations reappeared. The aunt was as tiresome as ever; more
+tiresome, because anxiety for her health was now added to admiration
+of her powers; and they had to listen to the description of exactly how
+little bread and butter she ate for breakfast, and how small a slice
+of mutton for dinner, as well as to see exhibitions of new caps and new
+workbags for her mother and herself; and Jane’s offences rose again.
+They had music; Emma was obliged to play; and the thanks and praise
+which necessarily followed appeared to her an affectation of candour, an
+air of greatness, meaning only to shew off in higher style her own very
+superior performance. She was, besides, which was the worst of all, so
+cold, so cautious! There was no getting at her real opinion. Wrapt up in
+a cloak of politeness, she seemed determined to hazard nothing. She was
+disgustingly, was suspiciously reserved.
+
+If any thing could be more, where all was most, she was more reserved on
+the subject of Weymouth and the Dixons than any thing. She seemed bent
+on giving no real insight into Mr. Dixon’s character, or her own value
+for his company, or opinion of the suitableness of the match. It was all
+general approbation and smoothness; nothing delineated or distinguished.
+It did her no service however. Her caution was thrown away. Emma saw
+its artifice, and returned to her first surmises. There probably _was_
+something more to conceal than her own preference; Mr. Dixon, perhaps,
+had been very near changing one friend for the other, or been fixed only
+to Miss Campbell, for the sake of the future twelve thousand pounds.
+
+The like reserve prevailed on other topics. She and Mr. Frank Churchill
+had been at Weymouth at the same time. It was known that they were a
+little acquainted; but not a syllable of real information could Emma
+procure as to what he truly was. “Was he handsome?”--“She believed
+he was reckoned a very fine young man.” “Was he agreeable?”--“He was
+generally thought so.” “Did he appear a sensible young man; a young
+man of information?”--“At a watering-place, or in a common London
+acquaintance, it was difficult to decide on such points. Manners were
+all that could be safely judged of, under a much longer knowledge than
+they had yet had of Mr. Churchill. She believed every body found his
+manners pleasing.” Emma could not forgive her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+Emma could not forgive her;--but as neither provocation nor resentment
+were discerned by Mr. Knightley, who had been of the party, and had
+seen only proper attention and pleasing behaviour on each side, he was
+expressing the next morning, being at Hartfield again on business with
+Mr. Woodhouse, his approbation of the whole; not so openly as he might
+have done had her father been out of the room, but speaking plain enough
+to be very intelligible to Emma. He had been used to think her unjust to
+Jane, and had now great pleasure in marking an improvement.
+
+“A very pleasant evening,” he began, as soon as Mr. Woodhouse had been
+talked into what was necessary, told that he understood, and the papers
+swept away;--“particularly pleasant. You and Miss Fairfax gave us some
+very good music. I do not know a more luxurious state, sir, than sitting
+at one’s ease to be entertained a whole evening by two such young women;
+sometimes with music and sometimes with conversation. I am sure Miss
+Fairfax must have found the evening pleasant, Emma. You left nothing
+undone. I was glad you made her play so much, for having no instrument
+at her grandmother’s, it must have been a real indulgence.”
+
+“I am happy you approved,” said Emma, smiling; “but I hope I am not
+often deficient in what is due to guests at Hartfield.”
+
+“No, my dear,” said her father instantly; “_that_ I am sure you are not.
+There is nobody half so attentive and civil as you are. If any thing,
+you are too attentive. The muffin last night--if it had been handed
+round once, I think it would have been enough.”
+
+“No,” said Mr. Knightley, nearly at the same time; “you are not often
+deficient; not often deficient either in manner or comprehension. I
+think you understand me, therefore.”
+
+An arch look expressed--“I understand you well enough;” but she said
+only, “Miss Fairfax is reserved.”
+
+“I always told you she was--a little; but you will soon overcome all
+that part of her reserve which ought to be overcome, all that has its
+foundation in diffidence. What arises from discretion must be honoured.”
+
+“You think her diffident. I do not see it.”
+
+“My dear Emma,” said he, moving from his chair into one close by her,
+“you are not going to tell me, I hope, that you had not a pleasant
+evening.”
+
+“Oh! no; I was pleased with my own perseverance in asking questions; and
+amused to think how little information I obtained.”
+
+“I am disappointed,” was his only answer.
+
+“I hope every body had a pleasant evening,” said Mr. Woodhouse, in his
+quiet way. “I had. Once, I felt the fire rather too much; but then I
+moved back my chair a little, a very little, and it did not disturb me.
+Miss Bates was very chatty and good-humoured, as she always is, though
+she speaks rather too quick. However, she is very agreeable, and Mrs.
+Bates too, in a different way. I like old friends; and Miss Jane
+Fairfax is a very pretty sort of young lady, a very pretty and a
+very well-behaved young lady indeed. She must have found the evening
+agreeable, Mr. Knightley, because she had Emma.”
+
+“True, sir; and Emma, because she had Miss Fairfax.”
+
+Emma saw his anxiety, and wishing to appease it, at least for the
+present, said, and with a sincerity which no one could question--
+
+“She is a sort of elegant creature that one cannot keep one’s eyes from.
+I am always watching her to admire; and I do pity her from my heart.”
+
+Mr. Knightley looked as if he were more gratified than he cared to
+express; and before he could make any reply, Mr. Woodhouse, whose
+thoughts were on the Bates’s, said--
+
+“It is a great pity that their circumstances should be so confined! a
+great pity indeed! and I have often wished--but it is so little one can
+venture to do--small, trifling presents, of any thing uncommon--Now we
+have killed a porker, and Emma thinks of sending them a loin or a leg;
+it is very small and delicate--Hartfield pork is not like any other
+pork--but still it is pork--and, my dear Emma, unless one could be sure
+of their making it into steaks, nicely fried, as ours are fried, without
+the smallest grease, and not roast it, for no stomach can bear roast
+pork--I think we had better send the leg--do not you think so, my dear?”
+
+“My dear papa, I sent the whole hind-quarter. I knew you would wish it.
+There will be the leg to be salted, you know, which is so very nice, and
+the loin to be dressed directly in any manner they like.”
+
+“That’s right, my dear, very right. I had not thought of it before, but
+that is the best way. They must not over-salt the leg; and then, if it
+is not over-salted, and if it is very thoroughly boiled, just as Serle
+boils ours, and eaten very moderately of, with a boiled turnip, and a
+little carrot or parsnip, I do not consider it unwholesome.”
+
+“Emma,” said Mr. Knightley presently, “I have a piece of news for you.
+You like news--and I heard an article in my way hither that I think will
+interest you.”
+
+“News! Oh! yes, I always like news. What is it?--why do you smile
+so?--where did you hear it?--at Randalls?”
+
+He had time only to say,
+
+“No, not at Randalls; I have not been near Randalls,” when the door was
+thrown open, and Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax walked into the room. Full
+of thanks, and full of news, Miss Bates knew not which to give quickest.
+Mr. Knightley soon saw that he had lost his moment, and that not another
+syllable of communication could rest with him.
+
+“Oh! my dear sir, how are you this morning? My dear Miss Woodhouse--I
+come quite over-powered. Such a beautiful hind-quarter of pork! You
+are too bountiful! Have you heard the news? Mr. Elton is going to be
+married.”
+
+Emma had not had time even to think of Mr. Elton, and she was so
+completely surprized that she could not avoid a little start, and a
+little blush, at the sound.
+
+“There is my news:--I thought it would interest you,” said Mr.
+Knightley, with a smile which implied a conviction of some part of what
+had passed between them.
+
+“But where could _you_ hear it?” cried Miss Bates. “Where could you
+possibly hear it, Mr. Knightley? For it is not five minutes since I
+received Mrs. Cole’s note--no, it cannot be more than five--or at least
+ten--for I had got my bonnet and spencer on, just ready to come out--I
+was only gone down to speak to Patty again about the pork--Jane was
+standing in the passage--were not you, Jane?--for my mother was so
+afraid that we had not any salting-pan large enough. So I said I would
+go down and see, and Jane said, ‘Shall I go down instead? for I think
+you have a little cold, and Patty has been washing the kitchen.’--‘Oh!
+my dear,’ said I--well, and just then came the note. A Miss
+Hawkins--that’s all I know. A Miss Hawkins of Bath. But, Mr. Knightley,
+how could you possibly have heard it? for the very moment Mr. Cole told
+Mrs. Cole of it, she sat down and wrote to me. A Miss Hawkins--”
+
+“I was with Mr. Cole on business an hour and a half ago. He had just
+read Elton’s letter as I was shewn in, and handed it to me directly.”
+
+“Well! that is quite--I suppose there never was a piece of news more
+generally interesting. My dear sir, you really are too bountiful. My
+mother desires her very best compliments and regards, and a thousand
+thanks, and says you really quite oppress her.”
+
+“We consider our Hartfield pork,” replied Mr. Woodhouse--“indeed it
+certainly is, so very superior to all other pork, that Emma and I cannot
+have a greater pleasure than--”
+
+“Oh! my dear sir, as my mother says, our friends are only too good
+to us. If ever there were people who, without having great wealth
+themselves, had every thing they could wish for, I am sure it is us.
+We may well say that ‘our lot is cast in a goodly heritage.’ Well, Mr.
+Knightley, and so you actually saw the letter; well--”
+
+“It was short--merely to announce--but cheerful, exulting, of course.”--
+Here was a sly glance at Emma. “He had been so fortunate as to--I forget
+the precise words--one has no business to remember them. The information
+was, as you state, that he was going to be married to a Miss Hawkins. By
+his style, I should imagine it just settled.”
+
+“Mr. Elton going to be married!” said Emma, as soon as she could speak.
+“He will have every body’s wishes for his happiness.”
+
+“He is very young to settle,” was Mr. Woodhouse’s observation. “He had
+better not be in a hurry. He seemed to me very well off as he was. We
+were always glad to see him at Hartfield.”
+
+“A new neighbour for us all, Miss Woodhouse!” said Miss Bates, joyfully;
+“my mother is so pleased!--she says she cannot bear to have the poor old
+Vicarage without a mistress. This is great news, indeed. Jane, you have
+never seen Mr. Elton!--no wonder that you have such a curiosity to see
+him.”
+
+Jane’s curiosity did not appear of that absorbing nature as wholly to
+occupy her.
+
+“No--I have never seen Mr. Elton,” she replied, starting on this appeal;
+“is he--is he a tall man?”
+
+“Who shall answer that question?” cried Emma. “My father would say
+‘yes,’ Mr. Knightley ‘no;’ and Miss Bates and I that he is just the
+happy medium. When you have been here a little longer, Miss Fairfax,
+you will understand that Mr. Elton is the standard of perfection in
+Highbury, both in person and mind.”
+
+“Very true, Miss Woodhouse, so she will. He is the very best young
+man--But, my dear Jane, if you remember, I told you yesterday he
+was precisely the height of Mr. Perry. Miss Hawkins,--I dare say, an
+excellent young woman. His extreme attention to my mother--wanting
+her to sit in the vicarage pew, that she might hear the better, for my
+mother is a little deaf, you know--it is not much, but she does not
+hear quite quick. Jane says that Colonel Campbell is a little deaf. He
+fancied bathing might be good for it--the warm bath--but she says it did
+him no lasting benefit. Colonel Campbell, you know, is quite our angel.
+And Mr. Dixon seems a very charming young man, quite worthy of him. It
+is such a happiness when good people get together--and they always do.
+Now, here will be Mr. Elton and Miss Hawkins; and there are the Coles,
+such very good people; and the Perrys--I suppose there never was a
+happier or a better couple than Mr. and Mrs. Perry. I say, sir,” turning
+to Mr. Woodhouse, “I think there are few places with such society as
+Highbury. I always say, we are quite blessed in our neighbours.--My dear
+sir, if there is one thing my mother loves better than another, it is
+pork--a roast loin of pork--”
+
+“As to who, or what Miss Hawkins is, or how long he has been acquainted
+with her,” said Emma, “nothing I suppose can be known. One feels that it
+cannot be a very long acquaintance. He has been gone only four weeks.”
+
+Nobody had any information to give; and, after a few more wonderings,
+Emma said,
+
+“You are silent, Miss Fairfax--but I hope you mean to take an interest
+in this news. You, who have been hearing and seeing so much of late
+on these subjects, who must have been so deep in the business on Miss
+Campbell’s account--we shall not excuse your being indifferent about Mr.
+Elton and Miss Hawkins.”
+
+“When I have seen Mr. Elton,” replied Jane, “I dare say I shall be
+interested--but I believe it requires _that_ with me. And as it is some
+months since Miss Campbell married, the impression may be a little worn
+off.”
+
+“Yes, he has been gone just four weeks, as you observe, Miss Woodhouse,”
+ said Miss Bates, “four weeks yesterday.--A Miss Hawkins!--Well, I had
+always rather fancied it would be some young lady hereabouts; not that
+I ever--Mrs. Cole once whispered to me--but I immediately said, ‘No, Mr.
+Elton is a most worthy young man--but’--In short, I do not think I am
+particularly quick at those sort of discoveries. I do not pretend to it.
+What is before me, I see. At the same time, nobody could wonder if
+Mr. Elton should have aspired--Miss Woodhouse lets me chatter on, so
+good-humouredly. She knows I would not offend for the world. How does
+Miss Smith do? She seems quite recovered now. Have you heard from Mrs.
+John Knightley lately? Oh! those dear little children. Jane, do you
+know I always fancy Mr. Dixon like Mr. John Knightley. I mean in
+person--tall, and with that sort of look--and not very talkative.”
+
+“Quite wrong, my dear aunt; there is no likeness at all.”
+
+“Very odd! but one never does form a just idea of any body beforehand.
+One takes up a notion, and runs away with it. Mr. Dixon, you say, is
+not, strictly speaking, handsome?”
+
+“Handsome! Oh! no--far from it--certainly plain. I told you he was
+plain.”
+
+“My dear, you said that Miss Campbell would not allow him to be plain,
+and that you yourself--”
+
+“Oh! as for me, my judgment is worth nothing. Where I have a regard,
+I always think a person well-looking. But I gave what I believed the
+general opinion, when I called him plain.”
+
+“Well, my dear Jane, I believe we must be running away. The weather does
+not look well, and grandmama will be uneasy. You are too obliging, my
+dear Miss Woodhouse; but we really must take leave. This has been a most
+agreeable piece of news indeed. I shall just go round by Mrs. Cole’s;
+but I shall not stop three minutes: and, Jane, you had better go home
+directly--I would not have you out in a shower!--We think she is the
+better for Highbury already. Thank you, we do indeed. I shall not
+attempt calling on Mrs. Goddard, for I really do not think she cares for
+any thing but _boiled_ pork: when we dress the leg it will be another
+thing. Good morning to you, my dear sir. Oh! Mr. Knightley is coming
+too. Well, that is so very!--I am sure if Jane is tired, you will be
+so kind as to give her your arm.--Mr. Elton, and Miss Hawkins!--Good
+morning to you.”
+
+Emma, alone with her father, had half her attention wanted by him while
+he lamented that young people would be in such a hurry to marry--and to
+marry strangers too--and the other half she could give to her own view
+of the subject. It was to herself an amusing and a very welcome piece
+of news, as proving that Mr. Elton could not have suffered long; but she
+was sorry for Harriet: Harriet must feel it--and all that she could hope
+was, by giving the first information herself, to save her from hearing
+it abruptly from others. It was now about the time that she was likely
+to call. If she were to meet Miss Bates in her way!--and upon its
+beginning to rain, Emma was obliged to expect that the weather would
+be detaining her at Mrs. Goddard’s, and that the intelligence would
+undoubtedly rush upon her without preparation.
+
+The shower was heavy, but short; and it had not been over five minutes,
+when in came Harriet, with just the heated, agitated look which
+hurrying thither with a full heart was likely to give; and the “Oh! Miss
+Woodhouse, what do you think has happened!” which instantly burst forth,
+had all the evidence of corresponding perturbation. As the blow was
+given, Emma felt that she could not now shew greater kindness than in
+listening; and Harriet, unchecked, ran eagerly through what she had to
+tell. “She had set out from Mrs. Goddard’s half an hour ago--she had
+been afraid it would rain--she had been afraid it would pour down
+every moment--but she thought she might get to Hartfield first--she
+had hurried on as fast as possible; but then, as she was passing by the
+house where a young woman was making up a gown for her, she thought she
+would just step in and see how it went on; and though she did not seem
+to stay half a moment there, soon after she came out it began to rain,
+and she did not know what to do; so she ran on directly, as fast as
+she could, and took shelter at Ford’s.”--Ford’s was the principal
+woollen-draper, linen-draper, and haberdasher’s shop united; the shop
+first in size and fashion in the place.--“And so, there she had
+set, without an idea of any thing in the world, full ten minutes,
+perhaps--when, all of a sudden, who should come in--to be sure it was
+so very odd!--but they always dealt at Ford’s--who should come in, but
+Elizabeth Martin and her brother!--Dear Miss Woodhouse! only think. I
+thought I should have fainted. I did not know what to do. I was sitting
+near the door--Elizabeth saw me directly; but he did not; he was busy
+with the umbrella. I am sure she saw me, but she looked away directly,
+and took no notice; and they both went to quite the farther end of the
+shop; and I kept sitting near the door!--Oh! dear; I was so miserable!
+I am sure I must have been as white as my gown. I could not go away
+you know, because of the rain; but I did so wish myself anywhere in the
+world but there.--Oh! dear, Miss Woodhouse--well, at last, I fancy, he
+looked round and saw me; for instead of going on with her buyings, they
+began whispering to one another. I am sure they were talking of me; and
+I could not help thinking that he was persuading her to speak to me--(do
+you think he was, Miss Woodhouse?)--for presently she came forward--came
+quite up to me, and asked me how I did, and seemed ready to shake hands,
+if I would. She did not do any of it in the same way that she used; I
+could see she was altered; but, however, she seemed to _try_ to be very
+friendly, and we shook hands, and stood talking some time; but I know no
+more what I said--I was in such a tremble!--I remember she said she
+was sorry we never met now; which I thought almost too kind! Dear, Miss
+Woodhouse, I was absolutely miserable! By that time, it was beginning to
+hold up, and I was determined that nothing should stop me from getting
+away--and then--only think!--I found he was coming up towards me
+too--slowly you know, and as if he did not quite know what to do; and
+so he came and spoke, and I answered--and I stood for a minute, feeling
+dreadfully, you know, one can’t tell how; and then I took courage, and
+said it did not rain, and I must go; and so off I set; and I had not got
+three yards from the door, when he came after me, only to say, if I was
+going to Hartfield, he thought I had much better go round by Mr. Cole’s
+stables, for I should find the near way quite floated by this rain. Oh!
+dear, I thought it would have been the death of me! So I said, I was
+very much obliged to him: you know I could not do less; and then he went
+back to Elizabeth, and I came round by the stables--I believe I did--but
+I hardly knew where I was, or any thing about it. Oh! Miss Woodhouse,
+I would rather done any thing than have it happen: and yet, you know,
+there was a sort of satisfaction in seeing him behave so pleasantly and
+so kindly. And Elizabeth, too. Oh! Miss Woodhouse, do talk to me and
+make me comfortable again.”
+
+Very sincerely did Emma wish to do so; but it was not immediately in
+her power. She was obliged to stop and think. She was not thoroughly
+comfortable herself. The young man’s conduct, and his sister’s, seemed
+the result of real feeling, and she could not but pity them. As Harriet
+described it, there had been an interesting mixture of wounded affection
+and genuine delicacy in their behaviour. But she had believed them to be
+well-meaning, worthy people before; and what difference did this make
+in the evils of the connexion? It was folly to be disturbed by it. Of
+course, he must be sorry to lose her--they must be all sorry. Ambition,
+as well as love, had probably been mortified. They might all have hoped
+to rise by Harriet’s acquaintance: and besides, what was the value of
+Harriet’s description?--So easily pleased--so little discerning;--what
+signified her praise?
+
+She exerted herself, and did try to make her comfortable, by considering
+all that had passed as a mere trifle, and quite unworthy of being dwelt
+on,
+
+“It might be distressing, for the moment,” said she; “but you seem to
+have behaved extremely well; and it is over--and may never--can never,
+as a first meeting, occur again, and therefore you need not think about
+it.”
+
+Harriet said, “very true,” and she “would not think about it;” but still
+she talked of it--still she could talk of nothing else; and Emma, at
+last, in order to put the Martins out of her head, was obliged to hurry
+on the news, which she had meant to give with so much tender caution;
+hardly knowing herself whether to rejoice or be angry, ashamed or only
+amused, at such a state of mind in poor Harriet--such a conclusion of
+Mr. Elton’s importance with her!
+
+Mr. Elton’s rights, however, gradually revived. Though she did not feel
+the first intelligence as she might have done the day before, or an hour
+before, its interest soon increased; and before their first conversation
+was over, she had talked herself into all the sensations of curiosity,
+wonder and regret, pain and pleasure, as to this fortunate Miss Hawkins,
+which could conduce to place the Martins under proper subordination in
+her fancy.
+
+Emma learned to be rather glad that there had been such a meeting. It
+had been serviceable in deadening the first shock, without retaining any
+influence to alarm. As Harriet now lived, the Martins could not get
+at her, without seeking her, where hitherto they had wanted either the
+courage or the condescension to seek her; for since her refusal of the
+brother, the sisters never had been at Mrs. Goddard’s; and a twelvemonth
+might pass without their being thrown together again, with any
+necessity, or even any power of speech.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting
+situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure of
+being kindly spoken of.
+
+A week had not passed since Miss Hawkins’s name was first mentioned in
+Highbury, before she was, by some means or other, discovered to have
+every recommendation of person and mind; to be handsome, elegant, highly
+accomplished, and perfectly amiable: and when Mr. Elton himself arrived
+to triumph in his happy prospects, and circulate the fame of her merits,
+there was very little more for him to do, than to tell her Christian
+name, and say whose music she principally played.
+
+Mr. Elton returned, a very happy man. He had gone away rejected and
+mortified--disappointed in a very sanguine hope, after a series of what
+appeared to him strong encouragement; and not only losing the right
+lady, but finding himself debased to the level of a very wrong one. He
+had gone away deeply offended--he came back engaged to another--and
+to another as superior, of course, to the first, as under such
+circumstances what is gained always is to what is lost. He came back gay
+and self-satisfied, eager and busy, caring nothing for Miss Woodhouse,
+and defying Miss Smith.
+
+The charming Augusta Hawkins, in addition to all the usual advantages of
+perfect beauty and merit, was in possession of an independent fortune,
+of so many thousands as would always be called ten; a point of some
+dignity, as well as some convenience: the story told well; he had not
+thrown himself away--he had gained a woman of 10,000 l. or thereabouts;
+and he had gained her with such delightful rapidity--the first hour of
+introduction had been so very soon followed by distinguishing notice;
+the history which he had to give Mrs. Cole of the rise and progress
+of the affair was so glorious--the steps so quick, from the accidental
+rencontre, to the dinner at Mr. Green’s, and the party at Mrs.
+Brown’s--smiles and blushes rising in importance--with consciousness and
+agitation richly scattered--the lady had been so easily impressed--so
+sweetly disposed--had in short, to use a most intelligible phrase,
+been so very ready to have him, that vanity and prudence were equally
+contented.
+
+He had caught both substance and shadow--both fortune and affection, and
+was just the happy man he ought to be; talking only of himself and
+his own concerns--expecting to be congratulated--ready to be laughed
+at--and, with cordial, fearless smiles, now addressing all the young
+ladies of the place, to whom, a few weeks ago, he would have been more
+cautiously gallant.
+
+The wedding was no distant event, as the parties had only themselves to
+please, and nothing but the necessary preparations to wait for; and
+when he set out for Bath again, there was a general expectation, which
+a certain glance of Mrs. Cole’s did not seem to contradict, that when he
+next entered Highbury he would bring his bride.
+
+During his present short stay, Emma had barely seen him; but just enough
+to feel that the first meeting was over, and to give her the impression
+of his not being improved by the mixture of pique and pretension, now
+spread over his air. She was, in fact, beginning very much to wonder
+that she had ever thought him pleasing at all; and his sight was so
+inseparably connected with some very disagreeable feelings, that,
+except in a moral light, as a penance, a lesson, a source of profitable
+humiliation to her own mind, she would have been thankful to be assured
+of never seeing him again. She wished him very well; but he gave
+her pain, and his welfare twenty miles off would administer most
+satisfaction.
+
+The pain of his continued residence in Highbury, however, must
+certainly be lessened by his marriage. Many vain solicitudes would be
+prevented--many awkwardnesses smoothed by it. A _Mrs._ _Elton_ would
+be an excuse for any change of intercourse; former intimacy might sink
+without remark. It would be almost beginning their life of civility
+again.
+
+Of the lady, individually, Emma thought very little. She was good enough
+for Mr. Elton, no doubt; accomplished enough for Highbury--handsome
+enough--to look plain, probably, by Harriet’s side. As to connexion,
+there Emma was perfectly easy; persuaded, that after all his own vaunted
+claims and disdain of Harriet, he had done nothing. On that article,
+truth seemed attainable. _What_ she was, must be uncertain; but _who_
+she was, might be found out; and setting aside the 10,000 l., it did not
+appear that she was at all Harriet’s superior. She brought no name, no
+blood, no alliance. Miss Hawkins was the youngest of the two daughters
+of a Bristol--merchant, of course, he must be called; but, as the whole
+of the profits of his mercantile life appeared so very moderate, it
+was not unfair to guess the dignity of his line of trade had been very
+moderate also. Part of every winter she had been used to spend in Bath;
+but Bristol was her home, the very heart of Bristol; for though the
+father and mother had died some years ago, an uncle remained--in the law
+line--nothing more distinctly honourable was hazarded of him, than
+that he was in the law line; and with him the daughter had lived. Emma
+guessed him to be the drudge of some attorney, and too stupid to rise.
+And all the grandeur of the connexion seemed dependent on the elder
+sister, who was _very_ _well_ _married_, to a gentleman in a _great_
+_way_, near Bristol, who kept two carriages! That was the wind-up of the
+history; that was the glory of Miss Hawkins.
+
+Could she but have given Harriet her feelings about it all! She had
+talked her into love; but, alas! she was not so easily to be talked out
+of it. The charm of an object to occupy the many vacancies of Harriet’s
+mind was not to be talked away. He might be superseded by another; he
+certainly would indeed; nothing could be clearer; even a Robert Martin
+would have been sufficient; but nothing else, she feared, would cure
+her. Harriet was one of those, who, having once begun, would be always
+in love. And now, poor girl! she was considerably worse from this
+reappearance of Mr. Elton. She was always having a glimpse of him
+somewhere or other. Emma saw him only once; but two or three times every
+day Harriet was sure _just_ to meet with him, or _just_ to miss him,
+_just_ to hear his voice, or see his shoulder, _just_ to have something
+occur to preserve him in her fancy, in all the favouring warmth of
+surprize and conjecture. She was, moreover, perpetually hearing about
+him; for, excepting when at Hartfield, she was always among those who
+saw no fault in Mr. Elton, and found nothing so interesting as
+the discussion of his concerns; and every report, therefore, every
+guess--all that had already occurred, all that might occur in the
+arrangement of his affairs, comprehending income, servants, and
+furniture, was continually in agitation around her. Her regard was
+receiving strength by invariable praise of him, and her regrets kept
+alive, and feelings irritated by ceaseless repetitions of Miss
+Hawkins’s happiness, and continual observation of, how much he seemed
+attached!--his air as he walked by the house--the very sitting of his
+hat, being all in proof of how much he was in love!
+
+Had it been allowable entertainment, had there been no pain to her
+friend, or reproach to herself, in the waverings of Harriet’s mind,
+Emma would have been amused by its variations. Sometimes Mr. Elton
+predominated, sometimes the Martins; and each was occasionally useful
+as a check to the other. Mr. Elton’s engagement had been the cure of
+the agitation of meeting Mr. Martin. The unhappiness produced by the
+knowledge of that engagement had been a little put aside by Elizabeth
+Martin’s calling at Mrs. Goddard’s a few days afterwards. Harriet had
+not been at home; but a note had been prepared and left for her, written
+in the very style to touch; a small mixture of reproach, with a great
+deal of kindness; and till Mr. Elton himself appeared, she had been much
+occupied by it, continually pondering over what could be done in return,
+and wishing to do more than she dared to confess. But Mr. Elton, in
+person, had driven away all such cares. While he staid, the Martins were
+forgotten; and on the very morning of his setting off for Bath again,
+Emma, to dissipate some of the distress it occasioned, judged it best
+for her to return Elizabeth Martin’s visit.
+
+How that visit was to be acknowledged--what would be necessary--and
+what might be safest, had been a point of some doubtful consideration.
+Absolute neglect of the mother and sisters, when invited to come, would
+be ingratitude. It must not be: and yet the danger of a renewal of the
+acquaintance--!
+
+After much thinking, she could determine on nothing better, than
+Harriet’s returning the visit; but in a way that, if they had
+understanding, should convince them that it was to be only a formal
+acquaintance. She meant to take her in the carriage, leave her at the
+Abbey Mill, while she drove a little farther, and call for her again
+so soon, as to allow no time for insidious applications or dangerous
+recurrences to the past, and give the most decided proof of what degree
+of intimacy was chosen for the future.
+
+She could think of nothing better: and though there was something in it
+which her own heart could not approve--something of ingratitude, merely
+glossed over--it must be done, or what would become of Harriet?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Small heart had Harriet for visiting. Only half an hour before her
+friend called for her at Mrs. Goddard’s, her evil stars had led her
+to the very spot where, at that moment, a trunk, directed to _The Rev.
+Philip Elton, White-Hart, Bath_, was to be seen under the operation of
+being lifted into the butcher’s cart, which was to convey it to where
+the coaches past; and every thing in this world, excepting that trunk
+and the direction, was consequently a blank.
+
+She went, however; and when they reached the farm, and she was to be
+put down, at the end of the broad, neat gravel walk, which led between
+espalier apple-trees to the front door, the sight of every thing which
+had given her so much pleasure the autumn before, was beginning to
+revive a little local agitation; and when they parted, Emma observed her
+to be looking around with a sort of fearful curiosity, which determined
+her not to allow the visit to exceed the proposed quarter of an hour.
+She went on herself, to give that portion of time to an old servant who
+was married, and settled in Donwell.
+
+The quarter of an hour brought her punctually to the white gate again;
+and Miss Smith receiving her summons, was with her without delay, and
+unattended by any alarming young man. She came solitarily down the
+gravel walk--a Miss Martin just appearing at the door, and parting with
+her seemingly with ceremonious civility.
+
+Harriet could not very soon give an intelligible account. She was
+feeling too much; but at last Emma collected from her enough to
+understand the sort of meeting, and the sort of pain it was creating.
+She had seen only Mrs. Martin and the two girls. They had received her
+doubtingly, if not coolly; and nothing beyond the merest commonplace had
+been talked almost all the time--till just at last, when Mrs. Martin’s
+saying, all of a sudden, that she thought Miss Smith was grown, had
+brought on a more interesting subject, and a warmer manner. In that very
+room she had been measured last September, with her two friends. There
+were the pencilled marks and memorandums on the wainscot by the window.
+_He_ had done it. They all seemed to remember the day, the hour,
+the party, the occasion--to feel the same consciousness, the same
+regrets--to be ready to return to the same good understanding; and they
+were just growing again like themselves, (Harriet, as Emma must suspect,
+as ready as the best of them to be cordial and happy,) when the carriage
+reappeared, and all was over. The style of the visit, and the shortness
+of it, were then felt to be decisive. Fourteen minutes to be given
+to those with whom she had thankfully passed six weeks not six months
+ago!--Emma could not but picture it all, and feel how justly they might
+resent, how naturally Harriet must suffer. It was a bad business. She
+would have given a great deal, or endured a great deal, to have had
+the Martins in a higher rank of life. They were so deserving, that a
+_little_ higher should have been enough: but as it was, how could she
+have done otherwise?--Impossible!--She could not repent. They must be
+separated; but there was a great deal of pain in the process--so much
+to herself at this time, that she soon felt the necessity of a little
+consolation, and resolved on going home by way of Randalls to
+procure it. Her mind was quite sick of Mr. Elton and the Martins. The
+refreshment of Randalls was absolutely necessary.
+
+It was a good scheme; but on driving to the door they heard that neither
+“master nor mistress was at home;” they had both been out some time; the
+man believed they were gone to Hartfield.
+
+“This is too bad,” cried Emma, as they turned away. “And now we shall
+just miss them; too provoking!--I do not know when I have been so
+disappointed.” And she leaned back in the corner, to indulge her
+murmurs, or to reason them away; probably a little of both--such being
+the commonest process of a not ill-disposed mind. Presently the carriage
+stopt; she looked up; it was stopt by Mr. and Mrs. Weston, who were
+standing to speak to her. There was instant pleasure in the sight of
+them, and still greater pleasure was conveyed in sound--for Mr. Weston
+immediately accosted her with,
+
+“How d’ye do?--how d’ye do?--We have been sitting with your father--glad
+to see him so well. Frank comes to-morrow--I had a letter this
+morning--we see him to-morrow by dinner-time to a certainty--he is at
+Oxford to-day, and he comes for a whole fortnight; I knew it would be
+so. If he had come at Christmas he could not have staid three days; I
+was always glad he did not come at Christmas; now we are going to have
+just the right weather for him, fine, dry, settled weather. We shall
+enjoy him completely; every thing has turned out exactly as we could
+wish.”
+
+There was no resisting such news, no possibility of avoiding the
+influence of such a happy face as Mr. Weston’s, confirmed as it all was
+by the words and the countenance of his wife, fewer and quieter, but not
+less to the purpose. To know that _she_ thought his coming certain was
+enough to make Emma consider it so, and sincerely did she rejoice in
+their joy. It was a most delightful reanimation of exhausted spirits.
+The worn-out past was sunk in the freshness of what was coming; and in
+the rapidity of half a moment’s thought, she hoped Mr. Elton would now
+be talked of no more.
+
+Mr. Weston gave her the history of the engagements at Enscombe, which
+allowed his son to answer for having an entire fortnight at his command,
+as well as the route and the method of his journey; and she listened,
+and smiled, and congratulated.
+
+“I shall soon bring him over to Hartfield,” said he, at the conclusion.
+
+Emma could imagine she saw a touch of the arm at this speech, from his
+wife.
+
+“We had better move on, Mr. Weston,” said she, “we are detaining the
+girls.”
+
+“Well, well, I am ready;”--and turning again to Emma, “but you must
+not be expecting such a _very_ fine young man; you have only
+had _my_ account you know; I dare say he is really nothing
+extraordinary:”--though his own sparkling eyes at the moment were
+speaking a very different conviction.
+
+Emma could look perfectly unconscious and innocent, and answer in a
+manner that appropriated nothing.
+
+“Think of me to-morrow, my dear Emma, about four o’clock,” was Mrs.
+Weston’s parting injunction; spoken with some anxiety, and meant only
+for her.
+
+“Four o’clock!--depend upon it he will be here by three,” was Mr.
+Weston’s quick amendment; and so ended a most satisfactory meeting.
+Emma’s spirits were mounted quite up to happiness; every thing wore
+a different air; James and his horses seemed not half so sluggish as
+before. When she looked at the hedges, she thought the elder at least
+must soon be coming out; and when she turned round to Harriet, she saw
+something like a look of spring, a tender smile even there.
+
+“Will Mr. Frank Churchill pass through Bath as well as Oxford?”--was a
+question, however, which did not augur much.
+
+But neither geography nor tranquillity could come all at once, and Emma
+was now in a humour to resolve that they should both come in time.
+
+The morning of the interesting day arrived, and Mrs. Weston’s faithful
+pupil did not forget either at ten, or eleven, or twelve o’clock, that
+she was to think of her at four.
+
+“My dear, dear anxious friend,”--said she, in mental soliloquy, while
+walking downstairs from her own room, “always overcareful for every
+body’s comfort but your own; I see you now in all your little fidgets,
+going again and again into his room, to be sure that all is right.”
+ The clock struck twelve as she passed through the hall. “‘Tis twelve;
+I shall not forget to think of you four hours hence; and by this
+time to-morrow, perhaps, or a little later, I may be thinking of the
+possibility of their all calling here. I am sure they will bring him
+soon.”
+
+She opened the parlour door, and saw two gentlemen sitting with her
+father--Mr. Weston and his son. They had been arrived only a few
+minutes, and Mr. Weston had scarcely finished his explanation of Frank’s
+being a day before his time, and her father was yet in the midst of his
+very civil welcome and congratulations, when she appeared, to have her
+share of surprize, introduction, and pleasure.
+
+The Frank Churchill so long talked of, so high in interest, was actually
+before her--he was presented to her, and she did not think too much had
+been said in his praise; he was a _very_ good looking young man; height,
+air, address, all were unexceptionable, and his countenance had a great
+deal of the spirit and liveliness of his father’s; he looked quick and
+sensible. She felt immediately that she should like him; and there was
+a well-bred ease of manner, and a readiness to talk, which convinced her
+that he came intending to be acquainted with her, and that acquainted
+they soon must be.
+
+He had reached Randalls the evening before. She was pleased with the
+eagerness to arrive which had made him alter his plan, and travel
+earlier, later, and quicker, that he might gain half a day.
+
+“I told you yesterday,” cried Mr. Weston with exultation, “I told you
+all that he would be here before the time named. I remembered what I
+used to do myself. One cannot creep upon a journey; one cannot help
+getting on faster than one has planned; and the pleasure of coming in
+upon one’s friends before the look-out begins, is worth a great deal
+more than any little exertion it needs.”
+
+“It is a great pleasure where one can indulge in it,” said the young
+man, “though there are not many houses that I should presume on so far;
+but in coming _home_ I felt I might do any thing.”
+
+The word _home_ made his father look on him with fresh complacency.
+Emma was directly sure that he knew how to make himself agreeable; the
+conviction was strengthened by what followed. He was very much pleased
+with Randalls, thought it a most admirably arranged house, would hardly
+allow it even to be very small, admired the situation, the walk to
+Highbury, Highbury itself, Hartfield still more, and professed himself
+to have always felt the sort of interest in the country which none but
+one’s _own_ country gives, and the greatest curiosity to visit it. That
+he should never have been able to indulge so amiable a feeling before,
+passed suspiciously through Emma’s brain; but still, if it were a
+falsehood, it was a pleasant one, and pleasantly handled. His manner had
+no air of study or exaggeration. He did really look and speak as if in a
+state of no common enjoyment.
+
+Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening
+acquaintance. On his side were the inquiries,--“Was she a
+horsewoman?--Pleasant rides?--Pleasant walks?--Had they a large
+neighbourhood?--Highbury, perhaps, afforded society enough?--There were
+several very pretty houses in and about it.--Balls--had they balls?--Was
+it a musical society?”
+
+But when satisfied on all these points, and their acquaintance
+proportionably advanced, he contrived to find an opportunity, while
+their two fathers were engaged with each other, of introducing his
+mother-in-law, and speaking of her with so much handsome praise, so much
+warm admiration, so much gratitude for the happiness she secured to his
+father, and her very kind reception of himself, as was an additional
+proof of his knowing how to please--and of his certainly thinking it
+worth while to try to please her. He did not advance a word of praise
+beyond what she knew to be thoroughly deserved by Mrs. Weston; but,
+undoubtedly he could know very little of the matter. He understood
+what would be welcome; he could be sure of little else. “His father’s
+marriage,” he said, “had been the wisest measure, every friend must
+rejoice in it; and the family from whom he had received such a blessing
+must be ever considered as having conferred the highest obligation on
+him.”
+
+He got as near as he could to thanking her for Miss Taylor’s merits,
+without seeming quite to forget that in the common course of things it
+was to be rather supposed that Miss Taylor had formed Miss Woodhouse’s
+character, than Miss Woodhouse Miss Taylor’s. And at last, as if
+resolved to qualify his opinion completely for travelling round to its
+object, he wound it all up with astonishment at the youth and beauty of
+her person.
+
+“Elegant, agreeable manners, I was prepared for,” said he; “but I
+confess that, considering every thing, I had not expected more than a
+very tolerably well-looking woman of a certain age; I did not know that
+I was to find a pretty young woman in Mrs. Weston.”
+
+“You cannot see too much perfection in Mrs. Weston for my feelings,”
+ said Emma; “were you to guess her to be _eighteen_, I should listen with
+pleasure; but _she_ would be ready to quarrel with you for using such
+words. Don’t let her imagine that you have spoken of her as a pretty
+young woman.”
+
+“I hope I should know better,” he replied; “no, depend upon it, (with a
+gallant bow,) that in addressing Mrs. Weston I should understand whom
+I might praise without any danger of being thought extravagant in my
+terms.”
+
+Emma wondered whether the same suspicion of what might be expected from
+their knowing each other, which had taken strong possession of her mind,
+had ever crossed his; and whether his compliments were to be considered
+as marks of acquiescence, or proofs of defiance. She must see more
+of him to understand his ways; at present she only felt they were
+agreeable.
+
+She had no doubt of what Mr. Weston was often thinking about. His quick
+eye she detected again and again glancing towards them with a happy
+expression; and even, when he might have determined not to look, she was
+confident that he was often listening.
+
+Her own father’s perfect exemption from any thought of the kind, the
+entire deficiency in him of all such sort of penetration or suspicion,
+was a most comfortable circumstance. Happily he was not farther from
+approving matrimony than from foreseeing it.--Though always objecting
+to every marriage that was arranged, he never suffered beforehand from
+the apprehension of any; it seemed as if he could not think so ill of
+any two persons’ understanding as to suppose they meant to marry till it
+were proved against them. She blessed the favouring blindness. He could
+now, without the drawback of a single unpleasant surmise, without a
+glance forward at any possible treachery in his guest, give way to all
+his natural kind-hearted civility in solicitous inquiries after Mr.
+Frank Churchill’s accommodation on his journey, through the sad evils
+of sleeping two nights on the road, and express very genuine unmixed
+anxiety to know that he had certainly escaped catching cold--which,
+however, he could not allow him to feel quite assured of himself till
+after another night.
+
+A reasonable visit paid, Mr. Weston began to move.--“He must be going.
+He had business at the Crown about his hay, and a great many errands for
+Mrs. Weston at Ford’s, but he need not hurry any body else.” His son,
+too well bred to hear the hint, rose immediately also, saying,
+
+“As you are going farther on business, sir, I will take the opportunity
+of paying a visit, which must be paid some day or other, and therefore
+may as well be paid now. I have the honour of being acquainted with
+a neighbour of yours, (turning to Emma,) a lady residing in or near
+Highbury; a family of the name of Fairfax. I shall have no difficulty,
+I suppose, in finding the house; though Fairfax, I believe, is not
+the proper name--I should rather say Barnes, or Bates. Do you know any
+family of that name?”
+
+“To be sure we do,” cried his father; “Mrs. Bates--we passed her
+house--I saw Miss Bates at the window. True, true, you are acquainted
+with Miss Fairfax; I remember you knew her at Weymouth, and a fine girl
+she is. Call upon her, by all means.”
+
+“There is no necessity for my calling this morning,” said the young man;
+“another day would do as well; but there was that degree of acquaintance
+at Weymouth which--”
+
+“Oh! go to-day, go to-day. Do not defer it. What is right to be done
+cannot be done too soon. And, besides, I must give you a hint, Frank;
+any want of attention to her _here_ should be carefully avoided. You saw
+her with the Campbells, when she was the equal of every body she mixed
+with, but here she is with a poor old grandmother, who has barely enough
+to live on. If you do not call early it will be a slight.”
+
+The son looked convinced.
+
+“I have heard her speak of the acquaintance,” said Emma; “she is a very
+elegant young woman.”
+
+He agreed to it, but with so quiet a “Yes,” as inclined her almost to
+doubt his real concurrence; and yet there must be a very distinct sort
+of elegance for the fashionable world, if Jane Fairfax could be thought
+only ordinarily gifted with it.
+
+“If you were never particularly struck by her manners before,” said she,
+“I think you will to-day. You will see her to advantage; see her and
+hear her--no, I am afraid you will not hear her at all, for she has an
+aunt who never holds her tongue.”
+
+“You are acquainted with Miss Jane Fairfax, sir, are you?” said Mr.
+Woodhouse, always the last to make his way in conversation; “then give
+me leave to assure you that you will find her a very agreeable young
+lady. She is staying here on a visit to her grandmama and aunt, very
+worthy people; I have known them all my life. They will be extremely
+glad to see you, I am sure; and one of my servants shall go with you to
+shew you the way.”
+
+“My dear sir, upon no account in the world; my father can direct me.”
+
+“But your father is not going so far; he is only going to the Crown,
+quite on the other side of the street, and there are a great many
+houses; you might be very much at a loss, and it is a very dirty walk,
+unless you keep on the footpath; but my coachman can tell you where you
+had best cross the street.”
+
+Mr. Frank Churchill still declined it, looking as serious as he could,
+and his father gave his hearty support by calling out, “My good friend,
+this is quite unnecessary; Frank knows a puddle of water when he sees
+it, and as to Mrs. Bates’s, he may get there from the Crown in a hop,
+step, and jump.”
+
+They were permitted to go alone; and with a cordial nod from one, and a
+graceful bow from the other, the two gentlemen took leave. Emma remained
+very well pleased with this beginning of the acquaintance, and could now
+engage to think of them all at Randalls any hour of the day, with full
+confidence in their comfort.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+The next morning brought Mr. Frank Churchill again. He came with Mrs.
+Weston, to whom and to Highbury he seemed to take very cordially. He had
+been sitting with her, it appeared, most companionably at home, till
+her usual hour of exercise; and on being desired to chuse their walk,
+immediately fixed on Highbury.--“He did not doubt there being very
+pleasant walks in every direction, but if left to him, he should always
+chuse the same. Highbury, that airy, cheerful, happy-looking Highbury,
+would be his constant attraction.”--Highbury, with Mrs. Weston, stood
+for Hartfield; and she trusted to its bearing the same construction with
+him. They walked thither directly.
+
+Emma had hardly expected them: for Mr. Weston, who had called in for
+half a minute, in order to hear that his son was very handsome, knew
+nothing of their plans; and it was an agreeable surprize to her,
+therefore, to perceive them walking up to the house together, arm in
+arm. She was wanting to see him again, and especially to see him in
+company with Mrs. Weston, upon his behaviour to whom her opinion of him
+was to depend. If he were deficient there, nothing should make amends
+for it. But on seeing them together, she became perfectly satisfied. It
+was not merely in fine words or hyperbolical compliment that he paid his
+duty; nothing could be more proper or pleasing than his whole manner to
+her--nothing could more agreeably denote his wish of considering her as
+a friend and securing her affection. And there was time enough for Emma
+to form a reasonable judgment, as their visit included all the rest of
+the morning. They were all three walking about together for an hour
+or two--first round the shrubberies of Hartfield, and afterwards
+in Highbury. He was delighted with every thing; admired Hartfield
+sufficiently for Mr. Woodhouse’s ear; and when their going farther was
+resolved on, confessed his wish to be made acquainted with the whole
+village, and found matter of commendation and interest much oftener than
+Emma could have supposed.
+
+Some of the objects of his curiosity spoke very amiable feelings. He
+begged to be shewn the house which his father had lived in so long, and
+which had been the home of his father’s father; and on recollecting that
+an old woman who had nursed him was still living, walked in quest of
+her cottage from one end of the street to the other; and though in
+some points of pursuit or observation there was no positive merit, they
+shewed, altogether, a good-will towards Highbury in general, which must
+be very like a merit to those he was with.
+
+Emma watched and decided, that with such feelings as were now shewn, it
+could not be fairly supposed that he had been ever voluntarily absenting
+himself; that he had not been acting a part, or making a parade of
+insincere professions; and that Mr. Knightley certainly had not done him
+justice.
+
+Their first pause was at the Crown Inn, an inconsiderable house, though
+the principal one of the sort, where a couple of pair of post-horses
+were kept, more for the convenience of the neighbourhood than from any
+run on the road; and his companions had not expected to be detained by
+any interest excited there; but in passing it they gave the history of
+the large room visibly added; it had been built many years ago for
+a ball-room, and while the neighbourhood had been in a particularly
+populous, dancing state, had been occasionally used as such;--but such
+brilliant days had long passed away, and now the highest purpose for
+which it was ever wanted was to accommodate a whist club established
+among the gentlemen and half-gentlemen of the place. He was immediately
+interested. Its character as a ball-room caught him; and instead of
+passing on, he stopt for several minutes at the two superior sashed
+windows which were open, to look in and contemplate its capabilities,
+and lament that its original purpose should have ceased. He saw no fault
+in the room, he would acknowledge none which they suggested. No, it
+was long enough, broad enough, handsome enough. It would hold the
+very number for comfort. They ought to have balls there at least every
+fortnight through the winter. Why had not Miss Woodhouse revived
+the former good old days of the room?--She who could do any thing in
+Highbury! The want of proper families in the place, and the conviction
+that none beyond the place and its immediate environs could be tempted
+to attend, were mentioned; but he was not satisfied. He could not be
+persuaded that so many good-looking houses as he saw around him, could
+not furnish numbers enough for such a meeting; and even when particulars
+were given and families described, he was still unwilling to admit that
+the inconvenience of such a mixture would be any thing, or that there
+would be the smallest difficulty in every body’s returning into their
+proper place the next morning. He argued like a young man very much bent
+on dancing; and Emma was rather surprized to see the constitution of
+the Weston prevail so decidedly against the habits of the Churchills.
+He seemed to have all the life and spirit, cheerful feelings, and social
+inclinations of his father, and nothing of the pride or reserve of
+Enscombe. Of pride, indeed, there was, perhaps, scarcely enough; his
+indifference to a confusion of rank, bordered too much on inelegance of
+mind. He could be no judge, however, of the evil he was holding cheap.
+It was but an effusion of lively spirits.
+
+At last he was persuaded to move on from the front of the Crown;
+and being now almost facing the house where the Bateses lodged, Emma
+recollected his intended visit the day before, and asked him if he had
+paid it.
+
+“Yes, oh! yes”--he replied; “I was just going to mention it. A very
+successful visit:--I saw all the three ladies; and felt very much
+obliged to you for your preparatory hint. If the talking aunt had taken
+me quite by surprize, it must have been the death of me. As it was, I
+was only betrayed into paying a most unreasonable visit. Ten minutes
+would have been all that was necessary, perhaps all that was proper; and
+I had told my father I should certainly be at home before him--but there
+was no getting away, no pause; and, to my utter astonishment, I found,
+when he (finding me nowhere else) joined me there at last, that I had
+been actually sitting with them very nearly three-quarters of an hour.
+The good lady had not given me the possibility of escape before.”
+
+“And how did you think Miss Fairfax looking?”
+
+“Ill, very ill--that is, if a young lady can ever be allowed to look
+ill. But the expression is hardly admissible, Mrs. Weston, is it? Ladies
+can never look ill. And, seriously, Miss Fairfax is naturally so
+pale, as almost always to give the appearance of ill health.--A most
+deplorable want of complexion.”
+
+Emma would not agree to this, and began a warm defence of Miss Fairfax’s
+complexion. “It was certainly never brilliant, but she would not
+allow it to have a sickly hue in general; and there was a softness and
+delicacy in her skin which gave peculiar elegance to the character of
+her face.” He listened with all due deference; acknowledged that he had
+heard many people say the same--but yet he must confess, that to him
+nothing could make amends for the want of the fine glow of health. Where
+features were indifferent, a fine complexion gave beauty to them all;
+and where they were good, the effect was--fortunately he need not
+attempt to describe what the effect was.
+
+“Well,” said Emma, “there is no disputing about taste.--At least you
+admire her except her complexion.”
+
+He shook his head and laughed.--“I cannot separate Miss Fairfax and her
+complexion.”
+
+“Did you see her often at Weymouth? Were you often in the same society?”
+
+At this moment they were approaching Ford’s, and he hastily exclaimed,
+“Ha! this must be the very shop that every body attends every day of
+their lives, as my father informs me. He comes to Highbury himself, he
+says, six days out of the seven, and has always business at Ford’s.
+If it be not inconvenient to you, pray let us go in, that I may prove
+myself to belong to the place, to be a true citizen of Highbury. I must
+buy something at Ford’s. It will be taking out my freedom.--I dare say
+they sell gloves.”
+
+“Oh! yes, gloves and every thing. I do admire your patriotism. You will
+be adored in Highbury. You were very popular before you came, because
+you were Mr. Weston’s son--but lay out half a guinea at Ford’s, and your
+popularity will stand upon your own virtues.”
+
+They went in; and while the sleek, well-tied parcels of “Men’s Beavers”
+ and “York Tan” were bringing down and displaying on the counter, he
+said--“But I beg your pardon, Miss Woodhouse, you were speaking to me,
+you were saying something at the very moment of this burst of my _amor_
+_patriae_. Do not let me lose it. I assure you the utmost stretch of
+public fame would not make me amends for the loss of any happiness in
+private life.”
+
+“I merely asked, whether you had known much of Miss Fairfax and her
+party at Weymouth.”
+
+“And now that I understand your question, I must pronounce it to be a
+very unfair one. It is always the lady’s right to decide on the degree
+of acquaintance. Miss Fairfax must already have given her account.--I
+shall not commit myself by claiming more than she may chuse to allow.”
+
+“Upon my word! you answer as discreetly as she could do herself. But
+her account of every thing leaves so much to be guessed, she is so very
+reserved, so very unwilling to give the least information about any
+body, that I really think you may say what you like of your acquaintance
+with her.”
+
+“May I, indeed?--Then I will speak the truth, and nothing suits me so
+well. I met her frequently at Weymouth. I had known the Campbells a
+little in town; and at Weymouth we were very much in the same set.
+Colonel Campbell is a very agreeable man, and Mrs. Campbell a friendly,
+warm-hearted woman. I like them all.”
+
+“You know Miss Fairfax’s situation in life, I conclude; what she is
+destined to be?”
+
+“Yes--(rather hesitatingly)--I believe I do.”
+
+“You get upon delicate subjects, Emma,” said Mrs. Weston smiling;
+“remember that I am here.--Mr. Frank Churchill hardly knows what to say
+when you speak of Miss Fairfax’s situation in life. I will move a little
+farther off.”
+
+“I certainly do forget to think of _her_,” said Emma, “as having ever
+been any thing but my friend and my dearest friend.”
+
+He looked as if he fully understood and honoured such a sentiment.
+
+When the gloves were bought, and they had quitted the shop again, “Did
+you ever hear the young lady we were speaking of, play?” said Frank
+Churchill.
+
+“Ever hear her!” repeated Emma. “You forget how much she belongs to
+Highbury. I have heard her every year of our lives since we both began.
+She plays charmingly.”
+
+“You think so, do you?--I wanted the opinion of some one who
+could really judge. She appeared to me to play well, that is, with
+considerable taste, but I know nothing of the matter myself.--I am
+excessively fond of music, but without the smallest skill or right
+of judging of any body’s performance.--I have been used to hear her’s
+admired; and I remember one proof of her being thought to play well:--a
+man, a very musical man, and in love with another woman--engaged to
+her--on the point of marriage--would yet never ask that other woman
+to sit down to the instrument, if the lady in question could sit down
+instead--never seemed to like to hear one if he could hear the other.
+That, I thought, in a man of known musical talent, was some proof.”
+
+“Proof indeed!” said Emma, highly amused.--“Mr. Dixon is very musical,
+is he? We shall know more about them all, in half an hour, from you,
+than Miss Fairfax would have vouchsafed in half a year.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Dixon and Miss Campbell were the persons; and I thought it a
+very strong proof.”
+
+“Certainly--very strong it was; to own the truth, a great deal stronger
+than, if _I_ had been Miss Campbell, would have been at all agreeable
+to me. I could not excuse a man’s having more music than love--more ear
+than eye--a more acute sensibility to fine sounds than to my feelings.
+How did Miss Campbell appear to like it?”
+
+“It was her very particular friend, you know.”
+
+“Poor comfort!” said Emma, laughing. “One would rather have a stranger
+preferred than one’s very particular friend--with a stranger it might
+not recur again--but the misery of having a very particular friend
+always at hand, to do every thing better than one does oneself!--Poor
+Mrs. Dixon! Well, I am glad she is gone to settle in Ireland.”
+
+“You are right. It was not very flattering to Miss Campbell; but she
+really did not seem to feel it.”
+
+“So much the better--or so much the worse:--I do not know which. But
+be it sweetness or be it stupidity in her--quickness of friendship, or
+dulness of feeling--there was one person, I think, who must have felt
+it: Miss Fairfax herself. She must have felt the improper and dangerous
+distinction.”
+
+“As to that--I do not--”
+
+“Oh! do not imagine that I expect an account of Miss Fairfax’s
+sensations from you, or from any body else. They are known to no human
+being, I guess, but herself. But if she continued to play whenever she
+was asked by Mr. Dixon, one may guess what one chuses.”
+
+“There appeared such a perfectly good understanding among them all--”
+ he began rather quickly, but checking himself, added, “however, it is
+impossible for me to say on what terms they really were--how it might
+all be behind the scenes. I can only say that there was smoothness
+outwardly. But you, who have known Miss Fairfax from a child, must be
+a better judge of her character, and of how she is likely to conduct
+herself in critical situations, than I can be.”
+
+“I have known her from a child, undoubtedly; we have been children
+and women together; and it is natural to suppose that we should be
+intimate,--that we should have taken to each other whenever she visited
+her friends. But we never did. I hardly know how it has happened; a
+little, perhaps, from that wickedness on my side which was prone to take
+disgust towards a girl so idolized and so cried up as she always was,
+by her aunt and grandmother, and all their set. And then, her reserve--I
+never could attach myself to any one so completely reserved.”
+
+“It is a most repulsive quality, indeed,” said he. “Oftentimes very
+convenient, no doubt, but never pleasing. There is safety in reserve,
+but no attraction. One cannot love a reserved person.”
+
+“Not till the reserve ceases towards oneself; and then the attraction
+may be the greater. But I must be more in want of a friend, or an
+agreeable companion, than I have yet been, to take the trouble of
+conquering any body’s reserve to procure one. Intimacy between Miss
+Fairfax and me is quite out of the question. I have no reason to think
+ill of her--not the least--except that such extreme and perpetual
+cautiousness of word and manner, such a dread of giving a distinct idea
+about any body, is apt to suggest suspicions of there being something to
+conceal.”
+
+He perfectly agreed with her: and after walking together so long, and
+thinking so much alike, Emma felt herself so well acquainted with him,
+that she could hardly believe it to be only their second meeting. He was
+not exactly what she had expected; less of the man of the world in some
+of his notions, less of the spoiled child of fortune, therefore better
+than she had expected. His ideas seemed more moderate--his feelings
+warmer. She was particularly struck by his manner of considering Mr.
+Elton’s house, which, as well as the church, he would go and look at,
+and would not join them in finding much fault with. No, he could not
+believe it a bad house; not such a house as a man was to be pitied for
+having. If it were to be shared with the woman he loved, he could not
+think any man to be pitied for having that house. There must be ample
+room in it for every real comfort. The man must be a blockhead who
+wanted more.
+
+Mrs. Weston laughed, and said he did not know what he was talking about.
+Used only to a large house himself, and without ever thinking how many
+advantages and accommodations were attached to its size, he could be no
+judge of the privations inevitably belonging to a small one. But Emma,
+in her own mind, determined that he _did_ know what he was talking
+about, and that he shewed a very amiable inclination to settle early in
+life, and to marry, from worthy motives. He might not be aware of the
+inroads on domestic peace to be occasioned by no housekeeper’s room, or
+a bad butler’s pantry, but no doubt he did perfectly feel that Enscombe
+could not make him happy, and that whenever he were attached, he would
+willingly give up much of wealth to be allowed an early establishment.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+Emma’s very good opinion of Frank Churchill was a little shaken the
+following day, by hearing that he was gone off to London, merely to have
+his hair cut. A sudden freak seemed to have seized him at breakfast, and
+he had sent for a chaise and set off, intending to return to dinner,
+but with no more important view that appeared than having his hair cut.
+There was certainly no harm in his travelling sixteen miles twice over
+on such an errand; but there was an air of foppery and nonsense in it
+which she could not approve. It did not accord with the rationality of
+plan, the moderation in expense, or even the unselfish warmth of heart,
+which she had believed herself to discern in him yesterday. Vanity,
+extravagance, love of change, restlessness of temper, which must be
+doing something, good or bad; heedlessness as to the pleasure of his
+father and Mrs. Weston, indifferent as to how his conduct might appear
+in general; he became liable to all these charges. His father only
+called him a coxcomb, and thought it a very good story; but that Mrs.
+Weston did not like it, was clear enough, by her passing it over as
+quickly as possible, and making no other comment than that “all young
+people would have their little whims.”
+
+With the exception of this little blot, Emma found that his visit
+hitherto had given her friend only good ideas of him. Mrs. Weston
+was very ready to say how attentive and pleasant a companion he made
+himself--how much she saw to like in his disposition altogether. He
+appeared to have a very open temper--certainly a very cheerful and
+lively one; she could observe nothing wrong in his notions, a great deal
+decidedly right; he spoke of his uncle with warm regard, was fond of
+talking of him--said he would be the best man in the world if he were
+left to himself; and though there was no being attached to the aunt, he
+acknowledged her kindness with gratitude, and seemed to mean always to
+speak of her with respect. This was all very promising; and, but for
+such an unfortunate fancy for having his hair cut, there was nothing to
+denote him unworthy of the distinguished honour which her imagination
+had given him; the honour, if not of being really in love with her,
+of being at least very near it, and saved only by her own
+indifference--(for still her resolution held of never marrying)--the
+honour, in short, of being marked out for her by all their joint
+acquaintance.
+
+Mr. Weston, on his side, added a virtue to the account which must
+have some weight. He gave her to understand that Frank admired her
+extremely--thought her very beautiful and very charming; and with so
+much to be said for him altogether, she found she must not judge him
+harshly. As Mrs. Weston observed, “all young people would have their
+little whims.”
+
+There was one person among his new acquaintance in Surry, not so
+leniently disposed. In general he was judged, throughout the parishes of
+Donwell and Highbury, with great candour; liberal allowances were made
+for the little excesses of such a handsome young man--one who smiled so
+often and bowed so well; but there was one spirit among them not to be
+softened, from its power of censure, by bows or smiles--Mr. Knightley.
+The circumstance was told him at Hartfield; for the moment, he was
+silent; but Emma heard him almost immediately afterwards say to himself,
+over a newspaper he held in his hand, “Hum! just the trifling, silly
+fellow I took him for.” She had half a mind to resent; but an instant’s
+observation convinced her that it was really said only to relieve his
+own feelings, and not meant to provoke; and therefore she let it pass.
+
+Although in one instance the bearers of not good tidings, Mr. and
+Mrs. Weston’s visit this morning was in another respect particularly
+opportune. Something occurred while they were at Hartfield, to make Emma
+want their advice; and, which was still more lucky, she wanted exactly
+the advice they gave.
+
+This was the occurrence:--The Coles had been settled some years in
+Highbury, and were very good sort of people--friendly, liberal, and
+unpretending; but, on the other hand, they were of low origin, in trade,
+and only moderately genteel. On their first coming into the country,
+they had lived in proportion to their income, quietly, keeping little
+company, and that little unexpensively; but the last year or two had
+brought them a considerable increase of means--the house in town had
+yielded greater profits, and fortune in general had smiled on them. With
+their wealth, their views increased; their want of a larger house, their
+inclination for more company. They added to their house, to their number
+of servants, to their expenses of every sort; and by this time were,
+in fortune and style of living, second only to the family at Hartfield.
+Their love of society, and their new dining-room, prepared every body
+for their keeping dinner-company; and a few parties, chiefly among the
+single men, had already taken place. The regular and best families Emma
+could hardly suppose they would presume to invite--neither Donwell, nor
+Hartfield, nor Randalls. Nothing should tempt _her_ to go, if they did;
+and she regretted that her father’s known habits would be giving
+her refusal less meaning than she could wish. The Coles were very
+respectable in their way, but they ought to be taught that it was not
+for them to arrange the terms on which the superior families would visit
+them. This lesson, she very much feared, they would receive only from
+herself; she had little hope of Mr. Knightley, none of Mr. Weston.
+
+But she had made up her mind how to meet this presumption so many weeks
+before it appeared, that when the insult came at last, it found her
+very differently affected. Donwell and Randalls had received their
+invitation, and none had come for her father and herself; and Mrs.
+Weston’s accounting for it with “I suppose they will not take the
+liberty with you; they know you do not dine out,” was not quite
+sufficient. She felt that she should like to have had the power of
+refusal; and afterwards, as the idea of the party to be assembled there,
+consisting precisely of those whose society was dearest to her, occurred
+again and again, she did not know that she might not have been tempted
+to accept. Harriet was to be there in the evening, and the Bateses. They
+had been speaking of it as they walked about Highbury the day before,
+and Frank Churchill had most earnestly lamented her absence. Might
+not the evening end in a dance? had been a question of his. The bare
+possibility of it acted as a farther irritation on her spirits; and
+her being left in solitary grandeur, even supposing the omission to be
+intended as a compliment, was but poor comfort.
+
+It was the arrival of this very invitation while the Westons were at
+Hartfield, which made their presence so acceptable; for though her first
+remark, on reading it, was that “of course it must be declined,” she so
+very soon proceeded to ask them what they advised her to do, that their
+advice for her going was most prompt and successful.
+
+She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely
+without inclination for the party. The Coles expressed themselves so
+properly--there was so much real attention in the manner of it--so much
+consideration for her father. “They would have solicited the honour
+earlier, but had been waiting the arrival of a folding-screen from
+London, which they hoped might keep Mr. Woodhouse from any draught of
+air, and therefore induce him the more readily to give them the honour
+of his company.” Upon the whole, she was very persuadable; and it being
+briefly settled among themselves how it might be done without neglecting
+his comfort--how certainly Mrs. Goddard, if not Mrs. Bates, might be
+depended on for bearing him company--Mr. Woodhouse was to be talked
+into an acquiescence of his daughter’s going out to dinner on a day now
+near at hand, and spending the whole evening away from him. As for _his_
+going, Emma did not wish him to think it possible, the hours would be
+too late, and the party too numerous. He was soon pretty well resigned.
+
+“I am not fond of dinner-visiting,” said he--“I never was. No more is
+Emma. Late hours do not agree with us. I am sorry Mr. and Mrs. Cole
+should have done it. I think it would be much better if they would come
+in one afternoon next summer, and take their tea with us--take us
+in their afternoon walk; which they might do, as our hours are so
+reasonable, and yet get home without being out in the damp of the
+evening. The dews of a summer evening are what I would not expose any
+body to. However, as they are so very desirous to have dear Emma dine
+with them, and as you will both be there, and Mr. Knightley too, to take
+care of her, I cannot wish to prevent it, provided the weather be what
+it ought, neither damp, nor cold, nor windy.” Then turning to Mrs.
+Weston, with a look of gentle reproach--“Ah! Miss Taylor, if you had not
+married, you would have staid at home with me.”
+
+“Well, sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “as I took Miss Taylor away, it is
+incumbent on me to supply her place, if I can; and I will step to Mrs.
+Goddard in a moment, if you wish it.”
+
+But the idea of any thing to be done in a _moment_, was increasing,
+not lessening, Mr. Woodhouse’s agitation. The ladies knew better how
+to allay it. Mr. Weston must be quiet, and every thing deliberately
+arranged.
+
+With this treatment, Mr. Woodhouse was soon composed enough for talking
+as usual. “He should be happy to see Mrs. Goddard. He had a great regard
+for Mrs. Goddard; and Emma should write a line, and invite her. James
+could take the note. But first of all, there must be an answer written
+to Mrs. Cole.”
+
+“You will make my excuses, my dear, as civilly as possible. You will say
+that I am quite an invalid, and go no where, and therefore must decline
+their obliging invitation; beginning with my _compliments_, of course.
+But you will do every thing right. I need not tell you what is to be
+done. We must remember to let James know that the carriage will be
+wanted on Tuesday. I shall have no fears for you with him. We have never
+been there above once since the new approach was made; but still I have
+no doubt that James will take you very safely. And when you get there,
+you must tell him at what time you would have him come for you again;
+and you had better name an early hour. You will not like staying late.
+You will get very tired when tea is over.”
+
+“But you would not wish me to come away before I am tired, papa?”
+
+“Oh! no, my love; but you will soon be tired. There will be a great many
+people talking at once. You will not like the noise.”
+
+“But, my dear sir,” cried Mr. Weston, “if Emma comes away early, it will
+be breaking up the party.”
+
+“And no great harm if it does,” said Mr. Woodhouse. “The sooner every
+party breaks up, the better.”
+
+“But you do not consider how it may appear to the Coles. Emma’s going
+away directly after tea might be giving offence. They are good-natured
+people, and think little of their own claims; but still they must
+feel that any body’s hurrying away is no great compliment; and Miss
+Woodhouse’s doing it would be more thought of than any other person’s in
+the room. You would not wish to disappoint and mortify the Coles, I am
+sure, sir; friendly, good sort of people as ever lived, and who have
+been your neighbours these _ten_ years.”
+
+“No, upon no account in the world, Mr. Weston; I am much obliged to
+you for reminding me. I should be extremely sorry to be giving them any
+pain. I know what worthy people they are. Perry tells me that Mr. Cole
+never touches malt liquor. You would not think it to look at him, but
+he is bilious--Mr. Cole is very bilious. No, I would not be the means
+of giving them any pain. My dear Emma, we must consider this. I am sure,
+rather than run the risk of hurting Mr. and Mrs. Cole, you would stay a
+little longer than you might wish. You will not regard being tired. You
+will be perfectly safe, you know, among your friends.”
+
+“Oh yes, papa. I have no fears at all for myself; and I should have no
+scruples of staying as late as Mrs. Weston, but on your account. I am
+only afraid of your sitting up for me. I am not afraid of your not being
+exceedingly comfortable with Mrs. Goddard. She loves piquet, you
+know; but when she is gone home, I am afraid you will be sitting up by
+yourself, instead of going to bed at your usual time--and the idea of
+that would entirely destroy my comfort. You must promise me not to sit
+up.”
+
+He did, on the condition of some promises on her side: such as that,
+if she came home cold, she would be sure to warm herself thoroughly; if
+hungry, that she would take something to eat; that her own maid should
+sit up for her; and that Serle and the butler should see that every
+thing were safe in the house, as usual.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Frank Churchill came back again; and if he kept his father’s dinner
+waiting, it was not known at Hartfield; for Mrs. Weston was too anxious
+for his being a favourite with Mr. Woodhouse, to betray any imperfection
+which could be concealed.
+
+He came back, had had his hair cut, and laughed at himself with a very
+good grace, but without seeming really at all ashamed of what he had
+done. He had no reason to wish his hair longer, to conceal any confusion
+of face; no reason to wish the money unspent, to improve his spirits.
+He was quite as undaunted and as lively as ever; and, after seeing him,
+Emma thus moralised to herself:--
+
+“I do not know whether it ought to be so, but certainly silly things
+do cease to be silly if they are done by sensible people in an impudent
+way. Wickedness is always wickedness, but folly is not always folly.--It
+depends upon the character of those who handle it. Mr. Knightley, he is
+_not_ a trifling, silly young man. If he were, he would have done this
+differently. He would either have gloried in the achievement, or
+been ashamed of it. There would have been either the ostentation of
+a coxcomb, or the evasions of a mind too weak to defend its own
+vanities.--No, I am perfectly sure that he is not trifling or silly.”
+
+With Tuesday came the agreeable prospect of seeing him again, and for
+a longer time than hitherto; of judging of his general manners, and by
+inference, of the meaning of his manners towards herself; of guessing
+how soon it might be necessary for her to throw coldness into her air;
+and of fancying what the observations of all those might be, who were
+now seeing them together for the first time.
+
+She meant to be very happy, in spite of the scene being laid at Mr.
+Cole’s; and without being able to forget that among the failings of Mr.
+Elton, even in the days of his favour, none had disturbed her more than
+his propensity to dine with Mr. Cole.
+
+Her father’s comfort was amply secured, Mrs. Bates as well as Mrs.
+Goddard being able to come; and her last pleasing duty, before she left
+the house, was to pay her respects to them as they sat together after
+dinner; and while her father was fondly noticing the beauty of her
+dress, to make the two ladies all the amends in her power, by helping
+them to large slices of cake and full glasses of wine, for whatever
+unwilling self-denial his care of their constitution might have obliged
+them to practise during the meal.--She had provided a plentiful dinner
+for them; she wished she could know that they had been allowed to eat
+it.
+
+She followed another carriage to Mr. Cole’s door; and was pleased to see
+that it was Mr. Knightley’s; for Mr. Knightley keeping no horses,
+having little spare money and a great deal of health, activity, and
+independence, was too apt, in Emma’s opinion, to get about as he could,
+and not use his carriage so often as became the owner of Donwell Abbey.
+She had an opportunity now of speaking her approbation while warm from
+her heart, for he stopped to hand her out.
+
+“This is coming as you should do,” said she; “like a gentleman.--I am
+quite glad to see you.”
+
+He thanked her, observing, “How lucky that we should arrive at the same
+moment! for, if we had met first in the drawing-room, I doubt whether
+you would have discerned me to be more of a gentleman than usual.--You
+might not have distinguished how I came, by my look or manner.”
+
+“Yes I should, I am sure I should. There is always a look of
+consciousness or bustle when people come in a way which they know to be
+beneath them. You think you carry it off very well, I dare say, but
+with you it is a sort of bravado, an air of affected unconcern; I always
+observe it whenever I meet you under those circumstances. _Now_ you have
+nothing to try for. You are not afraid of being supposed ashamed. You
+are not striving to look taller than any body else. _Now_ I shall really
+be very happy to walk into the same room with you.”
+
+“Nonsensical girl!” was his reply, but not at all in anger.
+
+Emma had as much reason to be satisfied with the rest of the party as
+with Mr. Knightley. She was received with a cordial respect which could
+not but please, and given all the consequence she could wish for.
+When the Westons arrived, the kindest looks of love, the strongest of
+admiration were for her, from both husband and wife; the son approached
+her with a cheerful eagerness which marked her as his peculiar object,
+and at dinner she found him seated by her--and, as she firmly believed,
+not without some dexterity on his side.
+
+The party was rather large, as it included one other family, a proper
+unobjectionable country family, whom the Coles had the advantage of
+naming among their acquaintance, and the male part of Mr. Cox’s family,
+the lawyer of Highbury. The less worthy females were to come in the
+evening, with Miss Bates, Miss Fairfax, and Miss Smith; but already,
+at dinner, they were too numerous for any subject of conversation to be
+general; and, while politics and Mr. Elton were talked over, Emma could
+fairly surrender all her attention to the pleasantness of her neighbour.
+The first remote sound to which she felt herself obliged to attend, was
+the name of Jane Fairfax. Mrs. Cole seemed to be relating something of
+her that was expected to be very interesting. She listened, and found
+it well worth listening to. That very dear part of Emma, her fancy,
+received an amusing supply. Mrs. Cole was telling that she had been
+calling on Miss Bates, and as soon as she entered the room had
+been struck by the sight of a pianoforte--a very elegant looking
+instrument--not a grand, but a large-sized square pianoforte; and the
+substance of the story, the end of all the dialogue which ensued of
+surprize, and inquiry, and congratulations on her side, and explanations
+on Miss Bates’s, was, that this pianoforte had arrived from
+Broadwood’s the day before, to the great astonishment of both aunt and
+niece--entirely unexpected; that at first, by Miss Bates’s account,
+Jane herself was quite at a loss, quite bewildered to think who could
+possibly have ordered it--but now, they were both perfectly satisfied
+that it could be from only one quarter;--of course it must be from
+Colonel Campbell.
+
+“One can suppose nothing else,” added Mrs. Cole, “and I was only
+surprized that there could ever have been a doubt. But Jane, it seems,
+had a letter from them very lately, and not a word was said about it.
+She knows their ways best; but I should not consider their silence as
+any reason for their not meaning to make the present. They might chuse
+to surprize her.”
+
+Mrs. Cole had many to agree with her; every body who spoke on the
+subject was equally convinced that it must come from Colonel Campbell,
+and equally rejoiced that such a present had been made; and there were
+enough ready to speak to allow Emma to think her own way, and still
+listen to Mrs. Cole.
+
+“I declare, I do not know when I have heard any thing that has given me
+more satisfaction!--It always has quite hurt me that Jane Fairfax, who
+plays so delightfully, should not have an instrument. It seemed quite
+a shame, especially considering how many houses there are where fine
+instruments are absolutely thrown away. This is like giving ourselves
+a slap, to be sure! and it was but yesterday I was telling Mr. Cole,
+I really was ashamed to look at our new grand pianoforte in the
+drawing-room, while I do not know one note from another, and our little
+girls, who are but just beginning, perhaps may never make any thing of
+it; and there is poor Jane Fairfax, who is mistress of music, has not
+any thing of the nature of an instrument, not even the pitifullest old
+spinet in the world, to amuse herself with.--I was saying this to
+Mr. Cole but yesterday, and he quite agreed with me; only he is so
+particularly fond of music that he could not help indulging himself
+in the purchase, hoping that some of our good neighbours might be so
+obliging occasionally to put it to a better use than we can; and that
+really is the reason why the instrument was bought--or else I am sure
+we ought to be ashamed of it.--We are in great hopes that Miss Woodhouse
+may be prevailed with to try it this evening.”
+
+Miss Woodhouse made the proper acquiescence; and finding that nothing
+more was to be entrapped from any communication of Mrs. Cole’s, turned
+to Frank Churchill.
+
+“Why do you smile?” said she.
+
+“Nay, why do you?”
+
+“Me!--I suppose I smile for pleasure at Colonel Campbell’s being so rich
+and so liberal.--It is a handsome present.”
+
+“Very.”
+
+“I rather wonder that it was never made before.”
+
+“Perhaps Miss Fairfax has never been staying here so long before.”
+
+“Or that he did not give her the use of their own instrument--which must
+now be shut up in London, untouched by any body.”
+
+“That is a grand pianoforte, and he might think it too large for Mrs.
+Bates’s house.”
+
+“You may _say_ what you chuse--but your countenance testifies that your
+_thoughts_ on this subject are very much like mine.”
+
+“I do not know. I rather believe you are giving me more credit for
+acuteness than I deserve. I smile because you smile, and shall probably
+suspect whatever I find you suspect; but at present I do not see what
+there is to question. If Colonel Campbell is not the person, who can
+be?”
+
+“What do you say to Mrs. Dixon?”
+
+“Mrs. Dixon! very true indeed. I had not thought of Mrs. Dixon. She must
+know as well as her father, how acceptable an instrument would be; and
+perhaps the mode of it, the mystery, the surprize, is more like a young
+woman’s scheme than an elderly man’s. It is Mrs. Dixon, I dare say. I
+told you that your suspicions would guide mine.”
+
+“If so, you must extend your suspicions and comprehend _Mr_. Dixon in
+them.”
+
+“Mr. Dixon.--Very well. Yes, I immediately perceive that it must be the
+joint present of Mr. and Mrs. Dixon. We were speaking the other day, you
+know, of his being so warm an admirer of her performance.”
+
+“Yes, and what you told me on that head, confirmed an idea which I had
+entertained before.--I do not mean to reflect upon the good intentions
+of either Mr. Dixon or Miss Fairfax, but I cannot help suspecting either
+that, after making his proposals to her friend, he had the misfortune
+to fall in love with _her_, or that he became conscious of a little
+attachment on her side. One might guess twenty things without guessing
+exactly the right; but I am sure there must be a particular cause for
+her chusing to come to Highbury instead of going with the Campbells
+to Ireland. Here, she must be leading a life of privation and penance;
+there it would have been all enjoyment. As to the pretence of trying her
+native air, I look upon that as a mere excuse.--In the summer it might
+have passed; but what can any body’s native air do for them in the
+months of January, February, and March? Good fires and carriages would
+be much more to the purpose in most cases of delicate health, and I dare
+say in her’s. I do not require you to adopt all my suspicions, though
+you make so noble a profession of doing it, but I honestly tell you what
+they are.”
+
+“And, upon my word, they have an air of great probability. Mr. Dixon’s
+preference of her music to her friend’s, I can answer for being very
+decided.”
+
+“And then, he saved her life. Did you ever hear of that?--A water
+party; and by some accident she was falling overboard. He caught her.”
+
+“He did. I was there--one of the party.”
+
+“Were you really?--Well!--But you observed nothing of course, for it
+seems to be a new idea to you.--If I had been there, I think I should
+have made some discoveries.”
+
+“I dare say you would; but I, simple I, saw nothing but the fact, that
+Miss Fairfax was nearly dashed from the vessel and that Mr. Dixon caught
+her.--It was the work of a moment. And though the consequent shock and
+alarm was very great and much more durable--indeed I believe it was
+half an hour before any of us were comfortable again--yet that was too
+general a sensation for any thing of peculiar anxiety to be
+observable. I do not mean to say, however, that you might not have made
+discoveries.”
+
+The conversation was here interrupted. They were called on to share
+in the awkwardness of a rather long interval between the courses, and
+obliged to be as formal and as orderly as the others; but when the table
+was again safely covered, when every corner dish was placed exactly
+right, and occupation and ease were generally restored, Emma said,
+
+“The arrival of this pianoforte is decisive with me. I wanted to know
+a little more, and this tells me quite enough. Depend upon it, we shall
+soon hear that it is a present from Mr. and Mrs. Dixon.”
+
+“And if the Dixons should absolutely deny all knowledge of it we must
+conclude it to come from the Campbells.”
+
+“No, I am sure it is not from the Campbells. Miss Fairfax knows it is
+not from the Campbells, or they would have been guessed at first. She
+would not have been puzzled, had she dared fix on them. I may not have
+convinced you perhaps, but I am perfectly convinced myself that Mr.
+Dixon is a principal in the business.”
+
+“Indeed you injure me if you suppose me unconvinced. Your reasonings
+carry my judgment along with them entirely. At first, while I supposed
+you satisfied that Colonel Campbell was the giver, I saw it only as
+paternal kindness, and thought it the most natural thing in the world.
+But when you mentioned Mrs. Dixon, I felt how much more probable that it
+should be the tribute of warm female friendship. And now I can see it in
+no other light than as an offering of love.”
+
+There was no occasion to press the matter farther. The conviction seemed
+real; he looked as if he felt it. She said no more, other subjects
+took their turn; and the rest of the dinner passed away; the dessert
+succeeded, the children came in, and were talked to and admired amid the
+usual rate of conversation; a few clever things said, a few downright
+silly, but by much the larger proportion neither the one nor the
+other--nothing worse than everyday remarks, dull repetitions, old news,
+and heavy jokes.
+
+The ladies had not been long in the drawing-room, before the other
+ladies, in their different divisions, arrived. Emma watched the entree
+of her own particular little friend; and if she could not exult in her
+dignity and grace, she could not only love the blooming sweetness and
+the artless manner, but could most heartily rejoice in that light,
+cheerful, unsentimental disposition which allowed her so many
+alleviations of pleasure, in the midst of the pangs of disappointed
+affection. There she sat--and who would have guessed how many tears she
+had been lately shedding? To be in company, nicely dressed herself and
+seeing others nicely dressed, to sit and smile and look pretty, and say
+nothing, was enough for the happiness of the present hour. Jane Fairfax
+did look and move superior; but Emma suspected she might have been
+glad to change feelings with Harriet, very glad to have purchased the
+mortification of having loved--yes, of having loved even Mr. Elton in
+vain--by the surrender of all the dangerous pleasure of knowing herself
+beloved by the husband of her friend.
+
+In so large a party it was not necessary that Emma should approach her.
+She did not wish to speak of the pianoforte, she felt too much in the
+secret herself, to think the appearance of curiosity or interest fair,
+and therefore purposely kept at a distance; but by the others, the
+subject was almost immediately introduced, and she saw the blush of
+consciousness with which congratulations were received, the blush
+of guilt which accompanied the name of “my excellent friend Colonel
+Campbell.”
+
+Mrs. Weston, kind-hearted and musical, was particularly interested
+by the circumstance, and Emma could not help being amused at her
+perseverance in dwelling on the subject; and having so much to ask and
+to say as to tone, touch, and pedal, totally unsuspicious of that wish
+of saying as little about it as possible, which she plainly read in the
+fair heroine’s countenance.
+
+They were soon joined by some of the gentlemen; and the very first
+of the early was Frank Churchill. In he walked, the first and the
+handsomest; and after paying his compliments en passant to Miss Bates
+and her niece, made his way directly to the opposite side of the circle,
+where sat Miss Woodhouse; and till he could find a seat by her, would
+not sit at all. Emma divined what every body present must be thinking.
+She was his object, and every body must perceive it. She introduced him
+to her friend, Miss Smith, and, at convenient moments afterwards, heard
+what each thought of the other. “He had never seen so lovely a face, and
+was delighted with her naivete.” And she, “Only to be sure it was paying
+him too great a compliment, but she did think there were some looks a
+little like Mr. Elton.” Emma restrained her indignation, and only turned
+from her in silence.
+
+Smiles of intelligence passed between her and the gentleman on first
+glancing towards Miss Fairfax; but it was most prudent to avoid speech.
+He told her that he had been impatient to leave the dining-room--hated
+sitting long--was always the first to move when he could--that his
+father, Mr. Knightley, Mr. Cox, and Mr. Cole, were left very busy over
+parish business--that as long as he had staid, however, it had been
+pleasant enough, as he had found them in general a set of gentlemanlike,
+sensible men; and spoke so handsomely of Highbury altogether--thought it
+so abundant in agreeable families--that Emma began to feel she had been
+used to despise the place rather too much. She questioned him as to the
+society in Yorkshire--the extent of the neighbourhood about Enscombe,
+and the sort; and could make out from his answers that, as far as
+Enscombe was concerned, there was very little going on, that their
+visitings were among a range of great families, none very near; and
+that even when days were fixed, and invitations accepted, it was an even
+chance that Mrs. Churchill were not in health and spirits for going;
+that they made a point of visiting no fresh person; and that, though
+he had his separate engagements, it was not without difficulty, without
+considerable address _at_ _times_, that he could get away, or introduce
+an acquaintance for a night.
+
+She saw that Enscombe could not satisfy, and that Highbury, taken at
+its best, might reasonably please a young man who had more retirement at
+home than he liked. His importance at Enscombe was very evident. He did
+not boast, but it naturally betrayed itself, that he had persuaded his
+aunt where his uncle could do nothing, and on her laughing and noticing
+it, he owned that he believed (excepting one or two points) he could
+_with_ _time_ persuade her to any thing. One of those points on which
+his influence failed, he then mentioned. He had wanted very much to
+go abroad--had been very eager indeed to be allowed to travel--but she
+would not hear of it. This had happened the year before. _Now_, he said,
+he was beginning to have no longer the same wish.
+
+The unpersuadable point, which he did not mention, Emma guessed to be
+good behaviour to his father.
+
+“I have made a most wretched discovery,” said he, after a short pause.--
+“I have been here a week to-morrow--half my time. I never knew days fly
+so fast. A week to-morrow!--And I have hardly begun to enjoy myself.
+But just got acquainted with Mrs. Weston, and others!--I hate the
+recollection.”
+
+“Perhaps you may now begin to regret that you spent one whole day, out
+of so few, in having your hair cut.”
+
+“No,” said he, smiling, “that is no subject of regret at all. I have
+no pleasure in seeing my friends, unless I can believe myself fit to be
+seen.”
+
+The rest of the gentlemen being now in the room, Emma found herself
+obliged to turn from him for a few minutes, and listen to Mr. Cole. When
+Mr. Cole had moved away, and her attention could be restored as before,
+she saw Frank Churchill looking intently across the room at Miss
+Fairfax, who was sitting exactly opposite.
+
+“What is the matter?” said she.
+
+He started. “Thank you for rousing me,” he replied. “I believe I have
+been very rude; but really Miss Fairfax has done her hair in so odd a
+way--so very odd a way--that I cannot keep my eyes from her. I never saw
+any thing so outree!--Those curls!--This must be a fancy of her own. I
+see nobody else looking like her!--I must go and ask her whether it
+is an Irish fashion. Shall I?--Yes, I will--I declare I will--and you
+shall see how she takes it;--whether she colours.”
+
+He was gone immediately; and Emma soon saw him standing before Miss
+Fairfax, and talking to her; but as to its effect on the young lady,
+as he had improvidently placed himself exactly between them, exactly in
+front of Miss Fairfax, she could absolutely distinguish nothing.
+
+Before he could return to his chair, it was taken by Mrs. Weston.
+
+“This is the luxury of a large party,” said she:--“one can get near
+every body, and say every thing. My dear Emma, I am longing to talk
+to you. I have been making discoveries and forming plans, just like
+yourself, and I must tell them while the idea is fresh. Do you know how
+Miss Bates and her niece came here?”
+
+“How?--They were invited, were not they?”
+
+“Oh! yes--but how they were conveyed hither?--the manner of their
+coming?”
+
+“They walked, I conclude. How else could they come?”
+
+“Very true.--Well, a little while ago it occurred to me how very sad
+it would be to have Jane Fairfax walking home again, late at night, and
+cold as the nights are now. And as I looked at her, though I never saw
+her appear to more advantage, it struck me that she was heated, and
+would therefore be particularly liable to take cold. Poor girl! I could
+not bear the idea of it; so, as soon as Mr. Weston came into the room,
+and I could get at him, I spoke to him about the carriage. You may guess
+how readily he came into my wishes; and having his approbation, I made
+my way directly to Miss Bates, to assure her that the carriage would be
+at her service before it took us home; for I thought it would be making
+her comfortable at once. Good soul! she was as grateful as possible, you
+may be sure. ‘Nobody was ever so fortunate as herself!’--but with many,
+many thanks--‘there was no occasion to trouble us, for Mr. Knightley’s
+carriage had brought, and was to take them home again.’ I was quite
+surprized;--very glad, I am sure; but really quite surprized. Such a
+very kind attention--and so thoughtful an attention!--the sort of thing
+that so few men would think of. And, in short, from knowing his
+usual ways, I am very much inclined to think that it was for their
+accommodation the carriage was used at all. I do suspect he would not
+have had a pair of horses for himself, and that it was only as an excuse
+for assisting them.”
+
+“Very likely,” said Emma--“nothing more likely. I know no man more
+likely than Mr. Knightley to do the sort of thing--to do any thing
+really good-natured, useful, considerate, or benevolent. He is not a
+gallant man, but he is a very humane one; and this, considering Jane
+Fairfax’s ill-health, would appear a case of humanity to him;--and for
+an act of unostentatious kindness, there is nobody whom I would fix on
+more than on Mr. Knightley. I know he had horses to-day--for we arrived
+together; and I laughed at him about it, but he said not a word that
+could betray.”
+
+“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, smiling, “you give him credit for more simple,
+disinterested benevolence in this instance than I do; for while Miss
+Bates was speaking, a suspicion darted into my head, and I have never
+been able to get it out again. The more I think of it, the more probable
+it appears. In short, I have made a match between Mr. Knightley and Jane
+Fairfax. See the consequence of keeping you company!--What do you say to
+it?”
+
+“Mr. Knightley and Jane Fairfax!” exclaimed Emma. “Dear Mrs. Weston, how
+could you think of such a thing?--Mr. Knightley!--Mr. Knightley must not
+marry!--You would not have little Henry cut out from Donwell?--Oh! no,
+no, Henry must have Donwell. I cannot at all consent to Mr. Knightley’s
+marrying; and I am sure it is not at all likely. I am amazed that you
+should think of such a thing.”
+
+“My dear Emma, I have told you what led me to think of it. I do not want
+the match--I do not want to injure dear little Henry--but the idea has
+been given me by circumstances; and if Mr. Knightley really wished to
+marry, you would not have him refrain on Henry’s account, a boy of six
+years old, who knows nothing of the matter?”
+
+“Yes, I would. I could not bear to have Henry supplanted.--Mr.
+Knightley marry!--No, I have never had such an idea, and I cannot adopt
+it now. And Jane Fairfax, too, of all women!”
+
+“Nay, she has always been a first favourite with him, as you very well
+know.”
+
+“But the imprudence of such a match!”
+
+“I am not speaking of its prudence; merely its probability.”
+
+“I see no probability in it, unless you have any better foundation than
+what you mention. His good-nature, his humanity, as I tell you, would
+be quite enough to account for the horses. He has a great regard for the
+Bateses, you know, independent of Jane Fairfax--and is always glad to
+shew them attention. My dear Mrs. Weston, do not take to match-making.
+You do it very ill. Jane Fairfax mistress of the Abbey!--Oh! no,
+no;--every feeling revolts. For his own sake, I would not have him do so
+mad a thing.”
+
+“Imprudent, if you please--but not mad. Excepting inequality of fortune,
+and perhaps a little disparity of age, I can see nothing unsuitable.”
+
+“But Mr. Knightley does not want to marry. I am sure he has not the
+least idea of it. Do not put it into his head. Why should he marry?--He
+is as happy as possible by himself; with his farm, and his sheep, and
+his library, and all the parish to manage; and he is extremely fond of
+his brother’s children. He has no occasion to marry, either to fill up
+his time or his heart.”
+
+“My dear Emma, as long as he thinks so, it is so; but if he really loves
+Jane Fairfax--”
+
+“Nonsense! He does not care about Jane Fairfax. In the way of love, I am
+sure he does not. He would do any good to her, or her family; but--”
+
+“Well,” said Mrs. Weston, laughing, “perhaps the greatest good he could
+do them, would be to give Jane such a respectable home.”
+
+“If it would be good to her, I am sure it would be evil to himself; a
+very shameful and degrading connexion. How would he bear to have Miss
+Bates belonging to him?--To have her haunting the Abbey, and thanking
+him all day long for his great kindness in marrying Jane?--‘So very
+kind and obliging!--But he always had been such a very kind neighbour!’
+And then fly off, through half a sentence, to her mother’s old
+petticoat. ‘Not that it was such a very old petticoat either--for still
+it would last a great while--and, indeed, she must thankfully say that
+their petticoats were all very strong.’”
+
+“For shame, Emma! Do not mimic her. You divert me against my conscience.
+And, upon my word, I do not think Mr. Knightley would be much disturbed
+by Miss Bates. Little things do not irritate him. She might talk on; and
+if he wanted to say any thing himself, he would only talk louder, and
+drown her voice. But the question is not, whether it would be a bad
+connexion for him, but whether he wishes it; and I think he does. I have
+heard him speak, and so must you, so very highly of Jane Fairfax! The
+interest he takes in her--his anxiety about her health--his concern that
+she should have no happier prospect! I have heard him express himself
+so warmly on those points!--Such an admirer of her performance on the
+pianoforte, and of her voice! I have heard him say that he could listen
+to her for ever. Oh! and I had almost forgotten one idea that occurred
+to me--this pianoforte that has been sent here by somebody--though
+we have all been so well satisfied to consider it a present from the
+Campbells, may it not be from Mr. Knightley? I cannot help suspecting
+him. I think he is just the person to do it, even without being in
+love.”
+
+“Then it can be no argument to prove that he is in love. But I do not
+think it is at all a likely thing for him to do. Mr. Knightley does
+nothing mysteriously.”
+
+“I have heard him lamenting her having no instrument repeatedly; oftener
+than I should suppose such a circumstance would, in the common course of
+things, occur to him.”
+
+“Very well; and if he had intended to give her one, he would have told
+her so.”
+
+“There might be scruples of delicacy, my dear Emma. I have a very strong
+notion that it comes from him. I am sure he was particularly silent when
+Mrs. Cole told us of it at dinner.”
+
+“You take up an idea, Mrs. Weston, and run away with it; as you have
+many a time reproached me with doing. I see no sign of attachment--I
+believe nothing of the pianoforte--and proof only shall convince me that
+Mr. Knightley has any thought of marrying Jane Fairfax.”
+
+They combated the point some time longer in the same way; Emma rather
+gaining ground over the mind of her friend; for Mrs. Weston was the most
+used of the two to yield; till a little bustle in the room shewed them
+that tea was over, and the instrument in preparation;--and at the same
+moment Mr. Cole approaching to entreat Miss Woodhouse would do them the
+honour of trying it. Frank Churchill, of whom, in the eagerness of her
+conversation with Mrs. Weston, she had been seeing nothing, except that
+he had found a seat by Miss Fairfax, followed Mr. Cole, to add his very
+pressing entreaties; and as, in every respect, it suited Emma best to
+lead, she gave a very proper compliance.
+
+She knew the limitations of her own powers too well to attempt more than
+she could perform with credit; she wanted neither taste nor spirit in
+the little things which are generally acceptable, and could accompany
+her own voice well. One accompaniment to her song took her agreeably by
+surprize--a second, slightly but correctly taken by Frank Churchill. Her
+pardon was duly begged at the close of the song, and every thing usual
+followed. He was accused of having a delightful voice, and a perfect
+knowledge of music; which was properly denied; and that he knew nothing
+of the matter, and had no voice at all, roundly asserted. They sang
+together once more; and Emma would then resign her place to Miss
+Fairfax, whose performance, both vocal and instrumental, she never could
+attempt to conceal from herself, was infinitely superior to her own.
+
+With mixed feelings, she seated herself at a little distance from the
+numbers round the instrument, to listen. Frank Churchill sang again.
+They had sung together once or twice, it appeared, at Weymouth. But the
+sight of Mr. Knightley among the most attentive, soon drew away half
+Emma’s mind; and she fell into a train of thinking on the subject of
+Mrs. Weston’s suspicions, to which the sweet sounds of the united voices
+gave only momentary interruptions. Her objections to Mr. Knightley’s
+marrying did not in the least subside. She could see nothing but evil
+in it. It would be a great disappointment to Mr. John Knightley;
+consequently to Isabella. A real injury to the children--a most
+mortifying change, and material loss to them all;--a very great
+deduction from her father’s daily comfort--and, as to herself, she could
+not at all endure the idea of Jane Fairfax at Donwell Abbey. A Mrs.
+Knightley for them all to give way to!--No--Mr. Knightley must never
+marry. Little Henry must remain the heir of Donwell.
+
+Presently Mr. Knightley looked back, and came and sat down by her. They
+talked at first only of the performance. His admiration was certainly
+very warm; yet she thought, but for Mrs. Weston, it would not have
+struck her. As a sort of touchstone, however, she began to speak of his
+kindness in conveying the aunt and niece; and though his answer was in
+the spirit of cutting the matter short, she believed it to indicate only
+his disinclination to dwell on any kindness of his own.
+
+“I often feel concern,” said she, “that I dare not make our carriage
+more useful on such occasions. It is not that I am without the wish; but
+you know how impossible my father would deem it that James should put-to
+for such a purpose.”
+
+“Quite out of the question, quite out of the question,” he
+replied;--“but you must often wish it, I am sure.” And he smiled with
+such seeming pleasure at the conviction, that she must proceed another
+step.
+
+“This present from the Campbells,” said she--“this pianoforte is very
+kindly given.”
+
+“Yes,” he replied, and without the smallest apparent
+embarrassment.--“But they would have done better had they given
+her notice of it. Surprizes are foolish things. The pleasure is not
+enhanced, and the inconvenience is often considerable. I should have
+expected better judgment in Colonel Campbell.”
+
+From that moment, Emma could have taken her oath that Mr. Knightley had
+had no concern in giving the instrument. But whether he were
+entirely free from peculiar attachment--whether there were no actual
+preference--remained a little longer doubtful. Towards the end of Jane’s
+second song, her voice grew thick.
+
+“That will do,” said he, when it was finished, thinking aloud--“you have
+sung quite enough for one evening--now be quiet.”
+
+Another song, however, was soon begged for. “One more;--they would not
+fatigue Miss Fairfax on any account, and would only ask for one more.”
+ And Frank Churchill was heard to say, “I think you could manage this
+without effort; the first part is so very trifling. The strength of the
+song falls on the second.”
+
+Mr. Knightley grew angry.
+
+“That fellow,” said he, indignantly, “thinks of nothing but shewing off
+his own voice. This must not be.” And touching Miss Bates, who at that
+moment passed near--“Miss Bates, are you mad, to let your niece sing
+herself hoarse in this manner? Go, and interfere. They have no mercy on
+her.”
+
+Miss Bates, in her real anxiety for Jane, could hardly stay even to
+be grateful, before she stept forward and put an end to all farther
+singing. Here ceased the concert part of the evening, for Miss Woodhouse
+and Miss Fairfax were the only young lady performers; but soon (within
+five minutes) the proposal of dancing--originating nobody exactly knew
+where--was so effectually promoted by Mr. and Mrs. Cole, that every
+thing was rapidly clearing away, to give proper space. Mrs. Weston,
+capital in her country-dances, was seated, and beginning an irresistible
+waltz; and Frank Churchill, coming up with most becoming gallantry to
+Emma, had secured her hand, and led her up to the top.
+
+While waiting till the other young people could pair themselves off,
+Emma found time, in spite of the compliments she was receiving on
+her voice and her taste, to look about, and see what became of Mr.
+Knightley. This would be a trial. He was no dancer in general. If he
+were to be very alert in engaging Jane Fairfax now, it might augur
+something. There was no immediate appearance. No; he was talking to Mrs.
+Cole--he was looking on unconcerned; Jane was asked by somebody else,
+and he was still talking to Mrs. Cole.
+
+Emma had no longer an alarm for Henry; his interest was yet safe; and
+she led off the dance with genuine spirit and enjoyment. Not more than
+five couple could be mustered; but the rarity and the suddenness of
+it made it very delightful, and she found herself well matched in a
+partner. They were a couple worth looking at.
+
+Two dances, unfortunately, were all that could be allowed. It was
+growing late, and Miss Bates became anxious to get home, on her mother’s
+account. After some attempts, therefore, to be permitted to begin again,
+they were obliged to thank Mrs. Weston, look sorrowful, and have done.
+
+“Perhaps it is as well,” said Frank Churchill, as he attended Emma to
+her carriage. “I must have asked Miss Fairfax, and her languid dancing
+would not have agreed with me, after yours.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Emma did not repent her condescension in going to the Coles. The visit
+afforded her many pleasant recollections the next day; and all that she
+might be supposed to have lost on the side of dignified seclusion, must
+be amply repaid in the splendour of popularity. She must have delighted
+the Coles--worthy people, who deserved to be made happy!--And left a
+name behind her that would not soon die away.
+
+Perfect happiness, even in memory, is not common; and there were two
+points on which she was not quite easy. She doubted whether she had not
+transgressed the duty of woman by woman, in betraying her suspicions of
+Jane Fairfax’s feelings to Frank Churchill. It was hardly right; but it
+had been so strong an idea, that it would escape her, and his submission
+to all that she told, was a compliment to her penetration, which made
+it difficult for her to be quite certain that she ought to have held her
+tongue.
+
+The other circumstance of regret related also to Jane Fairfax; and
+there she had no doubt. She did unfeignedly and unequivocally regret the
+inferiority of her own playing and singing. She did most heartily
+grieve over the idleness of her childhood--and sat down and practised
+vigorously an hour and a half.
+
+She was then interrupted by Harriet’s coming in; and if Harriet’s praise
+could have satisfied her, she might soon have been comforted.
+
+“Oh! if I could but play as well as you and Miss Fairfax!”
+
+“Don’t class us together, Harriet. My playing is no more like her’s,
+than a lamp is like sunshine.”
+
+“Oh! dear--I think you play the best of the two. I think you play quite
+as well as she does. I am sure I had much rather hear you. Every body
+last night said how well you played.”
+
+“Those who knew any thing about it, must have felt the difference. The
+truth is, Harriet, that my playing is just good enough to be praised,
+but Jane Fairfax’s is much beyond it.”
+
+“Well, I always shall think that you play quite as well as she does, or
+that if there is any difference nobody would ever find it out. Mr. Cole
+said how much taste you had; and Mr. Frank Churchill talked a great deal
+about your taste, and that he valued taste much more than execution.”
+
+“Ah! but Jane Fairfax has them both, Harriet.”
+
+“Are you sure? I saw she had execution, but I did not know she had any
+taste. Nobody talked about it. And I hate Italian singing.--There is no
+understanding a word of it. Besides, if she does play so very well, you
+know, it is no more than she is obliged to do, because she will have to
+teach. The Coxes were wondering last night whether she would get into
+any great family. How did you think the Coxes looked?”
+
+“Just as they always do--very vulgar.”
+
+“They told me something,” said Harriet rather hesitatingly; “but it is
+nothing of any consequence.”
+
+Emma was obliged to ask what they had told her, though fearful of its
+producing Mr. Elton.
+
+“They told me--that Mr. Martin dined with them last Saturday.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“He came to their father upon some business, and he asked him to stay to
+dinner.”
+
+“Oh!”
+
+“They talked a great deal about him, especially Anne Cox. I do not know
+what she meant, but she asked me if I thought I should go and stay there
+again next summer.”
+
+“She meant to be impertinently curious, just as such an Anne Cox should
+be.”
+
+“She said he was very agreeable the day he dined there. He sat by her at
+dinner. Miss Nash thinks either of the Coxes would be very glad to marry
+him.”
+
+“Very likely.--I think they are, without exception, the most vulgar
+girls in Highbury.”
+
+Harriet had business at Ford’s.--Emma thought it most prudent to go with
+her. Another accidental meeting with the Martins was possible, and in
+her present state, would be dangerous.
+
+Harriet, tempted by every thing and swayed by half a word, was always
+very long at a purchase; and while she was still hanging over muslins
+and changing her mind, Emma went to the door for amusement.--Much could
+not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;--Mr.
+Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the
+office-door, Mr. Cole’s carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a
+stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she
+could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with
+his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full
+basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling
+children round the baker’s little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she
+knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough
+still to stand at the door. A mind lively and at ease, can do with
+seeing nothing, and can see nothing that does not answer.
+
+She looked down the Randalls road. The scene enlarged; two persons
+appeared; Mrs. Weston and her son-in-law; they were walking into
+Highbury;--to Hartfield of course. They were stopping, however, in the
+first place at Mrs. Bates’s; whose house was a little nearer
+Randalls than Ford’s; and had all but knocked, when Emma caught their
+eye.--Immediately they crossed the road and came forward to her; and the
+agreeableness of yesterday’s engagement seemed to give fresh pleasure to
+the present meeting. Mrs. Weston informed her that she was going to call
+on the Bateses, in order to hear the new instrument.
+
+“For my companion tells me,” said she, “that I absolutely promised Miss
+Bates last night, that I would come this morning. I was not aware of it
+myself. I did not know that I had fixed a day, but as he says I did, I
+am going now.”
+
+“And while Mrs. Weston pays her visit, I may be allowed, I hope,” said
+Frank Churchill, “to join your party and wait for her at Hartfield--if
+you are going home.”
+
+Mrs. Weston was disappointed.
+
+“I thought you meant to go with me. They would be very much pleased.”
+
+“Me! I should be quite in the way. But, perhaps--I may be equally in the
+way here. Miss Woodhouse looks as if she did not want me. My aunt always
+sends me off when she is shopping. She says I fidget her to death; and
+Miss Woodhouse looks as if she could almost say the same. What am I to
+do?”
+
+“I am here on no business of my own,” said Emma; “I am only waiting for
+my friend. She will probably have soon done, and then we shall go home.
+But you had better go with Mrs. Weston and hear the instrument.”
+
+“Well--if you advise it.--But (with a smile) if Colonel Campbell should
+have employed a careless friend, and if it should prove to have an
+indifferent tone--what shall I say? I shall be no support to Mrs.
+Weston. She might do very well by herself. A disagreeable truth would be
+palatable through her lips, but I am the wretchedest being in the world
+at a civil falsehood.”
+
+“I do not believe any such thing,” replied Emma.--“I am persuaded that
+you can be as insincere as your neighbours, when it is necessary; but
+there is no reason to suppose the instrument is indifferent. Quite
+otherwise indeed, if I understood Miss Fairfax’s opinion last night.”
+
+“Do come with me,” said Mrs. Weston, “if it be not very disagreeable to
+you. It need not detain us long. We will go to Hartfield afterwards.
+We will follow them to Hartfield. I really wish you to call with me. It
+will be felt so great an attention! and I always thought you meant it.”
+
+He could say no more; and with the hope of Hartfield to reward him,
+returned with Mrs. Weston to Mrs. Bates’s door. Emma watched them in,
+and then joined Harriet at the interesting counter,--trying, with all
+the force of her own mind, to convince her that if she wanted plain
+muslin it was of no use to look at figured; and that a blue ribbon, be
+it ever so beautiful, would still never match her yellow pattern. At
+last it was all settled, even to the destination of the parcel.
+
+“Should I send it to Mrs. Goddard’s, ma’am?” asked Mrs.
+Ford.--“Yes--no--yes, to Mrs. Goddard’s. Only my pattern gown is at
+Hartfield. No, you shall send it to Hartfield, if you please. But then,
+Mrs. Goddard will want to see it.--And I could take the pattern gown
+home any day. But I shall want the ribbon directly--so it had better go
+to Hartfield--at least the ribbon. You could make it into two parcels,
+Mrs. Ford, could not you?”
+
+“It is not worth while, Harriet, to give Mrs. Ford the trouble of two
+parcels.”
+
+“No more it is.”
+
+“No trouble in the world, ma’am,” said the obliging Mrs. Ford.
+
+“Oh! but indeed I would much rather have it only in one. Then, if you
+please, you shall send it all to Mrs. Goddard’s--I do not know--No, I
+think, Miss Woodhouse, I may just as well have it sent to Hartfield, and
+take it home with me at night. What do you advise?”
+
+“That you do not give another half-second to the subject. To Hartfield,
+if you please, Mrs. Ford.”
+
+“Aye, that will be much best,” said Harriet, quite satisfied, “I should
+not at all like to have it sent to Mrs. Goddard’s.”
+
+Voices approached the shop--or rather one voice and two ladies: Mrs.
+Weston and Miss Bates met them at the door.
+
+“My dear Miss Woodhouse,” said the latter, “I am just run across to
+entreat the favour of you to come and sit down with us a little while,
+and give us your opinion of our new instrument; you and Miss Smith. How
+do you do, Miss Smith?--Very well I thank you.--And I begged Mrs. Weston
+to come with me, that I might be sure of succeeding.”
+
+“I hope Mrs. Bates and Miss Fairfax are--”
+
+“Very well, I am much obliged to you. My mother is delightfully well;
+and Jane caught no cold last night. How is Mr. Woodhouse?--I am so glad
+to hear such a good account. Mrs. Weston told me you were here.--Oh!
+then, said I, I must run across, I am sure Miss Woodhouse will allow me
+just to run across and entreat her to come in; my mother will be so
+very happy to see her--and now we are such a nice party, she cannot
+refuse.--‘Aye, pray do,’ said Mr. Frank Churchill, ‘Miss Woodhouse’s
+opinion of the instrument will be worth having.’--But, said I, I shall
+be more sure of succeeding if one of you will go with me.--‘Oh,’ said
+he, ‘wait half a minute, till I have finished my job;’--For, would you
+believe it, Miss Woodhouse, there he is, in the most obliging manner in
+the world, fastening in the rivet of my mother’s spectacles.--The rivet
+came out, you know, this morning.--So very obliging!--For my mother had
+no use of her spectacles--could not put them on. And, by the bye, every
+body ought to have two pair of spectacles; they should indeed. Jane said
+so. I meant to take them over to John Saunders the first thing I did,
+but something or other hindered me all the morning; first one thing,
+then another, there is no saying what, you know. At one time Patty came
+to say she thought the kitchen chimney wanted sweeping. Oh, said I,
+Patty do not come with your bad news to me. Here is the rivet of your
+mistress’s spectacles out. Then the baked apples came home, Mrs. Wallis
+sent them by her boy; they are extremely civil and obliging to us, the
+Wallises, always--I have heard some people say that Mrs. Wallis can be
+uncivil and give a very rude answer, but we have never known any thing
+but the greatest attention from them. And it cannot be for the value
+of our custom now, for what is our consumption of bread, you know?
+Only three of us.--besides dear Jane at present--and she really eats
+nothing--makes such a shocking breakfast, you would be quite frightened
+if you saw it. I dare not let my mother know how little she eats--so I
+say one thing and then I say another, and it passes off. But about the
+middle of the day she gets hungry, and there is nothing she likes so
+well as these baked apples, and they are extremely wholesome, for I took
+the opportunity the other day of asking Mr. Perry; I happened to meet
+him in the street. Not that I had any doubt before--I have so often
+heard Mr. Woodhouse recommend a baked apple. I believe it is the only
+way that Mr. Woodhouse thinks the fruit thoroughly wholesome. We
+have apple-dumplings, however, very often. Patty makes an excellent
+apple-dumpling. Well, Mrs. Weston, you have prevailed, I hope, and these
+ladies will oblige us.”
+
+Emma would be “very happy to wait on Mrs. Bates, &c.,” and they did at
+last move out of the shop, with no farther delay from Miss Bates than,
+
+“How do you do, Mrs. Ford? I beg your pardon. I did not see you before.
+I hear you have a charming collection of new ribbons from town. Jane
+came back delighted yesterday. Thank ye, the gloves do very well--only a
+little too large about the wrist; but Jane is taking them in.”
+
+“What was I talking of?” said she, beginning again when they were all in
+the street.
+
+Emma wondered on what, of all the medley, she would fix.
+
+“I declare I cannot recollect what I was talking of.--Oh! my mother’s
+spectacles. So very obliging of Mr. Frank Churchill! ‘Oh!’ said he,
+‘I do think I can fasten the rivet; I like a job of this kind
+excessively.’--Which you know shewed him to be so very.... Indeed I must
+say that, much as I had heard of him before and much as I had expected,
+he very far exceeds any thing.... I do congratulate you, Mrs. Weston,
+most warmly. He seems every thing the fondest parent could....
+‘Oh!’ said he, ‘I can fasten the rivet. I like a job of that sort
+excessively.’ I never shall forget his manner. And when I brought out
+the baked apples from the closet, and hoped our friends would be so very
+obliging as to take some, ‘Oh!’ said he directly, ‘there is nothing
+in the way of fruit half so good, and these are the finest-looking
+home-baked apples I ever saw in my life.’ That, you know, was so
+very.... And I am sure, by his manner, it was no compliment. Indeed they
+are very delightful apples, and Mrs. Wallis does them full justice--only
+we do not have them baked more than twice, and Mr. Woodhouse made us
+promise to have them done three times--but Miss Woodhouse will be so
+good as not to mention it. The apples themselves are the very finest
+sort for baking, beyond a doubt; all from Donwell--some of Mr.
+Knightley’s most liberal supply. He sends us a sack every year; and
+certainly there never was such a keeping apple anywhere as one of his
+trees--I believe there is two of them. My mother says the orchard was
+always famous in her younger days. But I was really quite shocked the
+other day--for Mr. Knightley called one morning, and Jane was eating
+these apples, and we talked about them and said how much she enjoyed
+them, and he asked whether we were not got to the end of our stock. ‘I
+am sure you must be,’ said he, ‘and I will send you another supply; for
+I have a great many more than I can ever use. William Larkins let me
+keep a larger quantity than usual this year. I will send you some more,
+before they get good for nothing.’ So I begged he would not--for really
+as to ours being gone, I could not absolutely say that we had a great
+many left--it was but half a dozen indeed; but they should be all kept
+for Jane; and I could not at all bear that he should be sending us more,
+so liberal as he had been already; and Jane said the same. And when
+he was gone, she almost quarrelled with me--No, I should not say
+quarrelled, for we never had a quarrel in our lives; but she was quite
+distressed that I had owned the apples were so nearly gone; she wished
+I had made him believe we had a great many left. Oh, said I, my dear,
+I did say as much as I could. However, the very same evening William
+Larkins came over with a large basket of apples, the same sort of
+apples, a bushel at least, and I was very much obliged, and went down
+and spoke to William Larkins and said every thing, as you may suppose.
+William Larkins is such an old acquaintance! I am always glad to see
+him. But, however, I found afterwards from Patty, that William said it
+was all the apples of _that_ sort his master had; he had brought them
+all--and now his master had not one left to bake or boil. William did
+not seem to mind it himself, he was so pleased to think his master had
+sold so many; for William, you know, thinks more of his master’s profit
+than any thing; but Mrs. Hodges, he said, was quite displeased at their
+being all sent away. She could not bear that her master should not be
+able to have another apple-tart this spring. He told Patty this, but bid
+her not mind it, and be sure not to say any thing to us about it, for
+Mrs. Hodges _would_ be cross sometimes, and as long as so many sacks
+were sold, it did not signify who ate the remainder. And so Patty told
+me, and I was excessively shocked indeed! I would not have Mr. Knightley
+know any thing about it for the world! He would be so very.... I wanted
+to keep it from Jane’s knowledge; but, unluckily, I had mentioned it
+before I was aware.”
+
+Miss Bates had just done as Patty opened the door; and her visitors
+walked upstairs without having any regular narration to attend to,
+pursued only by the sounds of her desultory good-will.
+
+“Pray take care, Mrs. Weston, there is a step at the turning. Pray take
+care, Miss Woodhouse, ours is rather a dark staircase--rather darker
+and narrower than one could wish. Miss Smith, pray take care. Miss
+Woodhouse, I am quite concerned, I am sure you hit your foot. Miss
+Smith, the step at the turning.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+The appearance of the little sitting-room as they entered, was
+tranquillity itself; Mrs. Bates, deprived of her usual employment,
+slumbering on one side of the fire, Frank Churchill, at a table near
+her, most deedily occupied about her spectacles, and Jane Fairfax,
+standing with her back to them, intent on her pianoforte.
+
+Busy as he was, however, the young man was yet able to shew a most happy
+countenance on seeing Emma again.
+
+“This is a pleasure,” said he, in rather a low voice, “coming at least
+ten minutes earlier than I had calculated. You find me trying to be
+useful; tell me if you think I shall succeed.”
+
+“What!” said Mrs. Weston, “have not you finished it yet? you would not
+earn a very good livelihood as a working silversmith at this rate.”
+
+“I have not been working uninterruptedly,” he replied, “I have been
+assisting Miss Fairfax in trying to make her instrument stand steadily,
+it was not quite firm; an unevenness in the floor, I believe. You see
+we have been wedging one leg with paper. This was very kind of you to be
+persuaded to come. I was almost afraid you would be hurrying home.”
+
+He contrived that she should be seated by him; and was sufficiently
+employed in looking out the best baked apple for her, and trying to make
+her help or advise him in his work, till Jane Fairfax was quite ready
+to sit down to the pianoforte again. That she was not immediately ready,
+Emma did suspect to arise from the state of her nerves; she had not yet
+possessed the instrument long enough to touch it without emotion; she
+must reason herself into the power of performance; and Emma could not
+but pity such feelings, whatever their origin, and could not but resolve
+never to expose them to her neighbour again.
+
+At last Jane began, and though the first bars were feebly given, the
+powers of the instrument were gradually done full justice to. Mrs.
+Weston had been delighted before, and was delighted again; Emma
+joined her in all her praise; and the pianoforte, with every proper
+discrimination, was pronounced to be altogether of the highest promise.
+
+“Whoever Colonel Campbell might employ,” said Frank Churchill, with a
+smile at Emma, “the person has not chosen ill. I heard a good deal of
+Colonel Campbell’s taste at Weymouth; and the softness of the upper
+notes I am sure is exactly what he and _all_ _that_ _party_ would
+particularly prize. I dare say, Miss Fairfax, that he either gave his
+friend very minute directions, or wrote to Broadwood himself. Do not you
+think so?”
+
+Jane did not look round. She was not obliged to hear. Mrs. Weston had
+been speaking to her at the same moment.
+
+“It is not fair,” said Emma, in a whisper; “mine was a random guess. Do
+not distress her.”
+
+He shook his head with a smile, and looked as if he had very little
+doubt and very little mercy. Soon afterwards he began again,
+
+“How much your friends in Ireland must be enjoying your pleasure on this
+occasion, Miss Fairfax. I dare say they often think of you, and wonder
+which will be the day, the precise day of the instrument’s coming to
+hand. Do you imagine Colonel Campbell knows the business to be going
+forward just at this time?--Do you imagine it to be the consequence
+of an immediate commission from him, or that he may have sent only
+a general direction, an order indefinite as to time, to depend upon
+contingencies and conveniences?”
+
+He paused. She could not but hear; she could not avoid answering,
+
+“Till I have a letter from Colonel Campbell,” said she, in a voice of
+forced calmness, “I can imagine nothing with any confidence. It must be
+all conjecture.”
+
+“Conjecture--aye, sometimes one conjectures right, and sometimes one
+conjectures wrong. I wish I could conjecture how soon I shall make this
+rivet quite firm. What nonsense one talks, Miss Woodhouse, when hard
+at work, if one talks at all;--your real workmen, I suppose, hold their
+tongues; but we gentlemen labourers if we get hold of a word--Miss
+Fairfax said something about conjecturing. There, it is done. I have the
+pleasure, madam, (to Mrs. Bates,) of restoring your spectacles, healed
+for the present.”
+
+He was very warmly thanked both by mother and daughter; to escape a
+little from the latter, he went to the pianoforte, and begged Miss
+Fairfax, who was still sitting at it, to play something more.
+
+“If you are very kind,” said he, “it will be one of the waltzes we
+danced last night;--let me live them over again. You did not enjoy them
+as I did; you appeared tired the whole time. I believe you were glad we
+danced no longer; but I would have given worlds--all the worlds one ever
+has to give--for another half-hour.”
+
+She played.
+
+“What felicity it is to hear a tune again which _has_ made one
+happy!--If I mistake not that was danced at Weymouth.”
+
+She looked up at him for a moment, coloured deeply, and played something
+else. He took some music from a chair near the pianoforte, and turning
+to Emma, said,
+
+“Here is something quite new to me. Do you know it?--Cramer.--And here
+are a new set of Irish melodies. That, from such a quarter, one might
+expect. This was all sent with the instrument. Very thoughtful of
+Colonel Campbell, was not it?--He knew Miss Fairfax could have no music
+here. I honour that part of the attention particularly; it shews it to
+have been so thoroughly from the heart. Nothing hastily done; nothing
+incomplete. True affection only could have prompted it.”
+
+Emma wished he would be less pointed, yet could not help being amused;
+and when on glancing her eye towards Jane Fairfax she caught the remains
+of a smile, when she saw that with all the deep blush of consciousness,
+there had been a smile of secret delight, she had less scruple in the
+amusement, and much less compunction with respect to her.--This
+amiable, upright, perfect Jane Fairfax was apparently cherishing very
+reprehensible feelings.
+
+He brought all the music to her, and they looked it over together.--Emma
+took the opportunity of whispering,
+
+“You speak too plain. She must understand you.”
+
+“I hope she does. I would have her understand me. I am not in the least
+ashamed of my meaning.”
+
+“But really, I am half ashamed, and wish I had never taken up the idea.”
+
+“I am very glad you did, and that you communicated it to me. I have now
+a key to all her odd looks and ways. Leave shame to her. If she does
+wrong, she ought to feel it.”
+
+“She is not entirely without it, I think.”
+
+“I do not see much sign of it. She is playing _Robin_ _Adair_ at this
+moment--_his_ favourite.”
+
+Shortly afterwards Miss Bates, passing near the window, descried Mr.
+Knightley on horse-back not far off.
+
+“Mr. Knightley I declare!--I must speak to him if possible, just to
+thank him. I will not open the window here; it would give you all cold;
+but I can go into my mother’s room you know. I dare say he will come
+in when he knows who is here. Quite delightful to have you all meet
+so!--Our little room so honoured!”
+
+She was in the adjoining chamber while she still spoke, and opening the
+casement there, immediately called Mr. Knightley’s attention, and every
+syllable of their conversation was as distinctly heard by the others, as
+if it had passed within the same apartment.
+
+“How d’ ye do?--how d’ye do?--Very well, I thank you. So obliged to you
+for the carriage last night. We were just in time; my mother just ready
+for us. Pray come in; do come in. You will find some friends here.”
+
+So began Miss Bates; and Mr. Knightley seemed determined to be heard in
+his turn, for most resolutely and commandingly did he say,
+
+“How is your niece, Miss Bates?--I want to inquire after you all, but
+particularly your niece. How is Miss Fairfax?--I hope she caught no cold
+last night. How is she to-day? Tell me how Miss Fairfax is.”
+
+And Miss Bates was obliged to give a direct answer before he would hear
+her in any thing else. The listeners were amused; and Mrs. Weston gave
+Emma a look of particular meaning. But Emma still shook her head in
+steady scepticism.
+
+“So obliged to you!--so very much obliged to you for the carriage,”
+ resumed Miss Bates.
+
+He cut her short with,
+
+“I am going to Kingston. Can I do any thing for you?”
+
+“Oh! dear, Kingston--are you?--Mrs. Cole was saying the other day she
+wanted something from Kingston.”
+
+“Mrs. Cole has servants to send. Can I do any thing for _you_?”
+
+“No, I thank you. But do come in. Who do you think is here?--Miss
+Woodhouse and Miss Smith; so kind as to call to hear the new pianoforte.
+Do put up your horse at the Crown, and come in.”
+
+“Well,” said he, in a deliberating manner, “for five minutes, perhaps.”
+
+“And here is Mrs. Weston and Mr. Frank Churchill too!--Quite delightful;
+so many friends!”
+
+“No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on
+to Kingston as fast as I can.”
+
+“Oh! do come in. They will be so very happy to see you.”
+
+“No, no; your room is full enough. I will call another day, and hear the
+pianoforte.”
+
+“Well, I am so sorry!--Oh! Mr. Knightley, what a delightful party last
+night; how extremely pleasant.--Did you ever see such dancing?--Was not
+it delightful?--Miss Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill; I never saw any
+thing equal to it.”
+
+“Oh! very delightful indeed; I can say nothing less, for I suppose Miss
+Woodhouse and Mr. Frank Churchill are hearing every thing that passes.
+And (raising his voice still more) I do not see why Miss Fairfax should
+not be mentioned too. I think Miss Fairfax dances very well; and Mrs.
+Weston is the very best country-dance player, without exception,
+in England. Now, if your friends have any gratitude, they will say
+something pretty loud about you and me in return; but I cannot stay to
+hear it.”
+
+“Oh! Mr. Knightley, one moment more; something of consequence--so
+shocked!--Jane and I are both so shocked about the apples!”
+
+“What is the matter now?”
+
+“To think of your sending us all your store apples. You said you had
+a great many, and now you have not one left. We really are so shocked!
+Mrs. Hodges may well be angry. William Larkins mentioned it here. You
+should not have done it, indeed you should not. Ah! he is off. He never
+can bear to be thanked. But I thought he would have staid now, and it
+would have been a pity not to have mentioned.... Well, (returning to the
+room,) I have not been able to succeed. Mr. Knightley cannot stop. He is
+going to Kingston. He asked me if he could do any thing....”
+
+“Yes,” said Jane, “we heard his kind offers, we heard every thing.”
+
+“Oh! yes, my dear, I dare say you might, because you know, the door was
+open, and the window was open, and Mr. Knightley spoke loud. You must
+have heard every thing to be sure. ‘Can I do any thing for you at
+Kingston?’ said he; so I just mentioned.... Oh! Miss Woodhouse, must you
+be going?--You seem but just come--so very obliging of you.”
+
+Emma found it really time to be at home; the visit had already lasted
+long; and on examining watches, so much of the morning was perceived
+to be gone, that Mrs. Weston and her companion taking leave also, could
+allow themselves only to walk with the two young ladies to Hartfield
+gates, before they set off for Randalls.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+It may be possible to do without dancing entirely. Instances have been
+known of young people passing many, many months successively, without
+being at any ball of any description, and no material injury accrue
+either to body or mind;--but when a beginning is made--when the
+felicities of rapid motion have once been, though slightly, felt--it
+must be a very heavy set that does not ask for more.
+
+Frank Churchill had danced once at Highbury, and longed to dance again;
+and the last half-hour of an evening which Mr. Woodhouse was persuaded
+to spend with his daughter at Randalls, was passed by the two young
+people in schemes on the subject. Frank’s was the first idea; and his
+the greatest zeal in pursuing it; for the lady was the best judge of the
+difficulties, and the most solicitous for accommodation and appearance.
+But still she had inclination enough for shewing people again how
+delightfully Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse danced--for
+doing that in which she need not blush to compare herself with Jane
+Fairfax--and even for simple dancing itself, without any of the wicked
+aids of vanity--to assist him first in pacing out the room they were in
+to see what it could be made to hold--and then in taking the dimensions
+of the other parlour, in the hope of discovering, in spite of all that
+Mr. Weston could say of their exactly equal size, that it was a little
+the largest.
+
+His first proposition and request, that the dance begun at Mr. Cole’s
+should be finished there--that the same party should be collected,
+and the same musician engaged, met with the readiest acquiescence. Mr.
+Weston entered into the idea with thorough enjoyment, and Mrs. Weston
+most willingly undertook to play as long as they could wish to dance;
+and the interesting employment had followed, of reckoning up exactly who
+there would be, and portioning out the indispensable division of space
+to every couple.
+
+“You and Miss Smith, and Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss
+Coxes five,” had been repeated many times over. “And there will be the
+two Gilberts, young Cox, my father, and myself, besides Mr. Knightley.
+Yes, that will be quite enough for pleasure. You and Miss Smith, and
+Miss Fairfax, will be three, and the two Miss Coxes five; and for five
+couple there will be plenty of room.”
+
+But soon it came to be on one side,
+
+“But will there be good room for five couple?--I really do not think
+there will.”
+
+On another,
+
+“And after all, five couple are not enough to make it worth while to
+stand up. Five couple are nothing, when one thinks seriously about it.
+It will not do to _invite_ five couple. It can be allowable only as the
+thought of the moment.”
+
+Somebody said that _Miss_ Gilbert was expected at her brother’s, and
+must be invited with the rest. Somebody else believed _Mrs_. Gilbert
+would have danced the other evening, if she had been asked. A word was
+put in for a second young Cox; and at last, Mr. Weston naming one family
+of cousins who must be included, and another of very old acquaintance
+who could not be left out, it became a certainty that the five couple
+would be at least ten, and a very interesting speculation in what
+possible manner they could be disposed of.
+
+The doors of the two rooms were just opposite each other. “Might not
+they use both rooms, and dance across the passage?” It seemed the
+best scheme; and yet it was not so good but that many of them wanted a
+better. Emma said it would be awkward; Mrs. Weston was in distress about
+the supper; and Mr. Woodhouse opposed it earnestly, on the score of
+health. It made him so very unhappy, indeed, that it could not be
+persevered in.
+
+“Oh! no,” said he; “it would be the extreme of imprudence. I could not
+bear it for Emma!--Emma is not strong. She would catch a dreadful cold.
+So would poor little Harriet. So you would all. Mrs. Weston, you would
+be quite laid up; do not let them talk of such a wild thing. Pray do
+not let them talk of it. That young man (speaking lower) is very
+thoughtless. Do not tell his father, but that young man is not quite
+the thing. He has been opening the doors very often this evening,
+and keeping them open very inconsiderately. He does not think of the
+draught. I do not mean to set you against him, but indeed he is not
+quite the thing!”
+
+Mrs. Weston was sorry for such a charge. She knew the importance of
+it, and said every thing in her power to do it away. Every door was now
+closed, the passage plan given up, and the first scheme of dancing only
+in the room they were in resorted to again; and with such good-will on
+Frank Churchill’s part, that the space which a quarter of an hour before
+had been deemed barely sufficient for five couple, was now endeavoured
+to be made out quite enough for ten.
+
+“We were too magnificent,” said he. “We allowed unnecessary room. Ten
+couple may stand here very well.”
+
+Emma demurred. “It would be a crowd--a sad crowd; and what could be
+worse than dancing without space to turn in?”
+
+“Very true,” he gravely replied; “it was very bad.” But still he went on
+measuring, and still he ended with,
+
+“I think there will be very tolerable room for ten couple.”
+
+“No, no,” said she, “you are quite unreasonable. It would be dreadful
+to be standing so close! Nothing can be farther from pleasure than to be
+dancing in a crowd--and a crowd in a little room!”
+
+“There is no denying it,” he replied. “I agree with you exactly. A crowd
+in a little room--Miss Woodhouse, you have the art of giving pictures
+in a few words. Exquisite, quite exquisite!--Still, however, having
+proceeded so far, one is unwilling to give the matter up. It would be
+a disappointment to my father--and altogether--I do not know that--I am
+rather of opinion that ten couple might stand here very well.”
+
+Emma perceived that the nature of his gallantry was a little
+self-willed, and that he would rather oppose than lose the pleasure of
+dancing with her; but she took the compliment, and forgave the rest.
+Had she intended ever to _marry_ him, it might have been worth while to
+pause and consider, and try to understand the value of his preference,
+and the character of his temper; but for all the purposes of their
+acquaintance, he was quite amiable enough.
+
+Before the middle of the next day, he was at Hartfield; and he entered
+the room with such an agreeable smile as certified the continuance of
+the scheme. It soon appeared that he came to announce an improvement.
+
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” he almost immediately began, “your inclination
+for dancing has not been quite frightened away, I hope, by the terrors
+of my father’s little rooms. I bring a new proposal on the subject:--a
+thought of my father’s, which waits only your approbation to be acted
+upon. May I hope for the honour of your hand for the two first dances
+of this little projected ball, to be given, not at Randalls, but at the
+Crown Inn?”
+
+“The Crown!”
+
+“Yes; if you and Mr. Woodhouse see no objection, and I trust you cannot,
+my father hopes his friends will be so kind as to visit him there.
+Better accommodations, he can promise them, and not a less grateful
+welcome than at Randalls. It is his own idea. Mrs. Weston sees no
+objection to it, provided you are satisfied. This is what we all feel.
+Oh! you were perfectly right! Ten couple, in either of the Randalls
+rooms, would have been insufferable!--Dreadful!--I felt how right you
+were the whole time, but was too anxious for securing _any_ _thing_
+to like to yield. Is not it a good exchange?--You consent--I hope you
+consent?”
+
+“It appears to me a plan that nobody can object to, if Mr. and Mrs.
+Weston do not. I think it admirable; and, as far as I can answer for
+myself, shall be most happy--It seems the only improvement that could
+be. Papa, do you not think it an excellent improvement?”
+
+She was obliged to repeat and explain it, before it was fully
+comprehended; and then, being quite new, farther representations were
+necessary to make it acceptable.
+
+“No; he thought it very far from an improvement--a very bad plan--much
+worse than the other. A room at an inn was always damp and dangerous;
+never properly aired, or fit to be inhabited. If they must dance, they
+had better dance at Randalls. He had never been in the room at the Crown
+in his life--did not know the people who kept it by sight.--Oh! no--a
+very bad plan. They would catch worse colds at the Crown than anywhere.”
+
+“I was going to observe, sir,” said Frank Churchill, “that one of the
+great recommendations of this change would be the very little danger
+of any body’s catching cold--so much less danger at the Crown than at
+Randalls! Mr. Perry might have reason to regret the alteration, but
+nobody else could.”
+
+“Sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse, rather warmly, “you are very much mistaken
+if you suppose Mr. Perry to be that sort of character. Mr. Perry is
+extremely concerned when any of us are ill. But I do not understand how
+the room at the Crown can be safer for you than your father’s house.”
+
+“From the very circumstance of its being larger, sir. We shall have no
+occasion to open the windows at all--not once the whole evening; and it
+is that dreadful habit of opening the windows, letting in cold air upon
+heated bodies, which (as you well know, sir) does the mischief.”
+
+“Open the windows!--but surely, Mr. Churchill, nobody would think of
+opening the windows at Randalls. Nobody could be so imprudent! I never
+heard of such a thing. Dancing with open windows!--I am sure, neither
+your father nor Mrs. Weston (poor Miss Taylor that was) would suffer
+it.”
+
+“Ah! sir--but a thoughtless young person will sometimes step behind a
+window-curtain, and throw up a sash, without its being suspected. I have
+often known it done myself.”
+
+“Have you indeed, sir?--Bless me! I never could have supposed it. But I
+live out of the world, and am often astonished at what I hear. However,
+this does make a difference; and, perhaps, when we come to talk it
+over--but these sort of things require a good deal of consideration. One
+cannot resolve upon them in a hurry. If Mr. and Mrs. Weston will be so
+obliging as to call here one morning, we may talk it over, and see what
+can be done.”
+
+“But, unfortunately, sir, my time is so limited--”
+
+“Oh!” interrupted Emma, “there will be plenty of time for talking every
+thing over. There is no hurry at all. If it can be contrived to be at
+the Crown, papa, it will be very convenient for the horses. They will be
+so near their own stable.”
+
+“So they will, my dear. That is a great thing. Not that James ever
+complains; but it is right to spare our horses when we can. If I could
+be sure of the rooms being thoroughly aired--but is Mrs. Stokes to be
+trusted? I doubt it. I do not know her, even by sight.”
+
+“I can answer for every thing of that nature, sir, because it will be
+under Mrs. Weston’s care. Mrs. Weston undertakes to direct the whole.”
+
+“There, papa!--Now you must be satisfied--Our own dear Mrs. Weston, who
+is carefulness itself. Do not you remember what Mr. Perry said, so many
+years ago, when I had the measles? ‘If _Miss_ _Taylor_ undertakes to
+wrap Miss Emma up, you need not have any fears, sir.’ How often have I
+heard you speak of it as such a compliment to her!”
+
+“Aye, very true. Mr. Perry did say so. I shall never forget it. Poor
+little Emma! You were very bad with the measles; that is, you would have
+been very bad, but for Perry’s great attention. He came four times a day
+for a week. He said, from the first, it was a very good sort--which
+was our great comfort; but the measles are a dreadful complaint. I hope
+whenever poor Isabella’s little ones have the measles, she will send for
+Perry.”
+
+“My father and Mrs. Weston are at the Crown at this moment,” said Frank
+Churchill, “examining the capabilities of the house. I left them there
+and came on to Hartfield, impatient for your opinion, and hoping you
+might be persuaded to join them and give your advice on the spot. I was
+desired to say so from both. It would be the greatest pleasure to
+them, if you could allow me to attend you there. They can do nothing
+satisfactorily without you.”
+
+Emma was most happy to be called to such a council; and her father,
+engaging to think it all over while she was gone, the two young people
+set off together without delay for the Crown. There were Mr. and Mrs.
+Weston; delighted to see her and receive her approbation, very busy and
+very happy in their different way; she, in some little distress; and he,
+finding every thing perfect.
+
+“Emma,” said she, “this paper is worse than I expected. Look! in places
+you see it is dreadfully dirty; and the wainscot is more yellow and
+forlorn than any thing I could have imagined.”
+
+“My dear, you are too particular,” said her husband. “What does all that
+signify? You will see nothing of it by candlelight. It will be as
+clean as Randalls by candlelight. We never see any thing of it on our
+club-nights.”
+
+The ladies here probably exchanged looks which meant, “Men never know
+when things are dirty or not;” and the gentlemen perhaps thought each to
+himself, “Women will have their little nonsenses and needless cares.”
+
+One perplexity, however, arose, which the gentlemen did not disdain.
+It regarded a supper-room. At the time of the ballroom’s being built,
+suppers had not been in question; and a small card-room adjoining, was
+the only addition. What was to be done? This card-room would be wanted
+as a card-room now; or, if cards were conveniently voted unnecessary
+by their four selves, still was it not too small for any comfortable
+supper? Another room of much better size might be secured for the
+purpose; but it was at the other end of the house, and a long awkward
+passage must be gone through to get at it. This made a difficulty. Mrs.
+Weston was afraid of draughts for the young people in that passage;
+and neither Emma nor the gentlemen could tolerate the prospect of being
+miserably crowded at supper.
+
+Mrs. Weston proposed having no regular supper; merely sandwiches,
+&c., set out in the little room; but that was scouted as a wretched
+suggestion. A private dance, without sitting down to supper, was
+pronounced an infamous fraud upon the rights of men and women; and
+Mrs. Weston must not speak of it again. She then took another line of
+expediency, and looking into the doubtful room, observed,
+
+“I do not think it _is_ so very small. We shall not be many, you know.”
+
+And Mr. Weston at the same time, walking briskly with long steps through
+the passage, was calling out,
+
+“You talk a great deal of the length of this passage, my dear. It is a
+mere nothing after all; and not the least draught from the stairs.”
+
+“I wish,” said Mrs. Weston, “one could know which arrangement our guests
+in general would like best. To do what would be most generally pleasing
+must be our object--if one could but tell what that would be.”
+
+“Yes, very true,” cried Frank, “very true. You want your neighbours’
+opinions. I do not wonder at you. If one could ascertain what the chief
+of them--the Coles, for instance. They are not far off. Shall I call
+upon them? Or Miss Bates? She is still nearer.--And I do not know
+whether Miss Bates is not as likely to understand the inclinations of
+the rest of the people as any body. I think we do want a larger council.
+Suppose I go and invite Miss Bates to join us?”
+
+“Well--if you please,” said Mrs. Weston rather hesitating, “if you think
+she will be of any use.”
+
+“You will get nothing to the purpose from Miss Bates,” said Emma. “She
+will be all delight and gratitude, but she will tell you nothing. She
+will not even listen to your questions. I see no advantage in consulting
+Miss Bates.”
+
+“But she is so amusing, so extremely amusing! I am very fond of hearing
+Miss Bates talk. And I need not bring the whole family, you know.”
+
+Here Mr. Weston joined them, and on hearing what was proposed, gave it
+his decided approbation.
+
+“Aye, do, Frank.--Go and fetch Miss Bates, and let us end the matter at
+once. She will enjoy the scheme, I am sure; and I do not know a properer
+person for shewing us how to do away difficulties. Fetch Miss Bates.
+We are growing a little too nice. She is a standing lesson of how to be
+happy. But fetch them both. Invite them both.”
+
+“Both sir! Can the old lady?”...
+
+“The old lady! No, the young lady, to be sure. I shall think you a great
+blockhead, Frank, if you bring the aunt without the niece.”
+
+“Oh! I beg your pardon, sir. I did not immediately recollect.
+Undoubtedly if you wish it, I will endeavour to persuade them both.” And
+away he ran.
+
+Long before he reappeared, attending the short, neat, brisk-moving aunt,
+and her elegant niece,--Mrs. Weston, like a sweet-tempered woman and
+a good wife, had examined the passage again, and found the evils of it
+much less than she had supposed before--indeed very trifling; and here
+ended the difficulties of decision. All the rest, in speculation at
+least, was perfectly smooth. All the minor arrangements of table and
+chair, lights and music, tea and supper, made themselves; or were left
+as mere trifles to be settled at any time between Mrs. Weston and Mrs.
+Stokes.--Every body invited, was certainly to come; Frank had already
+written to Enscombe to propose staying a few days beyond his fortnight,
+which could not possibly be refused. And a delightful dance it was to
+be.
+
+Most cordially, when Miss Bates arrived, did she agree that it must.
+As a counsellor she was not wanted; but as an approver, (a much safer
+character,) she was truly welcome. Her approbation, at once general
+and minute, warm and incessant, could not but please; and for another
+half-hour they were all walking to and fro, between the different rooms,
+some suggesting, some attending, and all in happy enjoyment of the
+future. The party did not break up without Emma’s being positively
+secured for the two first dances by the hero of the evening, nor without
+her overhearing Mr. Weston whisper to his wife, “He has asked her, my
+dear. That’s right. I knew he would!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+One thing only was wanting to make the prospect of the ball completely
+satisfactory to Emma--its being fixed for a day within the granted
+term of Frank Churchill’s stay in Surry; for, in spite of Mr. Weston’s
+confidence, she could not think it so very impossible that the
+Churchills might not allow their nephew to remain a day beyond his
+fortnight. But this was not judged feasible. The preparations must take
+their time, nothing could be properly ready till the third week were
+entered on, and for a few days they must be planning, proceeding and
+hoping in uncertainty--at the risk--in her opinion, the great risk, of
+its being all in vain.
+
+Enscombe however was gracious, gracious in fact, if not in word. His
+wish of staying longer evidently did not please; but it was not opposed.
+All was safe and prosperous; and as the removal of one solicitude
+generally makes way for another, Emma, being now certain of her
+ball, began to adopt as the next vexation Mr. Knightley’s provoking
+indifference about it. Either because he did not dance himself, or
+because the plan had been formed without his being consulted, he
+seemed resolved that it should not interest him, determined against its
+exciting any present curiosity, or affording him any future amusement.
+To her voluntary communications Emma could get no more approving reply,
+than,
+
+“Very well. If the Westons think it worth while to be at all this
+trouble for a few hours of noisy entertainment, I have nothing to say
+against it, but that they shall not chuse pleasures for me.--Oh! yes,
+I must be there; I could not refuse; and I will keep as much awake as
+I can; but I would rather be at home, looking over William Larkins’s
+week’s account; much rather, I confess.--Pleasure in seeing
+dancing!--not I, indeed--I never look at it--I do not know who
+does.--Fine dancing, I believe, like virtue, must be its own reward.
+Those who are standing by are usually thinking of something very
+different.”
+
+This Emma felt was aimed at her; and it made her quite angry. It was not
+in compliment to Jane Fairfax however that he was so indifferent, or so
+indignant; he was not guided by _her_ feelings in reprobating the ball,
+for _she_ enjoyed the thought of it to an extraordinary degree. It made
+her animated--open hearted--she voluntarily said;--
+
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, I hope nothing may happen to prevent the ball.
+What a disappointment it would be! I do look forward to it, I own, with
+_very_ great pleasure.”
+
+It was not to oblige Jane Fairfax therefore that he would have preferred
+the society of William Larkins. No!--she was more and more convinced
+that Mrs. Weston was quite mistaken in that surmise. There was a great
+deal of friendly and of compassionate attachment on his side--but no
+love.
+
+Alas! there was soon no leisure for quarrelling with Mr. Knightley. Two
+days of joyful security were immediately followed by the over-throw of
+every thing. A letter arrived from Mr. Churchill to urge his nephew’s
+instant return. Mrs. Churchill was unwell--far too unwell to do without
+him; she had been in a very suffering state (so said her husband)
+when writing to her nephew two days before, though from her usual
+unwillingness to give pain, and constant habit of never thinking of
+herself, she had not mentioned it; but now she was too ill to trifle,
+and must entreat him to set off for Enscombe without delay.
+
+The substance of this letter was forwarded to Emma, in a note from Mrs.
+Weston, instantly. As to his going, it was inevitable. He must be gone
+within a few hours, though without feeling any real alarm for his aunt,
+to lessen his repugnance. He knew her illnesses; they never occurred but
+for her own convenience.
+
+Mrs. Weston added, “that he could only allow himself time to hurry to
+Highbury, after breakfast, and take leave of the few friends there
+whom he could suppose to feel any interest in him; and that he might be
+expected at Hartfield very soon.”
+
+This wretched note was the finale of Emma’s breakfast. When once it had
+been read, there was no doing any thing, but lament and exclaim. The
+loss of the ball--the loss of the young man--and all that the young man
+might be feeling!--It was too wretched!--Such a delightful evening as
+it would have been!--Every body so happy! and she and her partner the
+happiest!--“I said it would be so,” was the only consolation.
+
+Her father’s feelings were quite distinct. He thought principally of
+Mrs. Churchill’s illness, and wanted to know how she was treated; and as
+for the ball, it was shocking to have dear Emma disappointed; but they
+would all be safer at home.
+
+Emma was ready for her visitor some time before he appeared; but if this
+reflected at all upon his impatience, his sorrowful look and total want
+of spirits when he did come might redeem him. He felt the going away
+almost too much to speak of it. His dejection was most evident. He
+sat really lost in thought for the first few minutes; and when rousing
+himself, it was only to say,
+
+“Of all horrid things, leave-taking is the worst.”
+
+“But you will come again,” said Emma. “This will not be your only visit
+to Randalls.”
+
+“Ah!--(shaking his head)--the uncertainty of when I may be able to
+return!--I shall try for it with a zeal!--It will be the object of
+all my thoughts and cares!--and if my uncle and aunt go to town this
+spring--but I am afraid--they did not stir last spring--I am afraid it
+is a custom gone for ever.”
+
+“Our poor ball must be quite given up.”
+
+“Ah! that ball!--why did we wait for any thing?--why not seize the
+pleasure at once?--How often is happiness destroyed by preparation,
+foolish preparation!--You told us it would be so.--Oh! Miss Woodhouse,
+why are you always so right?”
+
+“Indeed, I am very sorry to be right in this instance. I would much
+rather have been merry than wise.”
+
+“If I can come again, we are still to have our ball. My father depends
+on it. Do not forget your engagement.”
+
+Emma looked graciously.
+
+“Such a fortnight as it has been!” he continued; “every day more
+precious and more delightful than the day before!--every day making
+me less fit to bear any other place. Happy those, who can remain at
+Highbury!”
+
+“As you do us such ample justice now,” said Emma, laughing, “I will
+venture to ask, whether you did not come a little doubtfully at first?
+Do not we rather surpass your expectations? I am sure we do. I am sure
+you did not much expect to like us. You would not have been so long in
+coming, if you had had a pleasant idea of Highbury.”
+
+He laughed rather consciously; and though denying the sentiment, Emma
+was convinced that it had been so.
+
+“And you must be off this very morning?”
+
+“Yes; my father is to join me here: we shall walk back together, and I
+must be off immediately. I am almost afraid that every moment will bring
+him.”
+
+“Not five minutes to spare even for your friends Miss Fairfax and Miss
+Bates? How unlucky! Miss Bates’s powerful, argumentative mind might have
+strengthened yours.”
+
+“Yes--I _have_ called there; passing the door, I thought it better. It
+was a right thing to do. I went in for three minutes, and was detained
+by Miss Bates’s being absent. She was out; and I felt it impossible not
+to wait till she came in. She is a woman that one may, that one _must_
+laugh at; but that one would not wish to slight. It was better to pay my
+visit, then”--
+
+He hesitated, got up, walked to a window.
+
+“In short,” said he, “perhaps, Miss Woodhouse--I think you can hardly be
+quite without suspicion”--
+
+He looked at her, as if wanting to read her thoughts. She hardly knew
+what to say. It seemed like the forerunner of something absolutely
+serious, which she did not wish. Forcing herself to speak, therefore, in
+the hope of putting it by, she calmly said,
+
+“You are quite in the right; it was most natural to pay your visit,
+then”--
+
+He was silent. She believed he was looking at her; probably reflecting
+on what she had said, and trying to understand the manner. She heard
+him sigh. It was natural for him to feel that he had _cause_ to sigh.
+He could not believe her to be encouraging him. A few awkward moments
+passed, and he sat down again; and in a more determined manner said,
+
+“It was something to feel that all the rest of my time might be given to
+Hartfield. My regard for Hartfield is most warm”--
+
+He stopt again, rose again, and seemed quite embarrassed.--He was more
+in love with her than Emma had supposed; and who can say how it might
+have ended, if his father had not made his appearance? Mr. Woodhouse
+soon followed; and the necessity of exertion made him composed.
+
+A very few minutes more, however, completed the present trial. Mr.
+Weston, always alert when business was to be done, and as incapable of
+procrastinating any evil that was inevitable, as of foreseeing any that
+was doubtful, said, “It was time to go;” and the young man, though he
+might and did sigh, could not but agree, to take leave.
+
+“I shall hear about you all,” said he; “that is my chief consolation.
+I shall hear of every thing that is going on among you. I have engaged
+Mrs. Weston to correspond with me. She has been so kind as to promise
+it. Oh! the blessing of a female correspondent, when one is really
+interested in the absent!--she will tell me every thing. In her letters
+I shall be at dear Highbury again.”
+
+A very friendly shake of the hand, a very earnest “Good-bye,” closed the
+speech, and the door had soon shut out Frank Churchill. Short had been
+the notice--short their meeting; he was gone; and Emma felt so sorry
+to part, and foresaw so great a loss to their little society from his
+absence as to begin to be afraid of being too sorry, and feeling it too
+much.
+
+It was a sad change. They had been meeting almost every day since his
+arrival. Certainly his being at Randalls had given great spirit to
+the last two weeks--indescribable spirit; the idea, the expectation
+of seeing him which every morning had brought, the assurance of his
+attentions, his liveliness, his manners! It had been a very happy
+fortnight, and forlorn must be the sinking from it into the common
+course of Hartfield days. To complete every other recommendation, he had
+_almost_ told her that he loved her. What strength, or what constancy of
+affection he might be subject to, was another point; but at present
+she could not doubt his having a decidedly warm admiration, a conscious
+preference of herself; and this persuasion, joined to all the rest,
+made her think that she _must_ be a little in love with him, in spite of
+every previous determination against it.
+
+“I certainly must,” said she. “This sensation of listlessness,
+weariness, stupidity, this disinclination to sit down and employ myself,
+this feeling of every thing’s being dull and insipid about the house!--
+I must be in love; I should be the oddest creature in the world if I
+were not--for a few weeks at least. Well! evil to some is always good to
+others. I shall have many fellow-mourners for the ball, if not for Frank
+Churchill; but Mr. Knightley will be happy. He may spend the evening
+with his dear William Larkins now if he likes.”
+
+Mr. Knightley, however, shewed no triumphant happiness. He could not say
+that he was sorry on his own account; his very cheerful look would have
+contradicted him if he had; but he said, and very steadily, that he
+was sorry for the disappointment of the others, and with considerable
+kindness added,
+
+“You, Emma, who have so few opportunities of dancing, you are really out
+of luck; you are very much out of luck!”
+
+It was some days before she saw Jane Fairfax, to judge of her honest
+regret in this woeful change; but when they did meet, her composure
+was odious. She had been particularly unwell, however, suffering from
+headache to a degree, which made her aunt declare, that had the ball
+taken place, she did not think Jane could have attended it; and it was
+charity to impute some of her unbecoming indifference to the languor of
+ill-health.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Emma continued to entertain no doubt of her being in love. Her ideas
+only varied as to the how much. At first, she thought it was a good
+deal; and afterwards, but little. She had great pleasure in hearing
+Frank Churchill talked of; and, for his sake, greater pleasure than ever
+in seeing Mr. and Mrs. Weston; she was very often thinking of him, and
+quite impatient for a letter, that she might know how he was, how were
+his spirits, how was his aunt, and what was the chance of his coming to
+Randalls again this spring. But, on the other hand, she could not admit
+herself to be unhappy, nor, after the first morning, to be less disposed
+for employment than usual; she was still busy and cheerful; and,
+pleasing as he was, she could yet imagine him to have faults; and
+farther, though thinking of him so much, and, as she sat drawing or
+working, forming a thousand amusing schemes for the progress and close
+of their attachment, fancying interesting dialogues, and inventing
+elegant letters; the conclusion of every imaginary declaration on his
+side was that she _refused_ _him_. Their affection was always to subside
+into friendship. Every thing tender and charming was to mark their
+parting; but still they were to part. When she became sensible of this,
+it struck her that she could not be very much in love; for in spite of
+her previous and fixed determination never to quit her father, never
+to marry, a strong attachment certainly must produce more of a struggle
+than she could foresee in her own feelings.
+
+“I do not find myself making any use of the word _sacrifice_,” said
+she.--“In not one of all my clever replies, my delicate negatives, is
+there any allusion to making a sacrifice. I do suspect that he is not
+really necessary to my happiness. So much the better. I certainly will
+not persuade myself to feel more than I do. I am quite enough in love. I
+should be sorry to be more.”
+
+Upon the whole, she was equally contented with her view of his feelings.
+
+“_He_ is undoubtedly very much in love--every thing denotes it--very
+much in love indeed!--and when he comes again, if his affection
+continue, I must be on my guard not to encourage it.--It would be most
+inexcusable to do otherwise, as my own mind is quite made up. Not that I
+imagine he can think I have been encouraging him hitherto. No, if he
+had believed me at all to share his feelings, he would not have been
+so wretched. Could he have thought himself encouraged, his looks and
+language at parting would have been different.--Still, however, I must
+be on my guard. This is in the supposition of his attachment continuing
+what it now is; but I do not know that I expect it will; I do not look
+upon him to be quite the sort of man--I do not altogether build upon
+his steadiness or constancy.--His feelings are warm, but I can imagine
+them rather changeable.--Every consideration of the subject, in short,
+makes me thankful that my happiness is not more deeply involved.--I
+shall do very well again after a little while--and then, it will be a
+good thing over; for they say every body is in love once in their lives,
+and I shall have been let off easily.”
+
+When his letter to Mrs. Weston arrived, Emma had the perusal of it; and
+she read it with a degree of pleasure and admiration which made her
+at first shake her head over her own sensations, and think she had
+undervalued their strength. It was a long, well-written letter, giving
+the particulars of his journey and of his feelings, expressing all the
+affection, gratitude, and respect which was natural and honourable,
+and describing every thing exterior and local that could be supposed
+attractive, with spirit and precision. No suspicious flourishes now of
+apology or concern; it was the language of real feeling towards Mrs.
+Weston; and the transition from Highbury to Enscombe, the contrast
+between the places in some of the first blessings of social life was
+just enough touched on to shew how keenly it was felt, and how much more
+might have been said but for the restraints of propriety.--The charm
+of her own name was not wanting. _Miss_ _Woodhouse_ appeared more than
+once, and never without a something of pleasing connexion, either a
+compliment to her taste, or a remembrance of what she had said; and in
+the very last time of its meeting her eye, unadorned as it was by any
+such broad wreath of gallantry, she yet could discern the effect of
+her influence and acknowledge the greatest compliment perhaps of all
+conveyed. Compressed into the very lowest vacant corner were these
+words--“I had not a spare moment on Tuesday, as you know, for Miss
+Woodhouse’s beautiful little friend. Pray make my excuses and adieus
+to her.” This, Emma could not doubt, was all for herself. Harriet was
+remembered only from being _her_ friend. His information and prospects
+as to Enscombe were neither worse nor better than had been anticipated;
+Mrs. Churchill was recovering, and he dared not yet, even in his own
+imagination, fix a time for coming to Randalls again.
+
+Gratifying, however, and stimulative as was the letter in the material
+part, its sentiments, she yet found, when it was folded up and returned
+to Mrs. Weston, that it had not added any lasting warmth, that she could
+still do without the writer, and that he must learn to do without her.
+Her intentions were unchanged. Her resolution of refusal only grew more
+interesting by the addition of a scheme for his subsequent consolation
+and happiness. His recollection of Harriet, and the words which
+clothed it, the “beautiful little friend,” suggested to her the
+idea of Harriet’s succeeding her in his affections. Was it
+impossible?--No.--Harriet undoubtedly was greatly his inferior in
+understanding; but he had been very much struck with the loveliness
+of her face and the warm simplicity of her manner; and all the
+probabilities of circumstance and connexion were in her favour.--For
+Harriet, it would be advantageous and delightful indeed.
+
+“I must not dwell upon it,” said she.--“I must not think of it. I know
+the danger of indulging such speculations. But stranger things have
+happened; and when we cease to care for each other as we do now, it
+will be the means of confirming us in that sort of true disinterested
+friendship which I can already look forward to with pleasure.”
+
+It was well to have a comfort in store on Harriet’s behalf, though it
+might be wise to let the fancy touch it seldom; for evil in that quarter
+was at hand. As Frank Churchill’s arrival had succeeded Mr. Elton’s
+engagement in the conversation of Highbury, as the latest interest
+had entirely borne down the first, so now upon Frank Churchill’s
+disappearance, Mr. Elton’s concerns were assuming the most irresistible
+form.--His wedding-day was named. He would soon be among them again; Mr.
+Elton and his bride. There was hardly time to talk over the first letter
+from Enscombe before “Mr. Elton and his bride” was in every body’s
+mouth, and Frank Churchill was forgotten. Emma grew sick at the sound.
+She had had three weeks of happy exemption from Mr. Elton; and Harriet’s
+mind, she had been willing to hope, had been lately gaining strength.
+With Mr. Weston’s ball in view at least, there had been a great deal of
+insensibility to other things; but it was now too evident that she had
+not attained such a state of composure as could stand against the actual
+approach--new carriage, bell-ringing, and all.
+
+Poor Harriet was in a flutter of spirits which required all the
+reasonings and soothings and attentions of every kind that Emma could
+give. Emma felt that she could not do too much for her, that Harriet had
+a right to all her ingenuity and all her patience; but it was heavy work
+to be for ever convincing without producing any effect, for ever agreed
+to, without being able to make their opinions the same. Harriet listened
+submissively, and said “it was very true--it was just as Miss Woodhouse
+described--it was not worth while to think about them--and she would not
+think about them any longer” but no change of subject could avail, and
+the next half-hour saw her as anxious and restless about the Eltons as
+before. At last Emma attacked her on another ground.
+
+“Your allowing yourself to be so occupied and so unhappy about Mr.
+Elton’s marrying, Harriet, is the strongest reproach you can make _me_.
+You could not give me a greater reproof for the mistake I fell into.
+It was all my doing, I know. I have not forgotten it, I assure
+you.--Deceived myself, I did very miserably deceive you--and it will
+be a painful reflection to me for ever. Do not imagine me in danger of
+forgetting it.”
+
+Harriet felt this too much to utter more than a few words of eager
+exclamation. Emma continued,
+
+“I have not said, exert yourself Harriet for my sake; think less, talk
+less of Mr. Elton for my sake; because for your own sake rather, I
+would wish it to be done, for the sake of what is more important than my
+comfort, a habit of self-command in you, a consideration of what is your
+duty, an attention to propriety, an endeavour to avoid the suspicions of
+others, to save your health and credit, and restore your tranquillity.
+These are the motives which I have been pressing on you. They are very
+important--and sorry I am that you cannot feel them sufficiently to act
+upon them. My being saved from pain is a very secondary consideration.
+I want you to save yourself from greater pain. Perhaps I may sometimes
+have felt that Harriet would not forget what was due--or rather what
+would be kind by me.”
+
+This appeal to her affections did more than all the rest. The idea of
+wanting gratitude and consideration for Miss Woodhouse, whom she really
+loved extremely, made her wretched for a while, and when the violence
+of grief was comforted away, still remained powerful enough to prompt to
+what was right and support her in it very tolerably.
+
+“You, who have been the best friend I ever had in my life--Want
+gratitude to you!--Nobody is equal to you!--I care for nobody as I do
+for you!--Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how ungrateful I have been!”
+
+Such expressions, assisted as they were by every thing that look and
+manner could do, made Emma feel that she had never loved Harriet so
+well, nor valued her affection so highly before.
+
+“There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart,” said she afterwards to
+herself. “There is nothing to be compared to it. Warmth and tenderness
+of heart, with an affectionate, open manner, will beat all the
+clearness of head in the world, for attraction, I am sure it will. It
+is tenderness of heart which makes my dear father so generally
+beloved--which gives Isabella all her popularity.--I have it not--but
+I know how to prize and respect it.--Harriet is my superior in all the
+charm and all the felicity it gives. Dear Harriet!--I would not change
+you for the clearest-headed, longest-sighted, best-judging female
+breathing. Oh! the coldness of a Jane Fairfax!--Harriet is worth a
+hundred such--And for a wife--a sensible man’s wife--it is invaluable. I
+mention no names; but happy the man who changes Emma for Harriet!”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+Mrs. Elton was first seen at church: but though devotion might be
+interrupted, curiosity could not be satisfied by a bride in a pew, and
+it must be left for the visits in form which were then to be paid, to
+settle whether she were very pretty indeed, or only rather pretty, or
+not pretty at all.
+
+Emma had feelings, less of curiosity than of pride or propriety, to make
+her resolve on not being the last to pay her respects; and she made a
+point of Harriet’s going with her, that the worst of the business might
+be gone through as soon as possible.
+
+She could not enter the house again, could not be in the same room to
+which she had with such vain artifice retreated three months ago, to
+lace up her boot, without _recollecting_. A thousand vexatious thoughts
+would recur. Compliments, charades, and horrible blunders; and it was
+not to be supposed that poor Harriet should not be recollecting too; but
+she behaved very well, and was only rather pale and silent. The visit
+was of course short; and there was so much embarrassment and occupation
+of mind to shorten it, that Emma would not allow herself entirely to
+form an opinion of the lady, and on no account to give one, beyond the
+nothing-meaning terms of being “elegantly dressed, and very pleasing.”
+
+She did not really like her. She would not be in a hurry to find fault,
+but she suspected that there was no elegance;--ease, but not elegance.--
+She was almost sure that for a young woman, a stranger, a bride, there
+was too much ease. Her person was rather good; her face not unpretty;
+but neither feature, nor air, nor voice, nor manner, were elegant. Emma
+thought at least it would turn out so.
+
+As for Mr. Elton, his manners did not appear--but no, she would not
+permit a hasty or a witty word from herself about his manners. It was an
+awkward ceremony at any time to be receiving wedding visits, and a man
+had need be all grace to acquit himself well through it. The woman
+was better off; she might have the assistance of fine clothes, and the
+privilege of bashfulness, but the man had only his own good sense to
+depend on; and when she considered how peculiarly unlucky poor Mr.
+Elton was in being in the same room at once with the woman he had just
+married, the woman he had wanted to marry, and the woman whom he had
+been expected to marry, she must allow him to have the right to look as
+little wise, and to be as much affectedly, and as little really easy as
+could be.
+
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse,” said Harriet, when they had quitted the
+house, and after waiting in vain for her friend to begin; “Well, Miss
+Woodhouse, (with a gentle sigh,) what do you think of her?--Is not she
+very charming?”
+
+There was a little hesitation in Emma’s answer.
+
+“Oh! yes--very--a very pleasing young woman.”
+
+“I think her beautiful, quite beautiful.”
+
+“Very nicely dressed, indeed; a remarkably elegant gown.”
+
+“I am not at all surprized that he should have fallen in love.”
+
+“Oh! no--there is nothing to surprize one at all.--A pretty fortune; and
+she came in his way.”
+
+“I dare say,” returned Harriet, sighing again, “I dare say she was very
+much attached to him.”
+
+“Perhaps she might; but it is not every man’s fate to marry the woman
+who loves him best. Miss Hawkins perhaps wanted a home, and thought this
+the best offer she was likely to have.”
+
+“Yes,” said Harriet earnestly, “and well she might, nobody could ever
+have a better. Well, I wish them happy with all my heart. And now, Miss
+Woodhouse, I do not think I shall mind seeing them again. He is just as
+superior as ever;--but being married, you know, it is quite a different
+thing. No, indeed, Miss Woodhouse, you need not be afraid; I can sit and
+admire him now without any great misery. To know that he has not thrown
+himself away, is such a comfort!--She does seem a charming young woman,
+just what he deserves. Happy creature! He called her ‘Augusta.’ How
+delightful!”
+
+When the visit was returned, Emma made up her mind. She could then see
+more and judge better. From Harriet’s happening not to be at Hartfield,
+and her father’s being present to engage Mr. Elton, she had a quarter
+of an hour of the lady’s conversation to herself, and could composedly
+attend to her; and the quarter of an hour quite convinced her that
+Mrs. Elton was a vain woman, extremely well satisfied with herself, and
+thinking much of her own importance; that she meant to shine and be very
+superior, but with manners which had been formed in a bad school, pert
+and familiar; that all her notions were drawn from one set of people,
+and one style of living; that if not foolish she was ignorant, and that
+her society would certainly do Mr. Elton no good.
+
+Harriet would have been a better match. If not wise or refined herself,
+she would have connected him with those who were; but Miss Hawkins, it
+might be fairly supposed from her easy conceit, had been the best of
+her own set. The rich brother-in-law near Bristol was the pride of the
+alliance, and his place and his carriages were the pride of him.
+
+The very first subject after being seated was Maple Grove, “My brother
+Mr. Suckling’s seat;”--a comparison of Hartfield to Maple Grove. The
+grounds of Hartfield were small, but neat and pretty; and the house was
+modern and well-built. Mrs. Elton seemed most favourably impressed
+by the size of the room, the entrance, and all that she could see or
+imagine. “Very like Maple Grove indeed!--She was quite struck by the
+likeness!--That room was the very shape and size of the morning-room
+at Maple Grove; her sister’s favourite room.”--Mr. Elton was appealed
+to.--“Was not it astonishingly like?--She could really almost fancy
+herself at Maple Grove.”
+
+“And the staircase--You know, as I came in, I observed how very like the
+staircase was; placed exactly in the same part of the house. I really
+could not help exclaiming! I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, it is very
+delightful to me, to be reminded of a place I am so extremely partial to
+as Maple Grove. I have spent so many happy months there! (with a little
+sigh of sentiment). A charming place, undoubtedly. Every body who
+sees it is struck by its beauty; but to me, it has been quite a home.
+Whenever you are transplanted, like me, Miss Woodhouse, you will
+understand how very delightful it is to meet with any thing at all like
+what one has left behind. I always say this is quite one of the evils of
+matrimony.”
+
+Emma made as slight a reply as she could; but it was fully sufficient
+for Mrs. Elton, who only wanted to be talking herself.
+
+“So extremely like Maple Grove! And it is not merely the house--the
+grounds, I assure you, as far as I could observe, are strikingly like.
+The laurels at Maple Grove are in the same profusion as here, and stand
+very much in the same way--just across the lawn; and I had a glimpse
+of a fine large tree, with a bench round it, which put me so exactly in
+mind! My brother and sister will be enchanted with this place. People
+who have extensive grounds themselves are always pleased with any thing
+in the same style.”
+
+Emma doubted the truth of this sentiment. She had a great idea that
+people who had extensive grounds themselves cared very little for the
+extensive grounds of any body else; but it was not worth while to attack
+an error so double-dyed, and therefore only said in reply,
+
+“When you have seen more of this country, I am afraid you will think you
+have overrated Hartfield. Surry is full of beauties.”
+
+“Oh! yes, I am quite aware of that. It is the garden of England, you
+know. Surry is the garden of England.”
+
+“Yes; but we must not rest our claims on that distinction. Many
+counties, I believe, are called the garden of England, as well as
+Surry.”
+
+“No, I fancy not,” replied Mrs. Elton, with a most satisfied smile.
+“I never heard any county but Surry called so.”
+
+Emma was silenced.
+
+“My brother and sister have promised us a visit in the spring, or summer
+at farthest,” continued Mrs. Elton; “and that will be our time for
+exploring. While they are with us, we shall explore a great deal, I dare
+say. They will have their barouche-landau, of course, which holds four
+perfectly; and therefore, without saying any thing of _our_ carriage,
+we should be able to explore the different beauties extremely well. They
+would hardly come in their chaise, I think, at that season of the
+year. Indeed, when the time draws on, I shall decidedly recommend their
+bringing the barouche-landau; it will be so very much preferable.
+When people come into a beautiful country of this sort, you know, Miss
+Woodhouse, one naturally wishes them to see as much as possible; and Mr.
+Suckling is extremely fond of exploring. We explored to King’s-Weston
+twice last summer, in that way, most delightfully, just after their
+first having the barouche-landau. You have many parties of that kind
+here, I suppose, Miss Woodhouse, every summer?”
+
+“No; not immediately here. We are rather out of distance of the very
+striking beauties which attract the sort of parties you speak of; and we
+are a very quiet set of people, I believe; more disposed to stay at home
+than engage in schemes of pleasure.”
+
+“Ah! there is nothing like staying at home for real comfort. Nobody can
+be more devoted to home than I am. I was quite a proverb for it at Maple
+Grove. Many a time has Selina said, when she has been going to Bristol,
+‘I really cannot get this girl to move from the house. I absolutely must
+go in by myself, though I hate being stuck up in the barouche-landau
+without a companion; but Augusta, I believe, with her own good-will,
+would never stir beyond the park paling.’ Many a time has she said so;
+and yet I am no advocate for entire seclusion. I think, on the contrary,
+when people shut themselves up entirely from society, it is a very
+bad thing; and that it is much more advisable to mix in the world in
+a proper degree, without living in it either too much or too little. I
+perfectly understand your situation, however, Miss Woodhouse--(looking
+towards Mr. Woodhouse), Your father’s state of health must be a great
+drawback. Why does not he try Bath?--Indeed he should. Let me recommend
+Bath to you. I assure you I have no doubt of its doing Mr. Woodhouse
+good.”
+
+“My father tried it more than once, formerly; but without receiving any
+benefit; and Mr. Perry, whose name, I dare say, is not unknown to you,
+does not conceive it would be at all more likely to be useful now.”
+
+“Ah! that’s a great pity; for I assure you, Miss Woodhouse, where the
+waters do agree, it is quite wonderful the relief they give. In my Bath
+life, I have seen such instances of it! And it is so cheerful a place,
+that it could not fail of being of use to Mr. Woodhouse’s spirits,
+which, I understand, are sometimes much depressed. And as to its
+recommendations to _you_, I fancy I need not take much pains to dwell
+on them. The advantages of Bath to the young are pretty generally
+understood. It would be a charming introduction for you, who have lived
+so secluded a life; and I could immediately secure you some of the best
+society in the place. A line from me would bring you a little host of
+acquaintance; and my particular friend, Mrs. Partridge, the lady I have
+always resided with when in Bath, would be most happy to shew you any
+attentions, and would be the very person for you to go into public
+with.”
+
+It was as much as Emma could bear, without being impolite. The idea
+of her being indebted to Mrs. Elton for what was called an
+_introduction_--of her going into public under the auspices of a friend
+of Mrs. Elton’s--probably some vulgar, dashing widow, who, with the
+help of a boarder, just made a shift to live!--The dignity of Miss
+Woodhouse, of Hartfield, was sunk indeed!
+
+She restrained herself, however, from any of the reproofs she could have
+given, and only thanked Mrs. Elton coolly; “but their going to Bath was
+quite out of the question; and she was not perfectly convinced that
+the place might suit her better than her father.” And then, to prevent
+farther outrage and indignation, changed the subject directly.
+
+“I do not ask whether you are musical, Mrs. Elton. Upon these occasions,
+a lady’s character generally precedes her; and Highbury has long known
+that you are a superior performer.”
+
+“Oh! no, indeed; I must protest against any such idea. A superior
+performer!--very far from it, I assure you. Consider from how partial
+a quarter your information came. I am doatingly fond of
+music--passionately fond;--and my friends say I am not entirely devoid
+of taste; but as to any thing else, upon my honour my performance is
+_mediocre_ to the last degree. You, Miss Woodhouse, I well know, play
+delightfully. I assure you it has been the greatest satisfaction,
+comfort, and delight to me, to hear what a musical society I am got
+into. I absolutely cannot do without music. It is a necessary of life to
+me; and having always been used to a very musical society, both at
+Maple Grove and in Bath, it would have been a most serious sacrifice. I
+honestly said as much to Mr. E. when he was speaking of my future
+home, and expressing his fears lest the retirement of it should be
+disagreeable; and the inferiority of the house too--knowing what I had
+been accustomed to--of course he was not wholly without apprehension.
+When he was speaking of it in that way, I honestly said that _the_
+_world_ I could give up--parties, balls, plays--for I had no fear of
+retirement. Blessed with so many resources within myself, the world was
+not necessary to _me_. I could do very well without it. To those who had
+no resources it was a different thing; but my resources made me quite
+independent. And as to smaller-sized rooms than I had been used to, I
+really could not give it a thought. I hoped I was perfectly equal to any
+sacrifice of that description. Certainly I had been accustomed to every
+luxury at Maple Grove; but I did assure him that two carriages were not
+necessary to my happiness, nor were spacious apartments. ‘But,’ said I,
+‘to be quite honest, I do not think I can live without something of a
+musical society. I condition for nothing else; but without music, life
+would be a blank to me.’”
+
+“We cannot suppose,” said Emma, smiling, “that Mr. Elton would hesitate
+to assure you of there being a _very_ musical society in Highbury; and
+I hope you will not find he has outstepped the truth more than may be
+pardoned, in consideration of the motive.”
+
+“No, indeed, I have no doubts at all on that head. I am delighted to
+find myself in such a circle. I hope we shall have many sweet little
+concerts together. I think, Miss Woodhouse, you and I must establish a
+musical club, and have regular weekly meetings at your house, or ours.
+Will not it be a good plan? If _we_ exert ourselves, I think we shall
+not be long in want of allies. Something of that nature would be
+particularly desirable for _me_, as an inducement to keep me in
+practice; for married women, you know--there is a sad story against
+them, in general. They are but too apt to give up music.”
+
+“But you, who are so extremely fond of it--there can be no danger,
+surely?”
+
+“I should hope not; but really when I look around among my acquaintance,
+I tremble. Selina has entirely given up music--never touches the
+instrument--though she played sweetly. And the same may be said of Mrs.
+Jeffereys--Clara Partridge, that was--and of the two Milmans, now Mrs.
+Bird and Mrs. James Cooper; and of more than I can enumerate. Upon my
+word it is enough to put one in a fright. I used to be quite angry with
+Selina; but really I begin now to comprehend that a married woman has
+many things to call her attention. I believe I was half an hour this
+morning shut up with my housekeeper.”
+
+“But every thing of that kind,” said Emma, “will soon be in so regular a
+train--”
+
+“Well,” said Mrs. Elton, laughing, “we shall see.”
+
+Emma, finding her so determined upon neglecting her music, had nothing
+more to say; and, after a moment’s pause, Mrs. Elton chose another
+subject.
+
+“We have been calling at Randalls,” said she, “and found them both at
+home; and very pleasant people they seem to be. I like them extremely.
+Mr. Weston seems an excellent creature--quite a first-rate favourite
+with me already, I assure you. And _she_ appears so truly good--there is
+something so motherly and kind-hearted about her, that it wins upon one
+directly. She was your governess, I think?”
+
+Emma was almost too much astonished to answer; but Mrs. Elton hardly
+waited for the affirmative before she went on.
+
+“Having understood as much, I was rather astonished to find her so very
+lady-like! But she is really quite the gentlewoman.”
+
+“Mrs. Weston’s manners,” said Emma, “were always particularly good.
+Their propriety, simplicity, and elegance, would make them the safest
+model for any young woman.”
+
+“And who do you think came in while we were there?”
+
+Emma was quite at a loss. The tone implied some old acquaintance--and
+how could she possibly guess?
+
+“Knightley!” continued Mrs. Elton; “Knightley himself!--Was not it
+lucky?--for, not being within when he called the other day, I had never
+seen him before; and of course, as so particular a friend of Mr. E.’s,
+I had a great curiosity. ‘My friend Knightley’ had been so often
+mentioned, that I was really impatient to see him; and I must do my
+caro sposo the justice to say that he need not be ashamed of his friend.
+Knightley is quite the gentleman. I like him very much. Decidedly, I
+think, a very gentleman-like man.”
+
+Happily, it was now time to be gone. They were off; and Emma could
+breathe.
+
+“Insufferable woman!” was her immediate exclamation. “Worse than I had
+supposed. Absolutely insufferable! Knightley!--I could not have
+believed it. Knightley!--never seen him in her life before, and call
+him Knightley!--and discover that he is a gentleman! A little upstart,
+vulgar being, with her Mr. E., and her _caro_ _sposo_, and her
+resources, and all her airs of pert pretension and underbred finery.
+Actually to discover that Mr. Knightley is a gentleman! I doubt whether
+he will return the compliment, and discover her to be a lady. I could
+not have believed it! And to propose that she and I should unite to
+form a musical club! One would fancy we were bosom friends! And Mrs.
+Weston!--Astonished that the person who had brought me up should be a
+gentlewoman! Worse and worse. I never met with her equal. Much beyond
+my hopes. Harriet is disgraced by any comparison. Oh! what would Frank
+Churchill say to her, if he were here? How angry and how diverted he
+would be! Ah! there I am--thinking of him directly. Always the first
+person to be thought of! How I catch myself out! Frank Churchill comes
+as regularly into my mind!”--
+
+All this ran so glibly through her thoughts, that by the time her father
+had arranged himself, after the bustle of the Eltons’ departure, and was
+ready to speak, she was very tolerably capable of attending.
+
+“Well, my dear,” he deliberately began, “considering we never saw her
+before, she seems a very pretty sort of young lady; and I dare say she
+was very much pleased with you. She speaks a little too quick. A little
+quickness of voice there is which rather hurts the ear. But I believe
+I am nice; I do not like strange voices; and nobody speaks like you and
+poor Miss Taylor. However, she seems a very obliging, pretty-behaved
+young lady, and no doubt will make him a very good wife. Though I think
+he had better not have married. I made the best excuses I could for not
+having been able to wait on him and Mrs. Elton on this happy occasion; I
+said that I hoped I _should_ in the course of the summer. But I ought to
+have gone before. Not to wait upon a bride is very remiss. Ah! it shews
+what a sad invalid I am! But I do not like the corner into Vicarage
+Lane.”
+
+“I dare say your apologies were accepted, sir. Mr. Elton knows you.”
+
+“Yes: but a young lady--a bride--I ought to have paid my respects to her
+if possible. It was being very deficient.”
+
+“But, my dear papa, you are no friend to matrimony; and therefore why
+should you be so anxious to pay your respects to a _bride_? It ought to
+be no recommendation to _you_. It is encouraging people to marry if you
+make so much of them.”
+
+“No, my dear, I never encouraged any body to marry, but I would always
+wish to pay every proper attention to a lady--and a bride, especially,
+is never to be neglected. More is avowedly due to _her_. A bride, you
+know, my dear, is always the first in company, let the others be who
+they may.”
+
+“Well, papa, if this is not encouragement to marry, I do not know what
+is. And I should never have expected you to be lending your sanction to
+such vanity-baits for poor young ladies.”
+
+“My dear, you do not understand me. This is a matter of mere
+common politeness and good-breeding, and has nothing to do with any
+encouragement to people to marry.”
+
+Emma had done. Her father was growing nervous, and could not understand
+_her_. Her mind returned to Mrs. Elton’s offences, and long, very long,
+did they occupy her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+Emma was not required, by any subsequent discovery, to retract her ill
+opinion of Mrs. Elton. Her observation had been pretty correct. Such as
+Mrs. Elton appeared to her on this second interview, such she appeared
+whenever they met again,--self-important, presuming, familiar, ignorant,
+and ill-bred. She had a little beauty and a little accomplishment,
+but so little judgment that she thought herself coming with superior
+knowledge of the world, to enliven and improve a country neighbourhood;
+and conceived Miss Hawkins to have held such a place in society as Mrs.
+Elton’s consequence only could surpass.
+
+There was no reason to suppose Mr. Elton thought at all differently from
+his wife. He seemed not merely happy with her, but proud. He had the air
+of congratulating himself on having brought such a woman to Highbury,
+as not even Miss Woodhouse could equal; and the greater part of her
+new acquaintance, disposed to commend, or not in the habit of judging,
+following the lead of Miss Bates’s good-will, or taking it for granted
+that the bride must be as clever and as agreeable as she professed
+herself, were very well satisfied; so that Mrs. Elton’s praise
+passed from one mouth to another as it ought to do, unimpeded by Miss
+Woodhouse, who readily continued her first contribution and talked with
+a good grace of her being “very pleasant and very elegantly dressed.”
+
+In one respect Mrs. Elton grew even worse than she had appeared at
+first. Her feelings altered towards Emma.--Offended, probably, by the
+little encouragement which her proposals of intimacy met with, she drew
+back in her turn and gradually became much more cold and distant; and
+though the effect was agreeable, the ill-will which produced it was
+necessarily increasing Emma’s dislike. Her manners, too--and Mr.
+Elton’s, were unpleasant towards Harriet. They were sneering and
+negligent. Emma hoped it must rapidly work Harriet’s cure; but the
+sensations which could prompt such behaviour sunk them both very
+much.--It was not to be doubted that poor Harriet’s attachment had been
+an offering to conjugal unreserve, and her own share in the story, under
+a colouring the least favourable to her and the most soothing to him,
+had in all likelihood been given also. She was, of course, the object
+of their joint dislike.--When they had nothing else to say, it must be
+always easy to begin abusing Miss Woodhouse; and the enmity which
+they dared not shew in open disrespect to her, found a broader vent in
+contemptuous treatment of Harriet.
+
+Mrs. Elton took a great fancy to Jane Fairfax; and from the first. Not
+merely when a state of warfare with one young lady might be supposed to
+recommend the other, but from the very first; and she was not satisfied
+with expressing a natural and reasonable admiration--but without
+solicitation, or plea, or privilege, she must be wanting to assist and
+befriend her.--Before Emma had forfeited her confidence, and about the
+third time of their meeting, she heard all Mrs. Elton’s knight-errantry
+on the subject.--
+
+“Jane Fairfax is absolutely charming, Miss Woodhouse.--I quite rave
+about Jane Fairfax.--A sweet, interesting creature. So mild and
+ladylike--and with such talents!--I assure you I think she has very
+extraordinary talents. I do not scruple to say that she plays extremely
+well. I know enough of music to speak decidedly on that point. Oh! she
+is absolutely charming! You will laugh at my warmth--but, upon my word,
+I talk of nothing but Jane Fairfax.--And her situation is so calculated
+to affect one!--Miss Woodhouse, we must exert ourselves and endeavour
+to do something for her. We must bring her forward. Such talent as hers
+must not be suffered to remain unknown.--I dare say you have heard those
+charming lines of the poet,
+
+ ‘Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
+ ‘And waste its fragrance on the desert air.’
+
+We must not allow them to be verified in sweet Jane Fairfax.”
+
+“I cannot think there is any danger of it,” was Emma’s calm answer--“and
+when you are better acquainted with Miss Fairfax’s situation and
+understand what her home has been, with Colonel and Mrs. Campbell, I
+have no idea that you will suppose her talents can be unknown.”
+
+“Oh! but dear Miss Woodhouse, she is now in such retirement, such
+obscurity, so thrown away.--Whatever advantages she may have enjoyed
+with the Campbells are so palpably at an end! And I think she feels it.
+I am sure she does. She is very timid and silent. One can see that she
+feels the want of encouragement. I like her the better for it. I
+must confess it is a recommendation to me. I am a great advocate for
+timidity--and I am sure one does not often meet with it.--But in those
+who are at all inferior, it is extremely prepossessing. Oh! I assure
+you, Jane Fairfax is a very delightful character, and interests me more
+than I can express.”
+
+“You appear to feel a great deal--but I am not aware how you or any of
+Miss Fairfax’s acquaintance here, any of those who have known her longer
+than yourself, can shew her any other attention than”--
+
+“My dear Miss Woodhouse, a vast deal may be done by those who dare to
+act. You and I need not be afraid. If _we_ set the example, many will
+follow it as far as they can; though all have not our situations. _We_
+have carriages to fetch and convey her home, and _we_ live in a style
+which could not make the addition of Jane Fairfax, at any time, the
+least inconvenient.--I should be extremely displeased if Wright were to
+send us up such a dinner, as could make me regret having asked _more_
+than Jane Fairfax to partake of it. I have no idea of that sort of
+thing. It is not likely that I _should_, considering what I have been
+used to. My greatest danger, perhaps, in housekeeping, may be quite the
+other way, in doing too much, and being too careless of expense. Maple
+Grove will probably be my model more than it ought to be--for we do not
+at all affect to equal my brother, Mr. Suckling, in income.--However, my
+resolution is taken as to noticing Jane Fairfax.--I shall certainly have
+her very often at my house, shall introduce her wherever I can, shall
+have musical parties to draw out her talents, and shall be constantly
+on the watch for an eligible situation. My acquaintance is so very
+extensive, that I have little doubt of hearing of something to suit
+her shortly.--I shall introduce her, of course, very particularly to my
+brother and sister when they come to us. I am sure they will like her
+extremely; and when she gets a little acquainted with them, her fears
+will completely wear off, for there really is nothing in the manners
+of either but what is highly conciliating.--I shall have her very often
+indeed while they are with me, and I dare say we shall sometimes find a
+seat for her in the barouche-landau in some of our exploring parties.”
+
+“Poor Jane Fairfax!”--thought Emma.--“You have not deserved this. You
+may have done wrong with regard to Mr. Dixon, but this is a punishment
+beyond what you can have merited!--The kindness and protection of Mrs.
+Elton!--‘Jane Fairfax and Jane Fairfax.’ Heavens! Let me not suppose
+that she dares go about, Emma Woodhouse-ing me!--But upon my honour,
+there seems no limits to the licentiousness of that woman’s tongue!”
+
+Emma had not to listen to such paradings again--to any so exclusively
+addressed to herself--so disgustingly decorated with a “dear Miss
+Woodhouse.” The change on Mrs. Elton’s side soon afterwards appeared,
+and she was left in peace--neither forced to be the very particular
+friend of Mrs. Elton, nor, under Mrs. Elton’s guidance, the very active
+patroness of Jane Fairfax, and only sharing with others in a general
+way, in knowing what was felt, what was meditated, what was done.
+
+She looked on with some amusement.--Miss Bates’s gratitude for
+Mrs. Elton’s attentions to Jane was in the first style of guileless
+simplicity and warmth. She was quite one of her worthies--the
+most amiable, affable, delightful woman--just as accomplished and
+condescending as Mrs. Elton meant to be considered. Emma’s only surprize
+was that Jane Fairfax should accept those attentions and tolerate Mrs.
+Elton as she seemed to do. She heard of her walking with the Eltons,
+sitting with the Eltons, spending a day with the Eltons! This was
+astonishing!--She could not have believed it possible that the taste or
+the pride of Miss Fairfax could endure such society and friendship as
+the Vicarage had to offer.
+
+“She is a riddle, quite a riddle!” said she.--“To chuse to remain here
+month after month, under privations of every sort! And now to chuse the
+mortification of Mrs. Elton’s notice and the penury of her conversation,
+rather than return to the superior companions who have always loved her
+with such real, generous affection.”
+
+Jane had come to Highbury professedly for three months; the Campbells
+were gone to Ireland for three months; but now the Campbells had
+promised their daughter to stay at least till Midsummer, and fresh
+invitations had arrived for her to join them there. According to Miss
+Bates--it all came from her--Mrs. Dixon had written most pressingly.
+Would Jane but go, means were to be found, servants sent, friends
+contrived--no travelling difficulty allowed to exist; but still she had
+declined it!
+
+“She must have some motive, more powerful than appears, for refusing
+this invitation,” was Emma’s conclusion. “She must be under some sort
+of penance, inflicted either by the Campbells or herself. There is great
+fear, great caution, great resolution somewhere.--She is _not_ to be
+with the _Dixons_. The decree is issued by somebody. But why must she
+consent to be with the Eltons?--Here is quite a separate puzzle.”
+
+Upon her speaking her wonder aloud on that part of the subject, before
+the few who knew her opinion of Mrs. Elton, Mrs. Weston ventured this
+apology for Jane.
+
+“We cannot suppose that she has any great enjoyment at the Vicarage,
+my dear Emma--but it is better than being always at home. Her aunt is a
+good creature, but, as a constant companion, must be very tiresome. We
+must consider what Miss Fairfax quits, before we condemn her taste for
+what she goes to.”
+
+“You are right, Mrs. Weston,” said Mr. Knightley warmly, “Miss Fairfax
+is as capable as any of us of forming a just opinion of Mrs. Elton.
+Could she have chosen with whom to associate, she would not have chosen
+her. But (with a reproachful smile at Emma) she receives attentions from
+Mrs. Elton, which nobody else pays her.”
+
+Emma felt that Mrs. Weston was giving her a momentary glance; and she
+was herself struck by his warmth. With a faint blush, she presently
+replied,
+
+“Such attentions as Mrs. Elton’s, I should have imagined, would rather
+disgust than gratify Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton’s invitations I should
+have imagined any thing but inviting.”
+
+“I should not wonder,” said Mrs. Weston, “if Miss Fairfax were to have
+been drawn on beyond her own inclination, by her aunt’s eagerness in
+accepting Mrs. Elton’s civilities for her. Poor Miss Bates may
+very likely have committed her niece and hurried her into a greater
+appearance of intimacy than her own good sense would have dictated, in
+spite of the very natural wish of a little change.”
+
+Both felt rather anxious to hear him speak again; and after a few
+minutes silence, he said,
+
+“Another thing must be taken into consideration too--Mrs. Elton does
+not talk _to_ Miss Fairfax as she speaks _of_ her. We all know the
+difference between the pronouns he or she and thou, the plainest spoken
+amongst us; we all feel the influence of a something beyond common
+civility in our personal intercourse with each other--a something more
+early implanted. We cannot give any body the disagreeable hints that we
+may have been very full of the hour before. We feel things differently.
+And besides the operation of this, as a general principle, you may be
+sure that Miss Fairfax awes Mrs. Elton by her superiority both of mind
+and manner; and that, face to face, Mrs. Elton treats her with all the
+respect which she has a claim to. Such a woman as Jane Fairfax probably
+never fell in Mrs. Elton’s way before--and no degree of vanity can
+prevent her acknowledging her own comparative littleness in action, if
+not in consciousness.”
+
+“I know how highly you think of Jane Fairfax,” said Emma. Little Henry
+was in her thoughts, and a mixture of alarm and delicacy made her
+irresolute what else to say.
+
+“Yes,” he replied, “any body may know how highly I think of her.”
+
+“And yet,” said Emma, beginning hastily and with an arch look, but soon
+stopping--it was better, however, to know the worst at once--she hurried
+on--“And yet, perhaps, you may hardly be aware yourself how highly it
+is. The extent of your admiration may take you by surprize some day or
+other.”
+
+Mr. Knightley was hard at work upon the lower buttons of his thick
+leather gaiters, and either the exertion of getting them together, or
+some other cause, brought the colour into his face, as he answered,
+
+“Oh! are you there?--But you are miserably behindhand. Mr. Cole gave me
+a hint of it six weeks ago.”
+
+He stopped.--Emma felt her foot pressed by Mrs. Weston, and did not
+herself know what to think. In a moment he went on--
+
+“That will never be, however, I can assure you. Miss Fairfax, I dare
+say, would not have me if I were to ask her--and I am very sure I shall
+never ask her.”
+
+Emma returned her friend’s pressure with interest; and was pleased
+enough to exclaim,
+
+“You are not vain, Mr. Knightley. I will say that for you.”
+
+He seemed hardly to hear her; he was thoughtful--and in a manner which
+shewed him not pleased, soon afterwards said,
+
+“So you have been settling that I should marry Jane Fairfax?”
+
+“No indeed I have not. You have scolded me too much for match-making,
+for me to presume to take such a liberty with you. What I said just now,
+meant nothing. One says those sort of things, of course, without any
+idea of a serious meaning. Oh! no, upon my word I have not the smallest
+wish for your marrying Jane Fairfax or Jane any body. You would not come
+in and sit with us in this comfortable way, if you were married.”
+
+Mr. Knightley was thoughtful again. The result of his reverie was, “No,
+Emma, I do not think the extent of my admiration for her will ever take
+me by surprize.--I never had a thought of her in that way, I assure
+you.” And soon afterwards, “Jane Fairfax is a very charming young
+woman--but not even Jane Fairfax is perfect. She has a fault. She has
+not the open temper which a man would wish for in a wife.”
+
+Emma could not but rejoice to hear that she had a fault. “Well,” said
+she, “and you soon silenced Mr. Cole, I suppose?”
+
+“Yes, very soon. He gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken;
+he asked my pardon and said no more. Cole does not want to be wiser or
+wittier than his neighbours.”
+
+“In that respect how unlike dear Mrs. Elton, who wants to be wiser and
+wittier than all the world! I wonder how she speaks of the Coles--what
+she calls them! How can she find any appellation for them, deep enough
+in familiar vulgarity? She calls you, Knightley--what can she do for
+Mr. Cole? And so I am not to be surprized that Jane Fairfax accepts
+her civilities and consents to be with her. Mrs. Weston, your argument
+weighs most with me. I can much more readily enter into the temptation
+of getting away from Miss Bates, than I can believe in the triumph of
+Miss Fairfax’s mind over Mrs. Elton. I have no faith in Mrs. Elton’s
+acknowledging herself the inferior in thought, word, or deed; or in her
+being under any restraint beyond her own scanty rule of good-breeding.
+I cannot imagine that she will not be continually insulting her visitor
+with praise, encouragement, and offers of service; that she will not be
+continually detailing her magnificent intentions, from the procuring her
+a permanent situation to the including her in those delightful exploring
+parties which are to take place in the barouche-landau.”
+
+“Jane Fairfax has feeling,” said Mr. Knightley--“I do not accuse her
+of want of feeling. Her sensibilities, I suspect, are strong--and her
+temper excellent in its power of forbearance, patience, self-control;
+but it wants openness. She is reserved, more reserved, I think, than
+she used to be--And I love an open temper. No--till Cole alluded to my
+supposed attachment, it had never entered my head. I saw Jane Fairfax
+and conversed with her, with admiration and pleasure always--but with no
+thought beyond.”
+
+“Well, Mrs. Weston,” said Emma triumphantly when he left them, “what do
+you say now to Mr. Knightley’s marrying Jane Fairfax?”
+
+“Why, really, dear Emma, I say that he is so very much occupied by the
+idea of _not_ being in love with her, that I should not wonder if it
+were to end in his being so at last. Do not beat me.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+Every body in and about Highbury who had ever visited Mr. Elton, was
+disposed to pay him attention on his marriage. Dinner-parties and
+evening-parties were made for him and his lady; and invitations flowed
+in so fast that she had soon the pleasure of apprehending they were
+never to have a disengaged day.
+
+“I see how it is,” said she. “I see what a life I am to lead among you.
+Upon my word we shall be absolutely dissipated. We really seem quite
+the fashion. If this is living in the country, it is nothing very
+formidable. From Monday next to Saturday, I assure you we have not a
+disengaged day!--A woman with fewer resources than I have, need not have
+been at a loss.”
+
+No invitation came amiss to her. Her Bath habits made evening-parties
+perfectly natural to her, and Maple Grove had given her a taste for
+dinners. She was a little shocked at the want of two drawing rooms, at
+the poor attempt at rout-cakes, and there being no ice in the Highbury
+card-parties. Mrs. Bates, Mrs. Perry, Mrs. Goddard and others, were a
+good deal behind-hand in knowledge of the world, but she would soon shew
+them how every thing ought to be arranged. In the course of the spring
+she must return their civilities by one very superior party--in which
+her card-tables should be set out with their separate candles and
+unbroken packs in the true style--and more waiters engaged for the
+evening than their own establishment could furnish, to carry round the
+refreshments at exactly the proper hour, and in the proper order.
+
+Emma, in the meanwhile, could not be satisfied without a dinner at
+Hartfield for the Eltons. They must not do less than others, or she
+should be exposed to odious suspicions, and imagined capable of pitiful
+resentment. A dinner there must be. After Emma had talked about it for
+ten minutes, Mr. Woodhouse felt no unwillingness, and only made the
+usual stipulation of not sitting at the bottom of the table himself,
+with the usual regular difficulty of deciding who should do it for him.
+
+The persons to be invited, required little thought. Besides the
+Eltons, it must be the Westons and Mr. Knightley; so far it was all of
+course--and it was hardly less inevitable that poor little Harriet must
+be asked to make the eighth:--but this invitation was not given with
+equal satisfaction, and on many accounts Emma was particularly pleased
+by Harriet’s begging to be allowed to decline it. “She would rather not
+be in his company more than she could help. She was not yet quite
+able to see him and his charming happy wife together, without feeling
+uncomfortable. If Miss Woodhouse would not be displeased, she would
+rather stay at home.” It was precisely what Emma would have wished, had
+she deemed it possible enough for wishing. She was delighted with the
+fortitude of her little friend--for fortitude she knew it was in her to
+give up being in company and stay at home; and she could now invite the
+very person whom she really wanted to make the eighth, Jane Fairfax.--
+Since her last conversation with Mrs. Weston and Mr. Knightley, she
+was more conscience-stricken about Jane Fairfax than she had often
+been.--Mr. Knightley’s words dwelt with her. He had said that Jane
+Fairfax received attentions from Mrs. Elton which nobody else paid her.
+
+“This is very true,” said she, “at least as far as relates to me, which
+was all that was meant--and it is very shameful.--Of the same age--and
+always knowing her--I ought to have been more her friend.--She will
+never like me now. I have neglected her too long. But I will shew her
+greater attention than I have done.”
+
+Every invitation was successful. They were all disengaged and all
+happy.--The preparatory interest of this dinner, however, was not yet
+over. A circumstance rather unlucky occurred. The two eldest little
+Knightleys were engaged to pay their grandpapa and aunt a visit of some
+weeks in the spring, and their papa now proposed bringing them, and
+staying one whole day at Hartfield--which one day would be the very day
+of this party.--His professional engagements did not allow of his being
+put off, but both father and daughter were disturbed by its happening
+so. Mr. Woodhouse considered eight persons at dinner together as the
+utmost that his nerves could bear--and here would be a ninth--and Emma
+apprehended that it would be a ninth very much out of humour at not
+being able to come even to Hartfield for forty-eight hours without
+falling in with a dinner-party.
+
+She comforted her father better than she could comfort herself, by
+representing that though he certainly would make them nine, yet
+he always said so little, that the increase of noise would be very
+immaterial. She thought it in reality a sad exchange for herself, to
+have him with his grave looks and reluctant conversation opposed to her
+instead of his brother.
+
+The event was more favourable to Mr. Woodhouse than to Emma. John
+Knightley came; but Mr. Weston was unexpectedly summoned to town and
+must be absent on the very day. He might be able to join them in the
+evening, but certainly not to dinner. Mr. Woodhouse was quite at ease;
+and the seeing him so, with the arrival of the little boys and the
+philosophic composure of her brother on hearing his fate, removed the
+chief of even Emma’s vexation.
+
+The day came, the party were punctually assembled, and Mr. John
+Knightley seemed early to devote himself to the business of being
+agreeable. Instead of drawing his brother off to a window while they
+waited for dinner, he was talking to Miss Fairfax. Mrs. Elton,
+as elegant as lace and pearls could make her, he looked at in
+silence--wanting only to observe enough for Isabella’s information--but
+Miss Fairfax was an old acquaintance and a quiet girl, and he could talk
+to her. He had met her before breakfast as he was returning from a walk
+with his little boys, when it had been just beginning to rain. It was
+natural to have some civil hopes on the subject, and he said,
+
+“I hope you did not venture far, Miss Fairfax, this morning, or I am
+sure you must have been wet.--We scarcely got home in time. I hope you
+turned directly.”
+
+“I went only to the post-office,” said she, “and reached home before the
+rain was much. It is my daily errand. I always fetch the letters when
+I am here. It saves trouble, and is a something to get me out. A walk
+before breakfast does me good.”
+
+“Not a walk in the rain, I should imagine.”
+
+“No, but it did not absolutely rain when I set out.”
+
+Mr. John Knightley smiled, and replied,
+
+“That is to say, you chose to have your walk, for you were not six yards
+from your own door when I had the pleasure of meeting you; and Henry
+and John had seen more drops than they could count long before. The
+post-office has a great charm at one period of our lives. When you have
+lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going
+through the rain for.”
+
+There was a little blush, and then this answer,
+
+“I must not hope to be ever situated as you are, in the midst of every
+dearest connexion, and therefore I cannot expect that simply growing
+older should make me indifferent about letters.”
+
+“Indifferent! Oh! no--I never conceived you could become indifferent.
+Letters are no matter of indifference; they are generally a very
+positive curse.”
+
+“You are speaking of letters of business; mine are letters of
+friendship.”
+
+“I have often thought them the worst of the two,” replied he coolly.
+“Business, you know, may bring money, but friendship hardly ever does.”
+
+“Ah! you are not serious now. I know Mr. John Knightley too well--I am
+very sure he understands the value of friendship as well as any body. I
+can easily believe that letters are very little to you, much less than
+to me, but it is not your being ten years older than myself which
+makes the difference, it is not age, but situation. You have every
+body dearest to you always at hand, I, probably, never shall again;
+and therefore till I have outlived all my affections, a post-office,
+I think, must always have power to draw me out, in worse weather than
+to-day.”
+
+“When I talked of your being altered by time, by the progress of years,”
+ said John Knightley, “I meant to imply the change of situation which
+time usually brings. I consider one as including the other. Time will
+generally lessen the interest of every attachment not within the daily
+circle--but that is not the change I had in view for you. As an old
+friend, you will allow me to hope, Miss Fairfax, that ten years hence
+you may have as many concentrated objects as I have.”
+
+It was kindly said, and very far from giving offence. A pleasant “thank
+you” seemed meant to laugh it off, but a blush, a quivering lip, a tear
+in the eye, shewed that it was felt beyond a laugh. Her attention was
+now claimed by Mr. Woodhouse, who being, according to his custom on such
+occasions, making the circle of his guests, and paying his particular
+compliments to the ladies, was ending with her--and with all his mildest
+urbanity, said,
+
+“I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning
+in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves.--Young ladies
+are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their
+complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am very much obliged by your kind
+solicitude about me.”
+
+“My dear Miss Fairfax, young ladies are very sure to be cared for.--I
+hope your good grand-mama and aunt are well. They are some of my very
+old friends. I wish my health allowed me to be a better neighbour. You
+do us a great deal of honour to-day, I am sure. My daughter and I
+are both highly sensible of your goodness, and have the greatest
+satisfaction in seeing you at Hartfield.”
+
+The kind-hearted, polite old man might then sit down and feel that he
+had done his duty, and made every fair lady welcome and easy.
+
+By this time, the walk in the rain had reached Mrs. Elton, and her
+remonstrances now opened upon Jane.
+
+“My dear Jane, what is this I hear?--Going to the post-office in the
+rain!--This must not be, I assure you.--You sad girl, how could you do
+such a thing?--It is a sign I was not there to take care of you.”
+
+Jane very patiently assured her that she had not caught any cold.
+
+“Oh! do not tell _me_. You really are a very sad girl, and do not know
+how to take care of yourself.--To the post-office indeed! Mrs. Weston,
+did you ever hear the like? You and I must positively exert our
+authority.”
+
+“My advice,” said Mrs. Weston kindly and persuasively, “I certainly do
+feel tempted to give. Miss Fairfax, you must not run such risks.--Liable
+as you have been to severe colds, indeed you ought to be particularly
+careful, especially at this time of year. The spring I always think
+requires more than common care. Better wait an hour or two, or even
+half a day for your letters, than run the risk of bringing on your cough
+again. Now do not you feel that you had? Yes, I am sure you are much too
+reasonable. You look as if you would not do such a thing again.”
+
+“Oh! she _shall_ _not_ do such a thing again,” eagerly rejoined Mrs.
+Elton. “We will not allow her to do such a thing again:”--and nodding
+significantly--“there must be some arrangement made, there must indeed.
+I shall speak to Mr. E. The man who fetches our letters every morning
+(one of our men, I forget his name) shall inquire for yours too and
+bring them to you. That will obviate all difficulties you know; and from
+_us_ I really think, my dear Jane, you can have no scruple to accept
+such an accommodation.”
+
+“You are extremely kind,” said Jane; “but I cannot give up my early
+walk. I am advised to be out of doors as much as I can, I must walk
+somewhere, and the post-office is an object; and upon my word, I have
+scarcely ever had a bad morning before.”
+
+“My dear Jane, say no more about it. The thing is determined, that is
+(laughing affectedly) as far as I can presume to determine any thing
+without the concurrence of my lord and master. You know, Mrs. Weston,
+you and I must be cautious how we express ourselves. But I do flatter
+myself, my dear Jane, that my influence is not entirely worn out. If I
+meet with no insuperable difficulties therefore, consider that point as
+settled.”
+
+“Excuse me,” said Jane earnestly, “I cannot by any means consent to such
+an arrangement, so needlessly troublesome to your servant. If the errand
+were not a pleasure to me, it could be done, as it always is when I am
+not here, by my grandmama’s.”
+
+“Oh! my dear; but so much as Patty has to do!--And it is a kindness to
+employ our men.”
+
+Jane looked as if she did not mean to be conquered; but instead of
+answering, she began speaking again to Mr. John Knightley.
+
+“The post-office is a wonderful establishment!” said she.--“The
+regularity and despatch of it! If one thinks of all that it has to do,
+and all that it does so well, it is really astonishing!”
+
+“It is certainly very well regulated.”
+
+“So seldom that any negligence or blunder appears! So seldom that
+a letter, among the thousands that are constantly passing about the
+kingdom, is even carried wrong--and not one in a million, I suppose,
+actually lost! And when one considers the variety of hands, and of bad
+hands too, that are to be deciphered, it increases the wonder.”
+
+“The clerks grow expert from habit.--They must begin with some quickness
+of sight and hand, and exercise improves them. If you want any farther
+explanation,” continued he, smiling, “they are paid for it. That is
+the key to a great deal of capacity. The public pays and must be served
+well.”
+
+The varieties of handwriting were farther talked of, and the usual
+observations made.
+
+“I have heard it asserted,” said John Knightley, “that the same sort
+of handwriting often prevails in a family; and where the same master
+teaches, it is natural enough. But for that reason, I should imagine
+the likeness must be chiefly confined to the females, for boys have very
+little teaching after an early age, and scramble into any hand they can
+get. Isabella and Emma, I think, do write very much alike. I have not
+always known their writing apart.”
+
+“Yes,” said his brother hesitatingly, “there is a likeness. I know what
+you mean--but Emma’s hand is the strongest.”
+
+“Isabella and Emma both write beautifully,” said Mr. Woodhouse; “and
+always did. And so does poor Mrs. Weston”--with half a sigh and half a
+smile at her.
+
+“I never saw any gentleman’s handwriting”--Emma began, looking also at
+Mrs. Weston; but stopped, on perceiving that Mrs. Weston was attending
+to some one else--and the pause gave her time to reflect, “Now, how am
+I going to introduce him?--Am I unequal to speaking his name at once
+before all these people? Is it necessary for me to use any roundabout
+phrase?--Your Yorkshire friend--your correspondent in Yorkshire;--that
+would be the way, I suppose, if I were very bad.--No, I can pronounce
+his name without the smallest distress. I certainly get better and
+better.--Now for it.”
+
+Mrs. Weston was disengaged and Emma began again--“Mr. Frank Churchill
+writes one of the best gentleman’s hands I ever saw.”
+
+“I do not admire it,” said Mr. Knightley. “It is too small--wants
+strength. It is like a woman’s writing.”
+
+This was not submitted to by either lady. They vindicated him against
+the base aspersion. “No, it by no means wanted strength--it was not a
+large hand, but very clear and certainly strong. Had not Mrs. Weston any
+letter about her to produce?” No, she had heard from him very lately,
+but having answered the letter, had put it away.
+
+“If we were in the other room,” said Emma, “if I had my writing-desk, I
+am sure I could produce a specimen. I have a note of his.--Do not you
+remember, Mrs. Weston, employing him to write for you one day?”
+
+“He chose to say he was employed”--
+
+“Well, well, I have that note; and can shew it after dinner to convince
+Mr. Knightley.”
+
+“Oh! when a gallant young man, like Mr. Frank Churchill,” said Mr.
+Knightley dryly, “writes to a fair lady like Miss Woodhouse, he will, of
+course, put forth his best.”
+
+Dinner was on table.--Mrs. Elton, before she could be spoken to, was
+ready; and before Mr. Woodhouse had reached her with his request to be
+allowed to hand her into the dining-parlour, was saying--
+
+“Must I go first? I really am ashamed of always leading the way.”
+
+Jane’s solicitude about fetching her own letters had not escaped Emma.
+She had heard and seen it all; and felt some curiosity to know whether
+the wet walk of this morning had produced any. She suspected that it
+_had_; that it would not have been so resolutely encountered but in full
+expectation of hearing from some one very dear, and that it had not been
+in vain. She thought there was an air of greater happiness than usual--a
+glow both of complexion and spirits.
+
+She could have made an inquiry or two, as to the expedition and the
+expense of the Irish mails;--it was at her tongue’s end--but she
+abstained. She was quite determined not to utter a word that should hurt
+Jane Fairfax’s feelings; and they followed the other ladies out of the
+room, arm in arm, with an appearance of good-will highly becoming to the
+beauty and grace of each.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When the ladies returned to the drawing-room after dinner, Emma found it
+hardly possible to prevent their making two distinct parties;--with so
+much perseverance in judging and behaving ill did Mrs. Elton engross
+Jane Fairfax and slight herself. She and Mrs. Weston were obliged to
+be almost always either talking together or silent together. Mrs. Elton
+left them no choice. If Jane repressed her for a little time, she
+soon began again; and though much that passed between them was in a
+half-whisper, especially on Mrs. Elton’s side, there was no avoiding
+a knowledge of their principal subjects: The post-office--catching
+cold--fetching letters--and friendship, were long under discussion;
+and to them succeeded one, which must be at least equally unpleasant
+to Jane--inquiries whether she had yet heard of any situation likely to
+suit her, and professions of Mrs. Elton’s meditated activity.
+
+“Here is April come!” said she, “I get quite anxious about you. June
+will soon be here.”
+
+“But I have never fixed on June or any other month--merely looked
+forward to the summer in general.”
+
+“But have you really heard of nothing?”
+
+“I have not even made any inquiry; I do not wish to make any yet.”
+
+“Oh! my dear, we cannot begin too early; you are not aware of the
+difficulty of procuring exactly the desirable thing.”
+
+“I not aware!” said Jane, shaking her head; “dear Mrs. Elton, who can
+have thought of it as I have done?”
+
+“But you have not seen so much of the world as I have. You do not know
+how many candidates there always are for the _first_ situations. I saw
+a vast deal of that in the neighbourhood round Maple Grove. A cousin of
+Mr. Suckling, Mrs. Bragge, had such an infinity of applications; every
+body was anxious to be in her family, for she moves in the first circle.
+Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable! Of all
+houses in the kingdom Mrs. Bragge’s is the one I would most wish to see
+you in.”
+
+“Colonel and Mrs. Campbell are to be in town again by midsummer,”
+ said Jane. “I must spend some time with them; I am sure they will want
+it;--afterwards I may probably be glad to dispose of myself. But I would
+not wish you to take the trouble of making any inquiries at present.”
+
+“Trouble! aye, I know your scruples. You are afraid of giving me
+trouble; but I assure you, my dear Jane, the Campbells can hardly be
+more interested about you than I am. I shall write to Mrs. Partridge in
+a day or two, and shall give her a strict charge to be on the look-out
+for any thing eligible.”
+
+“Thank you, but I would rather you did not mention the subject to
+her; till the time draws nearer, I do not wish to be giving any body
+trouble.”
+
+“But, my dear child, the time is drawing near; here is April, and June,
+or say even July, is very near, with such business to accomplish before
+us. Your inexperience really amuses me! A situation such as you deserve,
+and your friends would require for you, is no everyday occurrence,
+is not obtained at a moment’s notice; indeed, indeed, we must begin
+inquiring directly.”
+
+“Excuse me, ma’am, but this is by no means my intention; I make no
+inquiry myself, and should be sorry to have any made by my friends. When
+I am quite determined as to the time, I am not at all afraid of being
+long unemployed. There are places in town, offices, where inquiry
+would soon produce something--Offices for the sale--not quite of human
+flesh--but of human intellect.”
+
+“Oh! my dear, human flesh! You quite shock me; if you mean a fling at
+the slave-trade, I assure you Mr. Suckling was always rather a friend to
+the abolition.”
+
+“I did not mean, I was not thinking of the slave-trade,” replied Jane;
+“governess-trade, I assure you, was all that I had in view; widely
+different certainly as to the guilt of those who carry it on; but as to
+the greater misery of the victims, I do not know where it lies. But
+I only mean to say that there are advertising offices, and that by
+applying to them I should have no doubt of very soon meeting with
+something that would do.”
+
+“Something that would do!” repeated Mrs. Elton. “Aye, _that_ may suit
+your humble ideas of yourself;--I know what a modest creature you are;
+but it will not satisfy your friends to have you taking up with any
+thing that may offer, any inferior, commonplace situation, in a family
+not moving in a certain circle, or able to command the elegancies of
+life.”
+
+“You are very obliging; but as to all that, I am very indifferent;
+it would be no object to me to be with the rich; my mortifications, I
+think, would only be the greater; I should suffer more from comparison.
+A gentleman’s family is all that I should condition for.”
+
+“I know you, I know you; you would take up with any thing; but I shall
+be a little more nice, and I am sure the good Campbells will be quite
+on my side; with your superior talents, you have a right to move in the
+first circle. Your musical knowledge alone would entitle you to name
+your own terms, have as many rooms as you like, and mix in the family
+as much as you chose;--that is--I do not know--if you knew the harp, you
+might do all that, I am very sure; but you sing as well as play;--yes, I
+really believe you might, even without the harp, stipulate for what
+you chose;--and you must and shall be delightfully, honourably and
+comfortably settled before the Campbells or I have any rest.”
+
+“You may well class the delight, the honour, and the comfort of such
+a situation together,” said Jane, “they are pretty sure to be equal;
+however, I am very serious in not wishing any thing to be attempted
+at present for me. I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mrs. Elton, I am
+obliged to any body who feels for me, but I am quite serious in wishing
+nothing to be done till the summer. For two or three months longer I
+shall remain where I am, and as I am.”
+
+“And I am quite serious too, I assure you,” replied Mrs. Elton gaily,
+“in resolving to be always on the watch, and employing my friends to
+watch also, that nothing really unexceptionable may pass us.”
+
+In this style she ran on; never thoroughly stopped by any thing till Mr.
+Woodhouse came into the room; her vanity had then a change of object,
+and Emma heard her saying in the same half-whisper to Jane,
+
+“Here comes this dear old beau of mine, I protest!--Only think of his
+gallantry in coming away before the other men!--what a dear creature
+he is;--I assure you I like him excessively. I admire all that quaint,
+old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease;
+modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish
+you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I
+began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous. I fancy I
+am rather a favourite; he took notice of my gown. How do you like
+it?--Selina’s choice--handsome, I think, but I do not know whether it
+is not over-trimmed; I have the greatest dislike to the idea of being
+over-trimmed--quite a horror of finery. I must put on a few ornaments
+now, because it is expected of me. A bride, you know, must appear like
+a bride, but my natural taste is all for simplicity; a simple style
+of dress is so infinitely preferable to finery. But I am quite in the
+minority, I believe; few people seem to value simplicity of dress,--show
+and finery are every thing. I have some notion of putting such a
+trimming as this to my white and silver poplin. Do you think it will
+look well?”
+
+The whole party were but just reassembled in the drawing-room when Mr.
+Weston made his appearance among them. He had returned to a late dinner,
+and walked to Hartfield as soon as it was over. He had been too much
+expected by the best judges, for surprize--but there was great joy. Mr.
+Woodhouse was almost as glad to see him now, as he would have been sorry
+to see him before. John Knightley only was in mute astonishment.--That
+a man who might have spent his evening quietly at home after a day
+of business in London, should set off again, and walk half a mile
+to another man’s house, for the sake of being in mixed company till
+bed-time, of finishing his day in the efforts of civility and the noise
+of numbers, was a circumstance to strike him deeply. A man who had been
+in motion since eight o’clock in the morning, and might now have been
+still, who had been long talking, and might have been silent, who had
+been in more than one crowd, and might have been alone!--Such a man, to
+quit the tranquillity and independence of his own fireside, and on the
+evening of a cold sleety April day rush out again into the world!--Could
+he by a touch of his finger have instantly taken back his wife, there
+would have been a motive; but his coming would probably prolong rather
+than break up the party. John Knightley looked at him with amazement,
+then shrugged his shoulders, and said, “I could not have believed it
+even of _him_.”
+
+Mr. Weston meanwhile, perfectly unsuspicious of the indignation he was
+exciting, happy and cheerful as usual, and with all the right of being
+principal talker, which a day spent anywhere from home confers, was
+making himself agreeable among the rest; and having satisfied the
+inquiries of his wife as to his dinner, convincing her that none of all
+her careful directions to the servants had been forgotten, and spread
+abroad what public news he had heard, was proceeding to a family
+communication, which, though principally addressed to Mrs. Weston, he
+had not the smallest doubt of being highly interesting to every body in
+the room. He gave her a letter, it was from Frank, and to herself; he
+had met with it in his way, and had taken the liberty of opening it.
+
+“Read it, read it,” said he, “it will give you pleasure; only a few
+lines--will not take you long; read it to Emma.”
+
+The two ladies looked over it together; and he sat smiling and talking
+to them the whole time, in a voice a little subdued, but very audible to
+every body.
+
+“Well, he is coming, you see; good news, I think. Well, what do you say
+to it?--I always told you he would be here again soon, did not I?--Anne,
+my dear, did not I always tell you so, and you would not believe me?--In
+town next week, you see--at the latest, I dare say; for _she_ is as
+impatient as the black gentleman when any thing is to be done; most
+likely they will be there to-morrow or Saturday. As to her illness, all
+nothing of course. But it is an excellent thing to have Frank among us
+again, so near as town. They will stay a good while when they do come,
+and he will be half his time with us. This is precisely what I wanted.
+Well, pretty good news, is not it? Have you finished it? Has Emma read
+it all? Put it up, put it up; we will have a good talk about it some
+other time, but it will not do now. I shall only just mention the
+circumstance to the others in a common way.”
+
+Mrs. Weston was most comfortably pleased on the occasion. Her looks
+and words had nothing to restrain them. She was happy, she knew she was
+happy, and knew she ought to be happy. Her congratulations were warm and
+open; but Emma could not speak so fluently. _She_ was a little occupied
+in weighing her own feelings, and trying to understand the degree of her
+agitation, which she rather thought was considerable.
+
+Mr. Weston, however, too eager to be very observant, too communicative
+to want others to talk, was very well satisfied with what she did say,
+and soon moved away to make the rest of his friends happy by a partial
+communication of what the whole room must have overheard already.
+
+It was well that he took every body’s joy for granted, or he might
+not have thought either Mr. Woodhouse or Mr. Knightley particularly
+delighted. They were the first entitled, after Mrs. Weston and Emma, to
+be made happy;--from them he would have proceeded to Miss Fairfax, but
+she was so deep in conversation with John Knightley, that it would have
+been too positive an interruption; and finding himself close to Mrs.
+Elton, and her attention disengaged, he necessarily began on the subject
+with her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+“I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of introducing my son to you,”
+ said Mr. Weston.
+
+Mrs. Elton, very willing to suppose a particular compliment intended her
+by such a hope, smiled most graciously.
+
+“You have heard of a certain Frank Churchill, I presume,” he
+continued--“and know him to be my son, though he does not bear my name.”
+
+“Oh! yes, and I shall be very happy in his acquaintance. I am sure Mr.
+Elton will lose no time in calling on him; and we shall both have great
+pleasure in seeing him at the Vicarage.”
+
+“You are very obliging.--Frank will be extremely happy, I am sure.--
+He is to be in town next week, if not sooner. We have notice of it in a
+letter to-day. I met the letters in my way this morning, and seeing my
+son’s hand, presumed to open it--though it was not directed to me--it
+was to Mrs. Weston. She is his principal correspondent, I assure you. I
+hardly ever get a letter.”
+
+“And so you absolutely opened what was directed to her! Oh! Mr.
+Weston--(laughing affectedly) I must protest against that.--A most
+dangerous precedent indeed!--I beg you will not let your neighbours
+follow your example.--Upon my word, if this is what I am to expect, we
+married women must begin to exert ourselves!--Oh! Mr. Weston, I could
+not have believed it of you!”
+
+“Aye, we men are sad fellows. You must take care of yourself, Mrs.
+Elton.--This letter tells us--it is a short letter--written in a hurry,
+merely to give us notice--it tells us that they are all coming up to
+town directly, on Mrs. Churchill’s account--she has not been well the
+whole winter, and thinks Enscombe too cold for her--so they are all to
+move southward without loss of time.”
+
+“Indeed!--from Yorkshire, I think. Enscombe is in Yorkshire?”
+
+“Yes, they are about one hundred and ninety miles from London, a
+considerable journey.”
+
+“Yes, upon my word, very considerable. Sixty-five miles farther than
+from Maple Grove to London. But what is distance, Mr. Weston, to people
+of large fortune?--You would be amazed to hear how my brother, Mr.
+Suckling, sometimes flies about. You will hardly believe me--but twice
+in one week he and Mr. Bragge went to London and back again with four
+horses.”
+
+“The evil of the distance from Enscombe,” said Mr. Weston, “is, that
+Mrs. Churchill, _as_ _we_ _understand_, has not been able to leave the
+sofa for a week together. In Frank’s last letter she complained, he
+said, of being too weak to get into her conservatory without having
+both his arm and his uncle’s! This, you know, speaks a great degree of
+weakness--but now she is so impatient to be in town, that she means to
+sleep only two nights on the road.--So Frank writes word. Certainly,
+delicate ladies have very extraordinary constitutions, Mrs. Elton. You
+must grant me that.”
+
+“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my
+own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice--You will find me a formidable
+antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women--and I assure you,
+if you knew how Selina feels with respect to sleeping at an inn, you
+would not wonder at Mrs. Churchill’s making incredible exertions to
+avoid it. Selina says it is quite horror to her--and I believe I have
+caught a little of her nicety. She always travels with her own sheets;
+an excellent precaution. Does Mrs. Churchill do the same?”
+
+“Depend upon it, Mrs. Churchill does every thing that any other fine
+lady ever did. Mrs. Churchill will not be second to any lady in the land
+for”--
+
+Mrs. Elton eagerly interposed with,
+
+“Oh! Mr. Weston, do not mistake me. Selina is no fine lady, I assure
+you. Do not run away with such an idea.”
+
+“Is not she? Then she is no rule for Mrs. Churchill, who is as thorough
+a fine lady as any body ever beheld.”
+
+Mrs. Elton began to think she had been wrong in disclaiming so warmly.
+It was by no means her object to have it believed that her sister was
+_not_ a fine lady; perhaps there was want of spirit in the pretence of
+it;--and she was considering in what way she had best retract, when Mr.
+Weston went on.
+
+“Mrs. Churchill is not much in my good graces, as you may suspect--but
+this is quite between ourselves. She is very fond of Frank, and
+therefore I would not speak ill of her. Besides, she is out of health
+now; but _that_ indeed, by her own account, she has always been. I would
+not say so to every body, Mrs. Elton, but I have not much faith in Mrs.
+Churchill’s illness.”
+
+“If she is really ill, why not go to Bath, Mr. Weston?--To Bath, or to
+Clifton?” “She has taken it into her head that Enscombe is too cold for
+her. The fact is, I suppose, that she is tired of Enscombe. She has now
+been a longer time stationary there, than she ever was before, and she
+begins to want change. It is a retired place. A fine place, but very
+retired.”
+
+“Aye--like Maple Grove, I dare say. Nothing can stand more retired from
+the road than Maple Grove. Such an immense plantation all round it! You
+seem shut out from every thing--in the most complete retirement.--And
+Mrs. Churchill probably has not health or spirits like Selina to enjoy
+that sort of seclusion. Or, perhaps she may not have resources enough in
+herself to be qualified for a country life. I always say a woman cannot
+have too many resources--and I feel very thankful that I have so many
+myself as to be quite independent of society.”
+
+“Frank was here in February for a fortnight.”
+
+“So I remember to have heard. He will find an _addition_ to the society
+of Highbury when he comes again; that is, if I may presume to call
+myself an addition. But perhaps he may never have heard of there being
+such a creature in the world.”
+
+This was too loud a call for a compliment to be passed by, and Mr.
+Weston, with a very good grace, immediately exclaimed,
+
+“My dear madam! Nobody but yourself could imagine such a thing possible.
+Not heard of you!--I believe Mrs. Weston’s letters lately have been full
+of very little else than Mrs. Elton.”
+
+He had done his duty and could return to his son.
+
+“When Frank left us,” continued he, “it was quite uncertain when we
+might see him again, which makes this day’s news doubly welcome. It has
+been completely unexpected. That is, _I_ always had a strong persuasion
+he would be here again soon, I was sure something favourable would turn
+up--but nobody believed me. He and Mrs. Weston were both dreadfully
+desponding. ‘How could he contrive to come? And how could it be supposed
+that his uncle and aunt would spare him again?’ and so forth--I always
+felt that something would happen in our favour; and so it has, you see.
+I have observed, Mrs. Elton, in the course of my life, that if things
+are going untowardly one month, they are sure to mend the next.”
+
+“Very true, Mr. Weston, perfectly true. It is just what I used to say to
+a certain gentleman in company in the days of courtship, when, because
+things did not go quite right, did not proceed with all the rapidity
+which suited his feelings, he was apt to be in despair, and exclaim that
+he was sure at this rate it would be _May_ before Hymen’s saffron robe
+would be put on for us. Oh! the pains I have been at to dispel those
+gloomy ideas and give him cheerfuller views! The carriage--we had
+disappointments about the carriage;--one morning, I remember, he came to
+me quite in despair.”
+
+She was stopped by a slight fit of coughing, and Mr. Weston instantly
+seized the opportunity of going on.
+
+“You were mentioning May. May is the very month which Mrs. Churchill
+is ordered, or has ordered herself, to spend in some warmer place than
+Enscombe--in short, to spend in London; so that we have the agreeable
+prospect of frequent visits from Frank the whole spring--precisely the
+season of the year which one should have chosen for it: days almost at
+the longest; weather genial and pleasant, always inviting one out, and
+never too hot for exercise. When he was here before, we made the best
+of it; but there was a good deal of wet, damp, cheerless weather;
+there always is in February, you know, and we could not do half that we
+intended. Now will be the time. This will be complete enjoyment; and I
+do not know, Mrs. Elton, whether the uncertainty of our meetings, the
+sort of constant expectation there will be of his coming in to-day or
+to-morrow, and at any hour, may not be more friendly to happiness than
+having him actually in the house. I think it is so. I think it is the
+state of mind which gives most spirit and delight. I hope you will be
+pleased with my son; but you must not expect a prodigy. He is generally
+thought a fine young man, but do not expect a prodigy. Mrs. Weston’s
+partiality for him is very great, and, as you may suppose, most
+gratifying to me. She thinks nobody equal to him.”
+
+“And I assure you, Mr. Weston, I have very little doubt that my opinion
+will be decidedly in his favour. I have heard so much in praise of Mr.
+Frank Churchill.--At the same time it is fair to observe, that I am one
+of those who always judge for themselves, and are by no means implicitly
+guided by others. I give you notice that as I find your son, so I shall
+judge of him.--I am no flatterer.”
+
+Mr. Weston was musing.
+
+“I hope,” said he presently, “I have not been severe upon poor Mrs.
+Churchill. If she is ill I should be sorry to do her injustice; but
+there are some traits in her character which make it difficult for me to
+speak of her with the forbearance I could wish. You cannot be ignorant,
+Mrs. Elton, of my connexion with the family, nor of the treatment I have
+met with; and, between ourselves, the whole blame of it is to be laid
+to her. She was the instigator. Frank’s mother would never have been
+slighted as she was but for her. Mr. Churchill has pride; but his pride
+is nothing to his wife’s: his is a quiet, indolent, gentlemanlike sort
+of pride that would harm nobody, and only make himself a little helpless
+and tiresome; but her pride is arrogance and insolence! And what
+inclines one less to bear, she has no fair pretence of family or blood.
+She was nobody when he married her, barely the daughter of a gentleman;
+but ever since her being turned into a Churchill she has out-Churchill’d
+them all in high and mighty claims: but in herself, I assure you, she is
+an upstart.”
+
+“Only think! well, that must be infinitely provoking! I have quite
+a horror of upstarts. Maple Grove has given me a thorough disgust to
+people of that sort; for there is a family in that neighbourhood who
+are such an annoyance to my brother and sister from the airs they give
+themselves! Your description of Mrs. Churchill made me think of them
+directly. People of the name of Tupman, very lately settled there, and
+encumbered with many low connexions, but giving themselves immense airs,
+and expecting to be on a footing with the old established families.
+A year and a half is the very utmost that they can have lived at West
+Hall; and how they got their fortune nobody knows. They came from
+Birmingham, which is not a place to promise much, you know, Mr. Weston.
+One has not great hopes from Birmingham. I always say there is something
+direful in the sound: but nothing more is positively known of the
+Tupmans, though a good many things I assure you are suspected; and
+yet by their manners they evidently think themselves equal even to
+my brother, Mr. Suckling, who happens to be one of their nearest
+neighbours. It is infinitely too bad. Mr. Suckling, who has been eleven
+years a resident at Maple Grove, and whose father had it before him--I
+believe, at least--I am almost sure that old Mr. Suckling had completed
+the purchase before his death.”
+
+They were interrupted. Tea was carrying round, and Mr. Weston, having
+said all that he wanted, soon took the opportunity of walking away.
+
+After tea, Mr. and Mrs. Weston, and Mr. Elton sat down with Mr.
+Woodhouse to cards. The remaining five were left to their own powers,
+and Emma doubted their getting on very well; for Mr. Knightley seemed
+little disposed for conversation; Mrs. Elton was wanting notice, which
+nobody had inclination to pay, and she was herself in a worry of spirits
+which would have made her prefer being silent.
+
+Mr. John Knightley proved more talkative than his brother. He was to
+leave them early the next day; and he soon began with--
+
+“Well, Emma, I do not believe I have any thing more to say about the
+boys; but you have your sister’s letter, and every thing is down at full
+length there we may be sure. My charge would be much more concise than
+her’s, and probably not much in the same spirit; all that I have to
+recommend being comprised in, do not spoil them, and do not physic
+them.”
+
+“I rather hope to satisfy you both,” said Emma, “for I shall do all
+in my power to make them happy, which will be enough for Isabella; and
+happiness must preclude false indulgence and physic.”
+
+“And if you find them troublesome, you must send them home again.”
+
+“That is very likely. You think so, do not you?”
+
+“I hope I am aware that they may be too noisy for your father--or even
+may be some encumbrance to you, if your visiting engagements continue to
+increase as much as they have done lately.”
+
+“Increase!”
+
+“Certainly; you must be sensible that the last half-year has made a
+great difference in your way of life.”
+
+“Difference! No indeed I am not.”
+
+“There can be no doubt of your being much more engaged with company than
+you used to be. Witness this very time. Here am I come down for only
+one day, and you are engaged with a dinner-party!--When did it happen
+before, or any thing like it? Your neighbourhood is increasing, and you
+mix more with it. A little while ago, every letter to Isabella brought
+an account of fresh gaieties; dinners at Mr. Cole’s, or balls at the
+Crown. The difference which Randalls, Randalls alone makes in your
+goings-on, is very great.”
+
+“Yes,” said his brother quickly, “it is Randalls that does it all.”
+
+“Very well--and as Randalls, I suppose, is not likely to have less
+influence than heretofore, it strikes me as a possible thing, Emma, that
+Henry and John may be sometimes in the way. And if they are, I only beg
+you to send them home.”
+
+“No,” cried Mr. Knightley, “that need not be the consequence. Let them
+be sent to Donwell. I shall certainly be at leisure.”
+
+“Upon my word,” exclaimed Emma, “you amuse me! I should like to know how
+many of all my numerous engagements take place without your being of
+the party; and why I am to be supposed in danger of wanting leisure to
+attend to the little boys. These amazing engagements of mine--what have
+they been? Dining once with the Coles--and having a ball talked of,
+which never took place. I can understand you--(nodding at Mr. John
+Knightley)--your good fortune in meeting with so many of your friends at
+once here, delights you too much to pass unnoticed. But you, (turning to
+Mr. Knightley,) who know how very, very seldom I am ever two hours from
+Hartfield, why you should foresee such a series of dissipation for me, I
+cannot imagine. And as to my dear little boys, I must say, that if Aunt
+Emma has not time for them, I do not think they would fare much better
+with Uncle Knightley, who is absent from home about five hours where she
+is absent one--and who, when he is at home, is either reading to himself
+or settling his accounts.”
+
+Mr. Knightley seemed to be trying not to smile; and succeeded without
+difficulty, upon Mrs. Elton’s beginning to talk to him.
+
+
+
+
+VOLUME III
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+A very little quiet reflection was enough to satisfy Emma as to the
+nature of her agitation on hearing this news of Frank Churchill. She
+was soon convinced that it was not for herself she was feeling at all
+apprehensive or embarrassed; it was for him. Her own attachment had
+really subsided into a mere nothing; it was not worth thinking of;--but
+if he, who had undoubtedly been always so much the most in love of the
+two, were to be returning with the same warmth of sentiment which he had
+taken away, it would be very distressing. If a separation of two
+months should not have cooled him, there were dangers and evils before
+her:--caution for him and for herself would be necessary. She did
+not mean to have her own affections entangled again, and it would be
+incumbent on her to avoid any encouragement of his.
+
+She wished she might be able to keep him from an absolute declaration.
+That would be so very painful a conclusion of their present
+acquaintance! and yet, she could not help rather anticipating something
+decisive. She felt as if the spring would not pass without bringing a
+crisis, an event, a something to alter her present composed and tranquil
+state.
+
+It was not very long, though rather longer than Mr. Weston had foreseen,
+before she had the power of forming some opinion of Frank Churchill’s
+feelings. The Enscombe family were not in town quite so soon as had been
+imagined, but he was at Highbury very soon afterwards. He rode down
+for a couple of hours; he could not yet do more; but as he came from
+Randalls immediately to Hartfield, she could then exercise all her quick
+observation, and speedily determine how he was influenced, and how she
+must act. They met with the utmost friendliness. There could be no doubt
+of his great pleasure in seeing her. But she had an almost instant doubt
+of his caring for her as he had done, of his feeling the same tenderness
+in the same degree. She watched him well. It was a clear thing he was
+less in love than he had been. Absence, with the conviction probably
+of her indifference, had produced this very natural and very desirable
+effect.
+
+He was in high spirits; as ready to talk and laugh as ever, and seemed
+delighted to speak of his former visit, and recur to old stories: and he
+was not without agitation. It was not in his calmness that she read
+his comparative difference. He was not calm; his spirits were evidently
+fluttered; there was restlessness about him. Lively as he was, it seemed
+a liveliness that did not satisfy himself; but what decided her belief
+on the subject, was his staying only a quarter of an hour, and hurrying
+away to make other calls in Highbury. “He had seen a group of old
+acquaintance in the street as he passed--he had not stopped, he would
+not stop for more than a word--but he had the vanity to think they would
+be disappointed if he did not call, and much as he wished to stay longer
+at Hartfield, he must hurry off.” She had no doubt as to his being less
+in love--but neither his agitated spirits, nor his hurrying away, seemed
+like a perfect cure; and she was rather inclined to think it implied a
+dread of her returning power, and a discreet resolution of not trusting
+himself with her long.
+
+This was the only visit from Frank Churchill in the course of ten days.
+He was often hoping, intending to come--but was always prevented. His
+aunt could not bear to have him leave her. Such was his own account at
+Randall’s. If he were quite sincere, if he really tried to come, it was
+to be inferred that Mrs. Churchill’s removal to London had been of no
+service to the wilful or nervous part of her disorder. That she was
+really ill was very certain; he had declared himself convinced of it, at
+Randalls. Though much might be fancy, he could not doubt, when he looked
+back, that she was in a weaker state of health than she had been half a
+year ago. He did not believe it to proceed from any thing that care
+and medicine might not remove, or at least that she might not have many
+years of existence before her; but he could not be prevailed on, by all
+his father’s doubts, to say that her complaints were merely imaginary,
+or that she was as strong as ever.
+
+It soon appeared that London was not the place for her. She could
+not endure its noise. Her nerves were under continual irritation and
+suffering; and by the ten days’ end, her nephew’s letter to Randalls
+communicated a change of plan. They were going to remove immediately to
+Richmond. Mrs. Churchill had been recommended to the medical skill of
+an eminent person there, and had otherwise a fancy for the place. A
+ready-furnished house in a favourite spot was engaged, and much benefit
+expected from the change.
+
+Emma heard that Frank wrote in the highest spirits of this arrangement,
+and seemed most fully to appreciate the blessing of having two months
+before him of such near neighbourhood to many dear friends--for the
+house was taken for May and June. She was told that now he wrote with
+the greatest confidence of being often with them, almost as often as he
+could even wish.
+
+Emma saw how Mr. Weston understood these joyous prospects. He was
+considering her as the source of all the happiness they offered. She
+hoped it was not so. Two months must bring it to the proof.
+
+Mr. Weston’s own happiness was indisputable. He was quite delighted.
+It was the very circumstance he could have wished for. Now, it would be
+really having Frank in their neighbourhood. What were nine miles to
+a young man?--An hour’s ride. He would be always coming over. The
+difference in that respect of Richmond and London was enough to make
+the whole difference of seeing him always and seeing him never. Sixteen
+miles--nay, eighteen--it must be full eighteen to Manchester-street--was
+a serious obstacle. Were he ever able to get away, the day would be
+spent in coming and returning. There was no comfort in having him in
+London; he might as well be at Enscombe; but Richmond was the very
+distance for easy intercourse. Better than nearer!
+
+One good thing was immediately brought to a certainty by this
+removal,--the ball at the Crown. It had not been forgotten before,
+but it had been soon acknowledged vain to attempt to fix a day. Now,
+however, it was absolutely to be; every preparation was resumed, and
+very soon after the Churchills had removed to Richmond, a few lines from
+Frank, to say that his aunt felt already much better for the change, and
+that he had no doubt of being able to join them for twenty-four hours at
+any given time, induced them to name as early a day as possible.
+
+Mr. Weston’s ball was to be a real thing. A very few to-morrows stood
+between the young people of Highbury and happiness.
+
+Mr. Woodhouse was resigned. The time of year lightened the evil to him.
+May was better for every thing than February. Mrs. Bates was engaged to
+spend the evening at Hartfield, James had due notice, and he sanguinely
+hoped that neither dear little Henry nor dear little John would have any
+thing the matter with them, while dear Emma were gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+No misfortune occurred, again to prevent the ball. The day approached,
+the day arrived; and after a morning of some anxious watching, Frank
+Churchill, in all the certainty of his own self, reached Randalls before
+dinner, and every thing was safe.
+
+No second meeting had there yet been between him and Emma. The room
+at the Crown was to witness it;--but it would be better than a
+common meeting in a crowd. Mr. Weston had been so very earnest in his
+entreaties for her arriving there as soon as possible after themselves,
+for the purpose of taking her opinion as to the propriety and comfort of
+the rooms before any other persons came, that she could not refuse him,
+and must therefore spend some quiet interval in the young man’s company.
+She was to convey Harriet, and they drove to the Crown in good time, the
+Randalls party just sufficiently before them.
+
+Frank Churchill seemed to have been on the watch; and though he did not
+say much, his eyes declared that he meant to have a delightful evening.
+They all walked about together, to see that every thing was as it should
+be; and within a few minutes were joined by the contents of another
+carriage, which Emma could not hear the sound of at first, without great
+surprize. “So unreasonably early!” she was going to exclaim; but she
+presently found that it was a family of old friends, who were coming,
+like herself, by particular desire, to help Mr. Weston’s judgment; and
+they were so very closely followed by another carriage of cousins,
+who had been entreated to come early with the same distinguishing
+earnestness, on the same errand, that it seemed as if half the company
+might soon be collected together for the purpose of preparatory
+inspection.
+
+Emma perceived that her taste was not the only taste on which Mr. Weston
+depended, and felt, that to be the favourite and intimate of a man
+who had so many intimates and confidantes, was not the very first
+distinction in the scale of vanity. She liked his open manners, but
+a little less of open-heartedness would have made him a higher
+character.--General benevolence, but not general friendship, made a
+man what he ought to be.--She could fancy such a man. The whole party
+walked about, and looked, and praised again; and then, having nothing
+else to do, formed a sort of half-circle round the fire, to observe
+in their various modes, till other subjects were started, that, though
+_May_, a fire in the evening was still very pleasant.
+
+Emma found that it was not Mr. Weston’s fault that the number of privy
+councillors was not yet larger. They had stopped at Mrs. Bates’s door
+to offer the use of their carriage, but the aunt and niece were to be
+brought by the Eltons.
+
+Frank was standing by her, but not steadily; there was a restlessness,
+which shewed a mind not at ease. He was looking about, he was going to
+the door, he was watching for the sound of other carriages,--impatient
+to begin, or afraid of being always near her.
+
+Mrs. Elton was spoken of. “I think she must be here soon,” said he. “I
+have a great curiosity to see Mrs. Elton, I have heard so much of her.
+It cannot be long, I think, before she comes.”
+
+A carriage was heard. He was on the move immediately; but coming back,
+said,
+
+“I am forgetting that I am not acquainted with her. I have never seen
+either Mr. or Mrs. Elton. I have no business to put myself forward.”
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Elton appeared; and all the smiles and the proprieties
+passed.
+
+“But Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax!” said Mr. Weston, looking about. “We
+thought you were to bring them.”
+
+The mistake had been slight. The carriage was sent for them now. Emma
+longed to know what Frank’s first opinion of Mrs. Elton might be; how
+he was affected by the studied elegance of her dress, and her smiles of
+graciousness. He was immediately qualifying himself to form an opinion,
+by giving her very proper attention, after the introduction had passed.
+
+In a few minutes the carriage returned.--Somebody talked of rain.--“I
+will see that there are umbrellas, sir,” said Frank to his father:
+“Miss Bates must not be forgotten:” and away he went. Mr. Weston was
+following; but Mrs. Elton detained him, to gratify him by her opinion
+of his son; and so briskly did she begin, that the young man himself,
+though by no means moving slowly, could hardly be out of hearing.
+
+“A very fine young man indeed, Mr. Weston. You know I candidly told you
+I should form my own opinion; and I am happy to say that I am extremely
+pleased with him.--You may believe me. I never compliment. I think him
+a very handsome young man, and his manners are precisely what I like and
+approve--so truly the gentleman, without the least conceit or puppyism.
+You must know I have a vast dislike to puppies--quite a horror of them.
+They were never tolerated at Maple Grove. Neither Mr. Suckling nor
+me had ever any patience with them; and we used sometimes to say very
+cutting things! Selina, who is mild almost to a fault, bore with them
+much better.”
+
+While she talked of his son, Mr. Weston’s attention was chained; but
+when she got to Maple Grove, he could recollect that there were ladies
+just arriving to be attended to, and with happy smiles must hurry away.
+
+Mrs. Elton turned to Mrs. Weston. “I have no doubt of its being our
+carriage with Miss Bates and Jane. Our coachman and horses are so
+extremely expeditious!--I believe we drive faster than any body.--What
+a pleasure it is to send one’s carriage for a friend!--I understand you
+were so kind as to offer, but another time it will be quite unnecessary.
+You may be very sure I shall always take care of _them_.”
+
+Miss Bates and Miss Fairfax, escorted by the two gentlemen, walked into
+the room; and Mrs. Elton seemed to think it as much her duty as Mrs.
+Weston’s to receive them. Her gestures and movements might be understood
+by any one who looked on like Emma; but her words, every body’s words,
+were soon lost under the incessant flow of Miss Bates, who came in
+talking, and had not finished her speech under many minutes after her
+being admitted into the circle at the fire. As the door opened she was
+heard,
+
+“So very obliging of you!--No rain at all. Nothing to signify. I do not
+care for myself. Quite thick shoes. And Jane declares--Well!--(as soon
+as she was within the door) Well! This is brilliant indeed!--This is
+admirable!--Excellently contrived, upon my word. Nothing wanting. Could
+not have imagined it.--So well lighted up!--Jane, Jane, look!--did you
+ever see any thing? Oh! Mr. Weston, you must really have had Aladdin’s
+lamp. Good Mrs. Stokes would not know her own room again. I saw her as
+I came in; she was standing in the entrance. ‘Oh! Mrs. Stokes,’ said
+I--but I had not time for more.” She was now met by Mrs. Weston.--“Very
+well, I thank you, ma’am. I hope you are quite well. Very happy to hear
+it. So afraid you might have a headache!--seeing you pass by so often,
+and knowing how much trouble you must have. Delighted to hear it indeed.
+Ah! dear Mrs. Elton, so obliged to you for the carriage!--excellent
+time. Jane and I quite ready. Did not keep the horses a moment. Most
+comfortable carriage.--Oh! and I am sure our thanks are due to you,
+Mrs. Weston, on that score. Mrs. Elton had most kindly sent Jane a note,
+or we should have been.--But two such offers in one day!--Never were
+such neighbours. I said to my mother, ‘Upon my word, ma’am--.’ Thank
+you, my mother is remarkably well. Gone to Mr. Woodhouse’s. I made her
+take her shawl--for the evenings are not warm--her large new shawl--
+Mrs. Dixon’s wedding-present.--So kind of her to think of my mother!
+Bought at Weymouth, you know--Mr. Dixon’s choice. There were three
+others, Jane says, which they hesitated about some time. Colonel
+Campbell rather preferred an olive. My dear Jane, are you sure you did
+not wet your feet?--It was but a drop or two, but I am so afraid:--but
+Mr. Frank Churchill was so extremely--and there was a mat to step
+upon--I shall never forget his extreme politeness.--Oh! Mr. Frank
+Churchill, I must tell you my mother’s spectacles have never been in
+fault since; the rivet never came out again. My mother often talks of
+your good-nature. Does not she, Jane?--Do not we often talk of Mr. Frank
+Churchill?--Ah! here’s Miss Woodhouse.--Dear Miss Woodhouse, how do
+you do?--Very well I thank you, quite well. This is meeting quite
+in fairy-land!--Such a transformation!--Must not compliment, I know
+(eyeing Emma most complacently)--that would be rude--but upon my word,
+Miss Woodhouse, you do look--how do you like Jane’s hair?--You are
+a judge.--She did it all herself. Quite wonderful how she does her
+hair!--No hairdresser from London I think could.--Ah! Dr. Hughes I
+declare--and Mrs. Hughes. Must go and speak to Dr. and Mrs. Hughes for a
+moment.--How do you do? How do you do?--Very well, I thank you. This
+is delightful, is not it?--Where’s dear Mr. Richard?--Oh! there he is.
+Don’t disturb him. Much better employed talking to the young ladies. How
+do you do, Mr. Richard?--I saw you the other day as you rode through
+the town--Mrs. Otway, I protest!--and good Mr. Otway, and Miss Otway
+and Miss Caroline.--Such a host of friends!--and Mr. George and Mr.
+Arthur!--How do you do? How do you all do?--Quite well, I am much
+obliged to you. Never better.--Don’t I hear another carriage?--Who can
+this be?--very likely the worthy Coles.--Upon my word, this is charming
+to be standing about among such friends! And such a noble fire!--I am
+quite roasted. No coffee, I thank you, for me--never take coffee.--A
+little tea if you please, sir, by and bye,--no hurry--Oh! here it comes.
+Every thing so good!”
+
+Frank Churchill returned to his station by Emma; and as soon as Miss
+Bates was quiet, she found herself necessarily overhearing the discourse
+of Mrs. Elton and Miss Fairfax, who were standing a little way behind
+her.--He was thoughtful. Whether he were overhearing too, she could not
+determine. After a good many compliments to Jane on her dress and look,
+compliments very quietly and properly taken, Mrs. Elton was evidently
+wanting to be complimented herself--and it was, “How do you like
+my gown?--How do you like my trimming?--How has Wright done my
+hair?”--with many other relative questions, all answered with patient
+politeness. Mrs. Elton then said, “Nobody can think less of dress in
+general than I do--but upon such an occasion as this, when every body’s
+eyes are so much upon me, and in compliment to the Westons--who I have
+no doubt are giving this ball chiefly to do me honour--I would not wish
+to be inferior to others. And I see very few pearls in the room except
+mine.--So Frank Churchill is a capital dancer, I understand.--We shall
+see if our styles suit.--A fine young man certainly is Frank Churchill.
+I like him very well.”
+
+At this moment Frank began talking so vigorously, that Emma could not
+but imagine he had overheard his own praises, and did not want to hear
+more;--and the voices of the ladies were drowned for a while, till
+another suspension brought Mrs. Elton’s tones again distinctly
+forward.--Mr. Elton had just joined them, and his wife was exclaiming,
+
+“Oh! you have found us out at last, have you, in our seclusion?--I was
+this moment telling Jane, I thought you would begin to be impatient for
+tidings of us.”
+
+“Jane!”--repeated Frank Churchill, with a look of surprize and
+displeasure.--“That is easy--but Miss Fairfax does not disapprove it, I
+suppose.”
+
+“How do you like Mrs. Elton?” said Emma in a whisper.
+
+“Not at all.”
+
+“You are ungrateful.”
+
+“Ungrateful!--What do you mean?” Then changing from a frown to a
+smile--“No, do not tell me--I do not want to know what you mean.--Where
+is my father?--When are we to begin dancing?”
+
+Emma could hardly understand him; he seemed in an odd humour. He walked
+off to find his father, but was quickly back again with both Mr. and
+Mrs. Weston. He had met with them in a little perplexity, which must be
+laid before Emma. It had just occurred to Mrs. Weston that Mrs. Elton
+must be asked to begin the ball; that she would expect it; which
+interfered with all their wishes of giving Emma that distinction.--Emma
+heard the sad truth with fortitude.
+
+“And what are we to do for a proper partner for her?” said Mr. Weston.
+“She will think Frank ought to ask her.”
+
+Frank turned instantly to Emma, to claim her former promise; and
+boasted himself an engaged man, which his father looked his most perfect
+approbation of--and it then appeared that Mrs. Weston was wanting _him_
+to dance with Mrs. Elton himself, and that their business was to help to
+persuade him into it, which was done pretty soon.--Mr. Weston and Mrs.
+Elton led the way, Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse followed.
+Emma must submit to stand second to Mrs. Elton, though she had always
+considered the ball as peculiarly for her. It was almost enough to make
+her think of marrying. Mrs. Elton had undoubtedly the advantage, at this
+time, in vanity completely gratified; for though she had intended to
+begin with Frank Churchill, she could not lose by the change. Mr. Weston
+might be his son’s superior.--In spite of this little rub, however,
+Emma was smiling with enjoyment, delighted to see the respectable length
+of the set as it was forming, and to feel that she had so many hours
+of unusual festivity before her.--She was more disturbed by Mr.
+Knightley’s not dancing than by any thing else.--There he was, among
+the standers-by, where he ought not to be; he ought to be dancing,--not
+classing himself with the husbands, and fathers, and whist-players, who
+were pretending to feel an interest in the dance till their rubbers were
+made up,--so young as he looked!--He could not have appeared to greater
+advantage perhaps anywhere, than where he had placed himself. His tall,
+firm, upright figure, among the bulky forms and stooping shoulders of
+the elderly men, was such as Emma felt must draw every body’s eyes;
+and, excepting her own partner, there was not one among the whole row of
+young men who could be compared with him.--He moved a few steps nearer,
+and those few steps were enough to prove in how gentlemanlike a manner,
+with what natural grace, he must have danced, would he but take the
+trouble.--Whenever she caught his eye, she forced him to smile; but
+in general he was looking grave. She wished he could love a ballroom
+better, and could like Frank Churchill better.--He seemed often
+observing her. She must not flatter herself that he thought of her
+dancing, but if he were criticising her behaviour, she did not feel
+afraid. There was nothing like flirtation between her and her partner.
+They seemed more like cheerful, easy friends, than lovers. That Frank
+Churchill thought less of her than he had done, was indubitable.
+
+The ball proceeded pleasantly. The anxious cares, the incessant
+attentions of Mrs. Weston, were not thrown away. Every body seemed
+happy; and the praise of being a delightful ball, which is seldom
+bestowed till after a ball has ceased to be, was repeatedly given in
+the very beginning of the existence of this. Of very important, very
+recordable events, it was not more productive than such meetings usually
+are. There was one, however, which Emma thought something of.--The two
+last dances before supper were begun, and Harriet had no partner;--the
+only young lady sitting down;--and so equal had been hitherto the
+number of dancers, that how there could be any one disengaged was the
+wonder!--But Emma’s wonder lessened soon afterwards, on seeing Mr. Elton
+sauntering about. He would not ask Harriet to dance if it were possible
+to be avoided: she was sure he would not--and she was expecting him
+every moment to escape into the card-room.
+
+Escape, however, was not his plan. He came to the part of the room where
+the sitters-by were collected, spoke to some, and walked about in front
+of them, as if to shew his liberty, and his resolution of maintaining
+it. He did not omit being sometimes directly before Miss Smith, or
+speaking to those who were close to her.--Emma saw it. She was not yet
+dancing; she was working her way up from the bottom, and had therefore
+leisure to look around, and by only turning her head a little she saw
+it all. When she was half-way up the set, the whole group were exactly
+behind her, and she would no longer allow her eyes to watch; but Mr.
+Elton was so near, that she heard every syllable of a dialogue which
+just then took place between him and Mrs. Weston; and she perceived that
+his wife, who was standing immediately above her, was not only
+listening also, but even encouraging him by significant glances.--The
+kind-hearted, gentle Mrs. Weston had left her seat to join him and say,
+“Do not you dance, Mr. Elton?” to which his prompt reply was, “Most
+readily, Mrs. Weston, if you will dance with me.”
+
+“Me!--oh! no--I would get you a better partner than myself. I am no
+dancer.”
+
+“If Mrs. Gilbert wishes to dance,” said he, “I shall have great
+pleasure, I am sure--for, though beginning to feel myself rather an old
+married man, and that my dancing days are over, it would give me very
+great pleasure at any time to stand up with an old friend like Mrs.
+Gilbert.”
+
+“Mrs. Gilbert does not mean to dance, but there is a young lady
+disengaged whom I should be very glad to see dancing--Miss Smith.” “Miss
+Smith!--oh!--I had not observed.--You are extremely obliging--and if I
+were not an old married man.--But my dancing days are over, Mrs. Weston.
+You will excuse me. Any thing else I should be most happy to do, at your
+command--but my dancing days are over.”
+
+Mrs. Weston said no more; and Emma could imagine with what surprize and
+mortification she must be returning to her seat. This was Mr. Elton! the
+amiable, obliging, gentle Mr. Elton.--She looked round for a moment; he
+had joined Mr. Knightley at a little distance, and was arranging himself
+for settled conversation, while smiles of high glee passed between him
+and his wife.
+
+She would not look again. Her heart was in a glow, and she feared her
+face might be as hot.
+
+In another moment a happier sight caught her;--Mr. Knightley leading
+Harriet to the set!--Never had she been more surprized, seldom more
+delighted, than at that instant. She was all pleasure and gratitude,
+both for Harriet and herself, and longed to be thanking him; and though
+too distant for speech, her countenance said much, as soon as she could
+catch his eye again.
+
+His dancing proved to be just what she had believed it, extremely good;
+and Harriet would have seemed almost too lucky, if it had not been for
+the cruel state of things before, and for the very complete enjoyment
+and very high sense of the distinction which her happy features
+announced. It was not thrown away on her, she bounded higher than ever,
+flew farther down the middle, and was in a continual course of smiles.
+
+Mr. Elton had retreated into the card-room, looking (Emma trusted) very
+foolish. She did not think he was quite so hardened as his wife, though
+growing very like her;--_she_ spoke some of her feelings, by observing
+audibly to her partner,
+
+“Knightley has taken pity on poor little Miss Smith!--Very good-natured,
+I declare.”
+
+Supper was announced. The move began; and Miss Bates might be heard from
+that moment, without interruption, till her being seated at table and
+taking up her spoon.
+
+“Jane, Jane, my dear Jane, where are you?--Here is your tippet. Mrs.
+Weston begs you to put on your tippet. She says she is afraid there will
+be draughts in the passage, though every thing has been done--One door
+nailed up--Quantities of matting--My dear Jane, indeed you must.
+Mr. Churchill, oh! you are too obliging! How well you put it on!--so
+gratified! Excellent dancing indeed!--Yes, my dear, I ran home, as I
+said I should, to help grandmama to bed, and got back again, and
+nobody missed me.--I set off without saying a word, just as I told you.
+Grandmama was quite well, had a charming evening with Mr. Woodhouse, a
+vast deal of chat, and backgammon.--Tea was made downstairs, biscuits
+and baked apples and wine before she came away: amazing luck in some
+of her throws: and she inquired a great deal about you, how you were
+amused, and who were your partners. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘I shall not forestall
+Jane; I left her dancing with Mr. George Otway; she will love to tell
+you all about it herself to-morrow: her first partner was Mr. Elton,
+I do not know who will ask her next, perhaps Mr. William Cox.’ My dear
+sir, you are too obliging.--Is there nobody you would not rather?--I am
+not helpless. Sir, you are most kind. Upon my word, Jane on one arm, and
+me on the other!--Stop, stop, let us stand a little back, Mrs. Elton is
+going; dear Mrs. Elton, how elegant she looks!--Beautiful lace!--Now we
+all follow in her train. Quite the queen of the evening!--Well, here we
+are at the passage. Two steps, Jane, take care of the two steps. Oh! no,
+there is but one. Well, I was persuaded there were two. How very odd!
+I was convinced there were two, and there is but one. I never saw any
+thing equal to the comfort and style--Candles everywhere.--I was telling
+you of your grandmama, Jane,--There was a little disappointment.--The
+baked apples and biscuits, excellent in their way, you know; but there
+was a delicate fricassee of sweetbread and some asparagus brought in at
+first, and good Mr. Woodhouse, not thinking the asparagus quite boiled
+enough, sent it all out again. Now there is nothing grandmama loves
+better than sweetbread and asparagus--so she was rather disappointed,
+but we agreed we would not speak of it to any body, for fear of
+its getting round to dear Miss Woodhouse, who would be so very much
+concerned!--Well, this is brilliant! I am all amazement! could not have
+supposed any thing!--Such elegance and profusion!--I have seen nothing
+like it since--Well, where shall we sit? where shall we sit? Anywhere,
+so that Jane is not in a draught. Where _I_ sit is of no consequence.
+Oh! do you recommend this side?--Well, I am sure, Mr. Churchill--only
+it seems too good--but just as you please. What you direct in this house
+cannot be wrong. Dear Jane, how shall we ever recollect half the dishes
+for grandmama? Soup too! Bless me! I should not be helped so soon, but
+it smells most excellent, and I cannot help beginning.”
+
+Emma had no opportunity of speaking to Mr. Knightley till after supper;
+but, when they were all in the ballroom again, her eyes invited
+him irresistibly to come to her and be thanked. He was warm in his
+reprobation of Mr. Elton’s conduct; it had been unpardonable rudeness;
+and Mrs. Elton’s looks also received the due share of censure.
+
+“They aimed at wounding more than Harriet,” said he. “Emma, why is it
+that they are your enemies?”
+
+He looked with smiling penetration; and, on receiving no answer, added,
+“_She_ ought not to be angry with you, I suspect, whatever he may
+be.--To that surmise, you say nothing, of course; but confess, Emma,
+that you did want him to marry Harriet.”
+
+“I did,” replied Emma, “and they cannot forgive me.”
+
+He shook his head; but there was a smile of indulgence with it, and he
+only said,
+
+“I shall not scold you. I leave you to your own reflections.”
+
+“Can you trust me with such flatterers?--Does my vain spirit ever tell
+me I am wrong?”
+
+“Not your vain spirit, but your serious spirit.--If one leads you wrong,
+I am sure the other tells you of it.”
+
+“I do own myself to have been completely mistaken in Mr. Elton. There is
+a littleness about him which you discovered, and which I did not: and I
+was fully convinced of his being in love with Harriet. It was through a
+series of strange blunders!”
+
+“And, in return for your acknowledging so much, I will do you the
+justice to say, that you would have chosen for him better than he has
+chosen for himself.--Harriet Smith has some first-rate qualities, which
+Mrs. Elton is totally without. An unpretending, single-minded, artless
+girl--infinitely to be preferred by any man of sense and taste to such a
+woman as Mrs. Elton. I found Harriet more conversable than I expected.”
+
+Emma was extremely gratified.--They were interrupted by the bustle of
+Mr. Weston calling on every body to begin dancing again.
+
+“Come Miss Woodhouse, Miss Otway, Miss Fairfax, what are you all
+doing?--Come Emma, set your companions the example. Every body is lazy!
+Every body is asleep!”
+
+“I am ready,” said Emma, “whenever I am wanted.”
+
+“Whom are you going to dance with?” asked Mr. Knightley.
+
+She hesitated a moment, and then replied, “With you, if you will ask
+me.”
+
+“Will you?” said he, offering his hand.
+
+“Indeed I will. You have shewn that you can dance, and you know we are
+not really so much brother and sister as to make it at all improper.”
+
+“Brother and sister! no, indeed.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+This little explanation with Mr. Knightley gave Emma considerable
+pleasure. It was one of the agreeable recollections of the ball, which
+she walked about the lawn the next morning to enjoy.--She was extremely
+glad that they had come to so good an understanding respecting the
+Eltons, and that their opinions of both husband and wife were so much
+alike; and his praise of Harriet, his concession in her favour, was
+peculiarly gratifying. The impertinence of the Eltons, which for a few
+minutes had threatened to ruin the rest of her evening, had been the
+occasion of some of its highest satisfactions; and she looked forward
+to another happy result--the cure of Harriet’s infatuation.--From
+Harriet’s manner of speaking of the circumstance before they quitted the
+ballroom, she had strong hopes. It seemed as if her eyes were suddenly
+opened, and she were enabled to see that Mr. Elton was not the superior
+creature she had believed him. The fever was over, and Emma could
+harbour little fear of the pulse being quickened again by injurious
+courtesy. She depended on the evil feelings of the Eltons for
+supplying all the discipline of pointed neglect that could be farther
+requisite.--Harriet rational, Frank Churchill not too much in love, and
+Mr. Knightley not wanting to quarrel with her, how very happy a summer
+must be before her!
+
+She was not to see Frank Churchill this morning. He had told her that he
+could not allow himself the pleasure of stopping at Hartfield, as he was
+to be at home by the middle of the day. She did not regret it.
+
+Having arranged all these matters, looked them through, and put them all
+to rights, she was just turning to the house with spirits freshened up
+for the demands of the two little boys, as well as of their grandpapa,
+when the great iron sweep-gate opened, and two persons entered whom she
+had never less expected to see together--Frank Churchill, with Harriet
+leaning on his arm--actually Harriet!--A moment sufficed to convince
+her that something extraordinary had happened. Harriet looked white
+and frightened, and he was trying to cheer her.--The iron gates and the
+front-door were not twenty yards asunder;--they were all three soon in
+the hall, and Harriet immediately sinking into a chair fainted away.
+
+A young lady who faints, must be recovered; questions must be answered,
+and surprizes be explained. Such events are very interesting, but the
+suspense of them cannot last long. A few minutes made Emma acquainted
+with the whole.
+
+Miss Smith, and Miss Bickerton, another parlour boarder at Mrs.
+Goddard’s, who had been also at the ball, had walked out together, and
+taken a road, the Richmond road, which, though apparently public enough
+for safety, had led them into alarm.--About half a mile beyond Highbury,
+making a sudden turn, and deeply shaded by elms on each side, it became
+for a considerable stretch very retired; and when the young ladies
+had advanced some way into it, they had suddenly perceived at a small
+distance before them, on a broader patch of greensward by the side, a
+party of gipsies. A child on the watch, came towards them to beg; and
+Miss Bickerton, excessively frightened, gave a great scream, and calling
+on Harriet to follow her, ran up a steep bank, cleared a slight hedge at
+the top, and made the best of her way by a short cut back to Highbury.
+But poor Harriet could not follow. She had suffered very much from cramp
+after dancing, and her first attempt to mount the bank brought on such
+a return of it as made her absolutely powerless--and in this state, and
+exceedingly terrified, she had been obliged to remain.
+
+How the trampers might have behaved, had the young ladies been more
+courageous, must be doubtful; but such an invitation for attack could
+not be resisted; and Harriet was soon assailed by half a dozen children,
+headed by a stout woman and a great boy, all clamorous, and impertinent
+in look, though not absolutely in word.--More and more frightened, she
+immediately promised them money, and taking out her purse, gave them a
+shilling, and begged them not to want more, or to use her ill.--She
+was then able to walk, though but slowly, and was moving away--but her
+terror and her purse were too tempting, and she was followed, or rather
+surrounded, by the whole gang, demanding more.
+
+In this state Frank Churchill had found her, she trembling and
+conditioning, they loud and insolent. By a most fortunate chance his
+leaving Highbury had been delayed so as to bring him to her assistance
+at this critical moment. The pleasantness of the morning had induced
+him to walk forward, and leave his horses to meet him by another road,
+a mile or two beyond Highbury--and happening to have borrowed a pair
+of scissors the night before of Miss Bates, and to have forgotten to
+restore them, he had been obliged to stop at her door, and go in for a
+few minutes: he was therefore later than he had intended; and being
+on foot, was unseen by the whole party till almost close to them. The
+terror which the woman and boy had been creating in Harriet was then
+their own portion. He had left them completely frightened; and Harriet
+eagerly clinging to him, and hardly able to speak, had just strength
+enough to reach Hartfield, before her spirits were quite overcome.
+It was his idea to bring her to Hartfield: he had thought of no other
+place.
+
+This was the amount of the whole story,--of his communication and of
+Harriet’s as soon as she had recovered her senses and speech.--He dared
+not stay longer than to see her well; these several delays left him
+not another minute to lose; and Emma engaging to give assurance of her
+safety to Mrs. Goddard, and notice of there being such a set of people
+in the neighbourhood to Mr. Knightley, he set off, with all the grateful
+blessings that she could utter for her friend and herself.
+
+Such an adventure as this,--a fine young man and a lovely young woman
+thrown together in such a way, could hardly fail of suggesting certain
+ideas to the coldest heart and the steadiest brain. So Emma thought, at
+least. Could a linguist, could a grammarian, could even a mathematician
+have seen what she did, have witnessed their appearance together, and
+heard their history of it, without feeling that circumstances had been
+at work to make them peculiarly interesting to each other?--How much
+more must an imaginist, like herself, be on fire with speculation and
+foresight!--especially with such a groundwork of anticipation as her
+mind had already made.
+
+It was a very extraordinary thing! Nothing of the sort had ever
+occurred before to any young ladies in the place, within her memory; no
+rencontre, no alarm of the kind;--and now it had happened to the very
+person, and at the very hour, when the other very person was chancing
+to pass by to rescue her!--It certainly was very extraordinary!--And
+knowing, as she did, the favourable state of mind of each at this
+period, it struck her the more. He was wishing to get the better of his
+attachment to herself, she just recovering from her mania for Mr. Elton.
+It seemed as if every thing united to promise the most interesting
+consequences. It was not possible that the occurrence should not be
+strongly recommending each to the other.
+
+In the few minutes’ conversation which she had yet had with him, while
+Harriet had been partially insensible, he had spoken of her terror,
+her naivete, her fervour as she seized and clung to his arm, with a
+sensibility amused and delighted; and just at last, after Harriet’s
+own account had been given, he had expressed his indignation at the
+abominable folly of Miss Bickerton in the warmest terms. Every thing was
+to take its natural course, however, neither impelled nor assisted.
+She would not stir a step, nor drop a hint. No, she had had enough of
+interference. There could be no harm in a scheme, a mere passive scheme.
+It was no more than a wish. Beyond it she would on no account proceed.
+
+Emma’s first resolution was to keep her father from the knowledge of
+what had passed,--aware of the anxiety and alarm it would occasion: but
+she soon felt that concealment must be impossible. Within half an hour
+it was known all over Highbury. It was the very event to engage those
+who talk most, the young and the low; and all the youth and servants in
+the place were soon in the happiness of frightful news. The last night’s
+ball seemed lost in the gipsies. Poor Mr. Woodhouse trembled as he sat,
+and, as Emma had foreseen, would scarcely be satisfied without their
+promising never to go beyond the shrubbery again. It was some comfort
+to him that many inquiries after himself and Miss Woodhouse (for his
+neighbours knew that he loved to be inquired after), as well as Miss
+Smith, were coming in during the rest of the day; and he had
+the pleasure of returning for answer, that they were all very
+indifferent--which, though not exactly true, for she was perfectly well,
+and Harriet not much otherwise, Emma would not interfere with. She had
+an unhappy state of health in general for the child of such a man,
+for she hardly knew what indisposition was; and if he did not invent
+illnesses for her, she could make no figure in a message.
+
+The gipsies did not wait for the operations of justice; they took
+themselves off in a hurry. The young ladies of Highbury might have
+walked again in safety before their panic began, and the whole history
+dwindled soon into a matter of little importance but to Emma and her
+nephews:--in her imagination it maintained its ground, and Henry and
+John were still asking every day for the story of Harriet and the
+gipsies, and still tenaciously setting her right if she varied in the
+slightest particular from the original recital.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+A very few days had passed after this adventure, when Harriet came one
+morning to Emma with a small parcel in her hand, and after sitting down
+and hesitating, thus began:
+
+“Miss Woodhouse--if you are at leisure--I have something that I should
+like to tell you--a sort of confession to make--and then, you know, it
+will be over.”
+
+Emma was a good deal surprized; but begged her to speak. There was a
+seriousness in Harriet’s manner which prepared her, quite as much as her
+words, for something more than ordinary.
+
+“It is my duty, and I am sure it is my wish,” she continued, “to have
+no reserves with you on this subject. As I am happily quite an altered
+creature in _one_ _respect_, it is very fit that you should have
+the satisfaction of knowing it. I do not want to say more than is
+necessary--I am too much ashamed of having given way as I have done, and
+I dare say you understand me.”
+
+“Yes,” said Emma, “I hope I do.”
+
+“How I could so long a time be fancying myself!...” cried Harriet,
+warmly. “It seems like madness! I can see nothing at all extraordinary
+in him now.--I do not care whether I meet him or not--except that of the
+two I had rather not see him--and indeed I would go any distance round
+to avoid him--but I do not envy his wife in the least; I neither admire
+her nor envy her, as I have done: she is very charming, I dare say, and
+all that, but I think her very ill-tempered and disagreeable--I shall
+never forget her look the other night!--However, I assure you, Miss
+Woodhouse, I wish her no evil.--No, let them be ever so happy together,
+it will not give me another moment’s pang: and to convince you that I
+have been speaking truth, I am now going to destroy--what I ought to
+have destroyed long ago--what I ought never to have kept--I know that
+very well (blushing as she spoke).--However, now I will destroy it
+all--and it is my particular wish to do it in your presence, that you
+may see how rational I am grown. Cannot you guess what this parcel
+holds?” said she, with a conscious look.
+
+“Not the least in the world.--Did he ever give you any thing?”
+
+“No--I cannot call them gifts; but they are things that I have valued
+very much.”
+
+She held the parcel towards her, and Emma read the words _Most_
+_precious_ _treasures_ on the top. Her curiosity was greatly excited.
+Harriet unfolded the parcel, and she looked on with impatience. Within
+abundance of silver paper was a pretty little Tunbridge-ware box,
+which Harriet opened: it was well lined with the softest cotton; but,
+excepting the cotton, Emma saw only a small piece of court-plaister.
+
+“Now,” said Harriet, “you _must_ recollect.”
+
+“No, indeed I do not.”
+
+“Dear me! I should not have thought it possible you could forget what
+passed in this very room about court-plaister, one of the very last
+times we ever met in it!--It was but a very few days before I had my
+sore throat--just before Mr. and Mrs. John Knightley came--I think the
+very evening.--Do not you remember his cutting his finger with your new
+penknife, and your recommending court-plaister?--But, as you had none
+about you, and knew I had, you desired me to supply him; and so I took
+mine out and cut him a piece; but it was a great deal too large, and he
+cut it smaller, and kept playing some time with what was left, before he
+gave it back to me. And so then, in my nonsense, I could not help making
+a treasure of it--so I put it by never to be used, and looked at it now
+and then as a great treat.”
+
+“My dearest Harriet!” cried Emma, putting her hand before her face,
+and jumping up, “you make me more ashamed of myself than I can bear.
+Remember it? Aye, I remember it all now; all, except your saving this
+relic--I knew nothing of that till this moment--but the cutting the
+finger, and my recommending court-plaister, and saying I had none
+about me!--Oh! my sins, my sins!--And I had plenty all the while in my
+pocket!--One of my senseless tricks!--I deserve to be under a continual
+blush all the rest of my life.--Well--(sitting down again)--go on--what
+else?”
+
+“And had you really some at hand yourself? I am sure I never suspected
+it, you did it so naturally.”
+
+“And so you actually put this piece of court-plaister by for his sake!”
+ said Emma, recovering from her state of shame and feeling divided
+between wonder and amusement. And secretly she added to herself, “Lord
+bless me! when should I ever have thought of putting by in cotton a
+piece of court-plaister that Frank Churchill had been pulling about! I
+never was equal to this.”
+
+“Here,” resumed Harriet, turning to her box again, “here is something
+still more valuable, I mean that _has_ _been_ more valuable, because
+this is what did really once belong to him, which the court-plaister
+never did.”
+
+Emma was quite eager to see this superior treasure. It was the end of an
+old pencil,--the part without any lead.
+
+“This was really his,” said Harriet.--“Do not you remember one
+morning?--no, I dare say you do not. But one morning--I forget exactly
+the day--but perhaps it was the Tuesday or Wednesday before _that_
+_evening_, he wanted to make a memorandum in his pocket-book; it was
+about spruce-beer. Mr. Knightley had been telling him something about
+brewing spruce-beer, and he wanted to put it down; but when he took out
+his pencil, there was so little lead that he soon cut it all away, and
+it would not do, so you lent him another, and this was left upon the
+table as good for nothing. But I kept my eye on it; and, as soon as I
+dared, caught it up, and never parted with it again from that moment.”
+
+“I do remember it,” cried Emma; “I perfectly remember it.--Talking
+about spruce-beer.--Oh! yes--Mr. Knightley and I both saying we
+liked it, and Mr. Elton’s seeming resolved to learn to like it too. I
+perfectly remember it.--Stop; Mr. Knightley was standing just here, was
+not he? I have an idea he was standing just here.”
+
+“Ah! I do not know. I cannot recollect.--It is very odd, but I cannot
+recollect.--Mr. Elton was sitting here, I remember, much about where I
+am now.”--
+
+“Well, go on.”
+
+“Oh! that’s all. I have nothing more to shew you, or to say--except that
+I am now going to throw them both behind the fire, and I wish you to see
+me do it.”
+
+“My poor dear Harriet! and have you actually found happiness in
+treasuring up these things?”
+
+“Yes, simpleton as I was!--but I am quite ashamed of it now, and wish I
+could forget as easily as I can burn them. It was very wrong of me, you
+know, to keep any remembrances, after he was married. I knew it was--but
+had not resolution enough to part with them.”
+
+“But, Harriet, is it necessary to burn the court-plaister?--I have not
+a word to say for the bit of old pencil, but the court-plaister might be
+useful.”
+
+“I shall be happier to burn it,” replied Harriet. “It has a disagreeable
+look to me. I must get rid of every thing.--There it goes, and there is
+an end, thank Heaven! of Mr. Elton.”
+
+“And when,” thought Emma, “will there be a beginning of Mr. Churchill?”
+
+She had soon afterwards reason to believe that the beginning was already
+made, and could not but hope that the gipsy, though she had _told_ no
+fortune, might be proved to have made Harriet’s.--About a fortnight
+after the alarm, they came to a sufficient explanation, and quite
+undesignedly. Emma was not thinking of it at the moment, which made the
+information she received more valuable. She merely said, in the course
+of some trivial chat, “Well, Harriet, whenever you marry I would advise
+you to do so and so”--and thought no more of it, till after a minute’s
+silence she heard Harriet say in a very serious tone, “I shall never
+marry.”
+
+Emma then looked up, and immediately saw how it was; and after a
+moment’s debate, as to whether it should pass unnoticed or not, replied,
+
+“Never marry!--This is a new resolution.”
+
+“It is one that I shall never change, however.”
+
+After another short hesitation, “I hope it does not proceed from--I hope
+it is not in compliment to Mr. Elton?”
+
+“Mr. Elton indeed!” cried Harriet indignantly.--“Oh! no”--and Emma could
+just catch the words, “so superior to Mr. Elton!”
+
+She then took a longer time for consideration. Should she proceed no
+farther?--should she let it pass, and seem to suspect nothing?--Perhaps
+Harriet might think her cold or angry if she did; or perhaps if she were
+totally silent, it might only drive Harriet into asking her to hear too
+much; and against any thing like such an unreserve as had been, such
+an open and frequent discussion of hopes and chances, she was perfectly
+resolved.--She believed it would be wiser for her to say and know at
+once, all that she meant to say and know. Plain dealing was always
+best. She had previously determined how far she would proceed, on any
+application of the sort; and it would be safer for both, to have the
+judicious law of her own brain laid down with speed.--She was decided,
+and thus spoke--
+
+“Harriet, I will not affect to be in doubt of your meaning. Your
+resolution, or rather your expectation of never marrying, results from
+an idea that the person whom you might prefer, would be too greatly your
+superior in situation to think of you. Is not it so?”
+
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, believe me I have not the presumption to suppose--
+Indeed I am not so mad.--But it is a pleasure to me to admire him at a
+distance--and to think of his infinite superiority to all the rest of
+the world, with the gratitude, wonder, and veneration, which are so
+proper, in me especially.”
+
+“I am not at all surprized at you, Harriet. The service he rendered you
+was enough to warm your heart.”
+
+“Service! oh! it was such an inexpressible obligation!--The very
+recollection of it, and all that I felt at the time--when I saw him
+coming--his noble look--and my wretchedness before. Such a change! In
+one moment such a change! From perfect misery to perfect happiness!”
+
+“It is very natural. It is natural, and it is honourable.--Yes,
+honourable, I think, to chuse so well and so gratefully.--But that
+it will be a fortunate preference is more than I can promise. I do not
+advise you to give way to it, Harriet. I do not by any means engage
+for its being returned. Consider what you are about. Perhaps it will be
+wisest in you to check your feelings while you can: at any rate do not
+let them carry you far, unless you are persuaded of his liking you. Be
+observant of him. Let his behaviour be the guide of your sensations. I
+give you this caution now, because I shall never speak to you again on
+the subject. I am determined against all interference. Henceforward I
+know nothing of the matter. Let no name ever pass our lips. We were very
+wrong before; we will be cautious now.--He is your superior, no doubt,
+and there do seem objections and obstacles of a very serious nature; but
+yet, Harriet, more wonderful things have taken place, there have been
+matches of greater disparity. But take care of yourself. I would not
+have you too sanguine; though, however it may end, be assured your
+raising your thoughts to _him_, is a mark of good taste which I shall
+always know how to value.”
+
+Harriet kissed her hand in silent and submissive gratitude. Emma was
+very decided in thinking such an attachment no bad thing for her friend.
+Its tendency would be to raise and refine her mind--and it must be
+saving her from the danger of degradation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+In this state of schemes, and hopes, and connivance, June opened upon
+Hartfield. To Highbury in general it brought no material change. The
+Eltons were still talking of a visit from the Sucklings, and of the use
+to be made of their barouche-landau; and Jane Fairfax was still at her
+grandmother’s; and as the return of the Campbells from Ireland was again
+delayed, and August, instead of Midsummer, fixed for it, she was likely
+to remain there full two months longer, provided at least she were able
+to defeat Mrs. Elton’s activity in her service, and save herself from
+being hurried into a delightful situation against her will.
+
+Mr. Knightley, who, for some reason best known to himself, had certainly
+taken an early dislike to Frank Churchill, was only growing to dislike
+him more. He began to suspect him of some double dealing in his pursuit
+of Emma. That Emma was his object appeared indisputable. Every thing
+declared it; his own attentions, his father’s hints, his mother-in-law’s
+guarded silence; it was all in unison; words, conduct, discretion, and
+indiscretion, told the same story. But while so many were devoting him
+to Emma, and Emma herself making him over to Harriet, Mr. Knightley
+began to suspect him of some inclination to trifle with Jane Fairfax. He
+could not understand it; but there were symptoms of intelligence between
+them--he thought so at least--symptoms of admiration on his side, which,
+having once observed, he could not persuade himself to think entirely
+void of meaning, however he might wish to escape any of Emma’s errors
+of imagination. _She_ was not present when the suspicion first arose.
+He was dining with the Randalls family, and Jane, at the Eltons’; and he
+had seen a look, more than a single look, at Miss Fairfax, which, from
+the admirer of Miss Woodhouse, seemed somewhat out of place. When he was
+again in their company, he could not help remembering what he had seen;
+nor could he avoid observations which, unless it were like Cowper and
+his fire at twilight,
+
+“Myself creating what I saw,”
+
+brought him yet stronger suspicion of there being a something of private
+liking, of private understanding even, between Frank Churchill and Jane.
+
+He had walked up one day after dinner, as he very often did, to spend
+his evening at Hartfield. Emma and Harriet were going to walk; he joined
+them; and, on returning, they fell in with a larger party, who, like
+themselves, judged it wisest to take their exercise early, as the
+weather threatened rain; Mr. and Mrs. Weston and their son, Miss Bates
+and her niece, who had accidentally met. They all united; and, on
+reaching Hartfield gates, Emma, who knew it was exactly the sort of
+visiting that would be welcome to her father, pressed them all to go in
+and drink tea with him. The Randalls party agreed to it immediately; and
+after a pretty long speech from Miss Bates, which few persons listened
+to, she also found it possible to accept dear Miss Woodhouse’s most
+obliging invitation.
+
+As they were turning into the grounds, Mr. Perry passed by on horseback.
+The gentlemen spoke of his horse.
+
+“By the bye,” said Frank Churchill to Mrs. Weston presently, “what
+became of Mr. Perry’s plan of setting up his carriage?”
+
+Mrs. Weston looked surprized, and said, “I did not know that he ever had
+any such plan.”
+
+“Nay, I had it from you. You wrote me word of it three months ago.”
+
+“Me! impossible!”
+
+“Indeed you did. I remember it perfectly. You mentioned it as what
+was certainly to be very soon. Mrs. Perry had told somebody, and was
+extremely happy about it. It was owing to _her_ persuasion, as she
+thought his being out in bad weather did him a great deal of harm. You
+must remember it now?”
+
+“Upon my word I never heard of it till this moment.”
+
+“Never! really, never!--Bless me! how could it be?--Then I must have
+dreamt it--but I was completely persuaded--Miss Smith, you walk as if
+you were tired. You will not be sorry to find yourself at home.”
+
+“What is this?--What is this?” cried Mr. Weston, “about Perry and a
+carriage? Is Perry going to set up his carriage, Frank? I am glad he can
+afford it. You had it from himself, had you?”
+
+“No, sir,” replied his son, laughing, “I seem to have had it from
+nobody.--Very odd!--I really was persuaded of Mrs. Weston’s having
+mentioned it in one of her letters to Enscombe, many weeks ago, with all
+these particulars--but as she declares she never heard a syllable of
+it before, of course it must have been a dream. I am a great dreamer.
+I dream of every body at Highbury when I am away--and when I have gone
+through my particular friends, then I begin dreaming of Mr. and Mrs.
+Perry.”
+
+“It is odd though,” observed his father, “that you should have had such
+a regular connected dream about people whom it was not very likely you
+should be thinking of at Enscombe. Perry’s setting up his carriage! and
+his wife’s persuading him to it, out of care for his health--just
+what will happen, I have no doubt, some time or other; only a little
+premature. What an air of probability sometimes runs through a dream!
+And at others, what a heap of absurdities it is! Well, Frank, your dream
+certainly shews that Highbury is in your thoughts when you are absent.
+Emma, you are a great dreamer, I think?”
+
+Emma was out of hearing. She had hurried on before her guests to
+prepare her father for their appearance, and was beyond the reach of Mr.
+Weston’s hint.
+
+“Why, to own the truth,” cried Miss Bates, who had been trying in vain
+to be heard the last two minutes, “if I must speak on this subject,
+there is no denying that Mr. Frank Churchill might have--I do not mean
+to say that he did not dream it--I am sure I have sometimes the oddest
+dreams in the world--but if I am questioned about it, I must acknowledge
+that there was such an idea last spring; for Mrs. Perry herself
+mentioned it to my mother, and the Coles knew of it as well as
+ourselves--but it was quite a secret, known to nobody else, and only
+thought of about three days. Mrs. Perry was very anxious that he should
+have a carriage, and came to my mother in great spirits one morning
+because she thought she had prevailed. Jane, don’t you remember
+grandmama’s telling us of it when we got home? I forget where we
+had been walking to--very likely to Randalls; yes, I think it was to
+Randalls. Mrs. Perry was always particularly fond of my mother--indeed
+I do not know who is not--and she had mentioned it to her in confidence;
+she had no objection to her telling us, of course, but it was not to go
+beyond: and, from that day to this, I never mentioned it to a soul that
+I know of. At the same time, I will not positively answer for my having
+never dropt a hint, because I know I do sometimes pop out a thing before
+I am aware. I am a talker, you know; I am rather a talker; and now and
+then I have let a thing escape me which I should not. I am not like
+Jane; I wish I were. I will answer for it _she_ never betrayed the least
+thing in the world. Where is she?--Oh! just behind. Perfectly remember
+Mrs. Perry’s coming.--Extraordinary dream, indeed!”
+
+They were entering the hall. Mr. Knightley’s eyes had preceded Miss
+Bates’s in a glance at Jane. From Frank Churchill’s face, where
+he thought he saw confusion suppressed or laughed away, he had
+involuntarily turned to hers; but she was indeed behind, and too busy
+with her shawl. Mr. Weston had walked in. The two other gentlemen waited
+at the door to let her pass. Mr. Knightley suspected in Frank
+Churchill the determination of catching her eye--he seemed watching her
+intently--in vain, however, if it were so--Jane passed between them
+into the hall, and looked at neither.
+
+There was no time for farther remark or explanation. The dream must be
+borne with, and Mr. Knightley must take his seat with the rest round the
+large modern circular table which Emma had introduced at Hartfield, and
+which none but Emma could have had power to place there and persuade her
+father to use, instead of the small-sized Pembroke, on which two of his
+daily meals had, for forty years been crowded. Tea passed pleasantly,
+and nobody seemed in a hurry to move.
+
+“Miss Woodhouse,” said Frank Churchill, after examining a table behind
+him, which he could reach as he sat, “have your nephews taken away their
+alphabets--their box of letters? It used to stand here. Where is it?
+This is a sort of dull-looking evening, that ought to be treated rather
+as winter than summer. We had great amusement with those letters one
+morning. I want to puzzle you again.”
+
+Emma was pleased with the thought; and producing the box, the table
+was quickly scattered over with alphabets, which no one seemed so much
+disposed to employ as their two selves. They were rapidly forming words
+for each other, or for any body else who would be puzzled. The quietness
+of the game made it particularly eligible for Mr. Woodhouse, who had
+often been distressed by the more animated sort, which Mr. Weston had
+occasionally introduced, and who now sat happily occupied in lamenting,
+with tender melancholy, over the departure of the “poor little boys,”
+ or in fondly pointing out, as he took up any stray letter near him, how
+beautifully Emma had written it.
+
+Frank Churchill placed a word before Miss Fairfax. She gave a slight
+glance round the table, and applied herself to it. Frank was next to
+Emma, Jane opposite to them--and Mr. Knightley so placed as to see them
+all; and it was his object to see as much as he could, with as little
+apparent observation. The word was discovered, and with a faint smile
+pushed away. If meant to be immediately mixed with the others, and
+buried from sight, she should have looked on the table instead of
+looking just across, for it was not mixed; and Harriet, eager after
+every fresh word, and finding out none, directly took it up, and fell to
+work. She was sitting by Mr. Knightley, and turned to him for help. The
+word was _blunder_; and as Harriet exultingly proclaimed it, there was a
+blush on Jane’s cheek which gave it a meaning not otherwise ostensible.
+Mr. Knightley connected it with the dream; but how it could all be,
+was beyond his comprehension. How the delicacy, the discretion of his
+favourite could have been so lain asleep! He feared there must be some
+decided involvement. Disingenuousness and double dealing seemed to meet
+him at every turn. These letters were but the vehicle for gallantry and
+trick. It was a child’s play, chosen to conceal a deeper game on Frank
+Churchill’s part.
+
+With great indignation did he continue to observe him; with great alarm
+and distrust, to observe also his two blinded companions. He saw a short
+word prepared for Emma, and given to her with a look sly and demure. He
+saw that Emma had soon made it out, and found it highly entertaining,
+though it was something which she judged it proper to appear to censure;
+for she said, “Nonsense! for shame!” He heard Frank Churchill next say,
+with a glance towards Jane, “I will give it to her--shall I?”--and as
+clearly heard Emma opposing it with eager laughing warmth. “No, no, you
+must not; you shall not, indeed.”
+
+It was done however. This gallant young man, who seemed to love without
+feeling, and to recommend himself without complaisance, directly handed
+over the word to Miss Fairfax, and with a particular degree of sedate
+civility entreated her to study it. Mr. Knightley’s excessive curiosity
+to know what this word might be, made him seize every possible moment
+for darting his eye towards it, and it was not long before he saw it
+to be _Dixon_. Jane Fairfax’s perception seemed to accompany his;
+her comprehension was certainly more equal to the covert meaning,
+the superior intelligence, of those five letters so arranged. She was
+evidently displeased; looked up, and seeing herself watched, blushed
+more deeply than he had ever perceived her, and saying only, “I did not
+know that proper names were allowed,” pushed away the letters with even
+an angry spirit, and looked resolved to be engaged by no other word
+that could be offered. Her face was averted from those who had made the
+attack, and turned towards her aunt.
+
+“Aye, very true, my dear,” cried the latter, though Jane had not spoken
+a word--“I was just going to say the same thing. It is time for us to be
+going indeed. The evening is closing in, and grandmama will be looking
+for us. My dear sir, you are too obliging. We really must wish you good
+night.”
+
+Jane’s alertness in moving, proved her as ready as her aunt had
+preconceived. She was immediately up, and wanting to quit the table; but
+so many were also moving, that she could not get away; and Mr. Knightley
+thought he saw another collection of letters anxiously pushed towards
+her, and resolutely swept away by her unexamined. She was afterwards
+looking for her shawl--Frank Churchill was looking also--it was growing
+dusk, and the room was in confusion; and how they parted, Mr. Knightley
+could not tell.
+
+He remained at Hartfield after all the rest, his thoughts full of
+what he had seen; so full, that when the candles came to assist his
+observations, he must--yes, he certainly must, as a friend--an anxious
+friend--give Emma some hint, ask her some question. He could not see her
+in a situation of such danger, without trying to preserve her. It was
+his duty.
+
+“Pray, Emma,” said he, “may I ask in what lay the great amusement, the
+poignant sting of the last word given to you and Miss Fairfax? I saw the
+word, and am curious to know how it could be so very entertaining to the
+one, and so very distressing to the other.”
+
+Emma was extremely confused. She could not endure to give him the true
+explanation; for though her suspicions were by no means removed, she was
+really ashamed of having ever imparted them.
+
+“Oh!” she cried in evident embarrassment, “it all meant nothing; a mere
+joke among ourselves.”
+
+“The joke,” he replied gravely, “seemed confined to you and Mr.
+Churchill.”
+
+He had hoped she would speak again, but she did not. She would rather
+busy herself about any thing than speak. He sat a little while in
+doubt. A variety of evils crossed his mind. Interference--fruitless
+interference. Emma’s confusion, and the acknowledged intimacy, seemed to
+declare her affection engaged. Yet he would speak. He owed it to her,
+to risk any thing that might be involved in an unwelcome interference,
+rather than her welfare; to encounter any thing, rather than the
+remembrance of neglect in such a cause.
+
+“My dear Emma,” said he at last, with earnest kindness, “do you
+think you perfectly understand the degree of acquaintance between the
+gentleman and lady we have been speaking of?”
+
+“Between Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax? Oh! yes, perfectly.--Why
+do you make a doubt of it?”
+
+“Have you never at any time had reason to think that he admired her, or
+that she admired him?”
+
+“Never, never!” she cried with a most open eagerness--“Never, for the
+twentieth part of a moment, did such an idea occur to me. And how could
+it possibly come into your head?”
+
+“I have lately imagined that I saw symptoms of attachment between
+them--certain expressive looks, which I did not believe meant to be
+public.”
+
+“Oh! you amuse me excessively. I am delighted to find that you can
+vouchsafe to let your imagination wander--but it will not do--very sorry
+to check you in your first essay--but indeed it will not do. There is no
+admiration between them, I do assure you; and the appearances which
+have caught you, have arisen from some peculiar circumstances--feelings
+rather of a totally different nature--it is impossible exactly to
+explain:--there is a good deal of nonsense in it--but the part which is
+capable of being communicated, which is sense, is, that they are as far
+from any attachment or admiration for one another, as any two beings in
+the world can be. That is, I _presume_ it to be so on her side, and I
+can _answer_ for its being so on his. I will answer for the gentleman’s
+indifference.”
+
+She spoke with a confidence which staggered, with a satisfaction
+which silenced, Mr. Knightley. She was in gay spirits, and would have
+prolonged the conversation, wanting to hear the particulars of his
+suspicions, every look described, and all the wheres and hows of a
+circumstance which highly entertained her: but his gaiety did not meet
+hers. He found he could not be useful, and his feelings were too much
+irritated for talking. That he might not be irritated into an absolute
+fever, by the fire which Mr. Woodhouse’s tender habits required almost
+every evening throughout the year, he soon afterwards took a hasty
+leave, and walked home to the coolness and solitude of Donwell Abbey.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+After being long fed with hopes of a speedy visit from Mr. and Mrs.
+Suckling, the Highbury world were obliged to endure the mortification
+of hearing that they could not possibly come till the autumn. No such
+importation of novelties could enrich their intellectual stores at
+present. In the daily interchange of news, they must be again restricted
+to the other topics with which for a while the Sucklings’ coming had
+been united, such as the last accounts of Mrs. Churchill, whose health
+seemed every day to supply a different report, and the situation of Mrs.
+Weston, whose happiness it was to be hoped might eventually be as much
+increased by the arrival of a child, as that of all her neighbours was
+by the approach of it.
+
+Mrs. Elton was very much disappointed. It was the delay of a great deal
+of pleasure and parade. Her introductions and recommendations must all
+wait, and every projected party be still only talked of. So she thought
+at first;--but a little consideration convinced her that every thing
+need not be put off. Why should not they explore to Box Hill though
+the Sucklings did not come? They could go there again with them in the
+autumn. It was settled that they should go to Box Hill. That there was
+to be such a party had been long generally known: it had even given the
+idea of another. Emma had never been to Box Hill; she wished to see what
+every body found so well worth seeing, and she and Mr. Weston had agreed
+to chuse some fine morning and drive thither. Two or three more of the
+chosen only were to be admitted to join them, and it was to be done in a
+quiet, unpretending, elegant way, infinitely superior to the bustle and
+preparation, the regular eating and drinking, and picnic parade of the
+Eltons and the Sucklings.
+
+This was so very well understood between them, that Emma could not but
+feel some surprise, and a little displeasure, on hearing from Mr. Weston
+that he had been proposing to Mrs. Elton, as her brother and sister had
+failed her, that the two parties should unite, and go together; and that
+as Mrs. Elton had very readily acceded to it, so it was to be, if she
+had no objection. Now, as her objection was nothing but her very great
+dislike of Mrs. Elton, of which Mr. Weston must already be perfectly
+aware, it was not worth bringing forward again:--it could not be done
+without a reproof to him, which would be giving pain to his wife; and
+she found herself therefore obliged to consent to an arrangement which
+she would have done a great deal to avoid; an arrangement which would
+probably expose her even to the degradation of being said to be of Mrs.
+Elton’s party! Every feeling was offended; and the forbearance of her
+outward submission left a heavy arrear due of secret severity in her
+reflections on the unmanageable goodwill of Mr. Weston’s temper.
+
+“I am glad you approve of what I have done,” said he very comfortably.
+“But I thought you would. Such schemes as these are nothing without
+numbers. One cannot have too large a party. A large party secures its
+own amusement. And she is a good-natured woman after all. One could not
+leave her out.”
+
+Emma denied none of it aloud, and agreed to none of it in private.
+
+It was now the middle of June, and the weather fine; and Mrs. Elton
+was growing impatient to name the day, and settle with Mr. Weston as to
+pigeon-pies and cold lamb, when a lame carriage-horse threw every thing
+into sad uncertainty. It might be weeks, it might be only a few days,
+before the horse were useable; but no preparations could be ventured
+on, and it was all melancholy stagnation. Mrs. Elton’s resources were
+inadequate to such an attack.
+
+“Is not this most vexatious, Knightley?” she cried.--“And such weather
+for exploring!--These delays and disappointments are quite odious. What
+are we to do?--The year will wear away at this rate, and nothing
+done. Before this time last year I assure you we had had a delightful
+exploring party from Maple Grove to Kings Weston.”
+
+“You had better explore to Donwell,” replied Mr. Knightley. “That may
+be done without horses. Come, and eat my strawberries. They are ripening
+fast.”
+
+If Mr. Knightley did not begin seriously, he was obliged to proceed so,
+for his proposal was caught at with delight; and the “Oh! I should like
+it of all things,” was not plainer in words than manner. Donwell was
+famous for its strawberry-beds, which seemed a plea for the invitation:
+but no plea was necessary; cabbage-beds would have been enough to tempt
+the lady, who only wanted to be going somewhere. She promised him again
+and again to come--much oftener than he doubted--and was extremely
+gratified by such a proof of intimacy, such a distinguishing compliment
+as she chose to consider it.
+
+“You may depend upon me,” said she. “I certainly will come. Name your
+day, and I will come. You will allow me to bring Jane Fairfax?”
+
+“I cannot name a day,” said he, “till I have spoken to some others whom
+I would wish to meet you.”
+
+“Oh! leave all that to me. Only give me a carte-blanche.--I am Lady
+Patroness, you know. It is my party. I will bring friends with me.”
+
+“I hope you will bring Elton,” said he: “but I will not trouble you to
+give any other invitations.”
+
+“Oh! now you are looking very sly. But consider--you need not be afraid
+of delegating power to _me_. I am no young lady on her preferment.
+Married women, you know, may be safely authorised. It is my party. Leave
+it all to me. I will invite your guests.”
+
+“No,”--he calmly replied,--“there is but one married woman in the world
+whom I can ever allow to invite what guests she pleases to Donwell, and
+that one is--”
+
+“--Mrs. Weston, I suppose,” interrupted Mrs. Elton, rather mortified.
+
+“No--Mrs. Knightley;--and till she is in being, I will manage such
+matters myself.”
+
+“Ah! you are an odd creature!” she cried, satisfied to have no one
+preferred to herself.--“You are a humourist, and may say what you
+like. Quite a humourist. Well, I shall bring Jane with me--Jane and her
+aunt.--The rest I leave to you. I have no objections at all to meeting
+the Hartfield family. Don’t scruple. I know you are attached to them.”
+
+“You certainly will meet them if I can prevail; and I shall call on Miss
+Bates in my way home.”
+
+“That’s quite unnecessary; I see Jane every day:--but as you like. It
+is to be a morning scheme, you know, Knightley; quite a simple thing. I
+shall wear a large bonnet, and bring one of my little baskets hanging
+on my arm. Here,--probably this basket with pink ribbon. Nothing can be
+more simple, you see. And Jane will have such another. There is to be
+no form or parade--a sort of gipsy party. We are to walk about
+your gardens, and gather the strawberries ourselves, and sit under
+trees;--and whatever else you may like to provide, it is to be all out
+of doors--a table spread in the shade, you know. Every thing as natural
+and simple as possible. Is not that your idea?”
+
+“Not quite. My idea of the simple and the natural will be to have
+the table spread in the dining-room. The nature and the simplicity of
+gentlemen and ladies, with their servants and furniture, I think is
+best observed by meals within doors. When you are tired of eating
+strawberries in the garden, there shall be cold meat in the house.”
+
+“Well--as you please; only don’t have a great set out. And, by the bye,
+can I or my housekeeper be of any use to you with our opinion?--Pray be
+sincere, Knightley. If you wish me to talk to Mrs. Hodges, or to inspect
+anything--”
+
+“I have not the least wish for it, I thank you.”
+
+“Well--but if any difficulties should arise, my housekeeper is extremely
+clever.”
+
+“I will answer for it, that mine thinks herself full as clever, and
+would spurn any body’s assistance.”
+
+“I wish we had a donkey. The thing would be for us all to come on
+donkeys, Jane, Miss Bates, and me--and my caro sposo walking by. I
+really must talk to him about purchasing a donkey. In a country life
+I conceive it to be a sort of necessary; for, let a woman have ever
+so many resources, it is not possible for her to be always shut up at
+home;--and very long walks, you know--in summer there is dust, and in
+winter there is dirt.”
+
+“You will not find either, between Donwell and Highbury. Donwell Lane is
+never dusty, and now it is perfectly dry. Come on a donkey, however, if
+you prefer it. You can borrow Mrs. Cole’s. I would wish every thing to
+be as much to your taste as possible.”
+
+“That I am sure you would. Indeed I do you justice, my good friend.
+Under that peculiar sort of dry, blunt manner, I know you have the
+warmest heart. As I tell Mr. E., you are a thorough humourist.--Yes,
+believe me, Knightley, I am fully sensible of your attention to me in
+the whole of this scheme. You have hit upon the very thing to please
+me.”
+
+Mr. Knightley had another reason for avoiding a table in the shade. He
+wished to persuade Mr. Woodhouse, as well as Emma, to join the party;
+and he knew that to have any of them sitting down out of doors to
+eat would inevitably make him ill. Mr. Woodhouse must not, under the
+specious pretence of a morning drive, and an hour or two spent at
+Donwell, be tempted away to his misery.
+
+He was invited on good faith. No lurking horrors were to upbraid him for
+his easy credulity. He did consent. He had not been at Donwell for two
+years. “Some very fine morning, he, and Emma, and Harriet, could go
+very well; and he could sit still with Mrs. Weston, while the dear girls
+walked about the gardens. He did not suppose they could be damp now,
+in the middle of the day. He should like to see the old house again
+exceedingly, and should be very happy to meet Mr. and Mrs. Elton, and
+any other of his neighbours.--He could not see any objection at all to
+his, and Emma’s, and Harriet’s going there some very fine morning. He
+thought it very well done of Mr. Knightley to invite them--very kind
+and sensible--much cleverer than dining out.--He was not fond of dining
+out.”
+
+Mr. Knightley was fortunate in every body’s most ready concurrence. The
+invitation was everywhere so well received, that it seemed as if, like
+Mrs. Elton, they were all taking the scheme as a particular compliment
+to themselves.--Emma and Harriet professed very high expectations of
+pleasure from it; and Mr. Weston, unasked, promised to get Frank over to
+join them, if possible; a proof of approbation and gratitude which could
+have been dispensed with.--Mr. Knightley was then obliged to say that
+he should be glad to see him; and Mr. Weston engaged to lose no time in
+writing, and spare no arguments to induce him to come.
+
+In the meanwhile the lame horse recovered so fast, that the party to
+Box Hill was again under happy consideration; and at last Donwell was
+settled for one day, and Box Hill for the next,--the weather appearing
+exactly right.
+
+Under a bright mid-day sun, at almost Midsummer, Mr. Woodhouse was
+safely conveyed in his carriage, with one window down, to partake of
+this al-fresco party; and in one of the most comfortable rooms in the
+Abbey, especially prepared for him by a fire all the morning, he was
+happily placed, quite at his ease, ready to talk with pleasure of what
+had been achieved, and advise every body to come and sit down, and not
+to heat themselves.--Mrs. Weston, who seemed to have walked there on
+purpose to be tired, and sit all the time with him, remained, when
+all the others were invited or persuaded out, his patient listener and
+sympathiser.
+
+It was so long since Emma had been at the Abbey, that as soon as she was
+satisfied of her father’s comfort, she was glad to leave him, and look
+around her; eager to refresh and correct her memory with more particular
+observation, more exact understanding of a house and grounds which must
+ever be so interesting to her and all her family.
+
+She felt all the honest pride and complacency which her alliance with
+the present and future proprietor could fairly warrant, as she viewed
+the respectable size and style of the building, its suitable, becoming,
+characteristic situation, low and sheltered--its ample gardens
+stretching down to meadows washed by a stream, of which the Abbey, with
+all the old neglect of prospect, had scarcely a sight--and its abundance
+of timber in rows and avenues, which neither fashion nor extravagance
+had rooted up.--The house was larger than Hartfield, and totally unlike
+it, covering a good deal of ground, rambling and irregular, with many
+comfortable, and one or two handsome rooms.--It was just what it ought
+to be, and it looked what it was--and Emma felt an increasing respect
+for it, as the residence of a family of such true gentility, untainted
+in blood and understanding.--Some faults of temper John Knightley had;
+but Isabella had connected herself unexceptionably. She had given them
+neither men, nor names, nor places, that could raise a blush. These were
+pleasant feelings, and she walked about and indulged them till it
+was necessary to do as the others did, and collect round the
+strawberry-beds.--The whole party were assembled, excepting Frank
+Churchill, who was expected every moment from Richmond; and Mrs. Elton,
+in all her apparatus of happiness, her large bonnet and her basket,
+was very ready to lead the way in gathering, accepting, or
+talking--strawberries, and only strawberries, could now be thought or
+spoken of.--“The best fruit in England--every body’s favourite--always
+wholesome.--These the finest beds and finest sorts.--Delightful to
+gather for one’s self--the only way of really enjoying them.--Morning
+decidedly the best time--never tired--every sort good--hautboy
+infinitely superior--no comparison--the others hardly eatable--hautboys
+very scarce--Chili preferred--white wood finest flavour of all--price
+of strawberries in London--abundance about Bristol--Maple
+Grove--cultivation--beds when to be renewed--gardeners thinking exactly
+different--no general rule--gardeners never to be put out of their
+way--delicious fruit--only too rich to be eaten much of--inferior
+to cherries--currants more refreshing--only objection to gathering
+strawberries the stooping--glaring sun--tired to death--could bear it no
+longer--must go and sit in the shade.”
+
+Such, for half an hour, was the conversation--interrupted only once by
+Mrs. Weston, who came out, in her solicitude after her son-in-law, to
+inquire if he were come--and she was a little uneasy.--She had some
+fears of his horse.
+
+Seats tolerably in the shade were found; and now Emma was obliged
+to overhear what Mrs. Elton and Jane Fairfax were talking of.--A
+situation, a most desirable situation, was in question. Mrs. Elton had
+received notice of it that morning, and was in raptures. It was not
+with Mrs. Suckling, it was not with Mrs. Bragge, but in felicity and
+splendour it fell short only of them: it was with a cousin of Mrs.
+Bragge, an acquaintance of Mrs. Suckling, a lady known at Maple Grove.
+Delightful, charming, superior, first circles, spheres, lines, ranks,
+every thing--and Mrs. Elton was wild to have the offer closed with
+immediately.--On her side, all was warmth, energy, and triumph--and she
+positively refused to take her friend’s negative, though Miss Fairfax
+continued to assure her that she would not at present engage in any
+thing, repeating the same motives which she had been heard to urge
+before.--Still Mrs. Elton insisted on being authorised to write an
+acquiescence by the morrow’s post.--How Jane could bear it at all, was
+astonishing to Emma.--She did look vexed, she did speak pointedly--and
+at last, with a decision of action unusual to her, proposed a
+removal.--“Should not they walk? Would not Mr. Knightley shew them the
+gardens--all the gardens?--She wished to see the whole extent.”--The
+pertinacity of her friend seemed more than she could bear.
+
+It was hot; and after walking some time over the gardens in a scattered,
+dispersed way, scarcely any three together, they insensibly followed one
+another to the delicious shade of a broad short avenue of limes, which
+stretching beyond the garden at an equal distance from the river, seemed
+the finish of the pleasure grounds.--It led to nothing; nothing but a
+view at the end over a low stone wall with high pillars, which seemed
+intended, in their erection, to give the appearance of an approach to
+the house, which never had been there. Disputable, however, as might be
+the taste of such a termination, it was in itself a charming walk, and
+the view which closed it extremely pretty.--The considerable slope, at
+nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper
+form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of
+considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood;--and at
+the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the
+Abbey Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and
+handsome curve around it.
+
+It was a sweet view--sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure,
+English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being
+oppressive.
+
+In this walk Emma and Mr. Weston found all the others assembled; and
+towards this view she immediately perceived Mr. Knightley and Harriet
+distinct from the rest, quietly leading the way. Mr. Knightley and
+Harriet!--It was an odd tete-a-tete; but she was glad to see it.--There
+had been a time when he would have scorned her as a companion, and
+turned from her with little ceremony. Now they seemed in pleasant
+conversation. There had been a time also when Emma would have been sorry
+to see Harriet in a spot so favourable for the Abbey Mill Farm; but now
+she feared it not. It might be safely viewed with all its appendages of
+prosperity and beauty, its rich pastures, spreading flocks, orchard in
+blossom, and light column of smoke ascending.--She joined them at the
+wall, and found them more engaged in talking than in looking around. He
+was giving Harriet information as to modes of agriculture, etc. and Emma
+received a smile which seemed to say, “These are my own concerns. I have
+a right to talk on such subjects, without being suspected of
+introducing Robert Martin.”--She did not suspect him. It was too old
+a story.--Robert Martin had probably ceased to think of Harriet.--They
+took a few turns together along the walk.--The shade was most
+refreshing, and Emma found it the pleasantest part of the day.
+
+The next remove was to the house; they must all go in and eat;--and they
+were all seated and busy, and still Frank Churchill did not come. Mrs.
+Weston looked, and looked in vain. His father would not own himself
+uneasy, and laughed at her fears; but she could not be cured of wishing
+that he would part with his black mare. He had expressed himself as to
+coming, with more than common certainty. “His aunt was so much better,
+that he had not a doubt of getting over to them.”--Mrs. Churchill’s
+state, however, as many were ready to remind her, was liable to such
+sudden variation as might disappoint her nephew in the most reasonable
+dependence--and Mrs. Weston was at last persuaded to believe, or to say,
+that it must be by some attack of Mrs. Churchill that he was
+prevented coming.--Emma looked at Harriet while the point was under
+consideration; she behaved very well, and betrayed no emotion.
+
+The cold repast was over, and the party were to go out once more to see
+what had not yet been seen, the old Abbey fish-ponds; perhaps get as far
+as the clover, which was to be begun cutting on the morrow, or, at
+any rate, have the pleasure of being hot, and growing cool again.--Mr.
+Woodhouse, who had already taken his little round in the highest part
+of the gardens, where no damps from the river were imagined even by him,
+stirred no more; and his daughter resolved to remain with him, that
+Mrs. Weston might be persuaded away by her husband to the exercise and
+variety which her spirits seemed to need.
+
+Mr. Knightley had done all in his power for Mr. Woodhouse’s
+entertainment. Books of engravings, drawers of medals, cameos, corals,
+shells, and every other family collection within his cabinets, had been
+prepared for his old friend, to while away the morning; and the kindness
+had perfectly answered. Mr. Woodhouse had been exceedingly well amused.
+Mrs. Weston had been shewing them all to him, and now he would shew them
+all to Emma;--fortunate in having no other resemblance to a child, than
+in a total want of taste for what he saw, for he was slow, constant, and
+methodical.--Before this second looking over was begun, however, Emma
+walked into the hall for the sake of a few moments’ free observation of
+the entrance and ground-plot of the house--and was hardly there, when
+Jane Fairfax appeared, coming quickly in from the garden, and with a
+look of escape.--Little expecting to meet Miss Woodhouse so soon, there
+was a start at first; but Miss Woodhouse was the very person she was in
+quest of.
+
+“Will you be so kind,” said she, “when I am missed, as to say that I am
+gone home?--I am going this moment.--My aunt is not aware how late it
+is, nor how long we have been absent--but I am sure we shall be wanted,
+and I am determined to go directly.--I have said nothing about it to any
+body. It would only be giving trouble and distress. Some are gone to the
+ponds, and some to the lime walk. Till they all come in I shall not be
+missed; and when they do, will you have the goodness to say that I am
+gone?”
+
+“Certainly, if you wish it;--but you are not going to walk to Highbury
+alone?”
+
+“Yes--what should hurt me?--I walk fast. I shall be at home in twenty
+minutes.”
+
+“But it is too far, indeed it is, to be walking quite alone. Let my
+father’s servant go with you.--Let me order the carriage. It can be
+round in five minutes.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you--but on no account.--I would rather walk.--And
+for _me_ to be afraid of walking alone!--I, who may so soon have to
+guard others!”
+
+She spoke with great agitation; and Emma very feelingly replied, “That
+can be no reason for your being exposed to danger now. I must order the
+carriage. The heat even would be danger.--You are fatigued already.”
+
+“I am,”--she answered--“I am fatigued; but it is not the sort of
+fatigue--quick walking will refresh me.--Miss Woodhouse, we all know
+at times what it is to be wearied in spirits. Mine, I confess, are
+exhausted. The greatest kindness you can shew me, will be to let me have
+my own way, and only say that I am gone when it is necessary.”
+
+Emma had not another word to oppose. She saw it all; and entering into
+her feelings, promoted her quitting the house immediately, and
+watched her safely off with the zeal of a friend. Her parting look was
+grateful--and her parting words, “Oh! Miss Woodhouse, the comfort of
+being sometimes alone!”--seemed to burst from an overcharged heart, and
+to describe somewhat of the continual endurance to be practised by her,
+even towards some of those who loved her best.
+
+“Such a home, indeed! such an aunt!” said Emma, as she turned back into
+the hall again. “I do pity you. And the more sensibility you betray of
+their just horrors, the more I shall like you.”
+
+Jane had not been gone a quarter of an hour, and they had only
+accomplished some views of St. Mark’s Place, Venice, when Frank
+Churchill entered the room. Emma had not been thinking of him, she had
+forgotten to think of him--but she was very glad to see him. Mrs. Weston
+would be at ease. The black mare was blameless; _they_ were right
+who had named Mrs. Churchill as the cause. He had been detained by
+a temporary increase of illness in her; a nervous seizure, which had
+lasted some hours--and he had quite given up every thought of coming,
+till very late;--and had he known how hot a ride he should have, and
+how late, with all his hurry, he must be, he believed he should not have
+come at all. The heat was excessive; he had never suffered any thing
+like it--almost wished he had staid at home--nothing killed him
+like heat--he could bear any degree of cold, etc., but heat was
+intolerable--and he sat down, at the greatest possible distance from the
+slight remains of Mr. Woodhouse’s fire, looking very deplorable.
+
+“You will soon be cooler, if you sit still,” said Emma.
+
+“As soon as I am cooler I shall go back again. I could very ill be
+spared--but such a point had been made of my coming! You will all be
+going soon I suppose; the whole party breaking up. I met _one_ as I
+came--Madness in such weather!--absolute madness!”
+
+Emma listened, and looked, and soon perceived that Frank Churchill’s
+state might be best defined by the expressive phrase of being out of
+humour. Some people were always cross when they were hot. Such might be
+his constitution; and as she knew that eating and drinking were often
+the cure of such incidental complaints, she recommended his taking
+some refreshment; he would find abundance of every thing in the
+dining-room--and she humanely pointed out the door.
+
+“No--he should not eat. He was not hungry; it would only make him
+hotter.” In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and
+muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off. Emma returned all her
+attention to her father, saying in secret--
+
+“I am glad I have done being in love with him. I should not like a man
+who is so soon discomposed by a hot morning. Harriet’s sweet easy temper
+will not mind it.”
+
+He was gone long enough to have had a very comfortable meal, and came
+back all the better--grown quite cool--and, with good manners, like
+himself--able to draw a chair close to them, take an interest in their
+employment; and regret, in a reasonable way, that he should be so late.
+He was not in his best spirits, but seemed trying to improve them; and,
+at last, made himself talk nonsense very agreeably. They were looking
+over views in Swisserland.
+
+“As soon as my aunt gets well, I shall go abroad,” said he. “I shall
+never be easy till I have seen some of these places. You will have my
+sketches, some time or other, to look at--or my tour to read--or my
+poem. I shall do something to expose myself.”
+
+“That may be--but not by sketches in Swisserland. You will never go to
+Swisserland. Your uncle and aunt will never allow you to leave England.”
+
+“They may be induced to go too. A warm climate may be prescribed for
+her. I have more than half an expectation of our all going abroad. I
+assure you I have. I feel a strong persuasion, this morning, that I
+shall soon be abroad. I ought to travel. I am tired of doing nothing. I
+want a change. I am serious, Miss Woodhouse, whatever your penetrating
+eyes may fancy--I am sick of England--and would leave it to-morrow, if
+I could.”
+
+“You are sick of prosperity and indulgence. Cannot you invent a few
+hardships for yourself, and be contented to stay?”
+
+“_I_ sick of prosperity and indulgence! You are quite mistaken. I do
+not look upon myself as either prosperous or indulged. I am thwarted
+in every thing material. I do not consider myself at all a fortunate
+person.”
+
+“You are not quite so miserable, though, as when you first came. Go and
+eat and drink a little more, and you will do very well. Another slice of
+cold meat, another draught of Madeira and water, will make you nearly on
+a par with the rest of us.”
+
+“No--I shall not stir. I shall sit by you. You are my best cure.”
+
+“We are going to Box Hill to-morrow;--you will join us. It is not
+Swisserland, but it will be something for a young man so much in want of
+a change. You will stay, and go with us?”
+
+“No, certainly not; I shall go home in the cool of the evening.”
+
+“But you may come again in the cool of to-morrow morning.”
+
+“No--It will not be worth while. If I come, I shall be cross.”
+
+“Then pray stay at Richmond.”
+
+“But if I do, I shall be crosser still. I can never bear to think of you
+all there without me.”
+
+“These are difficulties which you must settle for yourself. Chuse your
+own degree of crossness. I shall press you no more.”
+
+The rest of the party were now returning, and all were soon collected.
+With some there was great joy at the sight of Frank Churchill; others
+took it very composedly; but there was a very general distress and
+disturbance on Miss Fairfax’s disappearance being explained. That it was
+time for every body to go, concluded the subject; and with a short final
+arrangement for the next day’s scheme, they parted. Frank Churchill’s
+little inclination to exclude himself increased so much, that his last
+words to Emma were,
+
+“Well;--if _you_ wish me to stay and join the party, I will.”
+
+She smiled her acceptance; and nothing less than a summons from Richmond
+was to take him back before the following evening.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+They had a very fine day for Box Hill; and all the other outward
+circumstances of arrangement, accommodation, and punctuality, were in
+favour of a pleasant party. Mr. Weston directed the whole, officiating
+safely between Hartfield and the Vicarage, and every body was in good
+time. Emma and Harriet went together; Miss Bates and her niece, with
+the Eltons; the gentlemen on horseback. Mrs. Weston remained with Mr.
+Woodhouse. Nothing was wanting but to be happy when they got there.
+Seven miles were travelled in expectation of enjoyment, and every body
+had a burst of admiration on first arriving; but in the general amount
+of the day there was deficiency. There was a languor, a want of spirits,
+a want of union, which could not be got over. They separated too much
+into parties. The Eltons walked together; Mr. Knightley took charge of
+Miss Bates and Jane; and Emma and Harriet belonged to Frank Churchill.
+And Mr. Weston tried, in vain, to make them harmonise better. It seemed
+at first an accidental division, but it never materially varied. Mr. and
+Mrs. Elton, indeed, shewed no unwillingness to mix, and be as agreeable
+as they could; but during the two whole hours that were spent on the
+hill, there seemed a principle of separation, between the other parties,
+too strong for any fine prospects, or any cold collation, or any
+cheerful Mr. Weston, to remove.
+
+At first it was downright dulness to Emma. She had never seen Frank
+Churchill so silent and stupid. He said nothing worth hearing--looked
+without seeing--admired without intelligence--listened without knowing
+what she said. While he was so dull, it was no wonder that Harriet
+should be dull likewise; and they were both insufferable.
+
+When they all sat down it was better; to her taste a great deal better,
+for Frank Churchill grew talkative and gay, making her his first object.
+Every distinguishing attention that could be paid, was paid to her.
+To amuse her, and be agreeable in her eyes, seemed all that he cared
+for--and Emma, glad to be enlivened, not sorry to be flattered, was gay
+and easy too, and gave him all the friendly encouragement, the admission
+to be gallant, which she had ever given in the first and most animating
+period of their acquaintance; but which now, in her own estimation,
+meant nothing, though in the judgment of most people looking on it must
+have had such an appearance as no English word but flirtation could very
+well describe. “Mr. Frank Churchill and Miss Woodhouse flirted together
+excessively.” They were laying themselves open to that very phrase--and
+to having it sent off in a letter to Maple Grove by one lady, to
+Ireland by another. Not that Emma was gay and thoughtless from any
+real felicity; it was rather because she felt less happy than she had
+expected. She laughed because she was disappointed; and though she liked
+him for his attentions, and thought them all, whether in friendship,
+admiration, or playfulness, extremely judicious, they were not winning
+back her heart. She still intended him for her friend.
+
+“How much I am obliged to you,” said he, “for telling me to come
+to-day!--If it had not been for you, I should certainly have lost all
+the happiness of this party. I had quite determined to go away again.”
+
+“Yes, you were very cross; and I do not know what about, except that you
+were too late for the best strawberries. I was a kinder friend than you
+deserved. But you were humble. You begged hard to be commanded to come.”
+
+“Don’t say I was cross. I was fatigued. The heat overcame me.”
+
+“It is hotter to-day.”
+
+“Not to my feelings. I am perfectly comfortable to-day.”
+
+“You are comfortable because you are under command.”
+
+“Your command?--Yes.”
+
+“Perhaps I intended you to say so, but I meant self-command. You had,
+somehow or other, broken bounds yesterday, and run away from your own
+management; but to-day you are got back again--and as I cannot be always
+with you, it is best to believe your temper under your own command
+rather than mine.”
+
+“It comes to the same thing. I can have no self-command without a
+motive. You order me, whether you speak or not. And you can be always
+with me. You are always with me.”
+
+“Dating from three o’clock yesterday. My perpetual influence could not
+begin earlier, or you would not have been so much out of humour before.”
+
+“Three o’clock yesterday! That is your date. I thought I had seen you
+first in February.”
+
+“Your gallantry is really unanswerable. But (lowering her voice)--nobody
+speaks except ourselves, and it is rather too much to be talking
+nonsense for the entertainment of seven silent people.”
+
+“I say nothing of which I am ashamed,” replied he, with lively
+impudence. “I saw you first in February. Let every body on the Hill
+hear me if they can. Let my accents swell to Mickleham on one side,
+and Dorking on the other. I saw you first in February.” And then
+whispering--“Our companions are excessively stupid. What shall we do
+to rouse them? Any nonsense will serve. They _shall_ talk. Ladies
+and gentlemen, I am ordered by Miss Woodhouse (who, wherever she is,
+presides) to say, that she desires to know what you are all thinking
+of?”
+
+Some laughed, and answered good-humouredly. Miss Bates said a great
+deal; Mrs. Elton swelled at the idea of Miss Woodhouse’s presiding; Mr.
+Knightley’s answer was the most distinct.
+
+“Is Miss Woodhouse sure that she would like to hear what we are all
+thinking of?”
+
+“Oh! no, no”--cried Emma, laughing as carelessly as she could--“Upon no
+account in the world. It is the very last thing I would stand the brunt
+of just now. Let me hear any thing rather than what you are all thinking
+of. I will not say quite all. There are one or two, perhaps, (glancing
+at Mr. Weston and Harriet,) whose thoughts I might not be afraid of
+knowing.”
+
+“It is a sort of thing,” cried Mrs. Elton emphatically, “which _I_
+should not have thought myself privileged to inquire into. Though,
+perhaps, as the _Chaperon_ of the party--_I_ never was in any
+circle--exploring parties--young ladies--married women--”
+
+Her mutterings were chiefly to her husband; and he murmured, in reply,
+
+“Very true, my love, very true. Exactly so, indeed--quite unheard
+of--but some ladies say any thing. Better pass it off as a joke. Every
+body knows what is due to _you_.”
+
+“It will not do,” whispered Frank to Emma; “they are most of them
+affronted. I will attack them with more address. Ladies and gentlemen--I
+am ordered by Miss Woodhouse to say, that she waives her right of
+knowing exactly what you may all be thinking of, and only requires
+something very entertaining from each of you, in a general way. Here
+are seven of you, besides myself, (who, she is pleased to say, am very
+entertaining already,) and she only demands from each of you either one
+thing very clever, be it prose or verse, original or repeated--or two
+things moderately clever--or three things very dull indeed, and she
+engages to laugh heartily at them all.”
+
+“Oh! very well,” exclaimed Miss Bates, “then I need not be uneasy.
+‘Three things very dull indeed.’ That will just do for me, you know. I
+shall be sure to say three dull things as soon as ever I open my mouth,
+shan’t I? (looking round with the most good-humoured dependence on every
+body’s assent)--Do not you all think I shall?”
+
+Emma could not resist.
+
+“Ah! ma’am, but there may be a difficulty. Pardon me--but you will be
+limited as to number--only three at once.”
+
+Miss Bates, deceived by the mock ceremony of her manner, did not
+immediately catch her meaning; but, when it burst on her, it could not
+anger, though a slight blush shewed that it could pain her.
+
+“Ah!--well--to be sure. Yes, I see what she means, (turning to Mr.
+Knightley,) and I will try to hold my tongue. I must make myself very
+disagreeable, or she would not have said such a thing to an old friend.”
+
+“I like your plan,” cried Mr. Weston. “Agreed, agreed. I will do my
+best. I am making a conundrum. How will a conundrum reckon?”
+
+“Low, I am afraid, sir, very low,” answered his son;--“but we shall be
+indulgent--especially to any one who leads the way.”
+
+“No, no,” said Emma, “it will not reckon low. A conundrum of Mr.
+Weston’s shall clear him and his next neighbour. Come, sir, pray let me
+hear it.”
+
+“I doubt its being very clever myself,” said Mr. Weston. “It is too much
+a matter of fact, but here it is.--What two letters of the alphabet are
+there, that express perfection?”
+
+“What two letters!--express perfection! I am sure I do not know.”
+
+“Ah! you will never guess. You, (to Emma), I am certain, will never
+guess.--I will tell you.--M. and A.--Em-ma.--Do you understand?”
+
+Understanding and gratification came together. It might be a very
+indifferent piece of wit, but Emma found a great deal to laugh at and
+enjoy in it--and so did Frank and Harriet.--It did not seem to touch
+the rest of the party equally; some looked very stupid about it, and Mr.
+Knightley gravely said,
+
+“This explains the sort of clever thing that is wanted, and Mr. Weston
+has done very well for himself; but he must have knocked up every body
+else. _Perfection_ should not have come quite so soon.”
+
+“Oh! for myself, I protest I must be excused,” said Mrs. Elton; “_I_
+really cannot attempt--I am not at all fond of the sort of thing. I had
+an acrostic once sent to me upon my own name, which I was not at all
+pleased with. I knew who it came from. An abominable puppy!--You know
+who I mean (nodding to her husband). These kind of things are very
+well at Christmas, when one is sitting round the fire; but quite out of
+place, in my opinion, when one is exploring about the country in summer.
+Miss Woodhouse must excuse me. I am not one of those who have witty
+things at every body’s service. I do not pretend to be a wit. I have a
+great deal of vivacity in my own way, but I really must be allowed to
+judge when to speak and when to hold my tongue. Pass us, if you please,
+Mr. Churchill. Pass Mr. E., Knightley, Jane, and myself. We have nothing
+clever to say--not one of us.
+
+“Yes, yes, pray pass _me_,” added her husband, with a sort of sneering
+consciousness; “_I_ have nothing to say that can entertain Miss
+Woodhouse, or any other young lady. An old married man--quite good for
+nothing. Shall we walk, Augusta?”
+
+“With all my heart. I am really tired of exploring so long on one spot.
+Come, Jane, take my other arm.”
+
+Jane declined it, however, and the husband and wife walked off.
+“Happy couple!” said Frank Churchill, as soon as they were out of
+hearing:--“How well they suit one another!--Very lucky--marrying as they
+did, upon an acquaintance formed only in a public place!--They only knew
+each other, I think, a few weeks in Bath! Peculiarly lucky!--for as to
+any real knowledge of a person’s disposition that Bath, or any public
+place, can give--it is all nothing; there can be no knowledge. It is
+only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as
+they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it
+is all guess and luck--and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man
+has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest
+of his life!”
+
+Miss Fairfax, who had seldom spoken before, except among her own
+confederates, spoke now.
+
+“Such things do occur, undoubtedly.”--She was stopped by a cough. Frank
+Churchill turned towards her to listen.
+
+“You were speaking,” said he, gravely. She recovered her voice.
+
+“I was only going to observe, that though such unfortunate circumstances
+do sometimes occur both to men and women, I cannot imagine them to be
+very frequent. A hasty and imprudent attachment may arise--but there is
+generally time to recover from it afterwards. I would be understood to
+mean, that it can be only weak, irresolute characters, (whose happiness
+must be always at the mercy of chance,) who will suffer an unfortunate
+acquaintance to be an inconvenience, an oppression for ever.”
+
+He made no answer; merely looked, and bowed in submission; and soon
+afterwards said, in a lively tone,
+
+“Well, I have so little confidence in my own judgment, that whenever I
+marry, I hope some body will chuse my wife for me. Will you? (turning to
+Emma.) Will you chuse a wife for me?--I am sure I should like any body
+fixed on by you. You provide for the family, you know, (with a smile at
+his father). Find some body for me. I am in no hurry. Adopt her, educate
+her.”
+
+“And make her like myself.”
+
+“By all means, if you can.”
+
+“Very well. I undertake the commission. You shall have a charming wife.”
+
+“She must be very lively, and have hazle eyes. I care for nothing else.
+I shall go abroad for a couple of years--and when I return, I shall come
+to you for my wife. Remember.”
+
+Emma was in no danger of forgetting. It was a commission to touch every
+favourite feeling. Would not Harriet be the very creature described?
+Hazle eyes excepted, two years more might make her all that he wished.
+He might even have Harriet in his thoughts at the moment; who could say?
+Referring the education to her seemed to imply it.
+
+“Now, ma’am,” said Jane to her aunt, “shall we join Mrs. Elton?”
+
+“If you please, my dear. With all my heart. I am quite ready. I was
+ready to have gone with her, but this will do just as well. We shall
+soon overtake her. There she is--no, that’s somebody else. That’s one
+of the ladies in the Irish car party, not at all like her.--Well, I
+declare--”
+
+They walked off, followed in half a minute by Mr. Knightley. Mr. Weston,
+his son, Emma, and Harriet, only remained; and the young man’s spirits
+now rose to a pitch almost unpleasant. Even Emma grew tired at last of
+flattery and merriment, and wished herself rather walking quietly about
+with any of the others, or sitting almost alone, and quite unattended
+to, in tranquil observation of the beautiful views beneath her. The
+appearance of the servants looking out for them to give notice of the
+carriages was a joyful sight; and even the bustle of collecting and
+preparing to depart, and the solicitude of Mrs. Elton to have _her_
+carriage first, were gladly endured, in the prospect of the quiet drive
+home which was to close the very questionable enjoyments of this day of
+pleasure. Such another scheme, composed of so many ill-assorted people,
+she hoped never to be betrayed into again.
+
+While waiting for the carriage, she found Mr. Knightley by her side. He
+looked around, as if to see that no one were near, and then said,
+
+“Emma, I must once more speak to you as I have been used to do: a
+privilege rather endured than allowed, perhaps, but I must still use it.
+I cannot see you acting wrong, without a remonstrance. How could you be
+so unfeeling to Miss Bates? How could you be so insolent in your wit to
+a woman of her character, age, and situation?--Emma, I had not thought
+it possible.”
+
+Emma recollected, blushed, was sorry, but tried to laugh it off.
+
+“Nay, how could I help saying what I did?--Nobody could have helped it.
+It was not so very bad. I dare say she did not understand me.”
+
+“I assure you she did. She felt your full meaning. She has talked of
+it since. I wish you could have heard how she talked of it--with what
+candour and generosity. I wish you could have heard her honouring your
+forbearance, in being able to pay her such attentions, as she was for
+ever receiving from yourself and your father, when her society must be
+so irksome.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Emma, “I know there is not a better creature in the world:
+but you must allow, that what is good and what is ridiculous are most
+unfortunately blended in her.”
+
+“They are blended,” said he, “I acknowledge; and, were she prosperous,
+I could allow much for the occasional prevalence of the ridiculous over
+the good. Were she a woman of fortune, I would leave every harmless
+absurdity to take its chance, I would not quarrel with you for any
+liberties of manner. Were she your equal in situation--but, Emma,
+consider how far this is from being the case. She is poor; she has sunk
+from the comforts she was born to; and, if she live to old age, must
+probably sink more. Her situation should secure your compassion. It was
+badly done, indeed! You, whom she had known from an infant, whom she had
+seen grow up from a period when her notice was an honour, to have you
+now, in thoughtless spirits, and the pride of the moment, laugh at her,
+humble her--and before her niece, too--and before others, many of whom
+(certainly _some_,) would be entirely guided by _your_ treatment
+of her.--This is not pleasant to you, Emma--and it is very far from
+pleasant to me; but I must, I will,--I will tell you truths while I can;
+satisfied with proving myself your friend by very faithful counsel, and
+trusting that you will some time or other do me greater justice than you
+can do now.”
+
+While they talked, they were advancing towards the carriage; it was
+ready; and, before she could speak again, he had handed her in. He had
+misinterpreted the feelings which had kept her face averted, and her
+tongue motionless. They were combined only of anger against herself,
+mortification, and deep concern. She had not been able to speak; and, on
+entering the carriage, sunk back for a moment overcome--then reproaching
+herself for having taken no leave, making no acknowledgment, parting in
+apparent sullenness, she looked out with voice and hand eager to shew a
+difference; but it was just too late. He had turned away, and the horses
+were in motion. She continued to look back, but in vain; and soon, with
+what appeared unusual speed, they were half way down the hill, and
+every thing left far behind. She was vexed beyond what could have been
+expressed--almost beyond what she could conceal. Never had she felt so
+agitated, mortified, grieved, at any circumstance in her life. She was
+most forcibly struck. The truth of this representation there was no
+denying. She felt it at her heart. How could she have been so brutal,
+so cruel to Miss Bates! How could she have exposed herself to such ill
+opinion in any one she valued! And how suffer him to leave her without
+saying one word of gratitude, of concurrence, of common kindness!
+
+Time did not compose her. As she reflected more, she seemed but to feel
+it more. She never had been so depressed. Happily it was not necessary
+to speak. There was only Harriet, who seemed not in spirits herself,
+fagged, and very willing to be silent; and Emma felt the tears running
+down her cheeks almost all the way home, without being at any trouble to
+check them, extraordinary as they were.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+The wretchedness of a scheme to Box Hill was in Emma’s thoughts all the
+evening. How it might be considered by the rest of the party, she could
+not tell. They, in their different homes, and their different ways,
+might be looking back on it with pleasure; but in her view it was
+a morning more completely misspent, more totally bare of rational
+satisfaction at the time, and more to be abhorred in recollection, than
+any she had ever passed. A whole evening of back-gammon with her father,
+was felicity to it. _There_, indeed, lay real pleasure, for there she
+was giving up the sweetest hours of the twenty-four to his comfort; and
+feeling that, unmerited as might be the degree of his fond affection and
+confiding esteem, she could not, in her general conduct, be open to any
+severe reproach. As a daughter, she hoped she was not without a heart.
+She hoped no one could have said to her, “How could you be so unfeeling
+to your father?--I must, I will tell you truths while I can.” Miss
+Bates should never again--no, never! If attention, in future, could do
+away the past, she might hope to be forgiven. She had been often remiss,
+her conscience told her so; remiss, perhaps, more in thought than fact;
+scornful, ungracious. But it should be so no more. In the warmth of true
+contrition, she would call upon her the very next morning, and it should
+be the beginning, on her side, of a regular, equal, kindly intercourse.
+
+She was just as determined when the morrow came, and went early, that
+nothing might prevent her. It was not unlikely, she thought, that she
+might see Mr. Knightley in her way; or, perhaps, he might come in
+while she were paying her visit. She had no objection. She would not be
+ashamed of the appearance of the penitence, so justly and truly hers.
+Her eyes were towards Donwell as she walked, but she saw him not.
+
+“The ladies were all at home.” She had never rejoiced at the sound
+before, nor ever before entered the passage, nor walked up the stairs,
+with any wish of giving pleasure, but in conferring obligation, or of
+deriving it, except in subsequent ridicule.
+
+There was a bustle on her approach; a good deal of moving and talking.
+She heard Miss Bates’s voice, something was to be done in a hurry; the
+maid looked frightened and awkward; hoped she would be pleased to wait a
+moment, and then ushered her in too soon. The aunt and niece seemed both
+escaping into the adjoining room. Jane she had a distinct glimpse of,
+looking extremely ill; and, before the door had shut them out, she heard
+Miss Bates saying, “Well, my dear, I shall _say_ you are laid down upon
+the bed, and I am sure you are ill enough.”
+
+Poor old Mrs. Bates, civil and humble as usual, looked as if she did not
+quite understand what was going on.
+
+“I am afraid Jane is not very well,” said she, “but I do not know; they
+_tell_ me she is well. I dare say my daughter will be here presently,
+Miss Woodhouse. I hope you find a chair. I wish Hetty had not gone. I am
+very little able--Have you a chair, ma’am? Do you sit where you like? I
+am sure she will be here presently.”
+
+Emma seriously hoped she would. She had a moment’s fear of Miss Bates
+keeping away from her. But Miss Bates soon came--“Very happy and
+obliged”--but Emma’s conscience told her that there was not the same
+cheerful volubility as before--less ease of look and manner. A very
+friendly inquiry after Miss Fairfax, she hoped, might lead the way to a
+return of old feelings. The touch seemed immediate.
+
+“Ah! Miss Woodhouse, how kind you are!--I suppose you have heard--and
+are come to give us joy. This does not seem much like joy, indeed, in
+me--(twinkling away a tear or two)--but it will be very trying for us
+to part with her, after having had her so long, and she has a dreadful
+headache just now, writing all the morning:--such long letters, you
+know, to be written to Colonel Campbell, and Mrs. Dixon. ‘My dear,’ said
+I, ‘you will blind yourself’--for tears were in her eyes perpetually.
+One cannot wonder, one cannot wonder. It is a great change; and though
+she is amazingly fortunate--such a situation, I suppose, as no
+young woman before ever met with on first going out--do not think us
+ungrateful, Miss Woodhouse, for such surprising good fortune--(again
+dispersing her tears)--but, poor dear soul! if you were to see what a
+headache she has. When one is in great pain, you know one cannot feel
+any blessing quite as it may deserve. She is as low as possible. To
+look at her, nobody would think how delighted and happy she is to have
+secured such a situation. You will excuse her not coming to you--she is
+not able--she is gone into her own room--I want her to lie down upon the
+bed. ‘My dear,’ said I, ‘I shall say you are laid down upon the bed:’
+but, however, she is not; she is walking about the room. But, now that
+she has written her letters, she says she shall soon be well. She will
+be extremely sorry to miss seeing you, Miss Woodhouse, but your
+kindness will excuse her. You were kept waiting at the door--I was quite
+ashamed--but somehow there was a little bustle--for it so happened that
+we had not heard the knock, and till you were on the stairs, we did not
+know any body was coming. ‘It is only Mrs. Cole,’ said I, ‘depend upon
+it. Nobody else would come so early.’ ‘Well,’ said she, ‘it must be
+borne some time or other, and it may as well be now.’ But then Patty
+came in, and said it was you. ‘Oh!’ said I, ‘it is Miss Woodhouse: I am
+sure you will like to see her.’--‘I can see nobody,’ said she; and
+up she got, and would go away; and that was what made us keep you
+waiting--and extremely sorry and ashamed we were. ‘If you must go, my
+dear,’ said I, ‘you must, and I will say you are laid down upon the
+bed.’”
+
+Emma was most sincerely interested. Her heart had been long growing
+kinder towards Jane; and this picture of her present sufferings acted
+as a cure of every former ungenerous suspicion, and left her nothing but
+pity; and the remembrance of the less just and less gentle sensations of
+the past, obliged her to admit that Jane might very naturally resolve on
+seeing Mrs. Cole or any other steady friend, when she might not bear
+to see herself. She spoke as she felt, with earnest regret and
+solicitude--sincerely wishing that the circumstances which she collected
+from Miss Bates to be now actually determined on, might be as much for
+Miss Fairfax’s advantage and comfort as possible. “It must be a severe
+trial to them all. She had understood it was to be delayed till Colonel
+Campbell’s return.”
+
+“So very kind!” replied Miss Bates. “But you are always kind.”
+
+There was no bearing such an “always;” and to break through her dreadful
+gratitude, Emma made the direct inquiry of--
+
+“Where--may I ask?--is Miss Fairfax going?”
+
+“To a Mrs. Smallridge--charming woman--most superior--to have the charge
+of her three little girls--delightful children. Impossible that any
+situation could be more replete with comfort; if we except, perhaps,
+Mrs. Suckling’s own family, and Mrs. Bragge’s; but Mrs. Smallridge is
+intimate with both, and in the very same neighbourhood:--lives only four
+miles from Maple Grove. Jane will be only four miles from Maple Grove.”
+
+“Mrs. Elton, I suppose, has been the person to whom Miss Fairfax owes--”
+
+“Yes, our good Mrs. Elton. The most indefatigable, true friend. She
+would not take a denial. She would not let Jane say, ‘No;’ for when Jane
+first heard of it, (it was the day before yesterday, the very morning
+we were at Donwell,) when Jane first heard of it, she was quite decided
+against accepting the offer, and for the reasons you mention; exactly
+as you say, she had made up her mind to close with nothing till Colonel
+Campbell’s return, and nothing should induce her to enter into any
+engagement at present--and so she told Mrs. Elton over and over
+again--and I am sure I had no more idea that she would change her
+mind!--but that good Mrs. Elton, whose judgment never fails her, saw
+farther than I did. It is not every body that would have stood out in
+such a kind way as she did, and refuse to take Jane’s answer; but she
+positively declared she would _not_ write any such denial yesterday, as
+Jane wished her; she would wait--and, sure enough, yesterday evening it
+was all settled that Jane should go. Quite a surprize to me! I had not
+the least idea!--Jane took Mrs. Elton aside, and told her at once, that
+upon thinking over the advantages of Mrs. Smallridge’s situation, she
+had come to the resolution of accepting it.--I did not know a word of it
+till it was all settled.”
+
+“You spent the evening with Mrs. Elton?”
+
+“Yes, all of us; Mrs. Elton would have us come. It was settled so, upon
+the hill, while we were walking about with Mr. Knightley. ‘You _must_
+_all_ spend your evening with us,’ said she--‘I positively must have you
+_all_ come.’”
+
+“Mr. Knightley was there too, was he?”
+
+“No, not Mr. Knightley; he declined it from the first; and though I
+thought he would come, because Mrs. Elton declared she would not let him
+off, he did not;--but my mother, and Jane, and I, were all there, and
+a very agreeable evening we had. Such kind friends, you know, Miss
+Woodhouse, one must always find agreeable, though every body seemed
+rather fagged after the morning’s party. Even pleasure, you know, is
+fatiguing--and I cannot say that any of them seemed very much to have
+enjoyed it. However, _I_ shall always think it a very pleasant party,
+and feel extremely obliged to the kind friends who included me in it.”
+
+“Miss Fairfax, I suppose, though you were not aware of it, had been
+making up her mind the whole day?”
+
+“I dare say she had.”
+
+“Whenever the time may come, it must be unwelcome to her and all her
+friends--but I hope her engagement will have every alleviation that is
+possible--I mean, as to the character and manners of the family.”
+
+“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse. Yes, indeed, there is every thing
+in the world that can make her happy in it. Except the Sucklings and
+Bragges, there is not such another nursery establishment, so liberal
+and elegant, in all Mrs. Elton’s acquaintance. Mrs. Smallridge, a most
+delightful woman!--A style of living almost equal to Maple Grove--and as
+to the children, except the little Sucklings and little Bragges, there
+are not such elegant sweet children anywhere. Jane will be treated with
+such regard and kindness!--It will be nothing but pleasure, a life of
+pleasure.--And her salary!--I really cannot venture to name her salary
+to you, Miss Woodhouse. Even you, used as you are to great sums, would
+hardly believe that so much could be given to a young person like Jane.”
+
+“Ah! madam,” cried Emma, “if other children are at all like what I
+remember to have been myself, I should think five times the amount of
+what I have ever yet heard named as a salary on such occasions, dearly
+earned.”
+
+“You are so noble in your ideas!”
+
+“And when is Miss Fairfax to leave you?”
+
+“Very soon, very soon, indeed; that’s the worst of it. Within a
+fortnight. Mrs. Smallridge is in a great hurry. My poor mother does not
+know how to bear it. So then, I try to put it out of her thoughts, and
+say, Come ma’am, do not let us think about it any more.”
+
+“Her friends must all be sorry to lose her; and will not Colonel and
+Mrs. Campbell be sorry to find that she has engaged herself before their
+return?”
+
+“Yes; Jane says she is sure they will; but yet, this is such a situation
+as she cannot feel herself justified in declining. I was so astonished
+when she first told me what she had been saying to Mrs. Elton, and when
+Mrs. Elton at the same moment came congratulating me upon it! It was
+before tea--stay--no, it could not be before tea, because we were
+just going to cards--and yet it was before tea, because I remember
+thinking--Oh! no, now I recollect, now I have it; something happened
+before tea, but not that. Mr. Elton was called out of the room before
+tea, old John Abdy’s son wanted to speak with him. Poor old John, I
+have a great regard for him; he was clerk to my poor father twenty-seven
+years; and now, poor old man, he is bed-ridden, and very poorly with the
+rheumatic gout in his joints--I must go and see him to-day; and so will
+Jane, I am sure, if she gets out at all. And poor John’s son came to
+talk to Mr. Elton about relief from the parish; he is very well to do
+himself, you know, being head man at the Crown, ostler, and every thing
+of that sort, but still he cannot keep his father without some help;
+and so, when Mr. Elton came back, he told us what John ostler had been
+telling him, and then it came out about the chaise having been sent to
+Randalls to take Mr. Frank Churchill to Richmond. That was what happened
+before tea. It was after tea that Jane spoke to Mrs. Elton.”
+
+Miss Bates would hardly give Emma time to say how perfectly new this
+circumstance was to her; but as without supposing it possible that she
+could be ignorant of any of the particulars of Mr. Frank Churchill’s
+going, she proceeded to give them all, it was of no consequence.
+
+What Mr. Elton had learned from the ostler on the subject, being the
+accumulation of the ostler’s own knowledge, and the knowledge of the
+servants at Randalls, was, that a messenger had come over from Richmond
+soon after the return of the party from Box Hill--which messenger,
+however, had been no more than was expected; and that Mr. Churchill had
+sent his nephew a few lines, containing, upon the whole, a tolerable
+account of Mrs. Churchill, and only wishing him not to delay coming
+back beyond the next morning early; but that Mr. Frank Churchill having
+resolved to go home directly, without waiting at all, and his horse
+seeming to have got a cold, Tom had been sent off immediately for the
+Crown chaise, and the ostler had stood out and seen it pass by, the boy
+going a good pace, and driving very steady.
+
+There was nothing in all this either to astonish or interest, and it
+caught Emma’s attention only as it united with the subject which already
+engaged her mind. The contrast between Mrs. Churchill’s importance in
+the world, and Jane Fairfax’s, struck her; one was every thing, the
+other nothing--and she sat musing on the difference of woman’s destiny,
+and quite unconscious on what her eyes were fixed, till roused by Miss
+Bates’s saying,
+
+“Aye, I see what you are thinking of, the pianoforte. What is to become
+of that?--Very true. Poor dear Jane was talking of it just now.--‘You
+must go,’ said she. ‘You and I must part. You will have no business
+here.--Let it stay, however,’ said she; ‘give it houseroom till Colonel
+Campbell comes back. I shall talk about it to him; he will settle for
+me; he will help me out of all my difficulties.’--And to this day, I do
+believe, she knows not whether it was his present or his daughter’s.”
+
+Now Emma was obliged to think of the pianoforte; and the remembrance of
+all her former fanciful and unfair conjectures was so little pleasing,
+that she soon allowed herself to believe her visit had been long enough;
+and, with a repetition of every thing that she could venture to say of
+the good wishes which she really felt, took leave.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+Emma’s pensive meditations, as she walked home, were not interrupted;
+but on entering the parlour, she found those who must rouse her. Mr.
+Knightley and Harriet had arrived during her absence, and were sitting
+with her father.--Mr. Knightley immediately got up, and in a manner
+decidedly graver than usual, said,
+
+“I would not go away without seeing you, but I have no time to spare,
+and therefore must now be gone directly. I am going to London, to spend
+a few days with John and Isabella. Have you any thing to send or say,
+besides the ‘love,’ which nobody carries?”
+
+“Nothing at all. But is not this a sudden scheme?”
+
+“Yes--rather--I have been thinking of it some little time.”
+
+Emma was sure he had not forgiven her; he looked unlike himself. Time,
+however, she thought, would tell him that they ought to be friends
+again. While he stood, as if meaning to go, but not going--her father
+began his inquiries.
+
+“Well, my dear, and did you get there safely?--And how did you find my
+worthy old friend and her daughter?--I dare say they must have been very
+much obliged to you for coming. Dear Emma has been to call on Mrs.
+and Miss Bates, Mr. Knightley, as I told you before. She is always so
+attentive to them!”
+
+Emma’s colour was heightened by this unjust praise; and with a
+smile, and shake of the head, which spoke much, she looked at Mr.
+Knightley.--It seemed as if there were an instantaneous impression in
+her favour, as if his eyes received the truth from hers, and all that
+had passed of good in her feelings were at once caught and honoured.--
+He looked at her with a glow of regard. She was warmly gratified--and in
+another moment still more so, by a little movement of more than common
+friendliness on his part.--He took her hand;--whether she had not
+herself made the first motion, she could not say--she might, perhaps,
+have rather offered it--but he took her hand, pressed it, and certainly
+was on the point of carrying it to his lips--when, from some fancy or
+other, he suddenly let it go.--Why he should feel such a scruple, why
+he should change his mind when it was all but done, she could not
+perceive.--He would have judged better, she thought, if he had not
+stopped.--The intention, however, was indubitable; and whether it was
+that his manners had in general so little gallantry, or however else it
+happened, but she thought nothing became him more.--It was with him,
+of so simple, yet so dignified a nature.--She could not but recall the
+attempt with great satisfaction. It spoke such perfect amity.--He left
+them immediately afterwards--gone in a moment. He always moved with the
+alertness of a mind which could neither be undecided nor dilatory, but
+now he seemed more sudden than usual in his disappearance.
+
+Emma could not regret her having gone to Miss Bates, but she wished she
+had left her ten minutes earlier;--it would have been a great pleasure
+to talk over Jane Fairfax’s situation with Mr. Knightley.--Neither
+would she regret that he should be going to Brunswick Square, for she
+knew how much his visit would be enjoyed--but it might have happened
+at a better time--and to have had longer notice of it, would have been
+pleasanter.--They parted thorough friends, however; she could not
+be deceived as to the meaning of his countenance, and his unfinished
+gallantry;--it was all done to assure her that she had fully recovered
+his good opinion.--He had been sitting with them half an hour, she
+found. It was a pity that she had not come back earlier!
+
+In the hope of diverting her father’s thoughts from the disagreeableness
+of Mr. Knightley’s going to London; and going so suddenly; and going on
+horseback, which she knew would be all very bad; Emma communicated her
+news of Jane Fairfax, and her dependence on the effect was justified;
+it supplied a very useful check,--interested, without disturbing him. He
+had long made up his mind to Jane Fairfax’s going out as governess, and
+could talk of it cheerfully, but Mr. Knightley’s going to London had
+been an unexpected blow.
+
+“I am very glad, indeed, my dear, to hear she is to be so comfortably
+settled. Mrs. Elton is very good-natured and agreeable, and I dare say
+her acquaintance are just what they ought to be. I hope it is a dry
+situation, and that her health will be taken good care of. It ought to
+be a first object, as I am sure poor Miss Taylor’s always was with me.
+You know, my dear, she is going to be to this new lady what Miss Taylor
+was to us. And I hope she will be better off in one respect, and not be
+induced to go away after it has been her home so long.”
+
+The following day brought news from Richmond to throw every thing else
+into the background. An express arrived at Randalls to announce the
+death of Mrs. Churchill! Though her nephew had had no particular reason
+to hasten back on her account, she had not lived above six-and-thirty
+hours after his return. A sudden seizure of a different nature from any
+thing foreboded by her general state, had carried her off after a short
+struggle. The great Mrs. Churchill was no more.
+
+It was felt as such things must be felt. Every body had a degree of
+gravity and sorrow; tenderness towards the departed, solicitude for the
+surviving friends; and, in a reasonable time, curiosity to know where
+she would be buried. Goldsmith tells us, that when lovely woman stoops
+to folly, she has nothing to do but to die; and when she stoops to be
+disagreeable, it is equally to be recommended as a clearer of ill-fame.
+Mrs. Churchill, after being disliked at least twenty-five years, was
+now spoken of with compassionate allowances. In one point she was fully
+justified. She had never been admitted before to be seriously ill. The
+event acquitted her of all the fancifulness, and all the selfishness of
+imaginary complaints.
+
+“Poor Mrs. Churchill! no doubt she had been suffering a great deal:
+more than any body had ever supposed--and continual pain would try the
+temper. It was a sad event--a great shock--with all her faults, what
+would Mr. Churchill do without her? Mr. Churchill’s loss would be
+dreadful indeed. Mr. Churchill would never get over it.”--Even Mr.
+Weston shook his head, and looked solemn, and said, “Ah! poor woman,
+who would have thought it!” and resolved, that his mourning should be as
+handsome as possible; and his wife sat sighing and moralising over her
+broad hems with a commiseration and good sense, true and steady. How it
+would affect Frank was among the earliest thoughts of both. It was also
+a very early speculation with Emma. The character of Mrs. Churchill,
+the grief of her husband--her mind glanced over them both with awe and
+compassion--and then rested with lightened feelings on how Frank might
+be affected by the event, how benefited, how freed. She saw in a moment
+all the possible good. Now, an attachment to Harriet Smith would have
+nothing to encounter. Mr. Churchill, independent of his wife, was feared
+by nobody; an easy, guidable man, to be persuaded into any thing by his
+nephew. All that remained to be wished was, that the nephew should form
+the attachment, as, with all her goodwill in the cause, Emma could feel
+no certainty of its being already formed.
+
+Harriet behaved extremely well on the occasion, with great self-command.
+What ever she might feel of brighter hope, she betrayed nothing. Emma
+was gratified, to observe such a proof in her of strengthened character,
+and refrained from any allusion that might endanger its maintenance.
+They spoke, therefore, of Mrs. Churchill’s death with mutual
+forbearance.
+
+Short letters from Frank were received at Randalls, communicating all
+that was immediately important of their state and plans. Mr. Churchill
+was better than could be expected; and their first removal, on the
+departure of the funeral for Yorkshire, was to be to the house of a very
+old friend in Windsor, to whom Mr. Churchill had been promising a
+visit the last ten years. At present, there was nothing to be done for
+Harriet; good wishes for the future were all that could yet be possible
+on Emma’s side.
+
+It was a more pressing concern to shew attention to Jane Fairfax, whose
+prospects were closing, while Harriet’s opened, and whose engagements
+now allowed of no delay in any one at Highbury, who wished to shew her
+kindness--and with Emma it was grown into a first wish. She had scarcely
+a stronger regret than for her past coldness; and the person, whom she
+had been so many months neglecting, was now the very one on whom she
+would have lavished every distinction of regard or sympathy. She wanted
+to be of use to her; wanted to shew a value for her society, and testify
+respect and consideration. She resolved to prevail on her to spend a day
+at Hartfield. A note was written to urge it. The invitation was refused,
+and by a verbal message. “Miss Fairfax was not well enough to write;”
+ and when Mr. Perry called at Hartfield, the same morning, it appeared
+that she was so much indisposed as to have been visited, though against
+her own consent, by himself, and that she was suffering under severe
+headaches, and a nervous fever to a degree, which made him doubt the
+possibility of her going to Mrs. Smallridge’s at the time proposed.
+Her health seemed for the moment completely deranged--appetite quite
+gone--and though there were no absolutely alarming symptoms, nothing
+touching the pulmonary complaint, which was the standing apprehension
+of the family, Mr. Perry was uneasy about her. He thought she had
+undertaken more than she was equal to, and that she felt it so herself,
+though she would not own it. Her spirits seemed overcome. Her
+present home, he could not but observe, was unfavourable to a nervous
+disorder:--confined always to one room;--he could have wished it
+otherwise--and her good aunt, though his very old friend, he must
+acknowledge to be not the best companion for an invalid of that
+description. Her care and attention could not be questioned; they were,
+in fact, only too great. He very much feared that Miss Fairfax derived
+more evil than good from them. Emma listened with the warmest concern;
+grieved for her more and more, and looked around eager to discover some
+way of being useful. To take her--be it only an hour or two--from
+her aunt, to give her change of air and scene, and quiet rational
+conversation, even for an hour or two, might do her good; and the
+following morning she wrote again to say, in the most feeling language
+she could command, that she would call for her in the carriage at any
+hour that Jane would name--mentioning that she had Mr. Perry’s decided
+opinion, in favour of such exercise for his patient. The answer was only
+in this short note:
+
+“Miss Fairfax’s compliments and thanks, but is quite unequal to any
+exercise.”
+
+Emma felt that her own note had deserved something better; but it was
+impossible to quarrel with words, whose tremulous inequality shewed
+indisposition so plainly, and she thought only of how she might best
+counteract this unwillingness to be seen or assisted. In spite of the
+answer, therefore, she ordered the carriage, and drove to Mrs. Bates’s,
+in the hope that Jane would be induced to join her--but it would not
+do;--Miss Bates came to the carriage door, all gratitude, and agreeing
+with her most earnestly in thinking an airing might be of the greatest
+service--and every thing that message could do was tried--but all in
+vain. Miss Bates was obliged to return without success; Jane was
+quite unpersuadable; the mere proposal of going out seemed to make her
+worse.--Emma wished she could have seen her, and tried her own powers;
+but, almost before she could hint the wish, Miss Bates made it appear
+that she had promised her niece on no account to let Miss Woodhouse in.
+“Indeed, the truth was, that poor dear Jane could not bear to see any
+body--any body at all--Mrs. Elton, indeed, could not be denied--and
+Mrs. Cole had made such a point--and Mrs. Perry had said so much--but,
+except them, Jane would really see nobody.”
+
+Emma did not want to be classed with the Mrs. Eltons, the Mrs. Perrys,
+and the Mrs. Coles, who would force themselves anywhere; neither could
+she feel any right of preference herself--she submitted, therefore, and
+only questioned Miss Bates farther as to her niece’s appetite and diet,
+which she longed to be able to assist. On that subject poor Miss Bates
+was very unhappy, and very communicative; Jane would hardly eat any
+thing:--Mr. Perry recommended nourishing food; but every thing
+they could command (and never had any body such good neighbours) was
+distasteful.
+
+Emma, on reaching home, called the housekeeper directly, to an
+examination of her stores; and some arrowroot of very superior quality
+was speedily despatched to Miss Bates with a most friendly note. In half
+an hour the arrowroot was returned, with a thousand thanks from Miss
+Bates, but “dear Jane would not be satisfied without its being sent
+back; it was a thing she could not take--and, moreover, she insisted on
+her saying, that she was not at all in want of any thing.”
+
+When Emma afterwards heard that Jane Fairfax had been seen wandering
+about the meadows, at some distance from Highbury, on the afternoon of
+the very day on which she had, under the plea of being unequal to any
+exercise, so peremptorily refused to go out with her in the carriage,
+she could have no doubt--putting every thing together--that Jane was
+resolved to receive no kindness from _her_. She was sorry, very sorry.
+Her heart was grieved for a state which seemed but the more pitiable
+from this sort of irritation of spirits, inconsistency of action, and
+inequality of powers; and it mortified her that she was given so little
+credit for proper feeling, or esteemed so little worthy as a friend: but
+she had the consolation of knowing that her intentions were good, and of
+being able to say to herself, that could Mr. Knightley have been privy
+to all her attempts of assisting Jane Fairfax, could he even have seen
+into her heart, he would not, on this occasion, have found any thing to
+reprove.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+One morning, about ten days after Mrs. Churchill’s decease, Emma was
+called downstairs to Mr. Weston, who “could not stay five minutes,
+and wanted particularly to speak with her.”--He met her at the
+parlour-door, and hardly asking her how she did, in the natural key of
+his voice, sunk it immediately, to say, unheard by her father,
+
+“Can you come to Randalls at any time this morning?--Do, if it be
+possible. Mrs. Weston wants to see you. She must see you.”
+
+“Is she unwell?”
+
+“No, no, not at all--only a little agitated. She would have ordered the
+carriage, and come to you, but she must see you _alone_, and that you
+know--(nodding towards her father)--Humph!--Can you come?”
+
+“Certainly. This moment, if you please. It is impossible to refuse what
+you ask in such a way. But what can be the matter?--Is she really not
+ill?”
+
+“Depend upon me--but ask no more questions. You will know it all in
+time. The most unaccountable business! But hush, hush!”
+
+To guess what all this meant, was impossible even for Emma. Something
+really important seemed announced by his looks; but, as her friend was
+well, she endeavoured not to be uneasy, and settling it with her father,
+that she would take her walk now, she and Mr. Weston were soon out of
+the house together and on their way at a quick pace for Randalls.
+
+“Now,”--said Emma, when they were fairly beyond the sweep gates,--“now
+Mr. Weston, do let me know what has happened.”
+
+“No, no,”--he gravely replied.--“Don’t ask me. I promised my wife to
+leave it all to her. She will break it to you better than I can. Do not
+be impatient, Emma; it will all come out too soon.”
+
+“Break it to me,” cried Emma, standing still with terror.--“Good
+God!--Mr. Weston, tell me at once.--Something has happened in Brunswick
+Square. I know it has. Tell me, I charge you tell me this moment what it
+is.”
+
+“No, indeed you are mistaken.”--
+
+“Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.--Consider how many of my dearest
+friends are now in Brunswick Square. Which of them is it?--I charge you
+by all that is sacred, not to attempt concealment.”
+
+“Upon my word, Emma.”--
+
+“Your word!--why not your honour!--why not say upon your honour, that
+it has nothing to do with any of them? Good Heavens!--What can be to be
+_broke_ to me, that does not relate to one of that family?”
+
+“Upon my honour,” said he very seriously, “it does not. It is not in
+the smallest degree connected with any human being of the name of
+Knightley.”
+
+Emma’s courage returned, and she walked on.
+
+“I was wrong,” he continued, “in talking of its being _broke_ to you.
+I should not have used the expression. In fact, it does not concern
+you--it concerns only myself,--that is, we hope.--Humph!--In short, my
+dear Emma, there is no occasion to be so uneasy about it. I don’t
+say that it is not a disagreeable business--but things might be much
+worse.--If we walk fast, we shall soon be at Randalls.”
+
+Emma found that she must wait; and now it required little effort. She
+asked no more questions therefore, merely employed her own fancy, and
+that soon pointed out to her the probability of its being some money
+concern--something just come to light, of a disagreeable nature in the
+circumstances of the family,--something which the late event at Richmond
+had brought forward. Her fancy was very active. Half a dozen natural
+children, perhaps--and poor Frank cut off!--This, though very
+undesirable, would be no matter of agony to her. It inspired little more
+than an animating curiosity.
+
+“Who is that gentleman on horseback?” said she, as they
+proceeded--speaking more to assist Mr. Weston in keeping his secret,
+than with any other view.
+
+“I do not know.--One of the Otways.--Not Frank;--it is not Frank, I
+assure you. You will not see him. He is half way to Windsor by this
+time.”
+
+“Has your son been with you, then?”
+
+“Oh! yes--did not you know?--Well, well, never mind.”
+
+For a moment he was silent; and then added, in a tone much more guarded
+and demure,
+
+“Yes, Frank came over this morning, just to ask us how we did.”
+
+They hurried on, and were speedily at Randalls.--“Well, my dear,” said
+he, as they entered the room--“I have brought her, and now I hope you
+will soon be better. I shall leave you together. There is no use in
+delay. I shall not be far off, if you want me.”--And Emma distinctly
+heard him add, in a lower tone, before he quitted the room,--“I have
+been as good as my word. She has not the least idea.”
+
+Mrs. Weston was looking so ill, and had an air of so much perturbation,
+that Emma’s uneasiness increased; and the moment they were alone, she
+eagerly said,
+
+“What is it my dear friend? Something of a very unpleasant nature, I
+find, has occurred;--do let me know directly what it is. I have been
+walking all this way in complete suspense. We both abhor suspense.
+Do not let mine continue longer. It will do you good to speak of your
+distress, whatever it may be.”
+
+“Have you indeed no idea?” said Mrs. Weston in a trembling voice.
+“Cannot you, my dear Emma--cannot you form a guess as to what you are to
+hear?”
+
+“So far as that it relates to Mr. Frank Churchill, I do guess.”
+
+“You are right. It does relate to him, and I will tell you directly;”
+ (resuming her work, and seeming resolved against looking up.) “He has
+been here this very morning, on a most extraordinary errand. It is
+impossible to express our surprize. He came to speak to his father on a
+subject,--to announce an attachment--”
+
+She stopped to breathe. Emma thought first of herself, and then of
+Harriet.
+
+“More than an attachment, indeed,” resumed Mrs. Weston; “an
+engagement--a positive engagement.--What will you say, Emma--what will
+any body say, when it is known that Frank Churchill and Miss Fairfax are
+engaged;--nay, that they have been long engaged!”
+
+Emma even jumped with surprize;--and, horror-struck, exclaimed,
+
+“Jane Fairfax!--Good God! You are not serious? You do not mean it?”
+
+“You may well be amazed,” returned Mrs. Weston, still averting her eyes,
+and talking on with eagerness, that Emma might have time to recover--
+“You may well be amazed. But it is even so. There has been a solemn
+engagement between them ever since October--formed at Weymouth, and
+kept a secret from every body. Not a creature knowing it but
+themselves--neither the Campbells, nor her family, nor his.--It is so
+wonderful, that though perfectly convinced of the fact, it is yet almost
+incredible to myself. I can hardly believe it.--I thought I knew him.”
+
+Emma scarcely heard what was said.--Her mind was divided between two
+ideas--her own former conversations with him about Miss Fairfax; and
+poor Harriet;--and for some time she could only exclaim, and require
+confirmation, repeated confirmation.
+
+“Well,” said she at last, trying to recover herself; “this is a
+circumstance which I must think of at least half a day, before I can at
+all comprehend it. What!--engaged to her all the winter--before either
+of them came to Highbury?”
+
+“Engaged since October,--secretly engaged.--It has hurt me, Emma, very
+much. It has hurt his father equally. _Some_ _part_ of his conduct we
+cannot excuse.”
+
+Emma pondered a moment, and then replied, “I will not pretend _not_ to
+understand you; and to give you all the relief in my power, be assured
+that no such effect has followed his attentions to me, as you are
+apprehensive of.”
+
+Mrs. Weston looked up, afraid to believe; but Emma’s countenance was as
+steady as her words.
+
+“That you may have less difficulty in believing this boast, of my
+present perfect indifference,” she continued, “I will farther tell you,
+that there was a period in the early part of our acquaintance, when I
+did like him, when I was very much disposed to be attached to him--nay,
+was attached--and how it came to cease, is perhaps the wonder.
+Fortunately, however, it did cease. I have really for some time past,
+for at least these three months, cared nothing about him. You may
+believe me, Mrs. Weston. This is the simple truth.”
+
+Mrs. Weston kissed her with tears of joy; and when she could find
+utterance, assured her, that this protestation had done her more good
+than any thing else in the world could do.
+
+“Mr. Weston will be almost as much relieved as myself,” said she. “On
+this point we have been wretched. It was our darling wish that you
+might be attached to each other--and we were persuaded that it was so.--
+Imagine what we have been feeling on your account.”
+
+“I have escaped; and that I should escape, may be a matter of grateful
+wonder to you and myself. But this does not acquit _him_, Mrs. Weston;
+and I must say, that I think him greatly to blame. What right had he
+to come among us with affection and faith engaged, and with manners
+so _very_ disengaged? What right had he to endeavour to please, as
+he certainly did--to distinguish any one young woman with persevering
+attention, as he certainly did--while he really belonged to
+another?--How could he tell what mischief he might be doing?--How could
+he tell that he might not be making me in love with him?--very wrong,
+very wrong indeed.”
+
+“From something that he said, my dear Emma, I rather imagine--”
+
+“And how could _she_ bear such behaviour! Composure with a witness!
+to look on, while repeated attentions were offering to another woman,
+before her face, and not resent it.--That is a degree of placidity,
+which I can neither comprehend nor respect.”
+
+“There were misunderstandings between them, Emma; he said so expressly.
+He had not time to enter into much explanation. He was here only a
+quarter of an hour, and in a state of agitation which did not allow
+the full use even of the time he could stay--but that there had been
+misunderstandings he decidedly said. The present crisis, indeed,
+seemed to be brought on by them; and those misunderstandings might very
+possibly arise from the impropriety of his conduct.”
+
+“Impropriety! Oh! Mrs. Weston--it is too calm a censure. Much, much
+beyond impropriety!--It has sunk him, I cannot say how it has sunk him
+in my opinion. So unlike what a man should be!--None of that upright
+integrity, that strict adherence to truth and principle, that disdain of
+trick and littleness, which a man should display in every transaction of
+his life.”
+
+“Nay, dear Emma, now I must take his part; for though he has been wrong
+in this instance, I have known him long enough to answer for his having
+many, very many, good qualities; and--”
+
+“Good God!” cried Emma, not attending to her.--“Mrs. Smallridge, too!
+Jane actually on the point of going as governess! What could he mean by
+such horrible indelicacy? To suffer her to engage herself--to suffer her
+even to think of such a measure!”
+
+“He knew nothing about it, Emma. On this article I can fully acquit
+him. It was a private resolution of hers, not communicated to him--or at
+least not communicated in a way to carry conviction.--Till yesterday, I
+know he said he was in the dark as to her plans. They burst on him, I do
+not know how, but by some letter or message--and it was the discovery of
+what she was doing, of this very project of hers, which determined him
+to come forward at once, own it all to his uncle, throw himself on
+his kindness, and, in short, put an end to the miserable state of
+concealment that had been carrying on so long.”
+
+Emma began to listen better.
+
+“I am to hear from him soon,” continued Mrs. Weston. “He told me at
+parting, that he should soon write; and he spoke in a manner which
+seemed to promise me many particulars that could not be given now. Let
+us wait, therefore, for this letter. It may bring many extenuations. It
+may make many things intelligible and excusable which now are not to
+be understood. Don’t let us be severe, don’t let us be in a hurry to
+condemn him. Let us have patience. I must love him; and now that I am
+satisfied on one point, the one material point, I am sincerely anxious
+for its all turning out well, and ready to hope that it may. They must
+both have suffered a great deal under such a system of secresy and
+concealment.”
+
+“_His_ sufferings,” replied Emma dryly, “do not appear to have done him
+much harm. Well, and how did Mr. Churchill take it?”
+
+“Most favourably for his nephew--gave his consent with scarcely a
+difficulty. Conceive what the events of a week have done in that family!
+While poor Mrs. Churchill lived, I suppose there could not have been a
+hope, a chance, a possibility;--but scarcely are her remains at rest in
+the family vault, than her husband is persuaded to act exactly opposite
+to what she would have required. What a blessing it is, when undue
+influence does not survive the grave!--He gave his consent with very
+little persuasion.”
+
+“Ah!” thought Emma, “he would have done as much for Harriet.”
+
+“This was settled last night, and Frank was off with the light this
+morning. He stopped at Highbury, at the Bates’s, I fancy, some time--and
+then came on hither; but was in such a hurry to get back to his uncle,
+to whom he is just now more necessary than ever, that, as I tell you,
+he could stay with us but a quarter of an hour.--He was very much
+agitated--very much, indeed--to a degree that made him appear quite
+a different creature from any thing I had ever seen him before.--In
+addition to all the rest, there had been the shock of finding her so
+very unwell, which he had had no previous suspicion of--and there was
+every appearance of his having been feeling a great deal.”
+
+“And do you really believe the affair to have been carrying on with such
+perfect secresy?--The Campbells, the Dixons, did none of them know of
+the engagement?”
+
+Emma could not speak the name of Dixon without a little blush.
+
+“None; not one. He positively said that it had been known to no being in
+the world but their two selves.”
+
+“Well,” said Emma, “I suppose we shall gradually grow reconciled to the
+idea, and I wish them very happy. But I shall always think it a
+very abominable sort of proceeding. What has it been but a system of
+hypocrisy and deceit,--espionage, and treachery?--To come among us with
+professions of openness and simplicity; and such a league in secret
+to judge us all!--Here have we been, the whole winter and spring,
+completely duped, fancying ourselves all on an equal footing of truth
+and honour, with two people in the midst of us who may have been
+carrying round, comparing and sitting in judgment on sentiments and
+words that were never meant for both to hear.--They must take the
+consequence, if they have heard each other spoken of in a way not
+perfectly agreeable!”
+
+“I am quite easy on that head,” replied Mrs. Weston. “I am very sure
+that I never said any thing of either to the other, which both might not
+have heard.”
+
+“You are in luck.--Your only blunder was confined to my ear, when you
+imagined a certain friend of ours in love with the lady.”
+
+“True. But as I have always had a thoroughly good opinion of Miss
+Fairfax, I never could, under any blunder, have spoken ill of her; and
+as to speaking ill of him, there I must have been safe.”
+
+At this moment Mr. Weston appeared at a little distance from the window,
+evidently on the watch. His wife gave him a look which invited him
+in; and, while he was coming round, added, “Now, dearest Emma, let me
+intreat you to say and look every thing that may set his heart at ease,
+and incline him to be satisfied with the match. Let us make the best of
+it--and, indeed, almost every thing may be fairly said in her favour. It
+is not a connexion to gratify; but if Mr. Churchill does not feel that,
+why should we? and it may be a very fortunate circumstance for him, for
+Frank, I mean, that he should have attached himself to a girl of such
+steadiness of character and good judgment as I have always given her
+credit for--and still am disposed to give her credit for, in spite of
+this one great deviation from the strict rule of right. And how much may
+be said in her situation for even that error!”
+
+“Much, indeed!” cried Emma feelingly. “If a woman can ever be
+excused for thinking only of herself, it is in a situation like Jane
+Fairfax’s.--Of such, one may almost say, that ‘the world is not their’s,
+nor the world’s law.’”
+
+She met Mr. Weston on his entrance, with a smiling countenance,
+exclaiming,
+
+“A very pretty trick you have been playing me, upon my word! This was a
+device, I suppose, to sport with my curiosity, and exercise my talent of
+guessing. But you really frightened me. I thought you had lost half
+your property, at least. And here, instead of its being a matter of
+condolence, it turns out to be one of congratulation.--I congratulate
+you, Mr. Weston, with all my heart, on the prospect of having one of the
+most lovely and accomplished young women in England for your daughter.”
+
+A glance or two between him and his wife, convinced him that all was as
+right as this speech proclaimed; and its happy effect on his spirits was
+immediate. His air and voice recovered their usual briskness: he shook
+her heartily and gratefully by the hand, and entered on the subject in
+a manner to prove, that he now only wanted time and persuasion to think
+the engagement no very bad thing. His companions suggested only what
+could palliate imprudence, or smooth objections; and by the time they
+had talked it all over together, and he had talked it all over again
+with Emma, in their walk back to Hartfield, he was become perfectly
+reconciled, and not far from thinking it the very best thing that Frank
+could possibly have done.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+“Harriet, poor Harriet!”--Those were the words; in them lay the
+tormenting ideas which Emma could not get rid of, and which constituted
+the real misery of the business to her. Frank Churchill had behaved very
+ill by herself--very ill in many ways,--but it was not so much _his_
+behaviour as her _own_, which made her so angry with him. It was the
+scrape which he had drawn her into on Harriet’s account, that gave the
+deepest hue to his offence.--Poor Harriet! to be a second time the
+dupe of her misconceptions and flattery. Mr. Knightley had spoken
+prophetically, when he once said, “Emma, you have been no friend
+to Harriet Smith.”--She was afraid she had done her nothing but
+disservice.--It was true that she had not to charge herself, in this
+instance as in the former, with being the sole and original author of
+the mischief; with having suggested such feelings as might otherwise
+never have entered Harriet’s imagination; for Harriet had acknowledged
+her admiration and preference of Frank Churchill before she had ever
+given her a hint on the subject; but she felt completely guilty
+of having encouraged what she might have repressed. She might have
+prevented the indulgence and increase of such sentiments. Her influence
+would have been enough. And now she was very conscious that she ought
+to have prevented them.--She felt that she had been risking her friend’s
+happiness on most insufficient grounds. Common sense would have directed
+her to tell Harriet, that she must not allow herself to think of him,
+and that there were five hundred chances to one against his ever caring
+for her.--“But, with common sense,” she added, “I am afraid I have had
+little to do.”
+
+She was extremely angry with herself. If she could not have been angry
+with Frank Churchill too, it would have been dreadful.--As for Jane
+Fairfax, she might at least relieve her feelings from any present
+solicitude on her account. Harriet would be anxiety enough; she need
+no longer be unhappy about Jane, whose troubles and whose ill-health
+having, of course, the same origin, must be equally under cure.--Her
+days of insignificance and evil were over.--She would soon be well, and
+happy, and prosperous.--Emma could now imagine why her own attentions
+had been slighted. This discovery laid many smaller matters open. No
+doubt it had been from jealousy.--In Jane’s eyes she had been a rival;
+and well might any thing she could offer of assistance or regard be
+repulsed. An airing in the Hartfield carriage would have been the rack,
+and arrowroot from the Hartfield storeroom must have been poison. She
+understood it all; and as far as her mind could disengage itself from
+the injustice and selfishness of angry feelings, she acknowledged that
+Jane Fairfax would have neither elevation nor happiness beyond her
+desert. But poor Harriet was such an engrossing charge! There was little
+sympathy to be spared for any body else. Emma was sadly fearful
+that this second disappointment would be more severe than the first.
+Considering the very superior claims of the object, it ought; and
+judging by its apparently stronger effect on Harriet’s mind, producing
+reserve and self-command, it would.--She must communicate the painful
+truth, however, and as soon as possible. An injunction of secresy had
+been among Mr. Weston’s parting words. “For the present, the whole
+affair was to be completely a secret. Mr. Churchill had made a point of
+it, as a token of respect to the wife he had so very recently lost;
+and every body admitted it to be no more than due decorum.”--Emma had
+promised; but still Harriet must be excepted. It was her superior duty.
+
+In spite of her vexation, she could not help feeling it almost
+ridiculous, that she should have the very same distressing and delicate
+office to perform by Harriet, which Mrs. Weston had just gone through by
+herself. The intelligence, which had been so anxiously announced to her,
+she was now to be anxiously announcing to another. Her heart beat quick
+on hearing Harriet’s footstep and voice; so, she supposed, had poor Mrs.
+Weston felt when _she_ was approaching Randalls. Could the event of
+the disclosure bear an equal resemblance!--But of that, unfortunately,
+there could be no chance.
+
+“Well, Miss Woodhouse!” cried Harriet, coming eagerly into the room--“is
+not this the oddest news that ever was?”
+
+“What news do you mean?” replied Emma, unable to guess, by look or
+voice, whether Harriet could indeed have received any hint.
+
+“About Jane Fairfax. Did you ever hear any thing so strange? Oh!--you
+need not be afraid of owning it to me, for Mr. Weston has told me
+himself. I met him just now. He told me it was to be a great secret;
+and, therefore, I should not think of mentioning it to any body but you,
+but he said you knew it.”
+
+“What did Mr. Weston tell you?”--said Emma, still perplexed.
+
+“Oh! he told me all about it; that Jane Fairfax and Mr. Frank Churchill
+are to be married, and that they have been privately engaged to one
+another this long while. How very odd!”
+
+It was, indeed, so odd; Harriet’s behaviour was so extremely odd,
+that Emma did not know how to understand it. Her character appeared
+absolutely changed. She seemed to propose shewing no agitation, or
+disappointment, or peculiar concern in the discovery. Emma looked at
+her, quite unable to speak.
+
+“Had you any idea,” cried Harriet, “of his being in love with her?--You,
+perhaps, might.--You (blushing as she spoke) who can see into every
+body’s heart; but nobody else--”
+
+“Upon my word,” said Emma, “I begin to doubt my having any such talent.
+Can you seriously ask me, Harriet, whether I imagined him attached
+to another woman at the very time that I was--tacitly, if not
+openly--encouraging you to give way to your own feelings?--I never
+had the slightest suspicion, till within the last hour, of Mr. Frank
+Churchill’s having the least regard for Jane Fairfax. You may be very
+sure that if I had, I should have cautioned you accordingly.”
+
+“Me!” cried Harriet, colouring, and astonished. “Why should you caution
+me?--You do not think I care about Mr. Frank Churchill.”
+
+“I am delighted to hear you speak so stoutly on the subject,” replied
+Emma, smiling; “but you do not mean to deny that there was a time--and
+not very distant either--when you gave me reason to understand that you
+did care about him?”
+
+“Him!--never, never. Dear Miss Woodhouse, how could you so mistake me?”
+ turning away distressed.
+
+“Harriet!” cried Emma, after a moment’s pause--“What do you mean?--Good
+Heaven! what do you mean?--Mistake you!--Am I to suppose then?--”
+
+She could not speak another word.--Her voice was lost; and she sat down,
+waiting in great terror till Harriet should answer.
+
+Harriet, who was standing at some distance, and with face turned from
+her, did not immediately say any thing; and when she did speak, it was
+in a voice nearly as agitated as Emma’s.
+
+“I should not have thought it possible,” she began, “that you could have
+misunderstood me! I know we agreed never to name him--but considering
+how infinitely superior he is to every body else, I should not have
+thought it possible that I could be supposed to mean any other person.
+Mr. Frank Churchill, indeed! I do not know who would ever look at him in
+the company of the other. I hope I have a better taste than to think of
+Mr. Frank Churchill, who is like nobody by his side. And that you should
+have been so mistaken, is amazing!--I am sure, but for believing that
+you entirely approved and meant to encourage me in my attachment, I
+should have considered it at first too great a presumption almost,
+to dare to think of him. At first, if you had not told me that more
+wonderful things had happened; that there had been matches of greater
+disparity (those were your very words);--I should not have dared to
+give way to--I should not have thought it possible--But if _you_, who
+had been always acquainted with him--”
+
+“Harriet!” cried Emma, collecting herself resolutely--“Let us understand
+each other now, without the possibility of farther mistake. Are you
+speaking of--Mr. Knightley?”
+
+“To be sure I am. I never could have an idea of any body else--and so
+I thought you knew. When we talked about him, it was as clear as
+possible.”
+
+“Not quite,” returned Emma, with forced calmness, “for all that you then
+said, appeared to me to relate to a different person. I could almost
+assert that you had _named_ Mr. Frank Churchill. I am sure the service
+Mr. Frank Churchill had rendered you, in protecting you from the
+gipsies, was spoken of.”
+
+“Oh! Miss Woodhouse, how you do forget!”
+
+“My dear Harriet, I perfectly remember the substance of what I said on
+the occasion. I told you that I did not wonder at your attachment;
+that considering the service he had rendered you, it was extremely
+natural:--and you agreed to it, expressing yourself very warmly as to
+your sense of that service, and mentioning even what your sensations had
+been in seeing him come forward to your rescue.--The impression of it is
+strong on my memory.”
+
+“Oh, dear,” cried Harriet, “now I recollect what you mean; but I
+was thinking of something very different at the time. It was not the
+gipsies--it was not Mr. Frank Churchill that I meant. No! (with some
+elevation) I was thinking of a much more precious circumstance--of Mr.
+Knightley’s coming and asking me to dance, when Mr. Elton would not
+stand up with me; and when there was no other partner in the room. That
+was the kind action; that was the noble benevolence and generosity; that
+was the service which made me begin to feel how superior he was to every
+other being upon earth.”
+
+“Good God!” cried Emma, “this has been a most unfortunate--most
+deplorable mistake!--What is to be done?”
+
+“You would not have encouraged me, then, if you had understood me? At
+least, however, I cannot be worse off than I should have been, if the
+other had been the person; and now--it _is_ possible--”
+
+She paused a few moments. Emma could not speak.
+
+“I do not wonder, Miss Woodhouse,” she resumed, “that you should feel a
+great difference between the two, as to me or as to any body. You must
+think one five hundred million times more above me than the other. But
+I hope, Miss Woodhouse, that supposing--that if--strange as it may
+appear--. But you know they were your own words, that _more_ wonderful
+things had happened, matches of _greater_ disparity had taken place than
+between Mr. Frank Churchill and me; and, therefore, it seems as if such
+a thing even as this, may have occurred before--and if I should be so
+fortunate, beyond expression, as to--if Mr. Knightley should really--if
+_he_ does not mind the disparity, I hope, dear Miss Woodhouse, you will
+not set yourself against it, and try to put difficulties in the way. But
+you are too good for that, I am sure.”
+
+Harriet was standing at one of the windows. Emma turned round to look at
+her in consternation, and hastily said,
+
+“Have you any idea of Mr. Knightley’s returning your affection?”
+
+“Yes,” replied Harriet modestly, but not fearfully--“I must say that I
+have.”
+
+Emma’s eyes were instantly withdrawn; and she sat silently meditating,
+in a fixed attitude, for a few minutes. A few minutes were sufficient
+for making her acquainted with her own heart. A mind like hers,
+once opening to suspicion, made rapid progress. She touched--she
+admitted--she acknowledged the whole truth. Why was it so much worse
+that Harriet should be in love with Mr. Knightley, than with Frank
+Churchill? Why was the evil so dreadfully increased by Harriet’s having
+some hope of a return? It darted through her, with the speed of an
+arrow, that Mr. Knightley must marry no one but herself!
+
+Her own conduct, as well as her own heart, was before her in the same
+few minutes. She saw it all with a clearness which had never blessed
+her before. How improperly had she been acting by Harriet! How
+inconsiderate, how indelicate, how irrational, how unfeeling had been
+her conduct! What blindness, what madness, had led her on! It struck her
+with dreadful force, and she was ready to give it every bad name in the
+world. Some portion of respect for herself, however, in spite of all
+these demerits--some concern for her own appearance, and a strong sense
+of justice by Harriet--(there would be no need of _compassion_ to the
+girl who believed herself loved by Mr. Knightley--but justice required
+that she should not be made unhappy by any coldness now,) gave Emma the
+resolution to sit and endure farther with calmness, with even apparent
+kindness.--For her own advantage indeed, it was fit that the utmost
+extent of Harriet’s hopes should be enquired into; and Harriet had done
+nothing to forfeit the regard and interest which had been so voluntarily
+formed and maintained--or to deserve to be slighted by the person, whose
+counsels had never led her right.--Rousing from reflection, therefore,
+and subduing her emotion, she turned to Harriet again, and, in a more
+inviting accent, renewed the conversation; for as to the subject which
+had first introduced it, the wonderful story of Jane Fairfax, that was
+quite sunk and lost.--Neither of them thought but of Mr. Knightley and
+themselves.
+
+Harriet, who had been standing in no unhappy reverie, was yet very glad
+to be called from it, by the now encouraging manner of such a judge, and
+such a friend as Miss Woodhouse, and only wanted invitation, to give
+the history of her hopes with great, though trembling delight.--Emma’s
+tremblings as she asked, and as she listened, were better concealed than
+Harriet’s, but they were not less. Her voice was not unsteady; but her
+mind was in all the perturbation that such a development of self, such
+a burst of threatening evil, such a confusion of sudden and perplexing
+emotions, must create.--She listened with much inward suffering, but
+with great outward patience, to Harriet’s detail.--Methodical, or well
+arranged, or very well delivered, it could not be expected to be; but it
+contained, when separated from all the feebleness and tautology of
+the narration, a substance to sink her spirit--especially with the
+corroborating circumstances, which her own memory brought in favour of
+Mr. Knightley’s most improved opinion of Harriet.
+
+Harriet had been conscious of a difference in his behaviour ever since
+those two decisive dances.--Emma knew that he had, on that occasion,
+found her much superior to his expectation. From that evening, or at
+least from the time of Miss Woodhouse’s encouraging her to think of him,
+Harriet had begun to be sensible of his talking to her much more than he
+had been used to do, and of his having indeed quite a different manner
+towards her; a manner of kindness and sweetness!--Latterly she had been
+more and more aware of it. When they had been all walking together,
+he had so often come and walked by her, and talked so very
+delightfully!--He seemed to want to be acquainted with her. Emma knew it
+to have been very much the case. She had often observed the change, to
+almost the same extent.--Harriet repeated expressions of approbation
+and praise from him--and Emma felt them to be in the closest agreement
+with what she had known of his opinion of Harriet. He praised her for
+being without art or affectation, for having simple, honest, generous,
+feelings.--She knew that he saw such recommendations in Harriet; he
+had dwelt on them to her more than once.--Much that lived in Harriet’s
+memory, many little particulars of the notice she had received from
+him, a look, a speech, a removal from one chair to another, a compliment
+implied, a preference inferred, had been unnoticed, because unsuspected,
+by Emma. Circumstances that might swell to half an hour’s relation,
+and contained multiplied proofs to her who had seen them, had passed
+undiscerned by her who now heard them; but the two latest occurrences to
+be mentioned, the two of strongest promise to Harriet, were not without
+some degree of witness from Emma herself.--The first, was his walking
+with her apart from the others, in the lime-walk at Donwell, where they
+had been walking some time before Emma came, and he had taken pains (as
+she was convinced) to draw her from the rest to himself--and at first,
+he had talked to her in a more particular way than he had ever done
+before, in a very particular way indeed!--(Harriet could not recall
+it without a blush.) He seemed to be almost asking her, whether her
+affections were engaged.--But as soon as she (Miss Woodhouse) appeared
+likely to join them, he changed the subject, and began talking about
+farming:--The second, was his having sat talking with her nearly half
+an hour before Emma came back from her visit, the very last morning of
+his being at Hartfield--though, when he first came in, he had said that
+he could not stay five minutes--and his having told her, during their
+conversation, that though he must go to London, it was very much against
+his inclination that he left home at all, which was much more (as
+Emma felt) than he had acknowledged to _her_. The superior degree of
+confidence towards Harriet, which this one article marked, gave her
+severe pain.
+
+On the subject of the first of the two circumstances, she did, after a
+little reflection, venture the following question. “Might he not?--Is
+not it possible, that when enquiring, as you thought, into the state of
+your affections, he might be alluding to Mr. Martin--he might have
+Mr. Martin’s interest in view? But Harriet rejected the suspicion with
+spirit.
+
+“Mr. Martin! No indeed!--There was not a hint of Mr. Martin. I hope I
+know better now, than to care for Mr. Martin, or to be suspected of it.”
+
+When Harriet had closed her evidence, she appealed to her dear Miss
+Woodhouse, to say whether she had not good ground for hope.
+
+“I never should have presumed to think of it at first,” said she, “but
+for you. You told me to observe him carefully, and let his behaviour
+be the rule of mine--and so I have. But now I seem to feel that I may
+deserve him; and that if he does chuse me, it will not be any thing so
+very wonderful.”
+
+The bitter feelings occasioned by this speech, the many bitter feelings,
+made the utmost exertion necessary on Emma’s side, to enable her to say
+on reply,
+
+“Harriet, I will only venture to declare, that Mr. Knightley is the last
+man in the world, who would intentionally give any woman the idea of his
+feeling for her more than he really does.”
+
+Harriet seemed ready to worship her friend for a sentence so
+satisfactory; and Emma was only saved from raptures and fondness, which
+at that moment would have been dreadful penance, by the sound of her
+father’s footsteps. He was coming through the hall. Harriet was too
+much agitated to encounter him. “She could not compose herself--
+Mr. Woodhouse would be alarmed--she had better go;”--with most ready
+encouragement from her friend, therefore, she passed off through another
+door--and the moment she was gone, this was the spontaneous burst of
+Emma’s feelings: “Oh God! that I had never seen her!”
+
+The rest of the day, the following night, were hardly enough for her
+thoughts.--She was bewildered amidst the confusion of all that had
+rushed on her within the last few hours. Every moment had brought a
+fresh surprize; and every surprize must be matter of humiliation to
+her.--How to understand it all! How to understand the deceptions she had
+been thus practising on herself, and living under!--The blunders, the
+blindness of her own head and heart!--she sat still, she walked about,
+she tried her own room, she tried the shrubbery--in every place, every
+posture, she perceived that she had acted most weakly; that she had
+been imposed on by others in a most mortifying degree; that she had
+been imposing on herself in a degree yet more mortifying; that she
+was wretched, and should probably find this day but the beginning of
+wretchedness.
+
+To understand, thoroughly understand her own heart, was the first
+endeavour. To that point went every leisure moment which her father’s
+claims on her allowed, and every moment of involuntary absence of mind.
+
+How long had Mr. Knightley been so dear to her, as every feeling
+declared him now to be? When had his influence, such influence begun?--
+When had he succeeded to that place in her affection, which Frank
+Churchill had once, for a short period, occupied?--She looked back;
+she compared the two--compared them, as they had always stood in her
+estimation, from the time of the latter’s becoming known to her--and as
+they must at any time have been compared by her, had it--oh! had it, by
+any blessed felicity, occurred to her, to institute the comparison.--She
+saw that there never had been a time when she did not consider Mr.
+Knightley as infinitely the superior, or when his regard for her had not
+been infinitely the most dear. She saw, that in persuading herself,
+in fancying, in acting to the contrary, she had been entirely under a
+delusion, totally ignorant of her own heart--and, in short, that she had
+never really cared for Frank Churchill at all!
+
+This was the conclusion of the first series of reflection. This was
+the knowledge of herself, on the first question of inquiry, which
+she reached; and without being long in reaching it.--She was most
+sorrowfully indignant; ashamed of every sensation but the one revealed
+to her--her affection for Mr. Knightley.--Every other part of her mind
+was disgusting.
+
+With insufferable vanity had she believed herself in the secret of every
+body’s feelings; with unpardonable arrogance proposed to arrange every
+body’s destiny. She was proved to have been universally mistaken; and
+she had not quite done nothing--for she had done mischief. She had
+brought evil on Harriet, on herself, and she too much feared, on Mr.
+Knightley.--Were this most unequal of all connexions to take place, on
+her must rest all the reproach of having given it a beginning; for his
+attachment, she must believe to be produced only by a consciousness of
+Harriet’s;--and even were this not the case, he would never have known
+Harriet at all but for her folly.
+
+Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--It was a union to distance every
+wonder of the kind.--The attachment of Frank Churchill and Jane Fairfax
+became commonplace, threadbare, stale in the comparison, exciting no
+surprize, presenting no disparity, affording nothing to be said or
+thought.--Mr. Knightley and Harriet Smith!--Such an elevation on her
+side! Such a debasement on his! It was horrible to Emma to think how it
+must sink him in the general opinion, to foresee the smiles, the sneers,
+the merriment it would prompt at his expense; the mortification and
+disdain of his brother, the thousand inconveniences to himself.--Could
+it be?--No; it was impossible. And yet it was far, very far, from
+impossible.--Was it a new circumstance for a man of first-rate abilities
+to be captivated by very inferior powers? Was it new for one, perhaps
+too busy to seek, to be the prize of a girl who would seek him?--Was
+it new for any thing in this world to be unequal, inconsistent,
+incongruous--or for chance and circumstance (as second causes) to direct
+the human fate?
+
+Oh! had she never brought Harriet forward! Had she left her where she
+ought, and where he had told her she ought!--Had she not, with a
+folly which no tongue could express, prevented her marrying the
+unexceptionable young man who would have made her happy and respectable
+in the line of life to which she ought to belong--all would have been
+safe; none of this dreadful sequel would have been.
+
+How Harriet could ever have had the presumption to raise her thoughts to
+Mr. Knightley!--How she could dare to fancy herself the chosen of such
+a man till actually assured of it!--But Harriet was less humble, had
+fewer scruples than formerly.--Her inferiority, whether of mind or
+situation, seemed little felt.--She had seemed more sensible of Mr.
+Elton’s being to stoop in marrying her, than she now seemed of Mr.
+Knightley’s.--Alas! was not that her own doing too? Who had been at
+pains to give Harriet notions of self-consequence but herself?--Who but
+herself had taught her, that she was to elevate herself if possible,
+and that her claims were great to a high worldly establishment?--If
+Harriet, from being humble, were grown vain, it was her doing too.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Till now that she was threatened with its loss, Emma had never known
+how much of her happiness depended on being _first_ with Mr. Knightley,
+first in interest and affection.--Satisfied that it was so, and feeling
+it her due, she had enjoyed it without reflection; and only in the
+dread of being supplanted, found how inexpressibly important it had
+been.--Long, very long, she felt she had been first; for, having no
+female connexions of his own, there had been only Isabella whose claims
+could be compared with hers, and she had always known exactly how far
+he loved and esteemed Isabella. She had herself been first with him for
+many years past. She had not deserved it; she had often been negligent
+or perverse, slighting his advice, or even wilfully opposing him,
+insensible of half his merits, and quarrelling with him because he would
+not acknowledge her false and insolent estimate of her own--but still,
+from family attachment and habit, and thorough excellence of mind, he
+had loved her, and watched over her from a girl, with an endeavour to
+improve her, and an anxiety for her doing right, which no other creature
+had at all shared. In spite of all her faults, she knew she was dear
+to him; might she not say, very dear?--When the suggestions of hope,
+however, which must follow here, presented themselves, she could not
+presume to indulge them. Harriet Smith might think herself not unworthy
+of being peculiarly, exclusively, passionately loved by Mr. Knightley.
+_She_ could not. She could not flatter herself with any idea of
+blindness in his attachment to _her_. She had received a very recent
+proof of its impartiality.--How shocked had he been by her behaviour to
+Miss Bates! How directly, how strongly had he expressed himself to her
+on the subject!--Not too strongly for the offence--but far, far too
+strongly to issue from any feeling softer than upright justice and
+clear-sighted goodwill.--She had no hope, nothing to deserve the name
+of hope, that he could have that sort of affection for herself which was
+now in question; but there was a hope (at times a slight one, at
+times much stronger,) that Harriet might have deceived herself, and be
+overrating his regard for _her_.--Wish it she must, for his sake--be the
+consequence nothing to herself, but his remaining single all his life.
+Could she be secure of that, indeed, of his never marrying at all, she
+believed she should be perfectly satisfied.--Let him but continue the
+same Mr. Knightley to her and her father, the same Mr. Knightley to
+all the world; let Donwell and Hartfield lose none of their precious
+intercourse of friendship and confidence, and her peace would be
+fully secured.--Marriage, in fact, would not do for her. It would be
+incompatible with what she owed to her father, and with what she felt
+for him. Nothing should separate her from her father. She would not
+marry, even if she were asked by Mr. Knightley.
+
+It must be her ardent wish that Harriet might be disappointed; and she
+hoped, that when able to see them together again, she might at least
+be able to ascertain what the chances for it were.--She should see them
+henceforward with the closest observance; and wretchedly as she had
+hitherto misunderstood even those she was watching, she did not know how
+to admit that she could be blinded here.--He was expected back every
+day. The power of observation would be soon given--frightfully soon it
+appeared when her thoughts were in one course. In the meanwhile, she
+resolved against seeing Harriet.--It would do neither of them good,
+it would do the subject no good, to be talking of it farther.--She was
+resolved not to be convinced, as long as she could doubt, and yet had
+no authority for opposing Harriet’s confidence. To talk would be only to
+irritate.--She wrote to her, therefore, kindly, but decisively, to beg
+that she would not, at present, come to Hartfield; acknowledging it to
+be her conviction, that all farther confidential discussion of _one_
+topic had better be avoided; and hoping, that if a few days were allowed
+to pass before they met again, except in the company of others--she
+objected only to a tete-a-tete--they might be able to act as if they
+had forgotten the conversation of yesterday.--Harriet submitted, and
+approved, and was grateful.
+
+This point was just arranged, when a visitor arrived to tear Emma’s
+thoughts a little from the one subject which had engrossed them,
+sleeping or waking, the last twenty-four hours--Mrs. Weston, who had
+been calling on her daughter-in-law elect, and took Hartfield in her
+way home, almost as much in duty to Emma as in pleasure to herself, to
+relate all the particulars of so interesting an interview.
+
+Mr. Weston had accompanied her to Mrs. Bates’s, and gone through his
+share of this essential attention most handsomely; but she having then
+induced Miss Fairfax to join her in an airing, was now returned with
+much more to say, and much more to say with satisfaction, than a quarter
+of an hour spent in Mrs. Bates’s parlour, with all the encumbrance of
+awkward feelings, could have afforded.
+
+A little curiosity Emma had; and she made the most of it while her
+friend related. Mrs. Weston had set off to pay the visit in a good deal
+of agitation herself; and in the first place had wished not to go at all
+at present, to be allowed merely to write to Miss Fairfax instead, and
+to defer this ceremonious call till a little time had passed, and Mr.
+Churchill could be reconciled to the engagement’s becoming known; as,
+considering every thing, she thought such a visit could not be paid
+without leading to reports:--but Mr. Weston had thought differently; he
+was extremely anxious to shew his approbation to Miss Fairfax and her
+family, and did not conceive that any suspicion could be excited by it;
+or if it were, that it would be of any consequence; for “such things,”
+ he observed, “always got about.” Emma smiled, and felt that Mr. Weston
+had very good reason for saying so. They had gone, in short--and very
+great had been the evident distress and confusion of the lady. She had
+hardly been able to speak a word, and every look and action had shewn
+how deeply she was suffering from consciousness. The quiet, heart-felt
+satisfaction of the old lady, and the rapturous delight of her
+daughter--who proved even too joyous to talk as usual, had been a
+gratifying, yet almost an affecting, scene. They were both so truly
+respectable in their happiness, so disinterested in every sensation;
+thought so much of Jane; so much of every body, and so little of
+themselves, that every kindly feeling was at work for them. Miss
+Fairfax’s recent illness had offered a fair plea for Mrs. Weston to
+invite her to an airing; she had drawn back and declined at first, but,
+on being pressed had yielded; and, in the course of their drive,
+Mrs. Weston had, by gentle encouragement, overcome so much of her
+embarrassment, as to bring her to converse on the important subject.
+Apologies for her seemingly ungracious silence in their first reception,
+and the warmest expressions of the gratitude she was always feeling
+towards herself and Mr. Weston, must necessarily open the cause; but
+when these effusions were put by, they had talked a good deal of the
+present and of the future state of the engagement. Mrs. Weston was
+convinced that such conversation must be the greatest relief to her
+companion, pent up within her own mind as every thing had so long been,
+and was very much pleased with all that she had said on the subject.
+
+“On the misery of what she had suffered, during the concealment of so
+many months,” continued Mrs. Weston, “she was energetic. This was one
+of her expressions. ‘I will not say, that since I entered into the
+engagement I have not had some happy moments; but I can say, that I have
+never known the blessing of one tranquil hour:’--and the quivering lip,
+Emma, which uttered it, was an attestation that I felt at my heart.”
+
+“Poor girl!” said Emma. “She thinks herself wrong, then, for having
+consented to a private engagement?”
+
+“Wrong! No one, I believe, can blame her more than she is disposed
+to blame herself. ‘The consequence,’ said she, ‘has been a state of
+perpetual suffering to me; and so it ought. But after all the punishment
+that misconduct can bring, it is still not less misconduct. Pain is no
+expiation. I never can be blameless. I have been acting contrary to all
+my sense of right; and the fortunate turn that every thing has taken,
+and the kindness I am now receiving, is what my conscience tells me
+ought not to be.’ ‘Do not imagine, madam,’ she continued, ‘that I was
+taught wrong. Do not let any reflection fall on the principles or the
+care of the friends who brought me up. The error has been all my own;
+and I do assure you that, with all the excuse that present circumstances
+may appear to give, I shall yet dread making the story known to Colonel
+Campbell.’”
+
+“Poor girl!” said Emma again. “She loves him then excessively, I
+suppose. It must have been from attachment only, that she could be
+led to form the engagement. Her affection must have overpowered her
+judgment.”
+
+“Yes, I have no doubt of her being extremely attached to him.”
+
+“I am afraid,” returned Emma, sighing, “that I must often have
+contributed to make her unhappy.”
+
+“On your side, my love, it was very innocently done. But she
+probably had something of that in her thoughts, when alluding to the
+misunderstandings which he had given us hints of before. One natural
+consequence of the evil she had involved herself in,” she said, “was
+that of making her _unreasonable_. The consciousness of having done
+amiss, had exposed her to a thousand inquietudes, and made her captious
+and irritable to a degree that must have been--that had been--hard for
+him to bear. ‘I did not make the allowances,’ said she, ‘which I ought
+to have done, for his temper and spirits--his delightful spirits, and
+that gaiety, that playfulness of disposition, which, under any other
+circumstances, would, I am sure, have been as constantly bewitching to
+me, as they were at first.’ She then began to speak of you, and of the
+great kindness you had shewn her during her illness; and with a blush
+which shewed me how it was all connected, desired me, whenever I had
+an opportunity, to thank you--I could not thank you too much--for every
+wish and every endeavour to do her good. She was sensible that you had
+never received any proper acknowledgment from herself.”
+
+“If I did not know her to be happy now,” said Emma, seriously, “which,
+in spite of every little drawback from her scrupulous conscience, she
+must be, I could not bear these thanks;--for, oh! Mrs. Weston, if there
+were an account drawn up of the evil and the good I have done Miss
+Fairfax!--Well (checking herself, and trying to be more lively), this
+is all to be forgotten. You are very kind to bring me these interesting
+particulars. They shew her to the greatest advantage. I am sure she is
+very good--I hope she will be very happy. It is fit that the fortune
+should be on his side, for I think the merit will be all on hers.”
+
+Such a conclusion could not pass unanswered by Mrs. Weston. She thought
+well of Frank in almost every respect; and, what was more, she loved him
+very much, and her defence was, therefore, earnest. She talked with a
+great deal of reason, and at least equal affection--but she had too much
+to urge for Emma’s attention; it was soon gone to Brunswick Square or
+to Donwell; she forgot to attempt to listen; and when Mrs. Weston ended
+with, “We have not yet had the letter we are so anxious for, you know,
+but I hope it will soon come,” she was obliged to pause before she
+answered, and at last obliged to answer at random, before she could at
+all recollect what letter it was which they were so anxious for.
+
+“Are you well, my Emma?” was Mrs. Weston’s parting question.
+
+“Oh! perfectly. I am always well, you know. Be sure to give me
+intelligence of the letter as soon as possible.”
+
+Mrs. Weston’s communications furnished Emma with more food for
+unpleasant reflection, by increasing her esteem and compassion, and her
+sense of past injustice towards Miss Fairfax. She bitterly regretted
+not having sought a closer acquaintance with her, and blushed for the
+envious feelings which had certainly been, in some measure, the cause.
+Had she followed Mr. Knightley’s known wishes, in paying that attention
+to Miss Fairfax, which was every way her due; had she tried to know her
+better; had she done her part towards intimacy; had she endeavoured
+to find a friend there instead of in Harriet Smith; she must, in all
+probability, have been spared from every pain which pressed on her
+now.--Birth, abilities, and education, had been equally marking one as
+an associate for her, to be received with gratitude; and the other--what
+was she?--Supposing even that they had never become intimate friends;
+that she had never been admitted into Miss Fairfax’s confidence on this
+important matter--which was most probable--still, in knowing her as
+she ought, and as she might, she must have been preserved from the
+abominable suspicions of an improper attachment to Mr. Dixon, which she
+had not only so foolishly fashioned and harboured herself, but had so
+unpardonably imparted; an idea which she greatly feared had been made a
+subject of material distress to the delicacy of Jane’s feelings, by the
+levity or carelessness of Frank Churchill’s. Of all the sources of evil
+surrounding the former, since her coming to Highbury, she was persuaded
+that she must herself have been the worst. She must have been a
+perpetual enemy. They never could have been all three together, without
+her having stabbed Jane Fairfax’s peace in a thousand instances; and on
+Box Hill, perhaps, it had been the agony of a mind that would bear no
+more.
+
+The evening of this day was very long, and melancholy, at Hartfield.
+The weather added what it could of gloom. A cold stormy rain set in, and
+nothing of July appeared but in the trees and shrubs, which the wind was
+despoiling, and the length of the day, which only made such cruel sights
+the longer visible.
+
+The weather affected Mr. Woodhouse, and he could only be kept tolerably
+comfortable by almost ceaseless attention on his daughter’s side, and by
+exertions which had never cost her half so much before. It reminded
+her of their first forlorn tete-a-tete, on the evening of Mrs. Weston’s
+wedding-day; but Mr. Knightley had walked in then, soon after tea,
+and dissipated every melancholy fancy. Alas! such delightful proofs of
+Hartfield’s attraction, as those sort of visits conveyed, might shortly
+be over. The picture which she had then drawn of the privations of the
+approaching winter, had proved erroneous; no friends had deserted them,
+no pleasures had been lost.--But her present forebodings she feared
+would experience no similar contradiction. The prospect before her now,
+was threatening to a degree that could not be entirely dispelled--that
+might not be even partially brightened. If all took place that
+might take place among the circle of her friends, Hartfield must be
+comparatively deserted; and she left to cheer her father with the
+spirits only of ruined happiness.
+
+The child to be born at Randalls must be a tie there even dearer than
+herself; and Mrs. Weston’s heart and time would be occupied by it.
+They should lose her; and, probably, in great measure, her husband
+also.--Frank Churchill would return among them no more; and Miss
+Fairfax, it was reasonable to suppose, would soon cease to belong to
+Highbury. They would be married, and settled either at or near Enscombe.
+All that were good would be withdrawn; and if to these losses, the
+loss of Donwell were to be added, what would remain of cheerful or
+of rational society within their reach? Mr. Knightley to be no longer
+coming there for his evening comfort!--No longer walking in at all
+hours, as if ever willing to change his own home for their’s!--How was
+it to be endured? And if he were to be lost to them for Harriet’s sake;
+if he were to be thought of hereafter, as finding in Harriet’s society
+all that he wanted; if Harriet were to be the chosen, the first,
+the dearest, the friend, the wife to whom he looked for all the best
+blessings of existence; what could be increasing Emma’s wretchedness but
+the reflection never far distant from her mind, that it had been all her
+own work?
+
+When it came to such a pitch as this, she was not able to refrain from
+a start, or a heavy sigh, or even from walking about the room for a
+few seconds--and the only source whence any thing like consolation
+or composure could be drawn, was in the resolution of her own better
+conduct, and the hope that, however inferior in spirit and gaiety might
+be the following and every future winter of her life to the past, it
+would yet find her more rational, more acquainted with herself, and
+leave her less to regret when it were gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+The weather continued much the same all the following morning; and
+the same loneliness, and the same melancholy, seemed to reign at
+Hartfield--but in the afternoon it cleared; the wind changed into a
+softer quarter; the clouds were carried off; the sun appeared; it was
+summer again. With all the eagerness which such a transition gives, Emma
+resolved to be out of doors as soon as possible. Never had the exquisite
+sight, smell, sensation of nature, tranquil, warm, and brilliant after
+a storm, been more attractive to her. She longed for the serenity they
+might gradually introduce; and on Mr. Perry’s coming in soon after
+dinner, with a disengaged hour to give her father, she lost no time
+in hurrying into the shrubbery.--There, with spirits freshened, and
+thoughts a little relieved, she had taken a few turns, when she saw Mr.
+Knightley passing through the garden door, and coming towards her.--It
+was the first intimation of his being returned from London. She had
+been thinking of him the moment before, as unquestionably sixteen miles
+distant.--There was time only for the quickest arrangement of mind. She
+must be collected and calm. In half a minute they were together. The
+“How d’ye do’s” were quiet and constrained on each side. She asked after
+their mutual friends; they were all well.--When had he left them?--Only
+that morning. He must have had a wet ride.--Yes.--He meant to walk with
+her, she found. “He had just looked into the dining-room, and as he was
+not wanted there, preferred being out of doors.”--She thought he neither
+looked nor spoke cheerfully; and the first possible cause for it,
+suggested by her fears, was, that he had perhaps been communicating his
+plans to his brother, and was pained by the manner in which they had
+been received.
+
+They walked together. He was silent. She thought he was often looking
+at her, and trying for a fuller view of her face than it suited her to
+give. And this belief produced another dread. Perhaps he wanted to
+speak to her, of his attachment to Harriet; he might be watching for
+encouragement to begin.--She did not, could not, feel equal to lead the
+way to any such subject. He must do it all himself. Yet she could
+not bear this silence. With him it was most unnatural. She
+considered--resolved--and, trying to smile, began--
+
+“You have some news to hear, now you are come back, that will rather
+surprize you.”
+
+“Have I?” said he quietly, and looking at her; “of what nature?”
+
+“Oh! the best nature in the world--a wedding.”
+
+After waiting a moment, as if to be sure she intended to say no more, he
+replied,
+
+“If you mean Miss Fairfax and Frank Churchill, I have heard that
+already.”
+
+“How is it possible?” cried Emma, turning her glowing cheeks towards
+him; for, while she spoke, it occurred to her that he might have called
+at Mrs. Goddard’s in his way.
+
+“I had a few lines on parish business from Mr. Weston this morning, and
+at the end of them he gave me a brief account of what had happened.”
+
+Emma was quite relieved, and could presently say, with a little more
+composure,
+
+“_You_ probably have been less surprized than any of us, for you have
+had your suspicions.--I have not forgotten that you once tried to give
+me a caution.--I wish I had attended to it--but--(with a sinking voice
+and a heavy sigh) I seem to have been doomed to blindness.”
+
+For a moment or two nothing was said, and she was unsuspicious of having
+excited any particular interest, till she found her arm drawn within
+his, and pressed against his heart, and heard him thus saying, in a tone
+of great sensibility, speaking low,
+
+“Time, my dearest Emma, time will heal the wound.--Your own excellent
+sense--your exertions for your father’s sake--I know you will not allow
+yourself--.” Her arm was pressed again, as he added, in a more
+broken and subdued accent, “The feelings of the warmest
+friendship--Indignation--Abominable scoundrel!”--And in a louder,
+steadier tone, he concluded with, “He will soon be gone. They will soon
+be in Yorkshire. I am sorry for _her_. She deserves a better fate.”
+
+Emma understood him; and as soon as she could recover from the flutter
+of pleasure, excited by such tender consideration, replied,
+
+“You are very kind--but you are mistaken--and I must set you right.--
+I am not in want of that sort of compassion. My blindness to what was
+going on, led me to act by them in a way that I must always be ashamed
+of, and I was very foolishly tempted to say and do many things which may
+well lay me open to unpleasant conjectures, but I have no other reason
+to regret that I was not in the secret earlier.”
+
+“Emma!” cried he, looking eagerly at her, “are you, indeed?”--but
+checking himself--“No, no, I understand you--forgive me--I am pleased
+that you can say even so much.--He is no object of regret, indeed! and
+it will not be very long, I hope, before that becomes the acknowledgment
+of more than your reason.--Fortunate that your affections were not
+farther entangled!--I could never, I confess, from your manners, assure
+myself as to the degree of what you felt--I could only be certain that
+there was a preference--and a preference which I never believed him to
+deserve.--He is a disgrace to the name of man.--And is he to be rewarded
+with that sweet young woman?--Jane, Jane, you will be a miserable
+creature.”
+
+“Mr. Knightley,” said Emma, trying to be lively, but really confused--“I
+am in a very extraordinary situation. I cannot let you continue in your
+error; and yet, perhaps, since my manners gave such an impression, I
+have as much reason to be ashamed of confessing that I never have been
+at all attached to the person we are speaking of, as it might be natural
+for a woman to feel in confessing exactly the reverse.--But I never
+have.”
+
+He listened in perfect silence. She wished him to speak, but he would
+not. She supposed she must say more before she were entitled to his
+clemency; but it was a hard case to be obliged still to lower herself in
+his opinion. She went on, however.
+
+“I have very little to say for my own conduct.--I was tempted by his
+attentions, and allowed myself to appear pleased.--An old story,
+probably--a common case--and no more than has happened to hundreds of my
+sex before; and yet it may not be the more excusable in one who sets up
+as I do for Understanding. Many circumstances assisted the temptation.
+He was the son of Mr. Weston--he was continually here--I always found
+him very pleasant--and, in short, for (with a sigh) let me swell out the
+causes ever so ingeniously, they all centre in this at last--my vanity
+was flattered, and I allowed his attentions. Latterly, however--for some
+time, indeed--I have had no idea of their meaning any thing.--I thought
+them a habit, a trick, nothing that called for seriousness on my side.
+He has imposed on me, but he has not injured me. I have never been
+attached to him. And now I can tolerably comprehend his behaviour. He
+never wished to attach me. It was merely a blind to conceal his real
+situation with another.--It was his object to blind all about him; and
+no one, I am sure, could be more effectually blinded than myself--except
+that I was _not_ blinded--that it was my good fortune--that, in short, I
+was somehow or other safe from him.”
+
+She had hoped for an answer here--for a few words to say that her
+conduct was at least intelligible; but he was silent; and, as far as she
+could judge, deep in thought. At last, and tolerably in his usual tone,
+he said,
+
+“I have never had a high opinion of Frank Churchill.--I can suppose,
+however, that I may have underrated him. My acquaintance with him has
+been but trifling.--And even if I have not underrated him hitherto, he
+may yet turn out well.--With such a woman he has a chance.--I have no
+motive for wishing him ill--and for her sake, whose happiness will be
+involved in his good character and conduct, I shall certainly wish him
+well.”
+
+“I have no doubt of their being happy together,” said Emma; “I believe
+them to be very mutually and very sincerely attached.”
+
+“He is a most fortunate man!” returned Mr. Knightley, with energy. “So
+early in life--at three-and-twenty--a period when, if a man chuses a
+wife, he generally chuses ill. At three-and-twenty to have drawn such
+a prize! What years of felicity that man, in all human calculation,
+has before him!--Assured of the love of such a woman--the disinterested
+love, for Jane Fairfax’s character vouches for her disinterestedness;
+every thing in his favour,--equality of situation--I mean, as far as
+regards society, and all the habits and manners that are important;
+equality in every point but one--and that one, since the purity of her
+heart is not to be doubted, such as must increase his felicity, for it
+will be his to bestow the only advantages she wants.--A man would always
+wish to give a woman a better home than the one he takes her from;
+and he who can do it, where there is no doubt of _her_ regard, must,
+I think, be the happiest of mortals.--Frank Churchill is, indeed, the
+favourite of fortune. Every thing turns out for his good.--He meets
+with a young woman at a watering-place, gains her affection, cannot even
+weary her by negligent treatment--and had he and all his family sought
+round the world for a perfect wife for him, they could not have found
+her superior.--His aunt is in the way.--His aunt dies.--He has only to
+speak.--His friends are eager to promote his happiness.--He had used
+every body ill--and they are all delighted to forgive him.--He is a
+fortunate man indeed!”
+
+“You speak as if you envied him.”
+
+“And I do envy him, Emma. In one respect he is the object of my envy.”
+
+Emma could say no more. They seemed to be within half a sentence
+of Harriet, and her immediate feeling was to avert the subject, if
+possible. She made her plan; she would speak of something totally
+different--the children in Brunswick Square; and she only waited for
+breath to begin, when Mr. Knightley startled her, by saying,
+
+“You will not ask me what is the point of envy.--You are determined, I
+see, to have no curiosity.--You are wise--but _I_ cannot be wise. Emma,
+I must tell you what you will not ask, though I may wish it unsaid the
+next moment.”
+
+“Oh! then, don’t speak it, don’t speak it,” she eagerly cried. “Take a
+little time, consider, do not commit yourself.”
+
+“Thank you,” said he, in an accent of deep mortification, and not
+another syllable followed.
+
+Emma could not bear to give him pain. He was wishing to confide in
+her--perhaps to consult her;--cost her what it would, she would listen.
+She might assist his resolution, or reconcile him to it; she might give
+just praise to Harriet, or, by representing to him his own independence,
+relieve him from that state of indecision, which must be more
+intolerable than any alternative to such a mind as his.--They had
+reached the house.
+
+“You are going in, I suppose?” said he.
+
+“No,”--replied Emma--quite confirmed by the depressed manner in which
+he still spoke--“I should like to take another turn. Mr. Perry is not
+gone.” And, after proceeding a few steps, she added--“I stopped you
+ungraciously, just now, Mr. Knightley, and, I am afraid, gave you
+pain.--But if you have any wish to speak openly to me as a friend, or
+to ask my opinion of any thing that you may have in contemplation--as
+a friend, indeed, you may command me.--I will hear whatever you like. I
+will tell you exactly what I think.”
+
+“As a friend!”--repeated Mr. Knightley.--“Emma, that I fear is a
+word--No, I have no wish--Stay, yes, why should I hesitate?--I
+have gone too far already for concealment.--Emma, I accept your
+offer--Extraordinary as it may seem, I accept it, and refer myself to
+you as a friend.--Tell me, then, have I no chance of ever succeeding?”
+
+He stopped in his earnestness to look the question, and the expression
+of his eyes overpowered her.
+
+“My dearest Emma,” said he, “for dearest you will always be, whatever
+the event of this hour’s conversation, my dearest, most beloved
+Emma--tell me at once. Say ‘No,’ if it is to be said.”--She could
+really say nothing.--“You are silent,” he cried, with great animation;
+“absolutely silent! at present I ask no more.”
+
+Emma was almost ready to sink under the agitation of this moment. The
+dread of being awakened from the happiest dream, was perhaps the most
+prominent feeling.
+
+“I cannot make speeches, Emma:” he soon resumed; and in a tone of
+such sincere, decided, intelligible tenderness as was tolerably
+convincing.--“If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it
+more. But you know what I am.--You hear nothing but truth from me.--I
+have blamed you, and lectured you, and you have borne it as no other
+woman in England would have borne it.--Bear with the truths I would
+tell you now, dearest Emma, as well as you have borne with them. The
+manner, perhaps, may have as little to recommend them. God knows, I have
+been a very indifferent lover.--But you understand me.--Yes, you see,
+you understand my feelings--and will return them if you can. At present,
+I ask only to hear, once to hear your voice.”
+
+While he spoke, Emma’s mind was most busy, and, with all the wonderful
+velocity of thought, had been able--and yet without losing a word--to
+catch and comprehend the exact truth of the whole; to see that Harriet’s
+hopes had been entirely groundless, a mistake, a delusion, as complete a
+delusion as any of her own--that Harriet was nothing; that she was every
+thing herself; that what she had been saying relative to Harriet
+had been all taken as the language of her own feelings; and that her
+agitation, her doubts, her reluctance, her discouragement, had been all
+received as discouragement from herself.--And not only was there time
+for these convictions, with all their glow of attendant happiness; there
+was time also to rejoice that Harriet’s secret had not escaped her, and
+to resolve that it need not, and should not.--It was all the service
+she could now render her poor friend; for as to any of that heroism of
+sentiment which might have prompted her to entreat him to transfer his
+affection from herself to Harriet, as infinitely the most worthy of the
+two--or even the more simple sublimity of resolving to refuse him at
+once and for ever, without vouchsafing any motive, because he could not
+marry them both, Emma had it not. She felt for Harriet, with pain and
+with contrition; but no flight of generosity run mad, opposing all that
+could be probable or reasonable, entered her brain. She had led her
+friend astray, and it would be a reproach to her for ever; but her
+judgment was as strong as her feelings, and as strong as it had ever
+been before, in reprobating any such alliance for him, as most unequal
+and degrading. Her way was clear, though not quite smooth.--She spoke
+then, on being so entreated.--What did she say?--Just what she ought,
+of course. A lady always does.--She said enough to shew there need not
+be despair--and to invite him to say more himself. He _had_ despaired at
+one period; he had received such an injunction to caution and silence,
+as for the time crushed every hope;--she had begun by refusing to hear
+him.--The change had perhaps been somewhat sudden;--her proposal of
+taking another turn, her renewing the conversation which she had
+just put an end to, might be a little extraordinary!--She felt its
+inconsistency; but Mr. Knightley was so obliging as to put up with it,
+and seek no farther explanation.
+
+Seldom, very seldom, does complete truth belong to any human disclosure;
+seldom can it happen that something is not a little disguised, or a
+little mistaken; but where, as in this case, though the conduct is
+mistaken, the feelings are not, it may not be very material.--Mr.
+Knightley could not impute to Emma a more relenting heart than she
+possessed, or a heart more disposed to accept of his.
+
+He had, in fact, been wholly unsuspicious of his own influence. He had
+followed her into the shrubbery with no idea of trying it. He had come,
+in his anxiety to see how she bore Frank Churchill’s engagement, with no
+selfish view, no view at all, but of endeavouring, if she allowed him an
+opening, to soothe or to counsel her.--The rest had been the work of
+the moment, the immediate effect of what he heard, on his feelings. The
+delightful assurance of her total indifference towards Frank Churchill,
+of her having a heart completely disengaged from him, had given birth
+to the hope, that, in time, he might gain her affection himself;--but
+it had been no present hope--he had only, in the momentary conquest of
+eagerness over judgment, aspired to be told that she did not forbid his
+attempt to attach her.--The superior hopes which gradually opened were
+so much the more enchanting.--The affection, which he had been asking
+to be allowed to create, if he could, was already his!--Within half
+an hour, he had passed from a thoroughly distressed state of mind, to
+something so like perfect happiness, that it could bear no other name.
+
+_Her_ change was equal.--This one half-hour had given to each the same
+precious certainty of being beloved, had cleared from each the same
+degree of ignorance, jealousy, or distrust.--On his side, there had been
+a long-standing jealousy, old as the arrival, or even the expectation,
+of Frank Churchill.--He had been in love with Emma, and jealous of Frank
+Churchill, from about the same period, one sentiment having probably
+enlightened him as to the other. It was his jealousy of Frank Churchill
+that had taken him from the country.--The Box Hill party had decided
+him on going away. He would save himself from witnessing again
+such permitted, encouraged attentions.--He had gone to learn to be
+indifferent.--But he had gone to a wrong place. There was too much
+domestic happiness in his brother’s house; woman wore too amiable a form
+in it; Isabella was too much like Emma--differing only in those striking
+inferiorities, which always brought the other in brilliancy before
+him, for much to have been done, even had his time been longer.--He had
+stayed on, however, vigorously, day after day--till this very morning’s
+post had conveyed the history of Jane Fairfax.--Then, with the gladness
+which must be felt, nay, which he did not scruple to feel, having never
+believed Frank Churchill to be at all deserving Emma, was there so much
+fond solicitude, so much keen anxiety for her, that he could stay no
+longer. He had ridden home through the rain; and had walked up directly
+after dinner, to see how this sweetest and best of all creatures,
+faultless in spite of all her faults, bore the discovery.
+
+He had found her agitated and low.--Frank Churchill was a villain.--
+He heard her declare that she had never loved him. Frank Churchill’s
+character was not desperate.--She was his own Emma, by hand and word,
+when they returned into the house; and if he could have thought of Frank
+Churchill then, he might have deemed him a very good sort of fellow.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+What totally different feelings did Emma take back into the house from
+what she had brought out!--she had then been only daring to hope for
+a little respite of suffering;--she was now in an exquisite flutter of
+happiness, and such happiness moreover as she believed must still be
+greater when the flutter should have passed away.
+
+They sat down to tea--the same party round the same table--how often
+it had been collected!--and how often had her eyes fallen on the same
+shrubs in the lawn, and observed the same beautiful effect of the
+western sun!--But never in such a state of spirits, never in any thing
+like it; and it was with difficulty that she could summon enough of her
+usual self to be the attentive lady of the house, or even the attentive
+daughter.
+
+Poor Mr. Woodhouse little suspected what was plotting against him in the
+breast of that man whom he was so cordially welcoming, and so anxiously
+hoping might not have taken cold from his ride.--Could he have seen the
+heart, he would have cared very little for the lungs; but without the
+most distant imagination of the impending evil, without the slightest
+perception of any thing extraordinary in the looks or ways of either,
+he repeated to them very comfortably all the articles of news he had
+received from Mr. Perry, and talked on with much self-contentment,
+totally unsuspicious of what they could have told him in return.
+
+As long as Mr. Knightley remained with them, Emma’s fever continued;
+but when he was gone, she began to be a little tranquillised and
+subdued--and in the course of the sleepless night, which was the tax
+for such an evening, she found one or two such very serious points
+to consider, as made her feel, that even her happiness must have some
+alloy. Her father--and Harriet. She could not be alone without feeling
+the full weight of their separate claims; and how to guard the comfort
+of both to the utmost, was the question. With respect to her father,
+it was a question soon answered. She hardly knew yet what Mr. Knightley
+would ask; but a very short parley with her own heart produced the most
+solemn resolution of never quitting her father.--She even wept over
+the idea of it, as a sin of thought. While he lived, it must be only an
+engagement; but she flattered herself, that if divested of the danger of
+drawing her away, it might become an increase of comfort to him.--How
+to do her best by Harriet, was of more difficult decision;--how to spare
+her from any unnecessary pain; how to make her any possible atonement;
+how to appear least her enemy?--On these subjects, her perplexity
+and distress were very great--and her mind had to pass again and
+again through every bitter reproach and sorrowful regret that had ever
+surrounded it.--She could only resolve at last, that she would still
+avoid a meeting with her, and communicate all that need be told by
+letter; that it would be inexpressibly desirable to have her removed
+just now for a time from Highbury, and--indulging in one scheme
+more--nearly resolve, that it might be practicable to get an invitation
+for her to Brunswick Square.--Isabella had been pleased with Harriet;
+and a few weeks spent in London must give her some amusement.--She did
+not think it in Harriet’s nature to escape being benefited by novelty
+and variety, by the streets, the shops, and the children.--At any rate,
+it would be a proof of attention and kindness in herself, from whom
+every thing was due; a separation for the present; an averting of the
+evil day, when they must all be together again.
+
+She rose early, and wrote her letter to Harriet; an employment which
+left her so very serious, so nearly sad, that Mr. Knightley, in walking
+up to Hartfield to breakfast, did not arrive at all too soon; and half
+an hour stolen afterwards to go over the same ground again with him,
+literally and figuratively, was quite necessary to reinstate her in a
+proper share of the happiness of the evening before.
+
+He had not left her long, by no means long enough for her to have the
+slightest inclination for thinking of any body else, when a letter was
+brought her from Randalls--a very thick letter;--she guessed what it
+must contain, and deprecated the necessity of reading it.--She was now
+in perfect charity with Frank Churchill; she wanted no explanations, she
+wanted only to have her thoughts to herself--and as for understanding
+any thing he wrote, she was sure she was incapable of it.--It must be
+waded through, however. She opened the packet; it was too surely so;--a
+note from Mrs. Weston to herself, ushered in the letter from Frank to
+Mrs. Weston.
+
+“I have the greatest pleasure, my dear Emma, in forwarding to you the
+enclosed. I know what thorough justice you will do it, and have scarcely
+a doubt of its happy effect.--I think we shall never materially disagree
+about the writer again; but I will not delay you by a long preface.--We
+are quite well.--This letter has been the cure of all the little
+nervousness I have been feeling lately.--I did not quite like your looks
+on Tuesday, but it was an ungenial morning; and though you will never
+own being affected by weather, I think every body feels a north-east
+wind.--I felt for your dear father very much in the storm of Tuesday
+afternoon and yesterday morning, but had the comfort of hearing last
+night, by Mr. Perry, that it had not made him ill.
+
+ “Yours ever,
+ “A. W.”
+
+ [To Mrs. Weston.]
+
+
+ WINDSOR-JULY.
+MY DEAR MADAM,
+
+“If I made myself intelligible yesterday, this letter will be
+expected; but expected or not, I know it will be read with candour and
+indulgence.--You are all goodness, and I believe there will be need of
+even all your goodness to allow for some parts of my past conduct.--But
+I have been forgiven by one who had still more to resent. My courage
+rises while I write. It is very difficult for the prosperous to be
+humble. I have already met with such success in two applications for
+pardon, that I may be in danger of thinking myself too sure of yours,
+and of those among your friends who have had any ground of offence.--You
+must all endeavour to comprehend the exact nature of my situation when I
+first arrived at Randalls; you must consider me as having a secret which
+was to be kept at all hazards. This was the fact. My right to place
+myself in a situation requiring such concealment, is another question.
+I shall not discuss it here. For my temptation to _think_ it a right,
+I refer every caviller to a brick house, sashed windows below, and
+casements above, in Highbury. I dared not address her openly; my
+difficulties in the then state of Enscombe must be too well known to
+require definition; and I was fortunate enough to prevail, before we
+parted at Weymouth, and to induce the most upright female mind in the
+creation to stoop in charity to a secret engagement.--Had she refused, I
+should have gone mad.--But you will be ready to say, what was your
+hope in doing this?--What did you look forward to?--To any thing, every
+thing--to time, chance, circumstance, slow effects, sudden bursts,
+perseverance and weariness, health and sickness. Every possibility of
+good was before me, and the first of blessings secured, in obtaining her
+promises of faith and correspondence. If you need farther explanation,
+I have the honour, my dear madam, of being your husband’s son, and
+the advantage of inheriting a disposition to hope for good, which no
+inheritance of houses or lands can ever equal the value of.--See
+me, then, under these circumstances, arriving on my first visit to
+Randalls;--and here I am conscious of wrong, for that visit might have
+been sooner paid. You will look back and see that I did not come till
+Miss Fairfax was in Highbury; and as _you_ were the person slighted, you
+will forgive me instantly; but I must work on my father’s compassion, by
+reminding him, that so long as I absented myself from his house, so long
+I lost the blessing of knowing you. My behaviour, during the very
+happy fortnight which I spent with you, did not, I hope, lay me open to
+reprehension, excepting on one point. And now I come to the principal,
+the only important part of my conduct while belonging to you, which
+excites my own anxiety, or requires very solicitous explanation. With
+the greatest respect, and the warmest friendship, do I mention Miss
+Woodhouse; my father perhaps will think I ought to add, with the deepest
+humiliation.--A few words which dropped from him yesterday spoke his
+opinion, and some censure I acknowledge myself liable to.--My behaviour
+to Miss Woodhouse indicated, I believe, more than it ought.--In order to
+assist a concealment so essential to me, I was led on to make more than
+an allowable use of the sort of intimacy into which we were immediately
+thrown.--I cannot deny that Miss Woodhouse was my ostensible object--but
+I am sure you will believe the declaration, that had I not been
+convinced of her indifference, I would not have been induced by any
+selfish views to go on.--Amiable and delightful as Miss Woodhouse is,
+she never gave me the idea of a young woman likely to be attached; and
+that she was perfectly free from any tendency to being attached to me,
+was as much my conviction as my wish.--She received my attentions with
+an easy, friendly, goodhumoured playfulness, which exactly suited me.
+We seemed to understand each other. From our relative situation, those
+attentions were her due, and were felt to be so.--Whether Miss Woodhouse
+began really to understand me before the expiration of that fortnight,
+I cannot say;--when I called to take leave of her, I remember that I was
+within a moment of confessing the truth, and I then fancied she was not
+without suspicion; but I have no doubt of her having since detected me,
+at least in some degree.--She may not have surmised the whole, but her
+quickness must have penetrated a part. I cannot doubt it. You will find,
+whenever the subject becomes freed from its present restraints, that it
+did not take her wholly by surprize. She frequently gave me hints of it.
+I remember her telling me at the ball, that I owed Mrs. Elton gratitude
+for her attentions to Miss Fairfax.--I hope this history of my conduct
+towards her will be admitted by you and my father as great extenuation
+of what you saw amiss. While you considered me as having sinned against
+Emma Woodhouse, I could deserve nothing from either. Acquit me here, and
+procure for me, when it is allowable, the acquittal and good wishes
+of that said Emma Woodhouse, whom I regard with so much brotherly
+affection, as to long to have her as deeply and as happily in love as
+myself.--Whatever strange things I said or did during that fortnight,
+you have now a key to. My heart was in Highbury, and my business was to
+get my body thither as often as might be, and with the least suspicion.
+If you remember any queernesses, set them all to the right account.--Of
+the pianoforte so much talked of, I feel it only necessary to say, that
+its being ordered was absolutely unknown to Miss F--, who would never
+have allowed me to send it, had any choice been given her.--The
+delicacy of her mind throughout the whole engagement, my dear madam,
+is much beyond my power of doing justice to. You will soon, I earnestly
+hope, know her thoroughly yourself.--No description can describe her.
+She must tell you herself what she is--yet not by word, for never
+was there a human creature who would so designedly suppress her own
+merit.--Since I began this letter, which will be longer than I foresaw,
+I have heard from her.--She gives a good account of her own health; but
+as she never complains, I dare not depend. I want to have your opinion
+of her looks. I know you will soon call on her; she is living in dread
+of the visit. Perhaps it is paid already. Let me hear from you without
+delay; I am impatient for a thousand particulars. Remember how few
+minutes I was at Randalls, and in how bewildered, how mad a state: and
+I am not much better yet; still insane either from happiness or
+misery. When I think of the kindness and favour I have met with, of her
+excellence and patience, and my uncle’s generosity, I am mad with joy:
+but when I recollect all the uneasiness I occasioned her, and how little
+I deserve to be forgiven, I am mad with anger. If I could but see her
+again!--But I must not propose it yet. My uncle has been too good for me
+to encroach.--I must still add to this long letter. You have not heard
+all that you ought to hear. I could not give any connected detail
+yesterday; but the suddenness, and, in one light, the unseasonableness
+with which the affair burst out, needs explanation; for though the event
+of the 26th ult., as you will conclude, immediately opened to me the
+happiest prospects, I should not have presumed on such early measures,
+but from the very particular circumstances, which left me not an hour to
+lose. I should myself have shrunk from any thing so hasty, and she
+would have felt every scruple of mine with multiplied strength and
+refinement.--But I had no choice. The hasty engagement she had entered
+into with that woman--Here, my dear madam, I was obliged to leave off
+abruptly, to recollect and compose myself.--I have been walking over
+the country, and am now, I hope, rational enough to make the rest of
+my letter what it ought to be.--It is, in fact, a most mortifying
+retrospect for me. I behaved shamefully. And here I can admit, that
+my manners to Miss W., in being unpleasant to Miss F., were highly
+blameable. _She_ disapproved them, which ought to have been enough.--My
+plea of concealing the truth she did not think sufficient.--She was
+displeased; I thought unreasonably so: I thought her, on a thousand
+occasions, unnecessarily scrupulous and cautious: I thought her even
+cold. But she was always right. If I had followed her judgment, and
+subdued my spirits to the level of what she deemed proper, I should have
+escaped the greatest unhappiness I have ever known.--We quarrelled.--
+Do you remember the morning spent at Donwell?--_There_ every little
+dissatisfaction that had occurred before came to a crisis. I was late;
+I met her walking home by herself, and wanted to walk with her, but she
+would not suffer it. She absolutely refused to allow me, which I then
+thought most unreasonable. Now, however, I see nothing in it but a very
+natural and consistent degree of discretion. While I, to blind the
+world to our engagement, was behaving one hour with objectionable
+particularity to another woman, was she to be consenting the next to a
+proposal which might have made every previous caution useless?--Had we
+been met walking together between Donwell and Highbury, the truth must
+have been suspected.--I was mad enough, however, to resent.--I doubted
+her affection. I doubted it more the next day on Box Hill; when,
+provoked by such conduct on my side, such shameful, insolent neglect
+of her, and such apparent devotion to Miss W., as it would have been
+impossible for any woman of sense to endure, she spoke her resentment in
+a form of words perfectly intelligible to me.--In short, my dear
+madam, it was a quarrel blameless on her side, abominable on mine; and
+I returned the same evening to Richmond, though I might have staid with
+you till the next morning, merely because I would be as angry with
+her as possible. Even then, I was not such a fool as not to mean to
+be reconciled in time; but I was the injured person, injured by her
+coldness, and I went away determined that she should make the first
+advances.--I shall always congratulate myself that you were not of
+the Box Hill party. Had you witnessed my behaviour there, I can hardly
+suppose you would ever have thought well of me again. Its effect upon
+her appears in the immediate resolution it produced: as soon as she
+found I was really gone from Randalls, she closed with the offer of that
+officious Mrs. Elton; the whole system of whose treatment of her, by the
+bye, has ever filled me with indignation and hatred. I must not quarrel
+with a spirit of forbearance which has been so richly extended towards
+myself; but, otherwise, I should loudly protest against the share of it
+which that woman has known.--‘Jane,’ indeed!--You will observe that I
+have not yet indulged myself in calling her by that name, even to you.
+Think, then, what I must have endured in hearing it bandied between
+the Eltons with all the vulgarity of needless repetition, and all the
+insolence of imaginary superiority. Have patience with me, I shall soon
+have done.--She closed with this offer, resolving to break with me
+entirely, and wrote the next day to tell me that we never were to meet
+again.--_She_ _felt_ _the_ _engagement_ _to_ _be_ _a_ _source_ _of_
+_repentance_ _and_ _misery_ _to_ _each_: _she_ _dissolved_ _it_.--This
+letter reached me on the very morning of my poor aunt’s death. I
+answered it within an hour; but from the confusion of my mind, and the
+multiplicity of business falling on me at once, my answer, instead of
+being sent with all the many other letters of that day, was locked up in
+my writing-desk; and I, trusting that I had written enough, though but
+a few lines, to satisfy her, remained without any uneasiness.--I was
+rather disappointed that I did not hear from her again speedily; but I
+made excuses for her, and was too busy, and--may I add?--too cheerful
+in my views to be captious.--We removed to Windsor; and two
+days afterwards I received a parcel from her, my own letters all
+returned!--and a few lines at the same time by the post, stating her
+extreme surprize at not having had the smallest reply to her last; and
+adding, that as silence on such a point could not be misconstrued,
+and as it must be equally desirable to both to have every subordinate
+arrangement concluded as soon as possible, she now sent me, by a safe
+conveyance, all my letters, and requested, that if I could not directly
+command hers, so as to send them to Highbury within a week, I would
+forward them after that period to her at--: in short, the full direction
+to Mr. Smallridge’s, near Bristol, stared me in the face. I knew the
+name, the place, I knew all about it, and instantly saw what she had
+been doing. It was perfectly accordant with that resolution of character
+which I knew her to possess; and the secrecy she had maintained, as to
+any such design in her former letter, was equally descriptive of its
+anxious delicacy. For the world would not she have seemed to threaten
+me.--Imagine the shock; imagine how, till I had actually detected my
+own blunder, I raved at the blunders of the post.--What was to be
+done?--One thing only.--I must speak to my uncle. Without his sanction I
+could not hope to be listened to again.--I spoke; circumstances were
+in my favour; the late event had softened away his pride, and he was,
+earlier than I could have anticipated, wholly reconciled and complying;
+and could say at last, poor man! with a deep sigh, that he wished I
+might find as much happiness in the marriage state as he had done.--I
+felt that it would be of a different sort.--Are you disposed to pity
+me for what I must have suffered in opening the cause to him, for my
+suspense while all was at stake?--No; do not pity me till I reached
+Highbury, and saw how ill I had made her. Do not pity me till I saw her
+wan, sick looks.--I reached Highbury at the time of day when, from my
+knowledge of their late breakfast hour, I was certain of a good chance
+of finding her alone.--I was not disappointed; and at last I was not
+disappointed either in the object of my journey. A great deal of very
+reasonable, very just displeasure I had to persuade away. But it is
+done; we are reconciled, dearer, much dearer, than ever, and no moment’s
+uneasiness can ever occur between us again. Now, my dear madam, I will
+release you; but I could not conclude before. A thousand and a thousand
+thanks for all the kindness you have ever shewn me, and ten thousand for
+the attentions your heart will dictate towards her.--If you think me in
+a way to be happier than I deserve, I am quite of your opinion.--Miss
+W. calls me the child of good fortune. I hope she is right.--In one
+respect, my good fortune is undoubted, that of being able to subscribe
+myself,
+
+ Your obliged and affectionate Son,
+
+ F. C. WESTON CHURCHILL.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+This letter must make its way to Emma’s feelings. She was obliged, in
+spite of her previous determination to the contrary, to do it all the
+justice that Mrs. Weston foretold. As soon as she came to her own name,
+it was irresistible; every line relating to herself was interesting,
+and almost every line agreeable; and when this charm ceased, the subject
+could still maintain itself, by the natural return of her former regard
+for the writer, and the very strong attraction which any picture of
+love must have for her at that moment. She never stopt till she had gone
+through the whole; and though it was impossible not to feel that he had
+been wrong, yet he had been less wrong than she had supposed--and he had
+suffered, and was very sorry--and he was so grateful to Mrs. Weston, and
+so much in love with Miss Fairfax, and she was so happy herself, that
+there was no being severe; and could he have entered the room, she must
+have shaken hands with him as heartily as ever.
+
+She thought so well of the letter, that when Mr. Knightley came again,
+she desired him to read it. She was sure of Mrs. Weston’s wishing it to
+be communicated; especially to one, who, like Mr. Knightley, had seen so
+much to blame in his conduct.
+
+“I shall be very glad to look it over,” said he; “but it seems long. I
+will take it home with me at night.”
+
+But that would not do. Mr. Weston was to call in the evening, and she
+must return it by him.
+
+“I would rather be talking to you,” he replied; “but as it seems a
+matter of justice, it shall be done.”
+
+He began--stopping, however, almost directly to say, “Had I been offered
+the sight of one of this gentleman’s letters to his mother-in-law a few
+months ago, Emma, it would not have been taken with such indifference.”
+
+He proceeded a little farther, reading to himself; and then, with a
+smile, observed, “Humph! a fine complimentary opening: But it is his
+way. One man’s style must not be the rule of another’s. We will not be
+severe.”
+
+“It will be natural for me,” he added shortly afterwards, “to speak my
+opinion aloud as I read. By doing it, I shall feel that I am near you.
+It will not be so great a loss of time: but if you dislike it--”
+
+“Not at all. I should wish it.”
+
+Mr. Knightley returned to his reading with greater alacrity.
+
+“He trifles here,” said he, “as to the temptation. He knows he is wrong,
+and has nothing rational to urge.--Bad.--He ought not to have formed the
+engagement.--‘His father’s disposition:’--he is unjust, however, to his
+father. Mr. Weston’s sanguine temper was a blessing on all his upright
+and honourable exertions; but Mr. Weston earned every present comfort
+before he endeavoured to gain it.--Very true; he did not come till Miss
+Fairfax was here.”
+
+“And I have not forgotten,” said Emma, “how sure you were that he might
+have come sooner if he would. You pass it over very handsomely--but you
+were perfectly right.”
+
+“I was not quite impartial in my judgment, Emma:--but yet, I think--had
+_you_ not been in the case--I should still have distrusted him.”
+
+When he came to Miss Woodhouse, he was obliged to read the whole of it
+aloud--all that related to her, with a smile; a look; a shake of the
+head; a word or two of assent, or disapprobation; or merely of love, as
+the subject required; concluding, however, seriously, and, after steady
+reflection, thus--
+
+“Very bad--though it might have been worse.--Playing a most dangerous
+game. Too much indebted to the event for his acquittal.--No judge of
+his own manners by you.--Always deceived in fact by his own wishes, and
+regardless of little besides his own convenience.--Fancying you to have
+fathomed his secret. Natural enough!--his own mind full of intrigue,
+that he should suspect it in others.--Mystery; Finesse--how they pervert
+the understanding! My Emma, does not every thing serve to prove more
+and more the beauty of truth and sincerity in all our dealings with each
+other?”
+
+Emma agreed to it, and with a blush of sensibility on Harriet’s account,
+which she could not give any sincere explanation of.
+
+“You had better go on,” said she.
+
+He did so, but very soon stopt again to say, “the pianoforte! Ah! That
+was the act of a very, very young man, one too young to consider whether
+the inconvenience of it might not very much exceed the pleasure. A
+boyish scheme, indeed!--I cannot comprehend a man’s wishing to give a
+woman any proof of affection which he knows she would rather dispense
+with; and he did know that she would have prevented the instrument’s
+coming if she could.”
+
+After this, he made some progress without any pause. Frank Churchill’s
+confession of having behaved shamefully was the first thing to call for
+more than a word in passing.
+
+“I perfectly agree with you, sir,”--was then his remark. “You did behave
+very shamefully. You never wrote a truer line.” And having gone through
+what immediately followed of the basis of their disagreement, and his
+persisting to act in direct opposition to Jane Fairfax’s sense of right,
+he made a fuller pause to say, “This is very bad.--He had induced her
+to place herself, for his sake, in a situation of extreme difficulty and
+uneasiness, and it should have been his first object to prevent her from
+suffering unnecessarily.--She must have had much more to contend
+with, in carrying on the correspondence, than he could. He should have
+respected even unreasonable scruples, had there been such; but hers were
+all reasonable. We must look to her one fault, and remember that she
+had done a wrong thing in consenting to the engagement, to bear that she
+should have been in such a state of punishment.”
+
+Emma knew that he was now getting to the Box Hill party, and grew
+uncomfortable. Her own behaviour had been so very improper! She was
+deeply ashamed, and a little afraid of his next look. It was all read,
+however, steadily, attentively, and without the smallest remark; and,
+excepting one momentary glance at her, instantly withdrawn, in the fear
+of giving pain--no remembrance of Box Hill seemed to exist.
+
+“There is no saying much for the delicacy of our good friends, the
+Eltons,” was his next observation.--“His feelings are natural.--What!
+actually resolve to break with him entirely!--She felt the engagement to
+be a source of repentance and misery to each--she dissolved it.--What a
+view this gives of her sense of his behaviour!--Well, he must be a most
+extraordinary--”
+
+“Nay, nay, read on.--You will find how very much he suffers.”
+
+“I hope he does,” replied Mr. Knightley coolly, and resuming the letter.
+“‘Smallridge!’--What does this mean? What is all this?”
+
+“She had engaged to go as governess to Mrs. Smallridge’s children--a
+dear friend of Mrs. Elton’s--a neighbour of Maple Grove; and, by the
+bye, I wonder how Mrs. Elton bears the disappointment?”
+
+“Say nothing, my dear Emma, while you oblige me to read--not even of
+Mrs. Elton. Only one page more. I shall soon have done. What a letter
+the man writes!”
+
+“I wish you would read it with a kinder spirit towards him.”
+
+“Well, there _is_ feeling here.--He does seem to have suffered in
+finding her ill.--Certainly, I can have no doubt of his being fond of
+her. ‘Dearer, much dearer than ever.’ I hope he may long continue to
+feel all the value of such a reconciliation.--He is a very liberal
+thanker, with his thousands and tens of thousands.--‘Happier than I
+deserve.’ Come, he knows himself there. ‘Miss Woodhouse calls me the
+child of good fortune.’--Those were Miss Woodhouse’s words, were they?--
+And a fine ending--and there is the letter. The child of good fortune!
+That was your name for him, was it?”
+
+“You do not appear so well satisfied with his letter as I am; but still
+you must, at least I hope you must, think the better of him for it. I
+hope it does him some service with you.”
+
+“Yes, certainly it does. He has had great faults, faults of
+inconsideration and thoughtlessness; and I am very much of his opinion
+in thinking him likely to be happier than he deserves: but still as he
+is, beyond a doubt, really attached to Miss Fairfax, and will soon, it
+may be hoped, have the advantage of being constantly with her, I am very
+ready to believe his character will improve, and acquire from hers the
+steadiness and delicacy of principle that it wants. And now, let me talk
+to you of something else. I have another person’s interest at present
+so much at heart, that I cannot think any longer about Frank Churchill.
+Ever since I left you this morning, Emma, my mind has been hard at work
+on one subject.”
+
+The subject followed; it was in plain, unaffected, gentlemanlike
+English, such as Mr. Knightley used even to the woman he was in love
+with, how to be able to ask her to marry him, without attacking the
+happiness of her father. Emma’s answer was ready at the first word.
+“While her dear father lived, any change of condition must be impossible
+for her. She could never quit him.” Part only of this answer, however,
+was admitted. The impossibility of her quitting her father, Mr.
+Knightley felt as strongly as herself; but the inadmissibility of any
+other change, he could not agree to. He had been thinking it over most
+deeply, most intently; he had at first hoped to induce Mr. Woodhouse to
+remove with her to Donwell; he had wanted to believe it feasible, but
+his knowledge of Mr. Woodhouse would not suffer him to deceive himself
+long; and now he confessed his persuasion, that such a transplantation
+would be a risk of her father’s comfort, perhaps even of his life, which
+must not be hazarded. Mr. Woodhouse taken from Hartfield!--No, he felt
+that it ought not to be attempted. But the plan which had arisen on the
+sacrifice of this, he trusted his dearest Emma would not find in any
+respect objectionable; it was, that he should be received at Hartfield;
+that so long as her father’s happiness--in other words, his life--required
+Hartfield to continue her home, it should be his likewise.
+
+Of their all removing to Donwell, Emma had already had her own passing
+thoughts. Like him, she had tried the scheme and rejected it; but such
+an alternative as this had not occurred to her. She was sensible of all
+the affection it evinced. She felt that, in quitting Donwell, he must
+be sacrificing a great deal of independence of hours and habits; that
+in living constantly with her father, and in no house of his own, there
+would be much, very much, to be borne with. She promised to think of it,
+and advised him to think of it more; but he was fully convinced, that no
+reflection could alter his wishes or his opinion on the subject. He had
+given it, he could assure her, very long and calm consideration; he had
+been walking away from William Larkins the whole morning, to have his
+thoughts to himself.
+
+“Ah! there is one difficulty unprovided for,” cried Emma. “I am sure
+William Larkins will not like it. You must get his consent before you
+ask mine.”
+
+She promised, however, to think of it; and pretty nearly promised,
+moreover, to think of it, with the intention of finding it a very good
+scheme.
+
+It is remarkable, that Emma, in the many, very many, points of view in
+which she was now beginning to consider Donwell Abbey, was never
+struck with any sense of injury to her nephew Henry, whose rights as
+heir-expectant had formerly been so tenaciously regarded. Think she must
+of the possible difference to the poor little boy; and yet she only
+gave herself a saucy conscious smile about it, and found amusement in
+detecting the real cause of that violent dislike of Mr. Knightley’s
+marrying Jane Fairfax, or any body else, which at the time she had
+wholly imputed to the amiable solicitude of the sister and the aunt.
+
+This proposal of his, this plan of marrying and continuing at
+Hartfield--the more she contemplated it, the more pleasing it became.
+His evils seemed to lessen, her own advantages to increase, their mutual
+good to outweigh every drawback. Such a companion for herself in the
+periods of anxiety and cheerlessness before her!--Such a partner in
+all those duties and cares to which time must be giving increase of
+melancholy!
+
+She would have been too happy but for poor Harriet; but every blessing
+of her own seemed to involve and advance the sufferings of her friend,
+who must now be even excluded from Hartfield. The delightful family
+party which Emma was securing for herself, poor Harriet must, in mere
+charitable caution, be kept at a distance from. She would be a loser in
+every way. Emma could not deplore her future absence as any deduction
+from her own enjoyment. In such a party, Harriet would be rather a
+dead weight than otherwise; but for the poor girl herself, it seemed a
+peculiarly cruel necessity that was to be placing her in such a state of
+unmerited punishment.
+
+In time, of course, Mr. Knightley would be forgotten, that is,
+supplanted; but this could not be expected to happen very early. Mr.
+Knightley himself would be doing nothing to assist the cure;--not
+like Mr. Elton. Mr. Knightley, always so kind, so feeling, so truly
+considerate for every body, would never deserve to be less worshipped
+than now; and it really was too much to hope even of Harriet, that she
+could be in love with more than _three_ men in one year.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+It was a very great relief to Emma to find Harriet as desirous as
+herself to avoid a meeting. Their intercourse was painful enough by
+letter. How much worse, had they been obliged to meet!
+
+Harriet expressed herself very much as might be supposed, without
+reproaches, or apparent sense of ill-usage; and yet Emma fancied there
+was a something of resentment, a something bordering on it in her style,
+which increased the desirableness of their being separate.--It might be
+only her own consciousness; but it seemed as if an angel only could have
+been quite without resentment under such a stroke.
+
+She had no difficulty in procuring Isabella’s invitation; and she was
+fortunate in having a sufficient reason for asking it, without resorting
+to invention.--There was a tooth amiss. Harriet really wished, and
+had wished some time, to consult a dentist. Mrs. John Knightley was
+delighted to be of use; any thing of ill health was a recommendation to
+her--and though not so fond of a dentist as of a Mr. Wingfield, she was
+quite eager to have Harriet under her care.--When it was thus settled
+on her sister’s side, Emma proposed it to her friend, and found her
+very persuadable.--Harriet was to go; she was invited for at least a
+fortnight; she was to be conveyed in Mr. Woodhouse’s carriage.--It was
+all arranged, it was all completed, and Harriet was safe in Brunswick
+Square.
+
+Now Emma could, indeed, enjoy Mr. Knightley’s visits; now she could
+talk, and she could listen with true happiness, unchecked by that sense
+of injustice, of guilt, of something most painful, which had haunted her
+when remembering how disappointed a heart was near her, how much might
+at that moment, and at a little distance, be enduring by the feelings
+which she had led astray herself.
+
+The difference of Harriet at Mrs. Goddard’s, or in London, made perhaps
+an unreasonable difference in Emma’s sensations; but she could not think
+of her in London without objects of curiosity and employment, which must
+be averting the past, and carrying her out of herself.
+
+She would not allow any other anxiety to succeed directly to the place
+in her mind which Harriet had occupied. There was a communication before
+her, one which _she_ only could be competent to make--the confession of
+her engagement to her father; but she would have nothing to do with it
+at present.--She had resolved to defer the disclosure till Mrs. Weston
+were safe and well. No additional agitation should be thrown at this
+period among those she loved--and the evil should not act on herself
+by anticipation before the appointed time.--A fortnight, at least, of
+leisure and peace of mind, to crown every warmer, but more agitating,
+delight, should be hers.
+
+She soon resolved, equally as a duty and a pleasure, to employ half an
+hour of this holiday of spirits in calling on Miss Fairfax.--She ought
+to go--and she was longing to see her; the resemblance of their present
+situations increasing every other motive of goodwill. It would be a
+_secret_ satisfaction; but the consciousness of a similarity of prospect
+would certainly add to the interest with which she should attend to any
+thing Jane might communicate.
+
+She went--she had driven once unsuccessfully to the door, but had not
+been into the house since the morning after Box Hill, when poor Jane had
+been in such distress as had filled her with compassion, though all the
+worst of her sufferings had been unsuspected.--The fear of being still
+unwelcome, determined her, though assured of their being at home, to
+wait in the passage, and send up her name.--She heard Patty announcing
+it; but no such bustle succeeded as poor Miss Bates had before made so
+happily intelligible.--No; she heard nothing but the instant reply of,
+“Beg her to walk up;”--and a moment afterwards she was met on the stairs
+by Jane herself, coming eagerly forward, as if no other reception of her
+were felt sufficient.--Emma had never seen her look so well, so lovely,
+so engaging. There was consciousness, animation, and warmth; there was
+every thing which her countenance or manner could ever have wanted.--
+She came forward with an offered hand; and said, in a low, but very
+feeling tone,
+
+“This is most kind, indeed!--Miss Woodhouse, it is impossible for me
+to express--I hope you will believe--Excuse me for being so entirely
+without words.”
+
+Emma was gratified, and would soon have shewn no want of words, if the
+sound of Mrs. Elton’s voice from the sitting-room had not checked
+her, and made it expedient to compress all her friendly and all her
+congratulatory sensations into a very, very earnest shake of the hand.
+
+Mrs. Bates and Mrs. Elton were together. Miss Bates was out, which
+accounted for the previous tranquillity. Emma could have wished Mrs.
+Elton elsewhere; but she was in a humour to have patience with every
+body; and as Mrs. Elton met her with unusual graciousness, she hoped the
+rencontre would do them no harm.
+
+She soon believed herself to penetrate Mrs. Elton’s thoughts, and
+understand why she was, like herself, in happy spirits; it was being in
+Miss Fairfax’s confidence, and fancying herself acquainted with what was
+still a secret to other people. Emma saw symptoms of it immediately in
+the expression of her face; and while paying her own compliments to Mrs.
+Bates, and appearing to attend to the good old lady’s replies, she saw
+her with a sort of anxious parade of mystery fold up a letter which she
+had apparently been reading aloud to Miss Fairfax, and return it into
+the purple and gold reticule by her side, saying, with significant nods,
+
+“We can finish this some other time, you know. You and I shall not want
+opportunities. And, in fact, you have heard all the essential already. I
+only wanted to prove to you that Mrs. S. admits our apology, and is
+not offended. You see how delightfully she writes. Oh! she is a sweet
+creature! You would have doated on her, had you gone.--But not a word
+more. Let us be discreet--quite on our good behaviour.--Hush!--You
+remember those lines--I forget the poem at this moment:
+
+ “For when a lady’s in the case,
+ “You know all other things give place.”
+
+Now I say, my dear, in _our_ case, for _lady_, read----mum! a word to
+the wise.--I am in a fine flow of spirits, an’t I? But I want to set
+your heart at ease as to Mrs. S.--_My_ representation, you see, has
+quite appeased her.”
+
+And again, on Emma’s merely turning her head to look at Mrs. Bates’s
+knitting, she added, in a half whisper,
+
+“I mentioned no _names_, you will observe.--Oh! no; cautious as a
+minister of state. I managed it extremely well.”
+
+Emma could not doubt. It was a palpable display, repeated on every
+possible occasion. When they had all talked a little while in harmony of
+the weather and Mrs. Weston, she found herself abruptly addressed with,
+
+“Do not you think, Miss Woodhouse, our saucy little friend here is
+charmingly recovered?--Do not you think her cure does Perry the highest
+credit?--(here was a side-glance of great meaning at Jane.) Upon my
+word, Perry has restored her in a wonderful short time!--Oh! if you had
+seen her, as I did, when she was at the worst!”--And when Mrs. Bates
+was saying something to Emma, whispered farther, “We do not say a word
+of any _assistance_ that Perry might have; not a word of a certain young
+physician from Windsor.--Oh! no; Perry shall have all the credit.”
+
+“I have scarce had the pleasure of seeing you, Miss Woodhouse,” she
+shortly afterwards began, “since the party to Box Hill. Very pleasant
+party. But yet I think there was something wanting. Things did not
+seem--that is, there seemed a little cloud upon the spirits of some.--So
+it appeared to me at least, but I might be mistaken. However, I think
+it answered so far as to tempt one to go again. What say you both to our
+collecting the same party, and exploring to Box Hill again, while the
+fine weather lasts?--It must be the same party, you know, quite the
+same party, not _one_ exception.”
+
+Soon after this Miss Bates came in, and Emma could not help being
+diverted by the perplexity of her first answer to herself, resulting,
+she supposed, from doubt of what might be said, and impatience to say
+every thing.
+
+“Thank you, dear Miss Woodhouse, you are all kindness.--It is impossible
+to say--Yes, indeed, I quite understand--dearest Jane’s prospects--that
+is, I do not mean.--But she is charmingly recovered.--How is Mr.
+Woodhouse?--I am so glad.--Quite out of my power.--Such a happy little
+circle as you find us here.--Yes, indeed.--Charming young man!--that
+is--so very friendly; I mean good Mr. Perry!--such attention to
+Jane!”--And from her great, her more than commonly thankful delight
+towards Mrs. Elton for being there, Emma guessed that there had been a
+little show of resentment towards Jane, from the vicarage quarter,
+which was now graciously overcome.--After a few whispers, indeed, which
+placed it beyond a guess, Mrs. Elton, speaking louder, said,
+
+“Yes, here I am, my good friend; and here I have been so long, that
+anywhere else I should think it necessary to apologise; but, the truth
+is, that I am waiting for my lord and master. He promised to join me
+here, and pay his respects to you.”
+
+“What! are we to have the pleasure of a call from Mr. Elton?--That will
+be a favour indeed! for I know gentlemen do not like morning visits, and
+Mr. Elton’s time is so engaged.”
+
+“Upon my word it is, Miss Bates.--He really is engaged from morning to
+night.--There is no end of people’s coming to him, on some pretence or
+other.--The magistrates, and overseers, and churchwardens, are always
+wanting his opinion. They seem not able to do any thing without
+him.--‘Upon my word, Mr. E.,’ I often say, ‘rather you than I.--I do
+not know what would become of my crayons and my instrument, if I had
+half so many applicants.’--Bad enough as it is, for I absolutely neglect
+them both to an unpardonable degree.--I believe I have not played a bar
+this fortnight.--However, he is coming, I assure you: yes, indeed, on
+purpose to wait on you all.” And putting up her hand to screen her
+words from Emma--“A congratulatory visit, you know.--Oh! yes, quite
+indispensable.”
+
+Miss Bates looked about her, so happily--!
+
+“He promised to come to me as soon as he could disengage himself
+from Knightley; but he and Knightley are shut up together in deep
+consultation.--Mr. E. is Knightley’s right hand.”
+
+Emma would not have smiled for the world, and only said, “Is Mr. Elton
+gone on foot to Donwell?--He will have a hot walk.”
+
+“Oh! no, it is a meeting at the Crown, a regular meeting. Weston and
+Cole will be there too; but one is apt to speak only of those who
+lead.--I fancy Mr. E. and Knightley have every thing their own way.”
+
+“Have not you mistaken the day?” said Emma. “I am almost certain that
+the meeting at the Crown is not till to-morrow.--Mr. Knightley was at
+Hartfield yesterday, and spoke of it as for Saturday.”
+
+“Oh! no, the meeting is certainly to-day,” was the abrupt answer, which
+denoted the impossibility of any blunder on Mrs. Elton’s side.--“I do
+believe,” she continued, “this is the most troublesome parish that ever
+was. We never heard of such things at Maple Grove.”
+
+“Your parish there was small,” said Jane.
+
+“Upon my word, my dear, I do not know, for I never heard the subject
+talked of.”
+
+“But it is proved by the smallness of the school, which I have heard
+you speak of, as under the patronage of your sister and Mrs. Bragge; the
+only school, and not more than five-and-twenty children.”
+
+“Ah! you clever creature, that’s very true. What a thinking brain you
+have! I say, Jane, what a perfect character you and I should make, if we
+could be shaken together. My liveliness and your solidity would produce
+perfection.--Not that I presume to insinuate, however, that _some_
+people may not think _you_ perfection already.--But hush!--not a word,
+if you please.”
+
+It seemed an unnecessary caution; Jane was wanting to give her words,
+not to Mrs. Elton, but to Miss Woodhouse, as the latter plainly saw.
+The wish of distinguishing her, as far as civility permitted, was very
+evident, though it could not often proceed beyond a look.
+
+Mr. Elton made his appearance. His lady greeted him with some of her
+sparkling vivacity.
+
+“Very pretty, sir, upon my word; to send me on here, to be an
+encumbrance to my friends, so long before you vouchsafe to come!--But
+you knew what a dutiful creature you had to deal with. You knew I should
+not stir till my lord and master appeared.--Here have I been sitting
+this hour, giving these young ladies a sample of true conjugal
+obedience--for who can say, you know, how soon it may be wanted?”
+
+Mr. Elton was so hot and tired, that all this wit seemed thrown away.
+His civilities to the other ladies must be paid; but his subsequent
+object was to lament over himself for the heat he was suffering, and the
+walk he had had for nothing.
+
+“When I got to Donwell,” said he, “Knightley could not be found. Very
+odd! very unaccountable! after the note I sent him this morning, and the
+message he returned, that he should certainly be at home till one.”
+
+“Donwell!” cried his wife.--“My dear Mr. E., you have not been to
+Donwell!--You mean the Crown; you come from the meeting at the Crown.”
+
+“No, no, that’s to-morrow; and I particularly wanted to see Knightley
+to-day on that very account.--Such a dreadful broiling morning!--I went
+over the fields too--(speaking in a tone of great ill-usage,) which made
+it so much the worse. And then not to find him at home! I assure you
+I am not at all pleased. And no apology left, no message for me. The
+housekeeper declared she knew nothing of my being expected.--Very
+extraordinary!--And nobody knew at all which way he was gone. Perhaps
+to Hartfield, perhaps to the Abbey Mill, perhaps into his woods.--Miss
+Woodhouse, this is not like our friend Knightley!--Can you explain it?”
+
+Emma amused herself by protesting that it was very extraordinary,
+indeed, and that she had not a syllable to say for him.
+
+“I cannot imagine,” said Mrs. Elton, (feeling the indignity as a wife
+ought to do,) “I cannot imagine how he could do such a thing by you, of
+all people in the world! The very last person whom one should expect to
+be forgotten!--My dear Mr. E., he must have left a message for you, I am
+sure he must.--Not even Knightley could be so very eccentric;--and his
+servants forgot it. Depend upon it, that was the case: and very likely
+to happen with the Donwell servants, who are all, I have often observed,
+extremely awkward and remiss.--I am sure I would not have such a
+creature as his Harry stand at our sideboard for any consideration. And
+as for Mrs. Hodges, Wright holds her very cheap indeed.--She promised
+Wright a receipt, and never sent it.”
+
+“I met William Larkins,” continued Mr. Elton, “as I got near the house,
+and he told me I should not find his master at home, but I did not
+believe him.--William seemed rather out of humour. He did not know what
+was come to his master lately, he said, but he could hardly ever get the
+speech of him. I have nothing to do with William’s wants, but it really
+is of very great importance that _I_ should see Knightley to-day; and it
+becomes a matter, therefore, of very serious inconvenience that I should
+have had this hot walk to no purpose.”
+
+Emma felt that she could not do better than go home directly. In
+all probability she was at this very time waited for there; and Mr.
+Knightley might be preserved from sinking deeper in aggression towards
+Mr. Elton, if not towards William Larkins.
+
+She was pleased, on taking leave, to find Miss Fairfax determined to
+attend her out of the room, to go with her even downstairs; it gave her
+an opportunity which she immediately made use of, to say,
+
+“It is as well, perhaps, that I have not had the possibility. Had you
+not been surrounded by other friends, I might have been tempted to
+introduce a subject, to ask questions, to speak more openly than might
+have been strictly correct.--I feel that I should certainly have been
+impertinent.”
+
+“Oh!” cried Jane, with a blush and an hesitation which Emma thought
+infinitely more becoming to her than all the elegance of all her usual
+composure--“there would have been no danger. The danger would have
+been of my wearying you. You could not have gratified me more than
+by expressing an interest--. Indeed, Miss Woodhouse, (speaking more
+collectedly,) with the consciousness which I have of misconduct, very
+great misconduct, it is particularly consoling to me to know that those
+of my friends, whose good opinion is most worth preserving, are not
+disgusted to such a degree as to--I have not time for half that I could
+wish to say. I long to make apologies, excuses, to urge something for
+myself. I feel it so very due. But, unfortunately--in short, if your
+compassion does not stand my friend--”
+
+“Oh! you are too scrupulous, indeed you are,” cried Emma warmly, and
+taking her hand. “You owe me no apologies; and every body to whom you
+might be supposed to owe them, is so perfectly satisfied, so delighted
+even--”
+
+“You are very kind, but I know what my manners were to you.--So
+cold and artificial!--I had always a part to act.--It was a life of
+deceit!--I know that I must have disgusted you.”
+
+“Pray say no more. I feel that all the apologies should be on my side.
+Let us forgive each other at once. We must do whatever is to be done
+quickest, and I think our feelings will lose no time there. I hope you
+have pleasant accounts from Windsor?”
+
+“Very.”
+
+“And the next news, I suppose, will be, that we are to lose you--just as
+I begin to know you.”
+
+“Oh! as to all that, of course nothing can be thought of yet. I am here
+till claimed by Colonel and Mrs. Campbell.”
+
+“Nothing can be actually settled yet, perhaps,” replied Emma,
+smiling--“but, excuse me, it must be thought of.”
+
+The smile was returned as Jane answered,
+
+“You are very right; it has been thought of. And I will own to you, (I
+am sure it will be safe), that so far as our living with Mr. Churchill
+at Enscombe, it is settled. There must be three months, at least, of
+deep mourning; but when they are over, I imagine there will be nothing
+more to wait for.”
+
+“Thank you, thank you.--This is just what I wanted to be assured
+of.--Oh! if you knew how much I love every thing that is decided and
+open!--Good-bye, good-bye.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+Mrs. Weston’s friends were all made happy by her safety; and if the
+satisfaction of her well-doing could be increased to Emma, it was by
+knowing her to be the mother of a little girl. She had been decided in
+wishing for a Miss Weston. She would not acknowledge that it was with
+any view of making a match for her, hereafter, with either of Isabella’s
+sons; but she was convinced that a daughter would suit both father
+and mother best. It would be a great comfort to Mr. Weston, as he grew
+older--and even Mr. Weston might be growing older ten years hence--to
+have his fireside enlivened by the sports and the nonsense, the freaks
+and the fancies of a child never banished from home; and Mrs. Weston--no
+one could doubt that a daughter would be most to her; and it would be
+quite a pity that any one who so well knew how to teach, should not have
+their powers in exercise again.
+
+“She has had the advantage, you know, of practising on me,” she
+continued--“like La Baronne d’Almane on La Comtesse d’Ostalis, in Madame
+de Genlis’ Adelaide and Theodore, and we shall now see her own little
+Adelaide educated on a more perfect plan.”
+
+“That is,” replied Mr. Knightley, “she will indulge her even more than
+she did you, and believe that she does not indulge her at all. It will
+be the only difference.”
+
+“Poor child!” cried Emma; “at that rate, what will become of her?”
+
+“Nothing very bad.--The fate of thousands. She will be disagreeable
+in infancy, and correct herself as she grows older. I am losing all my
+bitterness against spoilt children, my dearest Emma. I, who am owing all
+my happiness to _you_, would not it be horrible ingratitude in me to be
+severe on them?”
+
+Emma laughed, and replied: “But I had the assistance of all your
+endeavours to counteract the indulgence of other people. I doubt whether
+my own sense would have corrected me without it.”
+
+“Do you?--I have no doubt. Nature gave you understanding:--Miss Taylor
+gave you principles. You must have done well. My interference was quite
+as likely to do harm as good. It was very natural for you to say, what
+right has he to lecture me?--and I am afraid very natural for you to
+feel that it was done in a disagreeable manner. I do not believe I did
+you any good. The good was all to myself, by making you an object of the
+tenderest affection to me. I could not think about you so much without
+doating on you, faults and all; and by dint of fancying so many errors,
+have been in love with you ever since you were thirteen at least.”
+
+“I am sure you were of use to me,” cried Emma. “I was very often
+influenced rightly by you--oftener than I would own at the time. I
+am very sure you did me good. And if poor little Anna Weston is to be
+spoiled, it will be the greatest humanity in you to do as much for her
+as you have done for me, except falling in love with her when she is
+thirteen.”
+
+“How often, when you were a girl, have you said to me, with one of your
+saucy looks--‘Mr. Knightley, I am going to do so-and-so; papa says I
+may, or I have Miss Taylor’s leave’--something which, you knew, I
+did not approve. In such cases my interference was giving you two bad
+feelings instead of one.”
+
+“What an amiable creature I was!--No wonder you should hold my speeches
+in such affectionate remembrance.”
+
+“‘Mr. Knightley.’--You always called me, ‘Mr. Knightley;’ and, from
+habit, it has not so very formal a sound.--And yet it is formal. I want
+you to call me something else, but I do not know what.”
+
+“I remember once calling you ‘George,’ in one of my amiable fits, about
+ten years ago. I did it because I thought it would offend you; but, as
+you made no objection, I never did it again.”
+
+“And cannot you call me ‘George’ now?”
+
+“Impossible!--I never can call you any thing but ‘Mr. Knightley.’ I
+will not promise even to equal the elegant terseness of Mrs. Elton, by
+calling you Mr. K.--But I will promise,” she added presently, laughing
+and blushing--“I will promise to call you once by your Christian name.
+I do not say when, but perhaps you may guess where;--in the building in
+which N. takes M. for better, for worse.”
+
+Emma grieved that she could not be more openly just to one important
+service which his better sense would have rendered her, to the
+advice which would have saved her from the worst of all her womanly
+follies--her wilful intimacy with Harriet Smith; but it was too tender a
+subject.--She could not enter on it.--Harriet was very seldom mentioned
+between them. This, on his side, might merely proceed from her not being
+thought of; but Emma was rather inclined to attribute it to delicacy,
+and a suspicion, from some appearances, that their friendship were
+declining. She was aware herself, that, parting under any other
+circumstances, they certainly should have corresponded more, and that
+her intelligence would not have rested, as it now almost wholly did, on
+Isabella’s letters. He might observe that it was so. The pain of being
+obliged to practise concealment towards him, was very little inferior to
+the pain of having made Harriet unhappy.
+
+Isabella sent quite as good an account of her visitor as could be
+expected; on her first arrival she had thought her out of spirits, which
+appeared perfectly natural, as there was a dentist to be consulted; but,
+since that business had been over, she did not appear to find Harriet
+different from what she had known her before.--Isabella, to be sure,
+was no very quick observer; yet if Harriet had not been equal to playing
+with the children, it would not have escaped her. Emma’s comforts and
+hopes were most agreeably carried on, by Harriet’s being to stay longer;
+her fortnight was likely to be a month at least. Mr. and Mrs. John
+Knightley were to come down in August, and she was invited to remain
+till they could bring her back.
+
+“John does not even mention your friend,” said Mr. Knightley. “Here is
+his answer, if you like to see it.”
+
+It was the answer to the communication of his intended marriage. Emma
+accepted it with a very eager hand, with an impatience all alive to know
+what he would say about it, and not at all checked by hearing that her
+friend was unmentioned.
+
+“John enters like a brother into my happiness,” continued Mr. Knightley,
+“but he is no complimenter; and though I well know him to have,
+likewise, a most brotherly affection for you, he is so far from making
+flourishes, that any other young woman might think him rather cool in
+her praise. But I am not afraid of your seeing what he writes.”
+
+“He writes like a sensible man,” replied Emma, when she had read the
+letter. “I honour his sincerity. It is very plain that he considers the
+good fortune of the engagement as all on my side, but that he is not
+without hope of my growing, in time, as worthy of your affection, as
+you think me already. Had he said any thing to bear a different
+construction, I should not have believed him.”
+
+“My Emma, he means no such thing. He only means--”
+
+“He and I should differ very little in our estimation of the two,”
+ interrupted she, with a sort of serious smile--“much less, perhaps, than
+he is aware of, if we could enter without ceremony or reserve on the
+subject.”
+
+“Emma, my dear Emma--”
+
+“Oh!” she cried with more thorough gaiety, “if you fancy your brother
+does not do me justice, only wait till my dear father is in the secret,
+and hear his opinion. Depend upon it, he will be much farther from doing
+_you_ justice. He will think all the happiness, all the advantage, on
+your side of the question; all the merit on mine. I wish I may not
+sink into ‘poor Emma’ with him at once.--His tender compassion towards
+oppressed worth can go no farther.”
+
+“Ah!” he cried, “I wish your father might be half as easily convinced as
+John will be, of our having every right that equal worth can give, to be
+happy together. I am amused by one part of John’s letter--did you notice
+it?--where he says, that my information did not take him wholly by
+surprize, that he was rather in expectation of hearing something of the
+kind.”
+
+“If I understand your brother, he only means so far as your having
+some thoughts of marrying. He had no idea of me. He seems perfectly
+unprepared for that.”
+
+“Yes, yes--but I am amused that he should have seen so far into my
+feelings. What has he been judging by?--I am not conscious of any
+difference in my spirits or conversation that could prepare him at
+this time for my marrying any more than at another.--But it was so, I
+suppose. I dare say there was a difference when I was staying with them
+the other day. I believe I did not play with the children quite so much
+as usual. I remember one evening the poor boys saying, ‘Uncle seems
+always tired now.’”
+
+The time was coming when the news must spread farther, and other
+persons’ reception of it tried. As soon as Mrs. Weston was sufficiently
+recovered to admit Mr. Woodhouse’s visits, Emma having it in view that
+her gentle reasonings should be employed in the cause, resolved first to
+announce it at home, and then at Randalls.--But how to break it to her
+father at last!--She had bound herself to do it, in such an hour of Mr.
+Knightley’s absence, or when it came to the point her heart would have
+failed her, and she must have put it off; but Mr. Knightley was to come
+at such a time, and follow up the beginning she was to make.--She was
+forced to speak, and to speak cheerfully too. She must not make it a
+more decided subject of misery to him, by a melancholy tone herself.
+She must not appear to think it a misfortune.--With all the spirits she
+could command, she prepared him first for something strange, and then,
+in a few words, said, that if his consent and approbation could be
+obtained--which, she trusted, would be attended with no difficulty,
+since it was a plan to promote the happiness of all--she and Mr.
+Knightley meant to marry; by which means Hartfield would receive the
+constant addition of that person’s company whom she knew he loved, next
+to his daughters and Mrs. Weston, best in the world.
+
+Poor man!--it was at first a considerable shock to him, and he tried
+earnestly to dissuade her from it. She was reminded, more than once, of
+having always said she would never marry, and assured that it would be
+a great deal better for her to remain single; and told of poor Isabella,
+and poor Miss Taylor.--But it would not do. Emma hung about him
+affectionately, and smiled, and said it must be so; and that he must
+not class her with Isabella and Mrs. Weston, whose marriages taking them
+from Hartfield, had, indeed, made a melancholy change: but she was not
+going from Hartfield; she should be always there; she was introducing
+no change in their numbers or their comforts but for the better; and she
+was very sure that he would be a great deal the happier for having Mr.
+Knightley always at hand, when he were once got used to the idea.--Did
+he not love Mr. Knightley very much?--He would not deny that he did,
+she was sure.--Whom did he ever want to consult on business but Mr.
+Knightley?--Who was so useful to him, who so ready to write his letters,
+who so glad to assist him?--Who so cheerful, so attentive, so attached
+to him?--Would not he like to have him always on the spot?--Yes. That
+was all very true. Mr. Knightley could not be there too often; he should
+be glad to see him every day;--but they did see him every day as it
+was.--Why could not they go on as they had done?
+
+Mr. Woodhouse could not be soon reconciled; but the worst was overcome,
+the idea was given; time and continual repetition must do the rest.--To
+Emma’s entreaties and assurances succeeded Mr. Knightley’s, whose fond
+praise of her gave the subject even a kind of welcome; and he was soon
+used to be talked to by each, on every fair occasion.--They had all
+the assistance which Isabella could give, by letters of the strongest
+approbation; and Mrs. Weston was ready, on the first meeting, to
+consider the subject in the most serviceable light--first, as a settled,
+and, secondly, as a good one--well aware of the nearly equal importance
+of the two recommendations to Mr. Woodhouse’s mind.--It was agreed
+upon, as what was to be; and every body by whom he was used to be
+guided assuring him that it would be for his happiness; and having some
+feelings himself which almost admitted it, he began to think that some
+time or other--in another year or two, perhaps--it might not be so very
+bad if the marriage did take place.
+
+Mrs. Weston was acting no part, feigning no feelings in all that she
+said to him in favour of the event.--She had been extremely surprized,
+never more so, than when Emma first opened the affair to her; but she
+saw in it only increase of happiness to all, and had no scruple in
+urging him to the utmost.--She had such a regard for Mr. Knightley, as
+to think he deserved even her dearest Emma; and it was in every respect
+so proper, suitable, and unexceptionable a connexion, and in one
+respect, one point of the highest importance, so peculiarly eligible,
+so singularly fortunate, that now it seemed as if Emma could not safely
+have attached herself to any other creature, and that she had herself
+been the stupidest of beings in not having thought of it, and wished it
+long ago.--How very few of those men in a rank of life to address Emma
+would have renounced their own home for Hartfield! And who but Mr.
+Knightley could know and bear with Mr. Woodhouse, so as to make such
+an arrangement desirable!--The difficulty of disposing of poor Mr.
+Woodhouse had been always felt in her husband’s plans and her own, for
+a marriage between Frank and Emma. How to settle the claims of Enscombe
+and Hartfield had been a continual impediment--less acknowledged by Mr.
+Weston than by herself--but even he had never been able to finish
+the subject better than by saying--“Those matters will take care of
+themselves; the young people will find a way.” But here there was
+nothing to be shifted off in a wild speculation on the future. It was
+all right, all open, all equal. No sacrifice on any side worth the name.
+It was a union of the highest promise of felicity in itself, and without
+one real, rational difficulty to oppose or delay it.
+
+Mrs. Weston, with her baby on her knee, indulging in such reflections
+as these, was one of the happiest women in the world. If any thing could
+increase her delight, it was perceiving that the baby would soon have
+outgrown its first set of caps.
+
+The news was universally a surprize wherever it spread; and Mr. Weston
+had his five minutes share of it; but five minutes were enough to
+familiarise the idea to his quickness of mind.--He saw the advantages
+of the match, and rejoiced in them with all the constancy of his wife;
+but the wonder of it was very soon nothing; and by the end of an hour he
+was not far from believing that he had always foreseen it.
+
+“It is to be a secret, I conclude,” said he. “These matters are always a
+secret, till it is found out that every body knows them. Only let me be
+told when I may speak out.--I wonder whether Jane has any suspicion.”
+
+He went to Highbury the next morning, and satisfied himself on that
+point. He told her the news. Was not she like a daughter, his eldest
+daughter?--he must tell her; and Miss Bates being present, it passed,
+of course, to Mrs. Cole, Mrs. Perry, and Mrs. Elton, immediately
+afterwards. It was no more than the principals were prepared for; they
+had calculated from the time of its being known at Randalls, how soon it
+would be over Highbury; and were thinking of themselves, as the evening
+wonder in many a family circle, with great sagacity.
+
+In general, it was a very well approved match. Some might think him, and
+others might think her, the most in luck. One set might recommend their
+all removing to Donwell, and leaving Hartfield for the John Knightleys;
+and another might predict disagreements among their servants; but yet,
+upon the whole, there was no serious objection raised, except in one
+habitation, the Vicarage.--There, the surprize was not softened by any
+satisfaction. Mr. Elton cared little about it, compared with his wife;
+he only hoped “the young lady’s pride would now be contented;” and
+supposed “she had always meant to catch Knightley if she could;” and,
+on the point of living at Hartfield, could daringly exclaim, “Rather
+he than I!”--But Mrs. Elton was very much discomposed indeed.--“Poor
+Knightley! poor fellow!--sad business for him.”--She was extremely
+concerned; for, though very eccentric, he had a thousand good
+qualities.--How could he be so taken in?--Did not think him at all in
+love--not in the least.--Poor Knightley!--There would be an end of all
+pleasant intercourse with him.--How happy he had been to come and dine
+with them whenever they asked him! But that would be all over now.--Poor
+fellow!--No more exploring parties to Donwell made for _her_. Oh!
+no; there would be a Mrs. Knightley to throw cold water on every
+thing.--Extremely disagreeable! But she was not at all sorry that
+she had abused the housekeeper the other day.--Shocking plan, living
+together. It would never do. She knew a family near Maple Grove who
+had tried it, and been obliged to separate before the end of the first
+quarter.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+Time passed on. A few more to-morrows, and the party from London would
+be arriving. It was an alarming change; and Emma was thinking of it one
+morning, as what must bring a great deal to agitate and grieve her, when
+Mr. Knightley came in, and distressing thoughts were put by. After the
+first chat of pleasure he was silent; and then, in a graver tone, began
+with,
+
+“I have something to tell you, Emma; some news.”
+
+“Good or bad?” said she, quickly, looking up in his face.
+
+“I do not know which it ought to be called.”
+
+“Oh! good I am sure.--I see it in your countenance. You are trying not
+to smile.”
+
+“I am afraid,” said he, composing his features, “I am very much afraid,
+my dear Emma, that you will not smile when you hear it.”
+
+“Indeed! but why so?--I can hardly imagine that any thing which pleases
+or amuses you, should not please and amuse me too.”
+
+“There is one subject,” he replied, “I hope but one, on which we do not
+think alike.” He paused a moment, again smiling, with his eyes fixed on
+her face. “Does nothing occur to you?--Do not you recollect?--Harriet
+Smith.”
+
+Her cheeks flushed at the name, and she felt afraid of something, though
+she knew not what.
+
+“Have you heard from her yourself this morning?” cried he. “You have, I
+believe, and know the whole.”
+
+“No, I have not; I know nothing; pray tell me.”
+
+“You are prepared for the worst, I see--and very bad it is. Harriet
+Smith marries Robert Martin.”
+
+Emma gave a start, which did not seem like being prepared--and her eyes,
+in eager gaze, said, “No, this is impossible!” but her lips were closed.
+
+“It is so, indeed,” continued Mr. Knightley; “I have it from Robert
+Martin himself. He left me not half an hour ago.”
+
+She was still looking at him with the most speaking amazement.
+
+“You like it, my Emma, as little as I feared.--I wish our opinions were
+the same. But in time they will. Time, you may be sure, will make one
+or the other of us think differently; and, in the meanwhile, we need not
+talk much on the subject.”
+
+“You mistake me, you quite mistake me,” she replied, exerting herself.
+“It is not that such a circumstance would now make me unhappy, but I
+cannot believe it. It seems an impossibility!--You cannot mean to say,
+that Harriet Smith has accepted Robert Martin. You cannot mean that he
+has even proposed to her again--yet. You only mean, that he intends it.”
+
+“I mean that he has done it,” answered Mr. Knightley, with smiling but
+determined decision, “and been accepted.”
+
+“Good God!” she cried.--“Well!”--Then having recourse to her workbasket,
+in excuse for leaning down her face, and concealing all the exquisite
+feelings of delight and entertainment which she knew she must be
+expressing, she added, “Well, now tell me every thing; make this
+intelligible to me. How, where, when?--Let me know it all. I never was
+more surprized--but it does not make me unhappy, I assure you.--How--how
+has it been possible?”
+
+“It is a very simple story. He went to town on business three days ago,
+and I got him to take charge of some papers which I was wanting to send
+to John.--He delivered these papers to John, at his chambers, and was
+asked by him to join their party the same evening to Astley’s. They were
+going to take the two eldest boys to Astley’s. The party was to be our
+brother and sister, Henry, John--and Miss Smith. My friend Robert could
+not resist. They called for him in their way; were all extremely amused;
+and my brother asked him to dine with them the next day--which he
+did--and in the course of that visit (as I understand) he found an
+opportunity of speaking to Harriet; and certainly did not speak
+in vain.--She made him, by her acceptance, as happy even as he is
+deserving. He came down by yesterday’s coach, and was with me this
+morning immediately after breakfast, to report his proceedings, first
+on my affairs, and then on his own. This is all that I can relate of
+the how, where, and when. Your friend Harriet will make a much
+longer history when you see her.--She will give you all the minute
+particulars, which only woman’s language can make interesting.--In our
+communications we deal only in the great.--However, I must say, that
+Robert Martin’s heart seemed for _him_, and to _me_, very overflowing;
+and that he did mention, without its being much to the purpose, that
+on quitting their box at Astley’s, my brother took charge of Mrs. John
+Knightley and little John, and he followed with Miss Smith and Henry;
+and that at one time they were in such a crowd, as to make Miss Smith
+rather uneasy.”
+
+He stopped.--Emma dared not attempt any immediate reply. To speak, she
+was sure would be to betray a most unreasonable degree of happiness.
+She must wait a moment, or he would think her mad. Her silence disturbed
+him; and after observing her a little while, he added,
+
+“Emma, my love, you said that this circumstance would not now make you
+unhappy; but I am afraid it gives you more pain than you expected. His
+situation is an evil--but you must consider it as what satisfies your
+friend; and I will answer for your thinking better and better of him
+as you know him more. His good sense and good principles would delight
+you.--As far as the man is concerned, you could not wish your friend
+in better hands. His rank in society I would alter if I could, which is
+saying a great deal I assure you, Emma.--You laugh at me about William
+Larkins; but I could quite as ill spare Robert Martin.”
+
+He wanted her to look up and smile; and having now brought herself not
+to smile too broadly--she did--cheerfully answering,
+
+“You need not be at any pains to reconcile me to the match. I think
+Harriet is doing extremely well. _Her_ connexions may be worse than
+_his_. In respectability of character, there can be no doubt that they
+are. I have been silent from surprize merely, excessive surprize. You
+cannot imagine how suddenly it has come on me! how peculiarly unprepared
+I was!--for I had reason to believe her very lately more determined
+against him, much more, than she was before.”
+
+“You ought to know your friend best,” replied Mr. Knightley; “but I
+should say she was a good-tempered, soft-hearted girl, not likely to be
+very, very determined against any young man who told her he loved her.”
+
+Emma could not help laughing as she answered, “Upon my word, I believe
+you know her quite as well as I do.--But, Mr. Knightley, are you
+perfectly sure that she has absolutely and downright _accepted_ him.
+I could suppose she might in time--but can she already?--Did not you
+misunderstand him?--You were both talking of other things; of business,
+shows of cattle, or new drills--and might not you, in the confusion of
+so many subjects, mistake him?--It was not Harriet’s hand that he was
+certain of--it was the dimensions of some famous ox.”
+
+The contrast between the countenance and air of Mr. Knightley and Robert
+Martin was, at this moment, so strong to Emma’s feelings, and so strong
+was the recollection of all that had so recently passed on Harriet’s
+side, so fresh the sound of those words, spoken with such emphasis,
+“No, I hope I know better than to think of Robert Martin,” that she was
+really expecting the intelligence to prove, in some measure, premature.
+It could not be otherwise.
+
+“Do you dare say this?” cried Mr. Knightley. “Do you dare to suppose me
+so great a blockhead, as not to know what a man is talking of?--What do
+you deserve?”
+
+“Oh! I always deserve the best treatment, because I never put up with
+any other; and, therefore, you must give me a plain, direct answer. Are
+you quite sure that you understand the terms on which Mr. Martin and
+Harriet now are?”
+
+“I am quite sure,” he replied, speaking very distinctly, “that he
+told me she had accepted him; and that there was no obscurity, nothing
+doubtful, in the words he used; and I think I can give you a proof that
+it must be so. He asked my opinion as to what he was now to do. He knew
+of no one but Mrs. Goddard to whom he could apply for information of
+her relations or friends. Could I mention any thing more fit to be done,
+than to go to Mrs. Goddard? I assured him that I could not. Then, he
+said, he would endeavour to see her in the course of this day.”
+
+“I am perfectly satisfied,” replied Emma, with the brightest smiles,
+“and most sincerely wish them happy.”
+
+“You are materially changed since we talked on this subject before.”
+
+“I hope so--for at that time I was a fool.”
+
+“And I am changed also; for I am now very willing to grant you all
+Harriet’s good qualities. I have taken some pains for your sake, and for
+Robert Martin’s sake, (whom I have always had reason to believe as much
+in love with her as ever,) to get acquainted with her. I have often
+talked to her a good deal. You must have seen that I did. Sometimes,
+indeed, I have thought you were half suspecting me of pleading poor
+Martin’s cause, which was never the case; but, from all my observations,
+I am convinced of her being an artless, amiable girl, with very good
+notions, very seriously good principles, and placing her happiness in
+the affections and utility of domestic life.--Much of this, I have no
+doubt, she may thank you for.”
+
+“Me!” cried Emma, shaking her head.--“Ah! poor Harriet!”
+
+She checked herself, however, and submitted quietly to a little more
+praise than she deserved.
+
+Their conversation was soon afterwards closed by the entrance of her
+father. She was not sorry. She wanted to be alone. Her mind was in a
+state of flutter and wonder, which made it impossible for her to be
+collected. She was in dancing, singing, exclaiming spirits; and till she
+had moved about, and talked to herself, and laughed and reflected, she
+could be fit for nothing rational.
+
+Her father’s business was to announce James’s being gone out to put the
+horses to, preparatory to their now daily drive to Randalls; and she
+had, therefore, an immediate excuse for disappearing.
+
+The joy, the gratitude, the exquisite delight of her sensations may be
+imagined. The sole grievance and alloy thus removed in the prospect of
+Harriet’s welfare, she was really in danger of becoming too happy for
+security.--What had she to wish for? Nothing, but to grow more worthy of
+him, whose intentions and judgment had been ever so superior to her own.
+Nothing, but that the lessons of her past folly might teach her humility
+and circumspection in future.
+
+Serious she was, very serious in her thankfulness, and in her
+resolutions; and yet there was no preventing a laugh, sometimes in the
+very midst of them. She must laugh at such a close! Such an end of the
+doleful disappointment of five weeks back! Such a heart--such a Harriet!
+
+Now there would be pleasure in her returning--Every thing would be a
+pleasure. It would be a great pleasure to know Robert Martin.
+
+High in the rank of her most serious and heartfelt felicities, was the
+reflection that all necessity of concealment from Mr. Knightley would
+soon be over. The disguise, equivocation, mystery, so hateful to her to
+practise, might soon be over. She could now look forward to giving him
+that full and perfect confidence which her disposition was most ready to
+welcome as a duty.
+
+In the gayest and happiest spirits she set forward with her father; not
+always listening, but always agreeing to what he said; and, whether in
+speech or silence, conniving at the comfortable persuasion of his
+being obliged to go to Randalls every day, or poor Mrs. Weston would be
+disappointed.
+
+They arrived.--Mrs. Weston was alone in the drawing-room:--but hardly
+had they been told of the baby, and Mr. Woodhouse received the thanks
+for coming, which he asked for, when a glimpse was caught through the
+blind, of two figures passing near the window.
+
+“It is Frank and Miss Fairfax,” said Mrs. Weston. “I was just going to
+tell you of our agreeable surprize in seeing him arrive this morning. He
+stays till to-morrow, and Miss Fairfax has been persuaded to spend the
+day with us.--They are coming in, I hope.”
+
+In half a minute they were in the room. Emma was extremely glad to
+see him--but there was a degree of confusion--a number of embarrassing
+recollections on each side. They met readily and smiling, but with a
+consciousness which at first allowed little to be said; and having all
+sat down again, there was for some time such a blank in the circle, that
+Emma began to doubt whether the wish now indulged, which she had long
+felt, of seeing Frank Churchill once more, and of seeing him with Jane,
+would yield its proportion of pleasure. When Mr. Weston joined the
+party, however, and when the baby was fetched, there was no longer a
+want of subject or animation--or of courage and opportunity for Frank
+Churchill to draw near her and say,
+
+“I have to thank you, Miss Woodhouse, for a very kind forgiving message
+in one of Mrs. Weston’s letters. I hope time has not made you less
+willing to pardon. I hope you do not retract what you then said.”
+
+“No, indeed,” cried Emma, most happy to begin, “not in the least. I am
+particularly glad to see and shake hands with you--and to give you joy
+in person.”
+
+He thanked her with all his heart, and continued some time to speak with
+serious feeling of his gratitude and happiness.
+
+“Is not she looking well?” said he, turning his eyes towards Jane.
+“Better than she ever used to do?--You see how my father and Mrs. Weston
+doat upon her.”
+
+But his spirits were soon rising again, and with laughing eyes, after
+mentioning the expected return of the Campbells, he named the name of
+Dixon.--Emma blushed, and forbade its being pronounced in her hearing.
+
+“I can never think of it,” she cried, “without extreme shame.”
+
+“The shame,” he answered, “is all mine, or ought to be. But is it
+possible that you had no suspicion?--I mean of late. Early, I know, you
+had none.”
+
+“I never had the smallest, I assure you.”
+
+“That appears quite wonderful. I was once very near--and I wish I
+had--it would have been better. But though I was always doing wrong
+things, they were very bad wrong things, and such as did me no
+service.--It would have been a much better transgression had I broken
+the bond of secrecy and told you every thing.”
+
+“It is not now worth a regret,” said Emma.
+
+“I have some hope,” resumed he, “of my uncle’s being persuaded to pay a
+visit at Randalls; he wants to be introduced to her. When the Campbells
+are returned, we shall meet them in London, and continue there, I trust,
+till we may carry her northward.--But now, I am at such a distance from
+her--is not it hard, Miss Woodhouse?--Till this morning, we have not
+once met since the day of reconciliation. Do not you pity me?”
+
+Emma spoke her pity so very kindly, that with a sudden accession of gay
+thought, he cried,
+
+“Ah! by the bye,” then sinking his voice, and looking demure for the
+moment--“I hope Mr. Knightley is well?” He paused.--She coloured and
+laughed.--“I know you saw my letter, and think you may remember my wish
+in your favour. Let me return your congratulations.--I assure you that
+I have heard the news with the warmest interest and satisfaction.--He is
+a man whom I cannot presume to praise.”
+
+Emma was delighted, and only wanted him to go on in the same style; but
+his mind was the next moment in his own concerns and with his own Jane,
+and his next words were,
+
+“Did you ever see such a skin?--such smoothness! such delicacy!--and
+yet without being actually fair.--One cannot call her fair. It is a
+most uncommon complexion, with her dark eye-lashes and hair--a most
+distinguishing complexion! So peculiarly the lady in it.--Just colour
+enough for beauty.”
+
+“I have always admired her complexion,” replied Emma, archly; “but
+do not I remember the time when you found fault with her for being so
+pale?--When we first began to talk of her.--Have you quite forgotten?”
+
+“Oh! no--what an impudent dog I was!--How could I dare--”
+
+But he laughed so heartily at the recollection, that Emma could not help
+saying,
+
+“I do suspect that in the midst of your perplexities at that time, you
+had very great amusement in tricking us all.--I am sure you had.--I am
+sure it was a consolation to you.”
+
+“Oh! no, no, no--how can you suspect me of such a thing? I was the most
+miserable wretch!”
+
+“Not quite so miserable as to be insensible to mirth. I am sure it was a
+source of high entertainment to you, to feel that you were taking us
+all in.--Perhaps I am the readier to suspect, because, to tell you the
+truth, I think it might have been some amusement to myself in the same
+situation. I think there is a little likeness between us.”
+
+He bowed.
+
+“If not in our dispositions,” she presently added, with a look of true
+sensibility, “there is a likeness in our destiny; the destiny which bids
+fair to connect us with two characters so much superior to our own.”
+
+“True, true,” he answered, warmly. “No, not true on your side. You can
+have no superior, but most true on mine.--She is a complete angel. Look
+at her. Is not she an angel in every gesture? Observe the turn of her
+throat. Observe her eyes, as she is looking up at my father.--You will
+be glad to hear (inclining his head, and whispering seriously) that my
+uncle means to give her all my aunt’s jewels. They are to be new set.
+I am resolved to have some in an ornament for the head. Will not it be
+beautiful in her dark hair?”
+
+“Very beautiful, indeed,” replied Emma; and she spoke so kindly, that he
+gratefully burst out,
+
+“How delighted I am to see you again! and to see you in such excellent
+looks!--I would not have missed this meeting for the world. I should
+certainly have called at Hartfield, had you failed to come.”
+
+The others had been talking of the child, Mrs. Weston giving an account
+of a little alarm she had been under, the evening before, from the
+infant’s appearing not quite well. She believed she had been foolish,
+but it had alarmed her, and she had been within half a minute of sending
+for Mr. Perry. Perhaps she ought to be ashamed, but Mr. Weston had been
+almost as uneasy as herself.--In ten minutes, however, the child had
+been perfectly well again. This was her history; and particularly
+interesting it was to Mr. Woodhouse, who commended her very much for
+thinking of sending for Perry, and only regretted that she had not done
+it. “She should always send for Perry, if the child appeared in the
+slightest degree disordered, were it only for a moment. She could not be
+too soon alarmed, nor send for Perry too often. It was a pity, perhaps,
+that he had not come last night; for, though the child seemed well now,
+very well considering, it would probably have been better if Perry had
+seen it.”
+
+Frank Churchill caught the name.
+
+“Perry!” said he to Emma, and trying, as he spoke, to catch Miss
+Fairfax’s eye. “My friend Mr. Perry! What are they saying about Mr.
+Perry?--Has he been here this morning?--And how does he travel now?--Has
+he set up his carriage?”
+
+Emma soon recollected, and understood him; and while she joined in the
+laugh, it was evident from Jane’s countenance that she too was really
+hearing him, though trying to seem deaf.
+
+“Such an extraordinary dream of mine!” he cried. “I can never think of
+it without laughing.--She hears us, she hears us, Miss Woodhouse. I see
+it in her cheek, her smile, her vain attempt to frown. Look at her. Do
+not you see that, at this instant, the very passage of her own letter,
+which sent me the report, is passing under her eye--that the whole
+blunder is spread before her--that she can attend to nothing else,
+though pretending to listen to the others?”
+
+Jane was forced to smile completely, for a moment; and the smile partly
+remained as she turned towards him, and said in a conscious, low, yet
+steady voice,
+
+“How you can bear such recollections, is astonishing to me!--They
+_will_ sometimes obtrude--but how you can court them!”
+
+He had a great deal to say in return, and very entertainingly; but
+Emma’s feelings were chiefly with Jane, in the argument; and on leaving
+Randalls, and falling naturally into a comparison of the two men, she
+felt, that pleased as she had been to see Frank Churchill, and really
+regarding him as she did with friendship, she had never been more
+sensible of Mr. Knightley’s high superiority of character. The happiness
+of this most happy day, received its completion, in the animated
+contemplation of his worth which this comparison produced.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+If Emma had still, at intervals, an anxious feeling for Harriet, a
+momentary doubt of its being possible for her to be really cured of her
+attachment to Mr. Knightley, and really able to accept another man from
+unbiased inclination, it was not long that she had to suffer from the
+recurrence of any such uncertainty. A very few days brought the party
+from London, and she had no sooner an opportunity of being one hour
+alone with Harriet, than she became perfectly satisfied--unaccountable
+as it was!--that Robert Martin had thoroughly supplanted Mr. Knightley,
+and was now forming all her views of happiness.
+
+Harriet was a little distressed--did look a little foolish at first:
+but having once owned that she had been presumptuous and silly, and
+self-deceived, before, her pain and confusion seemed to die away with
+the words, and leave her without a care for the past, and with the
+fullest exultation in the present and future; for, as to her friend’s
+approbation, Emma had instantly removed every fear of that nature, by
+meeting her with the most unqualified congratulations.--Harriet was
+most happy to give every particular of the evening at Astley’s, and the
+dinner the next day; she could dwell on it all with the utmost delight.
+But what did such particulars explain?--The fact was, as Emma could now
+acknowledge, that Harriet had always liked Robert Martin; and that his
+continuing to love her had been irresistible.--Beyond this, it must ever
+be unintelligible to Emma.
+
+The event, however, was most joyful; and every day was giving her fresh
+reason for thinking so.--Harriet’s parentage became known. She proved
+to be the daughter of a tradesman, rich enough to afford her the
+comfortable maintenance which had ever been hers, and decent enough to
+have always wished for concealment.--Such was the blood of gentility
+which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!--It was likely to
+be as untainted, perhaps, as the blood of many a gentleman: but what
+a connexion had she been preparing for Mr. Knightley--or for the
+Churchills--or even for Mr. Elton!--The stain of illegitimacy,
+unbleached by nobility or wealth, would have been a stain indeed.
+
+No objection was raised on the father’s side; the young man was treated
+liberally; it was all as it should be: and as Emma became acquainted
+with Robert Martin, who was now introduced at Hartfield, she fully
+acknowledged in him all the appearance of sense and worth which could
+bid fairest for her little friend. She had no doubt of Harriet’s
+happiness with any good-tempered man; but with him, and in the home he
+offered, there would be the hope of more, of security, stability, and
+improvement. She would be placed in the midst of those who loved her,
+and who had better sense than herself; retired enough for safety,
+and occupied enough for cheerfulness. She would be never led into
+temptation, nor left for it to find her out. She would be respectable
+and happy; and Emma admitted her to be the luckiest creature in the
+world, to have created so steady and persevering an affection in such a
+man;--or, if not quite the luckiest, to yield only to herself.
+
+Harriet, necessarily drawn away by her engagements with the Martins,
+was less and less at Hartfield; which was not to be regretted.--The
+intimacy between her and Emma must sink; their friendship must change
+into a calmer sort of goodwill; and, fortunately, what ought to be,
+and must be, seemed already beginning, and in the most gradual, natural
+manner.
+
+Before the end of September, Emma attended Harriet to church, and saw
+her hand bestowed on Robert Martin with so complete a satisfaction, as
+no remembrances, even connected with Mr. Elton as he stood before them,
+could impair.--Perhaps, indeed, at that time she scarcely saw Mr. Elton,
+but as the clergyman whose blessing at the altar might next fall on
+herself.--Robert Martin and Harriet Smith, the latest couple engaged of
+the three, were the first to be married.
+
+Jane Fairfax had already quitted Highbury, and was restored to the
+comforts of her beloved home with the Campbells.--The Mr. Churchills
+were also in town; and they were only waiting for November.
+
+The intermediate month was the one fixed on, as far as they dared, by
+Emma and Mr. Knightley.--They had determined that their marriage ought
+to be concluded while John and Isabella were still at Hartfield, to
+allow them the fortnight’s absence in a tour to the seaside, which was
+the plan.--John and Isabella, and every other friend, were agreed in
+approving it. But Mr. Woodhouse--how was Mr. Woodhouse to be induced
+to consent?--he, who had never yet alluded to their marriage but as a
+distant event.
+
+When first sounded on the subject, he was so miserable, that they were
+almost hopeless.--A second allusion, indeed, gave less pain.--He
+began to think it was to be, and that he could not prevent it--a very
+promising step of the mind on its way to resignation. Still, however, he
+was not happy. Nay, he appeared so much otherwise, that his daughter’s
+courage failed. She could not bear to see him suffering, to know
+him fancying himself neglected; and though her understanding almost
+acquiesced in the assurance of both the Mr. Knightleys, that when
+once the event were over, his distress would be soon over too, she
+hesitated--she could not proceed.
+
+In this state of suspense they were befriended, not by any sudden
+illumination of Mr. Woodhouse’s mind, or any wonderful change of his
+nervous system, but by the operation of the same system in another
+way.--Mrs. Weston’s poultry-house was robbed one night of all her
+turkeys--evidently by the ingenuity of man. Other poultry-yards in
+the neighbourhood also suffered.--Pilfering was _housebreaking_ to Mr.
+Woodhouse’s fears.--He was very uneasy; and but for the sense of his
+son-in-law’s protection, would have been under wretched alarm every
+night of his life. The strength, resolution, and presence of mind of the
+Mr. Knightleys, commanded his fullest dependence. While either of them
+protected him and his, Hartfield was safe.--But Mr. John Knightley must
+be in London again by the end of the first week in November.
+
+The result of this distress was, that, with a much more voluntary,
+cheerful consent than his daughter had ever presumed to hope for at the
+moment, she was able to fix her wedding-day--and Mr. Elton was called
+on, within a month from the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Martin, to
+join the hands of Mr. Knightley and Miss Woodhouse.
+
+The wedding was very much like other weddings, where the parties have
+no taste for finery or parade; and Mrs. Elton, from the particulars
+detailed by her husband, thought it all extremely shabby, and very
+inferior to her own.--“Very little white satin, very few lace veils; a
+most pitiful business!--Selina would stare when she heard of it.”--But,
+in spite of these deficiencies, the wishes, the hopes, the confidence,
+the predictions of the small band of true friends who witnessed the
+ceremony, were fully answered in the perfect happiness of the union.
+
+
+
+FINIS
-\r
SENSE AND SENSIBILITY\r
\r
by Jane Austen\r
--- /dev/null
+The Mill on the Floss\r
+\r
+George Eliot\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Table of Contents\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book I: Boy and Girl\r
+\r
+1. Outside Dorlcote Mill\r
+2. Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom\r
+3. Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom\r
+4. Tom Is Expected\r
+5. Tom Comes Home\r
+6. The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming\r
+7. Enter the Aunts and Uncles\r
+8. Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side\r
+9. To Garum Firs\r
+10. Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected\r
+11. Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow\r
+12. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home\r
+13. Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life\r
+\r
+\r
+Book II: School-Time\r
+\r
+1. Tom's "First Half"\r
+2. The Christmas Holidays\r
+3. The New Schoolfellow\r
+4. "The Young Idea"\r
+5. Maggie's Second Visit\r
+6. A Love-Scene\r
+7. The Golden Gates Are Passed\r
+\r
+\r
+Book III: The Downfall\r
+\r
+1. What Had Happened at Home\r
+2. Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods\r
+3. The Family Council\r
+4. A Vanishing Gleam\r
+5. Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster\r
+6. Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a\r
+ Pocket-Knife\r
+7. How a Hen Takes to Stratagem\r
+8. Daylight on the Wreck\r
+9. An Item Added to the Family Register\r
+\r
+\r
+Book IV: The Valley of Humiliation\r
+\r
+1. A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet\r
+2. The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns\r
+3. A Voice from the Past\r
+\r
+\r
+Book V: Wheat and Tares\r
+\r
+1. In the Red Deeps\r
+2. Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb\r
+3. The Wavering Balance\r
+4. Another Love-Scene\r
+5. The Cloven Tree\r
+6. The Hard-Won Triumph\r
+7. A Day of Reckoning\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VI: The Great Temptation\r
+\r
+1. A Duet in Paradise\r
+2. First Impressions\r
+3. Confidential Moments\r
+4. Brother and Sister\r
+5. Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster\r
+6. Illustrating the Laws of Attraction\r
+7. Philip Re-enters\r
+8. Wakem in a New Light\r
+9. Charity in Full-Dress\r
+10. The Spell Seems Broken\r
+11. In the Lane\r
+12. A Family Party\r
+13. Borne Along by the Tide\r
+14. Waking\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VII: The Final Rescue\r
+\r
+1. The Return to the Mill\r
+2. St. Ogg's Passes Judgment\r
+3. Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us\r
+4. Maggie and Lucy\r
+5. The Last Conflict\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book I\r
+\r
+_Boy and Girl_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+Outside Dorlcote Mill\r
+\r
+\r
+A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green\r
+banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its\r
+passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black\r
+ships--laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of\r
+oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal--are borne along to\r
+the town of St. Ogg's, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the\r
+broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the\r
+river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the\r
+transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch\r
+the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the\r
+seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of\r
+the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last\r
+year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the\r
+hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the\r
+distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their\r
+red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by\r
+the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current\r
+into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing\r
+wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along\r
+the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one\r
+who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I\r
+remember the stone bridge.\r
+\r
+And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the\r
+bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is\r
+far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing\r
+February it is pleasant to look at,--perhaps the chill, damp season\r
+adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as\r
+the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The\r
+stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation,\r
+and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.\r
+As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate\r
+bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and\r
+branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love\r
+with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads\r
+far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward\r
+appearance they make in the drier world above.\r
+\r
+The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy\r
+deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They\r
+are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world\r
+beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming\r
+home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his\r
+dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will\r
+not touch it till he has fed his horses,--the strong, submissive,\r
+meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from\r
+between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that\r
+awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their\r
+shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy\r
+because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that\r
+seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks,\r
+bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their\r
+struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their\r
+hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed\r
+from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond.\r
+Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace,\r
+and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the\r
+trees.\r
+\r
+Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting\r
+wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is\r
+watching it too; she has been standing on just the same spot at the\r
+edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer\r
+white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in\r
+ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous because\r
+his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is\r
+time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very\r
+bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening\r
+gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms\r
+on the cold stone of this bridge....\r
+\r
+Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the\r
+arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in\r
+front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years\r
+ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs.\r
+Tulliver were talking about, as they sat by the bright fire in the\r
+left-hand parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom\r
+\r
+\r
+"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver,--"what I want is to give\r
+Tom a good eddication; an eddication as'll be a bread to him. That was\r
+what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the academy\r
+at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at\r
+Midsummer. The two years at th' academy 'ud ha' done well enough, if\r
+I'd meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for he's had a fine\r
+sight more schoolin' nor _I_ ever got. All the learnin' _my_ father\r
+ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at th'\r
+other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might\r
+be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine and write with a\r
+flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these lawsuits, and arbitrations,\r
+and things. I wouldn't make a downright lawyer o' the lad,--I should\r
+be sorry for him to be a raskill,--but a sort o' engineer, or a\r
+surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o' them\r
+smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big\r
+watch-chain and a high stool. They're pretty nigh all one, and they're\r
+not far off being even wi' the law, _I_ believe; for Riley looks\r
+Lawyer Wakem i' the face as hard as one cat looks another. _He's_ none\r
+frightened at him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a\r
+fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped\r
+caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time,\r
+when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. Ogg's, and\r
+considered sweet things).\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: _I've_ no objections. But hadn't I\r
+better kill a couple o' fowl, and have th' aunts and uncles to dinner\r
+next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have\r
+got to say about it? There's a couple o' fowl _wants_ killing!"\r
+\r
+"You may kill every fowl i' the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall\r
+ask neither aunt nor uncle what I'm to do wi' my own lad," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, defiantly.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary rhetoric,\r
+"how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But it's your way to speak\r
+disrespectful o' my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame\r
+upo' me, though I'm sure I'm as innocent as the babe unborn. For\r
+nobody's ever heard me say as it wasn't lucky for my children to have\r
+aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tom's to go to a\r
+new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him;\r
+else he might as well have calico as linen, for they'd be one as\r
+yallow as th' other before they'd been washed half-a-dozen times. And\r
+then, when the box is goin' back'ard and forrard, I could send the lad\r
+a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit,\r
+bless him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can\r
+eat as much victuals as most, thank God!"\r
+\r
+"Well, well, we won't send him out o' reach o' the carrier's cart, if\r
+other things fit in," said Mr. Tulliver. "But you mustn't put a spoke\r
+i' the wheel about the washin,' if we can't get a school near enough.\r
+That's the fault I have to find wi' you, Bessy; if you see a stick i'\r
+the road, you're allays thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me\r
+not to hire a good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face."\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, "when did I iver\r
+make objections to a man because he'd got a mole on his face? I'm sure\r
+I'm rether fond o' the moles; for my brother, as is dead an' gone, had\r
+a mole on his brow. But I can't remember your iver offering to hire a\r
+wagoner with a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadn't a mole\r
+on his face no more nor you have, an' I was all for having you hire\r
+_him_; an' so you did hire him, an' if he hadn't died o' th'\r
+inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, he'd very\r
+like ha' been drivin' the wagon now. He might have a mole somewhere\r
+out o' sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"No, no, Bessy; I didn't mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for\r
+summat else; but niver mind--it's puzzling work, talking is. What I'm\r
+thinking on, is how to find the right sort o' school to send Tom to,\r
+for I might be ta'en in again, as I've been wi' th' academy. I'll have\r
+nothing to do wi' a 'cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it\r
+sha'n't be a 'cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their\r
+time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and getting\r
+up the potatoes. It's an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school\r
+to pick."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into\r
+his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there.\r
+Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, "I know\r
+what I'll do: I'll talk it over wi' Riley; he's coming to-morrow, t'\r
+arbitrate about the dam."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've put the sheets out for the best bed, and\r
+Kezia's got 'em hanging at the fire. They aren't the best sheets, but\r
+they're good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will; for as\r
+for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying 'em, only they'll\r
+do to lay us out in. An' if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver,\r
+they're mangled beautiful, an' all ready, an' smell o' lavender as it\r
+'ud be a pleasure to lay 'em out; an' they lie at the left-hand corner\r
+o' the big oak linen-chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody\r
+to look 'em out but myself."\r
+\r
+As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of\r
+keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and\r
+finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the\r
+clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal\r
+relation, he might have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her\r
+imagination in anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to\r
+justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not\r
+so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power;\r
+moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening very closely, and\r
+since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a\r
+tactile examination of his woollen stockings.\r
+\r
+"I think I've hit it, Bessy," was his first remark after a short\r
+silence. "Riley's as likely a man as any to know o' some school; he's\r
+had schooling himself, an' goes about to all sorts o' places,\r
+arbitratin' and vallyin' and that. And we shall have time to talk it\r
+over to-morrow night when the business is done. I want Tom to be such\r
+a sort o' man as Riley, you know,--as can talk pretty nigh as well as\r
+if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o' words as\r
+don't mean much, so as you can't lay hold of 'em i' law; and a good\r
+solid knowledge o' business too."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Tulliver, "so far as talking proper, and knowing\r
+everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair\r
+up, I shouldn't mind the lad being brought up to that. But them\r
+fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false\r
+shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till it's all a mess, and then hide it\r
+with a bib; I know Riley does. And then, if Tom's to go and live at\r
+Mudport, like Riley, he'll have a house with a kitchen hardly big\r
+enough to turn in, an' niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, an'\r
+sleep up three pair o' stairs,--or four, for what I know,--and be\r
+burnt to death before he can get down."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "I've no thoughts of his going to\r
+Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close by us,\r
+an' live at home. But," continued Mr. Tulliver after a pause, "what\r
+I'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasn't got the right sort o' brains for\r
+a smart fellow. I doubt he's a bit slowish. He takes after your\r
+family, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that he does," said Mrs. Tulliver, accepting the last\r
+proposition entirely on its own merits; "he's wonderful for liking a\r
+deal o' salt in his broth. That was my brother's way, and my father's\r
+before him."\r
+\r
+"It seems a bit a pity, though," said Mr. Tulliver, "as the lad should\r
+take after the mother's side instead o' the little wench. That's the\r
+worst on't wi' crossing o' breeds: you can never justly calkilate\r
+what'll come on't. The little un takes after my side, now: she's twice\r
+as 'cute as Tom. Too 'cute for a woman, I'm afraid," continued Mr.\r
+Tulliver, turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the\r
+other. "It's no mischief much while she's a little un; but an\r
+over-'cute woman's no better nor a long-tailed sheep,--she'll fetch\r
+none the bigger price for that."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it _is_ a mischief while she's a little un, Mr. Tulliver, for it\r
+runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours\r
+together passes my cunning. An' now you put me i' mind," continued\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, "I don't know where she\r
+is now, an' it's pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so,--wanderin' up\r
+an' down by the water, like a wild thing: She'll tumble in some day."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her\r
+head,--a process which she repeated more than once before she returned\r
+to her chair.\r
+\r
+"You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she sat down,\r
+"but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some things; for if I send\r
+her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what she's gone for, an'\r
+perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i' the sunshine an' plait her hair\r
+an' sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur', all the while I'm waiting\r
+for her downstairs. That niver run i' my family, thank God! no more\r
+nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I don't like to\r
+fly i' the face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but\r
+one gell, an' her so comical."\r
+\r
+"Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver; "she's a straight, black-eyed\r
+wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't know i' what she's behind\r
+other folks's children; and she can read almost as well as the\r
+parson."\r
+\r
+"But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she's so franzy\r
+about having it put i' paper, and I've such work as never was to make\r
+her stand and have it pinched with th' irons."\r
+\r
+"Cut it off--cut it off short," said the father, rashly.\r
+\r
+"How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? She's too big a gell--gone nine,\r
+and tall of her age--to have her hair cut short; an' there's her\r
+cousin Lucy's got a row o' curls round her head, an' not a hair out o'\r
+place. It seems hard as my sister Deane should have that pretty child;\r
+I'm sure Lucy takes more after me nor my own child does. Maggie,\r
+Maggie," continued the mother, in a tone of half-coaxing fretfulness,\r
+as this small mistake of nature entered the room, "where's the use o'\r
+my telling you to keep away from the water? You'll tumble in and be\r
+drownded some day, an' then you'll be sorry you didn't do as mother\r
+told you."\r
+\r
+Maggie's hair, as she threw off her bonnet, painfully confirmed her\r
+mother's accusation. Mrs. Tulliver, desiring her daughter to have a\r
+curled crop, "like other folks's children," had had it cut too short\r
+in front to be pushed behind the ears; and as it was usually straight\r
+an hour after it had been taken out of paper, Maggie was incessantly\r
+tossing her head to keep the dark, heavy locks out of her gleaming\r
+black eyes,--an action which gave her very much the air of a small\r
+Shetland pony.\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, oh, dear, Maggie, what are you thinkin' of, to throw your\r
+bonnet down there? Take it upstairs, there's a good gell, an' let your\r
+hair be brushed, an' put your other pinafore on, an' change your\r
+shoes, do, for shame; an' come an' go on with your patchwork, like a\r
+little lady."\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother," said Maggie, in a vehemently cross tone, "I don't _want_\r
+to do my patchwork."\r
+\r
+"What! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane for your aunt\r
+Glegg?"\r
+\r
+"It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane,--"tearing\r
+things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I don't want to do\r
+anything for my aunt Glegg. I don't like her."\r
+\r
+Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr. Tulliver\r
+laughs audibly.\r
+\r
+"I wonder at you, as you'll laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver," said the\r
+mother, with feeble fretfulness in her tone. "You encourage her i'\r
+naughtiness. An' her aunts will have it as it's me spoils her."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was what is called a good-tempered person,--never cried,\r
+when she was a baby, on any slighter ground than hunger and pins; and\r
+from the cradle upward had been healthy, fair, plump, and dull-witted;\r
+in short, the flower of her family for beauty and amiability. But milk\r
+and mildness are not the best things for keeping, and when they turn\r
+only a little sour, they may disagree with young stomachs seriously. I\r
+have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Raphael, with the\r
+blond faces and somewhat stupid expression, kept their placidity\r
+undisturbed when their strong-limbed, strong-willed boys got a little\r
+too old to do without clothing. I think they must have been given to\r
+feeble remonstrance, getting more and more peevish as it became more\r
+and more ineffectual.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley Gives His Advice Concerning a School for Tom\r
+\r
+\r
+The gentleman in the ample white cravat and shirt-frill, taking his\r
+brandy-and-water so pleasantly with his good friend Tulliver, is Mr.\r
+Riley, a gentleman with a waxen complexion and fat hands, rather\r
+highly educated for an auctioneer and appraiser, but large-hearted\r
+enough to show a great deal of _bonhomie_ toward simple country\r
+acquaintances of hospitable habits. Mr. Riley spoke of such\r
+acquaintances kindly as "people of the old school."\r
+\r
+The conversation had come to a pause. Mr. Tulliver, not without a\r
+particular reason, had abstained from a seventh recital of the cool\r
+retort by which Riley had shown himself too many for Dix, and how\r
+Wakem had had his comb cut for once in his life, now the business of\r
+the dam had been settled by arbitration, and how there never would\r
+have been any dispute at all about the height of water if everybody\r
+was what they should be, and Old Harry hadn't made the lawyers.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was, on the whole, a man of safe traditional opinions;\r
+but on one or two points he had trusted to his unassisted intellect,\r
+and had arrived at several questionable conclusions; amongst the rest,\r
+that rats, weevils, and lawyers were created by Old Harry. Unhappily\r
+he had no one to tell him that this was rampant Manichæism, else he\r
+might have seen his error. But to-day it was clear that the good\r
+principle was triumphant: this affair of the water-power had been a\r
+tangled business somehow, for all it seemed--look at it one way--as\r
+plain as water's water; but, big a puzzle as it was, it hadn't got the\r
+better of Riley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-water a little\r
+stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be supposed to have a\r
+few hundreds lying idle at his banker's, was rather incautiously open\r
+in expressing his high estimate of his friend's business talents.\r
+\r
+But the dam was a subject of conversation that would keep; it could\r
+always be taken up again at the same point, and exactly in the same\r
+condition; and there was another subject, as you know, on which Mr.\r
+Tulliver was in pressing want of Mr. Riley's advice. This was his\r
+particular reason for remaining silent for a short space after his\r
+last draught, and rubbing his knees in a meditative manner. He was not\r
+a man to make an abrupt transition. This was a puzzling world, as he\r
+often said, and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on\r
+an awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient. Why should\r
+he be? Even Hotspur, one would think, must have been patient in his\r
+slippers on a warm hearth, taking copious snuff, and sipping\r
+gratuitous brandy-and-water.\r
+\r
+"There's a thing I've got i' my head," said Mr. Tulliver at last, in\r
+rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head and looked\r
+steadfastly at his companion.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Riley, in a tone of mild interest. He was a man with\r
+heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows, looking exactly the same\r
+under all circumstances. This immovability of face, and the habit of\r
+taking a pinch of snuff before he gave an answer, made him trebly\r
+oracular to Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"It's a very particular thing," he went on; "it's about my boy Tom."\r
+\r
+At the sound of this name, Maggie, who was seated on a low stool close\r
+by the fire, with a large book open on her lap, shook her heavy hair\r
+back and looked up eagerly. There were few sounds that roused Maggie\r
+when she was dreaming over her book, but Tom's name served as well as\r
+the shrillest whistle; in an instant she was on the watch, with\r
+gleaming eyes, like a Skye terrier suspecting mischief, or at all\r
+events determined to fly at any one who threatened it toward Tom.\r
+\r
+"You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver; "he's comin' away from the 'cademy at Lady-day, an' I shall\r
+let him run loose for a quarter; but after that I want to send him to\r
+a downright good school, where they'll make a scholard of him."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Riley, "there's no greater advantage you can give him\r
+than a good education. Not," he added, with polite significance,--"not\r
+that a man can't be an excellent miller and farmer, and a shrewd,\r
+sensible fellow into the bargain, without much help from the\r
+schoolmaster."\r
+\r
+"I believe you," said Mr. Tulliver, winking, and turning his head on\r
+one side; "but that's where it is. I don't _mean_ Tom to be a miller\r
+and farmer. I see no fun i' that. Why, if I made him a miller an'\r
+farmer, he'd be expectin' to take to the mill an' the land, an'\r
+a-hinting at me as it was time for me to lay by an' think o' my latter\r
+end. Nay, nay, I've seen enough o' that wi' sons. I'll never pull my\r
+coat off before I go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put\r
+him to a business, as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to\r
+push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I'm dead an' gone.\r
+I sha'n't be put off wi' spoon-meat afore I've lost my teeth."\r
+\r
+This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt strongly; and\r
+the impetus which had given unusual rapidity and emphasis to his\r
+speech showed itself still unexhausted for some minutes afterward in a\r
+defiant motion of the head from side to side, and an occasional "Nay,\r
+nay," like a subsiding growl.\r
+\r
+These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie, and cut her to\r
+the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed capable of turning his\r
+father out of doors, and of making the future in some way tragic by\r
+his wickedness. This was not to be borne; and Maggie jumped up from\r
+her stool, forgetting all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang\r
+within the fender, and going up between her father's knees, said, in a\r
+half-crying, half-indignant voice,--\r
+\r
+"Father, Tom wouldn't be naughty to you ever; I know he wouldn't."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice supper-dish,\r
+and Mr. Tulliver's heart was touched; so Maggie was not scolded about\r
+the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it up and looked at it, while the\r
+father laughed, with a certain tenderness in his hard-lined face, and\r
+patted his little girl on the back, and then held her hands and kept\r
+her between his knees.\r
+\r
+"What! they mustn't say any harm o' Tom, eh?" said Mr. Tulliver,\r
+looking at Maggie with a twinkling eye. Then, in a lower voice,\r
+turning to Mr. Riley, as though Maggie couldn't hear, "She understands\r
+what one's talking about so as never was. And you should hear her\r
+read,--straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at\r
+her book! But it's bad--it's bad," Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking\r
+this blamable exultation. "A woman's no business wi' being so clever;\r
+it'll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!"--here the exultation\r
+was clearly recovering the mastery,--"she'll read the books and\r
+understand 'em better nor half the folks as are growed up."\r
+\r
+Maggie's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought\r
+Mr. Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that\r
+he thought nothing of her before.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make\r
+nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently\r
+looked at her, and said,--\r
+\r
+"Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some\r
+pictures,--I want to know what they mean."\r
+\r
+Maggie, with deepening color, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley's\r
+elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and\r
+tossing back her mane, while she said,--\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll tell you what that means. It's a dreadful picture, isn't it?\r
+But I can't help looking at it. That old woman in the water's a\r
+witch,--they've put her in to find out whether she's a witch or no;\r
+and if she swims she's a witch, and if she's drowned--and killed, you\r
+know--she's innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old\r
+woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was\r
+drowned? Only, I suppose, she'd go to heaven, and God would make it up\r
+to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his arms akimbo,\r
+laughing,--oh, isn't he ugly?--I'll tell you what he is. He's the\r
+Devil _really_" (here Maggie's voice became louder and more emphatic),\r
+"and not a right blacksmith; for the Devil takes the shape of wicked\r
+men, and walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he's\r
+oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know,\r
+if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at 'em, they'd run away,\r
+and he couldn't make 'em do what he pleased."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's with\r
+petrifying wonder.\r
+\r
+"Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?" he burst out at\r
+last.\r
+\r
+"The 'History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe,--not quite the right\r
+book for a little girl," said Mr. Riley. "How came it among your\r
+books, Mr. Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said,--\r
+\r
+"Why, it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale. They was all\r
+bound alike,--it's a good binding, you see,--and I thought they'd be\r
+all good books. There's Jeremy Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among\r
+'em. I read in it often of a Sunday" (Mr. Tulliver felt somehow a\r
+familiarity with that great writer, because his name was Jeremy); "and\r
+there's a lot more of 'em,--sermons mostly, I think,--but they've all\r
+got the same covers, and I thought they were all o' one sample, as you\r
+may say. But it seems one mustn't judge by th' outside. This is a\r
+puzzlin' world."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he\r
+patted Maggie on the head, "I advise you to put by the 'History of the\r
+Devil,' and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier books?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate\r
+the variety of her reading. "I know the reading in this book isn't\r
+pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures\r
+out of my own head, you know. But I've got 'Æsop's Fables,' and a book\r
+about Kangaroos and things, and the 'Pilgrim's Progress.'"\r
+\r
+"Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Riley; "you can't read a better."\r
+\r
+"Well, but there's a great deal about the Devil in that," said Maggie,\r
+triumphantly, "and I'll show you the picture of him in his true shape,\r
+as he fought with Christian."\r
+\r
+Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair,\r
+and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan,\r
+which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the\r
+picture she wanted.\r
+\r
+"Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, "and Tom colored\r
+him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays,--the\r
+body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he's\r
+all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes."\r
+\r
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather\r
+uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a\r
+being powerful enough to create lawyers; "shut up the book, and let's\r
+hear no more o' such talk. It is as I thought--the child 'ull learn\r
+more mischief nor good wi' the books. Go, go and see after your\r
+mother."\r
+\r
+Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not\r
+being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by\r
+going into a dark corner behind her father's chair, and nursing her\r
+doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom's\r
+absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on\r
+it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.\r
+\r
+"Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver, as Maggie\r
+retired. "It's a pity but what she'd been the lad,--she'd ha' been a\r
+match for the lawyers, _she_ would. It's the wonderful'st thing"--here\r
+he lowered his voice--"as I picked the mother because she wasn't o'er\r
+'cute--bein' a good-looking woman too, an' come of a rare family for\r
+managing; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she was\r
+a bit weak like; for I wasn't agoin' to be told the rights o' things\r
+by my own fireside. But you see when a man's got brains himself,\r
+there's no knowing where they'll run to; an' a pleasant sort o' soft\r
+woman may go on breeding you stupid lads and 'cute wenches, till it's\r
+like as if the world was turned topsy-turvy. It's an uncommon puzzlin'\r
+thing."\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under the\r
+application of his pinch of snuff before he said,--\r
+\r
+"But your lad's not stupid, is he? I saw him, when I was here last,\r
+busy making fishing-tackle; he seemed quite up to it."\r
+\r
+"Well, he isn't not to say stupid,--he's got a notion o' things out o'\r
+door, an' a sort o' common sense, as he'd lay hold o' things by the\r
+right handle. But he's slow with his tongue, you see, and he reads but\r
+poorly, and can't abide the books, and spells all wrong, they tell me,\r
+an' as shy as can be wi' strangers, an' you never hear him say 'cute\r
+things like the little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a\r
+school where they'll make him a bit nimble with his tongue and his\r
+pen, and make a smart chap of him. I want my son to be even wi' these\r
+fellows as have got the start o' me with having better schooling. Not\r
+but what, if the world had been left as God made it, I could ha' seen\r
+my way, and held my own wi' the best of 'em; but things have got so\r
+twisted round and wrapped up i' unreasonable words, as aren't a bit\r
+like 'em, as I'm clean at fault, often an' often. Everything winds\r
+about so--the more straightforrad you are, the more you're puzzled."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver took a draught, swallowed it slowly, and shook his head\r
+in a melancholy manner, conscious of exemplifying the truth that a\r
+perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in this insane world.\r
+\r
+"You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver," observed Mr. Riley.\r
+"Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's education, than\r
+leave it him in your will. I know I should have tried to do so by a\r
+son of mine, if I'd had one, though, God knows, I haven't your ready\r
+money to play with, Tulliver; and I have a houseful of daughters into\r
+the bargain."\r
+\r
+"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be just the thing for\r
+Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, not diverted from his purpose by any sympathy\r
+with Mr. Riley's deficiency of ready cash.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in suspense by\r
+a silence that seemed deliberative, before he said,--\r
+\r
+"I know of a very fine chance for any one that's got the necessary\r
+money and that's what you have, Tulliver. The fact is, I wouldn't\r
+recommend any friend of mine to send a boy to a regular school, if he\r
+could afford to do better. But if any one wanted his boy to get\r
+superior instruction and training, where he would be the companion of\r
+his master, and that master a first rate fellow, I know his man. I\r
+wouldn't mention the chance to everybody, because I don't think\r
+everybody would succeed in getting it, if he were to try; but I\r
+mention it to you, Tulliver, between ourselves."\r
+\r
+The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had been watching\r
+his friend's oracular face became quite eager.\r
+\r
+"Ay, now, let's hear," he said, adjusting himself in his chair with\r
+the complacency of a person who is thought worthy of important\r
+communications.\r
+\r
+"He's an Oxford man," said Mr. Riley, sententiously, shutting his\r
+mouth close, and looking at Mr. Tulliver to observe the effect of this\r
+stimulating information.\r
+\r
+"What! a parson?" said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and an M.A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very highly of him:\r
+why, it was the bishop who got him his present curacy."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said Mr. Tulliver, to whom one thing was as wonderful as another\r
+concerning these unfamiliar phenomena. "But what can he want wi' Tom,\r
+then?"\r
+\r
+"Why, the fact is, he's fond of teaching, and wishes to keep up his\r
+studies, and a clergyman has but little opportunity for that in his\r
+parochial duties. He's willing to take one or two boys as pupils to\r
+fill up his time profitably. The boys would be quite of the\r
+family,--the finest thing in the world for them; under Stelling's eye\r
+continually."\r
+\r
+"But do you think they'd give the poor lad twice o' pudding?" said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, who was now in her place again. "He's such a boy for\r
+pudding as never was; an' a growing boy like that,--it's dreadful to\r
+think o' their stintin' him."\r
+\r
+"And what money 'ud he want?" said Mr. Tulliver, whose instinct told\r
+him that the services of this admirable M.A. would bear a high price.\r
+\r
+"Why, I know of a clergyman who asks a hundred and fifty with his\r
+youngest pupils, and he's not to be mentioned with Stelling, the man I\r
+speak of. I know, on good authority, that one of the chief people at\r
+Oxford said, Stelling might get the highest honors if he chose. But he\r
+didn't care about university honors; he's a quiet man--not noisy."\r
+\r
+"Ah, a deal better--a deal better," said Mr. Tulliver; "but a hundred\r
+and fifty's an uncommon price. I never thought o' paying so much as\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"A good education, let me tell you, Tulliver,--a good education is\r
+cheap at the money. But Stelling is moderate in his terms; he's not a\r
+grasping man. I've no doubt he'd take your boy at a hundred, and\r
+that's what you wouldn't get many other clergymen to do. I'll write to\r
+him about it, if you like."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a\r
+meditative manner.\r
+\r
+"But belike he's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver, in the interval;\r
+"an' I've no opinion o' housekeepers. There was my brother, as is dead\r
+an' gone, had a housekeeper once, an' she took half the feathers out\r
+o' the best bed, an' packed 'em up an' sent 'em away. An' it's unknown\r
+the linen she made away with--Stott her name was. It 'ud break my\r
+heart to send Tom where there's a housekeeper, an' I hope you won't\r
+think of it, Mr. Tulliver."\r
+\r
+"You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr.\r
+Riley, "for Stelling is married to as nice a little woman as any man\r
+need wish for a wife. There isn't a kinder little soul in the world; I\r
+know her family well. She has very much your complexion,--light curly\r
+hair. She comes of a good Mudport family, and it's not every offer\r
+that would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling's not an\r
+every-day man; rather a particular fellow as to the people he chooses\r
+to be connected with. But I _think_ he would have no objection to take\r
+your son; I _think_ he would not, on my representation."\r
+\r
+"I don't know what he could have _against_ the lad," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; "a nice\r
+fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see."\r
+\r
+"But there's one thing I'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver, turning\r
+his head on one side and looking at Mr. Riley, after a long perusal of\r
+the carpet. "Wouldn't a parson be almost too high-learnt to bring up a\r
+lad to be a man o' business? My notion o' the parsons was as they'd\r
+got a sort o' learning as lay mostly out o' sight. And that isn't what\r
+I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, and write like print, and\r
+see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap\r
+things up in words as aren't actionable. It's an uncommon fine thing,\r
+that is," concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head, "when you can let\r
+a man know what you think of him without paying for it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear Tulliver," said Mr. Riley, "you're quite under a mistake\r
+about the clergy; all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. The\r
+schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a very low set of men\r
+generally."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"To be sure,--men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now, a\r
+clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education; and besides\r
+that, he has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for\r
+entering on any career with credit. There may be some clergymen who\r
+are mere bookmen; but you may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of\r
+them,--a man that's wide awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint, and\r
+that's enough. You talk of figures, now; you have only to say to\r
+Stelling, 'I want my son to be a thorough arithmetician,' and you may\r
+leave the rest to him."\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, some-what reassured as\r
+to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr.\r
+Stelling the statement, "I want my son to know 'rethmetic."\r
+\r
+"You see, my dear Tulliver," Mr. Riley continued, "when you get a\r
+thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he's at no loss to take up any\r
+branch of instruction. When a workman knows the use of his tools, he\r
+can make a door as well as a window."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now that the\r
+clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll tell you what I'll do for you," said Mr. Riley, "and I\r
+wouldn't do it for everybody. I'll see Stelling's father-in-law, or\r
+drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, to say that you wish to\r
+place your boy with his son-in-law, and I dare say Stelling will write\r
+to you, and send you his terms."\r
+\r
+"But there's no hurry, is there?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "for I hope, Mr.\r
+Tulliver, you won't let Tom begin at his new school before Midsummer.\r
+He began at the 'cademy at the Lady-day quarter, and you see what\r
+good's come of it."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi' bad malt upo' Michael-masday, else\r
+you'll have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, winking and smiling at Mr.\r
+Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife\r
+conspicuously his inferior in intellect. "But it's true there's no\r
+hurry; you've hit it there, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long," said Mr.\r
+Riley, quietly, "for Stelling may have propositions from other\r
+parties, and I know he would not take more than two or three boarders,\r
+if so many. If I were you, I think I would enter on the subject with\r
+Stelling at once: there's no necessity for sending the boy before\r
+Midsummer, but I would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody\r
+forestalls you."\r
+\r
+"Ay, there's summat in that," said Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Father," broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to her father's\r
+elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll\r
+topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the\r
+chair,--"father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Sha'n't we\r
+ever go to see him?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly. "Ask Mr. Riley;\r
+he knows."\r
+\r
+Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, "How far\r
+is it, please, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, a long, long way off," that gentleman answered, being of opinion\r
+that children, when they are not naughty, should always be spoken to\r
+jocosely. "You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him."\r
+\r
+"That's nonsense!" said Maggie, tossing her head haughtily, and\r
+turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She began to\r
+dislike Mr. Riley; it was evident he thought her silly and of no\r
+consequence.\r
+\r
+"Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,"\r
+said her mother. "Come and sit down on your little stool, and hold\r
+your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulliver, who had her own alarm\r
+awakened, "is it so far off as I couldn't wash him and mend him?"\r
+\r
+"About fifteen miles; that's all," said Mr. Riley. "You can drive\r
+there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or--Stelling is a\r
+hospitable, pleasant man--he'd be glad to have you stay."\r
+\r
+"But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+sadly.\r
+\r
+The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty, and\r
+relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solution or\r
+compromise,--a labor which he would otherwise doubtless have\r
+undertaken; for, as you perceive, he was a man of very obliging\r
+manners. And he had really given himself the trouble of recommending\r
+Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any positive expectation\r
+of a solid, definite advantage resulting to himself, notwithstanding\r
+the subtle indications to the contrary which might have misled a\r
+too-sagacious observer. For there is nothing more widely misleading\r
+than sagacity if it happens to get on a wrong scent; and sagacity,\r
+persuaded that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a\r
+consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its energies on\r
+imaginary game.\r
+\r
+Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to compass\r
+a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the dramatist:\r
+they demand too intense a mental action for many of our\r
+fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil\r
+the lives of our neighbors without taking so much trouble; we can do\r
+it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for\r
+which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized by small\r
+extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily improvised\r
+insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most of us, with a small\r
+family of immediate desires; we do little else than snatch a morsel to\r
+satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking of seed-corn or the next\r
+year's crop.\r
+\r
+Mr. Riley was a man of business, and not cold toward his own interest,\r
+yet even he was more under the influence of small promptings than of\r
+far-sighted designs. He had no private understanding with the Rev.\r
+Walter Stelling; on the contrary, he knew very little of that M.A. and\r
+his acquirements,--not quite enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a\r
+recommendation of him as he had given to his friend Tulliver. But he\r
+believed Mr. Stelling to be an excellent classic, for Gadsby had said\r
+so, and Gadsby's first cousin was an Oxford tutor; which was better\r
+ground for the belief even than his own immediate observation would\r
+have been, for though Mr. Riley had received a tincture of the\r
+classics at the great Mudport Free School, and had a sense of\r
+understanding Latin generally, his comprehension of any particular\r
+Latin was not ready. Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his\r
+juvenile contact with the "De Senectute" and the fourth book of the\r
+"Æneid," but it had ceased to be distinctly recognizable as classical,\r
+and was only perceived in the higher finish and force of his\r
+auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an Oxford man, and the Oxford\r
+men were always--no, no, it was the Cambridge men who were always good\r
+mathematicians. But a man who had had a university education could\r
+teach anything he liked; especially a man like Stelling, who had made\r
+a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had\r
+acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this\r
+son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It was to be expected of a\r
+Mudport man, from the parish of St. Ursula, that he would not omit to\r
+do a good turn to a son-in-law of Timpson's, for Timpson was one of\r
+the most useful and influential men in the parish, and had a good deal\r
+of business, which he knew how to put into the right hands. Mr. Riley\r
+liked such men, quite apart from any money which might be diverted,\r
+through their good judgment, from less worthy pockets into his own;\r
+and it would be a satisfaction to him to say to Timpson on his return\r
+home, "I've secured a good pupil for your son-in-law." Timpson had a\r
+large family of daughters; Mr. Riley felt for him; besides, Louisa\r
+Timpson's face, with its light curls, had been a familiar object to\r
+him over the pew wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years; it was\r
+natural her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr. Riley\r
+knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground for recommending\r
+in preference; why, then, should he not recommend Stelling? His friend\r
+Tulliver had asked him for an opinion; it is always chilling, in\r
+friendly intercourse, to say you have no opinion to give. And if you\r
+deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an\r
+air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in\r
+uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. Thus Mr. Riley, knowing no\r
+harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him well, so far as he had\r
+any wishes at all concerning him, had no sooner recommended him than\r
+he began to think with admiration of a man recommended on such high\r
+authority, and would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the\r
+subject, that if Mr. Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to\r
+Stelling, Mr. Riley would have thought his "friend of the old school"\r
+a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.\r
+\r
+If you blame Mr. Riley very severely for giving a recommendation on\r
+such slight grounds, I must say you are rather hard upon him. Why\r
+should an auctioneer and appraiser thirty years ago, who had as good\r
+as forgotten his free-school Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate\r
+scrupulosity which is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned\r
+professions, even in our present advanced stage of morality?\r
+\r
+Besides, a man with the milk of human kindness in him can scarcely\r
+abstain from doing a good-natured action, and one cannot be\r
+good-natured all round. Nature herself occasionally quarters an\r
+inconvenient parasite on an animal toward whom she has otherwise no\r
+ill will. What then? We admire her care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley\r
+had shrunk from giving a recommendation that was not based on valid\r
+evidence, he would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and\r
+that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman. Consider,\r
+too, that all the pleasant little dim ideas and complacencies--of\r
+standing well with Timpson, of dispensing advice when he was asked for\r
+it, of impressing his friend Tulliver with additional respect, of\r
+saying something, and saying it emphatically, with other inappreciably\r
+minute ingredients that went along with the warm hearth and the\r
+brandy-and-water to make up Mr. Riley's consciousness on this\r
+occasion--would have been a mere blank.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Tom Is Expected\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go\r
+with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the\r
+academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little\r
+girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very\r
+strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of\r
+opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the\r
+reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and\r
+dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive\r
+determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, Maggie!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless\r
+with the brushes on her lap, "what is to become of you if you're so\r
+naughty? I'll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they come\r
+next week, and they'll never love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear! look\r
+at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think it's\r
+a judgment on me as I've got such a child,--they'll think I've done\r
+summat wicked."\r
+\r
+Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of\r
+hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old\r
+high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran,\r
+like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's\r
+favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here\r
+she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten\r
+floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with\r
+cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her\r
+misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once\r
+stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was\r
+now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three\r
+nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's\r
+nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been\r
+suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old\r
+Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than\r
+usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But\r
+immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many\r
+nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt\r
+when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make\r
+believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg\r
+would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly\r
+humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven\r
+no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and\r
+beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys\r
+that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she\r
+did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a\r
+passion that expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the\r
+memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were\r
+getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of\r
+sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten\r
+shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun\r
+was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again;\r
+the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer\r
+white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and\r
+sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was\r
+irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized\r
+her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the\r
+passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in\r
+the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled,\r
+"Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked round her,\r
+as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an' tumble down i' the\r
+dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of\r
+forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness,\r
+like an auricula.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, "Oh no,\r
+it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?"\r
+\r
+Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came\r
+out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her\r
+dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting\r
+motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the\r
+presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring,\r
+pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the\r
+very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of\r
+the meal,--all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little\r
+world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were\r
+especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had\r
+any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a\r
+painful difficulty in their family intercourse,--a fat and floury\r
+spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer\r
+a little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_, and the\r
+lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But\r
+the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,--the\r
+corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could\r
+sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this\r
+recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very\r
+communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her\r
+father did.\r
+\r
+Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the\r
+present occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near\r
+which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was\r
+requisite in mill-society,--\r
+\r
+"I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness.\r
+"I'm no reader, I aren't."\r
+\r
+"But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_\r
+pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's 'Pug's\r
+Tour of Europe,'--that would tell you all about the different sorts of\r
+people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the\r
+pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people,\r
+and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you\r
+know, and one sitting on a barrel."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i'\r
+knowin' about _them_."\r
+\r
+"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our\r
+fellow-creatures."\r
+\r
+"Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know--my old\r
+master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my\r
+wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much\r
+as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't\r
+goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues\r
+enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided\r
+views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature'\r
+better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos,\r
+and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I\r
+forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead\r
+of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them,\r
+Luke?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do\r
+wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks\r
+to the gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their\r
+bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the\r
+books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the\r
+streets."\r
+\r
+"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn\r
+the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so\r
+dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up\r
+I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell\r
+him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he\r
+doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all\r
+dead."\r
+\r
+"Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.\r
+"Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom\r
+spent all his money to buy?"\r
+\r
+"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the\r
+unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears\r
+rolled down her cheek; "Tom told me to take care of 'em, and I forgot.\r
+What _shall_ I do?"\r
+\r
+"Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an' it was\r
+nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to\r
+feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; _he's_ an offal creatur as\r
+iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own\r
+inside--an' I wish it 'ud gripe him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day;\r
+but how could I, when they didn't come into my head, you know? Oh, he\r
+will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his\r
+rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what _shall_ I do?"\r
+\r
+"Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're nash things,\r
+them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed.\r
+Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He\r
+made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness\r
+to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know\r
+better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will\r
+you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' this minute."\r
+\r
+The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and\r
+her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to\r
+his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and\r
+with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the\r
+Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidedly agreeable\r
+acquaintance. She exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle, and\r
+possessed various works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had\r
+any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to\r
+look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son\r
+in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have\r
+been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like\r
+that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense\r
+with a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on\r
+her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of\r
+this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where\r
+he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches\r
+unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine apparently of some\r
+foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their\r
+feast of husks.\r
+\r
+"I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you, Luke?" she\r
+said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's\r
+feyther do what he would for him."\r
+\r
+That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the\r
+subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Tom Comes Home\r
+\r
+\r
+Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another\r
+fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the\r
+sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a\r
+strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound\r
+came,--that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels,--and in spite of\r
+the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to\r
+respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the\r
+door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting\r
+all the griefs of the morning.\r
+\r
+"There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a\r
+collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the\r
+set."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg\r
+and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said,\r
+with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap--what!\r
+are you there?"\r
+\r
+Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie\r
+hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray\r
+eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he\r
+promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow\r
+morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and\r
+at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,--a\r
+lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips,\r
+indeterminate nose and eyebrows,--a physiognomy in which it seems\r
+impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood;\r
+as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed\r
+to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that\r
+same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the\r
+appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see\r
+through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a\r
+refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish\r
+physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals\r
+some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most\r
+unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious\r
+girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this\r
+pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon\r
+as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had\r
+taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know\r
+what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a\r
+means of rousing her sense of mystery.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles)\r
+or cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it\r
+was "no good" playing with _her_ at those games, she played so badly.\r
+\r
+"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and\r
+cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see\r
+here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.\r
+\r
+"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit\r
+of yellow."\r
+\r
+"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I _can't_ guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his\r
+hand back into his pocket and looking determined.\r
+\r
+"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was\r
+held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I\r
+can't bear guessing. _Please_ be good to me."\r
+\r
+Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new\r
+fish-line--two new uns,--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I\r
+wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save\r
+the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't.\r
+And here's hooks; see here--I say, _won't_ we go and fish to-morrow\r
+down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie and\r
+put the worms on, and everything; won't it be fun?"\r
+\r
+Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him,\r
+and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly\r
+unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,--\r
+\r
+"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You\r
+know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks\r
+one by one, before he spoke again.\r
+\r
+"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the\r
+toffee."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it\r
+hurt you?"\r
+\r
+"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a\r
+large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he\r
+looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he\r
+added,--\r
+\r
+"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to\r
+leather _me;_ I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came\r
+a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no\r
+lions, only in the shows."\r
+\r
+"No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa, where\r
+it's very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the\r
+book where I read it."\r
+\r
+"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."\r
+\r
+"But if you hadn't got a gun,--we might have gone out, you know, not\r
+thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run\r
+toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you\r
+do, Tom?"\r
+\r
+Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the\r
+lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?"\r
+\r
+"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him.\r
+"Just think what you would do, Tom."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my\r
+rabbits."\r
+\r
+Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad\r
+truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he\r
+went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at\r
+once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all\r
+things; it was quite a different anger from her own.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money\r
+did you give for your rabbits?"\r
+\r
+"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.\r
+\r
+"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse\r
+upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."\r
+\r
+"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ money, you silly thing.\r
+I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always\r
+have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I\r
+shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're\r
+only a girl."\r
+\r
+"Well, but, Tom--if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a\r
+sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know,\r
+and buy some more rabbits with it?"\r
+\r
+"More rabbits? I don't want any more."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."\r
+\r
+Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie.\r
+"You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color\r
+heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry.\r
+I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't\r
+go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits\r
+every day." He walked on again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very\r
+sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.\r
+\r
+"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought\r
+you the fish-line. I don't love you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if _you_\r
+forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and\r
+love you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you're silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ don't."\r
+\r
+"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie,\r
+shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on\r
+his shoulder.\r
+\r
+Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone,\r
+"Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.\r
+\r
+"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy\r
+it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the\r
+toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom."\r
+\r
+"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my\r
+lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my\r
+fish-line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head\r
+through my kite, all for nothing."\r
+\r
+"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."\r
+\r
+"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And\r
+you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."\r
+\r
+With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the\r
+mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two;\r
+then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic,\r
+where she sat on the floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten\r
+shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had\r
+thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use\r
+was anything if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she\r
+wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She\r
+knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to\r
+Tom--had never _meant_ to be naughty to him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in\r
+the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the\r
+attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was\r
+too miserable to be angry.\r
+\r
+These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange,\r
+when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and\r
+the space from summer to summer seems measureless.\r
+\r
+Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be\r
+tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her.\r
+Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,--hide herself\r
+behind the tub, and stay there all night,--and then they would all be\r
+frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride\r
+of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to\r
+cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she\r
+went down again to Tom now--would he forgive her? Perhaps her father\r
+would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to\r
+forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No,\r
+she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This\r
+resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the\r
+tub; but then the need of being loved--the strongest need in poor\r
+Maggie's nature--began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it.\r
+She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but\r
+just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.\r
+\r
+Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the\r
+round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and\r
+whittling sticks without any particular reason,--except that he didn't\r
+whittle sticks at school,--to think of Maggie and the effect his anger\r
+had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having\r
+been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a\r
+practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father\r
+said, "Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at\r
+the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?"--both of them\r
+having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the\r
+afternoon.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though\r
+he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.\r
+\r
+"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the\r
+father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home."\r
+\r
+"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the\r
+plumcake.\r
+\r
+"Goodness heart; she's got drownded!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising\r
+from her seat and running to the window.\r
+\r
+"How could you let her do so?" she added, as became a fearful woman,\r
+accusing she didn't know whom of she didn't know what.\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been\r
+naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in\r
+the house."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking\r
+to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times."\r
+\r
+"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather\r
+sharply,--his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making\r
+him suspect that the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she\r
+would never have left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else\r
+I'll let you know better."\r
+\r
+Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man,\r
+and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand;\r
+but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and\r
+not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than\r
+she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in\r
+grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open\r
+questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one\r
+point,--namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why,\r
+he wouldn't have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but,\r
+then, he never _did_ deserve it.\r
+\r
+It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her\r
+need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with\r
+her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her\r
+father would stroke her head and say, "Never mind, my wench." It is a\r
+wonderful subduer, this need of love,--this hunger of the heart,--as\r
+peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to\r
+the yoke, and change the face of the world.\r
+\r
+But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with\r
+the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs\r
+and said, "Maggie, you're to come down." But she rushed to him and\r
+clung round his neck, sobbing, "Oh, Tom, please forgive me--I can't\r
+bear it--I will always be good--always remember things--do love\r
+me--please, dear Tom!"\r
+\r
+We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we\r
+have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this\r
+way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one\r
+side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate\r
+in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but\r
+conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized\r
+society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and\r
+so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random\r
+sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been\r
+used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a\r
+weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much\r
+as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,--\r
+\r
+"Don't cry, then, Magsie; here, eat a bit o' cake."\r
+\r
+Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake\r
+and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they\r
+ate together and rubbed each other's cheeks and brows and noses\r
+together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two\r
+friendly ponies.\r
+\r
+"Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last, when there was\r
+no more cake except what was down-stairs.\r
+\r
+So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was\r
+trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and a handle of the\r
+basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the\r
+muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her\r
+beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom, however,\r
+that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her,\r
+although she accepted his word when he assured her that worms couldn't\r
+feel (it was Tom's private opinion that it didn't much matter if they\r
+did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and what\r
+birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the\r
+handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of\r
+knowledge was very wonderful,--much more difficult than remembering\r
+what was in the books; and she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority,\r
+for he was the only person who called her knowledge "stuff," and did\r
+not feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that\r
+Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly,--they couldn't\r
+throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn't do anything with a\r
+pocket-knife, and were frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of\r
+his sister, and meant always to take care of her, make her his\r
+housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong.\r
+\r
+They were on their way to the Round Pool,--that wonderful pool, which\r
+the floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and\r
+it was mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round,\r
+framed in with willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to\r
+be seen when you got close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite\r
+spot always heightened Tom's good humor, and he spoke to Maggie in the\r
+most amicable whispers, as he opened the precious basket and prepared\r
+their tackle. He threw her line for her, and put the rod into her\r
+hand. Maggie thought it probable that the small fish would come to her\r
+hook, and the large ones to Tom's. But she had forgotten all about the\r
+fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in\r
+a loud whisper, "Look, look, Maggie!" and came running to prevent her\r
+from snatching her line away.\r
+\r
+Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as\r
+usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench\r
+bouncing on the grass.\r
+\r
+Tom was excited.\r
+\r
+"O Magsie, you little duck! Empty the basket."\r
+\r
+Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom\r
+called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar\r
+her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened\r
+to the light dripping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle\r
+rustling, as if the willows and the reeds and the water had their\r
+happy whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice\r
+heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never\r
+knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she liked fishing very\r
+much.\r
+\r
+It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along and sat down\r
+together, with no thought that life would ever change much for them;\r
+they would only get bigger and not go to school, and it would always\r
+be like the holidays; they would always live together and be fond of\r
+each other. And the mill with its booming; the great chestnut-tree\r
+under which they played at houses; their own little river, the Ripple,\r
+where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always seeing the\r
+water-rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy tops of the reeds,\r
+which she forgot and dropped afterward; above all, the great Floss,\r
+along which they wandered with a sense of travel, to see the rushing\r
+spring-tide, the awful Eagle, come up like a hungry monster, or to see\r
+the Great Ash which had once wailed and groaned like a man, these\r
+things would always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were\r
+at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of the globe; and\r
+Maggie, when she read about Christiana passing "the river over which\r
+there is no bridge," always saw the Floss between the green pastures\r
+by the Great Ash.\r
+\r
+Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were not wrong in\r
+believing that the thoughts and loves of these first years would\r
+always make part of their lives. We could never have loved the earth\r
+so well if we had had no childhood in it,--if it were not the earth\r
+where the same flowers come up again every spring that we used to\r
+gather with our tiny fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the\r
+grass; the same hips and haws on the autumn's hedgerows; the same\r
+redbreasts that we used to call "God's birds," because they did no\r
+harm to the precious crops. What novelty is worth that sweet monotony\r
+where everything is known, and _loved_ because it is known?\r
+\r
+The wood I walk in on this mild May day, with the young yellow-brown\r
+foliage of the oaks between me and the blue sky, the white\r
+star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and the ground ivy at my\r
+feet, what grove of tropic palms, what strange ferns or splendid\r
+broad-petalled blossoms, could ever thrill such deep and delicate\r
+fibres within me as this home scene? These familiar flowers, these\r
+well-remembered bird-notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness,\r
+these furrowed and grassy fields, each with a sort of personality\r
+given to it by the capricious hedgerows,--such things as these are the\r
+mother-tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all\r
+the subtle, inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our\r
+childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on the\r
+deep-bladed grass to-day might be no more than the faint perception of\r
+wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine and the grass in the\r
+far-off years which still live in us, and transform our perception\r
+into love.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming\r
+\r
+\r
+It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were more\r
+exquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow about\r
+like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live under\r
+a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or\r
+circumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, even\r
+if it had not been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet\r
+about Tom's going to school.\r
+\r
+"I'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+"for she's as jealous and having as can be, and's allays trying to\r
+make the worst o' my poor children to their aunts and uncles."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, "ask her to come. I never hardly get a\r
+bit o' talk with Deane now; we haven't had him this six months. What's\r
+it matter what she says? My children need be beholding to nobody."\r
+\r
+"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure there's nobody\r
+o' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave 'em so much as a\r
+five-pound note for a leggicy. And there's sister Glegg, and sister\r
+Pullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all their own\r
+interest and butter-money too; their husbands buy 'em everything."\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a\r
+little when she has lambs.\r
+\r
+"Tchuh!" said Mr. Tulliver. "It takes a big loaf when there's many to\r
+breakfast. What signifies your sisters' bits o' money when they've got\r
+half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sister\r
+Deane won't get 'em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make the\r
+country cry shame on 'em when they are dead?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs. Tulliver, "for\r
+my children are so awk'ard wi' their aunts and uncles. Maggie's ten\r
+times naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesn't\r
+like 'em, bless him!--though it's more nat'ral in a boy than a gell.\r
+And there's Lucy Dean's such a good child,--you may set her on a\r
+stool, and there she'll sit for an hour together, and never offer to\r
+get off. I can't help loving the child as if she was my own; and I'm\r
+sure she's more like _my_ child than sister Deane's, for she'd allays\r
+a very poor color for one of our family, sister Deane had."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, if you're fond o' the child, ask her father and mother to\r
+bring her with 'em. And won't you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too,\r
+and some o' _their_ children?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, Mr. Tulliver, why, there'd be eight people besides the\r
+children, and I must put two more leaves i' the table, besides\r
+reaching down more o' the dinner-service; and you know as well as I do\r
+as _my_ sisters and _your_ sister don't suit well together."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, do as you like, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, taking up his\r
+hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than\r
+Mrs. Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but\r
+she had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable\r
+family indeed,--as much looked up to as any in their own parish, or\r
+the next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold up\r
+their heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest had\r
+married so well,--not at an early age, for that was not the practice\r
+of the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everything\r
+in that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making the\r
+cowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries;\r
+so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the\r
+privilege of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a\r
+Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the\r
+Dodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the gloves\r
+never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, and\r
+there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was\r
+in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate\r
+member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the\r
+most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if the\r
+illness or trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in the\r
+practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short,\r
+there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the right\r
+thing in household management and social demeanor, and the only bitter\r
+circumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability to\r
+approve the condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the\r
+Dodson tradition. A female Dodson, when in "strange houses," always\r
+ate dry bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having\r
+no confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves had\r
+probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. There\r
+were some Dodsons less like the family than others, that was admitted;\r
+but in so far as they were "kin," they were of necessity better than\r
+those who were "no kin." And it is remarkable that while no individual\r
+Dodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was\r
+satisfied, not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsons\r
+collectively. The feeblest member of a family--the one who has the\r
+least character--is often the merest epitome of the family habits and\r
+traditions; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild\r
+one, as small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable as\r
+very weak ale: and though she had groaned a little in her youth under\r
+the yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at\r
+their sisterly reproaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an\r
+innovator on the family ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson,\r
+and to have one child who took after her own family, at least in his\r
+features and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which a\r
+Tulliver never did.\r
+\r
+In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was\r
+as far from appreciating his "kin" on the mother's side as Maggie\r
+herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the\r
+most portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts and\r
+uncles were coming,--a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced\r
+the gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that\r
+Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the\r
+weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious _impedimenta_ in cases of\r
+flight.\r
+\r
+On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there\r
+were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven\r
+and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it\r
+was impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air.\r
+Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other\r
+marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed\r
+to carry away a sufficient load of booty.\r
+\r
+"Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree,\r
+eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eying\r
+the third, which was to be divided between them,--"no, I sha'n't."\r
+\r
+"Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff,\r
+with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult\r
+problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.)\r
+"What do _I_ care about Lucy? She's only a girl,--_she_ can't play at\r
+bandy."\r
+\r
+"Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic\r
+powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the\r
+hovering knife.\r
+\r
+"No, you silly, that'll be good the day after. It's the pudden. I know\r
+what the pudden's to be,--apricot roll-up--O my buttons!"\r
+\r
+With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in\r
+two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the\r
+halves doubtfully. At last he said,--\r
+\r
+"Shut your eyes, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"What for?"\r
+\r
+"You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed.\r
+\r
+"Now, which'll you have, Maggie,--right hand or left?"\r
+\r
+"I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyes\r
+shut to please Tom.\r
+\r
+"Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to\r
+you fair, but I sha'n't give it you without. Right or left,--you\r
+choose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie\r
+peeped. "You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha'n't have any."\r
+\r
+Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she\r
+cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff,\r
+than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit.\r
+So she shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to "say which,"\r
+and then she said, "Left hand."\r
+\r
+"You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.\r
+\r
+"What! the bit with the jam run out?"\r
+\r
+"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the best\r
+piece to Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind--I like the other; please take\r
+this."\r
+\r
+"No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own\r
+inferior piece.\r
+\r
+Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate\r
+up her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom\r
+had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last\r
+morsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn't\r
+know Tom was looking at her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough,\r
+lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swallowed the last\r
+morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she\r
+ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would\r
+have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a\r
+different point of view before and after one's own share of puff is\r
+swallowed.\r
+\r
+Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?"\r
+\r
+"I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have\r
+thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit."\r
+\r
+"But I wanted you to have it; you know I did," said Maggie, in an\r
+injured tone.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair, like Spouncer. He\r
+always takes the best bit, if you don't punch him for it; and if you\r
+choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I go\r
+halves, I'll go 'em fair; only I wouldn't be a greedy."\r
+\r
+With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw\r
+a stone with a "hoigh!" as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also\r
+been looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his\r
+ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet\r
+the excellent dog accepted Tom's attention with as much alacrity as if\r
+he had been treated quite generously.\r
+\r
+But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which\r
+distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from\r
+the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave\r
+herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have\r
+given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some\r
+of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie's\r
+palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many\r
+times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with\r
+her. And he had said he wouldn't have it, and she ate it without\r
+thinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that\r
+Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that\r
+time resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, and\r
+she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the\r
+paddock behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yap\r
+with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree,\r
+where she could see far away toward the Floss. There was Tom; but her\r
+heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great\r
+river, and that he had another companion besides Yap,--naughty Bob\r
+Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the\r
+birds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was\r
+wicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was because\r
+Bob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer\r
+round house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered\r
+thither, there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking;\r
+and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed above the\r
+barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she was\r
+scolding them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought\r
+it very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and bats\r
+in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a\r
+little snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of\r
+young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even\r
+slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats;\r
+and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mind\r
+about Maggie, and would never let her go with him.\r
+\r
+It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it be\r
+otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was a\r
+swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all the\r
+wasps' nests, and could set all sort of traps; he could climb the\r
+trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting\r
+hedgehogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather\r
+naughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones after\r
+the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering _incognito_.\r
+\r
+Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated with\r
+authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a\r
+fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to\r
+have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.\r
+\r
+Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could\r
+think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the\r
+hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little\r
+world into just what she should like it to be.\r
+\r
+Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took\r
+her opium.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach\r
+which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom he\r
+had met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a\r
+neighboring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spoke\r
+of the sport with an enthusiasm which no one who is not either\r
+divested of all manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching,\r
+can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural\r
+wickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; there was\r
+even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-curled\r
+border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at the\r
+knee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and his\r
+virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably "virtue in rags," which,\r
+on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all\r
+well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remain\r
+unrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).\r
+\r
+"I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a hoarse treble\r
+voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river,\r
+like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "He\r
+lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggest\r
+rot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher nor\r
+anything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun\r
+ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bob\r
+continued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, "he's no more\r
+good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at the\r
+rot-catchin' i' your feyther's barn."\r
+\r
+Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in\r
+and shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had\r
+not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for\r
+a dog who made so poor a figure.\r
+\r
+"No, no," he said, "Yap's no good at sport. I'll have regular good\r
+dogs for rats and everything, when I've done school."\r
+\r
+"Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly,--"them white ferrets\r
+wi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an' you might put\r
+a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em fight, you might. That's\r
+what I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be better fun a'most nor seein' two\r
+chaps fight,--if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at the\r
+Fair, as the things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakes\r
+was smashed--But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by way of note\r
+or addendum, after a moment's pause.\r
+\r
+"But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, "ferrets are\r
+nasty biting things,--they'll bite a fellow without being set on."\r
+\r
+"Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' your\r
+ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un, _he_ won't."\r
+\r
+At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in\r
+their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from\r
+among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bob\r
+intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant\r
+consequences.\r
+\r
+"Hoigh! Yap,--hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping his hands, as\r
+the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank.\r
+"Seize him, lad! seize him!"\r
+\r
+Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge,\r
+trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.\r
+\r
+"Ugh! you coward!" said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated\r
+as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained\r
+from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallow\r
+edge of the overflowing river by way of change.\r
+\r
+"He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he kicked the\r
+water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it.\r
+"Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water, they was."\r
+\r
+"Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between\r
+statements that were really accordant,--"but there was a big flood\r
+once, when the Round Pool was made. _I_ know there was, 'cause father\r
+says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went all\r
+over the fields ever such a way."\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't care about a flood comin'," said Bob; "I don't mind the\r
+water, no more nor the land. I'd swim, _I_ would."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?" said Tom, his\r
+imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread.\r
+"When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of\r
+it, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,--rabbits and\r
+things,--all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I\r
+shouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," he added,\r
+in the tone of a benevolent patron.\r
+\r
+"I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so\r
+appalling. "But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when you\r
+wanted to eat 'em."\r
+\r
+"Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-and-tails,"\r
+said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might\r
+have fewer charms for his mature age. "I'd divide fair to begin with,\r
+and then we'd see who'd win."\r
+\r
+"I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming out of the\r
+water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. "Yeads or tails?"\r
+\r
+"Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.\r
+\r
+"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as it\r
+fell.\r
+\r
+"It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me the\r
+halfpenny; I've won it fair."\r
+\r
+"I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.\r
+\r
+"Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I can."\r
+\r
+"You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.\r
+\r
+"No, you can't."\r
+\r
+"I'm master."\r
+\r
+"I don't care for you."\r
+\r
+"But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob and\r
+shaking him.\r
+\r
+"You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.\r
+\r
+Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw\r
+him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom\r
+down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or\r
+two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the\r
+mastery.\r
+\r
+"_You_, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said, with\r
+difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob's\r
+arms.\r
+\r
+But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returned\r
+barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity for\r
+biting Bob's bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. The pain\r
+from Yap's teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his\r
+hold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force\r
+he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get\r
+no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that\r
+Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almost\r
+throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up\r
+again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of\r
+swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his knees\r
+firmly on Bob's chest.\r
+\r
+"You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Take it," said Bob, sulkily.\r
+\r
+"No, I sha'n't take it; you give it me."\r
+\r
+Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from him\r
+on the ground.\r
+\r
+Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.\r
+\r
+"There the halfpenny lies," he said. "I don't want your halfpenny; I\r
+wouldn't have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat. I\r
+sha'n't go along with you any more," he added, turning round homeward,\r
+not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching and other\r
+pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob's society.\r
+\r
+"You may let it alone, then," Bob called out after him. "I shall cheat\r
+if I like; there's no fun i' playing else; and I know where there's a\r
+goldfinch's nest, but I'll take care _you_ don't. An' you're a nasty\r
+fightin' turkey-cock, you are----"\r
+\r
+Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example,\r
+the cold bath having moderated his passions.\r
+\r
+"Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't own such a\r
+dog--_I_ wouldn't," said Bob, getting louder, in a last effort to\r
+sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be provoked into turning\r
+round, and Bob's voice began to falter a little as he said,--\r
+\r
+"An' I'n gi'en you everything, an' showed you everything, an' niver\r
+wanted nothin' from you. An' there's your horn-handed knife, then as\r
+you gi'en me." Here Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Tom's\r
+retreating footsteps. But it produced no effect, except the sense in\r
+Bob's mind that there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knife\r
+was gone.\r
+\r
+He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared\r
+behind the hedge. The knife would do not good on the ground there; it\r
+wouldn't vex Tom; and pride or resentment was a feeble passion in\r
+Bob's mind compared with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers\r
+sent entreating thrills that he would go and clutch that familiar\r
+rough buck's-horn handle, which they had so often grasped for mere\r
+affection, as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades,\r
+and they had just been sharpened! What is life without a pocket-knife\r
+to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to throw the handle\r
+after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throw\r
+one's pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in every\r
+sense a hyperbole, or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled back\r
+to the spot where the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a\r
+new pleasure in clutching it again after the temporary separation, in\r
+opening one blade after the other, and feeling their edge with his\r
+well-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the point of\r
+honor, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral aroma would not\r
+have been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, which\r
+was the very focus or heart of Bob's world, even if it could have made\r
+itself perceptible there; yet, for all that, he was not utterly a\r
+sneak and a thief as our friend Tom had hastily decided.\r
+\r
+But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, having\r
+more than the usual share of boy's justice in him,--the justice that\r
+desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is\r
+troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts.\r
+Maggie saw a cloud on his brow when he came home, which checked her\r
+joy at his coming so much sooner than she had expected, and she dared\r
+hardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small\r
+gravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up a\r
+rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had told\r
+his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, "I'd do just\r
+the same again." That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions;\r
+whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+Enter the Aunts and Uncles\r
+\r
+\r
+The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family, and Mrs. Glegg was not\r
+the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat in Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+arm-chair, no impartial observer could have denied that for a woman of\r
+fifty she had a very comely face and figure, though Tom and Maggie\r
+considered their aunt Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true she\r
+despised the advantages of costume, for though, as she often observed,\r
+no woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new things\r
+out before her old ones. Other women, if they liked, might have their\r
+best thread-lace in every wash; but when Mrs. Glegg died, it would be\r
+found that she had better lace laid by in the right-hand drawer of her\r
+wardrobe in the Spotted Chamber than ever Mrs. Wooll of St. Ogg's had\r
+bought in her life, although Mrs. Wooll wore her lace before it was\r
+paid for. So of her curled fronts: Mrs. Glegg had doubtless the\r
+glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers, as well as curls in\r
+various degrees of fuzzy laxness; but to look out on the week-day\r
+world from under a crisp and glossy front would be to introduce a most\r
+dreamlike and unpleasant confusion between the sacred and the secular.\r
+Occasionally, indeed, Mrs. Glegg wore one of her third-best fronts on\r
+a week-day visit, but not at a sister's house; especially not at Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's, who, since her marriage, had hurt her sister's feelings\r
+greatly by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs. Glegg observed to\r
+Mrs. Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with a husband always\r
+going to law, might have been expected to know better. But Bessy was\r
+always weak!\r
+\r
+So if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than usual, she\r
+had a design under it: she intended the most pointed and cutting\r
+allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of blond curls, separated from\r
+each other by a due wave of smoothness on each side of the parting.\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had shed tears several times at sister Glegg's\r
+unkindness on the subject of these unmatronly curls, but the\r
+consciousness of looking the handsomer for them naturally administered\r
+support. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house\r
+to-day,--untied and tilted slightly, of course--a frequent practice of\r
+hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a severe humor:\r
+she didn't know what draughts there might be in strange houses. For\r
+the same reason she wore a small sable tippet, which reached just to\r
+her shoulders, and was very far from meeting across her well-formed\r
+chest, while her long neck was protected by a _chevaux-de-frise_ of\r
+miscellaneous frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions\r
+of those times to know how far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's\r
+slate-colored silk gown must have been; but from certain\r
+constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy odor about\r
+it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was probable that it\r
+belonged to a stratum of garments just old enough to have come\r
+recently into wear.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg held her large gold watch in her hand with the many-doubled\r
+chain round her fingers, and observed to Mrs. Tulliver, who had just\r
+returned from a visit to the kitchen, that whatever it might be by\r
+other people's clocks and watches, it was gone half-past twelve by\r
+hers.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what ails sister Pullet," she continued. "It used to be\r
+the way in our family for one to be as early as another,--I'm sure it\r
+was so in my poor father's time,--and not for one sister to sit half\r
+an hour before the others came. But if the ways o' the family are\r
+altered, it sha'n't be _my_ fault; _I'll_ never be the one to come\r
+into a house when all the rest are going away. I wonder _at_ sister\r
+Deane,--she used to be more like me. But if you'll take my advice,\r
+Bessy, you'll put the dinner forrard a bit, sooner than put it back,\r
+because folks are late as ought to ha' known better."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, there's no fear but what they'll be all here in time,\r
+sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone. "The dinner\r
+won't be ready till half-past one. But if it's long for you to wait,\r
+let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass o' wine."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with a bitter smile and a scarcely\r
+perceptible toss of her head, "I should ha' thought you'd known your\r
+own sister better. I never _did_ eat between meals, and I'm not going\r
+to begin. Not but what I hate that nonsense of having your dinner at\r
+half-past one, when you might have it at one. You was never brought up\r
+in that way, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Why, Jane, what can I do? Mr. Tulliver doesn't like his dinner before\r
+two o'clock, but I put it half an hour earlier because o' you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands,--they're for putting\r
+everything off; they'll put the dinner off till after tea, if they've\r
+got wives as are weak enough to give in to such work; but it's a pity\r
+for you, Bessy, as you haven't got more strength o' mind. It'll be\r
+well if your children don't suffer for it. And I hope you've not gone\r
+and got a great dinner for us,--going to expense for your sisters, as\r
+'ud sooner eat a crust o' dry bread nor help to ruin you with\r
+extravagance. I wonder you don't take pattern by your sister Deane;\r
+she's far more sensible. And here you've got two children to provide\r
+for, and your husband's spent your fortin i' going to law, and's\r
+likely to spend his own too. A boiled joint, as you could make broth\r
+of for the kitchen," Mrs. Glegg added, in a tone of emphatic protest,\r
+"and a plain pudding, with a spoonful o' sugar, and no spice, 'ud be\r
+far more becoming."\r
+\r
+With sister Glegg in this humor, there was a cheerful prospect for the\r
+day. Mrs. Tulliver never went the length of quarrelling with her, any\r
+more than a water-fowl that puts out its leg in a deprecating manner\r
+can be said to quarrel with a boy who throws stones. But this point of\r
+the dinner was a tender one, and not at all new, so that Mrs. Tulliver\r
+could make the same answer she had often made before.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver says he always _will_ have a good dinner for his friends\r
+while he can pay for it," she said; "and he's a right to do as he\r
+likes in his own house, sister."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy, _I_ can't leave your children enough out o' my savings\r
+to keep 'em from ruin. And you mustn't look to having any o' Mr.\r
+Glegg's money, for it's well if I don't go first,--he comes of a\r
+long-lived family; and if he was to die and leave me well for my life,\r
+he'd tie all the money up to go back to his own kin."\r
+\r
+The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was an interruption\r
+highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hastened out to receive sister\r
+Pullet; it must be sister Pullet, because the sound was that of a\r
+four-wheel.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg tossed her head and looked rather sour about the mouth at\r
+the thought of the "four-wheel." She had a strong opinion on that\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped before\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's door, and it was apparently requisite that she should\r
+shed a few more before getting out; for though her husband and Mrs.\r
+Tulliver stood ready to support her, she sat still and shook her head\r
+sadly, as she looked through her tears at the vague distance.\r
+\r
+"Why, whativer is the matter, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. She was not\r
+an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her that the large\r
+toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was possibly broken for\r
+the second time.\r
+\r
+There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs. Pullet\r
+slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without casting a glance\r
+at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her handsome silk dress from\r
+injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man, with a high nose, small twinkling\r
+eyes, and thin lips, in a fresh-looking suit of black and a white\r
+cravat, that seemed to have been tied very tight on some higher\r
+principle than that of mere personal ease. He bore about the same\r
+relation to his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves,\r
+abundant mantle, and a large befeathered and beribboned bonnet, as a\r
+small fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.\r
+\r
+It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity\r
+introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization, the\r
+sight of a fashionably dressed female in grief. From the sorrow of a\r
+Hottentot to that of a woman in large buckram sleeves, with several\r
+bracelets on each arm, an architectural bonnet, and delicate ribbon\r
+strings, what a long series of gradations! In the enlightened child of\r
+civilization the abandonment characteristic of grief is checked and\r
+varied in the subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem\r
+to the analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blinded\r
+by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too-devious step through\r
+a door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too, and the deep\r
+consciousness of this possibility produces a composition of forces by\r
+which she takes a line that just clears the door-post. Perceiving that\r
+the tears are hurrying fast, she unpins her strings and throws them\r
+languidly backward, a touching gesture, indicative, even in the\r
+deepest gloom, of the hope in future dry moments when cap-strings will\r
+once more have a charm. As the tears subside a little, and with her\r
+head leaning backward at the angle that will not injure her bonnet,\r
+she endures that terrible moment when grief, which has made all things\r
+else a weariness, has itself become weary; she looks down pensively at\r
+her bracelets, and adjusts their clasps with that pretty studied\r
+fortuity which would be gratifying to her mind if it were once more in\r
+a calm and healthy state.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet brushed each door-post with great nicety, about the\r
+latitude of her shoulders (at that period a woman was truly ridiculous\r
+to an instructed eye if she did not measure a yard and a half across\r
+the shoulders), and having done that sent the muscles of her face in\r
+quest of fresh tears as she advanced into the parlor where Mrs. Glegg\r
+was seated.\r
+\r
+"Well, sister, you're late; what's the matter?" said Mrs. Glegg,\r
+rather sharply, as they shook hands.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet sat down, lifting up her mantle carefully behind, before\r
+she answered,--\r
+\r
+"She's gone," unconsciously using an impressive figure of rhetoric.\r
+\r
+"It isn't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Died the day before yesterday," continued Mrs. Pullet; "an' her legs\r
+was as thick as my body,"' she added, with deep sadness, after a\r
+pause. "They'd tapped her no end o' times, and the water--they say you\r
+might ha' swum in it, if you'd liked."\r
+\r
+"Well, Sophy, it's a mercy she's gone, then, whoever she may be," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis of a mind naturally\r
+clear and decided; "but I can't think who you're talking of, for my\r
+part."\r
+\r
+"But _I_ know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her head; "and\r
+there isn't another such a dropsy in the parish. _I_ know as it's old\r
+Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands."\r
+\r
+"Well, she's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance as I've ever\r
+heared of," said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as much as was\r
+proper when anything happened to her own "kin," but not on other\r
+occasions.\r
+\r
+"She's so much acquaintance as I've seen her legs when they was like\r
+bladders. And an old lady as had doubled her money over and over\r
+again, and kept it all in her own management to the last, and had her\r
+pocket with her keys in under her pillow constant. There isn't many\r
+old _par_ish'ners like her, I doubt."\r
+\r
+"And they say she'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a wagon," observed\r
+Mr. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, "she'd another complaint ever so many years\r
+before she had the dropsy, and the doctors couldn't make out what it\r
+was. And she said to me, when I went to see her last Christmas, she\r
+said, 'Mrs. Pullet, if ever you have the dropsy, you'll think o' me.'\r
+She _did_ say so," added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again;\r
+"those were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday, and\r
+Pullet's bid to the funeral."\r
+\r
+"Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her spirit of\r
+rational remonstrance,--"Sophy, I wonder _at_ you, fretting and\r
+injuring your health about people as don't belong to you. Your poor\r
+father never did so, nor your aunt Frances neither, nor any o' the\r
+family as I ever heard of. You couldn't fret no more than this, if\r
+we'd heared as our cousin Abbott had died sudden without making his\r
+will."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet was silent, having to finish her crying, and rather\r
+flattered than indignant at being upbraided for crying too much. It\r
+was not everybody who could afford to cry so much about their\r
+neighbors who had left them nothing; but Mrs. Pullet had married a\r
+gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money to carry her crying and\r
+everything else to the highest pitch of respectability.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Sutton didn't die without making her will, though," said Mr.\r
+Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying something to sanction\r
+his wife's tears; "ours is a rich parish, but they say there's nobody\r
+else to leave as many thousands behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she's\r
+left no leggicies to speak on,--left it all in a lump to her husband's\r
+nevvy."\r
+\r
+"There wasn't much good i' being so rich, then," said Mrs. Glegg, "if\r
+she'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to. It's poor work when\r
+that's all you've got to pinch yourself for. Not as I'm one o' those\r
+as 'ud like to die without leaving more money out at interest than\r
+other folks had reckoned; but it's a poor tale when it must go out o'\r
+your own family."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered sufficiently\r
+to take off her veil and fold it carefully, "it's a nice sort o' man\r
+as Mrs. Sutton has left her money to, for he's troubled with the\r
+asthmy, and goes to bed every night at eight o'clock. He told me about\r
+it himself--as free as could be--one Sunday when he came to our\r
+church. He wears a hareskin on his chest, and has a trembling in his\r
+talk,--quite a gentleman sort o' man. I told him there wasn't many\r
+months in the year as I wasn't under the doctor's hands. And he said,\r
+'Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said,--the very\r
+words. Ah!" sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her head at the idea that\r
+there were but few who could enter fully into her experiences in pink\r
+mixture and white mixture, strong stuff in small bottles, and weak\r
+stuff in large bottles, damp boluses at a shilling, and draughts at\r
+eighteenpence. "Sister, I may as well go and take my bonnet off now.\r
+Did you see as the cap-box was put out?" she added, turning to her\r
+husband.\r
+\r
+Mr. Pullet, by an unaccountable lapse of memory, had forgotten it, and\r
+hastened out, with a stricken conscience, to remedy the omission.\r
+\r
+"They'll bring it upstairs, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, wishing to go\r
+at once, lest Mrs. Glegg should begin to explain her feelings about\r
+Sophy's being the first Dodson who ever ruined her constitution with\r
+doctor's stuff.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was fond of going upstairs with her sister Pullet, and\r
+looking thoroughly at her cap before she put it on her head, and\r
+discussing millinery in general. This was part of Bessy's weakness\r
+that stirred Mrs. Glegg's sisterly compassion: Bessy went far too well\r
+dressed, considering; and she was too proud to dress her child in the\r
+good clothing her sister Glegg gave her from the primeval strata of\r
+her wardrobe; it was a sin and a shame to buy anything to dress that\r
+child, if it wasn't a pair of shoes. In this particular, however, Mrs.\r
+Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs. Tulliver had\r
+really made great efforts to induce Maggie to wear a leghorn bonnet\r
+and a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg's, but the results\r
+had been such that Mrs. Tulliver was obliged to bury them in her\r
+maternal bosom; for Maggie, declaring that the frock smelt of nasty\r
+dye, had taken an opportunity of basting it together with the roast\r
+beef the first Sunday she wore it, and finding this scheme answer, she\r
+had subsequently pumped on the bonnet with its green ribbons, so as to\r
+give it a general resemblance to a sage cheese garnished with withered\r
+lettuces. I must urge in excuse for Maggie, that Tom had laughed at\r
+her in the bonnet, and said she looked like an old Judy. Aunt Pullet,\r
+too, made presents of clothes, but these were always pretty enough to\r
+please Maggie as well as her mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs. Tulliver\r
+certainly preferred her sister Pullet, not without a return of\r
+preference; but Mrs. Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty, awkward\r
+children; she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pity\r
+they weren't as good and as pretty as sister Deane's child. Maggie and\r
+Tom, on their part, thought their aunt Pullet tolerable, chiefly\r
+because she was not their aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more\r
+than once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his uncles\r
+tipped him that once, of course; but at his aunt Pullet's there were a\r
+great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred the\r
+visit to her. Maggie shuddered at the toads, and dreamed of them\r
+horribly, but she liked her uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. Still,\r
+it was agreed by the sisters, in Mrs. Tulliver's absence, that the\r
+Tulliver blood did not mix well with the Dodson blood; that, in fact,\r
+poor Bessy's children were Tullivers, and that Tom, notwithstanding he\r
+had the Dodson complexion, was likely to be as "contrairy" as his\r
+father. As for Maggie, she was the picture of her aunt Moss, Mr.\r
+Tulliver's sister,--a large-boned woman, who had married as poorly as\r
+could be; had no china, and had a husband who had much ado to pay his\r
+rent. But when Mrs. Pullet was alone with Mrs. Tulliver upstairs, the\r
+remarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs. Glegg, and they\r
+agreed, in confidence, that there was no knowing what sort of fright\r
+sister Jane would come out next. But their _tête-à-tête_ was curtailed\r
+by the appearance of Mrs. Deane with little Lucy; and Mrs. Tulliver\r
+had to look on with a silent pang while Lucy's blond curls were\r
+adjusted. It was quite unaccountable that Mrs. Deane, the thinnest and\r
+sallowest of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child, who\r
+might have been taken for Mrs. Tulliver's any day. And Maggie always\r
+looked twice as dark as usual when she was by the side of Lucy.\r
+\r
+She did to-day, when she and Tom came in from the garden with their\r
+father and their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very\r
+carelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl,\r
+rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother's knee.\r
+Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous, and to\r
+superficial eyes was very much to the disadvantage of Maggie though a\r
+connoisseur might have seen "points" in her which had a higher promise\r
+for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the contrast\r
+between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up\r
+the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her\r
+was neat,--her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her\r
+little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows,\r
+rather darker than her curls, to match hazel eyes, which looked up\r
+with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a\r
+year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight.\r
+\r
+She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger\r
+than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like\r
+Lucy, with a little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in her\r
+hand--only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy's form.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lucy," she burst out, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tom\r
+and me, won't you? Oh, kiss her, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her--no;\r
+he came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole,\r
+than saying, "How do you do?" to all those aunts and uncles. He stood\r
+looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and\r
+semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,--very much as\r
+if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree\r
+of undress that was quite embarrassing.\r
+\r
+"Heyday!" said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. "Do little boys and\r
+gells come into a room without taking notice of their uncles and\r
+aunts? That wasn't the way when _I_ was a little gell."\r
+\r
+"Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+looking anxious and melancholy. She wanted to whisper to Maggie a\r
+command to go and have her hair brushed.\r
+\r
+"Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children, are you?"\r
+said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud, emphatic way, as she took their\r
+hands, hurting them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeks\r
+much against their desire. "Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to\r
+boarding-schools should hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tom\r
+declined that pleasure apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away.\r
+"Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock on your\r
+shoulder."\r
+\r
+Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud, emphatic way, as if she\r
+considered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic; it was a means, she\r
+thought, of making them feel that they were accountable creatures, and\r
+might be a salutary check on naughty tendencies. Bessy's children were\r
+so spoiled--they'd need have somebody to make them feel their duty.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dears," said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate voice, "you\r
+grow wonderful fast. I doubt they'll outgrow their strength," she\r
+added, looking over their heads, with a melancholy expression, at\r
+their mother. "I think the gell has too much hair. I'd have it thinned\r
+and cut shorter, sister, if I was you; it isn't good for her health.\r
+It's that as makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't wonder. Don't you\r
+think so, sister Deane?"\r
+\r
+"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting her lips\r
+close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough; there's\r
+nothing ails her. There's red wheat as well as white, for that matter,\r
+and some like the dark grain best. But it 'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud\r
+have the child's hair cut, so as it 'ud lie smooth."\r
+\r
+A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast, but it was\r
+arrested by the desire to know from her aunt Deane whether she would\r
+leave Lucy behind. Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy come to see\r
+them. After various reasons for refusal, Mrs. Deane appealed to Lucy\r
+herself.\r
+\r
+"You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very pink all over\r
+her little neck.\r
+\r
+"Well done, Lucy! Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr.\r
+Deane, a large but alert-looking man, with a type of _physique_ to be\r
+seen in all ranks of English society,--bald crown, red whiskers, full\r
+forehead, and general solidity without heaviness. You may see noblemen\r
+like Mr. Deane, and you may see grocers or day-laborers like him; but\r
+the keenness of his brown eyes was less common than his contour.\r
+\r
+He held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his hand, and now and then\r
+exchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver, whose box was only\r
+silver-mounted, so that it was naturally a joke between them that Mr.\r
+Tulliver wanted to exchange snuff-boxes also. Mr. Deane's box had been\r
+given him by the superior partners in the firm to which he belonged,\r
+at the same time that they gave him a share in the business, in\r
+acknowledgment of his valuable services as manager. No man was thought\r
+more highly of in St. Ogg's than Mr. Deane; and some persons were even\r
+of opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once held to have made the\r
+worst match of all the Dodson sisters, might one day ride in a better\r
+carriage, and live in a better house, even than her sister Pullet.\r
+There was no knowing where a man would stop, who had got his foot into\r
+a great mill-owning, shipowning business like that of Guest & Co.,\r
+with a banking concern attached. And Mrs. Deane, as her intimate\r
+female friends observed, was proud and "having" enough; _she_ wouldn't\r
+let her husband stand still in the world for want of spurring.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering\r
+in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's staying was settled, "go\r
+and get your hair brushed, do, for shame. I told you not to come in\r
+without going to Martha first, you know I did."\r
+\r
+"Tom come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she\r
+passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.\r
+\r
+"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside\r
+the door. "There's something I want to do before dinner."\r
+\r
+"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom, whose\r
+imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, there is time for this; _do_ come, Tom."\r
+\r
+Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at\r
+once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors.\r
+\r
+"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom, feeling his curiosity awakened.\r
+\r
+Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight\r
+across the middle of her forehead.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd\r
+better not cut any more off."\r
+\r
+Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking, and he\r
+couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun; Maggie would look so\r
+queer.\r
+\r
+"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, excited by her own\r
+daring, and anxious to finish the deed.\r
+\r
+"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in an\r
+admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors.\r
+\r
+"Never mind, make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her\r
+foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.\r
+\r
+The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a lad\r
+who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony's\r
+mane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of\r
+scissors meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious\r
+grinding snip, and then another and another, and the hinder-locks fell\r
+heavily on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven\r
+manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she had\r
+emerged from a wood into the open plain.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Maggie," said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as\r
+he laughed, "Oh, my buttons! what a queer thing you look! Look at\r
+yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw out nutshells\r
+to at school."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly at\r
+her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about\r
+it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother\r
+and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn't want\r
+her hair to look pretty,--that was out of the question,--she only\r
+wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault\r
+with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was\r
+like an idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the\r
+glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, and Maggie's\r
+cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom.\r
+"Oh, my!"\r
+\r
+"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate tone, with an\r
+outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then? I\r
+shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in."\r
+\r
+He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of the\r
+irrevocable which was almost an every-day experience of her small\r
+soul. She could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it\r
+was very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think more\r
+about her hair than ever; for Maggie rushed to her deeds with\r
+passionate impulse, and then saw not only their consequences, but what\r
+would have happened if they had not been done, with all the detail and\r
+exaggerated circumstance of an active imagination. Tom never did the\r
+same sort of foolish things as Maggie, having a wonderful instinctive\r
+discernment of what would turn to his advantage or disadvantage; and\r
+so it happened, that though he was much more wilful and inflexible\r
+than Maggie, his mother hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did\r
+make a mistake of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it: he\r
+"didn't mind." If he broke the lash of his father's gigwhip by lashing\r
+the gate, he couldn't help it,--the whip shouldn't have got caught in\r
+the hinge. If Tom Tulliver whipped a gate, he was convinced, not that\r
+the whipping of gates by all boys was a justifiable act, but that he,\r
+Tom Tulliver, was justifiable in whipping that particular gate, and he\r
+wasn't going to be sorry. But Maggie, as she stood crying before the\r
+glass, felt it impossible that she should go down to dinner and endure\r
+the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom and Lucy, and\r
+Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles,\r
+would laugh at her; for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one\r
+else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat\r
+with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard! What\r
+could she do but sob? She sat as helpless and despairing among her\r
+black locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial,\r
+perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have to think\r
+of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships; but it was not\r
+less bitter to Maggie--perhaps it was even more bitter--than what we\r
+are fond of calling antithetically the real troubles of mature life.\r
+"Ah, my child, you will have real troubles to fret about by and by,"\r
+is the consolation we have almost all of us had administered to us in\r
+our childhood, and have repeated to other children since we have been\r
+grown up. We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny\r
+bare legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother or\r
+nurse in some strange place; but we can no longer recall the poignancy\r
+of that moment and weep over it, as we do over the remembered\r
+sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every one of those keen moments\r
+has left its trace, and lives in us still, but such traces have blent\r
+themselves irrecoverably with the firmer texture of our youth and\r
+manhood; and so it comes that we can look on at the troubles of our\r
+children with a smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is\r
+there any one who can recover the experience of his childhood, not\r
+merely with a memory _of_ what he did and what happened to him, of\r
+what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and trousers, but with\r
+an intimate penetration, a revived consciousness of what he felt then,\r
+when it was so long from one Midsummer to another; what he felt when\r
+his school fellows shut him out of their game because he would pitch\r
+the ball wrong out of mere wilfulness; or on a rainy day in the\r
+holidays, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell from\r
+idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and from defiance\r
+into sulkiness; or when his mother absolutely refused to let him have\r
+a tailed coat that "half," although every other boy of his age had\r
+gone into tails already? Surely if we could recall that early\r
+bitterness, and the dim guesses, the strangely perspectiveless\r
+conception of life, that gave the bitterness its intensity, we should\r
+not pooh-pooh the griefs of our children.\r
+\r
+"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering\r
+the room hurriedly. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I never _see_\r
+such a fright!"\r
+\r
+"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie, angrily. "Go away!"\r
+\r
+"But I tell you you're to come down, Miss, this minute; your mother\r
+says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to\r
+raise her from the floor.\r
+\r
+"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting\r
+Kezia's arm. "I sha'n't come."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia,\r
+going out again.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room ten\r
+minutes after, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots\r
+o' goodies, and mother says you're to come. What are you crying for,\r
+you little spooney?"\r
+\r
+Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if _he_ had been\r
+crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the\r
+dinner, so nice; and she was _so_ hungry. It was very bitter.\r
+\r
+But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and did\r
+not feel that Maggie's grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; but\r
+he went and put his head near her, and said in a lower, comforting\r
+tone,--\r
+\r
+"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when\r
+I've had mine, and a custard and things?"\r
+\r
+"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more\r
+tolerable.\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and\r
+said, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert,--nuts,\r
+you know, and cowslip wine."\r
+\r
+Maggie's tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her.\r
+His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her suffering, and\r
+nuts with cowslip wine began to assert their legitimate influence.\r
+\r
+Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made\r
+her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against\r
+the frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in when it was ajar. She\r
+saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the\r
+custards on a side-table; it was too much. She slipped in and went\r
+toward the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she\r
+repented and wished herself back again.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a\r
+"turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the\r
+most serious results to the table-cloth. For Kezia had not betrayed\r
+the reason of Maggie's refusal to come down, not liking to give her\r
+mistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought\r
+there was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which\r
+was inflicting its own punishment by depriving Maggie of half her\r
+dinner.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same point as\r
+her own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn, while uncle\r
+Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,--\r
+\r
+"Heyday! what little gell's this? Why, I don't know her. Is it some\r
+little gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?"\r
+\r
+"Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr. Tulliver in an\r
+undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. Did you ever\r
+know such a little hussy as it is?"\r
+\r
+"Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny," said Uncle\r
+Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an observation which was\r
+felt to be so lacerating.\r
+\r
+"Fie, for shame!" said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest tone of\r
+reproof. "Little gells as cut their own hair should be whipped and fed\r
+on bread and water,--not come and sit down with their aunts and\r
+uncles."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn to this\r
+denunciation, "she must be sent to jail, I think, and they'll cut the\r
+rest of her hair off there, and make it all even."\r
+\r
+"She's more like a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in a pitying\r
+tone; "it's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the\r
+boy's fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life to be so\r
+brown."\r
+\r
+"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.\r
+\r
+Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision.\r
+Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power of\r
+defiance, and Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by the\r
+recent appearance of the pudding and custard. Under this impression,\r
+he whispered, "Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you'd catch it." He meant to\r
+be friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her\r
+ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, her\r
+heart swelled, and getting up from her chair, she ran to her father,\r
+hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.\r
+\r
+"Come, come, my wench," said her father, soothingly, putting his arm\r
+round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if it\r
+plagued you; give over crying; father'll take your part."\r
+\r
+Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these\r
+moments when her father "took her part"; she kept them in her heart,\r
+and thought of them long years after, when every one else said that\r
+her father had done very ill by his children.\r
+\r
+"How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy!" said Mrs. Glegg, in a\r
+loud "aside," to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be the ruin of her, if you\r
+don't take care. _My_ father never brought his children up so, else we\r
+should ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to have reached\r
+the point at which insensibility begins. She took no notice of her\r
+sister's remark, but threw back her capstrings and dispensed the\r
+pudding, in mute resignation.\r
+\r
+With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for the\r
+children were told they might have their nuts and wine in the\r
+summer-house, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out among\r
+the budding bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animals\r
+getting from under a burning glass.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had her special reason for this permission: now the\r
+dinner was despatched, and every one's mind disengaged, it was the\r
+right moment to communicate Mr. Tulliver's intention concerning Tom,\r
+and it would be as well for Tom himself to be absent. The children\r
+were used to hear themselves talked of as freely as if they were\r
+birds, and could understand nothing, however they might stretch their\r
+necks and listen; but on this occasion Mrs. Tulliver manifested an\r
+unusual discretion, because she had recently had evidence that the\r
+going to school to a clergyman was a sore point with Tom, who looked\r
+at it as very much on a par with going to school to a constable. Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had a sighing sense that her husband would do as he liked,\r
+whatever sister Glegg said, or sister Pullet either; but at least they\r
+would not be able to say, if the thing turned out ill, that Bessy had\r
+fallen in with her husband's folly without letting her own friends\r
+know a word about it.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver," she said, interrupting her husband in his talk with\r
+Mr. Deane, "it's time now to tell the children's aunts and uncles what\r
+you're thinking of doing with Tom, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply, "I've no objections to\r
+tell anybody what I mean to do with him. I've settled," he added,\r
+looking toward Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane,--"I've settled to send him to\r
+a Mr. Stelling, a parson, down at King's Lorton, there,--an uncommon\r
+clever fellow, I understand, as'll put him up to most things."\r
+\r
+There was a rustling demonstration of surprise in the company, such as\r
+you may have observed in a country congregation when they hear an\r
+allusion to their week-day affairs from the pulpit. It was equally\r
+astonishing to the aunts and uncles to find a parson introduced into\r
+Mr. Tulliver's family arrangements. As for uncle Pullet, he could\r
+hardly have been more thoroughly obfuscated if Mr. Tulliver had said\r
+that he was going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor; for uncle Pullet\r
+belonged to that extinct class of British yeoman who, dressed in good\r
+broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church, and ate a\r
+particularly good dinner on Sunday, without dreaming that the British\r
+constitution in Church and State had a traceable origin any more than\r
+the solar system and the fixed stars.\r
+\r
+It is melancholy, but true, that Mr. Pullet had the most confused idea\r
+of a bishop as a sort of a baronet, who might or might not be a\r
+clergyman; and as the rector of his own parish was a man of high\r
+family and fortune, the idea that a clergyman could be a schoolmaster\r
+was too remote from Mr. Pullet's experience to be readily conceivable.\r
+I know it is difficult for people in these instructed times to believe\r
+in uncle Pullet's ignorance; but let them reflect on the remarkable\r
+results of a great natural faculty under favoring circumstances. And\r
+uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty for ignorance. He was the\r
+first to give utterance to his astonishment.\r
+\r
+"Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for?" he said,\r
+with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at Mr. Glegg and Mr.\r
+Deane, to see if they showed any signs of comprehension.\r
+\r
+"Why, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, by what I can\r
+make out," said poor Mr. Tulliver, who, in the maze of this puzzling\r
+world, laid hold of any clue with great readiness and tenacity.\r
+"Jacobs at th' academy's no parson, and he's done very bad by the boy;\r
+and I made up my mind, if I send him to school again, it should be to\r
+somebody different to Jacobs. And this Mr. Stelling, by what I can\r
+make out, is the sort o' man I want. And I mean my boy to go to him at\r
+Midsummer," he concluded, in a tone of decision, tapping his snuff-box\r
+and taking a pinch.\r
+\r
+"You'll have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh, Tulliver?\r
+The clergymen have highish notions, in general," said Mr. Deane,\r
+taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when wishing to maintain a\r
+neutral position.\r
+\r
+"What! do you think the parson'll teach him to know a good sample o'\r
+wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver?" said Mr. Glegg, who was\r
+fond of his jest, and having retired from business, felt that it was\r
+not only allowable but becoming in him to take a playful view of\r
+things.\r
+\r
+"Why, you see, I've got a plan i' my head about Tom," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his glass.\r
+\r
+"Well, if I may be allowed to speak, and it's seldom as I am," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, with a tone of bitter meaning, "I should like to know what\r
+good is to come to the boy by bringin' him up above his fortin."\r
+\r
+"Why," said Mr. Tulliver, not looking at Mrs. Glegg, but at the male\r
+part of his audience, "you see, I've made up my mind not to bring Tom\r
+up to my own business. I've had my thoughts about it all along, and I\r
+made up my mind by what I saw with Garnett and _his_ son. I mean to\r
+put him to some business as he can go into without capital, and I want\r
+to give him an eddication as he'll be even wi' the lawyers and folks,\r
+and put me up to a notion now an' then."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed lips,\r
+that smiled in mingled pity and scorn.\r
+\r
+"It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after that\r
+introductory note, "if they'd let the lawyers alone."\r
+\r
+"Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman, such as\r
+that at Market Bewley?" said Mr. Deane.\r
+\r
+"No, nothing of that," said Mr. Tulliver. "He won't take more than two\r
+or three pupils, and so he'll have the more time to attend to 'em, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner; they can't learn much at\r
+a time when there's so many of 'em," said uncle Pullet, feeling that\r
+he was getting quite an insight into this difficult matter.\r
+\r
+"But he'll want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, a cool hundred a year, that's all," said Mr. Tulliver, with\r
+some pride at his own spirited course. "But then, you know, it's an\r
+investment; Tom's eddication 'ull be so much capital to him."\r
+\r
+"Ay, there's something in that," said Mr. Glegg. "Well well, neighbor\r
+Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right:\r
+\r
+ 'When land is gone and money's spent,\r
+ Then learning is most excellent.'\r
+\r
+"I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Buxton. But us\r
+that have got no learning had better keep our money, eh, neighbor\r
+Pullet?" Mr. Glegg rubbed his knees, and looked very pleasant.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, I wonder _at_ you," said his wife. "It's very unbecoming\r
+in a man o' your age and belongings."\r
+\r
+"What's unbecoming, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg, winking pleasantly at\r
+the company. "My new blue coat as I've got on?"\r
+\r
+"I pity your weakness, Mr. Glegg. I say it's unbecoming to be making a\r
+joke when you see your own kin going headlongs to ruin."\r
+\r
+"If you mean me by that," said Mr. Tulliver, considerably nettled,\r
+"you needn't trouble yourself to fret about me. I can manage my own\r
+affairs without troubling other folks."\r
+\r
+"Bless me!" said Mr. Deane, judiciously introducing a new idea, "why,\r
+now I come to think of it, somebody said Wakem was going to send _his_\r
+son--the deformed lad--to a clergyman, didn't they, Susan?" (appealing\r
+to his wife).\r
+\r
+"I can give no account of it, I'm sure," said Mrs. Deane, closing her\r
+lips very tightly again. Mrs. Deane was not a woman to take part in a\r
+scene where missiles were flying.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully, that Mrs.\r
+Glegg might see he didn't mind her, "if Wakem thinks o' sending his\r
+son to a clergyman, depend on it I shall make no mistake i' sending\r
+Tom to one. Wakem's as big a scoundrel as Old Harry ever made, but he\r
+knows the length of every man's foot he's got to deal with. Ay, ay,\r
+tell me who's Wakem's butcher, and I'll tell you where to get your\r
+meat."\r
+\r
+"But lawyer Wakem's son's got a hump-back," said Mrs. Pullet, who felt\r
+as if the whole business had a funereal aspect; "it's more nat'ral to\r
+send _him_ to a clergyman."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observation with\r
+erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that, neighbor Tulliver;\r
+Wakem's son isn't likely to follow any business. Wakem 'ull make a\r
+gentleman of him, poor fellow."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a tone which implied that her\r
+indignation would fizz and ooze a little, though she was determined to\r
+keep it corked up, "you'd far better hold your tongue. Mr. Tulliver\r
+doesn't want to know your opinion nor mine either. There's folks in\r
+the world as know better than everybody else."\r
+\r
+"Why, I should think that's you, if we're to trust your own tale,"\r
+said Mr. Tulliver, beginning to boil up again.\r
+\r
+"Oh, _I_ say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. "My advice has\r
+never been asked, and I don't give it."\r
+\r
+"It'll be the first time, then," said Mr. Tulliver. "It's the only\r
+thing you're over-ready at giving."\r
+\r
+"I've been over-ready at lending, then, if I haven't been over-ready\r
+at giving," said Mrs. Glegg. "There's folks I've lent money to, as\r
+perhaps I shall repent o' lending money to kin."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, come," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr. Tulliver was\r
+not to be hindered of his retort.\r
+\r
+"You've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said; "and you've had your\r
+five per cent, kin or no kin."\r
+\r
+"Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, "drink your wine, and let me\r
+give you some almonds and raisins."\r
+\r
+"Bessy, I'm sorry for you," said Mrs. Glegg, very much with the\r
+feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of diverting his bark\r
+toward the man who carries no stick. "It's poor work talking o'\r
+almonds and raisins."\r
+\r
+"Lors, sister Glegg, don't be so quarrelsome," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+beginning to cry a little. "You may be struck with a fit, getting so\r
+red in the face after dinner, and we are but just out o' mourning, all\r
+of us,--and all wi' gowns craped alike and just put by; it's very bad\r
+among sisters."\r
+\r
+"I should think it _is_ bad," said Mrs. Glegg. "Things are come to a\r
+fine pass when one sister invites the other to her house o' purpose to\r
+quarrel with her and abuse her."\r
+\r
+"Softly, softly, Jane; be reasonable, be reasonable," said Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by no means said\r
+enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again.\r
+\r
+"Who wants to quarrel with you?" he said. "It's you as can't let\r
+people alone, but must be gnawing at 'em forever. _I_ should never\r
+want to quarrel with any woman if she kept her place."\r
+\r
+"My place, indeed!" said Mrs. Glegg, getting rather more shrill.\r
+"There's your betters, Mr. Tulliver, as are dead and in their grave,\r
+treated me with a different sort o' respect to what you do; _though_\r
+I've got a husband as'll sit by and see me abused by them as 'ud never\r
+ha' had the chance if there hadn't been them in our family as married\r
+worse than they might ha' done."\r
+\r
+"If you talk o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, "my family's as good as\r
+yours, and better, for it hasn't got a damned ill-tempered woman in\r
+it!"\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, "I don't know whether\r
+you think it's a fine thing to sit by and hear me swore at, Mr. Glegg;\r
+but I'm not going to stay a minute longer in this house. You can stay\r
+behind, and come home with the gig, and I'll walk home."\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, dear heart!" said Mr. Glegg in a melancholy tone, as he\r
+followed his wife out of the room.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tulliver, how could you talk so?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with the\r
+tears in her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Let her go," said Mr. Tulliver, too hot to be damped by any amount of\r
+tears. "Let her go, and the sooner the better; she won't be trying to\r
+domineer over _me_ again in a hurry."\r
+\r
+"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Tulliver, helplessly, "do you think it 'ud\r
+be any use for you to go after her and try to pacify her?"\r
+\r
+"Better not, better not," said Mr. Deane. "You'll make it up another\r
+day."\r
+\r
+"Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, drying her eyes.\r
+\r
+No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mr. Tulliver felt very\r
+much as if the air had been cleared of obtrusive flies now the women\r
+were out of the room. There were few things he liked better than a\r
+chat with Mr. Deane, whose close application to business allowed the\r
+pleasure very rarely. Mr. Deane, he considered, was the "knowingest"\r
+man of his acquaintance, and he had besides a ready causticity of\r
+tongue that made an agreeable supplement to Mr. Tulliver's own\r
+tendency that way, which had remained in rather an inarticulate\r
+condition. And now the women were gone, they could carry on their\r
+serious talk without frivolous interruption. They could exchange their\r
+views concerning the Duke of Wellington, whose conduct in the Catholic\r
+Question had thrown such an entirely new light on his character; and\r
+speak slightingly of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo, which he\r
+would never have won if there hadn't been a great many Englishmen at\r
+his back, not to speak of Blucher and the Prussians, who, as Mr.\r
+Tulliver had heard from a person of particular knowledge in that\r
+matter, had come up in the very nick of time; though here there was a\r
+slight dissidence, Mr. Deane remarking that he was not disposed to\r
+give much credit to the Prussians,--the build of their vessels,\r
+together with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzic\r
+beer, inclining him to form rather a low view of Prussian pluck\r
+generally. Rather beaten on this ground, Mr. Tulliver proceeded to\r
+express his fears that the country could never again be what it used\r
+to be; but Mr. Deane, attached to a firm of which the returns were on\r
+the increase, naturally took a more lively view of the present, and\r
+had some details to give concerning the state of the imports,\r
+especially in hides and spelter, which soothed Mr. Tulliver's\r
+imagination by throwing into more distant perspective the period when\r
+the country would become utterly the prey of Papists and Radicals, and\r
+there would be no more chance for honest men.\r
+\r
+Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to these high\r
+matters. He didn't understand politics himself,--thought they were a\r
+natural gift,--but by what he could make out, this Duke of Wellington\r
+was no better than he should be.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver Shows His Weaker Side\r
+\r
+\r
+"Suppose sister Glegg should call her money in; it 'ud be very awkward\r
+for you to have to raise five hundred pounds now," said Mrs. Tulliver\r
+to her husband that evening, as she took a plaintive review of the\r
+day.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband, yet she\r
+retained in all the freshness of her early married life a facility of\r
+saying things which drove him in the opposite direction to the one she\r
+desired. Some minds are wonderful for keeping their bloom in this way,\r
+as a patriarchal goldfish apparently retains to the last its youthful\r
+illusion that it can swim in a straight line beyond the encircling\r
+glass. Mrs. Tulliver was an amiable fish of this kind, and after\r
+running her head against the same resisting medium for thirteen years\r
+would go at it again to-day with undulled alacrity.\r
+\r
+This observation of hers tended directly to convince Mr. Tulliver that\r
+it would not be at all awkward for him to raise five hundred pounds;\r
+and when Mrs. Tulliver became rather pressing to know _how_ he would\r
+raise it without mortgaging the mill and the house which he had said\r
+he never _would_ mortgage, since nowadays people were none so ready to\r
+lend money without security, Mr. Tulliver, getting warm, declared that\r
+Mrs. Glegg might do as she liked about calling in her money, he should\r
+pay it in whether or not. He was not going to be beholden to his\r
+wife's sisters. When a man had married into a family where there was a\r
+whole litter of women, he might have plenty to put up with if he\r
+chose. But Mr. Tulliver did _not_ choose.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver cried a little in a trickling, quiet way as she put on\r
+her nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable sleep, lulled by\r
+the thought that she would talk everything over with her sister Pullet\r
+to-morrow, when she was to take the children to Garum Firs to tea. Not\r
+that she looked forward to any distinct issue from that talk; but it\r
+seemed impossible that past events should be so obstinate as to remain\r
+unmodified when they were complained against.\r
+\r
+Her husband lay awake rather longer, for he too was thinking of a\r
+visit he would pay on the morrow; and his ideas on the subject were\r
+not of so vague and soothing a kind as those of his amiable partner.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling, had a\r
+promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with that painful\r
+sense of the complicated, puzzling nature of human affairs under which\r
+his more dispassionate deliberations were conducted; but it is really\r
+not improbable that there was a direct relation between these\r
+apparently contradictory phenomena, since I have observed that for\r
+getting a strong impression that a skein is tangled there is nothing\r
+like snatching hastily at a single thread. It was owing to this\r
+promptitude that Mr. Tulliver was on horseback soon after dinner the\r
+next day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see his sister\r
+Moss and her husband. For having made up his mind irrevocably that he\r
+would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of five hundred pounds, it naturally\r
+occurred to him that he had a promissory note for three hundred pounds\r
+lent to his brother-in-law Moss; and if the said brother-in-law could\r
+manage to pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to\r
+lessen the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's\r
+spirited step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who require\r
+to know precisely _how_ a thing is to be done before they are strongly\r
+confident that it will be easy.\r
+\r
+For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking, but, like\r
+other every-day things, sure to have a cumulative effect that will be\r
+felt in the long run: he was held to be a much more substantial man\r
+than he really was. And as we are all apt to believe what the world\r
+believes about us, it was his habit to think of failure and ruin with\r
+the same sort of remote pity with which a spare, long-necked man hears\r
+that his plethoric short-necked neighbor is stricken with apoplexy. He\r
+had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about his advantages as a\r
+man who worked his own mill, and owned a pretty bit of land; and these\r
+jokes naturally kept up his sense that he was a man of considerable\r
+substance. They gave a pleasant flavor to his glass on a market-day,\r
+and if it had not been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, Mr.\r
+Tulliver would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two\r
+thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was not\r
+altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds was his\r
+sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage; and a man who\r
+has neighbors that _will_ go to law with him is not likely to pay off\r
+his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the good opinion of\r
+acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred pounds on security too\r
+lofty to be represented by parchment. Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a\r
+good-natured fibre in him, and did not like to give harsh refusals\r
+even to his sister, who had not only come in to the world in that\r
+superfluous way characteristic of sisters, creating a necessity for\r
+mortgages, but had quite thrown herself away in marriage, and had\r
+crowned her mistakes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr.\r
+Tulliver was conscious of being a little weak; but he apologized to\r
+himself by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking wench\r
+before she married Moss; he would sometimes say this even with a\r
+slight tremulousness in his voice. But this morning he was in a mood\r
+more becoming a man of business, and in the course of his ride along\r
+the Basset lanes, with their deep ruts,--lying so far away from a\r
+market-town that the labor of drawing produce and manure was enough to\r
+take away the best part of the profits on such poor land as that\r
+parish was made of,--he got up a due amount of irritation against Moss\r
+as a man without capital, who, if murrain and blight were abroad, was\r
+sure to have his share of them, and who, the more you tried to help\r
+him out of the mud, would sink the further in. It would do him good\r
+rather than harm, now, if he were obliged to raise this three hundred\r
+pounds; it would make him look about him better, and not act so\r
+foolishly about his wool this year as he did the last; in fact, Mr.\r
+Tulliver had been too easy with his brother-in-law, and because he had\r
+let the interest run on for two years, Moss was likely enough to think\r
+that he should never be troubled about the principal. But Mr. Tulliver\r
+was determined not to encourage such shuffling people any longer; and\r
+a ride along the Basset lanes was not likely to enervate a man's\r
+resolution by softening his temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made\r
+in the muddiest days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which\r
+suggested a rash but stimulating snarl at the father of lawyers, who,\r
+whether by means of his hoof or otherwise, had doubtless something to\r
+do with this state of the roads; and the abundance of foul land and\r
+neglected fences that met his eye, though they made no part of his\r
+brother Moss's farm, strongly contributed to his dissatisfaction with\r
+that unlucky agriculturist. If this wasn't Moss's fallow, it might\r
+have been; Basset was all alike; it was a beggarly parish, in Mr.\r
+Tulliver's opinion, and his opinion was certainly not groundless.\r
+Basset had a poor soil, poor roads, a poor non-resident landlord, a\r
+poor non-resident vicar, and rather less than half a curate, also\r
+poor. If any one strongly impressed with the power of the human mind\r
+to triumph over circumstances will contend that the parishioners of\r
+Basset might nevertheless have been a very superior class of people, I\r
+have nothing to urge against that abstract proposition; I only know\r
+that, in point of fact, the Basset mind was in strict keeping with its\r
+circumstances. The muddy lanes, green or clayey, that seemed to the\r
+unaccustomed eye to lead nowhere but into each other, did really lead,\r
+with patience, to a distant high-road; but there were many feet in\r
+Basset which they led more frequently to a centre of dissipation,\r
+spoken of formerly as the "Markis o' Granby," but among intimates as\r
+"Dickison's." A large low room with a sanded floor; a cold scent of\r
+tobacco, modified by undetected beer-dregs; Mr. Dickison leaning\r
+against the door-post with a melancholy pimpled face, looking as\r
+irrelevant to the daylight as a last night's guttered candle,--all\r
+this may not seem a very seductive form of temptation; but the\r
+majority of men in Basset found it fatally alluring when encountered\r
+on their road toward four o'clock on a wintry afternoon; and if any\r
+wife in Basset wished to indicate that her husband was not a\r
+pleasure-seeking man, she could hardly do it more emphatically than by\r
+saying that he didn't spend a shilling at Dickison's from one\r
+Whitsuntide to another. Mrs. Moss had said so of _her_ husband more\r
+than once, when her brother was in a mood to find fault with him, as\r
+he certainly was to-day. And nothing could be less pacifying to Mr.\r
+Tulliver than the behavior of the farmyard gate, which he no sooner\r
+attempted to push open with his riding-stick than it acted as gates\r
+without the upper hinge are known to do, to the peril of shins,\r
+whether equine or human. He was about to get down and lead his horse\r
+through the damp dirt of the hollow farmyard, shadowed drearily by the\r
+large half-timbered buildings, up to the long line of tumble-down\r
+dwelling-houses standing on a raised causeway; but the timely\r
+appearance of a cowboy saved him that frustration of a plan he had\r
+determined on,--namely, not to get down from his horse during this\r
+visit. If a man means to be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak\r
+from that height, above the level of pleading eyes, and with the\r
+command of a distant horizon. Mrs. Moss heard the sound of the horse's\r
+feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already outside the kitchen\r
+door, with a half-weary smile on her face, and a black-eyed baby in\r
+her arms. Mrs. Moss's face bore a faded resemblance to her brother's;\r
+baby's little fat hand, pressed against her cheek, seemed to show more\r
+strikingly that the cheek was faded.\r
+\r
+"Brother, I'm glad to see you," she said, in an affectionate tone. "I\r
+didn't look for you to-day. How do you do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, pretty well, Mrs. Moss, pretty well," answered the brother, with\r
+cool deliberation, as if it were rather too forward of her to ask that\r
+question. She knew at once that her brother was not in a good humor;\r
+he never called her Mrs. Moss except when he was angry, and when they\r
+were in company. But she thought it was in the order of nature that\r
+people who were poorly off should be snubbed. Mrs. Moss did not take\r
+her stand on the equality of the human race; she was a patient,\r
+prolific, loving-hearted woman.\r
+\r
+"Your husband isn't in the house, I suppose?" added Mr. Tulliver after\r
+a grave pause, during which four children had run out, like chickens\r
+whose mother has been suddenly in eclipse behind the hen-coop.\r
+\r
+"No," said Mrs. Moss, "but he's only in the potato-field yonders.\r
+Georgy, run to the Far Close in a minute, and tell father your uncle's\r
+come. You'll get down, brother, won't you, and take something?"\r
+\r
+"No, no; I can't get down. I must be going home again directly," said\r
+Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance.\r
+\r
+"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs. Moss, humbly,\r
+not daring to press her invitation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, pretty well. Tom's going to a new school at Midsummer,--a deal of\r
+expense to me. It's bad work for me, lying out o' my money."\r
+\r
+"I wish you'd be so good as let the children come and see their\r
+cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin Maggie so as\r
+never was. And me her godmother, and so fond of her; there's nobody\r
+'ud make a bigger fuss with her, according to what they've got. And I\r
+know she likes to come, for she's a loving child, and how quick and\r
+clever she is, to be sure!"\r
+\r
+If Mrs. Moss had been one of the most astute women in the world,\r
+instead of being one of the simplest, she could have thought of\r
+nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than this praise of\r
+Maggie. He seldom found any one volunteering praise of "the little\r
+wench"; it was usually left entirely to himself to insist on her\r
+merits. But Maggie always appeared in the most amiable light at her\r
+aunt Moss's; it was her Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of\r
+law,--if she upset anything, dirtied her shoes, or tore her frock,\r
+these things were matters of course at her aunt Moss's. In spite of\r
+himself, Mr. Tulliver's eyes got milder, and he did not look away from\r
+his sister as he said,--\r
+\r
+"Ay; she's fonder o' you than o' the other aunts, I think. She takes\r
+after our family: not a bit of her mother's in her."\r
+\r
+"Moss says she's just like what I used to be," said Mrs. Moss, "though\r
+I was never so quick and fond o' the books. But I think my Lizzy's\r
+like her; _she's_ sharp. Come here, Lizzy, my dear, and let your uncle\r
+see you; he hardly knows you, you grow so fast."\r
+\r
+Lizzy, a black-eyed child of seven, looked very shy when her mother\r
+drew her forward, for the small Mosses were much in awe of their uncle\r
+from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior enough to Maggie in fire and\r
+strength of expression to make the resemblance between the two\r
+entirely flattering to Mr. Tulliver's fatherly love.\r
+\r
+"Ay, they're a bit alike," he said, looking kindly at the little\r
+figure in the soiled pinafore. "They both take after our mother.\r
+You've got enough o' gells, Gritty," he added, in a tone half\r
+compassionate, half reproachful.\r
+\r
+"Four of 'em, bless 'em!" said Mrs. Moss, with a sigh, stroking\r
+Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead; "as many as there's boys.\r
+They've got a brother apiece."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but they must turn out and fend for themselves," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, feeling that his severity was relaxing and trying to brace\r
+it by throwing out a wholesome hint "They mustn't look to hanging on\r
+their brothers."\r
+\r
+"No; but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things, and remember\r
+they came o' one father and mother; the lads 'ull never be the poorer\r
+for that," said Mrs. Moss, flashing out with hurried timidity, like a\r
+half-smothered fire.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then checked\r
+it, and said angrily, "Stand still with you!" much to the astonishment\r
+of that innocent animal.\r
+\r
+"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love one another,"\r
+Mrs. Moss went on, looking at her children with a didactic purpose.\r
+But she turned toward her brother again to say, "Not but what I hope\r
+your boy 'ull allays be good to his sister, though there's but two of\r
+'em, like you and me, brother."\r
+\r
+The arrow went straight to Mr. Tulliver's heart. He had not a rapid\r
+imagination, but the thought of Maggie was very near to him, and he\r
+was not long in seeing his relation to his own sister side by side\r
+with Tom's relation to Maggie. Would the little wench ever be poorly\r
+off, and Tom rather hard upon her?\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Gritty," said the miller, with a new softness in his tone;\r
+"but I've allays done what I could for you," he added, as if\r
+vindicating himself from a reproach.\r
+\r
+"I'm not denying that, brother, and I'm noways ungrateful," said poor\r
+Mrs. Moss, too fagged by toil and children to have strength left for\r
+any pride. "But here's the father. What a while you've been, Moss!"\r
+\r
+"While, do you call it?" said Mr. Moss, feeling out of breath and\r
+injured. "I've been running all the way. Won't you 'light, Mr.\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll just get down and have a bit o' talk with you in the\r
+garden," said Mr. Tulliver, thinking that he should be more likely to\r
+show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were not present.\r
+\r
+He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden, toward an old\r
+yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping her baby on the back\r
+and looking wistfully after them.\r
+\r
+Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several fowls that\r
+were recreating themselves by scratching deep holes in the dusty\r
+ground, and at once took flight with much pother and cackling. Mr.\r
+Tulliver sat down on the bench, and tapping the ground curiously here\r
+and there with his stick, as if he suspected some hollowness, opened\r
+the conversation by observing, with something like a snarl in his\r
+tone,--\r
+\r
+"Why, you've got wheat again in that Corner Close, I see; and never a\r
+bit o' dressing on it. You'll do no good with it this year."\r
+\r
+Mr. Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been regarded as the\r
+buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a week old, and had the\r
+depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-horse. He answered in a\r
+patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor farmers like me must do as they\r
+can; they must leave it to them as have got money to play with, to put\r
+half as much into the ground as they mean to get out of it."\r
+\r
+"I don't know who should have money to play with, if it isn't them as\r
+can borrow money without paying interest," said Mr. Tulliver, who\r
+wished to get into a slight quarrel; it was the most natural and easy\r
+introduction to calling in money.\r
+\r
+"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Moss, "but I was so\r
+unlucky wi' the wool last year; and what with the Missis being laid up\r
+so, things have gone awk'arder nor usual."\r
+\r
+"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there's folks as things 'ull allays go\r
+awk'ard with; empty sacks 'ull never stand upright."\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't know what fault you've got to find wi' me, Mr.\r
+Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly; "I know there isn't a\r
+day-laborer works harder."\r
+\r
+"What's the use o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, "when a man\r
+marries, and's got no capital to work his farm but his wife's bit o'\r
+fortin? I was against it from the first; but you'd neither of you\r
+listen to me. And I can't lie out o' my money any longer, for I've got\r
+to pay five hundred o' Mrs. Glegg's, and there'll be Tom an expense to\r
+me. I should find myself short, even saying I'd got back all as is my\r
+own. You must look about and see how you can pay me the three hundred\r
+pound."\r
+\r
+"Well, if that's what you mean," said Mr. Moss, looking blankly before\r
+him, "we'd better be sold up, and ha' done with it; I must part wi'\r
+every head o' stock I've got, to pay you and the landlord too."\r
+\r
+Poor relations are undeniably irritating,--their existence is so\r
+entirely uncalled for on our part, and they are almost always very\r
+faulty people. Mr. Tulliver had succeeded in getting quite as much\r
+irritated with Mr. Moss as he had desired, and he was able to say\r
+angrily, rising from his seat,--\r
+\r
+"Well, you must do as you can. _I_ can't find money for everybody else\r
+as well as myself. I must look to my own business and my own family. I\r
+can't lie out o' my money any longer. You must raise it as quick as\r
+you can."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered the last\r
+sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Moss, went on to the\r
+kitchen door, where the eldest boy was holding his horse, and his\r
+sister was waiting in a state of wondering alarm, which was not\r
+without its alleviations, for baby was making pleasant gurgling\r
+sounds, and performing a great deal of finger practice on the faded\r
+face. Mrs. Moss had eight children, but could never overcome her\r
+regret that the twins had not lived. Mr. Moss thought their removal\r
+was not without its consolations. "Won't you come in, brother?" she\r
+said, looking anxiously at her husband, who was walking slowly up,\r
+while Mr. Tulliver had his foot already in the stirrup.\r
+\r
+"No, no; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and riding away.\r
+\r
+No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard gate, and\r
+a little way along the deep-rutted lane; but before he reached the\r
+next turning, which would take him out of sight of the dilapidated\r
+farm-buildings, he appeared to be smitten by some sudden thought. He\r
+checked his horse, and made it stand still in the same spot for two or\r
+three minutes, during which he turned his head from side to side in a\r
+melancholy way, as if he were looking at some painful object on more\r
+sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude, Mr. Tulliver\r
+was relapsing into the sense that this is a puzzling world. He turned\r
+his horse, and rode slowly back, giving vent to the climax of feeling\r
+which had determined this movement by saying aloud, as he struck his\r
+horse, "Poor little wench! she'll have nobody but Tom, belike, when\r
+I'm gone."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's return into the yard was descried by several young\r
+Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting news to their mother,\r
+so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-step when her brother rode up.\r
+She had been crying, but was rocking baby to sleep in her arms now,\r
+and made no ostentatious show of sorrow as her brother looked at her,\r
+but merely said:\r
+\r
+"The father's gone to the field, again, if you want him, brother."\r
+\r
+"No, Gritty, no," said Mr. Tulliver, in a gentle tone. "Don't you\r
+fret,--that's all,--I'll make a shift without the money a bit, only\r
+you must be as clever and contriving as you can."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Moss's tears came again at this unexpected kindness, and she\r
+could say nothing.\r
+\r
+"Come, come!--the little wench shall come and see you. I'll bring her\r
+and Tom some day before he goes to school. You mustn't fret. I'll\r
+allays be a good brother to you."\r
+\r
+"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, drying her tears;\r
+then turning to Lizzy, she said, "Run now, and fetch the colored egg\r
+for cousin Maggie." Lizzy ran in, and quickly reappeared with a small\r
+paper parcel.\r
+\r
+"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums, very pretty; it\r
+was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please to carry it in your\r
+pocket?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side pocket.\r
+"Good-by."\r
+\r
+And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset lanes rather\r
+more puzzled than before as to ways and means, but still with the\r
+sense of a danger escaped. It had come across his mind that if he were\r
+hard upon his sister, it might somehow tend to make Tom hard upon\r
+Maggie at some distant day, when her father was no longer there to\r
+take her part; for simple people, like our friend Mr. Tulliver, are\r
+apt to clothe unimpeachable feelings in erroneous ideas, and this was\r
+his confused way of explaining to himself that his love and anxiety\r
+for "the little wench" had given him a new sensibility toward his\r
+sister.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+To Garum Firs\r
+\r
+\r
+While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occupying her\r
+father's mind, she herself was tasting only the bitterness of the\r
+present. Childhood has no forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no\r
+memories of outlived sorrow.\r
+\r
+The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of\r
+having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to\r
+Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Pullet's musical box, had been\r
+marred as early as eleven o'clock by the advent of the hair-dresser\r
+from St. Ogg's, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition\r
+in which he had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after\r
+another and saying, "See here! tut, tut, tut!" in a tone of mingled\r
+disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was equivalent to the\r
+strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Rappit, the hair-dresser,\r
+with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the\r
+simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that\r
+moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at\r
+St. Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest\r
+of her life.\r
+\r
+Moreover, the preparation for a visit being always a serious affair in\r
+the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have Mrs. Tulliver's room\r
+ready an hour earlier than usual, that the laying out of the best\r
+clothes might not be deferred till the last moment, as was sometimes\r
+the case in families of lax views, where the ribbon-strings were never\r
+rolled up, where there was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and\r
+where the sense that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily\r
+produced no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve o'clock, Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective apparatus of\r
+brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture in danger\r
+of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting her shoulders, that she\r
+might if possible shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers, while\r
+her mother was remonstrating, "Don't, Maggie, my dear; don't make\r
+yourself so ugly!" and Tom's cheeks were looking particularly\r
+brilliant as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with\r
+becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, effected what was\r
+always the one point of interest to him in his toilet: he had\r
+transferred all the contents of his every-day pockets to those\r
+actually in wear.\r
+\r
+As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been\r
+yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was\r
+never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity at\r
+Maggie, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker. Maggie\r
+would certainly have torn it off, if she had not been checked by the\r
+remembrance of her recent humiliation about her hair; as it was, she\r
+confined herself to fretting and twisting, and behaving peevishly\r
+about the card-houses which they were allowed to build till dinner, as\r
+a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom\r
+could build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie's would never bear\r
+the laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie\r
+made; and Tom had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make\r
+anything. But it happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at\r
+building; she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that\r
+Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own, the more\r
+readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would\r
+have admired Lucy's houses, and would have given up her own\r
+unsuccessful building to contemplate them, without ill temper, if her\r
+tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately\r
+laughed when her houses fell, and told her she was "a stupid."\r
+\r
+"Don't laugh at me, Tom!" she burst out angrily; "I'm not a stupid. I\r
+know a great many things you don't."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I'd never be such a cross thing as\r
+you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn't do so. I like Lucy better\r
+than you; _I_ wish Lucy was _my_ sister."\r
+\r
+"Then it's very wicked and cruel of you to wish so," said Maggie,\r
+starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom's\r
+wonderful pagoda. She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial\r
+evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said\r
+nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to\r
+strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do\r
+anything cowardly.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floor and\r
+walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy\r
+looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way toward him, "I didn't\r
+mean to knock it down, indeed, indeed I didn't."\r
+\r
+Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas\r
+out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumbnail against the\r
+window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of\r
+hitting a superannuated blue-bottle which was exposing its imbecility\r
+in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had\r
+provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak\r
+individual.\r
+\r
+Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom's persistent\r
+coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and\r
+sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird's nest\r
+without caring to show it Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy\r
+and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, "Maggie,\r
+shouldn't _you_ like one?" but Tom was deaf.\r
+\r
+Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the\r
+stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert\r
+the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the\r
+beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was\r
+wonderful there,--bantams, speckled and top-knotted; Friesland hens,\r
+with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea-fowls that flew\r
+and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers; pouter-pigeons\r
+and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half\r
+mastiff, half bull-dog, as large as a lion. Then there were white\r
+railings and white gates all about, and glittering weathercocks of\r
+various design, and garden-walks paved with pebbles in beautiful\r
+patterns,--nothing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought\r
+that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the general\r
+unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet's possessions as a\r
+gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for\r
+the house, it was not less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and\r
+two wings with battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering\r
+white stucco.\r
+\r
+Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from the window,\r
+and made haste to unbar and unchain the front door, kept always in\r
+this fortified condition from fear of tramps, who might be supposed to\r
+know of the glass case of stuffed birds in the hall, and to\r
+contemplate rushing in and carrying it away on their heads. Aunt\r
+Pullet, too, appeared at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was\r
+within hearing said, "Stop the children, for God's sake! Bessy; don't\r
+let 'em come up the door-steps; Sally's bringing the old mat and the\r
+duster, to rub their shoes."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended to wipe shoes\r
+on; the very scraper had a deputy to do its dirty work. Tom rebelled\r
+particularly against this shoewiping, which he always considered in\r
+the light of an indignity to his sex. He felt it as the beginning of\r
+the disagreeables incident to a visit at aunt Pullet's, where he had\r
+once been compelled to sit with towels wrapped round his boots; a fact\r
+which may serve to correct the too-hasty conclusion that a visit to\r
+Garum Firs must have been a great treat to a young gentleman fond of\r
+animals,--fond, that is, of throwing stones at them.\r
+\r
+The next disagreeable was confined to his feminine companions; it was\r
+the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which had very handsome\r
+carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare bedroom, so that the ascent\r
+of these glossy steps might have served, in barbarous times, as a\r
+trial by ordeal from which none but the most spotless virtue could\r
+have come off with unbroken limbs. Sophy's weakness about these\r
+polished stairs was always a subject of bitter remonstrance on Mrs.\r
+Glegg's part; but Mrs. Tulliver ventured on no comment, only thinking\r
+to herself it was a mercy when she and the children were safe on the\r
+landing.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Gray has sent home my new bonnet, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, in a\r
+pathetic tone, as Mrs. Tulliver adjusted her cap.\r
+\r
+"Has she, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, with an air of much interest.\r
+"And how do you like it?"\r
+\r
+"It's apt to make a mess with clothes, taking 'em out and putting 'em\r
+in again," said Mrs. Pullet, drawing a bunch of keys from her pocket\r
+and looking at them earnestly, "but it 'ud be a pity for you to go\r
+away without seeing it. There's no knowing what may happen."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration,\r
+which determined her to single out a particular key.\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's\r
+made you."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very\r
+bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a\r
+new bonnet. Not at all. Such a supposition could only have arisen from\r
+a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family.\r
+In this wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to be\r
+hidden among layers of linen,--it was a door-key.\r
+\r
+"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"May the children come too, sister?" inquired Mrs. Tulliver, who saw\r
+that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.\r
+\r
+"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for\r
+'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind."\r
+\r
+So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor,\r
+dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the\r
+closed shutter; it was really quite solemn. Aunt Pullet paused and\r
+unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the\r
+passage,--a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly,\r
+showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds.\r
+Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward. Lucy laid\r
+hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe,\r
+with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the\r
+funereal solemnity of the scene. The delicious scent of rose-leaves\r
+that issued from the wardrobe made the process of taking out sheet\r
+after sheet of silver paper quite pleasant to assist at, though the\r
+sight of the bonnet at last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would\r
+have preferred something more strikingly preternatural. But few things\r
+could have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all round\r
+it in silence for some moments, and then said emphatically, "Well,\r
+sister, I'll never speak against the full crowns again!"\r
+\r
+It was a great concession, and Mrs. Pullet felt it; she felt something\r
+was due to it.\r
+\r
+"You'd like to see it on, sister?" she said sadly. "I'll open the\r
+shutter a bit further."\r
+\r
+"Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet took off her cap, displaying the brown silk scalp with a\r
+jutting promontory of curls which was common to the more mature and\r
+judicious women of those times, and placing the bonnet on her head,\r
+turned slowly round, like a draper's lay-figure, that Mrs. Tulliver\r
+might miss no point of view.\r
+\r
+"I've sometimes thought there's a loop too much o' ribbon on this left\r
+side, sister; what do you think?" said Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and turned her\r
+head on one side. "Well, I think it's best as it is; if you meddled\r
+with it, sister, you might repent."\r
+\r
+"That's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and looking at\r
+it contemplatively.\r
+\r
+"How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the possibility of\r
+getting a humble imitation of this _chef-d'œuvre_ made from a piece\r
+of silk she had at home.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and then\r
+whispered, "Pullet pays for it; he said I was to have the best bonnet\r
+at Garum Church, let the next best be whose it would."\r
+\r
+She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation for returning\r
+it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts seemed to have taken\r
+a melancholy turn, for she shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Ah," she said at last, "I may never wear it twice, sister; who\r
+knows?"\r
+\r
+"Don't talk o' that sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I hope you'll\r
+have your health this summer."\r
+\r
+"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there did soon after\r
+I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott may go, and we can't think\r
+o' wearing crape less nor half a year for him."\r
+\r
+"That _would_ be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering thoroughly\r
+into the possibility of an inopportune decease. "There's never so much\r
+pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the second year, especially when the\r
+crowns are so chancy,--never two summers alike."\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Pullet, returning the\r
+bonnet to the wardrobe and locking it up. She maintained a silence\r
+characterized by head-shaking, until they had all issued from the\r
+solemn chamber and were in her own room again. Then, beginning to cry,\r
+she said, "Sister, if you should never see that bonnet again till I'm\r
+dead and gone, you'll remember I showed it you this day."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was a woman\r
+of sparse tears, stout and healthy; she couldn't cry so much as her\r
+sister Pullet did, and had often felt her deficiency at funerals. Her\r
+effort to bring tears into her eyes issued in an odd contraction of\r
+her face. Maggie, looking on attentively, felt that there was some\r
+painful mystery about her aunt's bonnet which she was considered too\r
+young to understand; indignantly conscious, all the while, that she\r
+could have understood that, as well as everything else, if she had\r
+been taken into confidence.\r
+\r
+When they went down, uncle Pullet observed, with some acumen, that he\r
+reckoned the missis had been showing her bonnet,--that was what had\r
+made them so long upstairs. With Tom the interval had seemed still\r
+longer, for he had been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a\r
+sofa directly opposite his uncle Pullet, who regarded him with\r
+twinkling gray eyes, and occasionally addressed him as "Young sir."\r
+\r
+"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a standing\r
+question with uncle Pullet; whereupon Tom always looked sheepish,\r
+rubbed his hands across his face, and answered, "I don't know." It was\r
+altogether so embarrassing to be seated _tête-à-tête_ with uncle\r
+Pullet, that Tom could not even look at the prints on the walls, or\r
+the flycages, or the wonderful flower-pots; he saw nothing but his\r
+uncle's gaiters. Not that Tom was in awe of his uncle's mental\r
+superiority; indeed, he had made up his mind that he didn't want to be\r
+a gentleman farmer, because he shouldn't like to be such a\r
+thin-legged, silly fellow as his uncle Pullet,--a molly-coddle, in\r
+fact. A boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering\r
+reverence; and while you are making encouraging advances to him under\r
+the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your age and wisdom, ten\r
+to one he is thinking you extremely queer. The only consolation I can\r
+suggest to you is, that the Greek boys probably thought the same of\r
+Aristotle. It is only when you have mastered a restive horse, or\r
+thrashed a drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy\r
+juniors feel you to be a truly admirable and enviable character. At\r
+least, I am quite sure of Tom Tulliver's sentiments on these points.\r
+In very tender years, when he still wore a lace border under his\r
+outdoor cap, he was often observed peeping through the bars of a gate\r
+and making minatory gestures with his small forefinger while he\r
+scolded the sheep with an inarticulate burr, intended to strike terror\r
+into their astonished minds; indicating thus early that desire for\r
+mastery over the inferior animals, wild and domestic, including\r
+cockchafers, neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has\r
+been an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race.\r
+Now, Mr. Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony, and was\r
+the least predatory of men, considering firearms dangerous, as apt to\r
+go off of themselves by nobody's particular desire. So that Tom was\r
+not without strong reasons when, in confidential talk with a chum, he\r
+had described uncle Pullet as a nincompoop, taking care at the same\r
+time to observe that he was a very "rich fellow."\r
+\r
+The only alleviating circumstance in a _tête-à-tête_ with uncle Pullet\r
+was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-drops about his\r
+person, and when at a loss for conversation, he filled up the void by\r
+proposing a mutual solace of this kind.\r
+\r
+"Do you like peppermints, young sir?" required only a tacit answer\r
+when it was accompanied by a presentation of the article in question.\r
+\r
+The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Pullet the\r
+further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept a stock\r
+under lock and key for his own private eating on wet days; but the\r
+three children had no sooner got the tempting delicacy between their\r
+fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them to abstain from eating it till\r
+the tray and the plates came, since with those crisp cakes they would\r
+make the floor "all over" crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the\r
+cake was so pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it; but\r
+Tom, watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, hastily\r
+stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it furtively. As for\r
+Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a print of Ulysses and\r
+Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought as a "pretty Scripture thing,"\r
+she presently let fall her cake, and in an unlucky movement crushed it\r
+beneath her foot,--a source of so much agitation to aunt Pullet and\r
+conscious disgrace to Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the\r
+musical snuff-box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred to\r
+her that Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on asking for a\r
+tune. So she whispered to Lucy; and Lucy, who always did what she was\r
+desired to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee, and blush-all over\r
+her neck while she fingered her necklace, said, "Will you please play\r
+us a tune, uncle?"\r
+\r
+Lucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in uncle\r
+Pullet that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes, and indeed the\r
+thing was viewed in that light by the majority of his neighbors in\r
+Garum. Mr. Pullet had _bought_ the box, to begin with, and he\r
+understood winding it up, and knew which tune it was going to play\r
+beforehand; altogether the possession of this unique "piece of music"\r
+was a proof that Mr. Pullet's character was not of that entire nullity\r
+which might otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet,\r
+when entreated to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreciated it by\r
+a too-ready consent. "We'll see about it," was the answer he always\r
+gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of compliance till a suitable\r
+number of minutes had passed. Uncle Pullet had a programme for all\r
+great social occasions, and in this way fenced himself in from much\r
+painful confusion and perplexing freedom of will.\r
+\r
+Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment when the fairy\r
+tune began; for the first time she quite forgot that she had a load on\r
+her mind, that Tom was angry with her; and by the time "Hush, ye\r
+pretty warbling choir," had been played, her face wore that bright\r
+look of happiness, while she sat immovable with her hands clasped,\r
+which sometimes comforted her mother with the sense that Maggie could\r
+look pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin. But when the\r
+magic music ceased, she jumped up, and running toward Tom, put her arm\r
+round his neck and said, "Oh, Tom, isn't it pretty?"\r
+\r
+Lest you should think it showed a revolting insensibility in Tom that\r
+he felt any new anger toward Maggie for this uncalled-for and, to him,\r
+inexplicable caress, I must tell you that he had his glass of cowslip\r
+wine in his hand, and that she jerked him so as to make him spill half\r
+of it. He must have been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, "Look\r
+there, now!" especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it was,\r
+by general disapprobation of Maggie's behavior.\r
+\r
+"Why don't you sit still, Maggie?" her mother said peevishly.\r
+\r
+"Little gells mustn't come to see me if they behave in that way," said\r
+aunt Pullet.\r
+\r
+"Why, you're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet.\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out of her soul,\r
+and the seven small demons all in again.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while the children\r
+remained indoors, took an early opportunity of suggesting that, now\r
+they were rested after their walk, they might go and play out of\r
+doors; and aunt Pullet gave permission, only enjoining them not to go\r
+off the paved walks in the garden, and if they wanted to see the\r
+poultry fed, to view them from a distance on the horse-block; a\r
+restriction which had been imposed ever since Tom had been found\r
+guilty of running after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright\r
+would make one of its feathers drop off.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the\r
+quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the\r
+great theme of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the\r
+children were out of the way, yesterday's anxieties recurred.\r
+\r
+"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way of opening\r
+the subject, "sister Glegg's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure\r
+I'd no wish t' offend a sister."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what Jane 'ull do.\r
+I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it wasn't to Dr.\r
+Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to\r
+Pullet often and often, and he knows it."\r
+\r
+"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from\r
+drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee\r
+and shelter it with his pocket-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the\r
+conversation took an interesting turn.\r
+\r
+"Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, "for you remember when I said\r
+things, better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful\r
+memory, Pullet has," she continued, looking pathetically at her\r
+sister. "I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he\r
+always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff; and I'm\r
+taking three sorts now."\r
+\r
+"There's the 'pills as before' every other night, and the new drops at\r
+eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture 'when agreeable,'"\r
+rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on\r
+his tongue.\r
+\r
+"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if _she'd_ go to the\r
+doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there's\r
+anything the matter with her," said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw\r
+the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"It's dreadful to think on," said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and\r
+letting them fall again, "people playing with their own insides in\r
+that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the\r
+doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in? And when folks have got the\r
+money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respectable, as I've told Jane\r
+many a time. I'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."\r
+\r
+"Well, _we've_ no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Pullet, "for Doctor\r
+Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this parish, now\r
+old Mrs. Sutton's gone."\r
+\r
+"Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?" said Mrs.\r
+Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He says it's nothing but right folks\r
+should see 'em when I'm gone. They fill two o' the long store-room\r
+shelves a'ready; but," she added, beginning to cry a little, "it's\r
+well if they ever fill three. I may go before I've made up the dozen\r
+o' these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my\r
+room,--you'll remember that, sister,--but there's nothing to show for\r
+the boluses, if it isn't the bills."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver; "I should have\r
+nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And\r
+there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver,\r
+for sister Deane's never o' my side, and if she was, it's not to be\r
+looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent\r
+fortin."\r
+\r
+"Well, your husband _is_ awk'ard, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister's\r
+account as well as her own. "He's never behaved quite so pretty to our\r
+family as he should do, and the children take after him,--the boy's\r
+very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the\r
+gell's rude and brown. It's your bad luck, and I'm sorry for you,\r
+Bessy; for you was allays my favorite sister, and we allays liked the\r
+same patterns."\r
+\r
+"I know Tulliver's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; "but I'm sure\r
+he's never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making\r
+the friends o' my side o' the family welcome to the house."\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,\r
+compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that;\r
+and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on\r
+him,--and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly\r
+off when he dies. Not as I'd have it said out o' the family."\r
+\r
+This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs.\r
+Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not\r
+help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that\r
+other people thought it hard.\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by the fear\r
+lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take\r
+comprehensive review of her past conduct. "There's no woman strives\r
+more for her children; and I'm sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as\r
+I've had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells\r
+put together; and there's the last elder-flower wine I've\r
+made--beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though\r
+sister Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking to\r
+have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there's\r
+nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o'\r
+backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish anybody any harm; and\r
+nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with\r
+the best o' my neighbors'; and the linen's so in order as if I was to\r
+die to-morrow I shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she\r
+can."\r
+\r
+"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, holding\r
+her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister,\r
+"if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was\r
+sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it's a comfort to\r
+think as you've kept it well rubbed. And there's the linen, with your\r
+maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It 'ud be a sad pity\r
+for our family." Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly.\r
+\r
+"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr. Tulliver's not a\r
+man to be dictated to,--not if I was to go to the parson and get by\r
+heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't\r
+pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could\r
+never see into men's business as sister Glegg does."\r
+\r
+"Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet; "and I think\r
+it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd have that pier-glass\r
+rubbed oftener,--there was ever so many spots on it last\r
+week,--instead o' dictating to folks as have more comings in than she\r
+ever had, and telling 'em what they're to do with their money. But\r
+Jane and me were allays contrairy; she _would_ have striped things,\r
+and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together\r
+i' that."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our having a blue ground\r
+with a white spot both alike,--I've got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and\r
+if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it\r
+up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a\r
+good sister to me."\r
+\r
+"But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her\r
+himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he's borrowed\r
+money of her, he shouldn't be above that," said Mrs. Pullet, whose\r
+partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what\r
+was due to people of independent fortune.\r
+\r
+"It's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, almost\r
+peevishly. "If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to\r
+Tulliver, he'd never humble himself."\r
+\r
+"Well, you can't expect me to persuade _Jane_ to beg pardon," said\r
+Mrs. Pullet. "Her temper's beyond everything; it's well if it doesn't\r
+carry her off her mind, though there never _was_ any of our family\r
+went to a madhouse."\r
+\r
+"I'm not thinking of her begging pardon," said Mrs. Tulliver. "But if\r
+she'd just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it's not so\r
+much for one sister to ask of another; time 'ud mend things, and\r
+Tulliver 'ud forget all about it, and they'd be friends again."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband's\r
+irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least\r
+such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "_I_ don't want to help\r
+you on to ruin. I won't be behindhand i' doing you a good turn, if it\r
+is to be done. And I don't like it said among acquaintance as we've\r
+got quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane that; and I don't mind\r
+driving to Jane's tomorrow, if Pullet doesn't mind. What do you say,\r
+Mr. Pullet?"\r
+\r
+"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectly contented\r
+with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr. Tulliver did not\r
+apply to _him_ for money. Mr. Pullet was nervous about his\r
+investments, and did not see how a man could have any security for his\r
+money unless he turned it into land.\r
+\r
+After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better\r
+for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs.\r
+Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer\r
+a delicate damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion\r
+of an apron. The door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the\r
+tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs.\r
+Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to\r
+swallow his lozenge--for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward\r
+noted.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter X\r
+\r
+Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected\r
+\r
+\r
+The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no\r
+other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small\r
+foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discolored with mud, holding out two\r
+tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for\r
+this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return\r
+to the moment when the three children went to play out of doors, and\r
+the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul at an early\r
+period of the day had returned in all the greater force after a\r
+temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning\r
+were thick upon her, when Tom, whose displeasure toward her had been\r
+considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset\r
+his cowslip wine, said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and\r
+walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no\r
+Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance\r
+looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was\r
+naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very\r
+amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the\r
+toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy\r
+wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would\r
+doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past\r
+history; for Lucy had a delighted semibelief in Maggie's stories about\r
+the live things they came upon by accident,--how Mrs. Earwig had a\r
+wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper,\r
+for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had\r
+a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's, smashing the earwig\r
+at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire\r
+unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not\r
+help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it\r
+was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of\r
+a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her\r
+run back to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad,\r
+Maggie! Do come and see!"\r
+\r
+Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As\r
+long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his\r
+unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she\r
+could never be cross with pretty little Lucy, any more than she could\r
+be cruel to a little white mouse; but then, Tom had always been quite\r
+indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and\r
+make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that\r
+she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her,\r
+especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if\r
+she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there,\r
+Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner.\r
+\r
+Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that\r
+it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for\r
+some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where\r
+they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice\r
+of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the\r
+pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary\r
+visit to the pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.\r
+\r
+"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down with great\r
+significance, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I\r
+mean to do?"\r
+\r
+"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.\r
+\r
+"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if\r
+you like," said the young sultan.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the\r
+garden."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody\r
+'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do,--I'll run off home."\r
+\r
+"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed\r
+to such severe temptation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I\r
+took you."\r
+\r
+Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the\r
+rare treat of doing something naughty,--excited also by the mention of\r
+that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether\r
+it was a fish or a fowl.\r
+\r
+Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse\r
+to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their\r
+objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of\r
+which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie.\r
+So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was\r
+presently absorbed in watching for the pike,--a highly interesting\r
+monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have\r
+such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did not\r
+show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in\r
+rapid movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on\r
+the brink of the pond.\r
+\r
+"Here, Lucy!" he said in a loud whisper, "come here! take care! keep\r
+on the grass!--don't step where the cows have been!" he added,\r
+pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud on each side of\r
+it; for Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute\r
+of being unfit to walk in dirty places.\r
+\r
+Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what\r
+seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a\r
+water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine\r
+wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie\r
+had drawn nearer and nearer; she _must_ see it too, though it was\r
+bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her\r
+seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware\r
+of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned\r
+round and said,--\r
+\r
+"Now, get away, Maggie; there's no room for you on the grass here.\r
+Nobody asked _you_ to come."\r
+\r
+There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a\r
+tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential\r
+[Greek text] which was present in the passion was wanting to the action;\r
+the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm,\r
+was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.\r
+\r
+Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps\r
+on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly.\r
+Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on\r
+impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed,\r
+but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil\r
+their happiness,--glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why should she\r
+be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive _her_, however sorry she might\r
+have been.\r
+\r
+"I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, loudly and\r
+emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was\r
+not Tom's practice to "tell," but here justice clearly demanded that\r
+Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment; not that Tom had\r
+learned to put his views in that abstract form; he never mentioned\r
+"justice," and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called\r
+by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had\r
+befallen her,--the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the\r
+discomfort of being wet and dirty,--to think much of the cause, which\r
+was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she\r
+had done to make Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was\r
+very unkind and disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to\r
+Tom that he would not "tell," only running along by his side and\r
+crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked\r
+after them with her small Medusa face.\r
+\r
+"Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally\r
+looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter\r
+in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,--"Sally, tell mother it\r
+was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud."\r
+\r
+"But Lors ha' massy, how did you get near such mud as that?" said\r
+Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the _corpus\r
+delicti_.\r
+\r
+Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include\r
+this question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner\r
+put than he foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be\r
+considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from\r
+the kitchen door, leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which\r
+active minds notoriously prefer to ready-made knowledge.\r
+\r
+Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor\r
+door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at\r
+Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind.\r
+\r
+"Goodness gracious!" aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an\r
+inarticulate scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off\r
+the oil-cloth, whatever you do."\r
+\r
+"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up\r
+to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she\r
+felt herself responsible to her sister Deane.\r
+\r
+"If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally;\r
+"Master Tom's been and said so, and they must ha' been to the pond,\r
+for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt."\r
+\r
+"There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said Mrs.\r
+Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; "it's your children,--there's\r
+no knowing what they'll come to."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As\r
+usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had\r
+done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs.\r
+Pullet began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the\r
+premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt.\r
+Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty\r
+children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.\r
+Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing\r
+them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that\r
+she found Tom leaning with rather a hardened, careless air against the\r
+white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on\r
+the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey-cock.\r
+\r
+"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a\r
+distressed voice.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had\r
+diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought\r
+about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.\r
+\r
+"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round.\r
+\r
+"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently\r
+indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock.\r
+\r
+"Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could\r
+you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was\r
+dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done."\r
+\r
+It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his\r
+misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.\r
+\r
+The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear\r
+in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy\r
+herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very\r
+quickly--on his way toward her.\r
+\r
+"They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud,\r
+without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be\r
+brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom\r
+returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took\r
+complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.\r
+\r
+"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone\r
+away."\r
+\r
+You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty\r
+of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet\r
+observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there\r
+was no knowing; and Mr. Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this\r
+revolutionary aspect of things,--the tea deferred and the poultry\r
+alarmed by the unusual running to and fro,--took up his spud as an\r
+instrument of search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen,\r
+as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.\r
+\r
+Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home\r
+(without thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should\r
+have done himself under the circumstances), and the suggestion was\r
+seized as a comfort by his mother.\r
+\r
+"Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the carriage and\r
+take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk\r
+in her dirty clothes," she said, looking at that innocent victim, who\r
+was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring\r
+her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs.\r
+Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant\r
+point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a\r
+question that predominated over every other.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XI\r
+\r
+Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie's intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom\r
+imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy\r
+had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she\r
+would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any\r
+more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often\r
+told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was\r
+miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and\r
+being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a\r
+little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would\r
+gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior\r
+knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and\r
+suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run\r
+away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing\r
+that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat and had\r
+nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie thought her\r
+misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she\r
+rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this\r
+was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she\r
+came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and\r
+cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her,\r
+should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran\r
+along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by\r
+determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small\r
+gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let\r
+him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.\r
+\r
+Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to\r
+the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was\r
+on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a\r
+little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until\r
+one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her\r
+resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into\r
+the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way\r
+that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the\r
+safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken.\r
+But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men\r
+coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting\r
+strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends\r
+coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men\r
+with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his\r
+shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was dreading their\r
+disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a\r
+half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give\r
+a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,--her uncle Glegg's\r
+present,--which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a\r
+polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a\r
+generous person. "That's the only money I've got," she said\r
+apologetically. "Thank you, little miss," said the man, in a less\r
+respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even\r
+observed that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on\r
+hurriedly, but was aware that the two men were standing still,\r
+probably to look after her, and she presently heard them laughing\r
+loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an\r
+idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot,\r
+and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten. Besides, she\r
+had no sleeves on,--only a cape and bonnet. It was clear that she was\r
+not likely to make a favorable impression on passengers, and she\r
+thought she would turn into the fields again, but not on the same side\r
+of the lane as before, lest they should still be uncle Pullet's\r
+fields. She turned through the first gate that was not locked, and\r
+felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows,\r
+after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering\r
+about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the\r
+highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a\r
+small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should\r
+probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some\r
+other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn't go\r
+very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting\r
+rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was\r
+no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight,\r
+for aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits of the Dodson family, took\r
+tea at half-past four by the sun, and at five by the kitchen clock;\r
+so, though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no\r
+gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come.\r
+Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great\r
+distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not\r
+come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum,\r
+where was a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one\r
+laborer at a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as\r
+laborers might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her\r
+wanting to go to Dunlow Common; yet it would have been better if she\r
+could have met some one who would tell her the way without wanting to\r
+know anything about her private business. At last, however, the green\r
+fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the\r
+bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of\r
+it. She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her\r
+knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common could not be\r
+far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his\r
+foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with that\r
+pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in\r
+her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on\r
+with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a\r
+highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth\r
+from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little\r
+Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the\r
+daring that comes from overmastering impulse. She had rushed into the\r
+adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was\r
+in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest\r
+she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron\r
+grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the\r
+heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up,\r
+feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something\r
+hideously preternatural,--a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too\r
+much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the\r
+dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie\r
+trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it\r
+did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who\r
+in all probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was\r
+so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little\r
+semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which\r
+was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued\r
+her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column\r
+of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other\r
+groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more\r
+delighted. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after\r
+all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a\r
+mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand-pits to hide in,\r
+and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's\r
+picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some\r
+comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there\r
+was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at\r
+the first glance as an idiot. It was plain she had attracted\r
+attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a\r
+baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the\r
+new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the\r
+thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called\r
+her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long\r
+hair, was really something like what she used to see in the glass\r
+before she cut her hair off.\r
+\r
+"My little lady, where are you going to?" the gypsy said, in a tone of\r
+coaxing deference.\r
+\r
+It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at\r
+once that she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her\r
+accordingly.\r
+\r
+"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she\r
+had rehearsed in a dream. "I'm come to stay with _you_, please."\r
+\r
+"That's pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to\r
+be sure!" said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her\r
+very agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty.\r
+\r
+There was quite a group round the fire when she reached it. An old\r
+gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and\r
+occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an\r
+odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and\r
+resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid\r
+donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back,\r
+was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent\r
+stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene\r
+was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped\r
+they would soon set out the tea-cups. Everything would be quite\r
+charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing-basin, and\r
+to feel an interest in books. It was a little confusing, though, that\r
+the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which\r
+Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding the\r
+donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. At\r
+last the old woman said,--\r
+\r
+"What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and\r
+tell us where you come from."\r
+\r
+It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and\r
+treated in this way. She sat down and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm come from home because I'm unhappy, and I mean to be a gypsy.\r
+I'll live with you if you like, and I can teach you a great many\r
+things."\r
+\r
+"Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby sitting down\r
+by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; "and such a pretty bonnet and\r
+frock," she added, taking off Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while\r
+she made an observation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The\r
+tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost\r
+with a grin; but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on\r
+this subject, as if she were susceptible about her bonnet.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to wear a bonnet," she said; "I'd rather wear a red\r
+handkerchief, like yours" (looking at her friend by her side). "My\r
+hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I dare say\r
+it will grow again very soon," she added apologetically, thinking it\r
+probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favor of long hair. And\r
+Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to\r
+conciliate gypsy opinion.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a nice little lady!--and rich, I'm sure," said the old\r
+woman. "Didn't you live in a beautiful house at home?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my home is pretty, and I'm very fond of the river, where we go\r
+fishing, but I'm often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my\r
+books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell\r
+you almost everything there is in my books, I've read them so many\r
+times, and that will amuse you. And I can tell you something about\r
+Geography too,--that's about the world we live in,--very useful and\r
+interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?"\r
+\r
+Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush,--she was\r
+really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gaining great influence\r
+over them. The gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this\r
+talk, though their attention was divided by the contents of Maggie's\r
+pocket, which the friend at her right hand had by this time emptied\r
+without attracting her notice.\r
+\r
+"Is that where you live, my little lady?" said the old woman, at the\r
+mention of Columbus.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no!" said Maggie, with some pity; "Columbus was a very wonderful\r
+man, who found out half the world, and they put chains on him and\r
+treated him very badly, you know; it's in my Catechism of Geography,\r
+but perhaps it's rather too long to tell before tea--_I want my tea\r
+so_."\r
+\r
+The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden\r
+drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness.\r
+\r
+"Why, she's hungry, poor little lady," said the younger woman. "Give\r
+her some o' the cold victual. You've been walking a good way, I'll be\r
+bound, my dear. Where's your home?"\r
+\r
+"It's Dorlcote Mill, a good way off," said Maggie. "My father is Mr.\r
+Tulliver, but we mustn't let him know where I am, else he'll fetch me\r
+home again. Where does the queen of the gypsies live?"\r
+\r
+"What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?" said the younger\r
+woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and\r
+grinning. Her manners were certainly not agreeable.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, "I'm only thinking that if she isn't a very good\r
+queen you might be glad when she died, and you could choose another.\r
+If I was a queen, I'd be a very good queen, and kind to everybody."\r
+\r
+"Here's a bit o' nice victual, then," said the old woman, handing to\r
+Maggie a lump of dry bread, which she had taken from a bag of scraps,\r
+and a piece of cold bacon.\r
+\r
+"Thank you,' said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; "but\r
+will you give me some bread-and-butter and tea instead? I don't like\r
+bacon."\r
+\r
+"We've got no tea nor butter," said the old woman, with something like\r
+a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing.\r
+\r
+"Oh, a little bread and treacle would do," said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"We han't got no treacle," said the old woman, crossly, whereupon\r
+there followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their unknown\r
+tongue, and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread-and-bacon,\r
+and began to eat it. At this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few\r
+yards off, came back, and said something which produced a strong\r
+effect. The old woman, seeming to forget Maggie's hunger, poked the\r
+skewer into the pot with new vigor, and the younger crept under the\r
+tent and reached out some platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a\r
+little, and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes. Meanwhile\r
+the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently came running up the boy\r
+whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,--a rough urchin about the\r
+age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible\r
+chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to\r
+cry before long; the gypsies didn't seem to mind her at all, and she felt\r
+quite weak among them. But the springing tears were checked by new\r
+terror, when two men came up, whose approach had been the cause\r
+of the sudden excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which\r
+he flung down, addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone,\r
+which they answered by a shower of treble sauciness; while a black\r
+cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her into a tremor that only\r
+found a new cause in the curses with which the younger man called\r
+the dog off, and gave him a rap with a great stick he held in his hand.\r
+\r
+Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these\r
+people, or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge.\r
+\r
+Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie, for they looked\r
+at her, and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind\r
+which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on\r
+the other. At last the younger woman said in her previous deferential,\r
+coaxing tone,--\r
+\r
+"This nice little lady's come to live with us; aren't you glad?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, very glad," said the younger man, who was looking at Maggie's\r
+silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her\r
+pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman,\r
+with some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie's\r
+pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the\r
+contents of the kettle,--a stew of meat and potatoes,--which had been\r
+taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.\r
+\r
+Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies; they\r
+must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble\r
+by and by. She would willingly have given it to him, for she was not\r
+at all attached to her thimble; but the idea that she was among\r
+thieves prevented her from feeling any comfort in the revival of\r
+deference and attention toward her; all thieves, except Robin Hood,\r
+were wicked people. The women saw she was frightened.\r
+\r
+"We've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old woman, in her\r
+coaxing tone. "And she's so hungry, sweet little lady."\r
+\r
+"Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o' this," said the younger\r
+woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to\r
+Maggie, who, remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her\r
+for not liking the bread-and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though\r
+fear had chased away her appetite. If her father would but come by in\r
+the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr.\r
+Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies,\r
+would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought with a sinking heart\r
+that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of St. Ogg's;\r
+nothing very wonderful ever came there.\r
+\r
+Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well trained,\r
+well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine\r
+necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at\r
+St. Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the\r
+dictionary; so that in travelling over her small mind you would have\r
+found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge.\r
+She could have informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy,"\r
+and being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced the\r
+conclusion that "poly" mean "many"; but she had had no idea that\r
+gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts\r
+generally were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind\r
+dreams.\r
+\r
+Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the\r
+last five minutes. From having considered them very respectful\r
+companions, amenable to instruction, she had begun to think that they\r
+meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark, and cut up her body\r
+for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed\r
+old man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that transparent\r
+disguise at any moment, and turn either into the grinning blacksmith,\r
+or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon's wings. It was no use trying\r
+to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the\r
+gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion of them; and\r
+she wondered, with a keenness of interest that no theologian could\r
+have exceeded, whether, if the Devil were really present, he would\r
+know her thoughts.\r
+\r
+"What! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the young woman,\r
+observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. "Try a\r
+bit, come."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Maggie, summoning all her force for a desperate\r
+effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. "I haven't time, I\r
+think; it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come\r
+again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some\r
+jam-tarts and things."\r
+\r
+Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect,\r
+devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her hope sank when the\r
+old gypsy-woman said, "Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we'll take\r
+you home, all safe, when we've done supper; you shall ride home, like\r
+a lady."\r
+\r
+Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she\r
+presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey, and\r
+throwing a couple of bags on his back.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, little missis," said the younger man, rising, and leading\r
+the donkey forward, "tell us where you live; what's the name o' the\r
+place?"\r
+\r
+"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My father is Mr.\r
+Tulliver; he lives there."\r
+\r
+"What! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie. "Is it far off? I think I should like to walk\r
+there, if you please."\r
+\r
+"No, no, it'll be getting dark, we must make haste. And the donkey'll\r
+carry you as nice as can be; you'll see."\r
+\r
+He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt\r
+relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her,\r
+but she had only a trembling hope that she was really going home.\r
+\r
+"Here's your pretty bonnet," said the younger woman, putting that\r
+recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie's head;\r
+"and you'll say we've been very good to you, won't you? and what a\r
+nice little lady we said you was."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie, "I'm very much obliged to you. But I\r
+wish you'd go with me too." She thought anything was better than going\r
+with one of the dreadful men alone; it would be more cheerful to be\r
+murdered by a larger party.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you're fondest o' _me_, aren't you?" said the woman. "But I can't\r
+go; you'll go too fast for me."\r
+\r
+It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey,\r
+holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable of remonstrating\r
+against this arrangement as the donkey himself, though no nightmare\r
+had ever seemed to her more horrible. When the woman had patted her on\r
+the back, and said "Good-by," the donkey, at a strong hint from the\r
+man's stick, set off at a rapid walk along the lane toward the point\r
+Maggie had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough\r
+urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly escorted them for the\r
+first hundred yards, with much screaming and thwacking.\r
+\r
+Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom\r
+lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural\r
+ride on a short-paced donkey, with a gypsy behind her, who considered\r
+that he was earning half a crown. The red light of the setting sun\r
+seemed to have a portentous meaning, with which the alarming bray of\r
+the second donkey with the log on its foot must surely have some\r
+connection. Two low thatched cottages--the only houses they passed in\r
+this lane--seemed to add to its dreariness; they had no windows to\r
+speak of, and the doors were closed; it was probable that they were\r
+inhabitated by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey\r
+did not stop there.\r
+\r
+At last--oh, sight of joy!--this lane, the longest in the world, was\r
+coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was\r
+actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the\r
+corner,--she had surely seen that finger-post before,--"To St. Ogg's,\r
+2 miles." The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was\r
+probably a good man, after all, and might have been rather hurt at the\r
+thought that she didn't like coming with him alone. This idea became\r
+stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road\r
+quite well, and she was considering how she might open a conversation\r
+with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify his feelings but efface\r
+the impression of her cowardice, when, as they reached a cross-road.\r
+Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a white-faced horse.\r
+\r
+"Oh, stop, stop!" she cried out. "There's my father! Oh, father,\r
+father!"\r
+\r
+The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her,\r
+she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver's wonder, for he had made a\r
+round from Basset, and had not yet been home.\r
+\r
+"Why, what's the meaning o' this?" he said, checking his horse, while\r
+Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father's stirrup.\r
+\r
+"The little miss lost herself, I reckon," said the gypsy. "She'd come\r
+to our tent at the far end o' Dunlow Lane, and I was bringing her\r
+where she said her home was. It's a good way to come after being on\r
+the tramp all day."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, father, he's been very good to bring me home," said\r
+Maggie,--"a very kind, good man!"\r
+\r
+"Here, then, my man," said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings.\r
+"It's the best day's work _you_ ever did. I couldn't afford to lose\r
+the little wench; here, lift her up before me."\r
+\r
+"Why, Maggie, how's this, how's this?" he said, as they rode along,\r
+while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. "How came you\r
+to be rambling about and lose yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, "I ran away because I was so unhappy; Tom\r
+was so angry with me. I couldn't bear it."\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh," said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, "you mustn't think o'\r
+running away from father. What 'ud father do without his little\r
+wench?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I never will again, father--never."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that\r
+evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie\r
+never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about\r
+this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was\r
+rather awe-stricken by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought\r
+that her conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XII\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home\r
+\r
+\r
+In order to see Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at home, we must enter the town of\r
+St. Ogg's,--that venerable town with the red fluted roofs and the\r
+broad warehouse gables, where the black ships unlade themselves of\r
+their burthens from the far north, and carry away, in exchange, the\r
+precious inland products, the well-crushed cheese and the soft fleeces\r
+which my refined readers have doubtless become acquainted with through\r
+the medium of the best classic pastorals.\r
+\r
+It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a continuation\r
+and outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the bower-birds or\r
+the winding galleries of the white ants; a town which carries the\r
+traces of its long growth and history like a millennial tree, and has\r
+sprung up and developed in the same spot between the river and the low\r
+hill from the time when the Roman legions turned their backs on it\r
+from the camp on the hillside, and the long-haired sea-kings came up\r
+the river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of the\r
+land. It is a town "familiar with forgotten years." The shadow of the\r
+Saxon hero-king still walks there fitfully, reviewing the scenes of\r
+his youth and love-time, and is met by the gloomier shadow of the\r
+dreadful heathen Dane, who was stabbed in the midst of his warriors by\r
+the sword of an invisible avenger, and who rises on autumn evenings\r
+like a white mist from his tumulus on the hill, and hovers in the\r
+court of the old hall by the river-side, the spot where he was thus\r
+miraculously slain in the days before the old hall was built. It was\r
+the Normans who began to build that fine old hall, which is, like the\r
+town, telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sundered\r
+generations; but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon at\r
+its inconsistencies, and are well content that they who built the\r
+stone oriel, and they who built the Gothic façade and towers of finest\r
+small brickwork with the trefoil ornament, and the windows and\r
+battlements defined with stone, did not sacreligiously pull down the\r
+ancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall.\r
+\r
+But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now built\r
+into the belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of the\r
+original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the patron saint of this ancient\r
+town, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. I\r
+incline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it is\r
+at least likely to contain the least falsehood. "Ogg the son of\r
+Beorl," says my private hagiographer, "was a boatman who gained a\r
+scanty living by ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it\r
+came to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat\r
+moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms;\r
+and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, and she\r
+craved to be rowed across the river. And the men thereabout questioned\r
+her, and said, 'Wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river? Tarry\r
+till the morning, and take shelter here for the night; so shalt thou\r
+be wise and not foolish.' Still she went on to mourn and crave. But\r
+Ogg the son of Beorl came up and said, 'I will ferry thee across; it\r
+is enough that thy heart needs it.' And he ferried her across. And it\r
+came to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags were turned into\r
+robes of flowing white, and her face became bright with exceeding\r
+beauty, and there was a glory around it, so that she shed a light on\r
+the water like the moon in its brightness. And she said, 'Ogg, the son\r
+of Beorl, thou art blessed in that thou didst not question and wrangle\r
+with the heart's need, but wast smitten with pity, and didst\r
+straightway relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso steps into thy\r
+boat shall be in no peril from the storm; and whenever it puts forth\r
+to the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men and beasts.' And\r
+when the floods came, many were saved by reason of that blessing on\r
+the boat. But when Ogg the son of Beorl died, behold, in the parting\r
+of his soul, the boat loosed itself from its moorings, and was floated\r
+with the ebbing tide in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no\r
+more. Yet it was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at the\r
+coming on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl was always seen with his\r
+boat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed Virgin sat in the\r
+prow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its brightness, so\r
+that the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled anew."\r
+\r
+This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visitation of\r
+the floods, which, even when they left human life untouched, were\r
+widely fatal to the helpless cattle, and swept as sudden death over\r
+all smaller living things. But the town knew worse troubles even than\r
+the floods,--troubles of the civil wars, when it was a continual\r
+fighting-place, where first Puritans thanked God for the blood of the\r
+Loyalists, and then Loyalists thanked God for the blood of the\r
+Puritans. Many honest citizens lost all their possessions for\r
+conscience' sake in those times, and went forth beggared from their\r
+native town. Doubtless there are many houses standing now on which\r
+those honest citizens turned their backs in sorrow,--quaint-gabled\r
+houses looking on the river, jammed between newer warehouses, and\r
+penetrated by surprising passages, which turn and turn at sharp angles\r
+till they lead you out on a muddy strand overflowed continually by the\r
+rushing tide. Everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look, and in\r
+Mrs. Glegg's day there was no incongruous new-fashioned smartness, no\r
+plate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing or other\r
+fallacious attempt to make fine old red St. Ogg's wear the air of a\r
+town that sprang up yesterday. The shop-windows were small and\r
+unpretending; for the farmers' wives and daughters who came to do\r
+their shopping on market-days were not to be withdrawn from their\r
+regular well-known shops; and the tradesmen had no wares intended for\r
+customers who would go on their way and be seen no more. Ah! even Mrs.\r
+Glegg's day seems far back in the past now, separated from us by\r
+changes that widen the years. War and the rumor of war had then died\r
+out from the minds of men, and if they were ever thought of by the\r
+farmers in drab greatcoats, who shook the grain out of their\r
+sample-bags and buzzed over it in the full market-place, it was as a\r
+state of things that belonged to a past golden age when prices were\r
+high. Surely the time was gone forever when the broad river could\r
+bring up unwelcome ships; Russia was only the place where the linseed\r
+came from,--the more the better,--making grist for the great vertical\r
+millstones with their scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding and\r
+carefully sweeping as if an informing soul were in them. The\r
+Catholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious fluctuations of trade were\r
+the three evils mankind had to fear; even the floods had not been\r
+great of late years. The mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensively\r
+before or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of it, and\r
+had no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since the centuries\r
+when St. Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had been\r
+seen on the wide water, so many memories had been left behind, and had\r
+gradually vanished like the receding hilltops! And the present time\r
+was like the level plain where men lose their belief in volcanoes and\r
+earthquakes, thinking to-morrow will be as yesterday, and the giant\r
+forces that used to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep. The\r
+days were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by their\r
+faith, still less change it; the Catholics were formidable because\r
+they would lay hold of government and property, and burn men alive;\r
+not because any sane and honest parishioner of St. Ogg's could be\r
+brought to believe in the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rude\r
+multitude had been swayed when John Wesley preached in the\r
+cattle-market; but for a long while it had not been expected of\r
+preachers that they should shake the souls of men. An occasional burst\r
+of fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism was\r
+the only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when men had done\r
+with change. Protestantism sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, careless\r
+of proselytism: Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew\r
+and a business connection; and Churchmanship only wondered\r
+contemptuously at Dissent as a foolish habit that clung greatly to\r
+families in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not incompatible\r
+with prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Question had\r
+come a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderly\r
+rector had become occasionally historical and argumentative; and Mr.\r
+Spray, the Independent minister, had begun to preach political\r
+sermons, in which he distinguished with much subtlety between his\r
+fervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and his\r
+fervent belief in their eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray's\r
+hearers, however, were incapable of following his subtleties, and many\r
+old-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his "siding with the\r
+Catholics"; while others thought he had better let politics alone.\r
+Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men who\r
+busied themselves with political questions were regarded with some\r
+suspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who had\r
+little or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, were\r
+likely enough to become insolvent.\r
+\r
+This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs. Glegg's\r
+day, and at that particular period in her family history when she had\r
+had her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. It was a time when ignorance was\r
+much more comfortable than at present, and was received with all the\r
+honors in very good society, without being obliged to dress itself in\r
+an elaborate costume of knowledge; a time when cheap periodicals were\r
+not, and when country surgeons never thought of asking their female\r
+patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took it for granted\r
+that they preferred gossip; a time when ladies in rich silk gowns wore\r
+large pockets, in which they carried a mutton-bone to secure them\r
+against cramp. Mrs. Glegg carried such a bone, which she had inherited\r
+from her grandmother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty,\r
+like a suit of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick; for the\r
+Dodson family had been respectable for many generations.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her excellent house\r
+at St. Ogg's, so that she had two points of view from which she could\r
+observe the weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce her\r
+thankfulness for her own exceptional strength of mind. From her front\r
+window she could look down the Tofton Road, leading out of St. Ogg's,\r
+and note the growing tendency to "gadding about" in the wives of men\r
+not retired from business, together with a practice of wearing woven\r
+cotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the coming\r
+generation; and from her back windows she could look down the pleasant\r
+garden and orchard which stretched to the river, and observe the folly\r
+of Mr. Glegg in spending his time among "them flowers and vegetables."\r
+For Mr. Glegg, having retired from active business as a wool-stapler\r
+for the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, had\r
+found this last occupation so much more severe than his business, that\r
+he had been driven into amateur hard labor as a dissipation, and\r
+habitually relaxed by doing the work of two ordinary gardeners. The\r
+economizing of a gardener's wages might perhaps have induced Mrs.\r
+Glegg to wink at this folly, if it were possible for a healthy female\r
+mind even to simulate respect for a husband's hobby. But it is well\r
+known that this conjugal complacency belongs only to the weaker\r
+portion of the sex, who are scarcely alive to the responsibilities of\r
+a wife as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures, which are\r
+hardly ever of a rational or commendable kind.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg on his side, too, had a double source of mental occupation,\r
+which gave every promise of being inexhaustible. On the one hand, he\r
+surprised himself by his discoveries in natural history, finding that\r
+his piece of garden-ground contained wonderful caterpillars, slugs,\r
+and insects, which, so far as he had heard, had never before attracted\r
+human observation; and he noticed remarkable coincidences between\r
+these zoological phenomena and the great events of that time,--as, for\r
+example, that before the burning of York Minster there had been\r
+mysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the rose-trees, together\r
+with an unusual prevalence of slugs, which he had been puzzled to know\r
+the meaning of, until it flashed upon him with this melancholy\r
+conflagration. (Mr. Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity,\r
+which, when disengaged from the wool business, naturally made itself a\r
+pathway in other directions.) And his second subject of meditation was\r
+the "contrairiness" of the female mind, as typically exhibited in Mrs.\r
+Glegg. That a creature made--in a genealogical sense--out of a man's\r
+rib, and in this particular case maintained in the highest\r
+respectability without any trouble of her own, should be normally in a\r
+state of contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to the\r
+most accommodating concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things\r
+to which he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters of\r
+Genesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as a handsome\r
+embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and being himself of a\r
+money-getting, money-keeping turn, had calculated on much conjugal\r
+harmony. But in that curious compound, the feminine character, it may\r
+easily happen that the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent\r
+ingredients; and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with\r
+a seasoning that quite spoils its relish. Now, good Mr. Glegg himself\r
+was stingy in the most amiable manner; his neighbors called him\r
+"near," which always means that the person in question is a lovable\r
+skinflint. If you expressed a preference for cheese-parings, Mr. Glegg\r
+would remember to save them for you, with a good-natured delight in\r
+gratifying your palate, and he was given to pet all animals which\r
+required no appreciable keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy about\r
+Mr. Glegg; his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the sale\r
+of a widow's furniture, which a five-pound note from his side pocket\r
+would have prevented; but a donation of five pounds to a person "in a\r
+small way of life" would have seemed to him a mad kind of lavishness\r
+rather than "charity," which had always presented itself to him as a\r
+contribution of small aids, not a neutralizing of misfortune. And Mr.\r
+Glegg was just as fond of saving other people's money as his own; he\r
+would have ridden as far round to avoid a turnpike when his expenses\r
+were to be paid for him, as when they were to come out of his own\r
+pocket, and was quite zealous in trying to induce indifferent\r
+acquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for blacking. This\r
+inalienable habit of saving, as an end in itself, belonged to the\r
+industrious men of business of a former generation, who made their\r
+fortunes slowly, almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to the\r
+harrier,--it constituted them a "race," which is nearly lost in these\r
+days of rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the back\r
+of want. In old-fashioned times an "independence" was hardly ever made\r
+without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have found\r
+that quality in every provincial district, combined with characters as\r
+various as the fruits from which we can extract acid. The true\r
+Harpagons were always marked and exceptional characters; not so the\r
+worthy tax-payers, who, having once pinched from real necessity,\r
+retained even in the midst of their comfortable retirement, with their\r
+wallfruit and wine-bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingenious\r
+process of nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving any\r
+perceptible deficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted\r
+to give up a newly taxed luxury when they had had their clear five\r
+hundred a year, as when they had only five hundred pounds of capital.\r
+Mr. Glegg was one of these men, found so impracticable by chancellors\r
+of the exchequer; and knowing this, you will be the better able to\r
+understand why he had not swerved from the conviction that he had made\r
+an eligible marriage, in spite of the too-pungent seasoning that\r
+nature had given to the eldest Miss Dodson's virtues. A man with an\r
+affectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with his\r
+fundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that no\r
+other woman would have suited him so well, and does a little daily\r
+snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. Mr. Glegg,\r
+being of a reflective turn, and no longer occupied with wool, had much\r
+wondering meditation on the peculiar constitution of the female mind\r
+as unfolded to him in his domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs.\r
+Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as a\r
+pitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up their\r
+table-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did,\r
+if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damson\r
+cheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiar\r
+combination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. Glegg's private\r
+cupboard impressed him as the only right thing in the way of cupboard\r
+smells. I am not sure that he would not have longed for the\r
+quarrelling again, if it had ceased for an entire week; and it is\r
+certain that an acquiescent, mild wife would have left his meditations\r
+comparatively jejune and barren of mystery.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this, that it\r
+pained him more to see his wife at variance with others,--even with\r
+Dolly, the servant,--than to be in a state of cavil with her himself;\r
+and the quarrel between her and Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it\r
+quite nullified the pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state\r
+of his early cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast the\r
+next morning. Still, he went in to breakfast with some slight hope\r
+that, now Mrs. Glegg had "slept upon it," her anger might be subdued\r
+enough to give way to her usually strong sense of family decorum. She\r
+had been used to boast that there had never been any of those deadly\r
+quarrels among the Dodsons which had disgraced other families; that no\r
+Dodson had ever been "cut off with a shilling," and no cousin of the\r
+Dodsons disowned; as, indeed, why should they be? For they had no\r
+cousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their own, at\r
+the very least.\r
+\r
+There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared from Mrs.\r
+Glegg's brow when she sat at the breakfast-table. It was her fuzzy\r
+front of curls; for as she occupied herself in household matters in\r
+the morning it would have been a mere extravagance to put on anything\r
+so superfluous to the making of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curled\r
+front. By half-past ten decorum demanded the front; until then Mrs.\r
+Glegg could economize it, and society would never be any the wiser.\r
+But the absence of that cloud only left it more apparent that the\r
+cloud of severity remained; and Mr. Glegg, perceiving this, as he sat\r
+down to his milkporridge, which it was his old frugal habit to stem\r
+his morning hunger with, prudently resolved to leave the first remark\r
+to Mrs. Glegg, lest, to so delicate an article as a lady's temper, the\r
+slightest touch should do mischief. People who seem to enjoy their ill\r
+temper have a way of keeping it in fine condition by inflicting\r
+privations on themselves. That was Mrs. Glegg's way. She made her tea\r
+weaker than usual this morning, and declined butter. It was a hard\r
+case that a vigorous mood for quarrelling, so highly capable of using\r
+an opportunity, should not meet with a single remark from Mr. Glegg on\r
+which to exercise itself. But by and by it appeared that his silence\r
+would answer the purpose, for he heard himself apostrophized at last\r
+in that tone peculiar to the wife of one's bosom.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Glegg! it's a poor return I get for making you the wife\r
+I've made you all these years. If this is the way I'm to be treated,\r
+I'd better ha' known it before my poor father died, and then, when I'd\r
+wanted a home, I should ha' gone elsewhere, as the choice was offered\r
+me."\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up, not with any new\r
+amazement, but simply with that quiet, habitual wonder with which we\r
+regard constant mysteries.\r
+\r
+"Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now?"\r
+\r
+"Done now, Mr. Glegg? _done now?_--I'm sorry for you."\r
+\r
+Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg reverted to his\r
+porridge.\r
+\r
+"There's husbands in the world," continued Mrs. Glegg, after a pause,\r
+"as 'ud have known how to do something different to siding with\r
+everybody else against their own wives. Perhaps I'm wrong and you can\r
+teach me better. But I've allays heard as it's the husband's place to\r
+stand by the wife, instead o' rejoicing and triumphing when folks\r
+insult her."\r
+\r
+"Now, what call have you to say that?" said Mr. Glegg, rather warmly,\r
+for though a kind man, he was not as meek as Moses. "When did I\r
+rejoice or triumph over you?"\r
+\r
+"There's ways o' doing things worse than speaking out plain, Mr.\r
+Glegg. I'd sooner you'd tell me to my face as you make light of me,\r
+than try to make out as everybody's in the right but me, and come to\r
+your breakfast in the morning, as I've hardly slept an hour this\r
+night, and sulk at me as if I was the dirt under your feet."\r
+\r
+"Sulk at you?" said Mr. Glegg, in a tone of angry facetiousness.\r
+"You're like a tipsy man as thinks everybody's had too much but\r
+himself."\r
+\r
+"Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to _me_, Mr. Glegg!\r
+It makes you look very small, though you can't see yourself," said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion. "A man in your place\r
+should set an example, and talk more sensible."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but will you listen to sense?" retorted Mr. Glegg, sharply. "The\r
+best sense I can talk to you is what I said last night,--as you're i'\r
+the wrong to think o' calling in your money, when it's safe enough if\r
+you'd let it alone, all because of a bit of a tiff, and I was in hopes\r
+you'd ha' altered your mind this morning. But if you'd like to call it\r
+in, don't do it in a hurry now, and breed more enmity in the family,\r
+but wait till there's a pretty mortgage to be had without any trouble.\r
+You'd have to set the lawyer to work now to find an investment, and\r
+make no end o' expense."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg felt there was really something in this, but she tossed her\r
+head and emitted a guttural interjection to indicate that her silence\r
+was only an armistice, not a peace. And, in fact hostilities soon\r
+broke out again.\r
+\r
+"I'll thank you for my cup o' tea, now, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual, when he had\r
+finished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with a slight toss of the\r
+head, and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm glad to hear you'll _thank_ me, Mr. Glegg. It's little thanks _I_\r
+get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though there's never a\r
+woman o' _your_ side o' the family, Mr. Glegg, as is fit to stand up\r
+with me, and I'd say it if I was on my dying bed. Not but what I've\r
+allays conducted myself civil to your kin, and there isn't one of 'em\r
+can say the contrary, though my equils they aren't, and nobody shall\r
+make me say it."\r
+\r
+"You'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you've left off\r
+quarrelling with you own, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg, with angry\r
+sarcasm. "I'll trouble you for the milk-jug."\r
+\r
+"That's as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr. Glegg," said the lady,\r
+pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as much as to say, if\r
+he wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance. "And you know it's\r
+false. I'm not the woman to quarrel with my own kin; _you_ may, for\r
+I've known you to do it."\r
+\r
+"Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister's\r
+house in a tantrum?"\r
+\r
+"I'd no quarrel wi' my sister, Mr. Glegg, and it's false to say it.\r
+Mr. Tulliver's none o' my blood, and it was him quarrelled with me,\r
+and drove me out o' the house. But perhaps you'd have had me stay and\r
+be swore at, Mr. Glegg; perhaps you was vexed not to hear more abuse\r
+and foul language poured out upo' your own wife. But, let me tell you,\r
+it's _your_ disgrace."\r
+\r
+"Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish?" said Mr. Glegg,\r
+getting hot. "A woman, with everything provided for her, and allowed\r
+to keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with a\r
+gig new stuffed and lined at no end o' expense, and provided for when\r
+I die beyond anything she could expect--to go on i' this way, biting\r
+and snapping like a mad dog! It's beyond everything, as God A 'mighty\r
+should ha' made women _so_." (These last words were uttered in a tone\r
+of sorrowful agitation. Mr. Glegg pushed his tea from him, and tapped\r
+the table with both his hands.)\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Glegg, if those are your feelings, it's best they should be\r
+known," said Mrs. Glegg, taking off her napkin, and folding it in an\r
+excited manner. "But if you talk o' my being provided for beyond what\r
+I could expect, I beg leave to tell you as I'd a right to expect a\r
+many things as I don't find. And as to my being like a mad dog, it's\r
+well if you're not cried shame on by the county for your treatment of\r
+me, for it's what I can't bear, and I won't bear----"\r
+\r
+Here Mrs. Glegg's voice intimated that she was going to cry, and\r
+breaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently.\r
+\r
+"Sally," she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in rather a\r
+choked voice, "light a fire up-stairs, and put the blinds down. Mr.\r
+Glegg, you'll please to order what you'd like for dinner. I shall have\r
+gruel."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case, and took\r
+down Baxter's "Saints' Everlasting Rest," which she carried with her\r
+up-stairs. It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before her\r
+on special occasions,--on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of a\r
+death in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr.\r
+Glegg had been set an octave higher than usual.\r
+\r
+But Mrs. Glegg carried something else up-stairs with her, which,\r
+together with the "Saints' Rest" and the gruel, may have had some\r
+influence in gradually calming her feelings, and making it possible\r
+for her to endure existence on the ground-floor, shortly before\r
+tea-time. This was, partly, Mr. Glegg's suggestion that she would do\r
+well to let her five hundred lie still until a good investment turned\r
+up; and, further, his parenthetic hint at his handsome provision for\r
+her in case of his death. Mr. Glegg, like all men of his stamp, was\r
+extremely reticent about his will; and Mrs. Glegg, in her gloomier\r
+moments, had forebodings that, like other husbands of whom she had\r
+heard, he might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief at\r
+his death by leaving her poorly off, in which case she was firmly\r
+resolved that she would have scarcely any weeper on her bonnet, and\r
+would cry no more than if he had been a second husband. But if he had\r
+really shown her any testamentary tenderness, it would be affecting to\r
+think of him, poor man, when he was gone; and even his foolish fuss\r
+about the flowers and garden-stuff, and his insistence on the subject\r
+of snails, would be touching when it was once fairly at an end. To\r
+survive Mr. Glegg, and talk eulogistically of him as a man who might\r
+have his weaknesses, but who had done the right thing by her,\r
+not-withstanding his numerous poor relations; to have sums of interest\r
+coming in more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, baffling\r
+to the most ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs. Glegg's mind, banks and\r
+strong-boxes would have nullified the pleasure of property; she might\r
+as well have taken her food in capsules); finally, to be looked up to\r
+by her own family and the neighborhood, so as no woman can ever hope\r
+to be who has not the præterite and present dignity comprised in being\r
+a "widow well left,"--all this made a flattering and conciliatory view\r
+of the future. So that when good Mr. Glegg, restored to good humor by\r
+much hoeing, and moved by the sight of his wife's empty chair, with\r
+her knitting rolled up in the corner, went up-stairs to her, and\r
+observed that the bell had been tolling for poor Mr. Morton, Mrs.\r
+Glegg answered magnanimously, quite as if she had been an uninjured\r
+woman: "Ah! then, there'll be a good business for somebody to take\r
+to."\r
+\r
+Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time, for it was\r
+nearly five o'clock; and if people are to quarrel often, it follows as\r
+a corollary that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certain\r
+limits.\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Glegg talked quite amicably about the Tullivers that\r
+evening. Mr. Glegg went the length of admitting that Tulliver was a\r
+sad man for getting into hot water, and was like enough to run through\r
+his property; and Mrs. Glegg, meeting this acknowledgment half-way,\r
+declared that it was beneath her to take notice of such a man's\r
+conduct, and that, for her sister's sake, she would let him keep the\r
+five hundred a while longer, for when she put it out on a mortgage she\r
+should only get four per cent.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIII\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life\r
+\r
+\r
+Owing to this new adjustment of Mrs. Glegg's thoughts, Mrs. Pullet\r
+found her task of mediation the next day surprisingly easy. Mrs.\r
+Glegg, indeed checked her rather sharply for thinking it would be\r
+necessary to tell her elder sister what was the right mode of behavior\r
+in family matters. Mrs. Pullet's argument, that it would look ill in\r
+the neighborhood if people should have it in their power to say that\r
+there was a quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If the\r
+family name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet\r
+might lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence.\r
+\r
+"It's not to be expected, I suppose," observed Mrs. Glegg, by way of\r
+winding up the subject, "as I shall go to the mill again before Bessy\r
+comes to see me, or as I shall go and fall down o' my knees to Mr.\r
+Tulliver, and ask his pardon for showing him favors; but I shall bear\r
+no malice, and when Mr. Tulliver speaks civil to me, I'll speak civil\r
+to him. Nobody has any call to tell me what's becoming."\r
+\r
+Finding it unnecessary to plead for the Tullivers, it was natural that\r
+aunt Pullet should relax a little in her anxiety for them, and recur\r
+to the annoyance she had suffered yesterday from the offspring of that\r
+apparently ill-fated house. Mrs. Glegg heard a circumstantial\r
+narrative, to which Mr. Pullet's remarkable memory furnished some\r
+items; and while aunt Pullet pitied poor Bessy's bad luck with her\r
+children, and expressed a half-formed project of paying for Maggie's\r
+being sent to a distant boarding-school, which would not prevent her\r
+being so brown, but might tend to subdue some other vices in her, aunt\r
+Glegg blamed Bessy for her weakness, and appealed to all witnesses who\r
+should be living when the Tulliver children had turned out ill, that\r
+she, Mrs. Glegg, had always said how it would be from the very first,\r
+observing that it was wonderful to herself how all her words came\r
+true.\r
+\r
+"Then I may call and tell Bessy you'll bear no malice, and everything\r
+be as it was before?" Mrs. Pullet said, just before parting.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you may, Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg; "you may tell Mr. Tulliver,\r
+and Bessy too, as I'm not going to behave ill because folks behave ill\r
+to me; I know it's my place, as the eldest, to set an example in every\r
+respect, and I do it. Nobody can say different of me, if they'll keep\r
+to the truth."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own lofty\r
+magnanimity, I leave you to judge what effect was produced on her by\r
+the reception of a short letter from Mr. Tulliver that very evening,\r
+after Mrs. Pullet's departure, informing her that she needn't trouble\r
+her mind about her five hundred pounds, for it should be paid back to\r
+her in the course of the next month at farthest, together with the\r
+interest due thereon until the time of payment. And furthermore, that\r
+Mr. Tulliver had no wish to behave uncivilly to Mrs. Glegg, and she\r
+was welcome to his house whenever she liked to come, but he desired no\r
+favors from her, either for himself or his children.\r
+\r
+It was poor Mrs. Tulliver who had hastened this catastrophe, entirely\r
+through that irrepressible hopefulness of hers which led her to expect\r
+that similar causes may at any time produce different results. It had\r
+very often occurred in her experience that Mr. Tulliver had done\r
+something because other people had said he was not able to do it, or\r
+had pitied him for his supposed inability, or in any other way piqued\r
+his pride; still, she thought to-day, if she told him when he came in\r
+to tea that sister Pullet was gone to try and make everything up with\r
+sister Glegg, so that he needn't think about paying in the money, it\r
+would give a cheerful effect to the meal. Mr. Tulliver had never\r
+slackened in his resolve to raise the money, but now he at once\r
+determined to write a letter to Mrs. Glegg, which should cut off all\r
+possibility of mistake. Mrs. Pullet gone to beg and pray for _him_\r
+indeed! Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found the\r
+relation between spoken and written language, briefly known as\r
+spelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world.\r
+Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less time\r
+than usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,--why, she\r
+belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was a\r
+matter of private judgment.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this letter, and\r
+cut off the Tulliver children from their sixth and seventh share in\r
+her thousand pounds; for she had her principles. No one must be able\r
+to say of her when she was dead that she had not divided her money\r
+with perfect fairness among her own kin. In the matter of wills,\r
+personal qualities were subordinate to the great fundamental fact of\r
+blood; and to be determined in the distribution of your property by\r
+caprice, and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to degrees of\r
+kinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have embittered her\r
+life. This had always been a principle in the Dodson family; it was\r
+one form if that sense of honor and rectitude which was a proud\r
+tradition in such families,--a tradition which has been the salt of\r
+our provincial society.\r
+\r
+But though the letter could not shake Mrs. Glegg's principles, it made\r
+the family breach much more difficult to mend; and as to the effect it\r
+produced on Mrs. Glegg's opinion of Mr. Tulliver, she begged to be\r
+understood from that time forth that she had nothing whatever to say\r
+about him; his state of mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her to\r
+contemplate it for a moment. It was not until the evening before Tom\r
+went to school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs. Glegg paid a\r
+visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all the while, and\r
+showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all advice and\r
+criticism; for, as she observed to her sister Deane, "Bessy must bear\r
+the consequence o' having such a husband, though I'm sorry for her,"\r
+and Mrs. Deane agreed that Bessy was pitiable.\r
+\r
+That evening Tom observed to Maggie: "Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg's\r
+beginning to come again; I'm glad I'm going to school. _You'll_ catch\r
+it all now!"\r
+\r
+Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom's going\r
+away from her, that this playful exultation of his seemed very unkind,\r
+and she cried herself to sleep that night.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's prompt procedure entailed on him further promptitude in\r
+finding the convenient person who was desirous of lending five hundred\r
+pounds on bond. "It must be no client of Wakem's," he said to himself;\r
+and yet at the end of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; not\r
+because Mr. Tulliver's will was feeble, but because external fact was\r
+stronger. Wakem's client was the only convenient person to be found.\r
+Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as Œdipus, and in this case\r
+he might plead, like Œdipus, that his deed was inflicted on him\r
+rather than committed by him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book II\r
+\r
+_School-Time_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+Tom's "First Half"\r
+\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King's\r
+Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were\r
+rather severe. At Mr. Jacob's academy life had not presented itself to\r
+him as a difficult problem; there were plenty of fellows to play with,\r
+and Tom being good at all active games,--fighting especially,--had\r
+that precedence among them which appeared to him inseparable from the\r
+personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly known as\r
+Old Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no painful\r
+awe; and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites like him to\r
+write like copperplate and surround their signatures with arabesques,\r
+to spell without forethought, and to spout "my name is Norval" without\r
+bungling, Tom, for his part, was glad he was not in danger of those\r
+mean accomplishments. He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster,\r
+he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go hunting\r
+when he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,--as pretty a bit\r
+of horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had heard what her points were a\r
+hundred times. _He_ meant to go hunting too, and to be generally\r
+respected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired\r
+about their writing and spelling; when he was a man, he should be\r
+master of everything, and do just as he liked. It had been very\r
+difficult for him to reconcile himself to the idea that his\r
+school-time was to be prolonged and that he was not to be brought up\r
+to his father's business, which he had always thought extremely\r
+pleasant; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, and\r
+going to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him a\r
+great many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel\r
+and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence of\r
+specific information, it was impossible for him to imagine that school\r
+and a schoolmaster would be something entirely different from the\r
+academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of his\r
+finding genial companions, he had taken care to carry with him a small\r
+box of percussion-caps; not that there was anything particular to be\r
+done with them, but they would serve to impress strange boys with a\r
+sense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw very\r
+clearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without illusions of his\r
+own, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience at\r
+King's Lorton.\r
+\r
+He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to him that\r
+life, complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a new\r
+standard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, made\r
+all the more obscure by a thick mist of bashfulness. Tom, as you have\r
+observed, was never an exception among boys for ease of address; but\r
+the difficulty of enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs.\r
+Stelling was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table\r
+whether he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he had\r
+almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he would throw\r
+them into a neighboring pond; for not only was he the solitary pupil,\r
+but he began even to have a certain scepticism about guns, and a\r
+general sense that his theory of life was undermined. For Mr. Stelling\r
+thought nothing of guns, or horses either, apparently; and yet it was\r
+impossible for Tom to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised Old\r
+Goggles. If there were anything that was not thoroughly genuine about\r
+Mr. Stelling, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to detect it; it is only\r
+by a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-grown man can\r
+distinguish well-rolled barrels from mere supernal thunder.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, with\r
+flaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray eyes, which were\r
+always very wide open; he had a sonorous bass voice, and an air of\r
+defiant self-confidence inclining to brazenness. He had entered on his\r
+career with great vigor, and intended to make a considerable\r
+impression on his fellowmen. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a man\r
+who would remain among the "inferior clergy" all his life. He had a\r
+true British determination to push his way in the world,--as a\r
+schoolmaster, in the first place, for there were capital masterships\r
+of grammar-schools to be had, and Mr. Stelling meant to have one of\r
+them; but as a preacher also, for he meant always to preach in a\r
+striking manner, so as to have his congregation swelled by admirers\r
+from neighboring parishes, and to produce a great sensation whenever\r
+he took occasional duty for a brother clergyman of minor gifts. The\r
+style of preaching he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which was\r
+held little short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King's\r
+Lorton. Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he knew by\r
+heart, were really very effective when rolled out in Mr. Stelling's\r
+deepest tones; but as comparatively feeble appeals of his own were\r
+delivered in the same loud and impressive manner, they were often\r
+thought quite as striking by his hearers. Mr. Stelling's doctrine was\r
+of no particular school; if anything, it had a tinge of\r
+evangelicalism, for that was "the telling thing" just then in the\r
+diocese to which King's Lorton belonged. In short, Mr. Stelling was a\r
+man who meant to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit,\r
+clearly, since he had no interest beyond what might be promised by a\r
+problematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet become Lord\r
+Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions naturally\r
+gets a little into debt at starting; it is not to be expected that he\r
+will live in the meagre style of a man who means to be a poor curate\r
+all his life; and if the few hundreds Mr. Timpson advanced toward his\r
+daughter's fortune did not suffice for the purchase of handsome\r
+furniture, together with a stock of wine, a grand piano, and the\r
+laying out of a superior flower-garden, it followed in the most\r
+rigorous manner, either that these things must be procured by some\r
+other means, or else that the Rev. Mr. Stelling must go without them,\r
+which last alternative would be an absurd procrastination of the\r
+fruits of success, where success was certain. Mr. Stelling was so\r
+broad-chested and resolute that he felt equal to anything; he would\r
+become celebrated by shaking the consciences of his hearers, and he\r
+would by and by edit a Greek play, and invent several new readings. He\r
+had not yet selected the play, for having been married little more\r
+than two years, his leisure time had been much occupied with\r
+attentions to Mrs. Stelling; but he had told that fine woman what he\r
+meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her husband, as\r
+a man who understood everything of that sort.\r
+\r
+But the immediate step to future success was to bring on Tom Tulliver\r
+during this first half-year; for, by a singular coincidence, there had\r
+been some negotiation concerning another pupil from the same\r
+neighborhood and it might further a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor,\r
+if it were understood that young Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observed\r
+in conjugal privacy, was rather a rough cub, had made prodigious\r
+progress in a short time. It was on this ground that he was severe\r
+with Tom about his lessons; he was clearly a boy whose powers would\r
+never be developed through the medium of the Latin grammar, without\r
+the application of some sternness. Not that Mr. Stelling was a\r
+harsh-tempered or unkind man; quite the contrary. He was jocose with\r
+Tom at table, and corrected his provincialisms and his deportment in\r
+the most playful manner; but poor Tom was only the more cowed and\r
+confused by this double novelty, for he had never been used to jokes\r
+at all like Mr. Stelling's; and for the first time in his life he had\r
+a painful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When Mr. Stelling said,\r
+as the roast-beef was being uncovered, "Now, Tulliver! which would you\r
+rather decline, roast-beef or the Latin for it?" Tom, to whom in his\r
+coolest moments a pun would have been a hard nut, was thrown into a\r
+state of embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to him except the\r
+feeling that he would rather not have anything to do with Latin; of\r
+course he answered, "Roast-beef," whereupon there followed much\r
+laughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which Tom\r
+gathered that he had in some mysterious way refused beef, and, in\r
+fact, made himself appear "a silly." If he could have seen a\r
+fellow-pupil undergo these painful operations and survive them in good\r
+spirits, he might sooner have taken them as a matter of course. But\r
+there are two expensive forms of education, either of which a parent\r
+may procure for his son by sending him as solitary pupil to a\r
+clergyman: one is the enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's undivided\r
+neglect; the other is the endurance of the reverend gentleman's\r
+undivided attention. It was the latter privilege for which Mr.\r
+Tulliver paid a high price in Tom's initiatory months at King's\r
+Lorton.\r
+\r
+That respectable miller and maltster had left Tom behind, and driven\r
+homeward in a state of great mental satisfaction. He considered that\r
+it was a happy moment for him when he had thought of asking Riley's\r
+advice about a tutor for Tom. Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open,\r
+and he talked in such an off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering every\r
+difficult, slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, "I see, my good sir, I\r
+see"; "To be sure, to be sure"; "You want your son to be a man who\r
+will make his way in the world,"--that Mr. Tulliver was delighted to\r
+find in him a clergyman whose knowledge was so applicable to the\r
+every-day affairs of this life. Except Counsellor Wylde, whom he had\r
+heard at the last sessions, Mr. Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr Stelling\r
+was the shrewdest fellow he had ever met with,--not unlike Wylde, in\r
+fact; he had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the armholes of\r
+his waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an exception in\r
+mistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen thought Stelling\r
+shrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally; it was chiefly by\r
+his clerical brethren that he was considered rather a full fellow. But\r
+he told Mr. Tulliver several stories about "Swing" and incendiarism,\r
+and asked his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular and\r
+judicious a manner, with so much polished glibness of tongue, that the\r
+miller thought, here was the very thing he wanted for Tom. He had no\r
+doubt this first-rate man was acquainted with every branch of\r
+information, and knew exactly what Tom must learn in order to become a\r
+match for the lawyers, which poor Mr. Tulliver himself did _not_ know,\r
+and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction on this wide kind of\r
+inference. It is hardly fair to laugh at him, for I have known much\r
+more highly instructed persons than he make inferences quite as wide,\r
+and not at all wiser.\r
+\r
+As for Mrs. Tulliver, finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as to the\r
+airing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in a growing boy\r
+entirely coincided with her own; moreover, that Mrs. Stelling, though\r
+so young a woman, and only anticipating her second confinement, had\r
+gone through very nearly the same experience as herself with regard to\r
+the behavior and fundamental character of the monthly nurse,--she\r
+expressed great contentment to her husband, when they drove away, at\r
+leaving Tom with a woman who, in spite of her youth, seemed quite\r
+sensible and motherly, and asked advice as prettily as could be.\r
+\r
+"They must be very well off, though," said Mrs. Tulliver, "for\r
+everything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that watered\r
+silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet has got one like\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Mr. Tulliver, "he's got some income besides the curacy, I\r
+reckon. Perhaps her father allows 'em something. There's Tom 'ull be\r
+another hundred to him, and not much trouble either, by his own\r
+account; he says teaching comes natural to him. That's wonderful,\r
+now," added Mr. Tulliver, turning his head on one side, and giving his\r
+horse a meditative tickling on the flank.\r
+\r
+Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr. Stelling, that\r
+he set about it with that uniformity of method and independence of\r
+circumstances which distinguish the actions of animals understood to\r
+be under the immediate teaching of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiable\r
+beaver, as that charming naturalist tells us, busied himself as\r
+earnestly in constructing a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs in\r
+London, as if he had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in\r
+Upper Canada. It was "Binny's" function to build; the absence of water\r
+or of possible progeny was an accident for which he was not\r
+accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr. Stelling set to work\r
+at his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar and Euclid into\r
+the mind of Tom Tulliver. This, he considered, was the only basis of\r
+solid instruction; all other means of education were mere\r
+charlatanism, and could produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed\r
+on this firm basis, a man might observe the display of various or\r
+special knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a pitying\r
+smile; all that sort of thing was very well, but it was impossible\r
+these people could form sound opinions. In holding this conviction Mr.\r
+Stelling was not biassed, as some tutors have been, by the excessive\r
+accuracy or extent of his own scholarship; and as to his views about\r
+Euclid, no opinion could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr.\r
+Stelling was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, either\r
+religious or intellectual; on the other hand, he had no secret belief\r
+that everything was humbug. He thought religion was a very excellent\r
+thing, and Aristotle a great authority, and deaneries and prebends\r
+useful institutions, and Great Britain the providential bulwark of\r
+Protestantism, and faith in the unseen a great support to afflicted\r
+minds; he believed in all these things, as a Swiss hotel-keeper\r
+believes in the beauty of the scenery around him, and in the pleasure\r
+it gives to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stelling\r
+believed in his method of education; he had no doubt that he was doing\r
+the very best thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the miller\r
+talked of "mapping" and "summing" in a vague and diffident manner, Mr\r
+Stelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understood\r
+what was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form any\r
+reasonable judgment about the matter? Mr Stelling's duty was to teach\r
+the lad in the only right way,--indeed he knew no other; he had not\r
+wasted his time in the acquirement of anything abnormal.\r
+\r
+He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; for though\r
+by hard labor he could get particular declensions into his brain,\r
+anything so abstract as the relation between cases and terminations\r
+could by no means get such a lodgment there as to enable him to\r
+recognize a chance genitive or dative. This struck Mr. Stelling as\r
+something more than natural stupidity; he suspected obstinacy, or at\r
+any rate indifference, and lectured Tom severely on his want of\r
+thorough application. "You feel no interest in what you're doing,\r
+sir," Mr. Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tom\r
+had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter,\r
+when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powers\r
+were not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as those\r
+of the Rev. Mr. Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy what\r
+number of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stone\r
+right into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fraction\r
+how many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across the\r
+playground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slate without\r
+any measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of these things; he\r
+only observed that Tom's faculties failed him before the abstractions\r
+hideously symbolized to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and that\r
+he was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstration\r
+that two given triangles must be equal, though he could discern with\r
+great promptitude and certainty the fact that they _were_ equal.\r
+Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain, being peculiarly\r
+impervious to etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need of\r
+being ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements; it was his\r
+favorite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted that\r
+culture of the mind which prepared it for the reception of any\r
+subsequent crop. I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory; if we\r
+are to have one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as any\r
+other. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver as\r
+if he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric weakness\r
+which prevented him from digesting it. It is astonishing what a\r
+different result one gets by changing the metaphor! Once call the\r
+brain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious conception of the\r
+classics and geometry as ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing.\r
+But then it is open to some one else to follow great authorities, and\r
+call the mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case one's\r
+knowledge of the digestive process becomes quite irrelevant. It was\r
+doubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel the ship of the desert,\r
+but it would hardly lead one far in training that useful beast. O\r
+Aristotle! if you had had the advantage of being "the freshest modern"\r
+instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled your\r
+praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with a\r
+lamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech without\r
+metaphor,--that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except by\r
+saying it is something else?\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not use any\r
+metaphor to declare his views as to the nature of Latin; he never\r
+called it an instrument of torture; and it was not until he had got on\r
+some way in the next half-year, and in the Delectus, that he was\r
+advanced enough to call it a "bore" and "beastly stuff." At present,\r
+in relation to this demand that he should learn Latin declensions and\r
+conjugations, Tom was in a state of as blank unimaginativeness\r
+concerning the cause and tendency of his sufferings, as if he had been\r
+an innocent shrewmouse imprisoned in the split trunk of an ash-tree in\r
+order to cure lameness in cattle. It is doubtless almost incredible to\r
+instructed minds of the present day that a boy of twelve, not\r
+belonging strictly to "the masses," who are now understood to have the\r
+monopoly of mental darkness, should have had no distinct idea how\r
+there came to be such a thing as Latin on this earth; yet so it was\r
+with Tom. It would have taken a long while to make conceivable to him\r
+that there ever existed a people who bought and sold sheep and oxen,\r
+and transacted the every-day affairs of life, through the medium of\r
+this language; and still longer to make him understand why he should\r
+be called upon to learn it, when its connection with those affairs had\r
+become entirely latent. So far as Tom had gained any acquaintance with\r
+the Romans at Mr. Jacob's academy, his knowledge was strictly correct,\r
+but it went no farther than the fact that they were "in the New\r
+Testament"; and Mr. Stelling was not the man to enfeeble and\r
+emasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining, or to\r
+reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with smattering,\r
+extraneous information, such as is given to girls.\r
+\r
+Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom became more\r
+like a girl than he had ever been in his life before. He had a large\r
+share of pride, which had hitherto found itself very comfortable in\r
+the world, despising Old Goggles, and reposing in the sense of\r
+unquestioned rights; but now this same pride met with nothing but\r
+bruises and crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be aware that\r
+Mr. Stelling's standard of things was quite different, was certainly\r
+something higher in the eyes of the world than that of the people he\r
+had been living amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, Tom\r
+Tulliver, appeared uncouth and stupid; he was by no means indifferent\r
+to this, and his pride got into an uneasy condition which quite\r
+nullified his boyish self-satisfaction, and gave him something of the\r
+girl's susceptibility. He was a very firm, not to say obstinate,\r
+disposition, but there was no brute-like rebellion and recklessness in\r
+his nature; the human sensibilities predominated, and if it had\r
+occurred to him that he could enable himself to show some quickness at\r
+his lessons, and so acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation, by standing on\r
+one leg for an inconvenient length of time, or rapping his head\r
+moderately against the wall, or any voluntary action of that sort, he\r
+would certainly have tried it. But no; Tom had never heard that these\r
+measures would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbal\r
+memory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It did\r
+occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it;\r
+but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart,\r
+he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing an\r
+extempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware of\r
+any precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth\r
+time, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling,\r
+convinced that this must be carelessness, since it transcended the\r
+bounds of possible stupidity, had lectured him very seriously,\r
+pointing out that if he failed to seize the present golden opportunity\r
+of learning supines, he would have to regret it when he became a\r
+man,--Tom, more miserable than usual, determined to try his sole\r
+resource; and that evening, after his usual form of prayer for his\r
+parents and "little sister" (he had begun to pray for Maggie when she\r
+was a baby), and that he might be able always to keep God's\r
+commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, "and please to make\r
+me always remember my Latin." He paused a little to consider how he\r
+should pray about Euclid--whether he should ask to see what it meant,\r
+or whether there was any other mental state which would be more\r
+applicable to the case. But at last he added: "And make Mr. Stelling\r
+say I sha'n't do Euclid any more. Amen."\r
+\r
+The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day,\r
+encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, and\r
+neutralized any scepticism that might have arisen from Mr. Stelling's\r
+continued demand for Euclid. But his faith broke down under the\r
+apparent absence of all help when he got into the irregular verbs. It\r
+seemed clear that Tom's despair under the caprices of the present\r
+tense did not constitute a _nodus_ worthy of interference, and since\r
+this was the climax of his difficulties, where was the use of praying\r
+for help any longer? He made up his mind to this conclusion in one of\r
+his dull, lonely evenings, which he spent in the study, preparing his\r
+lessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim over the page,\r
+though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn't help\r
+thinking with some affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight\r
+and quarrel with; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a\r
+condition of superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap\r
+pricking up his ears, ready to obey the least sign when Tom said,\r
+"Hoigh!" would all come before him in a sort of calenture, when his\r
+fingers played absently in his pocket with his great knife and his\r
+coil of whipcord, and other relics of the past.\r
+\r
+Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his life before,\r
+and at that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was further depressed\r
+by a new means of mental development which had been thought of for him\r
+out of school hours. Mrs. Stelling had lately had her second baby, and\r
+as nothing could be more salutary for a boy than to feel himself\r
+useful, Mrs. Stelling considered she was doing Tom a service by\r
+setting him to watch the little cherub Laura while the nurse was\r
+occupied with the sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment for\r
+Tom to take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the autumn day;\r
+it would help to make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a home for\r
+him, and that he was one of the family. The little cherub Laura, not\r
+being an accomplished walker at present, had a ribbon fastened round\r
+her waist, by which Tom held her as if she had been a little dog\r
+during the minutes in which she chose to walk; but as these were rare,\r
+he was for the most part carrying this fine child round and round the\r
+garden, within sight of Mrs. Stelling's window, according to orders.\r
+If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive toward Tom, I beg\r
+him to consider that there are feminine virtues which are with\r
+difficulty combined, even if they are not incompatible. When the wife\r
+of a poor curate contrives, under all her disadvantages, to dress\r
+extremely well, and to have a style of coiffure which requires that\r
+her nurse shall occasionally officiate as lady's-maid; when, moreover,\r
+her dinner-parties and her drawing-room show that effort at elegance\r
+and completeness of appointment to which ordinary women might imagine\r
+a large income necessary, it would be unreasonable to expect of her\r
+that she should employ a second nurse, or even act as a nurse herself.\r
+Mr. Stelling knew better; he saw that his wife did wonders already,\r
+and was proud of her. It was certainly not the best thing in the world\r
+for young Tulliver's gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty of\r
+exercise in long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr. Stelling\r
+would see about having a drilling-master. Among the many means whereby\r
+Mr. Stelling intended to be more fortunate than the bulk of his\r
+fellow-men, he had entirely given up that of having his own way in his\r
+own house. What then? He had married "as kind a little soul as ever\r
+breathed," according to Mr. Riley, who had been acquainted with Mrs.\r
+Stelling's blond ringlets and smiling demeanor throughout her maiden\r
+life, and on the strength of that knowledge would have been ready any\r
+day to pronounce that whatever domestic differences might arise in her\r
+married life must be entirely Mr. Stelling's fault.\r
+\r
+If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have hated the\r
+little cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a lad for that; there\r
+was too much in him of the fibre that turns to true manliness, and to\r
+protecting pity for the weak. I am afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, and\r
+contracted a lasting dislike to pale blond ringlets and broad plaits,\r
+as directly associated with haughtiness of manner, and a frequent\r
+reference to other people's "duty." But he couldn't help playing with\r
+little Laura, and liking to amuse her; he even sacrificed his\r
+percussion-caps for her sake, in despair of their ever serving a\r
+greater purpose,--thinking the small flash and bang would delight her,\r
+and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mrs. Stelling for\r
+teaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a sort of\r
+playfellow--and oh, how Tom longed for playfellows! In his secret\r
+heart he yearned to have Maggie with him, and was almost ready to dote\r
+on her exasperating acts of forgetfulness; though, when he was at\r
+home, he always represented it as a great favor on his part to let\r
+Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions.\r
+\r
+And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs.\r
+Stelling had given a general invitation for the little girl to come\r
+and stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King's\r
+Lorton late in October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she was\r
+taking a great journey, and beginning to see the world. It was Mr.\r
+Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think\r
+too much about home.\r
+\r
+"Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room to\r
+announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tom\r
+freely, "you look rarely! School agrees with you."\r
+\r
+Tom wished he had looked rather ill.\r
+\r
+"I don't think I _am_ well, father," said Tom; "I wish you'd ask Mr.\r
+Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, I\r
+think."\r
+\r
+(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been\r
+subject.)\r
+\r
+"Euclid, my lad,--why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, and\r
+things. It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it."\r
+\r
+"Go, go!" said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly; "you mustn't say so. You\r
+must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right for\r
+you to learn."\r
+\r
+"_I'll_ help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little air of\r
+patronizing consolation. "I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs.\r
+Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, haven't I,\r
+father?"\r
+\r
+"_You_ help me, you silly little thing!" said Tom, in such high\r
+spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea of\r
+confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. "I should like to\r
+see you doing one of _my_ lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls never\r
+learn such things. They're too silly."\r
+\r
+"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently, "Latin's a\r
+language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There's bonus, a\r
+gift."\r
+\r
+"Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, secretly\r
+astonished. "You think you're very wise! But 'bonus' means 'good,' as\r
+it happens,--bonus, bona, bonum."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'" said Maggie,\r
+stoutly. "It may mean several things; almost every word does. There's\r
+'lawn,'--it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff\r
+pocket-handkerchiefs are made of."\r
+\r
+"Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt\r
+rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though beyond measure\r
+cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Her\r
+conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longer\r
+time than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who took her\r
+between his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from,\r
+insisted that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr. Stelling\r
+was a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite proud to leave his\r
+little wench where she would have an opportunity of showing her\r
+cleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she should\r
+not be fetched home till the end of the fortnight.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as their\r
+father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now for, you\r
+silly?" he continued; for though her hair was now under a new\r
+dispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed\r
+still in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. "It makes you\r
+look as if you were crazy."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I can't help it," said Maggie, impatiently. "Don't tease me, Tom.\r
+Oh, what books!" she exclaimed, as she saw the bookcases in the study.\r
+"How I should like to have as many books as that!"\r
+\r
+"Why, you couldn't read one of 'em," said Tom, triumphantly. "They're\r
+all Latin."\r
+\r
+"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of\r
+this,--'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'"\r
+\r
+"Well, what does that mean? _You_ don't know," said Tom, wagging his\r
+head.\r
+\r
+"But I could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully.\r
+\r
+"Why, how?"\r
+\r
+"I should look inside, and see what it was about."\r
+\r
+"You'd better not, Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her hand on the\r
+volume. "Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and\r
+_I_ shall catch it, if you take it out."\r
+\r
+"Oh, very well. Let me see all _your_ books, then," said Maggie,\r
+turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with her\r
+small round nose.\r
+\r
+Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to dispute\r
+with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began to\r
+jump with her round the large library table. Away they jumped with\r
+more and more vigor, till Maggie's hair flew from behind her ears, and\r
+twirled about like an animated mop. But the revolutions round the\r
+table became more and more irregular in their sweep, till at last\r
+reaching Mr. Stelling's reading stand, they sent it thundering down\r
+with its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was the ground-floor,\r
+and the study was a one-storied wing to the house, so that the\r
+downfall made no alarming resonance, though Tom stood dizzy and aghast\r
+for a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, "we must\r
+keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything Mrs. Stelling'll make\r
+us cry peccavi."\r
+\r
+"What's that?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not without some\r
+pride in his knowledge.\r
+\r
+"Is she a cross woman?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"I believe you!" said Tom, with an emphatic nod.\r
+\r
+"I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie. "Aunt Glegg's a\r
+great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more than\r
+father does."\r
+\r
+"Well, _you'll_ be a woman some day," said Tom, "so _you_ needn't\r
+talk."\r
+\r
+"But I shall be a _clever_ woman," said Maggie, with a toss.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you."\r
+\r
+"But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom; it'll be very wicked of you, for I\r
+shall be your sister."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but if you're a nasty disagreeable thing I _shall_ hate you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom, you won't! I sha'n't be disagreeable. I shall be very\r
+good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate me\r
+really, will you, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, bother! never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn my lessons.\r
+See here! what I've got to do," said Tom, drawing Maggie toward him\r
+and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind her\r
+ears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of helping him in\r
+Euclid. She began to read with full confidence in her own powers, but\r
+presently, becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with\r
+irritation. It was unavoidable; she must confess her incompetency, and\r
+she was not fond of humiliation.\r
+\r
+"It's nonsense!" she said, "and very ugly stuff; nobody need want to\r
+make it out."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, drawing the book away, and\r
+wagging his head at her, "You see you're not so clever as you thought\r
+you were."\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out, if I'd\r
+learned what goes before, as you have."\r
+\r
+"But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For it's\r
+all the harder when you know what goes before; for then you've got to\r
+say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But get along with you\r
+now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what you\r
+can make of that."\r
+\r
+Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her mathematical\r
+mortification; for she delighted in new words, and quickly found that\r
+there was an English Key at the end, which would make her very wise\r
+about Latin, at slight expense. She presently made up her mind to skip\r
+the rules in the Syntax, the examples became so absorbing. These\r
+mysterious sentences, snatched from an unknown context,--like strange\r
+horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from some\r
+far-off region,--gave boundless scope to her imagination, and were all\r
+the more fascinating because they were in a peculiar tongue of their\r
+own, which she could learn to interpret. It was really very\r
+interesting, the Latin Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn;\r
+and she was proud because she found it interesting. The most\r
+fragmentary examples were her favourites. _Mors omnibus est communis_\r
+would have been jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but the\r
+fortunate gentleman whom every one congratulated because he had a son\r
+"endowed with _such_ a disposition" afforded her a great deal of\r
+pleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in the "thick grove\r
+penetrable by no star," when Tom called out,--\r
+\r
+"Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, it's such a pretty book!" she said, as she jumped out of the\r
+large arm-chair to give it him; "it's much prettier than the\r
+Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don't think it's at all\r
+hard."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been reading\r
+the English at the end. Any donkey can do that."\r
+\r
+Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-like\r
+air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeys\r
+would find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the\r
+bookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles.\r
+\r
+Presently Tom called to her: "Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can say\r
+this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr. Stelling sits when he\r
+hears me."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.\r
+\r
+"Where do you begin, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I begin at _'Appellativa arborum,'_ because I say all over again\r
+what I've been learning this week."\r
+\r
+Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginning\r
+to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what _mas_ could\r
+mean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at _Sunt etiam\r
+volucrum_.\r
+\r
+"Don't tell me, Maggie; _Sunt etiam volucrum_--_Sunt etiam\r
+volucrum_--_ut ostrea, cetus_----"\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head.\r
+\r
+"_Sunt etiam volucrum_," said Tom, very slowly, as if the next words\r
+might be expected to come sooner when he gave them this strong hint\r
+that they were waited for.\r
+\r
+"C, e, u," said Maggie, getting impatient.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know--hold your tongue," said Tom. "_Ceu passer, hirundo;\r
+Ferarum_--_ferarum_----" Tom took his pencil and made several hard\r
+dots with it on his book-cover--"_ferarum_----"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, "what a time you are! _Ut_----"\r
+\r
+"_Ut ostrea_----"\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Maggie, "_ut tigris_----"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, now I can do," said Tom; "it was _tigris, vulpes_, I'd\r
+forgotten: _ut tigris, volupes; et Piscium_."\r
+\r
+With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the next\r
+few lines.\r
+\r
+"Now, then," he said, "the next is what I've just learned for\r
+to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute."\r
+\r
+After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist on\r
+the table, Tom returned the book.\r
+\r
+"_Mascula nomina in a_," he began.\r
+\r
+"No, Tom," said Maggie, "that doesn't come next. It's _Nomen non\r
+creskens genittivo_----"\r
+\r
+"_Creskens genittivo!_" exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, for Tom\r
+had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday's lesson, and a\r
+young gentleman does not require an intimate or extensive acquaintance\r
+with Latin before he can feel the pitiable absurdity of a false\r
+quantity. "_Creskens genittivo!_ What a little silly you are, Maggie!"\r
+\r
+"Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember it at all. I'm\r
+sure it's spelt so; how was I to know?"\r
+\r
+"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's _Nomen non\r
+crescens genitivo_."\r
+\r
+"Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. "I can say that as well as you\r
+can. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice as\r
+long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longest\r
+stops where there ought to be no stop at all."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on."\r
+\r
+They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening in the\r
+drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr. Stelling, who,\r
+she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather amazed and\r
+alarmed at her audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by Mr.\r
+Stelling's alluding to a little girl of whom he had heard that she\r
+once ran away to the gypsies.\r
+\r
+"What a very odd little girl that must be!" said Mrs. Stelling,\r
+meaning to be playful; but a playfulness that turned on her supposed\r
+oddity was not at all to Maggie's taste. She feared that Mr. Stelling,\r
+after all, did not think much of her, and went to bed in rather low\r
+spirits. Mrs. Stelling, she felt, looked at her as if she thought her\r
+hair was very ugly because it hung down straight behind.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit to\r
+Tom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, and\r
+in her various readings got very deep into the examples in the Latin\r
+Grammar. The astronomer who hated women generally caused her so much\r
+puzzling speculation that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all\r
+astronomers hated women, or whether it was only this particular\r
+astronomer. But forestalling his answer, she said,--\r
+\r
+"I suppose it's all astronomers; because, you know, they live up in\r
+high towers, and if the women came there they might talk and hinder\r
+them from looking at the stars."\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the best\r
+terms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling,\r
+as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could do\r
+Euclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what A B C\r
+meant; they were the names of the lines.\r
+\r
+"I'm sure you couldn't do it, now," said Tom; "and I'll just ask Mr.\r
+Stelling if you could."\r
+\r
+"I don't mind," said the little conceited minx, "I'll ask him myself."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were in the\r
+drawing-room, "couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's lessons, if you\r
+were to teach me instead of him?"\r
+\r
+"No, you couldn't," said Tom, indignantly. "Girls can't do Euclid; can\r
+they, sir?"\r
+\r
+"They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said Mr.\r
+Stelling. "They've a great deal of superficial cleverness; but they\r
+couldn't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow."\r
+\r
+Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph by wagging\r
+his head at Maggie, behind Mr. Stelling's chair. As for Maggie, she\r
+had hardly ever been so mortified. She had been so proud to be called\r
+"quick" all her little life, and now it appeared that this quickness\r
+was the brand of inferiority. It would have been better to be slow,\r
+like Tom.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha! Miss Maggie!" said Tom, when they were alone; "you see it's\r
+not such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never go far into anything,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that she had no\r
+spirit for a retort.\r
+\r
+But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was fetched away in\r
+the gig by Luke, and the study was once more quite lonely for Tom, he\r
+missed her grievously. He had really been brighter, and had got\r
+through his lessons better, since she had been there; and she had\r
+asked Mr. Stelling so many questions about the Roman Empire, and\r
+whether there really ever was a man who said, in Latin, "I would not\r
+buy it for a farthing or a rotten nut," or whether that had only been\r
+turned into Latin, that Tom had actually come to a dim understanding\r
+of the fact that there had once been people upon the earth who were so\r
+fortunate as to know Latin without learning it through the medium of\r
+the Eton Grammar. This luminous idea was a great addition to his\r
+historical acquirements during this half-year, which were otherwise\r
+confined to an epitomized history of the Jews.\r
+\r
+But the dreary half-year _did_ come to an end. How glad Tom was to see\r
+the last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The dark\r
+afternoons and the first December snow seemed to him far livelier than\r
+the August sunshine; and that he might make himself the surer about\r
+the flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck\r
+twenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three\r
+weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a great\r
+wrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which would\r
+have carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of sticks to\r
+travel so far.\r
+\r
+But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the Latin\r
+Grammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlor at\r
+home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow-covered bridge; the\r
+happiness of passing from the cold air to the warmth and the kisses\r
+and the smiles of that familiar hearth, where the pattern of the rug\r
+and the grate and the fire-irons were "first ideas" that it was no\r
+more possible to criticise than the solidity and extension of matter.\r
+There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where\r
+we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known the\r
+labor of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension of\r
+our own personality; we accepted and loved it as we accepted our own\r
+sense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly,\r
+that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up to\r
+auction; an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not the\r
+striving after something better and better in our surroundings the\r
+grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute, or, to\r
+satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes the\r
+British man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where that\r
+striving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twining\r
+round those old inferior things; if the loves and sanctities of our\r
+life had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in an\r
+elderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank,\r
+as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading\r
+itself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable\r
+preference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those regulated minds\r
+who are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest on\r
+a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reason\r
+for preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an early\r
+memory; that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merely\r
+through my present sensibilities to form and color, but the long\r
+companion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joys\r
+were vivid.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+The Christmas Holidays\r
+\r
+\r
+Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face, had done his\r
+duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had set off his rich gifts\r
+of warmth and color with all the heightening contrast of frost and\r
+snow.\r
+\r
+Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer than the\r
+limbs of infancy; it lay with the neatliest finished border on every\r
+sloping roof, making the dark-red gables stand out with a new depth of\r
+color; it weighed heavily on the laurels and fir-trees, till it fell\r
+from them with a shuddering sound; it clothed the rough turnip-field\r
+with whiteness, and made the sheep look like dark blotches; the gates\r
+were all blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there a\r
+disregarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified "in unrecumbent\r
+sadness"; there was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were\r
+one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark\r
+river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. But old\r
+Christmas smiled as he laid this cruel-seeming spell on the outdoor\r
+world, for he meant to light up home with new brightness, to deepen\r
+all the richness of indoor color, and give a keener edge of delight to\r
+the warm fragrance of food; he meant to prepare a sweet imprisonment\r
+that would strengthen the primitive fellowship of kindred, and make\r
+the sunshine of familiar human faces as welcome as the hidden\r
+day-star. His kindness fell but hardly on the homeless,--fell but\r
+hardly on the homes where the hearth was not very warm, and where the\r
+food had little fragrance; where the human faces had had no sunshine\r
+in them, but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want.\r
+But the fine old season meant well; and if he has not learned the\r
+secret how to bless men impartially, it is because his father Time,\r
+with ever-unrelenting unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in\r
+his own mighty, slow-beating heart.\r
+\r
+And yet this Christmas day, in spite of Tom's fresh delight in home,\r
+was not, he thought, somehow or other, quite so happy as it had always\r
+been before. The red berries were just as abundant on the holly, and\r
+he and Maggie had dressed all the windows and mantlepieces and\r
+picture-frames on Christmas eve with as much taste as ever, wedding\r
+the thick-set scarlet clusters with branches of the black-berried ivy.\r
+There had been singing under the windows after midnight,--supernatural\r
+singing, Maggie always felt, in spite of Tom's contemptuous insistence\r
+that the singers were old Patch, the parish clerk, and the rest of the\r
+church choir; she trembled with awe when their carolling broke in upon\r
+her dreams, and the image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust\r
+away by the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The midnight\r
+chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the level of\r
+common days; and then there were the smell of hot toast and ale from\r
+the kitchen, at the breakfast hour; the favorite anthem, the green\r
+boughs, and the short sermon gave the appropriate festal character to\r
+the church-going; and aunt and uncle Moss, with all their seven\r
+children, were looking like so many reflectors of the bright\r
+parlor-fire, when the church-goers came back, stamping the snow from\r
+their feet. The plum-pudding was of the same handsome roundness as\r
+ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around it, as if it\r
+had been heroically snatched from the nether fires, into which it had\r
+been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans; the dessert was as splendid as\r
+ever, with its golden oranges, brown nuts, and the crystalline light\r
+and dark of apple-jelly and damson cheese; in all these things\r
+Christmas was as it had always been since Tom could remember; it was\r
+only distinguished, if by anything, by superior sliding and snowballs.\r
+\r
+Christmas was cheery, but not so Mr. Tulliver. He was irate and\r
+defiant; and Tom, though he espoused his father's quarrels and shared\r
+his father's sense of injury, was not without some of the feeling that\r
+oppressed Maggie when Mr. Tulliver got louder and more angry in\r
+narration and assertion with the increased leisure of dessert. The\r
+attention that Tom might have concentrated on his nuts and wine was\r
+distracted by a sense that there were rascally enemies in the world,\r
+and that the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted\r
+without a good deal of quarrelling. Now, Tom was not fond of\r
+quarrelling, unless it could soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up\r
+fight with an adversary whom he had every chance of thrashing; and his\r
+father's irritable talk made him uncomfortable, though he never\r
+accounted to himself for the feeling, or conceived the notion that his\r
+father was faulty in this respect.\r
+\r
+The particular embodiment of the evil principle now exciting Mr.\r
+Tulliver's determined resistance was Mr. Pivart, who, having lands\r
+higher up the Ripple, was taking measures for their irrigation, which\r
+either were, or would be, or were bound to be (on the principle that\r
+water was water), an infringement on Mr. Tulliver's legitimate share\r
+of water-power. Dix, who had a mill on the stream, was a feeble\r
+auxiliary of Old Harry compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought to\r
+his senses by arbitration, and Wakem's advice had not carried _him_\r
+far. No; Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as good as nowhere in\r
+point of law; and in the intensity of his indignation against Pivart,\r
+his contempt for a baffled adversary like Dix began to wear the air of\r
+a friendly attachment. He had no male audience to-day except Mr. Moss,\r
+who knew nothing, as he said, of the "natur' o' mills," and could only\r
+assent to Mr. Tulliver's arguments on the _a priori_ ground of family\r
+relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr. Tulliver did not talk\r
+with the futile intention of convincing his audience, he talked to\r
+relieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made strong efforts to keep his\r
+eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good\r
+dinner produced in his hard-worked frame. Mrs. Moss, more alive to the\r
+subject, and interested in everything that affected her brother,\r
+listened and put in a word as often as maternal preoccupations\r
+allowed.\r
+\r
+"Why, Pivart's a new name hereabout, brother, isn't it?" she said; "he\r
+didn't own the land in father's time, nor yours either, before I was\r
+married."\r
+\r
+"New name? Yes, I should think it _is_ a new name," said Mr. Tulliver,\r
+with angry emphasis. "Dorlcote Mill's been in our family a hundred\r
+year and better, and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the\r
+river, till this fellow came and bought Bincome's farm out of hand,\r
+before anybody else could so much as say 'snap.' But I'll _Pivart_\r
+him!" added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had\r
+defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner.\r
+\r
+"You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?" said\r
+Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall force\r
+_him_ to, with his dikes and erigations, if there's any law to be\r
+brought to bear o' the right side. I know well enough who's at the\r
+bottom of it; he's got Wakem to back him and egg him on. I know Wakem\r
+tells him the law can't touch him for it, but there's folks can handle\r
+the law besides Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him; but there's\r
+bigger to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o' the law, else\r
+how came Wakem to lose Brumley's suit for him?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but\r
+he considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved\r
+by employing a stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of\r
+cock-fight, in which it was the business of injured honesty to get a\r
+game bird with the best pluck and the strongest spurs.\r
+\r
+"Gore's no fool; you needn't tell me that," he observed presently, in\r
+a pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that lawyer's\r
+capabilities; "but, you see, he isn't up to the law as Wakem is. And\r
+water's a very particular thing; you can't pick it up with a\r
+pitchfork. That's why it's been nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers.\r
+It's plain enough what's the rights and the wrongs of water, if you\r
+look at it straight-forrard; for a river's a river, and if you've got\r
+a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me\r
+Pivart's erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel; I know what\r
+belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th' engineers\r
+say! I say it's common sense, as Pivart's dikes must do me an injury.\r
+But if that's their engineering, I'll put Tom to it by-and-by, and he\r
+shall see if he can't find a bit more sense in th' engineering\r
+business than what _that_ comes to."\r
+\r
+Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announcement of his\r
+prospects, unthinkingly withdrew a small rattle he was amusing baby\r
+Moss with, whereupon she, being a baby that knew her own mind with\r
+remarkable clearness, instantaneously expressed her sentiments in a\r
+piercing yell, and was not to be appeased even by the restoration of\r
+the rattle, feeling apparently that the original wrong of having it\r
+taken from her remained in all its force. Mrs. Moss hurried away with\r
+her into another room, and expressed to Mrs. Tulliver, who accompanied\r
+her, the conviction that the dear child had good reasons for crying;\r
+implying that if it was supposed to be the rattle that baby clamored\r
+for, she was a misunderstood baby. The thoroughly justifiable yell\r
+being quieted, Mrs. Moss looked at her sister-in-law and said,--\r
+\r
+"I'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work."\r
+\r
+"It's your brother's way, Mrs. Moss; I'd never anything o' that sort\r
+before I was married," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a half-implied\r
+reproach. She always spoke of her husband as "your brother" to Mrs.\r
+Moss in any case when his line of conduct was not matter of pure\r
+admiration. Amiable Mrs. Tulliver, who was never angry in her life,\r
+had yet her mild share of that spirit without which she could hardly\r
+have been at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defensive\r
+toward her own sisters, it was natural that she should be keenly\r
+conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest Dodson, over a\r
+husband's sister, who, besides being poorly off, and inclined to "hang\r
+on" her brother, had the good-natured submissiveness of a large,\r
+easy-tempered, untidy, prolific woman, with affection enough in her\r
+not only for her own husband and abundant children, but for any number\r
+of collateral relations.\r
+\r
+"I hope and pray he won't go to law," said Mrs. Moss, "for there's\r
+never any knowing where that'll end. And the right doesn't allays win.\r
+This Mr. Pivart's a rich man, by what I can make out, and the rich\r
+mostly get things their own way."\r
+\r
+"As to that," said Mrs. Tulliver, stroking her dress down, "I've seen\r
+what riches are in my own family; for my sisters have got husbands as\r
+can afford to do pretty much what they like. But I think sometimes I\r
+shall be drove off my head with the talk about this law and erigation;\r
+and my sisters lay all the fault to me, for they don't know what it is\r
+to marry a man like your brother; how should they? Sister Pullet has\r
+her own way from morning till night."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Moss, "I don't think I should like my husband if he\r
+hadn't got any wits of his own, and I had to find head-piece for him.\r
+It's a deal easier to do what pleases one's husband, than to be\r
+puzzling what else one should do."\r
+\r
+"If people come to talk o' doing what pleases their husbands," said\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, with a faint imitation of her sister Glegg, "I'm sure\r
+your brother might have waited a long while before he'd have found a\r
+wife that 'ud have let him have his say in everything, as I do. It's\r
+nothing but law and erigation now, from when we first get up in the\r
+morning till we go to bed at night; and I never contradict him; I only\r
+say, 'Well, Mr. Tulliver, do as you like; but whativer you do, don't\r
+go to law."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence over her\r
+husband. No woman is; she can always incline him to do either what she\r
+wishes, or the reverse; and on the composite impulses that were\r
+threatening to hurry Mr. Tulliver into "law," Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+monotonous pleading had doubtless its share of force; it might even be\r
+comparable to that proverbial feather which has the credit or\r
+discredit of breaking the camel's back; though, on a strictly\r
+impartial view, the blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight\r
+of feathers which had already placed the back in such imminent peril\r
+that an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without\r
+mischief. Not that Mrs. Tulliver's feeble beseeching could have had\r
+this feather's weight in virtue of her single personality; but\r
+whenever she departed from entire assent to her husband, he saw in her\r
+the representative of the Dodson family; and it was a guiding\r
+principle with Mr. Tulliver to let the Dodsons know that they were not\r
+to domineer over _him_, or--more specifically--that a male Tulliver\r
+was far more than equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of\r
+them was Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson female herself\r
+against his going to law could have heightened his disposition toward\r
+it so much as the mere thought of Wakem, continually freshened by the\r
+sight of the too able attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain\r
+knowledge, was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's\r
+irrigation; Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to law about\r
+the dam; it was unquestionably Wakem who had caused Mr. Tulliver to\r
+lose the suit about the right of road and the bridge that made a\r
+thoroughfare of his land for every vagabond who preferred an\r
+opportunity of damaging private property to walking like an honest man\r
+along the highroad; all lawyers were more or less rascals, but Wakem's\r
+rascality was of that peculiarly aggravated kind which placed itself\r
+in opposition to that form of right embodied in Mr. Tulliver's\r
+interests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the\r
+injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred pounds,\r
+been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's office on his own\r
+account. A hook-nosed glib fellow! as cool as a cucumber,--always\r
+looking so sure of his game! And it was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was\r
+not more like him, but was a bald, round-featured man, with bland\r
+manners and fat hands; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon\r
+against Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow. His weakness did not lie on the\r
+side of scrupulosity; but the largest amount of winking, however\r
+significant, is not equivalent to seeing through a stone wall; and\r
+confident as Mr. Tulliver was in his principle that water was water,\r
+and in the direct inference that Pivart had not a leg to stand on in\r
+this affair of irrigation, he had an uncomfortable suspicion that\r
+Wakem had more law to show against this (rationally) irrefragable\r
+inference than Gore could show for it. But then, if they went to law,\r
+there was a chance for Mr. Tulliver to employ Counsellor Wylde on his\r
+side, instead of having that admirable bully against him; and the\r
+prospect of seeing a witness of Wakem's made to perspire and become\r
+confounded, as Mr. Tulliver's witness had once been, was alluring to\r
+the love of retributive justice.\r
+\r
+Much rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling subjects during his\r
+rides on the gray horse; much turning of the head from side to side,\r
+as the scales dipped alternately; but the probable result was still\r
+out of sight, only to be reached through much hot argument and\r
+iteration in domestic and social life. That initial stage of the\r
+dispute which consisted in the narration of the case and the\r
+enforcement of Mr. Tulliver's views concerning it throughout the\r
+entire circle of his connections would necessarily take time; and at\r
+the beginning of February, when Tom was going to school again, there\r
+were scarcely any new items to be detected in his father's statement\r
+of the case against Pivart, or any more specific indication of the\r
+measures he was bent on taking against that rash contravener of the\r
+principle that water was water. Iteration, like friction, is likely to\r
+generate heat instead of progress, and Mr. Tulliver's heat was\r
+certainly more and more palpable. If there had been no new evidence on\r
+any other point, there had been new evidence that Pivart was as "thick\r
+as mud" with Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, one evening near the end of the holidays, "uncle\r
+Glegg says Lawyer Wakem _is_ going to send his son to Mr. Stelling. It\r
+isn't true, what they said about his going to be sent to France. You\r
+won't like me to go to school with Wakem's son, shall you?"\r
+\r
+"It's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliver; "don't you learn\r
+anything bad of him, that's all. The lad's a poor deformed creatur,\r
+and takes after his mother in the face; I think there isn't much of\r
+his father in him. It's a sign Wakem thinks high o' Mr. Sterling, as\r
+he sends his son to him, and Wakem knows meal from bran."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the fact that his son\r
+was to have the same advantages as Wakem's; but Tom was not at all\r
+easy on the point. It would have been much clearer if the lawyer's son\r
+had not been deformed, for then Tom would have had the prospect of\r
+pitching into him with all that freedom which is derived from a high\r
+moral sanction.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The New Schoolfellow\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day\r
+quite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not\r
+carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll\r
+for little Laura, there would have been no ray of expected pleasure to\r
+enliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put\r
+out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy; and to\r
+give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he took\r
+out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit off a crystal\r
+or two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect\r
+and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more\r
+than once on his way.\r
+\r
+"Well, Tulliver, we're glad to see you again," said Mr. Stelling,\r
+heartily. "Take off your wrappings and come into the study till\r
+dinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a new companion."\r
+\r
+Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen\r
+comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St. Ogg's,\r
+but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible.\r
+He would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even\r
+if Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a\r
+bad man's son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and\r
+he would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in\r
+a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr.\r
+Stelling to the study.\r
+\r
+"Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver," said\r
+that gentleman on entering the study,--"Master Philip Wakem. I shall\r
+leave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already know\r
+something of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbors at home."\r
+\r
+Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at him\r
+timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was\r
+not prepared to say, "How do you do?" on so short a notice.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys'\r
+shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders.\r
+\r
+Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He\r
+thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him;\r
+every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more\r
+conspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands or\r
+even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every\r
+now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be\r
+drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper\r
+he had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, was\r
+thinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own\r
+repugnance to making the first advances.\r
+\r
+Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for he could\r
+see it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable\r
+face,--very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older\r
+Philip was than himself. An anatomist--even a mere physiognomist--\r
+would have seen that the deformity of Philip's spine was not a\r
+congenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but you\r
+do not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions;\r
+to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion\r
+that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's\r
+rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hot\r
+emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him as probably\r
+a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning\r
+ways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbacked\r
+tailor in the neighborhood of Mr. Jacobs's academy, who was considered\r
+a very unamiable character, and was much hooted after by public-spirited\r
+boys solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; so\r
+that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still, no face\r
+could be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this melancholy boy's\r
+face,--the brown hair round it waved and curled at the ends like a\r
+girl's; Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a pale,\r
+puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play at\r
+anything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable\r
+manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without\r
+any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted\r
+something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable\r
+to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking\r
+out of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against\r
+the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,--\r
+"a quarrel or something"; and Tom thought he should rather like to\r
+show Philip that he had better not try his spiteful tricks on _him_.\r
+He suddenly walked across the hearth and looked over Philip's paper.\r
+\r
+"Why, that's a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges in\r
+the corn!" he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by\r
+surprise and admiration. "Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw like\r
+that. I'm to learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn to\r
+make dogs and donkeys!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I never learned\r
+drawing."\r
+\r
+"Never learned?" said Tom, in amazement. "Why, when I make dogs and\r
+horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won't come right;\r
+though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses,\r
+and all sorts of chimneys,--chimneys going all down the wall,--and\r
+windows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and\r
+horses if I was to try more," he added, reflecting that Philip might\r
+falsely suppose that he was going to "knock under," if he were too\r
+frank about the imperfection of his accomplishments.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Philip, "it's very easy. You've only to look well at\r
+things, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, you\r
+can alter the next time."\r
+\r
+"But haven't you been taught _any_thing?" said Tom, beginning to have\r
+a puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back might be the source of\r
+remarkable faculties. "I thought you'd been to school a long while."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, smiling; "I've been taught Latin and Greek and\r
+mathematics, and writing and such things."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?" said Tom,\r
+lowering his voice confidentially.\r
+\r
+"Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but perhaps you haven't got into the _Propria quæ maribus_," said\r
+Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, "that was the test;\r
+it was easy talking till you came to _that_."\r
+\r
+Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this\r
+well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme\r
+sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his\r
+inclination to laugh, and said quietly,--\r
+\r
+"I've done with the grammar; I don't learn that any more."\r
+\r
+"Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?" said Tom, with a\r
+sense of disappointment.\r
+\r
+"No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you\r
+if I can."\r
+\r
+Tom did not say "Thank you," for he was quite absorbed in the thought\r
+that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been\r
+expected.\r
+\r
+"I say," he said presently, "do you love your father?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, coloring deeply; "don't you love yours?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes--I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather ashamed of himself,\r
+now he saw Philip coloring and looking uncomfortable. He found much\r
+difficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind toward the son of Lawyer\r
+Wakem, and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father,\r
+that fact might go some way toward clearing up his perplexity.\r
+\r
+"Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of changing the\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+"No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all my time to other\r
+things now."\r
+\r
+"What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was resting\r
+his head on one hand, while Tom was learning forward on both elbows,\r
+and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey.\r
+\r
+"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curiosity.\r
+\r
+"No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like\r
+by-and-by."\r
+\r
+"I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom. "It's no\r
+good."\r
+\r
+"It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip. "All\r
+gentlemen learn the same things."\r
+\r
+"What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows\r
+Latin?" said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir\r
+John Crake.\r
+\r
+"He learned it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip. "But I dare\r
+say he's forgotten it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well, I can do that, then," said Tom, not with any epigrammatic\r
+intention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far as\r
+Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John\r
+Crake. "Only you're obliged to remember it while you're at school,\r
+else you've got to learn ever so many lines of 'Speaker.' Mr.\r
+Stelling's very particular--did you know? He'll have you up ten times\r
+if you say 'nam' for 'jam,'--he won't let you go a letter wrong, _I_\r
+can tell you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't mind," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh; "I can\r
+remember things easily. And there are some lessons I'm very fond of.\r
+I'm very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. I\r
+should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and then\r
+have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened\r
+to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand\r
+death." (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the\r
+well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)\r
+\r
+"Why, were the Greeks great fighters?" said Tom, who saw a vista in\r
+this direction. "Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samson\r
+in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of\r
+the Jews."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks,--about\r
+the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did.\r
+And in the Odyssey--that's a beautiful poem--there's a more wonderful\r
+giant than Goliath,--Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of\r
+his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning,\r
+got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him\r
+roar like a thousand bulls."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what fun!" said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stamping\r
+first with one leg and then the other. "I say, can you tell me all\r
+about those stories? Because I sha'n't learn Greek, you know. Shall\r
+I?" he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the\r
+contrary might be possible. "Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will\r
+Mr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"No, I should think not, very likely not," said Philip. "But you may\r
+read those stories without knowing Greek. I've got them in English."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but I don't like reading; I'd sooner have you tell them me. But\r
+only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting\r
+to tell me stories, but they're stupid things. Girls' stories always\r
+are. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Philip; "lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can\r
+tell you about Richard Cœur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about William\r
+Wallace and Robert Bruce and James Douglas,--I know no end."\r
+\r
+"You're older than I am, aren't you?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Why, how old are _you?_ I'm fifteen."\r
+\r
+"I'm only going in fourteen," said Tom. "But I thrashed all the\r
+fellows at Jacob's--that's where I was before I came here. And I beat\r
+'em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr. Stelling would let us go\r
+fishing. _I_ could show you how to fish. You _could_ fish, couldn't\r
+you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know."\r
+\r
+Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favor. This\r
+hunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories\r
+put him on a par with an actual fighting hero, like Tom Tulliver.\r
+Philip winced under this allusion to his unfitness for active sports,\r
+and he answered almost peevishly,--\r
+\r
+"I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching\r
+a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catching\r
+nothing."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a\r
+big pike, I can tell you," said Tom, who had never caught anything\r
+that was "big" in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch\r
+with indignant zeal for the honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain,\r
+had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily\r
+for the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to\r
+dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsound\r
+views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself, that was\r
+just what he should have expected from a hunchback.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+"The Young Idea"\r
+\r
+\r
+The alterations of feeling in that first dialogue between Tom and\r
+Philip continued to make their intercourse even after many weeks of\r
+schoolboy intimacy. Tom never quite lost the feeling that Philip,\r
+being the son of a "rascal," was his natural enemy; never thoroughly\r
+overcame his repulsion to Philip's deformity. He was a boy who adhered\r
+tenaciously to impressions once received; as with all minds in which\r
+mere perception predominates over thought and emotion, the external\r
+remained to him rigidly what it was in the first instance. But then it\r
+was impossible not to like Philip's company when he was in a good\r
+humor; he could help one so well in one's Latin exercises, which Tom\r
+regarded as a kind of puzzle that could only be found out by a lucky\r
+chance; and he could tell such wonderful fighting stories about Hal of\r
+the Wynd, for example, and other heroes who were especial favorites\r
+with Tom, because they laid about them with heavy strokes. He had\r
+small opinion of Saladin, whose cimeter could cut a cushion in two in\r
+an instant; who wanted to cut cushions? That was a stupid story, and\r
+he didn't care to hear it again. But when Robert Bruce, on the black\r
+pony, rose in his stirrups, and lifting his good battle-axe, cracked\r
+at once the helmet and the skull of the too hasty knight at\r
+Bannockburn, then Tom felt all the exaltation of sympathy, and if he\r
+had had a cocoanut at hand, he would have cracked it at once with the\r
+poker. Philip in his happier moods indulged Tom to the top of his\r
+bent, heightening the crash and bang and fury of every fight with all\r
+the artillery of epithets and similes at his command. But he was not\r
+always in a good humor or happy mood. The slight spurt of peevish\r
+susceptibility which had escaped him in their first interview was a\r
+symptom of a perpetually recurring mental ailment, half of it nervous\r
+irritability, half of it the heart-bitterness produced by the sense of\r
+his deformity. In these fits of susceptibility every glance seemed to\r
+him to be charged either with offensive pity or with ill-repressed\r
+disgust; at the very least it was an indifferent glance, and Philip\r
+felt indifference as a child of the south feels the chill air of a\r
+northern spring. Poor Tom's blundering patronage when they were out of\r
+doors together would sometimes make him turn upon the well-meaning lad\r
+quite savagely; and his eyes, usually sad and quiet, would flash with\r
+anything but playful lightning. No wonder Tom retained his suspicions\r
+of the humpback.\r
+\r
+But Philip's self-taught skill in drawing was another link between\r
+them; for Tom found, to his disgust, that his new drawing-master gave\r
+him no dogs and donkeys to draw, but brooks and rustic bridges and\r
+ruins, all with a general softness of black-lead surface, indicating\r
+that nature, if anything, was rather satiny; and as Tom's feeling for\r
+the picturesque in landscape was at present quite latent, it is not\r
+surprising that Mr. Goodrich's productions seemed to him an\r
+uninteresting form of art. Mr. Tulliver, having a vague intention that\r
+Tom should be put to some business which included the drawing out of\r
+plans and maps, had complained to Mr. Riley, when he saw him at\r
+Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learning nothing of that sort;\r
+whereupon that obliging adviser had suggested that Tom should have\r
+drawing-lessons. Mr. Tulliver must not mind paying extra for drawing;\r
+let Tom be made a good draughtsman, and he would be able to turn his\r
+pencil to any purpose. So it was ordered that Tom should have\r
+drawing-lessons; and whom should Mr. Stelling have selected as a\r
+master if not Mr. Goodrich, who was considered quite at the head of\r
+his profession within a circuit of twelve miles round King's Lorton?\r
+By which means Tom learned to make an extremely fine point to his\r
+pencil, and to represent landscape with a "broad generality," which,\r
+doubtless from a narrow tendency in his mind to details, he thought\r
+extremely dull.\r
+\r
+All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when there were no\r
+schools of design; before schoolmasters were invariably men of\r
+scrupulous integrity, and before the clergy were all men of enlarged\r
+minds and varied culture. In those less favored days, it is no fable\r
+that there were other clergymen besides Mr. Stelling who had narrow\r
+intellects and large wants, and whose income, by a logical confusion\r
+to which Fortune, being a female as well as blindfold, is peculiarly\r
+liable, was proportioned not to their wants but to their intellect,\r
+with which income has clearly no inherent relation. The problem these\r
+gentlemen had to solve was to readjust the proportion between their\r
+wants and their income; and since wants are not easily starved to\r
+death, the simpler method appeared to be to raise their income. There\r
+was but one way of doing this; any of those low callings in which men\r
+are obliged to do good work at a low price were forbidden to\r
+clergymen; was it their fault if their only resource was to turn out\r
+very poor work at a high price? Besides, how should Mr. Stelling be\r
+expected to know that education was a delicate and difficult business,\r
+any more than an animal endowed with a power of boring a hole through\r
+a rock should be expected to have wide views of excavation? Mr.\r
+Stelling's faculties had been early trained to boring in a straight\r
+line, and he had no faculty to spare. But among Tom's contemporaries,\r
+whose fathers cast their sons on clerical instruction to find them\r
+ignorant after many days, there were many far less lucky than Tom\r
+Tulliver. Education was almost entirely a matter of luck--usually of\r
+ill-luck--in those distant days. The state of mind in which you take a\r
+billiard-cue or a dice-box in your hand is one of sober certainty\r
+compared with that of old-fashioned fathers, like Mr. Tulliver, when\r
+they selected a school or a tutor for their sons. Excellent men, who\r
+had been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic\r
+system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of this\r
+disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their sons a better\r
+start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take\r
+their chance as to the conscience and the competence of the\r
+schoolmaster whose circular fell in their way, and appeared to promise\r
+so much more than they would ever have thought of asking for,\r
+including the return of linen, fork, and spoon. It was happy for them\r
+if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought up his\r
+son to the Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of\r
+four-and-twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an\r
+imprudent marriage; otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of\r
+doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son\r
+by happening to be on the foundation of a grammar-school as yet\r
+unvisited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have, all to\r
+themselves, the advantages of a large and lofty building, together\r
+with a head-master, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf, whose erudite\r
+indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of\r
+three hundred pounds a-head,--a ripe scholar, doubtless, when first\r
+appointed; but all ripeness beneath the sun has a further stage less\r
+esteemed in the market.\r
+\r
+Tom Tulliver, then, compared with many other British youths of his\r
+time who have since had to scramble through life with some fragments\r
+of more or less relevant knowledge, and a great deal of strictly\r
+relevant ignorance, was not so very unlucky. Mr. Stelling was a\r
+broad-chested, healthy man, with the bearing of a gentleman, a\r
+conviction that a growing boy required a sufficiency of beef, and a\r
+certain hearty kindness in him that made him like to see Tom looking\r
+well and enjoying his dinner; not a man of refined conscience, or with\r
+any deep sense of the infinite issues belonging to every-day duties,\r
+not quite competent to his high offices; but incompetent gentlemen\r
+must live, and without private fortune it is difficult to see how they\r
+could all live genteelly if they had nothing to do with education or\r
+government. Besides, it was the fault of Tom's mental constitution\r
+that his faculties could not be nourished on the sort of knowledge Mr.\r
+Stelling had to communicate. A boy born with a deficient power of\r
+apprehending signs and abstractions must suffer the penalty of his\r
+congenital deficiency, just as if he had been born with one leg\r
+shorter than the other. A method of education sanctioned by the long\r
+practice of our venerable ancestors was not to give way before the\r
+exceptional dulness of a boy who was merely living at the time then\r
+present. And Mr. Stelling was convinced that a boy so stupid at signs\r
+and abstractions must be stupid at everything else, even if that\r
+reverend gentleman could have taught him everything else. It was the\r
+practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument\r
+the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit\r
+non-existent facts; they had a fixed opinion to begin with, that the\r
+facts were existent, and what had they to do but to tighten the\r
+thumb-screw? In like manner, Mr. Stelling had a fixed opinion that all\r
+boys with any capacity could learn what it was the only regular thing\r
+to teach; if they were slow, the thumb-screw must be tightened,--the\r
+exercises must be insisted on with increased severity, and a page of\r
+Virgil be awarded as a penalty, to encourage and stimulate a too\r
+languid inclination to Latin verse.\r
+\r
+The thumb-screw was a little relaxed, however, during this second\r
+half-year. Philip was so advanced in his studies, and so apt, that Mr.\r
+Stelling could obtain credit by his facility, which required little\r
+help, much more easily than by the troublesome process of overcoming\r
+Tom's dulness. Gentlemen with broad chests and ambitious intentions do\r
+sometimes disappoint their friends by failing to carry the world\r
+before them. Perhaps it is that high achievements demand some other\r
+unusual qualification besides an unusual desire for high prizes;\r
+perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather indolent, their\r
+_divinæ particulum auræ_ being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty\r
+appetite. Some reason or other there was why Mr. Stelling deferred the\r
+execution of many spirited projects,--why he did not begin the editing\r
+of his Greek play, or any other work of scholarship, in his leisure\r
+hours, but, after turning the key of his private study with much\r
+resolution, sat down to one of Theodore Hook's novels. Tom was\r
+gradually allowed to shuffle through his lessons with less rigor, and\r
+having Philip to help him, he was able to make some show of having\r
+applied his mind in a confused and blundering way, without being\r
+cross-examined into a betrayal that his mind had been entirely neutral\r
+in the matter. He thought school much more bearable under this\r
+modification of circumstances; and he went on contentedly enough,\r
+picking up a promiscuous education chiefly from things that were not\r
+intended as education at all. What was understood to be his education\r
+was simply the practice of reading, writing, and spelling, carried on\r
+by an elaborate appliance of unintelligible ideas, and by much failure\r
+in the effort to learn by rote.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless, there was a visible improvement in Tom under this\r
+training; perhaps because he was not a boy in the abstract, existing\r
+solely to illustrate the evils of a mistaken education, but a boy made\r
+of flesh and blood, with dispositions not entirely at the mercy of\r
+circumstances.\r
+\r
+There was a great improvement in his bearing, for example; and some\r
+credit on this score was due to Mr. Poulter, the village schoolmaster,\r
+who, being an old Peninsular soldier, was employed to drill Tom,--a\r
+source of high mutual pleasure. Mr. Poulter, who was understood by the\r
+company at the Black Swan to have once struck terror into the hearts\r
+of the French, was no longer personally formidable. He had rather a\r
+shrunken appearance, and was tremulous in the mornings, not from age,\r
+but from the extreme perversity of the King's Lorton boys, which\r
+nothing but gin could enable him to sustain with any firmness. Still,\r
+he carried himself with martial erectness, had his clothes\r
+scrupulously brushed, and his trousers tightly strapped; and on the\r
+Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always\r
+inspired with gin and old memories, which gave him an exceptionally\r
+spirited air, as of a superannuated charger who hears the drum. The\r
+drilling-lessons were always protracted by episodes of warlike\r
+narrative, much more interesting to Tom than Philip's stories out of\r
+the Iliad; for there were no cannon in the Iliad, and besides, Tom had\r
+felt some disgust on learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly\r
+never have existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really alive, and\r
+Bony had not been long dead; therefore Mr. Poulter's reminiscences of\r
+the Peninsular War were removed from all suspicion of being mythical.\r
+Mr. Poulter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous figure at Talavera,\r
+and had contributed not a little to the peculiar terror with which his\r
+regiment of infantry was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons when his\r
+memory was more stimulated than usual, he remembered that the Duke of\r
+Wellington had (in strict privacy, lest jealousies should be awakened)\r
+expressed his esteem for that fine fellow Poulter. The very surgeon\r
+who attended him in the hospital after he had received his\r
+gunshot-wound had been profoundly impressed with the superiority of\r
+Mr. Poulter's flesh,--no other flesh would have healed in anything\r
+like the same time. On less personal matters connected with the\r
+important warfare in which he had been engaged, Mr. Poulter was more\r
+reticent, only taking care not to give the weight of his authority to\r
+any loose notions concerning military history. Any one who pretended\r
+to a knowledge of what occurred at the siege of Badajos was especially\r
+an object of silent pity to Mr. Poulter; he wished that prating person\r
+had been run down, and had the breath trampled out of him at the first\r
+go-off, as he himself had,--he might talk about the siege of Badajos\r
+then! Tom did not escape irritating his drilling-master occasionally,\r
+by his curiosity concerning other military matters than Mr. Poulter's\r
+personal experience.\r
+\r
+"And General Wolfe, Mr. Poulter,--wasn't he a wonderful fighter?" said\r
+Tom, who held the notion that all the martial heroes commemorated on\r
+the public-house signs were engaged in the war with Bony.\r
+\r
+"Not at all!" said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously. "Nothing o' the sort!\r
+Heads up!" he added, in a tone of stern command, which delighted Tom,\r
+and made him feel as if he were a regiment in his own person.\r
+\r
+"No, no!" Mr. Poulter would continue, on coming to a pause in his\r
+discipline; "they'd better not talk to me about General Wolfe. He did\r
+nothing but die of his wound; that's a poor haction, I consider. Any\r
+other man 'ud have died o' the wounds I've had. One of my sword-cuts\r
+'ud ha' killed a fellow like General Wolfe."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword, "I wish\r
+you'd bring your sword and do the sword-exercise!"\r
+\r
+For a long while Mr. Poulter only shook his head in a significant\r
+manner at this request, and smiled patronizingly, as Jupiter may have\r
+done when Semele urged her too ambitious request. But one afternoon,\r
+when a sudden shower of heavy rain had detained Mr. Poulter twenty\r
+minutes longer than usual at the Black Swan, the sword was\r
+brought,--just for Tom to look at.\r
+\r
+"And this is the real sword you fought with in all the battles, Mr.\r
+Poulter?" said Tom, handling the hilt. "Has it ever cut a Frenchman's\r
+head off?"\r
+\r
+"Head off? Ah! and would, if he'd had three heads."\r
+\r
+"But you had a gun and bayonet besides?" said Tom. "_I_ should like\r
+the gun and bayonet best, because you could shoot 'em first and spear\r
+'em after. Bang! Ps-s-s-s!" Tom gave the requisite pantomime to\r
+indicate the double enjoyment of pulling the trigger and thrusting the\r
+spear.\r
+\r
+"Ah, but the sword's the thing when you come to close fighting," said\r
+Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling in with Tom's enthusiasm, and\r
+drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom leaped back with much agility.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Mr. Poulter, if you're going to do the exercise," said Tom,\r
+a little conscious that he had not stood his ground as became an\r
+Englishman, "let me go and call Philip. He'll like to see you, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"What! the humpbacked lad?" said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously; "what's\r
+the use of _his_ looking on?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting," said Tom, "and how\r
+they used to fight with bows and arrows, and battle-axes."\r
+\r
+"Let him come, then. I'll show him something different from his bows\r
+and arrows," said Mr. Poulter, coughing and drawing himself up, while\r
+he gave a little preliminary play to his wrist.\r
+\r
+Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon's holiday at the\r
+piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes for himself and singing\r
+them. He was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the\r
+high stool, with his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite\r
+cornice, and his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might,\r
+impromptu syllables to a tune of Arne's which had hit his fancy.\r
+\r
+"Come, Philip," said Tom, bursting in; "don't stay roaring 'la la'\r
+there; come and see old Poulter do his sword-exercise in the\r
+carriage-house!"\r
+\r
+The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom's tones coming across\r
+the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul and body, would have\r
+been enough to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no question\r
+of Poulter the drilling-master; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing\r
+something to say to prevent Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of\r
+the sword when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this\r
+proposition to fetch Philip, though he knew well enough that Philip\r
+hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would never have\r
+done so inconsiderate a thing except under the severe stress of his\r
+personal pride.\r
+\r
+Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning\r
+red, he said, with violent passion,--\r
+\r
+"Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don't come bellowing at me; you're not\r
+fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!"\r
+\r
+It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom\r
+had never before been assailed with verbal missiles that he understood\r
+so well.\r
+\r
+"I'm fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-spirited\r
+imp!" said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip's fire. "You know I\r
+won't hit you, because you're no better than a girl. But I'm an honest\r
+man's son, and _your_ father's a rogue; everybody says so!"\r
+\r
+Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him, made\r
+strangely heedless by his anger; for to slam doors within the hearing\r
+of Mrs. Stelling, who was probably not far off, was an offence only to\r
+be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, that lady did\r
+presently descend from her room, in double wonder at the noise and the\r
+subsequent cessation of Philip's music. She found him sitting in a\r
+heap on the hassock, and crying bitterly.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, Wakem? what was that noise about? Who slammed the\r
+door?"\r
+\r
+Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. "It was Tulliver who\r
+came in--to ask me to go out with him."\r
+\r
+"And what are you in trouble about?" said Mrs. Stelling.\r
+\r
+Philip was not her favorite of the two pupils; he was less obliging\r
+than Tom, who was made useful in many ways. Still, his father paid\r
+more than Mr. Tulliver did, and she meant him to feel that she behaved\r
+exceedingly well to him. Philip, however, met her advances toward a\r
+good understanding very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation\r
+to show himself out of his shell. Mrs. Stelling was not a loving,\r
+tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who\r
+adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when\r
+she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a\r
+great social power, but it is not the power of love; and no other\r
+power could win Philip from his personal reserve.\r
+\r
+He said, in answer to her question, "My toothache came on, and made me\r
+hysterical again."\r
+\r
+This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad of the recollection;\r
+it was like an inspiration to enable him to excuse his crying. He had\r
+to accept eau-de-Cologne and to refuse creosote in consequence; but\r
+that was easy.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned arrow into\r
+Philip's heart, had returned to the carriage-house, where he found Mr.\r
+Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his\r
+sword-exercise on probably observant but inappreciative rats. But Mr.\r
+Poulter was a host in himself; that is to say, he admired himself more\r
+than a whole army of spectators could have admired him. He took no\r
+notice of Tom's return, being too entirely absorbed in the cut and\r
+thrust,--the solemn one, two, three, four; and Tom, not without a\r
+slight feeling of alarm at Mr. Poulter's fixed eye and hungry-looking\r
+sword, which seemed impatient for something else to cut besides the\r
+air, admired the performance from as great a distance as possible. It\r
+was not until Mr. Poulter paused and wiped the perspiration from his\r
+forehead, that Tom felt the full charm of the sword-exercise, and\r
+wished it to be repeated.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Poulter," said Tom, when the sword was being finally sheathed, "I\r
+wish you'd lend me your sword a little while to keep."\r
+\r
+"No no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter, shaking his head\r
+decidedly; "you might do yourself some mischief with it."\r
+\r
+"No, I'm sure I wouldn't; I'm sure I'd take care and not hurt myself.\r
+I shouldn't take it out of the sheath much, but I could ground arms\r
+with it, and all that."\r
+\r
+"No, no, it won't do, I tell you; it won't do," said Mr. Poulter,\r
+preparing to depart. "What 'ud Mr. Stelling say to me?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I say, do, Mr. Poulter! I'd give you my five-shilling piece if\r
+you'd let me keep the sword a week. Look here!" said Tom, reaching out\r
+the attractively large round of silver. The young dog calculated the\r
+effect as well as if he had been a philosopher.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Poulter, with still deeper gravity, "you must keep it\r
+out of sight, you know."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, I'll keep it under the bed," said Tom, eagerly, "or else at\r
+the bottom of my large box."\r
+\r
+"And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the sheath\r
+without hurting yourself." That process having been gone through more\r
+than once, Mr. Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous\r
+conscientiousness, and said, "Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take\r
+the crown-piece, it is to make sure as you'll do no mischief with the\r
+sword."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, indeed, Mr. Poulter," said Tom, delightedly handing him the\r
+crown-piece, and grasping the sword, which, he thought, might have\r
+been lighter with advantage.\r
+\r
+"But if Mr. Stelling catches you carrying it in?" said Mr. Poulter,\r
+pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he raised this new\r
+doubt.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday afternoon,"\r
+said Tom, who disliked anything sneaking, but was not disinclined to a\r
+little stratagem in a worthy cause. So he carried off the sword in\r
+triumph mixed with dread--dread that he might encounter Mr. or Mrs.\r
+Stelling--to his bedroom, where, after some consideration, he hid it\r
+in the closet behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep\r
+in the thought that he would astonish Maggie with it when she\r
+came,--tie it round his waist with his red comforter, and make her\r
+believe that the sword was his own, and that he was going to be a\r
+soldier. There was nobody but Maggie who would be silly enough to\r
+believe him, or whom he dared allow to know he had a sword; and Maggie\r
+was really coming next week to see Tom, before she went to a\r
+boarding-school with Lucy.\r
+\r
+If you think a lad of thirteen would have been so childish, you must\r
+be an exceptionally wise man, who, although you are devoted to a civil\r
+calling, requiring you to look bland rather than formidable, yet\r
+never, since you had a beard, threw yourself into a martial attitude,\r
+and frowned before the looking-glass. It is doubtful whether our\r
+soldiers would be maintained if there were not pacific people at home\r
+who like to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic\r
+spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a "public."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Maggie's Second Visit\r
+\r
+\r
+This last breach between the two lads was not readily mended, and for\r
+some time they spoke to each other no more than was necessary. Their\r
+natural antipathy of temperament made resentment an easy passage to\r
+hatred, and in Philip the transition seemed to have begun; there was\r
+no malignity in his disposition, but there was a susceptibility that\r
+made him peculiarly liable to a strong sense of repulsion. The ox--we\r
+may venture to assert it on the authority of a great classic--is not\r
+given to use his teeth as an instrument of attack, and Tom was an\r
+excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable objects in a truly\r
+ingenious bovine manner; but he had blundered on Philip's tenderest\r
+point, and had caused him as much acute pain as if he had studied the\r
+means with the nicest precision and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw\r
+no reason why they should not make up this quarrel as they had done\r
+many others, by behaving as if nothing had happened; for though he had\r
+never before said to Philip that his father was a rogue, this idea had\r
+so habitually made part of his feeling as to the relation between\r
+himself and his dubious schoolfellow, who he could neither like nor\r
+dislike, that the mere utterance did not make such an epoch to him as\r
+it did to Philip. And he had a right to say so when Philip hectored\r
+over _him_, and called him names. But perceiving that his first\r
+advances toward amity were not met, he relapsed into his least\r
+favorable disposition toward Philip, and resolved never to appeal to\r
+him either about drawing or exercise again. They were only so far\r
+civil to each other as was necessary to prevent their state of feud\r
+from being observed by Mr. Stelling, who would have "put down" such\r
+nonsense with great vigor.\r
+\r
+When Maggie came, however, she could not help looking with growing\r
+interest at the new schoolfellow, although he was the son of that\r
+wicked Lawyer Wakem, who made her father so angry. She had arrived in\r
+the middle of school-hours, and had sat by while Philip went through\r
+his lessons with Mr. Stelling. Tom, some weeks ago, had sent her word\r
+that Philip knew no end of stories,--not stupid stories like hers; and\r
+she was convinced now from her own observation that he must be very\r
+clever; she hoped he would think _her_ rather clever too, when she\r
+came to talk to him. Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness for\r
+deformed things; she preferred the wry-necked lambs, because it seemed\r
+to her that the lambs which were quite strong and well made wouldn't\r
+mind so much about being petted; and she was especially fond of\r
+petting objects that would think it very delightful to be petted by\r
+her. She loved Tom very dearly, but she often wished that he _cared_\r
+more about her loving him.\r
+\r
+"I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said, when they went\r
+out of the study together into the garden, to pass the interval before\r
+dinner. "He couldn't choose his father, you know; and I've read of\r
+very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad\r
+children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry\r
+for him because his father is not a good man. _You_ like him, don't\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, he's a queer fellow," said Tom, curtly, "and he's as sulky as can\r
+be with me, because I told him his father was a rogue. And I'd a right\r
+to tell him so, for it was true; and _he_ began it, with calling me\r
+names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Maggie, will you? I've got\r
+something I want to do upstairs."\r
+\r
+"Can't I go too?" said Maggie, who in this first day of meeting again\r
+loved Tom's shadow.\r
+\r
+"No, it's something I'll tell you about by-and-by, not yet," said Tom,\r
+skipping away.\r
+\r
+In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study, preparing\r
+the morrow's lesson's that they might have a holiday in the evening in\r
+honor of Maggie's arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin grammar,\r
+moving his lips inaudibly like a strict but impatient Catholic\r
+repeating his tale of paternosters; and Philip, at the other end of\r
+the room, was busy with two volumes, with a look of contented\r
+diligence that excited Maggie's curiosity; he did not look at all as\r
+if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right\r
+angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other; and\r
+Philip, looking off his book once toward the fire-place, caught the\r
+pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought this sister\r
+of Tulliver's seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike her brother; he\r
+wished _he_ had a little sister. What was it, he wondered, that made\r
+Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being\r
+turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of\r
+unsatisfied intelligence, and unsatisfied beseeching affection.\r
+\r
+"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting them\r
+away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of\r
+leaving off, "I've done my lessons now. Come upstairs with me."\r
+\r
+"What is it?" said Maggie, when they were outside the door, a slight\r
+suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom's preliminary visit\r
+upstairs. "It isn't a trick you're going to play me, now?"\r
+\r
+"No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone; "It's something\r
+you'll like _ever so_."\r
+\r
+He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his waist, and\r
+twined together in this way, they went upstairs.\r
+\r
+"I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said Tom, "else\r
+I shall get fifty lines."\r
+\r
+"Is it alive?" said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for the\r
+moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I sha'n't tell you," said he. "Now you go into that corner and\r
+hide your face, while I reach it out," he added, as he locked the\r
+bedroom door behind them. "I'll tell you when to turn round. You\r
+mustn't squeal out, you know."\r
+\r
+"Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall," said Maggie, beginning to look\r
+rather serious.\r
+\r
+"You won't be frightened, you silly thing," said Tom. "Go and hide\r
+your face, and mind you don't peep."\r
+\r
+"Of course I sha'n't peep," said Maggie, disdainfully; and she buried\r
+her face in the pillow like a person of strict honor.\r
+\r
+But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet; then he\r
+stepped into the narrow space, and almost closed the door. Maggie kept\r
+her face buried without the aid of principle, for in that\r
+dream-suggestive attitude she had soon forgotten where she was, and\r
+her thoughts were busy with the poor deformed boy, who was so clever,\r
+when Tom called out, "Now then, Magsie!"\r
+\r
+Nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement of effects\r
+would have enabled Tom to present so striking a figure as he did to\r
+Maggie when she looked up. Dissatisfied with the pacific aspect of a\r
+face which had no more than the faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow,\r
+together with a pair of amiable blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks\r
+that refused to look formidable, let him frown as he would before the\r
+looking-glass (Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe\r
+frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a\r
+horseshoe on his forehead), he had had recourse to that unfailing\r
+source of the terrible, burnt cork, and had made himself a pair of\r
+black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory manner over his nose, and\r
+were matched by a less carefully adjusted blackness about the chin. He\r
+had wound a red handkerchief round his cloth cap to give it the air of\r
+a turban, and his red comforter across his breast as a scarf,--an\r
+amount of red which, with the tremendous frown on his brow, and the\r
+decision with which he grasped the sword, as he held it with its point\r
+resting on the ground, would suffice to convey an approximate idea of\r
+his fierce and bloodthirsty disposition.\r
+\r
+Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed that moment\r
+keenly; but in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together, and\r
+said, "Oh, Tom, you've made yourself like Bluebeard at the show."\r
+\r
+It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of the\r
+sword,--it was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind required a more\r
+direct appeal to its sense of the terrible, and Tom prepared for his\r
+master-stroke. Frowning with a double amount of intention, if not of\r
+corrugation, he (carefully) drew the sword from its sheath, and\r
+pointed it at Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, please don't!" exclaimed Maggie, in a tone of suppressed\r
+dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. "I _shall_\r
+scream--I'm sure I shall! Oh, don't I wish I'd never come upstairs!"\r
+\r
+The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a smile of\r
+complacency that was immediately checked as inconsistent with the\r
+severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let down the scabbard on the\r
+floor, lest it should make too much noise, and then said sternly,--\r
+\r
+"I'm the Duke of Wellington! March!" stamping forward with the right\r
+leg a little bent, and the sword still pointing toward Maggie, who,\r
+trembling, and with tear-filled eyes, got upon the bed, as the only\r
+means of widening the space between them.\r
+\r
+Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performances, even though\r
+the spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with the utmost exertion of\r
+his force, to such an exhibition of the cut and thrust as would\r
+necessarily be expected of the Duke of Wellington.\r
+\r
+"Tom, I _will not_ bear it, I _will_ scream," said Maggie, at the\r
+first movement of the sword. "You'll hurt yourself; you'll cut your\r
+head off!"\r
+\r
+"One--two," said Tom, resolutely, though at "two" his wrist trembled a\r
+little. "Three" came more slowly, and with it the sword swung\r
+downward, and Maggie gave a loud shriek. The sword had fallen, with\r
+its edge on Tom's foot, and in a moment after he had fallen too.\r
+Maggie leaped from the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was\r
+a rush of footsteps toward the room. Mr. Stelling, from his upstairs\r
+study, was the first to enter. He found both the children on the\r
+floor. Tom had fainted, and Maggie was shaking him by the collar of\r
+his jacket, screaming, with wild eyes. She thought he was dead, poor\r
+child! and yet she shook him, as if that would bring him back to life.\r
+In another minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom opened his\r
+eyes. She couldn't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot; it seemed as\r
+if all happiness lay in his being alive.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+A Love-Scene\r
+\r
+\r
+Poor Tom bore his severe pain heroically, and was resolute in not\r
+"telling" of Mr. Poulter more than was unavoidable; the five-shilling\r
+piece remained a secret even to Maggie. But there was a terrible dread\r
+weighing on his mind, so terrible that he dared not even ask the\r
+question which might bring the fatal "yes"; he dared not ask the\r
+surgeon or Mr. Stelling, "Shall I be lame, Sir?" He mastered himself\r
+so as not to cry out at the pain; but when his foot had been dressed,\r
+and he was left alone with Maggie seated by his bedside, the children\r
+sobbed together, with their heads laid on the same pillow. Tom was\r
+thinking of himself walking about on crutches, like the wheelwright's\r
+son; and Maggie, who did not guess what was in his mind, sobbed for\r
+company. It had not occurred to the surgeon or to Mr. Stelling to\r
+anticipate this dread in Tom's mind, and to reassure him by hopeful\r
+words. But Philip watched the surgeon out of the house, and waylaid\r
+Mr. Stelling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask\r
+for himself.\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, sir,--but does Mr. Askern say Tulliver will be\r
+lame?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; oh, no," said Mr. Stelling, "not permanently; only for a\r
+little while."\r
+\r
+"Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"No; nothing was said to him on the subject."\r
+\r
+"Then may I go and tell him, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure; now you mention it, I dare say he may be troubling\r
+about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet at present."\r
+\r
+It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the\r
+accident,--"Will Tulliver be lame? It will be very hard for him if he\r
+is"; and Tom's hitherto unforgiven offences were washed out by that\r
+pity. Philip felt that they were no longer in a state of repulsion,\r
+but were being drawn into a common current of suffering and sad\r
+privation. His imagination did not dwell on the outward calamity and\r
+its future effect on Tom's life, but it made vividly present to him\r
+the probable state of Tom's feeling. Philip had only lived fourteen\r
+years, but those years had, most of them, been steeped in the sense of\r
+a lot irremediably hard.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Askern says you'll soon be all right again, Tulliver, did you\r
+know?" he said rather timidly, as he stepped gently up to Tom's bed.\r
+"I've just been to ask Mr. Stelling, and he says you'll walk as well\r
+as ever again by-and-day."\r
+\r
+Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath which comes\r
+with a sudden joy; then he gave a long sigh, and turned his blue-gray\r
+eyes straight on Philip's face, as he had not done for a fortnight or\r
+more. As for Maggie, this intimation of a possibility she had not\r
+thought of before affected her as a new trouble; the bare idea of\r
+Tom's being always lame overpowered the assurance that such a\r
+misfortune was not likely to befall him, and she clung to him and\r
+cried afresh.\r
+\r
+"Don't be a little silly, Magsie," said Tom, tenderly, feeling very\r
+brave now. "I shall soon get well."\r
+\r
+"Good-by, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small, delicate\r
+hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more substantial fingers.\r
+\r
+"I say," said Tom, "ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and sit with me\r
+sometimes, till I get up again, Wakem; and tell me about Robert Bruce,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+After that, Philip spent all his time out of school-hours with Tom and\r
+Maggie. Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much as ever, but he\r
+insisted strongly on the fact that those great fighters who did so\r
+many wonderful things and came off unhurt, wore excellent armor from\r
+head to foot, which made fighting easy work, he considered. He should\r
+not have hurt his foot if he had had an iron shoe on. He listened with\r
+great interest to a new story of Philip's about a man who had a very\r
+bad wound in his foot, and cried out so dreadfully with the pain that\r
+his friends could bear with him no longer, but put him ashore on a\r
+desert island, with nothing but some wonderful poisoned arrows to kill\r
+animals with for food.\r
+\r
+"I didn't roar out a bit, you know," Tom said, "and I dare say my foot\r
+was as bad as his. It's cowardly to roar."\r
+\r
+But Maggie would have it that when anything hurt you very much, it was\r
+quite permissible to cry out, and it was cruel of people not to bear\r
+it. She wanted to know if Philoctetes had a sister, and why _she_\r
+didn't go with him on the desert island and take care of him.\r
+\r
+One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and Maggie were in\r
+the study alone together while Tom's foot was being dressed. Philip\r
+was at his books, and Maggie, after sauntering idly round the room,\r
+not caring to do anything in particular, because she would soon go to\r
+Tom again, went and leaned on the table near Philip to see what he was\r
+doing, for they were quite old friends now, and perfectly at home with\r
+each other.\r
+\r
+"What are you reading about in Greek?" she said. "It's poetry, I can\r
+see that, because the lines are so short."\r
+\r
+"It's about Philoctetes, the lame man I was telling you of yesterday,"\r
+he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her as if he\r
+were not at all sorry to be interrupted. Maggie, in her absent way,\r
+continued to lean forward, resting on her arms and moving her feet\r
+about, while her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if\r
+she had quite forgotten Philip and his book.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning on his\r
+elbow and looking at her, "if you had had a brother like me, do you\r
+think you should have loved him as well as Tom?"\r
+\r
+Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie, and said,\r
+"What?" Philip repeated his question.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, better," she answered immediately. "No, not better; because\r
+I don't think I _could_ love you better than Tom. But I should be so\r
+sorry,--_so sorry_ for you."\r
+\r
+Philip colored; he had meant to imply, would she love him as well in\r
+spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly, he\r
+winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake.\r
+Hitherto she had instinctively behaved as if she were quite\r
+unconscious of Philip's deformity; her own keen sensitiveness and\r
+experience under family criticism sufficed to teach her this as well\r
+as if she had been directed by the most finished breeding.\r
+\r
+"But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing," she\r
+added quickly. "I wish you _were_ my brother. I'm very fond of you.\r
+And you would stay at home with me when Tom went out, and you would\r
+teach me everything; wouldn't you,--Greek and everything?"\r
+\r
+"But you'll go away soon, and go to school, Maggie," said Philip, "and\r
+then you'll forget all about me, and not care for me any more. And\r
+then I shall see you when you're grown up, and you'll hardly take any\r
+notice of me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, I sha'n't forget you, I'm sure," said Maggie, shaking her\r
+head very seriously. "I never forget anything, and I think about\r
+everybody when I'm away from them. I think about poor Yap; he's got a\r
+lump in his throat, and Luke says he'll die. Only don't you tell Tom.\r
+because it will vex him so. You never saw Yap; he's a queer little\r
+dog,--nobody cares about him but Tom and me."\r
+\r
+"Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie?" said\r
+Philip, smiling rather sadly.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, I should think so," said Maggie, laughing.\r
+\r
+"I'm very fond of _you_, Maggie; I shall never forget _you_," said\r
+Philip, "and when I'm very unhappy, I shall always think of you, and\r
+wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours."\r
+\r
+"Why do you like my eyes?" said Maggie, well pleased. She had never\r
+heard any one but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Philip. "They're not like any other eyes. They\r
+seem trying to speak,--trying to speak kindly. I don't like other\r
+people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is," said Maggie, rather\r
+sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she\r
+could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said:\r
+\r
+"Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom? I will, if you like."\r
+\r
+"Yes, very much; nobody kisses me."\r
+\r
+Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly.\r
+\r
+"There now," she said, "I shall always remember you, and kiss you when\r
+I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I\r
+think Mr. Askern's done with Tom's foot."\r
+\r
+When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, "Oh,\r
+father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom; he is such a clever boy,\r
+and I _do_ love him. And you love him too, Tom, don't you? _Say_ you\r
+love him," she added entreatingly.\r
+\r
+Tom colored a little as he looked at his father, and said: "I sha'n't\r
+be friends with him when I leave school, father; but we've made it up\r
+now, since my foot has been bad, and he's taught me to play at\r
+draughts, and I can beat him."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Mr. Tulliver, "if he's good to you, try and make\r
+him amends, and be good to _him_. He's a poor crooked creature, and\r
+takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with\r
+him; he's got his father's blood in him too. Ay, ay, the gray colt may\r
+chance to kick like his black sire."\r
+\r
+The jarring natures of the two boys effected what Mr. Tulliver's\r
+admonition alone might have failed to effect; in spite of Philip's new\r
+kindness, and Tom's answering regard in this time of his trouble, they\r
+never became close friends. When Maggie was gone, and when Tom\r
+by-and-by began to walk about as usual, the friendly warmth that had\r
+been kindled by pity and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them\r
+in their old relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and\r
+contemptuous; and Tom's more specific and kindly impressions gradually\r
+melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as\r
+a queer fellow, a humpback, and the son of a rogue. If boys and men\r
+are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must\r
+be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when\r
+the heat dies out.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+The Golden Gates Are Passed\r
+\r
+\r
+So Tom went on even to the fifth half-year--till he was turned\r
+sixteen--at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing with a rapidity\r
+which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Firniss's\r
+boarding-school in the ancient town of Laceham on the Floss, with\r
+cousin Lucy for her companion. In her early letters to Tom she had\r
+always sent her love to Philip, and asked many questions about him,\r
+which were answered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache, and a\r
+turf-house which he was helping to build in the garden, with other\r
+items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom say in the holidays\r
+that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often cross. They were no\r
+longer very good friends, she perceived; and when she reminded Tom\r
+that he ought always to love Philip for being so good to him when his\r
+foot was bad, he answered: "Well, it isn't my fault; _I_ don't do\r
+anything to him." She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of\r
+their school-life; in the Midsummer holidays he was always away at the\r
+seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet him at long intervals in\r
+the street of St. Ogg's. When they did meet, she remembered her\r
+promise to kiss him, but, as a young lady who had been at a\r
+boarding-school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the\r
+question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise was void, like\r
+so many other sweet, illusory promises of our childhood; void as\r
+promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the\r
+starry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach,--impossible\r
+to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed.\r
+\r
+But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened\r
+lawsuit, and Wakem, as the agent at once of Pivart and Old Harry, was\r
+acting against him, even Maggie felt, with some sadness, that they\r
+were not likely ever to have any intimacy with Philip again; the very\r
+name of Wakem made her father angry, and she had once heard him say\r
+that if that crook-backed son lived to inherit his father's ill-gotten\r
+gains, there would be a curse upon him. "Have as little to do with him\r
+at school as you can, my lad," he said to Tom; and the command was\r
+obeyed the more easily because Mr. Sterling by this time had two\r
+additional pupils; for though this gentleman's rise in the world was\r
+not of that meteor-like rapidity which the admirers of his\r
+extemporaneous eloquence had expected for a preacher whose voice\r
+demanded so wide a sphere, he had yet enough of growing prosperity to\r
+enable him to increase his expenditure in continued disproportion to\r
+his income.\r
+\r
+As for Tom's school course, it went on with mill-like monotony, his\r
+mind continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled pulse in a medium\r
+uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought\r
+home larger and larger drawings with the satiny rendering of\r
+landscape, and water-colors in vivid greens, together with manuscript\r
+books full of exercises and problems, in which the handwriting was all\r
+the finer because he gave his whole mind to it. Each vacation he\r
+brought home a new book or two, indicating his progress through\r
+different stages of history, Christian doctrine, and Latin literature;\r
+and that passage was not entirely without results, besides the\r
+possession of the books. Tom's ear and tongue had become accustomed to\r
+a great many words and phrases which are understood to be signs of an\r
+educated condition; and though he had never really applied his mind to\r
+any one of his lessons, the lessons had left a deposit of vague,\r
+fragmentary, ineffectual notions. Mr. Tulliver, seeing signs of\r
+acquirement beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it was\r
+probably all right with Tom's education; he observed, indeed, that\r
+there were no maps, and not enough "summing"; but he made no formal\r
+complaint to Mr. Stelling. It was a puzzling business, this schooling;\r
+and if he took Tom away, where could he send him with better effect?\r
+\r
+By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King's Lorton, the\r
+years had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him\r
+returning from Mr. Jacobs's academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying\r
+himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more\r
+shyness than was a becoming symptom of blended diffidence and pride;\r
+he wore his tail-coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down\r
+on his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his virgin\r
+razor, with which he had provided himself in the last holidays. Philip\r
+had already left,--at the autumn quarter,--that he might go to the\r
+south for the winter, for the sake of his health; and this change\r
+helped to give Tom the unsettled, exultant feeling that usually\r
+belongs to the last months before leaving school. This quarter, too,\r
+there was some hope of his father's lawsuit being decided; _that_ made\r
+the prospect of home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had\r
+gathered his view of the case from his father's conversation, had no\r
+doubt that Pivart would be beaten.\r
+\r
+Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks,--a fact which did\r
+not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to manifest\r
+their affection in unnecessary letters,--when, to his great surprise,\r
+on the morning of a dark, cold day near the end of November, he was\r
+told, soon after entering the study at nine o'clock, that his sister\r
+was in the drawing-room. It was Mrs. Stelling who had come into the\r
+study to tell him, and she left him to enter the drawing-room alone.\r
+\r
+Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair; she was\r
+almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen; and she really\r
+looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her\r
+bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead, as if it\r
+would not bear that extra load, and her young face had a strangely\r
+worn look, as her eyes turned anxiously toward the door. When Tom\r
+entered she did not speak, but only went up to him, put her arms round\r
+his neck, and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of\r
+hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her greeting.\r
+\r
+"Why, how is it you're come so early this cold morning, Maggie? Did\r
+you come in the gig?" said Tom, as she backed toward the sofa, and\r
+drew him to her side.\r
+\r
+"No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike."\r
+\r
+"But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet?"\r
+\r
+"Father wanted me at home," said Maggie, with a slight trembling of\r
+the lip. "I came home three or four days ago."\r
+\r
+"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously.\r
+\r
+"Not quite," said Maggie. "He's very unhappy, Tom. The lawsuit is\r
+ended, and I came to tell you because I thought it would be better for\r
+you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like only to send\r
+you a letter."\r
+\r
+"My father hasn't lost?" said Tom, hastily, springing from the sofa,\r
+and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust into his\r
+pockets.\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear Tom," said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling.\r
+\r
+Tom was silent a minute or two, with his eyes fixed on the floor. Then\r
+he said:\r
+\r
+"My father will have to pay a good deal of money, then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, rather faintly.\r
+\r
+"Well, it can't be helped," said Tom, bravely, not translating the\r
+loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. "But my\r
+father's very much vexed, I dare say?" he added, looking at Maggie,\r
+and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way\r
+of taking things.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by\r
+Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly, as if\r
+the words _would_ burst from her: "Oh, Tom, he will lose the mill and\r
+the land and everything; he will have nothing left."\r
+\r
+Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before he turned\r
+pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but sat down on the sofa\r
+again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window.\r
+\r
+Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind. His father had\r
+always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful,\r
+confident air of a man who has plenty of property to fall back upon.\r
+Tom had never dreamed that his father would "fail"; _that_ was a form\r
+of misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace,\r
+and disgrace was an idea that he could not associate with any of his\r
+relations, least of all with his father. A proud sense of family\r
+respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and brought\r
+up in. He knew there were people in St. Ogg's who made a show without\r
+money to support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by\r
+his own friends with contempt and reprobation. He had a strong belief,\r
+which was a lifelong habit, and required no definite evidence to rest\r
+on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and\r
+since his education at Mr. Stelling's had given him a more expensive\r
+view of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would\r
+make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and\r
+other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any\r
+of his contemporaries at St. Ogg's, who might consider themselves a\r
+grade above him in society because their fathers were professional\r
+men, or had large oil-mills. As to the prognostics and headshaking of\r
+his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on him,\r
+except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable\r
+society; he had heard them find fault in much the same way as long as\r
+he could remember. His father knew better than they did.\r
+\r
+The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had\r
+been hitherto only the reproduction, in changed forms, of the boyish\r
+dreams in which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with\r
+a violent shock.\r
+\r
+Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence. There was\r
+something else to tell him,--something worse. She threw her arms round\r
+him at last, and said, with a half sob:\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom--dear, dear Tom, don't fret too much; try and bear it well."\r
+\r
+Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses, and\r
+there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with\r
+his hand. The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and\r
+said: "I shall go home, with you, Maggie. Didn't my father say I was\r
+to go?"\r
+\r
+"No, Tom, father didn't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety about _his_\r
+feeling helping her to master her agitation. What _would_ he do when\r
+she told him all? "But mother wants you to come,--poor mother!--she\r
+cries so. Oh, Tom, it's very dreadful at home."\r
+\r
+Maggie's lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost as Tom had\r
+done. The two poor things clung closer to each other, both\r
+trembling,--the one at an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a\r
+terrible certainty. When Maggie spoke, it was hardly above a whisper.\r
+\r
+"And--and--poor father----"\r
+\r
+Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable to Tom. A\r
+vague idea of going to prison, as a consequence of debt, was the shape\r
+his fears had begun to take.\r
+\r
+"Where's my father?" he said impatiently. "_Tell_ me, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"He's at home," said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to that\r
+question. "But," she added, after a pause, "not himself--he fell off\r
+his horse. He has known nobody but me ever since--he seems to have\r
+lost his senses. O father, father----"\r
+\r
+With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the more\r
+violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that\r
+pressure of the heart which forbids tears; he had no distinct vision\r
+of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been at home; he only felt\r
+the crushing weight of what seemed unmitigated misfortune. He\r
+tightened his arm almost convulsively round Maggie as she sobbed, but\r
+his face looked rigid and tearless, his eyes blank,--as if a black\r
+curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his path.\r
+\r
+But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly; a single thought had acted\r
+on her like a startling sound.\r
+\r
+"We must set out, Tom, we must not stay. Father will miss me; we must\r
+be at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach." She said this with hasty\r
+decision, rubbing her eyes, and rising to seize her bonnet.\r
+\r
+Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. "Wait a minute,\r
+Maggie," he said. "I must speak to Mr. Stelling, and then we'll go."\r
+\r
+He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were; but on his\r
+way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his wife that Maggie\r
+appeared to be in trouble when she asked for her brother, and now that\r
+he thought the brother and sister had been alone long enough, was\r
+coming to inquire and offer his sympathy.\r
+\r
+"Please, sir, I must go home," Tom said abruptly, as he met Mr.\r
+Stelling in the passage. "I must go back with my sister directly. My\r
+father's lost his lawsuit--he's lost all his property--and he's very\r
+ill."\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man; he foresaw a probable money\r
+loss for himself, but this had no appreciable share in his feeling,\r
+while he looked with grave pity at the brother and sister for whom\r
+youth and sorrow had begun together. When he knew how Maggie had come,\r
+and how eager she was to get home again, he hurried their departure,\r
+only whispering something to Mrs. Stelling, who had followed him, and\r
+who immediately left the room.\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to set out, when\r
+Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on Maggie's\r
+arm, saying: "Do remember to eat something on the way, dear." Maggie's\r
+heart went out toward this woman whom she had never liked, and she\r
+kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of\r
+that new sense which is the gift of sorrow,--that susceptibility to\r
+the bare offices of humanity which raises them into a bond of loving\r
+fellowship, as to haggard men among the ice-bergs the mere presence of\r
+an ordinary comrade stirs the deep fountains of affection.\r
+\r
+Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said: "God bless you,\r
+my boy; let me know how you get on." Then he pressed Maggie's hand;\r
+but there were no audible good-byes. Tom had so often thought how\r
+joyful he should be the day he left school "for good"! And now his\r
+school years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end.\r
+\r
+The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant\r
+road,--were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow.\r
+\r
+They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they would\r
+never more see the sunshine undimmed by remembered cares. They had\r
+entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood\r
+had forever closed behind them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book III\r
+\r
+_The Downfall_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+What Had Happened at Home\r
+\r
+\r
+When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decided\r
+against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one who\r
+happened to observe him at the time thought that, for so confident and\r
+hot-tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought so\r
+himself; he thought he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody else\r
+considered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He could\r
+not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would take\r
+more than he possessed to pay them; but he appeared to himself to be\r
+full of expedients by which he could ward off any results but such as\r
+were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the\r
+world. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of\r
+their old channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate\r
+formation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain\r
+Mr. Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a rush\r
+of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was flushed\r
+when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr. Gore, and\r
+mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was Furley, who held\r
+the mortgage on the land,--a reasonable fellow, who would see his own\r
+interest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not only\r
+to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, but\r
+would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance money\r
+to be repaid with high interest out of the profits of the business,\r
+which would be made over to him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enough\r
+barely to maintain himself and his family. Who would neglect such a\r
+profitable investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had\r
+determined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity;\r
+and there are men whoses brains have not yet been dangerously heated\r
+by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own interest or\r
+desires a motive for other men's actions. There was no doubt (in the\r
+miller's mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he\r
+did--why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his\r
+family must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till\r
+the profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that\r
+might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life before\r
+him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without his\r
+being obliged to turn out of his old place, and look like a ruined\r
+man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was that\r
+suretyship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April, and left\r
+his friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds,--a\r
+fact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver's banking book less\r
+pleasant reading than a man might desire toward Christmas. Well! he\r
+had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to\r
+give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The\r
+really vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the\r
+creditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg\r
+had become uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and\r
+Mr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit, and\r
+finding it eminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that\r
+desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that\r
+he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and some\r
+other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had\r
+said to himself; he should soon pay off the money, and there was no\r
+harm in giving that security any more than another. But now the\r
+consequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and\r
+he remembered that the time was close at hand when it would be\r
+enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he would have\r
+declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife's\r
+friends; but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing but\r
+right and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain the\r
+thing to them; they would hardly let Bessy's furniture be sold, and it\r
+might be security to Pullet if he advanced the money,--there would,\r
+after all, be no gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never\r
+have asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself,\r
+but Bessy might do so if she liked.\r
+\r
+It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most\r
+liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this\r
+sudden manner; everything is easier to them than to face the simple\r
+fact that they have been thoroughly defeated, and must begin life\r
+anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than a\r
+superior miller and maltster, was as proud and obstinate as if he had\r
+been a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be a\r
+source of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the\r
+stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The\r
+pride and obstinacy of millers and other insignificant people, whom\r
+you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too;\r
+but it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from generation to\r
+generation, and leaves no record,--such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in\r
+the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made\r
+suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where the\r
+morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpectant\r
+discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children\r
+like a damp, thick air, in which all the functions of life are\r
+depressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that\r
+follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only\r
+a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of\r
+position is a law of life,--they can never flourish again, after a\r
+single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance\r
+is a law of life,--they can only sustain humiliation so long as they\r
+can refuse to believe in it, and, in their own conception, predominate\r
+still.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was still predominating, in his own imagination, as he\r
+approached St. Ogg's, through which he had to pass on his way\r
+homeward. But what was it that suggested to him, as he saw the Laceham\r
+coach entering the town, to follow it to the coach-office, and get the\r
+clerk there to write a letter, requiring Maggie to come home the very\r
+next day? Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement\r
+for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to the\r
+coachman to deliver at Miss Firniss's school in the morning. There was\r
+a craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggie\r
+near him, without delay,--she must come back by the coach to-morrow.\r
+\r
+To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties,\r
+and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was\r
+lost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He\r
+said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale and the\r
+application to Mrs. Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of the\r
+nature of that transaction, and had explained the necessity for taking\r
+an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his will. The\r
+possession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is,\r
+like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and,\r
+among the rest, with the occasional necessity for using a little\r
+deception.\r
+\r
+The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon, on\r
+his way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Ogg's. Gore was to have seen\r
+Furley in the morning, and to have sounded him in relation to Mr.\r
+Tulliver's affairs. But he had not gone half-way when he met a clerk\r
+from Mr. Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr.\r
+Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting at\r
+his office to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would be\r
+at his office at eleven to-morrow morning, and meanwhile had sent some\r
+important information by letter.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. "Then\r
+tell Gore I'll see him to-morrow at eleven"; and he turned his horse.\r
+\r
+The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited glance,\r
+looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of\r
+a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr. Tulliver; he took in\r
+the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or\r
+even printed characters; so he had put the letter in his pocket,\r
+thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by-and-by it\r
+occurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs.\r
+Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it\r
+out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out the\r
+letter, and read it. It was only a short letter; the substance was,\r
+that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, that\r
+Furley had been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with\r
+his securities,--among the rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's\r
+property, which he had transferred to----Wakem.\r
+\r
+In half an hour after this Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found him lying\r
+by the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him, and his gray\r
+horse snuffing uneasily about him.\r
+\r
+When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her father's\r
+call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had become\r
+conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered\r
+something about "a letter," which he presently repeated impatiently.\r
+At the instance of Mr. Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was\r
+brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be\r
+allayed. The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the\r
+letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. But\r
+presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the other\r
+away; he turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and after\r
+looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too\r
+dim for, he said, "The little wench."\r
+\r
+He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearing\r
+entirely unconscious of everything except this one importunate want,\r
+and giving no sign of knowing his wife or any one else; and poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralyzed by this sudden\r
+accumulation of troubles, went backward and forward to the gate to see\r
+if the Laceham coach were coming, though it was not yet time.\r
+\r
+But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no longer the\r
+"little wench," except to her father's fond memory.\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother, what is the matter?" Maggie said, with pale lips, as her\r
+mother came toward her crying. She didn't think her father was ill,\r
+because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St.\r
+Ogg's.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her; a medical man is the good angel\r
+of the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whom\r
+she remembered as long as she could remember anything, with a\r
+trembling, questioning look.\r
+\r
+"Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear," he said, taking her hand.\r
+"Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered his\r
+memory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see\r
+you. Keep as quiet as you can; take off your things, and come upstairs\r
+with me."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes\r
+existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with\r
+which Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination.\r
+Her father's eyes were still turned uneasily toward the door when she\r
+entered and met the strange, yearning, helpless look that had been\r
+seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raised\r
+himself in the bed; she rushed toward him, and clasped him with\r
+agonized kisses.\r
+\r
+Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme\r
+moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can\r
+dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant; is lost,\r
+like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love which knits us\r
+to the beings who have been nearest to us, in their times of\r
+helplessness or of anguish.\r
+\r
+But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on the\r
+father's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewed\r
+insensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was only\r
+broken by a flickering return of consciousness, in which he took\r
+passively everything that was given to him, and seemed to have a sort\r
+of infantine satisfaction in Maggie's near presence,--such\r
+satisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the nurse's lap.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and\r
+lifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that the\r
+ruin of Bessy and her family was as complete as they had ever\r
+foreboded it, and there was a general family sense that a judgment had\r
+fallen on Mr. Tulliver, which it would be an impiety to counteract by\r
+too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever\r
+leaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand\r
+on his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed to\r
+be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the aunts\r
+and uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school, since Mr. Turnbull\r
+said there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the\r
+second day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to her father's\r
+fits of insensibility, and to the expectation that he would revive\r
+from them, the thought of Tom had become urgent with _her_ too; and\r
+when her mother sate crying at night and saying, "My poor lad--it's\r
+nothing but right he should come home," Maggie said, "Let me go for\r
+him, and tell him, mother; I'll go to-morrow morning if father doesn't\r
+know me and want me. It would be so hard for Tom to come home and not\r
+know anything about it beforehand."\r
+\r
+And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on the\r
+coach on their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other\r
+in sad, interrupted whispers.\r
+\r
+"They say Mr. Wakem has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom,"\r
+said Maggie. "It was the letter with that news in it that made father\r
+ill, they think."\r
+\r
+"I believe that scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my\r
+father," said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite\r
+conclusion. "I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you never\r
+speak to Philip again."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom!" said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had no\r
+spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing\r
+him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods\r
+\r
+\r
+When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she\r
+had started from home, and she was thinking with some trembling that\r
+her father had perhaps missed her, and asked for "the little wench" in\r
+vain. She thought of no other change that might have happened.\r
+\r
+She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house before Tom;\r
+but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The\r
+parlor door was ajar; that was where the smell came from. It was very\r
+strange; could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her\r
+mother there? If so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after\r
+this pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door when\r
+Tom came up, and they both looked into the parlor together.\r
+\r
+There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom had some vague\r
+recollection, sitting in his father's chair, smoking, with a jug and\r
+glass beside him.\r
+\r
+The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To "have the bailiff in\r
+the house," and "to be sold up," were phrases which he had been used\r
+to, even as a little boy; they were part of the disgrace and misery of\r
+"failing," of losing all one's money, and being ruined,--sinking into\r
+the condition of poor working people. It seemed only natural this\r
+should happen, since his father had lost all his property, and he\r
+thought of no more special cause for this particular form of\r
+misfortune than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of\r
+this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than the worst\r
+form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment as if his real\r
+trouble had only just begin; it was a touch on the irritated nerve\r
+compared with its spontaneous dull aching.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, sir?" said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth,\r
+with rough, embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made\r
+him a little uncomfortable.\r
+\r
+But Tom turned away hastily without speaking; the sight was too\r
+hateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance of this stranger, as\r
+Tom had. She followed him, whispering: "Who can it be, Tom? What is\r
+the matter?" Then, with a sudden undefined dread lest this stranger\r
+might have something to do with a change in her father, she rushed\r
+upstairs, checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off her\r
+bonnet, and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there; her father was\r
+lying, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed as when\r
+she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother.\r
+\r
+"Where's my mother?" she whispered. The servant did not know.\r
+\r
+Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom; "Father is lying quiet; let us\r
+go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There\r
+was but one room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched; it\r
+was the storeroom, where her mother kept all her linen and all the\r
+precious "best things" that were only unwrapped and brought out on\r
+special occasions.\r
+\r
+Tom, preceding Maggie, as they returned along the passage, opened the\r
+door of this room, and immediately said, "Mother!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of\r
+the linen chests was open; the silver teapot was unwrapped from its\r
+many folds of paper, and the best china was laid out on the top of the\r
+closed linen-chest; spoons and skewers and ladles were spread in rows\r
+on the shelves; and the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping,\r
+with a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, "Elizabeth Dodson,"\r
+on the corner of some tablecloths she held in her lap.\r
+\r
+She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my boy, my boy!" she said, clasping him round the neck. "To think\r
+as I should live to see this day! We're ruined--everything's going to\r
+be sold up--to think as your father should ha' married me to bring me\r
+to this! We've got nothing--we shall be beggars--we must go to the\r
+workhouse----"\r
+\r
+She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another tablecloth\r
+on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at the pattern, while\r
+the children stood by in mute wretchedness, their minds quite filled\r
+for the moment with the words "beggars" and "workhouse."\r
+\r
+"To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on, lifting\r
+things out and turning them over with an excitement all the more\r
+strange and piteous because the stout blond woman was usually so\r
+passive,--if she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface\r
+merely,--"and Job Haxey wove 'em, and brought the piece home on his\r
+back, as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come, before I\r
+ever thought o' marrying your father! And the pattern as I chose\r
+myself, and bleached so beautiful, and I marked 'em so as nobody ever\r
+saw such marking,--they must cut the cloth to get it out, for it's a\r
+particular stitch. And they're all to be sold, and go into strange\r
+people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the knives, and wore out\r
+before I'm dead. You'll never have one of 'em, my boy," she said,\r
+looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears, "and I meant 'em for\r
+you. I wanted you to have all o' this pattern. Maggie could have had\r
+the large check--it never shows so well when the dishes are on it."\r
+\r
+Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction\r
+immediately. His face flushed as he said:\r
+\r
+"But will my aunts let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it?\r
+They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I sent Luke directly they'd put the bailies in, and your aunt\r
+Pullet's been--and, oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your\r
+father's disgraced my family and made it the talk o' the country; and\r
+she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself, because she's never had so\r
+many as she wanted o' that pattern, and they sha'n't go to strangers,\r
+but she's got more checks a'ready nor she can do with." (Here Mrs.\r
+Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloths in the chest, folding and\r
+stroking them automatically.) "And your uncle Glegg's been too, and he\r
+says things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talk\r
+to your aunt; and they're all coming to consult. But I know they'll\r
+none of 'em take my chany," she added, turning toward the cups and\r
+saucers, "for they all found fault with 'em when I bought 'em, 'cause\r
+o' the small gold sprig all over 'em, between the flowers. But there's\r
+none of 'em got better chany, not even your aunt Pullet herself; and I\r
+bought it wi' my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turned\r
+fifteen; and the silver teapot, too,--your father never paid for 'em.\r
+And to think as he should ha' married me, and brought me to this."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh, and she sobbed with her\r
+handkerchief at her eyes a few moments, but then removing it, she said\r
+in a deprecating way, still half sobbing, as if she were called upon\r
+to speak before she could command her voice,--\r
+\r
+"And I _did_ say to him times and times, 'Whativer you do, don't go to\r
+law,' and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my own\r
+fortin's been spent, and what should ha' been my children's, too.\r
+You'll have niver a penny, my boy--but it isn't your poor mother's\r
+fault."\r
+\r
+She put out one arm toward Tom, looking up at him piteously with her\r
+helpless, childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her,\r
+and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of his father\r
+with some reproach. His natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept\r
+entirely in abeyance toward his father by the predisposition to think\r
+him always right, simply on the ground that he was Tom Tulliver's\r
+father, was turned into this new channel by his mother's plaints; and\r
+with his indignation against Wakem there began to mingle some\r
+indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helped\r
+bringing them all down in the world, and making people talk of them\r
+with contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tulliver with\r
+contempt.\r
+\r
+The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to\r
+assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his\r
+aunts, and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of\r
+his mother.\r
+\r
+"Don't fret, mother," he said tenderly. "I shall soon be able to get\r
+money; I'll get a situation of some sort."\r
+\r
+"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed. Then,\r
+looking round sadly, "But I shouldn't ha' minded so much if we could\r
+ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em."\r
+\r
+Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger. The implied\r
+reproaches against her father--her father, who was lying there in a\r
+sort of living death--neutralized all her pity for griefs about\r
+tablecloths and china; and her anger on her father's account was\r
+heightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent concurrence\r
+with her mother in shutting her out from the common calamity. She had\r
+become almost indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation of\r
+her, but she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive,\r
+that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means made up of\r
+unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself where\r
+she loved strongly. She burst out at last in an agitated, almost\r
+violent tone: "Mother, how can you talk so; as if you cared only for\r
+things with _your_ name on, and not for what has my father's name too;\r
+and to care about anything but dear father himself!--when he's lying\r
+there, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too;\r
+you ought not to let any one find fault with my father."\r
+\r
+Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room, and\r
+took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him with\r
+a stronger movement than ever, at the thought that people would blame\r
+him. Maggie hated blame; she had been blamed all her life, and nothing\r
+had come of it but evil tempers.\r
+\r
+Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving\r
+remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable\r
+her to do or bear anything for his sake.\r
+\r
+Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst,--telling _him_ as well\r
+as his mother what it was right to do! She ought to have learned\r
+better than have those hectoring, assuming manners, by this time. But\r
+he presently went into his father's room, and the sight there touched\r
+him in a way that effaced the slighter impressions of the previous\r
+hour. When Maggie saw how he was moved, she went to him and put her\r
+arm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children forgot\r
+everything else in the sense that they had one father and one sorrow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The Family Council\r
+\r
+\r
+It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts and uncles\r
+came to hold their consultation. The fire was lighted in the large\r
+parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a confused impression that it was\r
+a great occasion, like a funeral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and\r
+unpinned the curtains, adjusting them in proper folds, looking round\r
+and shaking her head sadly at the polished tops and legs of the\r
+tables, which sister Pullet herself could not accuse of insufficient\r
+brightness.\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane was not coming, he was away on business; but Mrs. Deane\r
+appeared punctually in that handsome new gig with the head to it, and\r
+the livery-servant driving it, which had thrown so clear a light on\r
+several traits in her character to some of her female friends in St.\r
+Ogg's. Mr. Deane had been advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr.\r
+Tulliver had been going down in it; and in Mrs. Deane's house the\r
+Dodson linen and plate were beginning to hold quite a subordinate\r
+position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer articles of the same\r
+kind, purchased in recent years,--a change which had caused an\r
+occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse between her and Mrs.\r
+Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting "like the rest," and there\r
+would soon be little of the true Dodson spirit surviving except in\r
+herself, and, it might be hoped, in those nephews who supported the\r
+Dodson name on the family land, far away in the Wolds.\r
+\r
+People who live at a distance are naturally less faulty than those\r
+immediately under our own eyes; and it seems superfluous, when we\r
+consider the remote geographical position of the Ethiopians, and how\r
+very little the Greeks had to do with them, to inquire further why\r
+Homer calls them "blameless."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Deane was the first to arrive; and when she had taken her seat in\r
+the large parlor, Mrs. Tulliver came down to her with her comely face\r
+a little distorted, nearly as it would have been if she had been\r
+crying. She was not a woman who could shed abundant tears, except in\r
+moments when the prospect of losing her furniture became unusually\r
+vivid, but she felt how unfitting it was to be quite calm under\r
+present circumstances.\r
+\r
+"Oh, sister, what a world this is!" she exclaimed as she entered;\r
+"what trouble, oh dear!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered\r
+speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterward to her\r
+husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sister," she said deliberately, "this is a changing world, and\r
+we don't know to-day what may happen tomorrow. But it's right to be\r
+prepared for all things, and if trouble's sent, to remember as it\r
+isn't sent without a cause. I'm very sorry for you as a sister, and if\r
+the doctor orders jelly for Mr. Tulliver, I hope you'll let me know.\r
+I'll send it willingly; for it is but right he should have proper\r
+attendance while he's ill."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly, withdrawing\r
+her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But there's been no talk o'\r
+jelly yet." Then after a moment's pause she added, "There's a dozen o'\r
+cut jelly-glasses upstairs--I shall never put jelly into 'em no more."\r
+\r
+Her voice was rather agitated as she uttered the last words, but the\r
+sound of wheels diverted her thoughts. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg were come,\r
+and were almost immediately followed by Mr. and Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Pullet entered crying, as a compendious mode, at all times, of\r
+expressing what were her views of life in general, and what, in brief,\r
+were the opinions she held concerning the particular case before her.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments which appeared to\r
+have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy form of burial; a\r
+costume selected with the high moral purpose of instilling perfect\r
+humility into Bessy and her children.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire?" said her husband, unwilling\r
+to take the more comfortable seat without offering it to her.\r
+\r
+"You see I've seated myself here, Mr. Glegg," returned this superior\r
+woman; "_you_ can roast yourself, if you like."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly, "and how's the\r
+poor man upstairs?"\r
+\r
+"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver; "he took more notice, and spoke to me; but he's never known\r
+Tom yet,--looks at the poor lad as if he was a stranger, though he\r
+said something once about Tom and the pony. The doctor says his\r
+memory's gone a long way back, and he doesn't know Tom because he's\r
+thinking of him when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear!"\r
+\r
+"I doubt it's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet, turning\r
+round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way at the pier-glass.\r
+"It's much if he ever gets up again; and if he does, he'll most like\r
+be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor man! They fed him with a spoon as\r
+if he'd been a babby for three year. He'd quite lost the use of his\r
+limbs; but then he'd got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him; and\r
+that's what you won't have, I doubt, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "if I understand right,\r
+we've come together this morning to advise and consult about what's to\r
+be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon the family, and not to\r
+talk o' people as don't belong to us. Mr. Carr was none of our blood,\r
+nor noways connected with us, as I've ever heared."\r
+\r
+"Sister Glegg," said Mrs. Pullet, in a pleading tone, drawing on her\r
+gloves again, and stroking the fingers in an agitated manner, "if\r
+you've got anything disrespectful to say o' Mr. Carr, I do beg of you\r
+as you won't say it to me. _I_ know what he was," she added, with a\r
+sigh; "his breath was short to that degree as you could hear him two\r
+rooms off."\r
+\r
+"Sophy!" said Mrs. Glegg, with indignant disgust, "you _do_ talk o'\r
+people's complaints till it's quite undecent. But I say again, as I\r
+said before, I didn't come away from home to talk about acquaintances,\r
+whether they'd short breath or long. If we aren't come together for\r
+one to hear what the other 'ull do to save a sister and her children\r
+from the parish, _I_ shall go back. _One_ can't act without the other,\r
+I suppose; it isn't to be expected as _I_ should do everything."\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "I don't see as you've been so very\r
+forrard at doing. So far as I know, this is the first time as here\r
+you've been, since it's been known as the bailiff's in the house; and\r
+I was here yesterday, and looked at all Bessy's linen and things, and\r
+I told her I'd buy in the spotted tablecloths. I couldn't speak\r
+fairer; for as for the teapot as she doesn't want to go out o' the\r
+family, it stands to sense I can't do with two silver teapots, not if\r
+it _hadn't_ a straight spout, but the spotted damask I was allays fond\r
+on."\r
+\r
+"I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and chany and the best\r
+castors needn't be put up for sale," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+beseechingly, "and the sugar-tongs the first things ever I bought."\r
+\r
+"But that can't be helped, you know," said Mr. Glegg. "If one o' the\r
+family chooses to buy 'em in, they can, but one thing must be bid for\r
+as well as another."\r
+\r
+"And it isn't to be looked for," said uncle Pullet, with unwonted\r
+independence of idea, "as your own family should pay more for things\r
+nor they'll fetch. They may go for an old song by auction."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, "to think o' my chany being\r
+sold i' that way, and I bought it when I was married, just as you did\r
+yours, Jane and Sophy; and I know you didn't like mine, because o' the\r
+sprig, but I was fond of it; and there's never been a bit broke, for\r
+I've washed it myself; and there's the tulips on the cups, and the\r
+roses, as anybody might go and look at 'em for pleasure. You wouldn't\r
+like _your_ chany to go for an old song and be broke to pieces, though\r
+yours has got no color in it, Jane,--it's all white and fluted, and\r
+didn't cost so much as mine. And there's the castors, sister Deane, I\r
+can't think but you'd like to have the castors, for I've heard you say\r
+they're pretty."\r
+\r
+"Well, I've no objection to buy some of the best things," said Mrs.\r
+Deane, rather loftily; "we can do with extra things in our house."\r
+\r
+"Best things!" exclaimed Mrs. Glegg, with severity, which had gathered\r
+intensity from her long silence. "It drives me past patience to hear\r
+you all talking o' best things, and buying in this, that, and the\r
+other, such as silver and chany. You must bring your mind to your\r
+circumstances, Bessy, and not be thinking o' silver and chany; but\r
+whether you shall get so much as a flock-bed to lie on, and a blanket\r
+to cover you, and a stool to sit on. You must remember, if you get\r
+'em, it'll be because your friends have bought 'em for you, for you're\r
+dependent upon _them_ for everything; for your husband lies there\r
+helpless, and hasn't got a penny i' the world to call his own. And\r
+it's for your own good I say this, for it's right you should feel what\r
+your state is, and what disgrace your husband's brought on your own\r
+family, as you've got to look to for everything, and be humble in your\r
+mind."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the good of\r
+others is naturally exhausting.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver, always borne down by the family predominance of sister\r
+Jane, who had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very\r
+tender years, said pleadingly:\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sister, I've never asked anybody to do anything, only buy\r
+things as it 'ud be a pleasure to 'em to have, so as they mightn't go\r
+and be spoiled i' strange houses. I never asked anybody to buy the\r
+things in for me and my children; though there's the linen I spun, and\r
+I thought when Tom was born,--I thought one o' the first things when\r
+he was lying i' the cradle, as all the things I'd bought wi' my own\r
+money, and been so careful of, 'ud go to him. But I've said nothing as\r
+I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. What my husband has\r
+done for _his_ sister's unknown, and we should ha' been better off\r
+this day if it hadn't been as he's lent money and never asked for it\r
+again."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, kindly, "don't let us make things too\r
+dark. What's done can't be undone. We shall make a shift among us to\r
+buy what's sufficient for you; though, as Mrs. G. says, they must be\r
+useful, plain things. We mustn't be thinking o' what's unnecessary. A\r
+table, and a chair or two, and kitchen things, and a good bed, and\r
+such-like. Why, I've seen the day when I shouldn't ha' known myself if\r
+I'd lain on sacking i'stead o' the floor. We get a deal o' useless\r
+things about us, only because we've got the money to spend."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you'll be kind enough to let me speak,\r
+i'stead o' taking the words out o' my mouth,--I was going to say,\r
+Bessy, as it's fine talking for you to say as you've never asked us to\r
+buy anything for you; let me tell you, you _ought_ to have asked us.\r
+Pray, how are you to be purvided for, if your own family don't help\r
+you? You must go to the parish, if they didn't. And you ought to know\r
+that, and keep it in mind, and ask us humble to do what we can for\r
+you, i'stead o' saying, and making a boast, as you've never asked us\r
+for anything."\r
+\r
+"You talked o' the Mosses, and what Mr. Tulliver's done for 'em," said\r
+uncle Pullet, who became unusually suggestive where advances of money\r
+were concerned. "Haven't _they_ been anear you? They ought to do\r
+something as well as other folks; and if he's lent 'em money, they\r
+ought to be made to pay it back."\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure," said Mrs. Deane; "I've been thinking so. How is it\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Moss aren't here to meet us? It is but right they should\r
+do their share."\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, "I never sent 'em word about Mr.\r
+Tulliver, and they live so back'ard among the lanes at Basset, they\r
+niver hear anything only when Mr. Moss comes to market. But I niver\r
+gave 'em a thought. I wonder Maggie didn't, though, for she was allays\r
+so fond of her aunt Moss."\r
+\r
+"Why don't your children come in, Bessy?" said Mrs. Pullet, at the\r
+mention of Maggie. "They should hear what their aunts and uncles have\r
+got to say; and Maggie,--when it's me as have paid for half her\r
+schooling, she ought to think more of her aunt Pullet than of aunt\r
+Moss. I may go off sudden when I get home to-day; there's no telling."\r
+\r
+"If I'd had _my_ way," said Mrs. Glegg, "the children 'ud ha' been in\r
+the room from the first. It's time they knew who they've to look to,\r
+and it's right as _somebody_ should talk to 'em, and let 'em know\r
+their condition i' life, and what they're come down to, and make 'em\r
+feel as they've got to suffer for their father's faults."\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll go and fetch 'em, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, resignedly.\r
+She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures in the\r
+storeroom with no other feeling than blank despair.\r
+\r
+She went upstairs to fetch Tom and Maggie, who were both in their\r
+father's room, and was on her way down again, when the sight of the\r
+storeroom door suggested a new thought to her. She went toward it, and\r
+left the children to go down by themselves.\r
+\r
+The aunts and uncles appeared to have been in warm discussion when the\r
+brother and sister entered,--both with shrinking reluctance; for\r
+though Tom, with a practical sagacity which had been roused into\r
+activity by the strong stimulus of the new emotions he had undergone\r
+since yesterday, had been turning over in his mind a plan which he\r
+meant to propose to one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means\r
+amicably toward them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as he would\r
+have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was but just\r
+endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was peculiarly\r
+depressed this morning; she had been called up, after brief rest, at\r
+three o'clock, and had that strange dreamy weariness which comes from\r
+watching in a sick-room through the chill hours of early twilight and\r
+breaking day,--in which the outside day-light life seems to have no\r
+importance, and to be a mere margin to the hours in the darkened\r
+chamber. Their entrance interrupted the conversation. The shaking of\r
+hands was a melancholy and silent ceremony, till uncle Pullet\r
+observed, as Tom approached him:\r
+\r
+"Well, young sir, we've been talking as we should want your pen and\r
+ink; you can write rarely now, after all your schooling, I should\r
+think."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant to be kind,\r
+"we must look to see the good of all this schooling, as your father's\r
+sunk so much money in, now,--\r
+\r
+ 'When land is gone and money's spent,\r
+ Then learning is most excellent.'\r
+\r
+Now's the time, Tom, to let us see the good o' your learning. Let us\r
+see whether you can do better than I can, as have made my fortin\r
+without it. But I began wi' doing with little, you see; I could live\r
+on a basin o' porridge and a crust o' bread-and-cheese. But I doubt\r
+high living and high learning 'ull make it harder for you, young man,\r
+nor it was for me."\r
+\r
+"But he must do it," interposed aunt Glegg, energetically, "whether\r
+it's hard or no. He hasn't got to consider what's hard; he must\r
+consider as he isn't to trusten to his friends to keep him in idleness\r
+and luxury; he's got to bear the fruits of his father's misconduct,\r
+and bring his mind to fare hard and to work hard. And he must be\r
+humble and grateful to his aunts and uncles for what they're doing for\r
+his mother and father, as must be turned out into the streets and go\r
+to the workhouse if they didn't help 'em. And his sister, too,"\r
+continued Mrs. Glegg, looking severely at Maggie, who had sat down on\r
+the sofa by her aunt Deane, drawn to her by the sense that she was\r
+Lucy's mother, "she must make up her mind to be humble and work; for\r
+there'll be no servants to wait on her any more,--she must remember\r
+that. She must do the work o' the house, and she must respect and love\r
+her aunts as have done so much for her, and saved their money to leave\r
+to their nepheys and nieces."\r
+\r
+Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the group.\r
+There was a heightened color in his face, and he was very far from\r
+looking humbled, but he was preparing to say, in a respectful tone,\r
+something he had previously meditated, when the door opened and his\r
+mother re-entered.\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which she had\r
+placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer, the castors,\r
+and sugar-tongs.\r
+\r
+"See here, sister," she said, looking at Mrs. Deane, as she set the\r
+tray on the table, "I thought, perhaps, if you looked at the teapot\r
+again,--it's a good while since you saw it,--you might like the\r
+pattern better; it makes beautiful tea, and there's a stand and\r
+everything; you might use it for every day, or else lay it by for Lucy\r
+when she goes to housekeeping. I should be so loath for 'em to buy it\r
+at the Golden Lion," said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the\r
+tears coming,--"my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think\r
+of its being scratched, and set before the travellers and folks, and\r
+my letters on it,--see here, E. D.,--and everybody to see 'em."\r
+\r
+"Ah, dear, dear!" said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with deep\r
+sadness, "it's very bad,--to think o' the family initials going about\r
+everywhere--it niver was so before; you're a very unlucky sister,\r
+Bessy. But what's the use o' buying the teapot, when there's the linen\r
+and spoons and everything to go, and some of 'em with your full\r
+name,--and when it's got that straight spout, too."\r
+\r
+"As to disgrace o' the family," said Mrs. Glegg, "that can't be helped\r
+wi' buying teapots. The disgrace is, for one o' the family to ha'\r
+married a man as has brought her to beggary. The disgrace is, as\r
+they're to be sold up. We can't hinder the country from knowing that."\r
+\r
+Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her father, but\r
+Tom saw her action and flushed face in time to prevent her from\r
+speaking. "Be quiet, Maggie," he said authoritatively, pushing her\r
+aside. It was a remarkable manifestation of self-command and practical\r
+judgment in a lad of fifteen, that when his aunt Glegg ceased, he\r
+began to speak in a quiet and respectful manner, though with a good\r
+deal of trembling in his voice; for his mother's words had cut him to\r
+the quick.\r
+\r
+"Then, aunt," he said, looking straight at Mrs. Glegg, "if you think\r
+it's a disgrace to the family that we should be sold up, wouldn't it\r
+be better to prevent it altogether? And if you and aunt Pullet," he\r
+continued, looking at the latter, "think of leaving any money to me\r
+and Maggie, wouldn't it be better to give it now, and pay the debt\r
+we're going to be sold up for, and save my mother from parting with\r
+her furniture?"\r
+\r
+There was silence for a few moments, for every one, including Maggie,\r
+was astonished at Tom's sudden manliness of tone. Uncle Glegg was the\r
+first to speak.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, young man, come now! You show some notion o' things. But\r
+there's the interest, you must remember; your aunts get five per cent\r
+on their money, and they'd lose that if they advanced it; you haven't\r
+thought o' that."\r
+\r
+"I could work and pay that every year," said Tom, promptly. "I'd do\r
+anything to save my mother from parting with her things."\r
+\r
+"Well done!" said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been drawing Tom\r
+out, rather than reflecting on the practicability of his proposal. But\r
+he had produced the unfortunate result of irritating his wife.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mr. Glegg!" said that lady, with angry sarcasm. "It's pleasant\r
+work for you to be giving my money away, as you've pretended to leave\r
+at my own disposal. And my money, as was my own father's gift, and not\r
+yours, Mr. Glegg; and I've saved it, and added to it myself, and had\r
+more to put out almost every year, and it's to go and be sunk in other\r
+folks' furniture, and encourage 'em in luxury and extravagance as\r
+they've no means of supporting; and I'm to alter my will, or have a\r
+codicil made, and leave two or three hundred less behind me when I\r
+die,--me as have allays done right and been careful, and the eldest o'\r
+the family; and my money's to go and be squandered on them as have had\r
+the same chance as me, only they've been wicked and wasteful. Sister\r
+Pullet, _you_ may do as you like, and you may let your husband rob you\r
+back again o' the money he's given you, but that isn't _my_ sperrit."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane, how fiery you are!" said Mrs. Pullet. "I'm sure you'll have\r
+the blood in your head, and have to be cupped. I'm sorry for Bessy and\r
+her children,--I'm sure I think of 'em o' nights dreadful, for I sleep\r
+very bad wi' this new medicine,--but it's no use for me to think o'\r
+doing anything, if you won't meet me half-way."\r
+\r
+"Why, there's this to be considered," said Mr. Glegg. "It's no use to\r
+pay off this debt and save the furniture, when there's all the law\r
+debts behind, as 'ud take every shilling, and more than could be made\r
+out o' land and stock, for I've made that out from Lawyer Gore. We'd\r
+need save our money to keep the poor man with, instead o' spending it\r
+on furniture as he can neither eat nor drink. You _will_ be so hasty,\r
+Jane, as if I didn't know what was reasonable."\r
+\r
+"Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg!" said his wife, with slow, loud\r
+emphasis, bending her head toward him significantly.\r
+\r
+Tom's countenance had fallen during this conversation, and his lip\r
+quivered; but he was determined not to give way. He would behave like\r
+a man. Maggie, on the contrary, after her momentary delight in Tom's\r
+speech, had relapsed into her state of trembling indignation. Her\r
+mother had been standing close by Tom's side, and had been clinging to\r
+his arm ever since he had last spoken; Maggie suddenly started up and\r
+stood in front of them, her eyes flashing like the eyes of a young\r
+lioness.\r
+\r
+"Why do you come, then," she burst out, "talking and interfering with\r
+us and scolding us, if you don't mean to do anything to help my poor\r
+mother--your own sister,--if you've no feeling for her when she's in\r
+trouble, and won't part with anything, though you would never miss it,\r
+to save her from pain? Keep away from us then, and don't come to find\r
+fault with my father,--he was better than any of you; he was kind,--he\r
+would have helped _you_, if you had been in trouble. Tom and I don't\r
+ever want to have any of your money, if you won't help my mother. We'd\r
+rather not have it! We'll do without you."\r
+\r
+Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in this way,\r
+stood still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them, as if she were\r
+ready to await all consequences.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was frightened; there was something portentous in this\r
+mad outbreak; she did not see how life could go on after it. Tom was\r
+vexed; it was no _use_ to talk so. The aunts were silent with surprise\r
+for some moments. At length, in a case of aberration such as this,\r
+comment presented itself as more expedient than any answer.\r
+\r
+"You haven't seen the end o' your trouble wi' that child, Bessy," said\r
+Mrs. Pullet; "she's beyond everything for boldness and unthankfulness.\r
+It's dreadful. I might ha' let alone paying for her schooling, for\r
+she's worse nor ever."\r
+\r
+"It's no more than what I've allays said," followed Mrs. Glegg. "Other\r
+folks may be surprised, but I'm not. I've said over and over\r
+again,--years ago I've said,--'Mark my words; that child 'ull come to\r
+no good; there isn't a bit of our family in her.' And as for her\r
+having so much schooling, I never thought well o' that. I'd my reasons\r
+when I said _I_ wouldn't pay anything toward it."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, "let's waste no more time in\r
+talking,--let's go to business. Tom, now, get the pen and ink----"\r
+\r
+While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen hurrying\r
+past the window.\r
+\r
+"Why, there's Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Tulliver. "The bad news must ha'\r
+reached her, then"; and she went out to open the door, Maggie eagerly\r
+following her.\r
+\r
+"That's fortunate," said Mrs. Glegg. "She can agree to the list o'\r
+things to be bought in. It's but right she should do her share when\r
+it's her own brother."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Moss was in too much agitation to resist Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+movement, as she drew her into the parlor automatically, without\r
+reflecting that it was hardly kind to take her among so many persons\r
+in the first painful moment of arrival. The tall, worn, dark-haired\r
+woman was a strong contrast to the Dodson sisters as she entered in\r
+her shabby dress, with her shawl and bonnet looking as if they had\r
+been hastily huddled on, and with that entire absence of\r
+self-consciousness which belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was\r
+clinging to her arm; and Mrs. Moss seemed to notice no one else except\r
+Tom, whom she went straight up to and took by the hand.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear children," she burst out, "you've no call to think well\r
+o' me; I'm a poor aunt to you, for I'm one o' them as take all and\r
+give nothing. How's my poor brother?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Turnbull thinks he'll get better," said Maggie. "Sit down, aunt\r
+Gritty. Don't fret."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my sweet child, I feel torn i' two," said Mrs. Moss, allowing\r
+Maggie to lead her to the sofa, but still not seeming to notice the\r
+presence of the rest. "We've three hundred pounds o' my brother's\r
+money, and now he wants it, and you all want it, poor things!--and yet\r
+we must be sold up to pay it, and there's my poor children,--eight of\r
+'em, and the little un of all can't speak plain. And I feel as if I\r
+was a robber. But I'm sure I'd no thought as my brother----"\r
+\r
+The poor woman was interrupted by a rising sob.\r
+\r
+"Three hundred pounds! oh dear, dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, who, when\r
+she had said that her husband had done "unknown" things for his\r
+sister, had not had any particular sum in her mind, and felt a wife's\r
+irritation at having been kept in the dark.\r
+\r
+"What madness, to be sure!" said Mrs. Glegg. "A man with a family!\r
+He'd no right to lend his money i' that way; and without security,\r
+I'll be bound, if the truth was known."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and looking up,\r
+she said:\r
+\r
+"Yes, there _was_ security; my husband gave a note for it. We're not\r
+that sort o' people, neither of us, as 'ud rob my brother's children;\r
+and we looked to paying back the money, when the times got a bit\r
+better."\r
+\r
+"Well, but now," said Mr. Glegg, gently, "hasn't your husband no way\r
+o' raising this money? Because it 'ud be a little fortin, like, for\r
+these folks, if we can do without Tulliver's being made a bankrupt.\r
+Your husband's got stock; it is but right he should raise the money,\r
+as it seems to me,--not but what I'm sorry for you, Mrs. Moss."\r
+\r
+"Oh, sir, you don't know what bad luck my husband's had with his\r
+stock. The farm's suffering so as never was for want o' stock; and\r
+we've sold all the wheat, and we're behind with our rent,--not but\r
+what we'd like to do what's right, and I'd sit up and work half the\r
+night, if it 'ud be any good; but there's them poor children,--four of\r
+'em such little uns----"\r
+\r
+"Don't cry so, aunt; don't fret," whispered Maggie, who had kept hold\r
+of Mrs. Moss's hand.\r
+\r
+"Did Mr. Tulliver let you have the money all at once?" said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which had been "going\r
+on" without her knowledge.\r
+\r
+"No; at twice," said Mrs. Moss, rubbing her eyes and making an effort\r
+to restrain her tears. "The last was after my bad illness four years\r
+ago, as everything went wrong, and there was a new note made then.\r
+What with illness and bad luck, I've been nothing but cumber all my\r
+life."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Glegg, with decision, "yours is a very\r
+unlucky family; the more's the pity for _my_ sister."\r
+\r
+"I set off in the cart as soon as ever I heard o' what had happened,"\r
+said Mrs. Moss, looking at Mrs. Tulliver. "I should never ha' stayed\r
+away all this while, if you'd thought well to let me know. And it\r
+isn't as I'm thinking all about ourselves, and nothing about my\r
+brother, only the money was so on my mind, I couldn't help speaking\r
+about it. And my husband and me desire to do the right thing, sir,"\r
+she added, looking at Mr. Glegg, "and we'll make shift and pay the\r
+money, come what will, if that's all my brother's got to trust to.\r
+We've been used to trouble, and don't look for much else. It's only\r
+the thought o' my poor children pulls me i' two."\r
+\r
+"Why, there's this to be thought on, Mrs. Moss," said Mr. Glegg, "and\r
+it's right to warn you,--if Tulliver's made a bankrupt, and he's got a\r
+note-of-hand of your husband's for three hundred pounds, you'll be\r
+obliged to pay it; th' assignees 'ull come on you for it."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, oh dear!" said Mrs. Tulliver, thinking of the bankruptcy,\r
+and not of Mrs. Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs. Moss herself listened\r
+in trembling submission, while Maggie looked with bewildered distress\r
+at Tom to see if _he_ showed any signs of understanding this trouble,\r
+and caring about poor aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with\r
+his eyes on the tablecloth.\r
+\r
+"And if he isn't made bankrupt," continued Mr. Glegg, "as I said\r
+before, three hundred pounds 'ud be a little fortin for him, poor man.\r
+We don't know but what he may be partly helpless, if he ever gets up\r
+again. I'm very sorry if it goes hard with you, Mrs. Moss, but my\r
+opinion is, looking at it one way, it'll be right for you to raise the\r
+money; and looking at it th' other way, you'll be obliged to pay it.\r
+You won't think ill o' me for speaking the truth."\r
+\r
+"Uncle," said Tom, looking up suddenly from his meditative view of the\r
+tablecloth, "I don't think it would be right for my aunt Moss to pay\r
+the money if it would be against my father's will for her to pay it;\r
+would it?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he said: "Why,\r
+no, perhaps not, Tom; but then he'd ha' destroyed the note, you know.\r
+We must look for the note. What makes you think it 'ud be against his\r
+will?"\r
+\r
+"Why," said Tom, coloring, but trying to speak firmly, in spite of a\r
+boyish tremor, "I remember quite well, before I went to school to Mr.\r
+Stelling, my father said to me one night, when we were sitting by the\r
+fire together, and no one else was in the room----"\r
+\r
+Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.\r
+\r
+"He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said: 'I've always\r
+been good to my sister, though she married against my will, and I've\r
+lent Moss money; but I shall never think of distressing him to pay it;\r
+I'd rather lose it. My children must not mind being the poorer for\r
+that.' And now my father's ill, and not able to speak for himself, I\r
+shouldn't like anything to be done contrary to what he said to me."\r
+\r
+"Well, but then, my boy," said Uncle Glegg, whose good feeling led him\r
+to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not at once shake off his\r
+habitual abhorrence of such recklessness as destroying securities, or\r
+alienating anything important enough to make an appreciable difference\r
+in a man's property, "we should have to make away wi' the note, you\r
+know, if we're to guard against what may happen, supposing your\r
+father's made bankrupt----"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," interrupted his wife, severely, "mind what you're saying.\r
+You're putting yourself very forrard in other folks's business. If you\r
+speak rash, don't say it was my fault."\r
+\r
+"That's such a thing as I never heared of before," said uncle Pullet,\r
+who had been making haste with his lozenge in order to express his\r
+amazement,--"making away with a note! I should think anybody could set\r
+the constable on you for it."\r
+\r
+"Well, but," said Mrs. Tulliver, "if the note's worth all that money,\r
+why can't we pay it away, and save my things from going away? We've no\r
+call to meddle with your uncle and aunt Moss, Tom, if you think your\r
+father 'ud be angry when he gets well."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had not studied the question of exchange, and was\r
+straining her mind after original ideas on the subject.\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh, pooh! you women don't understand these things," said\r
+uncle Glegg. "There's no way o' making it safe for Mr. and Mrs. Moss\r
+but destroying the note."\r
+\r
+"Then I hope you'll help me do it, uncle," said Tom, earnestly. "If my\r
+father shouldn't get well, I should be very unhappy to think anything\r
+had been done against his will that I could hinder. And I'm sure he\r
+meant me to remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my\r
+father's wish about his property."\r
+\r
+Even Mrs. Glegg could not withhold her approval from Tom's words; she\r
+felt that the Dodson blood was certainly speaking in him, though, if\r
+his father had been a Dodson, there would never have been this wicked\r
+alienation of money. Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from\r
+leaping on Tom's neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by\r
+herself rising and taking Tom's hand, while she said, with rather a\r
+choked voice:\r
+\r
+"You'll never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there's a God\r
+above; and if the money's wanted for your father, Moss and me 'ull pay\r
+it, the same as if there was ever such security. We'll do as we'd be\r
+done by; for if my children have got no other luck, they've got an\r
+honest father and mother."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Glegg, who had been meditating after Tom's words, "we\r
+shouldn't be doing any wrong by the creditors, supposing your father\r
+_was_ bankrupt. I've been thinking o' that, for I've been a creditor\r
+myself, and seen no end o' cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the\r
+money before ever he got into this sad work o' lawing, it's the same\r
+as if he'd made away with the note himself; for he'd made up his mind\r
+to be that much poorer. But there's a deal o' things to be considered,\r
+young man," Mr. Glegg added, looking admonishingly at Tom, "when you\r
+come to money business, and you may be taking one man's dinner away to\r
+make another man's breakfast. You don't understand that, I doubt?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do," said Tom, decidedly. "I know if I owe money to one man,\r
+I've no right to give it to another. But if my father had made up his\r
+mind to give my aunt the money before he was in debt, he had a right\r
+to do it."\r
+\r
+"Well done, young man! I didn't think you'd been so sharp," said uncle\r
+Glegg, with much candor. "But perhaps your father _did_ make away with\r
+the note. Let us go and see if we can find it in the chest."\r
+\r
+"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty," whispered\r
+Maggie.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+A Vanishing Gleam\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity which had\r
+recurred at intervals ever since he had been found fallen from his\r
+horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition that the exits and\r
+entrances into his room were not felt to be of great importance. He\r
+had lain so still, with his eyes closed, all this morning, that Maggie\r
+told her aunt Moss she must not expect her father to take any notice\r
+of them.\r
+\r
+They entered very quietly, and Mrs. Moss took her seat near the head\r
+of the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the bed, and put her\r
+hand on her father's without causing any change in his face.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and were busy\r
+selecting the key of the old oak chest from the bunch which Tom had\r
+brought from his father's bureau. They succeeded in opening the\r
+chest,--which stood opposite the foot of Mr. Tulliver's bed,--and\r
+propping the lid with the iron holder, without much noise.\r
+\r
+"There's a tin box," whispered Mr. Glegg; "he'd most like put a small\r
+thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom; but I'll just lift up\r
+these deeds,--they're the deeds o' the house and mill, I suppose,--and\r
+see what there is under 'em."\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg had lifted out the parchments, and had fortunately drawn\r
+back a little, when the iron holder gave way, and the heavy lid fell\r
+with a loud bang that resounded over the house.\r
+\r
+Perhaps there was something in that sound more than the mere fact of\r
+the strong vibration that produced the instantaneous effect on the\r
+frame of the prostrate man, and for the time completely shook off the\r
+obstruction of paralysis. The chest had belonged to his father and his\r
+father's father, and it had always been rather a solemn business to\r
+visit it. All long-known objects, even a mere window fastening or a\r
+particular door-latch, have sounds which are a sort of recognized\r
+voice to us,--a voice that will thrill and awaken, when it has been\r
+used to touch deep-lying fibres. In the same moment, when all the eyes\r
+in the room were turned upon him, he started up and looked at the\r
+chest, the parchments in Mr. Glegg's hand, and Tom holding the tin\r
+box, with a glance of perfect consciousness and recognition.\r
+\r
+"What are you going to do with those deeds?" he said, in his ordinary\r
+tone of sharp questioning whenever he was irritated. "Come here, Tom.\r
+What do you do, going to my chest?"\r
+\r
+Tom obeyed, with some trembling; it was the first time his father had\r
+recognized him. But instead of saying anything more to him, his father\r
+continued to look with a growing distinctness of suspicion at Mr.\r
+Glegg and the deeds.\r
+\r
+"What's been happening, then?" he said sharply. "What are you meddling\r
+with my deeds for? Is Wakem laying hold of everything? Why don't you\r
+tell me what you've been a-doing?" he added impatiently, as Mr. Glegg\r
+advanced to the foot of the bed before speaking.\r
+\r
+"No, no, friend Tulliver," said Mr. Glegg, in a soothing tone.\r
+"Nobody's getting hold of anything as yet. We only came to look and\r
+see what was in the chest. You've been ill, you know, and we've had to\r
+look after things a bit. But let's hope you'll soon be well enough to\r
+attend to everything yourself."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver looked around him meditatively, at Tom, at Mr. Glegg, and\r
+at Maggie; then suddenly appearing aware that some one was seated by\r
+his side at the head of the bed he turned sharply round and saw his\r
+sister.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Gritty!" he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone in which he\r
+had been wont to speak to her. "What! you're there, are you? How could\r
+you manage to leave the children?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, brother!" said good Mrs. Moss, too impulsive to be prudent, "I'm\r
+thankful I'm come now to see you yourself again; I thought you'd never\r
+know us any more."\r
+\r
+"What! have I had a stroke?" said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously, looking at\r
+Mr. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"A fall from your horse--shook you a bit,--that's all, I think," said\r
+Mr. Glegg. "But you'll soon get over it, let's hope."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver fixed his eyes on the bed-clothes, and remained silent\r
+for two or three minutes. A new shadow came over his face. He looked\r
+up at Maggie first, and said in a lower tone, "You got the letter,\r
+then, my wench?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, father," she said, kissing him with a full heart. She felt as if\r
+her father were come back to her from the dead, and her yearning to\r
+show him how she had always loved him could be fulfilled.\r
+\r
+"Where's your mother?" he said, so preoccupied that he received the\r
+kiss as passively as some quiet animal might have received it.\r
+\r
+"She's downstairs with my aunts, father. Shall I fetch her?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay; poor Bessy!" and his eyes turned toward Tom as Maggie left\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+"You'll have to take care of 'em both if I die, you know, Tom. You'll\r
+be badly off, I doubt. But you must see and pay everybody. And\r
+mind,--there's fifty pound o' Luke's as I put into the business,--he\r
+gave me a bit at a time, and he's got nothing to show for it. You must\r
+pay him first thing."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more concerned\r
+than ever, but Tom said firmly:\r
+\r
+"Yes, father. And haven't you a note from my uncle Moss for three\r
+hundred pounds? We came to look for that. What do you wish to be done\r
+about it, father?"\r
+\r
+"Ah! I'm glad you thought o' that, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver. "I\r
+allays meant to be easy about that money, because o' your aunt. You\r
+mustn't mind losing the money, if they can't pay it,--and it's like\r
+enough they can't. The note's in that box, mind! I allays meant to be\r
+good to you, Gritty," said Mr. Tulliver, turning to his sister; "but\r
+you know you aggravated me when you would have Moss."\r
+\r
+At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who came in much\r
+agitated by the news that her husband was quite himself again.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must forgive me if\r
+you're worse off than you ever expected to be. But it's the fault o'\r
+the law,--it's none o' mine," he added angrily. "It's the fault o'\r
+raskills. Tom, you mind this: if ever you've got the chance, you make\r
+Wakem smart. If you don't, you're a good-for-nothing son. You might\r
+horse-whip him, but he'd set the law on you,--the law's made to take\r
+care o' raskills."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was getting excited, and an alarming flush was on his\r
+face. Mr. Glegg wanted to say something soothing, but he was prevented\r
+by Mr. Tulliver's speaking again to his wife. "They'll make a shift to\r
+pay everything, Bessy," he said, "and yet leave you your furniture;\r
+and your sisters'll do something for you--and Tom'll grow up--though\r
+what he's to be I don't know--I've done what I could--I've given him a\r
+eddication--and there's the little wench, she'll get married--but it's\r
+a poor tale----"\r
+\r
+The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted, and with\r
+the last words the poor man fell again, rigid and insensible. Though\r
+this was only a recurrence of what had happened before, it struck all\r
+present as if it had been death, not only from its contrast with the\r
+completeness of the revival, but because his words had all had\r
+reference to the possibility that his death was near. But with poor\r
+Tulliver death was not to be a leap; it was to be a long descent under\r
+thickening shadows.\r
+\r
+Mr. Turnbull was sent for; but when he heard what had passed, he said\r
+this complete restoration, though only temporary, was a hopeful sign,\r
+proving that there was no permanent lesion to prevent ultimate\r
+recovery.\r
+\r
+Among the threads of the past which the stricken man had gathered up,\r
+he had omitted the bill of sale; the flash of memory had only lit up\r
+prominent ideas, and he sank into forgetfulness again with half his\r
+humiliation unlearned.\r
+\r
+But Tom was clear upon two points,--that his uncle Moss's note must be\r
+destroyed; and that Luke's money must be paid, if in no other way, out\r
+of his own and Maggie's money now in the savings bank. There were\r
+subjects, you perceive, on which Tom was much quicker than on the\r
+niceties of classical construction, or the relations of a mathematical\r
+demonstration.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Tom Applies His Knife to the Oyster\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day, at ten o'clock, Tom was on his way to St. Ogg's, to see\r
+his uncle Deane, who was to come home last night, his aunt had said;\r
+and Tom had made up his mind that his uncle Deane was the right person\r
+to ask for advice about getting some employment. He was in a great way\r
+of business; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg; and he had\r
+risen in the world on a scale of advancement which accorded with Tom's\r
+ambition.\r
+\r
+It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain,--one of\r
+those mornings when even happy people take refuge in their hopes. And\r
+Tom was very unhappy; he felt the humiliation as well as the\r
+prospective hardships of his lot with all the keenness of a proud\r
+nature; and with all his resolute dutifulness toward his father there\r
+mingled an irrepressible indignation against him which gave misfortune\r
+the less endurable aspect of a wrong. Since these were the\r
+consequences of going to law, his father was really blamable, as his\r
+aunts and uncles had always said he was; and it was a significant\r
+indication of Tom's character, that though he thought his aunts ought\r
+to do something more for his mother, he felt nothing like Maggie's\r
+violent resentment against them for showing no eager tenderness and\r
+generosity. There were no impulses in Tom that led him to expect what\r
+did not present itself to him as a right to be demanded. Why should\r
+people give away their money plentifully to those who had not taken\r
+care of their own money? Tom saw some justice in severity; and all the\r
+more, because he had confidence in himself that he should never\r
+deserve that just severity. It was very hard upon him that he should\r
+be put at this disadvantage in life by his father's want of prudence;\r
+but he was not going to complain and to find fault with people because\r
+they did not make everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help\r
+him, more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom was not\r
+without his hopes to take refuge in under the chill damp imprisonment\r
+of the December fog, which seemed only like a part of his home\r
+troubles. At sixteen, the mind that has the strongest affinity for\r
+fact cannot escape illusion and self-flattery; and Tom, in sketching\r
+his future, had no other guide in arranging his facts than the\r
+suggestions of his own brave self-reliance. Both Mr. Glegg and Mr.\r
+Deane, he knew, had been very poor once; he did not want to save money\r
+slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg, but he\r
+would be like his uncle Deane--get a situation in some great house of\r
+business and rise fast. He had scarcely seen anything of his uncle\r
+Deane for the last three years--the two families had been getting\r
+wider apart; but for this very reason Tom was the more hopeful about\r
+applying to him. His uncle Glegg, he felt sure, would never encourage\r
+any spirited project, but he had a vague imposing idea of the\r
+resources at his uncle Deane's command. He had heard his father say,\r
+long ago, how Deane had made himself so valuable to Guest & Co. that\r
+they were glad enough to offer him a share in the business; that was\r
+what Tom resolved _he_ would do. It was intolerable to think of being\r
+poor and looked down upon all one's life. He would provide for his\r
+mother and sister, and make every one say that he was a man of high\r
+character. He leaped over the years in this way, and, in the haste of\r
+strong purpose and strong desire, did not see how they would be made\r
+up of slow days, hours, and minutes.\r
+\r
+By the time he had crossed the stone bridge over the Floss and was\r
+entering St. Ogg's, he was thinking that he would buy his father's\r
+mill and land again when he was rich enough, and improve the house and\r
+live there; he should prefer it to any smarter, newer place, and he\r
+could keep as many horses and dogs as he liked.\r
+\r
+Walking along the street with a firm, rapid step, at this point in his\r
+reverie he was startled by some one who had crossed without his\r
+notice, and who said to him in a rough, familiar voice:\r
+\r
+"Why, Master Tom, how's your father this morning?" It was a publican\r
+of St. Ogg's, one of his father's customers.\r
+\r
+Tom disliked being spoken to just then; but he said civilly, "He's\r
+still very ill, thank you."\r
+\r
+"Ay, it's been a sore chance for you, young man, hasn't it,--this\r
+lawsuit turning out against him?" said the publican, with a confused,\r
+beery idea of being good-natured.\r
+\r
+Tom reddened and passed on; he would have felt it like the handling of\r
+a bruise, even if there had been the most polite and delicate\r
+reference to his position.\r
+\r
+"That's Tulliver's son," said the publican to a grocer standing on the\r
+adjacent door-step.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said the grocer, "I thought I knew his features. He takes after\r
+his mother's family; she was a Dodson. He's a fine, straight youth;\r
+what's he been brought up to?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! to turn up his nose at his father's customers, and be a fine\r
+gentleman,--not much else, I think."\r
+\r
+Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough consciousness\r
+of the present, made all the greater haste to reach the warehouse\r
+offices of Guest & Co., where he expected to find his uncle Deane. But\r
+this was Mr. Deane's morning at the band, a clerk told him, and with\r
+some contempt for his ignorance; Mr. Deane was not to be found in\r
+River Street on a Thursday morning.\r
+\r
+At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room where his uncle\r
+was, immediately after sending in his name. Mr. Deane was auditing\r
+accounts; but he looked up as Tom entered, and putting out his hand,\r
+said, "Well, Tom, nothing fresh the matter at home, I hope? How's your\r
+father?"\r
+\r
+"Much the same, thank you, uncle," said Tom, feeling nervous. "But I\r
+want to speak to you, please, when you're at liberty."\r
+\r
+"Sit down, sit down," said Mr. Deane, relapsing into his accounts, in\r
+which he and the managing-clerk remained so absorbed for the next\r
+half-hour that Tom began to wonder whether he should have to sit in\r
+this way till the bank closed,--there seemed so little tendency toward\r
+a conclusion in the quiet, monotonous procedure of these sleek,\r
+prosperous men of business. Would his uncle give him a place in the\r
+bank? It would be very dull, prosy work, he thought, writing there\r
+forever to the loud ticking of a timepiece. He preferred some other\r
+way of getting rich. But at last there was a change; his uncle took a\r
+pen and wrote something with a flourish at the end.\r
+\r
+"You'll just step up to Torry's now, Mr. Spence, will you?" said Mr.\r
+Deane, and the clock suddenly became less loud and deliberate in Tom's\r
+ears.\r
+\r
+"Well, Tom," said Mr. Deane, when they were alone, turning his\r
+substantial person a little in his chair, and taking out his\r
+snuff-box; "what's the business, my boy; what's the business?" Mr.\r
+Deane, who had heard from his wife what had passed the day before,\r
+thought Tom was come to appeal to him for some means of averting the\r
+sale.\r
+\r
+"I hope you'll excuse me for troubling you, uncle," said Tom,\r
+coloring, but speaking in a tone which, though, tremulous, had a\r
+certain proud independence in it; "but I thought you were the best\r
+person to advise me what to do."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and looking at Tom\r
+with new attention, "let us hear."\r
+\r
+"I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some money,"\r
+said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.\r
+\r
+"A situation?" said Mr. Deane, and then took his pinch of snuff with\r
+elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought snuff-taking a most\r
+provoking habit.\r
+\r
+"Why, let me see, how old are you?" said Mr. Deane, as he threw\r
+himself backward again.\r
+\r
+"Sixteen; I mean, I am going in seventeen," said Tom, hoping his uncle\r
+noticed how much beard he had.\r
+\r
+"Let me see; your father had some notion of making you an engineer, I\r
+think?"\r
+\r
+"But I don't think I could get any money at that for a long while,\r
+could I?"\r
+\r
+"That's true; but people don't get much money at anything, my boy,\r
+when they're only sixteen. You've had a good deal of schooling,\r
+however; I suppose you're pretty well up in accounts, eh? You\r
+understand book keeping?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, rather falteringly. "I was in Practice. But Mr.\r
+Stelling says I write a good hand, uncle. That's my writing," added\r
+Tom, laying on the table a copy of the list he had made yesterday.\r
+\r
+"Ah! that's good, that's good. But, you see, the best hand in the\r
+world'll not get you a better place than a copying-clerk's, if you\r
+know nothing of book-keeping,--nothing of accounts. And a\r
+copying-clerk's a cheap article. But what have you been learning at\r
+school, then?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane had not occupied himself with methods of education, and had\r
+no precise conception of what went forward in expensive schools.\r
+\r
+"We learned Latin," said Tom, pausing a little between each item, as\r
+if he were turning over the books in his school-desk to assist his\r
+memory,--"a good deal of Latin; and the last year I did Themes, one\r
+week in Latin and one in English; and Greek and Roman history; and\r
+Euclid; and I began Algebra, but I left it off again; and we had one\r
+day every week for Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing-lessons;\r
+and there were several other books we either read or learned out\r
+of,--English Poetry, and Horæ Paulinæ and Blair's Rhetoric, the last\r
+half."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his snuff-box again and screwed up his mouth; he felt\r
+in the position of many estimable persons when they had read the New\r
+Tariff, and found how many commodities were imported of which they\r
+knew nothing; like a cautious man of business, he was not going to\r
+speak rashly of a raw material in which he had had no experience. But\r
+the presumption was, that if it had been good for anything, so\r
+successful a man as himself would hardly have been ignorant of it.\r
+\r
+About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that in case of another\r
+war, since people would no longer wear hair-powder, it would be well\r
+to put a tax upon Latin, as a luxury much run upon by the higher\r
+classes, and not telling at all on the ship-owning department. But,\r
+for what he knew, the Horæ Paulinæ might be something less neutral. On\r
+the whole, this list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion\r
+toward poor Tom.\r
+\r
+"Well," he said at last, in rather a cold, sardonic tone, "you've had\r
+three years at these things,--you must be pretty strong in 'em. Hadn't\r
+you better take up some line where they'll come in handy?"\r
+\r
+Tom colored, and burst out, with new energy:\r
+\r
+"I'd rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle. I don't like\r
+Latin and those things. I don't know what I could do with them unless\r
+I went as usher in a school; and I don't know them well enough for\r
+that! besides, I would as soon carry a pair of panniers. I don't want\r
+to be that sort of person. I should like to enter into some business\r
+where I can get on,--a manly business, where I should have to look\r
+after things, and get credit for what I did. And I shall want to keep\r
+my mother and sister."\r
+\r
+"Ah, young gentleman," said Mr. Deane, with that tendency to repress\r
+youthful hopes which stout and successful men of fifty find one of\r
+their easiest duties, "that's sooner said than done,--sooner said than\r
+done."\r
+\r
+"But didn't _you_ get on in that way, uncle?" said Tom, a little\r
+irritated that Mr. Deane did not enter more rapidly into his views. "I\r
+mean, didn't you rise from one place to another through your abilities\r
+and good conduct?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, sir," said Mr. Deane, spreading himself in his chair a\r
+little, and entering with great readiness into a retrospect of his own\r
+career. "But I'll tell you how I got on. It wasn't by getting astride\r
+a stick and thinking it would turn into a horse if I sat on it long\r
+enough. I kept my eyes and ears open, sir, and I wasn't too fond of my\r
+own back, and I made my master's interest my own. Why, with only\r
+looking into what went on in the mill, I found out how there was a\r
+waste of five hundred a-year that might be hindered. Why, sir, I\r
+hadn't more schooling to begin with than a charity boy; but I saw\r
+pretty soon that I couldn't get on far enough without mastering\r
+accounts, and I learned 'em between working hours, after I'd been\r
+unlading. Look here." Mr. Deane opened a book and pointed to the page.\r
+"I write a good hand enough, and I'll match anybody at all sorts of\r
+reckoning by the head; and I got it all by hard work, and paid for it\r
+out of my own earnings,--often out of my own dinner and supper. And I\r
+looked into the nature of all the things we had to do in the business,\r
+and picked up knowledge as I went about my work, and turned it over in\r
+my head. Why, I'm no mechanic,--I never pretended to be--but I've\r
+thought of a thing or two that the mechanics never thought of, and\r
+it's made a fine difference in our returns. And there isn't an article\r
+shipped or unshipped at our wharf but I know the quality of it. If I\r
+got places, sir, it was because I made myself fit for 'em. If you want\r
+to slip into a round hole, you must make a ball of yourself; that's\r
+where it is."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his box again. He had been led on by pure enthusiasm\r
+in his subject, and had really forgotten what bearing this\r
+retrospective survey had on his listener. He had found occasion for\r
+saying the same thing more than once before, and was not distinctly\r
+aware that he had not his port-wine before him.\r
+\r
+"Well, uncle," said Tom, with a slight complaint in his tone, "that's\r
+what I should like to do. Can't _I_ get on in the same way?"\r
+\r
+"In the same way?" said Mr. Deane, eyeing Tom with quiet deliberation.\r
+"There go two or three questions to that, Master Tom. That depends on\r
+what sort of material you are, to begin with, and whether you've been\r
+put into the right mill. But I'll tell you what it is. Your poor\r
+father went the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It\r
+wasn't my business, and I didn't interfere; but it is as I thought it\r
+would be. You've had a sort of learning that's all very well for a\r
+young fellow like our Mr. Stephen Guest, who'll have nothing to do but\r
+sign checks all his life, and may as well have Latin inside his head\r
+as any other sort of stuffing."\r
+\r
+"But, uncle," said Tom, earnestly, "I don't see why the Latin need\r
+hinder me from getting on in business. I shall soon forget it all; it\r
+makes no difference to me. I had to do my lessons at school, but I\r
+always thought they'd never be of any use to me afterward; I didn't\r
+care about them."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, that's all very well," said Mr. Deane; "but it doesn't alter\r
+what I was going to say. Your Latin and rigmarole may soon dry off\r
+you, but you'll be but a bare stick after that. Besides, it's whitened\r
+your hands and taken the rough work out of you. And what do you know?\r
+Why, you know nothing about book-keeping, to begin with, and not so\r
+much of reckoning as a common shopman. You'll have to begin at a low\r
+round of the ladder, let me tell you, if you mean to get on in life.\r
+It's no use forgetting the education your father's been paying for, if\r
+you don't give yourself a new un."\r
+\r
+Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising, and he\r
+would rather die than let them.\r
+\r
+"You want me to help you to a situation," Mr. Deane went on; "well,\r
+I've no fault to find with that. I'm willing to do something for you.\r
+But you youngsters nowadays think you're to begin with living well and\r
+working easy; you've no notion of running afoot before you get\r
+horseback. Now, you must remember what you are,--you're a lad of\r
+sixteen, trained to nothing particular. There's heaps of your sort,\r
+like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere. Well, you might be\r
+apprenticed to some business,--a chemist's and druggist's perhaps;\r
+your Latin might come in a bit there----"\r
+\r
+Tom was going to speak, but Mr. Deane put up his hand and said:\r
+\r
+"Stop! hear what I've got to say. You don't want to be a 'prentice,--I\r
+know, I know,--you want to make more haste, and you don't want to\r
+stand behind a counter. But if you're a copying-clerk, you'll have to\r
+stand behind a desk, and stare at your ink and paper all day; there\r
+isn't much out-look there, and you won't be much wiser at the end of\r
+the year than at the beginning. The world isn't made of pen, ink, and\r
+paper, and if you're to get on in the world, young man, you must know\r
+what the world's made of. Now the best chance for you 'ud be to have a\r
+place on a wharf, or in a warehouse, where you'd learn the smell of\r
+things, but you wouldn't like that, I'll be bound; you'd have to stand\r
+cold and wet, and be shouldered about by rough fellows. You're too\r
+fine a gentleman for that."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly felt some\r
+inward struggle before he could reply.\r
+\r
+"I would rather do what will be best for me in the end, sir; I would\r
+put up with what was disagreeable."\r
+\r
+"That's well, if you can carry it out. But you must remember it isn't\r
+only laying hold of a rope, you must go on pulling. It's the mistake\r
+you lads make that have got nothing either in your brains or your\r
+pocket, to think you've got a better start in the world if you stick\r
+yourselves in a place where you can keep your coats clean, and have\r
+the shopwenches take you for fine gentlemen. That wasn't the way _I_\r
+started, young man; when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt of tar, and I\r
+wasn't afraid of handling cheeses. That's the reason I can wear good\r
+broadcloth now, and have my legs under the same table with the head\r
+of the best firms in St. Ogg's."\r
+\r
+Uncle Deane tapped his box, and seemed to expand a little under his\r
+waistcoat and gold chain, as he squared his shoulders in the chair.\r
+\r
+"Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle, that I\r
+should do for? I should like to set to work at once," said Tom, with a\r
+slight tremor in his voice.\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit, stop a bit; we mustn't be in too great a hurry. You must\r
+bear in mind, if I put you in a place you're a bit young for, because\r
+you happen to be my nephew, I shall be responsible for you. And\r
+there's no better reason, you know, than your being my nephew; because\r
+it remains to be seen whether you're good for anything."\r
+\r
+"I hope I shall never do you any discredit, uncle," said Tom, hurt, as\r
+all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant truth that people feel\r
+no ground for trusting them. "I care about my own credit too much for\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"Well done, Tom, well done! That's the right spirit, and I never\r
+refuse to help anybody if they've a mind to do themselves justice.\r
+There's a young man of two-and-twenty I've got my eye on now. I shall\r
+do what I can for that young man; he's got some pith in him. But then,\r
+you see, he's made good use of his time,--a first-rate calculator,--\r
+can tell you the cubic contents of anything in no time, and put me up\r
+the other day to a new market for Swedish bark; he's uncommonly\r
+knowing in manufactures, that young fellow."\r
+\r
+"I'd better set about learning book-keeping, hadn't I, uncle?" said\r
+Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert himself.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, you can't do amiss there. But--Ah, Spence, you're back\r
+again. Well Tom, there's nothing more to be said just now, I think,\r
+and I must go to business again. Good-by. Remember me to your mother."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane put out his hand, with an air of friendly dismissal, and Tom\r
+had not courage to ask another question, especially in the presence of\r
+Mr. Spence. So he went out again into the cold damp air. He had to\r
+call at his uncle Glegg's about the money in the Savings Bank, and by\r
+the time he set out again the mist had thickened, and he could not see\r
+very far before him; but going along River Street again, he was\r
+startled, when he was within two yards of the projecting side of a\r
+shop-window, by the words "Dorlcote Mill" in large letters on a\r
+hand-bill, placed as if on purpose to stare at him. It was the\r
+catalogue of the sale to take place the next week; it was a reason for\r
+hurrying faster out of the town.\r
+\r
+Poor Tom formed no visions of the distant future as he made his way\r
+homeward; he only felt that the present was very hard. It seemed a\r
+wrong toward him that his uncle Deane had no confidence in him,--did\r
+not see at once that he should acquit himself well, which Tom himself\r
+was as certain of as of the daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver, was\r
+likely to be held of small account in the world; and for the first\r
+time he felt a sinking of heart under the sense that he really was\r
+very ignorant, and could do very little. Who was that enviable young\r
+man that could tell the cubic contents of things in no time, and make\r
+suggestions about Swedish bark! Tom had been used to be so entirely\r
+satisfied with himself, in spite of his breaking down in a\r
+demonstration, and construing _nunc illas promite vires_ as "now\r
+promise those men"; but now he suddenly felt at a disadvantage,\r
+because he knew less than some one else knew. There must be a world of\r
+things connected with that Swedish bark, which, if he only knew them,\r
+might have helped him to get on. It would have been much easier to\r
+make a figure with a spirited horse and a new saddle.\r
+\r
+Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St. Ogg's, he saw the distant\r
+future before him as he might have seen a tempting stretch of smooth\r
+sandy beach beyond a belt of flinty shingles; he was on the grassy\r
+bank then, and thought the shingles might soon be passed. But now his\r
+feet were on the sharp stones; the belt of shingles had widened, and\r
+the stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness.\r
+\r
+"What did my Uncle Deane say, Tom?" said Maggie, putting her arm\r
+through Tom's as he was warming himself rather drearily by the kitchen\r
+fire. "Did he say he would give you a situation?"\r
+\r
+"No, he didn't say that. He didn't quite promise me anything; he\r
+seemed to think I couldn't have a very good situation. I'm too young."\r
+\r
+"But didn't he speak kindly, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Kindly? Pooh! what's the use of talking about that? I wouldn't care\r
+about his speaking kindly, if I could get a situation. But it's such a\r
+nuisance and bother; I've been at school all this while learning Latin\r
+and things,--not a bit of good to me,--and now my uncle says I must\r
+set about learning book-keeping and calculation, and those things. He\r
+seems to make out I'm good for nothing."\r
+\r
+Tom's mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked at the\r
+fire.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a pity we haven't got Dominie Sampson!" said Maggie, who\r
+couldn't help mingling some gayety with their sadness. "If he had\r
+taught me book-keeping by double entry and after the Italian method,\r
+as he did Lucy Bertram, I could teach you, Tom."\r
+\r
+"_You_ teach! Yes, I dare say. That's always the tone you take," said\r
+Tom.\r
+\r
+"Dear Tom, I was only joking," said Maggie, putting her cheek against\r
+his coat-sleeve.\r
+\r
+"But it's always the same, Maggie," said Tom, with the little frown he\r
+put on when he was about to be justifiably severe. "You're always\r
+setting yourself up above me and every one else, and I've wanted to\r
+tell you about it several times. You ought not to have spoken as you\r
+did to my uncles and aunts; you should leave it to me to take care of\r
+my mother and you, and not put yourself forward. You think you know\r
+better than any one, but you're almost always wrong. I can judge much\r
+better than you can."\r
+\r
+Poor Tom! he had just come from being lectured and made to feel his\r
+inferiority; the reaction of his strong, self-asserting nature must\r
+take place somehow; and here was a case in which he could justly show\r
+himself dominant. Maggie's cheek flushed and her lip quivered with\r
+conflicting resentment and affection, and a certain awe as well as\r
+admiration of Tom's firmer and more effective character. She did not\r
+answer immediately; very angry words rose to her lips, but they were\r
+driven back again, and she said at last:\r
+\r
+"You often think I'm conceited, Tom, when I don't mean what I say at\r
+all in that way. I don't mean to put myself above you; I know you\r
+behaved better than I did yesterday. But you are always so harsh to\r
+me, Tom."\r
+\r
+With the last words the resentment was rising again.\r
+\r
+"No, I'm not harsh," said Tom, with severe decision. "I'm always kind\r
+to you, and so I shall be; I shall always take care of you. But you\r
+must mind what I say."\r
+\r
+Their mother came in now, and Maggie rushed away, that her burst of\r
+tears, which she felt must come, might not happen till she was safe\r
+upstairs. They were very bitter tears; everybody in the world seemed\r
+so hard and unkind to Maggie; there was no indulgence, no fondness,\r
+such as she imagined when she fashioned the world afresh in her own\r
+thoughts. In books there were people who were always agreeable or\r
+tender, and delighted to do things that made one happy, and who did\r
+not show their kindness by finding fault. The world outside the books\r
+was not a happy one, Maggie felt; it seemed to be a world where people\r
+behaved the best to those they did not pretend to love, and that did\r
+not belong to them. And if life had no love in it, what else was there\r
+for Maggie? Nothing but poverty and the companionship of her mother's\r
+narrow griefs, perhaps of her father's heart-cutting childish\r
+dependence. There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth,\r
+when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories, no\r
+superadded life in the life of others; though we who looked on think\r
+lightly of such premature despair, as if our vision of the future\r
+lightened the blind sufferer's present.\r
+\r
+Maggie, in her brown frock, with her eyes reddened and her heavy hair\r
+pushed back, looking from the bed where her father lay to the dull\r
+walls of this sad chamber which was the centre of her world, was a\r
+creature full of eager, passionate longings for all that was beautiful\r
+and glad; thirsty for all knowledge; with an ear straining after\r
+dreamy music that died away and would not come near to her; with a\r
+blind, unconscious yearning for something that would link together the\r
+wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her soul a\r
+sense of home in it.\r
+\r
+No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward and the\r
+inward, that painful collisions come of it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a\r
+Pocket-Knife\r
+\r
+\r
+In that dark time of December, the sale of the household furniture\r
+lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr. Tulliver, who had\r
+begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability\r
+which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of\r
+spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death\r
+throughout the critical hours when the noise of the sale came nearest\r
+to his chamber. Mr. Turnbull had decided that it would be a less risk\r
+to let him remain where he was than to remove him to Luke's\r
+cottage,--a plan which the good Luke had proposed to Mrs. Tulliver,\r
+thinking it would be very bad if the master were "to waken up" at the\r
+noise of the sale; and the wife and children had sat imprisoned in the\r
+silent chamber, watching the large prostrate figure on the bed, and\r
+trembling lest the blank face should suddenly show some response to\r
+the sounds which fell on their own ears with such obstinate, painful\r
+repetition.\r
+\r
+But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty and\r
+eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as metallic\r
+as the rap that followed it, had ceased; the tramping of footsteps on\r
+the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tulliver's blond face seemed aged ten\r
+years by the last thirty hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy\r
+divining when her favorite things were being knocked down by the\r
+terrible hammer; her heart had been fluttering at the thought that\r
+first one thing and then another had gone to be identified as hers in\r
+the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion; and all the while she had to\r
+sit and make no sign of this inward agitation. Such things bring lines\r
+in well-rounded faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the\r
+hairs that once looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine.\r
+Already, at three o'clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered\r
+housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her\r
+personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile\r
+quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by\r
+a continual low muttering against "folks as came to buy up other\r
+folk's things," and made light of "scrazing" the tops of mahogany\r
+tables over which better folks than themselves had had to--suffer a\r
+waste of tissue through evaporation. She was not scrubbing\r
+indiscriminately, for there would be further dirt of the same\r
+atrocious kind made by people who had still to fetch away their\r
+purchases; but she was bent on bringing the parlor, where that\r
+"pipe-smoking pig," the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of\r
+scant comfort as could be given to it by cleanliness and the few\r
+articles of furniture bought in for the family. Her mistress and the\r
+young folks should have their tea in it that night, Kezia was\r
+determined.\r
+\r
+It was between five and six o'clock, near the usual teatime, when she\r
+came upstairs and said that Master Tom was wanted. The person who\r
+wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the first moments, by the\r
+imperfect fire and candle light, Tom had not even an indefinite sense\r
+of any acquaintance with the rather broad-set but active figure,\r
+perhaps two years older than himself, that looked at him with a pair\r
+of blue eyes set in a disc of freckles, and pulled some curly red\r
+locks with a strong intention of respect. A low-crowned\r
+oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest\r
+of the costume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a\r
+calling that had to do with boats; but this did not help Tom's memory.\r
+\r
+"Sarvant, Master Tom," said he of the red locks, with a smile which\r
+seemed to break through a self-imposed air of melancholy. "You don't\r
+know me again, I doubt," he went on, as Tom continued to look at him\r
+inquiringly; "but I'd like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please."\r
+\r
+"There's a fire i' the parlor, Master Tom," said Kezia, who objected\r
+to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting.\r
+\r
+"Come this way, then," said Tom, wondering if this young fellow\r
+belonged to Guest & Co.'s Wharf, for his imagination ran continually\r
+toward that particular spot; and uncle Deane might any time be sending\r
+for him to say that there was a situation at liberty.\r
+\r
+The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed the few\r
+chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one table--no, not\r
+the _one_ table; there was a second table, in a corner, with a large\r
+Bible and a few other books upon it. It was this new strange bareness\r
+that Tom felt first, before he thought of looking again at the face\r
+which was also lit up by the fire, and which stole a half-shy,\r
+questioning glance at him as the entirely strange voice said:\r
+\r
+"Why! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the pocket-knife to,\r
+Mr. Tom?"\r
+\r
+The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment, and\r
+the largest blade opened by way of irresistible demonstration.\r
+\r
+"What! Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he felt\r
+a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolized by the\r
+pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's motives for recalling\r
+it were entirely admirable.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, 'cause there's so many Bobs\r
+as you went arter the squerrils with, that day as I plumped right down\r
+from the bough, and bruised my shins a good un--but I got the squerril\r
+tight for all that, an' a scratter it was. An' this littlish blade's\r
+broke, you see, but I wouldn't hev a new un put in, 'cause they might\r
+be cheatin' me an' givin' me another knife instid, for there isn't\r
+such a blade i' the country,--it's got used to my hand, like. An'\r
+there was niver nobody else gen me nothin' but what I got by my own\r
+sharpness, only you, Mr. Tom; if it wasn't Bill Fawks as gen me the\r
+terrier pup istid o' drowndin't it, an' I had to jaw him a good un\r
+afore he'd give it me."\r
+\r
+Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through\r
+his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his\r
+knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when he had finished.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob," said Tom, with a slight air of patronage, the foregoing\r
+reminscences having disposed him to be as friendly as was becoming,\r
+though there was no part of his acquaintance with Bob that he\r
+remembered better than the cause of their parting quarrel; "is there\r
+anything I can do for you?"\r
+\r
+"Why, no, Mr. Tom," answered Bob, shutting up his knife with a click\r
+and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed to be feeling for\r
+something else. "I shouldn't ha' come back upon you now ye're i'\r
+trouble, an' folks say as the master, as I used to frighten the birds\r
+for, an' he flogged me a bit for fun when he catched me eatin' the\r
+turnip, as they say he'll niver lift up his head no more,--I shouldn't\r
+ha' come now to ax you to gi' me another knife 'cause you gen me one\r
+afore. If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me; I\r
+sha'n't ax him for another afore I sarve him out; an' a good turn's\r
+worth as much as a bad un, anyhow. I shall niver grow down'ards again,\r
+Mr. Tom, an' you war the little chap as I liked the best when _I_ war\r
+a little chap, for all you leathered me, and wouldn't look at me\r
+again. There's Dick Brumby, there, I could leather him as much as I'd\r
+a mind; but lors! you get tired o' leatherin' a chap when you can\r
+niver make him see what you want him to shy at. I'n seen chaps as 'ud\r
+stand starin' at a bough till their eyes shot out, afore they'd see as\r
+a bird's tail warn't a leaf. It's poor work goin' wi' such raff. But\r
+you war allays a rare un at shying, Mr. Tom, an' I could trusten to\r
+you for droppin' down wi' your stick in the nick o' time at a runnin'\r
+rat, or a stoat, or that, when I war a-beatin' the bushes."\r
+\r
+Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps not have\r
+paused just then if Maggie had not entered the room and darted a look\r
+of surprise and curiosity at him, whereupon he pulled his red locks\r
+again with due respect. But the next moment the sense of the altered\r
+room came upon Maggie with a force that overpowered the thought of\r
+Bob's presence. Her eyes had immediately glanced from him to the place\r
+where the bookcase had hung; there was nothing now but the oblong\r
+unfaded space on the wall, and below it the small table with the Bible\r
+and the few other books.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom!" she burst out, clasping her hands, "where are the books? I\r
+thought my uncle Glegg said he would buy them. Didn't he? Are those\r
+all they've left us?"\r
+\r
+"I suppose so," said Tom, with a sort of desperate indifference. "Why\r
+should they buy many books when they bought so little furniture?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, Tom," said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears, as she\r
+rushed up to the table to see what books had been rescued. "Our dear\r
+old Pilgrim's Progress that you colored with your little paints; and\r
+that picture of Pilgrim with a mantle on, looking just like a\r
+turtle--oh dear!" Maggie went on, half sobbing as she turned over the\r
+few books, "I thought we should never part with that while we lived;\r
+everything is going away from us; the end of our lives will have\r
+nothing in it like the beginning!"\r
+\r
+Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into a chair, with\r
+the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks, quite blinded to the\r
+presence of Bob, who was looking at her with the pursuant gaze of an\r
+intelligent dumb animal, with perceptions more perfect than his\r
+comprehension.\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob," said Tom, feeling that the subject of the books was\r
+unseasonable, "I suppose you just came to see me because we're in\r
+trouble? That was very good-natured of you."\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you how it is, Master Tom," said Bob, beginning to untwist\r
+his canvas bag. "You see, I'n been with a barge this two 'ear; that's\r
+how I'n been gettin' my livin',--if it wasn't when I was tentin' the\r
+furnace, between whiles, at Torry's mill. But a fortni't ago I'd a\r
+rare bit o' luck,--I allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver\r
+set a trap but what I catched something; but this wasn't trap, it was\r
+a fire i' Torry's mill, an' I doused it, else it 'ud set th' oil\r
+alight, an' the genelman gen me ten suvreigns; he gen me 'em himself\r
+last week. An' he said first, I was a sperrited chap,--but I knowed\r
+that afore,--but then he outs wi' the ten suvreigns, an' that war\r
+summat new. Here they are, all but one!" Here Bob emptied the canvas\r
+bag on the table. "An' when I'd got 'em, my head was all of a boil\r
+like a kettle o' broth, thinkin' what sort o' life I should take to,\r
+for there war a many trades I'd thought on; for as for the barge, I'm\r
+clean tired out wi't, for it pulls the days out till they're as long\r
+as pigs' chitterlings. An' I thought first I'd ha' ferrets an' dogs,\r
+an' be a rat-catcher; an' then I thought as I should like a bigger way\r
+o' life, as I didn't know so well; for I'n seen to the bottom o'\r
+rat-catching; an' I thought, an' thought, till at last I settled I'd\r
+be a packman,--for they're knowin' fellers, the packmen are,--an' I'd\r
+carry the lightest things I could i' my pack; an' there'd be a use for\r
+a feller's tongue, as is no use neither wi' rats nor barges. An' I\r
+should go about the country far an' wide, an' come round the women wi'\r
+my tongue, an' get my dinner hot at the public,--lors! it 'ud be a\r
+lovely life!"\r
+\r
+Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if resolutely\r
+turning his back on that paradisaic picture:\r
+\r
+"But I don't mind about it, not a chip! An' I'n changed one o' the\r
+suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an' I'n bought a blue\r
+plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap,--for if I meant to be a packman,\r
+I'd do it respectable. But I don't mind about it, not a chip! My yead\r
+isn't a turnip, an' I shall p'r'aps have a chance o' dousing another\r
+fire afore long. I'm a lucky chap. So I'll thank you to take the nine\r
+suvreigns, Mr. Tom, and set yoursen up with 'em somehow, if it's true\r
+as the master's broke. They mayn't go fur enough, but they'll help."\r
+\r
+Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and suspicion.\r
+\r
+"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, with that little\r
+diffident tremor in his voice which gave a certain charm even to Tom's\r
+pride and severity, "and I sha'n't forget you again, though I didn't\r
+know you this evening. But I can't take the nine sovereigns; I should\r
+be taking your little fortune from you, and they wouldn't do me much\r
+good either."\r
+\r
+"Wouldn't they, Mr. Tom?" said Bob, regretfully. "Now don't say so\r
+'cause you think I want 'em. I aren't a poor chap. My mother gets a\r
+good penn'orth wi' picking feathers an' things; an' if she eats\r
+nothin' but bread-an'-water, it runs to fat. An' I'm such a lucky\r
+chap; an' I doubt you aren't quite so lucky, Mr. Tom,--th' old master\r
+isn't, anyhow,--an' so you might take a slice o' my luck, an' no harm\r
+done. Lors! I found a leg o' pork i' the river one day; it had tumbled\r
+out o' one o' them round-sterned Dutchmen, I'll be bound. Come, think\r
+better on it, Mr. Tom, for old 'quinetance' sake, else I shall think\r
+you bear me a grudge."\r
+\r
+Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie,\r
+clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob, said:\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I think\r
+you're the kindest person in the world!"\r
+\r
+Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie was\r
+performing an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with pleasure at\r
+this handsome eulogy,--especially from a young lass who, as he\r
+informed his mother that evening, had "such uncommon eyes, they looked\r
+somehow as they made him feel nohow."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed Bob, I can't take them," said Tom; "but don't think I feel\r
+your kindness less because I say no. I don't want to take anything\r
+from anybody, but to work my own way. And those sovereigns wouldn't\r
+help me much--they wouldn't really--if I were to take them. Let me\r
+shake hands with you instead."\r
+\r
+Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard,\r
+grimy hand within it.\r
+\r
+"Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again," said Maggie; "and you'll\r
+come and see us when you've bought your pack, Bob."\r
+\r
+"It's like as if I'd come out o' make believe, o' purpose to show 'em\r
+you," said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie gave him the bag\r
+again, "a-taking 'em back i' this way. I _am_ a bit of a Do, you know;\r
+but it isn't that sort o' Do,--it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue,\r
+or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all."\r
+\r
+"Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob," said Tom, "else you'll get\r
+transported some day."\r
+\r
+"No, no; not me, Mr. Tom," said Bob, with an air of cheerful\r
+confidence. "There's no law again' flea-bites. If I wasn't to take a\r
+fool in now and then, he'd niver get any wiser. But, lors! hev a\r
+suvreign to buy you and Miss summat, on'y for a token--just to match\r
+my pocket-knife."\r
+\r
+While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and resolutely\r
+twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and said, "No,\r
+indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but I can't take it." And Maggie,\r
+taking it between her fingers, held it up to Bob and said, more\r
+persuasively:\r
+\r
+"Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my father wants\r
+help that you can give, we'll let you know; won't we, Tom? That's what\r
+you would like,--to have us always depend on you as a friend that we\r
+can go to,--isn't it, Bob?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss, and thank you," said Bob, reluctantly taking the money;\r
+"that's what I'd like, anything as you like. An' I wish you good-by,\r
+Miss, and good-luck, Mr. Tom, and thank you for shaking hands wi' me,\r
+_though_ you wouldn't take the money."\r
+\r
+Kezia's entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she shouldn't\r
+bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to get hardened to a\r
+brick, was a seasonable check on Bob's flux of words, and hastened his\r
+parting bow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+How a Hen Takes to Stratagem\r
+\r
+\r
+The days passed, and Mr. Tulliver showed, at least to the eyes of the\r
+medical man, stronger and stronger symptoms of a gradual return to his\r
+normal condition; the paralytic obstruction was, little by little,\r
+losing its tenacity, and the mind was rising from under it with fitful\r
+struggles, like a living creature making its way from under a great\r
+snowdrift, that slides and slides again, and shuts up the newly made\r
+opening.\r
+\r
+Time would have seemed to creep to the watchers by the bed, if it had\r
+only been measured by the doubtful, distant hope which kept count of\r
+the moments within the chamber; but it was measured for them by a\r
+fast-approaching dread which made the nights come too quickly. While\r
+Mr. Tulliver was slowly becoming himself again, his lot was hastening\r
+toward its moment of most palpable change. The taxing-masters had done\r
+their work like any respectable gunsmith conscientiously preparing the\r
+musket, that, duly pointed by a brave arm, will spoil a life or two.\r
+Allocaturs, filing of bills in Chancery, decrees of sale, are legal\r
+chain-shot or bomb-shells that can never hit a solitary mark, but must\r
+fall with widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life\r
+of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so inevitably\r
+diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and\r
+we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in\r
+pulsations of unmerited pain.\r
+\r
+By the beginning of the second week in January, the bills were out\r
+advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of Mr. Tulliver's\r
+farming and other stock, to be followed by a sale of the mill and\r
+land, held in the proper after-dinner hour at the Golden Lion. The\r
+miller himself, unaware of the lapse of time, fancied himself still in\r
+that first stage of his misfortunes when expedients might be thought\r
+of; and often in his conscious hours talked in a feeble, disjointed\r
+manner of plans he would carry out when he "got well." The wife and\r
+children were not without hope of an issue that would at least save\r
+Mr. Tulliver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an entirely\r
+strange life. For uncle Deane had been induced to interest himself in\r
+this stage of the business. It would not, he acknowledged, be a bad\r
+speculation for Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the\r
+business, which was a good one, and might be increased by the addition\r
+of steam power; in which case Tulliver might be retained as manager.\r
+Still, Mr. Deane would say nothing decided about the matter; the fact\r
+that Wakem held the mortgage on the land might put it into his head to\r
+bid for the whole estate, and further, to outbid the cautious firm of\r
+Guest &Co., who did not carry on business on sentimental grounds. Mr.\r
+Deane was obliged to tell Mrs. Tulliver something to that effect, when\r
+he rode over to the mill to inspect the books in company with Mrs.\r
+Glegg; for she had observed that "if Guest &Co. would only think about\r
+it, Mr. Tulliver's father and grandfather had been carrying on\r
+Dorlcote Mill long before the oil-mill of that firm had been so much\r
+as thought of."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane, in reply, doubted whether that was precisely the relation\r
+between the two mills which would determine their value as\r
+investments. As for uncle Glegg, the thing lay quite beyond his\r
+imagination; the good-natured man felt sincere pity for the Tulliver\r
+family, but his money was all locked up in excellent mortgages, and he\r
+could run no risk; that would be unfair to his own relatives; but he\r
+had made up his mind that Tulliver should have some new flannel\r
+waistcoats which he had himself renounced in favor of a more elastic\r
+commodity, and that he would buy Mrs. Tulliver a pound of tea now and\r
+then; it would be a journey which his benevolence delighted in\r
+beforehand, to carry the tea and see her pleasure on being assured it\r
+was the best black.\r
+\r
+Still, it was clear that Mr. Deane was kindly disposed toward the\r
+Tullivers. One day he had brought Lucy, who was come home for the\r
+Christmas holidays, and the little blond angel-head had pressed itself\r
+against Maggie's darker cheek with many kisses and some tears. These\r
+fair slim daughters keep up a tender spot in the heart of many a\r
+respectable partner in a respectable firm, and perhaps Lucy's anxious,\r
+pitying questions about her poor cousins helped to make uncle Deane\r
+more prompt in finding Tom a temporary place in the warehouse, and in\r
+putting him in the way of getting evening lessons in book-keeping and\r
+calculation.\r
+\r
+That might have cheered the lad and fed his hopes a little, if there\r
+had not come at the same time the much-dreaded blow of finding that\r
+his father must be a bankrupt, after all; at least, the creditors must\r
+be asked to take less than their due, which to Tom's untechnical mind\r
+was the same thing as bankruptcy. His father must not only be said to\r
+have "lost his property," but to have "failed,"--the word that carried\r
+the worst obloquy to Tom's mind. For when the defendant's claim for\r
+costs had been satisfied, there would remain the friendly bill of Mr.\r
+Gore, and the deficiency at the bank, as well as the other debts which\r
+would make the assets shrink into unequivocal disproportion; "not more\r
+than ten or twelve shillings in the pound," predicted Mr. Deane, in a\r
+decided tone, tightening his lips; and the words fell on Tom like a\r
+scalding liquied, leaving a continual smart.\r
+\r
+He was sadly in want of something to keep up his spirits a little in\r
+the unpleasant newness of his position,--suddenly transported from the\r
+easy carpeted _ennui_ of study-hours at Mr. Stelling's, and the busy\r
+idleness of castle-building in a "last half" at school, to the\r
+companionship of sacks and hides, and bawling men thundering down\r
+heavy weights at his elbow. The first step toward getting on in the\r
+world was a chill, dusty, noisy affair, and implied going without\r
+one's tea in order to stay in St. Ogg's and have an evening lesson\r
+from a one-armed elderly clerk, in a room smelling strongly of bad\r
+tobacco. Tom's young pink-and-white face had its colors very much\r
+deadened by the time he took off his hat at home, and sat down with\r
+keen hunger to his supper. No wonder he was a little cross if his\r
+mother or Maggie spoke to him.\r
+\r
+But all this while Mrs. Tulliver was brooding over a scheme by which\r
+she, and no one else, would avert the result most to be dreaded, and\r
+prevent Wakem from entertaining the purpose of bidding for the mill.\r
+Imagine a truly respectable and amiable hen, by some portentous\r
+anomaly, taking to reflection and inventing combinations by which she\r
+might prevail on Hodge not to wring her neck, or send her and her\r
+chicks to market; the result could hardly be other than much cackling\r
+and fluttering. Mrs. Tulliver, seeing that everything had gone wrong,\r
+had begun to think she had been too passive in life; and that, if she\r
+had applied her mind to business, and taken a strong resolution now\r
+and then, it would have been all the better for her and her family.\r
+Nobody, it appeared, had thought of going to speak to Wakem on this\r
+business of the mill; and yet, Mrs. Tulliver reflected, it would have\r
+been quite the shortest method of securing the right end. It would\r
+have been of no use, to be sure, for Mr. Tulliver to go,--even if he\r
+had been able and willing,--for he had been "going to law against\r
+Wakem" and abusing him for the last ten years; Wakem was always likely\r
+to have a spite against him. And now that Mrs. Tulliver had come to\r
+the conclusion that her husband was very much in the wrong to bring\r
+her into this trouble, she was inclined to think that his opinion of\r
+Wakem was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had "put the bailies in the\r
+house, and sold them up"; but she supposed he did that to please the\r
+man that lent Mr. Tulliver the money, for a lawyer had more folks to\r
+please than one, and he wasn't likely to put Mr. Tulliver, who had\r
+gone to law with him, above everybody else in the world. The attorney\r
+might be a very reasonable man; why not? He had married a Miss Clint,\r
+and at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that marriage, the summer\r
+when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not yet any thoughts of\r
+Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem. And certainly toward herself,\r
+whom he knew to have been a Miss Dodson, it was out of all possibility\r
+that he could entertain anything but good-will, when it was once\r
+brought home to his observation that she, for her part, had never\r
+wanted to go to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr.\r
+Wakem's view of all subjects rather than her husband's. In fact, if\r
+that attorney saw a respectable matron like herself disposed "to give\r
+him good words," why shouldn't he listen to her representations? For\r
+she would put the matter clearly before him, which had never been done\r
+yet. And he would never go and bid for the mill on purpose to spite\r
+her, an innocent woman, who thought it likely enough that she had\r
+danced with him in their youth at Squire Darleigh's, for at those big\r
+dances she had often and often danced with young men whose names she\r
+had forgotten.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver hid these reasonings in her own bosom; for when she had\r
+thrown out a hint to Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg that she wouldn't mind\r
+going to speak to Wakem herself, they had said, "No, no, no," and\r
+"Pooh, pooh," and "Let Wakem alone," in the tone of men who were not\r
+likely to give a candid attention to a more definite exposition of her\r
+project; still less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for\r
+"the children were always so against everything their mother said";\r
+and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against Wakem as his\r
+father was. But this unusual concentration of thought naturally gave\r
+Mrs. Tulliver an unusual power of device and determination: and a day\r
+or two before the sale, to be held at the Golden Lion, when there was\r
+no longer any time to be lost, she carried out her plan by a\r
+stratagem. There were pickles in question, a large stock of pickles\r
+and ketchup which Mrs. Tulliver possessed, and which Mr. Hyndmarsh,\r
+the grocer, would certainly purchase if she could transact the\r
+business in a personal interview, so she would walk with Tom to St.\r
+Ogg's that morning; and when Tom urged that she might let the pickles\r
+be at present,--he didn't like her to go about just yet,--she appeared\r
+so hurt at this conduct in her son, contradicting her about pickles\r
+which she had made after the family receipts inherited from his own\r
+grandmother, who had died when his mother was a little girl, that he\r
+gave way, and they walked together until she turned toward Danish\r
+Street, where Mr. Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far from the\r
+offices of Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+That gentleman was not yet come to his office; would Mrs. Tulliver sit\r
+down by the fire in his private room and wait for him? She had not\r
+long to wait before the punctual attorney entered, knitting his brow\r
+with an examining glance at the stout blond woman who rose, curtsying\r
+deferentially,--a tallish man, with an aquiline nose and abundant\r
+iron-gray hair. You have never seen Mr. Wakem before, and are possibly\r
+wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal, and as crafty,\r
+bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of Mr. Tulliver in\r
+particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or portrait of\r
+him which we have seen to exist in the miller's mind.\r
+\r
+It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any\r
+chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was\r
+liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which, due\r
+consideration had to his own infallibility, required the hypothesis of\r
+a very active diabolical agency to explain them. It is still possible\r
+to believe that the attorney was not more guilty toward him than an\r
+ingenious machine, which performs its work with much regularity, is\r
+guilty toward the rash man who, venturing too near it, is caught up by\r
+some fly-wheel or other, and suddenly converted into unexpected\r
+mince-meat.\r
+\r
+But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his\r
+person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other\r
+symbols,--not always easy to read without a key. On an _a priori_ view\r
+of Wakem's aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not\r
+more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though\r
+this too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory\r
+meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Tulliver, I think?" said Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was."\r
+\r
+"Pray be seated. You have some business with me?"\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at her\r
+own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and\r
+reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin.\r
+Mr. Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.\r
+\r
+"I hope, sir," she began at last,--"I hope, sir, you're not a-thinking\r
+as _I_ bear you any ill-will because o' my husband's losing his\r
+lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen being sold,--oh\r
+dear!--for I wasn't brought up in that way. I'm sure you remember my\r
+father, sir, for he was close friends with Squire Darleigh, and we\r
+allays went to the dances there, the Miss Dodsons,--nobody could be\r
+more looked on,--and justly, for there was four of us, and you're\r
+quite aware as Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane are my sisters. And as for\r
+going to law and losing money, and having sales before you're dead, I\r
+never saw anything o' that before I was married, nor for a long while\r
+after. And I'm not to be answerable for my bad luck i' marrying out o'\r
+my own family into one where the goings-on was different. And as for\r
+being drawn in t' abuse you as other folks abuse you, sir, _that_ I\r
+niver was, and nobody can say it of me."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her\r
+pocket-handkerchief.\r
+\r
+"I've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr. Wakem, with\r
+cold politeness. "But you have some question to ask me?"\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, yes. But that's what I've said to myself,--I've said you'd\r
+had some nat'ral feeling; and as for my husband, as hasn't been\r
+himself for this two months, I'm not a-defending him, in no way, for\r
+being so hot about th' erigation,--not but what there's worse men, for\r
+he never wronged nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly; and\r
+as for his fieriness and lawing, what could I do? And him struck as if\r
+it was with death when he got the letter as said you'd the hold upo'\r
+the land. But I can't believe but what you'll behave as a gentleman."\r
+\r
+"What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver?" said Mr. Wakem rather\r
+sharply. "What do you want to ask me?"\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, if you'll be so good," said Mrs. Tulliver, starting a\r
+little, and speaking more hurriedly,--"if you'll be so good not to buy\r
+the mill an' the land,--the land wouldn't so much matter, only my\r
+husband ull' be like mad at your having it."\r
+\r
+Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem's face as he\r
+said, "Who told you I meant to buy it?"\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, it's none o' my inventing, and I should never ha' thought\r
+of it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used\r
+to say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,--either lands or\r
+houses,--for they allays got 'em into their hands other ways. An' I\r
+should think that 'ud be the way with you, sir; and I niver said as\r
+you'd be the man to do contrairy to that."\r
+\r
+"Ah, well, who was it that _did_ say so?" said Wakem, opening his\r
+desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost\r
+inaudible whistle.\r
+\r
+"Why, sir, it was Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, as have all the management;\r
+and Mr. Deane thinks as Guest &Co. 'ud buy the mill and let Mr.\r
+Tulliver work it for 'em, if you didn't bid for it and raise the\r
+price. And it 'ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is,\r
+if he could get his living: for it was his father's before him, the\r
+mill was, and his grandfather built it, though I wasn't fond o' the\r
+noise of it, when first I was married, for there was no mills in our\r
+family,--not the Dodson's,--and if I'd known as the mills had so much\r
+to do with the law, it wouldn't have been me as 'ud have been the\r
+first Dodson to marry one; but I went into it blindfold, that I did,\r
+erigation and everything."\r
+\r
+"What! Guest &Co. would keep the mill in their own hands, I suppose,\r
+and pay your husband wages?"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, sir, it's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, a\r
+little tear making its way, "as my husband should take wage. But it\r
+'ud look more like what used to be, to stay at the mill than to go\r
+anywhere else; and if you'll only think--if you was to bid for the\r
+mill and buy it, my husband might be struck worse than he was before,\r
+and niver get better again as he's getting now."\r
+\r
+"Well, but if I bought the mill, and allowed your husband to act as my\r
+manager in the same way, how then?" said Mr. Wakem.\r
+\r
+"Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the very mill\r
+stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name's like poison to\r
+him, it's so as never was; and he looks upon it as you've been the\r
+ruin of him all along, ever since you set the law on him about the\r
+road through the meadow,--that's eight year ago, and he's been going\r
+on ever since--as I've allays told him he was wrong----"\r
+\r
+"He's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool!" burst out Mr. Wakem,\r
+forgetting himself.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, sir!" said Mrs. Tulliver, frightened at a result so\r
+different from the one she had fixed her mind on; "I wouldn't wish to\r
+contradict you, but it's like enough he's changed his mind with this\r
+illness,--he's forgot a many things he used to talk about. And you\r
+wouldn't like to have a corpse on your mind, if he was to die; and\r
+they _do_ say as it's allays unlucky when Dorlcote Mill changes hands,\r
+and the water might all run away, and _then_--not as I'm wishing you\r
+any ill-luck, sir, for I forgot to tell you as I remember your wedding\r
+as if it was yesterday; Mrs. Wakem was a Miss Clint, I know _that;_\r
+and my boy, as there isn't a nicer, handsomer, straighter boy nowhere,\r
+went to school with your son----"\r
+\r
+Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his clerks.\r
+\r
+"You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Tulliver; I have\r
+business that must be attended to; and I think there is nothing more\r
+necessary to be said."\r
+\r
+"But if you _would_ bear it in mind, sir," said Mrs. Tulliver, rising,\r
+"and not run against me and my children; and I'm not denying Mr.\r
+Tulliver's been in the wrong, but he's been punished enough, and\r
+there's worse men, for it's been giving to other folks has been his\r
+fault. He's done nobody any harm but himself and his family,--the\r
+more's the pity,--and I go and look at the bare shelves every day, and\r
+think where all my things used to stand."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I'll bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily, looking\r
+toward the open door.\r
+\r
+"And if you'd please not to say as I've been to speak to you, for my\r
+son 'ud be very angry with me for demeaning myself, I know he would,\r
+and I've trouble enough without being scolded by my children."\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver's voice trembled a little, and she could make no\r
+answer to the attorney's "good morning," but curtsied and walked out\r
+in silence.\r
+\r
+"Which day is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold? Where's the bill?"\r
+said Mr. Wakem to his clerk when they were alone.\r
+\r
+"Next Friday is the day,--Friday at six o'clock."\r
+\r
+"Oh, just run to Winship's the auctioneer, and see if he's at home. I\r
+have some business for him; ask him to come up."\r
+\r
+Although, when Mr. Wakem entered his office that morning, he had had\r
+no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind was already made\r
+up. Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him several determining motives,\r
+and his mental glance was very rapid; he was one of those men who can\r
+be prompt without being rash, because their motives run in fixed\r
+tracks, and they have no need to reconcile conflicting aims.\r
+\r
+To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate hatred toward\r
+Tulliver that Tulliver had toward him would be like supposing that a\r
+pike and a roach can look at each other from a similar point of view.\r
+The roach necessarily abhors the mode in which the pike gets his\r
+living, and the pike is likely to think nothing further even of the\r
+most indignant roach than that he is excellent good eating; it could\r
+only be when the roach choked him that the pike could entertain a\r
+strong personal animosity. If Mr. Tulliver had ever seriously injured\r
+or thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have refused him the\r
+distinction of being a special object of his vindictiveness. But when\r
+Mr. Tulliver called Wakem a rascal at the market dinner-table, the\r
+attorneys' clients were not a whit inclined to withdraw their business\r
+from him; and if, when Wakem himself happened to be present, some\r
+jocose cattle-feeder, stimulated by opportunity and brandy, made a\r
+thrust at him by alluding to old ladies' wills, he maintained perfect\r
+_sang froid_, and knew quite well that the majority of substantial men\r
+then present were perfectly contented with the fact that "Wakem was\r
+Wakem"; that is to say, a man who always knew the stepping-stones that\r
+would carry him through very muddy bits of practice. A man who had\r
+made a large fortune, had a handsome house among the trees at Tofton,\r
+and decidedly the finest stock of port-wine in the neighborhood of St.\r
+Ogg's, was likely to feel himself on a level with public opinion. And\r
+I am not sure that even honest Mr. Tulliver himself, with his general\r
+view of law as a cockpit, might not, under opposite circumstances,\r
+have seen a fine appropriateness in the truth that "Wakem was Wakem";\r
+since I have understood from persons versed in history, that mankind\r
+is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors\r
+when their victory is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no\r
+obstruction to Wakem; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the\r
+lawyer had defeated several times; a hot-tempered fellow, who would\r
+always give you a handle against him. Wakem's conscience was not\r
+uneasy because he had used a few tricks against the miller; why should\r
+he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff, that pitiable, furious bull\r
+entangled in the meshes of a net?\r
+\r
+Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject,\r
+moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who\r
+openly revile us. The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of\r
+Old Topping, perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the\r
+Blue editor who consoles his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric\r
+against Yellow men who sell their country, and are the demons of\r
+private life; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity\r
+favored, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favorite\r
+color. Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and then, as they\r
+take a diversion, when it comes easily in their way, and is no\r
+hindrance to business; and such small unimpassioned revenges have an\r
+enormous effect in life, running through all degrees of pleasant\r
+infliction, blocking the fit men out of places, and blackening\r
+characters in unpremeditated talk. Still more, to see people who have\r
+been only insignificantly offensive to us reduced in life and\r
+humiliated, without any special effort of ours, is apt to have a\r
+soothing, flattering influence. Providence or some other prince of\r
+this world, it appears, has undertaken the task of retribution for us;\r
+and really, by an agreeable constitution of things, our enemies\r
+somehow _don't_ prosper.\r
+\r
+Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness toward the\r
+uncomplimentary miller; and now Mrs. Tulliver had put the notion into\r
+his head, it presented itself to him as a pleasure to do the very\r
+thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver the most deadly mortification,--\r
+and a pleasure of a complex kind, not made up of crude malice, but\r
+mingling with it the relish of self-approbation. To see an enemy\r
+humiliated gives a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared\r
+with the highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your\r
+benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort of\r
+revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem was not without\r
+an intention of keeping that scale respectably filled. He had once\r
+had the pleasure of putting an old enemy of his into one of the St.\r
+Ogg's alms-houses, to the rebuilding of which he had given a large\r
+subscription; and here was an opportunity of providing for another by\r
+making him his own servant. Such things give a completeness to\r
+prosperity, and contribute elements of agreeable consciousness that\r
+are not dreamed of by that short-sighted, overheated vindictiveness\r
+which goes out its way to wreak itself in direct injury. And Tulliver,\r
+with his rough tongue filed by a sense of obligation, would make a\r
+better servant than any chance-fellow who was cap-in-hand for a\r
+situation. Tulliver was known to be a man of proud honesty, and Wakem\r
+was too acute not to believe in the existence of honesty. He was given\r
+too observing individuals, not to judging of them according to maxims,\r
+and no one knew better than he that all men were not like himself.\r
+Besides, he intended to overlook the whole business of land and mill\r
+pretty closely; he was fond of these practical rural matters. But\r
+there were good reasons for purchasing Dorlcote Mill, quite apart from\r
+any benevolent vengeance on the miller. It was really a capital\r
+investment; besides, Guest &Co. were going to bid for it. Mr. Guest\r
+and Mr. Wakem were on friendly dining terms, and the attorney liked to\r
+predominate over a ship-owner and mill-owner who was a little too loud\r
+in the town affairs as well as in his table-talk. For Wakem was not a\r
+mere man of business; he was considered a pleasant fellow in the upper\r
+circles of St. Ogg's--chatted amusingly over his port-wine, did a\r
+little amateur farming, and had certainly been an excellent husband\r
+and father; at church, when he went there, he sat under the handsomest\r
+of mural monuments erected to the memory of his wife. Most men would\r
+have married again under his circumstances, but he was said to be more\r
+tender to his deformed son than most men were to their best-shapen\r
+offspring. Not that Mr. Wakem had not other sons beside Philip; but\r
+toward them he held only a chiaroscuro parentage, and provided for\r
+them in a grade of life duly beneath his own. In this fact, indeed,\r
+there lay the clenching motive to the purchase of Dorlcote Mill. While\r
+Mrs. Tulliver was talking, it had occurred to the rapid-minded lawyer,\r
+among all the other circumstances of the case, that this purchase\r
+would, in a few years to come, furnish a highly suitable position for\r
+a certain favorite lad whom he meant to bring on in the world.\r
+\r
+These were the mental conditions on which Mrs. Tulliver had undertaken\r
+to act persuasively, and had failed; a fact which may receive some\r
+illustration from the remark of a great philosopher, that fly-fishers\r
+fail in preparing their bait so as to make it alluring in the right\r
+quarter, for want of a due acquaintance with the subjectivity of\r
+fishes.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Daylight on the Wreck\r
+\r
+\r
+It was a clear frosty January day on which Mr. Tulliver first came\r
+downstairs. The bright sun on the chestnut boughs and the roofs\r
+opposite his window had made him impatiently declare that he would be\r
+caged up no longer; he thought everywhere would be more cheery under\r
+this sunshine than his bedroom; for he knew nothing of the bareness\r
+below, which made the flood of sunshine importunate, as if it had an\r
+unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places, and the marks where\r
+well-known objects once had been. The impression on his mind that it\r
+was but yesterday when he received the letter from Mr. Gore was so\r
+continually implied in his talk, and the attempts to convey to him the\r
+idea that many weeks had passed and much had happened since then had\r
+been so soon swept away by recurrent forgetfulness, that even Mr.\r
+Turnbull had begun to despair of preparing him to meet the facts by\r
+previous knowledge. The full sense of the present could only be\r
+imparted gradually by new experience,--not by mere words, which must\r
+remain weaker than the impressions left by the _old_ experience. This\r
+resolution to come downstairs was heard with trembling by the wife and\r
+children. Mrs. Tulliver said Tom must not go to St. Ogg's at the usual\r
+hour, he must wait and see his father downstairs; and Tom complied,\r
+though with an intense inward shrinking from the painful scene. The\r
+hearts of all three had been more deeply dejected than ever during the\r
+last few days. For Guest & Co. had not bought the mill; both mill and\r
+land had been knocked down to Wakem, who had been over the premises,\r
+and had laid before Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg, in Mrs. Tulliver's\r
+presence, his willingness to employ Mr. Tulliver, in case of his\r
+recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposition had\r
+occasioned much family debating. Uncles and aunts were almost\r
+unanimously of opinion that such an offer ought not to be rejected\r
+when there was nothing in the way but a feeling in Mr. Tulliver's\r
+mind, which, as neither aunts nor uncles shared it, was regarded as\r
+entirely unreasonable and childish,--indeed, as a transferring toward\r
+Wakem of that indignation and hatred which Mr. Tulliver ought properly\r
+to have directed against himself for his general quarrelsomeness, and\r
+his special exhibition of it in going to law. Here was an opportunity\r
+for Mr. Tulliver to provide for his wife and daughter without any\r
+assistance from his wife's relations, and without that too evident\r
+descent into pauperism which makes it annoying to respectable people\r
+to meet the degraded member of the family by the wayside. Mr.\r
+Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg considered, must be made to feel, when he came to\r
+his right mind, that he could never humble himself enough; for _that_\r
+had come which she had always foreseen would come of his insolence in\r
+time past "to them as were the best friends he'd got to look to." Mr\r
+Glegg and Mr. Deane were less stern in their views, but they both of\r
+them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his hot-tempered\r
+crotchets and ought to put them out of the question when a livelihood\r
+was offered him; Wakem showed a right feeling about the matter,--_he_\r
+had no grudge against Tulliver.\r
+\r
+Tom had protested against entertaining the proposition. He shouldn't\r
+like his father to be under Wakem; he thought it would look\r
+mean-spirited; but his mother's main distress was the utter\r
+impossibility of ever "turning Mr. Tulliver round about Wakem," or\r
+getting him to hear reason; no, they would all have to go and live in\r
+a pigsty on purpose to spite Wakem, who spoke "so as nobody could be\r
+fairer." Indeed, Mrs. Tulliver's mind was reduced to such confusion by\r
+living in this strange medium of unaccountable sorrow, against which\r
+she continually appealed by asking, "Oh dear, what _have_ I done to\r
+deserve worse than other women?" that Maggie began to suspect her poor\r
+mother's wits were quite going.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, when they were out of their father's room together,\r
+"we _must_ try to make father understand a little of what has happened\r
+before he goes downstairs. But we must get my mother away. She will\r
+say something that will do harm. Ask Kezia to fetch her down, and keep\r
+her engaged with something in the kitchen."\r
+\r
+Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her intention of staying\r
+till the master could get about again, "wage or no wage," she had\r
+found a certain recompense in keeping a strong hand over her mistress,\r
+scolding her for "moithering" herself, and going about all day without\r
+changing her cap, and looking as if she was "mushed." Altogether, this\r
+time of trouble was rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia; she could\r
+scold her betters with unreproved freedom. On this particular occasion\r
+there were drying clothes to be fetched in; she wished to know if one\r
+pair of hands could do everything in-doors and out, and observed that\r
+_she_ should have thought it would be good for Mrs. Tulliver to put on\r
+her bonnet, and get a breath of fresh air by doing that needful piece\r
+of work. Poor Mrs. Tulliver went submissively downstairs; to be\r
+ordered about by a servant was the last remnant of her household\r
+dignities,--she would soon have no servant to scold her. Mr. Tulliver\r
+was resting in his chair a little after the fatigue of dressing, and\r
+Maggie and Tom were seated near him, when Luke entered to ask if he\r
+should help master downstairs.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, Luke; stop a bit, sit down," said Mr. Tulliver pointing his\r
+stick toward a chair, and looking at him with that pursuant gaze which\r
+convalescent persons often have for those who have tended them,\r
+reminding one of an infant gazing about after its nurse. For Luke had\r
+been a constant night-watcher by his master's bed.\r
+\r
+"How's the water now, eh, Luke?" said Mr. Tulliver. "Dix hasn't been\r
+choking you up again, eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, it's all right."\r
+\r
+"Ay, I thought not; he won't be in a hurry at that again, now Riley's\r
+been to settle him. That was what I said to Riley yesterday--I\r
+said----"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver leaned forward, resting his elbows on the armchair, and\r
+looking on the ground as if in search of something, striving after\r
+vanishing images like a man struggling against a doze. Maggie looked\r
+at Tom in mute distress, their father's mind was so far off the\r
+present, which would by-and-by thrust itself on his wandering\r
+consciousness! Tom was almost ready to rush away, with that impatience\r
+of painful emotion which makes one of the differences between youth\r
+and maiden, man and woman.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Maggie, laying her hand on his, "don't you remember\r
+that Mr. Riley is dead?"\r
+\r
+"Dead?" said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, looking in her face with a\r
+strange, examining glance.\r
+\r
+"Yes, he died of apoplexy nearly a year ago. I remember hearing you\r
+say you had to pay money for him; and he left his daughters badly off;\r
+one of them is under-teacher at Miss Firniss's, where I've been to\r
+school, you know."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her face. But as\r
+soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look at _him_ with the same\r
+inquiring glances, as if he were rather surprised at the presence of\r
+these two young people. Whenever his mind was wandering in the far\r
+past, he fell into this oblivion of their actual faces; they were not\r
+those of the lad and the little wench who belonged to that past.\r
+\r
+"It's a long while since you had the dispute with Dix, father," said\r
+Tom. "I remember your talking about it three years ago, before I went\r
+to school at Mr. Stelling's. I've been at school there three years;\r
+don't you remember?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the childlike\r
+outward glance under a rush of new ideas, which diverted him from\r
+external impressions.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay," he said, after a minute or two, "I've paid a deal o'\r
+money--I was determined my son should have a good eddication; I'd none\r
+myself, and I've felt the miss of it. And he'll want no other fortin,\r
+that's what I say--if Wakem was to get the better of me again----"\r
+\r
+The thought of Wakem roused new vibrations, and after a moment's pause\r
+he began to look at the coat he had on, and to feel in his\r
+side-pocket. Then he turned to Tom, and said in his old sharp way,\r
+"Where have they put Gore's letter?"\r
+\r
+It was close at hand in a drawer, for he had often asked for it\r
+before.\r
+\r
+"You know what there is in the letter, father?" said Tom, as he gave\r
+it to him.\r
+\r
+"To be sure I do," said Mr. Tulliver, rather angrily. "What o' that?\r
+If Furley can't take to the property, somebody else can; there's\r
+plenty o' people in the world besides Furley. But it's hindering--my\r
+not being well--go and tell 'em to get the horse in the gig, Luke; I\r
+can get down to St. Ogg's well enough--Gore's expecting me."\r
+\r
+"No, dear father!" Maggie burst out entreatingly; "it's a very long\r
+while since all that; you've been ill a great many weeks,--more than\r
+two months; everything is changed."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver looked at them all three alternately with a startled\r
+gaze; the idea that much had happened of which he knew nothing had\r
+often transiently arrested him before, but it came upon him now with\r
+entire novelty.\r
+\r
+"Yes, father," said Tom, in answer to the gaze. "You needn't trouble\r
+your mind about business until you are quite well; everything is\r
+settled about that for the present,--about the mill and the land and\r
+the debts."\r
+\r
+"What's settled, then?" said his father, angrily.\r
+\r
+"Don't you take on too much bout it, sir," said Luke. "You'd ha' paid\r
+iverybody if you could,--that's what I said to Master Tom,--I said\r
+you'd ha' paid iverybody if you could."\r
+\r
+Good Luke felt, after the manner of contented hard-working men whose\r
+lives have been spent in servitude, that sense of natural fitness in\r
+rank which made his master's downfall a tragedy to him. He was urged,\r
+in his slow way, to say something that would express his share in the\r
+family sorrow; and these words, which he had used over and over again\r
+to Tom when he wanted to decline the full payment of his fifty pounds\r
+out of the children's money, were the most ready to his tongue. They\r
+were just the words to lay the most painful hold on his master's\r
+bewildered mind.\r
+\r
+"Paid everybody?" he said, with vehement agitation, his face flushing,\r
+and his eye lighting up. "Why--what--have they made me a _bankrupt?_"\r
+\r
+"Oh, father, dear father!" said Maggie, who thought that terrible word\r
+really represented the fact; "bear it well, because we love you; your\r
+children will always love you. Tom will pay them all; he says he will,\r
+when he's a man."\r
+\r
+She felt her father beginning to tremble; his voice trembled too, as\r
+he said, after a few moments:\r
+\r
+"Ay, my little wench, but I shall never live twice o'er."\r
+\r
+"But perhaps you will live to see me pay everybody, father," said Tom,\r
+speaking with a great effort.\r
+\r
+"Ah, my lad," said Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head slowly, "but what's\r
+broke can never be whole again; it 'ud be your doing, not mine." Then\r
+looking up at him, "You're only sixteen; it's an up-hill fight for\r
+you, but you mustn't throw it at your father; the raskills have been\r
+too many for him. I've given you a good eddication,--that'll start\r
+you."\r
+\r
+Something in his throat half choked the last words; the flush, which\r
+had alarmed his children because it had so often preceded a recurrence\r
+of paralysis, had subsided, and his face looked pale and tremulous.\r
+Tom said nothing; he was still struggling against his inclination to\r
+rush away. His father remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did\r
+not seem to be wandering again.\r
+\r
+"Have they sold me up, then?" he said more calmly, as if he were\r
+possessed simply by the desire to know what had happened.\r
+\r
+"Everything is sold, father; but we don't know all about the mill and\r
+the land yet," said Tom, anxious to ward off any question leading to\r
+the fact that Wakem was the purchaser.\r
+\r
+"You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare downstairs,\r
+father," said Maggie; "but there's your chair and the bureau;\r
+_they're_ not gone."\r
+\r
+"Let us go; help me down, Luke,--I'll go and see everything," said Mr.\r
+Tulliver, leaning on his stick, and stretching out his other hand\r
+toward Luke.\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, as he gave his arm to his master, "you'll make\r
+up your mind to't a bit better when you've seen iverything; you'll get\r
+used to't. That's what my mother says about her shortness o'\r
+breath,--she says she's made friends wi't now, though she fought\r
+again' it sore when it just come on."\r
+\r
+Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary parlor,\r
+where the fire, dulled by the frosty sunshine, seemed part of the\r
+general shabbiness. She turned her father's chair, and pushed aside\r
+the table to make an easy way for him, and then stood with a beating\r
+heart to see him enter and look round for the first time. Tom advanced\r
+before him, carrying the leg-rest, and stood beside Maggie on the\r
+hearth. Of those two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed\r
+pain, for Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the\r
+sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave\r
+breathing-space to her passionate nature. No true boy feels that; he\r
+would rather go and slay the Nemean lion, or perform any round of\r
+heroic labors, than endure perpetual appeals to his pity, for evils\r
+over which he can make no conquest.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver paused just inside the door, resting on Luke, and looking\r
+round him at all the bare places, which for him were filled with the\r
+shadows of departed objects,--the daily companions of his life. His\r
+faculties seemed to be renewing their strength from getting a footing\r
+on this demonstration of the senses.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" he said slowly, moving toward his chair, "they've sold me\r
+up--they've sold me up."\r
+\r
+Then seating himself, and laying down his stick, while Luke left the\r
+room, he looked round again.\r
+\r
+"They've left the big Bible," he said. "It's got everything in,--when\r
+I was born and married; bring it me, Tom."\r
+\r
+The quarto Bible was laid open before him at the fly-leaf, and while\r
+he was reading with slowly travelling eyes Mrs. Tulliver entered the\r
+room, but stood in mute surprise to find her husband down already, and\r
+with the great Bible before him.\r
+\r
+"Ah," he said, looking at a spot where his finger rested, "my mother\r
+was Margaret Beaton; she died when she was forty-seven,--hers wasn't a\r
+long-lived family; we're our mother's children, Gritty and me are,--we\r
+shall go to our last bed before long."\r
+\r
+He seemed to be pausing over the record of his sister's birth and\r
+marriage, as if it were suggesting new thoughts to him; then he\r
+suddenly looked up at Tom, and said, in a sharp tone of alarm:\r
+\r
+"They haven't come upo' Moss for the money as I lent him, have they?"\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Tom; "the note was burnt."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver turned his eyes on the page again, and presently said:\r
+\r
+"Ah--Elizabeth Dodson--it's eighteen year since I married her----"\r
+\r
+"Come next Ladyday," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to his side and\r
+looking at the page.\r
+\r
+Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.\r
+\r
+"Poor Bessy," he said, "you was a pretty lass then,--everybody said\r
+so,--and I used to think you kept your good looks rarely. But you're\r
+sorely aged; don't you bear me ill-will--I meant to do well by you--we\r
+promised one another for better or for worse----"\r
+\r
+"But I never thought it 'ud be so for worse as this," said poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, with the strange, scared look that had come over her of\r
+late; "and my poor father gave me away--and to come on so all at\r
+once----"\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother!" said Maggie, "don't talk in that way."\r
+\r
+"No, I know you won't let your poor mother speak--that's been the way\r
+all my life--your father never minded what I said--it 'ud have been o'\r
+no use for me to beg and pray--and it 'ud be no use now, not if I was\r
+to go down o' my hands and knees----"\r
+\r
+"Don't say so, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, whose pride, in these first\r
+moments of humiliation, was in abeyance to the sense of some justice\r
+in his wife's reproach. "It there's anything left as I could do to\r
+make you amends, I wouldn't say you nay."\r
+\r
+"Then we might stay here and get a living, and I might keep among my\r
+own sisters,--and me been such a good wife to you, and never crossed\r
+you from week's end to week's end--and they all say so--they say it\r
+'ud be nothing but right, only you're so turned against Wakem."\r
+\r
+"Mother," said Tom, severely, "this is not the time to talk about\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"Let her be," said Mr. Tulliver. "Say what you mean, Bessy."\r
+\r
+"Why, now the mill and the land's all Wakem's, and he's got everything\r
+in his hands, what's the use o' setting your face against him, when he\r
+says you may stay here, and speaks as fair as can be, and says you may\r
+manage the business, and have thirty shillings a-week, and a horse to\r
+ride about to market? And where have we got to put our heads? We must\r
+go into one o' the cottages in the village,--and me and my children\r
+brought down to that,--and all because you must set your mind against\r
+folks till there's no turning you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver had sunk back in his chair trembling.\r
+\r
+"You may do as you like wi' me, Bessy," he said, in a low voice; "I've\r
+been the bringing of you to poverty--this world's too many for me--I'm\r
+nought but a bankrupt; it's no use standing up for anything now."\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, "I don't agree with my mother or my uncles, and I\r
+don't think you ought to submit to be under Wakem. I get a pound\r
+a-week now, and you can find something else to do when you get well."\r
+\r
+"Say no more, Tom, say no more; I've had enough for this day. Give me\r
+a kiss, Bessy, and let us bear one another no ill-will; we shall never\r
+be young again--this world's been too many for me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+An Item Added to the Family Register\r
+\r
+\r
+That first moment of renunciation and submission was followed by days\r
+of violent struggle in the miller's mind, as the gradual access of\r
+bodily strength brought with it increasing ability to embrace in one\r
+view all the conflicting conditions under which he found himself.\r
+Feeble limbs easily resign themselves to be tethered, and when we are\r
+subdued by sickness it seems possible to us to fulfil pledges which\r
+the old vigor comes back and breaks. There were times when poor\r
+Tulliver thought the fulfilment of his promise to Bessy was something\r
+quite too hard for human nature; he had promised her without knowing\r
+what she was going to say,--she might as well have asked him to carry\r
+a ton weight on his back. But again, there were many feelings arguing\r
+on her side, besides the sense that life had been made hard to her by\r
+having married him. He saw a possibility, by much pinching, of saving\r
+money out of his salary toward paying a second dividend to his\r
+creditors, and it would not be easy elsewhere to get a situation such\r
+as he could fill.\r
+\r
+He had led an easy life, ordering much and working little, and had no\r
+aptitude for any new business. He must perhaps take to day-labor, and\r
+his wife must have help from her sisters,--a prospect doubly bitter to\r
+him, now they had let all Bessy's precious things be sold, probably\r
+because they liked to set her against him, by making her feel that he\r
+had brought her to that pass. He listened to their admonitory talk,\r
+when they came to urge on him what he was bound to do for poor Bessy's\r
+sake, with averted eyes, that every now and then flashed on them\r
+furtively when their backs were turned. Nothing but the dread of\r
+needing their help could have made it an easier alternative to take\r
+their advice.\r
+\r
+But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old premises\r
+where he had run about when he was a boy, just as Tom had done after\r
+him. The Tullivers had lived on this spot for generations, and he had\r
+sat listening on a low stool on winter evenings while his father\r
+talked of the old half-timbered mill that had been there before the\r
+last great floods which damaged it so that his grandfather pulled it\r
+down and built the new one. It was when he got able to walk about and\r
+look at all the old objects that he felt the strain of his clinging\r
+affection for the old home as part of his life, part of himself. He\r
+couldn't bear to think of himself living on any other spot than this,\r
+where he knew the sound of every gate door, and felt that the shape\r
+and color of every roof and weather-stain and broken hillock was good,\r
+because his growing senses had been fed on them. Our instructed\r
+vagrancy, which was hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs\r
+away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and\r
+banyans,--which is nourished on books of travel and stretches the\r
+theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi,--can hardly get a dim\r
+notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver felt for this spot,\r
+where all his memories centred, and where life seemed like a familiar\r
+smooth-handled tool that the fingers clutch with loving ease. And just\r
+now he was living in that freshened memory of the far-off time which\r
+comes to us in the passive hours of recovery from sickness.\r
+\r
+"Ay, Luke," he said one afternoon, as he stood looking over the\r
+orchard gate, "I remember the day they planted those apple-trees. My\r
+father was a huge man for planting,--it was like a merry-making to him\r
+to get a cart full o' young trees; and I used to stand i' the cold\r
+with him, and follow him about like a dog."\r
+\r
+Then he turned round, and leaning against the gate-post, looked at the\r
+opposite buildings.\r
+\r
+"The old mill 'ud miss me, I think, Luke. There's a story as when the\r
+mill changes hands, the river's angry; I've heard my father say it\r
+many a time. There's no telling whether there mayn't be summat _in_\r
+the story, for this is a puzzling world, and Old Harry's got a finger\r
+in it--it's been too many for me, I know."\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, with soothing sympathy, "what wi' the rust on\r
+the wheat, an' the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as I've seen i' my\r
+time,--things often looks comical; there's the bacon fat wi' our last\r
+pig run away like butter,--it leaves nought but a scratchin'."\r
+\r
+"It's just as if it was yesterday, now," Mr. Tulliver went on, "when\r
+my father began the malting. I remember, the day they finished the\r
+malt-house, I thought summat great was to come of it; for we'd a\r
+plum-pudding that day and a bit of a feast, and I said to my\r
+mother,--she was a fine dark-eyed woman, my mother was,--the little\r
+wench 'ull be as like her as two peas." Here Mr. Tulliver put his\r
+stick between his legs, and took out his snuff-box, for the greater\r
+enjoyment of this anecdote, which dropped from him in fragments, as if\r
+he every other moment lost narration in vision. "I was a little chap\r
+no higher much than my mother's knee,--she was sore fond of us\r
+children, Gritty and me,--and so I said to her, 'Mother,' I said,\r
+'shall we have plum-pudding _every_ day because o' the malt-house? She\r
+used to tell me o' that till her dying day. She was but a young woman\r
+when she died, my mother was. But it's forty good year since they\r
+finished the malt-house, and it isn't many days out of 'em all as I\r
+haven't looked out into the yard there, the first thing in the\r
+morning,--all weathers, from year's end to year's end. I should go off\r
+my head in a new place. I should be like as if I'd lost my way. It's\r
+all hard, whichever way I look at it,--the harness 'ull gall me, but\r
+it 'ud be summat to draw along the old road, instead of a new un."\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir," said Luke, "you'd be a deal better here nor in some new\r
+place. I can't abide new places mysen: things is allays\r
+awk'ard,--narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles all another\r
+sort, an' oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th' head o' the Floss,\r
+there. It's poor work, changing your country-side."\r
+\r
+"But I doubt, Luke, they'll be for getting rid o' Ben, and making you\r
+do with a lad; and I must help a bit wi' the mill. You'll have a worse\r
+place."\r
+\r
+"Ne'er mind, sir," said Luke, "I sha'n't plague mysen. I'n been wi'\r
+you twenty year, an' you can't get twenty year wi' whistlin' for 'em,\r
+no more nor you can make the trees grow: you mun wait till God\r
+A'mighty sends 'em. I can't abide new victual nor new faces, _I_\r
+can't,--you niver know but what they'll gripe you."\r
+\r
+The walk was finished in silence after this, for Luke had disburthened\r
+himself of thoughts to an extent that left his conversational\r
+resources quite barren, and Mr. Tulliver had relapsed from his\r
+recollections into a painful meditation on the choice of hardships\r
+before him. Maggie noticed that he was unusually absent that evening\r
+at tea; and afterward he sat leaning forward in his chair, looking at\r
+the ground, moving his lips, and shaking his head from time to time.\r
+Then he looked hard at Mrs. Tulliver, who was knitting opposite him,\r
+then at Maggie, who, as she bent over her sewing, was intensely\r
+conscious of some drama going forward in her father's mind. Suddenly\r
+he took up the poker and broke the large coal fiercely.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, Mr. Tulliver, what can you be thinking of?" said his\r
+wife, looking up in alarm; "it's very wasteful, breaking the coal, and\r
+we've got hardly any large coal left, and I don't know where the rest\r
+is to come from."\r
+\r
+"I don't think you're quite so well to-night, are you, father?" said\r
+Maggie; "you seem uneasy."\r
+\r
+"Why, how is it Tom doesn't come?" said Mr. Tulliver, impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart, is it time? I must go and get his supper," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room.\r
+\r
+"It's nigh upon half-past eight," said Mr. Tulliver. "He'll be here\r
+soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open it at the beginning,\r
+where everything's set down. And get the pen and ink."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed, wondering; but her father gave no further orders, and\r
+only sat listening for Tom's footfall on the gravel, apparently\r
+irritated by the wind, which had risen, and was roaring so as to drown\r
+all other sounds. There was a strange light in his eyes that rather\r
+frightened Maggie; _she_ began to wish that Tom would come, too.\r
+\r
+"There he is, then," said Mr. Tulliver, in an excited way, when the\r
+knock came at last. Maggie went to open the door, but her mother came\r
+out of the kitchen hurriedly, saying, "Stop a bit, Maggie; I'll open\r
+it."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Tulliver had begun to be a little frightened at her boy, but she\r
+was jealous of every office others did for him.\r
+\r
+"Your supper's ready by the kitchen-fire, my boy," she said, as he\r
+took off his hat and coat. "You shall have it by yourself, just as you\r
+like, and I won't speak to you."\r
+\r
+"I think my father wants Tom, mother," said Maggie; "he must come into\r
+the parlor first."\r
+\r
+Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his eyes fell\r
+immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and he glanced with a\r
+look of anxious surprise at his father, who was saying,--\r
+\r
+"Come, come, you're late; I want you."\r
+\r
+"Is there anything the matter, father?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+"You sit down, all of you," said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily.\r
+\r
+"And, Tom, sit down here; I've got something for you to write i' the\r
+Bible."\r
+\r
+They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak slowly,\r
+looking first at his wife.\r
+\r
+"I've made up my mind, Bessy, and I'll be as good as my word to you.\r
+There'll be the same grave made for us to lie down in, and we mustn't\r
+be bearing one another ill-will. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll\r
+serve under Wakem, and I'll serve him like an honest man; there's no\r
+Tulliver but what's honest, mind that, Tom,"--here his voice\r
+rose,--"they'll have it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend,\r
+but it wasn't my fault; it was because there's raskills in the world.\r
+They've been too many for me, and I must give in. I'll put my neck in\r
+harness,--for you've a right to say as I've brought you into trouble,\r
+Bessy,--and I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill; I'm an\r
+honest man, though I shall never hold my head up no more. I'm a tree\r
+as is broke--a tree as is broke."\r
+\r
+He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he\r
+said, in a louder yet deeper tone:\r
+\r
+"But I won't forgive him! I know what they say, he never meant me any\r
+harm. That's the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He's been at the\r
+bottom of everything; but he's a fine gentleman,--I know, I know. I\r
+shouldn't ha' gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was\r
+no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him,\r
+I know that; he's one o' them fine gentlemen as get money by doing\r
+business for poorer folks, and when he's made beggars of 'em he'll\r
+give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish he might be punished\r
+with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him. I wish he may do\r
+summat as they'd make him work at the treadmill! But he won't,--he's\r
+too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him. And you mind this,\r
+Tom,--you never forgive him neither, if you mean to be my son.\r
+There'll maybe come a time when you may make him feel; it'll never\r
+come to me; I'n got my head under the yoke. Now write--write it i' the\r
+Bible."\r
+\r
+"Oh, father, what?" said Maggie, sinking down by his knee, pale and\r
+trembling. "It's wicked to curse and bear malice."\r
+\r
+"It isn't wicked, I tell you," said her father, fiercely. "It's wicked\r
+as the raskills should prosper; it's the Devil's doing. Do as I tell\r
+you, Tom. Write."\r
+\r
+"What am I to write?" said Tom, with gloomy submission.\r
+\r
+"Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem,\r
+the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to\r
+make her what amends I could for her trouble, and because I wanted to\r
+die in th' old place where I was born and my father was born. Put that\r
+i' the right words--you know how--and then write, as I don't forgive\r
+Wakem for all that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may\r
+befall him. Write that."\r
+\r
+There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper; Mrs.\r
+Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf.\r
+\r
+"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver, Tom read aloud\r
+slowly.\r
+\r
+"Now write--write as you'll remember what Wakem's done to your father,\r
+and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the day comes. And sign\r
+your name Thomas Tulliver."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, father, dear father!" said Maggie, almost choked with fear.\r
+"You shouldn't make Tom write that."\r
+\r
+"Be quiet, Maggie!" said Tom. "I _shall_ write it."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book IV\r
+\r
+_The Valley of Humiliation_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+A Variation of Protestantism Unknown to Bossuet\r
+\r
+\r
+Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have perhaps felt the\r
+sunshine made dreary by those ruined villages which stud the banks in\r
+certain parts of its course, telling how the swift river once rose,\r
+like an angry, destroying god, sweeping down the feeble generations\r
+whose breath is in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a\r
+desolation. Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the\r
+effect produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace\r
+houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid life,\r
+belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era, and the effect\r
+produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which have crumbled and\r
+mellowed into such harmony with the green and rocky steeps that they\r
+seem to have a natural fitness, like the mountain-pine; nay, even in\r
+the day when they were built they must have had this fitness, as if\r
+they had been raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from\r
+their mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a day of\r
+romance; If those robber-barons were somewhat grim and drunken ogres,\r
+they had a certain grandeur of the wild beast in them,--they were\r
+forest boars with tusks, tearing and rending, not the ordinary\r
+domestic grunter; they represented the demon forces forever in\r
+collision with beauty, virtue, and the gentle uses of life; they made\r
+a fine contrast in the picture with the wandering minstrel, the\r
+soft-lipped princess, the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That\r
+was a time of color, when the sunlight fell on glancing steel and\r
+floating banners; a time of adventure and fierce struggle,--nay, of\r
+living, religious art and religious enthusiasm; for were not\r
+cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors leave their\r
+Western palaces to die before the infidel strongholds in the sacred\r
+East? Therefore it is that these Rhine castles thrill me with a sense\r
+of poetry; they belong to the grand historic life of humanity, and\r
+raise up for me the vision of an echo. But these dead-tinted,\r
+hollow-eyed, angular skeletons of villages on the Rhone oppress me\r
+with the feeling that human life--very much of it--is a narrow, ugly,\r
+grovelling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather\r
+tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception; and I have a\r
+cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces of were\r
+part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be swept into the\r
+same oblivion with the generations of ants and beavers.\r
+\r
+Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have weighed\r
+upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life on the banks of\r
+the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices to lift above the level\r
+of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life, you say, this of the\r
+Tullivers and Dodsons, irradiated by no sublime principles, no\r
+romantic visions, no active, self-renouncing faith; moved by none of\r
+those wild, uncontrollable passions which create the dark shadows of\r
+misery and crime; without that primitive, rough simplicity of wants,\r
+that hard, submissive, ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of\r
+what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life. Here\r
+one has conventional worldly notions and habits without instruction\r
+and without polish, surely the most prosaic form of human life; proud\r
+respectability in a gig of unfashionable build; worldliness without\r
+side-dishes. Observing these people narrowly, even when the iron hand\r
+of misfortune has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the\r
+world, one sees little trace of religion, still less of a\r
+distinctively Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as\r
+it manifests itself at all, seems to be rather a pagan kind; their\r
+moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem to have no\r
+standard beyond hereditary custom. You could not live among such\r
+people; you are stifled for want of an outlet toward something\r
+beautiful, great, or noble; you are irritated with these dull men and\r
+women, as a kind of population out of keeping with the earth on which\r
+they live,--with this rich plain where the great river flows forever\r
+onward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with the\r
+beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous superstition, that\r
+lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be more congruous\r
+with the mystery of the human lot, than the mental condition of these\r
+emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.\r
+\r
+I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness; but it is\r
+necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand how it\r
+acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie,--how it has acted on young\r
+natures in many generations, that in the onward tendency of human\r
+things have risen above the mental level of the generation before\r
+them, to which they have been nevertheless tied by the strongest\r
+fibres of their hearts. The suffering, whether of martyr or victim,\r
+which belongs to every historical advance of mankind, is represented\r
+in this way in every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths; and we\r
+need not shrink from this comparison of small things with great; for\r
+does not science tell us that its highest striving is after the\r
+ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest things with the\r
+greatest? In natural science, I have understood, there is nothing\r
+petty to the mind that has a large vision of relations, and to which\r
+every single object suggests a vast sum of conditions. It is surely\r
+the same with the observation of human life.\r
+\r
+Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and Tullivers\r
+were of too specific a kind to be arrived at deductively, from the\r
+statement that they were part of the Protestant population of Great\r
+Britain. Their theory of life had its core of soundness, as all\r
+theories must have on which decent and prosperous families have been\r
+reared and have flourished; but it had the very slightest tincture of\r
+theology. If, in the maiden days of the Dodson sisters, their Bibles\r
+opened more easily at some parts than others, it was because of dried\r
+tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impartially, without\r
+preference for the historical, devotional, or doctrinal. Their\r
+religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind, but there was no heresy in\r
+it,--if heresy properly means choice,--for they didn't know there was\r
+any other religion, except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run\r
+in families, like asthma. How _should_ they know? The vicar of their\r
+pleasant rural parish was not a controversialist, but a good hand at\r
+whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a blooming female\r
+parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons consisted in revering\r
+whatever was customary and respectable; it was necessary to be\r
+baptized, else one could not be buried in the church-yard, and to take\r
+the sacrament before death, as a security against more dimly\r
+understood perils; but it was of equal necessity to have the proper\r
+pall-bearers and well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an\r
+unimpeachable will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission of\r
+anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eternal fitness\r
+of things which was plainly indicated in the practice of the most\r
+substantial parishioners, and in the family traditions,--such as\r
+obedience to parents, faithfulness to kindred, industry, rigid\r
+honesty, thrift, the thorough scouring of wooden and copper utensils,\r
+the hoarding of coins likely to disappear from the currency, the\r
+production of first-rate commodities for the market, and the general\r
+preference of whatever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud\r
+race, and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to\r
+tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A wholesome\r
+pride in many respects, since it identified honor with perfect\r
+integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness to admitted rules;\r
+and society owes some worthy qualities in many of her members to\r
+mothers of the Dodson class, who made their butter and their fromenty\r
+well, and would have felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest\r
+and poor was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though\r
+being poor; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich, and\r
+not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live respected, and\r
+have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an achievement of the\r
+ends of existence that would be entirely nullified if, on the reading\r
+of your will, you sank in the opinion of your fellow-men, either by\r
+turning out to be poorer than they expected, or by leaving your money\r
+in a capricious manner, without strict regard to degrees of kin. The\r
+right thing must always be done toward kindred. The right thing was to\r
+correct them severely, if they were other than a credit to the family,\r
+but still not to alienate from them the smallest rightful share in the\r
+family shoebuckles and other property. A conspicuous quality in the\r
+Dodson character was its genuineness; its vices and virtues alike were\r
+phases of a proud honest egoism, which had a hearty dislike to\r
+whatever made against its own credit and interest, and would be\r
+frankly hard of speech to inconvenient "kin," but would never forsake\r
+or ignore them,--would not let them want bread, but only require them\r
+to eat it with bitter herbs.\r
+\r
+The same sort of traditional belief ran in the Tulliver veins, but it\r
+was carried in richer blood, having elements of generous imprudence,\r
+warm affection, and hot-tempered rashness. Mr. Tulliver's grandfather\r
+had been heard to say that he was descended from one Ralph Tulliver, a\r
+wonderfully clever fellow, who had ruined himself. It is likely enough\r
+that the clever Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was\r
+very decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had ever\r
+heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself; it was not the way of that\r
+family.\r
+\r
+If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and Tullivers had\r
+been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt and high prices, you will\r
+infer from what you already know concerning the state of society in\r
+St. Ogg's, that there had been no highly modifying influence to act on\r
+them in their maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later\r
+time of anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas,\r
+and believe themselves good church-people, notwithstanding; so we need\r
+hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. Tulliver, though a\r
+regular church-goer, recorded his vindictiveness on the fly-leaf of\r
+his Bible. It was not that any harm could be said concerning the vicar\r
+of that charming rural parish to which Dorlcote Mill belonged; he was\r
+a man of excellent family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant\r
+pursuits,--had taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver\r
+regarded him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging\r
+to the church-service; but he considered that church was one thing and\r
+common-sense another, and he wanted nobody to tell _him_ what\r
+commonsense was. Certain seeds which are required to find a nidus for\r
+themselves under unfavorable circumstances have been supplied by\r
+nature with an apparatus of hooks, so that they will get a hold on\r
+very unreceptive surfaces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered\r
+over Mr. Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding\r
+provision, and had slipped off to the winds again, from a total\r
+absence of hooks.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+The Torn Nest Is Pierced by the Thorns\r
+\r
+\r
+There is something sustaining in the very agitation that accompanies\r
+the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain is often a\r
+stimulus, and produces an excitement which is transient strength. It\r
+is in the slow, changed life that follows; in the time when sorrow has\r
+become stale, and has no longer an emotive intensity that counteracts\r
+its pain; in the time when day follows day in dull, unexpectant\r
+sameness, and trial is a dreary routine,--it is then that despair\r
+threatens; it is then that the peremptory hunger of the soul is felt,\r
+and eye and ear are strained after some unlearned secret of our\r
+existence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction.\r
+\r
+This time of utmost need was come to Maggie, with her short span of\r
+thirteen years. To the usual precocity of the girl, she added that\r
+early experience of struggle, of conflict between the inward impulse\r
+and outward fact, which is the lot of every imaginative and passionate\r
+nature; and the years since she hammered the nails into her wooden\r
+Fetish among the worm-eaten shelves of the attic had been filled with\r
+so eager a life in the triple world of Reality, Books, and Waking\r
+Dreams, that Maggie was strangely old for her years in everything\r
+except in her entire want of that prudence and self-command which were\r
+the qualities that made Tom manly in the midst of his intellectual\r
+boyishness. And now her lot was beginning to have a still, sad\r
+monotony, which threw her more than ever on her inward self. Her\r
+father was able to attend to business again, his affairs were settled,\r
+and he was acting as Wakem's manager on the old spot. Tom went to and\r
+fro every morning and evening, and became more and more silent in the\r
+short intervals at home; what was there to say? One day was like\r
+another; and Tom's interest in life, driven back and crushed on every\r
+other side, was concentrating itself into the one channel of ambitious\r
+resistance to misfortune. The peculiarities of his father and mother\r
+were very irksome to him, now they were laid bare of all the softening\r
+accompaniments of an easy, prosperous home; for Tom had very clear,\r
+prosaic eyes, not apt to be dimmed by mists of feeling or imagination.\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver, it seemed, would never recover her old self, her\r
+placid household activity; how could she? The objects among which her\r
+mind had moved complacently were all gone,--all the little hopes and\r
+schemes and speculations, all the pleasant little cares about her\r
+treasures which had made the world quite comprehensible to her for a\r
+quarter of a century, since she had made her first purchase of the\r
+sugar-tongs, had been suddenly snatched away from her, and she\r
+remained bewildered in this empty life. Why that should have happened\r
+to her which had not happened to other women remained an insoluble\r
+question by which she expressed her perpetual ruminating comparison of\r
+the past with the present. It was piteous to see the comely woman\r
+getting thinner and more worn under a bodily as well as mental\r
+restlessness, which made her often wander about the empty house after\r
+her work was done, until Maggie, becoming alarmed about her, would\r
+seek her, and bring her down by telling her how it vexed Tom that she\r
+was injuring her health by never sitting down and resting herself. Yet\r
+amidst this helpless imbecility there was a touching trait of humble,\r
+self-devoting maternity, which made Maggie feel tenderly toward her\r
+poor mother amidst all the little wearing griefs caused by her mental\r
+feebleness. She would let Maggie do none of the work that was heaviest\r
+and most soiling to the hands, and was quite peevish when Maggie\r
+attempted to relieve her from her grate-brushing and scouring: "Let it\r
+alone, my dear; your hands 'ull get as hard as hard," she would say;\r
+"it's your mother's place to do that. I can't do the sewing--my eyes\r
+fail me." And she would still brush and carefully tend Maggie's hair,\r
+which she had become reconciled to, in spite of its refusal to curl,\r
+now it was so long and massy. Maggie was not her pet child, and, in\r
+general, would have been much better if she had been quite different;\r
+yet the womanly heart, so bruised in its small personal desires, found\r
+a future to rest on in the life of this young thing, and the mother\r
+pleased herself with wearing out her own hands to save the hands that\r
+had so much more life in them.\r
+\r
+But the constant presence of her mother's regretful bewilderment was\r
+less painful to Maggie than that of her father's sullen,\r
+incommunicative depression. As long as the paralysis was upon him, and\r
+it seemed as if he might always be in a childlike condition of\r
+dependence,--as long as he was still only half awakened to his\r
+trouble,--Maggie had felt the strong tide of pitying love almost as an\r
+inspiration, a new power, that would make the most difficult life easy\r
+for his sake; but now, instead of childlike dependence, there had come\r
+a taciturn, hard concentration of purpose, in strange contrast with\r
+his old vehement communicativeness and high spirit; and this lasted\r
+from day to day, and from week to week, the dull eye never brightening\r
+with any eagerness or any joy. It is something cruelly incomprehensible\r
+to youthful natures, this sombre sameness in middle-aged and elderly\r
+people, whose life has resulted in disappointment and discontent, to\r
+whose faces a smile becomes so strange that the sad lines all about\r
+the lips and brow seem to take no notice of it, and it hurries away\r
+again for want of a welcome. "Why will they not kindle up and be\r
+glad sometimes?" thinks young elasticity. "It would be so easy if they\r
+only liked to do it." And these leaden clouds that never part are apt\r
+to create impatience even in the filial affection that streams forth in\r
+nothing but tenderness and pity in the time of more obvious affliction.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver lingered nowhere away from home; he hurried away from\r
+market, he refused all invitations to stay and chat, as in old times,\r
+in the houses where he called on business. He could not be reconciled\r
+with his lot. There was no attitude in which his pride did not feel\r
+its bruises; and in all behavior toward him, whether kind or cold, he\r
+detected an allusion to the change in his circumstances. Even the days\r
+on which Wakem came to ride round the land and inquire into the\r
+business were not so black to him as those market-days on which he had\r
+met several creditors who had accepted a composition from him. To save\r
+something toward the repayment of those creditors was the object\r
+toward which he was now bending all his thoughts and efforts; and\r
+under the influence of this all-compelling demand of his nature, the\r
+somewhat profuse man, who hated to be stinted or to stint any one else\r
+in his own house, was gradually metamorphosed into the keen-eyed\r
+grudger of morsels. Mrs. Tulliver could not economize enough to\r
+satisfy him, in their food and firing; and he would eat nothing\r
+himself but what was of the coarsest quality. Tom, though depressed\r
+and strongly repelled by his father's sullenness, and the dreariness\r
+of home, entered thoroughly into his father's feelings about paying\r
+the creditors; and the poor lad brought his first quarter's money,\r
+with a delicious sense of achievement, and gave it to his father to\r
+put into the tin box which held the savings. The little store of\r
+sovereigns in the tin box seemed to be the only sight that brought a\r
+faint beam of pleasure into the miller's eyes,--faint and transient,\r
+for it was soon dispelled by the thought that the time would be\r
+long--perhaps longer than his life,--before the narrow savings could\r
+remove the hateful incubus of debt. A deficit of more than five\r
+hundred pounds, with the accumulating interest, seemed a deep pit to\r
+fill with the savings from thirty shillings a-week, even when Tom's\r
+probable savings were to be added. On this one point there was entire\r
+community of feeling in the four widely differing beings who sat round\r
+the dying fire of sticks, which made a cheap warmth for them on the\r
+verge of bedtime. Mrs. Tulliver carried the proud integrity of the\r
+Dodsons in her blood, and had been brought up to think that to wrong\r
+people of their money, which was another phrase for debt, was a sort\r
+of moral pillory; it would have been wickedness, to her mind, to have\r
+run counter to her husband's desire to "do the right thing," and\r
+retrieve his name. She had a confused, dreamy notion that, if the\r
+creditors were all paid, her plate and linen ought to come back to\r
+her; but she had an inbred perception that while people owed money\r
+they were unable to pay, they couldn't rightly call anything their\r
+own. She murmured a little that Mr. Tulliver so peremptorily refused\r
+to receive anything in repayment from Mr. and Mrs. Moss; but to all\r
+his requirements of household economy she was submissive to the point\r
+of denying herself the cheapest indulgences of mere flavor; her only\r
+rebellion was to smuggle into the kitchen something that would make\r
+rather a better supper than usual for Tom.\r
+\r
+These narrow notions about debt, held by the old fashioned Tullivers,\r
+may perhaps excite a smile on the faces of many readers in these days\r
+of wide commercial views and wide philosophy, according to which\r
+everything rights itself without any trouble of ours. The fact that my\r
+tradesman is out of pocket by me is to be looked at through the serene\r
+certainty that somebody else's tradesman is in pocket by somebody\r
+else; and since there must be bad debts in the world, why, it is mere\r
+egoism not to like that we in particular should make them instead of\r
+our fellow-citizens. I am telling the history of very simple people,\r
+who had never had any illuminating doubts as to personal integrity and\r
+honor.\r
+\r
+Under all this grim melancholy and narrowing concentration of desire,\r
+Mr. Tulliver retained the feeling toward his "little wench" which made\r
+her presence a need to him, though it would not suffice to cheer him.\r
+She was still the desire of his eyes; but the sweet spring of fatherly\r
+love was now mingled with bitterness, like everything else. When\r
+Maggie laid down her work at night, it was her habit to get a low\r
+stool and sit by her father's knee, leaning her cheek against it. How\r
+she wished he would stroke her head, or give some sign that he was\r
+soothed by the sense that he had a daughter who loved him! But now she\r
+got no answer to her little caresses, either from her father or from\r
+Tom,--the two idols of her life. Tom was weary and abstracted in the\r
+short intervals when he was at home, and her father was bitterly\r
+preoccupied with the thought that the girl was growing up, was\r
+shooting up into a woman; and how was she to do well in life? She had\r
+a poor chance for marrying, down in the world as they were. And he\r
+hated the thought of her marrying poorly, as her aunt Gritty had done;\r
+_that_ would be a thing to make him turn in his grave,--the little\r
+wench so pulled down by children and toil, as her aunt Moss was. When\r
+uncultured minds, confined to a narrow range of personal experience,\r
+are under the pressure of continued misfortune, their inward life is\r
+apt to become a perpetually repeated round of sad and bitter thoughts;\r
+the same words, the same scenes, are revolved over and over again, the\r
+same mood accompanies them; the end of the year finds them as much\r
+what they were at the beginning as if they were machines set to a\r
+recurrent series of movements.\r
+\r
+The sameness of the days was broken by few visitors. Uncles and aunts\r
+paid only short visits now; of course, they could not stay to meals,\r
+and the constraint caused by Mr. Tulliver's savage silence, which\r
+seemed to add to the hollow resonance of the bare, uncarpeted room\r
+when the aunts were talking, heightened the unpleasantness of these\r
+family visits on all sides, and tended to make them rare. As for other\r
+acquaintances, there is a chill air surrounding those who are down in\r
+the world, and people are glad to get away from them, as from a cold\r
+room; human beings, mere men and women, without furniture, without\r
+anything to offer you, who have ceased to count as anybody, present an\r
+embarrassing negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of\r
+subjects on which to converse with them. At that distant day, there\r
+was a dreary isolation in the civilized Christian society of these\r
+realms for families that had dropped below their original level,\r
+unless they belonged to a sectarian church, which gets some warmth of\r
+brotherhood by walling in the sacred fire.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+A Voice from the Past\r
+\r
+\r
+One afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming into flower, Maggie had\r
+brought her chair outside the front door, and was seated there with a\r
+book on her knees. Her dark eyes had wandered from the book, but they\r
+did not seem to be enjoying the sunshine which pierced the screen of\r
+jasmine on the projecting porch at her right, and threw leafy shadows\r
+on her pale round cheek; they seemed rather to be searching for\r
+something that was not disclosed by the sunshine. It had been a more\r
+miserable day than usual; her father, after a visit of Wakem's had had\r
+a paroxysm of rage, in which for some trifling fault he had beaten the\r
+boy who served in the mill. Once before, since his illness, he had had\r
+a similar paroxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and the scene\r
+had left a lasting terror in Maggie's mind. The thought had risen,\r
+that some time or other he might beat her mother if she happened to\r
+speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of all dread\r
+with her was lest her father should add to his present misfortune the\r
+wretchedness of doing something irretrievably disgraceful. The\r
+battered school-book of Tom's which she held on her knees could give\r
+her no fortitude under the pressure of that dread; and again and again\r
+her eyes had filled with tears, as they wandered vaguely, seeing\r
+neither the chestnut-trees, nor the distant horizon, but only future\r
+scenes of home-sorrow.\r
+\r
+Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate and of\r
+footsteps on the gravel. It was not Tom who was entering, but a man in\r
+a sealskin cap and a blue plush waistcoat, carrying a pack on his\r
+back, and followed closely by a bullterrier of brindled coat and\r
+defiant aspect.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Bob, it's you!" said Maggie, starting up with a smile of pleased\r
+recognition, for there had been no abundance of kind acts to efface\r
+the recollection of Bob's generosity; "I'm so glad to see you."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Miss," said Bob, lifting his cap and showing a delighted\r
+face, but immediately relieving himself of some accompanying\r
+embarrassment by looking down at his dog, and saying in a tone of\r
+disgust, "Get out wi' you, you thunderin' sawney!"\r
+\r
+"My brother is not at home yet, Bob," said Maggie; "he is always at\r
+St. Ogg's in the daytime."\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss," said Bob, "I should be glad to see Mr. Tom, but that\r
+isn't just what I'm come for,--look here!"\r
+\r
+Bob was in the act of depositing his pack on the door-step, and with\r
+it a row of small books fastened together with string.\r
+\r
+Apparently, however, they were not the object to which he wished to\r
+call Maggie's attention, but rather something which he had carried\r
+under his arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief.\r
+\r
+"See here!" he said again, laying the red parcel on the others and\r
+unfolding it; "you won't think I'm a-makin' too free, Miss, I hope,\r
+but I lighted on these books, and I thought they might make up to you\r
+a bit for them as you've lost; for I heared you speak o' picturs,--an'\r
+as for picturs, _look_ here!"\r
+\r
+The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a superannuated\r
+"Keepsake" and six or seven numbers of a "Portrait Gallery," in royal\r
+octavo; and the emphatic request to look referred to a portrait of\r
+George the Fourth in all the majesty of his depressed cranium and\r
+voluminous neckcloth.\r
+\r
+"There's all sorts o' genelmen here," Bob went on, turning over the\r
+leaves with some excitement, "wi' all sorts o' nones,--an' some bald\r
+an' some wi' wigs,--Parlament genelmen, I reckon. An' here," he added,\r
+opening the "Keepsake,"--"_here's_ ladies for you, some wi' curly hair\r
+and some wi' smooth, an' some a-smiling wi' their heads o' one side,\r
+an' some as if they were goin' to cry,--look here,--a-sittin' on the\r
+ground out o' door, dressed like the ladies I'n seen get out o' the\r
+carriages at the balls in th' Old Hall there. My eyes! I wonder what\r
+the chaps wear as go a-courtin' 'em! I sot up till the clock was gone\r
+twelve last night, a-lookin' at 'em,--I did,--till they stared at me\r
+out o' the picturs as if they'd know when I spoke to 'em. But, lors! I\r
+shouldn't know what to say to 'em. They'll be more fittin' company for\r
+you, Miss; and the man at the book-stall, he said they banged\r
+iverything for picturs; he said they was a fust-rate article."\r
+\r
+"And you've bought them for me, Bob?" said Maggie, deeply touched by\r
+this simple kindness. "How very, very good of you! But I'm afraid you\r
+gave a great deal of money for them."\r
+\r
+"Not me!" said Bob. "I'd ha' gev three times the money if they'll make\r
+up to you a bit for them as was sold away from you, Miss. For I'n\r
+niver forgot how you looked when you fretted about the books bein'\r
+gone; it's stuck by me as if it was a pictur hingin' before me. An'\r
+when I see'd the book open upo' the stall, wi' the lady lookin' out of\r
+it wi' eyes a bit like your'n when you was frettin',--you'll excuse my\r
+takin' the liberty, Miss,--I thought I'd make free to buy it for you,\r
+an' then I bought the books full o' genelmen to match; an' then"--here\r
+Bob took up the small stringed packet of books--"I thought you might\r
+like a bit more print as well as the picturs, an' I got these for a\r
+sayso,--they're cram-full o' print, an' I thought they'd do no harm\r
+comin' along wi' these bettermost books. An' I hope you won't say me\r
+nay, an' tell me as you won't have 'em, like Mr. Tom did wi' the\r
+suvreigns."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, Bob," said Maggie, "I'm very thankful to you for thinking\r
+of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don't think any one ever did\r
+such a kind thing for me before. I haven't many friends who care for\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Hev a dog, Miss!--they're better friends nor any Christian," said\r
+Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had taken up with the\r
+intention of hurrying away; for he felt considerable shyness in\r
+talking to a young lass like Maggie, though, as he usually said of\r
+himself, "his tongue overrun him" when he began to speak. "I can't\r
+give you Mumps, 'cause he'd break his heart to go away from me--eh,\r
+Mumps, what do you say, you riff-raff?" (Mumps declined to express\r
+himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement of his\r
+tail.) "But I'd get you a pup, Miss, an' welcome."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I mayn't keep a dog of my\r
+own."\r
+\r
+"Eh, that's a pity; else there's a pup,--if you didn't mind about it\r
+not being thoroughbred; its mother acts in the Punch show,--an\r
+uncommon sensible bitch; she means more sense wi' her bark nor half\r
+the chaps can put into their talk from breakfast to sundown. There's\r
+one chap carries pots,--a poor, low trade as any on the road,--he\r
+says, 'Why Toby's nought but a mongrel; there's nought to look at in\r
+her.' But I says to him, 'Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel?\r
+There wasn't much pickin' o' _your_ feyther an' mother, to look at\r
+you.' Not but I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't abide to see\r
+one cur grinnin' at another. I wish you good evenin', Miss," said Bob,\r
+abruptly taking up his pack again, under the consciousness that his\r
+tongue was acting in an undisciplined manner.\r
+\r
+"Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my brother, Bob?"\r
+said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss, thank you--another time. You'll give my duty to him, if\r
+you please. Eh, he's a fine growed chap, Mr. Tom is; he took to\r
+growin' i' the legs, an' _I_ didn't."\r
+\r
+The pack was down again, now, the hook of the stick having somehow\r
+gone wrong.\r
+\r
+"You don't call Mumps a cur, I suppose?" said Maggie, divining that\r
+any interest she showed in Mumps would be gratifying to his master.\r
+\r
+"No, Miss, a fine way off that," said Bob, with pitying smile; "Mumps\r
+is as fine a cross as you'll see anywhere along the Floss, an' I'n\r
+been up it wi' the barge times enow. Why, the gentry stops to look at\r
+him; but you won't catch Mumps a-looking at the gentry much,--he minds\r
+his own business, he does."\r
+\r
+The expression of Mump's face, which seemed to be tolerating the\r
+superfluous existence of objects in general, was strongly confirmatory\r
+of this high praise.\r
+\r
+"He looks dreadfully surly," said Maggie. "Would he let me pat him?"\r
+\r
+"Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his company, Mumps does.\r
+He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi' gingerbread; he'd smell a thief a\r
+good deal stronger nor the gingerbread, he would. Lors, I talk to him\r
+by th' hour together, when I'm walking i' lone places, and if I'n done\r
+a bit o' mischief, I allays tell him. I'n got no secrets but what\r
+Mumps knows 'em. He knows about my big thumb, he does."\r
+\r
+"Your big thumb--what's that, Bob?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"That's what it is, Miss," said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a singularly\r
+broad specimen of that difference between the man and the monkey. "It\r
+tells i' measuring out the flannel, you see. I carry flannel, 'cause\r
+it's light for my pack, an' it's dear stuff, you see, so a big thumb\r
+tells. I clap my thumb at the end o' the yard and cut o' the hither\r
+side of it, and the old women aren't up to't."\r
+\r
+"But Bob," said Maggie, looking serious, "that's cheating; I don't\r
+like to hear you say that."\r
+\r
+"Don't you, Miss?" said Bob regretfully. "Then I'm sorry I said it.\r
+But I'm so used to talking to Mumps, an' he doesn't mind a bit o'\r
+cheating, when it's them skinflint women, as haggle an' haggle, an'\r
+'ud like to get their flannel for nothing, an' 'ud niver ask\r
+theirselves how I got my dinner out on't. I niver cheat anybody as\r
+doesn't want to cheat me, Miss,--lors, I'm a honest chap, I am; only I\r
+must hev a bit o' sport, an' now I don't go wi' th' ferrets, I'n got\r
+no varmint to come over but them haggling women. I wish you good\r
+evening, Miss."\r
+\r
+"Good-by, Bob. Thank you very much for bringing me the books. And come\r
+again to see Tom."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss," said Bob, moving on a few steps; then turning half round\r
+he said, "I'll leave off that trick wi' my big thumb, if you don't\r
+think well on me for it, Miss; but it 'ud be a pity, it would. I\r
+couldn't find another trick so good,--an' what 'ud be the use o'\r
+havin' a big thumb? It might as well ha' been narrow."\r
+\r
+Maggie, thus exalted into Bob's exalting Madonna, laughed in spite of\r
+herself; at which her worshipper's blue eyes twinkled too, and under\r
+these favoring auspices he touched his cap and walked away.\r
+\r
+The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's grand dirge\r
+over them; they live still in that far-off worship paid by many a\r
+youth and man to the woman of whom he never dreams that he shall touch\r
+so much as her little finger or the hem of her robe. Bob, with the\r
+pack on his back, had as respectful an adoration for this dark-eyed\r
+maiden as if he had been a knight in armor calling aloud on her name\r
+as he pricked on to the fight.\r
+\r
+That gleam of merriment soon died away from Maggie's face, and perhaps\r
+only made the returning gloom deeper by contrast. She was too\r
+dispirited even to like answering questions about Bob's present of\r
+books, and she carried them away to her bedroom, laying them down\r
+there and seating herself on her one stool, without caring to look at\r
+them just yet. She leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and\r
+thought that the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers.\r
+\r
+Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had deepened\r
+with the brightness of advancing spring. All the favorite outdoor\r
+nooks about home, which seemed to have done their part with her\r
+parents in nurturing and cherishing her, were now mixed up with the\r
+home-sadness, and gathered no smile from the sunshine. Every\r
+affection, every delight the poor child had had, was like an aching\r
+nerve to her. There was no music for her any more,--no piano, no\r
+harmonized voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their\r
+passionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration\r
+through her frame. And of all her school-life there was nothing left\r
+her now but her little collection of school-books, which she turned\r
+over with a sickening sense that she knew them all, and they were all\r
+barren of comfort. Even at school she had often wished for books with\r
+_more_ in them; everything she learned there seemed like the ends of\r
+long threads that snapped immediately. And now--without the indirect\r
+charm of school-emulation--Télémaque was mere bran; so were the hard,\r
+dry questions on Christian Doctrine; there was no flavor in them, no\r
+strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could have been contented with\r
+absorbing fancies; if she could have had all Scott's novels and all\r
+Byron's poems!--then, perhaps, she might have found happiness enough\r
+to dull her sensibility to her actual daily life. And yet they were\r
+hardly what she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own, but no\r
+dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some explanation of this\r
+hard, real life,--the unhappy-looking father, seated at the dull\r
+breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered mother; the little sordid\r
+tasks that filled the hours, or the more oppressive emptiness of\r
+weary, joyless leisure; the need of some tender, demonstrative love;\r
+the cruel sense that Tom didn't mind what she thought or felt, and\r
+that they were no longer playfellows together; the privation of all\r
+pleasant things that had come to _her_ more than to others,--she\r
+wanted some key that would enable her to understand, and in\r
+understanding, to endure, the heavy weight that had fallen on her\r
+young heart. If she had been taught "real learning and wisdom, such as\r
+great men knew," she thought she should have held the secrets of life;\r
+if she had only books, that she might learn for herself what wise men\r
+knew! Saints and martyrs had never interested Maggie so much as sages\r
+and poets. She knew little of saints and martyrs, and had gathered, as\r
+a general result of her teaching, that they were a temporary provision\r
+against the spread of Catholicism, and had all died at Smithfield.\r
+\r
+In one of these meditations it occurred to her that she had forgotten\r
+Tom's school-books, which had been sent home in his trunk. But she\r
+found the stock unaccountably shrunk down to the few old ones which\r
+had been well thumbed,--the Latin Dictionary and Grammar, a Delectus,\r
+a torn Eutropius, the well-worn Virgil, Aldrich's Logic, and the\r
+exasperating Euclid. Still, Latin, Euclid, and Logic would surely be a\r
+considerable step in masculine wisdom,--in that knowledge which made\r
+men contented, and even glad to live. Not that the yearning for\r
+effectual wisdom was quite unmixed; a certain mirage would now and\r
+then rise on the desert of the future, in which she seemed to see\r
+herself honored for her surprising attainments. And so the poor child,\r
+with her soul's hunger and her illusions of self-flattery, began to\r
+nibble at this thick-rinded fruit of the tree of knowledge, filling\r
+her vacant hours with Latin, geometry, and the forms of the syllogism,\r
+and feeling a gleam of triumph now and then that her understanding was\r
+quite equal to these peculiarly masculine studies. For a week or two\r
+she went on resolutely enough, though with an occasional sinking of\r
+heart, as if she had set out toward the Promised Land alone, and found\r
+it a thirsty, trackless, uncertain journey. In the severity of her\r
+early resolution, she would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then\r
+look off her book toward the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to\r
+the reeds and bushes by the river, from which the waterfowl rustled\r
+forth on its anxious, awkward flight,--with a startled sense that the\r
+relation between Aldrich and this living world was extremely remote\r
+for her. The discouragement deepened as the days went on, and the\r
+eager heart gained faster and faster on the patient mind. Somehow,\r
+when she sat at the window with her book, her eyes _would_ fix\r
+themselves blankly on the outdoor sunshine; then they would fill with\r
+tears, and sometimes, if her mother was not in the room, the studies\r
+would all end in sobbing. She rebelled against her lot, she fainted\r
+under its loneliness, and fits even of anger and hatred toward her\r
+father and mother, who were so unlike what she would have them to be;\r
+toward Tom, who checked her, and met her thought or feeling always by\r
+some thwarting difference,--would flow out over her affections and\r
+conscience like a lava stream, and frighten her with a sense that it\r
+was not difficult for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be\r
+busy with wild romances of a flight from home in search of something\r
+less sordid and dreary; she would go to some great man--Walter Scott,\r
+perhaps--and tell him how wretched and how clever she was, and he\r
+would surely do something for her. But, in the middle of her vision,\r
+her father would perhaps enter the room for the evening, and,\r
+surprised that she sat still without noticing him, would say\r
+complainingly, "Come, am I to fetch my slippers myself?" The voice\r
+pierced through Maggie like a sword; there was another sadness besides\r
+her own, and she had been thinking of turning her back on it and\r
+forsaking it.\r
+\r
+This afternoon, the sight of Bob's cheerful freckled face had given\r
+her discontent a new direction. She thought it was part of the\r
+hardship of her life that there was laid upon her the burthen of\r
+larger wants than others seemed to feel,--that she had to endure this\r
+wide, hopeless yearning for that something, whatever it was, that was\r
+greatest and best on this earth. She wished she could have been like\r
+Bob, with his easily satisfied ignorance, or like Tom, who had\r
+something to do on which he could fix his mind with a steady purpose,\r
+and disregard everything else. Poor child! as she leaned her head\r
+against the window-frame, with her hands clasped tighter and tighter,\r
+and her foot beating the ground, she was as lonely in her trouble as\r
+if she had been the only girl in the civilized world of that day who\r
+had come out of her school-life with a soul untrained for inevitable\r
+struggles, with no other part of her inherited share in the hard-won\r
+treasures of thought which generations of painful toil have laid up\r
+for the race of men, than shreds and patches of feeble literature and\r
+false history, with much futile information about Saxon and other\r
+kings of doubtful example, but unhappily quite without that knowledge\r
+of the irreversible laws within and without her, which, governing the\r
+habits, becomes morality, and developing the feelings of submission\r
+and dependence, becomes religion,--as lonely in her trouble as if\r
+every other girl besides herself had been cherished and watched over\r
+by elder minds, not forgetful of their own early time, when need was\r
+keen and impulse strong.\r
+\r
+At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that lay on the\r
+window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn over listlessly\r
+the leaves of the "Portrait Gallery," but she soon pushed this aside\r
+to examine the little row of books tied together with string.\r
+"Beauties of the Spectator," "Rasselas," "Economy of Human Life,"\r
+"Gregory's Letters,"--she knew the sort of matter that was inside all\r
+these; the "Christian Year,"--that seemed to be a hymnbook, and she\r
+laid it down again; but _Thomas à Kempis?_--the name had come across\r
+her in her reading, and she felt the satisfaction, which every one\r
+knows, of getting some ideas to attach to a name that strays solitary\r
+in the memory. She took up the little, old, clumsy book with some\r
+curiosity; it had the corners turned down in many places, and some\r
+hand, now forever quiet, had made at certain passages strong\r
+pen-and-ink marks, long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf\r
+to leaf, and read where the quiet hand pointed: "Know that the love of\r
+thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the world.... If thou\r
+seekest this or that, and wouldst be here or there to enjoy thy own\r
+will and pleasure, thou shalt never be quiet nor free from care; for\r
+in everything somewhat will be wanting, and in every place there will\r
+be some that will cross thee.... Both above and below, which way\r
+soever thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross; and\r
+everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou wilt have\r
+inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown.... If thou desirest to\r
+mount unto this height, thou must set out courageously, and lay the\r
+axe to the root, that thou mayest pluck up and destroy that hidden\r
+inordinate inclination to thyself, and unto all private and earthly\r
+good. On this sin, that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all\r
+dependeth, whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome; which evil being\r
+once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great peace and\r
+tranquillity.... It is but little thou sufferest in comparison of them\r
+that have suffered so much, were so strongly tempted, so grievously\r
+afflicted, so many ways tried and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore\r
+to call to mind the more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest\r
+the easier bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little\r
+unto thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof.... Blessed\r
+are those ears that receive the whispers of the divine voice, and\r
+listen not to the whisperings of the world. Blessed are those ears\r
+which hearken not unto the voice which soundeth outwardly, but unto\r
+the Truth, which teacheth inwardly."\r
+\r
+A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read, as if\r
+she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn music, telling\r
+of beings whose souls had been astir while hers was in stupor. She\r
+went on from one brown mark to another, where the quiet hand seemed to\r
+point, hardly conscious that she was reading, seeming rather to listen\r
+while a low voice said;\r
+\r
+"Why dost thou here gaze about, since this is not the place of thy\r
+rest? In heaven ought to be thy dwelling, and all earthly things are\r
+to be looked on as they forward thy journey thither. All things pass\r
+away, and thou together with them. Beware thou cleavest not unto them,\r
+lest thou be entangled and perish.... If a man should give all his\r
+substance, yet it is as nothing. And if he should do great penances,\r
+yet are they but little. And if he should attain to all knowledge, he\r
+is yet far off. And if he should be of great virtue, and very fervent\r
+devotion, yet is there much wanting; to wit, one thing, which is most\r
+necessary for him. What is that? That having left all, he leave\r
+himself, and go wholly out of himself, and retain nothing of\r
+self-love.... I have often said unto thee, and now again I say the\r
+same, Forsake thyself, resign thyself, and thou shalt enjoy much\r
+inward peace.... Then shall all vain imaginations, evil perturbations,\r
+and superfluous cares fly away; then shall immoderate fear leave thee,\r
+and inordinate love shall die."\r
+\r
+Maggie drew a long breath and pushed her heavy hair back, as if to see\r
+a sudden vision more clearly. Here, then, was a secret of life that\r
+would enable her to renounce all other secrets; here was a sublime\r
+height to be reached without the help of outward things; here was\r
+insight, and strength, and conquest, to be won by means entirely\r
+within her own soul, where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard.\r
+It flashed through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a\r
+problem, that all the miseries of her young life had come from fixing\r
+her heart on her own pleasure, as if that were the central necessity\r
+of the universe; and for the first time she saw the possibility of\r
+shifting the position from which she looked at the gratification of\r
+her own desires,--of taking her stand out of herself, and looking at\r
+her own life as an insignificant part of a divinely guided whole. She\r
+read on and on in the old book, devouring eagerly the dialogues with\r
+the invisible Teacher, the pattern of sorrow, the source of all\r
+strength; returning to it after she had been called away, and reading\r
+till the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of an\r
+imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in the\r
+deepening twilight forming plans of self-humiliation and entire\r
+devotedness; and in the ardor of first discovery, renunciation seemed\r
+to her the entrance into that satisfaction which she had so long been\r
+craving in vain. She had not perceived--how could she until she had\r
+lived longer?--the inmost truth of the old monk's out-pourings, that\r
+renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly. Maggie\r
+was still panting for happiness, and was in ecstasy because she had\r
+found the key to it. She knew nothing of doctrines and systems, of\r
+mysticism or quietism; but this voice out of the far-off middle ages\r
+was the direct communication of a human soul's belief and experience,\r
+and came to Maggie as an unquestioned message.\r
+\r
+I suppose that is the reason why the small old-fashioned book, for\r
+which you need only pay sixpence at a book-stall, works miracles to\r
+this day, turning bitter waters into sweetness; while expensive\r
+sermons and treatises, newly issued, leave all things as they were\r
+before. It was written down by a hand that waited for the heart's\r
+prompting; it is the chronicle of a solitary, hidden anguish,\r
+struggle, trust, and triumph, not written on velvet cushions to teach\r
+endurance to those who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones.\r
+And so it remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and\r
+human consolations; the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and\r
+suffered and renounced,--in the cloister, perhaps, with serge gown and\r
+tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts, and with a fashion\r
+of speech different from ours,--but under the same silent far-off\r
+heavens, and with the same passionate desires, the same strivings, the\r
+same failures, the same weariness.\r
+\r
+In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt to fall\r
+into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being the tone of good\r
+society, where principles and beliefs are not only of an extremely\r
+moderate kind, but are always presupposed, no subjects being eligible\r
+but such as can be touched with a light and graceful irony. But then\r
+good society has its claret and its velvet carpets, its\r
+dinner-engagements six weeks deep, its opera and its faëry ball-rooms;\r
+rides off its _ennui_ on thoroughbred horses; lounges at the club; has\r
+to keep clear of crinoline vortices; gets its science done by Faraday,\r
+and its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the best\r
+houses,--how should it have time or need for belief and emphasis? But\r
+good society, floated on gossamer wings of light irony, is of very\r
+expensive production; requiring nothing less than a wide and arduous\r
+national life condensed in unfragrant deafening factories, cramping\r
+itself in mines, sweating at furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving\r
+under more or less oppression of carbonic acid, or else, spread over\r
+sheepwalks, and scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or\r
+chalky corn-lands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide\r
+national life is based entirely on emphasis,--the emphasis of want,\r
+which urges it into all the activities necessary for the maintenance\r
+of good society and light irony; it spends its heavy years often in a\r
+chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoftened by long\r
+corridors. Under such circumstances, there are many among its myriads\r
+of souls who have absolutely needed an emphatic belief, life in this\r
+unpleasurable shape demanding some solution even to unspeculative\r
+minds,--just as you inquire into the stuffing of your couch when\r
+anything galls you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French\r
+springs excite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol,\r
+and seek their _ekstasis_ or outside standing-ground in gin; but the\r
+rest require something that good society calls "enthusiasm," something\r
+that will present motives in an entire absence of high prizes;\r
+something that will give patience and feed human love when the limbs\r
+ache with weariness, and human looks are hard upon us; something,\r
+clearly, that lies outside personal desires, that includes resignation\r
+for ourselves and active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then\r
+that sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from an\r
+experience springing out of the deepest need; and it was by being\r
+brought within the long lingering vibrations of such a voice that\r
+Maggie, with her girl's face and unnoted sorrows, found an effort and\r
+a hope that helped her through years of loneliness, making out a faith\r
+for herself without the aid of established authorities and appointed\r
+guides; for they were not at hand, and her need was pressing. From\r
+what you know of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some\r
+exaggeration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even into her\r
+self-renunciation; her own life was still a drama for her, in which\r
+she demanded of herself that her part should be played with intensity.\r
+And so it came to pass that she often lost the spirit of humility by\r
+being excessive in the outward act; she often strove after too high a\r
+flight, and came down with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled\r
+in the mud. For example, she not only determined to work at plain\r
+sewing, that she might contribute something toward the fund in the tin\r
+box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of\r
+self-mortification, to ask for it at a linen shop in St. Ogg's,\r
+instead of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way; and could see\r
+nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, persecuting, in\r
+Tom's reproof of her for this unnecessary act. "I don't like _my_\r
+sister to do such things," said Tom, "_I'll_ take care that the debts\r
+are paid, without your lowering yourself in that way." Surely there\r
+was some tenderness and bravery mingled with the worldliness and\r
+self-assertion of that little speech; but Maggie held it as dross,\r
+overlooking the grains of gold, and took Tom's rebuke as one of her\r
+outward crosses. Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her\r
+long night-watchings,--to her who had always loved him so; and then\r
+she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to require nothing.\r
+That is the path we all like when we set out on our abandonment of\r
+egoism,--the path of martyrdom and endurance, where the palm-branches\r
+grow, rather than the steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and\r
+self-blame, where there are no leafy honors to be gathered and worn.\r
+\r
+The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich--that wrinkled fruit of the\r
+tree of knowledge--had been all laid by; for Maggie had turned her\r
+back on the vain ambition to share the thoughts of the wise. In her\r
+first ardor she flung away the books with a sort of triumph that she\r
+had risen above the need of them; and if they had been her own, she\r
+would have burned them, believing that she would never repent. She\r
+read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Bible, Thomas à\r
+Kempis, and the "Christian Year" (no longer rejected as a\r
+"hymn-book"), that they filled her mind with a continual stream of\r
+rhythmic memories; and she was too ardently learning to see all nature\r
+and life in the light of her new faith, to need any other material for\r
+her mind to work on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making\r
+shirts and other complicated stitchings, falsely called "plain,"--by\r
+no means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the like had\r
+a capability of being sewed in wrong side outward in moments of mental\r
+wandering.\r
+\r
+Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any one might\r
+have been pleased to look at. That new inward life of hers,\r
+notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of imprisoned passions, yet\r
+shone out in her face with a tender soft light that mingled itself as\r
+added loveliness with the gradually enriched color and outline of her\r
+blossoming youth. Her mother felt the change in her with a sort of\r
+puzzled wonder that Maggie should be "growing up so good"; it was\r
+amazing that this once "contrairy" child was become so submissive, so\r
+backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to look up from her work\r
+and find her mother's eyes fixed upon her; they were watching and\r
+waiting for the large young glance, as if her elder frame got some\r
+needful warmth from it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown\r
+girl,--the only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her\r
+anxiety and pride; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish to\r
+have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her mother\r
+about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black locks plaited\r
+into a coronet on the summit of her head, after the pitiable fashion\r
+of those antiquated times.\r
+\r
+"Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear," said Mrs.\r
+Tulliver; "I'd trouble enough with your hair once."\r
+\r
+So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother, and cheer\r
+their long day together, consented to the vain decoration, and showed\r
+a queenly head above her old frocks, steadily refusing, however, to\r
+look at herself in the glass. Mrs. Tulliver liked to call the father's\r
+attention to Maggie's hair and other unexpected virtues, but he had a\r
+brusk reply to give.\r
+\r
+"I knew well enough what she'd be, before now,--it's nothing new to\r
+me. But it's a pity she isn't made o' commoner stuff; she'll be thrown\r
+away, I doubt,--there'll be nobody to marry her as is fit for her."\r
+\r
+And Maggie's graces of mind and body fed his gloom. He sat patiently\r
+enough while she read him a chapter, or said something timidly when\r
+they were alone together about trouble being turned into a blessing.\r
+He took it all as part of his daughter's goodness, which made his\r
+misfortunes the sadder to him because they damaged her chance in life.\r
+In a mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied\r
+vindictiveness, there is no room for new feelings; Mr. Tulliver did\r
+not want spiritual consolation--he wanted to shake off the degradation\r
+of debt, and to have his revenge.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book V\r
+\r
+_Wheat and Tares_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+In the Red Deeps\r
+\r
+\r
+The family sitting-room was a long room with a window at each end; one\r
+looking toward the croft and along the Ripple to the banks of the\r
+Floss, the other into the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her work\r
+against the latter window when she saw Mr. Wakem entering the yard, as\r
+usual, on his fine black horse; but not alone, as usual. Some one was\r
+with him,--a figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony. Maggie had hardly\r
+time to feel that it was Philip come back, before they were in front\r
+of the window, and he was raising his hat to her; while his father,\r
+catching the movement by a side-glance, looked sharply round at them\r
+both.\r
+\r
+Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work upstairs; for\r
+Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and inspected the books, and Maggie felt\r
+that the meeting with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the\r
+presence of the two fathers. Some day, perhaps, she could see him when\r
+they could just shake hands, and she could tell him that she\r
+remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things he had said to her in\r
+the old days, though they could never be friends any more. It was not\r
+at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again; she retained her\r
+childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered his cleverness;\r
+and in the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually recalled\r
+the image of him among the people who had been kind to her in life,\r
+often wishing she had him for a brother and a teacher, as they had\r
+fancied it might have been, in their talk together. But that sort of\r
+wishing had been banished along with other dreams that savored of\r
+seeking her own will; and she thought, besides, that Philip might be\r
+altered by his life abroad,--he might have become worldly, and really\r
+not care about her saying anything to him now. And yet his face was\r
+wonderfully little altered,--it was only a larger, more manly copy of\r
+the pale, small-featured boy's face, with the gray eyes, and the\r
+boyish waving brown hair; there was the old deformity to awaken the\r
+old pity; and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really\r
+_should_ like to say a few words to him. He might still be melancholy,\r
+as he always used to be, and like her to look at him kindly. She\r
+wondered if he remembered how he used to like her eyes; with that\r
+thought Maggie glanced toward the square looking-glass which was\r
+condemned to hang with its face toward the wall, and she half started\r
+from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and snatched\r
+up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory\r
+to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father\r
+returning along the road, and she could go down again.\r
+\r
+It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the\r
+daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the\r
+following she was so busy with work which must be finished that she\r
+never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by\r
+sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not\r
+obliged to go to St. Ogg's, was to a spot that lay beyond what was\r
+called the "Hill,"--an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees,\r
+lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote\r
+Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more\r
+than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank\r
+a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine\r
+this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some\r
+quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the\r
+pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where\r
+this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off\r
+and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very\r
+capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted\r
+stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now\r
+clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of\r
+grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days\r
+Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and\r
+needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an\r
+excursion thither,--visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting\r
+every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken\r
+ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest\r
+habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a\r
+grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant\r
+from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like\r
+tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing\r
+the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly\r
+blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were\r
+in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should\r
+direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on\r
+the first day she was free to wander at her will,--a pleasure she\r
+loved so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she\r
+thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.\r
+\r
+You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turning and enters\r
+the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall\r
+figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk\r
+shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of\r
+being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One\r
+would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her\r
+seventeenth year--perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the\r
+glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed; perhaps\r
+because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood.\r
+Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary\r
+hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard\r
+floor for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid,\r
+the brown cheek is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her\r
+dark coloring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to\r
+have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is\r
+looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of\r
+uneasiness in looking at her,--a sense of opposing elements, of which\r
+a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression,\r
+such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of\r
+keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a\r
+sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like\r
+a damp fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.\r
+\r
+But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly\r
+enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and\r
+thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past\r
+storms, which had only made the red stems soar higher. But while her\r
+eyes were still turned upward, she became conscious of a moving shadow\r
+cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down\r
+with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat,\r
+and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand.\r
+Maggie, too, colored with surprise, which soon gave way to pleasure.\r
+She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before her\r
+with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of\r
+her child's feelings,--a memory that was always strong in her. She was\r
+the first to speak.\r
+\r
+"You startled me," she said, smiling faintly; "I never meet any one\r
+here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet _me?_"\r
+\r
+It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I did," said Philip, still embarrassed; "I wished to see you\r
+very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your\r
+house to see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched\r
+again to-day, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and\r
+came down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased\r
+with me."\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she meant\r
+Philip to accompany her, "I'm very glad you came, for I wished very\r
+much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I've never forgotten\r
+how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that\r
+you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of\r
+trouble since then, and I think _that_ makes one think more of what\r
+happened before the trouble came."\r
+\r
+"I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought\r
+of you," said Philip, timidly. "Do you know, when I was away, I made a\r
+picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said\r
+you would not forget me."\r
+\r
+Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it.\r
+Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks\r
+hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy\r
+eyes. It was a water-color sketch, of real merit as a portrait.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear," said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, "what a\r
+queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way,\r
+in that pink frock. I really _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,"\r
+she added, after a little pause; "am I like what you expected me to\r
+be?"\r
+\r
+The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright\r
+glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really\r
+did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising\r
+again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her\r
+eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said\r
+quietly, "No, Maggie."\r
+\r
+The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there was a slight\r
+trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn\r
+away her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said\r
+slowly:\r
+\r
+"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be."\r
+\r
+"Am I?" said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She\r
+turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight\r
+before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to\r
+this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main\r
+ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie\r
+had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of\r
+renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with\r
+elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she\r
+could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the\r
+silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that\r
+sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the\r
+fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an\r
+amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them\r
+had brightened, Maggie's face had lost its glow.\r
+\r
+She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip\r
+again, she said in a serious, sad voice:\r
+\r
+"I wish we could have been friends,--I mean, if it would have been\r
+good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in\r
+everything; I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little.\r
+The old books went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like\r
+death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And\r
+I must part with you; we must never take any notice of each other\r
+again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you\r
+know that Tom and I can't do as we like about such things, and that if\r
+I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or\r
+pride--or--or any bad feeling."\r
+\r
+Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on,\r
+and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of\r
+pain on Philip's face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish\r
+self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.\r
+\r
+"I know; I see all that you mean," he said, in a voice that had become\r
+feebler from discouragement; "I know what there is to keep us apart on\r
+both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,--don't you be angry with me,\r
+I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,--it is not right to\r
+sacrifice everything to other people's unreasonable feelings. I would\r
+give up a great deal for _my_ father; but I would not give up a\r
+friendship or--or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish\r
+of his that I didn't recognize as right."\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I have been angry\r
+and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up\r
+anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I\r
+could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it\r
+was an evil state of mind. I'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I\r
+should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself,\r
+rather than have made my father's life harder to him."\r
+\r
+"But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other\r
+sometimes?" said Philip. He was going to say something else, but\r
+checked himself.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like it. Don't ask me why, or anything about\r
+it," said Maggie, in a distressed tone. "My father feels so strongly\r
+about some things. He is not at all happy."\r
+\r
+"No more am I," said Philip, impetuously; "I am not happy."\r
+\r
+"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least--I ought not to ask--but I'm\r
+very, very sorry."\r
+\r
+Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any\r
+longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and\r
+bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip's, Maggie could not\r
+bear to insist immediately on their parting.\r
+\r
+"I've been a great deal happier," she said at last, timidly, "since I\r
+have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being\r
+discontented because I couldn't have my own will. Our life is\r
+determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up\r
+wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing\r
+what is given us to do."\r
+\r
+"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to\r
+me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly\r
+alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and\r
+we _must_ hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them\r
+until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to\r
+be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I\r
+want. That is pain to me, and always _will_ be pain, until my\r
+faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many\r
+other things I long for,"--here Philip hesitated a little, and then\r
+said,--"things that other men have, and that will always be denied me.\r
+My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not\r
+have lived."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so." But her heart\r
+began to beat with something of Philip's discontent.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said he, turning quickly round and fixing his gray eyes\r
+entreatingly on her face, "I should be contented to live, if you would\r
+let me see you sometimes." Then, checked by a fear which her face\r
+suggested, he looked away again and said more calmly, "I have no\r
+friend to whom I can tell everything, no one who cares enough about\r
+me; and if I could only see you now and then, and you would let me\r
+talk to you a little, and show me that you cared for me, and that we\r
+may always be friends in heart, and help each other, then I might come\r
+to be glad of life."\r
+\r
+"But how can I see you, Philip?" said Maggie, falteringly. (Could she\r
+really do him good? It would be very hard to say "good-by" this day,\r
+and not speak to him again. Here was a new interest to vary the days;\r
+it was so much easier to renounce the interest before it came.)\r
+\r
+"If you would let me see you here sometimes,--walk with you here,--I\r
+would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. _That_\r
+could injure no one's happiness, and it would sweeten my life.\r
+Besides," Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love at\r
+one-and-twenty, "if there is any enmity between those who belong to\r
+us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I\r
+mean, that by our influence on both sides we might bring about a\r
+healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could know\r
+everything about them. And I don't believe there is any enmity in my\r
+own father's mind; I think he has proved the contrary."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under conflicting\r
+thoughts. It seemed to her inclination, that to see Philip now and\r
+then, and keep up the bond of friendship with him, was something not\r
+only innocent, but good; perhaps she might really help him to find\r
+contentment as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet\r
+music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent, monotonous\r
+warning from another voice which she had been learning to obey,--the\r
+warning that such interviews implied secrecy; implied doing something\r
+she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered,\r
+must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of anything so near\r
+doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell\r
+out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading\r
+her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and\r
+that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury\r
+of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk\r
+from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his\r
+father,--poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only because\r
+he was deformed. The idea that he might become her lover or that her\r
+meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not occurred to\r
+her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it\r
+with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the\r
+less unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that\r
+Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she\r
+was a child.\r
+\r
+"I can't say either yes or no," she said at last, turning round and\r
+walking toward the way she come; "I must wait, lest I should decide\r
+wrongly. I must seek for guidance."\r
+\r
+"May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?"\r
+\r
+"I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again. "I have to\r
+go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter in the post."\r
+\r
+"Oh no," said Philip eagerly; "that would not be so well. My father\r
+might see the letter--and--he has not any enmity, I believe, but he\r
+views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth\r
+and position. Pray let me come here once more. _Tell_ me when it shall\r
+be; or if you can't tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do\r
+see you."\r
+\r
+"I think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't be quite\r
+certain of coming here any particular evening."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She was free\r
+now to enjoy the minutes of companionship; she almost thought she\r
+might linger a little; the next time they met she should have to pain\r
+Philip by telling him her determination.\r
+\r
+"I can't help thinking," she said, looking smilingly at him, after a\r
+few moments of silence, "how strange it is that we should have met and\r
+talked to each other, just as if it had been only yesterday when we\r
+parted at Lorton. And yet we must both be very much altered in those\r
+five years,--I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a\r
+sort of feeling that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure\r
+that you would be the same; I know you are so clever, and you must\r
+have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind; I was not quite sure\r
+you would care about me now."\r
+\r
+"I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I\r
+might see you," said Philip,--"I mean, the same in everything that made\r
+me like you better than any one else. I don't want to explain that; I\r
+don't think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible\r
+of can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which\r
+they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The\r
+greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he\r
+couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to\r
+be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that\r
+our understandings can make no complete inventory of. Certain strains\r
+of music affect me so strangely; I can never hear them without their\r
+changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would\r
+last, I might be capable of heroisms."\r
+\r
+"Ah! I know what you mean about music; _I_ feel so," said Maggie,\r
+clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. "At least," she added, in\r
+a saddened tone, "I used to feel so when I had any music; I never have\r
+any now except the organ at church."\r
+\r
+"And you long for it, Maggie?" said Philip, looking at her with\r
+affectionate pity. "Ah, you can have very little that is beautiful in\r
+your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were\r
+a little girl."\r
+\r
+They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and\r
+they both paused under the charm of the faëry evening light, reflected\r
+from the pale pink clusters.\r
+\r
+"No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, "except a very,\r
+very few."\r
+\r
+Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was\r
+looking at the back as he said:\r
+\r
+"Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have liked to\r
+take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a\r
+scene for a picture."\r
+\r
+Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an\r
+old impression with overmastering force.\r
+\r
+"'The Pirate,'" she said, taking the book from Philip's hands. "Oh, I\r
+began that once; I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland, and\r
+I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head,\r
+and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never\r
+make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what\r
+is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the\r
+Shetland Isles,--I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough\r
+sea."\r
+\r
+Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes.\r
+\r
+"Take that volume home with you, Maggie," said Philip, watching her\r
+with delight. "I don't want it now. I shall make a picture of you\r
+instead,--you, among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows."\r
+\r
+Maggie had not heard a word he had said; she was absorbed in a page at\r
+which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it\r
+back to Philip, shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to\r
+say "avaunt" to floating visions.\r
+\r
+"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly; "it will give you\r
+pleasure."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and\r
+walking on. "It would make me in love with this world again, as I used\r
+to be; it would make me long to see and know many things; it would\r
+make me long for a full life."\r
+\r
+"But you will not always be shut up in your present lot; why should\r
+you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism; I don't\r
+like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge\r
+are sacred and pure."\r
+\r
+"But not for me, not for me," said Maggie, walking more hurriedly;\r
+"because I should want too much. I must wait; this life will not last\r
+long."\r
+\r
+"Don't hurry away from me without saying 'good-by,' Maggie," said\r
+Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued\r
+still to walk along without speaking. "I must not go any farther, I\r
+think, must I?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I forgot; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and putting out her\r
+hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current\r
+to Philip; and after they had stood looking at each other in silence\r
+for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her\r
+hand:\r
+\r
+"I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is\r
+very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing\r
+it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care\r
+about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks! I\r
+remember saying to you that I thought you cared for me more than Tom\r
+did."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would never love me\r
+so well as you love your brother."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply; "but then, you know, the first\r
+thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of\r
+the Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to\r
+me. But I shall never forget you, though we must keep apart."\r
+\r
+"Don't say so, Maggie," said Philip. "If I kept that little girl in my\r
+mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to\r
+take herself quite away from me."\r
+\r
+"Not if I were free," said Maggie; "but I am not, I must submit." She\r
+hesitated a moment, and then added, "And I wanted to say to you, that\r
+you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to\r
+him. He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn't change\r
+his mind--Oh dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good-by." She\r
+gave him her hand once more.\r
+\r
+"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie.\r
+Have some feeling for _me_ as well as for others."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I have," said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly\r
+disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip's gaze after her\r
+remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still.\r
+\r
+Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went\r
+home to do nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help blaming\r
+him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a\r
+full consciousness of his feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing\r
+the character his contemplated interviews with her would bear in the\r
+opinion of a third person. But you must not suppose that he was\r
+capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied\r
+without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some\r
+happiness into Maggie's life,--seeking this even more than any direct\r
+ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he could give her help.\r
+There was not the slightest promise of love toward him in her manner;\r
+it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown\r
+him when she was twelve. Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no\r
+woman ever _could_ love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he\r
+should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling some\r
+nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the possibility that she\r
+_might_ love him; perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could come to\r
+associate him with that watchful tenderness which her nature would be\r
+so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him, surely Maggie was\r
+that woman; there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one\r
+to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like hers should be\r
+withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for want of the\r
+light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder\r
+that, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be\r
+her guardian angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her\r
+sake--except not seeing her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb\r
+\r
+\r
+While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own\r
+soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows forever\r
+rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling\r
+with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests.\r
+So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of\r
+horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted\r
+hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling\r
+their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in\r
+fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the\r
+stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of\r
+wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.\r
+\r
+From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you\r
+would prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished; the\r
+wagers are likely to be on his side, notwithstanding his small success\r
+in the classics. For Tom had never desired success in this field of\r
+enterprise; and for getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity\r
+there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects\r
+in which it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound\r
+together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his\r
+personal ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts\r
+and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him\r
+closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud\r
+that he had brought into the employment of the firm a nephew who\r
+appeared to be made of such good commercial stuff. The real kindness\r
+of placing him in the warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the\r
+hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps\r
+be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm\r
+various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in\r
+this place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr.\r
+Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step\r
+in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much\r
+lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import,\r
+with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the relative\r
+advantages to the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods brought in\r
+their own and in foreign bottoms,--a subject on which Mr. Deane, as a\r
+ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got warmed with\r
+talk and wine.\r
+\r
+Already, in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but all, except\r
+the price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and\r
+he shunned comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite\r
+of himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of the\r
+Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite for\r
+pleasure,--would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and to make a\r
+distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing treats and\r
+benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced\r
+one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to\r
+achieve these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness\r
+told him that the means no such achievements could only lie for him in\r
+present abstinence and self-denial; there were certain milestones to\r
+be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's debts.\r
+Having made up his mind on that point, he strode along without\r
+swerving, contracting some rather saturnine sternness, as a young man\r
+is likely to do who has a premature call upon him for self-reliance.\r
+Tom felt intensely that common cause with his father which springs\r
+from family pride, and was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but\r
+his growing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the\r
+rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct; their\r
+dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little\r
+radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against\r
+which she struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider\r
+thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle. A\r
+character at unity with itself--that performs what it intends, subdues\r
+every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly\r
+possible--is strong by its very negations.\r
+\r
+You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to his\r
+father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles;\r
+and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and predictions to Mr. Glegg\r
+concerning Tom's qualifications for business began to be discussed\r
+amongst them with various acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to\r
+do the family credit without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs.\r
+Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent complexion, so\r
+entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he would\r
+turn out well; his juvenile errors of running down the peacock, and\r
+general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge of Tulliver\r
+blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a\r
+cautious liking for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behavior\r
+when the execution was in the house, was now warming into a resolution\r
+to further his prospects actively,--some time, when an opportunity\r
+offered of doing so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but\r
+Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given to speak without book, as\r
+some people were; that those who said least were most likely to find\r
+their words made good; and that when the right moment came, it would\r
+be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after\r
+silent meditation for a period of several lozenges, came distinctly to\r
+the conclusion, that when a young man was likely to do well, it was\r
+better not to meddle with him.\r
+\r
+Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but\r
+himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications\r
+of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his uncle Glegg look in on\r
+him sometimes in a friendly way during business hours, and glad to be\r
+invited to dine at his house, though he usually preferred declining on\r
+the ground that he was not sure of being punctual. But about a year\r
+ago, something had occurred which induced Tom to test his uncle\r
+Glegg's friendly disposition.\r
+\r
+Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without seeing\r
+Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming home from\r
+St. Ogg's one evening, that they might have a little private talk. He\r
+took the liberty of asking if Mr. Tom had ever thought of making money\r
+by trading a bit on his own account. Trading, how? Tom wished to know.\r
+Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo to foreign ports; because Bob had\r
+a particular friend who had offered to do a little business for him in\r
+that way in Laceham goods, and would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the\r
+same footing. Tom was interested at once, and begged for full\r
+explanation, wondering he had not thought of this plan before.\r
+\r
+He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might\r
+change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at\r
+once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his\r
+consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the\r
+purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted his\r
+father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into the tin\r
+box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were there; for\r
+Mr. Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest\r
+he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some\r
+corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the\r
+money under his eye.\r
+\r
+Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth\r
+with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver listened, leaning\r
+forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom's face with a sceptical\r
+glance. His first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was\r
+in some awe of Tom's wishes, and since he had the sense of being an\r
+"unlucky" father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and\r
+determination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from his\r
+pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched down the tin\r
+box,--slowly, as if he were trying to defer the moment of a painful\r
+parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and opened the box\r
+with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket\r
+in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the\r
+bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table--only a\r
+hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching.\r
+\r
+"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words burnt\r
+his lips.\r
+\r
+"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said Tom.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand\r
+over it, said:\r
+\r
+"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."\r
+\r
+"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we\r
+get. And in this way we might double our savings."\r
+\r
+"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the money, "but you\r
+might lose it,--you might lose a year o' my life,--and I haven't got\r
+many."\r
+\r
+Tom was silent.\r
+\r
+"And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first hundred,\r
+because I wanted to see it all in a lump,--and when I see it, I'm sure\r
+on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be against me. It's Old\r
+Harry's got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I shall\r
+never pick it up again; death 'ull o'ertake me."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes\r
+before he said:\r
+\r
+"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly."\r
+\r
+But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined to ask\r
+his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of receiving\r
+five per cent. of the profits. That was really a very small thing to\r
+ask. So when Bob called the next day at the wharf to know the\r
+decision, Tom proposed that they should go together to his uncle\r
+Glegg's to open the business; for his diffident pride clung to him,\r
+and made him feel that Bobs' tongue would relieve him from some\r
+embarrassment.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a hot\r
+August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure himself\r
+that the sum total had not varied since yesterday. To him entered Tom,\r
+in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very questionable companionship,--that\r
+of a man with a pack on his back,--for Bob was equipped for a new\r
+journey,--and of a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow,\r
+swaying movement from side to side, and glanced from under his\r
+eye-lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover to\r
+the most offensive designs.\r
+\r
+Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the\r
+fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him.\r
+\r
+"Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?" he shouted, snatching up\r
+a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the visitors were\r
+within three yards of him.\r
+\r
+"Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. "He's as quiet as a\r
+lamb, sir,"--an observation which Mumps corroborated by a low growl as\r
+he retreated behind his master's legs.\r
+\r
+"Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?" said Mr. Glegg. "Have you\r
+brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?" If Bob came\r
+in the character of "information," Mr. Glegg saw reasons for\r
+tolerating some irregularity.\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little matter of\r
+business of my own."\r
+\r
+"Ay--well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old\r
+gentleman, getting mild again.\r
+\r
+"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An' it's me as put Mr. Tom up\r
+to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a friend o' mine iver since\r
+I was a little chap; fust thing iver I did was frightenin' the birds\r
+for th' old master. An' if a bit o' luck turns up, I'm allays thinkin'\r
+if I can let Mr. Tom have a pull at it. An' it's a downright roarin'\r
+shame, as when he's got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi'\r
+sending goods out,--ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an'\r
+commission's paid,--as he shouldn't lay hold o' the chance for want o'\r
+money. An' when there's the Laceham goods,--lors! they're made o'\r
+purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy; light, an' take\r
+up no room,--you may pack twenty pound so as you can't see the\r
+passill; an' they're manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they\r
+aren't like to want a market. An' I'd go to Laceham an' buy in the\r
+goods for Mr. Tom along wi' my own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the\r
+bit of a vessel as is goin' to take 'em out. I know him partic'lar;\r
+he's a solid man, an' got a family i' the town here. Salt, his name\r
+is,--an' a briny chap he is too,--an' if you don't believe me, I can\r
+take you to him."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this unembarrassed\r
+loquacity, with which his understanding could hardly keep pace. He\r
+looked at Bob, first over his spectacles, then through them, then over\r
+them again; while Tom, doubtful of his uncle's impression, began to\r
+wish he had not brought this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob's talk\r
+appeared less seemly, now some one besides himself was listening to\r
+it.\r
+\r
+"You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last.\r
+\r
+"Ay, sir, you say true," returned Bob, nodding his head aside; "I\r
+think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full\r
+o' plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I\r
+should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I\r
+niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I\r
+says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says, 'an' then\r
+I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an'\r
+empty.' Lors, she's fine an' comfor'ble now, my old mother is; she\r
+ates her baked meat an' taters as often as she likes. For I'm gettin'\r
+so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But it's\r
+botherin,' a wife is,--and Mumps mightn't like her."\r
+\r
+Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he had retired\r
+from business, was beginning to find Bob amusing, but he had still a\r
+disapproving observation to make, which kept his face serious.\r
+\r
+"Ah," he said, "I should think you're at a loss for ways o' spending\r
+your money, else you wouldn't keep that big dog, to eat as much as two\r
+Christians. It's shameful--shameful!" But he spoke more in sorrow than\r
+in anger, and quickly added:\r
+\r
+"But, come now, let's hear more about this business, Tom. I suppose\r
+you want a little sum to make a venture with. But where's all your own\r
+money? You don't spend it all--eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Tom, coloring; "but my father is unwilling to risk it,\r
+and I don't like to press him. If I could get twenty or thirty pounds\r
+to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could\r
+gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan."\r
+\r
+"Ay--ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone; "that's not a bad\r
+notion, and I won't say as I wouldn't be your man. But it 'ull be as\r
+well for me to see this Salt, as you talk on. And then--here's this\r
+friend o' yours offers to buy the goods for you. Perhaps you've got\r
+somebody to stand surety for you if the money's put into your hands?"\r
+added the cautious old gentleman, looking over his spectacles at Bob.\r
+\r
+"I don't think that's necessary, uncle," said Tom. "At least, I mean\r
+it would not be necessary for me, because I know Bob well; but perhaps\r
+it would be right for you to have some security."\r
+\r
+"You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose?" said Mr.\r
+Glegg, looking at Bob.\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Bob, rather indignantly; "I didn't offer to get a\r
+apple for Mr. Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it myself. When I\r
+play folks tricks, there'll be more fun in 'em nor that."\r
+\r
+"Well, but it's nothing but right you should have a small percentage,"\r
+said Mr. Glegg. "I've no opinion o' transactions where folks do things\r
+for nothing. It allays looks bad."\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what was implied,\r
+"I'll tell you what I get by't, an' it's money in my pocket in the\r
+end,--I make myself look big, wi' makin' a bigger purchase. That's\r
+what I'm thinking on. Lors! I'm a 'cute chap,--I am."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg!" said a severe voice from the open parlor\r
+window, "pray are you coming in to tea, or are you going to stand\r
+talking with packmen till you get murdered in the open daylight?"\r
+\r
+"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg; "what's the woman talking of? Here's your\r
+nephey Tom come about a bit o' business."\r
+\r
+"Murdered,--yes,--it isn't many 'sizes ago since a packman murdered a\r
+young woman in a lone place, and stole her thimble, and threw her body\r
+into a ditch."\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking o' the man\r
+wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."\r
+\r
+"Well, it's the same thing, Mr. Glegg, only you're fond o'\r
+contradicting what I say; and if my nephey's come about business, it\r
+'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the house, and let his\r
+aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in corners, in that\r
+plotting, underminding way."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now."\r
+\r
+"You needn't stay here," said the lady to Bob, in a loud voice,\r
+adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between them. "We\r
+don't want anything. I don't deal wi' packmen. Mind you shut the gate\r
+after you."\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit; not so fast," said Mr. Glegg; "I haven't done with this\r
+young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in," he added, stepping in at the\r
+French window.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, "if you're going to let\r
+that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so good\r
+as to let me know. A wife's got a right to ask that, I hope."\r
+\r
+"Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap. He saw at once\r
+that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be\r
+at the sport; "we'll stay out upo' the gravel here,--Mumps and me\r
+will. Mumps knows his company,--he does. I might hish at him by th'\r
+hour together, before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's\r
+wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and's\r
+partic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors!" added Bob,\r
+laying down his pack on the gravel, "it's a thousand pities such a\r
+lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i' stead o' goin' into\r
+these newfangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi'\r
+their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi'\r
+ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o'\r
+calico; it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay\r
+a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods,--an' pays no rent,\r
+an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on\r
+him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better\r
+nor I do,--_you_ can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too," observed Mrs.\r
+Glegg, intending to imply that Bob's flattery had produced no effect\r
+on _her;_ while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his\r
+pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the\r
+probability of his wife's being circumvented.\r
+\r
+"Ay, to be sure, mum," said Bob. "Why, you must ha' dealt wi' no end\r
+o' packmen when you war a young lass--before the master here had the\r
+luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I do,--seen th' house\r
+many a time,--close upon Squire Darleigh's,--a stone house wi'\r
+steps----"\r
+\r
+"Ah, that it had," said Mrs. Glegg, pouring out the tea. "You know\r
+something o' my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a\r
+squint in his eye, as used to bring th' Irish linen?"\r
+\r
+"Look you there now!" said Bob, evasively. "Didn't I know as you'd\r
+remember the best bargains you've made in your life was made wi'\r
+packmen? Why, you see even a squintin' packman's better nor a shopman\r
+as can see straight. Lors! if I'd had the luck to call at the stone\r
+house wi' my pack, as lies here,"--stooping and thumping the bundle\r
+emphatically with his fist,--"an' th' handsome young lasses all\r
+stannin' out on the stone steps, it ud' ha' been summat like openin' a\r
+pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as a packman calls on,\r
+if it isn't for the sake o' the sarvant-maids. They're paltry times,\r
+these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an' what they\r
+was when you wore 'em,--why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I\r
+can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd\r
+buy,--summat as 'ud wear as well as your own faitures."\r
+\r
+"Yes, better quality nor any you're like to carry; you've got nothing\r
+first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Glegg, with a\r
+triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagacity. "Mr. Glegg, are you\r
+going ever to sit down to your tea? Tom, there's a cup for you."\r
+\r
+"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't for ladies like\r
+you. The time's gone by for that. Bargains picked up dirt cheap! A bit\r
+o' damage here an' there, as can be cut out, or else niver seen i' the\r
+wearin', but not fit to offer to rich folks as can pay for the look o'\r
+things as nobody sees. I'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to\r
+_you_, mum; no, no; I'm a imperent chap, as you say,--these times\r
+makes folks imperent,--but I'm not up to the mark o' that."\r
+\r
+"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+"Fine-colored things, I suppose,--shawls an' that?"\r
+\r
+"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob,--thumping his bundle; "but let\r
+us say no more about that, if _you_ please. I'm here upo' Mr. Tom's\r
+business, an' I'm not the man to take up the time wi' my own."\r
+\r
+"And pray, what _is_ this business as is to be kept from me?" said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was obliged to let\r
+the one-half wait.\r
+\r
+"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured Mr. Glegg;\r
+"and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little plan for making\r
+money; that's the right sort o' plan for young folks as have got their\r
+fortin to make, eh, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to be done for\r
+him by his friends; that's what the young folks think of mostly\r
+nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi' what goes on\r
+in our family? Can't you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt\r
+know things, as a nephey should?"\r
+\r
+"This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation that aunt\r
+Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him ever since we were\r
+little boys. He's a very good fellow, and always ready to do me a\r
+kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,--a\r
+small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I\r
+could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A\r
+large interest is got in that way."\r
+\r
+"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you\r
+call large int'rest?"\r
+\r
+"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."\r
+\r
+"Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr. Glegg?" said\r
+Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of\r
+reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as there was no getting more nor\r
+five per cent?"\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg. "You couldn't\r
+go into trade, could you? You can't get more than five per cent with\r
+security."\r
+\r
+"But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum," said Bob,\r
+"if you'd like to risk it,--not as there's any risk to speak on. But\r
+if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr. Tom, he'd pay you six or\r
+seven per zent, an' get a trifle for himself as well; an' a\r
+good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the feel o' the money better if\r
+your nephey took part on it."\r
+\r
+"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a notion, when I've\r
+made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit\r
+of a nest-egg,--he'll pay me int'rest, you know,--an' if you've got\r
+some little sums lyin' idle twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that----"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to\r
+the tramps next, as they may come and rob me."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi' twenty\r
+pounds, you can--I'll make it fifty. That'll be a pretty good\r
+nest-egg, eh, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his wife. "You\r
+could do fine things wi' my money, I don't doubt."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then we'll do without\r
+you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he added, turning to Bob.\r
+\r
+"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr. Glegg," said\r
+Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own nephey's business. I never\r
+said I wouldn't put money into it,--I don't say as it shall be twenty\r
+pounds, though you're so ready to say it for me,--but he'll see some\r
+day as his aunt's in the right not to risk the money she's saved for\r
+him till it's proved as it won't be lost."\r
+\r
+"Ay, that's a pleasant sort o'risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling. But Bob\r
+stemmed the injured lady's outburst.\r
+\r
+"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's\r
+nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an'\r
+then you'll come down handsome. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev good\r
+kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own\r
+sharpness,--ten suvreigns it was,--wi' dousing the fire at Torry's\r
+mill, an' it's growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a\r
+matter o' thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother\r
+comfor'ble. I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women,--I\r
+can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this bundle,\r
+now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make a pretty penny out\r
+on it. But me!--lors, I shall sell 'em for pretty near what I paid for\r
+'em."\r
+\r
+"Have you got a bit of good net, now?" said Mrs. Glegg, in a\r
+patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.\r
+\r
+"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to look at. I'd\r
+scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to you."\r
+\r
+"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If they're\r
+damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the better quality."\r
+\r
+"No, mum, I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack and\r
+shouldering it. "I'm not going t' expose the lowness o' my trade to a\r
+lady like you. Packs is come down i' the world; it 'ud cut you to th'\r
+heart to see the difference. I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a\r
+mind to go and see Salt."\r
+\r
+"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the\r
+dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."\r
+\r
+"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a\r
+chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.\r
+\r
+"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.\r
+\r
+"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Eh mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on\r
+the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. "But what\r
+you order shall be done" (much fumbling in pauses between the\r
+sentences). "It's not as you'll buy a single thing on me,--I'd be\r
+sorry for you to do it,--for think o' them poor women up i' the\r
+villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,--it 'ud be a\r
+pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a\r
+junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick\r
+up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now, for I'm\r
+off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and\r
+holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in\r
+the corner; "here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two\r
+shillin'--an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole 'i this\r
+plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by\r
+Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin'\r
+women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now,\r
+every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like\r
+you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,--not a farthin' less; but what does\r
+the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no\r
+time; an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as\r
+live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors,\r
+it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher!"\r
+\r
+Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply:\r
+\r
+"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored\r
+things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."\r
+\r
+"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the\r
+colored things with an air of desperation. "I knowed it ud' turn\r
+again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here's a piece\r
+o' figured muslin now, what's the use o' you lookin' at it? You might\r
+as well look at poor folks's victual, mum; it 'ud on'y take away your\r
+appetite. There's a yard i' the middle on't as the pattern's all\r
+missed,--lors, why, it's a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha'\r
+wore; but," added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to\r
+save Mrs. Glegg's eyes, "it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at\r
+Fibb's End,--that's where _it'll_ go--ten shillin' for the whole\r
+lot--ten yards, countin' the damaged un--five-an'-twenty shillin' 'ud\r
+ha' been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no more, mum; it's\r
+nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that; you can afford to pay\r
+three times the money for a thing as isn't half so good. It's nets\r
+_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun\r
+on----"\r
+\r
+"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to\r
+buff."\r
+\r
+"Eh, but a _damaged_ thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecating\r
+disgust. "You'd do nothing with it, mum, you'd give it to the cook, I\r
+know you would, an' it 'ud be a pity,--she'd look too much like a lady\r
+in it; it's unbecoming for servants."\r
+\r
+"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,\r
+authoritatively.\r
+\r
+Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.\r
+\r
+"See what there is over measure!" he said, holding forth the extra\r
+half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and\r
+throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a\r
+distant view.\r
+\r
+"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with\r
+the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.\r
+\r
+"Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to look at\r
+my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stomach now; I see it has,"\r
+said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and\r
+apparently about to fasten up his pack. "You're used to seein' a\r
+different sort o' article carried by packmen, when you lived at the\r
+stone house. Packs is come down i' the world; I told you that; _my_\r
+goods are for common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for\r
+that muslin, an' be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles\r
+answer i' the wearin',--they keep their color till the threads melt\r
+away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un."\r
+\r
+"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob. "Here's a bit o'\r
+net, then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to\r
+see what my trade's come to,--spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful\r
+but yallow,--'s been lyin' by an' got the wrong color. I could niver\r
+ha' bought such net, if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a\r
+deal o' study to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to\r
+carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the\r
+same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest.\r
+I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,--up to no\r
+tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I\r
+should lose myself pretty quick. An' I gev five-an'-eightpence for\r
+that piece o' net,--if I was to tell y' anything else I should be\r
+tellin' you fibs,--an' five-an'-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a\r
+penny more, for it's a woman's article, an' I like to 'commodate the\r
+women. Five-an'-eightpence for six yards,--as cheap as if it was only\r
+the dirt on it as was paid for.'"\r
+\r
+"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg.\r
+\r
+"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum, it isn't worth\r
+your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an' get the same pattern\r
+ready whitened. It's on'y three times the money; what's that to a lady\r
+like you?" He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.\r
+\r
+"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight\r
+shilling for it."\r
+\r
+"You _will_ be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I\r
+see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder."\r
+\r
+"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.\r
+\r
+"But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as\r
+not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me,\r
+if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do\r
+for my goods, else they'd find out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't\r
+insist upo' buyin' the net, for then I should ha' lost my two best\r
+bargains for Mrs. Pepper o' Fibb's End, an' she's a rare customer."\r
+\r
+"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the\r
+cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.\r
+\r
+"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out.\r
+\r
+"Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the\r
+sort o' article I'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send out. Lors, it's a\r
+fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o' money; these Laceham goods\r
+'ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o'\r
+money!--why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them goods,--a lady\r
+wi' a cork leg, but as sharp,--you wouldn't catch _her_ runnin' her\r
+head into a sack; _she'd_ see her way clear out o' anything afore\r
+she'd be in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a\r
+young man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,\r
+an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out, an' she\r
+got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't hold her but she\r
+must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship, till she's gettin' as\r
+rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she doesn't live i' this town. Now\r
+then, mum, if you'll please to give me the net----"\r
+\r
+"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But\r
+it's a shameful price."\r
+\r
+"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your knees i' church\r
+i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present o' th' articles; I am,\r
+indeed. That eightpence shaves off my profits as clean as a razor. Now\r
+then, sir," continued Bob, shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll\r
+be glad to go and see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd\r
+got another twenty pound to lay out _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say\r
+my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat,\r
+"you never _will_ give me the chance o' speaking. You'll go away now,\r
+and finish everything about this business, and come back and tell me\r
+it's too late for me to speak. As if I wasn't my nephey's own aunt,\r
+and the head o' the family on his mother's side! and laid by guineas,\r
+all full weight, for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid\r
+in my coffin."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I\r
+don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, if you make out as\r
+everything's right and safe. And if I do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg,\r
+turning impressively to her nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in\r
+mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest,\r
+you know; I don't approve o' giving; we niver looked for that in _my_\r
+family."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the\r
+money only lent to me."\r
+\r
+"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg, rising to get\r
+her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this would\r
+be bathos.\r
+\r
+Salt--that eminently "briny chap"--having been discovered in a cloud\r
+of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries\r
+which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the\r
+"nest-egg," to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this\r
+modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise\r
+surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, unknown to his\r
+father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy\r
+process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his\r
+attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to\r
+make the most of it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information\r
+and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was\r
+influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often\r
+gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire\r
+it,--partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen\r
+between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most\r
+sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise\r
+his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been\r
+better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the\r
+delirium of a too sudden elation.\r
+\r
+At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had already\r
+nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they\r
+were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same\r
+evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first\r
+journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the\r
+chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his\r
+gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father's name, and\r
+perhaps--for he should be twenty-one--have got a new start for\r
+himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He\r
+was quite sure that he did.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+The Wavering Balance\r
+\r
+\r
+I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a\r
+mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her\r
+interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an\r
+opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of\r
+humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;\r
+and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of\r
+her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear\r
+tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of\r
+exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was\r
+pitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity\r
+indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;\r
+perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without\r
+some width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resigned\r
+imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should\r
+be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were\r
+so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning\r
+came again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity and\r
+clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,\r
+by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself\r
+under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had\r
+won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next\r
+week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she\r
+was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked\r
+forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the\r
+hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the\r
+affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of\r
+comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to\r
+the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,\r
+which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very\r
+hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no\r
+other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as\r
+well as sad.\r
+\r
+"Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each\r
+other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without\r
+concealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is other\r
+people's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but\r
+concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be\r
+bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,\r
+there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we must\r
+part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing\r
+each other."\r
+\r
+Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of\r
+expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all\r
+his might.\r
+\r
+But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,\r
+Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;\r
+let us talk together a little while, for the last time."\r
+\r
+He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his\r
+quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and\r
+she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked\r
+together hand in hand in silence.\r
+\r
+"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the last\r
+time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their\r
+opal petals over it."\r
+\r
+They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.\r
+\r
+"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," said\r
+Philip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while you\r
+stay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this\r
+way."\r
+\r
+This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard\r
+of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black\r
+coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be\r
+worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up\r
+to it.\r
+\r
+"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling.\r
+"Will it be larger than the other?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall\r
+Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the\r
+fir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the\r
+grass."\r
+\r
+"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too many\r
+things,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one\r
+of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and\r
+effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for\r
+classic literature, and mediæval literature, and modern literature; I\r
+flutter all ways, and fly in none."\r
+\r
+"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so\r
+many beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,\r
+musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to\r
+have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."\r
+\r
+"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other\r
+men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction\r
+by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling\r
+satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I\r
+might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could\r
+make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty\r
+that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,\r
+there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the\r
+consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating\r
+again as it used to do.\r
+\r
+"I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much less\r
+than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on\r
+being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no\r
+consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I\r
+think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking\r
+care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be\r
+denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three\r
+years, even joy in subduing my own will."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself\r
+up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of\r
+escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your\r
+nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing\r
+endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be\r
+allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to\r
+remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of\r
+your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not\r
+sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not\r
+resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."\r
+\r
+Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip\r
+said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate\r
+application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her\r
+double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.\r
+Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence\r
+because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his\r
+wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,\r
+touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand\r
+and said gently:\r
+\r
+"Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let\r
+us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of\r
+separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to\r
+live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always\r
+come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."\r
+\r
+"What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,\r
+smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made as\r
+much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would\r
+have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear\r
+with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that\r
+Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That\r
+is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.\r
+I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments\r
+playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever\r
+sing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what\r
+went before.\r
+\r
+"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,\r
+like everything else in me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before\r
+I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,\r
+when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron over\r
+my head to listen."\r
+\r
+"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while\r
+he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,\r
+"That's it, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only haunt\r
+me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home."\r
+\r
+She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in this\r
+wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing\r
+and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when\r
+you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all wit\r
+and bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until\r
+you draw that veil of dull quiescence over it."\r
+\r
+"Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this\r
+self-torture."\r
+\r
+"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.\r
+\r
+"No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is\r
+unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No\r
+character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the\r
+world some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your nature\r
+that you deny now will assault you like a savage appetite."\r
+\r
+Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.\r
+\r
+"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter."\r
+\r
+"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives\r
+foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let me\r
+see you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said at\r
+Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should\r
+be committing this long suicide."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in\r
+silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out\r
+her hand in sign of parting.\r
+\r
+"Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may\r
+come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no\r
+concealment in that?"\r
+\r
+It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become\r
+irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon\r
+us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and\r
+firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long\r
+struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.\r
+\r
+Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip's, and there\r
+passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompanies\r
+any relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence.\r
+\r
+Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not to be\r
+visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening too\r
+presumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, perhaps for a\r
+selfish end. But no!--he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. He\r
+had little hope that Maggie would ever return the strong feeling he\r
+had for her; and it must be better for Maggie's future life, when\r
+these petty family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the\r
+present should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should have\r
+some opportunity of culture,--some interchange with a mind above the\r
+vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. If we only\r
+look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always\r
+find some point in the combination of results by which those actions\r
+can be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who\r
+arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find\r
+it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is\r
+most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this way\r
+that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's true\r
+prompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness into\r
+her own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had the primary\r
+natural claim on her. But there was a surplus of passion in him that\r
+made him half independent of justifying motives. His longing to see\r
+Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that savage\r
+impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in which\r
+the mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He had\r
+not his full share in the common good of men; he could not even pass\r
+muster with the insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, and\r
+excepted from what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggie\r
+he was an exception; it was clear that the thought of his being her\r
+lover had never entered her mind.\r
+\r
+Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have great\r
+need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely\r
+uncomfortable without them; but the theory that unusual virtues spring\r
+by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get\r
+thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The\r
+temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear\r
+the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at\r
+a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as\r
+palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of\r
+hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost\r
+trial to what is human in us?\r
+\r
+Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which flows out to\r
+us in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clings\r
+to us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners\r
+in the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection and\r
+indulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of his\r
+father's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip had\r
+been, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the\r
+woman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate\r
+pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in his\r
+life,--his relation as a son,--was like an aching limb to him. Perhaps\r
+there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any\r
+way unfavorably excepted from ordinary conditions, until the good\r
+force has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at\r
+two-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, but\r
+the sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Another Love-Scene\r
+\r
+\r
+Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting\r
+you have just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie\r
+entering the Red Deeps through the group of Scotch firs. But it is\r
+early afternoon and not evening, and the edge of sharpness in the\r
+spring air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip\r
+along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may\r
+take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager,\r
+inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is\r
+hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the\r
+right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.\r
+\r
+"Take back your _Corinne_," said Maggie, drawing a book from under her\r
+shawl. "You were right in telling me she would do me no good; but you\r
+were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her."\r
+\r
+"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said\r
+Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the\r
+clouds that promises us a bright heaven once more.\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Maggie, laughing. "The Muses were uncomfortable\r
+goddesses, I think,--obliged always to carry rolls and musical\r
+instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you\r
+know, I must have a green baize cover for it; and I should be sure to\r
+leave it behind me by mistake."\r
+\r
+"You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?"\r
+\r
+"I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the\r
+blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and\r
+determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned\r
+girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable.\r
+I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women\r
+carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice\r
+against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark\r
+woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca\r
+and Flora MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest of the dark unhappy\r
+ones. Since you are my tutor, you ought to preserve my mind from\r
+prejudices; you are always arguing against prejudices."\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person, and\r
+carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have\r
+some handsome young man of St. Ogg's at her feet now; and you have\r
+only to shine upon him--your fair little cousin will be quite quenched\r
+in your beams."\r
+\r
+"Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything\r
+real," said Maggie, looking hurt. "As if I, with my old gowns and want\r
+of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,--who\r
+knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier\r
+than I am,--even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her\r
+rival. Besides, I never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there; it\r
+is only because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see\r
+me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, "it is not like you to take\r
+playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's this morning,\r
+and brought away a slight infection of dulness."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a joke, it was a\r
+poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you\r
+wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me\r
+most. But it isn't for that that I'm jealous for the dark women,--not\r
+because I'm dark myself; it's because I always care the most about the\r
+unhappy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like _her_\r
+best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories."\r
+\r
+"Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should\r
+you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little.\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright smile,\r
+"I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited; and yet, if he got\r
+extremely humiliated afterward, I should relent."\r
+\r
+"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some effort, "whether\r
+you wouldn't really be more likely to love a man that other women were\r
+not likely to love."\r
+\r
+"That would depend on what they didn't like him for," said Maggie,\r
+laughing. "He might be very disagreeable. He might look at me through\r
+an eye-glass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry\r
+does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never\r
+felt any pity for young Torry. I've never any pity for conceited\r
+people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them."\r
+\r
+"But suppose, Maggie,--suppose it was a man who was not conceited, who\r
+felt he had nothing to be conceited about; who had been marked from\r
+childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering, and to whom you were the\r
+day-star of his life; who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that\r
+he felt it happiness enough for him if you would let him see you at\r
+rare moments----"\r
+\r
+Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut\r
+short this very happiness,--a pang of the same dread that had kept his\r
+love mute through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him\r
+that he was besotted to have said all this. Maggie's manner this\r
+morning had been as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.\r
+\r
+But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual\r
+emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and\r
+as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face,--a flush\r
+and slight spasm of the features, such as we see in people who hear\r
+some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the\r
+past. She was quite silent, and walking on toward the trunk of a\r
+fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her\r
+muscles. She was trembling.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh\r
+moment of silence, "I was a fool to say it; forget that I've said it.\r
+I shall be contented if things can be as they were."\r
+\r
+The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. "I am\r
+so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it." And the effort to say\r
+this brought the tears down too.\r
+\r
+"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetuously. "Do you\r
+think I'm a presumptuous fool?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip!" said Maggie, "how can you think I have such feelings? As\r
+if I were not grateful for _any_ love. But--but I had never thought of\r
+your being my lover. It seemed so far off--like a dream--only like one\r
+of the stories one imagines--that I should ever have a lover."\r
+\r
+"Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?" said Philip,\r
+seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a\r
+sudden hope. "_Do_ you love me?"\r
+\r
+Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to\r
+answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this moment liquid\r
+and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet\r
+with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.\r
+\r
+"I think I could hardly love any one better; there is nothing but what\r
+I love you for." She paused a little while, and then added: "But it\r
+will be better for us not to say any more about it, won't it, dear\r
+Philip? You know we couldn't even be friends, if our friendship were\r
+discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about\r
+seeing you, though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now\r
+the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to evil."\r
+\r
+"But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear\r
+before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing\r
+year, instead of reviving into your real self."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head. "It has been very sweet, I know,--all the\r
+talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk\r
+to look forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come\r
+into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless;\r
+it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have\r
+impatient thoughts again,--I get weary of my home; and then it cuts me\r
+to the heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my\r
+father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was\r
+better--better for me--for then my selfish desires were benumbed."\r
+\r
+Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward\r
+impatiently.\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I've often told\r
+you. What you call self-conquest--binding and deafening yourself to\r
+all but one train of impressions--is only the culture of monomania in\r
+a nature like yours."\r
+\r
+He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again\r
+and took her hand.\r
+\r
+"Don't think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If you\r
+can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be\r
+overcome in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me,\r
+Maggie; tell me again it is possible for you to love me. Don't look\r
+away from me to that cloven tree; it is a bad omen."\r
+\r
+She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.\r
+\r
+"Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at\r
+Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me,--don't you\r
+remember?--and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You\r
+never kept the promise."\r
+\r
+The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to\r
+Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him\r
+almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years\r
+old. Philip's eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words\r
+of discontent.\r
+\r
+"You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say\r
+you love me, out of pity."\r
+\r
+"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way;\r
+"I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I\r
+don't think I could love any one better than I love you. I should like\r
+always to live with you--to make you happy. I have always been happy\r
+when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for\r
+your sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never\r
+ask that from me."\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I'll wait\r
+another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place\r
+in your heart."\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so long as that."\r
+But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her\r
+seat,--\r
+\r
+"But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite\r
+impossible we can ever be more than friends,--brother and sister in\r
+secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else."\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie, I can't give you up,--unless you are deceiving me; unless\r
+you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the\r
+truth."\r
+\r
+"Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being\r
+with you,--since I was a little girl,--the days Tom was good to me?\r
+And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to\r
+know. I think I should never be tired of being with you."\r
+\r
+They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed,\r
+was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense\r
+that their parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have\r
+unintentionally left some painful impression on Philip's mind. It was\r
+one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and\r
+deceptive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves\r
+floodmarks which are never reached again.\r
+\r
+They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.\r
+\r
+"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier\r
+than other men, in spite of all? We _do_ belong to each other--for\r
+always--whether we are apart or together?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your\r
+life very happy."\r
+\r
+"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come."\r
+\r
+Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head\r
+to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,--like a\r
+woman's.\r
+\r
+She had a moment of real happiness then,--a moment of belief that, if\r
+there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more\r
+satisfying.\r
+\r
+She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she\r
+had trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue\r
+of vague dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the\r
+threads of thought and emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of\r
+her actual daily life.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+The Cloven Tree\r
+\r
+\r
+Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme\r
+our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always haunted by terrible\r
+dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities\r
+against them; and during a year that Maggie had had the burthen of\r
+concealment on her mind, the possibility of discovery had continually\r
+presented itself under the form of a sudden meeting with her father or\r
+Tom when she was walking with Philip in the Red Deeps. She was aware\r
+that this was not one of the most likely events; but it was the scene\r
+that most completely symbolized her inward dread. Those slight\r
+indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial\r
+coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favorite\r
+machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which Imagination is apt\r
+to work.\r
+\r
+Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's fears were furthest\r
+from troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet, on whom, seeing that\r
+she did not live in St. Ogg's, and was neither sharp-eyed nor\r
+sharp-tempered, it would surely have been quite whimsical of them to\r
+fix rather than on aunt Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality--the\r
+pathway of the lightning--was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not\r
+live at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the Red Deeps,\r
+at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.\r
+\r
+The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a Sunday on\r
+which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hatband and scarf at\r
+St. Ogg's church, Mrs. Pullet made this the occasion of dining with\r
+sister Glegg, and taking tea with poor sister Tulliver. Sunday was the\r
+one day in the week on which Tom was at home in the afternoon; and\r
+today the brighter spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in\r
+unusually cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invitation,\r
+"Come, Magsie, you come too!" when he strolled out with his mother in\r
+the garden to see the advancing cherry-blossoms. He had been better\r
+pleased with Maggie since she had been less odd and ascetic; he was\r
+even getting rather proud of her; several persons had remarked in his\r
+hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a\r
+peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of\r
+excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it\r
+might pass for a sign of happiness.\r
+\r
+"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking her head\r
+sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. "I niver thought your girl 'ud\r
+be so good-looking, Bessy. But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue\r
+thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane\r
+never _was_ tasty. Why don't you wear that gown o' mine?"\r
+\r
+"It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it's too showy for\r
+me,--at least for my other clothes, that I must wear with it.\r
+\r
+"To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it wasn't well known you've got\r
+them belonging to you as can afford to give you such things when\r
+they've done with 'em themselves. It stands to reason I must give my\r
+own niece clothes now and then,--such things as _I_ buy every year,\r
+and never wear anything out. And as for Lucy, there's no giving to\r
+her, for she's got everything o' the choicest; sister Deane may well\r
+hold her head up,--though she looks dreadful yallow, poor thing--I\r
+doubt this liver complaint 'ull carry her off. That's what this new\r
+vicar, this Dr. Kenn, said in the funeral sermon to-day."\r
+\r
+"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account,--isn't he, Sophy?"\r
+said Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+"Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day," continued Mrs.\r
+Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner, "as I don't say I\r
+haven't got as good, but I must look out my best to match it."\r
+\r
+"Miss Lucy's called the bell o' St. Ogg's, they say; that's a cur'ous\r
+word," observed Mr. Pullet, on whom the mysteries of etymology\r
+sometimes fell with an oppressive weight.\r
+\r
+"Pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, "she's a small thing,\r
+not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine birds. I see nothing\r
+to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the\r
+side o' the men,--out o' proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her\r
+the right size,--neither too little nor too big."\r
+\r
+The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently.\r
+\r
+"But the men aren't _all_ big," said uncle Pullet, not without some\r
+self-reference; "a young fellow may be good-looking and yet not be a\r
+six-foot, like Master Tom here.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness,--anybody may\r
+think it's a mercy they're straight," said aunt Pullet. "There's that\r
+mismade son o' Lawyer Wakem's, I saw him at church to-day. Dear, dear!\r
+to think o' the property he's like to have; and they say he's very\r
+queer and lonely, doesn't like much company. I shouldn't wonder if he\r
+goes out of his mind; for we never come along the road but he's\r
+a-scrambling out o' the trees and brambles at the Red Deeps."\r
+\r
+This wide statement, by which Mrs. Pullet represented the fact that\r
+she had twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, produced an effect on\r
+Maggie which was all the stronger because Tom sate opposite her, and\r
+she was intensely anxious to look indifferent. At Philip's name she\r
+had blushed, and the blush deepened every instant from consciousness,\r
+until the mention of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole\r
+secret were betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest\r
+she should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands clasped under\r
+the table, not daring to look round. Happily, her father was seated on\r
+the same side with herself, beyond her uncle Pullet, and could not see\r
+her face without stooping forward. Her mother's voice brought the\r
+first relief, turning the conversation; for Mrs. Tulliver was always\r
+alarmed when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's\r
+presence. Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to look up; her\r
+eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head immediately; and she went\r
+to bed that night wondering if he had gathered any suspicion from her\r
+confusion. Perhaps not; perhaps he would think it was only her alarm\r
+at her aunt's mention of Wakem before her father; that was the\r
+interpretation her mother had put in it. To her father, Wakem was like\r
+a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure the\r
+consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence recognized by\r
+others; and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could\r
+be surprising, Maggie thought.\r
+\r
+But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an\r
+interpretation; he had seen clearly enough that there was something\r
+distinct from anxiety about her father in Maggie's excessive\r
+confusion. In trying to recall all the details that could give shape\r
+to his suspicions, he remembered only lately hearing his mother scold\r
+Maggie for walking in the Red Deeps when the ground was wet, and\r
+bringing home shoes clogged with red soil; still Tom, retaining all\r
+his old repulsion for Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to\r
+his sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in\r
+such an unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom's was a\r
+nature which had a sort of superstitious repugnance to everything\r
+exceptional. A love for a deformed man would be odious in any woman,\r
+in a sister intolerable. But if she had been carrying on any kind of\r
+intercourse whatever with Philip, a stop must be put to it at once;\r
+she was disobeying her father's strongest feelings and her brother's\r
+express commands, besides compromising herself by secret meetings. He\r
+left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind which turns\r
+the most ordinary course of things into pregnant coincidences.\r
+\r
+That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was standing on the\r
+wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability of the good ship\r
+Adelaide coming in, in a day or two, with results highly important to\r
+both of them.\r
+\r
+"Eh," said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields on the\r
+other side of the river, "there goes that crooked young Wakem. I know\r
+him or his shadder as far off as I can see 'em; I'm allays lighting on\r
+him o' that side the river."\r
+\r
+A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's mind. "I must go,\r
+Bob," he said; "I've something to attend to," hurrying off to the\r
+warehouse, where he left notice for some one to take his place; he was\r
+called away home on peremptory business.\r
+\r
+The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he\r
+was pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house\r
+with an appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the\r
+front door in bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he\r
+waited for her at the gate. She started violently when she saw him.\r
+\r
+"Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?"\r
+Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice.\r
+\r
+"I'm come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet Philip Wakem,"\r
+said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which had become habitual with\r
+him, deepening as he spoke.\r
+\r
+Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew\r
+everything. At last she said, "I'm not going," and turned round.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my father?"\r
+\r
+"Out on horseback."\r
+\r
+"And my mother?"\r
+\r
+"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."\r
+\r
+"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?"\r
+\r
+They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie,\r
+"Come in here."\r
+\r
+She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.\r
+\r
+"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between\r
+you and Philip Wakem."\r
+\r
+"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling.\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom indignantly. "But he _shall_ know, if you attempt to\r
+use deceit toward me any further."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at\r
+hearing this word applied to her conduct.\r
+\r
+"Tell me the whole truth, then."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you know it."\r
+\r
+"Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has\r
+happened, or my father shall know everything."\r
+\r
+"I tell it for my father's sake, then."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you\r
+have despised his strongest feelings."\r
+\r
+"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.\r
+\r
+"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.\r
+\r
+"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed\r
+between you and Philip Wakem. When did you first meet him in the Red\r
+Deeps?"\r
+\r
+"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave her a certain\r
+fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance. "You need\r
+ask me no more questions. We have been friendly a year. We have met\r
+and walked together often. He has lent me books."\r
+\r
+"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right\r
+to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:\r
+\r
+"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I didn't\r
+think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend."\r
+\r
+"And you _encouraged_ him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust.\r
+\r
+"I told him that I loved him too."\r
+\r
+Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with\r
+his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly,--\r
+\r
+"Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take,--either\r
+you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father's Bible, that you\r
+will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with\r
+Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this\r
+month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will\r
+cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful\r
+daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine\r
+meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father.\r
+Choose!" Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible,\r
+drawing it forward, and opening it at the fly-leaf, where the writing\r
+was.\r
+\r
+It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't ask me that.\r
+I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will\r
+let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain\r
+everything,--to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to\r
+my father. I feel something for Philip too. _He_ is not happy."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly\r
+what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in."\r
+\r
+"If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I\r
+laid my hand on the Bible. I don't require that to bind me."\r
+\r
+"Do what _I_ require," said Tom. "I can't trust you, Maggie. There is\r
+no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, 'I\r
+renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from\r
+this time forth.' Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my\r
+father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up\r
+everything else for the sake of paying my father's debts, if you are\r
+to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and\r
+hold up his head once more?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Tom, _will_ the debts be paid soon?" said Maggie, clasping her\r
+hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.\r
+\r
+"If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. "But," he added, his voice\r
+trembling with indignation, "while I have been contriving and working\r
+that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies,--working\r
+for the respectability of our family,--you have done all you can to\r
+destroy both."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind\r
+ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable,\r
+and in her self-blame she justified her brother.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said in a low voice, "it was wrong of me; but I was so\r
+lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are\r
+wicked."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense!" said Tom. "Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but\r
+promise, in the words I told you."\r
+\r
+"I _must_ speak to Philip once more."\r
+\r
+"You will go with me now and speak to him."\r
+\r
+"I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your\r
+knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on\r
+the Bible if you like."\r
+\r
+"Say it, then."\r
+\r
+Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the\r
+promise. Tom closed the book, and said, "Now let us go."\r
+\r
+Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in\r
+anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the\r
+galling words that would fall on him from Tom's lips; but she felt it\r
+was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible\r
+clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the\r
+demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and\r
+yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its\r
+incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation\r
+diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish\r
+repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in\r
+the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a\r
+son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own\r
+motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was\r
+quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he\r
+would have had nothing to do with them.\r
+\r
+Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first time, have\r
+prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,--then she\r
+might get Tom's permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double\r
+violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment\r
+of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got\r
+beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and\r
+entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they\r
+came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly\r
+within a yard of each other. There was a moment's silence, in which\r
+Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer\r
+there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the\r
+large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an\r
+immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble\r
+Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.\r
+\r
+"Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?" Tom\r
+said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip's eyes were turned\r
+on him again.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily.\r
+\r
+"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I'll\r
+tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl's\r
+foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you.\r
+I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has\r
+a good and honest name to support."\r
+\r
+"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could never trifle\r
+with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is dearer to\r
+me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I\r
+would give up my life to her."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend\r
+that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here\r
+week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions\r
+of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when\r
+neither her father nor your father would ever consent to a marriage\r
+between you? And _you_,--_you_ to try and worm yourself into the\r
+affections of a handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut\r
+out from the world by her father's misfortunes! That's your crooked\r
+notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery; I call it taking\r
+advantage of circumstances to win what's too good for you,--what you'd\r
+never get by fair means."\r
+\r
+"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," said Philip,\r
+bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. "Giants have an\r
+immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable\r
+even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for\r
+her that I could even desire to be at friendship with _you_."\r
+\r
+"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom, with\r
+scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand\r
+_me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ sister, and that if you dare to\r
+make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to\r
+keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that\r
+ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you.\r
+I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh\r
+at the idea of _your_ turning lover to a fine girl?"\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a\r
+convulsed voice.\r
+\r
+"Stay, Maggie!" said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then\r
+looking at Tom, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that\r
+she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally\r
+seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken.\r
+Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall\r
+abide by her wishes to the slightest word."\r
+\r
+"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom\r
+threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have promised,\r
+I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without\r
+my brother's knowledge."\r
+\r
+"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change; but I wish you to hold\r
+yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek\r
+for anything but good to what belongs to you."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's, "you can\r
+talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek\r
+her good before?"\r
+\r
+"I did,--at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for\r
+life,--who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a\r
+coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her\r
+affections on."\r
+\r
+"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I'll tell\r
+you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and disgracing her\r
+father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on you,--from making\r
+herself a laughing-stock,--from being flouted by a man like _your_\r
+father, because she's not good enough for his son. You know well\r
+enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her.\r
+I'm not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.\r
+Come away, Maggie."\r
+\r
+He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left\r
+hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then\r
+hurried away.\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still\r
+holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the\r
+scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand\r
+away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.\r
+\r
+"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your\r
+will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I\r
+detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have\r
+been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure\r
+you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough\r
+to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your\r
+own petty aims."\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is\r
+better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem's\r
+conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known?\r
+Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've\r
+succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one\r
+else?"\r
+\r
+"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I\r
+know I've been wrong,--often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I\r
+have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be\r
+the better for, if you had them. If _you_ were in fault ever, if you\r
+had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it\r
+brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you\r
+have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel\r
+to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than\r
+any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without\r
+forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own\r
+imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not\r
+fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee.\r
+You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are\r
+great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of\r
+feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!"\r
+\r
+"Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much\r
+better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by\r
+conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,--than by ridiculous flights\r
+first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown\r
+your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying\r
+and deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection."\r
+\r
+"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in\r
+the world."\r
+\r
+"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."\r
+\r
+"So I _will_ submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I will\r
+submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not\r
+submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased\r
+you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't\r
+suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The\r
+deformity you insult would make me cling to him and care for him the\r
+more."\r
+\r
+"Very well; that is your view of things." said Tom, more coldly than\r
+ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is\r
+between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent."\r
+\r
+Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle\r
+Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set\r
+out the next morning.\r
+\r
+Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant\r
+remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter\r
+tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by,\r
+came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which had\r
+ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearness and simplicity of\r
+her life. She used to think in that time that she had made great\r
+conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene heights above worldly\r
+temptations and conflict. And here she was down again in the thick of\r
+a hot strife with her own and others' passions. Life was not so short,\r
+then, and perfect rest was not so near as she had dreamed when she was\r
+two years younger. There was more struggle for her, and perhaps more\r
+falling. If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had\r
+been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward\r
+harmony; but now her penitence and submission were constantly\r
+obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise\r
+than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for Philip; she went on\r
+recalling the insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a\r
+conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a\r
+sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and\r
+tighten her fingers on her palm.\r
+\r
+And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain\r
+dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely\r
+it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was\r
+welcome at any cost.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+The Hard-Won Triumph\r
+\r
+\r
+Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in\r
+all the year,--the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep\r
+and daisied,--Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the\r
+evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old\r
+deep-rooted affection at the respectable red brick house, which always\r
+seemed cheerful and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the\r
+hearts as sad as they might inside. There is a very pleasant light in\r
+Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in\r
+his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply\r
+a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the\r
+eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm step becomes\r
+quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the compression\r
+which is meant to forbid a smile.\r
+\r
+The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just then,\r
+and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,--Mr. Tulliver\r
+in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn\r
+look, fixed chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her sewing while\r
+her mother was making the tea.\r
+\r
+They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot.\r
+\r
+"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than\r
+usual."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well,\r
+mother!"\r
+\r
+Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor\r
+with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Maggie in\r
+all the three weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home\r
+prevented this from being noticeable to their parents.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly\r
+how much money there is in the tin box?"\r
+\r
+"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've\r
+brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their own way\r
+with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before _I_ was of\r
+age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.\r
+\r
+"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom. "I wish you\r
+would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you have\r
+perhaps made a mistake."\r
+\r
+"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've counted\r
+it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe me."\r
+\r
+It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to\r
+fetch the tin box and count the money.\r
+\r
+"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her moving\r
+when his father was gone upstairs.\r
+\r
+"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody must\r
+take away the things."\r
+\r
+"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently.\r
+\r
+That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the\r
+sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts\r
+could be paid; and Tom would have let her be absent when that news was\r
+told! But she carried away the tray and came back immediately. The\r
+feeling of injury on her own behalf could not predominate at that\r
+moment.\r
+\r
+Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin box\r
+was set down and opened, and the red evening light falling on them\r
+made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father and the\r
+suppressed joy in the face of the fair-complexioned son. The mother\r
+and Maggie sat at the other end of the table, the one in blank\r
+patience, the other in palpitating expectation.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table,\r
+and then said, glancing sharply at Tom:\r
+\r
+"There now! you see I was right enough."\r
+\r
+He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.\r
+\r
+"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while before\r
+_I_ can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi' the corn was a sore\r
+job. This world's been too many for me. It's took four year to lay\r
+_this_ by; it's much if I'm above ground for another four year. I must\r
+trusten to you to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, "if\r
+you keep i' the same mind now you're coming o' age. But you're like\r
+enough to bury me first."\r
+\r
+He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some assurance.\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though there\r
+was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to see the\r
+debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand."\r
+\r
+His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A\r
+slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr. Tulliver, and he kept\r
+his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie,\r
+unable to restrain herself, rushed to her father's side and knelt down\r
+by him. Tom was silent a little while before he went on.\r
+\r
+"A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money to trade\r
+with, and that has answered. I have three hundred and twenty pounds in\r
+the bank."\r
+\r
+His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were\r
+uttered, and she said, half crying:\r
+\r
+"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again, when you got a\r
+man."\r
+\r
+But his father was silent; the flood of emotion hemmed in all power of\r
+speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with fear lest the shock of\r
+joy might even be fatal. But the blessed relief of tears came. The\r
+broad chest heaved, the muscles of the face gave way, and the\r
+gray-haired man burst into loud sobs. The fit of weeping gradually\r
+subsided, and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity of his\r
+breathing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle\r
+tone:\r
+\r
+"Bessy, you must come and kiss me now--the lad has made you amends.\r
+You'll see a bit o' comfort again, belike."\r
+\r
+When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his\r
+thoughts went back to the money.\r
+\r
+"I wish you'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he said,\r
+fingering the sovereigns on the table; "I should ha' felt surer."\r
+\r
+"You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. "My uncle Deane has\r
+appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he\r
+has ordered a dinner for them at two o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he\r
+will both be there. It was advertised in the 'Messenger' on Saturday."\r
+\r
+"Then Wakem knows on't!" said Mr. Tulliver, his eye kindling with\r
+triumphant fire. "Ah!" he went on, with a long-drawn guttural\r
+enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left\r
+himself, and tapping it with something of his old air of defiance.\r
+"I'll get from under _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ leave the old\r
+mill. I thought I could ha' held out to die here--but I can't----we've\r
+got a glass o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys,\r
+"there's some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill."\r
+\r
+"Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak."\r
+\r
+"Tom, my lad," he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some\r
+brandy-and-water, "you shall make a speech to 'em. I'll tell 'em it's\r
+you as got the best part o' the money. They'll see I'm honest at last,\r
+and ha' got an honest son. Ah! Wakem 'ud be fine and glad to have a\r
+son like mine,--a fine straight fellow,--i'stead o' that poor crooked\r
+creatur! You'll prosper i' the world, my lad; you'll maybe see the day\r
+when Wakem and his son 'ull be a round or two below you. You'll like\r
+enough be ta'en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before\r
+you,--you're in the right way for't; and then there's nothing to\r
+hinder your getting rich. And if ever you're rich enough--mind\r
+this--try and get th' old mill again."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so\r
+long been the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding,\r
+suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune.\r
+But some subtle influence prevented him from foreseeing the good\r
+fortune as happening to himself.\r
+\r
+"Shake hands wi' me, my lad," he said, suddenly putting out his hand.\r
+"It's a great thing when a man can be proud as he's got a good son.\r
+I've had _that_ luck."\r
+\r
+Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and\r
+Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ good;\r
+and in the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true\r
+admiration and gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in\r
+her had never been redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy\r
+this evening that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into\r
+the background in her father's mind.\r
+\r
+There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr. Tulliver naturally wanted\r
+to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading adventures, and he\r
+listened with growing excitement and delight. He was curious to know\r
+what had been said on every occasion; if possible, what had been\r
+thought; and Bob Jakin's part in the business threw him into peculiar\r
+outbursts of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that\r
+remarkable packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come\r
+under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense of\r
+astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all\r
+reminiscences of the childhood of great men.\r
+\r
+It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under\r
+the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would\r
+otherwise have been the channel his joy would have rushed into with\r
+dangerous force. Even as it was, that feeling from time to time gave\r
+threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden bursts of irrelevant\r
+exclamation.\r
+\r
+It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night; and the\r
+sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At half-past five\r
+o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was already rising, he\r
+alarmed her by starting up with a sort of smothered shout, and looking\r
+round in a bewildered way at the walls of the bedroom.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He looked at her,\r
+still with a puzzled expression, and said at last:\r
+\r
+"Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I'd got hold of\r
+him."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+A Day of Reckoning\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver was an essentially sober man,--able to take his glass and\r
+not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds of moderation. He had\r
+naturally an active Hotspur temperament, which did not crave liquid\r
+fire to set it aglow; his impetuosity was usually equal to an exciting\r
+occasion without any such reinforcements; and his desire for the\r
+brandy-and-water implied that the too sudden joy had fallen with a\r
+dangerous shock on a frame depressed by four years of gloom and\r
+unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering moment\r
+passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering excitement;\r
+and the next day, when he was seated at table with his creditors, his\r
+eye kindling and his cheek flushed with the consciousness that he was\r
+about to make an honorable figure once more, he looked more like the\r
+proud, confident, warm-hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old\r
+times than might have seemed possible to any one who had met him a\r
+week before, riding along as had been his wont for the last four years\r
+since the sense of failure and debt had been upon him,--with his head\r
+hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those who forced\r
+themselves on his notice. He made his speech, asserting his honest\r
+principles with his old confident eagerness, alluding to the rascals\r
+and the luck that had been against him, but that he had triumphed\r
+over, to some extent, by hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and\r
+winding up with the story of how Tom had got the best part of the\r
+needful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile triumph seemed\r
+to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride and pleasure,\r
+when, Tom's health having been proposed, and uncle Deane having taken\r
+occasion to say a few words of eulogy on his general character and\r
+conduct, Tom himself got up and made the single speech of his life. It\r
+could hardly have been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honor\r
+they had done him. He was glad that he had been able to help his\r
+father in proving his integrity and regaining his honest name; and,\r
+for his own part, he hoped he should never undo that work and disgrace\r
+that name. But the applause that followed was so great, and Tom looked\r
+so gentlemanly as well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver\r
+remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends on his right and\r
+left, that he had spent a deal of money on his son's education.\r
+\r
+The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock. Tom remained\r
+in St. Ogg's to attend to some business, and Mr. Tulliver mounted his\r
+horse to go home, and describe the memorable things that had been said\r
+and done, to "poor Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement\r
+that hung about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus\r
+but the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not choose any back\r
+street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted head and free glances,\r
+along the principal street all the way to the bridge.\r
+\r
+Why did he not happen to meet Wakem? The want of that coincidence\r
+vexed him, and set his mind at work in an irritating way. Perhaps\r
+Wakem was gone out of town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or\r
+hearing anything of an honorable action which might well cause him\r
+some unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to meet him then, Mr. Tulliver\r
+would look straight at him, and the rascal would perhaps be forsaken a\r
+little by his cool, domineering impudence. He would know by and by\r
+that an honest man was not going to serve _him_ any longer, and lend\r
+his honesty to fill a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains.\r
+Perhaps the luck was beginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn't\r
+always hold the best cards in this world.\r
+\r
+Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yardgates of\r
+Dorlcote Mill, near enough to see a well-known figure coming out of\r
+them on a fine black horse. They met about fifty yards from the gates,\r
+between the great chestnuts and elms and the high bank.\r
+\r
+"Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than usual,\r
+"what a fool's trick you did,--spreading those hard lumps on that Far\r
+Close! I told you how it would be; but you men never learn to farm\r
+with any method."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody else to farm\r
+for you, then, as'll ask _you_ to teach him."\r
+\r
+"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really believing that\r
+this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face and sparkling eyes.\r
+\r
+"No, I've not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no drinking to\r
+help me make up my mind as I'll serve no longer under a scoundrel."\r
+\r
+"Very well! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then; hold your\r
+insolent tongue and let me pass." (Tulliver was backing his horse\r
+across the road to hem Wakem in.)\r
+\r
+"No, I _sha'n't_ let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer. "I\r
+shall tell you what I think of you first. You're too big a raskill to\r
+get hanged--you're----"\r
+\r
+"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made a rush\r
+forward; and Wakem's horse, rearing and staggering backward, threw his\r
+rider from the saddle and sent him sideways on the ground. Wakem had\r
+had the presence of mind to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse\r
+only staggered a few paces and then stood still, he might have risen\r
+and remounted without more inconvenience than a bruise and a shake.\r
+But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse too. The sight of\r
+the long-hated predominant man down, and in his power, threw him into\r
+a frenzy of triumphant vengeance, which seemed to give him\r
+preternatural agility and strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the\r
+act of trying to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as\r
+to press Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the\r
+ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with his riding-whip.\r
+Wakem shouted for help, but no help came, until a woman's scream was\r
+heard, and the cry of "Father, father!"\r
+\r
+Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulliver's arm; for\r
+the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed.\r
+\r
+"Get away with you--go!" said Tulliver, angrily. But it was not to\r
+Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose, and, as he turned his\r
+head, saw that Tulliver's arms were being held by a girl, rather by\r
+the fear of hurting the girl that clung to him with all her young\r
+might.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Luke--mother--come and help Mr. Wakem!" Maggie cried, as she\r
+heard the longed-for footsteps.\r
+\r
+"Help me on to that low horse," said Wakem to Luke, "then I shall\r
+perhaps manage; though--confound it--I think this arm is sprained."\r
+\r
+With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's horse. Then he\r
+turned toward the miller and said, with white rage, "You'll suffer for\r
+this, sir. Your daughter is a witness that you've assaulted me."\r
+\r
+"I don't care," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice; "go and\r
+show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tell 'em I've made things\r
+a bit more even i' the world."\r
+\r
+"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke. "By the Tofton\r
+Ferry, not through the town."\r
+\r
+"Father, come in!" said Maggie, imploringly. Then, seeing that Wakem\r
+had ridden off, and that no further violence was possible, she\r
+slackened her hold and burst into hysteric sobs, while poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver stood by in silence, quivering with fear. But Maggie became\r
+conscious that as she was slackening her hold her father was beginning\r
+to grasp her and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.\r
+\r
+"I feel ill--faintish," he said. "Help me in, Bessy--I'm giddy--I've a\r
+pain i' the head."\r
+\r
+He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter and tottered\r
+into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had given way to paleness,\r
+and his hand was cold.\r
+\r
+"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+\r
+He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but presently,\r
+when she said to Maggie, "Go and seek for somebody to fetch the\r
+doctor," he looked up at her with full comprehension, and said,\r
+"Doctor? No--no doctor. It's my head, that's all. Help me to bed."\r
+\r
+Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a beginning of\r
+better times! But mingled seed must bear a mingled crop.\r
+\r
+In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came home. Bob\r
+Jakin was with him, come to congratulate "the old master," not without\r
+some excusable pride that he had had his share in bringing about Mr.\r
+Tom's good luck; and Tom had thought his father would like nothing\r
+better, as a finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom\r
+could only spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant\r
+consequences that must follow on this mad outbreak of his father's\r
+long-smothered hate. After the painful news had been told, he sat in\r
+silence; he had not spirit or inclination to tell his mother and\r
+sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to ask it.\r
+Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so\r
+curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow\r
+coming close upon it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his\r
+exemplary effort must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others;\r
+Maggie was living through, over and over again, the agony of the\r
+moment in which she had rushed to throw herself on her father's arm,\r
+with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to come. Not\r
+one of the three felt any particular alarm about Mr. Tulliver's\r
+health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and\r
+it seemed only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and\r
+effort of strength, after many hours of unusual excitement, should\r
+have made him feel ill. Rest would probably cure him.\r
+\r
+Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept soundly;\r
+it seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed, when he waked to\r
+see his mother standing by him in the gray light of early morning.\r
+\r
+"My boy, you must get up this minute; I've sent for the doctor, and\r
+your father wants you and Maggie to come to him."\r
+\r
+"Is he worse, mother?"\r
+\r
+"He's been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn't say it's\r
+worse; he only said suddenly, 'Bessy, fetch the boy and girl. Tell 'em\r
+to make haste.'"\r
+\r
+Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill gray light,\r
+and reached their father's room almost at the same moment. He was\r
+watching for them with an expression of pain on his brow, but with\r
+sharpened, anxious consciousness in his eyes. Mrs. Tulliver stood at\r
+the foot of the bed, frightened and trembling, looking worn and aged\r
+from disturbed rest. Maggie was at the bedside first, but her father's\r
+glance was toward Tom, who came and stood next to her.\r
+\r
+"Tom, my lad, it's come upon me as I sha'n't get up again. This\r
+world's been too many for me, my lad, but you've done what you could\r
+to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi' me again, my lad, before I\r
+go away from you."\r
+\r
+The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant.\r
+Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,--\r
+\r
+"Have you any wish, father--that I can fulfil, when----"\r
+\r
+"Ay, my lad--you'll try and get the old mill back."\r
+\r
+"Yes, father."\r
+\r
+"And there's your mother--you'll try and make her amends, all you can,\r
+for my bad luck--and there's the little wench----"\r
+\r
+The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager look,\r
+while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be closer to\r
+the dear, time-worn face which had been present with her through long\r
+years, as the sign of her deepest love and hardest trial.\r
+\r
+"You must take care of her, Tom--don't you fret, my wench--there'll\r
+come somebody as'll love you and take your part--and you must be good\r
+to her, my lad. I was good to _my_ sister. Kiss me, Maggie.--Come,\r
+Bessy.--You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother\r
+and me can lie together."\r
+\r
+He looked away from them all when he had said this, and lay silent for\r
+some minutes, while they stood watching him, not daring to move. The\r
+morning light was growing clearer for them, and they could see the\r
+heaviness gathering in his face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at\r
+last he looked toward Tom and said,--\r
+\r
+"I had my turn--I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never wanted\r
+anything but what was fair."\r
+\r
+"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety\r
+predominating over her grief, "you forgive him--you forgive every one\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,--\r
+\r
+"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving to do? I can't\r
+love a raskill----"\r
+\r
+His voice had become thicker; but he wanted to say more, and moved his\r
+lips again and again, struggling in vain to speak. At length the words\r
+forced their way.\r
+\r
+"Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won't be hard wi' me."\r
+\r
+His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove some\r
+obstruction that weighed upon him. Two or three times there fell from\r
+him some broken words,--\r
+\r
+"This world's--too many--honest man--puzzling----"\r
+\r
+Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern;\r
+and then came the final silence.\r
+\r
+But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved, the loud, hard\r
+breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as the cold dews\r
+gathered on the brow.\r
+\r
+At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted\r
+soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this\r
+world.\r
+\r
+Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and Mr. Turnbull had\r
+arrived, too late for everything but to say, "This is death."\r
+\r
+Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room where their\r
+father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to the same spot, and\r
+Maggie spoke,--\r
+\r
+"Tom, forgive me--let us always love each other"; and they clung and\r
+wept together.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VI\r
+\r
+_The Great Temptation_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+A Duet in Paradise\r
+\r
+\r
+The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano, and the\r
+pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-house by the side of\r
+the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat little lady in mourning, whose\r
+light-brown ringlets are falling over the colored embroidery with\r
+which her fingers are busy, is of course Lucy Deane; and the fine\r
+young man who is leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in\r
+the extremely abbreviated face of the "King Charles" lying on the\r
+young lady's feet is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose diamond\r
+ring, attar of roses, and air of _nonchalant_ leisure, at twelve\r
+o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous result of the\r
+largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in St. Ogg's. There is\r
+an apparent triviality in the action with the scissors, but your\r
+discernment perceives at once that there is a design in it which makes\r
+it eminently worthy of a large-headed, long-limbed young man; for you\r
+see that Lucy wants the scissors, and is compelled, reluctant as she\r
+may be, to shake her ringlets back, raise her soft hazel eyes, smile\r
+playfully down on the face that is so very nearly on a level with her\r
+knee, and holding out her little shell-pink palm, to say,--\r
+\r
+"My scissors, please, if you can renounce the great pleasure of\r
+persecuting my poor Minny."\r
+\r
+The foolish scissors have slipped too far over the knuckles, it seems,\r
+and Hercules holds out his entrapped fingers hopelessly.\r
+\r
+"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way. Please draw them\r
+off for me."\r
+\r
+"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy, roguishly.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but that's my left hand; I'm not left-handed."\r
+\r
+Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle touches from\r
+tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen for a repetition _da\r
+capo_. Accordingly, he watches for the release of the scissors, that\r
+he may get them into his possession again.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Lucy, sticking them in her band, "you shall not have my\r
+scissors again,--you have strained them already. Now don't set Minny\r
+growling again. Sit up and behave properly, and then I will tell you\r
+some news."\r
+\r
+"What is that?" said Stephen, throwing himself back and hanging his\r
+right arm over the corner of his chair. He might have been sitting for\r
+his portrait, which would have represented a rather striking young man\r
+of five-and-twenty, with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair,\r
+standing erect, with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of\r
+corn, and a half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his\r
+well-marked horizontal eyebrows. "Is it very important news?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, very. Guess."\r
+\r
+"You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three ratafias\r
+soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily?"\r
+\r
+"Quite wrong."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Dr. Kenn has been preaching against buckram, and you\r
+ladies have all been sending him a roundrobin, saying, 'This is a hard\r
+doctrine; who can bear it?'"\r
+\r
+"For shame!" said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely. "It is\r
+rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is about something\r
+I mentioned to you not very long ago."\r
+\r
+"But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago. Does your\r
+feminine tyranny require that when you say the thing you mean is one\r
+of several things, I should know it immediately by that mark?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know you think I am silly."\r
+\r
+"I think you are perfectly charming."\r
+\r
+"And my silliness is part of my charm?"\r
+\r
+"I didn't say _that_."\r
+\r
+"But I know you like women to be rather insipid. Philip Wakem betrayed\r
+you; he said so one day when you were not here."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point; he makes it quite a personal\r
+matter. I think he must be love-sick for some unknown lady,--some\r
+exalted Beatrice whom he met abroad."\r
+\r
+"By the by," said Lucy, pausing in her work, "it has just occurred to\r
+me that I never found out whether my cousin Maggie will object to see\r
+Philip, as her brother does. Tom will not enter a room where Philip\r
+is, if he knows it; perhaps Maggie may be the same, and then we\r
+sha'n't be able to sing our glees, shall we?"\r
+\r
+"What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?" said Stephen, with a\r
+look of slight annoyance.\r
+\r
+"Yes; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She's going to leave\r
+her situation, where she has been nearly two years, poor thing,--ever\r
+since her father's death; and she will stay with me a month or\r
+two,--many months, I hope."\r
+\r
+"And am I bound to be pleased at that news?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, not at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique. "_I_ am\r
+pleased, but that, of course, is no reason why _you_ should be\r
+pleased. There is no girl in the world I love so well as my cousin\r
+Maggie."\r
+\r
+"And you will be inseparable I suppose, when she comes. There will be\r
+no possibility of a _tête-à-tête_ with you any more, unless you can\r
+find an admirer for her, who will pair off with her occasionally. What\r
+is the ground of dislike to Philip? He might have been a resource."\r
+\r
+"It is a family quarrel with Philip's father. There were very painful\r
+circumstances, I believe. I never quite understood them, or knew them\r
+all. My uncle Tulliver was unfortunate and lost all his property, and\r
+I think he considered Mr. Wakem was somehow the cause of it. Mr. Wakem\r
+bought Dorlcote Mill, my uncle's old place, where he always lived. You\r
+must remember my uncle Tulliver, don't you?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Stephen, with rather supercilious indifference. "I've\r
+always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man by sight, apart\r
+from his name. I know half the names and faces in the neighborhood in\r
+that detached, disjointed way."\r
+\r
+"He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I was a little girl\r
+and used to go to see my cousins, he often frightened me by talking as\r
+if he were angry. Papa told me there was a dreadful quarrel, the very\r
+day before my uncle's death, between him and Mr. Wakem, but it was\r
+hushed up. That was when you were in London. Papa says my uncle was\r
+quite mistaken in many ways; his mind had become embittered. But Tom\r
+and Maggie must naturally feel it very painful to be reminded of these\r
+things. They have had so much, so very much trouble. Maggie was at\r
+school with me six years ago, when she was fetched away because of her\r
+father's misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure since, I\r
+think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school since uncle's\r
+death, because she is determined to be independent, and not live with\r
+aunt Pullet; and I could hardly wish her to come to me then, because\r
+dear mamma was ill, and everything was so sad. That is why I want her\r
+to come to me now, and have a long, long holiday."\r
+\r
+"Very sweet and angelic of you," said Stephen, looking at her with an\r
+admiring smile; "and all the more so if she has the conversational\r
+qualities of her mother."\r
+\r
+"Poor aunty! You are cruel to ridicule her. She is very valuable to\r
+_me_, I know. She manages the house beautifully,--much better than any\r
+stranger would,--and she was a great comfort to me in mamma's\r
+illness."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but in point of companionship one would prefer that she should\r
+be represented by her brandy-cherries and cream-cakes. I think with a\r
+shudder that her daughter will always be present in person, and have\r
+no agreeable proxies of that kind,--a fat, blond girl, with round blue\r
+eyes, who will stare at us silently."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes!" exclaimed Lucy, laughing wickedly, and clapping her hands,\r
+"that is just my cousin Maggie. You must have seen her!"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed; I'm only guessing what Mrs. Tulliver's daughter must be;\r
+and then if she is to banish Philip, our only apology for a tenor,\r
+that will be an additional bore."\r
+\r
+"But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to call on Philip\r
+and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He is quite aware of Tom's\r
+feeling, and always keeps out of his way; so he will understand, if\r
+you tell him, that I asked you to warn him not to come until I write\r
+to ask him."\r
+\r
+"I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take; Phil is so\r
+sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten him off coming at\r
+all, and we had hard work to get him. I can never induce him to come\r
+to the park; he doesn't like my sisters, I think. It is only your\r
+faëry touch that can lay his ruffled feathers."\r
+\r
+Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying toward the table,\r
+and touched it lightly with his lips. Little Lucy felt very proud and\r
+happy. She and Stephen were in that stage of courtship which makes the\r
+most exquisite moment of youth, the freshest blossom-time of\r
+passion,--when each is sure of the other's love, but no formal\r
+declaration has been made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the\r
+most trivial word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and\r
+delicious as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement\r
+wears off this finest edge of susceptibility; it is jasmine gathered\r
+and presented in a large bouquet.\r
+\r
+"But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on Maggie's\r
+appearance and manners," said the cunning Lucy, moving to reach her\r
+desk, "because she might have been like her brother, you know; and Tom\r
+has not round eyes; and he is as far as possible from staring at\r
+people."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I suppose he is like the father; he seems to be as proud as\r
+Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should think."\r
+\r
+"I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo; and papa is very\r
+fond of him: he says Tom has excellent principles. It was through him\r
+that his father was able to pay all his debts before he died."\r
+\r
+"Oh, ah; I've heard about that. I heard your father and mine talking\r
+about it a little while ago, after dinner, in one of their\r
+interminable discussions about business. They think of doing something\r
+for young Tulliver; he saved them from a considerable loss by riding\r
+home in some marvellous way, like Turpin, to bring them news about the\r
+stoppage of a bank, or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy\r
+at the time."\r
+\r
+Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, humming in\r
+falsetto, "Graceful Consort," as he turned over the volume of "The\r
+Creation," which stood open on the desk.\r
+\r
+"Come and sing this," he said, when he saw Lucy rising.\r
+\r
+"What, 'Graceful Consort'? I don't think it suits your voice."\r
+\r
+"Never mind; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip will have it,\r
+is the grand element of good singing. I notice men with indifferent\r
+voices are usually of that opinion."\r
+\r
+"Philip burst into one of his invectives against 'The Creation' the\r
+other day," said Lucy, seating herself at the piano. "He says it has a\r
+sort of sugared complacency and flattering make-believe in it, as if\r
+it were written for the birthday _fête_ of a German Grand-Duke."\r
+\r
+"Oh, pooh! He is the fallen Adam with a soured temper. We are Adam and\r
+Eve unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then,--the recitative, for the sake of\r
+the moral. You will sing the whole duty of woman,--'And from obedience\r
+grows my pride and happiness.'"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the _tempo_, as you\r
+will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.\r
+\r
+Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears must be that in\r
+which the lovers can sing together. The sense of mutual fitness that\r
+springs from the two deep notes fulfilling expectation just at the\r
+right moment between the notes of the silvery soprano, from the\r
+perfect accord of descending thirds and fifths, from the preconcerted\r
+loving chase of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate\r
+demand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto will not\r
+care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee no embarrassing\r
+dearth of remark in evenings spent with the lovely soprano. In the\r
+provinces, too, where music was so scarce in that remote time, how\r
+could the musical people avoid falling in love with each other? Even\r
+political principle must have been in danger of relaxation under such\r
+circumstances; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have\r
+been tempted to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a reforming\r
+violoncello. In that case, the linnet-throated soprano and the\r
+full-toned bass singing,--\r
+\r
+ "With thee delight is ever new,\r
+ With thee is life incessant bliss,"\r
+\r
+believed what they sang all the more _because_ they sang it.\r
+\r
+"Now for Raphael's great song," said Lucy, when they had finished the\r
+duet. "You do the 'heavy beasts' to perfection."\r
+\r
+"That sounds complimentary," said Stephen, looking at his watch. "By\r
+Jove, it's nearly half-past one! Well, I can just sing this."\r
+\r
+Stephen delivered with admirable ease the deep notes representing the\r
+tread of the heavy beasts; but when a singer has an audience of two,\r
+there is room for divided sentiments. Minny's mistress was charmed;\r
+but Minny, who had intrenched himself, trembling, in his basket as\r
+soon as the music began, found this thunder so little to his taste\r
+that he leaped out and scampered under the remotest _chiffonnier_, as\r
+the most eligible place in which a small dog could await the crack of\r
+doom.\r
+\r
+"Adieu, 'graceful consort,'" said Stephen, buttoning his coat across\r
+when he had done singing, and smiling down from his tall height, with\r
+the air of rather a patronizing lover, at the little lady on the\r
+music-stool. "My bliss is not incessant, for I must gallop home. I\r
+promised to be there at lunch."\r
+\r
+"You will not be able to call on Philip, then? It is of no\r
+consequence; I have said everything in my note."\r
+\r
+"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin Tom will\r
+dine with us; and poor aunty will have her two children together for\r
+the first time. It will be very pretty; I think a great deal about\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"But I may come the next day?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie; though you can\r
+hardly be said not to have seen her, you have described her so well."\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, then." And there was that slight pressure of the hands, and\r
+momentary meeting of the eyes, which will often leave a little lady\r
+with a slight flush and smile on her face that do not subside\r
+immediately when the door is closed, and with an inclination to walk\r
+up and down the room rather than to seat herself quietly at her\r
+embroidery, or other rational and improving occupation. At least this\r
+was the effect on Lucy; and you will not, I hope, consider it an\r
+indication of vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she\r
+just glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it. The\r
+desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright during a few\r
+hours of conversation may be construed as lying within the bounds of a\r
+laudable benevolent consideration for others. And Lucy had so much of\r
+this benevolence in her nature that I am inclined to think her small\r
+egoisms were impregnated with it, just as there are people not\r
+altogether unknown to you whose small benevolences have a predominant\r
+and somewhat rank odor of egoism. Even now, that she is walking up and\r
+down with a little triumphant flutter of her girlish heart at the\r
+sense that she is loved by the person of chief consequence in her\r
+small world, you may see in her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny\r
+benignity, in which the momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity\r
+are quite lost; and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is\r
+because the thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle\r
+affections and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful\r
+days. Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which\r
+makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem simultaneous, is\r
+glancing continually from Stephen to the preparations she has only\r
+half finished in Maggie's room. Cousin Maggie should be treated as\r
+well as the grandest lady-visitor,--nay, better, for she should have\r
+Lucy's best prints and drawings in her bedroom, and the very finest\r
+bouquet of spring flowers on her table. Maggie would enjoy all that,\r
+she was so found of pretty things! And there was poor aunt Tulliver,\r
+that no one made any account of, she was to be surprised with the\r
+present of a cap of superlative quality, and to have her health drunk\r
+in a gratifying manner, for which Lucy was going to lay a plot with\r
+her father this evening. Clearly, she had not time to indulge in long\r
+reveries about her own happy love-affairs. With this thought she\r
+walked toward the door, but paused there.\r
+\r
+"What's the matter, then, Minny?" she said, stooping in answer to some\r
+whimpering of that small quadruped, and lifting his glossy head\r
+against her pink cheek. "Did you think I was going without you? Come,\r
+then, let us go and see Sinbad."\r
+\r
+Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with her own\r
+hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She was fond of feeding\r
+dependent creatures, and knew the private tastes of all the animals\r
+about the house, delighting in the little rippling sounds of her\r
+canaries when their beaks were busy with fresh seed, and in the small\r
+nibbling pleasures of certain animals which, lest she should appear\r
+too trivial, I will here call "the more familiar rodents."\r
+\r
+Was not Stephen Guest right in his decided opinion that this slim\r
+maiden of eighteen was quite the sort of wife a man would not be\r
+likely to repent of marrying,--a woman who was loving and thoughtful\r
+for other women, not giving them Judas-kisses with eyes askance on\r
+their welcome defects, but with real care and vision for their\r
+half-hidden pains and mortifications, with long ruminating enjoyment\r
+of little pleasures prepared for them? Perhaps the emphasis of his\r
+admiration did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her;\r
+perhaps he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not\r
+strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be pretty;\r
+well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent. A man likes his\r
+wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate, and not stupid; and\r
+Lucy had all these qualifications. Stephen was not surprised to find\r
+himself in love with her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in\r
+preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the county member,\r
+although Lucy was only the daughter of his father's subordinate\r
+partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight\r
+unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,--a\r
+circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his\r
+own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence\r
+enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed\r
+by any indirect considerations. He meant to choose Lucy; she was a\r
+little darling, and exactly the sort of woman he had always admired.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+First Impressions\r
+\r
+\r
+"He is very clever, Maggie," said Lucy. She was kneeling on a\r
+footstool at Maggie's feet, after placing that dark lady in the large\r
+crimson-velvet chair. "I feel sure you will like him. I hope you\r
+will."\r
+\r
+"I shall be very difficult to please," said Maggie, smiling, and\r
+holding up one of Lucy's long curls, that the sunlight might shine\r
+through it. "A gentleman who thinks he is good enough for Lucy must\r
+expect to be sharply criticised."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, he's a great deal too good for me. And sometimes, when he is\r
+away, I almost think it can't really be that he loves me. But I can\r
+never doubt it when he is with me, though I couldn't bear any one but\r
+you to know that I feel in that way, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"Oh, then, if I disapprove of him you can give him up, since you are\r
+not engaged," said Maggie, with playful gravity.\r
+\r
+"I would rather not be engaged. When people are engaged, they begin to\r
+think of being married soon," said Lucy, too thoroughly preoccupied to\r
+notice Maggie's joke; "and I should like everything to go on for a\r
+long while just as it is. Sometimes I am quite frightened lest Stephen\r
+should say that he has spoken to papa; and from something that fell\r
+from papa the other day, I feel sure he and Mr. Guest are expecting\r
+that. And Stephen's sisters are very civil to me now. At first, I\r
+think they didn't like his paying me attention; and that was natural.\r
+It _does_ seem out of keeping that I should ever live in a great place\r
+like the Park House, such a little insignificant thing as I am."\r
+\r
+"But people are not expected to be large in proportion to the houses\r
+they live in, like snails," said Maggie, laughing. "Pray, are Mr.\r
+Guest's sisters giantesses?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no; and not handsome,--that is, not very," said Lucy,\r
+half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. "But _he_ is--at least he\r
+is generally considered very handsome."\r
+\r
+"Though you are unable to share that opinion?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, blushing pink over brow and neck. "It\r
+is a bad plan to raise expectation; you will perhaps be disappointed.\r
+But I have prepared a charming surprise for _him;_ I shall have a\r
+glorious laugh against him. I shall not tell you what it is, though."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, holding her\r
+pretty head on one side, as if she had been arranging Maggie for a\r
+portrait, and wished to judge of the general effect.\r
+\r
+"Stand up a moment, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"What is your pleasure now?" said Maggie, smiling languidly as she\r
+rose from her chair and looked down on her slight, aerial cousin,\r
+whose figure was quite subordinate to her faultless drapery of silk\r
+and crape.\r
+\r
+Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in silence, and\r
+then said,--\r
+\r
+"I can't think what witchery it is in you, Maggie, that makes you look\r
+best in shabby clothes; though you really must have a new dress now.\r
+But do you know, last night I was trying to fancy you in a handsome,\r
+fashionable dress, and do what I would, that old limp merino would\r
+come back as the only right thing for you. I wonder if Marie\r
+Antoinette looked all the grander when her gown was darned at the\r
+elbows. Now, if _I_ were to put anything shabby on, I should be quite\r
+unnoticeable. I should be a mere rag."\r
+\r
+"Oh, quite," said Maggie, with mock gravity. "You would be liable to\r
+be swept out of the room with the cobwebs and carpet-dust, and to find\r
+yourself under the grate, like Cinderella. Mayn't I sit down now?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, now you may," said Lucy, laughing. Then, with an air of serious\r
+reflection, unfastening her large jet brooch, "But you must change\r
+brooches, Maggie; that little butterfly looks silly on you."\r
+\r
+"But won't that mar the charming effect of my consistent shabbiness?"\r
+said Maggie, seating herself submissively, while Lucy knelt again and\r
+unfastened the contemptible butterfly. "I wish my mother were of your\r
+opinion, for she was fretting last night because this is my best\r
+frock. I've been saving my money to pay for some lessons; I shall\r
+never get a better situation without more accomplishments."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a little sigh.\r
+\r
+"Now, don't put on that sad look again," said Lucy, pinning the large\r
+brooch below Maggie's fine throat. "You're forgetting that you've left\r
+that dreary schoolroom behind you, and have no little girls' clothes\r
+to mend."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie. "It is with me as I used to think it would be with\r
+the poor uneasy white bear I saw at the show. I thought he must have\r
+got so stupid with the habit of turning backward and forward in that\r
+narrow space that he would keep doing it if they set him free. One\r
+gets a bad habit of being unhappy."\r
+\r
+"But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that will make you\r
+lose that bad habit," said Lucy, sticking the black butterfly absently\r
+in her own collar, while her eyes met Maggie's affectionately.\r
+\r
+"You dear, tiny thing," said Maggie, in one of her bursts of loving\r
+admiration, "you enjoy other people's happiness so much, I believe you\r
+would do without any of your own. I wish I were like you."\r
+\r
+"I've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. "I've always been so\r
+happy. I don't know whether I could bear much trouble; I never had any\r
+but poor mamma's death. You _have_ been tried, Maggie; and I'm sure\r
+you feel for other people quite as much as I do."\r
+\r
+"No, Lucy," said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, "I don't enjoy their\r
+happiness as you do, else I should be more contented. I do feel for\r
+them when they are in trouble; I don't think I could ever bear to make\r
+any one _un_happy; and yet I often hate myself, because I get angry\r
+sometimes at the sight of happy people. I think I get worse as I get\r
+older, more selfish. That seems very dreadful."\r
+\r
+"Now, Maggie!" said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, "I don't believe\r
+a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy, just because you are\r
+depressed by a dull, wearisome life."\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps it is," said Maggie, resolutely clearing away the\r
+clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing herself\r
+backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the school diet,--watery\r
+rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let us hope it will give way before\r
+my mother's custards and this charming Geoffrey Crayon."\r
+\r
+Maggie took up the "Sketch Book," which lay by her on the table.\r
+\r
+"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said Lucy, going\r
+to survey the effect in the chimney-glass.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again if he\r
+sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on."\r
+\r
+Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the opportunity\r
+of opening her book; she let it fall on her knees, while her eyes\r
+wandered to the window, where she could see the sunshine falling on\r
+the rich clumps of spring flowers and on the long hedge of laurels,\r
+and beyond, the silvery breadth of the dear old Floss, that at this\r
+distance seemed to be sleeping in a morning holiday. The sweet fresh\r
+garden-scent came through the open window, and the birds were busy\r
+flitting and alighting, gurgling and singing. Yet Maggie's eyes began\r
+to fill with tears. The sight of the old scenes had made the rush of\r
+memories so painful that even yesterday she had only been able to\r
+rejoice in her mother's restored comfort and Tom's brotherly\r
+friendliness as we rejoice in good news of friends at a distance,\r
+rather than in the presence of a happiness which we share. Memory and\r
+imagination urged upon her a sense of privation too keen to let her\r
+taste what was offered in the transient present. Her future, she\r
+thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of\r
+contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing;\r
+she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder;\r
+she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for,\r
+and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate. The sound of the\r
+opening door roused her, and hastily wiping away her tears, she began\r
+to turn over the leaves of her book.\r
+\r
+"There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest dismalness\r
+will never resist," said Lucy, beginning to speak as soon as she\r
+entered the room. "That is music, and I mean you to have quite a\r
+riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up your playing again, which\r
+used to be so much better than mine, when we were at Laceham."\r
+\r
+"You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls' tunes over\r
+and over to them, when I took them to practise," said Maggie, "just\r
+for the sake of fingering the dear keys again. But I don't know\r
+whether I could play anything more difficult now than 'Begone, dull\r
+care!'"\r
+\r
+"I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when the glee-men\r
+came round," said Lucy, taking up her embroidery; "and we might have\r
+all those old glees that you used to love so, if I were certain that\r
+you don't feel exactly as Tom does about some things."\r
+\r
+"I should have thought there was nothing you might be more certain\r
+of," said Maggie, smiling.\r
+\r
+"I ought rather to have said, one particular thing. Because if you\r
+feel just as he does about that, we shall want our third voice. St.\r
+Ogg's is so miserably provided with musical gentlemen. There are\r
+really only Stephen and Philip Wakem who have any knowledge of music,\r
+so as to be able to sing a part."\r
+\r
+Lucy had looked up from her work as she uttered the last sentence, and\r
+saw that there was a change in Maggie's face.\r
+\r
+"Does it hurt you to hear the name mentioned, Maggie? If it does, I\r
+will not speak of him again. I know Tom will not see him if he can\r
+avoid it."\r
+\r
+"I don't feel at all as Tom does on that subject," said Maggie, rising\r
+and going to the window as if she wanted to see more of the landscape.\r
+"I've always liked Philip Wakem ever since I was a little girl, and\r
+saw him at Lorton. He was so good when Tom hurt his foot."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm so glad!" said Lucy. "Then you won't mind his coming\r
+sometimes, and we can have much more music than we could without him.\r
+I'm very fond of poor Philip, only I wish he were not so morbid about\r
+his deformity. I suppose it _is_ his deformity that makes him so sad,\r
+and sometimes bitter. It is certainly very piteous to see his poor\r
+little crooked body and pale face among great, strong people."\r
+\r
+"But, Lucy----" said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling stream.\r
+\r
+"Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy went on, not\r
+noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak. "One of the things I most\r
+admire in Stephen is that he makes a greater friend of Philip than any\r
+one."\r
+\r
+It was too late for Maggie to speak now; the drawingroom door was\r
+opening, and Minny was already growling in a small way at the entrance\r
+of a tall gentleman, who went up to Lucy and took her hand with a\r
+half-polite, half-tender glance and tone of inquiry, which seemed to\r
+indicate that he was unconscious of any other presence.\r
+\r
+"Let me introduce you to my cousin, Miss Tulliver," said Lucy, turning\r
+with wicked enjoyment toward Maggie, who now approached from the\r
+farther window. "This is Mr. Stephen Guest."\r
+\r
+For one instant Stephen could not conceal his astonishment at the\r
+sight of this tall, dark-eyed nymph with her jet-black coronet of\r
+hair; the next, Maggie felt herself, for the first time in her life,\r
+receiving the tribute of a very deep blush and a very deep bow from a\r
+person toward whom she herself was conscious of timidity.\r
+\r
+This new experience was very agreeable to her, so agreeable that it\r
+almost effaced her previous emotion about Philip. There was a new\r
+brightness in her eyes, and a very becoming flush on her cheek, as she\r
+seated herself.\r
+\r
+"I hope you perceive what a striking likeness you drew the day before\r
+yesterday," said Lucy, with a pretty laugh of triumph. She enjoyed her\r
+lover's confusion; the advantage was usually on his side.\r
+\r
+"This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss Tulliver,"\r
+said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping to play with\r
+Minny, only looking at Maggie furtively. "She said you had light hair\r
+and blue eyes."\r
+\r
+"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I only refrained\r
+from destroying your confidence in your own second-sight."\r
+\r
+"I wish I could always err in the same way," said Stephen, "and find\r
+reality so much more beautiful than my preconceptions."\r
+\r
+"Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said Maggie,\r
+"and said what it was incumbent on you to say under the\r
+circumstances."\r
+\r
+She flashed a slightly defiant look at him; it was clear to her that\r
+he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her beforehand. Lucy had\r
+said he was inclined to be satirical, and Maggie had mentally supplied\r
+the addition, "and rather conceited."\r
+\r
+"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first thought. The\r
+second, when she had bent over her work, was, "I wish she would look\r
+at me again." The next was to answer,--\r
+\r
+"I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn to be true.\r
+A man is occasionally grateful when he says 'Thank you.' It's rather\r
+hard upon him that he must use the same words with which all the world\r
+declines a disagreeable invitation, don't you think so, Miss\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, looking at him with her direct glance; "if we use\r
+common words on a great occasion, they are the more striking, because\r
+they are felt at once to have a particular meaning, like old banners,\r
+or every-day clothes, hung up in a sacred place."\r
+\r
+"Then my compliment ought to be eloquent," said Stephen, really not\r
+quite knowing what he said while Maggie looked at him, "seeing that\r
+the words were so far beneath the occasion."\r
+\r
+"No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression of\r
+indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little.\r
+\r
+Lucy was rather alarmed; she thought Stephen and Maggie were not going\r
+to like each other. She had always feared lest Maggie should appear\r
+too old and clever to please that critical gentleman. "Why, dear\r
+Maggie," she interposed, "you have always pretended that you are too\r
+fond of being admired; and now, I think, you are angry because some\r
+one ventures to admire you."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Maggie; "I like too well to feel that I am admired,\r
+but compliments never make me feel that."\r
+\r
+"I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver," said\r
+Stephen.\r
+\r
+"Thank you; that will be a proof of respect."\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie! She was so unused to society that she could take nothing\r
+as a matter of course, and had never in her life spoken from the lips\r
+merely, so that she must necessarily appear absurd to more experienced\r
+ladies, from the excessive feeling she was apt to throw into very\r
+trivial incidents. But she was even conscious herself of a little\r
+absurdity in this instance. It was true she had a theoretic objection\r
+to compliments, and had once said impatiently to Philip that she\r
+didn't see why women were to be told with a simper that they were\r
+beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they were\r
+venerable; still, to be so irritated by a common practice in the case\r
+of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and to care about his having\r
+spoken slightingly of her before he had seen her, was certainly\r
+unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent she began to be ashamed of\r
+herself. It did not occur to her that her irritation was due to the\r
+pleasanter emotion which preceded it, just as when we are satisfied\r
+with a sense of glowing warmth an innocent drop of cold water may fall\r
+upon us as a sudden smart.\r
+\r
+Stephen was too well bred not to seem unaware that the previous\r
+conversation could have been felt embarrassing, and at once began to\r
+talk of impersonal matters, asking Lucy if she knew when the bazaar\r
+was at length to take place, so that there might be some hope of\r
+seeing her rain the influence of her eyes on objects more grateful\r
+than those worsted flowers that were growing under her fingers.\r
+\r
+"Some day next month, I believe," said Lucy. "But your sisters are\r
+doing more for it than I am; they are to have the largest stall."\r
+\r
+"Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their own\r
+sitting-room, where I don't intrude on them. I see you are not\r
+addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss Tulliver," said\r
+Stephen, looking at Maggie's plain hemming.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, "I can do nothing more difficult or more elegant\r
+than shirt-making."\r
+\r
+"And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie," said Lucy, "that I\r
+think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show as fancy-work. Your\r
+exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to me, you used to dislike that\r
+sort of work so much in old days."\r
+\r
+"It is a mystery easily explained, dear," said Maggie, looking up\r
+quietly. "Plain sewing was the only thing I could get money by, so I\r
+was obliged to try and do it well."\r
+\r
+Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a little.\r
+She did not quite like that Stephen should know that; Maggie need not\r
+have mentioned it. Perhaps there was some pride in the confession,--\r
+the pride of poverty that will not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie\r
+had been the queen of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means\r
+of giving greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes; I am not\r
+sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty would have\r
+done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made Maggie more unlike\r
+other women even than she had seemed at first.\r
+\r
+"But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, "if that will be of any use\r
+for your bazaar."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet wool\r
+to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person," continued\r
+Lucy, turning to Stephen, "to have the talent of modelling. She is\r
+doing a wonderful bust of Dr. Kenn entirely from memory."\r
+\r
+"Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near together, and the\r
+corners of the mouth very far apart, the likeness can hardly fail to\r
+be striking in St. Ogg's."\r
+\r
+"Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rather hurt. "I\r
+didn't think you would speak disrespectfully of Dr. Kenn."\r
+\r
+"I say anything disrespectful of Dr. Kenn? Heaven forbid! But I am not\r
+bound to respect a libellous bust of him. I think Kenn one of the\r
+finest fellows in the world. I don't care much about the tall\r
+candlesticks he has put on the communion-table, and I shouldn't like\r
+to spoil my temper by getting up to early prayers every morning. But\r
+he's the only man I ever knew personally who seems to me to have\r
+anything of the real apostle in him,--a man who has eight hundred\r
+a-year and is contented with deal furniture and boiled beef because he\r
+gives away two-thirds of his income. That was a very fine thing of\r
+him,--taking into his house that poor lad Grattan, who shot his mother\r
+by accident. He sacrifices more time than a less busy man could spare,\r
+to save the poor fellow from getting into a morbid state of mind about\r
+it. He takes the lad out with him constantly, I see."\r
+\r
+"That is beautiful," said Maggie, who had let her work fall, and was\r
+listening with keen interest. "I never knew any one who did such things."\r
+\r
+"And one admires that sort of action in Kenn all the more," said\r
+Stephen, "because his manners in general are rather cold and severe.\r
+There's nothing sugary and maudlin about him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I think he's a perfect character!" said Lucy, with pretty\r
+enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+"No; there I can't agree with you," said Stephen, shaking his head\r
+with sarcastic gravity.\r
+\r
+"Now, what fault can you point out in him?"\r
+\r
+"He's an Anglican."\r
+\r
+"Well, those are the right views, I think," said Lucy, gravely.\r
+\r
+"That settles the question in the abstract," said Stephen, "but not\r
+from a parliamentary point of view. He has set the Dissenters and the\r
+Church people by the ears; and a rising senator like myself, of whose\r
+services the country is very much in need, will find it inconvenient\r
+when he puts up for the honor of representing St. Ogg's in\r
+Parliament."\r
+\r
+"Do you really think of that?" said Lucy, her eyes brightening with a\r
+proud pleasure that made her neglect the argumentative interests of\r
+Anglicanism.\r
+\r
+"Decidedly, whenever old Mr. Leyburn's public spirit and gout induce\r
+him to give way. My father's heart is set on it; and gifts like mine,\r
+you know"--here Stephen drew himself up, and rubbed his large white\r
+hands over his hair with playful self-admiration--"gifts like mine\r
+involve great responsibilities. Don't you think so, Miss Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up; "so much fluency and\r
+self-possession should not be wasted entirely on private occasions."\r
+\r
+"Ah, I see how much penetration you have," said Stephen. "You have\r
+discovered already that I am talkative and impudent. Now superficial\r
+people never discern that, owing to my manner, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"She doesn't look at me when I talk of myself," he thought, while his\r
+listeners were laughing. "I must try other subjects."\r
+\r
+Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book Club next\r
+week? was the next question. Then followed the recommendation to\r
+choose Southey's "Life of Cowper," unless she were inclined to be\r
+philosophical, and startle the ladies of St. Ogg's by voting for one\r
+of the Bridgewater Treatises. Of course Lucy wished to know what these\r
+alarmingly learned books were; and as it is always pleasant to improve\r
+the minds of ladies by talking to them at ease on subjects of which\r
+they know nothing, Stephen became quite brilliant in an account of\r
+Buckland's Treatise, which he had just been reading. He was rewarded\r
+by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually get so absorbed in\r
+his wonderful geological story that she sat looking at him, leaning\r
+forward with crossed arms, and with an entire absence of\r
+self-consciousness, as if he had been the snuffiest of old professors,\r
+and she a downy-lipped alumna. He was so fascinated by the clear,\r
+large gaze that at last he forgot to look away from it occasionally\r
+toward Lucy; but she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was\r
+proving to Maggie how clever he was, and that they would certainly be\r
+good friends after all.\r
+\r
+"I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver?" said Stephen,\r
+when he found the stream of his recollections running rather shallow.\r
+"There are many illustrations in it that you will like to see."\r
+\r
+"Oh, thank you," said Maggie, blushing with returning\r
+self-consciousness at this direct address, and taking up her work\r
+again.\r
+\r
+"No, no," Lucy interposed. "I must forbid your plunging Maggie in\r
+books. I shall never get her away from them; and I want her to have\r
+delicious do-nothing days, filled with boating and chatting and riding\r
+and driving; that is the holiday she needs."\r
+\r
+"Apropos!" said Stephen, looking at his watch. "Shall we go out for a\r
+row on the river now? The tide will suit for us to the Tofton way, and\r
+we can walk back."\r
+\r
+That was a delightful proposition to Maggie, for it was years since\r
+she had been on the river. When she was gone to put on her bonnet,\r
+Lucy lingered to give an order to the servant, and took the\r
+opportunity of telling Stephen that Maggie had no objection to seeing\r
+Philip, so that it was a pity she had sent that note the day before\r
+yesterday. But she would write another to-morrow and invite him.\r
+\r
+"I'll call and beat him up to-morrow," said Stephen, "and bring him\r
+with me in the evening, shall I? My sisters will want to call on you\r
+when I tell them your cousin is with you. I must leave the field clear\r
+for them in the morning."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, pray bring him," said Lucy. "And you _will_ like Maggie,\r
+sha'n't you?" she added, in a beseeching tone. "Isn't she a dear,\r
+noble-looking creature?"\r
+\r
+"Too tall," said Stephen, smiling down upon her, "and a little too\r
+fiery. She is not my type of woman, you know."\r
+\r
+Gentlemen, you are aware, are apt to impart these imprudent\r
+confidences to ladies concerning their unfavorable opinion of sister\r
+fair ones. That is why so many women have the advantage of knowing\r
+that they are secretly repulsive to men who have self-denyingly made\r
+ardent love to them. And hardly anything could be more distinctively\r
+characteristic of Lucy than that she both implicitly believed what\r
+Stephen said, and was determined that Maggie should not know it. But\r
+you, who have a higher logic than the verbal to guide you, have\r
+already foreseen, as the direct sequence to that unfavorable opinion\r
+of Stephen's, that he walked down to the boathouse calculating, by the\r
+aid of a vivid imagination, that Maggie must give him her hand at\r
+least twice in consequence of this pleasant boating plan, and that a\r
+gentleman who wishes ladies to look at him is advantageously situated\r
+when he is rowing them in a boat. What then? Had he fallen in love\r
+with this surprising daughter of Mrs. Tulliver at first sight?\r
+Certainly not. Such passions are never heard of in real life. Besides,\r
+he was in love already, and half-engaged to the dearest little\r
+creature in the world; and he was not a man to make a fool of himself\r
+in any way. But when one is five-and-twenty, one has not chalk-stones\r
+at one's finger-ends that the touch of a handsome girl should be\r
+entirely indifferent. It was perfectly natural and safe to admire\r
+beauty and enjoy looking at it,--at least under such circumstances as\r
+the present. And there was really something very interesting about\r
+this girl, with her poverty and troubles; it was gratifying to see the\r
+friendship between the two cousins. Generally, Stephen admitted, he\r
+was not fond of women who had any peculiarity of character, but here\r
+the peculiarity seemed really of a superior kind, and provided one is\r
+not obliged to marry such women, why, they certainly make a variety in\r
+social intercourse.\r
+\r
+Maggie did not fulfil Stephen's hope by looking at him during the\r
+first quarter of an hour; her eyes were too full of the old banks that\r
+she knew so well. She felt lonely, cut off from Philip,--the only\r
+person who had ever seemed to love her devotedly, as she had always\r
+longed to be loved. But presently the rhythmic movement of the oars\r
+attracted her, and she thought she should like to learn how to row.\r
+This roused her from her reverie, and she asked if she might take an\r
+oar. It appeared that she required much teaching, and she became\r
+ambitious. The exercise brought the warm blood into her cheeks, and\r
+made her inclined to take her lesson merrily.\r
+\r
+"I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and row you\r
+and Lucy," she said, looking very bright as she stepped out of the\r
+boat. Maggie, we know, was apt to forget the thing she was doing, and\r
+she had chosen an inopportune moment for her remark; her foot slipped,\r
+but happily Mr. Stephen Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a\r
+firm grasp.\r
+\r
+"You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope?" he said, bending to look\r
+in her face with anxiety. It was very charming to be taken care of in\r
+that kind, graceful manner by some one taller and stronger than one's\r
+self. Maggie had never felt just in the same way before.\r
+\r
+When they reached home again, they found uncle and aunt Pullet seated\r
+with Mrs. Tulliver in the drawing-room, and Stephen hurried away,\r
+asking leave to come again in the evening.\r
+\r
+"And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you took away,"\r
+said Lucy. "I want Maggie to hear your best songs."\r
+\r
+Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be invited to go\r
+out with Lucy, probably to Park House, was much shocked at the\r
+shabbiness of her clothes, which when witnessed by the higher society\r
+of St. Ogg's, would be a discredit to the family, that demanded a\r
+strong and prompt remedy; and the consultation as to what would be\r
+most suitable to this end from among the superfluities of Mrs.\r
+Pullet's wardrobe was one that Lucy as well as Mrs. Tulliver entered\r
+into with some zeal. Maggie must really have an evening dress as soon\r
+as possible, and she was about the same height as aunt Pullet.\r
+\r
+"But she's so much broader across the shoulders than I am, it's very\r
+ill-convenient," said Mrs. Pullet, "else she might wear that beautiful\r
+black brocade o' mine without any alteration; and her arms are beyond\r
+everything," added Mrs. Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie's\r
+large round arm, "She'd never get my sleeves on."\r
+\r
+"Oh, never mind that, aunt; send us the dress," said Lucy. "I don't\r
+mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I have abundance of black lace\r
+for trimming. Her arms will look beautiful."\r
+\r
+"Maggie's arms _are_ a pretty shape," said Mrs. Tulliver. "They're\r
+like mine used to be, only mine was never brown; I wish she'd had\r
+_our_ family skin."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, aunty!" said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver's shoulder,\r
+"you don't understand those things. A painter would think Maggie's\r
+complexion beautiful."\r
+\r
+"Maybe, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, submissively. "You know better\r
+than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin wasn't thought well on\r
+among respectable folks."\r
+\r
+"No," said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the ladies'\r
+conversation as he sucked his lozenges. "Though there was a song about\r
+the 'Nut-brown Maid' too; I think she was crazy,--crazy Kate,--but I\r
+can't justly remember."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, dear!" said Maggie, laughing, but impatient; "I think that\r
+will be the end of _my_ brown skin, if it is always to be talked about\r
+so much."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Confidential Moments\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it appeared that she\r
+was not at all inclined to undress. She set down her candle on the\r
+first table that presented itself, and began to walk up and down her\r
+room, which was a large one, with a firm, regular, and rather rapid\r
+step, which showed that the exercise was the instinctive vent of\r
+strong excitement. Her eyes and cheeks had an almost feverish\r
+brilliancy; her head was thrown backward, and her hands were clasped\r
+with the palms outward, and with that tension of the arms which is apt\r
+to accompany mental absorption.\r
+\r
+Had anything remarkable happened?\r
+\r
+Nothing that you are not likely to consider in the highest degree\r
+unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music sung by a fine bass\r
+voice,--but then it was sung in a provincial, amateur fashion, such as\r
+would have left a critical ear much to desire. And she was conscious\r
+of having been looked at a great deal, in rather a furtive manner,\r
+from beneath a pair of well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance\r
+that seemed somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the\r
+voice. Such things could have had no perceptible effect on a\r
+thoroughly well-educated young lady, with a perfectly balanced mind,\r
+who had had all the advantages of fortune, training, and refined\r
+society. But if Maggie had been that young lady, you would probably\r
+have known nothing about her: her life would have had so few\r
+vicissitudes that it could hardly have been written; for the happiest\r
+women, like the happiest nations, have no history.\r
+\r
+In poor Maggie's highly-strung, hungry nature,--just come away from a\r
+third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds and petty round of\r
+tasks,--these apparently trivial causes had the effect of rousing and\r
+exalting her imagination in a way that was mysterious to herself. It\r
+was not that she thought distinctly of Mr. Stephen Guest, or dwelt on\r
+the indications that he looked at her with admiration; it was rather\r
+that she felt the half-remote presence of a world of love and beauty\r
+and delight, made up of vague, mingled images from all the poetry and\r
+romance she had ever read, or had ever woven in her dreamy reveries.\r
+Her mind glanced back once or twice to the time when she had courted\r
+privation, when she had thought all longing, all impatience was\r
+subdued; but that condition seemed irrecoverably gone, and she\r
+recoiled from the remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would\r
+bring back that negative peace; the battle of her life, it seemed, was\r
+not to be decided in that short and easy way,--by perfect renunciation\r
+at the very threshold of her youth.\r
+\r
+The music was vibrating in her still,--Purcell's music, with its wild\r
+passion and fancy,--and she could not stay in the recollection of that\r
+bare, lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world again, when a\r
+little tap came at the door; of course it was her cousin, who entered\r
+in ample white dressing-gown.\r
+\r
+"Why, Maggie, you naughty child, haven't you begun to undress?" said\r
+Lucy, in astonishment. "I promised not to come and talk to you,\r
+because I thought you must be tired. But here you are, looking as if\r
+you were ready to dress for a ball. Come, come, get on your\r
+dressing-gown and unplait your hair."\r
+\r
+"Well, _you_ are not very forward," retorted Maggie, hastily reaching\r
+her own pink cotton gown, and looking at Lucy's light-brown hair\r
+brushed back in curly disorder.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have not much to do. I shall sit down and talk to you till I\r
+see you are really on the way to bed."\r
+\r
+While Maggie stood and unplaited her long black hair over her pink\r
+drapery, Lucy sat down near the toilette-table, watching her with\r
+affectionate eyes, and head a little aside, like a pretty spaniel. If\r
+it appears to you at all incredible that young ladies should be led on\r
+to talk confidentially in a situation of this kind, I will beg you to\r
+remember that human life furnishes many exceptional cases.\r
+\r
+"You really _have_ enjoyed the music to-night, haven't you Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, that is what prevented me from feeling sleepy. I think I\r
+should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of\r
+music. It seems to infuse strength into my limbs, and ideas into my\r
+brain. Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with\r
+music. At other times one is conscious of carrying a weight."\r
+\r
+"And Stephen has a splendid voice, hasn't he?"\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that," said Maggie,\r
+laughing, as she seated herself and tossed her long hair back. "You\r
+are not impartial, and _I_ think any barrel-organ splendid."\r
+\r
+"But tell me what you think of him, now. Tell me exactly; good and bad\r
+too."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I think you should humiliate him a little. A lover should not be\r
+so much at ease, and so self-confident. He ought to tremble more."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, Maggie! As if any one could tremble at me! You think he is\r
+conceited, I see that. But you don't dislike him, do you?"\r
+\r
+"Dislike him! No. Am I in the habit of seeing such charming people,\r
+that I should be very difficult to please? Besides, how could I\r
+dislike any one that promised to make you happy, my dear thing!"\r
+Maggie pinched Lucy's dimpled chin.\r
+\r
+"We shall have more music to-morrow evening," said Lucy, looking happy\r
+already, "for Stephen will bring Philip Wakem with him."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lucy, I can't see him," said Maggie, turning pale. "At least, I\r
+could not see him without Tom's leave."\r
+\r
+"Is Tom such a tyrant as that?" said Lucy, surprised. "I'll take the\r
+responsibility, then,--tell him it was my fault."\r
+\r
+"But, dear," said Maggie, falteringly, "I promised Tom very solemnly,\r
+before my father's death,--I promised him I would not speak to Philip\r
+without his knowledge and consent. And I have a great dread of opening\r
+the subject with Tom,--of getting into a quarrel with him again."\r
+\r
+"But I never heard of anything so strange and unreasonable. What harm\r
+can poor Philip have done? May I speak to Tom about it?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, pray don't, dear," said Maggie. "I'll go to him myself\r
+to-morrow, and tell him that you wish Philip to come. I've thought\r
+before of asking him to absolve me from my promise, but I've not had\r
+the courage to determine on it."\r
+\r
+They were both silent for some moments, and then Lucy said,--\r
+\r
+"Maggie, you have secrets from me, and I have none from you."\r
+\r
+Maggie looked meditatively away from Lucy. Then she turned to her and\r
+said, "I _should_ like to tell you about Philip. But, Lucy, you must\r
+not betray that you know it to any one--least of all to Philip\r
+himself, or to Mr. Stephen Guest."\r
+\r
+The narrative lasted long, for Maggie had never before known the\r
+relief of such an outpouring; she had never before told Lucy anything\r
+of her inmost life; and the sweet face bent toward her with\r
+sympathetic interest, and the little hand pressing hers, encouraged\r
+her to speak on. On two points only she was not expansive. She did not\r
+betray fully what still rankled in her mind as Tom's great\r
+offence,--the insults he had heaped on Philip. Angry as the\r
+remembrance still made her, she could not bear that any one else\r
+should know it at all, both for Tom's sake and Philip's. And she could\r
+not bear to tell Lucy of the last scene between her father and Wakem,\r
+though it was this scene which she had ever since felt to be a new\r
+barrier between herself and Philip. She merely said, she saw now that\r
+Tom was, on the whole, right in regarding any prospect of love and\r
+marriage between her and Philip as put out of the question by the\r
+relation of the two families. Of course Philip's father would never\r
+consent.\r
+\r
+"There, Lucy, you have had my story," said Maggie, smiling, with the\r
+tears in her eyes. "You see I am like Sir Andrew Aguecheek. _I_ was\r
+adored once."\r
+\r
+"Ah, now I see how it is you know Shakespeare and everything, and have\r
+learned so much since you left school; which always seemed to me\r
+witchcraft before,--part of your general uncanniness," said Lucy.\r
+\r
+She mused a little with her eyes downward, and then added, looking at\r
+Maggie, "It is very beautiful that you should love Philip; I never\r
+thought such a happiness would befall him. And in my opinion, you\r
+ought not to give him up. There are obstacles now; but they may be\r
+done away with in time."\r
+\r
+Maggie shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," persisted Lucy; "I can't help being hopeful about it.\r
+There is something romantic in it,--out of the common way,--just what\r
+everything that happens to you ought to be. And Philip will adore you\r
+like a husband in a fairy tale. Oh, I shall puzzle my small brain to\r
+contrive some plot that will bring everybody into the right mind, so\r
+that you may marry Philip when I marry--somebody else. Wouldn't that\r
+be a pretty ending to all my poor, poor Maggie's troubles?"\r
+\r
+Maggie tried to smile, but shivered, as if she felt a sudden chill.\r
+\r
+"Ah, dear, you are cold," said Lucy. "You must go to bed; and so must\r
+I. I dare not think what time it is."\r
+\r
+They kissed each other, and Lucy went away, possessed of a confidence\r
+which had a strong influence over her subsequent impressions. Maggie\r
+had been thoroughly sincere; her nature had never found it easy to be\r
+otherwise. But confidences are sometimes blinding, even when they are\r
+sincere.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Brother and Sister\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie was obliged to go to Tom's lodgings in the middle of the day,\r
+when he would be coming in to dinner, else she would not have found\r
+him at home. He was not lodging with entire strangers. Our friend Bob\r
+Jakin had, with Mumps's tacit consent, taken not only a wife about\r
+eight months ago, but also one of those queer old houses, pierced with\r
+surprising passages, by the water-side, where, as he observed, his\r
+wife and mother could keep themselves out of mischief by letting out\r
+two "pleasure-boats," in which he had invested some of his savings,\r
+and by taking in a lodger for the parlor and spare bedroom. Under\r
+these circumstances, what could be better for the interests of all\r
+parties, sanitary considerations apart, than that the lodger should be\r
+Mr. Tom?\r
+\r
+It was Bob's wife who opened the door to Maggie. She was a tiny woman,\r
+with the general physiognomy of a Dutch doll, looking, in comparison\r
+with Bob's mother, who filled up the passage in the rear, very much\r
+like one of those human figures which the artist finds conveniently\r
+standing near a colossal statue to show the proportions. The tiny\r
+woman curtsied and looked up at Maggie with some awe as soon as she\r
+had opened the door; but the words, "Is my brother at home?" which\r
+Maggie uttered smilingly, made her turn round with sudden excitement,\r
+and say,--\r
+\r
+"Eh, mother, mother--tell Bob!--it's Miss Maggie! Come in, Miss, for\r
+goodness do," she went on, opening a side door, and endeavoring to\r
+flatten her person against the wall to make the utmost space for the\r
+visitor.\r
+\r
+Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the small parlor,\r
+which was now all that poor Tom had to call by the name of\r
+"home,"--that name which had once, so many years ago, meant for both\r
+of them the same sum of dear familiar objects. But everything was not\r
+strange to her in this new room; the first thing her eyes dwelt on was\r
+the large old Bible, and the sight was not likely to disperse the old\r
+memories. She stood without speaking.\r
+\r
+"If you please to take the privilege o' sitting down, Miss," said Mrs.\r
+Jakin, rubbing her apron over a perfectly clean chair, and then\r
+lifting up the corner of that garment and holding it to her face with\r
+an air of embarrassment, as she looked wonderingly at Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Bob is at home, then?" said Maggie, recovering herself, and smiling\r
+at the bashful Dutch doll.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss; but I think he must be washing and dressing himself; I'll\r
+go and see," said Mrs. Jakin, disappearing.\r
+\r
+But she presently came back walking with new courage a little way\r
+behind her husband, who showed the brilliancy of his blue eyes and\r
+regular white teeth in the doorway, bowing respectfully.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, Bob?" said Maggie, coming forward and putting out her\r
+hand to him; "I always meant to pay your wife a visit, and I shall\r
+come another day on purpose for that, if she will let me. But I was\r
+obliged to come to-day to speak to my brother."\r
+\r
+"He'll be in before long, Miss. He's doin' finely, Mr. Tom is; he'll\r
+be one o' the first men hereabouts,--you'll see that."\r
+\r
+"Well, Bob, I'm sure he'll be indebted to you, whatever he becomes; he\r
+said so himself only the other night, when he was talking of you."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss, that's his way o' takin' it. But I think the more on't when\r
+he says a thing, because his tongue doesn't overshoot him as mine\r
+does. Lors! I'm no better nor a tilted bottle, I ar'n't,--I can't stop\r
+mysen when once I begin. But you look rarely, Miss; it does me good to\r
+see you. What do you say now, Prissy?"--here Bob turned to his\r
+wife,--"Isn't it all come true as I said? Though there isn't many\r
+sorts o' goods as I can't over-praise when I set my tongue to't."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bob's small nose seemed to be following the example of her eyes\r
+in turning up reverentially toward Maggie, but she was able now to\r
+smile and curtsey, and say, "I'd looked forrard like aenything to\r
+seein' you, Miss, for my husband's tongue's been runnin' on you, like\r
+as if he was light-headed, iver since first he come a-courtin' on me."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Bob, looking rather silly. "Go an' see after the\r
+taters, else Mr. Tom 'ull have to wait for 'em."\r
+\r
+"I hope Mumps is friendly with Mrs. Jakin, Bob," said Maggie, smiling.\r
+"I remember you used to say he wouldn't like your marrying."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss," said Bob, "he made up his mind to't when he see'd what a\r
+little un she was. He pretends not to see her mostly, or else to think\r
+as she isn't full-growed. But about Mr. Tom, Miss," said Bob, speaking\r
+lower and looking serious, "he's as close as a iron biler, he is; but\r
+I'm a 'cutish chap, an' when I've left off carrying my pack, an' am at\r
+a loose end, I've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an' I'm\r
+forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides. An' it worrets me as\r
+Mr. Tom'll sit by himself so glumpish, a-knittin' his brow, an'\r
+a-lookin' at the fire of a night. He should be a bit livelier now, a\r
+fine young fellow like him. My wife says, when she goes in sometimes,\r
+an' he takes no notice of her, he sits lookin' into the fire, and\r
+frownin' as if he was watchin' folks at work in it."\r
+\r
+"He thinks so much about business," said Maggie.\r
+\r
+"Ay," said Bob, speaking lower; "but do you think it's nothin' else,\r
+Miss? He's close, Mr. Tom is; but I'm a 'cute chap, I am, an' I\r
+thought tow'rt last Christmas as I'd found out a soft place in him. It\r
+was about a little black spaniel--a rare bit o' breed--as he made a\r
+fuss to get. But since then summat's come over him, as he's set his\r
+teeth again' things more nor iver, for all he's had such good luck.\r
+An' I wanted to tell _you_, Miss, 'cause I thought you might work it\r
+out of him a bit, now you're come. He's a deal too lonely, and doesn't\r
+go into company enough."\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid I have very little power over him, Bob," said Maggie, a\r
+good deal moved by Bob's suggestion. It was a totally new idea to her\r
+mind that Tom could have his love troubles. Poor fellow!--and in love\r
+with Lucy too! But it was perhaps a mere fancy of Bob's too officious\r
+brain. The present of the dog meant nothing more than cousinship and\r
+gratitude. But Bob had already said, "Here's Mr. Tom," and the outer\r
+door was opening.\r
+\r
+"There is no time to spare, Tom," said Maggie, as soon as Bob left the\r
+room. "I must tell you at once what I came about, else I shall be\r
+hindering you from taking your dinner."\r
+\r
+Tom stood with his back against the chimney-piece, and Maggie was\r
+seated opposite the light. He noticed that she was tremulous, and he\r
+had a presentiment of the subject she was going to speak about. The\r
+presentiment made his voice colder and harder as he said, "What is\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+This tone roused a spirit of resistance in Maggie, and she put her\r
+request in quite a different form from the one she had predetermined\r
+on. She rose from her seat, and looking straight at Tom, said,--\r
+\r
+"I want you to absolve me from my promise about Philip Wakem. Or\r
+rather, I promised you not to see him without telling you. I am come\r
+to tell you that I wish to see him."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Tom, still more coldly.\r
+\r
+But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill, defiant manner,\r
+before she repented, and felt the dread of alienation from her\r
+brother.\r
+\r
+"Not for myself, dear Tom. Don't be angry. I shouldn't have asked it,\r
+only that Philip, you know, is a friend of Lucy's and she wishes him\r
+to come, has invited him to come this evening; and I told her I\r
+couldn't see him without telling you. I shall only see him in the\r
+presence of other people. There will never be anything secret between\r
+us again."\r
+\r
+Tom looked away from Maggie, knitting his brow more strongly for a\r
+little while. Then he turned to her and said, slowly and\r
+emphatically,--\r
+\r
+"You know what is my feeling on that subject, Maggie. There is no need\r
+for my repeating anything I said a year ago. While my father was\r
+living, I felt bound to use the utmost power over you, to prevent you\r
+from disgracing him as well as yourself, and all of us. But now I must\r
+leave you to your own choice. You wish to be independent; you told me\r
+so after my father's death. My opinion is not changed. If you think of\r
+Philip Wakem as a lover again, you must give up me."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish it, dear Tom, at least as things are; I see that it\r
+would lead to misery. But I shall soon go away to another situation,\r
+and I should like to be friends with him again while I am here. Lucy\r
+wishes it."\r
+\r
+The severity of Tom's face relaxed a little.\r
+\r
+"I shouldn't mind your seeing him occasionally at my uncle's--I don't\r
+want you to make a fuss on the subject. But I have no confidence in\r
+you, Maggie. You would be led away to do anything."\r
+\r
+That was a cruel word. Maggie's lip began to tremble.\r
+\r
+"Why will you say that, Tom? It is very hard of you. Have I not done\r
+and borne everything as well as I could? And I kept my word to\r
+you--when--when----My life has not been a happy one, any more than\r
+yours."\r
+\r
+She was obliged to be childish; the tears would come. When Maggie was\r
+not angry, she was as dependent on kind or cold words as a daisy on\r
+the sunshine or the cloud; the need of being loved would always subdue\r
+her, as, in old days, it subdued her in the worm-eaten attic. The\r
+brother's goodness came uppermost at this appeal, but it could only\r
+show itself in Tom's fashion. He put his hand gently on her arm, and\r
+said, in the tone of a kind pedagogue,--\r
+\r
+"Now listen to me, Maggie. I'll tell you what I mean. You're always in\r
+extremes; you have no judgment and self-command; and yet you think you\r
+know best, and will not submit to be guided. You know I didn't wish\r
+you to take a situation. My aunt Pullet was willing to give you a good\r
+home, and you might have lived respectably amongst your relations,\r
+until I could have provided a home for you with my mother. And that is\r
+what I should like to do. I wished my sister to be a lady, and I\r
+always have taken care of you, as my father desired, until you were\r
+well married. But your ideas and mine never accord, and you will not\r
+give way. Yet you might have sense enough to see that a brother, who\r
+goes out into the world and mixes with men, necessarily knows better\r
+what is right and respectable for his sister than she can know\r
+herself. You think I am not kind; but my kindness can only be directed\r
+by what I believe to be good for you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know, dear Tom," said Maggie, still half-sobbing, but trying\r
+to control her tears. "I know you would do a great deal for me; I know\r
+how you work, and don't spare yourself. I am grateful to you. But,\r
+indeed, you can't quite judge for me; our natures are very different.\r
+You don't know how differently things affect me from what they do\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I _do_ know; I know it too well. I know how differently you must\r
+feel about all that affects our family, and your own dignity as a\r
+young woman, before you could think of receiving secret addresses from\r
+Philip Wakem. If it was not disgusting to me in every other way, I\r
+should object to my sister's name being associated for a moment with\r
+that of a young man whose father must hate the very thought of us all,\r
+and would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think it quite\r
+certain that what you witnessed just before my father's death would\r
+secure you from ever thinking again of Philip Wakem as a lover. But I\r
+don't feel certain of it with you; I never feel certain about anything\r
+with _you_. At one time you take pleasure in a sort of perverse\r
+self-denial, and at another you have not resolution to resist a thing\r
+that you know to be wrong."\r
+\r
+There was a terrible cutting truth in Tom's words,--that hard rind of\r
+truth which is discerned by unimaginative, unsympathetic minds. Maggie\r
+always writhed under this judgment of Tom's; she rebelled and was\r
+humiliated in the same moment; it seemed as if he held a glass before\r
+her to show her her own folly and weakness, as if he were a prophetic\r
+voice predicting her future fallings; and yet, all the while, she\r
+judged him in return; she said inwardly that he was narrow and unjust,\r
+that he was below feeling those mental needs which were often the\r
+source of the wrong-doing or absurdity that made her life a planless\r
+riddle to him.\r
+\r
+She did not answer directly; her heart was too full, and she sat down,\r
+leaning her arm on the table. It was no use trying to make Tom feel\r
+that she was near to him. He always repelled her. Her feeling under\r
+his words was complicated by the allusion to the last scene between\r
+her father and Wakem; and at length that painful, solemn memory\r
+surmounted the immediate grievance. No! She did not think of such\r
+things with frivolous indifference, and Tom must not accuse her of\r
+that. She looked up at him with a grave, earnest gaze and said,--\r
+\r
+"I can't make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I can say. But\r
+I am not so shut out from all your feelings as you believe me to be. I\r
+see as well as you do that from our position with regard to Philip's\r
+father--not on other grounds--it would be unreasonable, it would be\r
+wrong, for us to entertain the idea of marriage; and I have given up\r
+thinking of him as a lover. I am telling you the truth, and you have\r
+no right to disbelieve me; I have kept my word to you, and you have\r
+never detected me in a falsehood. I should not only not encourage, I\r
+should carefully avoid, any intercourse with Philip on any other\r
+footing than of quiet friendship. You may think that I am unable to\r
+keep my resolutions; but at least you ought not to treat me with hard\r
+contempt on the ground of faults that I have not committed yet."\r
+\r
+"Well, Maggie," said Tom, softening under this appeal, "I don't want\r
+to overstrain matters. I think, all things considered, it will be best\r
+for you to see Philip Wakem, if Lucy wishes him to come to the house.\r
+I believe what you say,--at least you believe it yourself, I know; I\r
+can only warn you. I wish to be as good a brother to you as you will\r
+let me."\r
+\r
+There was a little tremor in Tom's voice as he uttered the last words,\r
+and Maggie's ready affection came back with as sudden a glow as when\r
+they were children, and bit their cake together as a sacrament of\r
+conciliation. She rose and laid her hand on Tom's shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Dear Tom, I know you mean to be good. I know you have had a great\r
+deal to bear, and have done a great deal. I should like to be a\r
+comfort to you, not to vex you. You don't think I'm altogether\r
+naughty, now, do you?"\r
+\r
+Tom smiled at the eager face; his smiles were very pleasant to see\r
+when they did come, for the gray eyes could be tender underneath the\r
+frown.\r
+\r
+"No, Maggie."\r
+\r
+"I may turn out better than you expect."\r
+\r
+"I hope you will."\r
+\r
+"And may I come some day and make tea for you, and see this extremely\r
+small wife of Bob's again?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; but trot away now, for I've no more time to spare," said Tom,\r
+looking at his watch.\r
+\r
+"Not to give me a kiss?"\r
+\r
+Tom bent to kiss her cheek, and then said,--\r
+\r
+"There! Be a good girl. I've got a great deal to think of to-day. I'm\r
+going to have a long consultation with my uncle Deane this afternoon."\r
+\r
+"You'll come to aunt Glegg's to-morrow? We're going all to dine early,\r
+that we may go there to tea. You _must_ come; Lucy told me to say so."\r
+\r
+"Oh, pooh! I've plenty else to do," said Tom, pulling his bell\r
+violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope.\r
+\r
+"I'm frightened; I shall run away," said Maggie, making a laughing\r
+retreat; while Tom, with masculine philosophy, flung the bell-rope to\r
+the farther end of the room; not very far either,--a touch of human\r
+experience which I flatter myself will come home to the bosoms of not\r
+a few substantial or distinguished men who were once at an early stage\r
+of their rise in the world, and were cherishing very large hopes in\r
+very small lodgings.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+Showing That Tom Had Opened the Oyster\r
+\r
+\r
+"And now we've settled this Newcastle business, Tom," said Mr. Deane,\r
+that same afternoon, as they were seated in the private room at the\r
+Bank together, "there's another matter I want to talk to you about.\r
+Since you're likely to have rather a smoky, unpleasant time of it at\r
+Newcastle for the next few weeks, you'll want a good prospect of some\r
+sort to keep up your spirits."\r
+\r
+Tom waited less nervously than he had done on a former occasion in\r
+this apartment, while his uncle took out his snuff-box and gratified\r
+each nostril with deliberate impartiality.\r
+\r
+"You see, Tom," said Mr. Deane at last, throwing himself backward,\r
+"the world goes on at a smarter pace now than it did when I was a\r
+young fellow. Why, sir, forty years ago, when I was much such a\r
+strapping youngster as you, a man expected to pull between the shafts\r
+the best part of his life, before he got the whip in his hand. The\r
+looms went slowish, and fashions didn't alter quite so fast; I'd a\r
+best suit that lasted me six years. Everything was on a lower scale,\r
+sir,--in point of expenditure, I mean. It's this steam, you see, that\r
+has made the difference; it drives on every wheel double pace, and the\r
+wheel of fortune along with 'em, as our Mr. Stephen Guest said at the\r
+anniversary dinner (he hits these things off wonderfully, considering\r
+he's seen nothing of business). I don't find fault with the change, as\r
+some people do. Trade, sir, opens a man's eyes; and if the population\r
+is to get thicker upon the ground, as it's doing, the world must use\r
+its wits at inventions of one sort or other. I know I've done my share\r
+as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said it's a fine thing to\r
+make two ears of corn grow where only one grew before; but, sir, it's\r
+a fine thing, too, to further the exchange of commodities, and bring\r
+the grains of corn to the mouths that are hungry. And that's our line\r
+of business; and I consider it as honorable a position as a man can\r
+hold, to be connected with it."\r
+\r
+Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not urgent; Mr.\r
+Deane was too shrewd and practical a man to allow either his\r
+reminiscences or his snuff to impede the progress of trade. Indeed,\r
+for the last month or two, there had been hints thrown out to Tom\r
+which enabled him to guess that he was going to hear some proposition\r
+for his own benefit. With the beginning of the last speech he had\r
+stretched out his legs, thrust his hands in his pockets, and prepared\r
+himself for some introductory diffuseness, tending to show that Mr.\r
+Deane had succeeded by his own merit, and that what he had to say to\r
+young men in general was, that if they didn't succeed too it was\r
+because of their own demerit. He was rather surprised, then, when his\r
+uncle put a direct question to him.\r
+\r
+"Let me see,--it's going on for seven years now since you applied to\r
+me for a situation, eh, Tom?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; I'm three-and-twenty now," said Tom.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it's as well not to say that, though; for you'd pass for a good\r
+deal older, and age tells well in business. I remember your coming\r
+very well; I remember I saw there was some pluck in you, and that was\r
+what made me give you encouragement. And I'm happy to say I was right;\r
+I'm not often deceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing my\r
+nephew, but I'm happy to say you've done me credit, sir; and if I'd\r
+had a son o' my own, I shouldn't have been sorry to see him like you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in a tone of\r
+some feeling, "No, I shouldn't have been sorry to see him like you."\r
+\r
+"I'm very glad I've given you satisfaction, sir; I've done my best,"\r
+said Tom, in his proud, independent way.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Tom, you've given me satisfaction. I don't speak of your conduct\r
+as a son; though that weighs with me in my opinion of you. But what I\r
+have to do with, as a partner in our firm, is the qualities you've\r
+shown as a man o' business. Ours is a fine business,--a splendid\r
+concern, sir,--and there's no reason why it shouldn't go on growing;\r
+there's a growing capital, and growing outlets for it; but there's\r
+another thing that's wanted for the prosperity of every concern, large\r
+or small, and that's men to conduct it,--men of the right habits; none\r
+o' your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended on. Now this is\r
+what Mr. Guest and I see clear enough. Three years ago we took Gell\r
+into the concern; we gave him a share in the oil-mill. And why? Why,\r
+because Gell was a fellow whose services were worth a premium. So it\r
+will always be, sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is pretty near\r
+ten years older than you, there are other points in your favor."\r
+\r
+Tom was getting a little nervous as Mr. Deane went on speaking; he was\r
+conscious of something he had in his mind to say, which might not be\r
+agreeable to his uncle, simply because it was a new suggestion rather\r
+than an acceptance of the proposition he foresaw.\r
+\r
+"It stands to reason," Mr. Deane went on, when he had finished his new\r
+pinch, "that your being my nephew weighs in your favor; but I don't\r
+deny that if you'd been no relation of mine at all, your conduct in\r
+that affair of Pelley's bank would have led Mr. Guest and myself to\r
+make some acknowledgment of the service you've been to us; and, backed\r
+by your general conduct and business ability, it has made us determine\r
+on giving you a share in the business,--a share which we shall be glad\r
+to increase as the years go on. We think that'll be better, on all\r
+grounds, than raising your salary. It'll give you more importance, and\r
+prepare you better for taking some of the anxiety off my shoulders by\r
+and by. I'm equal to a good deal o' work at present, thank God; but\r
+I'm getting older,--there's no denying that. I told Mr. Guest I would\r
+open the subject to you; and when you come back from this northern\r
+business, we can go into particulars. This is a great stride for a\r
+young fellow of three-and-twenty, but I'm bound to say you've deserved\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I'm very grateful to Mr. Guest and you, sir; of course I feel the\r
+most indebted to _you_, who first took me into the business, and have\r
+taken a good deal of pains with me since."\r
+\r
+Tom spoke with a slight tremor, and paused after he had said this.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Deane. "I don't spare pains when I see they'll be\r
+of any use. I gave myself some trouble with Gell, else he wouldn't\r
+have been what he is."\r
+\r
+"But there's one thing I should like to mention to you uncle. I've\r
+never spoken to you of it before. If you remember, at the time my\r
+father's property was sold, there was some thought of your firm buying\r
+the Mill; I know you thought it would be a very good investment,\r
+especially if steam were applied."\r
+\r
+"To be sure, to be sure. But Wakem outbid us; he'd made up his mind to\r
+that. He's rather fond of carrying everything over other people's\r
+heads."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it's of no use my mentioning it at present," Tom went on,\r
+"but I wish you to know what I have in my mind about the Mill. I've a\r
+strong feeling about it. It was my father's dying wish that I should\r
+try and get it back again whenever I could; it was in his family for\r
+five generations. I promised my father; and besides that, I'm attached\r
+to the place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should\r
+ever suit your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a better\r
+chance of fulfilling my father's wish. I shouldn't have liked to\r
+mention the thing to you, only you've been kind enough to say my\r
+services have been of some value. And I'd give up a much greater\r
+chance in life for the sake of having the Mill again,--I mean having\r
+it in my own hands, and gradually working off the price."\r
+\r
+Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked thoughtful.\r
+\r
+"I see, I see," he said, after a while; "the thing would be possible\r
+if there were any chance of Wakem's parting with the property. But\r
+that I _don't_ see. He's put that young Jetsome in the place; and he\r
+had his reasons when he bought it, I'll be bound."\r
+\r
+"He's a loose fish, that young Jetsome," said Tom. "He's taking to\r
+drinking, and they say he's letting the business go down. Luke told me\r
+about it,--our old miller. He says he sha'n't stay unless there's an\r
+alteration. I was thinking, if things went on that way, Wakem might be\r
+more willing to part with the Mill. Luke says he's getting very sour\r
+about the way things are going on."\r
+\r
+"Well, I'll turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the matter, and go\r
+into it with Mr. Guest. But, you see, it's rather striking out a new\r
+branch, and putting you to that, instead of keeping you where you are,\r
+which was what we'd wanted."\r
+\r
+"I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things were once\r
+set properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of work. There's\r
+nothing else I care about much."\r
+\r
+There was something rather sad in that speech from a young man of\r
+three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane's business-loving ears.\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh! you'll be having a wife to care about one of these days,\r
+if you get on at this pace in the world. But as to this Mill, we\r
+mustn't reckon on our chickens too early. However, I promise you to\r
+bear it in mind, and when you come back we'll talk of it again. I am\r
+going to dinner now. Come and breakfast with us to-morrow morning, and\r
+say good-bye to your mother and sister before you start."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VI\r
+\r
+Illustrating the Laws of Attraction\r
+\r
+It is evident to you now that Maggie had arrived at a moment in her\r
+life which must be considered by all prudent persons as a great\r
+opportunity for a young woman. Launched into the higher society of St.\r
+Ogg's, with a striking person, which had the advantage of being quite\r
+unfamiliar to the majority of beholders, and with such moderate\r
+assistance of costume as you have seen foreshadowed in Lucy's anxious\r
+colloquy with aunt Pullet, Maggie was certainly at a new\r
+starting-point in life. At Lucy's first evening party, young Torry\r
+fatigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that "the\r
+dark-eyed girl there in the corner" might see him in all the\r
+additional style conferred by his eyeglass; and several young ladies\r
+went home intending to have short sleeves with black lace, and to\r
+plait their hair in a broad coronet at the back of their head,--"That\r
+cousin of Miss Deane's looked so very well." In fact, poor Maggie,\r
+with all her inward consciousness of a painful past and her\r
+presentiment of a troublous future, was on the way to become an object\r
+of some envy,--a topic of discussion in the newly established\r
+billiard-room, and between fair friends who had no secrets from each\r
+other on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who associated\r
+chiefly on terms of condescension with the families of St. Ogg's, and\r
+were the glass of fashion there, took some exception to Maggie's\r
+manners. She had a way of not assenting at once to the observations\r
+current in good society, and of saying that she didn't know whether\r
+those observations were true or not, which gave her an air of\r
+_gaucherie_, and impeded the even flow of conversation; but it is a\r
+fact capable of an amiable interpretation that ladies are not the\r
+worst disposed toward a new acquaintance of their own sex because she\r
+has points of inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without those\r
+pretty airs of coquetry which have the traditional reputation of\r
+driving gentlemen to despair that she won some feminine pity for being\r
+so ineffective in spite of her beauty. She had not had many\r
+advantages, poor thing! and it must be admitted there was no\r
+pretension about her; her abruptness and unevenness of manner were\r
+plainly the result of her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was\r
+only a wonder that there was no tinge of vulgarity about her,\r
+considering what the rest of poor Lucy's relations were--an allusion\r
+which always made the Miss Guests shudder a little. It was not\r
+agreeable to think of any connection by marriage with such people as\r
+the Gleggs and the Pullets; but it was of no use to contradict Stephen\r
+when once he had set his mind on anything, and certainly there was no\r
+possible objection to Lucy in herself,--no one could help liking her.\r
+She would naturally desire that the Miss Guests should behave kindly\r
+to this cousin of whom she was so fond, and Stephen would make a great\r
+fuss if they were deficient in civility. Under these circumstances the\r
+invitations to Park House were not wanting; and elsewhere, also, Miss\r
+Deane was too popular and too distinguished a member of society in St.\r
+Ogg's for any attention toward her to be neglected.\r
+\r
+Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young lady's\r
+life, and knew what it was to get up in the morning without any\r
+imperative reason for doing one thing more than another. This new\r
+sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment amidst the soft-breathing\r
+airs and garden-scents of advancing spring--amidst the new abundance\r
+of music, and lingering strolls in the sunshine, and the delicious\r
+dreaminess of gliding on the river--could hardly be without some\r
+intoxicating effect on her, after her years of privation; and even in\r
+the first week Maggie began to be less haunted by her sad memories and\r
+anticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just now; it was\r
+becoming very pleasant to dress in the evening, and to feel that she\r
+was one of the beautiful things of this spring-time. And there were\r
+admiring eyes always awaiting her now; she was no longer an unheeded\r
+person, liable to be chid, from whom attention was continually\r
+claimed, and on whom no one felt bound to confer any. It was pleasant,\r
+too, when Stephen and Lucy were gone out riding, to sit down at the\r
+piano alone, and find that the old fitness between her fingers and the\r
+keys remained, and revived, like a sympathetic kinship not to be worn\r
+out by separation; to get the tunes she had heard the evening before,\r
+and repeat them again and again until she had found out a way of\r
+producing them so as to make them a more pregnant, passionate language\r
+to her. The mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she\r
+would often take up a book of studies rather than any melody, that she\r
+might taste more keenly by abstraction the more primitive sensation of\r
+intervals. Not that her enjoyment of music was of the kind that\r
+indicates a great specific talent; it was rather that her sensibility\r
+to the supreme excitement of music was only one form of that\r
+passionate sensibility which belonged to her whole nature, and made\r
+her faults and virtues all merge in each other; made her affections\r
+sometimes an impatient demand, but also prevented her vanity from\r
+taking the form of mere feminine coquetry and device, and gave it the\r
+poetry of ambition. But you have known Maggie a long while, and need\r
+to be told, not her characteristics, but her history, which is a thing\r
+hardly to be predicted even from the completest knowledge of\r
+characteristics. For the tragedy of our lives is not created entirely\r
+from within. "Character," says Novalis, in one of his questionable\r
+aphorisms,--"character is destiny." But not the whole of our destiny.\r
+Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we have\r
+a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had lived to a good\r
+old age, and his uncle had died an early death, we can conceive\r
+Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got through life with a\r
+reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many soliloquies, and some moody\r
+sarcasms toward the fair daughter of Polonius, to say nothing of the\r
+frankest incivility to his father-in-law.\r
+\r
+Maggie's destiny, then, is at present hidden, and we must wait for it\r
+to reveal itself like the course of an unmapped river; we only know\r
+that the river is full and rapid, and that for all rivers there is the\r
+same final home. Under the charm of her new pleasures, Maggie herself\r
+was ceasing to think, with her eager prefiguring imagination, of her\r
+future lot; and her anxiety about her first interview with Philip was\r
+losing its predominance; perhaps, unconsciously to herself, she was\r
+not sorry that the interview had been deferred.\r
+\r
+For Philip had not come the evening he was expected, and Mr. Stephen\r
+Guest brought word that he was gone to the coast,--probably, he\r
+thought, on a sketching expedition; but it was not certain when he\r
+would return. It was just like Philip, to go off in that way without\r
+telling any one. It was not until the twelfth day that he returned, to\r
+find both Lucy's notes awaiting him; he had left before he knew of\r
+Maggie's arrival.\r
+\r
+Perhaps one had need be nineteen again to be quite convinced of the\r
+feelings that were crowded for Maggie into those twelve days; of the\r
+length to which they were stretched for her by the novelty of her\r
+experience in them, and the varying attitudes of her mind. The early\r
+days of an acquaintance almost always have this importance for us, and\r
+fill up a larger space in our memory than longer subsequent periods,\r
+which have been less filled with discovery and new impressions. There\r
+were not many hours in those ten days in which Mr. Stephen Guest was\r
+not seated by Lucy's side, or standing near her at the piano, or\r
+accompanying her on some outdoor excursion; his attentions were\r
+clearly becoming more assiduous, and that was what every one had\r
+expected. Lucy was very happy, all the happier because Stephen's\r
+society seemed to have become much more interesting and amusing since\r
+Maggie had been there. Playful discussions--sometimes serious\r
+ones--were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie revealed\r
+themselves, to the admiration of the gentle, unobtrusive Lucy; and it\r
+more than once crossed her mind what a charming quartet they should\r
+have through life when Maggie married Philip. Is it an inexplicable\r
+thing that a girl should enjoy her lover's society the more for the\r
+presence of a third person, and be without the slightest spasm of\r
+jealousy that the third person had the conversation habitually\r
+directed to her? Not when that girl is as tranquil-hearted as Lucy,\r
+thoroughly possessed with a belief that she knows the state of her\r
+companions' affections, and not prone to the feelings which shake such\r
+a belief in the absence of positive evidence against it. Besides, it\r
+was Lucy by whom Stephen sat, to whom he gave his arm, to whom he\r
+appealed as the person sure to agree with him; and every day there was\r
+the same tender politeness toward her, the same consciousness of her\r
+wants and care to supply them. Was there really the same? It seemed to\r
+Lucy that there was more; and it was no wonder that the real\r
+significance of the change escaped her. It was a subtle act of\r
+conscience in Stephen that even he himself was not aware of. His\r
+personal attentions to Maggie were comparatively slight, and there had\r
+even sprung up an apparent distance between them, that prevented the\r
+renewal of that faint resemblance to gallantry into which he had\r
+fallen the first day in the boat. If Stephen came in when Lucy was out\r
+of the room, if Lucy left them together, they never spoke to each\r
+other; Stephen, perhaps, seemed to be examining books or music, and\r
+Maggie bent her head assiduously over her work. Each was oppressively\r
+conscious of the other's presence, even to the finger-ends. Yet each\r
+looked and longed for the same thing to happen the next day. Neither\r
+of them had begun to reflect on the matter, or silently to ask, "To\r
+what does all this tend?" Maggie only felt that life was revealing\r
+something quite new to her; and she was absorbed in the direct,\r
+immediate experience, without any energy left for taking account of it\r
+and reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained from\r
+self-questioning, and would not admit to himself that he felt an\r
+influence which was to have any determining effect on his conduct. And\r
+when Lucy came into the room again, they were once more unconstrained;\r
+Maggie could contradict Stephen, and laugh at him, and he could\r
+recommend to her consideration the example of that most charming\r
+heroine, Miss Sophia Western, who had a great "respect for the\r
+understandings of men." Maggie could look at Stephen, which, for some\r
+reason or other she always avoided when they were alone; and he could\r
+even ask her to play his accompaniment for him, since Lucy's fingers\r
+were so busy with that bazaar-work, and lecture her on hurrying the\r
+tempo, which was certainly Maggie's weak point.\r
+\r
+One day--it was the day of Philip's return--Lucy had formed a sudden\r
+engagement to spend the evening with Mrs. Kenn, whose delicate state\r
+of health, threatening to become confirmed illness through an attack\r
+of bronchitis, obliged her to resign her functions at the coming\r
+bazaar into the hands of other ladies, of whom she wished Lucy to be\r
+one. The engagement had been formed in Stephen's presence, and he had\r
+heard Lucy promise to dine early and call at six o'clock for Miss\r
+Torry, who brought Mrs. Kenn's request.\r
+\r
+"Here is another of the moral results of this idiotic bazaar," Stephen\r
+burst forth, as soon as Miss Torry had left the room,--"taking young\r
+ladies from the duties of the domestic hearth into scenes of\r
+dissipation among urn-rugs and embroidered reticules! I should like to\r
+know what is the proper function of women, if it is not to make\r
+reasons for husbands to stay at home, and still stronger reasons for\r
+bachelors to go out. If this goes on much longer, the bonds of society\r
+will be dissolved."\r
+\r
+"Well, it will not go on much longer," said Lucy, laughing, "for the\r
+bazaar is to take place on Monday week."\r
+\r
+"Thank Heaven!" said Stephen. "Kenn himself said the other day that he\r
+didn't like this plan of making vanity do the work of charity; but\r
+just as the British public is not reasonable enough to bear direct\r
+taxation, so St. Ogg's has not got force of motive enough to build and\r
+endow schools without calling in the force of folly."\r
+\r
+"Did he say so?" said little Lucy, her hazel eyes opening wide with\r
+anxiety. "I never heard him say anything of that kind; I thought he\r
+approved of what we were doing."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure he approves _you_," said Stephen, smiling at her\r
+affectionately; "your conduct in going out to-night looks vicious, I\r
+own, but I know there is benevolence at the bottom of it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you think too well of me," said Lucy, shaking her head, with a\r
+pretty blush, and there the subject ended. But it was tacitly\r
+understood that Stephen would not come in the evening; and on the\r
+strength of that tacit understanding he made his morning visit the\r
+longer, not saying good-bye until after four.\r
+\r
+Maggie was seated in the drawing-room, alone, shortly after dinner,\r
+with Minny on her lap, having left her uncle to his wine and his nap,\r
+and her mother to the compromise between knitting and nodding, which,\r
+when there was no company, she always carried on in the dining-room\r
+till tea-time. Maggie was stooping to caress the tiny silken pet, and\r
+comforting him for his mistress's absence, when the sound of a\r
+footstep on the gravel made her look up, and she saw Mr. Stephen Guest\r
+walking up the garden, as if he had come straight from the river. It\r
+was very unusual to see him so soon after dinner! He often complained\r
+that their dinner-hour was late at Park House. Nevertheless, there he\r
+was, in his black dress; he had evidently been home, and must have\r
+come again by the river. Maggie felt her cheeks glowing and her heart\r
+beating; it was natural she should be nervous, for she was not\r
+accustomed to receive visitors alone. He had seen her look up through\r
+the open window, and raised his hat as he walked toward it, to enter\r
+that way instead of by the door. He blushed too, and certainly looked\r
+as foolish as a young man of some wit and self-possession can be\r
+expected to look, as he walked in with a roll of music in his hand,\r
+and said, with an air of hesitating improvisation,--\r
+\r
+"You are surprised to see me again, Miss Tulliver; I ought to\r
+apologize for coming upon you by surprise, but I wanted to come into\r
+the town, and I got our man to row me; so I thought I would bring\r
+these things from the 'Maid of Artois' for your cousin; I forgot them\r
+this morning. Will you give them to her?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Minny in her arms,\r
+and now, not quite knowing what else to do, sat down again.\r
+\r
+Stephen laid down his hat, with the music, which rolled on the floor,\r
+and sat down in the chair close by her. He had never done so before,\r
+and both he and Maggie were quite aware that it was an entirely new\r
+position.\r
+\r
+"Well, you pampered minion!" said Stephen, leaning to pull the long\r
+curly ears that drooped over Maggie's arm. It was not a suggestive\r
+remark, and as the speaker did not follow it up by further\r
+development, it naturally left the conversation at a standstill. It\r
+seemed to Stephen like some action in a dream that he was obliged to\r
+do, and wonder at himself all the while,--to go on stroking Minny's\r
+head. Yet it was very pleasant; he only wished he dared look at\r
+Maggie, and that she would look at him,--let him have one long look\r
+into those deep, strange eyes of hers, and then he would be satisfied\r
+and quite reasonable after that. He thought it was becoming a sort of\r
+monomania with him, to want that long look from Maggie; and he was\r
+racking his invention continually to find out some means by which he\r
+could have it without its appearing singular and entailing subsequent\r
+embarrassment. As for Maggie, she had no distinct thought, only the\r
+sense of a presence like that of a closely hovering broad-winged bird\r
+in the darkness, for she was unable to look up, and saw nothing but\r
+Minny's black wavy coat.\r
+\r
+But this must end some time, perhaps it ended very soon, and only\r
+_seemed_ long, as a minute's dream does. Stephen at last sat upright\r
+sideways in his chair, leaning one hand and arm over the back and\r
+looking at Maggie. What should he say?\r
+\r
+"We shall have a splendid sunset, I think; sha'n't you go out and see\r
+it?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Maggie. Then courageously raising her eyes and\r
+looking out of the window, "if I'm not playing cribbage with my\r
+uncle."\r
+\r
+A pause; during which Minny is stroked again, but has sufficient\r
+insight not to be grateful for it, to growl rather.\r
+\r
+"Do you like sitting alone?"\r
+\r
+A rather arch look came over Maggie's face, and, just glancing at\r
+Stephen, she said, "Would it be quite civil to say 'yes'?"\r
+\r
+"It _was_ rather a dangerous question for an intruder to ask," said\r
+Stephen, delighted with that glance, and getting determined to stay\r
+for another. "But you will have more than half an hour to yourself\r
+after I am gone," he added, taking out his watch. "I know Mr. Deane\r
+never comes in till half-past seven."\r
+\r
+Another pause, during which Maggie looked steadily out of the window,\r
+till by a great effort she moved her head to look down at Minny's back\r
+again, and said,--\r
+\r
+"I wish Lucy had not been obliged to go out. We lose our music."\r
+\r
+"We shall have a new voice to-morrow night," said Stephen. "Will you\r
+tell your cousin that our friend Philip Wakem is come back? I saw him\r
+as I went home."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a little start,--it seemed hardly more than a vibration\r
+that passed from head to foot in an instant. But the new images\r
+summoned by Philip's name dispersed half the oppressive spell she had\r
+been under. She rose from her chair with a sudden resolution, and\r
+laying Minny on his cushion, went to reach Lucy's large work-basket\r
+from its corner. Stephen was vexed and disappointed; he thought\r
+perhaps Maggie didn't like the name of Wakem to be mentioned to her in\r
+that abrupt way, for he now recalled what Lucy had told him of the\r
+family quarrel. It was of no use to stay any longer. Maggie was\r
+seating herself at the table with her work, and looking chill and\r
+proud; and he--he looked like a simpleton for having come. A\r
+gratuitous, entirely superfluous visit of that sort was sure to make a\r
+man disagreeable and ridiculous. Of course it was palpable to Maggie's\r
+thinking that he had dined hastily in his own room for the sake of\r
+setting off again and finding her alone.\r
+\r
+A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentleman of\r
+five-and-twenty, not without legal knowledge! But a reference to\r
+history, perhaps, may make it not incredible.\r
+\r
+At this moment Maggie's ball of knitting-wool rolled along the ground,\r
+and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too, and picking up the\r
+ball, met her with a vexed, complaining look that gave his eyes quite\r
+a new expression to Maggie, whose own eyes met them as he presented\r
+the ball to her.\r
+\r
+"Good-bye," said Stephen, in a tone that had the same beseeching\r
+discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out his hand; he thrust both\r
+hands into his tail-pockets as he spoke. Maggie thought she had\r
+perhaps been rude.\r
+\r
+"Won't you stay?" she said timidly, not looking away, for that would\r
+have seemed rude again.\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Stephen, looking still into the half-unwilling,\r
+half-fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks toward the track of the\r
+distant brook. "The boat is waiting for me. You'll tell your cousin?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"That I brought the music, I mean?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And that Philip is come back?"\r
+\r
+"Yes." (Maggie did not notice Philip's name this time.)\r
+\r
+"Won't you come out a little way into the garden?" said Stephen, in a\r
+still gentler tone; but the next moment he was vexed that she did not\r
+say "No," for she moved away now toward the open window, and he was\r
+obliged to take his hat and walk by her side. But he thought of\r
+something to make him amends.\r
+\r
+"Do take my arm," he said, in a low tone, as if it were a secret.\r
+\r
+There is something strangely winning to most women in that offer of\r
+the firm arm; the help is not wanted physically at that moment, but\r
+the sense of help, the presence of strength that is outside them and\r
+yet theirs, meets a continual want of the imagination. Either on that\r
+ground or some other, Maggie took the arm. And they walked together\r
+round the grassplot and under the drooping green of the laburnums, in\r
+the same dim, dreamy state as they had been in a quarter of an hour\r
+before; only that Stephen had had the look he longed for, without yet\r
+perceiving in himself the symptoms of returning reasonableness, and\r
+Maggie had darting thoughts across the dimness,--how came he to be\r
+there? Why had she come out? Not a word was spoken. If it had been,\r
+each would have been less intensely conscious of the other.\r
+\r
+"Take care of this step," said Stephen at last.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I will go in now," said Maggie, feeling that the step had come\r
+like a rescue. "Good-evening."\r
+\r
+In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running back to the\r
+house. She did not reflect that this sudden action would only add to\r
+the embarrassing recollections of the last half-hour. She had no\r
+thought left for that. She only threw herself into the low arm-chair,\r
+and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again--so quietly--in the\r
+Red Deeps."\r
+\r
+Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to the boat, and was\r
+soon landed at the wharf. He spent the evening in the billiard-room,\r
+smoking one cigar after another, and losing "lives" at pool. But he\r
+would not leave off. He was determined not to think,--not to admit any\r
+more distinct remembrance than was urged upon him by the perpetual\r
+presence of Maggie. He was looking at her, and she was on his arm.\r
+\r
+But there came the necessity of walking home in the cool starlight,\r
+and with it the necessity of cursing his own folly, and bitterly\r
+determining that he would never trust himself alone with Maggie again.\r
+It was all madness; he was in love, thoroughly attached to Lucy, and\r
+engaged,--engaged as strongly as an honorable man need be. He wished\r
+he had never seen this Maggie Tulliver, to be thrown into a fever by\r
+her in this way; she would make a sweet, strange, troublesome,\r
+adorable wife to some man or other, but he would never have chosen her\r
+himself. Did she feel as he did? He hoped she did--not. He ought not\r
+to have gone. He would master himself in future. He would make himself\r
+disagreeable to her, quarrel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her? Was\r
+it possible to quarrel with a creature who had such eyes,--defying and\r
+deprecating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and beseeching,--\r
+full of delicious opposites? To see such a creature subdued by love\r
+for one would be a lot worth having--to another man.\r
+\r
+There was a muttered exclamation which ended this inward soliloquy, as\r
+Stephen threw away the end of his last cigar, and thrusting his hands\r
+into his pockets, stalked along at a quieter pace through the\r
+shrubbery. It was not of a benedictory kind.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VII\r
+\r
+Philip Re-enters\r
+\r
+\r
+The next morning was very wet,--the sort of morning on which male\r
+neighbors who have no imperative occupation at home are likely to pay\r
+their fair friends an illimitable visit. The rain, which has been\r
+endurable enough for the walk or ride one way, is sure to become so\r
+heavy, and at the same time so certain to clear up by and by, that\r
+nothing but an open quarrel can abbreviate the visit; latent\r
+detestation will not do at all. And if people happen to be lovers,\r
+what can be so delightful, in England, as a rainy morning? English\r
+sunshine is dubious; bonnets are never quite secure; and if you sit\r
+down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to be\r
+depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and presently find\r
+yourself in the seat you like best,--a little above or a little below\r
+the one on which your goddess sits (it is the same thing to the\r
+metaphysical mind, and that is the reason why women are at once\r
+worshipped and looked down upon), with a satisfactory confidence that\r
+there will be no lady-callers.\r
+\r
+"Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know," said Lucy; "he\r
+always does when it's rainy."\r
+\r
+Maggie made no answer. She was angry with Stephen; she began to think\r
+she should dislike him; and if it had not been for the rain, she would\r
+have gone to her aunt Glegg's this morning, and so have avoided him\r
+altogether. As it was, she must find some reason for remaining out of\r
+the room with her mother.\r
+\r
+But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another visitor--a\r
+nearer neighbor--who preceded him. When Philip entered the room, he\r
+was going merely to bow to Maggie, feeling that their acquaintance was\r
+a secret which he was bound not to betray; but when she advanced\r
+toward him and put out her hand, he guessed at once that Lucy had been\r
+taken into her confidence. It was a moment of some agitation to both,\r
+though Philip had spent many hours in preparing for it; but like all\r
+persons who have passed through life with little expectation of\r
+sympathy, he seldom lost his self-control, and shrank with the most\r
+sensitive pride from any noticeable betrayal of emotion. A little\r
+extra paleness, a little tension of the nostril when he spoke, and the\r
+voice pitched in rather a higher key, that to strangers would seem\r
+expressive of cold indifference, were all the signs Philip usually\r
+gave of an inward drama that was not without its fierceness. But\r
+Maggie, who had little more power of concealing the impressions made\r
+upon her than if she had been constructed of musical strings, felt her\r
+eyes getting larger with tears as they took each other's hands in\r
+silence. They were not painful tears; they had rather something of the\r
+same origin as the tears women and children shed when they have found\r
+some protection to cling to and look back on the threatened danger.\r
+For Philip, who a little while ago was associated continually in\r
+Maggie's mind with the sense that Tom might reproach her with some\r
+justice, had now, in this short space, become a sort of outward\r
+conscience to her, that she might fly to for rescue and strength. Her\r
+tranquil, tender affection for Philip, with its root deep down in her\r
+childhood, and its memories of long quiet talk confirming by distinct\r
+successive impressions the first instinctive bias,--the fact that in\r
+him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and womanly devotedness\r
+than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability of her\r
+nature,--seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a sanctuary where\r
+she could find refuge from an alluring influence which the best part\r
+of herself must resist; which must bring horrible tumult within,\r
+wretchedness without. This new sense of her relation to Philip\r
+nullified the anxious scruples she would otherwise have felt, lest she\r
+should overstep the limit of intercourse with him that Tom would\r
+sanction; and she put out her hand to him, and felt the tears in her\r
+eyes without any consciousness of an inward check. The scene was just\r
+what Lucy expected, and her kind heart delighted in bringing Philip\r
+and Maggie together again; though, even with all _her_ regard for\r
+Philip, she could not resist the impression that her cousin Tom had\r
+some excuse for feeling shocked at the physical incongruity between\r
+the two,--a prosaic person like cousin Tom, who didn't like poetry and\r
+fairy tales. But she began to speak as soon as possible, to set them\r
+at ease.\r
+\r
+"This was very good and virtuous of you," she said, in her pretty\r
+treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds, "to come so\r
+soon after your arrival. And as it is, I think I will pardon you for\r
+running away in an inopportune manner, and giving your friends no\r
+notice. Come and sit down here," she went on, placing the chair that\r
+would suit him best, "and you shall find yourself treated mercifully."\r
+\r
+"You will never govern well, Miss Deane," said Philip, as he seated\r
+himself, "because no one will ever believe in your severity. People\r
+will always encourage themselves in misdemeanors by the certainty that\r
+you will be indulgent."\r
+\r
+Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not hear what it\r
+was, for he had naturally turned toward Maggie, and she was looking at\r
+him with that open, affectionate scrutiny which we give to a friend\r
+from whom we have been long separated. What a moment their parting had\r
+been! And Philip felt as if he were only in the morrow of it. He felt\r
+this so keenly,--with such intense, detailed remembrance, with such\r
+passionate revival of all that had been said and looked in their last\r
+conversation,--that with that jealousy and distrust which in diffident\r
+natures is almost inevitably linked with a strong feeling, he thought\r
+he read in Maggie's glance and manner the evidence of a change. The\r
+very fact that he feared and half expected it would be sure to make\r
+this thought rush in, in the absence of positive proof to the\r
+contrary.\r
+\r
+"I am having a great holiday, am I not?" said Maggie. "Lucy is like a\r
+fairy godmother; she has turned me from a drudge into a princess in no\r
+time. I do nothing but indulge myself all day long, and she always\r
+finds out what I want before I know it myself."\r
+\r
+"I am sure she is the happier for having you, then," said Philip. "You\r
+must be better than a whole menagerie of pets to her. And you look\r
+well. You are benefiting by the change."\r
+\r
+Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while, till\r
+Lucy, determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a good imitation\r
+of annoyance, that she had forgotten something, and was quickly out of\r
+the room.\r
+\r
+In a moment Maggie and Philip leaned forward, and the hands were\r
+clasped again, with a look of sad contentment, like that of friends\r
+who meet in the memory of recent sorrow.\r
+\r
+"I told my brother I wished to see you, Philip; I asked him to release\r
+me from my promise, and he consented."\r
+\r
+Maggie, in her impulsiveness, wanted Philip to know at once the\r
+position they must hold toward each other; but she checked herself.\r
+The things that had happened since he had spoken of his love for her\r
+were so painful that she shrank from being the first to allude to them.\r
+It seemed almost like an injury toward Philip even to mention her\r
+brother,--her brother, who had insulted him. But he was thinking too\r
+entirely of her to be sensitive on any other point at that moment.\r
+\r
+"Then we can at least be friends, Maggie? There is nothing to hinder\r
+that now?"\r
+\r
+"Will not your father object?" said Maggie, withdrawing her hand.\r
+\r
+"I should not give you up on any ground but your own wish, Maggie,"\r
+said Philip, coloring. "There are points on which I should always\r
+resist my father, as I used to tell you. _That_ is one."\r
+\r
+"Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Philip,--seeing\r
+each other and talking to each other while I am here; I shall soon go\r
+away again. I mean to go very soon, to a new situation."\r
+\r
+"Is that inevitable, Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; I must not stay here long. It would unfit me for the life I must\r
+begin again at last. I can't live in dependence,--I can't live with my\r
+brother, though he is very good to me. He would like to provide for\r
+me; but that would be intolerable to me."\r
+\r
+Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that high, feeble\r
+voice which with him indicated the resolute suppression of emotion,--\r
+\r
+"Is there no other alternative, Maggie? Is that life, away from those\r
+who love you, the only one you will allow yourself to look forward\r
+to?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip," she said, looking at him pleadingly, as if she\r
+entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this course. "At\r
+least, as things are; I don't know what may be in years to come. But I\r
+begin to think there can never come much happiness to me from loving;\r
+I have always had so much pain mingled with it. I wish I could make\r
+myself a world outside it, as men do."\r
+\r
+"Now you are returning to your old thought in a new form, Maggie,--the\r
+thought I used to combat," said Philip, with a slight tinge of\r
+bitterness. "You want to find out a mode of renunciation that will be\r
+an escape from pain. I tell you again, there is no such escape\r
+possible except by perverting or mutilating one's nature. What would\r
+become of me, if I tried to escape from pain? Scorn and cynicism would\r
+be my only opium; unless I could fall into some kind of conceited\r
+madness, and fancy myself a favorite of Heaven because I am not a\r
+favorite with men."\r
+\r
+The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Philip went on\r
+speaking; the words were evidently an outlet for some immediate\r
+feeling of his own, as well as an answer to Maggie. There was a pain\r
+pressing on him at that moment. He shrank with proud delicacy from the\r
+faintest allusion to the words of love, of plighted love that had\r
+passed between them. It would have seemed to him like reminding Maggie\r
+of a promise; it would have had for him something of the baseness of\r
+compulsion. He could not dwell on the fact that he himself had not\r
+changed; for that too would have had the air of an appeal. His love\r
+for Maggie was stamped, even more than the rest of his experience,\r
+with the exaggerated sense that he was an exception,--that she, that\r
+every one, saw him in the light of an exception.\r
+\r
+But Maggie was conscience-stricken.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Philip," she said, with her childish contrition when he used to\r
+chide her, "you are right, I know. I do always think too much of my\r
+own feelings, and not enough of others',--not enough of yours. I had\r
+need have you always to find fault with me and teach me; so many\r
+things have come true that you used to tell me."\r
+\r
+Maggie was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head on her\r
+hand and looking at Philip with half-penitent dependent affection, as\r
+she said this; while he was returning her gaze with an expression\r
+that, to her consciousness, gradually became less vague,--became\r
+charged with a specific recollection. Had his mind flown back to\r
+something that _she_ now remembered,--something about a lover of\r
+Lucy's? It was a thought that made her shudder; it gave new\r
+definiteness to her present position, and to the tendency of what had\r
+happened the evening before. She moved her arm from the table, urged\r
+to change her position by that positive physical oppression at the\r
+heart that sometimes accompanies a sudden mental pang.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter, Maggie? Has something happened?" Philip said, in\r
+inexpressible anxiety, his imagination being only too ready to weave\r
+everything that was fatal to them both.\r
+\r
+"No, nothing," said Maggie, rousing her latent will. Philip must not\r
+have that odious thought in his mind; she would banish it from her\r
+own. "Nothing," she repeated, "except in my own mind. You used to say\r
+I should feel the effect of my starved life, as you called it; and I\r
+do. I am too eager in my enjoyment of music and all luxuries, now they\r
+are come to me."\r
+\r
+She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while Philip\r
+watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything more than this\r
+general allusion in her mind. It was quite in Maggie's character to be\r
+agitated by vague self-reproach. But soon there came a violent\r
+well-known ring at the door-bell resounding through the house.\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a startling announcement!" said Maggie, quite mistress of\r
+herself, though not without some inward flutter. "I wonder where Lucy\r
+is."\r
+\r
+Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval long\r
+enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she herself\r
+ushered Stephen in.\r
+\r
+"Well, old fellow," he said, going straight up to Philip and shaking\r
+him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in passing, "it's glorious\r
+to have you back again; only I wish you'd conduct yourself a little\r
+less like a sparrow with a residence on the house-top, and not go in\r
+and out constantly without letting the servants know. This is about\r
+the twentieth time I've had to scamper up those countless stairs to\r
+that painting-room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people\r
+thought you were at home. Such incidents embitter friendship."\r
+\r
+"I've so few visitors, it seems hardly worth while to leave notice of\r
+my exit and entrances," said Philip, feeling rather oppressed just\r
+then by Stephen's bright strong presence and strong voice.\r
+\r
+"Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver?" said Stephen,\r
+turning to Maggie with stiff politeness, and putting out his hand with\r
+the air of fulfilling a social duty.\r
+\r
+Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, "Quite well, thank\r
+you," in a tone of proud indifference. Philip's eyes were watching\r
+them keenly; but Lucy was used to seeing variations in their manner to\r
+each other, and only thought with regret that there was some natural\r
+antipathy which every now and then surmounted their mutual good-will.\r
+"Maggie is not the sort of woman Stephen admires, and she is irritated\r
+by something in him which she interprets as conceit," was the silent\r
+observation that accounted for everything to guileless Lucy. Stephen\r
+and Maggie had no sooner completed this studied greeting than each\r
+felt hurt by the other's coldness. And Stephen, while rattling on in\r
+questions to Philip about his recent sketching expedition, was\r
+thinking all the more about Maggie because he was not drawing her into\r
+the conversation as he had invariably done before. "Maggie and Philip\r
+are not looking happy," thought Lucy; "this first interview has been\r
+saddening to them."\r
+\r
+"I think we people who have not been galloping," she said to Stephen,\r
+"are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have some music. We ought\r
+to take advantage of having Philip and you together. Give us the duet\r
+in 'Masaniello'; Maggie has not heard that, and I know it will suit\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"Come, then," said Stephen, going toward the piano, and giving a\r
+foretaste of the tune in his deep "brum-brum," very pleasant to hear.\r
+\r
+"You, please, Philip,--you play the accompaniment," said Lucy, "and\r
+then I can go on with my work. You _will_ like to play, sha'n't you?"\r
+she added, with a pretty, inquiring look, anxious, as usual, lest she\r
+should have proposed what was not pleasant to another; but with\r
+yearnings toward her unfinished embroidery.\r
+\r
+Philip had brightened at the proposition, for there is no feeling,\r
+perhaps, except the extremes of fear and grief, that does not find\r
+relief in music,--that does not make a man sing or play the better;\r
+and Philip had an abundance of pent-up feeling at this moment, as\r
+complex as any trio or quartet that was ever meant to express love and\r
+jealousy and resignation and fierce suspicion, all at the same time.\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," he said, seating himself at the piano, "it is a way of\r
+eking out one's imperfect life and being three people at once,--to\r
+sing and make the piano sing, and hear them both all the while,--or\r
+else to sing and paint."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there you are an enviable fellow. I can do nothing with my\r
+hands," said Stephen. "That has generally been observed in men of\r
+great administrative capacity, I believe,--a tendency to predominance\r
+of the reflective powers in me! Haven't you observed that, Miss\r
+Tulliver?"\r
+\r
+Stephen had fallen by mistake into his habit of playful appeal to\r
+Maggie, and she could not repress the answering flush and epigram.\r
+\r
+"I _have_ observed a tendency to predominance," she said, smiling; and\r
+Philip at that moment devoutly hoped that she found the tendency\r
+disagreeable.\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said Lucy; "music, music! We will discuss each other's\r
+qualities another time."\r
+\r
+Maggie always tried in vain to go on with her work when music began.\r
+She tried harder than ever to-day; for the thought that Stephen knew\r
+how much she cared for his singing was one that no longer roused a\r
+merely playful resistance; and she knew, too, that it was his habit\r
+always to stand so that he could look at her. But it was of no use;\r
+she soon threw her work down, and all her intentions were lost in the\r
+vague state of emotion produced by the inspiring duet,--emotion that\r
+seemed to make her at once strong and weak; strong for all enjoyment,\r
+weak for all resistance. When the strain passed into the minor, she\r
+half started from her seat with the sudden thrill of that change. Poor\r
+Maggie! She looked very beautiful when her soul was being played on in\r
+this way by the inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the\r
+slightest perceptible quivering through her whole frame as she leaned\r
+a little forward, clasping her hands as if to steady herself; while\r
+her eyes dilated and brightened into that wide-open, childish\r
+expression of wondering delight which always came back in her happiest\r
+moments. Lucy, who at other times had always been at the piano when\r
+Maggie was looking in this way, could not resist the impulse to steal\r
+up to her and kiss her. Philip, too, caught a glimpse of her now and\r
+then round the open book on the desk, and felt that he had never\r
+before seen her under so strong an influence.\r
+\r
+"More, more!" said Lucy, when the duet had been encored. "Something\r
+spirited again. Maggie always says she likes a great rush of sound."\r
+\r
+"It must be 'Let us take the road,' then," said Stephen,--"so suitable\r
+for a wet morning. But are you prepared to abandon the most sacred\r
+duties of life, and come and sing with us?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Lucy, laughing. "If you will look out the 'Beggar's\r
+Opera' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy cover."\r
+\r
+"That is a great clue, considering there are about a score covers here\r
+of rival dinginess," said Stephen, drawing out the canterbury.\r
+\r
+"Oh, play something the while, Philip," said Lucy, noticing that his\r
+fingers were wandering over the keys. "What is that you are falling\r
+into?--something delicious that I don't know."\r
+\r
+"Don't you know that?" said Philip, bringing out the tune more\r
+definitely. "It's from the 'Sonnambula'--'Ah! perchè non posso\r
+odiarti.' I don't know the opera, but it appears the tenor is telling\r
+the heroine that he shall always love her though she may forsake him.\r
+You've heard me sing it to the English words, 'I love thee still.'"\r
+\r
+It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered into this\r
+song, which might be an indirect expression to Maggie of what he could\r
+not prevail on himself to say to her directly. Her ears had been open\r
+to what he was saying, and when he began to sing, she understood the\r
+plaintive passion of the music. That pleading tenor had no very fine\r
+qualities as a voice, but it was not quite new to her; it had sung to\r
+her by snatches, in a subdued way, among the grassy walks and hollows,\r
+and underneath the leaning ash-tree in the Red Deeps. There seemed to\r
+be some reproach in the words; did Philip mean that? She wished she\r
+had assured him more distinctly in their conversation that she desired\r
+not to renew the hope of love between them, _only_ because it clashed\r
+with her inevitable circumstances. She was touched, not thrilled by\r
+the song; it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and brought\r
+quiet regret in the place of excitement.\r
+\r
+"That's the way with you tenors," said Stephen, who was waiting with\r
+music in his hand while Philip finished the song. "You demoralize the\r
+fair sex by warbling your sentimental love and constancy under all\r
+sorts of vile treatment. Nothing short of having your heads served up\r
+in a dish like that mediæval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you\r
+from expressing your entire resignation. I must administer an\r
+antidote, while Miss Deane prepares to tear herself away from her\r
+bobbins."\r
+\r
+Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy,--\r
+\r
+ "Shall I, wasting in despair,\r
+ Die because a woman's fair?"\r
+\r
+and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new influence.\r
+Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went toward the piano with\r
+laughing, admiring looks at him; and Maggie, in spite of her\r
+resistance to the spirit of the song and to the singer, was taken hold\r
+of and shaken by the invisible influence,--was borne along by a wave\r
+too strong for her.\r
+\r
+But, angrily resolved not to betray herself, she seized her work, and\r
+went on making false stitches and pricking her fingers with much\r
+perseverance, not looking up or taking notice of what was going\r
+forward, until all the three voices united in "Let us take the road."\r
+\r
+I am afraid there would have been a subtle, stealing gratification in\r
+her mind if she had known how entirely this saucy, defiant Stephen was\r
+occupied with her; how he was passing rapidly from a determination to\r
+treat her with ostentatious indifference to an irritating desire for\r
+some sign of inclination from her,--some interchange of subdued word\r
+or look with her. It was not long before he found an opportunity, when\r
+they had passed to the music of "The Tempest." Maggie, feeling the\r
+need of a footstool, was walking across the room to get one, when\r
+Stephen, who was not singing just then, and was conscious of all her\r
+movements, guessed her want, and flew to anticipate her, lifting the\r
+footstool with an entreating look at her, which made it impossible not\r
+to return a glance of gratitude. And then, to have the footstool\r
+placed carefully by a too self-confident personage,--not _any_\r
+self-confident personage, but one in particular, who suddenly looks\r
+humble and anxious, and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not\r
+some draught in that position between the window and the fireplace,\r
+and if he may not be allowed to move the work-table for her,--these\r
+things will summon a little of the too ready, traitorous tenderness\r
+into a woman's eyes, compelled as she is in her girlish time to learn\r
+her life-lessons in very trivial language. And to Maggie such things\r
+had not been every-day incidents, but were a new element in her life,\r
+and found her keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That tone of\r
+gentle solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent toward\r
+her, and to say, "No, thank you"; and nothing could prevent that\r
+mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been the evening\r
+before.\r
+\r
+It was but an ordinary act of politeness in Stephen; it had hardly\r
+taken two minutes; and Lucy, who was singing, scarcely noticed it. But\r
+to Philip's mind, filled already with a vague anxiety that was likely\r
+to find a definite ground for itself in any trivial incident, this\r
+sudden eagerness in Stephen, and the change in Maggie's face, which\r
+was plainly reflecting a beam from his, seemed so strong a contrast\r
+with the previous overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged\r
+with painful meaning. Stephen's voice, pouring in again, jarred upon\r
+his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the clang of sheet-iron,\r
+and he felt inclined to make the piano shriek in utter discord. He had\r
+really seen no communicable ground for suspecting any ususual feeling\r
+between Stephen and Maggie; his own reason told him so, and he wanted\r
+to go home at once that he might reflect coolly on these false images,\r
+till he had convinced himself of their nullity. But then, again, he\r
+wanted to stay as long as Stephen stayed,--always to be present when\r
+Stephen was present with Maggie. It seemed to poor Philip so natural,\r
+nay, inevitable, that any man who was near Maggie should fall in love\r
+with her! There was no promise of happiness for her if she were\r
+beguiled into loving Stephen Guest; and this thought emboldened Philip\r
+to view his own love for her in the light of a less unequal offering.\r
+He was beginning to play very falsely under this deafening inward\r
+tumult, and Lucy was looking at him in astonishment, when Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's entrance to summon them to lunch came as an excuse for\r
+abruptly breaking off the music.\r
+\r
+"Ah, Mr. Philip!" said Mr. Deane, when they entered the dining-room,\r
+"I've not seen you for a long while. Your father's not at home, I\r
+think, is he? I went after him to the office the other day, and they\r
+said he was out of town."\r
+\r
+"He's been to Mudport on business for several days," said Philip; "but\r
+he's come back now."\r
+\r
+"As fond of his farming hobby as ever, eh?"\r
+\r
+"I believe so," said Philip, rather wondering at this sudden interest\r
+in his father's pursuits.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, "he's got some land in his own hands on this\r
+side the river as well as the other, I think?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, he has."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" continued Mr. Deane, as he dispensed the pigeonpie, "he must\r
+find farming a heavy item,--an expensive hobby. I never had a hobby\r
+myself, never would give in to that. And the worst of all hobbies are\r
+those that people think they can get money at. They shoot their money\r
+down like corn out of a sack then."\r
+\r
+Lucy felt a little nervous under her father's apparently gratuitous\r
+criticism of Mr. Wakem's expenditure. But it ceased there, and Mr.\r
+Deane became unusually silent and meditative during his luncheon.\r
+Lucy, accustomed to watch all indications in her father, and having\r
+reasons, which had recently become strong, for an extra interest in\r
+what referred to the Wakems, felt an unusual curiosity to know what had\r
+prompted her father's questions. His subsequent silence made her\r
+suspect there had been some special reason for them in his mind.\r
+\r
+With this idea in her head, she resorted to her usual plan when she\r
+wanted to tell or ask her father anything particular: she found a\r
+reason for her aunt Tulliver to leaving the dining-room after dinner,\r
+and seated herself on a small stool at her father's knee. Mr. Deane,\r
+under those circumstances, considered that he tasted some of the most\r
+agreeable moments his merits had purchased him in life,\r
+notwithstanding that Lucy, disliking to have her hair powdered with\r
+snuff, usually began by mastering his snuff-box on such occasions.\r
+\r
+"You don't want to go to sleep yet, papa, _do_ you?" she said, as she\r
+brought up her stool and opened the large fingers that clutched the\r
+snuff-box.\r
+\r
+"Not yet," said Mr. Deane, glancing at the reward of merit in the\r
+decanter. "But what do _you_ want?" he added, pinching the dimpled\r
+chin fondly,--"to coax some more sovereigns out of my pocket for your\r
+bazaar? Eh?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have no base motives at all to-day. I only want to talk, not to\r
+beg. I want to know what made you ask Philip Wakem about his father's\r
+farming to-day, papa? It seemed rather odd, because you never hardly\r
+say anything to him about his father; and why should you care about\r
+Mr. Wakem's losing money by his hobby?"\r
+\r
+"Something to do with business," said Mr. Deane, waving his hands, as\r
+if to repel intrusion into that mystery.\r
+\r
+"But, papa, you always say Mr. Wakem has brought Philip up like a\r
+girl; how came you to think you should get any business knowledge out\r
+of him? Those abrupt questions sounded rather oddly. Philip thought\r
+them queer."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, child!" said Mr. Deane, willing to justify his social\r
+demeanor, with which he had taken some pains in his upward progress.\r
+"There's a report that Wakem's mill and farm on the other side of the\r
+river--Dorlcote Mill, your uncle Tulliver's, you know--isn't answering\r
+so well as it did. I wanted to see if your friend Philip would let\r
+anything out about his father's being tired of farming."\r
+\r
+"Why? Would you buy the mill, papa, if he would part with it?" said\r
+Lucy, eagerly. "Oh, tell me everything; here, you shall have your\r
+snuff-box if you'll tell me. Because Maggie says all their hearts are\r
+set on Tom's getting back the mill some time. It was one of the last\r
+things her father said to Tom, that he must get back the mill."\r
+\r
+"Hush, you little puss," said Mr. Deane, availing himself of the\r
+restored snuff-box. "You must not say a word about this thing; do you\r
+hear? There's very little chance of their getting the mill or of\r
+anybody's getting it out of Wakem's hands. And if he knew that we\r
+wanted it with a view to the Tulliver's getting it again, he'd be the\r
+less likely to part with it. It's natural, after what happened. He\r
+behaved well enough to Tulliver before; but a horsewhipping is not\r
+likely to be paid for with sugar-plums."\r
+\r
+"Now, papa," said Lucy, with a little air of solemnity, "will you\r
+trust me? You must not ask me all my reasons for what I'm going to\r
+say, but I have very strong reasons. And I'm very cautious; I am,\r
+indeed."\r
+\r
+"Well, let us hear."\r
+\r
+"Why, I believe, if you will let me take Philip Wakem into our\r
+confidence,--let me tell him all about your wish to buy, and what it's\r
+for; that my cousins wish to have it, and why they wish to have it,--I\r
+believe Philip would help to bring it about. I know he would desire to\r
+do it."\r
+\r
+"I don't see how that can be, child," said Mr. Deane, looking puzzled.\r
+"Why should _he_ care?"--then, with a sudden penetrating look at his\r
+daughter, "You don't think the poor lad's fond of you, and so you can\r
+make him do what you like?" (Mr. Deane felt quite safe about his\r
+daughter's affections.)\r
+\r
+"No, papa; he cares very little about me,--not so much as I care about\r
+him. But I have a reason for being quite sure of what I say. Don't you\r
+ask me. And if you ever guess, don't tell me. Only give me leave to do\r
+as I think fit about it."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose from her stool to seat herself on her father's knee, and\r
+kissed him with that last request.\r
+\r
+"Are you sure you won't do mischief, now?" he said, looking at her\r
+with delight.\r
+\r
+"Yes, papa, quite sure. I'm very wise; I've got all your business\r
+talents. Didn't you admire my accompt-book, now, when I showed it\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Well, well, if this youngster will keep his counsel, there won't be\r
+much harm done. And to tell the truth, I think there's not much chance\r
+for us any other way. Now, let me go off to sleep."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter VIII\r
+\r
+Wakem in a New Light\r
+\r
+\r
+Before three days had passed after the conversation you have just\r
+overheard between Lucy and her father she had contrived to have a\r
+private interview with Philip during a visit of Maggie's to her aunt\r
+Glegg. For a day and a night Philip turned over in his mind with\r
+restless agitation all that Lucy had told him in that interview, till\r
+he had thoroughly resolved on a course of action. He thought he saw\r
+before him now a possibility of altering his position with respect to\r
+Maggie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He laid his\r
+plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid deliberation of a\r
+chess-player in the days of his first ardor, and was amazed himself at\r
+his sudden genius as a tactician. His plan was as bold as it was\r
+thoroughly calculated. Having watched for a moment when his father had\r
+nothing more urgent on his hands than the newspaper, he went behind\r
+him, laid a hand on his shoulder, and said,--\r
+\r
+"Father, will you come up into my sanctum, and look at my new\r
+sketches? I've arranged them now."\r
+\r
+"I'm getting terrible stiff in the joints, Phil, for climbing those\r
+stairs of yours," said Wakem, looking kindly at his son as he laid\r
+down his paper. "But come along, then."\r
+\r
+"This is a nice place for you, isn't it, Phil?--a capital light that\r
+from the roof, eh?" was, as usual, the first thing he said on entering\r
+the painting-room. He liked to remind himself and his son too that his\r
+fatherly indulgence had provided the accommodation. He had been a good\r
+father. Emily would have nothing to reproach him with there, if she\r
+came back again from her grave.\r
+\r
+"Come, come," he said, putting his double eye-glass over his nose, and\r
+seating himself to take a general view while he rested, "you've got a\r
+famous show here. Upon my word, I don't see that your things aren't as\r
+good as that London artist's--what's his name--that Leyburn gave so\r
+much money for."\r
+\r
+Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself on his\r
+painting-stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand, with which he\r
+was making strong marks to counteract the sense of tremulousness. He\r
+watched his father get up, and walk slowly round, good-naturedly\r
+dwelling on the pictures much longer than his amount of genuine taste\r
+for landscape would have prompted, till he stopped before a stand on\r
+which two pictures were placed,--one much larger than the other, the\r
+smaller one in a leather case.\r
+\r
+"Bless me! what have you here?" said Wakem, startled by a sudden\r
+transition from landscape to portrait. "I thought you'd left off\r
+figures. Who are these?"\r
+\r
+"They are the same person," said Philip, with calm promptness, "at\r
+different ages."\r
+\r
+"And what person?" said Wakem, sharply fixing his eyes with a growing\r
+look of suspicion on the larger picture.\r
+\r
+"Miss Tulliver. The small one is something like what she was when I\r
+was at school with her brother at King's Lorton; the larger one is not\r
+quite so good a likeness of what she was when I came from abroad."\r
+\r
+Wakem turned round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting his\r
+eye-glass fall, and looking at his son with a savage expression for a\r
+moment, as if he was ready to strike that daring feebleness from the\r
+stool. But he threw himself into the armchair again, and thrust his\r
+hands into his trouser-pockets, still looking angrily at his son,\r
+however. Philip did not return the look, but sat quietly watching the\r
+point of his pencil.\r
+\r
+"And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any acquaintance with\r
+her since you came from abroad?" said Wakem, at last, with that vain\r
+effort which rage always makes to throw as much punishment as it\r
+desires to inflict into words and tones, since blows are forbidden.\r
+\r
+"Yes; I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before her father's\r
+death. We met often in that thicket--the Red Deeps--near Dorlcote\r
+Mill. I love her dearly; I shall never love any other woman. I have\r
+thought of her ever since she was a little girl."\r
+\r
+"Go on, sir! And you have corresponded with her all this while?"\r
+\r
+"No. I never told her I loved her till just before we parted, and she\r
+promised her brother not to see me again or to correspond with me. I\r
+am not sure that she loves me or would consent to marry me. But if she\r
+would consent,--if she _did_ love me well enough,--I should marry\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences I've\r
+heaped on you?" said Wakem, getting white, and beginning to tremble\r
+under an enraged sense of impotence before Philip's calm defiance and\r
+concentration of purpose.\r
+\r
+"No, father," said Philip, looking up at him for the first time; "I\r
+don't regard it as a return. You have been an indulgent father to me;\r
+but I have always felt that it was because you had an affectionate\r
+wish to give me as much happiness as my unfortunate lot would admit,\r
+not that it was a debt you expected me to pay by sacrificing all my\r
+chances of happiness to satisfy feelings of yours which I can never\r
+share."\r
+\r
+"I think most sons would share their father's feelings in this case,"\r
+said Wakem, bitterly. "The girl's father was an ignorant mad brute,\r
+who was within an inch of murdering me. The whole town knows it. And\r
+the brother is just as insolent, only in a cooler way. He forbade her\r
+seeing you, you say; he'll break every bone in your body, for your\r
+greater happiness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have made\r
+up your mind; you have counted the consequences, I suppose. Of course\r
+you are independent of me; you can marry this girl to-morrow, if you\r
+like; you are a man of five-and-twenty,--you can go your way, and I\r
+can go mine. We need have no more to do with each other."\r
+\r
+Wakem rose and walked toward the door, but something held him back,\r
+and instead of leaving the room, he walked up and down it. Philip was\r
+slow to reply, and when he spoke, his tone had a more incisive\r
+quietness and clearness than ever.\r
+\r
+"No; I can't marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have me, if I have\r
+only my own resources to maintain her with. I have been brought up to\r
+no profession. I can't offer her poverty as well as deformity."\r
+\r
+"Ah, _there_ is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless," said\r
+Wakem, still bitterly, though Philip's last words had given him a\r
+pang; they had stirred a feeling which had been a habit for a quarter\r
+of a century. He threw himself into the chair again.\r
+\r
+"I expected all this," said Philip. "I know these scenes are often\r
+happening between father and son. If I were like other men of my age,\r
+I might answer your angry words by still angrier; we might part; I\r
+should marry the woman I love, and have a chance of being as happy as\r
+the rest. But if it will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate the\r
+very object of everything you've done for me, you have an advantage\r
+over most fathers; you can completely deprive me of the only thing\r
+that would make my life worth having."\r
+\r
+Philip paused, but his father was silent.\r
+\r
+"You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond that of\r
+gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wandering savages."\r
+\r
+"Ridiculous rancor!" Wakem burst out. "What do you mean? Damn it! is a\r
+man to be horsewhipped by a boor and love him for it? Besides, there's\r
+that cold, proud devil of a son, who said a word to me I shall not\r
+forget when we had the settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a\r
+bullet as I know, if he were worth the expense."\r
+\r
+"I don't mean your resentment toward them," said Philip, who had his\r
+reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom, "though a feeling of\r
+revenge is not worth much, that you should care to keep it. I mean\r
+your extending the enmity to a helpless girl, who has too much sense\r
+and goodness to share their narrow prejudices. _She_ has never entered\r
+into the family quarrels."\r
+\r
+"What does that signify? We don't ask what a woman does; we ask whom\r
+she belongs to. It's altogether a degrading thing to you, to think of\r
+marrying old Tulliver's daughter."\r
+\r
+For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his\r
+self-control, and colored with anger.\r
+\r
+"Miss Tulliver," he said, with bitter incisiveness, "has the only\r
+grounds of rank that anything but vulgar folly can suppose to belong\r
+to the middle class; she is thoroughly refined, and her friends,\r
+whatever else they may be, are respected for irreproachable honor and\r
+integrity. All St. Ogg's, I fancy, would pronounce her to be more than\r
+my equal."\r
+\r
+Wakem darted a glance of fierce question at his son; but Philip was\r
+not looking at him, and with a certain penitent consciousness went on,\r
+in a few moments, as if in amplification of his last words,--\r
+\r
+"Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you that a\r
+beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself away on a\r
+pitiable object like me."\r
+\r
+"Not she!" said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting everything else in\r
+a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half personal. "It would be\r
+a deuced fine match for her. It's all stuff about an accidental\r
+deformity, when a girl's really attached to a man."\r
+\r
+"But girls are not apt to get attached under those circumstances,"\r
+said Philip.\r
+\r
+"Well, then," said Wakem, rather brutally, trying to recover his\r
+previous position, "if she doesn't care for you, you might have spared\r
+yourself the trouble of talking to me about her, and you might have\r
+spared me the trouble of refusing my consent to what was never likely\r
+to happen."\r
+\r
+Wakem strode to the door, and without looking round again, banged it\r
+after him.\r
+\r
+Philip was not without confidence that his father would be ultimately\r
+wrought upon as he had expected, by what had passed; but the scene had\r
+jarred upon his nerves, which were as sensitive as a woman's. He\r
+determined not to go down to dinner; he couldn't meet his father again\r
+that day. It was Wakem's habit, when he had no company at home, to go\r
+out in the evening, often as early as half-past seven; and as it was\r
+far on in the afternoon now, Philip locked up his room and went out\r
+for a long ramble, thinking he would not return until his father was\r
+out of the house again. He got into a boat, and went down the river to\r
+a favorite village, where he dined, and lingered till it was late\r
+enough for him to return. He had never had any sort of quarrel with\r
+his father before, and had a sickening fear that this contest, just\r
+begun, might go on for weeks; and what might not happen in that time?\r
+He would not allow himself to define what that involuntary question\r
+meant. But if he could once be in the position of Maggie's accepted,\r
+acknowledged lover, there would be less room for vague dread. He went\r
+up to his painting-room again, and threw himself with a sense of\r
+fatigue into the armchair, looking round absently at the views of\r
+water and rock that were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, in\r
+which he fancied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimy\r
+channel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he was\r
+awakened by what seemed a sudden, awful crash.\r
+\r
+It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have dozed more\r
+than a few moments, for there was no perceptible change in the evening\r
+light. It was his father who entered; and when Philip moved to vacate\r
+the chair for him, he said,--\r
+\r
+"Sit still. I'd rather walk about."\r
+\r
+He stalked up and down the room once or twice, and then, standing\r
+opposite Philip with his hands thrust in his side pockets, he said, as\r
+if continuing a conversation that had not been broken off,--\r
+\r
+"But this girl seems to have been fond of you, Phil, else she wouldn't\r
+have met you in that way."\r
+\r
+Philip's heart was beating rapidly, and a transient flush passed over\r
+his face like a gleam. It was not quite easy to speak at once.\r
+\r
+"She liked me at King's Lorton, when she was a little girl, because I\r
+used to sit with her brother a great deal when he had hurt his foot.\r
+She had kept that in her memory, and thought of me as a friend of a\r
+long while ago. She didn't think of me as a lover when she met me."\r
+\r
+"Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say then?" said\r
+Wakem, walking about again.\r
+\r
+"She said she _did_ love me then."\r
+\r
+"Confound it, then; what else do you want? Is she a jilt?"\r
+\r
+"She was very young then," said Philip, hesitatingly. "I'm afraid she\r
+hardly knew what she felt. I'm afraid our long separation, and the\r
+idea that events must always divide us, may have made a difference."\r
+\r
+"But she's in the town. I've seen her at church. Haven't you spoken to\r
+her since you came back?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I couldn't renew my proposals to her on\r
+several grounds. One obstacle would be removed if you would give your\r
+consent,--if you would be willing to think of her as a daughter-in-law."\r
+\r
+Wakem was silent a little while, pausing before Maggie's picture.\r
+\r
+"She's not the sort of woman your mother was, though, Phil," he said,\r
+at last. "I saw her at church,--she's handsomer than this,--deuced\r
+fine eyes and fine figure, I saw; but rather dangerous and\r
+unmanageable, eh?"\r
+\r
+"She's very tender and affectionate, and so simple,--without the airs\r
+and petty contrivances other women have."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said Wakem. Then looking round at his son, "But your mother\r
+looked gentler; she had that brown wavy hair and gray eyes, like\r
+yours. You can't remember her very well. It was a thousand pities I'd\r
+no likeness of her."\r
+\r
+"Then, shouldn't you be glad for me to have the same sort of\r
+happiness, father, to sweeten my life for me? There can never be\r
+another tie so strong to you as that which began eight-and-twenty\r
+years ago, when you married my mother, and you have been tightening it\r
+ever since."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Phil, you're the only fellow that knows the best of me," said\r
+Wakem, giving his hand to his son. "We must keep together if we can.\r
+And now, what am I to do? You must come downstairs and tell me. Am I\r
+to go and call on this dark-eyed damsel?"\r
+\r
+The barrier once thrown down in this way, Philip could talk freely to\r
+his father of their entire relation with the Tullivers,--of the desire\r
+to get the mill and land back into the family, and of its transfer to\r
+Guest & Co. as an intermediate step. He could venture now to be\r
+persuasive and urgent, and his father yielded with more readiness than\r
+he had calculated on.\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't care about the mill," he said at last, with a sort of angry\r
+compliance. "I've had an infernal deal of bother lately about the\r
+mill. Let them pay me for my improvements, that's all. But there's one\r
+thing you needn't ask me. I shall have no direct transactions with\r
+young Tulliver. If you like to swallow him for his sister's sake, you\r
+may; but I've no sauce that will make him go down."\r
+\r
+I leave you to imagine the agreeable feelings with which Philip went\r
+to Mr. Deane the next day, to say that Mr. Wakem was ready to open the\r
+negotiations, and Lucy's pretty triumph as she appealed to her father\r
+whether she had not proved her great business abilities. Mr. Deane was\r
+rather puzzled, and suspected that there had been something "going on"\r
+among the young people to which he wanted a clew. But to men of Mr.\r
+Deane's stamp, what goes on among the young people is as extraneous to\r
+the real business of life as what goes on among the birds and\r
+butterflies, until it can be shown to have a malign bearing on\r
+monetary affairs. And in this case the bearing appeared to be entirely\r
+propitious.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IX\r
+\r
+Charity in Full-Dress\r
+\r
+\r
+The culmination of Maggie's career as an admired member of society in\r
+St. Ogg's was certainly the day of the bazaar, when her simple noble\r
+beauty, clad in a white muslin of some soft-floating kind, which I\r
+suspect must have come from the stores of aunt Pullet's wardrobe,\r
+appeared with marked distinction among the more adorned and\r
+conventional women around her. We perhaps never detect how much of our\r
+social demeanor is made up of artificial airs until we see a person\r
+who is at once beautiful and simple; without the beauty, we are apt to\r
+call simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests were much too well-bred\r
+to have any of the grimaces and affected tones that belong to\r
+pretentious vulgarity; but their stall being next to the one where\r
+Maggie sat, it seemed newly obvious to-day that Miss Guest held her\r
+chin too high, and that Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with a\r
+view to effect.\r
+\r
+All well-dressed St. Ogg's and its neighborhood were there; and it\r
+would have been worth while to come even from a distance, to see the\r
+fine old hall, with its open roof and carved oaken rafters, and great\r
+oaken folding-doors, and light shed down from a height on the\r
+many-colored show beneath; a very quaint place, with broad faded\r
+stripes painted on the walls, and here and there a show of heraldic\r
+animals of a bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems of\r
+a noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A grand\r
+arch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an oaken orchestra,\r
+with an open room behind it, where hothouse plants and stalls for\r
+refreshments were disposed; an agreeable resort for gentlemen disposed\r
+to loiter, and yet to exchange the occasional crush down below for a\r
+more commodious point of view. In fact, the perfect fitness of this\r
+ancient building for an admirable modern purpose, that made charity\r
+truly elegant, and led through vanity up to the supply of a deficit,\r
+was so striking that hardly a person entered the room without\r
+exchanging the remark more than once. Near the great arch over the\r
+orchestra was the stone oriel with painted glass, which was one of the\r
+venerable inconsistencies of the old hall; and it was close by this\r
+that Lucy had her stall, for the convenience of certain large plain\r
+articles which she had taken charge of for Mrs. Kenn. Maggie had\r
+begged to sit at the open end of the stall, and to have the sale of\r
+these articles rather than of bead-mats and other elaborate products\r
+of which she had but a dim understanding. But it soon appeared that\r
+the gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among her commodities, were\r
+objects of such general attention and inquiry, and excited so\r
+troublesome a curiosity as to their lining and comparative merits,\r
+together with a determination to test them by trying on, as to make\r
+her post a very conspicuous one. The ladies who had commodities of\r
+their own to sell, and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the\r
+frivolity and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which\r
+any tailor could furnish; and it is possible that the emphatic notice\r
+of various kinds which was drawn toward Miss Tulliver on this public\r
+occasion, threw a very strong and unmistakable light on her subsequent\r
+conduct in many minds then present. Not that anger, on account of\r
+spurned beauty can dwell in the celestial breasts of charitable\r
+ladies, but rather that the errors of persons who have once been much\r
+admired necessarily take a deeper tinge from the mere force of\r
+contrast; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous position, for the\r
+first time, made evident certain characteristics which were\r
+subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There was something\r
+rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and something undefinably\r
+coarse in the style of her beauty, which placed her, in the opinion of\r
+all feminine judges, far below her cousin Miss Deane; for the ladies\r
+of St. Ogg's had now completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims\r
+on the admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.\r
+\r
+As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph about the\r
+Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was cherishing for Maggie\r
+and Philip, helped to give her the highest spirits to-day, and she\r
+felt nothing but pleasure in the evidence of Maggie's attractiveness.\r
+It is true, she was looking very charming herself, and Stephen was\r
+paying her the utmost attention on this public occasion; jealously\r
+buying up the articles he had seen under her fingers in the process of\r
+making, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers into the\r
+purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose to lay aside his\r
+hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroidering; but by superficial\r
+observers this was necessarily liable to be interpreted less as a\r
+compliment to Lucy than as a mark of coxcombry. "Guest is a great\r
+coxcomb," young Torry observed; "but then he is a privileged person in\r
+St. Ogg's--he carries all before him; if another fellow did such\r
+things, everybody would say he made a fool of himself."\r
+\r
+And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie, until Lucy said,\r
+in rather a vexed undertone,--\r
+\r
+"See, now; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be gone, and you\r
+will not have bought one. There are those deliciously soft warm things\r
+for the wrists,--do buy them."\r
+\r
+"Oh no," said Stephen, "they must be intended for imaginative persons,\r
+who can chill themselves on this warm day by thinking of the frosty\r
+Caucasus. Stern reason is my forte, you know. You must get Philip to\r
+buy those. By the way, why doesn't he come?"\r
+\r
+"He never likes going where there are many people, though I enjoined\r
+him to come. He said he would buy up any of my goods that the rest of\r
+the world rejected. But now, do go and buy something of Maggie."\r
+\r
+"No, no; see, she has got a customer; there is old Wakem himself just\r
+coming up."\r
+\r
+Lucy's eyes turned with anxious interest toward Maggie to see how she\r
+went through this first interview, since a sadly memorable time, with\r
+a man toward whom she must have so strange a mixture of feelings; but\r
+she was pleased to notice that Wakem had tact enough to enter at once\r
+into talk about the bazaar wares, and appear interested in purchasing,\r
+smiling now and then kindly at Maggie, and not calling on her to speak\r
+much, as if he observed that she was rather pale and tremulous.\r
+\r
+"Why, Wakem is making himself particularly amiable to your cousin,"\r
+said Stephen, in an undertone to Lucy; "is it pure magnanimity? You\r
+talked of a family quarrel."\r
+\r
+"Oh, that will soon be quite healed, I hope," said Lucy, becoming a\r
+little indiscreet in her satisfaction, and speaking with an air of\r
+significance. But Stephen did not appear to notice this, and as some\r
+lady-purchasers came up, he lounged on toward Maggie's end, handling\r
+trifles and standing aloof until Wakem, who had taken out his purse,\r
+had finished his transactions.\r
+\r
+"My son came with me," he overheard Wakem saying, "but he has vanished\r
+into some other part of the building, and has left all these\r
+charitable gallantries to me. I hope you'll reproach him for his\r
+shabby conduct."\r
+\r
+She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he turned away,\r
+only then observing Stephen and nodding to him. Maggie, conscious that\r
+Stephen was still there, busied herself with counting money, and\r
+avoided looking up. She had been well pleased that he had devoted\r
+himself to Lucy to-day, and had not come near her. They had begun the\r
+morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced in being\r
+aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually done without\r
+his opium, in spite of former failures in resolution. And during the\r
+last few days they had even been making up their minds to failures,\r
+looking to the outward events that must soon come to separate them, as\r
+a reason for dispensing with self-conquest in detail.\r
+\r
+Stephen moved step by step as if he were being unwillingly dragged,\r
+until he had got round the open end of the stall, and was half hidden\r
+by a screen of draperies. Maggie went on counting her money till she\r
+suddenly heard a deep gentle voice saying, "Aren't you very tried? Do\r
+let me bring you something,--some fruit or jelly, mayn't I?"\r
+\r
+The unexpected tones shook her like a sudden accidental vibration of a\r
+harp close by her.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, thank you," she said faintly, and only half looking up for an\r
+instant.\r
+\r
+"You look so pale," Stephen insisted, in a more entreating tone. "I'm\r
+sure you're exhausted. I must disobey you, and bring something."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I couldn't take it."\r
+\r
+"Are you angry with me? What have I done? _Do_ look at me."\r
+\r
+"Pray, go away," said Maggie, looking at him helplessly, her eyes\r
+glancing immediately from him to the opposite corner of the orchestra,\r
+which was half hidden by the folds of the old faded green curtain.\r
+Maggie had no sooner uttered this entreaty than she was wretched at\r
+the admission it implied; but Stephen turned away at once, and\r
+following her upward glance, he saw Philip Wakem sealed in the\r
+half-hidden corner, so that he could command little more than that\r
+angle of the hall in which Maggie sat. An entirely new though occurred\r
+to Stephen, and linking itself with what he had observed of Wakem's\r
+manner, and with Lucy's reply to his observation, it convinced him\r
+that there had been some former relation between Philip and Maggie\r
+beyond that childish one of which he had heard. More than one impulse\r
+made him immediately leave the hall and go upstairs to the\r
+refreshment-room, where, walking up to Philip, he sat down behind him,\r
+and put his hand on his shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Are you studying for a portrait, Phil," he said, "or for a sketch of\r
+that oriel window? By George, it makes a capital bit from this dark\r
+corner, with the curtain just marking it off."\r
+\r
+"I have been studying expression," said Philip, curtly.\r
+\r
+"What! Miss Tulliver's? It's rather of the savage-moody order to-day,\r
+I think,--something of the fallen princess serving behind a counter.\r
+Her cousin sent me to her with a civil offer to get her some\r
+refreshment, but I have been snubbed, as usual. There's natural\r
+antipathy between us, I suppose; I have seldom the honor to please\r
+her."\r
+\r
+"What a hypocrite you are!" said Philip, flushing angrily.\r
+\r
+"What! because experience must have told me that I'm universally\r
+pleasing? I admit the law, but there's some disturbing force here."\r
+\r
+"I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly.\r
+\r
+"So am I--to get a breath of fresh air; this place gets oppressive. I\r
+think I have done suit and service long enough."\r
+\r
+The two friends walked downstairs together without speaking. Philip\r
+turned through the outer door into the court-yard; but Stephen,\r
+saying, "Oh, by the by, I must call in here," went on along the\r
+passage to one of the rooms at the other end of the building, which\r
+were appropriated to the town library. He had the room all to himself,\r
+and a man requires nothing less than this when he wants to dash his\r
+cap on the table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a high\r
+brick wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the occasion\r
+if he had been slaying "the giant Python." The conduct that issues\r
+from a moral conflict has often so close a resemblance to vice that\r
+the distinction escapes all outward judgments founded on a mere\r
+comparison of actions. It is clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was\r
+not a hypocrite,--capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end;\r
+and yet his fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the\r
+systematic concealment of it might have made a good case in support of\r
+Philip's accusation.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with that\r
+painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely repressed\r
+tears. Was her life to be always like this,--always bringing some new\r
+source of inward strife? She heard confusedly the busy, indifferent\r
+voices around her, and wished her mind could flow into that easy\r
+babbling current. It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quite\r
+lately come into the hall, and was now walking down the middle with\r
+his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his eyes on Maggie\r
+for the first time, and was struck with the expression of pain on her\r
+beautiful face. She was sitting quite still, for the stream of\r
+customers had lessened at this late hour in the afternoon; the\r
+gentlemen had chiefly chosen the middle of the day, and Maggie's stall\r
+was looking rather bare. This, with her absent, pained expression,\r
+finished the contrast between her and her companions, who were all\r
+bright, eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her face had\r
+naturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at church, and\r
+he had been introduced to her during a short call on business at Mr.\r
+Deane's, but he had never spoken more than three words to her. He\r
+walked toward her now, and Maggie, perceiving some one approaching,\r
+roused herself to look up and be prepared to speak. She felt a\r
+childlike, instinctive relief from the sense of uneasiness in this\r
+exertion, when she saw it was Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her;\r
+that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kindness in\r
+it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached a firm, safe\r
+strand, but was looking with helpful pity toward the strugglers still\r
+tossed by the waves, had an effect on Maggie at this moment which was\r
+afterward remembered by her as if it had been a promise. The\r
+middle-aged, who have lived through their strongest emotions, but are\r
+yet in the time when memory is still half passionate and not merely\r
+contemplative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood, whom\r
+life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge and rescue of\r
+early stumblers and victims of self-despair. Most of us, at some\r
+moment in our young lives, would have welcomed a priest of that\r
+natural order in any sort of canonicals or uncanonicals, but had to\r
+scramble upward into all the difficulties of nineteen entirely without\r
+such aid, as Maggie did.\r
+\r
+"You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss Tulliver,"\r
+said Dr. Kenn.\r
+\r
+"It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed to simpler\r
+amiable denials of obvious facts.\r
+\r
+"But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of her goods very\r
+quickly," he added; "she will be very much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have done nothing; the gentlemen came very fast to buy the\r
+dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I think any of the\r
+other ladies would have sold more; I didn't know what to say about\r
+them."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn smiled. "I hope I'm going to have you as a permanent\r
+parishioner now, Miss Tulliver; am I? You have been at a distance from\r
+us hitherto."\r
+\r
+"I have been a teacher in a school, and I'm going into another\r
+situation of the same kind very soon."\r
+\r
+"Ah? I was hoping you would remain among your friends, who are all in\r
+this neighborhood, I believe."\r
+\r
+"Oh, _I must go_," said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr. Kenn with an\r
+expression of reliance, as if she had told him her history in those\r
+three words. It was one of those moments of implicit revelation which\r
+will sometimes happen even between people who meet quite\r
+transiently,--on a mile's journey, perhaps, or when resting by the\r
+wayside. There is always this possibility of a word or look from a\r
+stranger to keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief\r
+confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.\r
+\r
+"I understand," he said; "you feel it right to go. But that will not\r
+prevent our meeting again, I hope; it will not prevent my knowing you\r
+better, if I can be of any service to you."\r
+\r
+He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he turned away.\r
+\r
+"She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought. "Poor child! she\r
+looks as if she might turn out to be one of\r
+\r
+ 'The souls by nature pitched too high,\r
+ By suffering plunged too low.'\r
+\r
+"There's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful eyes."\r
+\r
+It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many imperfections an\r
+excessive delight in admiration and acknowledged supremacy were not\r
+absent now, any more than when she was instructing the gypsies with a\r
+view toward achieving a royal position among them, was not more elated\r
+on a day when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles,\r
+together with that satisfactory consciousness which had necessarily\r
+come from being taken before Lucy's chevalglass, and made to look at\r
+the full length of her tall beauty, crowned by the night of her massy\r
+hair. Maggie had smiled at herself then, and for the moment had\r
+forgotten everything in the sense of her own beauty. If that state of\r
+mind could have lasted, her choice would have been to have Stephen\r
+Guest at her feet, offering her a life filled with all luxuries, with\r
+daily incense of adoration near and distant, and with all\r
+possibilities of culture at her command. But there were things in her\r
+stronger than vanity,--passion and affection, and long, deep memories\r
+of early discipline and effort, of early claims on her love and pity;\r
+and the stream of vanity was soon swept along and mingled\r
+imperceptibly with that wider current which was at its highest force\r
+today, under the double urgency of the events and inward impulses\r
+brought by the last week.\r
+\r
+Philip had not spoken to her himself about the removal of obstacles\r
+between them on his father's side,--he shrank from that; but he had\r
+told everything to Lucy, with the hope that Maggie, being informed\r
+through her, might give him some encouraging sign that their being\r
+brought thus much nearer to each other was a happiness to her. The\r
+rush of conflicting feelings was too great for Maggie to say much when\r
+Lucy, with a face breathing playful joy, like one of Correggio's\r
+cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and Lucy could hardly\r
+be surprised that she could do little more than cry with gladness at\r
+the thought of her father's wish being fulfilled, and of Tom's getting\r
+the Mill again in reward for all his hard striving. The details of\r
+preparation for the bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention for\r
+the next few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on\r
+subjects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had been to\r
+the house more than once, but Maggie had had no private conversation\r
+with him, and thus she had been left to fight her inward battle\r
+without interference.\r
+\r
+But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were alone\r
+again, resting together at home, Lucy said,--\r
+\r
+"You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the day after\r
+to-morrow, Maggie; write a note to her, and tell her you have put it\r
+off at my request, and I'll send the man with it. She won't be\r
+displeased; you'll have plenty of time to go by-and-by; and I don't\r
+want you to go out of the way just now."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed I must go, dear; I can't put it off. I wouldn't leave\r
+aunt Gritty out for the world. And I shall have very little time, for\r
+I'm going away to a new situation on the 25th of June."\r
+\r
+"Maggie!" said Lucy, almost white with astonishment.\r
+\r
+"I didn't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort to\r
+command herself, "because you've been so busy. But some time ago I\r
+wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to ask her to let me know if\r
+she met with any situation that I could fill, and the other day I had\r
+a letter from her telling me that I could take three orphan pupils of\r
+hers to the coast during the holidays, and then make trial of a\r
+situation with her as teacher. I wrote yesterday to accept the offer."\r
+\r
+Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to speak.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," she said at last, "how could you be so unkind to me--not to\r
+tell me--to take _such_ a step--and now!" She hesitated a little, and\r
+then added, "And Philip? I thought everything was going to be so\r
+happy. Oh, Maggie, what is the reason? Give it up; let me write. There\r
+is nothing now to keep you and Philip apart."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Maggie, faintly. "There is Tom's feeling. He said I must\r
+give him up if I married Philip. And I know he will not change--at\r
+least not for a long while--unless something happened to soften him."\r
+\r
+"But I will talk to him; he's coming back this week. And this good\r
+news about the Mill will soften him. And I'll talk to him about\r
+Philip. Tom's always very compliant to me; I don't think he's so\r
+obstinate."\r
+\r
+"But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. "I must leave\r
+some time to pack. Don't press me to stay, dear Lucy."\r
+\r
+Lucy was silent for two or three minutes, looking away and ruminating.\r
+At length she knelt down by her cousin, and looking up in her face\r
+with anxious seriousness, said,--\r
+\r
+"Maggie, is it that you don't love Philip well enough to marry him?\r
+Tell me--trust me."\r
+\r
+Maggie held Lucy's hands tightly in silence a little while. Her own\r
+hands were quite cold. But when she spoke, her voice was quite clear\r
+and distinct.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Lucy, I would choose to marry him. I think it would be the best\r
+and highest lot for me,--to make his life happy. He loved me first. No\r
+one else could be quite what he is to me. But I can't divide myself\r
+from my brother for life. I must go away, and wait. Pray don't speak\r
+to me again about it."\r
+\r
+Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said was,--\r
+\r
+"Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at Park House\r
+to-morrow, and have some music and brightness, before you go to pay\r
+these dull dutiful visits. Ah! here come aunty and the tea."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter X\r
+\r
+The Spell Seems Broken\r
+\r
+\r
+The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House looked duly\r
+brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal splendors of\r
+sixteen couples, with attendant parents and guardians. The focus of\r
+brilliancy was the long drawing-room, where the dancing went forward,\r
+under the inspiration of the grand piano; the library, into which it\r
+opened at one end, had the more sober illumination of maturity, with\r
+caps and cards; and at the other end the pretty sitting-room, with a\r
+conservatory attached, was left as an occasional cool retreat. Lucy,\r
+who had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her pretty\r
+slimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was the\r
+acknowledged queen of the occasion; for this was one of the Miss\r
+Guests' thoroughly condescending parties, including no member of any\r
+aristocracy higher than that of St. Ogg's, and stretching to the\r
+extreme limits of commercial and professional gentility.\r
+\r
+Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgotten all\r
+the figures--it was so many years since she had danced at school; and\r
+she was glad to have that excuse, for it is ill dancing with a heavy\r
+heart. But at length the music wrought in her young limbs, and the\r
+longing came; even though it was the horrible young Torry, who walked\r
+up a second time to try and persuade her. She warned him that she\r
+could not dance anything but a country-dance; but he, of course, was\r
+willing to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be\r
+complimentary when he assured her at several intervals that it was a\r
+"great bore" that she couldn't waltz, he would have liked so much to\r
+waltz with her. But at last it was the turn of the good old-fashioned\r
+dance which has the least of vanity and the most of merriment in it,\r
+and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in a childlike enjoyment of\r
+that half-rustic rhythm which seems to banish pretentious etiquette.\r
+She felt quite charitably toward young Torry, as his hand bore her\r
+along and held her up in the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire\r
+of young joy in them which will flame out if it can find the least\r
+breath to fan it; and her simple black dress, with its bit of black\r
+lace, seemed like the dim setting of a jewel.\r
+\r
+Stephen had not yet asked her to dance; had not yet paid her more than\r
+a passing civility. Since yesterday, that inward vision of her which\r
+perpetually made part of his consciousness, had been half screened by\r
+the image of Philip Wakem, which came across it like a blot; there was\r
+some attachment between her and Philip; at least there was an\r
+attachment on his side, which made her feel in some bondage. Here,\r
+then, Stephen told himself, was another claim of honor which called on\r
+him to resist the attraction that was continually threatening to\r
+overpower him. He told himself so; and yet he had once or twice felt a\r
+certain savage resistance, and at another moment a shuddering\r
+repugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's image, which almost made it\r
+a new incitement to rush toward Maggie and claim her for himself.\r
+Nevertheless, he had done what he meant to do this evening,--he had\r
+kept aloof from her; he had hardly looked at her; and he had been\r
+gayly assiduous to Lucy. But now his eyes were devouring Maggie; he\r
+felt inclined to kick young Torry out of the dance, and take his\r
+place. Then he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his\r
+partner. The possibility that he too should dance with Maggie, and\r
+have her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him like a\r
+thirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the dance,--were\r
+meeting still to the very end of it, though they were far off each\r
+other.\r
+\r
+Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic way he got\r
+through the duties of politeness in the interval, until he was free\r
+and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the farther end of the room. He\r
+made his way toward her round the couples that were forming for the\r
+waltz; and when Maggie became conscious that she was the person he\r
+sought, she felt, in spite of all the thoughts that had gone before, a\r
+glowing gladness at heart. Her eyes and cheeks were still brightened\r
+with her childlike enthusiasm in the dance; her whole frame was set to\r
+joy and tenderness; even the coming pain could not seem bitter,--she\r
+was ready to welcome it as a part of life, for life at this moment\r
+seemed a keen, vibrating consciousness poised above pleasure or pain.\r
+This one, this last night, she might expand unrestrainedly in the\r
+warmth of the present, without those chill, eating thoughts of the\r
+past and the future.\r
+\r
+"They're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to speak to her,\r
+with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness which young dreams\r
+create to themselves in the summer woods when low, cooing voices fill\r
+the air. Such glances and tones bring the breath of poetry with them\r
+into a room that is half stifling with glaring gas and hard\r
+flirtation.\r
+\r
+"They are going to waltz again. It is rather dizzy work to look on,\r
+and the room is very warm; shall we walk about a little?"\r
+\r
+He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they walked on into\r
+the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn with engravings for the\r
+accommodation of visitors who would not want to look at them. But no\r
+visitors were here at this moment. They passed on into the\r
+conservatory.\r
+\r
+"How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look with the lights\r
+among them!" said Maggie, in a low voice. "They look as if they\r
+belonged to an enchanted land, and would never fade away; I could\r
+fancy they were all made of jewels."\r
+\r
+She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, and Stephen\r
+made no answer; but he was looking at her; and does not a supreme poet\r
+blend light and sound into one, calling darkness mute, and light\r
+eloquent? Something strangely powerful there was in the light of\r
+Stephen's long gaze, for it made Maggie's face turn toward it and look\r
+upward at it, slowly, like a flower at the ascending brightness. And\r
+they walked unsteadily on, without feeling that they were walking;\r
+without feeling anything but that long, grave, mutual gaze which has\r
+the solemnity belonging to all deep human passion. The hovering\r
+thought that they must and would renounce each other made this moment\r
+of mute confession more intense in its rapture.\r
+\r
+But they had reached the end of the conservatory, and were obliged to\r
+pause and turn. The change of movement brought a new consciousness to\r
+Maggie; she blushed deeply, turned away her head, and drew her arm\r
+from Stephen's, going up to some flowers to smell them. Stephen stood\r
+motionless, and still pale.\r
+\r
+"Oh, may I get this rose?" said Maggie, making a great effort to say\r
+something, and dissipate the burning sense of irretrievable\r
+confession. "I think I am quite wicked with roses; I like to gather\r
+them and smell them till they have no scent left."\r
+\r
+Stephen was mute; he was incapable of putting a sentence together, and\r
+Maggie bent her arm a little upward toward the large half-opened rose\r
+that had attracted her. Who has not felt the beauty of a woman's arm?\r
+The unspeakable suggestions of tenderness that lie in the dimpled\r
+elbow, and all the varied gently lessening curves, down to the\r
+delicate wrist, with its tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the\r
+firm softness. A woman's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two\r
+thousand years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the\r
+Parthenon which moves us still as it clasps lovingly the timeworn\r
+marble of a headless trunk. Maggie's was such an arm as that, and it\r
+had the warm tints of life.\r
+\r
+A mad impulse seized on Stephen; he darted toward the arm, and\r
+showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.\r
+\r
+But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him, and glared at him\r
+like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with rage and humiliation.\r
+\r
+"How dare you?" She spoke in a deeply shaken, half-smothered voice.\r
+"What right have I given you to insult me?"\r
+\r
+She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw herself on the\r
+sofa, panting and trembling.\r
+\r
+A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of allowing a\r
+moment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to Philip, to her own\r
+better soul. That momentary happiness had been smitten with a blight,\r
+a leprosy; Stephen thought more lightly of _her_ than he did of Lucy.\r
+\r
+As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of the\r
+conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions,--love, rage, and\r
+confused despair; despair at his want of self-mastery, and despair\r
+that he had offended Maggie.\r
+\r
+The last feeling surmounted every other; to be by her side again and\r
+entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the force of a motive\r
+for him, and she had not been seated more than a few minutes when he\r
+came and stood humbly before her. But Maggie's bitter rage was\r
+unspent.\r
+\r
+"Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impetuous\r
+haughtiness, "and for the future avoid me."\r
+\r
+Stephen turned away, and walked backward and forward at the other end\r
+of the room. There was the dire necessity of going back into the\r
+dancing-room again, and he was beginning to be conscious of that. They\r
+had been absent so short a time, that when he went in again the waltz\r
+was not ended.\r
+\r
+Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the pride of her\r
+nature was stung into activity; the hateful weakness which had dragged\r
+her within reach of this wound to her self-respect had at least\r
+wrought its own cure. The thoughts and temptations of the last month\r
+should all be flung away into an unvisited chamber of memory. There\r
+was nothing to allure her now; duty would be easy, and all the old\r
+calm purposes would reign peacefully once more. She re-entered the\r
+drawing-room still with some excited brightness in her face, but with\r
+a sense of proud self-command that defied anything to agitate her. She\r
+refused to dance again, but she talked quite readily and calmly with\r
+every one who addressed her. And when they got home that night, she\r
+kissed Lucy with a free heart, almost exulting in this scorching\r
+moment, which had delivered her from the possibility of another word\r
+or look that would have the stamp of treachery toward that gentle,\r
+unsuspicious sister.\r
+\r
+The next morning Maggie did not set off to Basset quite so soon as she\r
+had expected. Her mother was to accompany her in the carriage, and\r
+household business could not be dispatched hastily by Mrs. Tulliver.\r
+So Maggie, who had been in a hurry to prepare herself, had to sit\r
+waiting, equipped for the drive, in the garden. Lucy was busy in the\r
+house wrapping up some bazaar presents for the younger ones at Basset,\r
+and when there was a loud ring at the door-bell, Maggie felt some\r
+alarm lest Lucy should bring out Stephen to her; it was sure to be\r
+Stephen.\r
+\r
+But presently the visitor came out into the garden alone, and seated\r
+himself by her on the garden-chair. It was not Stephen.\r
+\r
+"We can just catch the tips of the Scotch firs, Maggie, from this\r
+seat," said Philip.\r
+\r
+They had taken each other's hands in silence, but Maggie had looked at\r
+him with a more complete revival of the old childlike affectionate\r
+smile than he had seen before, and he felt encouraged.\r
+\r
+"Yes," she said, "I often look at them, and wish I could see the low\r
+sunlight on the stems again. But I have never been that way but\r
+once,--to the churchyard with my mother."\r
+\r
+"I have been there, I go there, continually," said Philip. "I have\r
+nothing but the past to live upon."\r
+\r
+A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to put her hand in\r
+Philip's. They had so often walked hand in hand!\r
+\r
+"I remember all the spots," she said,--"just where you told me of\r
+particular things, beautiful stories that I had never heard of\r
+before."\r
+\r
+"You will go there again soon, won't you, Maggie?" said Philip,\r
+getting timid. "The Mill will soon be your brother's home again."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but I shall not be there," said Maggie. "I shall only hear of\r
+that happiness. I am going away again; Lucy has not told you,\r
+perhaps?"\r
+\r
+"Then the future will never join on to the past again, Maggie? That\r
+book is quite closed?"\r
+\r
+The gray eyes that had so often looked up at her with entreating\r
+worship, looked up at her now, with a last struggling ray of hope in\r
+them, and Maggie met them with her large sincere gaze.\r
+\r
+"That book never will be closed, Philip," she said, with grave\r
+sadness; "I desire no future that will break the ties of the past. But\r
+the tie to my brother is one of the strongest. I can do nothing\r
+willingly that will divide me always from him."\r
+\r
+"Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever, Maggie?"\r
+said Philip, with a desperate determination to have a definite answer.\r
+\r
+"The only reason," said Maggie, with calm decision. And she believed\r
+it. At that moment she felt as if the enchanted cup had been dashed to\r
+the ground. The reactionary excitement that gave her a proud\r
+self-mastery had not subsided, and she looked at the future with a\r
+sense of calm choice.\r
+\r
+They sat hand in hand without looking at each other or speaking for a\r
+few minutes; in Maggie's mind the first scenes of love and parting\r
+were more present than the actual moment, and she was looking at\r
+Philip in the Red Deeps.\r
+\r
+Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy in that answer\r
+of hers; she was as open and transparent as a rock-pool. Why was he\r
+not thoroughly happy? Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short\r
+of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XI\r
+\r
+In the Lane\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie had been four days at her aunt Moss's giving the early June\r
+sunshine quite a new brightness in the care-dimmed eyes of that\r
+affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her cousins great and\r
+small, who were learning her words and actions by heart, as if she had\r
+been a transient avatar of perfect wisdom and beauty.\r
+\r
+She was standing on the causeway with her aunt and a group of cousins\r
+feeding the chickens, at that quiet moment in the life of the\r
+farmyards before the afternoon milking-time. The great buildings round\r
+the hollow yard were as dreary and tumbledown as ever, but over the\r
+old garden-wall the straggling rose-bushes were beginning to toss\r
+their summer weight, and the gray wood and old bricks of the house, on\r
+its higher level, had a look of sleepy age in the broad afternoon\r
+sunlight, that suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her bonnet over\r
+her arm, was smiling down at the hatch of small fluffy chickens, when\r
+her aunt exclaimed,--\r
+\r
+"Goodness me! who is that gentleman coming in at the gate?"\r
+\r
+It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse; and the flanks and neck of the\r
+horse were streaked black with fast riding. Maggie felt a beating at\r
+head and heart, horrible as the sudden leaping to life of a savage\r
+enemy who had feigned death.\r
+\r
+"Who is it, my dear?" said Mrs. Moss, seeing in Maggie's face the\r
+evidence that she knew.\r
+\r
+"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly. "My cousin\r
+Lucy's--a gentleman who is very intimate at my cousin's."\r
+\r
+Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his horse, and now\r
+raised his hat as he advanced.\r
+\r
+"Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-year-old boy.\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Stephen, pulling at the horse's impatiently\r
+tossing head. "I must be going again immediately. I have a message to\r
+deliver to you, Miss Tulliver, on private business. May I take the\r
+liberty of asking you to walk a few yards with me?"\r
+\r
+He had a half-jaded, half-irritated look, such as a man gets when he\r
+has been dogged by some care or annoyance that makes his bed and his\r
+dinner of little use to him. He spoke almost abruptly, as if his\r
+errand were too pressing for him to trouble himself about what would\r
+be thought by Mrs. Moss of his visit and request. Good Mrs. Moss,\r
+rather nervous in the presence of this apparently haughty gentleman,\r
+was inwardly wondering whether she would be doing right or wrong to\r
+invite him again to leave his horse and walk in, when Maggie, feeling\r
+all the embarrassment of the situation, and unable to say anything,\r
+put on her bonnet, and turned to walk toward the gate.\r
+\r
+Stephen turned too, and walked by her side, leading his horse.\r
+\r
+Not a word was spoken till they were out in the lane, and had walked\r
+four or five yards, when Maggie, who had been looking straight before\r
+her all the while, turned again to walk back, saying, with haughty\r
+resentment,--\r
+\r
+"There is no need for me to go any farther. I don't know whether you\r
+consider it gentlemanly and delicate conduct to place me in a position\r
+that forced me to come out with you, or whether you wished to insult\r
+me still further by thrusting an interview upon me in this way."\r
+\r
+"Of course you are angry with me for coming," said Stephen, bitterly.\r
+"Of course it is of no consequence what a man has to suffer; it is\r
+only your woman's dignity that you care about."\r
+\r
+Maggie gave a slight start, such as might have come from the slightest\r
+possible electric shock.\r
+\r
+"As if it were not enough that I'm entangled in this way; that I'm mad\r
+with love for you; that I resist the strongest passion a man can feel,\r
+because I try to be true to other claims; but you must treat me as if\r
+I were a coarse brute, who would willingly offend you. And when, if I\r
+had my own choice, I should ask you to take my hand and my fortune and\r
+my whole life, and do what you liked with them! I know I forgot\r
+myself. I took an unwarrantable liberty. I hate myself for having done\r
+it. But I repented immediately; I've been repenting ever since. You\r
+ought not to think it unpardonable; a man who loves with his whole\r
+soul, as I do you, is liable to be mastered by his feelings for a\r
+moment; but you know--you must believe--that the worst pain I could\r
+have is to have pained you; that I would give the world to recall the\r
+error."\r
+\r
+Maggie dared not speak, dared not turn her head. The strength that had\r
+come from resentment was all gone, and her lips were quivering\r
+visibly. She could not trust herself to utter the full forgiveness\r
+that rose in answer to that confession.\r
+\r
+They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she paused,\r
+trembling.\r
+\r
+"You must not say these things; I must not hear them," she said,\r
+looking down in misery, as Stephen came in front of her, to prevent\r
+her from going farther toward the gate. "I'm very sorry for any pain\r
+you have to go through; but it is of no use to speak."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it _is_ of use," said Stephen, impetuously. "It would be of use\r
+if you would treat me with some sort of pity and consideration,\r
+instead of doing me vile injustice in your mind. I could bear\r
+everything more quietly if I knew you didn't hate me for an insolent\r
+coxcomb. Look at me; see what a hunted devil I am; I've been riding\r
+thirty miles every day to get away from the thought of you."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not--dared not--look. She had already seen the harassed\r
+face. But she said gently,--\r
+\r
+"I don't think any evil of you."\r
+\r
+"Then, dearest, look at me," said Stephen, in deepest, tenderest tones\r
+of entreaty. "Don't go away from me yet. Give me a moment's happiness;\r
+make me feel you've forgiven me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do forgive you," said Maggie, shaken by those tones, and all\r
+the more frightened at herself. "But pray let me go in again. Pray go\r
+away."\r
+\r
+A great tear fell from under her lowered eyelids.\r
+\r
+"I can't go away from you; I can't leave you," said Stephen, with\r
+still more passionate pleading. "I shall come back again if you send\r
+me away with this coldness; I can't answer for myself. But if you will\r
+go with me only a little way I can live on that. You see plainly\r
+enough that your anger has only made me ten times more unreasonable."\r
+\r
+Maggie turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to make such spirited\r
+remonstrances against this frequent change of direction, that Stephen,\r
+catching sight of Willy Moss peeping through the gate, called out,\r
+"Here! just come and hold my horse for five minutes."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no," said Maggie, hurriedly, "my aunt will think it so strange."\r
+\r
+"Never mind," Stephen answered impatiently; "they don't know the\r
+people at St. Ogg's. Lead him up and down just here for five minutes,"\r
+he added to Willy, who was now close to them; and then he turned to\r
+Maggie's side, and they walked on. It was clear that she _must_ go on\r
+now.\r
+\r
+"Take my arm," said Stephen, entreatingly; and she took it, feeling\r
+all the while as if she were sliding downward in a nightmare.\r
+\r
+"There is no end to this misery," she began, struggling to repel the\r
+influence by speech. "It is wicked--base--ever allowing a word or look\r
+that Lucy--that others might not have seen. Think of Lucy."\r
+\r
+"I do think of her--bless her. If I didn't----" Stephen had laid his\r
+hand on Maggie's that rested on his arm, and they both felt it\r
+difficult to speak.\r
+\r
+"And I have other ties," Maggie went on, at last, with a desperate\r
+effort, "even if Lucy did not exist."\r
+\r
+"You are engaged to Philip Wakem?" said Stephen, hastily. "Is it so?"\r
+\r
+"I consider myself engaged to him; I don't mean to marry any one\r
+else."\r
+\r
+Stephen was silent again until they had turned out of the sun into a\r
+side lane, all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst out impetuously,--\r
+\r
+"It is unnatural, it is horrible. Maggie, if you loved me as I love\r
+you, we should throw everything else to the winds for the sake of\r
+belonging to each other. We should break all these mistaken ties that\r
+were made in blindness, and determine to marry each other."\r
+\r
+"I would rather die than fall into that temptation," said Maggie, with\r
+deep, slow distinctness, all the gathered spiritual force of painful\r
+years coming to her aid in this extremity. She drew her arm from his\r
+as she spoke.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost\r
+violently. "Tell me that you love some one else better."\r
+\r
+It darted through Maggie's mind that here was a mode of releasing\r
+herself from outward struggle,--to tell Stephen that her whole heart\r
+was Philip's. But her lips would not utter that, and she was silent.\r
+\r
+"If you do love me, dearest," said Stephen, gently, taking her hand\r
+again and laying it within his arm, "it is better--it is right that we\r
+should marry each other. We can't help the pain it will give. It is\r
+come upon us without our seeking; it is natural; it has taken hold of\r
+me in spite of every effort I have made to resist it. God knows, I've\r
+been trying to be faithful to tacit engagements, and I've only made\r
+things worse; I'd better have given way at first."\r
+\r
+Maggie was silent. If it were _not_ wrong--if she were once convinced\r
+of that, and need no longer beat and struggle against this current,\r
+soft and yet strong as the summer stream!\r
+\r
+"Say 'yes,' dearest," said Stephen, leaning to look entreatingly in\r
+her face. "What could we care about in the whole world beside, if we\r
+belonged to each other?"\r
+\r
+Her breath was on his face, his lips were very near hers, but there\r
+was a great dread dwelling in his love for her.\r
+\r
+Her lips and eyelids quivered; she opened her eyes full on his for an\r
+instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and struggling under\r
+caresses, and then turned sharp round toward home again.\r
+\r
+"And after all," he went on, in an impatient tone, trying to defeat\r
+his own scruples as well as hers, "I am breaking no positive\r
+engagement; if Lucy's affections had been withdrawn from me and given\r
+to some one else, I should have felt no right to assert a claim on\r
+her. If you are not absolutely pledged to Philip, we are neither of us\r
+bound."\r
+\r
+"You don't believe that; it is not your real feeling," said Maggie,\r
+earnestly. "You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in the feelings\r
+and expectations we have raised in other minds. Else all pledges might\r
+be broken, when there was no outward penalty. There would be no such\r
+thing as faithfulness."\r
+\r
+Stephen was silent; he could not pursue that argument; the opposite\r
+conviction had wrought in him too strongly through his previous time\r
+of struggle. But it soon presented itself in a new form.\r
+\r
+"The pledge _can't_ be fulfilled," he said, with impetuous insistence.\r
+"It is unnatural; we can only pretend to give ourselves to any one\r
+else. There is wrong in that too; there may be misery in it for _them_\r
+as well as for us. Maggie, you must see that; you do see that."\r
+\r
+He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of compliance;\r
+his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand. She was silent for a\r
+few moments, with her eyes fixed on the ground; then she drew a deep\r
+breath, and said, looking up at him with solemn sadness,--\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is difficult,--life is very difficult! It seems right to me\r
+sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling; but then, such\r
+feelings continually come across the ties that all our former life has\r
+made for us,--the ties that have made others dependent on us,--and\r
+would cut them in two. If life were quite easy and simple, as it might\r
+have been in Paradise, and we could always see that one being first\r
+toward whom--I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love\r
+comes, love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each\r
+other. But I see--I feel it is not so now; there are things we must\r
+renounce in life; some of us must resign love. Many things are\r
+difficult and dark to me; but I see one thing quite clearly,--that I\r
+must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by sacrificing others. Love is\r
+natural; but surely pity and faithfulness and memory are natural too.\r
+And they would live in me still, and punish me if I did not obey them.\r
+I should be haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be\r
+poisoned. Don't urge me; help me,--help me, _because_ I love you."\r
+\r
+Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on; her face had\r
+become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of appealing love.\r
+Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him that vibrated to her appeal;\r
+but in the same moment--how could it be otherwise?--that pleading\r
+beauty gained new power over him.\r
+\r
+"Dearest," he said, in scarcely more than a whisper, while his arm\r
+stole round her, "I'll do, I'll bear anything you wish. But--one\r
+kiss--one--the last--before we part."\r
+\r
+One kiss, and then a long look, until Maggie said tremulously, "Let me\r
+go,--let me make haste back."\r
+\r
+She hurried along, and not another word was spoken. Stephen stood\r
+still and beckoned when they came within sight of Willy and the horse,\r
+and Maggie went on through the gate. Mrs. Moss was standing alone at\r
+the door of the old porch; she had sent all the cousins in, with kind\r
+thoughtfulness. It might be a joyful thing that Maggie had a rich and\r
+handsome lover, but she would naturally feel embarrassed at coming in\r
+again; and it might _not_ be joyful. In either case Mrs. Moss waited\r
+anxiously to receive Maggie by herself. The speaking face told plainly\r
+enough that, if there was joy, it was of a very agitating, dubious\r
+sort.\r
+\r
+"Sit down here a bit, my dear." She drew Maggie into the porch, and\r
+sat down on the bench by her; there was no privacy in the house.\r
+\r
+"Oh, aunt Gritty, I'm very wretched! I wish I could have died when I\r
+was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up then; it is so hard\r
+now."\r
+\r
+The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and fell into\r
+long, deep sobs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XII\r
+\r
+A Family Party\r
+\r
+\r
+Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went to\r
+Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. In\r
+the mean time very unexpected things had happened, and there was to be\r
+a family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in the\r
+fortunes of the Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away the\r
+shadow of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and cause\r
+their hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-rounded\r
+splendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come into\r
+office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of high\r
+appreciation and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable families\r
+throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with a\r
+similar cordiality of recognition, which in its fine freedom from the\r
+coercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that we\r
+may some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium,\r
+with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longer\r
+show their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.\r
+\r
+Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she\r
+longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful\r
+news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of\r
+wisdom, as if everything, even other people's misfortunes (poor\r
+creatures!) were conspiring now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and\r
+cousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately bent\r
+on the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all their\r
+troubles. To think that the very day--the _very day_--after Tom had\r
+come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr.\r
+Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse in a\r
+drunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg's in a dangerous state, so that\r
+Wakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter on\r
+the premises at once!\r
+\r
+It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if\r
+the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in\r
+order that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of his\r
+exemplary conduct,--papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tulliver\r
+must certainly go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that was\r
+rather a loss to Lucy in the matter of household comfort; but then, to\r
+think of poor aunty being in her old place again, and gradually\r
+getting comforts about her there!\r
+\r
+On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she and\r
+Maggie had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the\r
+handsome parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than\r
+elsewhere, she directed her manœuvres, as any other great tactician\r
+would have done, against the weaker side of the enemy.\r
+\r
+"Aunt Pullet," she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressingly\r
+adjusting that lady's floating cap-string, "I want you to make up your\r
+mind what linen and things you will give Tom toward housekeeping;\r
+because you are always so generous,--you give such nice things, you\r
+know; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow."\r
+\r
+"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Pullet, with unusual vigor,\r
+"for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi' mine, I can tell you.\r
+She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend the money. Big checks and\r
+live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is,--not a spot\r
+nor a diamond among 'em. But it's poor work dividing one's linen\r
+before one dies,--I niver thought to ha' done that, Bessy," Mrs.\r
+Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver,\r
+"when you and me chose the double diamont, the first flax iver we'd\r
+spun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone."\r
+\r
+"I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, accustomed\r
+to consider herself in the light of an accused person. "I'm sure it\r
+was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie awake o' nights thinking o'\r
+my best bleached linen all over the country."\r
+\r
+"Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver," said uncle Pullet, feeling that he\r
+was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was\r
+recommending by example.\r
+\r
+"Oh, but, aunt Pullet," said Lucy, "you've so much beautiful linen.\r
+And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it when\r
+they were married."\r
+\r
+"Well, I don't say as I won't do it," said Mrs. Pullet, "for now Tom's\r
+so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and\r
+help him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was\r
+nothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in\r
+the chest ever since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' my\r
+Indy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again, when she\r
+might stay and keep me company, and do my sewing for me, if she wasn't\r
+wanted at her brother's."\r
+\r
+"Going into service" was the expression by which the Dodson mind\r
+represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and\r
+Maggie's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offered\r
+her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all\r
+her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hair\r
+down her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a\r
+most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at once\r
+ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle\r
+Glegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.\r
+\r
+"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the\r
+back, "nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place\r
+again, Maggie. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at\r
+the bazaar; isn't there one of 'em the right sort of article? Come,\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness in\r
+her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, "you'll\r
+excuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It's\r
+respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good\r
+to her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away again\r
+without consulting us; not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word,\r
+though it was never heared in _my_ family."\r
+\r
+"Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh,\r
+neighbor Pullet? They thought us sweet enough then," said Mr. Glegg,\r
+winking pleasantly; while Mr. Pullet, at the suggestion of sweetness,\r
+took a little more sugar.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., "if you're going to be undelicate, let me\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane, your husband's only joking," said Mrs. Pullet; "let him\r
+joke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got his\r
+mouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try."\r
+\r
+"I'll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G.,\r
+"if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's other\r
+people must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother's\r
+eldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in and\r
+out on short visits, all the time she's been in the town, and then\r
+settling to go away without my knowledge,--as I'd laid caps out on\r
+purpose for her to make 'em up for me,--and me as have divided my\r
+money so equal----"\r
+\r
+"Sister," Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, "I'm sure Maggie never\r
+thought o' going away without staying at your house as well as the\r
+others. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quite\r
+contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'My\r
+dear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten days or a fortnight\r
+Maggie'll have before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your house\r
+just as well, and I'll step in when I can, and so will Lucy."\r
+\r
+"Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg, "if you'd exercise a little more thought,\r
+you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin a\r
+bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, when\r
+our house isn't above a quarter of an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's.\r
+She can come the first thing in the morning, and go back the last at\r
+night, and be thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to come\r
+and sit with. I know _I_ should, when I was her age."\r
+\r
+"La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, "it 'ud do your beds good to have\r
+somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful\r
+mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I\r
+should be struck with death when you took me in."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there is Tom!" exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. "He's come on\r
+Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep his\r
+promise."\r
+\r
+Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, at\r
+this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had\r
+been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by\r
+her side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still a\r
+perpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than all change.\r
+He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and said, "Well, Magsie,\r
+how's aunt Moss?"\r
+\r
+"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg putting out his hand. "Why, you're\r
+such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come into\r
+your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you\r
+joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again some\r
+day, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-way up the hill."\r
+\r
+"But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he owes\r
+it to," said Mrs. Glegg. "If he hadn't had them to take after, he'd\r
+ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, nor\r
+wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----"\r
+\r
+"No, nor sudden deaths," said aunt Pullet; "allays the doctor called\r
+in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I\r
+don't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give him\r
+a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I\r
+don't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I should\r
+die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll be\r
+blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the third\r
+shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad\r
+ties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in the\r
+Blue Room, where the key o' the Blue Closet is. You'll make a mistake,\r
+and I shall niver be worthy to know it. You've a memory for my pills\r
+and draughts, wonderful,--I'll allays say that of you,--but you're\r
+lost among the keys." This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would\r
+ensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.\r
+\r
+"You carry it too far, Sophy,--that locking in and out," said Mrs.\r
+Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. "You go beyond your\r
+own family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do what's\r
+reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what's\r
+serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got cloth as has\r
+never been whitened, better worth having than other people's fine\r
+holland; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of his aunt."\r
+\r
+Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly on\r
+her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking\r
+about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.\r
+\r
+Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad.\r
+It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to\r
+ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy.\r
+"You must sit by yourself, aunty," said that contriving young lady,\r
+"because I must sit by Tom; I've a great deal to say to him."\r
+\r
+In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could\r
+not persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who,\r
+she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid\r
+fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant and\r
+flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she was\r
+puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his\r
+countenance when she gave him the history of the way in which Philip\r
+had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this\r
+revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom's heart\r
+toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakem\r
+was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of a daughter-in-law.\r
+Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had that\r
+pleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completely\r
+round, say the opposite of what he had always said before, and declare\r
+that he, for his part, was delighted that all the old grievances\r
+should be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable\r
+despatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.\r
+\r
+But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities\r
+that create severity,--strength of will, conscious rectitude of\r
+purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of\r
+self-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,--prejudices\r
+come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance\r
+out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which\r
+we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air,\r
+adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,--however it may come,\r
+these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert\r
+strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous\r
+ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious\r
+right; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that will\r
+answer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver's\r
+mind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father's faults\r
+did not prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was a\r
+prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a\r
+meeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and personal\r
+pride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitter\r
+repugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; and\r
+notwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she got\r
+nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; "but of\r
+course Maggie could do as she liked,--she had declared her\r
+determination to be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself bound\r
+by his duty to his father's memory, and by every manly feeling, never\r
+to consent to any relation with the Wakems."\r
+\r
+Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to fill\r
+Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's perverse resolve to go\r
+into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her\r
+resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely\r
+different,--a marriage with Philip Wakem.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIII\r
+\r
+Borne Along by the Tide\r
+\r
+\r
+In less than a week Maggie was at St. Ogg's again,--outwardly in much\r
+the same position as when her visit there had just begun. It was easy\r
+for her to fill her mornings apart from Lucy without any obvious\r
+effort; for she had her promised visits to pay to her aunt Glegg, and\r
+it was natural that she should give her mother more than usual of her\r
+companionship in these last weeks, especially as there were\r
+preparations to be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy would\r
+hear of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings; she must\r
+always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner,--"else what shall I have\r
+of you?" said Lucy, with a tearful pout that could not be resisted.\r
+\r
+And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccountably taken to dining at Mr. Deane's\r
+as often as possible, instead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At\r
+first he began his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine\r
+there, not even go in the evening, till Maggie was away. He had even\r
+devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this agreeable June\r
+weather; the headaches which he had constantly been alleging as a\r
+ground for stupidity and silence were a sufficient ostensible motive.\r
+But the journey was not taken, and by the fourth morning no distinct\r
+resolution was formed about the evenings; they were only foreseen as\r
+times when Maggie would still be present for a little while,--when one\r
+more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For why not? There was\r
+nothing to conceal between them; they knew, they had confessed their\r
+love, and they had renounced each other; they were going to part.\r
+Honor and conscience were going to divide them; Maggie, with that\r
+appeal from her inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might\r
+cast a lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they\r
+turned away never to look again till that strange light had forever\r
+faded out of their eyes.\r
+\r
+Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and even torpor\r
+of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful brightness and ardor,\r
+that Lucy would have had to seek some other cause for such a change,\r
+if she had not been convinced that the position in which Maggie stood\r
+between Philip and her brother, and the prospect of her self-imposed\r
+wearisome banishment, were quite enough to account for a large amount\r
+of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce battle of\r
+emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never known\r
+or foreboded; it seemed to her as if all the worst evil in her had\r
+lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started up full-armed, with\r
+hideous, overpowering strength! There were moments in which a cruel\r
+selfishness seemed to be getting possession of her; why should not\r
+Lucy, why should not Philip, suffer? _She_ had had to suffer through\r
+many years of her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And\r
+when something like that fulness of existence--love, wealth, ease,\r
+refinement, all that her nature craved--was brought within her reach,\r
+why was she to forego it, that another might have it,--another, who\r
+perhaps needed it less? But amidst all this new passionate tumult\r
+there were the old voices making themselves heard with rising power,\r
+till, from time to time, the tumult seemed quelled. _Was_ that\r
+existence which tempted her the full existence she dreamed? Where,\r
+then, would be all the memories of early striving; all the deep pity\r
+for another's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of\r
+affection and hardship; all the divine presentiment of something\r
+higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made the sacredness of\r
+life? She might as well hope to enjoy walking by maiming her feet, as\r
+hope to enjoy an existence in which she set out by maiming the faith\r
+and sympathy that were the best organs of her soul. And then, if pain\r
+were so hard to _her_, what was it to others? "Ah, God! preserve me\r
+from inflicting--give me strength to bear it." How had she sunk into\r
+this struggle with a temptation that she would once have thought\r
+herself as secure from as from deliberate crime? When was that first\r
+hateful moment in which she had been conscious of a feeling that\r
+clashed with her truth, affection, and gratitude, and had not shaken\r
+it from her with horror, as if it had been a loathsome thing? And yet,\r
+since this strange, sweet, subduing influence did not, should not,\r
+conquer her,--since it was to remain simply her own suffering,--her\r
+mind was meeting Stephen's in that thought of his, that they might\r
+still snatch moments of mute confession before the parting came. For\r
+was not he suffering too? She saw it daily--saw it in the sickened\r
+look of fatigue with which, as soon as he was not compelled to exert\r
+himself, he relapsed into indifference toward everything but the\r
+possibility of watching her. Could she refuse sometimes to answer that\r
+beseeching look which she felt to be following her like a low murmur\r
+of love and pain? She refused it less and less, till at last the\r
+evening for them both was sometimes made of a moment's mutual gaze;\r
+they thought of it till it came, and when it had come, they thought of\r
+nothing else.\r
+\r
+One other thing Stephen seemed now and then to care for, and that was\r
+to sing; it was a way of speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he was not\r
+distinctly conscious that he was impelled to it by a secret\r
+longing--running counter to all his self-confessed resolves--to deepen\r
+the hold he had on her. Watch your own speech, and notice how it is\r
+guided by your less conscious purposes, and you will understand that\r
+contradiction in Stephen.\r
+\r
+Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came occasionally in\r
+the evening, and it happened that he was there when Lucy said, as they\r
+sat out on the lawn, near sunset,--\r
+\r
+"Now Maggie's tale of visits to aunt Glegg is completed, I mean that\r
+we shall go out boating every day until she goes. She has not had half\r
+enough boating because of these tiresome visits, and she likes it\r
+better than anything. Don't you, Maggie?"\r
+\r
+"Better than any sort of locomotion, I hope you mean," said Philip,\r
+smiling at Maggie, who was lolling backward in a low garden-chair;\r
+"else she will be selling her soul to that ghostly boatman who haunts\r
+the Floss, only for the sake of being drifted in a boat forever."\r
+\r
+"Should you like to be her boatman?" said Lucy. "Because, if you\r
+would, you can come with us and take an oar. If the Floss were but a\r
+quiet lake instead of a river, we should be independent of any\r
+gentleman, for Maggie can row splendidly. As it is, we are reduced to\r
+ask services of knights and squires, who do not seem to offer them\r
+with great alacrity."\r
+\r
+She looked playful reproach at Stephen, who was sauntering up and\r
+down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto,--\r
+\r
+ "The thirst that from the soul doth rise\r
+ Doth ask a drink divine."\r
+\r
+He took no notice, but still kept aloof; he had done so frequently\r
+during Philip's recent visits.\r
+\r
+"You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lucy, when he came to sit\r
+down by her on the bench. "Doesn't rowing suit you now?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritably. "I'll\r
+come when you have no one else."\r
+\r
+Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt; it was quite a new\r
+thing for Stephen to speak in that way; but he had certainly not been\r
+well of late. Philip colored too, but less from a feeling of personal\r
+offence than from a vague suspicion that Stephen's moodiness had some\r
+relation to Maggie, who had started up from her chair as he spoke, and\r
+had walked toward the hedge of laurels to look at the descending\r
+sunlight on the river.\r
+\r
+"As Miss Deane didn't know she was excluding others by inviting me,"\r
+said Philip, "I am bound to resign."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, you shall not," said Lucy, much vexed. "I particularly\r
+wish for your company to-morrow. The tide will suit at half-past ten;\r
+it will be a delicious time for a couple of hours to row to Luckreth\r
+and walk back, before the sun gets too hot. And how can you object to\r
+four people in a boat?" she added, looking at Stephen.\r
+\r
+"I don't object to the people, but the number," said Stephen, who had\r
+recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his rudeness. "If I voted\r
+for a fourth at all, of course it would be you, Phil. But we won't\r
+divide the pleasure of escorting the ladies; we'll take it\r
+alternately. I'll go the next day."\r
+\r
+This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention with\r
+freshened solicitude toward Stephen and Maggie; but when they\r
+re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs. Tulliver and Mr.\r
+Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie sat apart near the table\r
+where the books and work were placed, doing nothing, however, but\r
+listening abstractedly to the music. Stephen presently turned to a\r
+duet which he insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing; he had often\r
+done the same thing before; but this evening Philip thought he divined\r
+some double intention in every word and look of Stephen's, and watched\r
+him keenly, angry with himself all the while for this clinging\r
+suspicion. For had not Maggie virtually denied any ground for his\r
+doubts on her side? And she was truth itself; it was impossible not to\r
+believe her word and glance when they had last spoken together in the\r
+garden. Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her (what was more\r
+natural?), but Philip felt himself rather base for intruding on what\r
+must be his friend's painful secret. Still he watched. Stephen, moving\r
+away from the piano, sauntered slowly toward the table near which\r
+Maggie sat, and turned over the newspapers, apparently in mere\r
+idleness. Then he seated himself with his back to the piano, dragging\r
+a newspaper under his elbow, and thrusting his hand through his hair,\r
+as if he had been attracted by some bit of local news in the "Laceham\r
+Courier." He was in reality looking at Maggie who had not taken the\r
+slightest notice of his approach. She had always additional strength\r
+of resistance when Philip was present, just as we can restrain our\r
+speech better in a spot that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she\r
+heard the word "dearest" uttered in the softest tone of pained\r
+entreaty, like that of a patient who asks for something that ought to\r
+have been given without asking. She had never heard that word since\r
+the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had come from Stephen again\r
+and again, almost as involuntarily as if it had been an inarticulate\r
+cry. Philip could hear no word, but he had moved to the opposite side\r
+of the piano, and could see Maggie start and blush, raise her eyes an\r
+instant toward Stephen's face, but immediately look apprehensively\r
+toward himself. It was not evident to her that Philip had observed\r
+her; but a pang of shame, under the sense of this concealment, made\r
+her move from her chair and walk to her mother's side to watch the\r
+game at cribbage.\r
+\r
+Philip went home soon after in a state of hideous doubt mingled with\r
+wretched certainty. It was impossible for him now to resist the\r
+conviction that there was some mutual consciousness between Stephen\r
+and Maggie; and for half the night his irritable, susceptible nerves\r
+were pressed upon almost to frenzy by that one wretched fact; he could\r
+attempt no explanation that would reconcile it with her words and\r
+actions. When, at last, the need for belief in Maggie rose to its\r
+habitual predominance, he was not long in imagining the truth,--she\r
+was struggling, she was banishing herself; this was the clue to all he\r
+had seen since his return. But athwart that belief there came other\r
+possibilities that would not be driven out of sight. His imagination\r
+wrought out the whole story; Stephen was madly in love with her; he\r
+must have told her so; she had rejected him, and was hurrying away.\r
+But would he give her up, knowing--Philip felt the fact with\r
+heart-crushing despair--that she was made half helpless by her feeling\r
+toward him?\r
+\r
+When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of keeping his\r
+engagement to go in the boat. In his present agitation he could decide\r
+on nothing; he could only alternate between contradictory intentions.\r
+First, he thought he must have an interview with Maggie, and entreat\r
+her to confide in him; then, again, he distrusted his own\r
+interference. Had he not been thrusting himself on Maggie all along?\r
+She had uttered words long ago in her young ignorance; it was enough\r
+to make her hate him that these should be continually present with her\r
+as a bond. And had he any right to ask her for a revelation of\r
+feelings which she had evidently intended to withhold from him? He\r
+would not trust himself to see her, till he had assured himself that\r
+he could act from pure anxiety for her, and not from egoistic\r
+irritation. He wrote a brief note to Stephen, and sent it early by the\r
+servant, saying that he was not well enough to fulfil his engagement\r
+to Miss Deane. Would Stephen take his excuse, and fill his place?\r
+\r
+Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her quite content\r
+with Stephen's refusal to go in the boat. She discovered that her\r
+father was to drive to Lindum this morning at ten; Lindum was the very\r
+place she wanted to go to, to make purchases,--important purchases,\r
+which must by no means be put off to another opportunity; and aunt\r
+Tulliver must go too, because she was concerned in some of the\r
+purchases.\r
+\r
+"You will have your row in the boat just the same, you know," she said\r
+to Maggie when they went out of the breakfast-room and upstairs\r
+together; "Philip will be here it half-past ten, and it is a delicious\r
+morning. Now don't say a word against it, you dear dolorous thing.\r
+What is the use of my being a fairy godmother, if you set your face\r
+against all the wonders I work for you? Don't think of awful cousin\r
+Tom; you may disobey him a little."\r
+\r
+Maggie did not persist in objecting. She was almost glad of the plan,\r
+for perhaps it would bring her some strength and calmness to be alone\r
+with Philip again; it was like revisiting the scene of a quieter life,\r
+in which the very struggles were repose, compared with the daily\r
+tumult of the present. She prepared herself for the boat and at\r
+half-past ten sat waiting in the drawing-room.\r
+\r
+The ring of the door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking with\r
+half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise Philip would have in\r
+finding that he was to be with her alone, when she distinguished a\r
+firm, rapid step across the hall, that was certainly not Philip's; the\r
+door opened, and Stephen Guest entered.\r
+\r
+In the first moment they were both too much agitated to speak; for\r
+Stephen had learned from the servant that the others were gone out.\r
+Maggie had started up and sat down again, with her heart beating\r
+violently; and Stephen, throwing down his cap and gloves, came and sat\r
+by her in silence. She thought Philip would be coming soon; and with\r
+great effort--for she trembled visibly--she rose to go to a distant\r
+chair.\r
+\r
+"He is not coming," said Stephen, in a low tone. "I am going in the\r
+boat."\r
+\r
+"Oh, we can't go," said Maggie, sinking into her chair again. "Lucy\r
+did not expect--she would be hurt. Why is not Philip come?"\r
+\r
+"He is not well; he asked me to come instead."\r
+\r
+"Lucy is gone to Lindum," said Maggie, taking off her bonnet with\r
+hurried, trembling fingers. "We must not go."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Stephen, dreamily, looking at her, as he rested his\r
+arm on the back of his chair. "Then we'll stay here."\r
+\r
+He was looking into her deep, deep eyes, far off and mysterious at the\r
+starlit blackness, and yet very near, and timidly loving. Maggie sat\r
+perfectly still--perhaps for moments, perhaps for minutes--until the\r
+helpless trembling had ceased, and there was a warm glow on her check.\r
+\r
+"The man is waiting; he has taken the cushions," she said. "Will you\r
+go and tell him?"\r
+\r
+"What shall I tell him?" said Stephen, almost in a whisper. He was\r
+looking at the lips now.\r
+\r
+Maggie made no answer.\r
+\r
+"Let us go," Stephen murmured entreatingly, rising, and taking her\r
+hand to raise her too. "We shall not be long together."\r
+\r
+And they went. Maggie felt that she was being led down the garden\r
+among the roses, being helped with firm, tender care into the boat,\r
+having the cushion and cloak arranged for her feet, and her parasol\r
+opened for her (which she had forgotten), all by this stronger\r
+presence that seemed to bear her along without any act of her own\r
+will, like the added self which comes with the sudden exalting\r
+influence of a strong tonic, and she felt nothing else. Memory was\r
+excluded.\r
+\r
+They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by the\r
+backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses; on between\r
+the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed filled with a\r
+natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The breath of the young,\r
+unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic dip of the oars, the fragmentary\r
+song of a passing bird heard now and then, as if it were only the\r
+overflowing of brimful gladness, the sweet solitude of a twofold\r
+consciousness that was mingled into one by that grave, untiring gaze\r
+which need not be averted,--what else could there be in their minds\r
+for the first hour? Some low, subdued, languid exclamation of love\r
+came from Stephen from time to time, as he went on rowing idly, half\r
+automatically; otherwise they spoke no word; for what could words have\r
+been but an inlet to thought? and thought did not belong to that\r
+enchanted haze in which they were enveloped,--it belonged to the past\r
+and the future that lay outside the haze. Maggie was only dimly\r
+conscious of the banks, as they passed them, and dwelt with no\r
+recognition on the villages; she knew there were several to be passed\r
+before they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and left the\r
+boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of absence, that she was\r
+likely enough to let her waymarks pass unnoticed.\r
+\r
+But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more idly, ceased to\r
+row, laid down the oars, folded his arms, and looked down on the water\r
+as if watching the pace at which the boat glided without his help.\r
+This sudden change roused Maggie. She looked at the far-stretching\r
+fields, at the banks close by, and felt that they were entirely\r
+strange to her. A terrible alarm took possession of her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, have we passed Luckreth, where we were to stop?" she exclaimed,\r
+looking back to see if the place were out of sight. No village was to\r
+be seen. She turned around again, with a look of distressed\r
+questioning at Stephen.\r
+\r
+He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange, dreamy, absent\r
+tone, "Yes, a long way."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what shall I do?" cried Maggie, in an agony. "We shall not get\r
+home for hours, and Lucy? O God, help me!"\r
+\r
+She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a frightened child;\r
+she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and seeing her look of\r
+pained surprise and doubt, perhaps of just upbraiding.\r
+\r
+Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the clasped\r
+hands.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, "let us never go\r
+home again, till no one can part us,--till we are married."\r
+\r
+The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's sob, and she\r
+sat quite still, wondering; as if Stephen might have seen some\r
+possibilities that would alter everything, and annul the wretched\r
+facts.\r
+\r
+"See, Maggie, how everything has come without our seeking,--in spite\r
+of all our efforts. We never thought of being alone together again; it\r
+has all been done by others. See how the tide is carrying us out, away\r
+from all those unnatural bonds that we have been trying to make faster\r
+round us, and trying in vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can\r
+land there, and get some carriage, and hurry on to York and then to\r
+Scotland,--and never pause a moment till we are bound to each other,\r
+so that only death can part us. It is the only right thing, dearest;\r
+it is the only way of escaping from this wretched entanglement.\r
+Everything has concurred to point it out to us. We have contrived\r
+nothing, we have thought of nothing ourselves."\r
+\r
+Stephen spoke with deep, earnest pleading. Maggie listened, passing\r
+from her startled wonderment to the yearning after that belief that\r
+the tide was doing it all, that she might glide along with the swift,\r
+silent stream, and not struggle any more. But across that stealing\r
+influence came the terrible shadow of past thoughts; and the sudden\r
+horror lest now, at last, the moment of fatal intoxication was close\r
+upon her, called up feelings of angry resistance toward Stephen.\r
+\r
+"Let me go!" she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an indignant look\r
+at him, and trying to get her hands free. "You have wanted to deprive\r
+me of any choice. You knew we were come too far; you have dared to\r
+take advantage of my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into\r
+such a position."\r
+\r
+Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back to his\r
+former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of desperation at the\r
+difficulty Maggie's words had made present to him. If she would not\r
+consent to go on, he must curse himself for the embarrassment he had\r
+led her into. But the reproach was the unendurable thing; the one\r
+thing worse than parting with her was, that she should feel he had\r
+acted unworthily toward her. At last he said, in a tone of suppressed\r
+rage,--\r
+\r
+"I didn't notice that we had passed Luckreth till we had got to the\r
+next village; and then it came into my mind that we would go on. I\r
+can't justify it; I ought to have told you. It is enough to make you\r
+hate me, since you don't love me well enough to make everything else\r
+indifferent to you, as I do you. Shall I stop the boat and try to get\r
+you out here? I'll tell Lucy that I was mad, and that you hate me; and\r
+you shall be clear of me forever. No one can blame you, because I have\r
+behaved unpardonably to you."\r
+\r
+Maggie was paralyzed; it was easier to resist Stephen's pleading than\r
+this picture he had called up of himself suffering while she was\r
+vindicated; easier even to turn away from his look of tenderness than\r
+from this look of angry misery, that seemed to place her in selfish\r
+isolation from him. He had called up a state of feeling in which the\r
+reasons which had acted on her conscience seemed to be transmitted\r
+into mere self-regard. The indignant fire in her eyes was quenched,\r
+and she began to look at him with timid distress. She had reproached\r
+him for being hurried into irrevocable trespass,--she, who had been so\r
+weak herself.\r
+\r
+"As if I shouldn't feel what happened to you--just the same," she\r
+said, with reproach of another kind,--the reproach of love, asking for\r
+more trust. This yielding to the idea of Stephen's suffering was more\r
+fatal than the other yielding, because it was less distinguishable\r
+from that sense of others' claims which was the moral basis of her\r
+resistance.\r
+\r
+He felt all the relenting in her look and tone; it was heaven opening\r
+again. He moved to her side, and took her hand, leaning his elbow on\r
+the back of the boat, and saying nothing. He dreaded to utter another\r
+word, he dreaded to make another movement, that might provoke another\r
+reproach or denial from her. Life hung on her consent; everything else\r
+was hopeless, confused, sickening misery. They glided along in this\r
+way, both resting in that silence as in a haven, both dreading lest\r
+their feelings should be divided again,--till they became aware that\r
+the clouds had gathered, and that the slightest perceptible freshening\r
+of the breeze was growing and growing, so that the whole character of\r
+the day was altered.\r
+\r
+"You will be chill, Maggie, in this thin dress. Let me raise the cloak\r
+over your shoulders. Get up an instant, dearest."\r
+\r
+Maggie obeyed; there was an unspeakable charm in being told what to\r
+do, and having everything decided for her. She sat down again covered\r
+with the cloak, and Stephen took to his oars again, making haste; for\r
+they must try to get to Torby as fast as they could. Maggie was hardly\r
+conscious of having said or done anything decisive. All yielding is\r
+attended with a less vivid consciousness than resistance; it is the\r
+partial sleep of thought; it is the submergence of our own personality\r
+by another. Every influence tended to lull her into acquiescence. That\r
+dreamy gliding in the boat which had lasted for four hours, and had\r
+brought some weariness and exhaustion; the recoil of her fatigued\r
+sensations from the impracticable difficulty of getting out of the\r
+boat at this unknown distance from home, and walking for long\r
+miles,--all helped to bring her into more complete subjection to that\r
+strong, mysterious charm which made a last parting from Stephen seem\r
+the death of all joy, and made the thought of wounding him like the\r
+first touch of the torturing iron before which resolution shrank. And\r
+then there was the present happiness of being with him, which was\r
+enough to absorb all her languid energy.\r
+\r
+Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them. Several\r
+vessels, among them the steamer to Mudport, had passed them with the\r
+early tide, but for the last hour they had seen none. He looked more\r
+and more eagerly at this vessel, as if a new thought had come into his\r
+mind along with it, and then he looked at Maggie hesitatingly.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, dearest," he said at last, "if this vessel should be going to\r
+Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast northward, it would\r
+be our best plan to get them to take us on board. You are fatigued,\r
+and it may soon rain; it may be a wretched business, getting to Torby\r
+in this boat. It's only a trading vessel, but I dare say you can be\r
+made tolerably comfortable. We'll take the cushions out of the boat.\r
+It is really our best plan. They'll be glad enough to take us. I've\r
+got plenty of money about me. I can pay them well."\r
+\r
+Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this new\r
+proposition; but she was silent,--one course seemed as difficult as\r
+another.\r
+\r
+Stephen hailed the vessel. It was a Dutch vessel going to Mudport, the\r
+English mate informed him, and, if this wind held, would be there in\r
+less than two days.\r
+\r
+"We had got out too far with our boat," said Stephen. "I was trying to\r
+make for Torby. But I'm afraid of the weather; and this lady--my\r
+wife--will be exhausted with fatigue and hunger. Take us on\r
+board--will you?--and haul up the boat. I'll pay you well."\r
+\r
+Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was taken on board,\r
+making an interesting object of contemplation to admiring Dutchmen.\r
+The mate feared the lady would have a poor time of it on board, for\r
+they had no accommodation for such entirely unlooked-for\r
+passengers,--no private cabin larger than an old-fashioned church-pew.\r
+But at least they had Dutch cleanliness, which makes all other\r
+inconveniences tolerable; and the boat cushions were spread into a\r
+couch for Maggie on the poop with all alacrity. But to pace up and\r
+down the deck leaning on Stephen--being upheld by his strength--was\r
+the first change that she needed; then came food, and then quiet\r
+reclining on the cushions, with the sense that no new resolution\r
+_could_ be taken that day. Everything must wait till to-morrow.\r
+Stephen sat beside her with her hand in his; they could only speak to\r
+each other in low tones; only look at each other now and then, for it\r
+would take a long while to dull the curiosity of the five men on\r
+board, and reduce these handsome young strangers to that minor degree\r
+of interest which belongs, in a sailor's regard, to all objects nearer\r
+than the horizon. But Stephen was triumphantly happy. Every other\r
+thought or care was thrown into unmarked perspective by the certainty\r
+that Maggie must be his. The leap had been taken now; he had been\r
+tortured by scruples, he had fought fiercely with overmastering\r
+inclination, he had hesitated; but repentance was impossible. He\r
+murmured forth in fragmentary sentences his happiness, his adoration,\r
+his tenderness, his belief that their life together must be heaven,\r
+that her presence with him would give rapture to every common day;\r
+that to satisfy her lightest wish was dearer to him than all other\r
+bliss; that everything was easy for her sake, except to part with her;\r
+and now they never _would_ part; he would belong to her forever, and\r
+all that was his was hers,--had no value for him except as it was\r
+hers. Such things, uttered in low, broken tones by the one voice that\r
+has first stirred the fibre of young passion, have only a feeble\r
+effect--on experienced minds at a distance from them. To poor Maggie\r
+they were very near; they were like nectar held close to thirsty lips;\r
+there was, there _must_ be, then, a life for mortals here below which\r
+was not hard and chill,--in which affection would no longer be\r
+self-sacrifice. Stephen's passionate words made the vision of such a\r
+life more fully present to her than it had ever been before; and the\r
+vision for the time excluded all realities,--all except the returning\r
+sun-gleams which broke out on the waters as the evening approached,\r
+and mingled with the visionary sunlight of promised happiness; all\r
+except the hand that pressed hers, and the voice that spoke to her,\r
+and the eyes that looked at her with grave, unspeakable love.\r
+\r
+There was to be no rain, after all; the clouds rolled off to the\r
+horizon again, making the great purple rampart and long purple isles\r
+of that wondrous land which reveals itself to us when the sun goes\r
+down,--the land that the evening star watches over. Maggie was to\r
+sleep all night on the poop; it was better than going below; and she\r
+was covered with the warmest wrappings the ship could furnish. It was\r
+still early, when the fatigues of the day brought on a drowsy longing\r
+for perfect rest, and she laid down her head, looking at the faint,\r
+dying flush in the west, where the one golden lamp was getting\r
+brighter and brighter. Then she looked up at Stephen, who was still\r
+seated by her, hanging over her as he leaned his arm against the\r
+vessel's side. Behind all the delicious visions of these last hours,\r
+which had flowed over her like a soft stream, and made her entirely\r
+passive, there was the dim consciousness that the condition was a\r
+transient one, and that the morrow must bring back the old life of\r
+struggle; that there were thoughts which would presently avenge\r
+themselves for this oblivion. But now nothing was distinct to her; she\r
+was being lulled to sleep with that soft stream still flowing over\r
+her, with those delicious visions melting and fading like the wondrous\r
+aerial land of the west.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter XIV\r
+\r
+Waking\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, weary too with his\r
+unaccustomed amount of rowing, and with the intense inward life of the\r
+last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep, walked and lounged about\r
+the deck with his cigar far on into midnight, not seeing the dark\r
+water, hardly conscious there were stars, living only in the near and\r
+distant future. At last fatigue conquered restlessness, and he rolled\r
+himself up in a piece of tarpaulin on the deck near Maggie's feet.\r
+\r
+She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping for six hours\r
+before the faintest hint of a midsummer daybreak was discernible. She\r
+awoke from that vivid dreaming which makes the margin of our deeper\r
+rest. She was in a boat on the wide water with Stephen, and in the\r
+gathering darkness something like a star appeared, that grew and grew\r
+till they saw it was the Virgin seated in St. Ogg's boat, and it came\r
+nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was Lucy and the boatman\r
+was Philip,--no, not Philip, but her brother, who rowed past without\r
+looking at her; and she rose to stretch out her arms and call to him,\r
+and their own boat turned over with the movement, and they began to\r
+sink, till with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she\r
+was a child again in the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom was not\r
+really angry. From the soothed sense of that false waking she passed\r
+to the real waking,--to the plash of water against the vessel, and the\r
+sound of a footstep on the deck, and the awful starlit sky. There was\r
+a moment of utter bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled\r
+from the confused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible truth\r
+urged itself upon her. Stephen was not by her now; she was alone with\r
+her own memory and her own dread. The irrevocable wrong that must blot\r
+her life had been committed; she had brought sorrow into the lives of\r
+others,--into the lives that were knit up with hers by trust and love.\r
+The feeling of a few short weeks had hurried her into the sins her\r
+nature had most recoiled from,--breach of faith and cruel selfishness;\r
+she had rent the ties that had given meaning to duty, and had made\r
+herself an outlawed soul, with no guide but the wayward choice of her\r
+own passion. And where would that lead her? Where had it led her now?\r
+She had said she would rather die than fall into that temptation. She\r
+felt it now,--now that the consequences of such a fall had come before\r
+the outward act was completed. There was at least this fruit from all\r
+her years of striving after the highest and best,--that her soul\r
+though betrayed, beguiled, ensnared, could never deliberately consent\r
+to a choice of the lower. And a choice of what? O God! not a choice of\r
+joy, but of conscious cruelty and hardness; for could she ever cease\r
+to see before her Lucy and Philip, with their murdered trust and\r
+hopes? Her life with Stephen could have no sacredness; she must\r
+forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by uncertain impulse; for she\r
+had let go the clue of life,--that clue which once in the far-off\r
+years her young need had clutched so strongly. She had renounced all\r
+delights then, before she knew them, before they had come within her\r
+reach. Philip had been right when he told her that she knew nothing of\r
+renunciation; she had thought it was quiet ecstasy; she saw it face to\r
+face now,--that sad, patient, loving strength which holds the clue of\r
+life,--and saw that the thorns were forever pressing on its brow. The\r
+yesterday, which could never be revoked,--if she could have changed it\r
+now for any length of inward silent endurance, she would have bowed\r
+beneath that cross with a sense of rest.\r
+\r
+Day break came and the reddening eastern light, while her past life\r
+was grasping her in this way, with that tightening clutch which comes\r
+in the last moments of possible rescue. She could see Stephen now\r
+lying on the deck still fast asleep, and with the sight of him there\r
+came a wave of anguish that found its way in a long-suppressed sob.\r
+The worst bitterness of parting--the thought that urged the sharpest\r
+inward cry for help--was the pain it must give to _him_. But\r
+surmounting everything was the horror at her own possible failure, the\r
+dread lest her conscience should be benumbed again, and not rise to\r
+energy till it was too late. Too late! it was too late already not to\r
+have caused misery; too late for everything, perhaps, but to rush away\r
+from the last act of baseness,--the tasting of joys that were wrung\r
+from crushed hearts.\r
+\r
+The sun was rising now, and Maggie started up with the sense that a\r
+day of resistance was beginning for her. Her eyelashes were still wet\r
+with tears, as, with her shawl over her head, she sat looking at the\r
+slowly rounding sun. Something roused Stephen too, and getting up from\r
+his hard bed, he came to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious\r
+love saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He had\r
+a hovering dread of some resistance in Maggie's nature that he would\r
+be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy consciousness that he had\r
+robbed her of perfect freedom yesterday; there was too much native\r
+honor in him, for him not to feel that, if her will should recoil, his\r
+conduct would have been odious, and she would have a right to reproach\r
+him.\r
+\r
+But Maggie did not feel that right; she was too conscious of fatal\r
+weakness in herself, too full of the tenderness that comes with the\r
+foreseen need for inflicting a wound. She let him take her hand when\r
+he came to sit down beside her, and smiled at him, only with rather a\r
+sad glance; she could say nothing to pain him till the moment of\r
+possible parting was nearer. And so they drank their cup of coffee\r
+together, and walked about the deck, and heard the captain's assurance\r
+that they should be in at Mudport by five o'clock, each with an inward\r
+burthen; but in him it was an undefined fear, which he trusted to the\r
+coming hours to dissipate; in her it was a definite resolve on which\r
+she was trying silently to tighten her hold. Stephen was continually,\r
+through the morning, expressing his anxiety at the fatigue and\r
+discomfort she was suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change\r
+of motion and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure\r
+himself more completely by presupposing that everything would be as he\r
+had arranged it. For a long while Maggie contented herself with\r
+assuring him that she had had a good night's rest, and that she didn't\r
+mind about being on the vessel,--it was not like being on the open\r
+sea, it was only a little less pleasant than being in a boat on the\r
+Floss. But a suppressed resolve will betray itself in the eyes, and\r
+Stephen became more and more uneasy as the day advanced, under the\r
+sense that Maggie had entirely lost her passiveness. He longed, but\r
+did not dare, to speak of their marriage, of where they would go after\r
+it, and the steps he would take to inform his father, and the rest, of\r
+what had happened. He longed to assure himself of a tacit assent from\r
+her. But each time he looked at her, he gathered a stronger dread of\r
+the new, quiet sadness with which she met his eyes. And they were more\r
+and more silent.\r
+\r
+"Here we are in sight of Mudport," he said at last. "Now, dearest," he\r
+added, turning toward her with a look that was half beseeching, "the\r
+worst part of your fatigue is over. On the land we can command\r
+swiftness. In another hour and a half we shall be in a chaise\r
+together, and that will seem rest to you after this."\r
+\r
+Maggie felt it was time to speak; it would only be unkind now to\r
+assent by silence. She spoke in the lowest tone, as he had done, but\r
+with distinct decision.\r
+\r
+"We shall not be together; we shall have parted."\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Stephen's face.\r
+\r
+"We shall not," he said. "I'll die first."\r
+\r
+It was as he had dreaded--there was a struggle coming. But neither of\r
+them dared to say another word till the boat was let down, and they\r
+were taken to the landing-place. Here there was a cluster of gazers\r
+and passengers awaiting the departure of the steamboat to St. Ogg's.\r
+Maggie had a dim sense, when she had landed, and Stephen was hurrying\r
+her along on his arm, that some one had advanced toward her from that\r
+cluster as if he were coming to speak to her. But she was hurried\r
+along, and was indifferent to everything but the coming trial.\r
+\r
+A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house, and Stephen\r
+gave the order for the chaise as they passed through the yard. Maggie\r
+took no notice of this, and only said, "Ask them to show us into a\r
+room where we can sit down."\r
+\r
+When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Stephen, whose face\r
+had a desperate determination in it, was about to ring the bell, when\r
+she said, in a firm voice,--\r
+\r
+"I'm not going; we must part here."\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said, turning round toward her, and speaking in the tones\r
+of a man who feels a process of torture beginning, "do you mean to\r
+kill me? What is the use of it now? The whole thing is done."\r
+\r
+"No, it is not done," said Maggie. "Too much is done,--more than we\r
+can ever remove the trace of. But I will go no farther. Don't try to\r
+prevail with me again. I couldn't choose yesterday."\r
+\r
+What was he to do? He dared not go near her; her anger might leap out,\r
+and make a new barrier. He walked backward and forward in maddening\r
+perplexity.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking in a tone\r
+of imploring wretchedness, "have some pity--hear me--forgive me for\r
+what I did yesterday. I will obey you now; I will do nothing without\r
+your full consent. But don't blight our lives forever by a rash\r
+perversity that can answer no good purpose to any one, that can only\r
+create new evils. Sit down, dearest; wait--think what you are going to\r
+do. Don't treat me as if you couldn't trust me."\r
+\r
+He had chosen the most effective appeal; but Maggie's will was fixed\r
+unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made up her mind to suffer.\r
+\r
+"We must not wait," she said, in a low but distinct voice; "we must\r
+part at once."\r
+\r
+"We _can't_ part, Maggie," said Stephen, more impetuously. "I can't\r
+bear it. What is the use of inflicting that misery on me? The\r
+blow--whatever it may have been--has been struck now. Will it help any\r
+one else that you should drive me mad?"\r
+\r
+"I will not begin any future, even for you," said Maggie, tremulously,\r
+"with a deliberate consent to what ought not to have been. What I told\r
+you at Basset I feel now; I would rather have died than fall into this\r
+temptation. It would have been better if we had parted forever then.\r
+But we must part now."\r
+\r
+"We will _not_ part," Stephen burst out, instinctively placing his\r
+back against the door, forgetting everything he had said a few moments\r
+before; "I will not endure it. You'll make me desperate; I sha'n't\r
+know what I do."\r
+\r
+Maggie trembled. She felt that the parting could not be effected\r
+suddenly. She must rely on a slower appeal to Stephen's better self;\r
+she must be prepared for a harder task than that of rushing away while\r
+resolution was fresh. She sat down. Stephen, watching her with that\r
+look of desperation which had come over him like a lurid light,\r
+approached slowly from the door, seated himself close beside her, and\r
+grasped her hand. Her heart beat like the heart of a frightened bird;\r
+but this direct opposition helped her. She felt her determination\r
+growing stronger.\r
+\r
+"Remember what you felt weeks ago," she began, with beseeching\r
+earnestness; "remember what we both felt,--that we owed ourselves to\r
+others, and must conquer every inclination which could make us false\r
+to that debt. We have failed to keep our resolutions; but the wrong\r
+remains the same."\r
+\r
+"No, it does _not_ remain the same," said Stephen. "We have proved\r
+that it was impossible to keep our resolutions. We have proved that\r
+the feeling which draws us toward each other is too strong to be\r
+overcome. That natural law surmounts every other; we can't help what\r
+it clashes with."\r
+\r
+"It is not so, Stephen; I'm quite sure that is wrong. I have tried to\r
+think it again and again; but I see, if we judged in that way, there\r
+would be a warrant for all treachery and cruelty; we should justify\r
+breaking the most sacred ties that can ever be formed on earth. If the\r
+past is not to bind us, where can duty lie? We should have no law but\r
+the inclination of the moment."\r
+\r
+"But there are ties that can't be kept by mere resolution," said\r
+Stephen, starting up and walking about again. "What is outward\r
+faithfulness? Would they have thanked us for anything so hollow as\r
+constancy without love?"\r
+\r
+Maggie did not answer immediately. She was undergoing an inward as\r
+well as an outward contest. At last she said, with a passionate\r
+assertion of her conviction, as much against herself as against him,--\r
+\r
+"That seems right--at first; but when I look further, I'm sure it is\r
+_not_ right. Faithfulness and constancy mean something else besides\r
+doing what is easiest and pleasantest to ourselves. They mean\r
+renouncing whatever is opposed to the reliance others have in\r
+us,--whatever would cause misery to those whom the course of our lives\r
+has made dependent on us. If we--if I had been better, nobler, those\r
+claims would have been so strongly present with me,--I should have\r
+felt them pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now in\r
+the moments when my conscience is awake,--that the opposite feeling\r
+would never have grown in me, as it has done; it would have been\r
+quenched at once, I should have prayed for help so earnestly, I should\r
+have rushed away as we rush from hideous danger. I feel no excuse for\r
+myself, none. I should never have failed toward Lucy and Philip as I\r
+have done, if I had not been weak, selfish, and hard,--able to think\r
+of their pain without a pain to myself that would have destroyed all\r
+temptation. Oh, what is Lucy feeling now? She believed in me--she\r
+loved me--she was so good to me. Think of her----"\r
+\r
+Maggie's voice was getting choked as she uttered these last words.\r
+\r
+"I _can't_ think of her," said Stephen, stamping as if with pain. "I\r
+can think of nothing but you, Maggie. You demand of a man what is\r
+impossible. I felt that once; but I can't go back to it now. And where\r
+is the use of _your_ thinking of it, except to torture me? You can't\r
+save them from pain now; you can only tear yourself from me, and make\r
+my life worthless to me. And even if we could go back, and both fulfil\r
+our engagements,--if that were possible now,--it would be hateful,\r
+horrible, to think of your ever being Philip's wife,--of your ever\r
+being the wife of a man you didn't love. We have both been rescued\r
+from a mistake."\r
+\r
+A deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she couldn't speak. Stephen\r
+saw this. He sat down again, taking her hand in his, and looking at\r
+her with passionate entreaty.\r
+\r
+"Maggie! Dearest! If you love me, you are mine. Who can have so great\r
+a claim on you as I have? My life is bound up in your love. There is\r
+nothing in the past that can annul our right to each other; it is the\r
+first time we have either of us loved with our whole heart and soul."\r
+\r
+Maggie was still silent for a little while, looking down. Stephen was\r
+in a flutter of new hope; he was going to triumph. But she raised her\r
+eyes and met his with a glance that was filled with the anguish of\r
+regret, not with yielding.\r
+\r
+"No, not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen," she said with timid\r
+resolution. "I have never consented to it with my whole mind. There\r
+are memories, and affections, and longings after perfect goodness,\r
+that have such a strong hold on me; they would never quit me for long;\r
+they would come back and be pain to me--repentance. I couldn't live in\r
+peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself and God. I\r
+have caused sorrow already--I know--I feel it; but I have never\r
+deliberately consented to it; I have never said, 'They shall suffer,\r
+that I may have joy.' It has never been my will to marry you; if you\r
+were to win consent from the momentary triumph of my feeling for you,\r
+you would not have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the\r
+time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer\r
+affections, and live without the joy of love."\r
+\r
+Stephen loosed her hand, and rising impatiently, walked up and down\r
+the room in suppressed rage.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" he burst out at last, "what a miserable thing a woman's\r
+love is to a man's! I could commit crimes for you,--and you can\r
+balance and choose in that way. But you _don't_ love me; if you had a\r
+tithe of the feeling for me that I have for you, it would be\r
+impossible to you to think for a moment of sacrificing me. But it\r
+weighs nothing with you that you are robbing me of _my_ life's\r
+happiness."\r
+\r
+Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as she held\r
+them clasped on her lap. A great terror was upon her, as if she were\r
+ever and anon seeing where she stood by great flashes of lightning,\r
+and then again stretched forth her hands in the darkness.\r
+\r
+"No, I don't sacrifice you--I couldn't sacrifice you," she said, as\r
+soon as she could speak again; "but I can't believe in a good for you,\r
+that I feel, that we both feel, is a wrong toward others. We can't\r
+choose happiness either for ourselves or for another; we can't tell\r
+where that will lie. We can only choose whether we will indulge\r
+ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will renounce that, for\r
+the sake of obeying the divine voice within us,--for the sake of being\r
+true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this belief is\r
+hard; it has slipped away from me again and again; but I have felt\r
+that if I let it go forever, I should have no light through the\r
+darkness of this life."\r
+\r
+"But, Maggie," said Stephen, seating himself by her again, "is it\r
+possible you don't see that what happened yesterday has altered the\r
+whole position of things? What infatuation is it, what obstinate\r
+prepossession, that blinds you to that? It is too late to say what we\r
+might have done or what we ought to have done. Admitting the very\r
+worst view of what has been done, it is a fact we must act on now; our\r
+position is altered; the right course is no longer what it was before.\r
+We must accept our own actions and start afresh from them. Suppose we\r
+had been married yesterday? It is nearly the same thing. The effect on\r
+others would not have been different. It would only have made this\r
+difference to ourselves," Stephen added bitterly, "that you might have\r
+acknowledged then that your tie to me was stronger than to others."\r
+\r
+Again a deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she was silent.\r
+Stephen thought again that he was beginning to prevail,--he had never\r
+yet believed that he should _not_ prevail; there are possibilities\r
+which our minds shrink from too completely for us to fear them.\r
+\r
+"Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaning toward\r
+her, and putting his arm round her, "you _are_ mine now,--the world\r
+believes it; duty must spring out of that now.\r
+\r
+"In a few hours you will be legally mine, and those who had claims on\r
+us will submit,--they will see that there was a force which declared\r
+against their claims."\r
+\r
+Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face that was\r
+close to hers, and she started up, pale again.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I can't do it," she said, in a voice almost of agony; "Stephen,\r
+don't ask me--don't urge me. I can't argue any longer,--I don't know\r
+what is wise; but my heart will not let me do it. I see,--I feel their\r
+trouble now; it is as if it were branded on my mind. _I_ have\r
+suffered, and had no one to pity me; and now I have made others\r
+suffer. It would never leave me; it would embitter your love to me. I\r
+_do_ care for Philip--in a different way; I remember all we said to\r
+each other; I know how he thought of me as the one promise of his\r
+life. He was given to me that I might make his lot less hard; and I\r
+have forsaken him. And Lucy--she has been deceived; she who trusted me\r
+more than any one. I cannot marry you; I cannot take a good for myself\r
+that has been wrung out of their misery. It is not the force that\r
+ought to rule us,--this that we feel for each other; it would rend me\r
+away from all that my past life has made dear and holy to me. I can't\r
+set out on a fresh life, and forget that; I must go back to it, and\r
+cling to it, else I shall feel as if there were nothing firm beneath\r
+my feet."\r
+\r
+"Good God, Maggie!" said Stephen, rising too and grasping her arm,\r
+"you rave. How can you go back without marrying me? You don't know\r
+what will be said, dearest. You see nothing as it really is."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do. But they will believe me. I will confess everything. Lucy\r
+will believe me--she will forgive you, and--and--oh, _some_ good will\r
+come by clinging to the right. Dear, dear Stephen, let me go!--don't\r
+drag me into deeper remorse. My whole soul has never consented; it\r
+does not consent now."\r
+\r
+Stephen let go her arm, and sank back on his chair, half-stunned by\r
+despairing rage. He was silent a few moments, not looking at her;\r
+while her eyes were turned toward him yearningly, in alarm at this\r
+sudden change. At last he said, still without looking at her,--\r
+\r
+"Go, then,--leave me; don't torture me any longer,--I can't bear it."\r
+\r
+Involuntarily she leaned toward him and put out her hand to touch his.\r
+But he shrank from it as if it had been burning iron, and said\r
+again,--\r
+\r
+"Leave me."\r
+\r
+Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away from that\r
+gloomy averted face, and walked out of the room; it was like an\r
+automatic action that fulfils a forgotten intention. What came after?\r
+A sense of stairs descended as if in a dream, of flagstones, of a\r
+chaise and horses standing, then a street, and a turning into another\r
+street where a stage-coach was standing, taking in passengers, and the\r
+darting thought that that coach would take her away, perhaps toward\r
+home. But she could ask nothing yet; she only got into the coach.\r
+\r
+Home--where her mother and brother were, Philip, Lucy, the scene of\r
+her very cares and trials--was the haven toward which her mind tended;\r
+the sanctuary where sacred relics lay, where she would be rescued from\r
+more falling. The thought of Stephen was like a horrible throbbing\r
+pain, which yet, as such pains do, seemed to urge all other thoughts\r
+into activity. But among her thoughts, what others would say and think\r
+of her conduct was hardly present. Love and deep pity and remorseful\r
+anguish left no room for that.\r
+\r
+The coach was taking her to York, farther away from home; but she did\r
+not learn that until she was set down in the old city at midnight. It\r
+was no matter; she could sleep there, and start home the next day. She\r
+had her purse in her pocket, with all her money in it,--a bank-note\r
+and a sovereign; she had kept it in her pocket from forgetfulness,\r
+after going out to make purchases the day before yesterday.\r
+\r
+Did she lie down in the gloomy bedroom of the old inn that night with\r
+her will bent unwaveringly on the path of penitent sacrifice? The\r
+great struggles of life are not so easy as that; the great problems of\r
+life are not so clear. In the darkness of that night she saw Stephen's\r
+face turned toward her in passionate, reproachful misery; she lived\r
+through again all the tremulous delights of his presence with her that\r
+made existence an easy floating in a stream of joy, instead of a quiet\r
+resolved endurance and effort. The love she had renounced came back\r
+upon her with a cruel charm; she felt herself opening her arms to\r
+receive it once more; and then it seemed to slip away and fade and\r
+vanish, leaving only the dying sound of a deep, thrilling voice that\r
+said, "Gone, forever gone."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Book VII\r
+\r
+_The Final Rescue_\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter I\r
+\r
+The Return to the Mill\r
+\r
+\r
+Between four and five o'clock on the afternoon of the fifth day from\r
+that on which Stephen and Maggie had left St. Ogg's, Tom Tulliver was\r
+standing on the gravel walk outside the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He\r
+was master there now; he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish,\r
+and by years of steady self-government and energetic work he had\r
+brought himself near to the attainment of more than the old\r
+respectability which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons and\r
+Tullivers.\r
+\r
+But Tom's face, as he stood in the hot, still sunshine of that summer\r
+afternoon, had no gladness, no triumph in it. His mouth wore its\r
+bitterest expression, his severe brow its hardest and deepest fold, as\r
+he drew down his hat farther over his eyes to shelter them from the\r
+sun, and thrusting his hands deep into his pockets, began to walk up\r
+and down the gravel. No news of his sister had been heard since Bob\r
+Jakin had come back in the steamer from Mudport, and put an end to all\r
+improbable suppositions of an accident on the water by stating that he\r
+had seen her land from a vessel with Mr. Stephen Guest. Would the next\r
+news be that she was married,--or what? Probably that she was not\r
+married; Tom's mind was set to the expectation of the worst that could\r
+happen,--not death, but disgrace.\r
+\r
+As he was walking with his back toward the entrance gate, and his face\r
+toward the rushing mill-stream, a tall, dark-eyed figure, that we know\r
+well, approached the gate, and paused to look at him with a\r
+fast-beating heart. Her brother was the human being of whom she had\r
+been most afraid from her childhood upward; afraid with that fear\r
+which springs in us when we love one who is inexorable, unbending,\r
+unmodifiable, with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and\r
+yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us.\r
+\r
+That deep-rooted fear was shaking Maggie now; but her mind was\r
+unswervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural refuge\r
+that had been given her. In her deep humiliation under the retrospect\r
+of her own weakness,--in her anguish at the injury she had\r
+inflicted,--she almost desired to endure the severity of Tom's\r
+reproof, to submit in patient silence to that harsh, disapproving\r
+judgment against which she had so often rebelled; it seemed no more\r
+than just to her now,--who was weaker than she was? She craved that\r
+outward help to her better purpose which would come from complete,\r
+submissive confession; from being in the presence of those whose looks\r
+and words would be a reflection of her own conscience.\r
+\r
+Maggie had been kept on her bed at York for a day with that\r
+prostrating headache which was likely to follow on the terrible strain\r
+of the previous day and night. There was an expression of physical\r
+pain still about her brow and eyes, and her whole appearance, with her\r
+dress so long unchanged, was worn and distressed. She lifted the latch\r
+of the gate and walked in slowly. Tom did not hear the gate; he was\r
+just then close upon the roaring dam; but he presently turned, and\r
+lifting up his eyes, saw the figure whose worn look and loneliness\r
+seemed to him a confirmation of his worst conjectures. He paused,\r
+trembling and white with disgust and indignation.\r
+\r
+Maggie paused too, three yards before him. She felt the hatred in his\r
+face, felt it rushing through her fibres; but she must speak.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she began faintly, "I am come back to you,--I am come back\r
+home--for refuge--to tell you everything."\r
+\r
+"You will find no home with me," he answered, with tremulous rage.\r
+"You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced my father's name. You\r
+have been a curse to your best friends. You have been base, deceitful;\r
+no motives are strong enough to restrain you. I wash my hands of you\r
+forever. You don't belong to me."\r
+\r
+Their mother had come to the door now. She stood paralyzed by the\r
+double shock of seeing Maggie and hearing Tom's words.\r
+\r
+"Tom," said Maggie, with more courage, "I am perhaps not so guilty as\r
+you believe me to be. I never meant to give way to my feelings. I\r
+struggled against them. I was carried too far in the boat to come back\r
+on Tuesday. I came back as soon as I could."\r
+\r
+"I can't believe in you any more," said Tom, gradually passing from\r
+the tremulous excitement of the first moment to cold inflexibility.\r
+"You have been carrying on a clandestine relation with Stephen\r
+Guest,--as you did before with another. He went to see you at my aunt\r
+Moss's; you walked alone with him in the lanes; you must have behaved\r
+as no modest girl would have done to her cousin's lover, else that\r
+could never have happened. The people at Luckreth saw you pass; you\r
+passed all the other places; you knew what you were doing. You have\r
+been using Philip Wakem as a screen to deceive Lucy,--the kindest\r
+friend you ever had. Go and see the return you have made her. She's\r
+ill; unable to speak. My mother can't go near her, lest she should\r
+remind her of you."\r
+\r
+Maggie was half stunned,--too heavily pressed upon by her anguish even\r
+to discern any difference between her actual guilt and her brother's\r
+accusations, still less to vindicate herself.\r
+\r
+"Tom," she said, crushing her hands together under her cloak, in the\r
+effort to speak again, "whatever I have done, I repent it bitterly. I\r
+want to make amends. I will endure anything. I want to be kept from\r
+doing wrong again."\r
+\r
+"What _will_ keep you?" said Tom, with cruel bitterness. "Not\r
+religion; not your natural feelings of gratitude and honor. And he--he\r
+would deserve to be shot, if it were not----But you are ten times\r
+worse than he is. I loathe your character and your conduct. You\r
+struggled with your feelings, you say. Yes! _I_ have had feelings to\r
+struggle with; but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you\r
+have had; but I have found _my_ comfort in doing my duty. But I will\r
+sanction no such character as yours; the world shall know that _I_\r
+feel the difference between right and wrong. If you are in want, I\r
+will provide for you; let my mother know. But you shall not come under\r
+my roof. It is enough that I have to bear the thought of your\r
+disgrace; the sight of you is hateful to me."\r
+\r
+Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart. But the poor\r
+frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger than all dread.\r
+\r
+"My child! I'll go with you. You've got a mother."\r
+\r
+Oh, the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken Maggie! More\r
+helpful than all wisdom is one draught of simple human pity that will\r
+not forsake us.\r
+\r
+Tom turned and walked into the house.\r
+\r
+"Come in, my child," Mrs. Tulliver whispered. "He'll let you stay and\r
+sleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I ask him."\r
+\r
+"No, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. "I will never\r
+go in."\r
+\r
+"Then wait for me outside. I'll get ready and come with you."\r
+\r
+When his mother appeared with her bonnet on, Tom came out to her in\r
+the passage, and put money into her hands.\r
+\r
+"My house is yours, mother, always," he said. "You will come and let\r
+me know everything you want; you will come back to me."\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Tulliver took the money, too frightened to say anything. The\r
+only thing clear to her was the mother's instinct that she would go\r
+with her unhappy child.\r
+\r
+Maggie was waiting outside the gate; she took her mother's hand and\r
+they walked a little way in silence.\r
+\r
+"Mother," said Maggie, at last, "we will go to Luke's cottage. Luke\r
+will take me in. He was very good to me when I was a little girl."\r
+\r
+"He's got no room for us, my dear, now; his wife's got so many\r
+children. I don't know where to go, if it isn't to one o' your aunts;\r
+and I hardly durst," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, quite destitute of\r
+mental resources in this extremity.\r
+\r
+Maggie was silent a little while, and then said,--\r
+\r
+"Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother; his wife will have room for us, if\r
+they have no other lodger."\r
+\r
+So they went on their way to St. Ogg's, to the old house by the\r
+river-side.\r
+\r
+Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which resisted even\r
+the new joy and pride of possessing a two-months'-old baby, quite the\r
+liveliest of its age that had ever been born to prince or packman. He\r
+would perhaps not so thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of\r
+Maggie's appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport if\r
+he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when he went to\r
+report it; and since then, the circumstances which in any case gave a\r
+disastrous character to her elopement had passed beyond the more\r
+polite circles of St. Ogg's, and had become matter of common talk,\r
+accessible to the grooms and errand-boys. So that when he opened the\r
+door and saw Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness,\r
+he had no questions to ask except one which he dared only ask\r
+himself,--where was Mr. Stephen Guest? Bob, for his part, hoped he\r
+might be in the warmest department of an asylum understood to exist in\r
+the other world for gentlemen who are likely to be in fallen\r
+circumstances there.\r
+\r
+The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakin the larger and Mrs.\r
+Jakin the less were commanded to make all things comfortable for "the\r
+old Missis and the young Miss"; alas that she was still "Miss!" The\r
+ingenious Bob was sorely perplexed as to how this result could have\r
+come about; how Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or\r
+could have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of keeping\r
+her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow his wife to ask\r
+him a question; would not present himself in the room, lest it should\r
+appear like intrusion and a wish to pry; having the same chivalry\r
+toward dark-eyed Maggie as in the days when he had bought her the\r
+memorable present of books.\r
+\r
+But after a day or two Mrs. Tulliver was gone to the Mill again for a\r
+few hours to see to Tom's household matters. Maggie had wished this;\r
+after the first violent outburst of feeling which came as soon as she\r
+had no longer any active purpose to fulfil, she was less in need of\r
+her mother's presence; she even desired to be alone with her grief.\r
+But she had been solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room\r
+that looked on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and\r
+turning round her sad face as she said "Come in," she saw Bob enter,\r
+with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels.\r
+\r
+"We'll go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob.\r
+\r
+"No," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could smile.\r
+\r
+Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.\r
+\r
+"You see, we've got a little un, Miss, and I want'd you to look at it,\r
+and take it in your arms, if you'd be so good. For we made free to\r
+name it after you, and it 'ud be better for your takin' a bit o'\r
+notice on it."\r
+\r
+Maggie could not speak, but she put out her arms to receive the tiny\r
+baby, while Mumps snuffed at it anxiously, to ascertain that this\r
+transference was all right. Maggie's heart had swelled at this action\r
+and speech of Bob's; she knew well enough that it was a way he had\r
+chosen to show his sympathy and respect.\r
+\r
+"Sit down, Bob," she said presently, and he sat down in silence,\r
+finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion, refusing to\r
+say what he wanted it to say.\r
+\r
+"Bob," she said, after a few moments, looking down at the baby, and\r
+holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip from her mind and\r
+her fingers, "I have a favor to ask of you."\r
+\r
+"Don't you speak so, Miss," said Bob, grasping the skin of Mumps's\r
+neck; "if there's anything I can do for you, I should look upon it as\r
+a day's earnings."\r
+\r
+"I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him, and tell him\r
+that I am here, and should be very grateful if he would come to me\r
+while my mother is away. She will not come back till evening."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Miss, I'd do it in a minute,--it is but a step,--but Dr. Kenn's\r
+wife lies dead; she's to be buried to-morrow; died the day I come from\r
+Mudport. It's all the more pity she should ha' died just now, if you\r
+want him. I hardly like to go a-nigh him yet."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, Bob," said Maggie, "we must let it be,--till after a few days,\r
+perhaps, when you hear that he is going about again. But perhaps he\r
+may be going out of town--to a distance," she added, with a new sense\r
+of despondency at this idea.\r
+\r
+"Not he, Miss," said Bob. "_He'll_ none go away. He isn't one o' them\r
+gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin'-places when their wives die; he's\r
+got summat else to do. He looks fine and sharp after the parish, he\r
+does. He christened the little un; an' he was _at_ me to know what I\r
+did of a Sunday, as I didn't come to church. But I told him I was upo'\r
+the travel three parts o' the Sundays,--an' then I'm so used to bein'\r
+on my legs, I can't sit so long on end,--'an' lors, sir,' says I, 'a\r
+packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church; it tastes strong,' says\r
+I; 'there's no call to lay it on thick.' Eh, Miss, how good the little\r
+un is wi' you! It's like as if it knowed you; it partly does, I'll be\r
+bound,--like the birds know the mornin'."\r
+\r
+Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted bondage, and\r
+might even be in danger of doing more work than was required of it.\r
+But the subjects on which he longed to be informed were so steep and\r
+difficult of approach, that his tongue was likely to run on along the\r
+level rather than to carry him on that unbeaten road. He felt this,\r
+and was silent again for a little while, ruminating much on the\r
+possible forms in which he might put a question. At last he said, in a\r
+more timid voice than usual,--\r
+\r
+"Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss?"\r
+\r
+Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, "Yes, Bob, if it is\r
+about myself--not about any one else."\r
+\r
+"Well, Miss, it's this. _Do_ you owe anybody a grudge?"\r
+\r
+"No, not any one," said Maggie, looking up at him inquiringly. "Why?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, lors, Miss," said Bob, pinching Mumps's neck harder than ever. "I\r
+wish you did, an' tell me; I'd leather him till I couldn't see--I\r
+would--an' the Justice might do what he liked to me arter."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Bob," said Maggie, smiling faintly, "you're a very good friend to\r
+me. But I shouldn't like to punish any one, even if they'd done me\r
+wrong; I've done wrong myself too often."\r
+\r
+This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more obscurity than\r
+ever over what could possibly have happened between Stephen and\r
+Maggie. But further questions would have been too intrusive, even if\r
+he could have framed them suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby\r
+away again to an expectant mother.\r
+\r
+"Happen you'd like Mumps for company, Miss," he said when he had taken\r
+the baby again. "He's rare company, Mumps is; he knows iverything, an'\r
+makes no bother about it. If I tell him, he'll lie before you an'\r
+watch you, as still,--just as he watches my pack. You'd better let me\r
+leave him a bit; he'll get fond on you. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev\r
+a dumb brute fond on you; it'll stick to you, an' make no jaw."\r
+\r
+"Yes, do leave him, please," said Maggie. "I think I should like to\r
+have Mumps for a friend."\r
+\r
+"Mumps, lie down there," said Bob, pointing to a place in front of\r
+Maggie, "and niver do you stir till you're spoke to."\r
+\r
+Mumps lay down at once, and made no sign of restlessness when his\r
+master left the room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter II\r
+\r
+St. Ogg's Passes Judgment\r
+\r
+\r
+It was soon known throughout St. Ogg's that Miss Tulliver was come\r
+back; she had not, then, eloped in order to be married to Mr. Stephen\r
+Guest,--at all events, Mr. Stephen Guest had not married her; which\r
+came to the same thing, so far as her culpability was concerned. We\r
+judge others according to results; how else?--not knowing the process\r
+by which results are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few months\r
+of well-chosen travel, had returned as Mrs. Stephen Guest, with a\r
+post-marital _trousseau_, and all the advantages possessed even by the\r
+most unwelcome wife of an only son, public opinion, which at St.\r
+Ogg's, as else where, always knew what to think, would have judged in\r
+strict consistency with those results. Public opinion, in these cases,\r
+is always of the feminine gender,--not the world, but the world's\r
+wife; and she would have seen that two handsome young people--the\r
+gentleman of quite the first family in St. Ogg's--having found\r
+themselves in a false position, had been led into a course which, to\r
+say the least of it, was highly injudicious, and productive of sad\r
+pain and disappointment, especially to that sweet young thing, Miss\r
+Deane. Mr. Stephen Guest had certainly not behaved well; but then,\r
+young men were liable to those sudden infatuated attachments; and bad\r
+as it might seem in Mrs. Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances\r
+from her cousin's lover (indeed it _had_ been said that she was\r
+actually engaged to young Wakem,--old Wakem himself had mentioned it),\r
+still, she was very young,--"and a deformed young man, you know!--and\r
+young Guest so very fascinating; and, they say, he positively worships\r
+her (to be sure, that can't last!), and he ran away with her in the\r
+boat quite against her will, and what could she do? She couldn't come\r
+back then; no one would have spoken to her; and how very well that\r
+maize-colored satinette becomes her complexion! It seems as if the\r
+folds in front were quite come in; several of her dresses are made\r
+so,--they say he thinks nothing too handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss\r
+Deane! She is very pitiable; but then there was no positive\r
+engagement; and the air at the coast will do her good. After all, if\r
+young Guest felt no more for her than _that_ it was better for her not\r
+to marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like Miss\r
+Tulliver,--quite romantic? Why, young Guest will put up for the\r
+borough at the next election. Nothing like commerce nowadays! That\r
+young Wakem nearly went out of his mind; he always _was_ rather queer;\r
+but he's gone abroad again to be out of the way,--quite the best thing\r
+for a deformed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit Mr.\r
+and Mrs. Stephen Guest,--such nonsense! pretending to be better than\r
+other people. Society couldn't be carried on if we inquired into\r
+private conduct in that way,--and Christianity tells us to think no\r
+evil,--and my belief is, that Miss Unit had no cards sent her."\r
+\r
+But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant this\r
+extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without a _trousseau_,\r
+without a husband,--in that degraded and outcast condition to which\r
+error is well known to lead; and the world's wife, with that fine\r
+instinct which is given her for the preservation of Society, saw at\r
+once that Miss Tulliver's conduct had been of the most aggravated\r
+kind. Could anything be more detestable? A girl so much indebted to\r
+her friends--whose mother as well as herself had received so much\r
+kindness from the Deanes--to lay the design of winning a young man's\r
+affections away from her own cousin, who had behaved like a sister to\r
+her! Winning his affections? That was not the phrase for such a girl\r
+as Miss Tulliver; it would have been more correct to say that she had\r
+been actuated by mere unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. There\r
+was always something questionable about her. That connection with\r
+young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on for years, looked\r
+very ill,--disgusting, in fact! But with a girl of that disposition!\r
+To the world's wife there had always been something in Miss Tulliver's\r
+very _physique_ that a refined instinct felt to be prophetic of harm.\r
+As for poor Mr. Stephen Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise;\r
+a young man of five-and-twenty is not to be too severely judged in\r
+these cases,--he is really very much at the mercy of a designing, bold\r
+girl. And it was clear that he had given way in spite of himself: he\r
+had shaken her off as soon as he could; indeed, their having parted so\r
+soon looked very black indeed--_for her_. To be sure, he had written a\r
+letter, laying all the blame on himself, and telling the story in a\r
+romantic fashion so as to try and make her appear quite innocent; of\r
+course he would do that! But the refined instinct of the world's wife\r
+was not to be deceived; providentially!--else what would become of\r
+Society? Why, her own brother had turned her from his door; he had\r
+seen enough, you might be sure, before he would do that. A truly\r
+respectable young man, Mr. Tom Tulliver; quite likely to rise in the\r
+world! His sister's disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to him. It was\r
+to be hoped that she would go out of the neighborhood,--to America, or\r
+anywhere,--so as to purify the air of St. Ogg's from the stain of her\r
+presence, extremely dangerous to daughters there! No good could happen\r
+to her; it was only to be hoped she would repent, and that God would\r
+have mercy on her: He had not the care of society on His hands, as the\r
+world's wife had.\r
+\r
+It required nearly a fortnight for fine instinct to assure itself of\r
+these inspirations; indeed, it was a whole week before Stephen's\r
+letter came, telling his father the facts, and adding that he was gone\r
+across to Holland,--had drawn upon the agent at Mudport for\r
+money,--was incapable of any resolution at present.\r
+\r
+Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more agonizing\r
+anxiety to spend any thought on the view that was being taken of her\r
+conduct by the world of St. Ogg's; anxiety about Stephen, Lucy,\r
+Philip, beat on her poor heart in a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of\r
+mingled love, remorse, and pity. If she had thought of rejection and\r
+injustice at all, it would have seemed to her that they had done their\r
+worst; that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable\r
+since the words she had heard from her brother's lips. Across all her\r
+anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words shot again and\r
+again, like a horrible pang that would have brought misery and dread\r
+even into a heaven of delights. The idea of ever recovering happiness\r
+never glimmered in her mind for a moment; it seemed as if every\r
+sensitive fibre in her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to\r
+vibrate again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one\r
+act of penitence; and all she craved, as she dwelt on her future lot,\r
+was something to guarantee her from more falling; her own weakness\r
+haunted her like a vision of hideous possibilities, that made no peace\r
+conceivable except such as lay in the sense of a sure refuge.\r
+\r
+But she was not without practical intentions; the love of independence\r
+was too strong an inheritance and a habit for her not to remember that\r
+she must get her bread; and when other projects looked vague, she fell\r
+back on that of returning to her plain sewing, and so getting enough\r
+to pay for her lodging at Bob's. She meant to persuade her mother to\r
+return to the Mill by and by, and live with Tom again; and somehow or\r
+other she would maintain herself at St. Ogg's. Dr. Kenn would perhaps\r
+help her and advise her. She remembered his parting words at the\r
+bazaar. She remembered the momentary feeling of reliance that had\r
+sprung in her when he was talking with her, and she waited with\r
+yearning expectation for the opportunity of confiding everything to\r
+him. Her mother called every day at Mr. Deane's to learn how Lucy was;\r
+the report was always sad,--nothing had yet roused her from the feeble\r
+passivity which had come on with the first shock. But of Philip, Mrs.\r
+Tulliver had learned nothing; naturally, no one whom she met would\r
+speak to her about what related to her daughter. But at last she\r
+summoned courage to go and see sister Glegg, who of course would know\r
+everything, and had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs.\r
+Tulliver's absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on\r
+the occasion.\r
+\r
+As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet. She had\r
+resolved on walking to the Rectory and asking to see Dr. Kenn; he was\r
+in deep grief, but the grief of another does not jar upon us in such\r
+circumstances. It was the first time she had been beyond the door\r
+since her return; nevertheless her mind was so bent on the purpose of\r
+her walk, that the unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and\r
+being stared at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed\r
+beyond the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob's\r
+dwelling, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her; and\r
+this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to look to\r
+right or left. Presently, however, she came full on Mrs. and Miss\r
+Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family; they both looked at her\r
+strangely, and turned a little aside without speaking. All hard looks\r
+were pain to Maggie, but her self-reproach was too strong for\r
+resentment. No wonder they will not speak to me, she thought; they are\r
+very fond of Lucy. But now she knew that she was about to pass a group\r
+of gentlemen, who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and\r
+she could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his glass\r
+at his eye, and bow to her with that air of _nonchalance_ which he\r
+might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid.\r
+\r
+Maggie's pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even in\r
+the midst of her sorrow; and for the first time the thought took\r
+strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy cast on her\r
+besides that which was felt to be due to her breach of faith toward\r
+Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now; there, perhaps, she would find\r
+something else than retribution. Retribution may come from any voice;\r
+the hardest, cruelest, most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can\r
+inflict it; surely help and pity are rarer things, more needful for\r
+the righteous to bestow.\r
+\r
+She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr. Kenn's\r
+study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which he had little\r
+appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of his youngest child, a\r
+girl of three. The child was sent away with the servant, and when the\r
+door was closed, Dr. Kenn said, placing a chair for Maggie,--\r
+\r
+"I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver; you have anticipated me; I am\r
+glad you did."\r
+\r
+Maggie looked at him with her childlike directness as she had done at\r
+the bazaar, and said, "I want to tell you everything." But her eyes\r
+filled fast with tears as she said it, and all the pent-up excitement\r
+of her humiliating walk would have its vent before she could say more.\r
+\r
+"Do tell me everything," Dr. Kenn said, with quiet kindness in his\r
+grave, firm voice. "Think of me as one to whom a long experience has\r
+been granted, which may enable him to help you."\r
+\r
+In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first, but soon\r
+with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief in the\r
+confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle that must be the\r
+beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day before, Dr. Kenn had been\r
+made acquainted with the contents of Stephen's letter, and he had\r
+believed them at once, without the confirmation of Maggie's statement.\r
+That involuntary plaint of hers, "_Oh, I must go_," had remained with\r
+him as the sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict.\r
+\r
+Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her come back\r
+to her mother and brother, which made her cling to all the memories of\r
+the past. When she had ended, Dr. Kenn was silent for some minutes;\r
+there was a difficulty on his mind. He rose, and walked up and down\r
+the hearth with his hands behind him. At last he seated himself again,\r
+and said, looking at Maggie,--\r
+\r
+"Your prompting to go to your nearest friends,--to remain where all\r
+the ties of your life have been formed,--is a true prompting, to which\r
+the Church in its original constitution and discipline responds,\r
+opening its arms to the penitent, watching over its children to the\r
+last; never abandoning them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And\r
+the Church ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that\r
+every parish should be a family knit together by Christian brotherhood\r
+under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and Christian\r
+fraternity are entirely relaxed,--they can hardly be said to exist in\r
+the public mind; they hardly survive except in the partial,\r
+contradictory form they have taken in the narrow communities of\r
+schismatics; and if I were not supported by the firm faith that the\r
+Church must ultimately recover the full force of that constitution\r
+which is alone fitted to human needs, I should often lose heart at\r
+observing the want of fellowship and sense of mutual responsibility\r
+among my own flock. At present everything seems tending toward the\r
+relaxation of ties,--toward the substitution of wayward choice for the\r
+adherence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your\r
+conscience and your heart have given you true light on this point,\r
+Miss Tulliver; and I have said all this that you may know what my wish\r
+about you--what my advice to you--would be, if they sprang from my own\r
+feeling and opinion unmodified by counteracting circumstances."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn paused a little while. There was an entire absence of\r
+effusive benevolence in his manner; there was something almost cold in\r
+the gravity of his look and voice. If Maggie had not known that his\r
+benevolence was persevering in proportion to its reserve, she might\r
+have been chilled and frightened. As it was, she listened expectantly,\r
+quite sure that there would be some effective help in his words. He\r
+went on.\r
+\r
+"Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from\r
+anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be\r
+formed concerning your conduct,--conceptions which will have a baneful\r
+effect, even in spite of known evidence to disprove them."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I do,--I begin to see," said Maggie, unable to repress this\r
+utterance of her recent pain. "I know I shall be insulted. I shall be\r
+thought worse than I am."\r
+\r
+"You perhaps do not yet know," said Dr. Kenn, with a touch of more\r
+personal pity, "that a letter is come which ought to satisfy every one\r
+who has known anything of you, that you chose the steep and difficult\r
+path of a return to the right, at the moment when that return was most\r
+of all difficult."\r
+\r
+"Oh, where is he?" said poor Maggie, with a flush and tremor that no\r
+presence could have hindered.\r
+\r
+"He is gone abroad; he has written of all that passed to his father.\r
+He has vindicated you to the utmost; and I hope the communication of\r
+that letter to your cousin will have a beneficial effect on her."\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.\r
+\r
+"That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false impressions\r
+concerning you. But I am bound to tell you, Miss Tulliver, that not\r
+only the experience of my whole life, but my observation within the\r
+last three days, makes me fear that there is hardly any evidence which\r
+will save you from the painful effect of false imputations. The\r
+persons who are the most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as\r
+yours are precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you,\r
+because they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here\r
+will be attended not only with much pain, but with many obstructions.\r
+For this reason--and for this only--I ask you to consider whether it\r
+will not perhaps be better for you to take a situation at a distance,\r
+according to your former intention. I will exert myself at once to\r
+obtain one for you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if I could but stop here!" said Maggie. "I have no heart to begin\r
+a strange life again. I should have no stay. I should feel like a\r
+lonely wanderer, cut off from the past. I have written to the lady who\r
+offered me a situation to excuse myself. If I remained here, I could\r
+perhaps atone in some way to Lucy--to others; I could convince them\r
+that I'm sorry. And," she added, with some of the old proud fire\r
+flashing out, "I will not go away because people say false things of\r
+me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must go away at last,\r
+because--because others wish it, I will not go now."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Dr. Kenn, after some consideration, "if you determine on\r
+that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the influence my position\r
+gives me. I am bound to aid and countenance you by the very duties of\r
+my office as a parish priest. I will add, that personally I have a\r
+deep interest in your peace of mind and welfare."\r
+\r
+"The only thing I want is some occupation that will enable me to get\r
+my bread and be independent," said Maggie. "I shall not want much. I\r
+can go on lodging where I am."\r
+\r
+"I must think over the subject maturely," said Dr. Kenn, "and in a few\r
+days I shall be better able to ascertain the general feeling. I shall\r
+come to see you; I shall bear you constantly in mind."\r
+\r
+When Maggie had left him, Dr. Kenn stood ruminating with his hands\r
+behind him, and his eyes fixed on the carpet, under a painful sense of\r
+doubt and difficulty. The tone of Stephen's letter, which he had read,\r
+and the actual relations of all the persons concerned, forced upon him\r
+powerfully the idea of an ultimate marriage between Stephen and Maggie\r
+as the least evil; and the impossibility of their proximity in St.\r
+Ogg's on any other supposition, until after years of separation, threw\r
+an insurmountable prospective difficulty over Maggie's stay there. On\r
+the other hand, he entered with all the comprehension of a man who had\r
+known spiritual conflict, and lived through years of devoted service\r
+to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie's heart and conscience\r
+which made the consent to the marriage a desecration to her; her\r
+conscience must not be tampered with; the principle on which she had\r
+acted was a safer guide than any balancing of consequences. His\r
+experience told him that intervention was too dubious a responsibility\r
+to be lightly incurred; the possible issue either of an endeavor to\r
+restore the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling\r
+submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a\r
+darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate step was\r
+clogged with evil.\r
+\r
+The great problem of the shifting relation between passion and duty is\r
+clear to no man who is capable of apprehending it; the question\r
+whether the moment has come in which a man has fallen below the\r
+possibility of a renunciation that will carry any efficacy, and must\r
+accept the sway of a passion against which he had struggled as a\r
+trespass, is one for which we have no master-key that will fit all\r
+cases. The casuists have become a byword of reproach; but their\r
+perverted spirit of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to\r
+which eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed,--the truth, that\r
+moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they are checked\r
+and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances\r
+that mark the individual lot.\r
+\r
+All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive repugnance to\r
+the men of maxims; because such people early discern that the\r
+mysterious complexity of our life is not to be embraced by maxims, and\r
+that to lace ourselves up in formulas of that sort is to repress all\r
+the divine promptings and inspirations that spring from growing\r
+insight and sympathy. And the man of maxims is the popular\r
+representative of the minds that are guided in their moral judgment\r
+solely by general rules, thinking that these will lead them to justice\r
+by a ready-made patent method, without the trouble of exerting\r
+patience, discrimination, impartiality,--without any care to assure\r
+themselves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly\r
+earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense enough\r
+to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is human.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter III\r
+\r
+Showing That Old Acquaintances Are Capable of Surprising Us\r
+\r
+\r
+When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her news of an\r
+unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As long as Maggie had not\r
+been heard of, Mrs. Glegg had half closed her shutters and drawn down\r
+her blinds. She felt assured that Maggie was drowned; that was far\r
+more probable than that her niece and legatee should have done\r
+anything to wound the family honor in the tenderest point. When at\r
+last she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gathered from\r
+him what was her explanation of her absence, she burst forth in severe\r
+reproof of Tom for admitting the worst of his sister until he was\r
+compelled. If you were not to stand by your "kin" as long as there was\r
+a shred of honor attributable to them, pray what were you to stand by?\r
+Lightly to admit conduct in one of your own family that would force\r
+you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dodsons; and\r
+though Mrs. Glegg had always augured ill of Maggie's future at a time\r
+when other people were perhaps less clear-sighted, yet fair play was a\r
+jewel, and it was not for her own friends to help to rob the girl of\r
+her fair fame, and to cast her out from family shelter to the scorn of\r
+the outer world, until she had become unequivocally a family disgrace.\r
+The circumstances were unprecedented in Mrs. Glegg's experience;\r
+nothing of that kind had happened among the Dodsons before; but it was\r
+a case in which her hereditary rectitude and personal strength of\r
+character found a common channel along with her fundamental ideas of\r
+clanship, as they did in her lifelong regard to equity in money\r
+matters. She quarrelled with Mr. Glegg, whose kindness, flowing\r
+entirely into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment of\r
+Maggie as Mr. Deane himself was; and fuming against her sister\r
+Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for advice and help,\r
+shut herself up in her own room with Baxter's "Saints' Rest" from\r
+morning till night, denying herself to all visitors, till Mr. Glegg\r
+brought from Mr. Deane the news of Stephen's letter. Then Mrs. Glegg\r
+felt that she had adequate fighting-ground; then she laid aside\r
+Baxter, and was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do\r
+nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin Abbot had\r
+died, or any number of funerals had happened rather than this, which\r
+had never happened before, so that there was no knowing how to act,\r
+and Mrs. Pullet could never enter St. Ogg's again, because\r
+"acquaintances" knew of it all, Mrs. Glegg only hoped that Mrs. Wooll,\r
+or any one else, would come to her with their false tales about her\r
+own niece, and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person!\r
+\r
+Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the more severe in\r
+proportion to the greater strength of her present position. But Tom,\r
+like other immovable things, seemed only the more rigidly fixed under\r
+that attempt to shake him. Poor Tom! he judged by what he had been\r
+able to see; and the judgment was painful enough to himself. He\r
+thought he had the demonstration of facts observed through years by\r
+his own eyes, which gave no warning of their imperfection, that\r
+Maggie's nature was utterly untrustworthy, and too strongly marked\r
+with evil tendencies to be safely treated with leniency. He would act\r
+on that demonstration at any cost; but the thought of it made his days\r
+bitter to him. Tom, like every one of us, was imprisoned within the\r
+limits of his own nature, and his education had simply glided over\r
+him, leaving a slight deposit of polish; if you are inclined to be\r
+severe on his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance\r
+lies with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in Tom a\r
+repulsion toward Maggie that derived its very intensity from their\r
+early childish love in the time when they had clasped tiny fingers\r
+together, and their later sense of nearness in a common duty and a\r
+common sorrow; the sight of her, as he had told her, was hateful to\r
+him. In this branch of the Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger\r
+nature than her own; a nature in which family feeling had lost the\r
+character of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal\r
+pride.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished,--she was not a\r
+woman to deny that; she knew what conduct was,--but punished in\r
+proportion to the misdeeds proved against her, not to those which were\r
+cast upon her by people outside her own family who might wish to show\r
+that their own kin were better.\r
+\r
+"Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear," said poor Mrs.\r
+Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, "as I didn't go to her before;\r
+she said it wasn't for her to come to me first. But she spoke like a\r
+sister, too; _having_ she allays was, and hard to please,--oh\r
+dear!--but she's said the kindest word as has ever been spoke by you\r
+yet, my child. For she says, for all she's been so set again' having\r
+one extry in the house, and making extry spoons and things, and\r
+putting her about in her ways, you shall have a shelter in her house,\r
+if you'll go to her dutiful, and she'll uphold you against folks as\r
+say harm of you when they've no call. And I told her I thought you\r
+couldn't bear to see anybody but me, you were so beat down with\r
+trouble; but she said, '_I_ won't throw ill words at her; there's them\r
+out o' th' family 'ull be ready enough to do that. But I'll give her\r
+good advice; an' she must be humble.' It's wonderful o' Jane; for I'm\r
+sure she used to throw everything I did wrong at me,--if it was the\r
+raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot, or whativer it\r
+was."\r
+\r
+"Oh, mother," said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought of all the\r
+contact her bruised mind would have to bear, "tell her I'm very\r
+grateful; I'll go to see her as soon as I can; but I can't see any one\r
+just yet, except Dr. Kenn. I've been to him,--he will advise me, and\r
+help me to get some occupation. I can't live with any one, or be\r
+dependent on them, tell aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did\r
+you hear nothing of Philip--Philip Wakem? Have you never seen any one\r
+that has mentioned him?"\r
+\r
+"No, my dear; but I've been to Lucy's, and I saw your uncle, and he\r
+says they got her to listen to the letter, and she took notice o' Miss\r
+Guest, and asked questions, and the doctor thinks she's on the turn to\r
+be better. What a world this is,--what trouble, oh dear! The law was\r
+the first beginning, and it's gone from bad to worse, all of a sudden,\r
+just when the luck seemed on the turn?" This was the first lamentation\r
+that Mrs. Tulliver had let slip to Maggie, but old habit had been\r
+revived by the interview with sister Glegg.\r
+\r
+"My poor, poor mother!" Maggie burst out, cut to the heart with pity\r
+and compunction, and throwing her arms round her mother's neck; "I was\r
+always naughty and troublesome to you. And now you might have been\r
+happy if it hadn't been for me."\r
+\r
+"Eh, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, leaning toward the warm young\r
+cheek; "I must put up wi' my children,--I shall never have no more;\r
+and if they bring me bad luck, I must be fond on it. There's nothing\r
+else much to be fond on, for my furnitur' went long ago. And you'd got\r
+to be very good once; I can't think how it's turned out the wrong way\r
+so!"\r
+\r
+Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard nothing of\r
+Philip; anxiety about him was becoming her predominant trouble, and\r
+she summoned courage at last to inquire about him of Dr. Kenn, on his\r
+next visit to her. He did not even know if Philip was at home. The\r
+elder Wakem was made moody by an accumulation of annoyance; the\r
+disappointment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a\r
+good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe to his\r
+son's hopes after he had done violence to his own strong feeling by\r
+conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned this concession in\r
+St. Ogg's; and he was almost fierce in his brusqueness when any one\r
+asked him a question about his son.\r
+\r
+But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been known\r
+through the calling in of the medical man; it was probable that he was\r
+gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie sickened under this\r
+suspense, and her imagination began to live more and more persistently\r
+in what Philip was enduring. What did he believe about her?\r
+\r
+At last Bob brought her a letter, without a postmark, directed in a\r
+hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her own name,--a hand\r
+in which her name had been written long ago, in a pocket Shakespeare\r
+which she possessed. Her mother was in the room, and Maggie, in\r
+violent agitation, hurried upstairs that she might read the letter in\r
+solitude. She read it with a throbbing brow.\r
+\r
+ "Maggie,--I believe in you; I know you never meant to deceive me; I\r
+ know you tried to keep faith to me and to all. I believed this\r
+ before I had any other evidence of it than your own nature. The\r
+ night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen\r
+ what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another\r
+ whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed; but\r
+ through all the suggestions--almost murderous suggestions--of rage\r
+ and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthfulness.\r
+ I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said; that\r
+ you had rejected him; that you struggled to renounce him, for\r
+ Lucy's sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not\r
+ fatal for _you;_ and that dread shut out the very thought of\r
+ resignation. I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I\r
+ believed then, as I believe now, that the strong attraction which\r
+ drew you together proceeded only from one side of your characters,\r
+ and belonged to that partial, divided action of our nature which\r
+ makes half the tragedy of the human lot. I have felt the vibration\r
+ of chords in your nature that I have continually felt the want of\r
+ in his. But perhaps I am wrong; perhaps I feel about you as the\r
+ artist does about the scene over which his soul has brooded with\r
+ love; he would tremble to see it confided to other hands; he would\r
+ never believe that it could bear for another all the meaning and\r
+ the beauty it bears for him.\r
+\r
+ "I dared not trust myself to see you that morning; I was filled\r
+ with selfish passion; I was shattered by a night of conscious\r
+ delirium. I told you long ago that I had never been resigned even\r
+ to the mediocrity of my powers; how could I be resigned to the loss\r
+ of the one thing which had ever come to me on earth with the\r
+ promise of such deep joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to\r
+ the foregoing pain,--the promise of another self that would lift my\r
+ aching affection into the divine rapture of an ever-springing,\r
+ ever-satisfied want?\r
+\r
+ "But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came\r
+ before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he\r
+ had prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited\r
+ with equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love\r
+ and his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There is something\r
+ stronger in you than your love for him.\r
+\r
+ "I will not tell you what I went through in that interval. But even\r
+ in its utmost agony--even in those terrible throes that love must\r
+ suffer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire--my love for\r
+ you sufficed to withhold me from suicide, without the aid of any\r
+ other motive. In the midst of my egoism, I yet could not bear to\r
+ come like a death-shadow across the feast of your joy. I could not\r
+ bear to forsake the world in which you still lived and might need\r
+ me; it was part of the faith I had vowed to you,--to wait and\r
+ endure. Maggie, that is a proof of what I write now to assure you\r
+ of,--that no anguish I have had to bear on your account has been\r
+ too heavy a price to pay for the new life into which I have entered\r
+ in loving you. I want you to put aside all grief because of the\r
+ grief you have caused me. I was nurtured in the sense of privation;\r
+ I never expected happiness; and in knowing you, in loving you, I\r
+ have had, and still have, what reconciles me to life. You have been\r
+ to my affections what light, what color is to my eyes, what music\r
+ is to the inward ear, you have raised a dim unrest into a vivid\r
+ consciousness. The new life I have found in caring for your joy and\r
+ sorrow more than for what is directly my own, has transformed the\r
+ spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing endurance which is\r
+ the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but such complete and\r
+ intense love could have initiated me into that enlarged life which\r
+ grows and grows by appropriating the life of others; for before, I\r
+ was always dragged back from it by ever-present painful\r
+ self-consciousness. I even think sometimes that this gift of\r
+ transferred life which has come to me in loving you, may be a new\r
+ power to me.\r
+\r
+ "Then, dear one, in spite of all, you have been the blessing of my\r
+ life. Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me. It is I who\r
+ should rather reproach myself for having urged my feelings upon\r
+ you, and hurried you into words that you have felt as fetters. You\r
+ meant to be true to those words; you _have_ been true. I can\r
+ measure your sacrifice by what I have known in only one half-hour\r
+ of your presence with me, when I dreamed that you might love me\r
+ best. But, Maggie, I have no just claim on you for more than\r
+ affectionate remembrance.\r
+\r
+ "For some time I have shrunk from writing to you, because I have\r
+ shrunk even from the appearance of wishing to thrust myself before\r
+ you, and so repeating my original error. But you will not\r
+ misconstrue me. I know that we must keep apart for a long while;\r
+ cruel tongues would force us apart, if nothing else did. But I\r
+ shall not go away. The place where you are is the one where my mind\r
+ must live, wherever I might travel. And remember that I am\r
+ unchangeably yours,--yours not with selfish wishes, but with a\r
+ devotion that excludes such wishes.\r
+\r
+ "God comfort you, my loving, large-souled Maggie. If every one else\r
+ has misconceived you, remember that you have never been doubted by\r
+ him whose heart recognized you ten years ago.\r
+\r
+ "Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am not seen\r
+ out of doors. I have only had nervous headaches,--no worse than I\r
+ have sometimes had them before. But the overpowering heat inclines\r
+ me to be perfectly quiescent in the daytime. I am strong enough to\r
+ obey any word which shall tell me that I can serve you by word or\r
+ deed.\r
+\r
+ "Yours to the last,\r
+ "_Philip Wakem_."\r
+\r
+As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed under\r
+her, her feelings again and again gathered themselves in a whispered\r
+cry, always in the same words,--\r
+\r
+"O God, is there any happiness in love that could make me forget\r
+_their_ pain?"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter IV\r
+\r
+Maggie and Lucy\r
+\r
+\r
+By the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up his mind that there was\r
+only one way in which he could secure to Maggie a suitable living at\r
+St. Ogg's. Even with his twenty years' experience as a parish priest,\r
+he was aghast at the obstinate continuance of imputations against her\r
+in the face of evidence. Hitherto he had been rather more adored and\r
+appealed to than was quite agreeable to him; but now, in attempting to\r
+open the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice, on\r
+behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as powerless as\r
+he was aware he would have been if he had attempted to influence the\r
+shape of bonnets. Dr. Kenn could not be contradicted; he was listened\r
+to in silence; but when he left the room, a comparison of opinions\r
+among his hearers yielded much the same result as before. Miss\r
+Tulliver had undeniably acted in a blamable manner, even Dr. Kenn did\r
+not deny that; how, then, could he think so lightly of her as to put\r
+that favorable interpretation on everything she had done? Even on the\r
+supposition that required the utmost stretch of belief,--namely, that\r
+none of the things said about Miss Tulliver were true,--still, since\r
+they _had_ been said about her, they had cast an odor round her which\r
+must cause her to be shrunk from by every woman who had to take care\r
+of her own reputation--and of Society. To have taken Maggie by the\r
+hand and said, "I will not believe unproved evil of you; my lips shall\r
+not utter it; my ears shall be closed against it; I, too, am an erring\r
+mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come short of my most earnest\r
+efforts; your lot has been harder than mine, your temptation greater;\r
+let us help each other to stand and walk without more falling,"--to\r
+have done this would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge,\r
+generous trust; would have demanded a mind that tasted no piquancy in\r
+evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in condemning, that\r
+cheated itself with no large words into the belief that life can have\r
+any moral end, any high religion, which excludes the striving after\r
+perfect truth, justice, and love toward the individual men and women\r
+who come across our own path. The ladies of St. Ogg's were not\r
+beguiled by any wide speculative conceptions; but they had their\r
+favorite abstraction, called Society, which served to make their\r
+consciences perfectly easy in doing what satisfied their own\r
+egoism,--thinking and speaking the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and\r
+turning their backs upon her. It was naturally disappointing to Dr.\r
+Kenn, after two years of superfluous incense from his feminine\r
+parishioners, to find them suddenly maintaining their views in\r
+opposition to his; but then they maintained them in opposition to a\r
+higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That Authority had\r
+furnished a very explicit answer to persons who might inquire where\r
+their social duties began, and might be inclined to take wide views as\r
+to the starting-point. The answer had not turned on the ultimate good\r
+of Society, but on "a certain man" who was found in trouble by the\r
+wayside.\r
+\r
+Not that St. Ogg's was empty of women with some tenderness of heart\r
+and conscience; probably it had as fair a proportion of human goodness\r
+in it as any other small trading town of that day. But until every\r
+good man is brave, we must expect to find many good women timid,--too\r
+timid even to believe in the correctness of their own best promptings,\r
+when these would place them in a minority. And the men at St. Ogg's\r
+were not all brave, by any means; some of them were even fond of\r
+scandal, and to an extent that might have given their conversation an\r
+effeminate character, if it had not been distinguished by masculine\r
+jokes, and by an occasional shrug of the shoulders at the mutual\r
+hatred of women. It was the general feeling of the masculine mind at\r
+St. Ogg's that women were not to be interfered with in their treatment\r
+of each other.\r
+\r
+And thus every direction in which Dr. Kenn had turned, in the hope of\r
+procuring some kind recognition and some employment for Maggie, proved\r
+a disappointment to him. Mrs. James Torry could not think of taking\r
+Maggie as a nursery governess, even temporarily,--a young woman about\r
+whom "such things had been said," and about whom "gentlemen joked";\r
+and Miss Kirke, who had a spinal complaint, and wanted a reader and\r
+companion, felt quite sure that Maggie's mind must be of a quality\r
+with which she, for her part, could not risk _any_ contact. Why did\r
+not Miss Tulliver accept the shelter offered her by her aunt Glegg? It\r
+did not become a girl like her to refuse it. Or else, why did she not\r
+go out of the neighborhood, and get a situation where she was not\r
+known? (It was not, apparently, of so much importance that she should\r
+carry her dangerous tendencies into strange families unknown at St.\r
+Ogg's.) She must be very bold and hardened to wish to stay in a parish\r
+where she was so much stared at and whispered about.\r
+\r
+Dr. Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the presence of\r
+this opposition, as every firm man would have done, to contract a\r
+certain strength of determination over and above what would have been\r
+called forth by the end in view. He himself wanted a daily governess\r
+for his younger children; and though he had hesitated in the first\r
+instance to offer this position to Maggie, the resolution to protest\r
+with the utmost force of his personal and priestly character against\r
+her being crushed and driven away by slander, was now decisive. Maggie\r
+gratefully accepted an employment that gave her duties as well as a\r
+support; her days would be filled now, and solitary evenings would be\r
+a welcome rest. She no longer needed the sacrifice her mother made in\r
+staying with her, and Mrs. Tulliver was persuaded to go back to the\r
+Mill.\r
+\r
+But now it began to be discovered that Dr. Kenn, exemplary as he had\r
+hitherto appeared, had his crotchets, possibly his weaknesses. The\r
+masculine mind of St. Ogg's smiled pleasantly, and did not wonder that\r
+Kenn liked to see a fine pair of eyes daily, or that he was inclined\r
+to take so lenient a view of the past; the feminine mind, regarded at\r
+that period as less powerful, took a more melancholy view of the case.\r
+If Dr. Kenn should be beguiled into marrying that Miss Tulliver! It\r
+was not safe to be too confident, even about the best of men; an\r
+apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards; and though Peter's\r
+denial was not a close precedent, his repentance was likely to be.\r
+\r
+Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for many weeks,\r
+before the dreadful possibility of her some time or other becoming the\r
+Rector's wife had been talked of so often in confidence, that ladies\r
+were beginning to discuss how they should behave to her in that\r
+position. For Dr. Kenn, it had been understood, had sat in the\r
+schoolroom half an hour one morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her\r
+lessons,--nay, he had sat there every morning; he had once walked home\r
+with her,--he almost _always_ walked home with her,--and if not, he\r
+went to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she was! What\r
+a _mother_ for those children! It was enough to make poor Mrs. Kenn\r
+turn in her grave, that they should be put under the care of this girl\r
+only a few weeks after her death. Would he be so lost to propriety as\r
+to marry her before the year was out? The masculine mind was\r
+sarcastic, and thought _not_.\r
+\r
+The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witnessing a folly\r
+in their Rector; at least their brother would be safe; and their\r
+knowledge of Stephen's tenacity was a constant ground of alarm to\r
+them, lest he should come back and marry Maggie. They were not among\r
+those who disbelieved their brother's letter; but they had no\r
+confidence in Maggie's adherence to her renunciation of him; they\r
+suspected that she had shrunk rather from the elopement than from the\r
+marriage, and that she lingered in St. Ogg's, relying on his return to\r
+her. They had always thought her disagreeable; they now thought her\r
+artful and proud; having quite as good grounds for that judgment as\r
+you and I probably have for many strong opinions of the same kind.\r
+Formerly they had not altogether delighted in the contemplated match\r
+with Lucy, but now their dread of a marriage between Stephen and\r
+Maggie added its momentum to their genuine pity and indignation on\r
+behalf of the gentle forsaken girl, in making them desire that he\r
+should return to her. As soon as Lucy was able to leave home, she was\r
+to seek relief from the oppressive heat of this August by going to the\r
+coast with the Miss Guests; and it was in their plans that Stephen\r
+should be induced to join them. On the very first hint of gossip\r
+concerning Maggie and Dr. Kenn, the report was conveyed in Miss\r
+Guest's letter to her brother.\r
+\r
+Maggie had frequent tidings through her mother, or aunt Glegg, or Dr.\r
+Kenn, of Lucy's gradual progress toward recovery, and her thoughts\r
+tended continually toward her uncle Deane's house; she hungered for an\r
+interview with Lucy, if it were only for five minutes, to utter a word\r
+of penitence, to be assured by Lucy's own eyes and lips that she did\r
+not believe in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved and\r
+trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle's indignation had not\r
+closed his house against her, the agitation of such an interview would\r
+have been forbidden to Lucy. Only to have seen her without speaking\r
+would have been some relief; for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in\r
+its very gentleness; a face that had been turned on hers with glad,\r
+sweet looks of trust and love from the twilight time of memory;\r
+changed now to a sad and weary face by a first heart-stroke. And as\r
+the days passed on, that pale image became more and more distinct; the\r
+picture grew and grew into more speaking definiteness under the\r
+avenging hand of remorse; the soft hazel eyes, in their look of pain,\r
+were bent forever on Maggie, and pierced her the more because she\r
+could see no anger in them. But Lucy was not yet able to go to church,\r
+or any place where Maggie could see her; and even the hope of that\r
+departed, when the news was told her by aunt Glegg, that Lucy was\r
+really going away in a few days to Scarborough with the Miss Guests,\r
+who had been heard to say that they expected their brother to meet\r
+them there.\r
+\r
+Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict is, can know\r
+what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the evening after\r
+hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg,--only those who have known what it\r
+is to dread their own selfish desires as the watching mother would\r
+dread the sleeping-potion that was to still her own pain.\r
+\r
+She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window wide open\r
+toward the river; the sense of oppressive heat adding itself\r
+undistinguishably to the burthen of her lot. Seated on a chair against\r
+the window, with her arm on the windowsill she was looking blankly at\r
+the flowing river, swift with the backward-rushing tide, struggling to\r
+see still the sweet face in its unreproaching sadness, that seemed now\r
+from moment to moment to sink away and be hidden behind a form that\r
+thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing the door open, she\r
+thought Mrs. Jakin was coming in with her supper, as usual; and with\r
+that repugnance to trivial speech which comes with languor and\r
+wretchedness, she shrank from turning round and saying she wanted\r
+nothing; good little Mrs. Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant\r
+remarks. But the next moment, without her having discerned the sound\r
+of a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard a\r
+voice close to her saying, "Maggie!"\r
+\r
+The face was there,--changed, but all the sweeter; the hazel eyes were\r
+there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.\r
+\r
+"Maggie!" the soft voice said. "Lucy!" answered a voice with a sharp\r
+ring of anguish in it; and Lucy threw her arms round Maggie's neck,\r
+and leaned her pale cheek against the burning brow.\r
+\r
+"I stole out," said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she sat down\r
+close to Maggie and held her hand, "when papa and the rest were away.\r
+Alice is come with me. I asked her to help me. But I must only stay a\r
+little while, because it is so late."\r
+\r
+It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else. They sat\r
+looking at each other. It seemed as if the interview must end without\r
+more speech, for speech was very difficult. Each felt that there would\r
+be something scorching in the words that would recall the\r
+irretrievable wrong. But soon, as Maggie looked, every distinct\r
+thought began to be overflowed by a wave of loving penitence, and\r
+words burst forth with a sob.\r
+\r
+"God bless you for coming, Lucy."\r
+\r
+The sobs came thick on each other after that.\r
+\r
+"Maggie, dear, be comforted," said Lucy now, putting her cheek against\r
+Maggie's again. "Don't grieve." And she sat still, hoping to soothe\r
+Maggie with that gentle caress.\r
+\r
+"I didn't mean to deceive you, Lucy," said Maggie, as soon as she\r
+could speak. "It always made me wretched that I felt what I didn't\r
+like you to know. It was because I thought it would all be conquered,\r
+and you might never see anything to wound you."\r
+\r
+"I know, dear," said Lucy. "I know you never meant to make me unhappy.\r
+It is a trouble that has come on us all; you have more to bear than I\r
+have--and you gave him up, when--you did what it must have been very\r
+hard to do."\r
+\r
+They were silent again a little while, sitting with clasped hands, and\r
+cheeks leaned together.\r
+\r
+"Lucy," Maggie began again, "_he_ struggled too. He wanted to be true\r
+to you. He will come back to you. Forgive him--he will be happy\r
+then----"\r
+\r
+These words were wrung forth from Maggie's deepest soul, with an\r
+effort like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man. Lucy trembled and\r
+was silent.\r
+\r
+A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, the maid, who entered\r
+and said,--\r
+\r
+"I daren't stay any longer, Miss Deane. They'll find it out, and\r
+there'll be such anger at your coming out so late."\r
+\r
+Lucy rose and said, "Very well, Alice,--in a minute."\r
+\r
+"I'm to go away on Friday, Maggie," she added, when Alice had closed\r
+the door again. "When I come back, and am strong, they will let me do\r
+as I like. I shall come to you when I please then."\r
+\r
+"Lucy," said Maggie, with another great effort, "I pray to God\r
+continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to you any more."\r
+\r
+She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and looked up\r
+into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never forgot that look.\r
+\r
+"Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of\r
+confession in it, "you are better than I am. I can't----"\r
+\r
+She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped each other\r
+again in a last embrace.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Chapter V\r
+\r
+The Last Conflict\r
+\r
+\r
+In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting in her\r
+lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies that were forever\r
+slain and rising again. It was past midnight, and the rain was beating\r
+heavily against the window, driven with fitful force by the rushing,\r
+loud-moaning wind. For the day after Lucy's visit there had been a\r
+sudden change in the weather; the heat and drought had given way to\r
+cold variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals; and she had\r
+been forbidden to risk the contemplated journey until the weather\r
+should become more settled. In the counties higher up the Floss the\r
+rains had been continuous, and the completion of the harvest had been\r
+arrested. And now, for the last two days, the rains on this lower\r
+course of the river had been incessant, so that the old men had shaken\r
+their heads and talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of\r
+weather, happening about the equinox, brought on the great floods,\r
+which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great misery. But\r
+the younger generation, who had seen several small floods, thought\r
+lightly of these sombre recollections and forebodings; and Bob Jakin,\r
+naturally prone to take a hopeful view of his own luck, laughed at his\r
+mother when she regretted their having taken a house by the riverside,\r
+observing that but for that they would have had no boats, which were\r
+the most lucky of possessions in case of a flood that obliged them to\r
+go to a distance for food.\r
+\r
+But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their beds\r
+now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the morrow;\r
+threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws after falls of snow,\r
+had often passed off, in the experience of the younger ones; and at\r
+the very worst, the banks would be sure to break lower down the river\r
+when the tide came in with violence, and so the waters would be\r
+carried off, without causing more than temporary inconvenience, and\r
+losses that would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would\r
+relieve.\r
+\r
+All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight; all except some\r
+solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was seated in her little parlor\r
+toward the river, with one candle, that left everything dim in the\r
+room except a letter which lay before her on the table. That letter,\r
+which had come to her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her\r
+up far on into the night, unconscious how the hours were going,\r
+careless of seeking rest, with no image of rest coming across her\r
+mind, except of that far, far off rest from which there would be no\r
+more waking for her into this struggling earthly life.\r
+\r
+Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been to the\r
+Rectory for the last time. The heavy rain would have prevented her\r
+from going since; but there was another reason. Dr. Kenn, at first\r
+enlightened only by a few hints as to the new turn which gossip and\r
+slander had taken in relation to Maggie, had recently been made more\r
+fully aware of it by an earnest remonstrance from one of his male\r
+parishioners against the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to\r
+overcome the prevalent feeling in the parish by a course of\r
+resistance. Dr. Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the\r
+matter, was still inclined to persevere,--was still averse to give way\r
+before a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible; but he was\r
+finally wrought upon by the consideration of the peculiar\r
+responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the appearance of\r
+evil,--an "appearance" that is always dependent on the average quality\r
+of surrounding minds. Where these minds are low and gross, the area of\r
+that "appearance" is proportionately widened. Perhaps he was in danger\r
+of acting from obstinacy; perhaps it was his duty to succumb.\r
+Conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which is the\r
+most painful course; and to recede was always painful to Dr. Kenn. He\r
+made up his mind that he must advise Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's\r
+for a time; and he performed that difficult task with as much delicacy\r
+as he could, only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to\r
+countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself and his\r
+parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness as a\r
+clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a clerical friend of\r
+his, who might possibly take her into his own family as governess;\r
+and, if not, would probably know of some other available position for\r
+a young woman in whose welfare Dr. Kenn felt a strong interest.\r
+\r
+Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip; she could say nothing but a\r
+faint "Thank you, I shall be grateful"; and she walked back to her\r
+lodgings, through the driving rain, with a new sense of desolation.\r
+She must be a lonely wanderer; she must go out among fresh faces, that\r
+would look at her wonderingly, because the days did not seem joyful to\r
+her; she must begin a new life, in which she would have to rouse\r
+herself to receive new impressions; and she was so unspeakably,\r
+sickeningly weary! There was no home, no help for the erring; even\r
+those who pitied were constrained to hardness. But ought she to\r
+complain? Ought she to shrink in this way from the long penance of\r
+life, which was all the possibility she had of lightening the load to\r
+some other sufferers, and so changing that passionate error into a new\r
+force of unselfish human love? All the next day she sat in her lonely\r
+room, with a window darkened by the cloud and the driving rain,\r
+thinking of that future, and wrestling for patience; for what repose\r
+could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling?\r
+\r
+And on the third day--this day of which she had just sat out the\r
+close--the letter had come which was lying on the table before her.\r
+\r
+The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from Holland; he was at\r
+Mudport again, unknown to any of his friends, and had written to her\r
+from that place, enclosing the letter to a person whom he trusted in\r
+St. Ogg's. From beginning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach;\r
+an appeal against her useless sacrifice of him, of herself, against\r
+that perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,\r
+for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good,--_his_\r
+hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that single overpowering\r
+passion, that worship, which a man never gives to a woman more than\r
+once in his life.\r
+\r
+"They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As if I should\r
+believe that! Perhaps they have told you some such fables about me.\r
+Perhaps they tell you I've been 'travelling.' My body has been dragged\r
+about somewhere; but _I_ have never travelled from the hideous place\r
+where you left me; where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage\r
+to find you gone.\r
+\r
+"Maggie! whose pain can have been like mine? Whose injury is like\r
+mine? Who besides me has met that long look of love that has burnt\r
+itself into my soul, so that no other image can come there? Maggie,\r
+call me back to you! Call me back to life and goodness! I am banished\r
+from both now. I have no motives; I am indifferent to everything. Two\r
+months have only deepened the certainty that I can never care for life\r
+without you. Write me one word; say 'Come!' In two days I should be\r
+with you. Maggie, have you forgotten what it was to be together,--to\r
+be within reach of a look, to be within hearing of each other's\r
+voice?"\r
+\r
+When Maggie first read this letter she felt as if her real temptation\r
+had only just begun. At the entrance of the chill dark cavern, we turn\r
+with unworn courage from the warm light; but how, when we have trodden\r
+far in the damp darkness, and have begun to be faint and weary; how,\r
+if there is a sudden opening above us, and we are invited back again\r
+to the life-nourishing day? The leap of natural longing from under the\r
+pressure of pain is so strong, that all less immediate motives are\r
+likely to be forgotten--till the pain has been escaped from.\r
+\r
+For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain. For hours\r
+every other thought that she strove to summon was thrust aside by the\r
+image of Stephen waiting for the single word that would bring him to\r
+her. She did not _read_ the letter: she heard him uttering it, and the\r
+voice shook her with its old strange power. All the day before she had\r
+been filled with the vision of a lonely future through which she must\r
+carry the burthen of regret, upheld only by clinging faith. And here,\r
+close within her reach, urging itself upon her even as a claim, was\r
+another future, in which hard endurance and effort were to be\r
+exchanged for easy, delicious leaning on another's loving strength!\r
+And yet that promise of joy in the place of sadness did not make the\r
+dire force of the temptation to Maggie.\r
+\r
+It was Stephen's tone of misery, it was the doubt in the justice of\r
+her own resolve, that made the balance tremble, and made her once\r
+start from her seat to reach the pen and paper, and write "Come!"\r
+\r
+But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled; and the sense of\r
+contradiction with her past self in her moments of strength and\r
+clearness came upon her like a pang of conscious degradation. No, she\r
+must wait; she must pray; the light that had forsaken her would come\r
+again; she should feel again what she had felt when she had fled away,\r
+under an inspiration strong enough to conquer agony,--to conquer love;\r
+she should feel again what she had felt when Lucy stood by her, when\r
+Philip's letter had stirred all the fibres that bound her to the\r
+calmer past.\r
+\r
+She sat quite still, far on into the night, with no impulse to change\r
+her attitude, without active force enough even for the mental act of\r
+prayer; only waiting for the light that would surely come again. It\r
+came with the memories that no passion could long quench; the long\r
+past came back to her, and with it the fountains of self-renouncing\r
+pity and affection, of faithfulness and resolve. The words that were\r
+marked by the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago\r
+learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent for\r
+themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the loud driving of\r
+the rain against the window and the loud moan and roar of the wind. "I\r
+have received the Cross, I have received it from Thy hand; I will bear\r
+it, and bear it till death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."\r
+\r
+But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but in a\r
+sob,--"Forgive me, Stephen! It will pass away. You will come back to\r
+her."\r
+\r
+She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn slowly\r
+on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the last word of\r
+parting.\r
+\r
+"I will bear it, and bear it till death. But how long it will be\r
+before death comes! I am so young, so healthy. How shall I have\r
+patience and strength? Am I to struggle and fall and repent again? Has\r
+life other trials as hard for me still?"\r
+\r
+With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees against the\r
+table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her soul went out to the\r
+Unseen Pity that would be with her to the end. Surely there was\r
+something being taught her by this experience of great need; and she\r
+must be learning a secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that\r
+the less erring could hardly know? "O God, if my life is to be long,\r
+let me live to bless and comfort----"\r
+\r
+At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden cold about\r
+her knees and feet; it was water flowing under her. She started up;\r
+the stream was flowing under the door that led into the passage. She\r
+was not bewildered for an instant; she knew it was the flood!\r
+\r
+The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the last twelve hours\r
+seemed to have left a great calm in her; without screaming, she\r
+hurried with the candle upstairs to Bob Jakin's bedroom. The door was\r
+ajar; she went in and shook him by the shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Bob, the flood is come! it is in the house; let us see if we can make\r
+the boats safe."\r
+\r
+She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up her baby,\r
+burst into screams; and then she hurried down again to see if the\r
+waters were rising fast. There was a step down into the room at the\r
+door leading from the staircase; she saw that the water was already on\r
+a level with the step. While she was looking, something came with a\r
+tremendous crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the\r
+old wooden framework inward in shivers, the water pouring in after it.\r
+\r
+"It is the boat!" cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get the boats!"\r
+\r
+And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged through the water,\r
+which was rising fast to her knees, and by the glimmering light of the\r
+candle she had left on the stairs, she mounted on to the window-sill,\r
+and crept into the boat, which was left with the prow lodging and\r
+protruding through the window. Bob was not long after her, hurrying\r
+without shoes or stockings, but with the lanthorn in his hand.\r
+\r
+"Why, they're both here,--both the boats," said Bob, as he got into\r
+the one where Maggie was. "It's wonderful this fastening isn't broke\r
+too, as well as the mooring."\r
+\r
+In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening it, and\r
+mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger Maggie incurred.\r
+We are not apt to fear for the fearless, when we are companions in\r
+their danger, and Bob's mind was absorbed in possible expedients for\r
+the safety of the helpless indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up,\r
+had waked him, and had taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague\r
+impression of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be\r
+protected. She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off,\r
+so as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.\r
+\r
+"The water's rising so fast," said Bob, "I doubt it'll be in at the\r
+chambers before long,--th' house is so low. I've more mind to get\r
+Prissy and the child and the mother into the boat, if I could, and\r
+trusten to the water,--for th' old house is none so safe. And if I let\r
+go the boat--but _you_," he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of\r
+his lanthorn on Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her\r
+hand and her black hair streaming.\r
+\r
+Maggie had no time to answer, for a new tidal current swept along the\r
+line of the houses, and drove both the boats out on to the wide water,\r
+with a force that carried them far past the meeting current of the\r
+river.\r
+\r
+In the first moments Maggie felt nothing, thought of nothing, but that\r
+she had suddenly passed away from that life which she had been\r
+dreading; it was the transition of death, without its agony,--and she\r
+was alone in the darkness with God.\r
+\r
+The whole thing had been so rapid, so dreamlike, that the threads of\r
+ordinary association were broken; she sank down on the seat clutching\r
+the oar mechanically, and for a long while had no distinct conception\r
+of her position. The first thing that waked her to fuller\r
+consciousness was the cessation of the rain, and a perception that the\r
+darkness was divided by the faintest light, which parted the\r
+overhanging gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. She was\r
+driven out upon the flood,--that awful visitation of God which her\r
+father used to talk of; which had made the nightmare of her childish\r
+dreams. And with that thought there rushed in the vision of the old\r
+home, and Tom, and her mother,--they had all listened together.\r
+\r
+"O God, where am I? Which is the way home?" she cried out, in the dim\r
+loneliness.\r
+\r
+What was happening to them at the Mill? The flood had once nearly\r
+destroyed it. They might be in danger, in distress,--her mother and\r
+her brother, alone there, beyond reach of help! Her whole soul was\r
+strained now on that thought; and she saw the long-loved faces looking\r
+for help into the darkness, and finding none.\r
+\r
+She was floating in smooth water now,--perhaps far on the overflooded\r
+fields. There was no sense of present danger to check the outgoing of\r
+her mind to the old home; and she strained her eyes against the\r
+curtain of gloom that she might seize the first sight of her\r
+whereabout,--that she might catch some faint suggestion of the spot\r
+toward which all her anxieties tended.\r
+\r
+Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level, the gradual\r
+uplifting of the cloudy firmament, the slowly defining blackness of\r
+objects above the glassy dark! Yes, she must be out on the fields;\r
+those were the tops of hedgerow trees. Which way did the river lie?\r
+Looking behind her, she saw the lines of black trees; looking before\r
+her, there were none; then the river lay before her. She seized an oar\r
+and began to paddle the boat forward with the energy of wakening hope;\r
+the dawning seemed to advance more swiftly, now she was in action; and\r
+she could soon see the poor dumb beasts crowding piteously on a mound\r
+where they had taken refuge. Onward she paddled and rowed by turns in\r
+the growing twilight; her wet clothes clung round her, and her\r
+streaming hair was dashed about by the wind, but she was hardly\r
+conscious of any bodily sensations,--except a sensation of strength,\r
+inspired by mighty emotion. Along with the sense of danger and\r
+possible rescue for those long-remembered beings at the old home,\r
+there was an undefined sense of reconcilement with her brother; what\r
+quarrel, what harshness, what unbelief in each other can subsist in\r
+the presence of a great calamity, when all the artificial vesture of\r
+our life is gone, and we are all one with each other in primitive\r
+mortal needs? Vaguely Maggie felt this, in the strong resurgent love\r
+toward her brother that swept away all the later impressions of hard,\r
+cruel offence and misunderstanding, and left only the deep,\r
+underlying, unshakable memories of early union.\r
+\r
+But now there was a large dark mass in the distance, and near to her\r
+Maggie could discern the current of the river. The dark mass must\r
+be--yes, it was--St. Ogg's. Ah, now she knew which way to look for the\r
+first glimpse of the well-known trees--the gray willows, the now\r
+yellowing chestnuts--and above them the old roof! But there was no\r
+color, no shape yet; all was faint and dim. More and more strongly the\r
+energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as if her life were\r
+a stored-up force that was being spent in this hour, unneeded for any\r
+future.\r
+\r
+She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else she would\r
+never be able to pass the Ripple and approach the house; this was the\r
+thought that occurred to her, as she imagined with more and more\r
+vividness the state of things round the old home. But then she might\r
+be carried very far down, and be unable to guide her boat out of the\r
+current again. For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to\r
+press upon her; but there was no choice of courses, no room for\r
+hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she went now\r
+without effort; more and more clearly in the lessening distance and\r
+the growing light she began to discern the objects that she knew must\r
+be the well-known trees and roofs; nay, she was not far off a rushing,\r
+muddy current that must be the strangely altered Ripple.\r
+\r
+Great God! there were floating masses in it, that might dash against\r
+her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish too soon. What were\r
+those masses?\r
+\r
+For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony of dread.\r
+She sat helpless, dimly conscious that she was being floated along,\r
+more intensely conscious of the anticipated clash. But the horror was\r
+transient; it passed away before the oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's.\r
+She had passed the mouth of the Ripple, then; _now_, she must use all\r
+her skill and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of\r
+the current. She could see now that the bridge was broken down; she\r
+could see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the watery\r
+field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the river,--such as had\r
+been laid hands on were employed in the flooded streets.\r
+\r
+With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up again to\r
+paddle; but the now ebbing tide added to the swiftness of the river,\r
+and she was carried along beyond the bridge. She could hear shouts\r
+from the windows overlooking the river, as if the people there were\r
+calling to her. It was not till she had passed on nearly to Tofton\r
+that she could get the boat clear of the current. Then with one\r
+yearning look toward her uncle Deane's house that lay farther down the\r
+river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might across\r
+the watery fields, back toward the Mill. Color was beginning to awake\r
+now, and as she approached the Dorlcote fields, she could discern the\r
+tints of the trees, could see the old Scotch firs far to the right,\r
+and the home chestnuts,--oh, how deep they lay in the water,--deeper\r
+than the trees on this side the hill! And the roof of the Mill--where\r
+was it? Those heavy fragments hurrying down the Ripple,--what had they\r
+meant? But it was not the house,--the house stood firm; drowned up to\r
+the first story, but still firm,--or was it broken in at the end\r
+toward the Mill?\r
+\r
+With panting joy that she was there at last,--joy that overcame all\r
+distress,--Maggie neared the front of the house. At first she heard no\r
+sound; she saw no object moving. Her boat was on a level with the\r
+upstairs window. She called out in a loud, piercing voice,--\r
+\r
+"Tom, where are you? Mother, where are you? Here is Maggie!"\r
+\r
+Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable, she heard\r
+Tom's voice,--\r
+\r
+"Who is it? Have you brought a boat?"\r
+\r
+"It is I, Tom,--Maggie. Where is mother?"\r
+\r
+"She is not here; she went to Garum the day before yesterday. I'll\r
+come down to the lower window."\r
+\r
+"Alone, Maggie?" said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment, as he\r
+opened the middle window, on a level with the boat.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Tom; God has taken care of me, to bring me to you. Get in\r
+quickly. Is there no one else?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Tom, stepping into the boat; "I fear the man is drowned; he\r
+was carried down the Ripple, I think, when part of the Mill fell with\r
+the crash of trees and stones against it; I've shouted again and\r
+again, and there has been no answer. Give me the oars, Maggie."\r
+\r
+It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the wide\r
+water,--he face to face with Maggie,--that the full meaning of what\r
+had happened rushed upon his mind. It came with so overpowering a\r
+force,--it was such a new revelation to his spirit, of the depths in\r
+life that had lain beyond his vision, which he had fancied so keen and\r
+clear,--that he was unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing\r
+at each other,--Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from a\r
+weary, beaten face; Tom pale, with a certain awe and humiliation.\r
+Thought was busy though the lips were silent; and though he could ask\r
+no question, he guessed a story of almost miraculous, divinely\r
+protected effort. But at last a mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes,\r
+and the lips found a word they could utter,--the old childish\r
+"Magsie!"\r
+\r
+Maggie could make no answer but a long, deep sob of that mysterious,\r
+wondrous happiness that is one with pain.\r
+\r
+As soon as she could speak, she said, "We will go to Lucy, Tom; we'll\r
+go and see if she is safe, and then we can help the rest."\r
+\r
+Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed from poor\r
+Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the river again, and\r
+soon they would be at Tofton.\r
+\r
+"Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie. "Perhaps\r
+they have got Lucy there."\r
+\r
+Nothing else was said; a new danger was being carried toward them by\r
+the river. Some wooden machinery had just given way on one of the\r
+wharves, and huge fragments were being floated along. The sun was\r
+rising now, and the wide area of watery desolation was spread out in\r
+dreadful clearness around them; in dreadful clearness floated onward\r
+the hurrying, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that was\r
+working its way along under the Tofton houses observed their danger,\r
+and shouted, "Get out of the current!"\r
+\r
+But that could not be done at once; and Tom, looking before him, saw\r
+death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging together in fatal\r
+fellowship, made one wide mass across the stream.\r
+\r
+"It is coming, Maggie!" Tom said, in a deep, hoarse voice, loosing the\r
+oars, and clasping her.\r
+\r
+The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon the water, and the\r
+huge mass was hurrying on in hideous triumph.\r
+\r
+But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on the golden\r
+water.\r
+\r
+The boat reappeared, but brother and sister had gone down in an\r
+embrace never to be parted; living through again in one supreme moment\r
+the days when they had clasped their little hands in love, and roamed\r
+the daisied fields together.\r
+\r
+Conclusion\r
+\r
+Nature repairs her ravages,--repairs them with her sunshine, and with\r
+human labor. The desolation wrought by that flood had left little\r
+visible trace on the face of the earth, five years after. The fifth\r
+autumn was rich in golden cornstacks, rising in thick clusters among\r
+the distant hedgerows; the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were\r
+busy again, with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and\r
+unlading.\r
+\r
+And every man and woman mentioned in this history was still living,\r
+except those whose end we know.\r
+\r
+Nature repairs her ravages, but not all. The uptorn trees are not\r
+rooted again; the parted hills are left scarred; if there is a new\r
+growth, the trees are not the same as the old, and the hills\r
+underneath their green vesture bear the marks of the past rending. To\r
+the eyes that have dwelt on the past, there is no thorough repair.\r
+\r
+Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard--where the brick\r
+grave that held a father whom we know, was found with the stone laid\r
+prostrate upon it after the flood--had recovered all its grassy order\r
+and decent quiet.\r
+\r
+Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very soon after the\r
+flood, for two bodies that were found in close embrace; and it was\r
+visited at different moments by two men who both felt that their\r
+keenest joy and keenest sorrow were forever buried there.\r
+\r
+One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside him; but\r
+that was years after.\r
+\r
+The other was always solitary. His great companionship was among the\r
+trees of the Red Deeps, where the buried joy seemed still to hover,\r
+like a revisiting spirit.\r
+\r
+The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and below the\r
+names it was written,--\r
+\r
+ "In their death they were not divided."\r
--- /dev/null
+JANE EYRE\r
+AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY\r
+\r
+\r
+BY\r
+CHARLOTTE BRONTE\r
+\r
+_ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND_\r
+\r
+London\r
+SERVICE & PATON\r
+5 HENRIETTA STREET\r
+1897\r
+\r
+_The Illustrations_\r
+_in this Volume are the copyright of_\r
+SERVICE & PATON, _London_\r
+\r
+TO\r
+W. M. THACKERAY, ESQ.,\r
+\r
+This Work\r
+IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED\r
+\r
+BY\r
+THE AUTHOR\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+PREFACE\r
+\r
+\r
+A preface to the first edition of "Jane Eyre" being unnecessary, I gave\r
+none: this second edition demands a few words both of acknowledgment and\r
+miscellaneous remark.\r
+\r
+My thanks are due in three quarters.\r
+\r
+To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain tale with\r
+few pretensions.\r
+\r
+To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened to an\r
+obscure aspirant.\r
+\r
+To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their practical\r
+sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown and unrecommended\r
+Author.\r
+\r
+The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for me, and I\r
+must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers are definite: so are\r
+certain generous critics who have encouraged me as only large-hearted and\r
+high-minded men know how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them,\r
+_i.e._, to my Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially,\r
+Gentlemen, I thank you from my heart.\r
+\r
+Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided and approved me,\r
+I turn to another class; a small one, so far as I know, but not,\r
+therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous or carping few who\r
+doubt the tendency of such books as "Jane Eyre:" in whose eyes whatever\r
+is unusual is wrong; whose ears detect in each protest against\r
+bigotry--that parent of crime--an insult to piety, that regent of God on\r
+earth. I would suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I\r
+would remind them of certain simple truths.\r
+\r
+Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To\r
+attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck the mask from the\r
+face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious hand to the Crown of\r
+Thorns.\r
+\r
+These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are as distinct as\r
+is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them: they should not be\r
+confounded: appearance should not be mistaken for truth; narrow human\r
+doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be\r
+substituted for the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is--I repeat\r
+it--a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark broadly\r
+and clearly the line of separation between them.\r
+\r
+The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it has been\r
+accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to make external show\r
+pass for sterling worth--to let white-washed walls vouch for clean\r
+shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinise and expose--to rase the\r
+gilding, and show base metal under it--to penetrate the sepulchre, and\r
+reveal charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.\r
+\r
+Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning\r
+him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaannah better;\r
+yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears\r
+to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.\r
+\r
+There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle\r
+delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of\r
+society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah\r
+and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like\r
+and as vital--a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of\r
+"Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some\r
+of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over\r
+whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his\r
+warnings in time--they or their seed might yet escape a fatal\r
+Rimoth-Gilead.\r
+\r
+Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, Reader, because I\r
+think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his\r
+contemporaries have yet recognised; because I regard him as the first\r
+social regenerator of the day--as the very master of that working corps\r
+who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I\r
+think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that\r
+suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent. They say he\r
+is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour, comic powers. He\r
+resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on\r
+carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humour\r
+attractive, but both bear the same relation to his serious genius that\r
+the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-\r
+cloud does to the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have\r
+alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him--if he will accept the tribute\r
+of a total stranger--I have dedicated this second edition of "JANE EYRE."\r
+\r
+CURRER BELL.\r
+\r
+_December_ 21_st_, 1847.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+NOTE TO THE THIRD EDITION\r
+\r
+\r
+I avail myself of the opportunity which a third edition of "Jane Eyre"\r
+affords me, of again addressing a word to the Public, to explain that my\r
+claim to the title of novelist rests on this one work alone. If,\r
+therefore, the authorship of other works of fiction has been attributed\r
+to me, an honour is awarded where it is not merited; and consequently,\r
+denied where it is justly due.\r
+\r
+This explanation will serve to rectify mistakes which may already have\r
+been made, and to prevent future errors.\r
+\r
+CURRER BELL.\r
+\r
+_April_ 13_th_, 1848.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+\r
+There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been\r
+wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but\r
+since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold\r
+winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so\r
+penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.\r
+\r
+I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly\r
+afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with\r
+nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie,\r
+the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to\r
+Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.\r
+\r
+The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama\r
+in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with\r
+her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying)\r
+looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group;\r
+saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a\r
+distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her\r
+own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a\r
+more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly\r
+manner--something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were--she really\r
+must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy,\r
+little children."\r
+\r
+"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something\r
+truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be\r
+seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent."\r
+\r
+A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It\r
+contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care\r
+that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-\r
+seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having\r
+drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double\r
+retirement.\r
+\r
+Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left\r
+were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the\r
+drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my\r
+book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a\r
+pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat\r
+shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and\r
+lamentable blast.\r
+\r
+I returned to my book--Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress\r
+thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were\r
+certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite\r
+as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of\r
+"the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the\r
+coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the\r
+Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape--\r
+\r
+ "Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,\r
+ Boils round the naked, melancholy isles\r
+ Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge\r
+ Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."\r
+\r
+Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland,\r
+Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast\r
+sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,--that\r
+reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation\r
+of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround\r
+the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold." Of\r
+these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all\r
+the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains,\r
+but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages\r
+connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance\r
+to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken\r
+boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing\r
+through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.\r
+\r
+I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with\r
+its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon,\r
+girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the\r
+hour of eventide.\r
+\r
+The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.\r
+\r
+The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over\r
+quickly: it was an object of terror.\r
+\r
+So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant\r
+crowd surrounding a gallows.\r
+\r
+Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped\r
+understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as\r
+interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings,\r
+when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her\r
+ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and\r
+while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap\r
+borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure\r
+taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I\r
+discovered) from the pages of Pamela, and Henry, Earl of Moreland.\r
+\r
+With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I\r
+feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-\r
+room door opened.\r
+\r
+"Boh! Madam Mope!" cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he\r
+found the room apparently empty.\r
+\r
+"Where the dickens is she!" he continued. "Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to\r
+his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain--bad\r
+animal!"\r
+\r
+"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he\r
+might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out\r
+himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just\r
+put her head in at the door, and said at once--\r
+\r
+"She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack."\r
+\r
+And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged\r
+forth by the said Jack.\r
+\r
+"What do you want?" I asked, with awkward diffidence.\r
+\r
+"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want you to\r
+come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a\r
+gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.\r
+\r
+John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I,\r
+for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and\r
+unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and\r
+large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him\r
+bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought\r
+now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month\r
+or two, "on account of his delicate health." Mr. Miles, the master,\r
+affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats\r
+sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so\r
+harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's\r
+sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after\r
+home.\r
+\r
+John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy\r
+to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week,\r
+nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared\r
+him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near.\r
+There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired,\r
+because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his\r
+inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by\r
+taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the\r
+subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did\r
+both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind\r
+her back.\r
+\r
+Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three\r
+minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without\r
+damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the\r
+blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would\r
+presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all\r
+at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered,\r
+and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his\r
+chair.\r
+\r
+"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he,\r
+"and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look\r
+you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"\r
+\r
+Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it;\r
+my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the\r
+insult.\r
+\r
+"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I was reading."\r
+\r
+"Show the book."\r
+\r
+I returned to the window and fetched it thence.\r
+\r
+"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says;\r
+you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not\r
+to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we\r
+do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to\r
+rummage my bookshelves: for they _are_ mine; all the house belongs to me,\r
+or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of\r
+the mirror and the windows."\r
+\r
+I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him\r
+lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively\r
+started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume\r
+was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and\r
+cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its\r
+climax; other feelings succeeded.\r
+\r
+"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer--you are like a\r
+slave-driver--you are like the Roman emperors!"\r
+\r
+I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of\r
+Nero, Caligula, etc. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never\r
+thought thus to have declared aloud.\r
+\r
+"What! what!" he cried. "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her,\r
+Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first--"\r
+\r
+He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had\r
+closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer.\r
+I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was\r
+sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time\r
+predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very\r
+well know what I did with my hands, but he called me "Rat! Rat!" and\r
+bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for\r
+Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed\r
+by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words--\r
+\r
+"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!"\r
+\r
+"Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"\r
+\r
+Then Mrs. Reed subjoined--\r
+\r
+"Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there." Four hands were\r
+immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+\r
+I resisted all the way: a new thing for me, and a circumstance which\r
+greatly strengthened the bad opinion Bessie and Miss Abbot were disposed\r
+to entertain of me. The fact is, I was a trifle beside myself; or rather\r
+_out_ of myself, as the French would say: I was conscious that a moment's\r
+mutiny had already rendered me liable to strange penalties, and, like any\r
+other rebel slave, I felt resolved, in my desperation, to go all lengths.\r
+\r
+"Hold her arms, Miss Abbot: she's like a mad cat."\r
+\r
+"For shame! for shame!" cried the lady's-maid. "What shocking conduct,\r
+Miss Eyre, to strike a young gentleman, your benefactress's son! Your\r
+young master."\r
+\r
+"Master! How is he my master? Am I a servant?"\r
+\r
+"No; you are less than a servant, for you do nothing for your keep.\r
+There, sit down, and think over your wickedness."\r
+\r
+They had got me by this time into the apartment indicated by Mrs. Reed,\r
+and had thrust me upon a stool: my impulse was to rise from it like a\r
+spring; their two pair of hands arrested me instantly.\r
+\r
+"If you don't sit still, you must be tied down," said Bessie. "Miss\r
+Abbot, lend me your garters; she would break mine directly."\r
+\r
+Miss Abbot turned to divest a stout leg of the necessary ligature. This\r
+preparation for bonds, and the additional ignominy it inferred, took a\r
+little of the excitement out of me.\r
+\r
+"Don't take them off," I cried; "I will not stir."\r
+\r
+In guarantee whereof, I attached myself to my seat by my hands.\r
+\r
+"Mind you don't," said Bessie; and when she had ascertained that I was\r
+really subsiding, she loosened her hold of me; then she and Miss Abbot\r
+stood with folded arms, looking darkly and doubtfully on my face, as\r
+incredulous of my sanity.\r
+\r
+"She never did so before," at last said Bessie, turning to the Abigail.\r
+\r
+"But it was always in her," was the reply. "I've told Missis often my\r
+opinion about the child, and Missis agreed with me. She's an underhand\r
+little thing: I never saw a girl of her age with so much cover."\r
+\r
+Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said--"You ought to\r
+be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps\r
+you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poorhouse."\r
+\r
+I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very\r
+first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This\r
+reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear: very\r
+painful and crushing, but only half intelligible. Miss Abbot joined in--\r
+\r
+"And you ought not to think yourself on an equality with the Misses Reed\r
+and Master Reed, because Missis kindly allows you to be brought up with\r
+them. They will have a great deal of money, and you will have none: it\r
+is your place to be humble, and to try to make yourself agreeable to\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"What we tell you is for your good," added Bessie, in no harsh voice,\r
+"you should try to be useful and pleasant, then, perhaps, you would have\r
+a home here; but if you become passionate and rude, Missis will send you\r
+away, I am sure."\r
+\r
+"Besides," said Miss Abbot, "God will punish her: He might strike her\r
+dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come,\r
+Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn't have her heart for anything. Say\r
+your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don't\r
+repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and\r
+fetch you away."\r
+\r
+They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.\r
+\r
+The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say\r
+never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall\r
+rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it\r
+contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the\r
+mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with\r
+curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre;\r
+the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half\r
+shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red;\r
+the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the\r
+walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe,\r
+the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out\r
+of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-\r
+up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles\r
+counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair\r
+near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and\r
+looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.\r
+\r
+This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because\r
+remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be\r
+so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe\r
+from the mirrors and the furniture a week's quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed\r
+herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain\r
+secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her\r
+jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last\r
+words lies the secret of the red-room--the spell which kept it so lonely\r
+in spite of its grandeur.\r
+\r
+Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his\r
+last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the\r
+undertaker's men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had\r
+guarded it from frequent intrusion.\r
+\r
+My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted,\r
+was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me;\r
+to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken\r
+reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled\r
+windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty\r
+of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the\r
+door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no\r
+jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-\r
+glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed.\r
+All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality:\r
+and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and\r
+arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all\r
+else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of\r
+the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie's evening stories\r
+represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing\r
+before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.\r
+\r
+Superstition was with me at that moment; but it was not yet her hour for\r
+complete victory: my blood was still warm; the mood of the revolted slave\r
+was still bracing me with its bitter vigour; I had to stem a rapid rush\r
+of retrospective thought before I quailed to the dismal present.\r
+\r
+All John Reed's violent tyrannies, all his sisters' proud indifference,\r
+all his mother's aversion, all the servants' partiality, turned up in my\r
+disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well. Why was I always\r
+suffering, always browbeaten, always accused, for ever condemned? Why\r
+could I never please? Why was it useless to try to win any one's favour?\r
+Eliza, who was headstrong and selfish, was respected. Georgiana, who had\r
+a spoiled temper, a very acrid spite, a captious and insolent carriage,\r
+was universally indulged. Her beauty, her pink cheeks and golden curls,\r
+seemed to give delight to all who looked at her, and to purchase\r
+indemnity for every fault. John no one thwarted, much less punished;\r
+though he twisted the necks of the pigeons, killed the little pea-chicks,\r
+set the dogs at the sheep, stripped the hothouse vines of their fruit,\r
+and broke the buds off the choicest plants in the conservatory: he called\r
+his mother "old girl," too; sometimes reviled her for her dark skin,\r
+similar to his own; bluntly disregarded her wishes; not unfrequently tore\r
+and spoiled her silk attire; and he was still "her own darling." I dared\r
+commit no fault: I strove to fulfil every duty; and I was termed naughty\r
+and tiresome, sullen and sneaking, from morning to noon, and from noon to\r
+night.\r
+\r
+My head still ached and bled with the blow and fall I had received: no\r
+one had reproved John for wantonly striking me; and because I had turned\r
+against him to avert farther irrational violence, I was loaded with\r
+general opprobrium.\r
+\r
+"Unjust!--unjust!" said my reason, forced by the agonising stimulus into\r
+precocious though transitory power: and Resolve, equally wrought up,\r
+instigated some strange expedient to achieve escape from insupportable\r
+oppression--as running away, or, if that could not be effected, never\r
+eating or drinking more, and letting myself die.\r
+\r
+What a consternation of soul was mine that dreary afternoon! How all my\r
+brain was in tumult, and all my heart in insurrection! Yet in what\r
+darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could\r
+not answer the ceaseless inward question--_why_ I thus suffered; now, at\r
+the distance of--I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.\r
+\r
+I was a discord in Gateshead Hall: I was like nobody there; I had nothing\r
+in harmony with Mrs. Reed or her children, or her chosen vassalage. If\r
+they did not love me, in fact, as little did I love them. They were not\r
+bound to regard with affection a thing that could not sympathise with one\r
+amongst them; a heterogeneous thing, opposed to them in temperament, in\r
+capacity, in propensities; a useless thing, incapable of serving their\r
+interest, or adding to their pleasure; a noxious thing, cherishing the\r
+germs of indignation at their treatment, of contempt of their judgment. I\r
+know that had I been a sanguine, brilliant, careless, exacting, handsome,\r
+romping child--though equally dependent and friendless--Mrs. Reed would\r
+have endured my presence more complacently; her children would have\r
+entertained for me more of the cordiality of fellow-feeling; the servants\r
+would have been less prone to make me the scapegoat of the nursery.\r
+\r
+Daylight began to forsake the red-room; it was past four o'clock, and the\r
+beclouded afternoon was tending to drear twilight. I heard the rain\r
+still beating continuously on the staircase window, and the wind howling\r
+in the grove behind the hall; I grew by degrees cold as a stone, and then\r
+my courage sank. My habitual mood of humiliation, self-doubt, forlorn\r
+depression, fell damp on the embers of my decaying ire. All said I was\r
+wicked, and perhaps I might be so; what thought had I been but just\r
+conceiving of starving myself to death? That certainly was a crime: and\r
+was I fit to die? Or was the vault under the chancel of Gateshead Church\r
+an inviting bourne? In such vault I had been told did Mr. Reed lie\r
+buried; and led by this thought to recall his idea, I dwelt on it with\r
+gathering dread. I could not remember him; but I knew that he was my own\r
+uncle--my mother's brother--that he had taken me when a parentless infant\r
+to his house; and that in his last moments he had required a promise of\r
+Mrs. Reed that she would rear and maintain me as one of her own children.\r
+Mrs. Reed probably considered she had kept this promise; and so she had,\r
+I dare say, as well as her nature would permit her; but how could she\r
+really like an interloper not of her race, and unconnected with her,\r
+after her husband's death, by any tie? It must have been most irksome to\r
+find herself bound by a hard-wrung pledge to stand in the stead of a\r
+parent to a strange child she could not love, and to see an uncongenial\r
+alien permanently intruded on her own family group.\r
+\r
+A singular notion dawned upon me. I doubted not--never doubted--that if\r
+Mr. Reed had been alive he would have treated me kindly; and now, as I\r
+sat looking at the white bed and overshadowed walls--occasionally also\r
+turning a fascinated eye towards the dimly gleaning mirror--I began to\r
+recall what I had heard of dead men, troubled in their graves by the\r
+violation of their last wishes, revisiting the earth to punish the\r
+perjured and avenge the oppressed; and I thought Mr. Reed's spirit,\r
+harassed by the wrongs of his sister's child, might quit its\r
+abode--whether in the church vault or in the unknown world of the\r
+departed--and rise before me in this chamber. I wiped my tears and\r
+hushed my sobs, fearful lest any sign of violent grief might waken a\r
+preternatural voice to comfort me, or elicit from the gloom some haloed\r
+face, bending over me with strange pity. This idea, consolatory in\r
+theory, I felt would be terrible if realised: with all my might I\r
+endeavoured to stifle it--I endeavoured to be firm. Shaking my hair from\r
+my eyes, I lifted my head and tried to look boldly round the dark room;\r
+at this moment a light gleamed on the wall. Was it, I asked myself, a\r
+ray from the moon penetrating some aperture in the blind? No; moonlight\r
+was still, and this stirred; while I gazed, it glided up to the ceiling\r
+and quivered over my head. I can now conjecture readily that this streak\r
+of light was, in all likelihood, a gleam from a lantern carried by some\r
+one across the lawn: but then, prepared as my mind was for horror, shaken\r
+as my nerves were by agitation, I thought the swift darting beam was a\r
+herald of some coming vision from another world. My heart beat thick, my\r
+head grew hot; a sound filled my ears, which I deemed the rushing of\r
+wings; something seemed near me; I was oppressed, suffocated: endurance\r
+broke down; I rushed to the door and shook the lock in desperate effort.\r
+Steps came running along the outer passage; the key turned, Bessie and\r
+Abbot entered.\r
+\r
+"Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said Bessie.\r
+\r
+"What a dreadful noise! it went quite through me!" exclaimed Abbot.\r
+\r
+"Take me out! Let me go into the nursery!" was my cry.\r
+\r
+"What for? Are you hurt? Have you seen something?" again demanded\r
+Bessie.\r
+\r
+"Oh! I saw a light, and I thought a ghost would come." I had now got\r
+hold of Bessie's hand, and she did not snatch it from me.\r
+\r
+"She has screamed out on purpose," declared Abbot, in some disgust. "And\r
+what a scream! If she had been in great pain one would have excused it,\r
+but she only wanted to bring us all here: I know her naughty tricks."\r
+\r
+"What is all this?" demanded another voice peremptorily; and Mrs. Reed\r
+came along the corridor, her cap flying wide, her gown rustling stormily.\r
+"Abbot and Bessie, I believe I gave orders that Jane Eyre should be left\r
+in the red-room till I came to her myself."\r
+\r
+"Miss Jane screamed so loud, ma'am," pleaded Bessie.\r
+\r
+"Let her go," was the only answer. "Loose Bessie's hand, child: you\r
+cannot succeed in getting out by these means, be assured. I abhor\r
+artifice, particularly in children; it is my duty to show you that tricks\r
+will not answer: you will now stay here an hour longer, and it is only on\r
+condition of perfect submission and stillness that I shall liberate you\r
+then."\r
+\r
+"O aunt! have pity! Forgive me! I cannot endure it--let me be punished\r
+some other way! I shall be killed if--"\r
+\r
+"Silence! This violence is all most repulsive:" and so, no doubt, she\r
+felt it. I was a precocious actress in her eyes; she sincerely looked on\r
+me as a compound of virulent passions, mean spirit, and dangerous\r
+duplicity.\r
+\r
+Bessie and Abbot having retreated, Mrs. Reed, impatient of my now frantic\r
+anguish and wild sobs, abruptly thrust me back and locked me in, without\r
+farther parley. I heard her sweeping away; and soon after she was gone,\r
+I suppose I had a species of fit: unconsciousness closed the scene.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+\r
+The next thing I remember is, waking up with a feeling as if I had had a\r
+frightful nightmare, and seeing before me a terrible red glare, crossed\r
+with thick black bars. I heard voices, too, speaking with a hollow\r
+sound, and as if muffled by a rush of wind or water: agitation,\r
+uncertainty, and an all-predominating sense of terror confused my\r
+faculties. Ere long, I became aware that some one was handling me;\r
+lifting me up and supporting me in a sitting posture, and that more\r
+tenderly than I had ever been raised or upheld before. I rested my head\r
+against a pillow or an arm, and felt easy.\r
+\r
+In five minutes more the cloud of bewilderment dissolved: I knew quite\r
+well that I was in my own bed, and that the red glare was the nursery\r
+fire. It was night: a candle burnt on the table; Bessie stood at the bed-\r
+foot with a basin in her hand, and a gentleman sat in a chair near my\r
+pillow, leaning over me.\r
+\r
+I felt an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and\r
+security, when I knew that there was a stranger in the room, an\r
+individual not belonging to Gateshead, and not related to Mrs. Reed.\r
+Turning from Bessie (though her presence was far less obnoxious to me\r
+than that of Abbot, for instance, would have been), I scrutinised the\r
+face of the gentleman: I knew him; it was Mr. Lloyd, an apothecary,\r
+sometimes called in by Mrs. Reed when the servants were ailing: for\r
+herself and the children she employed a physician.\r
+\r
+"Well, who am I?" he asked.\r
+\r
+I pronounced his name, offering him at the same time my hand: he took it,\r
+smiling and saying, "We shall do very well by-and-by." Then he laid me\r
+down, and addressing Bessie, charged her to be very careful that I was\r
+not disturbed during the night. Having given some further directions,\r
+and intimates that he should call again the next day, he departed; to my\r
+grief: I felt so sheltered and befriended while he sat in the chair near\r
+my pillow; and as he closed the door after him, all the room darkened and\r
+my heart again sank: inexpressible sadness weighed it down.\r
+\r
+"Do you feel as if you should sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie, rather softly.\r
+\r
+Scarcely dared I answer her; for I feared the next sentence might be\r
+rough. "I will try."\r
+\r
+"Would you like to drink, or could you eat anything?"\r
+\r
+"No, thank you, Bessie."\r
+\r
+"Then I think I shall go to bed, for it is past twelve o'clock; but you\r
+may call me if you want anything in the night."\r
+\r
+Wonderful civility this! It emboldened me to ask a question.\r
+\r
+"Bessie, what is the matter with me? Am I ill?"\r
+\r
+"You fell sick, I suppose, in the red-room with crying; you'll be better\r
+soon, no doubt."\r
+\r
+Bessie went into the housemaid's apartment, which was near. I heard her\r
+say--\r
+\r
+"Sarah, come and sleep with me in the nursery; I daren't for my life be\r
+alone with that poor child to-night: she might die; it's such a strange\r
+thing she should have that fit: I wonder if she saw anything. Missis was\r
+rather too hard."\r
+\r
+Sarah came back with her; they both went to bed; they were whispering\r
+together for half-an-hour before they fell asleep. I caught scraps of\r
+their conversation, from which I was able only too distinctly to infer\r
+the main subject discussed.\r
+\r
+"Something passed her, all dressed in white, and vanished"--"A great\r
+black dog behind him"--"Three loud raps on the chamber door"--"A light in\r
+the churchyard just over his grave," etc., etc.\r
+\r
+At last both slept: the fire and the candle went out. For me, the\r
+watches of that long night passed in ghastly wakefulness; strained by\r
+dread: such dread as children only can feel.\r
+\r
+No severe or prolonged bodily illness followed this incident of the red-\r
+room; it only gave my nerves a shock of which I feel the reverberation to\r
+this day. Yes, Mrs. Reed, to you I owe some fearful pangs of mental\r
+suffering, but I ought to forgive you, for you knew not what you did:\r
+while rending my heart-strings, you thought you were only uprooting my\r
+bad propensities.\r
+\r
+Next day, by noon, I was up and dressed, and sat wrapped in a shawl by\r
+the nursery hearth. I felt physically weak and broken down: but my worse\r
+ailment was an unutterable wretchedness of mind: a wretchedness which\r
+kept drawing from me silent tears; no sooner had I wiped one salt drop\r
+from my cheek than another followed. Yet, I thought, I ought to have\r
+been happy, for none of the Reeds were there, they were all gone out in\r
+the carriage with their mama. Abbot, too, was sewing in another room,\r
+and Bessie, as she moved hither and thither, putting away toys and\r
+arranging drawers, addressed to me every now and then a word of unwonted\r
+kindness. This state of things should have been to me a paradise of\r
+peace, accustomed as I was to a life of ceaseless reprimand and thankless\r
+fagging; but, in fact, my racked nerves were now in such a state that no\r
+calm could soothe, and no pleasure excite them agreeably.\r
+\r
+Bessie had been down into the kitchen, and she brought up with her a tart\r
+on a certain brightly painted china plate, whose bird of paradise,\r
+nestling in a wreath of convolvuli and rosebuds, had been wont to stir in\r
+me a most enthusiastic sense of admiration; and which plate I had often\r
+petitioned to be allowed to take in my hand in order to examine it more\r
+closely, but had always hitherto been deemed unworthy of such a\r
+privilege. This precious vessel was now placed on my knee, and I was\r
+cordially invited to eat the circlet of delicate pastry upon it. Vain\r
+favour! coming, like most other favours long deferred and often wished\r
+for, too late! I could not eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird,\r
+the tints of the flowers, seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and\r
+tart away. Bessie asked if I would have a book: the word _book_ acted as\r
+a transient stimulus, and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from\r
+the library. This book I had again and again perused with delight. I\r
+considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of\r
+interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves,\r
+having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under\r
+mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at\r
+length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of\r
+England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker,\r
+and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in\r
+my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might\r
+one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields,\r
+houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds\r
+of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs,\r
+the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other. Yet, when\r
+this cherished volume was now placed in my hand--when I turned over its\r
+leaves, and sought in its marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now,\r
+never failed to find--all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt\r
+goblins, the pigmies malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most\r
+desolate wanderer in most dread and dangerous regions. I closed the\r
+book, which I dared no longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the\r
+untasted tart.\r
+\r
+Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having washed\r
+her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid shreds of\r
+silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for Georgiana's doll.\r
+Meantime she sang: her song was--\r
+\r
+ "In the days when we went gipsying,\r
+ A long time ago."\r
+\r
+I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight; for\r
+Bessie had a sweet voice,--at least, I thought so. But now, though her\r
+voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an indescribable sadness.\r
+Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she sang the refrain very low, very\r
+lingeringly; "A long time ago" came out like the saddest cadence of a\r
+funeral hymn. She passed into another ballad, this time a really doleful\r
+one.\r
+\r
+ "My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;\r
+ Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;\r
+ Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary\r
+ Over the path of the poor orphan child.\r
+\r
+ Why did they send me so far and so lonely,\r
+ Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?\r
+ Men are hard-hearted, and kind angels only\r
+ Watch o'er the steps of a poor orphan child.\r
+\r
+ Yet distant and soft the night breeze is blowing,\r
+ Clouds there are none, and clear stars beam mild,\r
+ God, in His mercy, protection is showing,\r
+ Comfort and hope to the poor orphan child.\r
+\r
+ Ev'n should I fall o'er the broken bridge passing,\r
+ Or stray in the marshes, by false lights beguiled,\r
+ Still will my Father, with promise and blessing,\r
+ Take to His bosom the poor orphan child.\r
+\r
+ There is a thought that for strength should avail me,\r
+ Though both of shelter and kindred despoiled;\r
+ Heaven is a home, and a rest will not fail me;\r
+ God is a friend to the poor orphan child."\r
+\r
+"Come, Miss Jane, don't cry," said Bessie as she finished. She might as\r
+well have said to the fire, "don't burn!" but how could she divine the\r
+morbid suffering to which I was a prey? In the course of the morning Mr.\r
+Lloyd came again.\r
+\r
+"What, already up!" said he, as he entered the nursery. "Well, nurse,\r
+how is she?"\r
+\r
+Bessie answered that I was doing very well.\r
+\r
+"Then she ought to look more cheerful. Come here, Miss Jane: your name\r
+is Jane, is it not?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, Jane Eyre."\r
+\r
+"Well, you have been crying, Miss Jane Eyre; can you tell me what about?\r
+Have you any pain?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I daresay she is crying because she could not go out with Missis in\r
+the carriage," interposed Bessie.\r
+\r
+"Surely not! why, she is too old for such pettishness."\r
+\r
+I thought so too; and my self-esteem being wounded by the false charge, I\r
+answered promptly, "I never cried for such a thing in my life: I hate\r
+going out in the carriage. I cry because I am miserable."\r
+\r
+"Oh fie, Miss!" said Bessie.\r
+\r
+The good apothecary appeared a little puzzled. I was standing before\r
+him; he fixed his eyes on me very steadily: his eyes were small and grey;\r
+not very bright, but I dare say I should think them shrewd now: he had a\r
+hard-featured yet good-natured looking face. Having considered me at\r
+leisure, he said--\r
+\r
+"What made you ill yesterday?"\r
+\r
+"She had a fall," said Bessie, again putting in her word.\r
+\r
+"Fall! why, that is like a baby again! Can't she manage to walk at her\r
+age? She must be eight or nine years old."\r
+\r
+"I was knocked down," was the blunt explanation, jerked out of me by\r
+another pang of mortified pride; "but that did not make me ill," I added;\r
+while Mr. Lloyd helped himself to a pinch of snuff.\r
+\r
+As he was returning the box to his waistcoat pocket, a loud bell rang for\r
+the servants' dinner; he knew what it was. "That's for you, nurse," said\r
+he; "you can go down; I'll give Miss Jane a lecture till you come back."\r
+\r
+Bessie would rather have stayed, but she was obliged to go, because\r
+punctuality at meals was rigidly enforced at Gateshead Hall.\r
+\r
+"The fall did not make you ill; what did, then?" pursued Mr. Lloyd when\r
+Bessie was gone.\r
+\r
+"I was shut up in a room where there is a ghost till after dark."\r
+\r
+I saw Mr. Lloyd smile and frown at the same time.\r
+\r
+"Ghost! What, you are a baby after all! You are afraid of ghosts?"\r
+\r
+"Of Mr. Reed's ghost I am: he died in that room, and was laid out there.\r
+Neither Bessie nor any one else will go into it at night, if they can\r
+help it; and it was cruel to shut me up alone without a candle,--so cruel\r
+that I think I shall never forget it."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! And is it that makes you so miserable? Are you afraid now in\r
+daylight?"\r
+\r
+"No: but night will come again before long: and besides,--I am\r
+unhappy,--very unhappy, for other things."\r
+\r
+"What other things? Can you tell me some of them?"\r
+\r
+How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was\r
+to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their\r
+feelings; and if the analysis is partially effected in thought, they know\r
+not how to express the result of the process in words. Fearful, however,\r
+of losing this first and only opportunity of relieving my grief by\r
+imparting it, I, after a disturbed pause, contrived to frame a meagre,\r
+though, as far as it went, true response.\r
+\r
+"For one thing, I have no father or mother, brothers or sisters."\r
+\r
+"You have a kind aunt and cousins."\r
+\r
+Again I paused; then bunglingly enounced--\r
+\r
+"But John Reed knocked me down, and my aunt shut me up in the red-room."\r
+\r
+Mr. Lloyd a second time produced his snuff-box.\r
+\r
+"Don't you think Gateshead Hall a very beautiful house?" asked he. "Are\r
+you not very thankful to have such a fine place to live at?"\r
+\r
+"It is not my house, sir; and Abbot says I have less right to be here\r
+than a servant."\r
+\r
+"Pooh! you can't be silly enough to wish to leave such a splendid place?"\r
+\r
+"If I had anywhere else to go, I should be glad to leave it; but I can\r
+never get away from Gateshead till I am a woman."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you may--who knows? Have you any relations besides Mrs. Reed?"\r
+\r
+"I think not, sir."\r
+\r
+"None belonging to your father?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know. I asked Aunt Reed once, and she said possibly I might\r
+have some poor, low relations called Eyre, but she knew nothing about\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"If you had such, would you like to go to them?"\r
+\r
+I reflected. Poverty looks grim to grown people; still more so to\r
+children: they have not much idea of industrious, working, respectable\r
+poverty; they think of the word only as connected with ragged clothes,\r
+scanty food, fireless grates, rude manners, and debasing vices: poverty\r
+for me was synonymous with degradation.\r
+\r
+"No; I should not like to belong to poor people," was my reply.\r
+\r
+"Not even if they were kind to you?"\r
+\r
+I shook my head: I could not see how poor people had the means of being\r
+kind; and then to learn to speak like them, to adopt their manners, to be\r
+uneducated, to grow up like one of the poor women I saw sometimes nursing\r
+their children or washing their clothes at the cottage doors of the\r
+village of Gateshead: no, I was not heroic enough to purchase liberty at\r
+the price of caste.\r
+\r
+"But are your relatives so very poor? Are they working people?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot tell; Aunt Reed says if I have any, they must be a beggarly\r
+set: I should not like to go a begging."\r
+\r
+"Would you like to go to school?"\r
+\r
+Again I reflected: I scarcely knew what school was: Bessie sometimes\r
+spoke of it as a place where young ladies sat in the stocks, wore\r
+backboards, and were expected to be exceedingly genteel and precise: John\r
+Reed hated his school, and abused his master; but John Reed's tastes were\r
+no rule for mine, and if Bessie's accounts of school-discipline (gathered\r
+from the young ladies of a family where she had lived before coming to\r
+Gateshead) were somewhat appalling, her details of certain\r
+accomplishments attained by these same young ladies were, I thought,\r
+equally attractive. She boasted of beautiful paintings of landscapes and\r
+flowers by them executed; of songs they could sing and pieces they could\r
+play, of purses they could net, of French books they could translate;\r
+till my spirit was moved to emulation as I listened. Besides, school\r
+would be a complete change: it implied a long journey, an entire\r
+separation from Gateshead, an entrance into a new life.\r
+\r
+"I should indeed like to go to school," was the audible conclusion of my\r
+musings.\r
+\r
+"Well, well! who knows what may happen?" said Mr. Lloyd, as he got up.\r
+"The child ought to have change of air and scene," he added, speaking to\r
+himself; "nerves not in a good state."\r
+\r
+Bessie now returned; at the same moment the carriage was heard rolling up\r
+the gravel-walk.\r
+\r
+"Is that your mistress, nurse?" asked Mr. Lloyd. "I should like to speak\r
+to her before I go."\r
+\r
+Bessie invited him to walk into the breakfast-room, and led the way out.\r
+In the interview which followed between him and Mrs. Reed, I presume,\r
+from after-occurrences, that the apothecary ventured to recommend my\r
+being sent to school; and the recommendation was no doubt readily enough\r
+adopted; for as Abbot said, in discussing the subject with Bessie when\r
+both sat sewing in the nursery one night, after I was in bed, and, as\r
+they thought, asleep, "Missis was, she dared say, glad enough to get rid\r
+of such a tiresome, ill-conditioned child, who always looked as if she\r
+were watching everybody, and scheming plots underhand." Abbot, I think,\r
+gave me credit for being a sort of infantine Guy Fawkes.\r
+\r
+On that same occasion I learned, for the first time, from Miss Abbot's\r
+communications to Bessie, that my father had been a poor clergyman; that\r
+my mother had married him against the wishes of her friends, who\r
+considered the match beneath her; that my grandfather Reed was so\r
+irritated at her disobedience, he cut her off without a shilling; that\r
+after my mother and father had been married a year, the latter caught the\r
+typhus fever while visiting among the poor of a large manufacturing town\r
+where his curacy was situated, and where that disease was then prevalent:\r
+that my mother took the infection from him, and both died within a month\r
+of each other.\r
+\r
+Bessie, when she heard this narrative, sighed and said, "Poor Miss Jane\r
+is to be pitied, too, Abbot."\r
+\r
+"Yes," responded Abbot; "if she were a nice, pretty child, one might\r
+compassionate her forlornness; but one really cannot care for such a\r
+little toad as that."\r
+\r
+"Not a great deal, to be sure," agreed Bessie: "at any rate, a beauty\r
+like Miss Georgiana would be more moving in the same condition."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I doat on Miss Georgiana!" cried the fervent Abbot. "Little\r
+darling!--with her long curls and her blue eyes, and such a sweet colour\r
+as she has; just as if she were painted!--Bessie, I could fancy a Welsh\r
+rabbit for supper."\r
+\r
+"So could I--with a roast onion. Come, we'll go down." They went.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+\r
+From my discourse with Mr. Lloyd, and from the above reported conference\r
+between Bessie and Abbot, I gathered enough of hope to suffice as a\r
+motive for wishing to get well: a change seemed near,--I desired and\r
+waited it in silence. It tarried, however: days and weeks passed: I had\r
+regained my normal state of health, but no new allusion was made to the\r
+subject over which I brooded. Mrs. Reed surveyed me at times with a\r
+severe eye, but seldom addressed me: since my illness, she had drawn a\r
+more marked line of separation than ever between me and her own children;\r
+appointing me a small closet to sleep in by myself, condemning me to take\r
+my meals alone, and pass all my time in the nursery, while my cousins\r
+were constantly in the drawing-room. Not a hint, however, did she drop\r
+about sending me to school: still I felt an instinctive certainty that\r
+she would not long endure me under the same roof with her; for her\r
+glance, now more than ever, when turned on me, expressed an insuperable\r
+and rooted aversion.\r
+\r
+Eliza and Georgiana, evidently acting according to orders, spoke to me as\r
+little as possible: John thrust his tongue in his cheek whenever he saw\r
+me, and once attempted chastisement; but as I instantly turned against\r
+him, roused by the same sentiment of deep ire and desperate revolt which\r
+had stirred my corruption before, he thought it better to desist, and ran\r
+from me tittering execrations, and vowing I had burst his nose. I had\r
+indeed levelled at that prominent feature as hard a blow as my knuckles\r
+could inflict; and when I saw that either that or my look daunted him, I\r
+had the greatest inclination to follow up my advantage to purpose; but he\r
+was already with his mama. I heard him in a blubbering tone commence the\r
+tale of how "that nasty Jane Eyre" had flown at him like a mad cat: he\r
+was stopped rather harshly--\r
+\r
+"Don't talk to me about her, John: I told you not to go near her; she is\r
+not worthy of notice; I do not choose that either you or your sisters\r
+should associate with her."\r
+\r
+Here, leaning over the banister, I cried out suddenly, and without at all\r
+deliberating on my words--\r
+\r
+"They are not fit to associate with me."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed was rather a stout woman; but, on hearing this strange and\r
+audacious declaration, she ran nimbly up the stair, swept me like a\r
+whirlwind into the nursery, and crushing me down on the edge of my crib,\r
+dared me in an emphatic voice to rise from that place, or utter one\r
+syllable during the remainder of the day.\r
+\r
+"What would Uncle Reed say to you, if he were alive?" was my scarcely\r
+voluntary demand. I say scarcely voluntary, for it seemed as if my\r
+tongue pronounced words without my will consenting to their utterance:\r
+something spoke out of me over which I had no control.\r
+\r
+"What?" said Mrs. Reed under her breath: her usually cold composed grey\r
+eye became troubled with a look like fear; she took her hand from my arm,\r
+and gazed at me as if she really did not know whether I were child or\r
+fiend. I was now in for it.\r
+\r
+"My Uncle Reed is in heaven, and can see all you do and think; and so can\r
+papa and mama: they know how you shut me up all day long, and how you\r
+wish me dead."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed soon rallied her spirits: she shook me most soundly, she boxed\r
+both my ears, and then left me without a word. Bessie supplied the\r
+hiatus by a homily of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a\r
+doubt that I was the most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a\r
+roof. I half believed her; for I felt indeed only bad feelings surging\r
+in my breast.\r
+\r
+November, December, and half of January passed away. Christmas and the\r
+New Year had been celebrated at Gateshead with the usual festive cheer;\r
+presents had been interchanged, dinners and evening parties given. From\r
+every enjoyment I was, of course, excluded: my share of the gaiety\r
+consisted in witnessing the daily apparelling of Eliza and Georgiana, and\r
+seeing them descend to the drawing-room, dressed out in thin muslin\r
+frocks and scarlet sashes, with hair elaborately ringletted; and\r
+afterwards, in listening to the sound of the piano or the harp played\r
+below, to the passing to and fro of the butler and footman, to the\r
+jingling of glass and china as refreshments were handed, to the broken\r
+hum of conversation as the drawing-room door opened and closed. When\r
+tired of this occupation, I would retire from the stairhead to the\r
+solitary and silent nursery: there, though somewhat sad, I was not\r
+miserable. To speak truth, I had not the least wish to go into company,\r
+for in company I was very rarely noticed; and if Bessie had but been kind\r
+and companionable, I should have deemed it a treat to spend the evenings\r
+quietly with her, instead of passing them under the formidable eye of\r
+Mrs. Reed, in a room full of ladies and gentlemen. But Bessie, as soon\r
+as she had dressed her young ladies, used to take herself off to the\r
+lively regions of the kitchen and housekeeper's room, generally bearing\r
+the candle along with her. I then sat with my doll on my knee till the\r
+fire got low, glancing round occasionally to make sure that nothing worse\r
+than myself haunted the shadowy room; and when the embers sank to a dull\r
+red, I undressed hastily, tugging at knots and strings as I best might,\r
+and sought shelter from cold and darkness in my crib. To this crib I\r
+always took my doll; human beings must love something, and, in the dearth\r
+of worthier objects of affection, I contrived to find a pleasure in\r
+loving and cherishing a faded graven image, shabby as a miniature\r
+scarecrow. It puzzles me now to remember with what absurd sincerity I\r
+doated on this little toy, half fancying it alive and capable of\r
+sensation. I could not sleep unless it was folded in my night-gown; and\r
+when it lay there safe and warm, I was comparatively happy, believing it\r
+to be happy likewise.\r
+\r
+Long did the hours seem while I waited the departure of the company, and\r
+listened for the sound of Bessie's step on the stairs: sometimes she\r
+would come up in the interval to seek her thimble or her scissors, or\r
+perhaps to bring me something by way of supper--a bun or a\r
+cheese-cake--then she would sit on the bed while I ate it, and when I had\r
+finished, she would tuck the clothes round me, and twice she kissed me,\r
+and said, "Good night, Miss Jane." When thus gentle, Bessie seemed to me\r
+the best, prettiest, kindest being in the world; and I wished most\r
+intensely that she would always be so pleasant and amiable, and never\r
+push me about, or scold, or task me unreasonably, as she was too often\r
+wont to do. Bessie Lee must, I think, have been a girl of good natural\r
+capacity, for she was smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of\r
+narrative; so, at least, I judge from the impression made on me by her\r
+nursery tales. She was pretty too, if my recollections of her face and\r
+person are correct. I remember her as a slim young woman, with black\r
+hair, dark eyes, very nice features, and good, clear complexion; but she\r
+had a capricious and hasty temper, and indifferent ideas of principle or\r
+justice: still, such as she was, I preferred her to any one else at\r
+Gateshead Hall.\r
+\r
+It was the fifteenth of January, about nine o'clock in the morning:\r
+Bessie was gone down to breakfast; my cousins had not yet been summoned\r
+to their mama; Eliza was putting on her bonnet and warm garden-coat to go\r
+and feed her poultry, an occupation of which she was fond: and not less\r
+so of selling the eggs to the housekeeper and hoarding up the money she\r
+thus obtained. She had a turn for traffic, and a marked propensity for\r
+saving; shown not only in the vending of eggs and chickens, but also in\r
+driving hard bargains with the gardener about flower-roots, seeds, and\r
+slips of plants; that functionary having orders from Mrs. Reed to buy of\r
+his young lady all the products of her parterre she wished to sell: and\r
+Eliza would have sold the hair off her head if she could have made a\r
+handsome profit thereby. As to her money, she first secreted it in odd\r
+corners, wrapped in a rag or an old curl-paper; but some of these hoards\r
+having been discovered by the housemaid, Eliza, fearful of one day losing\r
+her valued treasure, consented to intrust it to her mother, at a usurious\r
+rate of interest--fifty or sixty per cent.; which interest she exacted\r
+every quarter, keeping her accounts in a little book with anxious\r
+accuracy.\r
+\r
+Georgiana sat on a high stool, dressing her hair at the glass, and\r
+interweaving her curls with artificial flowers and faded feathers, of\r
+which she had found a store in a drawer in the attic. I was making my\r
+bed, having received strict orders from Bessie to get it arranged before\r
+she returned (for Bessie now frequently employed me as a sort of under-\r
+nurserymaid, to tidy the room, dust the chairs, &c.). Having spread the\r
+quilt and folded my night-dress, I went to the window-seat to put in\r
+order some picture-books and doll's house furniture scattered there; an\r
+abrupt command from Georgiana to let her playthings alone (for the tiny\r
+chairs and mirrors, the fairy plates and cups, were her property) stopped\r
+my proceedings; and then, for lack of other occupation, I fell to\r
+breathing on the frost-flowers with which the window was fretted, and\r
+thus clearing a space in the glass through which I might look out on the\r
+grounds, where all was still and petrified under the influence of a hard\r
+frost.\r
+\r
+From this window were visible the porter's lodge and the carriage-road,\r
+and just as I had dissolved so much of the silver-white foliage veiling\r
+the panes as left room to look out, I saw the gates thrown open and a\r
+carriage roll through. I watched it ascending the drive with\r
+indifference; carriages often came to Gateshead, but none ever brought\r
+visitors in whom I was interested; it stopped in front of the house, the\r
+door-bell rang loudly, the new-comer was admitted. All this being\r
+nothing to me, my vacant attention soon found livelier attraction in the\r
+spectacle of a little hungry robin, which came and chirruped on the twigs\r
+of the leafless cherry-tree nailed against the wall near the casement.\r
+The remains of my breakfast of bread and milk stood on the table, and\r
+having crumbled a morsel of roll, I was tugging at the sash to put out\r
+the crumbs on the window-sill, when Bessie came running upstairs into the\r
+nursery.\r
+\r
+"Miss Jane, take off your pinafore; what are you doing there? Have you\r
+washed your hands and face this morning?" I gave another tug before I\r
+answered, for I wanted the bird to be secure of its bread: the sash\r
+yielded; I scattered the crumbs, some on the stone sill, some on the\r
+cherry-tree bough, then, closing the window, I replied--\r
+\r
+"No, Bessie; I have only just finished dusting."\r
+\r
+"Troublesome, careless child! and what are you doing now? You look quite\r
+red, as if you had been about some mischief: what were you opening the\r
+window for?"\r
+\r
+I was spared the trouble of answering, for Bessie seemed in too great a\r
+hurry to listen to explanations; she hauled me to the washstand,\r
+inflicted a merciless, but happily brief scrub on my face and hands with\r
+soap, water, and a coarse towel; disciplined my head with a bristly\r
+brush, denuded me of my pinafore, and then hurrying me to the top of the\r
+stairs, bid me go down directly, as I was wanted in the breakfast-room.\r
+\r
+I would have asked who wanted me: I would have demanded if Mrs. Reed was\r
+there; but Bessie was already gone, and had closed the nursery-door upon\r
+me. I slowly descended. For nearly three months, I had never been\r
+called to Mrs. Reed's presence; restricted so long to the nursery, the\r
+breakfast, dining, and drawing-rooms were become for me awful regions, on\r
+which it dismayed me to intrude.\r
+\r
+I now stood in the empty hall; before me was the breakfast-room door, and\r
+I stopped, intimidated and trembling. What a miserable little poltroon\r
+had fear, engendered of unjust punishment, made of me in those days! I\r
+feared to return to the nursery, and feared to go forward to the parlour;\r
+ten minutes I stood in agitated hesitation; the vehement ringing of the\r
+breakfast-room bell decided me; I _must_ enter.\r
+\r
+"Who could want me?" I asked inwardly, as with both hands I turned the\r
+stiff door-handle, which, for a second or two, resisted my efforts. "What\r
+should I see besides Aunt Reed in the apartment?--a man or a woman?" The\r
+handle turned, the door unclosed, and passing through and curtseying low,\r
+I looked up at--a black pillar!--such, at least, appeared to me, at first\r
+sight, the straight, narrow, sable-clad shape standing erect on the rug:\r
+the grim face at the top was like a carved mask, placed above the shaft\r
+by way of capital.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed occupied her usual seat by the fireside; she made a signal to\r
+me to approach; I did so, and she introduced me to the stony stranger\r
+with the words: "This is the little girl respecting whom I applied to\r
+you."\r
+\r
+_He_, for it was a man, turned his head slowly towards where I stood, and\r
+having examined me with the two inquisitive-looking grey eyes which\r
+twinkled under a pair of bushy brows, said solemnly, and in a bass voice,\r
+"Her size is small: what is her age?"\r
+\r
+"Ten years."\r
+\r
+"So much?" was the doubtful answer; and he prolonged his scrutiny for\r
+some minutes. Presently he addressed me--"Your name, little girl?"\r
+\r
+"Jane Eyre, sir."\r
+\r
+In uttering these words I looked up: he seemed to me a tall gentleman;\r
+but then I was very little; his features were large, and they and all the\r
+lines of his frame were equally harsh and prim.\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane Eyre, and are you a good child?"\r
+\r
+Impossible to reply to this in the affirmative: my little world held a\r
+contrary opinion: I was silent. Mrs. Reed answered for me by an\r
+expressive shake of the head, adding soon, "Perhaps the less said on that\r
+subject the better, Mr. Brocklehurst."\r
+\r
+"Sorry indeed to hear it! she and I must have some talk;" and bending\r
+from the perpendicular, he installed his person in the arm-chair opposite\r
+Mrs. Reed's. "Come here," he said.\r
+\r
+I stepped across the rug; he placed me square and straight before him.\r
+What a face he had, now that it was almost on a level with mine! what a\r
+great nose! and what a mouth! and what large prominent teeth!\r
+\r
+"No sight so sad as that of a naughty child," he began, "especially a\r
+naughty little girl. Do you know where the wicked go after death?"\r
+\r
+"They go to hell," was my ready and orthodox answer.\r
+\r
+"And what is hell? Can you tell me that?"\r
+\r
+"A pit full of fire."\r
+\r
+"And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there for\r
+ever?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"What must you do to avoid it?"\r
+\r
+I deliberated a moment; my answer, when it did come, was objectionable:\r
+"I must keep in good health, and not die."\r
+\r
+"How can you keep in good health? Children younger than you die daily. I\r
+buried a little child of five years old only a day or two since,--a good\r
+little child, whose soul is now in heaven. It is to be feared the same\r
+could not be said of you were you to be called hence."\r
+\r
+Not being in a condition to remove his doubt, I only cast my eyes down on\r
+the two large feet planted on the rug, and sighed, wishing myself far\r
+enough away.\r
+\r
+"I hope that sigh is from the heart, and that you repent of ever having\r
+been the occasion of discomfort to your excellent benefactress."\r
+\r
+"Benefactress! benefactress!" said I inwardly: "they all call Mrs. Reed\r
+my benefactress; if so, a benefactress is a disagreeable thing."\r
+\r
+"Do you say your prayers night and morning?" continued my interrogator.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Do you read your Bible?"\r
+\r
+"Sometimes."\r
+\r
+"With pleasure? Are you fond of it?"\r
+\r
+"I like Revelations, and the book of Daniel, and Genesis and Samuel, and\r
+a little bit of Exodus, and some parts of Kings and Chronicles, and Job\r
+and Jonah."\r
+\r
+"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"No? oh, shocking! I have a little boy, younger than you, who knows six\r
+Psalms by heart: and when you ask him which he would rather have, a\r
+gingerbread-nut to eat or a verse of a Psalm to learn, he says: 'Oh! the\r
+verse of a Psalm! angels sing Psalms;' says he, 'I wish to be a little\r
+angel here below;' he then gets two nuts in recompense for his infant\r
+piety."\r
+\r
+"Psalms are not interesting," I remarked.\r
+\r
+"That proves you have a wicked heart; and you must pray to God to change\r
+it: to give you a new and clean one: to take away your heart of stone and\r
+give you a heart of flesh."\r
+\r
+I was about to propound a question, touching the manner in which that\r
+operation of changing my heart was to be performed, when Mrs. Reed\r
+interposed, telling me to sit down; she then proceeded to carry on the\r
+conversation herself.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Brocklehurst, I believe I intimated in the letter which I wrote to\r
+you three weeks ago, that this little girl has not quite the character\r
+and disposition I could wish: should you admit her into Lowood school, I\r
+should be glad if the superintendent and teachers were requested to keep\r
+a strict eye on her, and, above all, to guard against her worst fault, a\r
+tendency to deceit. I mention this in your hearing, Jane, that you may\r
+not attempt to impose on Mr. Brocklehurst."\r
+\r
+Well might I dread, well might I dislike Mrs. Reed; for it was her nature\r
+to wound me cruelly; never was I happy in her presence; however carefully\r
+I obeyed, however strenuously I strove to please her, my efforts were\r
+still repulsed and repaid by such sentences as the above. Now, uttered\r
+before a stranger, the accusation cut me to the heart; I dimly perceived\r
+that she was already obliterating hope from the new phase of existence\r
+which she destined me to enter; I felt, though I could not have expressed\r
+the feeling, that she was sowing aversion and unkindness along my future\r
+path; I saw myself transformed under Mr. Brocklehurst's eye into an\r
+artful, noxious child, and what could I do to remedy the injury?\r
+\r
+"Nothing, indeed," thought I, as I struggled to repress a sob, and\r
+hastily wiped away some tears, the impotent evidences of my anguish.\r
+\r
+"Deceit is, indeed, a sad fault in a child," said Mr. Brocklehurst; "it\r
+is akin to falsehood, and all liars will have their portion in the lake\r
+burning with fire and brimstone; she shall, however, be watched, Mrs.\r
+Reed. I will speak to Miss Temple and the teachers."\r
+\r
+"I should wish her to be brought up in a manner suiting her prospects,"\r
+continued my benefactress; "to be made useful, to be kept humble: as for\r
+the vacations, she will, with your permission, spend them always at\r
+Lowood."\r
+\r
+"Your decisions are perfectly judicious, madam," returned Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst. "Humility is a Christian grace, and one peculiarly\r
+appropriate to the pupils of Lowood; I, therefore, direct that especial\r
+care shall be bestowed on its cultivation amongst them. I have studied\r
+how best to mortify in them the worldly sentiment of pride; and, only the\r
+other day, I had a pleasing proof of my success. My second daughter,\r
+Augusta, went with her mama to visit the school, and on her return she\r
+exclaimed: 'Oh, dear papa, how quiet and plain all the girls at Lowood\r
+look, with their hair combed behind their ears, and their long pinafores,\r
+and those little holland pockets outside their frocks--they are almost\r
+like poor people's children! and,' said she, 'they looked at my dress and\r
+mama's, as if they had never seen a silk gown before.'"\r
+\r
+"This is the state of things I quite approve," returned Mrs. Reed; "had I\r
+sought all England over, I could scarcely have found a system more\r
+exactly fitting a child like Jane Eyre. Consistency, my dear Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst; I advocate consistency in all things."\r
+\r
+"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties; and it has been\r
+observed in every arrangement connected with the establishment of Lowood:\r
+plain fare, simple attire, unsophisticated accommodations, hardy and\r
+active habits; such is the order of the day in the house and its\r
+inhabitants."\r
+\r
+"Quite right, sir. I may then depend upon this child being received as a\r
+pupil at Lowood, and there being trained in conformity to her position\r
+and prospects?"\r
+\r
+"Madam, you may: she shall be placed in that nursery of chosen plants,\r
+and I trust she will show herself grateful for the inestimable privilege\r
+of her election."\r
+\r
+"I will send her, then, as soon as possible, Mr. Brocklehurst; for, I\r
+assure you, I feel anxious to be relieved of a responsibility that was\r
+becoming too irksome."\r
+\r
+"No doubt, no doubt, madam; and now I wish you good morning. I shall\r
+return to Brocklehurst Hall in the course of a week or two: my good\r
+friend, the Archdeacon, will not permit me to leave him sooner. I shall\r
+send Miss Temple notice that she is to expect a new girl, so that there\r
+will be no difficulty about receiving her. Good-bye."\r
+\r
+"Good-bye, Mr. Brocklehurst; remember me to Mrs. and Miss Brocklehurst,\r
+and to Augusta and Theodore, and Master Broughton Brocklehurst."\r
+\r
+"I will, madam. Little girl, here is a book entitled the 'Child's\r
+Guide,' read it with prayer, especially that part containing 'An account\r
+of the awfully sudden death of Martha G---, a naughty child addicted to\r
+falsehood and deceit.'"\r
+\r
+With these words Mr. Brocklehurst put into my hand a thin pamphlet sewn\r
+in a cover, and having rung for his carriage, he departed.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed and I were left alone: some minutes passed in silence; she was\r
+sewing, I was watching her. Mrs. Reed might be at that time some six or\r
+seven and thirty; she was a woman of robust frame, square-shouldered and\r
+strong-limbed, not tall, and, though stout, not obese: she had a somewhat\r
+large face, the under jaw being much developed and very solid; her brow\r
+was low, her chin large and prominent, mouth and nose sufficiently\r
+regular; under her light eyebrows glimmered an eye devoid of ruth; her\r
+skin was dark and opaque, her hair nearly flaxen; her constitution was\r
+sound as a bell--illness never came near her; she was an exact, clever\r
+manager; her household and tenantry were thoroughly under her control;\r
+her children only at times defied her authority and laughed it to scorn;\r
+she dressed well, and had a presence and port calculated to set off\r
+handsome attire.\r
+\r
+Sitting on a low stool, a few yards from her arm-chair, I examined her\r
+figure; I perused her features. In my hand I held the tract containing\r
+the sudden death of the Liar, to which narrative my attention had been\r
+pointed as to an appropriate warning. What had just passed; what Mrs.\r
+Reed had said concerning me to Mr. Brocklehurst; the whole tenor of their\r
+conversation, was recent, raw, and stinging in my mind; I had felt every\r
+word as acutely as I had heard it plainly, and a passion of resentment\r
+fomented now within me.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed looked up from her work; her eye settled on mine, her fingers\r
+at the same time suspended their nimble movements.\r
+\r
+"Go out of the room; return to the nursery," was her mandate. My look or\r
+something else must have struck her as offensive, for she spoke with\r
+extreme though suppressed irritation. I got up, I went to the door; I\r
+came back again; I walked to the window, across the room, then close up\r
+to her.\r
+\r
+_Speak_ I must: I had been trodden on severely, and _must_ turn: but how?\r
+What strength had I to dart retaliation at my antagonist? I gathered my\r
+energies and launched them in this blunt sentence--\r
+\r
+"I am not deceitful: if I were, I should say I loved you; but I declare I\r
+do not love you: I dislike you the worst of anybody in the world except\r
+John Reed; and this book about the liar, you may give to your girl,\r
+Georgiana, for it is she who tells lies, and not I."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Reed's hands still lay on her work inactive: her eye of ice\r
+continued to dwell freezingly on mine.\r
+\r
+"What more have you to say?" she asked, rather in the tone in which a\r
+person might address an opponent of adult age than such as is ordinarily\r
+used to a child.\r
+\r
+That eye of hers, that voice stirred every antipathy I had. Shaking from\r
+head to foot, thrilled with ungovernable excitement, I continued--\r
+\r
+"I am glad you are no relation of mine: I will never call you aunt again\r
+as long as I live. I will never come to see you when I am grown up; and\r
+if any one asks me how I liked you, and how you treated me, I will say\r
+the very thought of you makes me sick, and that you treated me with\r
+miserable cruelty."\r
+\r
+"How dare you affirm that, Jane Eyre?"\r
+\r
+"How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the _truth_. You\r
+think I have no feelings, and that I can do without one bit of love or\r
+kindness; but I cannot live so: and you have no pity. I shall remember\r
+how you thrust me back--roughly and violently thrust me back--into the\r
+red-room, and locked me up there, to my dying day; though I was in agony;\r
+though I cried out, while suffocating with distress, 'Have mercy! Have\r
+mercy, Aunt Reed!' And that punishment you made me suffer because your\r
+wicked boy struck me--knocked me down for nothing. I will tell anybody\r
+who asks me questions, this exact tale. People think you a good woman,\r
+but you are bad, hard-hearted. _You_ are deceitful!"\r
+\r
+{How dare I, Mrs. Reed? How dare I? Because it is the truth: p30.jpg}\r
+\r
+Ere I had finished this reply, my soul began to expand, to exult, with\r
+the strangest sense of freedom, of triumph, I ever felt. It seemed as if\r
+an invisible bond had burst, and that I had struggled out into unhoped-\r
+for liberty. Not without cause was this sentiment: Mrs. Reed looked\r
+frightened; her work had slipped from her knee; she was lifting up her\r
+hands, rocking herself to and fro, and even twisting her face as if she\r
+would cry.\r
+\r
+"Jane, you are under a mistake: what is the matter with you? Why do you\r
+tremble so violently? Would you like to drink some water?"\r
+\r
+"No, Mrs. Reed."\r
+\r
+"Is there anything else you wish for, Jane? I assure you, I desire to be\r
+your friend."\r
+\r
+"Not you. You told Mr. Brocklehurst I had a bad character, a deceitful\r
+disposition; and I'll let everybody at Lowood know what you are, and what\r
+you have done."\r
+\r
+"Jane, you don't understand these things: children must be corrected for\r
+their faults."\r
+\r
+"Deceit is not my fault!" I cried out in a savage, high voice.\r
+\r
+"But you are passionate, Jane, that you must allow: and now return to the\r
+nursery--there's a dear--and lie down a little."\r
+\r
+"I am not your dear; I cannot lie down: send me to school soon, Mrs.\r
+Reed, for I hate to live here."\r
+\r
+"I will indeed send her to school soon," murmured Mrs. Reed _sotto voce_;\r
+and gathering up her work, she abruptly quitted the apartment.\r
+\r
+I was left there alone--winner of the field. It was the hardest battle I\r
+had fought, and the first victory I had gained: I stood awhile on the\r
+rug, where Mr. Brocklehurst had stood, and I enjoyed my conqueror's\r
+solitude. First, I smiled to myself and felt elate; but this fierce\r
+pleasure subsided in me as fast as did the accelerated throb of my\r
+pulses. A child cannot quarrel with its elders, as I had done; cannot\r
+give its furious feelings uncontrolled play, as I had given mine, without\r
+experiencing afterwards the pang of remorse and the chill of reaction. A\r
+ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a\r
+meet emblem of my mind when I accused and menaced Mrs. Reed: the same\r
+ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have\r
+represented as meetly my subsequent condition, when half-an-hour's\r
+silence and reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the\r
+dreariness of my hated and hating position.\r
+\r
+Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine\r
+it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and\r
+corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned. Willingly\r
+would I now have gone and asked Mrs. Reed's pardon; but I knew, partly\r
+from experience and partly from instinct, that was the way to make her\r
+repulse me with double scorn, thereby re-exciting every turbulent impulse\r
+of my nature.\r
+\r
+I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking;\r
+fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre\r
+indignation. I took a book--some Arabian tales; I sat down and\r
+endeavoured to read. I could make no sense of the subject; my own\r
+thoughts swam always between me and the page I had usually found\r
+fascinating. I opened the glass-door in the breakfast-room: the\r
+shrubbery was quite still: the black frost reigned, unbroken by sun or\r
+breeze, through the grounds. I covered my head and arms with the skirt\r
+of my frock, and went out to walk in a part of the plantation which was\r
+quite sequestrated; but I found no pleasure in the silent trees, the\r
+falling fir-cones, the congealed relics of autumn, russet leaves, swept\r
+by past winds in heaps, and now stiffened together. I leaned against a\r
+gate, and looked into an empty field where no sheep were feeding, where\r
+the short grass was nipped and blanched. It was a very grey day; a most\r
+opaque sky, "onding on snaw," canopied all; thence flakes felt it\r
+intervals, which settled on the hard path and on the hoary lea without\r
+melting. I stood, a wretched child enough, whispering to myself over and\r
+over again, "What shall I do?--what shall I do?"\r
+\r
+All at once I heard a clear voice call, "Miss Jane! where are you? Come\r
+to lunch!"\r
+\r
+It was Bessie, I knew well enough; but I did not stir; her light step\r
+came tripping down the path.\r
+\r
+"You naughty little thing!" she said. "Why don't you come when you are\r
+called?"\r
+\r
+Bessie's presence, compared with the thoughts over which I had been\r
+brooding, seemed cheerful; even though, as usual, she was somewhat cross.\r
+The fact is, after my conflict with and victory over Mrs. Reed, I was not\r
+disposed to care much for the nursemaid's transitory anger; and I _was_\r
+disposed to bask in her youthful lightness of heart. I just put my two\r
+arms round her and said, "Come, Bessie! don't scold."\r
+\r
+The action was more frank and fearless than any I was habituated to\r
+indulge in: somehow it pleased her.\r
+\r
+"You are a strange child, Miss Jane," she said, as she looked down at me;\r
+"a little roving, solitary thing: and you are going to school, I\r
+suppose?"\r
+\r
+I nodded.\r
+\r
+"And won't you be sorry to leave poor Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"What does Bessie care for me? She is always scolding me."\r
+\r
+"Because you're such a queer, frightened, shy little thing. You should\r
+be bolder."\r
+\r
+"What! to get more knocks?"\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! But you are rather put upon, that's certain. My mother said,\r
+when she came to see me last week, that she would not like a little one\r
+of her own to be in your place.--Now, come in, and I've some good news\r
+for you."\r
+\r
+"I don't think you have, Bessie."\r
+\r
+"Child! what do you mean? What sorrowful eyes you fix on me! Well, but\r
+Missis and the young ladies and Master John are going out to tea this\r
+afternoon, and you shall have tea with me. I'll ask cook to bake you a\r
+little cake, and then you shall help me to look over your drawers; for I\r
+am soon to pack your trunk. Missis intends you to leave Gateshead in a\r
+day or two, and you shall choose what toys you like to take with you."\r
+\r
+"Bessie, you must promise not to scold me any more till I go."\r
+\r
+"Well, I will; but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be afraid of\r
+me. Don't start when I chance to speak rather sharply; it's so\r
+provoking."\r
+\r
+"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie, because I\r
+have got used to you, and I shall soon have another set of people to\r
+dread."\r
+\r
+"If you dread them they'll dislike you."\r
+\r
+"As you do, Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"I don't dislike you, Miss; I believe I am fonder of you than of all the\r
+others."\r
+\r
+"You don't show it."\r
+\r
+"You little sharp thing! you've got quite a new way of talking. What\r
+makes you so venturesome and hardy?"\r
+\r
+"Why, I shall soon be away from you, and besides"--I was going to say\r
+something about what had passed between me and Mrs. Reed, but on second\r
+thoughts I considered it better to remain silent on that head.\r
+\r
+"And so you're glad to leave me?"\r
+\r
+"Not at all, Bessie; indeed, just now I'm rather sorry."\r
+\r
+"Just now! and rather! How coolly my little lady says it! I dare say\r
+now if I were to ask you for a kiss you wouldn't give it me: you'd say\r
+you'd _rather_ not."\r
+\r
+"I'll kiss you and welcome: bend your head down." Bessie stooped; we\r
+mutually embraced, and I followed her into the house quite comforted.\r
+That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; and in the evening Bessie\r
+told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her\r
+sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+\r
+Five o'clock had hardly struck on the morning of the 19th of January,\r
+when Bessie brought a candle into my closet and found me already up and\r
+nearly dressed. I had risen half-an-hour before her entrance, and had\r
+washed my face, and put on my clothes by the light of a half-moon just\r
+setting, whose rays streamed through the narrow window near my crib. I\r
+was to leave Gateshead that day by a coach which passed the lodge gates\r
+at six a.m. Bessie was the only person yet risen; she had lit a fire in\r
+the nursery, where she now proceeded to make my breakfast. Few children\r
+can eat when excited with the thoughts of a journey; nor could I. Bessie,\r
+having pressed me in vain to take a few spoonfuls of the boiled milk and\r
+bread she had prepared for me, wrapped up some biscuits in a paper and\r
+put them into my bag; then she helped me on with my pelisse and bonnet,\r
+and wrapping herself in a shawl, she and I left the nursery. As we\r
+passed Mrs. Reed's bedroom, she said, "Will you go in and bid Missis good-\r
+bye?"\r
+\r
+"No, Bessie: she came to my crib last night when you were gone down to\r
+supper, and said I need not disturb her in the morning, or my cousins\r
+either; and she told me to remember that she had always been my best\r
+friend, and to speak of her and be grateful to her accordingly."\r
+\r
+"What did you say, Miss?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing: I covered my face with the bedclothes, and turned from her to\r
+the wall."\r
+\r
+"That was wrong, Miss Jane."\r
+\r
+"It was quite right, Bessie. Your Missis has not been my friend: she has\r
+been my foe."\r
+\r
+"O Miss Jane! don't say so!"\r
+\r
+"Good-bye to Gateshead!" cried I, as we passed through the hall and went\r
+out at the front door.\r
+\r
+The moon was set, and it was very dark; Bessie carried a lantern, whose\r
+light glanced on wet steps and gravel road sodden by a recent thaw. Raw\r
+and chill was the winter morning: my teeth chattered as I hastened down\r
+the drive. There was a light in the porter's lodge: when we reached it,\r
+we found the porter's wife just kindling her fire: my trunk, which had\r
+been carried down the evening before, stood corded at the door. It\r
+wanted but a few minutes of six, and shortly after that hour had struck,\r
+the distant roll of wheels announced the coming coach; I went to the door\r
+and watched its lamps approach rapidly through the gloom.\r
+\r
+"Is she going by herself?" asked the porter's wife.\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And how far is it?"\r
+\r
+"Fifty miles."\r
+\r
+"What a long way! I wonder Mrs. Reed is not afraid to trust her so far\r
+alone."\r
+\r
+The coach drew up; there it was at the gates with its four horses and its\r
+top laden with passengers: the guard and coachman loudly urged haste; my\r
+trunk was hoisted up; I was taken from Bessie's neck, to which I clung\r
+with kisses.\r
+\r
+"Be sure and take good care of her," cried she to the guard, as he lifted\r
+me into the inside.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay!" was the answer: the door was slapped to, a voice exclaimed "All\r
+right," and on we drove. Thus was I severed from Bessie and Gateshead;\r
+thus whirled away to unknown, and, as I then deemed, remote and\r
+mysterious regions.\r
+\r
+I remember but little of the journey; I only know that the day seemed to\r
+me of a preternatural length, and that we appeared to travel over\r
+hundreds of miles of road. We passed through several towns, and in one,\r
+a very large one, the coach stopped; the horses were taken out, and the\r
+passengers alighted to dine. I was carried into an inn, where the guard\r
+wanted me to have some dinner; but, as I had no appetite, he left me in\r
+an immense room with a fireplace at each end, a chandelier pendent from\r
+the ceiling, and a little red gallery high up against the wall filled\r
+with musical instruments. Here I walked about for a long time, feeling\r
+very strange, and mortally apprehensive of some one coming in and\r
+kidnapping me; for I believed in kidnappers, their exploits having\r
+frequently figured in Bessie's fireside chronicles. At last the guard\r
+returned; once more I was stowed away in the coach, my protector mounted\r
+his own seat, sounded his hollow horn, and away we rattled over the\r
+"stony street" of L-.\r
+\r
+The afternoon came on wet and somewhat misty: as it waned into dusk, I\r
+began to feel that we were getting very far indeed from Gateshead: we\r
+ceased to pass through towns; the country changed; great grey hills\r
+heaved up round the horizon: as twilight deepened, we descended a valley,\r
+dark with wood, and long after night had overclouded the prospect, I\r
+heard a wild wind rushing amongst trees.\r
+\r
+Lulled by the sound, I at last dropped asleep; I had not long slumbered\r
+when the sudden cessation of motion awoke me; the coach-door was open,\r
+and a person like a servant was standing at it: I saw her face and dress\r
+by the light of the lamps.\r
+\r
+"Is there a little girl called Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I answered\r
+"Yes," and was then lifted out; my trunk was handed down, and the coach\r
+instantly drove away.\r
+\r
+I was stiff with long sitting, and bewildered with the noise and motion\r
+of the coach: Gathering my faculties, I looked about me. Rain, wind, and\r
+darkness filled the air; nevertheless, I dimly discerned a wall before me\r
+and a door open in it; through this door I passed with my new guide: she\r
+shut and locked it behind her. There was now visible a house or\r
+houses--for the building spread far--with many windows, and lights\r
+burning in some; we went up a broad pebbly path, splashing wet, and were\r
+admitted at a door; then the servant led me through a passage into a room\r
+with a fire, where she left me alone.\r
+\r
+I stood and warmed my numbed fingers over the blaze, then I looked round;\r
+there was no candle, but the uncertain light from the hearth showed, by\r
+intervals, papered walls, carpet, curtains, shining mahogany furniture:\r
+it was a parlour, not so spacious or splendid as the drawing-room at\r
+Gateshead, but comfortable enough. I was puzzling to make out the\r
+subject of a picture on the wall, when the door opened, and an individual\r
+carrying a light entered; another followed close behind.\r
+\r
+The first was a tall lady with dark hair, dark eyes, and a pale and large\r
+forehead; her figure was partly enveloped in a shawl, her countenance was\r
+grave, her bearing erect.\r
+\r
+"The child is very young to be sent alone," said she, putting her candle\r
+down on the table. She considered me attentively for a minute or two,\r
+then further added--\r
+\r
+"She had better be put to bed soon; she looks tired: are you tired?" she\r
+asked, placing her hand on my shoulder.\r
+\r
+"A little, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"And hungry too, no doubt: let her have some supper before she goes to\r
+bed, Miss Miller. Is this the first time you have left your parents to\r
+come to school, my little girl?"\r
+\r
+I explained to her that I had no parents. She inquired how long they had\r
+been dead: then how old I was, what was my name, whether I could read,\r
+write, and sew a little: then she touched my cheek gently with her\r
+forefinger, and saying, "She hoped I should be a good child," dismissed\r
+me along with Miss Miller.\r
+\r
+The lady I had left might be about twenty-nine; the one who went with me\r
+appeared some years younger: the first impressed me by her voice, look,\r
+and air. Miss Miller was more ordinary; ruddy in complexion, though of a\r
+careworn countenance; hurried in gait and action, like one who had always\r
+a multiplicity of tasks on hand: she looked, indeed, what I afterwards\r
+found she really was, an under-teacher. Led by her, I passed from\r
+compartment to compartment, from passage to passage, of a large and\r
+irregular building; till, emerging from the total and somewhat dreary\r
+silence pervading that portion of the house we had traversed, we came\r
+upon the hum of many voices, and presently entered a wide, long room,\r
+with great deal tables, two at each end, on each of which burnt a pair of\r
+candles, and seated all round on benches, a congregation of girls of\r
+every age, from nine or ten to twenty. Seen by the dim light of the\r
+dips, their number to me appeared countless, though not in reality\r
+exceeding eighty; they were uniformly dressed in brown stuff frocks of\r
+quaint fashion, and long holland pinafores. It was the hour of study;\r
+they were engaged in conning over their to-morrow's task, and the hum I\r
+had heard was the combined result of their whispered repetitions.\r
+\r
+Miss Miller signed to me to sit on a bench near the door, then walking up\r
+to the top of the long room she cried out--\r
+\r
+"Monitors, collect the lesson-books and put them away!"\r
+\r
+Four tall girls arose from different tables, and going round, gathered\r
+the books and removed them. Miss Miller again gave the word of command--\r
+\r
+"Monitors, fetch the supper-trays!"\r
+\r
+The tall girls went out and returned presently, each bearing a tray, with\r
+portions of something, I knew not what, arranged thereon, and a pitcher\r
+of water and mug in the middle of each tray. The portions were handed\r
+round; those who liked took a draught of the water, the mug being common\r
+to all. When it came to my turn, I drank, for I was thirsty, but did not\r
+touch the food, excitement and fatigue rendering me incapable of eating:\r
+I now saw, however, that it was a thin oaten cake shared into fragments.\r
+\r
+The meal over, prayers were read by Miss Miller, and the classes filed\r
+off, two and two, upstairs. Overpowered by this time with weariness, I\r
+scarcely noticed what sort of a place the bedroom was, except that, like\r
+the schoolroom, I saw it was very long. To-night I was to be Miss\r
+Miller's bed-fellow; she helped me to undress: when laid down I glanced\r
+at the long rows of beds, each of which was quickly filled with two\r
+occupants; in ten minutes the single light was extinguished, and amidst\r
+silence and complete darkness I fell asleep.\r
+\r
+The night passed rapidly. I was too tired even to dream; I only once\r
+awoke to hear the wind rave in furious gusts, and the rain fall in\r
+torrents, and to be sensible that Miss Miller had taken her place by my\r
+side. When I again unclosed my eyes, a loud bell was ringing; the girls\r
+were up and dressing; day had not yet begun to dawn, and a rushlight or\r
+two burned in the room. I too rose reluctantly; it was bitter cold, and\r
+I dressed as well as I could for shivering, and washed when there was a\r
+basin at liberty, which did not occur soon, as there was but one basin to\r
+six girls, on the stands down the middle of the room. Again the bell\r
+rang: all formed in file, two and two, and in that order descended the\r
+stairs and entered the cold and dimly lit schoolroom: here prayers were\r
+read by Miss Miller; afterwards she called out--\r
+\r
+"Form classes!"\r
+\r
+A great tumult succeeded for some minutes, during which Miss Miller\r
+repeatedly exclaimed, "Silence!" and "Order!" When it subsided, I saw\r
+them all drawn up in four semicircles, before four chairs, placed at the\r
+four tables; all held books in their hands, and a great book, like a\r
+Bible, lay on each table, before the vacant seat. A pause of some\r
+seconds succeeded, filled up by the low, vague hum of numbers; Miss\r
+Miller walked from class to class, hushing this indefinite sound.\r
+\r
+A distant bell tinkled: immediately three ladies entered the room, each\r
+walked to a table and took her seat. Miss Miller assumed the fourth\r
+vacant chair, which was that nearest the door, and around which the\r
+smallest of the children were assembled: to this inferior class I was\r
+called, and placed at the bottom of it.\r
+\r
+Business now began, the day's Collect was repeated, then certain texts of\r
+Scripture were said, and to these succeeded a protracted reading of\r
+chapters in the Bible, which lasted an hour. By the time that exercise\r
+was terminated, day had fully dawned. The indefatigable bell now sounded\r
+for the fourth time: the classes were marshalled and marched into another\r
+room to breakfast: how glad I was to behold a prospect of getting\r
+something to eat! I was now nearly sick from inanition, having taken so\r
+little the day before.\r
+\r
+The refectory was a great, low-ceiled, gloomy room; on two long tables\r
+smoked basins of something hot, which, however, to my dismay, sent forth\r
+an odour far from inviting. I saw a universal manifestation of\r
+discontent when the fumes of the repast met the nostrils of those\r
+destined to swallow it; from the van of the procession, the tall girls of\r
+the first class, rose the whispered words--\r
+\r
+"Disgusting! The porridge is burnt again!"\r
+\r
+"Silence!" ejaculated a voice; not that of Miss Miller, but one of the\r
+upper teachers, a little and dark personage, smartly dressed, but of\r
+somewhat morose aspect, who installed herself at the top of one table,\r
+while a more buxom lady presided at the other. I looked in vain for her\r
+I had first seen the night before; she was not visible: Miss Miller\r
+occupied the foot of the table where I sat, and a strange,\r
+foreign-looking, elderly lady, the French teacher, as I afterwards found,\r
+took the corresponding seat at the other board. A long grace was said\r
+and a hymn sung; then a servant brought in some tea for the teachers, and\r
+the meal began.\r
+\r
+Ravenous, and now very faint, I devoured a spoonful or two of my portion\r
+without thinking of its taste; but the first edge of hunger blunted, I\r
+perceived I had got in hand a nauseous mess; burnt porridge is almost as\r
+bad as rotten potatoes; famine itself soon sickens over it. The spoons\r
+were moved slowly: I saw each girl taste her food and try to swallow it;\r
+but in most cases the effort was soon relinquished. Breakfast was over,\r
+and none had breakfasted. Thanks being returned for what we had not got,\r
+and a second hymn chanted, the refectory was evacuated for the\r
+schoolroom. I was one of the last to go out, and in passing the tables,\r
+I saw one teacher take a basin of the porridge and taste it; she looked\r
+at the others; all their countenances expressed displeasure, and one of\r
+them, the stout one, whispered--\r
+\r
+"Abominable stuff! How shameful!"\r
+\r
+A quarter of an hour passed before lessons again began, during which the\r
+schoolroom was in a glorious tumult; for that space of time it seemed to\r
+be permitted to talk loud and more freely, and they used their privilege.\r
+The whole conversation ran on the breakfast, which one and all abused\r
+roundly. Poor things! it was the sole consolation they had. Miss Miller\r
+was now the only teacher in the room: a group of great girls standing\r
+about her spoke with serious and sullen gestures. I heard the name of\r
+Mr. Brocklehurst pronounced by some lips; at which Miss Miller shook her\r
+head disapprovingly; but she made no great effort to check the general\r
+wrath; doubtless she shared in it.\r
+\r
+A clock in the schoolroom struck nine; Miss Miller left her circle, and\r
+standing in the middle of the room, cried--\r
+\r
+"Silence! To your seats!"\r
+\r
+Discipline prevailed: in five minutes the confused throng was resolved\r
+into order, and comparative silence quelled the Babel clamour of tongues.\r
+The upper teachers now punctually resumed their posts: but still, all\r
+seemed to wait. Ranged on benches down the sides of the room, the eighty\r
+girls sat motionless and erect; a quaint assemblage they appeared, all\r
+with plain locks combed from their faces, not a curl visible; in brown\r
+dresses, made high and surrounded by a narrow tucker about the throat,\r
+with little pockets of holland (shaped something like a Highlander's\r
+purse) tied in front of their frocks, and destined to serve the purpose\r
+of a work-bag: all, too, wearing woollen stockings and country-made\r
+shoes, fastened with brass buckles. Above twenty of those clad in this\r
+costume were full-grown girls, or rather young women; it suited them ill,\r
+and gave an air of oddity even to the prettiest.\r
+\r
+I was still looking at them, and also at intervals examining the\r
+teachers--none of whom precisely pleased me; for the stout one was a\r
+little coarse, the dark one not a little fierce, the foreigner harsh and\r
+grotesque, and Miss Miller, poor thing! looked purple, weather-beaten,\r
+and over-worked--when, as my eye wandered from face to face, the whole\r
+school rose simultaneously, as if moved by a common spring.\r
+\r
+What was the matter? I had heard no order given: I was puzzled. Ere I\r
+had gathered my wits, the classes were again seated: but as all eyes were\r
+now turned to one point, mine followed the general direction, and\r
+encountered the personage who had received me last night. She stood at\r
+the bottom of the long room, on the hearth; for there was a fire at each\r
+end; she surveyed the two rows of girls silently and gravely. Miss\r
+Miller approaching, seemed to ask her a question, and having received her\r
+answer, went back to her place, and said aloud--\r
+\r
+"Monitor of the first class, fetch the globes!"\r
+\r
+While the direction was being executed, the lady consulted moved slowly\r
+up the room. I suppose I have a considerable organ of veneration, for I\r
+retain yet the sense of admiring awe with which my eyes traced her steps.\r
+Seen now, in broad daylight, she looked tall, fair, and shapely; brown\r
+eyes with a benignant light in their irids, and a fine pencilling of long\r
+lashes round, relieved the whiteness of her large front; on each of her\r
+temples her hair, of a very dark brown, was clustered in round curls,\r
+according to the fashion of those times, when neither smooth bands nor\r
+long ringlets were in vogue; her dress, also in the mode of the day, was\r
+of purple cloth, relieved by a sort of Spanish trimming of black velvet;\r
+a gold watch (watches were not so common then as now) shone at her\r
+girdle. Let the reader add, to complete the picture, refined features; a\r
+complexion, if pale, clear; and a stately air and carriage, and he will\r
+have, at least, as clearly as words can give it, a correct idea of the\r
+exterior of Miss Temple--Maria Temple, as I afterwards saw the name\r
+written in a prayer-book intrusted to me to carry to church.\r
+\r
+The superintendent of Lowood (for such was this lady) having taken her\r
+seat before a pair of globes placed on one of the tables, summoned the\r
+first class round her, and commenced giving a lesson on geography; the\r
+lower classes were called by the teachers: repetitions in history,\r
+grammar, &c., went on for an hour; writing and arithmetic succeeded, and\r
+music lessons were given by Miss Temple to some of the elder girls. The\r
+duration of each lesson was measured by the clock, which at last struck\r
+twelve. The superintendent rose--\r
+\r
+"I have a word to address to the pupils," said she.\r
+\r
+The tumult of cessation from lessons was already breaking forth, but it\r
+sank at her voice. She went on--\r
+\r
+"You had this morning a breakfast which you could not eat; you must be\r
+hungry:--I have ordered that a lunch of bread and cheese shall be served\r
+to all."\r
+\r
+The teachers looked at her with a sort of surprise.\r
+\r
+"It is to be done on my responsibility," she added, in an explanatory\r
+tone to them, and immediately afterwards left the room.\r
+\r
+The bread and cheese was presently brought in and distributed, to the\r
+high delight and refreshment of the whole school. The order was now\r
+given "To the garden!" Each put on a coarse straw bonnet, with strings\r
+of coloured calico, and a cloak of grey frieze. I was similarly\r
+equipped, and, following the stream, I made my way into the open air.\r
+\r
+The garden was a wide inclosure, surrounded with walls so high as to\r
+exclude every glimpse of prospect; a covered verandah ran down one side,\r
+and broad walks bordered a middle space divided into scores of little\r
+beds: these beds were assigned as gardens for the pupils to cultivate,\r
+and each bed had an owner. When full of flowers they would doubtless\r
+look pretty; but now, at the latter end of January, all was wintry blight\r
+and brown decay. I shuddered as I stood and looked round me: it was an\r
+inclement day for outdoor exercise; not positively rainy, but darkened by\r
+a drizzling yellow fog; all under foot was still soaking wet with the\r
+floods of yesterday. The stronger among the girls ran about and engaged\r
+in active games, but sundry pale and thin ones herded together for\r
+shelter and warmth in the verandah; and amongst these, as the dense mist\r
+penetrated to their shivering frames, I heard frequently the sound of a\r
+hollow cough.\r
+\r
+As yet I had spoken to no one, nor did anybody seem to take notice of me;\r
+I stood lonely enough: but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed;\r
+it did not oppress me much. I leant against a pillar of the verandah,\r
+drew my grey mantle close about me, and, trying to forget the cold which\r
+nipped me without, and the unsatisfied hunger which gnawed me within,\r
+delivered myself up to the employment of watching and thinking. My\r
+reflections were too undefined and fragmentary to merit record: I hardly\r
+yet knew where I was; Gateshead and my past life seemed floated away to\r
+an immeasurable distance; the present was vague and strange, and of the\r
+future I could form no conjecture. I looked round the convent-like\r
+garden, and then up at the house--a large building, half of which seemed\r
+grey and old, the other half quite new. The new part, containing the\r
+schoolroom and dormitory, was lit by mullioned and latticed windows,\r
+which gave it a church-like aspect; a stone tablet over the door bore\r
+this inscription:--\r
+\r
+"Lowood Institution.--This portion was rebuilt A.D. ---, by Naomi\r
+Brocklehurst, of Brocklehurst Hall, in this county." "Let your light so\r
+shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your\r
+Father which is in heaven."--St. Matt. v. 16.\r
+\r
+I read these words over and over again: I felt that an explanation\r
+belonged to them, and was unable fully to penetrate their import. I was\r
+still pondering the signification of "Institution," and endeavouring to\r
+make out a connection between the first words and the verse of Scripture,\r
+when the sound of a cough close behind me made me turn my head. I saw a\r
+girl sitting on a stone bench near; she was bent over a book, on the\r
+perusal of which she seemed intent: from where I stood I could see the\r
+title--it was "Rasselas;" a name that struck me as strange, and\r
+consequently attractive. In turning a leaf she happened to look up, and\r
+I said to her directly--\r
+\r
+"Is your book interesting?" I had already formed the intention of asking\r
+her to lend it to me some day.\r
+\r
+"I like it," she answered, after a pause of a second or two, during which\r
+she examined me.\r
+\r
+"What is it about?" I continued. I hardly know where I found the\r
+hardihood thus to open a conversation with a stranger; the step was\r
+contrary to my nature and habits: but I think her occupation touched a\r
+chord of sympathy somewhere; for I too liked reading, though of a\r
+frivolous and childish kind; I could not digest or comprehend the serious\r
+or substantial.\r
+\r
+"You may look at it," replied the girl, offering me the book.\r
+\r
+I did so; a brief examination convinced me that the contents were less\r
+taking than the title: "Rasselas" looked dull to my trifling taste; I saw\r
+nothing about fairies, nothing about genii; no bright variety seemed\r
+spread over the closely-printed pages. I returned it to her; she\r
+received it quietly, and without saying anything she was about to relapse\r
+into her former studious mood: again I ventured to disturb her--\r
+\r
+"Can you tell me what the writing on that stone over the door means? What\r
+is Lowood Institution?"\r
+\r
+"This house where you are come to live."\r
+\r
+"And why do they call it Institution? Is it in any way different from\r
+other schools?"\r
+\r
+"It is partly a charity-school: you and I, and all the rest of us, are\r
+charity-children. I suppose you are an orphan: are not either your\r
+father or your mother dead?"\r
+\r
+"Both died before I can remember."\r
+\r
+"Well, all the girls here have lost either one or both parents, and this\r
+is called an institution for educating orphans."\r
+\r
+"Do we pay no money? Do they keep us for nothing?"\r
+\r
+"We pay, or our friends pay, fifteen pounds a year for each."\r
+\r
+"Then why do they call us charity-children?"\r
+\r
+"Because fifteen pounds is not enough for board and teaching, and the\r
+deficiency is supplied by subscription."\r
+\r
+"Who subscribes?"\r
+\r
+"Different benevolent-minded ladies and gentlemen in this neighbourhood\r
+and in London."\r
+\r
+"Who was Naomi Brocklehurst?"\r
+\r
+"The lady who built the new part of this house as that tablet records,\r
+and whose son overlooks and directs everything here."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Because he is treasurer and manager of the establishment."\r
+\r
+"Then this house does not belong to that tall lady who wears a watch, and\r
+who said we were to have some bread and cheese?"\r
+\r
+"To Miss Temple? Oh, no! I wish it did: she has to answer to Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst for all she does. Mr. Brocklehurst buys all our food and\r
+all our clothes."\r
+\r
+"Does he live here?"\r
+\r
+"No--two miles off, at a large hall."\r
+\r
+"Is he a good man?"\r
+\r
+"He is a clergyman, and is said to do a great deal of good."\r
+\r
+"Did you say that tall lady was called Miss Temple?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And what are the other teachers called?"\r
+\r
+"The one with red cheeks is called Miss Smith; she attends to the work,\r
+and cuts out--for we make our own clothes, our frocks, and pelisses, and\r
+everything; the little one with black hair is Miss Scatcherd; she teaches\r
+history and grammar, and hears the second class repetitions; and the one\r
+who wears a shawl, and has a pocket-handkerchief tied to her side with a\r
+yellow ribband, is Madame Pierrot: she comes from Lisle, in France, and\r
+teaches French."\r
+\r
+"Do you like the teachers?"\r
+\r
+"Well enough."\r
+\r
+"Do you like the little black one, and the Madame ---?--I cannot\r
+pronounce her name as you do."\r
+\r
+"Miss Scatcherd is hasty--you must take care not to offend her; Madame\r
+Pierrot is not a bad sort of person."\r
+\r
+"But Miss Temple is the best--isn't she?"\r
+\r
+"Miss Temple is very good and very clever; she is above the rest, because\r
+she knows far more than they do."\r
+\r
+"Have you been long here?"\r
+\r
+"Two years."\r
+\r
+"Are you an orphan?"\r
+\r
+"My mother is dead."\r
+\r
+"Are you happy here?"\r
+\r
+"You ask rather too many questions. I have given you answers enough for\r
+the present: now I want to read."\r
+\r
+But at that moment the summons sounded for dinner; all re-entered the\r
+house. The odour which now filled the refectory was scarcely more\r
+appetising than that which had regaled our nostrils at breakfast: the\r
+dinner was served in two huge tin-plated vessels, whence rose a strong\r
+steam redolent of rancid fat. I found the mess to consist of indifferent\r
+potatoes and strange shreds of rusty meat, mixed and cooked together. Of\r
+this preparation a tolerably abundant plateful was apportioned to each\r
+pupil. I ate what I could, and wondered within myself whether every\r
+day's fare would be like this.\r
+\r
+After dinner, we immediately adjourned to the schoolroom: lessons\r
+recommenced, and were continued till five o'clock.\r
+\r
+The only marked event of the afternoon was, that I saw the girl with whom\r
+I had conversed in the verandah dismissed in disgrace by Miss Scatcherd\r
+from a history class, and sent to stand in the middle of the large\r
+schoolroom. The punishment seemed to me in a high degree ignominious,\r
+especially for so great a girl--she looked thirteen or upwards. I\r
+expected she would show signs of great distress and shame; but to my\r
+surprise she neither wept nor blushed: composed, though grave, she stood,\r
+the central mark of all eyes. "How can she bear it so quietly--so\r
+firmly?" I asked of myself. "Were I in her place, it seems to me I\r
+should wish the earth to open and swallow me up. She looks as if she\r
+were thinking of something beyond her punishment--beyond her situation:\r
+of something not round her nor before her. I have heard of day-dreams--is\r
+she in a day-dream now? Her eyes are fixed on the floor, but I am sure\r
+they do not see it--her sight seems turned in, gone down into her heart:\r
+she is looking at what she can remember, I believe; not at what is really\r
+present. I wonder what sort of a girl she is--whether good or naughty."\r
+\r
+Soon after five p.m. we had another meal, consisting of a small mug of\r
+coffee, and half-a-slice of brown bread. I devoured my bread and drank\r
+my coffee with relish; but I should have been glad of as much more--I was\r
+still hungry. Half-an-hour's recreation succeeded, then study; then the\r
+glass of water and the piece of oat-cake, prayers, and bed. Such was my\r
+first day at Lowood.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day commenced as before, getting up and dressing by rushlight;\r
+but this morning we were obliged to dispense with the ceremony of\r
+washing; the water in the pitchers was frozen. A change had taken place\r
+in the weather the preceding evening, and a keen north-east wind,\r
+whistling through the crevices of our bedroom windows all night long, had\r
+made us shiver in our beds, and turned the contents of the ewers to ice.\r
+\r
+Before the long hour and a half of prayers and Bible-reading was over, I\r
+felt ready to perish with cold. Breakfast-time came at last, and this\r
+morning the porridge was not burnt; the quality was eatable, the quantity\r
+small. How small my portion seemed! I wished it had been doubled.\r
+\r
+In the course of the day I was enrolled a member of the fourth class, and\r
+regular tasks and occupations were assigned me: hitherto, I had only been\r
+a spectator of the proceedings at Lowood; I was now to become an actor\r
+therein. At first, being little accustomed to learn by heart, the\r
+lessons appeared to me both long and difficult; the frequent change from\r
+task to task, too, bewildered me; and I was glad when, about three\r
+o'clock in the afternoon, Miss Smith put into my hands a border of muslin\r
+two yards long, together with needle, thimble, &c., and sent me to sit in\r
+a quiet corner of the schoolroom, with directions to hem the same. At\r
+that hour most of the others were sewing likewise; but one class still\r
+stood round Miss Scatcherd's chair reading, and as all was quiet, the\r
+subject of their lessons could be heard, together with the manner in\r
+which each girl acquitted herself, and the animadversions or\r
+commendations of Miss Scatcherd on the performance. It was English\r
+history: among the readers I observed my acquaintance of the verandah: at\r
+the commencement of the lesson, her place had been at the top of the\r
+class, but for some error of pronunciation, or some inattention to stops,\r
+she was suddenly sent to the very bottom. Even in that obscure position,\r
+Miss Scatcherd continued to make her an object of constant notice: she\r
+was continually addressing to her such phrases as the following:--\r
+\r
+"Burns" (such it seems was her name: the girls here were all called by\r
+their surnames, as boys are elsewhere), "Burns, you are standing on the\r
+side of your shoe; turn your toes out immediately." "Burns, you poke\r
+your chin most unpleasantly; draw it in." "Burns, I insist on your\r
+holding your head up; I will not have you before me in that attitude,"\r
+&c. &c.\r
+\r
+A chapter having been read through twice, the books were closed and the\r
+girls examined. The lesson had comprised part of the reign of Charles\r
+I., and there were sundry questions about tonnage and poundage and ship-\r
+money, which most of them appeared unable to answer; still, every little\r
+difficulty was solved instantly when it reached Burns: her memory seemed\r
+to have retained the substance of the whole lesson, and she was ready\r
+with answers on every point. I kept expecting that Miss Scatcherd would\r
+praise her attention; but, instead of that, she suddenly cried out--\r
+\r
+"You dirty, disagreeable girl! you have never cleaned your nails this\r
+morning!"\r
+\r
+Burns made no answer: I wondered at her silence. "Why," thought I, "does\r
+she not explain that she could neither clean her nails nor wash her face,\r
+as the water was frozen?"\r
+\r
+My attention was now called off by Miss Smith desiring me to hold a skein\r
+of thread: while she was winding it, she talked to me from time to time,\r
+asking whether I had ever been at school before, whether I could mark,\r
+stitch, knit, &c.; till she dismissed me, I could not pursue my\r
+observations on Miss Scatcherd's movements. When I returned to my seat,\r
+that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the\r
+import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small\r
+inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying\r
+in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end. This ominous\r
+tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she\r
+quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher\r
+instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the\r
+bunch of twigs. Not a tear rose to Burns' eye; and, while I paused from\r
+my sewing, because my fingers quivered at this spectacle with a sentiment\r
+of unavailing and impotent anger, not a feature of her pensive face\r
+altered its ordinary expression.\r
+\r
+"Hardened girl!" exclaimed Miss Scatcherd; "nothing can correct you of\r
+your slatternly habits: carry the rod away."\r
+\r
+Burns obeyed: I looked at her narrowly as she emerged from the\r
+book-closet; she was just putting back her handkerchief into her pocket,\r
+and the trace of a tear glistened on her thin cheek.\r
+\r
+The play-hour in the evening I thought the pleasantest fraction of the\r
+day at Lowood: the bit of bread, the draught of coffee swallowed at five\r
+o'clock had revived vitality, if it had not satisfied hunger: the long\r
+restraint of the day was slackened; the schoolroom felt warmer than in\r
+the morning--its fires being allowed to burn a little more brightly, to\r
+supply, in some measure, the place of candles, not yet introduced: the\r
+ruddy gloaming, the licensed uproar, the confusion of many voices gave\r
+one a welcome sense of liberty.\r
+\r
+On the evening of the day on which I had seen Miss Scatcherd flog her\r
+pupil, Burns, I wandered as usual among the forms and tables and laughing\r
+groups without a companion, yet not feeling lonely: when I passed the\r
+windows, I now and then lifted a blind, and looked out; it snowed fast, a\r
+drift was already forming against the lower panes; putting my ear close\r
+to the window, I could distinguish from the gleeful tumult within, the\r
+disconsolate moan of the wind outside.\r
+\r
+Probably, if I had lately left a good home and kind parents, this would\r
+have been the hour when I should most keenly have regretted the\r
+separation; that wind would then have saddened my heart; this obscure\r
+chaos would have disturbed my peace! as it was, I derived from both a\r
+strange excitement, and reckless and feverish, I wished the wind to howl\r
+more wildly, the gloom to deepen to darkness, and the confusion to rise\r
+to clamour.\r
+\r
+Jumping over forms, and creeping under tables, I made my way to one of\r
+the fire-places; there, kneeling by the high wire fender, I found Burns,\r
+absorbed, silent, abstracted from all round her by the companionship of a\r
+book, which she read by the dim glare of the embers.\r
+\r
+"Is it still 'Rasselas'?" I asked, coming behind her.\r
+\r
+"Yes," she said, "and I have just finished it."\r
+\r
+And in five minutes more she shut it up. I was glad of this. "Now,"\r
+thought I, "I can perhaps get her to talk." I sat down by her on the\r
+floor.\r
+\r
+"What is your name besides Burns?"\r
+\r
+"Helen."\r
+\r
+"Do you come a long way from here?"\r
+\r
+"I come from a place farther north, quite on the borders of Scotland."\r
+\r
+"Will you ever go back?"\r
+\r
+"I hope so; but nobody can be sure of the future."\r
+\r
+"You must wish to leave Lowood?"\r
+\r
+"No! why should I? I was sent to Lowood to get an education; and it\r
+would be of no use going away until I have attained that object."\r
+\r
+"But that teacher, Miss Scatcherd, is so cruel to you?"\r
+\r
+"Cruel? Not at all! She is severe: she dislikes my faults."\r
+\r
+"And if I were in your place I should dislike her; I should resist her.\r
+If she struck me with that rod, I should get it from her hand; I should\r
+break it under her nose."\r
+\r
+"Probably you would do nothing of the sort: but if you did, Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst would expel you from the school; that would be a great grief\r
+to your relations. It is far better to endure patiently a smart which\r
+nobody feels but yourself, than to commit a hasty action whose evil\r
+consequences will extend to all connected with you; and besides, the\r
+Bible bids us return good for evil."\r
+\r
+"But then it seems disgraceful to be flogged, and to be sent to stand in\r
+the middle of a room full of people; and you are such a great girl: I am\r
+far younger than you, and I could not bear it."\r
+\r
+"Yet it would be your duty to bear it, if you could not avoid it: it is\r
+weak and silly to say you _cannot bear_ what it is your fate to be\r
+required to bear."\r
+\r
+I heard her with wonder: I could not comprehend this doctrine of\r
+endurance; and still less could I understand or sympathise with the\r
+forbearance she expressed for her chastiser. Still I felt that Helen\r
+Burns considered things by a light invisible to my eyes. I suspected she\r
+might be right and I wrong; but I would not ponder the matter deeply;\r
+like Felix, I put it off to a more convenient season.\r
+\r
+"You say you have faults, Helen: what are they? To me you seem very\r
+good."\r
+\r
+"Then learn from me, not to judge by appearances: I am, as Miss Scatcherd\r
+said, slatternly; I seldom put, and never keep, things, in order; I am\r
+careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have\r
+no method; and sometimes I say, like you, I cannot _bear_ to be subjected\r
+to systematic arrangements. This is all very provoking to Miss\r
+Scatcherd, who is naturally neat, punctual, and particular."\r
+\r
+"And cross and cruel," I added; but Helen Burns would not admit my\r
+addition: she kept silence.\r
+\r
+"Is Miss Temple as severe to you as Miss Scatcherd?"\r
+\r
+At the utterance of Miss Temple's name, a soft smile flitted over her\r
+grave face.\r
+\r
+"Miss Temple is full of goodness; it pains her to be severe to any one,\r
+even the worst in the school: she sees my errors, and tells me of them\r
+gently; and, if I do anything worthy of praise, she gives me my meed\r
+liberally. One strong proof of my wretchedly defective nature is, that\r
+even her expostulations, so mild, so rational, have not influence to cure\r
+me of my faults; and even her praise, though I value it most highly,\r
+cannot stimulate me to continued care and foresight."\r
+\r
+"That is curious," said I, "it is so easy to be careful."\r
+\r
+"For _you_ I have no doubt it is. I observed you in your class this\r
+morning, and saw you were closely attentive: your thoughts never seemed\r
+to wander while Miss Miller explained the lesson and questioned you. Now,\r
+mine continually rove away; when I should be listening to Miss Scatcherd,\r
+and collecting all she says with assiduity, often I lose the very sound\r
+of her voice; I fall into a sort of dream. Sometimes I think I am in\r
+Northumberland, and that the noises I hear round me are the bubbling of a\r
+little brook which runs through Deepden, near our house;--then, when it\r
+comes to my turn to reply, I have to be awakened; and having heard\r
+nothing of what was read for listening to the visionary brook, I have no\r
+answer ready."\r
+\r
+"Yet how well you replied this afternoon."\r
+\r
+"It was mere chance; the subject on which we had been reading had\r
+interested me. This afternoon, instead of dreaming of Deepden, I was\r
+wondering how a man who wished to do right could act so unjustly and\r
+unwisely as Charles the First sometimes did; and I thought what a pity it\r
+was that, with his integrity and conscientiousness, he could see no\r
+farther than the prerogatives of the crown. If he had but been able to\r
+look to a distance, and see how what they call the spirit of the age was\r
+tending! Still, I like Charles--I respect him--I pity him, poor murdered\r
+king! Yes, his enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right\r
+to shed. How dared they kill him!"\r
+\r
+Helen was talking to herself now: she had forgotten I could not very well\r
+understand her--that I was ignorant, or nearly so, of the subject she\r
+discussed. I recalled her to my level.\r
+\r
+"And when Miss Temple teaches you, do your thoughts wander then?"\r
+\r
+"No, certainly, not often; because Miss Temple has generally something to\r
+say which is newer than my own reflections; her language is singularly\r
+agreeable to me, and the information she communicates is often just what\r
+I wished to gain."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, with Miss Temple you are good?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, in a passive way: I make no effort; I follow as inclination guides\r
+me. There is no merit in such goodness."\r
+\r
+"A great deal: you are good to those who are good to you. It is all I\r
+ever desire to be. If people were always kind and obedient to those who\r
+are cruel and unjust, the wicked people would have it all their own way:\r
+they would never feel afraid, and so they would never alter, but would\r
+grow worse and worse. When we are struck at without a reason, we should\r
+strike back again very hard; I am sure we should--so hard as to teach the\r
+person who struck us never to do it again."\r
+\r
+"You will change your mind, I hope, when you grow older: as yet you are\r
+but a little untaught girl."\r
+\r
+"But I feel this, Helen; I must dislike those who, whatever I do to\r
+please them, persist in disliking me; I must resist those who punish me\r
+unjustly. It is as natural as that I should love those who show me\r
+affection, or submit to punishment when I feel it is deserved."\r
+\r
+"Heathens and savage tribes hold that doctrine, but Christians and\r
+civilised nations disown it."\r
+\r
+"How? I don't understand."\r
+\r
+"It is not violence that best overcomes hate--nor vengeance that most\r
+certainly heals injury."\r
+\r
+"What then?"\r
+\r
+"Read the New Testament, and observe what Christ says, and how He acts;\r
+make His word your rule, and His conduct your example."\r
+\r
+"What does He say?"\r
+\r
+"Love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate\r
+you and despitefully use you."\r
+\r
+"Then I should love Mrs. Reed, which I cannot do; I should bless her son\r
+John, which is impossible."\r
+\r
+In her turn, Helen Burns asked me to explain, and I proceeded forthwith\r
+to pour out, in my own way, the tale of my sufferings and resentments.\r
+Bitter and truculent when excited, I spoke as I felt, without reserve or\r
+softening.\r
+\r
+Helen heard me patiently to the end: I expected she would then make a\r
+remark, but she said nothing.\r
+\r
+"Well," I asked impatiently, "is not Mrs. Reed a hard-hearted, bad\r
+woman?"\r
+\r
+"She has been unkind to you, no doubt; because you see, she dislikes your\r
+cast of character, as Miss Scatcherd does mine; but how minutely you\r
+remember all she has done and said to you! What a singularly deep\r
+impression her injustice seems to have made on your heart! No ill-usage\r
+so brands its record on my feelings. Would you not be happier if you\r
+tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it\r
+excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity\r
+or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with\r
+faults in this world: but the time will soon come when, I trust, we shall\r
+put them off in putting off our corruptible bodies; when debasement and\r
+sin will fall from us with this cumbrous frame of flesh, and only the\r
+spark of the spirit will remain,--the impalpable principle of light and\r
+thought, pure as when it left the Creator to inspire the creature: whence\r
+it came it will return; perhaps again to be communicated to some being\r
+higher than man--perhaps to pass through gradations of glory, from the\r
+pale human soul to brighten to the seraph! Surely it will never, on the\r
+contrary, be suffered to degenerate from man to fiend? No; I cannot\r
+believe that: I hold another creed: which no one ever taught me, and\r
+which I seldom mention; but in which I delight, and to which I cling: for\r
+it extends hope to all: it makes Eternity a rest--a mighty home, not a\r
+terror and an abyss. Besides, with this creed, I can so clearly\r
+distinguish between the criminal and his crime; I can so sincerely\r
+forgive the first while I abhor the last: with this creed revenge never\r
+worries my heart, degradation never too deeply disgusts me, injustice\r
+never crushes me too low: I live in calm, looking to the end."\r
+\r
+Helen's head, always drooping, sank a little lower as she finished this\r
+sentence. I saw by her look she wished no longer to talk to me, but\r
+rather to converse with her own thoughts. She was not allowed much time\r
+for meditation: a monitor, a great rough girl, presently came up,\r
+exclaiming in a strong Cumberland accent--\r
+\r
+"Helen Burns, if you don't go and put your drawer in order, and fold up\r
+your work this minute, I'll tell Miss Scatcherd to come and look at it!"\r
+\r
+Helen sighed as her reverie fled, and getting up, obeyed the monitor\r
+without reply as without delay.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+\r
+My first quarter at Lowood seemed an age; and not the golden age either;\r
+it comprised an irksome struggle with difficulties in habituating myself\r
+to new rules and unwonted tasks. The fear of failure in these points\r
+harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot; though these\r
+were no trifles.\r
+\r
+During January, February, and part of March, the deep snows, and, after\r
+their melting, the almost impassable roads, prevented our stirring beyond\r
+the garden walls, except to go to church; but within these limits we had\r
+to pass an hour every day in the open air. Our clothing was insufficient\r
+to protect us from the severe cold: we had no boots, the snow got into\r
+our shoes and melted there: our ungloved hands became numbed and covered\r
+with chilblains, as were our feet: I remember well the distracting\r
+irritation I endured from this cause every evening, when my feet\r
+inflamed; and the torture of thrusting the swelled, raw, and stiff toes\r
+into my shoes in the morning. Then the scanty supply of food was\r
+distressing: with the keen appetites of growing children, we had scarcely\r
+sufficient to keep alive a delicate invalid. From this deficiency of\r
+nourishment resulted an abuse, which pressed hardly on the younger\r
+pupils: whenever the famished great girls had an opportunity, they would\r
+coax or menace the little ones out of their portion. Many a time I have\r
+shared between two claimants the precious morsel of brown bread\r
+distributed at tea-time; and after relinquishing to a third half the\r
+contents of my mug of coffee, I have swallowed the remainder with an\r
+accompaniment of secret tears, forced from me by the exigency of hunger.\r
+\r
+Sundays were dreary days in that wintry season. We had to walk two miles\r
+to Brocklebridge Church, where our patron officiated. We set out cold,\r
+we arrived at church colder: during the morning service we became almost\r
+paralysed. It was too far to return to dinner, and an allowance of cold\r
+meat and bread, in the same penurious proportion observed in our ordinary\r
+meals, was served round between the services.\r
+\r
+At the close of the afternoon service we returned by an exposed and hilly\r
+road, where the bitter winter wind, blowing over a range of snowy summits\r
+to the north, almost flayed the skin from our faces.\r
+\r
+I can remember Miss Temple walking lightly and rapidly along our drooping\r
+line, her plaid cloak, which the frosty wind fluttered, gathered close\r
+about her, and encouraging us, by precept and example, to keep up our\r
+spirits, and march forward, as she said, "like stalwart soldiers." The\r
+other teachers, poor things, were generally themselves too much dejected\r
+to attempt the task of cheering others.\r
+\r
+How we longed for the light and heat of a blazing fire when we got back!\r
+But, to the little ones at least, this was denied: each hearth in the\r
+schoolroom was immediately surrounded by a double row of great girls, and\r
+behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their\r
+starved arms in their pinafores.\r
+\r
+A little solace came at tea-time, in the shape of a double ration of\r
+bread--a whole, instead of a half, slice--with the delicious addition of\r
+a thin scrape of butter: it was the hebdomadal treat to which we all\r
+looked forward from Sabbath to Sabbath. I generally contrived to reserve\r
+a moiety of this bounteous repast for myself; but the remainder I was\r
+invariably obliged to part with.\r
+\r
+The Sunday evening was spent in repeating, by heart, the Church\r
+Catechism, and the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of St. Matthew; and\r
+in listening to a long sermon, read by Miss Miller, whose irrepressible\r
+yawns attested her weariness. A frequent interlude of these performances\r
+was the enactment of the part of Eutychus by some half-dozen of little\r
+girls, who, overpowered with sleep, would fall down, if not out of the\r
+third loft, yet off the fourth form, and be taken up half dead. The\r
+remedy was, to thrust them forward into the centre of the schoolroom, and\r
+oblige them to stand there till the sermon was finished. Sometimes their\r
+feet failed them, and they sank together in a heap; they were then\r
+propped up with the monitors' high stools.\r
+\r
+I have not yet alluded to the visits of Mr. Brocklehurst; and indeed that\r
+gentleman was from home during the greater part of the first month after\r
+my arrival; perhaps prolonging his stay with his friend the archdeacon:\r
+his absence was a relief to me. I need not say that I had my own reasons\r
+for dreading his coming: but come he did at last.\r
+\r
+One afternoon (I had then been three weeks at Lowood), as I was sitting\r
+with a slate in my hand, puzzling over a sum in long division, my eyes,\r
+raised in abstraction to the window, caught sight of a figure just\r
+passing: I recognised almost instinctively that gaunt outline; and when,\r
+two minutes after, all the school, teachers included, rose _en masse_, it\r
+was not necessary for me to look up in order to ascertain whose entrance\r
+they thus greeted. A long stride measured the schoolroom, and presently\r
+beside Miss Temple, who herself had risen, stood the same black column\r
+which had frowned on me so ominously from the hearthrug of Gateshead. I\r
+now glanced sideways at this piece of architecture. Yes, I was right: it\r
+was Mr. Brocklehurst, buttoned up in a surtout, and looking longer,\r
+narrower, and more rigid than ever.\r
+\r
+I had my own reasons for being dismayed at this apparition; too well I\r
+remembered the perfidious hints given by Mrs. Reed about my disposition,\r
+&c.; the promise pledged by Mr. Brocklehurst to apprise Miss Temple and\r
+the teachers of my vicious nature. All along I had been dreading the\r
+fulfilment of this promise,--I had been looking out daily for the "Coming\r
+Man," whose information respecting my past life and conversation was to\r
+brand me as a bad child for ever: now there he was.\r
+\r
+He stood at Miss Temple's side; he was speaking low in her ear: I did not\r
+doubt he was making disclosures of my villainy; and I watched her eye\r
+with painful anxiety, expecting every moment to see its dark orb turn on\r
+me a glance of repugnance and contempt. I listened too; and as I\r
+happened to be seated quite at the top of the room, I caught most of what\r
+he said: its import relieved me from immediate apprehension.\r
+\r
+"I suppose, Miss Temple, the thread I bought at Lowton will do; it struck\r
+me that it would be just of the quality for the calico chemises, and I\r
+sorted the needles to match. You may tell Miss Smith that I forgot to\r
+make a memorandum of the darning needles, but she shall have some papers\r
+sent in next week; and she is not, on any account, to give out more than\r
+one at a time to each pupil: if they have more, they are apt to be\r
+careless and lose them. And, O ma'am! I wish the woollen stockings were\r
+better looked to!--when I was here last, I went into the kitchen-garden\r
+and examined the clothes drying on the line; there was a quantity of\r
+black hose in a very bad state of repair: from the size of the holes in\r
+them I was sure they had not been well mended from time to time."\r
+\r
+He paused.\r
+\r
+"Your directions shall be attended to, sir," said Miss Temple.\r
+\r
+"And, ma'am," he continued, "the laundress tells me some of the girls\r
+have two clean tuckers in the week: it is too much; the rules limit them\r
+to one."\r
+\r
+"I think I can explain that circumstance, sir. Agnes and Catherine\r
+Johnstone were invited to take tea with some friends at Lowton last\r
+Thursday, and I gave them leave to put on clean tuckers for the\r
+occasion."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brocklehurst nodded.\r
+\r
+"Well, for once it may pass; but please not to let the circumstance occur\r
+too often. And there is another thing which surprised me; I find, in\r
+settling accounts with the housekeeper, that a lunch, consisting of bread\r
+and cheese, has twice been served out to the girls during the past\r
+fortnight. How is this? I looked over the regulations, and I find no\r
+such meal as lunch mentioned. Who introduced this innovation? and by\r
+what authority?"\r
+\r
+"I must be responsible for the circumstance, sir," replied Miss Temple:\r
+"the breakfast was so ill prepared that the pupils could not possibly eat\r
+it; and I dared not allow them to remain fasting till dinner-time."\r
+\r
+"Madam, allow me an instant. You are aware that my plan in bringing up\r
+these girls is, not to accustom them to habits of luxury and indulgence,\r
+but to render them hardy, patient, self-denying. Should any little\r
+accidental disappointment of the appetite occur, such as the spoiling of\r
+a meal, the under or the over dressing of a dish, the incident ought not\r
+to be neutralised by replacing with something more delicate the comfort\r
+lost, thus pampering the body and obviating the aim of this institution;\r
+it ought to be improved to the spiritual edification of the pupils, by\r
+encouraging them to evince fortitude under temporary privation. A brief\r
+address on those occasions would not be mistimed, wherein a judicious\r
+instructor would take the opportunity of referring to the sufferings of\r
+the primitive Christians; to the torments of martyrs; to the exhortations\r
+of our blessed Lord Himself, calling upon His disciples to take up their\r
+cross and follow Him; to His warnings that man shall not live by bread\r
+alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God; to His\r
+divine consolations, "If ye suffer hunger or thirst for My sake, happy\r
+are ye." Oh, madam, when you put bread and cheese, instead of burnt\r
+porridge, into these children's mouths, you may indeed feed their vile\r
+bodies, but you little think how you starve their immortal souls!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Brocklehurst again paused--perhaps overcome by his feelings. Miss\r
+Temple had looked down when he first began to speak to her; but she now\r
+gazed straight before her, and her face, naturally pale as marble,\r
+appeared to be assuming also the coldness and fixity of that material;\r
+especially her mouth, closed as if it would have required a sculptor's\r
+chisel to open it, and her brow settled gradually into petrified\r
+severity.\r
+\r
+Meantime, Mr. Brocklehurst, standing on the hearth with his hands behind\r
+his back, majestically surveyed the whole school. Suddenly his eye gave\r
+a blink, as if it had met something that either dazzled or shocked its\r
+pupil; turning, he said in more rapid accents than he had hitherto used--\r
+\r
+"Miss Temple, Miss Temple, what--_what_ is that girl with curled hair?\r
+Red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?" And extending his cane he\r
+pointed to the awful object, his hand shaking as he did so.\r
+\r
+"It is Julia Severn," replied Miss Temple, very quietly.\r
+\r
+"Julia Severn, ma'am! And why has she, or any other, curled hair? Why,\r
+in defiance of every precept and principle of this house, does she\r
+conform to the world so openly--here in an evangelical, charitable\r
+establishment--as to wear her hair one mass of curls?"\r
+\r
+"Julia's hair curls naturally," returned Miss Temple, still more quietly.\r
+\r
+"Naturally! Yes, but we are not to conform to nature; I wish these girls\r
+to be the children of Grace: and why that abundance? I have again and\r
+again intimated that I desire the hair to be arranged closely, modestly,\r
+plainly. Miss Temple, that girl's hair must be cut off entirely; I will\r
+send a barber to-morrow: and I see others who have far too much of the\r
+excrescence--that tall girl, tell her to turn round. Tell all the first\r
+form to rise up and direct their faces to the wall."\r
+\r
+Miss Temple passed her handkerchief over her lips, as if to smooth away\r
+the involuntary smile that curled them; she gave the order, however, and\r
+when the first class could take in what was required of them, they\r
+obeyed. Leaning a little back on my bench, I could see the looks and\r
+grimaces with which they commented on this manoeuvre: it was a pity Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst could not see them too; he would perhaps have felt that,\r
+whatever he might do with the outside of the cup and platter, the inside\r
+was further beyond his interference than he imagined.\r
+\r
+He scrutinised the reverse of these living medals some five minutes, then\r
+pronounced sentence. These words fell like the knell of doom--\r
+\r
+"All those top-knots must be cut off."\r
+\r
+Miss Temple seemed to remonstrate.\r
+\r
+"Madam," he pursued, "I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of\r
+this world: my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the\r
+flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and\r
+sobriety, not with braided hair and costly apparel; and each of the young\r
+persons before us has a string of hair twisted in plaits which vanity\r
+itself might have woven; these, I repeat, must be cut off; think of the\r
+time wasted, of--"\r
+\r
+Mr. Brocklehurst was here interrupted: three other visitors, ladies, now\r
+entered the room. They ought to have come a little sooner to have heard\r
+his lecture on dress, for they were splendidly attired in velvet, silk,\r
+and furs. The two younger of the trio (fine girls of sixteen and\r
+seventeen) had grey beaver hats, then in fashion, shaded with ostrich\r
+plumes, and from under the brim of this graceful head-dress fell a\r
+profusion of light tresses, elaborately curled; the elder lady was\r
+enveloped in a costly velvet shawl, trimmed with ermine, and she wore a\r
+false front of French curls.\r
+\r
+These ladies were deferentially received by Miss Temple, as Mrs. and the\r
+Misses Brocklehurst, and conducted to seats of honour at the top of the\r
+room. It seems they had come in the carriage with their reverend\r
+relative, and had been conducting a rummaging scrutiny of the room\r
+upstairs, while he transacted business with the housekeeper, questioned\r
+the laundress, and lectured the superintendent. They now proceeded to\r
+address divers remarks and reproofs to Miss Smith, who was charged with\r
+the care of the linen and the inspection of the dormitories: but I had no\r
+time to listen to what they said; other matters called off and enchanted\r
+my attention.\r
+\r
+Hitherto, while gathering up the discourse of Mr. Brocklehurst and Miss\r
+Temple, I had not, at the same time, neglected precautions to secure my\r
+personal safety; which I thought would be effected, if I could only elude\r
+observation. To this end, I had sat well back on the form, and while\r
+seeming to be busy with my sum, had held my slate in such a manner as to\r
+conceal my face: I might have escaped notice, had not my treacherous\r
+slate somehow happened to slip from my hand, and falling with an\r
+obtrusive crash, directly drawn every eye upon me; I knew it was all over\r
+now, and, as I stooped to pick up the two fragments of slate, I rallied\r
+my forces for the worst. It came.\r
+\r
+"A careless girl!" said Mr. Brocklehurst, and immediately after--"It is\r
+the new pupil, I perceive." And before I could draw breath, "I must not\r
+forget I have a word to say respecting her." Then aloud: how loud it\r
+seemed to me! "Let the child who broke her slate come forward!"\r
+\r
+Of my own accord I could not have stirred; I was paralysed: but the two\r
+great girls who sit on each side of me, set me on my legs and pushed me\r
+towards the dread judge, and then Miss Temple gently assisted me to his\r
+very feet, and I caught her whispered counsel--\r
+\r
+"Don't be afraid, Jane, I saw it was an accident; you shall not be\r
+punished."\r
+\r
+The kind whisper went to my heart like a dagger.\r
+\r
+"Another minute, and she will despise me for a hypocrite," thought I; and\r
+an impulse of fury against Reed, Brocklehurst, and Co. bounded in my\r
+pulses at the conviction. I was no Helen Burns.\r
+\r
+"Fetch that stool," said Mr. Brocklehurst, pointing to a very high one\r
+from which a monitor had just risen: it was brought.\r
+\r
+"Place the child upon it."\r
+\r
+And I was placed there, by whom I don't know: I was in no condition to\r
+note particulars; I was only aware that they had hoisted me up to the\r
+height of Mr. Brocklehurst's nose, that he was within a yard of me, and\r
+that a spread of shot orange and purple silk pelisses and a cloud of\r
+silvery plumage extended and waved below me.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brocklehurst hemmed.\r
+\r
+"Ladies," said he, turning to his family, "Miss Temple, teachers, and\r
+children, you all see this girl?"\r
+\r
+Of course they did; for I felt their eyes directed like burning-glasses\r
+against my scorched skin.\r
+\r
+"You see she is yet young; you observe she possesses the ordinary form of\r
+childhood; God has graciously given her the shape that He has given to\r
+all of us; no signal deformity points her out as a marked character. Who\r
+would think that the Evil One had already found a servant and agent in\r
+her? Yet such, I grieve to say, is the case."\r
+\r
+A pause--in which I began to steady the palsy of my nerves, and to feel\r
+that the Rubicon was passed; and that the trial, no longer to be shirked,\r
+must be firmly sustained.\r
+\r
+"My dear children," pursued the black marble clergyman, with pathos,\r
+"this is a sad, a melancholy occasion; for it becomes my duty to warn\r
+you, that this girl, who might be one of God's own lambs, is a little\r
+castaway: not a member of the true flock, but evidently an interloper and\r
+an alien. You must be on your guard against her; you must shun her\r
+example; if necessary, avoid her company, exclude her from your sports,\r
+and shut her out from your converse. Teachers, you must watch her: keep\r
+your eyes on her movements, weigh well her words, scrutinise her actions,\r
+punish her body to save her soul: if, indeed, such salvation be possible,\r
+for (my tongue falters while I tell it) this girl, this child, the native\r
+of a Christian land, worse than many a little heathen who says its\r
+prayers to Brahma and kneels before Juggernaut--this girl is--a liar!"\r
+\r
+Now came a pause of ten minutes, during which I, by this time in perfect\r
+possession of my wits, observed all the female Brocklehursts produce\r
+their pocket-handkerchiefs and apply them to their optics, while the\r
+elderly lady swayed herself to and fro, and the two younger ones\r
+whispered, "How shocking!" Mr. Brocklehurst resumed.\r
+\r
+"This I learned from her benefactress; from the pious and charitable lady\r
+who adopted her in her orphan state, reared her as her own daughter, and\r
+whose kindness, whose generosity the unhappy girl repaid by an\r
+ingratitude so bad, so dreadful, that at last her excellent patroness was\r
+obliged to separate her from her own young ones, fearful lest her vicious\r
+example should contaminate their purity: she has sent her here to be\r
+healed, even as the Jews of old sent their diseased to the troubled pool\r
+of Bethesda; and, teachers, superintendent, I beg of you not to allow the\r
+waters to stagnate round her."\r
+\r
+With this sublime conclusion, Mr. Brocklehurst adjusted the top button of\r
+his surtout, muttered something to his family, who rose, bowed to Miss\r
+Temple, and then all the great people sailed in state from the room.\r
+Turning at the door, my judge said--\r
+\r
+"Let her stand half-an-hour longer on that stool, and let no one speak to\r
+her during the remainder of the day."\r
+\r
+There was I, then, mounted aloft; I, who had said I could not bear the\r
+shame of standing on my natural feet in the middle of the room, was now\r
+exposed to general view on a pedestal of infamy. What my sensations were\r
+no language can describe; but just as they all rose, stifling my breath\r
+and constricting my throat, a girl came up and passed me: in passing, she\r
+lifted her eyes. What a strange light inspired them! What an\r
+extraordinary sensation that ray sent through me! How the new feeling\r
+bore me up! It was as if a martyr, a hero, had passed a slave or victim,\r
+and imparted strength in the transit. I mastered the rising hysteria,\r
+lifted up my head, and took a firm stand on the stool. Helen Burns asked\r
+some slight question about her work of Miss Smith, was chidden for the\r
+triviality of the inquiry, returned to her place, and smiled at me as she\r
+again went by. What a smile! I remember it now, and I know that it was\r
+the effluence of fine intellect, of true courage; it lit up her marked\r
+lineaments, her thin face, her sunken grey eye, like a reflection from\r
+the aspect of an angel. Yet at that moment Helen Burns wore on her arm\r
+"the untidy badge;" scarcely an hour ago I had heard her condemned by\r
+Miss Scatcherd to a dinner of bread and water on the morrow because she\r
+had blotted an exercise in copying it out. Such is the imperfect nature\r
+of man! such spots are there on the disc of the clearest planet; and eyes\r
+like Miss Scatcherd's can only see those minute defects, and are blind to\r
+the full brightness of the orb.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Ere the half-hour ended, five o'clock struck; school was dismissed, and\r
+all were gone into the refectory to tea. I now ventured to descend: it\r
+was deep dusk; I retired into a corner and sat down on the floor. The\r
+spell by which I had been so far supported began to dissolve; reaction\r
+took place, and soon, so overwhelming was the grief that seized me, I\r
+sank prostrate with my face to the ground. Now I wept: Helen Burns was\r
+not here; nothing sustained me; left to myself I abandoned myself, and my\r
+tears watered the boards. I had meant to be so good, and to do so much\r
+at Lowood: to make so many friends, to earn respect and win affection.\r
+Already I had made visible progress: that very morning I had reached the\r
+head of my class; Miss Miller had praised me warmly; Miss Temple had\r
+smiled approbation; she had promised to teach me drawing, and to let me\r
+learn French, if I continued to make similar improvement two months\r
+longer: and then I was well received by my fellow-pupils; treated as an\r
+equal by those of my own age, and not molested by any; now, here I lay\r
+again crushed and trodden on; and could I ever rise more?\r
+\r
+"Never," I thought; and ardently I wished to die. While sobbing out this\r
+wish in broken accents, some one approached: I started up--again Helen\r
+Burns was near me; the fading fires just showed her coming up the long,\r
+vacant room; she brought my coffee and bread.\r
+\r
+"Come, eat something," she said; but I put both away from me, feeling as\r
+if a drop or a crumb would have choked me in my present condition. Helen\r
+regarded me, probably with surprise: I could not now abate my agitation,\r
+though I tried hard; I continued to weep aloud. She sat down on the\r
+ground near me, embraced her knees with her arms, and rested her head\r
+upon them; in that attitude she remained silent as an Indian. I was the\r
+first who spoke--\r
+\r
+"Helen, why do you stay with a girl whom everybody believes to be a\r
+liar?"\r
+\r
+"Everybody, Jane? Why, there are only eighty people who have heard you\r
+called so, and the world contains hundreds of millions."\r
+\r
+"But what have I to do with millions? The eighty, I know, despise me."\r
+\r
+"Jane, you are mistaken: probably not one in the school either despises\r
+or dislikes you: many, I am sure, pity you much."\r
+\r
+"How can they pity me after what Mr. Brocklehurst has said?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Brocklehurst is not a god: nor is he even a great and admired man:\r
+he is little liked here; he never took steps to make himself liked. Had\r
+he treated you as an especial favourite, you would have found enemies,\r
+declared or covert, all around you; as it is, the greater number would\r
+offer you sympathy if they dared. Teachers and pupils may look coldly on\r
+you for a day or two, but friendly feelings are concealed in their\r
+hearts; and if you persevere in doing well, these feelings will ere long\r
+appear so much the more evidently for their temporary suppression.\r
+Besides, Jane"--she paused.\r
+\r
+"Well, Helen?" said I, putting my hand into hers: she chafed my fingers\r
+gently to warm them, and went on--\r
+\r
+"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own\r
+conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be\r
+without friends."\r
+\r
+"No; I know I should think well of myself; but that is not enough: if\r
+others don't love me I would rather die than live--I cannot bear to be\r
+solitary and hated, Helen. Look here; to gain some real affection from\r
+you, or Miss Temple, or any other whom I truly love, I would willingly\r
+submit to have the bone of my arm broken, or to let a bull toss me, or to\r
+stand behind a kicking horse, and let it dash its hoof at my chest--"\r
+\r
+"Hush, Jane! you think too much of the love of human beings; you are too\r
+impulsive, too vehement; the sovereign hand that created your frame, and\r
+put life into it, has provided you with other resources than your feeble\r
+self, or than creatures feeble as you. Besides this earth, and besides\r
+the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits:\r
+that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us,\r
+for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and\r
+shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see\r
+our tortures, recognise our innocence (if innocent we be: as I know you\r
+are of this charge which Mr. Brocklehurst has weakly and pompously\r
+repeated at second-hand from Mrs. Reed; for I read a sincere nature in\r
+your ardent eyes and on your clear front), and God waits only the\r
+separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward. Why,\r
+then, should we ever sink overwhelmed with distress, when life is so soon\r
+over, and death is so certain an entrance to happiness--to glory?"\r
+\r
+I was silent; Helen had calmed me; but in the tranquillity she imparted\r
+there was an alloy of inexpressible sadness. I felt the impression of\r
+woe as she spoke, but I could not tell whence it came; and when, having\r
+done speaking, she breathed a little fast and coughed a short cough, I\r
+momentarily forgot my own sorrows to yield to a vague concern for her.\r
+\r
+Resting my head on Helen's shoulder, I put my arms round her waist; she\r
+drew me to her, and we reposed in silence. We had not sat long thus,\r
+when another person came in. Some heavy clouds, swept from the sky by a\r
+rising wind, had left the moon bare; and her light, streaming in through\r
+a window near, shone full both on us and on the approaching figure, which\r
+we at once recognised as Miss Temple.\r
+\r
+"I came on purpose to find you, Jane Eyre," said she; "I want you in my\r
+room; and as Helen Burns is with you, she may come too."\r
+\r
+We went; following the superintendent's guidance, we had to thread some\r
+intricate passages, and mount a staircase before we reached her\r
+apartment; it contained a good fire, and looked cheerful. Miss Temple\r
+told Helen Burns to be seated in a low arm-chair on one side of the\r
+hearth, and herself taking another, she called me to her side.\r
+\r
+"Is it all over?" she asked, looking down at my face. "Have you cried\r
+your grief away?"\r
+\r
+"I am afraid I never shall do that."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Because I have been wrongly accused; and you, ma'am, and everybody else,\r
+will now think me wicked."\r
+\r
+"We shall think you what you prove yourself to be, my child. Continue to\r
+act as a good girl, and you will satisfy us."\r
+\r
+"Shall I, Miss Temple?"\r
+\r
+"You will," said she, passing her arm round me. "And now tell me who is\r
+the lady whom Mr. Brocklehurst called your benefactress?"\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Reed, my uncle's wife. My uncle is dead, and he left me to her\r
+care."\r
+\r
+"Did she not, then, adopt you of her own accord?"\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am; she was sorry to have to do it: but my uncle, as I have often\r
+heard the servants say, got her to promise before he died that she would\r
+always keep me."\r
+\r
+"Well now, Jane, you know, or at least I will tell you, that when a\r
+criminal is accused, he is always allowed to speak in his own defence.\r
+You have been charged with falsehood; defend yourself to me as well as\r
+you can. Say whatever your memory suggests is true; but add nothing and\r
+exaggerate nothing."\r
+\r
+I resolved, in the depth of my heart, that I would be most moderate--most\r
+correct; and, having reflected a few minutes in order to arrange\r
+coherently what I had to say, I told her all the story of my sad\r
+childhood. Exhausted by emotion, my language was more subdued than it\r
+generally was when it developed that sad theme; and mindful of Helen's\r
+warnings against the indulgence of resentment, I infused into the\r
+narrative far less of gall and wormwood than ordinary. Thus restrained\r
+and simplified, it sounded more credible: I felt as I went on that Miss\r
+Temple fully believed me.\r
+\r
+In the course of the tale I had mentioned Mr. Lloyd as having come to see\r
+me after the fit: for I never forgot the, to me, frightful episode of the\r
+red-room: in detailing which, my excitement was sure, in some degree, to\r
+break bounds; for nothing could soften in my recollection the spasm of\r
+agony which clutched my heart when Mrs. Reed spurned my wild supplication\r
+for pardon, and locked me a second time in the dark and haunted chamber.\r
+\r
+I had finished: Miss Temple regarded me a few minutes in silence; she\r
+then said--\r
+\r
+"I know something of Mr. Lloyd; I shall write to him; if his reply agrees\r
+with your statement, you shall be publicly cleared from every imputation;\r
+to me, Jane, you are clear now."\r
+\r
+She kissed me, and still keeping me at her side (where I was well\r
+contented to stand, for I derived a child's pleasure from the\r
+contemplation of her face, her dress, her one or two ornaments, her white\r
+forehead, her clustered and shining curls, and beaming dark eyes), she\r
+proceeded to address Helen Burns.\r
+\r
+"How are you to-night, Helen? Have you coughed much to-day?"\r
+\r
+"Not quite so much, I think, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"And the pain in your chest?"\r
+\r
+"It is a little better."\r
+\r
+Miss Temple got up, took her hand and examined her pulse; then she\r
+returned to her own seat: as she resumed it, I heard her sigh low. She\r
+was pensive a few minutes, then rousing herself, she said cheerfully--\r
+\r
+"But you two are my visitors to-night; I must treat you as such." She\r
+rang her bell.\r
+\r
+"Barbara," she said to the servant who answered it, "I have not yet had\r
+tea; bring the tray and place cups for these two young ladies."\r
+\r
+And a tray was soon brought. How pretty, to my eyes, did the china cups\r
+and bright teapot look, placed on the little round table near the fire!\r
+How fragrant was the steam of the beverage, and the scent of the toast!\r
+of which, however, I, to my dismay (for I was beginning to be hungry)\r
+discerned only a very small portion: Miss Temple discerned it too.\r
+\r
+"Barbara," said she, "can you not bring a little more bread and butter?\r
+There is not enough for three."\r
+\r
+Barbara went out: she returned soon--\r
+\r
+"Madam, Mrs. Harden says she has sent up the usual quantity."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Harden, be it observed, was the housekeeper: a woman after Mr.\r
+Brocklehurst's own heart, made up of equal parts of whalebone and iron.\r
+\r
+"Oh, very well!" returned Miss Temple; "we must make it do, Barbara, I\r
+suppose." And as the girl withdrew she added, smiling, "Fortunately, I\r
+have it in my power to supply deficiencies for this once."\r
+\r
+Having invited Helen and me to approach the table, and placed before each\r
+of us a cup of tea with one delicious but thin morsel of toast, she got\r
+up, unlocked a drawer, and taking from it a parcel wrapped in paper,\r
+disclosed presently to our eyes a good-sized seed-cake.\r
+\r
+"I meant to give each of you some of this to take with you," said she,\r
+"but as there is so little toast, you must have it now," and she\r
+proceeded to cut slices with a generous hand.\r
+\r
+We feasted that evening as on nectar and ambrosia; and not the least\r
+delight of the entertainment was the smile of gratification with which\r
+our hostess regarded us, as we satisfied our famished appetites on the\r
+delicate fare she liberally supplied.\r
+\r
+Tea over and the tray removed, she again summoned us to the fire; we sat\r
+one on each side of her, and now a conversation followed between her and\r
+Helen, which it was indeed a privilege to be admitted to hear.\r
+\r
+Miss Temple had always something of serenity in her air, of state in her\r
+mien, of refined propriety in her language, which precluded deviation\r
+into the ardent, the excited, the eager: something which chastened the\r
+pleasure of those who looked on her and listened to her, by a controlling\r
+sense of awe; and such was my feeling now: but as to Helen Burns, I was\r
+struck with wonder.\r
+\r
+The refreshing meal, the brilliant fire, the presence and kindness of her\r
+beloved instructress, or, perhaps, more than all these, something in her\r
+own unique mind, had roused her powers within her. They woke, they\r
+kindled: first, they glowed in the bright tint of her cheek, which till\r
+this hour I had never seen but pale and bloodless; then they shone in the\r
+liquid lustre of her eyes, which had suddenly acquired a beauty more\r
+singular than that of Miss Temple's--a beauty neither of fine colour nor\r
+long eyelash, nor pencilled brow, but of meaning, of movement, of\r
+radiance. Then her soul sat on her lips, and language flowed, from what\r
+source I cannot tell. Has a girl of fourteen a heart large enough,\r
+vigorous enough, to hold the swelling spring of pure, full, fervid\r
+eloquence? Such was the characteristic of Helen's discourse on that, to\r
+me, memorable evening; her spirit seemed hastening to live within a very\r
+brief span as much as many live during a protracted existence.\r
+\r
+They conversed of things I had never heard of; of nations and times past;\r
+of countries far away; of secrets of nature discovered or guessed at:\r
+they spoke of books: how many they had read! What stores of knowledge\r
+they possessed! Then they seemed so familiar with French names and\r
+French authors: but my amazement reached its climax when Miss Temple\r
+asked Helen if she sometimes snatched a moment to recall the Latin her\r
+father had taught her, and taking a book from a shelf, bade her read and\r
+construe a page of Virgil; and Helen obeyed, my organ of veneration\r
+expanding at every sounding line. She had scarcely finished ere the bell\r
+announced bedtime! no delay could be admitted; Miss Temple embraced us\r
+both, saying, as she drew us to her heart--\r
+\r
+"God bless you, my children!"\r
+\r
+Helen she held a little longer than me: she let her go more reluctantly;\r
+it was Helen her eye followed to the door; it was for her she a second\r
+time breathed a sad sigh; for her she wiped a tear from her cheek.\r
+\r
+On reaching the bedroom, we heard the voice of Miss Scatcherd: she was\r
+examining drawers; she had just pulled out Helen Burns's, and when we\r
+entered Helen was greeted with a sharp reprimand, and told that to-morrow\r
+she should have half-a-dozen of untidily folded articles pinned to her\r
+shoulder.\r
+\r
+"My things were indeed in shameful disorder," murmured Helen to me, in a\r
+low voice: "I intended to have arranged them, but I forgot."\r
+\r
+Next morning, Miss Scatcherd wrote in conspicuous characters on a piece\r
+of pasteboard the word "Slattern," and bound it like a phylactery round\r
+Helen's large, mild, intelligent, and benign-looking forehead. She wore\r
+it till evening, patient, unresentful, regarding it as a deserved\r
+punishment. The moment Miss Scatcherd withdrew after afternoon school, I\r
+ran to Helen, tore it off, and thrust it into the fire: the fury of which\r
+she was incapable had been burning in my soul all day, and tears, hot and\r
+large, had continually been scalding my cheek; for the spectacle of her\r
+sad resignation gave me an intolerable pain at the heart.\r
+\r
+About a week subsequently to the incidents above narrated, Miss Temple,\r
+who had written to Mr. Lloyd, received his answer: it appeared that what\r
+he said went to corroborate my account. Miss Temple, having assembled\r
+the whole school, announced that inquiry had been made into the charges\r
+alleged against Jane Eyre, and that she was most happy to be able to\r
+pronounce her completely cleared from every imputation. The teachers\r
+then shook hands with me and kissed me, and a murmur of pleasure ran\r
+through the ranks of my companions.\r
+\r
+Thus relieved of a grievous load, I from that hour set to work afresh,\r
+resolved to pioneer my way through every difficulty: I toiled hard, and\r
+my success was proportionate to my efforts; my memory, not naturally\r
+tenacious, improved with practice; exercise sharpened my wits; in a few\r
+weeks I was promoted to a higher class; in less than two months I was\r
+allowed to commence French and drawing. I learned the first two tenses\r
+of the verb _Etre_, and sketched my first cottage (whose walls, by-the-\r
+bye, outrivalled in slope those of the leaning tower of Pisa), on the\r
+same day. That night, on going to bed, I forgot to prepare in\r
+imagination the Barmecide supper of hot roast potatoes, or white bread\r
+and new milk, with which I was wont to amuse my inward cravings: I\r
+feasted instead on the spectacle of ideal drawings, which I saw in the\r
+dark; all the work of my own hands: freely pencilled houses and trees,\r
+picturesque rocks and ruins, Cuyp-like groups of cattle, sweet paintings\r
+of butterflies hovering over unblown roses, of birds picking at ripe\r
+cherries, of wren's nests enclosing pearl-like eggs, wreathed about with\r
+young ivy sprays. I examined, too, in thought, the possibility of my\r
+ever being able to translate currently a certain little French story\r
+which Madame Pierrot had that day shown me; nor was that problem solved\r
+to my satisfaction ere I fell sweetly asleep.\r
+\r
+Well has Solomon said--"Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a\r
+stalled ox and hatred therewith."\r
+\r
+I would not now have exchanged Lowood with all its privations for\r
+Gateshead and its daily luxuries.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+\r
+But the privations, or rather the hardships, of Lowood lessened. Spring\r
+drew on: she was indeed already come; the frosts of winter had ceased;\r
+its snows were melted, its cutting winds ameliorated. My wretched feet,\r
+flayed and swollen to lameness by the sharp air of January, began to heal\r
+and subside under the gentler breathings of April; the nights and\r
+mornings no longer by their Canadian temperature froze the very blood in\r
+our veins; we could now endure the play-hour passed in the garden:\r
+sometimes on a sunny day it began even to be pleasant and genial, and a\r
+greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested\r
+the thought that Hope traversed them at night, and left each morning\r
+brighter traces of her steps. Flowers peeped out amongst the leaves;\r
+snow-drops, crocuses, purple auriculas, and golden-eyed pansies. On\r
+Thursday afternoons (half-holidays) we now took walks, and found still\r
+sweeter flowers opening by the wayside, under the hedges.\r
+\r
+I discovered, too, that a great pleasure, an enjoyment which the horizon\r
+only bounded, lay all outside the high and spike-guarded walls of our\r
+garden: this pleasure consisted in prospect of noble summits girdling a\r
+great hill-hollow, rich in verdure and shadow; in a bright beck, full of\r
+dark stones and sparkling eddies. How different had this scene looked\r
+when I viewed it laid out beneath the iron sky of winter, stiffened in\r
+frost, shrouded with snow!--when mists as chill as death wandered to the\r
+impulse of east winds along those purple peaks, and rolled down "ing" and\r
+holm till they blended with the frozen fog of the beck! That beck itself\r
+was then a torrent, turbid and curbless: it tore asunder the wood, and\r
+sent a raving sound through the air, often thickened with wild rain or\r
+whirling sleet; and for the forest on its banks, _that_ showed only ranks\r
+of skeletons.\r
+\r
+April advanced to May: a bright serene May it was; days of blue sky,\r
+placid sunshine, and soft western or southern gales filled up its\r
+duration. And now vegetation matured with vigour; Lowood shook loose its\r
+tresses; it became all green, all flowery; its great elm, ash, and oak\r
+skeletons were restored to majestic life; woodland plants sprang up\r
+profusely in its recesses; unnumbered varieties of moss filled its\r
+hollows, and it made a strange ground-sunshine out of the wealth of its\r
+wild primrose plants: I have seen their pale gold gleam in overshadowed\r
+spots like scatterings of the sweetest lustre. All this I enjoyed often\r
+and fully, free, unwatched, and almost alone: for this unwonted liberty\r
+and pleasure there was a cause, to which it now becomes my task to\r
+advert.\r
+\r
+Have I not described a pleasant site for a dwelling, when I speak of it\r
+as bosomed in hill and wood, and rising from the verge of a stream?\r
+Assuredly, pleasant enough: but whether healthy or not is another\r
+question.\r
+\r
+That forest-dell, where Lowood lay, was the cradle of fog and fog-bred\r
+pestilence; which, quickening with the quickening spring, crept into the\r
+Orphan Asylum, breathed typhus through its crowded schoolroom and\r
+dormitory, and, ere May arrived, transformed the seminary into an\r
+hospital.\r
+\r
+Semi-starvation and neglected colds had predisposed most of the pupils to\r
+receive infection: forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one\r
+time. Classes were broken up, rules relaxed. The few who continued well\r
+were allowed almost unlimited license; because the medical attendant\r
+insisted on the necessity of frequent exercise to keep them in health:\r
+and had it been otherwise, no one had leisure to watch or restrain them.\r
+Miss Temple's whole attention was absorbed by the patients: she lived in\r
+the sick-room, never quitting it except to snatch a few hours' rest at\r
+night. The teachers were fully occupied with packing up and making other\r
+necessary preparations for the departure of those girls who were\r
+fortunate enough to have friends and relations able and willing to remove\r
+them from the seat of contagion. Many, already smitten, went home only\r
+to die: some died at the school, and were buried quietly and quickly, the\r
+nature of the malady forbidding delay.\r
+\r
+While disease had thus become an inhabitant of Lowood, and death its\r
+frequent visitor; while there was gloom and fear within its walls; while\r
+its rooms and passages steamed with hospital smells, the drug and the\r
+pastille striving vainly to overcome the effluvia of mortality, that\r
+bright May shone unclouded over the bold hills and beautiful woodland out\r
+of doors. Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up\r
+tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the\r
+borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double\r
+daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of\r
+spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most\r
+of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of\r
+herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.\r
+\r
+But I, and the rest who continued well, enjoyed fully the beauties of the\r
+scene and season; they let us ramble in the wood, like gipsies, from\r
+morning till night; we did what we liked, went where we liked: we lived\r
+better too. Mr. Brocklehurst and his family never came near Lowood now:\r
+household matters were not scrutinised into; the cross housekeeper was\r
+gone, driven away by the fear of infection; her successor, who had been\r
+matron at the Lowton Dispensary, unused to the ways of her new abode,\r
+provided with comparative liberality. Besides, there were fewer to feed;\r
+the sick could eat little; our breakfast-basins were better filled; when\r
+there was no time to prepare a regular dinner, which often happened, she\r
+would give us a large piece of cold pie, or a thick slice of bread and\r
+cheese, and this we carried away with us to the wood, where we each chose\r
+the spot we liked best, and dined sumptuously.\r
+\r
+My favourite seat was a smooth and broad stone, rising white and dry from\r
+the very middle of the beck, and only to be got at by wading through the\r
+water; a feat I accomplished barefoot. The stone was just broad enough\r
+to accommodate, comfortably, another girl and me, at that time my chosen\r
+comrade--one Mary Ann Wilson; a shrewd, observant personage, whose\r
+society I took pleasure in, partly because she was witty and original,\r
+and partly because she had a manner which set me at my ease. Some years\r
+older than I, she knew more of the world, and could tell me many things I\r
+liked to hear: with her my curiosity found gratification: to my faults\r
+also she gave ample indulgence, never imposing curb or rein on anything I\r
+said. She had a turn for narrative, I for analysis; she liked to inform,\r
+I to question; so we got on swimmingly together, deriving much\r
+entertainment, if not much improvement, from our mutual intercourse.\r
+\r
+And where, meantime, was Helen Burns? Why did I not spend these sweet\r
+days of liberty with her? Had I forgotten her? or was I so worthless as\r
+to have grown tired of her pure society? Surely the Mary Ann Wilson I\r
+have mentioned was inferior to my first acquaintance: she could only tell\r
+me amusing stories, and reciprocate any racy and pungent gossip I chose\r
+to indulge in; while, if I have spoken truth of Helen, she was qualified\r
+to give those who enjoyed the privilege of her converse a taste of far\r
+higher things.\r
+\r
+True, reader; and I knew and felt this: and though I am a defective\r
+being, with many faults and few redeeming points, yet I never tired of\r
+Helen Burns; nor ever ceased to cherish for her a sentiment of\r
+attachment, as strong, tender, and respectful as any that ever animated\r
+my heart. How could it be otherwise, when Helen, at all times and under\r
+all circumstances, evinced for me a quiet and faithful friendship, which\r
+ill-humour never soured, nor irritation never troubled? But Helen was\r
+ill at present: for some weeks she had been removed from my sight to I\r
+knew not what room upstairs. She was not, I was told, in the hospital\r
+portion of the house with the fever patients; for her complaint was\r
+consumption, not typhus: and by consumption I, in my ignorance,\r
+understood something mild, which time and care would be sure to\r
+alleviate.\r
+\r
+I was confirmed in this idea by the fact of her once or twice coming\r
+downstairs on very warm sunny afternoons, and being taken by Miss Temple\r
+into the garden; but, on these occasions, I was not allowed to go and\r
+speak to her; I only saw her from the schoolroom window, and then not\r
+distinctly; for she was much wrapped up, and sat at a distance under the\r
+verandah.\r
+\r
+One evening, in the beginning of June, I had stayed out very late with\r
+Mary Ann in the wood; we had, as usual, separated ourselves from the\r
+others, and had wandered far; so far that we lost our way, and had to ask\r
+it at a lonely cottage, where a man and woman lived, who looked after a\r
+herd of half-wild swine that fed on the mast in the wood. When we got\r
+back, it was after moonrise: a pony, which we knew to be the surgeon's,\r
+was standing at the garden door. Mary Ann remarked that she supposed\r
+some one must be very ill, as Mr. Bates had been sent for at that time of\r
+the evening. She went into the house; I stayed behind a few minutes to\r
+plant in my garden a handful of roots I had dug up in the forest, and\r
+which I feared would wither if I left them till the morning. This done,\r
+I lingered yet a little longer: the flowers smelt so sweet as the dew\r
+fell; it was such a pleasant evening, so serene, so warm; the still\r
+glowing west promised so fairly another fine day on the morrow; the moon\r
+rose with such majesty in the grave east. I was noting these things and\r
+enjoying them as a child might, when it entered my mind as it had never\r
+done before:--\r
+\r
+"How sad to be lying now on a sick bed, and to be in danger of dying!\r
+This world is pleasant--it would be dreary to be called from it, and to\r
+have to go who knows where?"\r
+\r
+And then my mind made its first earnest effort to comprehend what had\r
+been infused into it concerning heaven and hell; and for the first time\r
+it recoiled, baffled; and for the first time glancing behind, on each\r
+side, and before it, it saw all round an unfathomed gulf: it felt the one\r
+point where it stood--the present; all the rest was formless cloud and\r
+vacant depth; and it shuddered at the thought of tottering, and plunging\r
+amid that chaos. While pondering this new idea, I heard the front door\r
+open; Mr. Bates came out, and with him was a nurse. After she had seen\r
+him mount his horse and depart, she was about to close the door, but I\r
+ran up to her.\r
+\r
+"How is Helen Burns?"\r
+\r
+"Very poorly," was the answer.\r
+\r
+"Is it her Mr. Bates has been to see?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And what does he say about her?"\r
+\r
+"He says she'll not be here long."\r
+\r
+This phrase, uttered in my hearing yesterday, would have only conveyed\r
+the notion that she was about to be removed to Northumberland, to her own\r
+home. I should not have suspected that it meant she was dying; but I\r
+knew instantly now! It opened clear on my comprehension that Helen Burns\r
+was numbering her last days in this world, and that she was going to be\r
+taken to the region of spirits, if such region there were. I experienced\r
+a shock of horror, then a strong thrill of grief, then a desire--a\r
+necessity to see her; and I asked in what room she lay.\r
+\r
+"She is in Miss Temple's room," said the nurse.\r
+\r
+"May I go up and speak to her?"\r
+\r
+"Oh no, child! It is not likely; and now it is time for you to come in;\r
+you'll catch the fever if you stop out when the dew is falling."\r
+\r
+The nurse closed the front door; I went in by the side entrance which led\r
+to the schoolroom: I was just in time; it was nine o'clock, and Miss\r
+Miller was calling the pupils to go to bed.\r
+\r
+It might be two hours later, probably near eleven, when I--not having\r
+been able to fall asleep, and deeming, from the perfect silence of the\r
+dormitory, that my companions were all wrapt in profound repose--rose\r
+softly, put on my frock over my night-dress, and, without shoes, crept\r
+from the apartment, and set off in quest of Miss Temple's room. It was\r
+quite at the other end of the house; but I knew my way; and the light of\r
+the unclouded summer moon, entering here and there at passage windows,\r
+enabled me to find it without difficulty. An odour of camphor and burnt\r
+vinegar warned me when I came near the fever room: and I passed its door\r
+quickly, fearful lest the nurse who sat up all night should hear me. I\r
+dreaded being discovered and sent back; for I _must_ see Helen,--I must\r
+embrace her before she died,--I must give her one last kiss, exchange\r
+with her one last word.\r
+\r
+Having descended a staircase, traversed a portion of the house below, and\r
+succeeded in opening and shutting, without noise, two doors, I reached\r
+another flight of steps; these I mounted, and then just opposite to me\r
+was Miss Temple's room. A light shone through the keyhole and from under\r
+the door; a profound stillness pervaded the vicinity. Coming near, I\r
+found the door slightly ajar; probably to admit some fresh air into the\r
+close abode of sickness. Indisposed to hesitate, and full of impatient\r
+impulses--soul and senses quivering with keen throes--I put it back and\r
+looked in. My eye sought Helen, and feared to find death.\r
+\r
+Close by Miss Temple's bed, and half covered with its white curtains,\r
+there stood a little crib. I saw the outline of a form under the\r
+clothes, but the face was hid by the hangings: the nurse I had spoken to\r
+in the garden sat in an easy-chair asleep; an unsnuffed candle burnt\r
+dimly on the table. Miss Temple was not to be seen: I knew afterwards\r
+that she had been called to a delirious patient in the fever-room. I\r
+advanced; then paused by the crib side: my hand was on the curtain, but I\r
+preferred speaking before I withdrew it. I still recoiled at the dread\r
+of seeing a corpse.\r
+\r
+"Helen!" I whispered softly, "are you awake?"\r
+\r
+She stirred herself, put back the curtain, and I saw her face, pale,\r
+wasted, but quite composed: she looked so little changed that my fear was\r
+instantly dissipated.\r
+\r
+"Can it be you, Jane?" she asked, in her own gentle voice.\r
+\r
+"Oh!" I thought, "she is not going to die; they are mistaken: she could\r
+not speak and look so calmly if she were."\r
+\r
+I got on to her crib and kissed her: her forehead was cold, and her cheek\r
+both cold and thin, and so were her hand and wrist; but she smiled as of\r
+old.\r
+\r
+"Why are you come here, Jane? It is past eleven o'clock: I heard it\r
+strike some minutes since."\r
+\r
+"I came to see you, Helen: I heard you were very ill, and I could not\r
+sleep till I had spoken to you."\r
+\r
+"You came to bid me good-bye, then: you are just in time probably."\r
+\r
+"Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; to my long home--my last home."\r
+\r
+"No, no, Helen!" I stopped, distressed. While I tried to devour my\r
+tears, a fit of coughing seized Helen; it did not, however, wake the\r
+nurse; when it was over, she lay some minutes exhausted; then she\r
+whispered--\r
+\r
+"Jane, your little feet are bare; lie down and cover yourself with my\r
+quilt."\r
+\r
+I did so: she put her arm over me, and I nestled close to her. After a\r
+long silence, she resumed, still whispering--\r
+\r
+"I am very happy, Jane; and when you hear that I am dead, you must be\r
+sure and not grieve: there is nothing to grieve about. We all must die\r
+one day, and the illness which is removing me is not painful; it is\r
+gentle and gradual: my mind is at rest. I leave no one to regret me\r
+much: I have only a father; and he is lately married, and will not miss\r
+me. By dying young, I shall escape great sufferings. I had not\r
+qualities or talents to make my way very well in the world: I should have\r
+been continually at fault."\r
+\r
+"But where are you going to, Helen? Can you see? Do you know?"\r
+\r
+"I believe; I have faith: I am going to God."\r
+\r
+"Where is God? What is God?"\r
+\r
+"My Maker and yours, who will never destroy what He created. I rely\r
+implicitly on His power, and confide wholly in His goodness: I count the\r
+hours till that eventful one arrives which shall restore me to Him,\r
+reveal Him to me."\r
+\r
+"You are sure, then, Helen, that there is such a place as heaven, and\r
+that our souls can get to it when we die?"\r
+\r
+"I am sure there is a future state; I believe God is good; I can resign\r
+my immortal part to Him without any misgiving. God is my father; God is\r
+my friend: I love Him; I believe He loves me."\r
+\r
+"And shall I see you again, Helen, when I die?"\r
+\r
+"You will come to the same region of happiness: be received by the same\r
+mighty, universal Parent, no doubt, dear Jane."\r
+\r
+Again I questioned, but this time only in thought. "Where is that\r
+region? Does it exist?" And I clasped my arms closer round Helen; she\r
+seemed dearer to me than ever; I felt as if I could not let her go; I lay\r
+with my face hidden on her neck. Presently she said, in the sweetest\r
+tone--\r
+\r
+"How comfortable I am! That last fit of coughing has tired me a little;\r
+I feel as if I could sleep: but don't leave me, Jane; I like to have you\r
+near me."\r
+\r
+"I'll stay with you, _dear_ Helen: no one shall take me away."\r
+\r
+"Are you warm, darling?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Good-night, Jane."\r
+\r
+"Good-night, Helen."\r
+\r
+She kissed me, and I her, and we both soon slumbered.\r
+\r
+When I awoke it was day: an unusual movement roused me; I looked up; I\r
+was in somebody's arms; the nurse held me; she was carrying me through\r
+the passage back to the dormitory. I was not reprimanded for leaving my\r
+bed; people had something else to think about; no explanation was\r
+afforded then to my many questions; but a day or two afterwards I learned\r
+that Miss Temple, on returning to her own room at dawn, had found me laid\r
+in the little crib; my face against Helen Burns's shoulder, my arms round\r
+her neck. I was asleep, and Helen was--dead.\r
+\r
+Her grave is in Brocklebridge churchyard: for fifteen years after her\r
+death it was only covered by a grassy mound; but now a grey marble tablet\r
+marks the spot, inscribed with her name, and the word "Resurgam."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+\r
+Hitherto I have recorded in detail the events of my insignificant\r
+existence: to the first ten years of my life I have given almost as many\r
+chapters. But this is not to be a regular autobiography. I am only\r
+bound to invoke Memory where I know her responses will possess some\r
+degree of interest; therefore I now pass a space of eight years almost in\r
+silence: a few lines only are necessary to keep up the links of\r
+connection.\r
+\r
+When the typhus fever had fulfilled its mission of devastation at Lowood,\r
+it gradually disappeared from thence; but not till its virulence and the\r
+number of its victims had drawn public attention on the school. Inquiry\r
+was made into the origin of the scourge, and by degrees various facts\r
+came out which excited public indignation in a high degree. The\r
+unhealthy nature of the site; the quantity and quality of the children's\r
+food; the brackish, fetid water used in its preparation; the pupils'\r
+wretched clothing and accommodations--all these things were discovered,\r
+and the discovery produced a result mortifying to Mr. Brocklehurst, but\r
+beneficial to the institution.\r
+\r
+Several wealthy and benevolent individuals in the county subscribed\r
+largely for the erection of a more convenient building in a better\r
+situation; new regulations were made; improvements in diet and clothing\r
+introduced; the funds of the school were intrusted to the management of a\r
+committee. Mr. Brocklehurst, who, from his wealth and family\r
+connections, could not be overlooked, still retained the post of\r
+treasurer; but he was aided in the discharge of his duties by gentlemen\r
+of rather more enlarged and sympathising minds: his office of inspector,\r
+too, was shared by those who knew how to combine reason with strictness,\r
+comfort with economy, compassion with uprightness. The school, thus\r
+improved, became in time a truly useful and noble institution. I\r
+remained an inmate of its walls, after its regeneration, for eight years:\r
+six as pupil, and two as teacher; and in both capacities I bear my\r
+testimony to its value and importance.\r
+\r
+During these eight years my life was uniform: but not unhappy, because it\r
+was not inactive. I had the means of an excellent education placed\r
+within my reach; a fondness for some of my studies, and a desire to excel\r
+in all, together with a great delight in pleasing my teachers, especially\r
+such as I loved, urged me on: I availed myself fully of the advantages\r
+offered me. In time I rose to be the first girl of the first class; then\r
+I was invested with the office of teacher; which I discharged with zeal\r
+for two years: but at the end of that time I altered.\r
+\r
+Miss Temple, through all changes, had thus far continued superintendent\r
+of the seminary: to her instruction I owed the best part of my\r
+acquirements; her friendship and society had been my continual solace;\r
+she had stood me in the stead of mother, governess, and, latterly,\r
+companion. At this period she married, removed with her husband (a\r
+clergyman, an excellent man, almost worthy of such a wife) to a distant\r
+county, and consequently was lost to me.\r
+\r
+From the day she left I was no longer the same: with her was gone every\r
+settled feeling, every association that had made Lowood in some degree a\r
+home to me. I had imbibed from her something of her nature and much of\r
+her habits: more harmonious thoughts: what seemed better regulated\r
+feelings had become the inmates of my mind. I had given in allegiance to\r
+duty and order; I was quiet; I believed I was content: to the eyes of\r
+others, usually even to my own, I appeared a disciplined and subdued\r
+character.\r
+\r
+But destiny, in the shape of the Rev. Mr. Nasmyth, came between me and\r
+Miss Temple: I saw her in her travelling dress step into a post-chaise,\r
+shortly after the marriage ceremony; I watched the chaise mount the hill\r
+and disappear beyond its brow; and then retired to my own room, and there\r
+spent in solitude the greatest part of the half-holiday granted in honour\r
+of the occasion.\r
+\r
+I walked about the chamber most of the time. I imagined myself only to\r
+be regretting my loss, and thinking how to repair it; but when my\r
+reflections were concluded, and I looked up and found that the afternoon\r
+was gone, and evening far advanced, another discovery dawned on me,\r
+namely, that in the interval I had undergone a transforming process; that\r
+my mind had put off all it had borrowed of Miss Temple--or rather that\r
+she had taken with her the serene atmosphere I had been breathing in her\r
+vicinity--and that now I was left in my natural element, and beginning to\r
+feel the stirring of old emotions. It did not seem as if a prop were\r
+withdrawn, but rather as if a motive were gone: it was not the power to\r
+be tranquil which had failed me, but the reason for tranquillity was no\r
+more. My world had for some years been in Lowood: my experience had been\r
+of its rules and systems; now I remembered that the real world was wide,\r
+and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and\r
+excitements, awaited those who had courage to go forth into its expanse,\r
+to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils.\r
+\r
+I went to my window, opened it, and looked out. There were the two wings\r
+of the building; there was the garden; there were the skirts of Lowood;\r
+there was the hilly horizon. My eye passed all other objects to rest on\r
+those most remote, the blue peaks; it was those I longed to surmount; all\r
+within their boundary of rock and heath seemed prison-ground, exile\r
+limits. I traced the white road winding round the base of one mountain,\r
+and vanishing in a gorge between two; how I longed to follow it farther!\r
+I recalled the time when I had travelled that very road in a coach; I\r
+remembered descending that hill at twilight; an age seemed to have\r
+elapsed since the day which brought me first to Lowood, and I had never\r
+quitted it since. My vacations had all been spent at school: Mrs. Reed\r
+had never sent for me to Gateshead; neither she nor any of her family had\r
+ever been to visit me. I had had no communication by letter or message\r
+with the outer world: school-rules, school-duties, school-habits and\r
+notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and\r
+preferences, and antipathies--such was what I knew of existence. And now\r
+I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in\r
+one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I\r
+uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing. I\r
+abandoned it and framed a humbler supplication; for change, stimulus:\r
+that petition, too, seemed swept off into vague space: "Then," I cried,\r
+half desperate, "grant me at least a new servitude!"\r
+\r
+Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.\r
+\r
+I was not free to resume the interrupted chain of my reflections till\r
+bedtime: even then a teacher who occupied the same room with me kept me\r
+from the subject to which I longed to recur, by a prolonged effusion of\r
+small talk. How I wished sleep would silence her. It seemed as if,\r
+could I but go back to the idea which had last entered my mind as I stood\r
+at the window, some inventive suggestion would rise for my relief.\r
+\r
+Miss Gryce snored at last; she was a heavy Welshwoman, and till now her\r
+habitual nasal strains had never been regarded by me in any other light\r
+than as a nuisance; to-night I hailed the first deep notes with\r
+satisfaction; I was debarrassed of interruption; my half-effaced thought\r
+instantly revived.\r
+\r
+"A new servitude! There is something in that," I soliloquised (mentally,\r
+be it understood; I did not talk aloud), "I know there is, because it\r
+does not sound too sweet; it is not like such words as Liberty,\r
+Excitement, Enjoyment: delightful sounds truly; but no more than sounds\r
+for me; and so hollow and fleeting that it is mere waste of time to\r
+listen to them. But Servitude! That must be matter of fact. Any one\r
+may serve: I have served here eight years; now all I want is to serve\r
+elsewhere. Can I not get so much of my own will? Is not the thing\r
+feasible? Yes--yes--the end is not so difficult; if I had only a brain\r
+active enough to ferret out the means of attaining it."\r
+\r
+I sat up in bed by way of arousing this said brain: it was a chilly\r
+night; I covered my shoulders with a shawl, and then I proceeded _to\r
+think_ again with all my might.\r
+\r
+"What do I want? A new place, in a new house, amongst new faces, under\r
+new circumstances: I want this because it is of no use wanting anything\r
+better. How do people do to get a new place? They apply to friends, I\r
+suppose: I have no friends. There are many others who have no friends,\r
+who must look about for themselves and be their own helpers; and what is\r
+their resource?"\r
+\r
+I could not tell: nothing answered me; I then ordered my brain to find a\r
+response, and quickly. It worked and worked faster: I felt the pulses\r
+throb in my head and temples; but for nearly an hour it worked in chaos;\r
+and no result came of its efforts. Feverish with vain labour, I got up\r
+and took a turn in the room; undrew the curtain, noted a star or two,\r
+shivered with cold, and again crept to bed.\r
+\r
+A kind fairy, in my absence, had surely dropped the required suggestion\r
+on my pillow; for as I lay down, it came quietly and naturally to my\r
+mind.--"Those who want situations advertise; you must advertise in the\r
+_---shire Herald_."\r
+\r
+"How? I know nothing about advertising."\r
+\r
+Replies rose smooth and prompt now:--\r
+\r
+"You must enclose the advertisement and the money to pay for it under a\r
+cover directed to the editor of the _Herald_; you must put it, the first\r
+opportunity you have, into the post at Lowton; answers must be addressed\r
+to J.E., at the post-office there; you can go and inquire in about a week\r
+after you send your letter, if any are come, and act accordingly."\r
+\r
+This scheme I went over twice, thrice; it was then digested in my mind; I\r
+had it in a clear practical form: I felt satisfied, and fell asleep.\r
+\r
+With earliest day, I was up: I had my advertisement written, enclosed,\r
+and directed before the bell rang to rouse the school; it ran thus:--\r
+\r
+"A young lady accustomed to tuition" (had I not been a teacher two\r
+years?) "is desirous of meeting with a situation in a private family\r
+where the children are under fourteen" (I thought that as I was barely\r
+eighteen, it would not do to undertake the guidance of pupils nearer my\r
+own age). "She is qualified to teach the usual branches of a good English\r
+education, together with French, Drawing, and Music" (in those days,\r
+reader, this now narrow catalogue of accomplishments, would have been\r
+held tolerably comprehensive). "Address, J.E., Post-office, Lowton, ---\r
+shire."\r
+\r
+This document remained locked in my drawer all day: after tea, I asked\r
+leave of the new superintendent to go to Lowton, in order to perform some\r
+small commissions for myself and one or two of my fellow-teachers;\r
+permission was readily granted; I went. It was a walk of two miles, and\r
+the evening was wet, but the days were still long; I visited a shop or\r
+two, slipped the letter into the post-office, and came back through heavy\r
+rain, with streaming garments, but with a relieved heart.\r
+\r
+The succeeding week seemed long: it came to an end at last, however, like\r
+all sublunary things, and once more, towards the close of a pleasant\r
+autumn day, I found myself afoot on the road to Lowton. A picturesque\r
+track it was, by the way; lying along the side of the beck and through\r
+the sweetest curves of the dale: but that day I thought more of the\r
+letters, that might or might not be awaiting me at the little burgh\r
+whither I was bound, than of the charms of lea and water.\r
+\r
+My ostensible errand on this occasion was to get measured for a pair of\r
+shoes; so I discharged that business first, and when it was done, I\r
+stepped across the clean and quiet little street from the shoemaker's to\r
+the post-office: it was kept by an old dame, who wore horn spectacles on\r
+her nose, and black mittens on her hands.\r
+\r
+"Are there any letters for J.E.?" I asked.\r
+\r
+She peered at me over her spectacles, and then she opened a drawer and\r
+fumbled among its contents for a long time, so long that my hopes began\r
+to falter. At last, having held a document before her glasses for nearly\r
+five minutes, she presented it across the counter, accompanying the act\r
+by another inquisitive and mistrustful glance--it was for J.E.\r
+\r
+"Is there only one?" I demanded.\r
+\r
+"There are no more," said she; and I put it in my pocket and turned my\r
+face homeward: I could not open it then; rules obliged me to be back by\r
+eight, and it was already half-past seven.\r
+\r
+Various duties awaited me on my arrival. I had to sit with the girls\r
+during their hour of study; then it was my turn to read prayers; to see\r
+them to bed: afterwards I supped with the other teachers. Even when we\r
+finally retired for the night, the inevitable Miss Gryce was still my\r
+companion: we had only a short end of candle in our candlestick, and I\r
+dreaded lest she should talk till it was all burnt out; fortunately,\r
+however, the heavy supper she had eaten produced a soporific effect: she\r
+was already snoring before I had finished undressing. There still\r
+remained an inch of candle: I now took out my letter; the seal was an\r
+initial F.; I broke it; the contents were brief.\r
+\r
+"If J.E., who advertised in the _---shire Herald_ of last Thursday,\r
+possesses the acquirements mentioned, and if she is in a position to give\r
+satisfactory references as to character and competency, a situation can\r
+be offered her where there is but one pupil, a little girl, under ten\r
+years of age; and where the salary is thirty pounds per annum. J.E. is\r
+requested to send references, name, address, and all particulars to the\r
+direction:--\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Fairfax, Thornfield, near Millcote, ---shire."\r
+\r
+I examined the document long: the writing was old-fashioned and rather\r
+uncertain, like that of an elderly lady. This circumstance was\r
+satisfactory: a private fear had haunted me, that in thus acting for\r
+myself, and by my own guidance, I ran the risk of getting into some\r
+scrape; and, above all things, I wished the result of my endeavours to be\r
+respectable, proper, _en regle_. I now felt that an elderly lady was no\r
+bad ingredient in the business I had on hand. Mrs. Fairfax! I saw her\r
+in a black gown and widow's cap; frigid, perhaps, but not uncivil: a\r
+model of elderly English respectability. Thornfield! that, doubtless,\r
+was the name of her house: a neat orderly spot, I was sure; though I\r
+failed in my efforts to conceive a correct plan of the premises.\r
+Millcote, ---shire; I brushed up my recollections of the map of England,\r
+yes, I saw it; both the shire and the town. ---shire was seventy miles\r
+nearer London than the remote county where I now resided: that was a\r
+recommendation to me. I longed to go where there was life and movement:\r
+Millcote was a large manufacturing town on the banks of the A-; a busy\r
+place enough, doubtless: so much the better; it would be a complete\r
+change at least. Not that my fancy was much captivated by the idea of\r
+long chimneys and clouds of smoke--"but," I argued, "Thornfield will,\r
+probably, be a good way from the town."\r
+\r
+Here the socket of the candle dropped, and the wick went out.\r
+\r
+Next day new steps were to be taken; my plans could no longer be confined\r
+to my own breast; I must impart them in order to achieve their success.\r
+Having sought and obtained an audience of the superintendent during the\r
+noontide recreation, I told her I had a prospect of getting a new\r
+situation where the salary would be double what I now received (for at\r
+Lowood I only got 15 pounds per annum); and requested she would break the\r
+matter for me to Mr. Brocklehurst, or some of the committee, and\r
+ascertain whether they would permit me to mention them as references. She\r
+obligingly consented to act as mediatrix in the matter. The next day she\r
+laid the affair before Mr. Brocklehurst, who said that Mrs. Reed must be\r
+written to, as she was my natural guardian. A note was accordingly\r
+addressed to that lady, who returned for answer, that "I might do as I\r
+pleased: she had long relinquished all interference in my affairs." This\r
+note went the round of the committee, and at last, after what appeared to\r
+me most tedious delay, formal leave was given me to better my condition\r
+if I could; and an assurance added, that as I had always conducted myself\r
+well, both as teacher and pupil, at Lowood, a testimonial of character\r
+and capacity, signed by the inspectors of that institution, should\r
+forthwith be furnished me.\r
+\r
+This testimonial I accordingly received in about a month, forwarded a\r
+copy of it to Mrs. Fairfax, and got that lady's reply, stating that she\r
+was satisfied, and fixing that day fortnight as the period for my\r
+assuming the post of governess in her house.\r
+\r
+I now busied myself in preparations: the fortnight passed rapidly. I had\r
+not a very large wardrobe, though it was adequate to my wants; and the\r
+last day sufficed to pack my trunk,--the same I had brought with me eight\r
+years ago from Gateshead.\r
+\r
+The box was corded, the card nailed on. In half-an-hour the carrier was\r
+to call for it to take it to Lowton, whither I myself was to repair at an\r
+early hour the next morning to meet the coach. I had brushed my black\r
+stuff travelling-dress, prepared my bonnet, gloves, and muff; sought in\r
+all my drawers to see that no article was left behind; and now having\r
+nothing more to do, I sat down and tried to rest. I could not; though I\r
+had been on foot all day, I could not now repose an instant; I was too\r
+much excited. A phase of my life was closing to-night, a new one opening\r
+to-morrow: impossible to slumber in the interval; I must watch feverishly\r
+while the change was being accomplished.\r
+\r
+"Miss," said a servant who met me in the lobby, where I was wandering\r
+like a troubled spirit, "a person below wishes to see you."\r
+\r
+"The carrier, no doubt," I thought, and ran downstairs without inquiry. I\r
+was passing the back-parlour or teachers' sitting-room, the door of which\r
+was half open, to go to the kitchen, when some one ran out--\r
+\r
+"It's her, I am sure!--I could have told her anywhere!" cried the\r
+individual who stopped my progress and took my hand.\r
+\r
+I looked: I saw a woman attired like a well-dressed servant, matronly,\r
+yet still young; very good-looking, with black hair and eyes, and lively\r
+complexion.\r
+\r
+"Well, who is it?" she asked, in a voice and with a smile I half\r
+recognised; "you've not quite forgotten me, I think, Miss Jane?"\r
+\r
+In another second I was embracing and kissing her rapturously: "Bessie!\r
+Bessie! Bessie!" that was all I said; whereat she half laughed, half\r
+cried, and we both went into the parlour. By the fire stood a little\r
+fellow of three years old, in plaid frock and trousers.\r
+\r
+"That is my little boy," said Bessie directly.\r
+\r
+"Then you are married, Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; nearly five years since to Robert Leaven, the coachman; and I've a\r
+little girl besides Bobby there, that I've christened Jane."\r
+\r
+"And you don't live at Gateshead?"\r
+\r
+"I live at the lodge: the old porter has left."\r
+\r
+"Well, and how do they all get on? Tell me everything about them,\r
+Bessie: but sit down first; and, Bobby, come and sit on my knee, will\r
+you?" but Bobby preferred sidling over to his mother.\r
+\r
+"You're not grown so very tall, Miss Jane, nor so very stout," continued\r
+Mrs. Leaven. "I dare say they've not kept you too well at school: Miss\r
+Reed is the head and shoulders taller than you are; and Miss Georgiana\r
+would make two of you in breadth."\r
+\r
+"Georgiana is handsome, I suppose, Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"Very. She went up to London last winter with her mama, and there\r
+everybody admired her, and a young lord fell in love with her: but his\r
+relations were against the match; and--what do you think?--he and Miss\r
+Georgiana made it up to run away; but they were found out and stopped. It\r
+was Miss Reed that found them out: I believe she was envious; and now she\r
+and her sister lead a cat and dog life together; they are always\r
+quarrelling--"\r
+\r
+"Well, and what of John Reed?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, he is not doing so well as his mama could wish. He went to college,\r
+and he got--plucked, I think they call it: and then his uncles wanted him\r
+to be a barrister, and study the law: but he is such a dissipated young\r
+man, they will never make much of him, I think."\r
+\r
+"What does he look like?"\r
+\r
+"He is very tall: some people call him a fine-looking young man; but he\r
+has such thick lips."\r
+\r
+"And Mrs. Reed?"\r
+\r
+"Missis looks stout and well enough in the face, but I think she's not\r
+quite easy in her mind: Mr. John's conduct does not please her--he spends\r
+a deal of money."\r
+\r
+"Did she send you here, Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed: but I have long wanted to see you, and when I heard that\r
+there had been a letter from you, and that you were going to another part\r
+of the country, I thought I'd just set off, and get a look at you before\r
+you were quite out of my reach."\r
+\r
+"I am afraid you are disappointed in me, Bessie." I said this laughing:\r
+I perceived that Bessie's glance, though it expressed regard, did in no\r
+shape denote admiration.\r
+\r
+"No, Miss Jane, not exactly: you are genteel enough; you look like a\r
+lady, and it is as much as ever I expected of you: you were no beauty as\r
+a child."\r
+\r
+I smiled at Bessie's frank answer: I felt that it was correct, but I\r
+confess I was not quite indifferent to its import: at eighteen most\r
+people wish to please, and the conviction that they have not an exterior\r
+likely to second that desire brings anything but gratification.\r
+\r
+"I dare say you are clever, though," continued Bessie, by way of solace.\r
+"What can you do? Can you play on the piano?"\r
+\r
+"A little."\r
+\r
+There was one in the room; Bessie went and opened it, and then asked me\r
+to sit down and give her a tune: I played a waltz or two, and she was\r
+charmed.\r
+\r
+"The Miss Reeds could not play as well!" said she exultingly. "I always\r
+said you would surpass them in learning: and can you draw?"\r
+\r
+"That is one of my paintings over the chimney-piece." It was a landscape\r
+in water colours, of which I had made a present to the superintendent, in\r
+acknowledgment of her obliging mediation with the committee on my behalf,\r
+and which she had framed and glazed.\r
+\r
+"Well, that is beautiful, Miss Jane! It is as fine a picture as any Miss\r
+Reed's drawing-master could paint, let alone the young ladies themselves,\r
+who could not come near it: and have you learnt French?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Bessie, I can both read it and speak it."\r
+\r
+"And you can work on muslin and canvas?"\r
+\r
+"I can."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you are quite a lady, Miss Jane! I knew you would be: you will get\r
+on whether your relations notice you or not. There was something I\r
+wanted to ask you. Have you ever heard anything from your father's\r
+kinsfolk, the Eyres?"\r
+\r
+"Never in my life."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable:\r
+and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds\r
+are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead\r
+and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he\r
+seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he was going on a\r
+voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a\r
+day or two. He looked quite a gentleman, and I believe he was your\r
+father's brother."\r
+\r
+"What foreign country was he going to, Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"An island thousands of miles off, where they make wine--the butler did\r
+tell me--"\r
+\r
+"Madeira?" I suggested.\r
+\r
+"Yes, that is it--that is the very word."\r
+\r
+"So he went?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; he did not stay many minutes in the house: Missis was very high\r
+with him; she called him afterwards a 'sneaking tradesman.' My Robert\r
+believes he was a wine-merchant."\r
+\r
+"Very likely," I returned; "or perhaps clerk or agent to a\r
+wine-merchant."\r
+\r
+Bessie and I conversed about old times an hour longer, and then she was\r
+obliged to leave me: I saw her again for a few minutes the next morning\r
+at Lowton, while I was waiting for the coach. We parted finally at the\r
+door of the Brocklehurst Arms there: each went her separate way; she set\r
+off for the brow of Lowood Fell to meet the conveyance which was to take\r
+her back to Gateshead, I mounted the vehicle which was to bear me to new\r
+duties and a new life in the unknown environs of Millcote.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+\r
+A new chapter in a novel is something like a new scene in a play; and\r
+when I draw up the curtain this time, reader, you must fancy you see a\r
+room in the George Inn at Millcote, with such large figured papering on\r
+the walls as inn rooms have; such a carpet, such furniture, such\r
+ornaments on the mantelpiece, such prints, including a portrait of George\r
+the Third, and another of the Prince of Wales, and a representation of\r
+the death of Wolfe. All this is visible to you by the light of an oil\r
+lamp hanging from the ceiling, and by that of an excellent fire, near\r
+which I sit in my cloak and bonnet; my muff and umbrella lie on the\r
+table, and I am warming away the numbness and chill contracted by sixteen\r
+hours' exposure to the rawness of an October day: I left Lowton at four\r
+o'clock a.m., and the Millcote town clock is now just striking eight.\r
+\r
+Reader, though I look comfortably accommodated, I am not very tranquil in\r
+my mind. I thought when the coach stopped here there would be some one\r
+to meet me; I looked anxiously round as I descended the wooden steps the\r
+"boots" placed for my convenience, expecting to hear my name pronounced,\r
+and to see some description of carriage waiting to convey me to\r
+Thornfield. Nothing of the sort was visible; and when I asked a waiter\r
+if any one had been to inquire after a Miss Eyre, I was answered in the\r
+negative: so I had no resource but to request to be shown into a private\r
+room: and here I am waiting, while all sorts of doubts and fears are\r
+troubling my thoughts.\r
+\r
+It is a very strange sensation to inexperienced youth to feel itself\r
+quite alone in the world, cut adrift from every connection, uncertain\r
+whether the port to which it is bound can be reached, and prevented by\r
+many impediments from returning to that it has quitted. The charm of\r
+adventure sweetens that sensation, the glow of pride warms it; but then\r
+the throb of fear disturbs it; and fear with me became predominant when\r
+half-an-hour elapsed and still I was alone. I bethought myself to ring\r
+the bell.\r
+\r
+"Is there a place in this neighbourhood called Thornfield?" I asked of\r
+the waiter who answered the summons.\r
+\r
+"Thornfield? I don't know, ma'am; I'll inquire at the bar." He\r
+vanished, but reappeared instantly--\r
+\r
+"Is your name Eyre, Miss?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Person here waiting for you."\r
+\r
+I jumped up, took my muff and umbrella, and hastened into the\r
+inn-passage: a man was standing by the open door, and in the lamp-lit\r
+street I dimly saw a one-horse conveyance.\r
+\r
+"This will be your luggage, I suppose?" said the man rather abruptly when\r
+he saw me, pointing to my trunk in the passage.\r
+\r
+"Yes." He hoisted it on to the vehicle, which was a sort of car, and\r
+then I got in; before he shut me up, I asked him how far it was to\r
+Thornfield.\r
+\r
+"A matter of six miles."\r
+\r
+"How long shall we be before we get there?"\r
+\r
+"Happen an hour and a half."\r
+\r
+He fastened the car door, climbed to his own seat outside, and we set\r
+off. Our progress was leisurely, and gave me ample time to reflect; I\r
+was content to be at length so near the end of my journey; and as I\r
+leaned back in the comfortable though not elegant conveyance, I meditated\r
+much at my ease.\r
+\r
+"I suppose," thought I, "judging from the plainness of the servant and\r
+carriage, Mrs. Fairfax is not a very dashing person: so much the better;\r
+I never lived amongst fine people but once, and I was very miserable with\r
+them. I wonder if she lives alone except this little girl; if so, and if\r
+she is in any degree amiable, I shall surely be able to get on with her;\r
+I will do my best; it is a pity that doing one's best does not always\r
+answer. At Lowood, indeed, I took that resolution, kept it, and\r
+succeeded in pleasing; but with Mrs. Reed, I remember my best was always\r
+spurned with scorn. I pray God Mrs. Fairfax may not turn out a second\r
+Mrs. Reed; but if she does, I am not bound to stay with her! let the\r
+worst come to the worst, I can advertise again. How far are we on our\r
+road now, I wonder?"\r
+\r
+I let down the window and looked out; Millcote was behind us; judging by\r
+the number of its lights, it seemed a place of considerable magnitude,\r
+much larger than Lowton. We were now, as far as I could see, on a sort\r
+of common; but there were houses scattered all over the district; I felt\r
+we were in a different region to Lowood, more populous, less picturesque;\r
+more stirring, less romantic.\r
+\r
+The roads were heavy, the night misty; my conductor let his horse walk\r
+all the way, and the hour and a half extended, I verily believe, to two\r
+hours; at last he turned in his seat and said--\r
+\r
+"You're noan so far fro' Thornfield now."\r
+\r
+Again I looked out: we were passing a church; I saw its low broad tower\r
+against the sky, and its bell was tolling a quarter; I saw a narrow\r
+galaxy of lights too, on a hillside, marking a village or hamlet. About\r
+ten minutes after, the driver got down and opened a pair of gates: we\r
+passed through, and they clashed to behind us. We now slowly ascended a\r
+drive, and came upon the long front of a house: candlelight gleamed from\r
+one curtained bow-window; all the rest were dark. The car stopped at the\r
+front door; it was opened by a maid-servant; I alighted and went in.\r
+\r
+"Will you walk this way, ma'am?" said the girl; and I followed her across\r
+a square hall with high doors all round: she ushered me into a room whose\r
+double illumination of fire and candle at first dazzled me, contrasting\r
+as it did with the darkness to which my eyes had been for two hours\r
+inured; when I could see, however, a cosy and agreeable picture presented\r
+itself to my view.\r
+\r
+A snug small room; a round table by a cheerful fire; an arm-chair high-\r
+backed and old-fashioned, wherein sat the neatest imaginable little\r
+elderly lady, in widow's cap, black silk gown, and snowy muslin apron;\r
+exactly like what I had fancied Mrs. Fairfax, only less stately and\r
+milder looking. She was occupied in knitting; a large cat sat demurely\r
+at her feet; nothing in short was wanting to complete the beau-ideal of\r
+domestic comfort. A more reassuring introduction for a new governess\r
+could scarcely be conceived; there was no grandeur to overwhelm, no\r
+stateliness to embarrass; and then, as I entered, the old lady got up and\r
+promptly and kindly came forward to meet me.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, my dear? I am afraid you have had a tedious ride; John\r
+drives so slowly; you must be cold, come to the fire."\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Fairfax, I suppose?" said I.\r
+\r
+"Yes, you are right: do sit down."\r
+\r
+She conducted me to her own chair, and then began to remove my shawl and\r
+untie my bonnet-strings; I begged she would not give herself so much\r
+trouble.\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is no trouble; I dare say your own hands are almost numbed with\r
+cold. Leah, make a little hot negus and cut a sandwich or two: here are\r
+the keys of the storeroom."\r
+\r
+And she produced from her pocket a most housewifely bunch of keys, and\r
+delivered them to the servant.\r
+\r
+"Now, then, draw nearer to the fire," she continued. "You've brought\r
+your luggage with you, haven't you, my dear?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am."\r
+\r
+"I'll see it carried into your room," she said, and bustled out.\r
+\r
+"She treats me like a visitor," thought I. "I little expected such a\r
+reception; I anticipated only coldness and stiffness: this is not like\r
+what I have heard of the treatment of governesses; but I must not exult\r
+too soon."\r
+\r
+She returned; with her own hands cleared her knitting apparatus and a\r
+book or two from the table, to make room for the tray which Leah now\r
+brought, and then herself handed me the refreshments. I felt rather\r
+confused at being the object of more attention than I had ever before\r
+received, and, that too, shown by my employer and superior; but as she\r
+did not herself seem to consider she was doing anything out of her place,\r
+I thought it better to take her civilities quietly.\r
+\r
+"Shall I have the pleasure of seeing Miss Fairfax to-night?" I asked,\r
+when I had partaken of what she offered me.\r
+\r
+"What did you say, my dear? I am a little deaf," returned the good lady,\r
+approaching her ear to my mouth.\r
+\r
+I repeated the question more distinctly.\r
+\r
+"Miss Fairfax? Oh, you mean Miss Varens! Varens is the name of your\r
+future pupil."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! Then she is not your daughter?"\r
+\r
+"No,--I have no family."\r
+\r
+I should have followed up my first inquiry, by asking in what way Miss\r
+Varens was connected with her; but I recollected it was not polite to ask\r
+too many questions: besides, I was sure to hear in time.\r
+\r
+"I am so glad," she continued, as she sat down opposite to me, and took\r
+the cat on her knee; "I am so glad you are come; it will be quite\r
+pleasant living here now with a companion. To be sure it is pleasant at\r
+any time; for Thornfield is a fine old hall, rather neglected of late\r
+years perhaps, but still it is a respectable place; yet you know in\r
+winter-time one feels dreary quite alone in the best quarters. I say\r
+alone--Leah is a nice girl to be sure, and John and his wife are very\r
+decent people; but then you see they are only servants, and one can't\r
+converse with them on terms of equality: one must keep them at due\r
+distance, for fear of losing one's authority. I'm sure last winter (it\r
+was a very severe one, if you recollect, and when it did not snow, it\r
+rained and blew), not a creature but the butcher and postman came to the\r
+house, from November till February; and I really got quite melancholy\r
+with sitting night after night alone; I had Leah in to read to me\r
+sometimes; but I don't think the poor girl liked the task much: she felt\r
+it confining. In spring and summer one got on better: sunshine and long\r
+days make such a difference; and then, just at the commencement of this\r
+autumn, little Adela Varens came and her nurse: a child makes a house\r
+alive all at once; and now you are here I shall be quite gay."\r
+\r
+My heart really warmed to the worthy lady as I heard her talk; and I drew\r
+my chair a little nearer to her, and expressed my sincere wish that she\r
+might find my company as agreeable as she anticipated.\r
+\r
+"But I'll not keep you sitting up late to-night," said she; "it is on the\r
+stroke of twelve now, and you have been travelling all day: you must feel\r
+tired. If you have got your feet well warmed, I'll show you your\r
+bedroom. I've had the room next to mine prepared for you; it is only a\r
+small apartment, but I thought you would like it better than one of the\r
+large front chambers: to be sure they have finer furniture, but they are\r
+so dreary and solitary, I never sleep in them myself."\r
+\r
+I thanked her for her considerate choice, and as I really felt fatigued\r
+with my long journey, expressed my readiness to retire. She took her\r
+candle, and I followed her from the room. First she went to see if the\r
+hall-door was fastened; having taken the key from the lock, she led the\r
+way upstairs. The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window\r
+was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery into which the\r
+bedroom doors opened looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a\r
+house. A very chill and vault-like air pervaded the stairs and gallery,\r
+suggesting cheerless ideas of space and solitude; and I was glad, when\r
+finally ushered into my chamber, to find it of small dimensions, and\r
+furnished in ordinary, modern style.\r
+\r
+When Mrs. Fairfax had bidden me a kind good-night, and I had fastened my\r
+door, gazed leisurely round, and in some measure effaced the eerie\r
+impression made by that wide hall, that dark and spacious staircase, and\r
+that long, cold gallery, by the livelier aspect of my little room, I\r
+remembered that, after a day of bodily fatigue and mental anxiety, I was\r
+now at last in safe haven. The impulse of gratitude swelled my heart,\r
+and I knelt down at the bedside, and offered up thanks where thanks were\r
+due; not forgetting, ere I rose, to implore aid on my further path, and\r
+the power of meriting the kindness which seemed so frankly offered me\r
+before it was earned. My couch had no thorns in it that night; my\r
+solitary room no fears. At once weary and content, I slept soon and\r
+soundly: when I awoke it was broad day.\r
+\r
+The chamber looked such a bright little place to me as the sun shone in\r
+between the gay blue chintz window curtains, showing papered walls and a\r
+carpeted floor, so unlike the bare planks and stained plaster of Lowood,\r
+that my spirits rose at the view. Externals have a great effect on the\r
+young: I thought that a fairer era of life was beginning for me, one that\r
+was to have its flowers and pleasures, as well as its thorns and toils.\r
+My faculties, roused by the change of scene, the new field offered to\r
+hope, seemed all astir. I cannot precisely define what they expected,\r
+but it was something pleasant: not perhaps that day or that month, but at\r
+an indefinite future period.\r
+\r
+I rose; I dressed myself with care: obliged to be plain--for I had no\r
+article of attire that was not made with extreme simplicity--I was still\r
+by nature solicitous to be neat. It was not my habit to be disregardful\r
+of appearance or careless of the impression I made: on the contrary, I\r
+ever wished to look as well as I could, and to please as much as my want\r
+of beauty would permit. I sometimes regretted that I was not handsomer;\r
+I sometimes wished to have rosy cheeks, a straight nose, and small cherry\r
+mouth; I desired to be tall, stately, and finely developed in figure; I\r
+felt it a misfortune that I was so little, so pale, and had features so\r
+irregular and so marked. And why had I these aspirations and these\r
+regrets? It would be difficult to say: I could not then distinctly say\r
+it to myself; yet I had a reason, and a logical, natural reason too.\r
+However, when I had brushed my hair very smooth, and put on my black\r
+frock--which, Quakerlike as it was, at least had the merit of fitting to\r
+a nicety--and adjusted my clean white tucker, I thought I should do\r
+respectably enough to appear before Mrs. Fairfax, and that my new pupil\r
+would not at least recoil from me with antipathy. Having opened my\r
+chamber window, and seen that I left all things straight and neat on the\r
+toilet table, I ventured forth.\r
+\r
+Traversing the long and matted gallery, I descended the slippery steps of\r
+oak; then I gained the hall: I halted there a minute; I looked at some\r
+pictures on the walls (one, I remember, represented a grim man in a\r
+cuirass, and one a lady with powdered hair and a pearl necklace), at a\r
+bronze lamp pendent from the ceiling, at a great clock whose case was of\r
+oak curiously carved, and ebon black with time and rubbing. Everything\r
+appeared very stately and imposing to me; but then I was so little\r
+accustomed to grandeur. The hall-door, which was half of glass, stood\r
+open; I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the\r
+early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields;\r
+advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the\r
+mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though\r
+considerable: a gentleman's manor-house, not a nobleman's seat:\r
+battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look. Its grey front\r
+stood out well from the background of a rookery, whose cawing tenants\r
+were now on the wing: they flew over the lawn and grounds to alight in a\r
+great meadow, from which these were separated by a sunk fence, and where\r
+an array of mighty old thorn trees, strong, knotty, and broad as oaks, at\r
+once explained the etymology of the mansion's designation. Farther off\r
+were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, nor so\r
+like barriers of separation from the living world; but yet quiet and\r
+lonely hills enough, and seeming to embrace Thornfield with a seclusion I\r
+had not expected to find existent so near the stirring locality of\r
+Millcote. A little hamlet, whose roofs were blent with trees, straggled\r
+up the side of one of these hills; the church of the district stood\r
+nearer Thornfield: its old tower-top looked over a knoll between the\r
+house and gates.\r
+\r
+I was yet enjoying the calm prospect and pleasant fresh air, yet\r
+listening with delight to the cawing of the rooks, yet surveying the\r
+wide, hoary front of the hall, and thinking what a great place it was for\r
+one lonely little dame like Mrs. Fairfax to inhabit, when that lady\r
+appeared at the door.\r
+\r
+"What! out already?" said she. "I see you are an early riser." I went\r
+up to her, and was received with an affable kiss and shake of the hand.\r
+\r
+"How do you like Thornfield?" she asked. I told her I liked it very\r
+much.\r
+\r
+"Yes," she said, "it is a pretty place; but I fear it will be getting out\r
+of order, unless Mr. Rochester should take it into his head to come and\r
+reside here permanently; or, at least, visit it rather oftener: great\r
+houses and fine grounds require the presence of the proprietor."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester!" I exclaimed. "Who is he?"\r
+\r
+"The owner of Thornfield," she responded quietly. "Did you not know he\r
+was called Rochester?"\r
+\r
+Of course I did not--I had never heard of him before; but the old lady\r
+seemed to regard his existence as a universally understood fact, with\r
+which everybody must be acquainted by instinct.\r
+\r
+"I thought," I continued, "Thornfield belonged to you."\r
+\r
+"To me? Bless you, child; what an idea! To me! I am only the\r
+housekeeper--the manager. To be sure I am distantly related to the\r
+Rochesters by the mother's side, or at least my husband was; he was a\r
+clergyman, incumbent of Hay--that little village yonder on the hill--and\r
+that church near the gates was his. The present Mr. Rochester's mother\r
+was a Fairfax, and second cousin to my husband: but I never presume on\r
+the connection--in fact, it is nothing to me; I consider myself quite in\r
+the light of an ordinary housekeeper: my employer is always civil, and I\r
+expect nothing more."\r
+\r
+"And the little girl--my pupil!"\r
+\r
+"She is Mr. Rochester's ward; he commissioned me to find a governess for\r
+her. He intended to have her brought up in ---shire, I believe. Here\r
+she comes, with her 'bonne,' as she calls her nurse." The enigma then\r
+was explained: this affable and kind little widow was no great dame; but\r
+a dependant like myself. I did not like her the worse for that; on the\r
+contrary, I felt better pleased than ever. The equality between her and\r
+me was real; not the mere result of condescension on her part: so much\r
+the better--my position was all the freer.\r
+\r
+As I was meditating on this discovery, a little girl, followed by her\r
+attendant, came running up the lawn. I looked at my pupil, who did not\r
+at first appear to notice me: she was quite a child, perhaps seven or\r
+eight years old, slightly built, with a pale, small-featured face, and a\r
+redundancy of hair falling in curls to her waist.\r
+\r
+"Good morning, Miss Adela," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Come and speak to the\r
+lady who is to teach you, and to make you a clever woman some day." She\r
+approached.\r
+\r
+"C'est la ma gouverante!" said she, pointing to me, and addressing her\r
+nurse; who answered--\r
+\r
+"Mais oui, certainement."\r
+\r
+"Are they foreigners?" I inquired, amazed at hearing the French language.\r
+\r
+"The nurse is a foreigner, and Adela was born on the Continent; and, I\r
+believe, never left it till within six months ago. When she first came\r
+here she could speak no English; now she can make shift to talk it a\r
+little: I don't understand her, she mixes it so with French; but you will\r
+make out her meaning very well, I dare say."\r
+\r
+Fortunately I had had the advantage of being taught French by a French\r
+lady; and as I had always made a point of conversing with Madame Pierrot\r
+as often as I could, and had besides, during the last seven years, learnt\r
+a portion of French by heart daily--applying myself to take pains with my\r
+accent, and imitating as closely as possible the pronunciation of my\r
+teacher, I had acquired a certain degree of readiness and correctness in\r
+the language, and was not likely to be much at a loss with Mademoiselle\r
+Adela. She came and shook hand with me when she heard that I was her\r
+governess; and as I led her in to breakfast, I addressed some phrases to\r
+her in her own tongue: she replied briefly at first, but after we were\r
+seated at the table, and she had examined me some ten minutes with her\r
+large hazel eyes, she suddenly commenced chattering fluently.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" cried she, in French, "you speak my language as well as Mr.\r
+Rochester does: I can talk to you as I can to him, and so can Sophie. She\r
+will be glad: nobody here understands her: Madame Fairfax is all English.\r
+Sophie is my nurse; she came with me over the sea in a great ship with a\r
+chimney that smoked--how it did smoke!--and I was sick, and so was\r
+Sophie, and so was Mr. Rochester. Mr. Rochester lay down on a sofa in a\r
+pretty room called the salon, and Sophie and I had little beds in another\r
+place. I nearly fell out of mine; it was like a shelf. And\r
+Mademoiselle--what is your name?"\r
+\r
+"Eyre--Jane Eyre."\r
+\r
+"Aire? Bah! I cannot say it. Well, our ship stopped in the morning,\r
+before it was quite daylight, at a great city--a huge city, with very\r
+dark houses and all smoky; not at all like the pretty clean town I came\r
+from; and Mr. Rochester carried me in his arms over a plank to the land,\r
+and Sophie came after, and we all got into a coach, which took us to a\r
+beautiful large house, larger than this and finer, called an hotel. We\r
+stayed there nearly a week: I and Sophie used to walk every day in a\r
+great green place full of trees, called the Park; and there were many\r
+children there besides me, and a pond with beautiful birds in it, that I\r
+fed with crumbs."\r
+\r
+"Can you understand her when she runs on so fast?" asked Mrs. Fairfax.\r
+\r
+I understood her very well, for I had been accustomed to the fluent\r
+tongue of Madame Pierrot.\r
+\r
+"I wish," continued the good lady, "you would ask her a question or two\r
+about her parents: I wonder if she remembers them?"\r
+\r
+"Adele," I inquired, "with whom did you live when you were in that pretty\r
+clean town you spoke of?"\r
+\r
+"I lived long ago with mama; but she is gone to the Holy Virgin. Mama\r
+used to teach me to dance and sing, and to say verses. A great many\r
+gentlemen and ladies came to see mama, and I used to dance before them,\r
+or to sit on their knees and sing to them: I liked it. Shall I let you\r
+hear me sing now?"\r
+\r
+She had finished her breakfast, so I permitted her to give a specimen of\r
+her accomplishments. Descending from her chair, she came and placed\r
+herself on my knee; then, folding her little hands demurely before her,\r
+shaking back her curls and lifting her eyes to the ceiling, she commenced\r
+singing a song from some opera. It was the strain of a forsaken lady,\r
+who, after bewailing the perfidy of her lover, calls pride to her aid;\r
+desires her attendant to deck her in her brightest jewels and richest\r
+robes, and resolves to meet the false one that night at a ball, and prove\r
+to him, by the gaiety of her demeanour, how little his desertion has\r
+affected her.\r
+\r
+The subject seemed strangely chosen for an infant singer; but I suppose\r
+the point of the exhibition lay in hearing the notes of love and jealousy\r
+warbled with the lisp of childhood; and in very bad taste that point was:\r
+at least I thought so.\r
+\r
+Adele sang the canzonette tunefully enough, and with the _naivete_ of her\r
+age. This achieved, she jumped from my knee and said, "Now,\r
+Mademoiselle, I will repeat you some poetry."\r
+\r
+Assuming an attitude, she began, "La Ligue des Rats: fable de La\r
+Fontaine." She then declaimed the little piece with an attention to\r
+punctuation and emphasis, a flexibility of voice and an appropriateness\r
+of gesture, very unusual indeed at her age, and which proved she had been\r
+carefully trained.\r
+\r
+"Was it your mama who taught you that piece?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes, and she just used to say it in this way: 'Qu' avez vous donc? lui\r
+dit un de ces rats; parlez!' She made me lift my hand--so--to remind me\r
+to raise my voice at the question. Now shall I dance for you?"\r
+\r
+"No, that will do: but after your mama went to the Holy Virgin, as you\r
+say, with whom did you live then?"\r
+\r
+"With Madame Frederic and her husband: she took care of me, but she is\r
+nothing related to me. I think she is poor, for she had not so fine a\r
+house as mama. I was not long there. Mr. Rochester asked me if I would\r
+like to go and live with him in England, and I said yes; for I knew Mr.\r
+Rochester before I knew Madame Frederic, and he was always kind to me and\r
+gave me pretty dresses and toys: but you see he has not kept his word,\r
+for he has brought me to England, and now he is gone back again himself,\r
+and I never see him."\r
+\r
+After breakfast, Adele and I withdrew to the library, which room, it\r
+appears, Mr. Rochester had directed should be used as the schoolroom.\r
+Most of the books were locked up behind glass doors; but there was one\r
+bookcase left open containing everything that could be needed in the way\r
+of elementary works, and several volumes of light literature, poetry,\r
+biography, travels, a few romances, &c. I suppose he had considered that\r
+these were all the governess would require for her private perusal; and,\r
+indeed, they contented me amply for the present; compared with the scanty\r
+pickings I had now and then been able to glean at Lowood, they seemed to\r
+offer an abundant harvest of entertainment and information. In this\r
+room, too, there was a cabinet piano, quite new and of superior tone;\r
+also an easel for painting and a pair of globes.\r
+\r
+I found my pupil sufficiently docile, though disinclined to apply: she\r
+had not been used to regular occupation of any kind. I felt it would be\r
+injudicious to confine her too much at first; so, when I had talked to\r
+her a great deal, and got her to learn a little, and when the morning had\r
+advanced to noon, I allowed her to return to her nurse. I then proposed\r
+to occupy myself till dinner-time in drawing some little sketches for her\r
+use.\r
+\r
+As I was going upstairs to fetch my portfolio and pencils, Mrs. Fairfax\r
+called to me: "Your morning school-hours are over now, I suppose," said\r
+she. She was in a room the folding-doors of which stood open: I went in\r
+when she addressed me. It was a large, stately apartment, with purple\r
+chairs and curtains, a Turkey carpet, walnut-panelled walls, one vast\r
+window rich in slanted glass, and a lofty ceiling, nobly moulded. Mrs.\r
+Fairfax was dusting some vases of fine purple spar, which stood on a\r
+sideboard.\r
+\r
+"What a beautiful room!" I exclaimed, as I looked round; for I had never\r
+before seen any half so imposing.\r
+\r
+"Yes; this is the dining-room. I have just opened the window, to let in\r
+a little air and sunshine; for everything gets so damp in apartments that\r
+are seldom inhabited; the drawing-room yonder feels like a vault."\r
+\r
+She pointed to a wide arch corresponding to the window, and hung like it\r
+with a Tyrian-dyed curtain, now looped up. Mounting to it by two broad\r
+steps, and looking through, I thought I caught a glimpse of a fairy\r
+place, so bright to my novice-eyes appeared the view beyond. Yet it was\r
+merely a very pretty drawing-room, and within it a boudoir, both spread\r
+with white carpets, on which seemed laid brilliant garlands of flowers;\r
+both ceiled with snowy mouldings of white grapes and vine-leaves, beneath\r
+which glowed in rich contrast crimson couches and ottomans; while the\r
+ornaments on the pale Parian mantelpiece were of sparkling Bohemian\r
+glass, ruby red; and between the windows large mirrors repeated the\r
+general blending of snow and fire.\r
+\r
+"In what order you keep these rooms, Mrs. Fairfax!" said I. "No dust, no\r
+canvas coverings: except that the air feels chilly, one would think they\r
+were inhabited daily."\r
+\r
+"Why, Miss Eyre, though Mr. Rochester's visits here are rare, they are\r
+always sudden and unexpected; and as I observed that it put him out to\r
+find everything swathed up, and to have a bustle of arrangement on his\r
+arrival, I thought it best to keep the rooms in readiness."\r
+\r
+"Is Mr. Rochester an exacting, fastidious sort of man?"\r
+\r
+"Not particularly so; but he has a gentleman's tastes and habits, and he\r
+expects to have things managed in conformity to them."\r
+\r
+"Do you like him? Is he generally liked?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes; the family have always been respected here. Almost all the\r
+land in this neighbourhood, as far as you can see, has belonged to the\r
+Rochesters time out of mind."\r
+\r
+"Well, but, leaving his land out of the question, do you like him? Is he\r
+liked for himself?"\r
+\r
+"I have no cause to do otherwise than like him; and I believe he is\r
+considered a just and liberal landlord by his tenants: but he has never\r
+lived much amongst them."\r
+\r
+"But has he no peculiarities? What, in short, is his character?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! his character is unimpeachable, I suppose. He is rather peculiar,\r
+perhaps: he has travelled a great deal, and seen a great deal of the\r
+world, I should think. I dare say he is clever, but I never had much\r
+conversation with him."\r
+\r
+"In what way is he peculiar?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know--it is not easy to describe--nothing striking, but you feel\r
+it when he speaks to you; you cannot be always sure whether he is in jest\r
+or earnest, whether he is pleased or the contrary; you don't thoroughly\r
+understand him, in short--at least, I don't: but it is of no consequence,\r
+he is a very good master."\r
+\r
+This was all the account I got from Mrs. Fairfax of her employer and\r
+mine. There are people who seem to have no notion of sketching a\r
+character, or observing and describing salient points, either in persons\r
+or things: the good lady evidently belonged to this class; my queries\r
+puzzled, but did not draw her out. Mr. Rochester was Mr. Rochester in\r
+her eyes; a gentleman, a landed proprietor--nothing more: she inquired\r
+and searched no further, and evidently wondered at my wish to gain a more\r
+definite notion of his identity.\r
+\r
+When we left the dining-room, she proposed to show me over the rest of\r
+the house; and I followed her upstairs and downstairs, admiring as I\r
+went; for all was well arranged and handsome. The large front chambers I\r
+thought especially grand: and some of the third-storey rooms, though dark\r
+and low, were interesting from their air of antiquity. The furniture\r
+once appropriated to the lower apartments had from time to time been\r
+removed here, as fashions changed: and the imperfect light entering by\r
+their narrow casement showed bedsteads of a hundred years old; chests in\r
+oak or walnut, looking, with their strange carvings of palm branches and\r
+cherubs' heads, like types of the Hebrew ark; rows of venerable chairs,\r
+high-backed and narrow; stools still more antiquated, on whose cushioned\r
+tops were yet apparent traces of half-effaced embroideries, wrought by\r
+fingers that for two generations had been coffin-dust. All these relics\r
+gave to the third storey of Thornfield Hall the aspect of a home of the\r
+past: a shrine of memory. I liked the hush, the gloom, the quaintness of\r
+these retreats in the day; but I by no means coveted a night's repose on\r
+one of those wide and heavy beds: shut in, some of them, with doors of\r
+oak; shaded, others, with wrought old English hangings crusted with thick\r
+work, portraying effigies of strange flowers, and stranger birds, and\r
+strangest human beings,--all which would have looked strange, indeed, by\r
+the pallid gleam of moonlight.\r
+\r
+"Do the servants sleep in these rooms?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"No; they occupy a range of smaller apartments to the back; no one ever\r
+sleeps here: one would almost say that, if there were a ghost at\r
+Thornfield Hall, this would be its haunt."\r
+\r
+"So I think: you have no ghost, then?"\r
+\r
+"None that I ever heard of," returned Mrs. Fairfax, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Nor any traditions of one? no legends or ghost stories?"\r
+\r
+"I believe not. And yet it is said the Rochesters have been rather a\r
+violent than a quiet race in their time: perhaps, though, that is the\r
+reason they rest tranquilly in their graves now."\r
+\r
+"Yes--'after life's fitful fever they sleep well,'" I muttered. "Where\r
+are you going now, Mrs. Fairfax?" for she was moving away.\r
+\r
+"On to the leads; will you come and see the view from thence?" I\r
+followed still, up a very narrow staircase to the attics, and thence by a\r
+ladder and through a trap-door to the roof of the hall. I was now on a\r
+level with the crow colony, and could see into their nests. Leaning over\r
+the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out\r
+like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of\r
+the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber;\r
+the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with\r
+moss than the trees were with foliage; the church at the gates, the road,\r
+the tranquil hills, all reposing in the autumn day's sun; the horizon\r
+bounded by a propitious sky, azure, marbled with pearly white. No\r
+feature in the scene was extraordinary, but all was pleasing. When I\r
+turned from it and repassed the trap-door, I could scarcely see my way\r
+down the ladder; the attic seemed black as a vault compared with that\r
+arch of blue air to which I had been looking up, and to that sunlit scene\r
+of grove, pasture, and green hill, of which the hall was the centre, and\r
+over which I had been gazing with delight.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Fairfax stayed behind a moment to fasten the trap-door; I, by drift\r
+of groping, found the outlet from the attic, and proceeded to descend the\r
+narrow garret staircase. I lingered in the long passage to which this\r
+led, separating the front and back rooms of the third storey: narrow,\r
+low, and dim, with only one little window at the far end, and looking,\r
+with its two rows of small black doors all shut, like a corridor in some\r
+Bluebeard's castle.\r
+\r
+While I paced softly on, the last sound I expected to hear in so still a\r
+region, a laugh, struck my ear. It was a curious laugh; distinct,\r
+formal, mirthless. I stopped: the sound ceased, only for an instant; it\r
+began again, louder: for at first, though distinct, it was very low. It\r
+passed off in a clamorous peal that seemed to wake an echo in every\r
+lonely chamber; though it originated but in one, and I could have pointed\r
+out the door whence the accents issued.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Fairfax!" I called out: for I now heard her descending the great\r
+stairs. "Did you hear that loud laugh? Who is it?"\r
+\r
+"Some of the servants, very likely," she answered: "perhaps Grace Poole."\r
+\r
+"Did you hear it?" I again inquired.\r
+\r
+"Yes, plainly: I often hear her: she sews in one of these rooms.\r
+Sometimes Leah is with her; they are frequently noisy together."\r
+\r
+The laugh was repeated in its low, syllabic tone, and terminated in an\r
+odd murmur.\r
+\r
+"Grace!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax.\r
+\r
+I really did not expect any Grace to answer; for the laugh was as tragic,\r
+as preternatural a laugh as any I ever heard; and, but that it was high\r
+noon, and that no circumstance of ghostliness accompanied the curious\r
+cachinnation; but that neither scene nor season favoured fear, I should\r
+have been superstitiously afraid. However, the event showed me I was a\r
+fool for entertaining a sense even of surprise.\r
+\r
+The door nearest me opened, and a servant came out,--a woman of between\r
+thirty and forty; a set, square-made figure, red-haired, and with a hard,\r
+plain face: any apparition less romantic or less ghostly could scarcely\r
+be conceived.\r
+\r
+"Too much noise, Grace," said Mrs. Fairfax. "Remember directions!" Grace\r
+curtseyed silently and went in.\r
+\r
+"She is a person we have to sew and assist Leah in her housemaid's work,"\r
+continued the widow; "not altogether unobjectionable in some points, but\r
+she does well enough. By-the-bye, how have you got on with your new\r
+pupil this morning?"\r
+\r
+The conversation, thus turned on Adele, continued till we reached the\r
+light and cheerful region below. Adele came running to meet us in the\r
+hall, exclaiming--\r
+\r
+"Mesdames, vous etes servies!" adding, "J'ai bien faim, moi!"\r
+\r
+We found dinner ready, and waiting for us in Mrs. Fairfax's room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+\r
+The promise of a smooth career, which my first calm introduction to\r
+Thornfield Hall seemed to pledge, was not belied on a longer acquaintance\r
+with the place and its inmates. Mrs. Fairfax turned out to be what she\r
+appeared, a placid-tempered, kind-natured woman, of competent education\r
+and average intelligence. My pupil was a lively child, who had been\r
+spoilt and indulged, and therefore was sometimes wayward; but as she was\r
+committed entirely to my care, and no injudicious interference from any\r
+quarter ever thwarted my plans for her improvement, she soon forgot her\r
+little freaks, and became obedient and teachable. She had no great\r
+talents, no marked traits of character, no peculiar development of\r
+feeling or taste which raised her one inch above the ordinary level of\r
+childhood; but neither had she any deficiency or vice which sunk her\r
+below it. She made reasonable progress, entertained for me a vivacious,\r
+though perhaps not very profound, affection; and by her simplicity, gay\r
+prattle, and efforts to please, inspired me, in return, with a degree of\r
+attachment sufficient to make us both content in each other's society.\r
+\r
+This, _par parenthese_, will be thought cool language by persons who\r
+entertain solemn doctrines about the angelic nature of children, and the\r
+duty of those charged with their education to conceive for them an\r
+idolatrous devotion: but I am not writing to flatter parental egotism, to\r
+echo cant, or prop up humbug; I am merely telling the truth. I felt a\r
+conscientious solicitude for Adele's welfare and progress, and a quiet\r
+liking for her little self: just as I cherished towards Mrs. Fairfax a\r
+thankfulness for her kindness, and a pleasure in her society\r
+proportionate to the tranquil regard she had for me, and the moderation\r
+of her mind and character.\r
+\r
+Anybody may blame me who likes, when I add further, that, now and then,\r
+when I took a walk by myself in the grounds; when I went down to the\r
+gates and looked through them along the road; or when, while Adele played\r
+with her nurse, and Mrs. Fairfax made jellies in the storeroom, I climbed\r
+the three staircases, raised the trap-door of the attic, and having\r
+reached the leads, looked out afar over sequestered field and hill, and\r
+along dim sky-line--that then I longed for a power of vision which might\r
+overpass that limit; which might reach the busy world, towns, regions\r
+full of life I had heard of but never seen--that then I desired more of\r
+practical experience than I possessed; more of intercourse with my kind,\r
+of acquaintance with variety of character, than was here within my reach.\r
+I valued what was good in Mrs. Fairfax, and what was good in Adele; but I\r
+believed in the existence of other and more vivid kinds of goodness, and\r
+what I believed in I wished to behold.\r
+\r
+Who blames me? Many, no doubt; and I shall be called discontented. I\r
+could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to\r
+pain sometimes. Then my sole relief was to walk along the corridor of\r
+the third storey, backwards and forwards, safe in the silence and\r
+solitude of the spot, and allow my mind's eye to dwell on whatever bright\r
+visions rose before it--and, certainly, they were many and glowing; to\r
+let my heart be heaved by the exultant movement, which, while it swelled\r
+it in trouble, expanded it with life; and, best of all, to open my inward\r
+ear to a tale that was never ended--a tale my imagination created, and\r
+narrated continuously; quickened with all of incident, life, fire,\r
+feeling, that I desired and had not in my actual existence.\r
+\r
+It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with\r
+tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot\r
+find it. Millions are condemned to a stiller doom than mine, and\r
+millions are in silent revolt against their lot. Nobody knows how many\r
+rebellions besides political rebellions ferment in the masses of life\r
+which people earth. Women are supposed to be very calm generally: but\r
+women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and\r
+a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from\r
+too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would\r
+suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures\r
+to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and\r
+knitting stockings, to playing on the piano and embroidering bags. It is\r
+thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or\r
+learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.\r
+\r
+When thus alone, I not unfrequently heard Grace Poole's laugh: the same\r
+peal, the same low, slow ha! ha! which, when first heard, had thrilled\r
+me: I heard, too, her eccentric murmurs; stranger than her laugh. There\r
+were days when she was quite silent; but there were others when I could\r
+not account for the sounds she made. Sometimes I saw her: she would come\r
+out of her room with a basin, or a plate, or a tray in her hand, go down\r
+to the kitchen and shortly return, generally (oh, romantic reader,\r
+forgive me for telling the plain truth!) bearing a pot of porter. Her\r
+appearance always acted as a damper to the curiosity raised by her oral\r
+oddities: hard-featured and staid, she had no point to which interest\r
+could attach. I made some attempts to draw her into conversation, but\r
+she seemed a person of few words: a monosyllabic reply usually cut short\r
+every effort of that sort.\r
+\r
+The other members of the household, viz., John and his wife, Leah the\r
+housemaid, and Sophie the French nurse, were decent people; but in no\r
+respect remarkable; with Sophie I used to talk French, and sometimes I\r
+asked her questions about her native country; but she was not of a\r
+descriptive or narrative turn, and generally gave such vapid and confused\r
+answers as were calculated rather to check than encourage inquiry.\r
+\r
+October, November, December passed away. One afternoon in January, Mrs.\r
+Fairfax had begged a holiday for Adele, because she had a cold; and, as\r
+Adele seconded the request with an ardour that reminded me how precious\r
+occasional holidays had been to me in my own childhood, I accorded it,\r
+deeming that I did well in showing pliability on the point. It was a\r
+fine, calm day, though very cold; I was tired of sitting still in the\r
+library through a whole long morning: Mrs. Fairfax had just written a\r
+letter which was waiting to be posted, so I put on my bonnet and cloak\r
+and volunteered to carry it to Hay; the distance, two miles, would be a\r
+pleasant winter afternoon walk. Having seen Adele comfortably seated in\r
+her little chair by Mrs. Fairfax's parlour fireside, and given her her\r
+best wax doll (which I usually kept enveloped in silver paper in a\r
+drawer) to play with, and a story-book for change of amusement; and\r
+having replied to her "Revenez bientot, ma bonne amie, ma chere Mdlle.\r
+Jeannette," with a kiss I set out.\r
+\r
+The ground was hard, the air was still, my road was lonely; I walked fast\r
+till I got warm, and then I walked slowly to enjoy and analyse the\r
+species of pleasure brooding for me in the hour and situation. It was\r
+three o'clock; the church bell tolled as I passed under the belfry: the\r
+charm of the hour lay in its approaching dimness, in the low-gliding and\r
+pale-beaming sun. I was a mile from Thornfield, in a lane noted for wild\r
+roses in summer, for nuts and blackberries in autumn, and even now\r
+possessing a few coral treasures in hips and haws, but whose best winter\r
+delight lay in its utter solitude and leafless repose. If a breath of\r
+air stirred, it made no sound here; for there was not a holly, not an\r
+evergreen to rustle, and the stripped hawthorn and hazel bushes were as\r
+still as the white, worn stones which causewayed the middle of the path.\r
+Far and wide, on each side, there were only fields, where no cattle now\r
+browsed; and the little brown birds, which stirred occasionally in the\r
+hedge, looked like single russet leaves that had forgotten to drop.\r
+\r
+This lane inclined up-hill all the way to Hay; having reached the middle,\r
+I sat down on a stile which led thence into a field. Gathering my mantle\r
+about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold,\r
+though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the\r
+causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a\r
+rapid thaw some days since. From my seat I could look down on\r
+Thornfield: the grey and battlemented hall was the principal object in\r
+the vale below me; its woods and dark rookery rose against the west. I\r
+lingered till the sun went down amongst the trees, and sank crimson and\r
+clear behind them. I then turned eastward.\r
+\r
+On the hill-top above me sat the rising moon; pale yet as a cloud, but\r
+brightening momentarily, she looked over Hay, which, half lost in trees,\r
+sent up a blue smoke from its few chimneys: it was yet a mile distant,\r
+but in the absolute hush I could hear plainly its thin murmurs of life.\r
+My ear, too, felt the flow of currents; in what dales and depths I could\r
+not tell: but there were many hills beyond Hay, and doubtless many becks\r
+threading their passes. That evening calm betrayed alike the tinkle of\r
+the nearest streams, the sough of the most remote.\r
+\r
+A rude noise broke on these fine ripplings and whisperings, at once so\r
+far away and so clear: a positive tramp, tramp, a metallic clatter, which\r
+effaced the soft wave-wanderings; as, in a picture, the solid mass of a\r
+crag, or the rough boles of a great oak, drawn in dark and strong on the\r
+foreground, efface the aerial distance of azure hill, sunny horizon, and\r
+blended clouds where tint melts into tint.\r
+\r
+The din was on the causeway: a horse was coming; the windings of the lane\r
+yet hid it, but it approached. I was just leaving the stile; yet, as the\r
+path was narrow, I sat still to let it go by. In those days I was young,\r
+and all sorts of fancies bright and dark tenanted my mind: the memories\r
+of nursery stories were there amongst other rubbish; and when they\r
+recurred, maturing youth added to them a vigour and vividness beyond what\r
+childhood could give. As this horse approached, and as I watched for it\r
+to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales,\r
+wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a "Gytrash," which, in\r
+the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and\r
+sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon\r
+me.\r
+\r
+It was very near, but not yet in sight; when, in addition to the tramp,\r
+tramp, I heard a rush under the hedge, and close down by the hazel stems\r
+glided a great dog, whose black and white colour made him a distinct\r
+object against the trees. It was exactly one form of Bessie's Gytrash--a\r
+lion-like creature with long hair and a huge head: it passed me, however,\r
+quietly enough; not staying to look up, with strange pretercanine eyes,\r
+in my face, as I half expected it would. The horse followed,--a tall\r
+steed, and on its back a rider. The man, the human being, broke the\r
+spell at once. Nothing ever rode the Gytrash: it was always alone; and\r
+goblins, to my notions, though they might tenant the dumb carcasses of\r
+beasts, could scarce covet shelter in the commonplace human form. No\r
+Gytrash was this,--only a traveller taking the short cut to Millcote. He\r
+passed, and I went on; a few steps, and I turned: a sliding sound and an\r
+exclamation of "What the deuce is to do now?" and a clattering tumble,\r
+arrested my attention. Man and horse were down; they had slipped on the\r
+sheet of ice which glazed the causeway. The dog came bounding back, and\r
+seeing his master in a predicament, and hearing the horse groan, barked\r
+till the evening hills echoed the sound, which was deep in proportion to\r
+his magnitude. He snuffed round the prostrate group, and then he ran up\r
+to me; it was all he could do,--there was no other help at hand to\r
+summon. I obeyed him, and walked down to the traveller, by this time\r
+struggling himself free of his steed. His efforts were so vigorous, I\r
+thought he could not be much hurt; but I asked him the question--\r
+\r
+"Are you injured, sir?"\r
+\r
+I think he was swearing, but am not certain; however, he was pronouncing\r
+some formula which prevented him from replying to me directly.\r
+\r
+"Can I do anything?" I asked again.\r
+\r
+"You must just stand on one side," he answered as he rose, first to his\r
+knees, and then to his feet. I did; whereupon began a heaving, stamping,\r
+clattering process, accompanied by a barking and baying which removed me\r
+effectually some yards' distance; but I would not be driven quite away\r
+till I saw the event. This was finally fortunate; the horse was\r
+re-established, and the dog was silenced with a "Down, Pilot!" The\r
+traveller now, stooping, felt his foot and leg, as if trying whether they\r
+were sound; apparently something ailed them, for he halted to the stile\r
+whence I had just risen, and sat down.\r
+\r
+I was in the mood for being useful, or at least officious, I think, for I\r
+now drew near him again.\r
+\r
+"If you are hurt, and want help, sir, I can fetch some one either from\r
+Thornfield Hall or from Hay."\r
+\r
+"Thank you: I shall do: I have no broken bones,--only a sprain;" and\r
+again he stood up and tried his foot, but the result extorted an\r
+involuntary "Ugh!"\r
+\r
+Something of daylight still lingered, and the moon was waxing bright: I\r
+could see him plainly. His figure was enveloped in a riding cloak, fur\r
+collared and steel clasped; its details were not apparent, but I traced\r
+the general points of middle height and considerable breadth of chest. He\r
+had a dark face, with stern features and a heavy brow; his eyes and\r
+gathered eyebrows looked ireful and thwarted just now; he was past youth,\r
+but had not reached middle-age; perhaps he might be thirty-five. I felt\r
+no fear of him, and but little shyness. Had he been a handsome, heroic-\r
+looking young gentleman, I should not have dared to stand thus\r
+questioning him against his will, and offering my services unasked. I\r
+had hardly ever seen a handsome youth; never in my life spoken to one. I\r
+had a theoretical reverence and homage for beauty, elegance, gallantry,\r
+fascination; but had I met those qualities incarnate in masculine shape,\r
+I should have known instinctively that they neither had nor could have\r
+sympathy with anything in me, and should have shunned them as one would\r
+fire, lightning, or anything else that is bright but antipathetic.\r
+\r
+If even this stranger had smiled and been good-humoured to me when I\r
+addressed him; if he had put off my offer of assistance gaily and with\r
+thanks, I should have gone on my way and not felt any vocation to renew\r
+inquiries: but the frown, the roughness of the traveller, set me at my\r
+ease: I retained my station when he waved to me to go, and announced--\r
+\r
+"I cannot think of leaving you, sir, at so late an hour, in this solitary\r
+lane, till I see you are fit to mount your horse."\r
+\r
+He looked at me when I said this; he had hardly turned his eyes in my\r
+direction before.\r
+\r
+"I should think you ought to be at home yourself," said he, "if you have\r
+a home in this neighbourhood: where do you come from?"\r
+\r
+"From just below; and I am not at all afraid of being out late when it is\r
+moonlight: I will run over to Hay for you with pleasure, if you wish it:\r
+indeed, I am going there to post a letter."\r
+\r
+"You live just below--do you mean at that house with the battlements?"\r
+pointing to Thornfield Hall, on which the moon cast a hoary gleam,\r
+bringing it out distinct and pale from the woods that, by contrast with\r
+the western sky, now seemed one mass of shadow.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Whose house is it?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester's."\r
+\r
+"Do you know Mr. Rochester?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have never seen him."\r
+\r
+"He is not resident, then?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Can you tell me where he is?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot."\r
+\r
+"You are not a servant at the hall, of course. You are--" He stopped,\r
+ran his eye over my dress, which, as usual, was quite simple: a black\r
+merino cloak, a black beaver bonnet; neither of them half fine enough for\r
+a lady's-maid. He seemed puzzled to decide what I was; I helped him.\r
+\r
+"I am the governess."\r
+\r
+"Ah, the governess!" he repeated; "deuce take me, if I had not forgotten!\r
+The governess!" and again my raiment underwent scrutiny. In two minutes\r
+he rose from the stile: his face expressed pain when he tried to move.\r
+\r
+"I cannot commission you to fetch help," he said; "but you may help me a\r
+little yourself, if you will be so kind."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"You have not an umbrella that I can use as a stick?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Try to get hold of my horse's bridle and lead him to me: you are not\r
+afraid?"\r
+\r
+I should have been afraid to touch a horse when alone, but when told to\r
+do it, I was disposed to obey. I put down my muff on the stile, and went\r
+up to the tall steed; I endeavoured to catch the bridle, but it was a\r
+spirited thing, and would not let me come near its head; I made effort on\r
+effort, though in vain: meantime, I was mortally afraid of its trampling\r
+fore-feet. The traveller waited and watched for some time, and at last\r
+he laughed.\r
+\r
+{I was mortally afraid of its trampling forefeet: p107.jpg}\r
+\r
+"I see," he said, "the mountain will never be brought to Mahomet, so all\r
+you can do is to aid Mahomet to go to the mountain; I must beg of you to\r
+come here."\r
+\r
+I came. "Excuse me," he continued: "necessity compels me to make you\r
+useful." He laid a heavy hand on my shoulder, and leaning on me with\r
+some stress, limped to his horse. Having once caught the bridle, he\r
+mastered it directly and sprang to his saddle; grimacing grimly as he\r
+made the effort, for it wrenched his sprain.\r
+\r
+"Now," said he, releasing his under lip from a hard bite, "just hand me\r
+my whip; it lies there under the hedge."\r
+\r
+I sought it and found it.\r
+\r
+"Thank you; now make haste with the letter to Hay, and return as fast as\r
+you can."\r
+\r
+A touch of a spurred heel made his horse first start and rear, and then\r
+bound away; the dog rushed in his traces; all three vanished,\r
+\r
+ "Like heath that, in the wilderness,\r
+ The wild wind whirls away."\r
+\r
+I took up my muff and walked on. The incident had occurred and was gone\r
+for me: it _was_ an incident of no moment, no romance, no interest in a\r
+sense; yet it marked with change one single hour of a monotonous life. My\r
+help had been needed and claimed; I had given it: I was pleased to have\r
+done something; trivial, transitory though the deed was, it was yet an\r
+active thing, and I was weary of an existence all passive. The new face,\r
+too, was like a new picture introduced to the gallery of memory; and it\r
+was dissimilar to all the others hanging there: firstly, because it was\r
+masculine; and, secondly, because it was dark, strong, and stern. I had\r
+it still before me when I entered Hay, and slipped the letter into the\r
+post-office; I saw it as I walked fast down-hill all the way home. When\r
+I came to the stile, I stopped a minute, looked round and listened, with\r
+an idea that a horse's hoofs might ring on the causeway again, and that a\r
+rider in a cloak, and a Gytrash-like Newfoundland dog, might be again\r
+apparent: I saw only the hedge and a pollard willow before me, rising up\r
+still and straight to meet the moonbeams; I heard only the faintest waft\r
+of wind roaming fitful among the trees round Thornfield, a mile distant;\r
+and when I glanced down in the direction of the murmur, my eye,\r
+traversing the hall-front, caught a light kindling in a window: it\r
+reminded me that I was late, and I hurried on.\r
+\r
+I did not like re-entering Thornfield. To pass its threshold was to\r
+return to stagnation; to cross the silent hall, to ascend the darksome\r
+staircase, to seek my own lonely little room, and then to meet tranquil\r
+Mrs. Fairfax, and spend the long winter evening with her, and her only,\r
+was to quell wholly the faint excitement wakened by my walk,--to slip\r
+again over my faculties the viewless fetters of an uniform and too still\r
+existence; of an existence whose very privileges of security and ease I\r
+was becoming incapable of appreciating. What good it would have done me\r
+at that time to have been tossed in the storms of an uncertain struggling\r
+life, and to have been taught by rough and bitter experience to long for\r
+the calm amidst which I now repined! Yes, just as much good as it would\r
+do a man tired of sitting still in a "too easy chair" to take a long\r
+walk: and just as natural was the wish to stir, under my circumstances,\r
+as it would be under his.\r
+\r
+I lingered at the gates; I lingered on the lawn; I paced backwards and\r
+forwards on the pavement; the shutters of the glass door were closed; I\r
+could not see into the interior; and both my eyes and spirit seemed drawn\r
+from the gloomy house--from the grey-hollow filled with rayless cells, as\r
+it appeared to me--to that sky expanded before me,--a blue sea absolved\r
+from taint of cloud; the moon ascending it in solemn march; her orb\r
+seeming to look up as she left the hill-tops, from behind which she had\r
+come, far and farther below her, and aspired to the zenith, midnight dark\r
+in its fathomless depth and measureless distance; and for those trembling\r
+stars that followed her course; they made my heart tremble, my veins glow\r
+when I viewed them. Little things recall us to earth; the clock struck\r
+in the hall; that sufficed; I turned from moon and stars, opened a side-\r
+door, and went in.\r
+\r
+The hall was not dark, nor yet was it lit, only by the high-hung bronze\r
+lamp; a warm glow suffused both it and the lower steps of the oak\r
+staircase. This ruddy shine issued from the great dining-room, whose two-\r
+leaved door stood open, and showed a genial fire in the grate, glancing\r
+on marble hearth and brass fire-irons, and revealing purple draperies and\r
+polished furniture, in the most pleasant radiance. It revealed, too, a\r
+group near the mantelpiece: I had scarcely caught it, and scarcely become\r
+aware of a cheerful mingling of voices, amongst which I seemed to\r
+distinguish the tones of Adele, when the door closed.\r
+\r
+I hastened to Mrs. Fairfax's room; there was a fire there too, but no\r
+candle, and no Mrs. Fairfax. Instead, all alone, sitting upright on the\r
+rug, and gazing with gravity at the blaze, I beheld a great black and\r
+white long-haired dog, just like the Gytrash of the lane. It was so like\r
+it that I went forward and said--"Pilot" and the thing got up and came to\r
+me and snuffed me. I caressed him, and he wagged his great tail; but he\r
+looked an eerie creature to be alone with, and I could not tell whence he\r
+had come. I rang the bell, for I wanted a candle; and I wanted, too, to\r
+get an account of this visitant. Leah entered.\r
+\r
+"What dog is this?"\r
+\r
+"He came with master."\r
+\r
+"With whom?"\r
+\r
+"With master--Mr. Rochester--he is just arrived."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! and is Mrs. Fairfax with him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and Miss Adele; they are in the dining-room, and John is gone for a\r
+surgeon; for master has had an accident; his horse fell and his ankle is\r
+sprained."\r
+\r
+"Did the horse fall in Hay Lane?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, coming down-hill; it slipped on some ice."\r
+\r
+"Ah! Bring me a candle will you Leah?"\r
+\r
+Leah brought it; she entered, followed by Mrs. Fairfax, who repeated the\r
+news; adding that Mr. Carter the surgeon was come, and was now with Mr.\r
+Rochester: then she hurried out to give orders about tea, and I went\r
+upstairs to take off my things.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester, it seems, by the surgeon's orders, went to bed early that\r
+night; nor did he rise soon next morning. When he did come down, it was\r
+to attend to business: his agent and some of his tenants were arrived,\r
+and waiting to speak with him.\r
+\r
+Adele and I had now to vacate the library: it would be in daily\r
+requisition as a reception-room for callers. A fire was lit in an\r
+apartment upstairs, and there I carried our books, and arranged it for\r
+the future schoolroom. I discerned in the course of the morning that\r
+Thornfield Hall was a changed place: no longer silent as a church, it\r
+echoed every hour or two to a knock at the door, or a clang of the bell;\r
+steps, too, often traversed the hall, and new voices spoke in different\r
+keys below; a rill from the outer world was flowing through it; it had a\r
+master: for my part, I liked it better.\r
+\r
+Adele was not easy to teach that day; she could not apply: she kept\r
+running to the door and looking over the banisters to see if she could\r
+get a glimpse of Mr. Rochester; then she coined pretexts to go\r
+downstairs, in order, as I shrewdly suspected, to visit the library,\r
+where I knew she was not wanted; then, when I got a little angry, and\r
+made her sit still, she continued to talk incessantly of her "ami,\r
+Monsieur Edouard Fairfax _de_ Rochester," as she dubbed him (I had not\r
+before heard his prenomens), and to conjecture what presents he had\r
+brought her: for it appears he had intimated the night before, that when\r
+his luggage came from Millcote, there would be found amongst it a little\r
+box in whose contents she had an interest.\r
+\r
+"Et cela doit signifier," said she, "qu'il y aura la dedans un cadeau\r
+pour moi, et peut-etre pour vous aussi, mademoiselle. Monsieur a parle\r
+de vous: il m'a demande le nom de ma gouvernante, et si elle n'etait pas\r
+une petite personne, assez mince et un peu pale. J'ai dit qu'oui: car\r
+c'est vrai, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?"\r
+\r
+I and my pupil dined as usual in Mrs. Fairfax's parlour; the afternoon\r
+was wild and snowy, and we passed it in the schoolroom. At dark I\r
+allowed Adele to put away books and work, and to run downstairs; for,\r
+from the comparative silence below, and from the cessation of appeals to\r
+the door-bell, I conjectured that Mr. Rochester was now at liberty. Left\r
+alone, I walked to the window; but nothing was to be seen thence:\r
+twilight and snowflakes together thickened the air, and hid the very\r
+shrubs on the lawn. I let down the curtain and went back to the\r
+fireside.\r
+\r
+In the clear embers I was tracing a view, not unlike a picture I\r
+remembered to have seen of the castle of Heidelberg, on the Rhine, when\r
+Mrs. Fairfax came in, breaking up by her entrance the fiery mosaic I had\r
+been piercing together, and scattering too some heavy unwelcome thoughts\r
+that were beginning to throng on my solitude.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester would be glad if you and your pupil would take tea with\r
+him in the drawing-room this evening," said she: "he has been so much\r
+engaged all day that he could not ask to see you before."\r
+\r
+"When is his tea-time?" I inquired.\r
+\r
+"Oh, at six o'clock: he keeps early hours in the country. You had better\r
+change your frock now; I will go with you and fasten it. Here is a\r
+candle."\r
+\r
+"Is it necessary to change my frock?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, you had better: I always dress for the evening when Mr. Rochester\r
+is here."\r
+\r
+This additional ceremony seemed somewhat stately; however, I repaired to\r
+my room, and, with Mrs. Fairfax's aid, replaced my black stuff dress by\r
+one of black silk; the best and the only additional one I had, except one\r
+of light grey, which, in my Lowood notions of the toilette, I thought too\r
+fine to be worn, except on first-rate occasions.\r
+\r
+"You want a brooch," said Mrs. Fairfax. I had a single little pearl\r
+ornament which Miss Temple gave me as a parting keepsake: I put it on,\r
+and then we went downstairs. Unused as I was to strangers, it was rather\r
+a trial to appear thus formally summoned in Mr. Rochester's presence. I\r
+let Mrs. Fairfax precede me into the dining-room, and kept in her shade\r
+as we crossed that apartment; and, passing the arch, whose curtain was\r
+now dropped, entered the elegant recess beyond.\r
+\r
+Two wax candles stood lighted on the table, and two on the mantelpiece;\r
+basking in the light and heat of a superb fire, lay Pilot--Adele knelt\r
+near him. Half reclined on a couch appeared Mr. Rochester, his foot\r
+supported by the cushion; he was looking at Adele and the dog: the fire\r
+shone full on his face. I knew my traveller with his broad and jetty\r
+eyebrows; his square forehead, made squarer by the horizontal sweep of\r
+his black hair. I recognised his decisive nose, more remarkable for\r
+character than beauty; his full nostrils, denoting, I thought, choler;\r
+his grim mouth, chin, and jaw--yes, all three were very grim, and no\r
+mistake. His shape, now divested of cloak, I perceived harmonised in\r
+squareness with his physiognomy: I suppose it was a good figure in the\r
+athletic sense of the term--broad chested and thin flanked, though\r
+neither tall nor graceful.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester must have been aware of the entrance of Mrs. Fairfax and\r
+myself; but it appeared he was not in the mood to notice us, for he never\r
+lifted his head as we approached.\r
+\r
+"Here is Miss Eyre, sir," said Mrs. Fairfax, in her quiet way. He bowed,\r
+still not taking his eyes from the group of the dog and child.\r
+\r
+"Let Miss Eyre be seated," said he: and there was something in the forced\r
+stiff bow, in the impatient yet formal tone, which seemed further to\r
+express, "What the deuce is it to me whether Miss Eyre be there or not?\r
+At this moment I am not disposed to accost her."\r
+\r
+I sat down quite disembarrassed. A reception of finished politeness\r
+would probably have confused me: I could not have returned or repaid it\r
+by answering grace and elegance on my part; but harsh caprice laid me\r
+under no obligation; on the contrary, a decent quiescence, under the\r
+freak of manner, gave me the advantage. Besides, the eccentricity of the\r
+proceeding was piquant: I felt interested to see how he would go on.\r
+\r
+He went on as a statue would, that is, he neither spoke nor moved. Mrs.\r
+Fairfax seemed to think it necessary that some one should be amiable, and\r
+she began to talk. Kindly, as usual--and, as usual, rather trite--she\r
+condoled with him on the pressure of business he had had all day; on the\r
+annoyance it must have been to him with that painful sprain: then she\r
+commended his patience and perseverance in going through with it.\r
+\r
+"Madam, I should like some tea," was the sole rejoinder she got. She\r
+hastened to ring the bell; and when the tray came, she proceeded to\r
+arrange the cups, spoons, &c., with assiduous celerity. I and Adele went\r
+to the table; but the master did not leave his couch.\r
+\r
+"Will you hand Mr. Rochester's cup?" said Mrs. Fairfax to me; "Adele\r
+might perhaps spill it."\r
+\r
+I did as requested. As he took the cup from my hand, Adele, thinking the\r
+moment propitious for making a request in my favour, cried out--\r
+\r
+"N'est-ce pas, monsieur, qu'il y a un cadeau pour Mademoiselle Eyre dans\r
+votre petit coffre?"\r
+\r
+"Who talks of cadeaux?" said he gruffly. "Did you expect a present, Miss\r
+Eyre? Are you fond of presents?" and he searched my face with eyes that\r
+I saw were dark, irate, and piercing.\r
+\r
+"I hardly know, sir; I have little experience of them: they are generally\r
+thought pleasant things."\r
+\r
+"Generally thought? But what do _you_ think?"\r
+\r
+"I should be obliged to take time, sir, before I could give you an answer\r
+worthy of your acceptance: a present has many faces to it, has it not?\r
+and one should consider all, before pronouncing an opinion as to its\r
+nature."\r
+\r
+"Miss Eyre, you are not so unsophisticated as Adele: she demands a\r
+'cadeau,' clamorously, the moment she sees me: you beat about the bush."\r
+\r
+"Because I have less confidence in my deserts than Adele has: she can\r
+prefer the claim of old acquaintance, and the right too of custom; for\r
+she says you have always been in the habit of giving her playthings; but\r
+if I had to make out a case I should be puzzled, since I am a stranger,\r
+and have done nothing to entitle me to an acknowledgment."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't fall back on over-modesty! I have examined Adele, and find\r
+you have taken great pains with her: she is not bright, she has no\r
+talents; yet in a short time she has made much improvement."\r
+\r
+"Sir, you have now given me my 'cadeau;' I am obliged to you: it is the\r
+meed teachers most covet--praise of their pupils' progress."\r
+\r
+"Humph!" said Mr. Rochester, and he took his tea in silence.\r
+\r
+"Come to the fire," said the master, when the tray was taken away, and\r
+Mrs. Fairfax had settled into a corner with her knitting; while Adele was\r
+leading me by the hand round the room, showing me the beautiful books and\r
+ornaments on the consoles and chiffonnieres. We obeyed, as in duty\r
+bound; Adele wanted to take a seat on my knee, but she was ordered to\r
+amuse herself with Pilot.\r
+\r
+"You have been resident in my house three months?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And you came from--?"\r
+\r
+"From Lowood school, in ---shire."\r
+\r
+"Ah! a charitable concern. How long were you there?"\r
+\r
+"Eight years."\r
+\r
+"Eight years! you must be tenacious of life. I thought half the time in\r
+such a place would have done up any constitution! No wonder you have\r
+rather the look of another world. I marvelled where you had got that\r
+sort of face. When you came on me in Hay Lane last night, I thought\r
+unaccountably of fairy tales, and had half a mind to demand whether you\r
+had bewitched my horse: I am not sure yet. Who are your parents?"\r
+\r
+"I have none."\r
+\r
+"Nor ever had, I suppose: do you remember them?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"I thought not. And so you were waiting for your people when you sat on\r
+that stile?"\r
+\r
+"For whom, sir?"\r
+\r
+"For the men in green: it was a proper moonlight evening for them. Did I\r
+break through one of your rings, that you spread that damned ice on the\r
+causeway?"\r
+\r
+I shook my head. "The men in green all forsook England a hundred years\r
+ago," said I, speaking as seriously as he had done. "And not even in Hay\r
+Lane, or the fields about it, could you find a trace of them. I don't\r
+think either summer or harvest, or winter moon, will ever shine on their\r
+revels more."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Fairfax had dropped her knitting, and, with raised eyebrows, seemed\r
+wondering what sort of talk this was.\r
+\r
+"Well," resumed Mr. Rochester, "if you disown parents, you must have some\r
+sort of kinsfolk: uncles and aunts?"\r
+\r
+"No; none that I ever saw."\r
+\r
+"And your home?"\r
+\r
+"I have none."\r
+\r
+"Where do your brothers and sisters live?"\r
+\r
+"I have no brothers or sisters."\r
+\r
+"Who recommended you to come here?"\r
+\r
+"I advertised, and Mrs. Fairfax answered my advertisement."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said the good lady, who now knew what ground we were upon, "and I\r
+am daily thankful for the choice Providence led me to make. Miss Eyre\r
+has been an invaluable companion to me, and a kind and careful teacher to\r
+Adele."\r
+\r
+"Don't trouble yourself to give her a character," returned Mr. Rochester:\r
+"eulogiums will not bias me; I shall judge for myself. She began by\r
+felling my horse."\r
+\r
+"Sir?" said Mrs. Fairfax.\r
+\r
+"I have to thank her for this sprain."\r
+\r
+The widow looked bewildered.\r
+\r
+"Miss Eyre, have you ever lived in a town?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"Have you seen much society?"\r
+\r
+"None but the pupils and teachers of Lowood, and now the inmates of\r
+Thornfield."\r
+\r
+"Have you read much?"\r
+\r
+"Only such books as came in my way; and they have not been numerous or\r
+very learned."\r
+\r
+"You have lived the life of a nun: no doubt you are well drilled in\r
+religious forms;--Brocklehurst, who I understand directs Lowood, is a\r
+parson, is he not?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And you girls probably worshipped him, as a convent full of religieuses\r
+would worship their director."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no."\r
+\r
+"You are very cool! No! What! a novice not worship her priest! That\r
+sounds blasphemous."\r
+\r
+"I disliked Mr. Brocklehurst; and I was not alone in the feeling. He is\r
+a harsh man; at once pompous and meddling; he cut off our hair; and for\r
+economy's sake bought us bad needles and thread, with which we could\r
+hardly sew."\r
+\r
+"That was very false economy," remarked Mrs. Fairfax, who now again\r
+caught the drift of the dialogue.\r
+\r
+"And was that the head and front of his offending?" demanded Mr.\r
+Rochester.\r
+\r
+"He starved us when he had the sole superintendence of the provision\r
+department, before the committee was appointed; and he bored us with long\r
+lectures once a week, and with evening readings from books of his own\r
+inditing, about sudden deaths and judgments, which made us afraid to go\r
+to bed."\r
+\r
+"What age were you when you went to Lowood?"\r
+\r
+"About ten."\r
+\r
+"And you stayed there eight years: you are now, then, eighteen?"\r
+\r
+I assented.\r
+\r
+"Arithmetic, you see, is useful; without its aid, I should hardly have\r
+been able to guess your age. It is a point difficult to fix where the\r
+features and countenance are so much at variance as in your case. And\r
+now what did you learn at Lowood? Can you play?"\r
+\r
+"A little."\r
+\r
+"Of course: that is the established answer. Go into the library--I mean,\r
+if you please.--(Excuse my tone of command; I am used to say, 'Do this,'\r
+and it is done: I cannot alter my customary habits for one new\r
+inmate.)--Go, then, into the library; take a candle with you; leave the\r
+door open; sit down to the piano, and play a tune."\r
+\r
+I departed, obeying his directions.\r
+\r
+"Enough!" he called out in a few minutes. "You play _a little_, I see;\r
+like any other English school-girl; perhaps rather better than some, but\r
+not well."\r
+\r
+I closed the piano and returned. Mr. Rochester continued--"Adele showed\r
+me some sketches this morning, which she said were yours. I don't know\r
+whether they were entirely of your doing; probably a master aided you?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed!" I interjected.\r
+\r
+"Ah! that pricks pride. Well, fetch me your portfolio, if you can vouch\r
+for its contents being original; but don't pass your word unless you are\r
+certain: I can recognise patchwork."\r
+\r
+"Then I will say nothing, and you shall judge for yourself, sir."\r
+\r
+I brought the portfolio from the library.\r
+\r
+"Approach the table," said he; and I wheeled it to his couch. Adele and\r
+Mrs. Fairfax drew near to see the pictures.\r
+\r
+"No crowding," said Mr. Rochester: "take the drawings from my hand as I\r
+finish with them; but don't push your faces up to mine."\r
+\r
+He deliberately scrutinised each sketch and painting. Three he laid\r
+aside; the others, when he had examined them, he swept from him.\r
+\r
+"Take them off to the other table, Mrs. Fairfax," said he, "and look at\r
+them with Adele;--you" (glancing at me) "resume your seat, and answer my\r
+questions. I perceive those pictures were done by one hand: was that\r
+hand yours?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And when did you find time to do them? They have taken much time, and\r
+some thought."\r
+\r
+"I did them in the last two vacations I spent at Lowood, when I had no\r
+other occupation."\r
+\r
+"Where did you get your copies?"\r
+\r
+"Out of my head."\r
+\r
+"That head I see now on your shoulders?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Has it other furniture of the same kind within?"\r
+\r
+"I should think it may have: I should hope--better."\r
+\r
+He spread the pictures before him, and again surveyed them alternately.\r
+\r
+While he is so occupied, I will tell you, reader, what they are: and\r
+first, I must premise that they are nothing wonderful. The subjects had,\r
+indeed, risen vividly on my mind. As I saw them with the spiritual eye,\r
+before I attempted to embody them, they were striking; but my hand would\r
+not second my fancy, and in each case it had wrought out but a pale\r
+portrait of the thing I had conceived.\r
+\r
+These pictures were in water-colours. The first represented clouds low\r
+and livid, rolling over a swollen sea: all the distance was in eclipse;\r
+so, too, was the foreground; or rather, the nearest billows, for there\r
+was no land. One gleam of light lifted into relief a half-submerged\r
+mast, on which sat a cormorant, dark and large, with wings flecked with\r
+foam; its beak held a gold bracelet set with gems, that I had touched\r
+with as brilliant tints as my palette could yield, and as glittering\r
+distinctness as my pencil could impart. Sinking below the bird and mast,\r
+a drowned corpse glanced through the green water; a fair arm was the only\r
+limb clearly visible, whence the bracelet had been washed or torn.\r
+\r
+The second picture contained for foreground only the dim peak of a hill,\r
+with grass and some leaves slanting as if by a breeze. Beyond and above\r
+spread an expanse of sky, dark blue as at twilight: rising into the sky\r
+was a woman's shape to the bust, portrayed in tints as dusk and soft as I\r
+could combine. The dim forehead was crowned with a star; the lineaments\r
+below were seen as through the suffusion of vapour; the eyes shone dark\r
+and wild; the hair streamed shadowy, like a beamless cloud torn by storm\r
+or by electric travail. On the neck lay a pale reflection like\r
+moonlight; the same faint lustre touched the train of thin clouds from\r
+which rose and bowed this vision of the Evening Star.\r
+\r
+The third showed the pinnacle of an iceberg piercing a polar winter sky:\r
+a muster of northern lights reared their dim lances, close serried, along\r
+the horizon. Throwing these into distance, rose, in the foreground, a\r
+head,--a colossal head, inclined towards the iceberg, and resting against\r
+it. Two thin hands, joined under the forehead, and supporting it, drew\r
+up before the lower features a sable veil, a brow quite bloodless, white\r
+as bone, and an eye hollow and fixed, blank of meaning but for the\r
+glassiness of despair, alone were visible. Above the temples, amidst\r
+wreathed turban folds of black drapery, vague in its character and\r
+consistency as cloud, gleamed a ring of white flame, gemmed with sparkles\r
+of a more lurid tinge. This pale crescent was "the likeness of a kingly\r
+crown;" what it diademed was "the shape which shape had none."\r
+\r
+"Were you happy when you painted these pictures?" asked Mr. Rochester\r
+presently.\r
+\r
+"I was absorbed, sir: yes, and I was happy. To paint them, in short, was\r
+to enjoy one of the keenest pleasures I have ever known."\r
+\r
+"That is not saying much. Your pleasures, by your own account, have been\r
+few; but I daresay you did exist in a kind of artist's dreamland while\r
+you blent and arranged these strange tints. Did you sit at them long\r
+each day?"\r
+\r
+"I had nothing else to do, because it was the vacation, and I sat at them\r
+from morning till noon, and from noon till night: the length of the\r
+midsummer days favoured my inclination to apply."\r
+\r
+"And you felt self-satisfied with the result of your ardent labours?"\r
+\r
+"Far from it. I was tormented by the contrast between my idea and my\r
+handiwork: in each case I had imagined something which I was quite\r
+powerless to realise."\r
+\r
+"Not quite: you have secured the shadow of your thought; but no more,\r
+probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give\r
+it full being: yet the drawings are, for a school-girl, peculiar. As to\r
+the thoughts, they are elfish. These eyes in the Evening Star you must\r
+have seen in a dream. How could you make them look so clear, and yet not\r
+at all brilliant? for the planet above quells their rays. And what\r
+meaning is that in their solemn depth? And who taught you to paint wind?\r
+There is a high gale in that sky, and on this hill-top. Where did you\r
+see Latmos? For that is Latmos. There! put the drawings away!"\r
+\r
+I had scarce tied the strings of the portfolio, when, looking at his\r
+watch, he said abruptly--\r
+\r
+"It is nine o'clock: what are you about, Miss Eyre, to let Adele sit up\r
+so long? Take her to bed."\r
+\r
+Adele went to kiss him before quitting the room: he endured the caress,\r
+but scarcely seemed to relish it more than Pilot would have done, nor so\r
+much.\r
+\r
+"I wish you all good-night, now," said he, making a movement of the hand\r
+towards the door, in token that he was tired of our company, and wished\r
+to dismiss us. Mrs. Fairfax folded up her knitting: I took my portfolio:\r
+we curtseyed to him, received a frigid bow in return, and so withdrew.\r
+\r
+"You said Mr. Rochester was not strikingly peculiar, Mrs. Fairfax," I\r
+observed, when I rejoined her in her room, after putting Adele to bed.\r
+\r
+"Well, is he?"\r
+\r
+"I think so: he is very changeful and abrupt."\r
+\r
+"True: no doubt he may appear so to a stranger, but I am so accustomed to\r
+his manner, I never think of it; and then, if he has peculiarities of\r
+temper, allowance should be made."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Partly because it is his nature--and we can none of us help our nature;\r
+and partly because he has painful thoughts, no doubt, to harass him, and\r
+make his spirits unequal."\r
+\r
+"What about?"\r
+\r
+"Family troubles, for one thing."\r
+\r
+"But he has no family."\r
+\r
+"Not now, but he has had--or, at least, relatives. He lost his elder\r
+brother a few years since."\r
+\r
+"His _elder_ brother?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. The present Mr. Rochester has not been very long in possession of\r
+the property; only about nine years."\r
+\r
+"Nine years is a tolerable time. Was he so very fond of his brother as\r
+to be still inconsolable for his loss?"\r
+\r
+"Why, no--perhaps not. I believe there were some misunderstandings\r
+between them. Mr. Rowland Rochester was not quite just to Mr. Edward;\r
+and perhaps he prejudiced his father against him. The old gentleman was\r
+fond of money, and anxious to keep the family estate together. He did\r
+not like to diminish the property by division, and yet he was anxious\r
+that Mr. Edward should have wealth, too, to keep up the consequence of\r
+the name; and, soon after he was of age, some steps were taken that were\r
+not quite fair, and made a great deal of mischief. Old Mr. Rochester and\r
+Mr. Rowland combined to bring Mr. Edward into what he considered a\r
+painful position, for the sake of making his fortune: what the precise\r
+nature of that position was I never clearly knew, but his spirit could\r
+not brook what he had to suffer in it. He is not very forgiving: he\r
+broke with his family, and now for many years he has led an unsettled\r
+kind of life. I don't think he has ever been resident at Thornfield for\r
+a fortnight together, since the death of his brother without a will left\r
+him master of the estate; and, indeed, no wonder he shuns the old place."\r
+\r
+"Why should he shun it?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he thinks it gloomy."\r
+\r
+The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs.\r
+Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information\r
+of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester's trials. She averred they\r
+were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from\r
+conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the\r
+subject, which I did accordingly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+\r
+For several subsequent days I saw little of Mr. Rochester. In the\r
+mornings he seemed much engaged with business, and, in the afternoon,\r
+gentlemen from Millcote or the neighbourhood called, and sometimes stayed\r
+to dine with him. When his sprain was well enough to admit of horse\r
+exercise, he rode out a good deal; probably to return these visits, as he\r
+generally did not come back till late at night.\r
+\r
+During this interval, even Adele was seldom sent for to his presence, and\r
+all my acquaintance with him was confined to an occasional rencontre in\r
+the hall, on the stairs, or in the gallery, when he would sometimes pass\r
+me haughtily and coldly, just acknowledging my presence by a distant nod\r
+or a cool glance, and sometimes bow and smile with gentlemanlike\r
+affability. His changes of mood did not offend me, because I saw that I\r
+had nothing to do with their alternation; the ebb and flow depended on\r
+causes quite disconnected with me.\r
+\r
+One day he had had company to dinner, and had sent for my portfolio; in\r
+order, doubtless, to exhibit its contents: the gentlemen went away early,\r
+to attend a public meeting at Millcote, as Mrs. Fairfax informed me; but\r
+the night being wet and inclement, Mr. Rochester did not accompany them.\r
+Soon after they were gone he rang the bell: a message came that I and\r
+Adele were to go downstairs. I brushed Adele's hair and made her neat,\r
+and having ascertained that I was myself in my usual Quaker trim, where\r
+there was nothing to retouch--all being too close and plain, braided\r
+locks included, to admit of disarrangement--we descended, Adele wondering\r
+whether the _petit coffre_ was at length come; for, owing to some\r
+mistake, its arrival had hitherto been delayed. She was gratified: there\r
+it stood, a little carton, on the table when we entered the dining-room.\r
+She appeared to know it by instinct.\r
+\r
+"Ma boite! ma boite!" exclaimed she, running towards it.\r
+\r
+"Yes, there is your 'boite' at last: take it into a corner, you genuine\r
+daughter of Paris, and amuse yourself with disembowelling it," said the\r
+deep and rather sarcastic voice of Mr. Rochester, proceeding from the\r
+depths of an immense easy-chair at the fireside. "And mind," he\r
+continued, "don't bother me with any details of the anatomical process,\r
+or any notice of the condition of the entrails: let your operation be\r
+conducted in silence: tiens-toi tranquille, enfant; comprends-tu?"\r
+\r
+Adele seemed scarcely to need the warning--she had already retired to a\r
+sofa with her treasure, and was busy untying the cord which secured the\r
+lid. Having removed this impediment, and lifted certain silvery\r
+envelopes of tissue paper, she merely exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Oh ciel! Que c'est beau!" and then remained absorbed in ecstatic\r
+contemplation.\r
+\r
+"Is Miss Eyre there?" now demanded the master, half rising from his seat\r
+to look round to the door, near which I still stood.\r
+\r
+"Ah! well, come forward; be seated here." He drew a chair near his own.\r
+"I am not fond of the prattle of children," he continued; "for, old\r
+bachelor as I am, I have no pleasant associations connected with their\r
+lisp. It would be intolerable to me to pass a whole evening\r
+_tete-a-tete_ with a brat. Don't draw that chair farther off, Miss Eyre;\r
+sit down exactly where I placed it--if you please, that is. Confound\r
+these civilities! I continually forget them. Nor do I particularly\r
+affect simple-minded old ladies. By-the-bye, I must have mine in mind;\r
+it won't do to neglect her; she is a Fairfax, or wed to one; and blood is\r
+said to be thicker than water."\r
+\r
+He rang, and despatched an invitation to Mrs. Fairfax, who soon arrived,\r
+knitting-basket in hand.\r
+\r
+"Good evening, madam; I sent to you for a charitable purpose. I have\r
+forbidden Adele to talk to me about her presents, and she is bursting\r
+with repletion: have the goodness to serve her as auditress and\r
+interlocutrice; it will be one of the most benevolent acts you ever\r
+performed."\r
+\r
+Adele, indeed, no sooner saw Mrs. Fairfax, than she summoned her to her\r
+sofa, and there quickly filled her lap with the porcelain, the ivory, the\r
+waxen contents of her "boite;" pouring out, meantime, explanations and\r
+raptures in such broken English as she was mistress of.\r
+\r
+"Now I have performed the part of a good host," pursued Mr. Rochester,\r
+"put my guests into the way of amusing each other, I ought to be at\r
+liberty to attend to my own pleasure. Miss Eyre, draw your chair still a\r
+little farther forward: you are yet too far back; I cannot see you\r
+without disturbing my position in this comfortable chair, which I have no\r
+mind to do."\r
+\r
+I did as I was bid, though I would much rather have remained somewhat in\r
+the shade; but Mr. Rochester had such a direct way of giving orders, it\r
+seemed a matter of course to obey him promptly.\r
+\r
+We were, as I have said, in the dining-room: the lustre, which had been\r
+lit for dinner, filled the room with a festal breadth of light; the large\r
+fire was all red and clear; the purple curtains hung rich and ample\r
+before the lofty window and loftier arch; everything was still, save the\r
+subdued chat of Adele (she dared not speak loud), and, filling up each\r
+pause, the beating of winter rain against the panes.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester, as he sat in his damask-covered chair, looked different to\r
+what I had seen him look before; not quite so stern--much less gloomy.\r
+There was a smile on his lips, and his eyes sparkled, whether with wine\r
+or not, I am not sure; but I think it very probable. He was, in short,\r
+in his after-dinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self-\r
+indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning; still he\r
+looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling\r
+back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granite-\r
+hewn features, and in his great, dark eyes; for he had great, dark eyes,\r
+and very fine eyes, too--not without a certain change in their depths\r
+sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that\r
+feeling.\r
+\r
+He had been looking two minutes at the fire, and I had been looking the\r
+same length of time at him, when, turning suddenly, he caught my gaze\r
+fastened on his physiognomy.\r
+\r
+"You examine me, Miss Eyre," said he: "do you think me handsome?"\r
+\r
+I should, if I had deliberated, have replied to this question by\r
+something conventionally vague and polite; but the answer somehow slipped\r
+from my tongue before I was aware--"No, sir."\r
+\r
+"Ah! By my word! there is something singular about you," said he: "you\r
+have the air of a little _nonnette_; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple, as\r
+you sit with your hands before you, and your eyes generally bent on the\r
+carpet (except, by-the-bye, when they are directed piercingly to my face;\r
+as just now, for instance); and when one asks you a question, or makes a\r
+remark to which you are obliged to reply, you rap out a round rejoinder,\r
+which, if not blunt, is at least brusque. What do you mean by it?"\r
+\r
+"Sir, I was too plain; I beg your pardon. I ought to have replied that\r
+it was not easy to give an impromptu answer to a question about\r
+appearances; that tastes mostly differ; and that beauty is of little\r
+consequence, or something of that sort."\r
+\r
+"You ought to have replied no such thing. Beauty of little consequence,\r
+indeed! And so, under pretence of softening the previous outrage, of\r
+stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under\r
+my ear! Go on: what fault do you find with me, pray? I suppose I have\r
+all my limbs and all my features like any other man?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, allow me to disown my first answer: I intended no pointed\r
+repartee: it was only a blunder."\r
+\r
+"Just so: I think so: and you shall be answerable for it. Criticise me:\r
+does my forehead not please you?"\r
+\r
+He lifted up the sable waves of hair which lay horizontally over his\r
+brow, and showed a solid enough mass of intellectual organs, but an\r
+abrupt deficiency where the suave sign of benevolence should have risen.\r
+\r
+"Now, ma'am, am I a fool?"\r
+\r
+"Far from it, sir. You would, perhaps, think me rude if I inquired in\r
+return whether you are a philanthropist?"\r
+\r
+"There again! Another stick of the penknife, when she pretended to pat\r
+my head: and that is because I said I did not like the society of\r
+children and old women (low be it spoken!). No, young lady, I am not a\r
+general philanthropist; but I bear a conscience;" and he pointed to the\r
+prominences which are said to indicate that faculty, and which,\r
+fortunately for him, were sufficiently conspicuous; giving, indeed, a\r
+marked breadth to the upper part of his head: "and, besides, I once had a\r
+kind of rude tenderness of heart. When I was as old as you, I was a\r
+feeling fellow enough, partial to the unfledged, unfostered, and unlucky;\r
+but Fortune has knocked me about since: she has even kneaded me with her\r
+knuckles, and now I flatter myself I am hard and tough as an India-rubber\r
+ball; pervious, though, through a chink or two still, and with one\r
+sentient point in the middle of the lump. Yes: does that leave hope for\r
+me?"\r
+\r
+"Hope of what, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Of my final re-transformation from India-rubber back to flesh?"\r
+\r
+"Decidedly he has had too much wine," I thought; and I did not know what\r
+answer to make to his queer question: how could I tell whether he was\r
+capable of being re-transformed?\r
+\r
+"You looked very much puzzled, Miss Eyre; and though you are not pretty\r
+any more than I am handsome, yet a puzzled air becomes you; besides, it\r
+is convenient, for it keeps those searching eyes of yours away from my\r
+physiognomy, and busies them with the worsted flowers of the rug; so\r
+puzzle on. Young lady, I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative\r
+to-night."\r
+\r
+With this announcement he rose from his chair, and stood, leaning his arm\r
+on the marble mantelpiece: in that attitude his shape was seen plainly as\r
+well as his face; his unusual breadth of chest, disproportionate almost\r
+to his length of limb. I am sure most people would have thought him an\r
+ugly man; yet there was so much unconscious pride in his port; so much\r
+ease in his demeanour; such a look of complete indifference to his own\r
+external appearance; so haughty a reliance on the power of other\r
+qualities, intrinsic or adventitious, to atone for the lack of mere\r
+personal attractiveness, that, in looking at him, one inevitably shared\r
+the indifference, and, even in a blind, imperfect sense, put faith in the\r
+confidence.\r
+\r
+"I am disposed to be gregarious and communicative to-night," he repeated,\r
+"and that is why I sent for you: the fire and the chandelier were not\r
+sufficient company for me; nor would Pilot have been, for none of these\r
+can talk. Adele is a degree better, but still far below the mark; Mrs.\r
+Fairfax ditto; you, I am persuaded, can suit me if you will: you puzzled\r
+me the first evening I invited you down here. I have almost forgotten\r
+you since: other ideas have driven yours from my head; but to-night I am\r
+resolved to be at ease; to dismiss what importunes, and recall what\r
+pleases. It would please me now to draw you out--to learn more of\r
+you--therefore speak."\r
+\r
+Instead of speaking, I smiled; and not a very complacent or submissive\r
+smile either.\r
+\r
+"Speak," he urged.\r
+\r
+"What about, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Whatever you like. I leave both the choice of subject and the manner of\r
+treating it entirely to yourself."\r
+\r
+Accordingly I sat and said nothing: "If he expects me to talk for the\r
+mere sake of talking and showing off, he will find he has addressed\r
+himself to the wrong person," I thought.\r
+\r
+"You are dumb, Miss Eyre."\r
+\r
+I was dumb still. He bent his head a little towards me, and with a\r
+single hasty glance seemed to dive into my eyes.\r
+\r
+"Stubborn?" he said, "and annoyed. Ah! it is consistent. I put my\r
+request in an absurd, almost insolent form. Miss Eyre, I beg your\r
+pardon. The fact is, once for all, I don't wish to treat you like an\r
+inferior: that is" (correcting himself), "I claim only such superiority\r
+as must result from twenty years' difference in age and a century's\r
+advance in experience. This is legitimate, _et j'y tiens_, as Adele\r
+would say; and it is by virtue of this superiority, and this alone, that\r
+I desire you to have the goodness to talk to me a little now, and divert\r
+my thoughts, which are galled with dwelling on one point--cankering as a\r
+rusty nail."\r
+\r
+He had deigned an explanation, almost an apology, and I did not feel\r
+insensible to his condescension, and would not seem so.\r
+\r
+"I am willing to amuse you, if I can, sir--quite willing; but I cannot\r
+introduce a topic, because how do I know what will interest you? Ask me\r
+questions, and I will do my best to answer them."\r
+\r
+"Then, in the first place, do you agree with me that I have a right to be\r
+a little masterful, abrupt, perhaps exacting, sometimes, on the grounds I\r
+stated, namely, that I am old enough to be your father, and that I have\r
+battled through a varied experience with many men of many nations, and\r
+roamed over half the globe, while you have lived quietly with one set of\r
+people in one house?"\r
+\r
+"Do as you please, sir."\r
+\r
+"That is no answer; or rather it is a very irritating, because a very\r
+evasive one. Reply clearly."\r
+\r
+"I don't think, sir, you have a right to command me, merely because you\r
+are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have;\r
+your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time\r
+and experience."\r
+\r
+"Humph! Promptly spoken. But I won't allow that, seeing that it would\r
+never suit my case, as I have made an indifferent, not to say a bad, use\r
+of both advantages. Leaving superiority out of the question, then, you\r
+must still agree to receive my orders now and then, without being piqued\r
+or hurt by the tone of command. Will you?"\r
+\r
+I smiled: I thought to myself Mr. Rochester _is_ peculiar--he seems to\r
+forget that he pays me 30 pounds per annum for receiving his orders.\r
+\r
+"The smile is very well," said he, catching instantly the passing\r
+expression; "but speak too."\r
+\r
+"I was thinking, sir, that very few masters would trouble themselves to\r
+inquire whether or not their paid subordinates were piqued and hurt by\r
+their orders."\r
+\r
+"Paid subordinates! What! you are my paid subordinate, are you? Oh yes,\r
+I had forgotten the salary! Well then, on that mercenary ground, will\r
+you agree to let me hector a little?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, not on that ground; but, on the ground that you did forget it,\r
+and that you care whether or not a dependent is comfortable in his\r
+dependency, I agree heartily."\r
+\r
+"And will you consent to dispense with a great many conventional forms\r
+and phrases, without thinking that the omission arises from insolence?"\r
+\r
+"I am sure, sir, I should never mistake informality for insolence: one I\r
+rather like, the other nothing free-born would submit to, even for a\r
+salary."\r
+\r
+"Humbug! Most things free-born will submit to anything for a salary;\r
+therefore, keep to yourself, and don't venture on generalities of which\r
+you are intensely ignorant. However, I mentally shake hands with you for\r
+your answer, despite its inaccuracy; and as much for the manner in which\r
+it was said, as for the substance of the speech; the manner was frank and\r
+sincere; one does not often see such a manner: no, on the contrary,\r
+affectation, or coldness, or stupid, coarse-minded misapprehension of\r
+one's meaning are the usual rewards of candour. Not three in three\r
+thousand raw school-girl-governesses would have answered me as you have\r
+just done. But I don't mean to flatter you: if you are cast in a\r
+different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it.\r
+And then, after all, I go too fast in my conclusions: for what I yet\r
+know, you may be no better than the rest; you may have intolerable\r
+defects to counterbalance your few good points."\r
+\r
+"And so may you," I thought. My eye met his as the idea crossed my mind:\r
+he seemed to read the glance, answering as if its import had been spoken\r
+as well as imagined--\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, you are right," said he; "I have plenty of faults of my own: I\r
+know it, and I don't wish to palliate them, I assure you. God wot I need\r
+not be too severe about others; I have a past existence, a series of\r
+deeds, a colour of life to contemplate within my own breast, which might\r
+well call my sneers and censures from my neighbours to myself. I\r
+started, or rather (for like other defaulters, I like to lay half the\r
+blame on ill fortune and adverse circumstances) was thrust on to a wrong\r
+tack at the age of one-and-twenty, and have never recovered the right\r
+course since: but I might have been very different; I might have been as\r
+good as you--wiser--almost as stainless. I envy you your peace of mind,\r
+your clean conscience, your unpolluted memory. Little girl, a memory\r
+without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure--an\r
+inexhaustible source of pure refreshment: is it not?"\r
+\r
+"How was your memory when you were eighteen, sir?"\r
+\r
+"All right then; limpid, salubrious: no gush of bilge water had turned it\r
+to fetid puddle. I was your equal at eighteen--quite your equal. Nature\r
+meant me to be, on the whole, a good man, Miss Eyre; one of the better\r
+kind, and you see I am not so. You would say you don't see it; at least\r
+I flatter myself I read as much in your eye (beware, by-the-bye, what you\r
+express with that organ; I am quick at interpreting its language). Then\r
+take my word for it,--I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that--not\r
+to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe,\r
+rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace\r
+sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich\r
+and worthless try to put on life. Do you wonder that I avow this to you?\r
+Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself\r
+elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances' secrets: people\r
+will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to\r
+tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they\r
+will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their\r
+indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting\r
+and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations."\r
+\r
+"How do you know?--how can you guess all this, sir?"\r
+\r
+"I know it well; therefore I proceed almost as freely as if I were\r
+writing my thoughts in a diary. You would say, I should have been\r
+superior to circumstances; so I should--so I should; but you see I was\r
+not. When fate wronged me, I had not the wisdom to remain cool: I turned\r
+desperate; then I degenerated. Now, when any vicious simpleton excites\r
+my disgust by his paltry ribaldry, I cannot flatter myself that I am\r
+better than he: I am forced to confess that he and I are on a level. I\r
+wish I had stood firm--God knows I do! Dread remorse when you are\r
+tempted to err, Miss Eyre; remorse is the poison of life."\r
+\r
+"Repentance is said to be its cure, sir."\r
+\r
+"It is not its cure. Reformation may be its cure; and I could reform--I\r
+have strength yet for that--if--but where is the use of thinking of it,\r
+hampered, burdened, cursed as I am? Besides, since happiness is\r
+irrevocably denied me, I have a right to get pleasure out of life: and I\r
+_will_ get it, cost what it may."\r
+\r
+"Then you will degenerate still more, sir."\r
+\r
+"Possibly: yet why should I, if I can get sweet, fresh pleasure? And I\r
+may get it as sweet and fresh as the wild honey the bee gathers on the\r
+moor."\r
+\r
+"It will sting--it will taste bitter, sir."\r
+\r
+"How do you know?--you never tried it. How very serious--how very solemn\r
+you look: and you are as ignorant of the matter as this cameo head"\r
+(taking one from the mantelpiece). "You have no right to preach to me,\r
+you neophyte, that have not passed the porch of life, and are absolutely\r
+unacquainted with its mysteries."\r
+\r
+"I only remind you of your own words, sir: you said error brought\r
+remorse, and you pronounced remorse the poison of existence."\r
+\r
+"And who talks of error now? I scarcely think the notion that flittered\r
+across my brain was an error. I believe it was an inspiration rather\r
+than a temptation: it was very genial, very soothing--I know that. Here\r
+it comes again! It is no devil, I assure you; or if it be, it has put on\r
+the robes of an angel of light. I think I must admit so fair a guest\r
+when it asks entrance to my heart."\r
+\r
+"Distrust it, sir; it is not a true angel."\r
+\r
+"Once more, how do you know? By what instinct do you pretend to\r
+distinguish between a fallen seraph of the abyss and a messenger from the\r
+eternal throne--between a guide and a seducer?"\r
+\r
+"I judged by your countenance, sir, which was troubled when you said the\r
+suggestion had returned upon you. I feel sure it will work you more\r
+misery if you listen to it."\r
+\r
+"Not at all--it bears the most gracious message in the world: for the\r
+rest, you are not my conscience-keeper, so don't make yourself uneasy.\r
+Here, come in, bonny wanderer!"\r
+\r
+He said this as if he spoke to a vision, viewless to any eye but his own;\r
+then, folding his arms, which he had half extended, on his chest, he\r
+seemed to enclose in their embrace the invisible being.\r
+\r
+"Now," he continued, again addressing me, "I have received the pilgrim--a\r
+disguised deity, as I verily believe. Already it has done me good: my\r
+heart was a sort of charnel; it will now be a shrine."\r
+\r
+"To speak truth, sir, I don't understand you at all: I cannot keep up the\r
+conversation, because it has got out of my depth. Only one thing, I\r
+know: you said you were not as good as you should like to be, and that\r
+you regretted your own imperfection;--one thing I can comprehend: you\r
+intimated that to have a sullied memory was a perpetual bane. It seems\r
+to me, that if you tried hard, you would in time find it possible to\r
+become what you yourself would approve; and that if from this day you\r
+began with resolution to correct your thoughts and actions, you would in\r
+a few years have laid up a new and stainless store of recollections, to\r
+which you might revert with pleasure."\r
+\r
+"Justly thought; rightly said, Miss Eyre; and, at this moment, I am\r
+paving hell with energy."\r
+\r
+"Sir?"\r
+\r
+"I am laying down good intentions, which I believe durable as flint.\r
+Certainly, my associates and pursuits shall be other than they have\r
+been."\r
+\r
+"And better?"\r
+\r
+"And better--so much better as pure ore is than foul dross. You seem to\r
+doubt me; I don't doubt myself: I know what my aim is, what my motives\r
+are; and at this moment I pass a law, unalterable as that of the Medes\r
+and Persians, that both are right."\r
+\r
+"They cannot be, sir, if they require a new statute to legalise them."\r
+\r
+"They are, Miss Eyre, though they absolutely require a new statute:\r
+unheard-of combinations of circumstances demand unheard-of rules."\r
+\r
+"That sounds a dangerous maxim, sir; because one can see at once that it\r
+is liable to abuse."\r
+\r
+"Sententious sage! so it is: but I swear by my household gods not to\r
+abuse it."\r
+\r
+"You are human and fallible."\r
+\r
+"I am: so are you--what then?"\r
+\r
+"The human and fallible should not arrogate a power with which the divine\r
+and perfect alone can be safely intrusted."\r
+\r
+"What power?"\r
+\r
+"That of saying of any strange, unsanctioned line of action,--'Let it be\r
+right.'"\r
+\r
+"'Let it be right'--the very words: you have pronounced them."\r
+\r
+"_May_ it be right then," I said, as I rose, deeming it useless to\r
+continue a discourse which was all darkness to me; and, besides, sensible\r
+that the character of my interlocutor was beyond my penetration; at\r
+least, beyond its present reach; and feeling the uncertainty, the vague\r
+sense of insecurity, which accompanies a conviction of ignorance.\r
+\r
+"Where are you going?"\r
+\r
+"To put Adele to bed: it is past her bedtime."\r
+\r
+"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx."\r
+\r
+"Your language is enigmatical, sir: but though I am bewildered, I am\r
+certainly not afraid."\r
+\r
+"You _are_ afraid--your self-love dreads a blunder."\r
+\r
+"In that sense I do feel apprehensive--I have no wish to talk nonsense."\r
+\r
+"If you did, it would be in such a grave, quiet manner, I should mistake\r
+it for sense. Do you never laugh, Miss Eyre? Don't trouble yourself to\r
+answer--I see you laugh rarely; but you can laugh very merrily: believe\r
+me, you are not naturally austere, any more than I am naturally vicious.\r
+The Lowood constraint still clings to you somewhat; controlling your\r
+features, muffling your voice, and restricting your limbs; and you fear\r
+in the presence of a man and a brother--or father, or master, or what you\r
+will--to smile too gaily, speak too freely, or move too quickly: but, in\r
+time, I think you will learn to be natural with me, as I find it\r
+impossible to be conventional with you; and then your looks and movements\r
+will have more vivacity and variety than they dare offer now. I see at\r
+intervals the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars\r
+of a cage: a vivid, restless, resolute captive is there; were it but\r
+free, it would soar cloud-high. You are still bent on going?"\r
+\r
+"It has struck nine, sir."\r
+\r
+"Never mind,--wait a minute: Adele is not ready to go to bed yet. My\r
+position, Miss Eyre, with my back to the fire, and my face to the room,\r
+favours observation. While talking to you, I have also occasionally\r
+watched Adele (I have my own reasons for thinking her a curious\r
+study,--reasons that I may, nay, that I shall, impart to you some day).\r
+She pulled out of her box, about ten minutes ago, a little pink silk\r
+frock; rapture lit her face as she unfolded it; coquetry runs in her\r
+blood, blends with her brains, and seasons the marrow of her bones. 'Il\r
+faut que je l'essaie!' cried she, 'et a l'instant meme!' and she rushed\r
+out of the room. She is now with Sophie, undergoing a robing process: in\r
+a few minutes she will re-enter; and I know what I shall see,--a\r
+miniature of Celine Varens, as she used to appear on the boards at the\r
+rising of--But never mind that. However, my tenderest feelings are about\r
+to receive a shock: such is my presentiment; stay now, to see whether it\r
+will be realised."\r
+\r
+Ere long, Adele's little foot was heard tripping across the hall. She\r
+entered, transformed as her guardian had predicted. A dress of\r
+rose-coloured satin, very short, and as full in the skirt as it could be\r
+gathered, replaced the brown frock she had previously worn; a wreath of\r
+rosebuds circled her forehead; her feet were dressed in silk stockings\r
+and small white satin sandals.\r
+\r
+"Est-ce que ma robe va bien?" cried she, bounding forwards; "et mes\r
+souliers? et mes bas? Tenez, je crois que je vais danser!"\r
+\r
+And spreading out her dress, she chasseed across the room till, having\r
+reached Mr. Rochester, she wheeled lightly round before him on tip-toe,\r
+then dropped on one knee at his feet, exclaiming--\r
+\r
+"Monsieur, je vous remercie mille fois de votre bonte;" then rising, she\r
+added, "C'est comme cela que maman faisait, n'est-ce pas, monsieur?"\r
+\r
+"Pre-cise-ly!" was the answer; "and, 'comme cela,' she charmed my English\r
+gold out of my British breeches' pocket. I have been green, too, Miss\r
+Eyre,--ay, grass green: not a more vernal tint freshens you now than once\r
+freshened me. My Spring is gone, however, but it has left me that French\r
+floweret on my hands, which, in some moods, I would fain be rid of. Not\r
+valuing now the root whence it sprang; having found that it was of a sort\r
+which nothing but gold dust could manure, I have but half a liking to the\r
+blossom, especially when it looks so artificial as just now. I keep it\r
+and rear it rather on the Roman Catholic principle of expiating numerous\r
+sins, great or small, by one good work. I'll explain all this some day.\r
+Good-night."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester did, on a future occasion, explain it. It was one\r
+afternoon, when he chanced to meet me and Adele in the grounds: and while\r
+she played with Pilot and her shuttlecock, he asked me to walk up and\r
+down a long beech avenue within sight of her.\r
+\r
+He then said that she was the daughter of a French opera-dancer, Celine\r
+Varens, towards whom he had once cherished what he called a "_grande\r
+passion_." This passion Celine had professed to return with even\r
+superior ardour. He thought himself her idol, ugly as he was: he\r
+believed, as he said, that she preferred his "_taille d'athlete_" to the\r
+elegance of the Apollo Belvidere.\r
+\r
+"And, Miss Eyre, so much was I flattered by this preference of the Gallic\r
+sylph for her British gnome, that I installed her in an hotel; gave her a\r
+complete establishment of servants, a carriage, cashmeres, diamonds,\r
+dentelles, &c. In short, I began the process of ruining myself in the\r
+received style, like any other spoony. I had not, it seems, the\r
+originality to chalk out a new road to shame and destruction, but trode\r
+the old track with stupid exactness not to deviate an inch from the\r
+beaten centre. I had--as I deserved to have--the fate of all other\r
+spoonies. Happening to call one evening when Celine did not expect me, I\r
+found her out; but it was a warm night, and I was tired with strolling\r
+through Paris, so I sat down in her boudoir; happy to breathe the air\r
+consecrated so lately by her presence. No,--I exaggerate; I never\r
+thought there was any consecrating virtue about her: it was rather a sort\r
+of pastille perfume she had left; a scent of musk and amber, than an\r
+odour of sanctity. I was just beginning to stifle with the fumes of\r
+conservatory flowers and sprinkled essences, when I bethought myself to\r
+open the window and step out on to the balcony. It was moonlight and\r
+gaslight besides, and very still and serene. The balcony was furnished\r
+with a chair or two; I sat down, and took out a cigar,--I will take one\r
+now, if you will excuse me."\r
+\r
+Here ensued a pause, filled up by the producing and lighting of a cigar;\r
+having placed it to his lips and breathed a trail of Havannah incense on\r
+the freezing and sunless air, he went on--\r
+\r
+"I liked bonbons too in those days, Miss Eyre, and I was\r
+_croquant_--(overlook the barbarism)--_croquant_ chocolate comfits, and\r
+smoking alternately, watching meantime the equipages that rolled along\r
+the fashionable streets towards the neighbouring opera-house, when in an\r
+elegant close carriage drawn by a beautiful pair of English horses, and\r
+distinctly seen in the brilliant city-night, I recognised the 'voiture' I\r
+had given Celine. She was returning: of course my heart thumped with\r
+impatience against the iron rails I leant upon. The carriage stopped, as\r
+I had expected, at the hotel door; my flame (that is the very word for an\r
+opera inamorata) alighted: though muffed in a cloak--an unnecessary\r
+encumbrance, by-the-bye, on so warm a June evening--I knew her instantly\r
+by her little foot, seen peeping from the skirt of her dress, as she\r
+skipped from the carriage-step. Bending over the balcony, I was about to\r
+murmur 'Mon ange'--in a tone, of course, which should be audible to the\r
+ear of love alone--when a figure jumped from the carriage after her;\r
+cloaked also; but that was a spurred heel which had rung on the pavement,\r
+and that was a hatted head which now passed under the arched _porte\r
+cochere_ of the hotel.\r
+\r
+"You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not\r
+ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to\r
+experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall\r
+waken it. You think all existence lapses in as quiet a flow as that in\r
+which your youth has hitherto slid away. Floating on with closed eyes\r
+and muffled ears, you neither see the rocks bristling not far off in the\r
+bed of the flood, nor hear the breakers boil at their base. But I tell\r
+you--and you may mark my words--you will come some day to a craggy pass\r
+in the channel, where the whole of life's stream will be broken up into\r
+whirl and tumult, foam and noise: either you will be dashed to atoms on\r
+crag points, or lifted up and borne on by some master-wave into a calmer\r
+current--as I am now.\r
+\r
+"I like this day; I like that sky of steel; I like the sternness and\r
+stillness of the world under this frost. I like Thornfield, its\r
+antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn-trees, its grey\r
+facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet\r
+how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great\r
+plague-house? How I do still abhor--"\r
+\r
+He ground his teeth and was silent: he arrested his step and struck his\r
+boot against the hard ground. Some hated thought seemed to have him in\r
+its grip, and to hold him so tightly that he could not advance.\r
+\r
+We were ascending the avenue when he thus paused; the hall was before us.\r
+Lifting his eye to its battlements, he cast over them a glare such as I\r
+never saw before or since. Pain, shame, ire, impatience, disgust,\r
+detestation, seemed momentarily to hold a quivering conflict in the large\r
+pupil dilating under his ebon eyebrow. Wild was the wrestle which should\r
+be paramount; but another feeling rose and triumphed: something hard and\r
+cynical: self-willed and resolute: it settled his passion and petrified\r
+his countenance: he went on--\r
+\r
+"During the moment I was silent, Miss Eyre, I was arranging a point with\r
+my destiny. She stood there, by that beech-trunk--a hag like one of\r
+those who appeared to Macbeth on the heath of Forres. 'You like\r
+Thornfield?' she said, lifting her finger; and then she wrote in the air\r
+a memento, which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all along the house-front,\r
+between the upper and lower row of windows, 'Like it if you can! Like it\r
+if you dare!'\r
+\r
+"'I will like it,' said I; 'I dare like it;' and" (he subjoined moodily)\r
+"I will keep my word; I will break obstacles to happiness, to\r
+goodness--yes, goodness. I wish to be a better man than I have been,\r
+than I am; as Job's leviathan broke the spear, the dart, and the\r
+habergeon, hindrances which others count as iron and brass, I will esteem\r
+but straw and rotten wood."\r
+\r
+Adele here ran before him with her shuttlecock. "Away!" he cried\r
+harshly; "keep at a distance, child; or go in to Sophie!" Continuing\r
+then to pursue his walk in silence, I ventured to recall him to the point\r
+whence he had abruptly diverged--\r
+\r
+"Did you leave the balcony, sir," I asked, "when Mdlle. Varens entered?"\r
+\r
+I almost expected a rebuff for this hardly well-timed question, but, on\r
+the contrary, waking out of his scowling abstraction, he turned his eyes\r
+towards me, and the shade seemed to clear off his brow. "Oh, I had\r
+forgotten Celine! Well, to resume. When I saw my charmer thus come in\r
+accompanied by a cavalier, I seemed to hear a hiss, and the green snake\r
+of jealousy, rising on undulating coils from the moonlit balcony, glided\r
+within my waistcoat, and ate its way in two minutes to my heart's core.\r
+Strange!" he exclaimed, suddenly starting again from the point. "Strange\r
+that I should choose you for the confidant of all this, young lady;\r
+passing strange that you should listen to me quietly, as if it were the\r
+most usual thing in the world for a man like me to tell stories of his\r
+opera-mistresses to a quaint, inexperienced girl like you! But the last\r
+singularity explains the first, as I intimated once before: you, with\r
+your gravity, considerateness, and caution were made to be the recipient\r
+of secrets. Besides, I know what sort of a mind I have placed in\r
+communication with my own: I know it is one not liable to take infection:\r
+it is a peculiar mind: it is a unique one. Happily I do not mean to harm\r
+it: but, if I did, it would not take harm from me. The more you and I\r
+converse, the better; for while I cannot blight you, you may refresh me."\r
+After this digression he proceeded--\r
+\r
+"I remained in the balcony. 'They will come to her boudoir, no doubt,'\r
+thought I: 'let me prepare an ambush.' So putting my hand in through the\r
+open window, I drew the curtain over it, leaving only an opening through\r
+which I could take observations; then I closed the casement, all but a\r
+chink just wide enough to furnish an outlet to lovers' whispered vows:\r
+then I stole back to my chair; and as I resumed it the pair came in. My\r
+eye was quickly at the aperture. Celine's chamber-maid entered, lit a\r
+lamp, left it on the table, and withdrew. The couple were thus revealed\r
+to me clearly: both removed their cloaks, and there was 'the Varens,'\r
+shining in satin and jewels,--my gifts of course,--and there was her\r
+companion in an officer's uniform; and I knew him for a young roue of a\r
+vicomte--a brainless and vicious youth whom I had sometimes met in\r
+society, and had never thought of hating because I despised him so\r
+absolutely. On recognising him, the fang of the snake Jealousy was\r
+instantly broken; because at the same moment my love for Celine sank\r
+under an extinguisher. A woman who could betray me for such a rival was\r
+not worth contending for; she deserved only scorn; less, however, than I,\r
+who had been her dupe.\r
+\r
+"They began to talk; their conversation eased me completely: frivolous,\r
+mercenary, heartless, and senseless, it was rather calculated to weary\r
+than enrage a listener. A card of mine lay on the table; this being\r
+perceived, brought my name under discussion. Neither of them possessed\r
+energy or wit to belabour me soundly, but they insulted me as coarsely as\r
+they could in their little way: especially Celine, who even waxed rather\r
+brilliant on my personal defects--deformities she termed them. Now it\r
+had been her custom to launch out into fervent admiration of what she\r
+called my '_beaute male_:' wherein she differed diametrically from you,\r
+who told me point-blank, at the second interview, that you did not think\r
+me handsome. The contrast struck me at the time and--"\r
+\r
+Adele here came running up again.\r
+\r
+"Monsieur, John has just been to say that your agent has called and\r
+wishes to see you."\r
+\r
+"Ah! in that case I must abridge. Opening the window, I walked in upon\r
+them; liberated Celine from my protection; gave her notice to vacate her\r
+hotel; offered her a purse for immediate exigencies; disregarded screams,\r
+hysterics, prayers, protestations, convulsions; made an appointment with\r
+the vicomte for a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne. Next morning I had\r
+the pleasure of encountering him; left a bullet in one of his poor\r
+etiolated arms, feeble as the wing of a chicken in the pip, and then\r
+thought I had done with the whole crew. But unluckily the Varens, six\r
+months before, had given me this filette Adele, who, she affirmed, was my\r
+daughter; and perhaps she may be, though I see no proofs of such grim\r
+paternity written in her countenance: Pilot is more like me than she.\r
+Some years after I had broken with the mother, she abandoned her child,\r
+and ran away to Italy with a musician or singer. I acknowledged no\r
+natural claim on Adele's part to be supported by me, nor do I now\r
+acknowledge any, for I am not her father; but hearing that she was quite\r
+destitute, I e'en took the poor thing out of the slime and mud of Paris,\r
+and transplanted it here, to grow up clean in the wholesome soil of an\r
+English country garden. Mrs. Fairfax found you to train it; but now you\r
+know that it is the illegitimate offspring of a French opera-girl, you\r
+will perhaps think differently of your post and protegee: you will be\r
+coming to me some day with notice that you have found another place--that\r
+you beg me to look out for a new governess, &c.--Eh?"\r
+\r
+"No: Adele is not answerable for either her mother's faults or yours: I\r
+have a regard for her; and now that I know she is, in a sense,\r
+parentless--forsaken by her mother and disowned by you, sir--I shall\r
+cling closer to her than before. How could I possibly prefer the spoilt\r
+pet of a wealthy family, who would hate her governess as a nuisance, to a\r
+lonely little orphan, who leans towards her as a friend?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, that is the light in which you view it! Well, I must go in now; and\r
+you too: it darkens."\r
+\r
+But I stayed out a few minutes longer with Adele and Pilot--ran a race\r
+with her, and played a game of battledore and shuttlecock. When we went\r
+in, and I had removed her bonnet and coat, I took her on my knee; kept\r
+her there an hour, allowing her to prattle as she liked: not rebuking\r
+even some little freedoms and trivialities into which she was apt to\r
+stray when much noticed, and which betrayed in her a superficiality of\r
+character, inherited probably from her mother, hardly congenial to an\r
+English mind. Still she had her merits; and I was disposed to appreciate\r
+all that was good in her to the utmost. I sought in her countenance and\r
+features a likeness to Mr. Rochester, but found none: no trait, no turn\r
+of expression announced relationship. It was a pity: if she could but\r
+have been proved to resemble him, he would have thought more of her.\r
+\r
+It was not till after I had withdrawn to my own chamber for the night,\r
+that I steadily reviewed the tale Mr. Rochester had told me. As he had\r
+said, there was probably nothing at all extraordinary in the substance of\r
+the narrative itself: a wealthy Englishman's passion for a French dancer,\r
+and her treachery to him, were every-day matters enough, no doubt, in\r
+society; but there was something decidedly strange in the paroxysm of\r
+emotion which had suddenly seized him when he was in the act of\r
+expressing the present contentment of his mood, and his newly revived\r
+pleasure in the old hall and its environs. I meditated wonderingly on\r
+this incident; but gradually quitting it, as I found it for the present\r
+inexplicable, I turned to the consideration of my master's manner to\r
+myself. The confidence he had thought fit to repose in me seemed a\r
+tribute to my discretion: I regarded and accepted it as such. His\r
+deportment had now for some weeks been more uniform towards me than at\r
+the first. I never seemed in his way; he did not take fits of chilling\r
+hauteur: when he met me unexpectedly, the encounter seemed welcome; he\r
+had always a word and sometimes a smile for me: when summoned by formal\r
+invitation to his presence, I was honoured by a cordiality of reception\r
+that made me feel I really possessed the power to amuse him, and that\r
+these evening conferences were sought as much for his pleasure as for my\r
+benefit.\r
+\r
+I, indeed, talked comparatively little, but I heard him talk with relish.\r
+It was his nature to be communicative; he liked to open to a mind\r
+unacquainted with the world glimpses of its scenes and ways (I do not\r
+mean its corrupt scenes and wicked ways, but such as derived their\r
+interest from the great scale on which they were acted, the strange\r
+novelty by which they were characterised); and I had a keen delight in\r
+receiving the new ideas he offered, in imagining the new pictures he\r
+portrayed, and following him in thought through the new regions he\r
+disclosed, never startled or troubled by one noxious allusion.\r
+\r
+The ease of his manner freed me from painful restraint: the friendly\r
+frankness, as correct as cordial, with which he treated me, drew me to\r
+him. I felt at times as if he were my relation rather than my master:\r
+yet he was imperious sometimes still; but I did not mind that; I saw it\r
+was his way. So happy, so gratified did I become with this new interest\r
+added to life, that I ceased to pine after kindred: my thin\r
+crescent-destiny seemed to enlarge; the blanks of existence were filled\r
+up; my bodily health improved; I gathered flesh and strength.\r
+\r
+And was Mr. Rochester now ugly in my eyes? No, reader: gratitude, and\r
+many associations, all pleasurable and genial, made his face the object I\r
+best liked to see; his presence in a room was more cheering than the\r
+brightest fire. Yet I had not forgotten his faults; indeed, I could not,\r
+for he brought them frequently before me. He was proud, sardonic, harsh\r
+to inferiority of every description: in my secret soul I knew that his\r
+great kindness to me was balanced by unjust severity to many others. He\r
+was moody, too; unaccountably so; I more than once, when sent for to read\r
+to him, found him sitting in his library alone, with his head bent on his\r
+folded arms; and, when he looked up, a morose, almost a malignant, scowl\r
+blackened his features. But I believed that his moodiness, his\r
+harshness, and his former faults of morality (I say _former_, for now he\r
+seemed corrected of them) had their source in some cruel cross of fate. I\r
+believed he was naturally a man of better tendencies, higher principles,\r
+and purer tastes than such as circumstances had developed, education\r
+instilled, or destiny encouraged. I thought there were excellent\r
+materials in him; though for the present they hung together somewhat\r
+spoiled and tangled. I cannot deny that I grieved for his grief,\r
+whatever that was, and would have given much to assuage it.\r
+\r
+Though I had now extinguished my candle and was laid down in bed, I could\r
+not sleep for thinking of his look when he paused in the avenue, and told\r
+how his destiny had risen up before him, and dared him to be happy at\r
+Thornfield.\r
+\r
+"Why not?" I asked myself. "What alienates him from the house? Will he\r
+leave it again soon? Mrs. Fairfax said he seldom stayed here longer than\r
+a fortnight at a time; and he has now been resident eight weeks. If he\r
+does go, the change will be doleful. Suppose he should be absent spring,\r
+summer, and autumn: how joyless sunshine and fine days will seem!"\r
+\r
+I hardly know whether I had slept or not after this musing; at any rate,\r
+I started wide awake on hearing a vague murmur, peculiar and lugubrious,\r
+which sounded, I thought, just above me. I wished I had kept my candle\r
+burning: the night was drearily dark; my spirits were depressed. I rose\r
+and sat up in bed, listening. The sound was hushed.\r
+\r
+I tried again to sleep; but my heart beat anxiously: my inward\r
+tranquillity was broken. The clock, far down in the hall, struck two.\r
+Just then it seemed my chamber-door was touched; as if fingers had swept\r
+the panels in groping a way along the dark gallery outside. I said, "Who\r
+is there?" Nothing answered. I was chilled with fear.\r
+\r
+All at once I remembered that it might be Pilot, who, when the kitchen-\r
+door chanced to be left open, not unfrequently found his way up to the\r
+threshold of Mr. Rochester's chamber: I had seen him lying there myself\r
+in the mornings. The idea calmed me somewhat: I lay down. Silence\r
+composes the nerves; and as an unbroken hush now reigned again through\r
+the whole house, I began to feel the return of slumber. But it was not\r
+fated that I should sleep that night. A dream had scarcely approached my\r
+ear, when it fled affrighted, scared by a marrow-freezing incident\r
+enough.\r
+\r
+This was a demoniac laugh--low, suppressed, and deep--uttered, as it\r
+seemed, at the very keyhole of my chamber door. The head of my bed was\r
+near the door, and I thought at first the goblin-laugher stood at my\r
+bedside--or rather, crouched by my pillow: but I rose, looked round, and\r
+could see nothing; while, as I still gazed, the unnatural sound was\r
+reiterated: and I knew it came from behind the panels. My first impulse\r
+was to rise and fasten the bolt; my next, again to cry out, "Who is\r
+there?"\r
+\r
+Something gurgled and moaned. Ere long, steps retreated up the gallery\r
+towards the third-storey staircase: a door had lately been made to shut\r
+in that staircase; I heard it open and close, and all was still.\r
+\r
+"Was that Grace Poole? and is she possessed with a devil?" thought I.\r
+Impossible now to remain longer by myself: I must go to Mrs. Fairfax. I\r
+hurried on my frock and a shawl; I withdrew the bolt and opened the door\r
+with a trembling hand. There was a candle burning just outside, and on\r
+the matting in the gallery. I was surprised at this circumstance: but\r
+still more was I amazed to perceive the air quite dim, as if filled with\r
+smoke; and, while looking to the right hand and left, to find whence\r
+these blue wreaths issued, I became further aware of a strong smell of\r
+burning.\r
+\r
+Something creaked: it was a door ajar; and that door was Mr. Rochester's,\r
+and the smoke rushed in a cloud from thence. I thought no more of Mrs.\r
+Fairfax; I thought no more of Grace Poole, or the laugh: in an instant, I\r
+was within the chamber. Tongues of flame darted round the bed: the\r
+curtains were on fire. In the midst of blaze and vapour, Mr. Rochester\r
+lay stretched motionless, in deep sleep.\r
+\r
+"Wake! wake!" I cried. I shook him, but he only murmured and turned: the\r
+smoke had stupefied him. Not a moment could be lost: the very sheets\r
+were kindling, I rushed to his basin and ewer; fortunately, one was wide\r
+and the other deep, and both were filled with water. I heaved them up,\r
+deluged the bed and its occupant, flew back to my own room, brought my\r
+own water-jug, baptized the couch afresh, and, by God's aid, succeeded in\r
+extinguishing the flames which were devouring it.\r
+\r
+The hiss of the quenched element, the breakage of a pitcher which I flung\r
+from my hand when I had emptied it, and, above all, the splash of the\r
+shower-bath I had liberally bestowed, roused Mr. Rochester at last.\r
+Though it was now dark, I knew he was awake; because I heard him\r
+fulminating strange anathemas at finding himself lying in a pool of\r
+water.\r
+\r
+"Is there a flood?" he cried.\r
+\r
+"No, sir," I answered; "but there has been a fire: get up, do; you are\r
+quenched now; I will fetch you a candle."\r
+\r
+"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?" he\r
+demanded. "What have you done with me, witch, sorceress? Who is in the\r
+room besides you? Have you plotted to drown me?"\r
+\r
+"I will fetch you a candle, sir; and, in Heaven's name, get up. Somebody\r
+has plotted something: you cannot too soon find out who and what it is."\r
+\r
+"There! I am up now; but at your peril you fetch a candle yet: wait two\r
+minutes till I get into some dry garments, if any dry there be--yes, here\r
+is my dressing-gown. Now run!"\r
+\r
+I did run; I brought the candle which still remained in the gallery. He\r
+took it from my hand, held it up, and surveyed the bed, all blackened and\r
+scorched, the sheets drenched, the carpet round swimming in water.\r
+\r
+"What is it? and who did it?" he asked. I briefly related to him what\r
+had transpired: the strange laugh I had heard in the gallery: the step\r
+ascending to the third storey; the smoke,--the smell of fire which had\r
+conducted me to his room; in what state I had found matters there, and\r
+how I had deluged him with all the water I could lay hands on.\r
+\r
+{"What is it and who did it?" he asked: p140.jpg}\r
+\r
+He listened very gravely; his face, as I went on, expressed more concern\r
+than astonishment; he did not immediately speak when I had concluded.\r
+\r
+"Shall I call Mrs. Fairfax?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Fairfax? No; what the deuce would you call her for? What can she\r
+do? Let her sleep unmolested."\r
+\r
+"Then I will fetch Leah, and wake John and his wife."\r
+\r
+"Not at all: just be still. You have a shawl on. If you are not warm\r
+enough, you may take my cloak yonder; wrap it about you, and sit down in\r
+the arm-chair: there,--I will put it on. Now place your feet on the\r
+stool, to keep them out of the wet. I am going to leave you a few\r
+minutes. I shall take the candle. Remain where you are till I return;\r
+be as still as a mouse. I must pay a visit to the second storey. Don't\r
+move, remember, or call any one."\r
+\r
+He went: I watched the light withdraw. He passed up the gallery very\r
+softly, unclosed the staircase door with as little noise as possible,\r
+shut it after him, and the last ray vanished. I was left in total\r
+darkness. I listened for some noise, but heard nothing. A very long\r
+time elapsed. I grew weary: it was cold, in spite of the cloak; and then\r
+I did not see the use of staying, as I was not to rouse the house. I was\r
+on the point of risking Mr. Rochester's displeasure by disobeying his\r
+orders, when the light once more gleamed dimly on the gallery wall, and I\r
+heard his unshod feet tread the matting. "I hope it is he," thought I,\r
+"and not something worse."\r
+\r
+He re-entered, pale and very gloomy. "I have found it all out," said he,\r
+setting his candle down on the washstand; "it is as I thought."\r
+\r
+"How, sir?"\r
+\r
+He made no reply, but stood with his arms folded, looking on the ground.\r
+At the end of a few minutes he inquired in rather a peculiar tone--\r
+\r
+"I forget whether you said you saw anything when you opened your chamber\r
+door."\r
+\r
+"No, sir, only the candlestick on the ground."\r
+\r
+"But you heard an odd laugh? You have heard that laugh before, I should\r
+think, or something like it?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir: there is a woman who sews here, called Grace Poole,--she\r
+laughs in that way. She is a singular person."\r
+\r
+"Just so. Grace Poole--you have guessed it. She is, as you say,\r
+singular--very. Well, I shall reflect on the subject. Meantime, I am\r
+glad that you are the only person, besides myself, acquainted with the\r
+precise details of to-night's incident. You are no talking fool: say\r
+nothing about it. I will account for this state of affairs" (pointing to\r
+the bed): "and now return to your own room. I shall do very well on the\r
+sofa in the library for the rest of the night. It is near four:--in two\r
+hours the servants will be up."\r
+\r
+"Good-night, then, sir," said I, departing.\r
+\r
+He seemed surprised--very inconsistently so, as he had just told me to\r
+go.\r
+\r
+"What!" he exclaimed, "are you quitting me already, and in that way?"\r
+\r
+"You said I might go, sir."\r
+\r
+"But not without taking leave; not without a word or two of\r
+acknowledgment and good-will: not, in short, in that brief, dry fashion.\r
+Why, you have saved my life!--snatched me from a horrible and\r
+excruciating death! and you walk past me as if we were mutual strangers!\r
+At least shake hands."\r
+\r
+He held out his hand; I gave him mine: he took it first in one, them in\r
+both his own.\r
+\r
+"You have saved my life: I have a pleasure in owing you so immense a\r
+debt. I cannot say more. Nothing else that has being would have been\r
+tolerable to me in the character of creditor for such an obligation: but\r
+you: it is different;--I feel your benefits no burden, Jane."\r
+\r
+He paused; gazed at me: words almost visible trembled on his lips,--but\r
+his voice was checked.\r
+\r
+"Good-night again, sir. There is no debt, benefit, burden, obligation,\r
+in the case."\r
+\r
+"I knew," he continued, "you would do me good in some way, at some\r
+time;--I saw it in your eyes when I first beheld you: their expression\r
+and smile did not"--(again he stopped)--"did not" (he proceeded hastily)\r
+"strike delight to my very inmost heart so for nothing. People talk of\r
+natural sympathies; I have heard of good genii: there are grains of truth\r
+in the wildest fable. My cherished preserver, goodnight!"\r
+\r
+Strange energy was in his voice, strange fire in his look.\r
+\r
+"I am glad I happened to be awake," I said: and then I was going.\r
+\r
+"What! you _will_ go?"\r
+\r
+"I am cold, sir."\r
+\r
+"Cold? Yes,--and standing in a pool! Go, then, Jane; go!" But he still\r
+retained my hand, and I could not free it. I bethought myself of an\r
+expedient.\r
+\r
+"I think I hear Mrs. Fairfax move, sir," said I.\r
+\r
+"Well, leave me:" he relaxed his fingers, and I was gone.\r
+\r
+I regained my couch, but never thought of sleep. Till morning dawned I\r
+was tossed on a buoyant but unquiet sea, where billows of trouble rolled\r
+under surges of joy. I thought sometimes I saw beyond its wild waters a\r
+shore, sweet as the hills of Beulah; and now and then a freshening gale,\r
+wakened by hope, bore my spirit triumphantly towards the bourne: but I\r
+could not reach it, even in fancy--a counteracting breeze blew off land,\r
+and continually drove me back. Sense would resist delirium: judgment\r
+would warn passion. Too feverish to rest, I rose as soon as day dawned.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+\r
+I both wished and feared to see Mr. Rochester on the day which followed\r
+this sleepless night: I wanted to hear his voice again, yet feared to\r
+meet his eye. During the early part of the morning, I momentarily\r
+expected his coming; he was not in the frequent habit of entering the\r
+schoolroom, but he did step in for a few minutes sometimes, and I had the\r
+impression that he was sure to visit it that day.\r
+\r
+But the morning passed just as usual: nothing happened to interrupt the\r
+quiet course of Adele's studies; only soon after breakfast, I heard some\r
+bustle in the neighbourhood of Mr. Rochester's chamber, Mrs. Fairfax's\r
+voice, and Leah's, and the cook's--that is, John's wife--and even John's\r
+own gruff tones. There were exclamations of "What a mercy master was not\r
+burnt in his bed!" "It is always dangerous to keep a candle lit at\r
+night." "How providential that he had presence of mind to think of the\r
+water-jug!" "I wonder he waked nobody!" "It is to be hoped he will not\r
+take cold with sleeping on the library sofa," &c.\r
+\r
+To much confabulation succeeded a sound of scrubbing and setting to\r
+rights; and when I passed the room, in going downstairs to dinner, I saw\r
+through the open door that all was again restored to complete order; only\r
+the bed was stripped of its hangings. Leah stood up in the window-seat,\r
+rubbing the panes of glass dimmed with smoke. I was about to address\r
+her, for I wished to know what account had been given of the affair: but,\r
+on advancing, I saw a second person in the chamber--a woman sitting on a\r
+chair by the bedside, and sewing rings to new curtains. That woman was\r
+no other than Grace Poole.\r
+\r
+There she sat, staid and taciturn-looking, as usual, in her brown stuff\r
+gown, her check apron, white handkerchief, and cap. She was intent on\r
+her work, in which her whole thoughts seemed absorbed: on her hard\r
+forehead, and in her commonplace features, was nothing either of the\r
+paleness or desperation one would have expected to see marking the\r
+countenance of a woman who had attempted murder, and whose intended\r
+victim had followed her last night to her lair, and (as I believed),\r
+charged her with the crime she wished to perpetrate. I was\r
+amazed--confounded. She looked up, while I still gazed at her: no start,\r
+no increase or failure of colour betrayed emotion, consciousness of\r
+guilt, or fear of detection. She said "Good morning, Miss," in her usual\r
+phlegmatic and brief manner; and taking up another ring and more tape,\r
+went on with her sewing.\r
+\r
+"I will put her to some test," thought I: "such absolute impenetrability\r
+is past comprehension."\r
+\r
+"Good morning, Grace," I said. "Has anything happened here? I thought I\r
+heard the servants all talking together a while ago."\r
+\r
+"Only master had been reading in his bed last night; he fell asleep with\r
+his candle lit, and the curtains got on fire; but, fortunately, he awoke\r
+before the bed-clothes or the wood-work caught, and contrived to quench\r
+the flames with the water in the ewer."\r
+\r
+"A strange affair!" I said, in a low voice: then, looking at her\r
+fixedly--"Did Mr. Rochester wake nobody? Did no one hear him move?"\r
+\r
+She again raised her eyes to me, and this time there was something of\r
+consciousness in their expression. She seemed to examine me warily; then\r
+she answered--\r
+\r
+"The servants sleep so far off, you know, Miss, they would not be likely\r
+to hear. Mrs. Fairfax's room and yours are the nearest to master's; but\r
+Mrs. Fairfax said she heard nothing: when people get elderly, they often\r
+sleep heavy." She paused, and then added, with a sort of assumed\r
+indifference, but still in a marked and significant tone--"But you are\r
+young, Miss; and I should say a light sleeper: perhaps you may have heard\r
+a noise?"\r
+\r
+"I did," said I, dropping my voice, so that Leah, who was still polishing\r
+the panes, could not hear me, "and at first I thought it was Pilot: but\r
+Pilot cannot laugh; and I am certain I heard a laugh, and a strange one."\r
+\r
+She took a new needleful of thread, waxed it carefully, threaded her\r
+needle with a steady hand, and then observed, with perfect composure--\r
+\r
+"It is hardly likely master would laugh, I should think, Miss, when he\r
+was in such danger: You must have been dreaming."\r
+\r
+"I was not dreaming," I said, with some warmth, for her brazen coolness\r
+provoked me. Again she looked at me; and with the same scrutinising and\r
+conscious eye.\r
+\r
+"Have you told master that you heard a laugh?" she inquired.\r
+\r
+"I have not had the opportunity of speaking to him this morning."\r
+\r
+"You did not think of opening your door and looking out into the\r
+gallery?" she further asked.\r
+\r
+She appeared to be cross-questioning me, attempting to draw from me\r
+information unawares. The idea struck me that if she discovered I knew\r
+or suspected her guilt, she would be playing of some of her malignant\r
+pranks on me; I thought it advisable to be on my guard.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary," said I, "I bolted my door."\r
+\r
+"Then you are not in the habit of bolting your door every night before\r
+you get into bed?"\r
+\r
+"Fiend! she wants to know my habits, that she may lay her plans\r
+accordingly!" Indignation again prevailed over prudence: I replied\r
+sharply, "Hitherto I have often omitted to fasten the bolt: I did not\r
+think it necessary. I was not aware any danger or annoyance was to be\r
+dreaded at Thornfield Hall: but in future" (and I laid marked stress on\r
+the words) "I shall take good care to make all secure before I venture to\r
+lie down."\r
+\r
+"It will be wise so to do," was her answer: "this neighbourhood is as\r
+quiet as any I know, and I never heard of the hall being attempted by\r
+robbers since it was a house; though there are hundreds of pounds' worth\r
+of plate in the plate-closet, as is well known. And you see, for such a\r
+large house, there are very few servants, because master has never lived\r
+here much; and when he does come, being a bachelor, he needs little\r
+waiting on: but I always think it best to err on the safe side; a door is\r
+soon fastened, and it is as well to have a drawn bolt between one and any\r
+mischief that may be about. A deal of people, Miss, are for trusting all\r
+to Providence; but I say Providence will not dispense with the means,\r
+though He often blesses them when they are used discreetly." And here\r
+she closed her harangue: a long one for her, and uttered with the\r
+demureness of a Quakeress.\r
+\r
+I still stood absolutely dumfoundered at what appeared to me her\r
+miraculous self-possession and most inscrutable hypocrisy, when the cook\r
+entered.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Poole," said she, addressing Grace, "the servants' dinner will soon\r
+be ready: will you come down?"\r
+\r
+"No; just put my pint of porter and bit of pudding on a tray, and I'll\r
+carry it upstairs."\r
+\r
+"You'll have some meat?"\r
+\r
+"Just a morsel, and a taste of cheese, that's all."\r
+\r
+"And the sago?"\r
+\r
+"Never mind it at present: I shall be coming down before teatime: I'll\r
+make it myself."\r
+\r
+The cook here turned to me, saying that Mrs. Fairfax was waiting for me:\r
+so I departed.\r
+\r
+I hardly heard Mrs. Fairfax's account of the curtain conflagration during\r
+dinner, so much was I occupied in puzzling my brains over the enigmatical\r
+character of Grace Poole, and still more in pondering the problem of her\r
+position at Thornfield and questioning why she had not been given into\r
+custody that morning, or, at the very least, dismissed from her master's\r
+service. He had almost as much as declared his conviction of her\r
+criminality last night: what mysterious cause withheld him from accusing\r
+her? Why had he enjoined me, too, to secrecy? It was strange: a bold,\r
+vindictive, and haughty gentleman seemed somehow in the power of one of\r
+the meanest of his dependants; so much in her power, that even when she\r
+lifted her hand against his life, he dared not openly charge her with the\r
+attempt, much less punish her for it.\r
+\r
+Had Grace been young and handsome, I should have been tempted to think\r
+that tenderer feelings than prudence or fear influenced Mr. Rochester in\r
+her behalf; but, hard-favoured and matronly as she was, the idea could\r
+not be admitted. "Yet," I reflected, "she has been young once; her youth\r
+would be contemporary with her master's: Mrs. Fairfax told me once, she\r
+had lived here many years. I don't think she can ever have been pretty;\r
+but, for aught I know, she may possess originality and strength of\r
+character to compensate for the want of personal advantages. Mr.\r
+Rochester is an amateur of the decided and eccentric: Grace is eccentric\r
+at least. What if a former caprice (a freak very possible to a nature so\r
+sudden and headstrong as his) has delivered him into her power, and she\r
+now exercises over his actions a secret influence, the result of his own\r
+indiscretion, which he cannot shake off, and dare not disregard?" But,\r
+having reached this point of conjecture, Mrs. Poole's square, flat\r
+figure, and uncomely, dry, even coarse face, recurred so distinctly to my\r
+mind's eye, that I thought, "No; impossible! my supposition cannot be\r
+correct. Yet," suggested the secret voice which talks to us in our own\r
+hearts, "you are not beautiful either, and perhaps Mr. Rochester approves\r
+you: at any rate, you have often felt as if he did; and last\r
+night--remember his words; remember his look; remember his voice!"\r
+\r
+I well remembered all; language, glance, and tone seemed at the moment\r
+vividly renewed. I was now in the schoolroom; Adele was drawing; I bent\r
+over her and directed her pencil. She looked up with a sort of start.\r
+\r
+"Qu' avez-vous, mademoiselle?" said she. "Vos doigts tremblent comme la\r
+feuille, et vos joues sont rouges: mais, rouges comme des cerises!"\r
+\r
+"I am hot, Adele, with stooping!" She went on sketching; I went on\r
+thinking.\r
+\r
+I hastened to drive from my mind the hateful notion I had been conceiving\r
+respecting Grace Poole; it disgusted me. I compared myself with her, and\r
+found we were different. Bessie Leaven had said I was quite a lady; and\r
+she spoke truth--I was a lady. And now I looked much better than I did\r
+when Bessie saw me; I had more colour and more flesh, more life, more\r
+vivacity, because I had brighter hopes and keener enjoyments.\r
+\r
+"Evening approaches," said I, as I looked towards the window. "I have\r
+never heard Mr. Rochester's voice or step in the house to-day; but surely\r
+I shall see him before night: I feared the meeting in the morning; now I\r
+desire it, because expectation has been so long baffled that it is grown\r
+impatient."\r
+\r
+When dusk actually closed, and when Adele left me to go and play in the\r
+nursery with Sophie, I did most keenly desire it. I listened for the\r
+bell to ring below; I listened for Leah coming up with a message; I\r
+fancied sometimes I heard Mr. Rochester's own tread, and I turned to the\r
+door, expecting it to open and admit him. The door remained shut;\r
+darkness only came in through the window. Still it was not late; he\r
+often sent for me at seven and eight o'clock, and it was yet but six.\r
+Surely I should not be wholly disappointed to-night, when I had so many\r
+things to say to him! I wanted again to introduce the subject of Grace\r
+Poole, and to hear what he would answer; I wanted to ask him plainly if\r
+he really believed it was she who had made last night's hideous attempt;\r
+and if so, why he kept her wickedness a secret. It little mattered\r
+whether my curiosity irritated him; I knew the pleasure of vexing and\r
+soothing him by turns; it was one I chiefly delighted in, and a sure\r
+instinct always prevented me from going too far; beyond the verge of\r
+provocation I never ventured; on the extreme brink I liked well to try my\r
+skill. Retaining every minute form of respect, every propriety of my\r
+station, I could still meet him in argument without fear or uneasy\r
+restraint; this suited both him and me.\r
+\r
+A tread creaked on the stairs at last. Leah made her appearance; but it\r
+was only to intimate that tea was ready in Mrs. Fairfax's room. Thither\r
+I repaired, glad at least to go downstairs; for that brought me, I\r
+imagined, nearer to Mr. Rochester's presence.\r
+\r
+"You must want your tea," said the good lady, as I joined her; "you ate\r
+so little at dinner. I am afraid," she continued, "you are not well to-\r
+day: you look flushed and feverish."\r
+\r
+"Oh, quite well! I never felt better."\r
+\r
+"Then you must prove it by evincing a good appetite; will you fill the\r
+teapot while I knit off this needle?" Having completed her task, she\r
+rose to draw down the blind, which she had hitherto kept up, by way, I\r
+suppose, of making the most of daylight, though dusk was now fast\r
+deepening into total obscurity.\r
+\r
+"It is fair to-night," said she, as she looked through the panes, "though\r
+not starlight; Mr. Rochester has, on the whole, had a favourable day for\r
+his journey."\r
+\r
+"Journey!--Is Mr. Rochester gone anywhere? I did not know he was out."\r
+\r
+"Oh, he set off the moment he had breakfasted! He is gone to the Leas,\r
+Mr. Eshton's place, ten miles on the other side Millcote. I believe\r
+there is quite a party assembled there; Lord Ingram, Sir George Lynn,\r
+Colonel Dent, and others."\r
+\r
+"Do you expect him back to-night?"\r
+\r
+"No--nor to-morrow either; I should think he is very likely to stay a\r
+week or more: when these fine, fashionable people get together, they are\r
+so surrounded by elegance and gaiety, so well provided with all that can\r
+please and entertain, they are in no hurry to separate. Gentlemen\r
+especially are often in request on such occasions; and Mr. Rochester is\r
+so talented and so lively in society, that I believe he is a general\r
+favourite: the ladies are very fond of him; though you would not think\r
+his appearance calculated to recommend him particularly in their eyes:\r
+but I suppose his acquirements and abilities, perhaps his wealth and good\r
+blood, make amends for any little fault of look."\r
+\r
+"Are there ladies at the Leas?"\r
+\r
+"There are Mrs. Eshton and her three daughters--very elegant young ladies\r
+indeed; and there are the Honourable Blanche and Mary Ingram, most\r
+beautiful women, I suppose: indeed I have seen Blanche, six or seven\r
+years since, when she was a girl of eighteen. She came here to a\r
+Christmas ball and party Mr. Rochester gave. You should have seen the\r
+dining-room that day--how richly it was decorated, how brilliantly lit\r
+up! I should think there were fifty ladies and gentlemen present--all of\r
+the first county families; and Miss Ingram was considered the belle of\r
+the evening."\r
+\r
+"You saw her, you say, Mrs. Fairfax: what was she like?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I saw her. The dining-room doors were thrown open; and, as it was\r
+Christmas-time, the servants were allowed to assemble in the hall, to\r
+hear some of the ladies sing and play. Mr. Rochester would have me to\r
+come in, and I sat down in a quiet corner and watched them. I never saw\r
+a more splendid scene: the ladies were magnificently dressed; most of\r
+them--at least most of the younger ones--looked handsome; but Miss Ingram\r
+was certainly the queen."\r
+\r
+"And what was she like?"\r
+\r
+"Tall, fine bust, sloping shoulders; long, graceful neck: olive\r
+complexion, dark and clear; noble features; eyes rather like Mr.\r
+Rochester's: large and black, and as brilliant as her jewels. And then\r
+she had such a fine head of hair; raven-black and so becomingly arranged:\r
+a crown of thick plaits behind, and in front the longest, the glossiest\r
+curls I ever saw. She was dressed in pure white; an amber-coloured scarf\r
+was passed over her shoulder and across her breast, tied at the side, and\r
+descending in long, fringed ends below her knee. She wore an\r
+amber-coloured flower, too, in her hair: it contrasted well with the\r
+jetty mass of her curls."\r
+\r
+"She was greatly admired, of course?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed: and not only for her beauty, but for her accomplishments.\r
+She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the\r
+piano. She and Mr. Rochester sang a duet."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester? I was not aware he could sing."\r
+\r
+"Oh! he has a fine bass voice, and an excellent taste for music."\r
+\r
+"And Miss Ingram: what sort of a voice had she?"\r
+\r
+"A very rich and powerful one: she sang delightfully; it was a treat to\r
+listen to her;--and she played afterwards. I am no judge of music, but\r
+Mr. Rochester is; and I heard him say her execution was remarkably good."\r
+\r
+"And this beautiful and accomplished lady, she is not yet married?"\r
+\r
+"It appears not: I fancy neither she nor her sister have very large\r
+fortunes. Old Lord Ingram's estates were chiefly entailed, and the\r
+eldest son came in for everything almost."\r
+\r
+"But I wonder no wealthy nobleman or gentleman has taken a fancy to her:\r
+Mr. Rochester, for instance. He is rich, is he not?"\r
+\r
+"Oh! yes. But you see there is a considerable difference in age: Mr.\r
+Rochester is nearly forty; she is but twenty-five."\r
+\r
+"What of that? More unequal matches are made every day."\r
+\r
+"True: yet I should scarcely fancy Mr. Rochester would entertain an idea\r
+of the sort. But you eat nothing: you have scarcely tasted since you\r
+began tea."\r
+\r
+"No: I am too thirsty to eat. Will you let me have another cup?"\r
+\r
+I was about again to revert to the probability of a union between Mr.\r
+Rochester and the beautiful Blanche; but Adele came in, and the\r
+conversation was turned into another channel.\r
+\r
+When once more alone, I reviewed the information I had got; looked into\r
+my heart, examined its thoughts and feelings, and endeavoured to bring\r
+back with a strict hand such as had been straying through imagination's\r
+boundless and trackless waste, into the safe fold of common sense.\r
+\r
+Arraigned at my own bar, Memory having given her evidence of the hopes,\r
+wishes, sentiments I had been cherishing since last night--of the general\r
+state of mind in which I had indulged for nearly a fortnight past; Reason\r
+having come forward and told, in her own quiet way a plain, unvarnished\r
+tale, showing how I had rejected the real, and rabidly devoured the\r
+ideal;--I pronounced judgment to this effect:--\r
+\r
+That a greater fool than Jane Eyre had never breathed the breath of life;\r
+that a more fantastic idiot had never surfeited herself on sweet lies,\r
+and swallowed poison as if it were nectar.\r
+\r
+"_You_," I said, "a favourite with Mr. Rochester? _You_ gifted with the\r
+power of pleasing him? _You_ of importance to him in any way? Go! your\r
+folly sickens me. And you have derived pleasure from occasional tokens\r
+of preference--equivocal tokens shown by a gentleman of family and a man\r
+of the world to a dependent and a novice. How dared you? Poor stupid\r
+dupe!--Could not even self-interest make you wiser? You repeated to\r
+yourself this morning the brief scene of last night?--Cover your face and\r
+be ashamed! He said something in praise of your eyes, did he? Blind\r
+puppy! Open their bleared lids and look on your own accursed\r
+senselessness! It does good to no woman to be flattered by her superior,\r
+who cannot possibly intend to marry her; and it is madness in all women\r
+to let a secret love kindle within them, which, if unreturned and\r
+unknown, must devour the life that feeds it; and, if discovered and\r
+responded to, must lead, _ignis-fatuus_-like, into miry wilds whence there\r
+is no extrication.\r
+\r
+"Listen, then, Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass\r
+before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without\r
+softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing\r
+irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a Governess, disconnected,\r
+poor, and plain.'\r
+\r
+"Afterwards, take a piece of smooth ivory--you have one prepared in your\r
+drawing-box: take your palette, mix your freshest, finest, clearest\r
+tints; choose your most delicate camel-hair pencils; delineate carefully\r
+the loveliest face you can imagine; paint it in your softest shades and\r
+sweetest lines, according to the description given by Mrs. Fairfax of\r
+Blanche Ingram; remember the raven ringlets, the oriental eye;--What! you\r
+revert to Mr. Rochester as a model! Order! No snivel!--no sentiment!--no\r
+regret! I will endure only sense and resolution. Recall the august yet\r
+harmonious lineaments, the Grecian neck and bust; let the round and\r
+dazzling arm be visible, and the delicate hand; omit neither diamond ring\r
+nor gold bracelet; portray faithfully the attire, aerial lace and\r
+glistening satin, graceful scarf and golden rose; call it 'Blanche, an\r
+accomplished lady of rank.'\r
+\r
+"Whenever, in future, you should chance to fancy Mr. Rochester thinks\r
+well of you, take out these two pictures and compare them: say, 'Mr.\r
+Rochester might probably win that noble lady's love, if he chose to\r
+strive for it; is it likely he would waste a serious thought on this\r
+indigent and insignificant plebeian?'"\r
+\r
+"I'll do it," I resolved: and having framed this determination, I grew\r
+calm, and fell asleep.\r
+\r
+I kept my word. An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in\r
+crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature\r
+of an imaginary Blanche Ingram. It looked a lovely face enough, and when\r
+compared with the real head in chalk, the contrast was as great as self-\r
+control could desire. I derived benefit from the task: it had kept my\r
+head and hands employed, and had given force and fixedness to the new\r
+impressions I wished to stamp indelibly on my heart.\r
+\r
+Ere long, I had reason to congratulate myself on the course of wholesome\r
+discipline to which I had thus forced my feelings to submit. Thanks to\r
+it, I was able to meet subsequent occurrences with a decent calm, which,\r
+had they found me unprepared, I should probably have been unequal to\r
+maintain, even externally.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+\r
+A week passed, and no news arrived of Mr. Rochester: ten days, and still\r
+he did not come. Mrs. Fairfax said she should not be surprised if he\r
+were to go straight from the Leas to London, and thence to the Continent,\r
+and not show his face again at Thornfield for a year to come; he had not\r
+unfrequently quitted it in a manner quite as abrupt and unexpected. When\r
+I heard this, I was beginning to feel a strange chill and failing at the\r
+heart. I was actually permitting myself to experience a sickening sense\r
+of disappointment; but rallying my wits, and recollecting my principles,\r
+I at once called my sensations to order; and it was wonderful how I got\r
+over the temporary blunder--how I cleared up the mistake of supposing Mr.\r
+Rochester's movements a matter in which I had any cause to take a vital\r
+interest. Not that I humbled myself by a slavish notion of inferiority:\r
+on the contrary, I just said--\r
+\r
+"You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to\r
+receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protegee, and to be\r
+grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty,\r
+you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he\r
+seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don't make him the object\r
+of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not\r
+of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish\r
+the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not\r
+wanted and would be despised."\r
+\r
+I went on with my day's business tranquilly; but ever and anon vague\r
+suggestions kept wandering across my brain of reasons why I should quit\r
+Thornfield; and I kept involuntarily framing advertisements and pondering\r
+conjectures about new situations: these thoughts I did not think to\r
+check; they might germinate and bear fruit if they could.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester had been absent upwards of a fortnight, when the post\r
+brought Mrs. Fairfax a letter.\r
+\r
+"It is from the master," said she, as she looked at the direction. "Now\r
+I suppose we shall know whether we are to expect his return or not."\r
+\r
+And while she broke the seal and perused the document, I went on taking\r
+my coffee (we were at breakfast): it was hot, and I attributed to that\r
+circumstance a fiery glow which suddenly rose to my face. Why my hand\r
+shook, and why I involuntarily spilt half the contents of my cup into my\r
+saucer, I did not choose to consider.\r
+\r
+"Well, I sometimes think we are too quiet; but we run a chance of being\r
+busy enough now: for a little while at least," said Mrs. Fairfax, still\r
+holding the note before her spectacles.\r
+\r
+Ere I permitted myself to request an explanation, I tied the string of\r
+Adele's pinafore, which happened to be loose: having helped her also to\r
+another bun and refilled her mug with milk, I said, nonchalantly--\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester is not likely to return soon, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"Indeed he is--in three days, he says: that will be next Thursday; and\r
+not alone either. I don't know how many of the fine people at the Leas\r
+are coming with him: he sends directions for all the best bedrooms to be\r
+prepared; and the library and drawing-rooms are to be cleaned out; I am\r
+to get more kitchen hands from the George Inn, at Millcote, and from\r
+wherever else I can; and the ladies will bring their maids and the\r
+gentlemen their valets: so we shall have a full house of it." And Mrs.\r
+Fairfax swallowed her breakfast and hastened away to commence operations.\r
+\r
+The three days were, as she had foretold, busy enough. I had thought all\r
+the rooms at Thornfield beautifully clean and well arranged; but it\r
+appears I was mistaken. Three women were got to help; and such\r
+scrubbing, such brushing, such washing of paint and beating of carpets,\r
+such taking down and putting up of pictures, such polishing of mirrors\r
+and lustres, such lighting of fires in bedrooms, such airing of sheets\r
+and feather-beds on hearths, I never beheld, either before or since.\r
+Adele ran quite wild in the midst of it: the preparations for company and\r
+the prospect of their arrival, seemed to throw her into ecstasies. She\r
+would have Sophie to look over all her "toilettes," as she called frocks;\r
+to furbish up any that were "_passees_," and to air and arrange the new.\r
+For herself, she did nothing but caper about in the front chambers, jump\r
+on and off the bedsteads, and lie on the mattresses and piled-up bolsters\r
+and pillows before the enormous fires roaring in the chimneys. From\r
+school duties she was exonerated: Mrs. Fairfax had pressed me into her\r
+service, and I was all day in the storeroom, helping (or hindering) her\r
+and the cook; learning to make custards and cheese-cakes and French\r
+pastry, to truss game and garnish desert-dishes.\r
+\r
+The party were expected to arrive on Thursday afternoon, in time for\r
+dinner at six. During the intervening period I had no time to nurse\r
+chimeras; and I believe I was as active and gay as anybody--Adele\r
+excepted. Still, now and then, I received a damping check to my\r
+cheerfulness; and was, in spite of myself, thrown back on the region of\r
+doubts and portents, and dark conjectures. This was when I chanced to\r
+see the third-storey staircase door (which of late had always been kept\r
+locked) open slowly, and give passage to the form of Grace Poole, in prim\r
+cap, white apron, and handkerchief; when I watched her glide along the\r
+gallery, her quiet tread muffled in a list slipper; when I saw her look\r
+into the bustling, topsy-turvy bedrooms,--just say a word, perhaps, to\r
+the charwoman about the proper way to polish a grate, or clean a marble\r
+mantelpiece, or take stains from papered walls, and then pass on. She\r
+would thus descend to the kitchen once a day, eat her dinner, smoke a\r
+moderate pipe on the hearth, and go back, carrying her pot of porter with\r
+her, for her private solace, in her own gloomy, upper haunt. Only one\r
+hour in the twenty-four did she pass with her fellow-servants below; all\r
+the rest of her time was spent in some low-ceiled, oaken chamber of the\r
+second storey: there she sat and sewed--and probably laughed drearily to\r
+herself,--as companionless as a prisoner in his dungeon.\r
+\r
+The strangest thing of all was, that not a soul in the house, except me,\r
+noticed her habits, or seemed to marvel at them: no one discussed her\r
+position or employment; no one pitied her solitude or isolation. I once,\r
+indeed, overheard part of a dialogue between Leah and one of the\r
+charwomen, of which Grace formed the subject. Leah had been saying\r
+something I had not caught, and the charwoman remarked--\r
+\r
+"She gets good wages, I guess?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Leah; "I wish I had as good; not that mine are to complain\r
+of,--there's no stinginess at Thornfield; but they're not one fifth of\r
+the sum Mrs. Poole receives. And she is laying by: she goes every\r
+quarter to the bank at Millcote. I should not wonder but she has saved\r
+enough to keep her independent if she liked to leave; but I suppose she's\r
+got used to the place; and then she's not forty yet, and strong and able\r
+for anything. It is too soon for her to give up business."\r
+\r
+"She is a good hand, I daresay," said the charwoman.\r
+\r
+"Ah!--she understands what she has to do,--nobody better," rejoined Leah\r
+significantly; "and it is not every one could fill her shoes--not for all\r
+the money she gets."\r
+\r
+"That it is not!" was the reply. "I wonder whether the master--"\r
+\r
+The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and\r
+she instantly gave her companion a nudge.\r
+\r
+"Doesn't she know?" I heard the woman whisper.\r
+\r
+Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I\r
+had gathered from it amounted to this,--that there was a mystery at\r
+Thornfield; and that from participation in that mystery I was purposely\r
+excluded.\r
+\r
+Thursday came: all work had been completed the previous evening; carpets\r
+were laid down, bed-hangings festooned, radiant white counterpanes\r
+spread, toilet tables arranged, furniture rubbed, flowers piled in vases:\r
+both chambers and saloons looked as fresh and bright as hands could make\r
+them. The hall, too, was scoured; and the great carved clock, as well as\r
+the steps and banisters of the staircase, were polished to the brightness\r
+of glass; in the dining-room, the sideboard flashed resplendent with\r
+plate; in the drawing-room and boudoir, vases of exotics bloomed on all\r
+sides.\r
+\r
+Afternoon arrived: Mrs. Fairfax assumed her best black satin gown, her\r
+gloves, and her gold watch; for it was her part to receive the\r
+company,--to conduct the ladies to their rooms, &c. Adele, too, would be\r
+dressed: though I thought she had little chance of being introduced to\r
+the party that day at least. However, to please her, I allowed Sophie to\r
+apparel her in one of her short, full muslin frocks. For myself, I had\r
+no need to make any change; I should not be called upon to quit my\r
+sanctum of the schoolroom; for a sanctum it was now become to me,--"a\r
+very pleasant refuge in time of trouble."\r
+\r
+It had been a mild, serene spring day--one of those days which, towards\r
+the end of March or the beginning of April, rise shining over the earth\r
+as heralds of summer. It was drawing to an end now; but the evening was\r
+even warm, and I sat at work in the schoolroom with the window open.\r
+\r
+"It gets late," said Mrs. Fairfax, entering in rustling state. "I am\r
+glad I ordered dinner an hour after the time Mr. Rochester mentioned; for\r
+it is past six now. I have sent John down to the gates to see if there\r
+is anything on the road: one can see a long way from thence in the\r
+direction of Millcote." She went to the window. "Here he is!" said she.\r
+"Well, John" (leaning out), "any news?"\r
+\r
+"They're coming, ma'am," was the answer. "They'll be here in ten\r
+minutes."\r
+\r
+Adele flew to the window. I followed, taking care to stand on one side,\r
+so that, screened by the curtain, I could see without being seen.\r
+\r
+The ten minutes John had given seemed very long, but at last wheels were\r
+heard; four equestrians galloped up the drive, and after them came two\r
+open carriages. Fluttering veils and waving plumes filled the vehicles;\r
+two of the cavaliers were young, dashing-looking gentlemen; the third was\r
+Mr. Rochester, on his black horse, Mesrour, Pilot bounding before him; at\r
+his side rode a lady, and he and she were the first of the party. Her\r
+purple riding-habit almost swept the ground, her veil streamed long on\r
+the breeze; mingling with its transparent folds, and gleaming through\r
+them, shone rich raven ringlets.\r
+\r
+"Miss Ingram!" exclaimed Mrs. Fairfax, and away she hurried to her post\r
+below.\r
+\r
+The cavalcade, following the sweep of the drive, quickly turned the angle\r
+of the house, and I lost sight of it. Adele now petitioned to go down;\r
+but I took her on my knee, and gave her to understand that she must not\r
+on any account think of venturing in sight of the ladies, either now or\r
+at any other time, unless expressly sent for: that Mr. Rochester would be\r
+very angry, &c. "Some natural tears she shed" on being told this; but as\r
+I began to look very grave, she consented at last to wipe them.\r
+\r
+A joyous stir was now audible in the hall: gentlemen's deep tones and\r
+ladies' silvery accents blent harmoniously together, and distinguishable\r
+above all, though not loud, was the sonorous voice of the master of\r
+Thornfield Hall, welcoming his fair and gallant guests under its roof.\r
+Then light steps ascended the stairs; and there was a tripping through\r
+the gallery, and soft cheerful laughs, and opening and closing doors,\r
+and, for a time, a hush.\r
+\r
+"Elles changent de toilettes," said Adele; who, listening attentively,\r
+had followed every movement; and she sighed.\r
+\r
+"Chez maman," said she, "quand il y avait du monde, je le suivais\r
+partout, au salon et a leurs chambres; souvent je regardais les femmes de\r
+chambre coiffer et habiller les dames, et c'etait si amusant: comme cela\r
+on apprend."\r
+\r
+"Don't you feel hungry, Adele?"\r
+\r
+"Mais oui, mademoiselle: voila cinq ou six heures que nous n'avons pas\r
+mange."\r
+\r
+"Well now, while the ladies are in their rooms, I will venture down and\r
+get you something to eat."\r
+\r
+And issuing from my asylum with precaution, I sought a back-stairs which\r
+conducted directly to the kitchen. All in that region was fire and\r
+commotion; the soup and fish were in the last stage of projection, and\r
+the cook hung over her crucibles in a frame of mind and body threatening\r
+spontaneous combustion. In the servants' hall two coachmen and three\r
+gentlemen's gentlemen stood or sat round the fire; the abigails, I\r
+suppose, were upstairs with their mistresses; the new servants, that had\r
+been hired from Millcote, were bustling about everywhere. Threading this\r
+chaos, I at last reached the larder; there I took possession of a cold\r
+chicken, a roll of bread, some tarts, a plate or two and a knife and\r
+fork: with this booty I made a hasty retreat. I had regained the\r
+gallery, and was just shutting the back-door behind me, when an\r
+accelerated hum warned me that the ladies were about to issue from their\r
+chambers. I could not proceed to the schoolroom without passing some of\r
+their doors, and running the risk of being surprised with my cargo of\r
+victualage; so I stood still at this end, which, being windowless, was\r
+dark: quite dark now, for the sun was set and twilight gathering.\r
+\r
+Presently the chambers gave up their fair tenants one after another: each\r
+came out gaily and airily, with dress that gleamed lustrous through the\r
+dusk. For a moment they stood grouped together at the other extremity of\r
+the gallery, conversing in a key of sweet subdued vivacity: they then\r
+descended the staircase almost as noiselessly as a bright mist rolls down\r
+a hill. Their collective appearance had left on me an impression of high-\r
+born elegance, such as I had never before received.\r
+\r
+I found Adele peeping through the schoolroom door, which she held ajar.\r
+"What beautiful ladies!" cried she in English. "Oh, I wish I might go to\r
+them! Do you think Mr. Rochester will send for us by-and-bye, after\r
+dinner?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, I don't; Mr. Rochester has something else to think about.\r
+Never mind the ladies to-night; perhaps you will see them to-morrow: here\r
+is your dinner."\r
+\r
+She was really hungry, so the chicken and tarts served to divert her\r
+attention for a time. It was well I secured this forage, or both she, I,\r
+and Sophie, to whom I conveyed a share of our repast, would have run a\r
+chance of getting no dinner at all: every one downstairs was too much\r
+engaged to think of us. The dessert was not carried out till after nine\r
+and at ten footmen were still running to and fro with trays and coffee-\r
+cups. I allowed Adele to sit up much later than usual; for she declared\r
+she could not possibly go to sleep while the doors kept opening and\r
+shutting below, and people bustling about. Besides, she added, a message\r
+might possibly come from Mr. Rochester when she was undressed; "et alors\r
+quel dommage!"\r
+\r
+I told her stories as long as she would listen to them; and then for a\r
+change I took her out into the gallery. The hall lamp was now lit, and\r
+it amused her to look over the balustrade and watch the servants passing\r
+backwards and forwards. When the evening was far advanced, a sound of\r
+music issued from the drawing-room, whither the piano had been removed;\r
+Adele and I sat down on the top step of the stairs to listen. Presently\r
+a voice blent with the rich tones of the instrument; it was a lady who\r
+sang, and very sweet her notes were. The solo over, a duet followed, and\r
+then a glee: a joyous conversational murmur filled up the intervals. I\r
+listened long: suddenly I discovered that my ear was wholly intent on\r
+analysing the mingled sounds, and trying to discriminate amidst the\r
+confusion of accents those of Mr. Rochester; and when it caught them,\r
+which it soon did, it found a further task in framing the tones, rendered\r
+by distance inarticulate, into words.\r
+\r
+The clock struck eleven. I looked at Adele, whose head leant against my\r
+shoulder; her eyes were waxing heavy, so I took her up in my arms and\r
+carried her off to bed. It was near one before the gentlemen and ladies\r
+sought their chambers.\r
+\r
+The next day was as fine as its predecessor: it was devoted by the party\r
+to an excursion to some site in the neighbourhood. They set out early in\r
+the forenoon, some on horseback, the rest in carriages; I witnessed both\r
+the departure and the return. Miss Ingram, as before, was the only lady\r
+equestrian; and, as before, Mr. Rochester galloped at her side; the two\r
+rode a little apart from the rest. I pointed out this circumstance to\r
+Mrs. Fairfax, who was standing at the window with me--\r
+\r
+"You said it was not likely they should think of being married," said I,\r
+"but you see Mr. Rochester evidently prefers her to any of the other\r
+ladies."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I daresay: no doubt he admires her."\r
+\r
+"And she him," I added; "look how she leans her head towards him as if\r
+she were conversing confidentially; I wish I could see her face; I have\r
+never had a glimpse of it yet."\r
+\r
+"You will see her this evening," answered Mrs. Fairfax. "I happened to\r
+remark to Mr. Rochester how much Adele wished to be introduced to the\r
+ladies, and he said: 'Oh! let her come into the drawing-room after\r
+dinner; and request Miss Eyre to accompany her.'"\r
+\r
+"Yes; he said that from mere politeness: I need not go, I am sure," I\r
+answered.\r
+\r
+"Well, I observed to him that as you were unused to company, I did not\r
+think you would like appearing before so gay a party--all strangers; and\r
+he replied, in his quick way--'Nonsense! If she objects, tell her it is\r
+my particular wish; and if she resists, say I shall come and fetch her in\r
+case of contumacy.'"\r
+\r
+"I will not give him that trouble," I answered. "I will go, if no better\r
+may be; but I don't like it. Shall you be there, Mrs. Fairfax?"\r
+\r
+"No; I pleaded off, and he admitted my plea. I'll tell you how to manage\r
+so as to avoid the embarrassment of making a formal entrance, which is\r
+the most disagreeable part of the business. You must go into the drawing-\r
+room while it is empty, before the ladies leave the dinner-table; choose\r
+your seat in any quiet nook you like; you need not stay long after the\r
+gentlemen come in, unless you please: just let Mr. Rochester see you are\r
+there and then slip away--nobody will notice you."\r
+\r
+"Will these people remain long, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"Perhaps two or three weeks, certainly not more. After the Easter\r
+recess, Sir George Lynn, who was lately elected member for Millcote, will\r
+have to go up to town and take his seat; I daresay Mr. Rochester will\r
+accompany him: it surprises me that he has already made so protracted a\r
+stay at Thornfield."\r
+\r
+It was with some trepidation that I perceived the hour approach when I\r
+was to repair with my charge to the drawing-room. Adele had been in a\r
+state of ecstasy all day, after hearing she was to be presented to the\r
+ladies in the evening; and it was not till Sophie commenced the operation\r
+of dressing her that she sobered down. Then the importance of the\r
+process quickly steadied her, and by the time she had her curls arranged\r
+in well-smoothed, drooping clusters, her pink satin frock put on, her\r
+long sash tied, and her lace mittens adjusted, she looked as grave as any\r
+judge. No need to warn her not to disarrange her attire: when she was\r
+dressed, she sat demurely down in her little chair, taking care\r
+previously to lift up the satin skirt for fear she should crease it, and\r
+assured me she would not stir thence till I was ready. This I quickly\r
+was: my best dress (the silver-grey one, purchased for Miss Temple's\r
+wedding, and never worn since) was soon put on; my hair was soon\r
+smoothed; my sole ornament, the pearl brooch, soon assumed. We\r
+descended.\r
+\r
+Fortunately there was another entrance to the drawing-room than that\r
+through the saloon where they were all seated at dinner. We found the\r
+apartment vacant; a large fire burning silently on the marble hearth, and\r
+wax candles shining in bright solitude, amid the exquisite flowers with\r
+which the tables were adorned. The crimson curtain hung before the arch:\r
+slight as was the separation this drapery formed from the party in the\r
+adjoining saloon, they spoke in so low a key that nothing of their\r
+conversation could be distinguished beyond a soothing murmur.\r
+\r
+Adele, who appeared to be still under the influence of a most solemnising\r
+impression, sat down, without a word, on the footstool I pointed out to\r
+her. I retired to a window-seat, and taking a book from a table near,\r
+endeavoured to read. Adele brought her stool to my feet; ere long she\r
+touched my knee.\r
+\r
+"What is it, Adele?"\r
+\r
+"Est-ce que je ne puis pas prendrie une seule de ces fleurs magnifiques,\r
+mademoiselle? Seulement pour completer ma toilette."\r
+\r
+"You think too much of your 'toilette,' Adele: but you may have a\r
+flower." And I took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her sash. She\r
+sighed a sigh of ineffable satisfaction, as if her cup of happiness were\r
+now full. I turned my face away to conceal a smile I could not suppress:\r
+there was something ludicrous as well as painful in the little\r
+Parisienne's earnest and innate devotion to matters of dress.\r
+\r
+A soft sound of rising now became audible; the curtain was swept back\r
+from the arch; through it appeared the dining-room, with its lit lustre\r
+pouring down light on the silver and glass of a magnificent\r
+dessert-service covering a long table; a band of ladies stood in the\r
+opening; they entered, and the curtain fell behind them.\r
+\r
+There were but eight; yet, somehow, as they flocked in, they gave the\r
+impression of a much larger number. Some of them were very tall; many\r
+were dressed in white; and all had a sweeping amplitude of array that\r
+seemed to magnify their persons as a mist magnifies the moon. I rose and\r
+curtseyed to them: one or two bent their heads in return, the others only\r
+stared at me.\r
+\r
+They dispersed about the room, reminding me, by the lightness and\r
+buoyancy of their movements, of a flock of white plumy birds. Some of\r
+them threw themselves in half-reclining positions on the sofas and\r
+ottomans: some bent over the tables and examined the flowers and books:\r
+the rest gathered in a group round the fire: all talked in a low but\r
+clear tone which seemed habitual to them. I knew their names afterwards,\r
+and may as well mention them now.\r
+\r
+First, there was Mrs. Eshton and two of her daughters. She had evidently\r
+been a handsome woman, and was well preserved still. Of her daughters,\r
+the eldest, Amy, was rather little: naive, and child-like in face and\r
+manner, and piquant in form; her white muslin dress and blue sash became\r
+her well. The second, Louisa, was taller and more elegant in figure;\r
+with a very pretty face, of that order the French term _minois chiffone_:\r
+both sisters were fair as lilies.\r
+\r
+Lady Lynn was a large and stout personage of about forty, very erect,\r
+very haughty-looking, richly dressed in a satin robe of changeful sheen:\r
+her dark hair shone glossily under the shade of an azure plume, and\r
+within the circlet of a band of gems.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Colonel Dent was less showy; but, I thought, more lady-like. She\r
+had a slight figure, a pale, gentle face, and fair hair. Her black satin\r
+dress, her scarf of rich foreign lace, and her pearl ornaments, pleased\r
+me better than the rainbow radiance of the titled dame.\r
+\r
+But the three most distinguished--partly, perhaps, because the tallest\r
+figures of the band--were the Dowager Lady Ingram and her daughters,\r
+Blanche and Mary. They were all three of the loftiest stature of women.\r
+The Dowager might be between forty and fifty: her shape was still fine;\r
+her hair (by candle-light at least) still black; her teeth, too, were\r
+still apparently perfect. Most people would have termed her a splendid\r
+woman of her age: and so she was, no doubt, physically speaking; but then\r
+there was an expression of almost insupportable haughtiness in her\r
+bearing and countenance. She had Roman features and a double chin,\r
+disappearing into a throat like a pillar: these features appeared to me\r
+not only inflated and darkened, but even furrowed with pride; and the\r
+chin was sustained by the same principle, in a position of almost\r
+preternatural erectness. She had, likewise, a fierce and a hard eye: it\r
+reminded me of Mrs. Reed's; she mouthed her words in speaking; her voice\r
+was deep, its inflections very pompous, very dogmatical,--very\r
+intolerable, in short. A crimson velvet robe, and a shawl turban of some\r
+gold-wrought Indian fabric, invested her (I suppose she thought) with a\r
+truly imperial dignity.\r
+\r
+Blanche and Mary were of equal stature,--straight and tall as poplars.\r
+Mary was too slim for her height, but Blanche was moulded like a Dian. I\r
+regarded her, of course, with special interest. First, I wished to see\r
+whether her appearance accorded with Mrs. Fairfax's description;\r
+secondly, whether it at all resembled the fancy miniature I had painted\r
+of her; and thirdly--it will out!--whether it were such as I should fancy\r
+likely to suit Mr. Rochester's taste.\r
+\r
+As far as person went, she answered point for point, both to my picture\r
+and Mrs. Fairfax's description. The noble bust, the sloping shoulders,\r
+the graceful neck, the dark eyes and black ringlets were all there;--but\r
+her face? Her face was like her mother's; a youthful unfurrowed\r
+likeness: the same low brow, the same high features, the same pride. It\r
+was not, however, so saturnine a pride! she laughed continually; her\r
+laugh was satirical, and so was the habitual expression of her arched and\r
+haughty lip.\r
+\r
+Genius is said to be self-conscious. I cannot tell whether Miss Ingram\r
+was a genius, but she was self-conscious--remarkably self-conscious\r
+indeed. She entered into a discourse on botany with the gentle Mrs.\r
+Dent. It seemed Mrs. Dent had not studied that science: though, as she\r
+said, she liked flowers, "especially wild ones;" Miss Ingram had, and she\r
+ran over its vocabulary with an air. I presently perceived she was (what\r
+is vernacularly termed) _trailing_ Mrs. Dent; that is, playing on her\r
+ignorance--her _trail_ might be clever, but it was decidedly not good-\r
+natured. She played: her execution was brilliant; she sang: her voice\r
+was fine; she talked French apart to her mamma; and she talked it well,\r
+with fluency and with a good accent.\r
+\r
+Mary had a milder and more open countenance than Blanche; softer features\r
+too, and a skin some shades fairer (Miss Ingram was dark as a\r
+Spaniard)--but Mary was deficient in life: her face lacked expression,\r
+her eye lustre; she had nothing to say, and having once taken her seat,\r
+remained fixed like a statue in its niche. The sisters were both attired\r
+in spotless white.\r
+\r
+And did I now think Miss Ingram such a choice as Mr. Rochester would be\r
+likely to make? I could not tell--I did not know his taste in female\r
+beauty. If he liked the majestic, she was the very type of majesty: then\r
+she was accomplished, sprightly. Most gentlemen would admire her, I\r
+thought; and that he _did_ admire her, I already seemed to have obtained\r
+proof: to remove the last shade of doubt, it remained but to see them\r
+together.\r
+\r
+You are not to suppose, reader, that Adele has all this time been sitting\r
+motionless on the stool at my feet: no; when the ladies entered, she\r
+rose, advanced to meet them, made a stately reverence, and said with\r
+gravity--\r
+\r
+"Bon jour, mesdames."\r
+\r
+And Miss Ingram had looked down at her with a mocking air, and exclaimed,\r
+"Oh, what a little puppet!"\r
+\r
+Lady Lynn had remarked, "It is Mr. Rochester's ward, I suppose--the\r
+little French girl he was speaking of."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dent had kindly taken her hand, and given her a kiss.\r
+\r
+Amy and Louisa Eshton had cried out simultaneously--"What a love of a\r
+child!"\r
+\r
+And then they had called her to a sofa, where she now sat, ensconced\r
+between them, chattering alternately in French and broken English;\r
+absorbing not only the young ladies' attention, but that of Mrs. Eshton\r
+and Lady Lynn, and getting spoilt to her heart's content.\r
+\r
+At last coffee is brought in, and the gentlemen are summoned. I sit in\r
+the shade--if any shade there be in this brilliantly-lit apartment; the\r
+window-curtain half hides me. Again the arch yawns; they come. The\r
+collective appearance of the gentlemen, like that of the ladies, is very\r
+imposing: they are all costumed in black; most of them are tall, some\r
+young. Henry and Frederick Lynn are very dashing sparks indeed; and\r
+Colonel Dent is a fine soldierly man. Mr. Eshton, the magistrate of the\r
+district, is gentleman-like: his hair is quite white, his eyebrows and\r
+whiskers still dark, which gives him something of the appearance of a\r
+"pere noble de theatre." Lord Ingram, like his sisters, is very tall;\r
+like them, also, he is handsome; but he shares Mary's apathetic and\r
+listless look: he seems to have more length of limb than vivacity of\r
+blood or vigour of brain.\r
+\r
+And where is Mr. Rochester?\r
+\r
+He comes in last: I am not looking at the arch, yet I see him enter. I\r
+try to concentrate my attention on those netting-needles, on the meshes\r
+of the purse I am forming--I wish to think only of the work I have in my\r
+hands, to see only the silver beads and silk threads that lie in my lap;\r
+whereas, I distinctly behold his figure, and I inevitably recall the\r
+moment when I last saw it; just after I had rendered him, what he deemed,\r
+an essential service, and he, holding my hand, and looking down on my\r
+face, surveyed me with eyes that revealed a heart full and eager to\r
+overflow; in whose emotions I had a part. How near had I approached him\r
+at that moment! What had occurred since, calculated to change his and my\r
+relative positions? Yet now, how distant, how far estranged we were! So\r
+far estranged, that I did not expect him to come and speak to me. I did\r
+not wonder, when, without looking at me, he took a seat at the other side\r
+of the room, and began conversing with some of the ladies.\r
+\r
+No sooner did I see that his attention was riveted on them, and that I\r
+might gaze without being observed, than my eyes were drawn involuntarily\r
+to his face; I could not keep their lids under control: they would rise,\r
+and the irids would fix on him. I looked, and had an acute pleasure in\r
+looking,--a precious yet poignant pleasure; pure gold, with a steely\r
+point of agony: a pleasure like what the thirst-perishing man might feel\r
+who knows the well to which he has crept is poisoned, yet stoops and\r
+drinks divine draughts nevertheless.\r
+\r
+Most true is it that "beauty is in the eye of the gazer." My master's\r
+colourless, olive face, square, massive brow, broad and jetty eyebrows,\r
+deep eyes, strong features, firm, grim mouth,--all energy, decision,\r
+will,--were not beautiful, according to rule; but they were more than\r
+beautiful to me; they were full of an interest, an influence that quite\r
+mastered me,--that took my feelings from my own power and fettered them\r
+in his. I had not intended to love him; the reader knows I had wrought\r
+hard to extirpate from my soul the germs of love there detected; and now,\r
+at the first renewed view of him, they spontaneously arrived, green and\r
+strong! He made me love him without looking at me.\r
+\r
+I compared him with his guests. What was the gallant grace of the Lynns,\r
+the languid elegance of Lord Ingram,--even the military distinction of\r
+Colonel Dent, contrasted with his look of native pith and genuine power?\r
+I had no sympathy in their appearance, their expression: yet I could\r
+imagine that most observers would call them attractive, handsome,\r
+imposing; while they would pronounce Mr. Rochester at once harsh-featured\r
+and melancholy-looking. I saw them smile, laugh--it was nothing; the\r
+light of the candles had as much soul in it as their smile; the tinkle of\r
+the bell as much significance as their laugh. I saw Mr. Rochester\r
+smile:--his stern features softened; his eye grew both brilliant and\r
+gentle, its ray both searching and sweet. He was talking, at the moment,\r
+to Louisa and Amy Eshton. I wondered to see them receive with calm that\r
+look which seemed to me so penetrating: I expected their eyes to fall,\r
+their colour to rise under it; yet I was glad when I found they were in\r
+no sense moved. "He is not to them what he is to me," I thought: "he is\r
+not of their kind. I believe he is of mine;--I am sure he is--I feel\r
+akin to him--I understand the language of his countenance and movements:\r
+though rank and wealth sever us widely, I have something in my brain and\r
+heart, in my blood and nerves, that assimilates me mentally to him. Did\r
+I say, a few days since, that I had nothing to do with him but to receive\r
+my salary at his hands? Did I forbid myself to think of him in any other\r
+light than as a paymaster? Blasphemy against nature! Every good, true,\r
+vigorous feeling I have gathers impulsively round him. I know I must\r
+conceal my sentiments: I must smother hope; I must remember that he\r
+cannot care much for me. For when I say that I am of his kind, I do not\r
+mean that I have his force to influence, and his spell to attract; I mean\r
+only that I have certain tastes and feelings in common with him. I must,\r
+then, repeat continually that we are for ever sundered:--and yet, while I\r
+breathe and think, I must love him."\r
+\r
+Coffee is handed. The ladies, since the gentlemen entered, have become\r
+lively as larks; conversation waxes brisk and merry. Colonel Dent and\r
+Mr. Eshton argue on politics; their wives listen. The two proud\r
+dowagers, Lady Lynn and Lady Ingram, confabulate together. Sir\r
+George--whom, by-the-bye, I have forgotten to describe,--a very big, and\r
+very fresh-looking country gentleman, stands before their sofa, coffee-\r
+cup in hand, and occasionally puts in a word. Mr. Frederick Lynn has\r
+taken a seat beside Mary Ingram, and is showing her the engravings of a\r
+splendid volume: she looks, smiles now and then, but apparently says\r
+little. The tall and phlegmatic Lord Ingram leans with folded arms on\r
+the chair-back of the little and lively Amy Eshton; she glances up at\r
+him, and chatters like a wren: she likes him better than she does Mr.\r
+Rochester. Henry Lynn has taken possession of an ottoman at the feet of\r
+Louisa: Adele shares it with him: he is trying to talk French with her,\r
+and Louisa laughs at his blunders. With whom will Blanche Ingram pair?\r
+She is standing alone at the table, bending gracefully over an album. She\r
+seems waiting to be sought; but she will not wait too long: she herself\r
+selects a mate.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester, having quitted the Eshtons, stands on the hearth as\r
+solitary as she stands by the table: she confronts him, taking her\r
+station on the opposite side of the mantelpiece.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I thought you were not fond of children?"\r
+\r
+"Nor am I."\r
+\r
+"Then, what induced you to take charge of such a little doll as that?"\r
+(pointing to Adele). "Where did you pick her up?"\r
+\r
+"I did not pick her up; she was left on my hands."\r
+\r
+"You should have sent her to school."\r
+\r
+"I could not afford it: schools are so dear."\r
+\r
+"Why, I suppose you have a governess for her: I saw a person with her\r
+just now--is she gone? Oh, no! there she is still, behind the window-\r
+curtain. You pay her, of course; I should think it quite as\r
+expensive,--more so; for you have them both to keep in addition."\r
+\r
+I feared--or should I say, hoped?--the allusion to me would make Mr.\r
+Rochester glance my way; and I involuntarily shrank farther into the\r
+shade: but he never turned his eyes.\r
+\r
+"I have not considered the subject," said he indifferently, looking\r
+straight before him.\r
+\r
+"No, you men never do consider economy and common sense. You should hear\r
+mama on the chapter of governesses: Mary and I have had, I should think,\r
+a dozen at least in our day; half of them detestable and the rest\r
+ridiculous, and all incubi--were they not, mama?"\r
+\r
+"Did you speak, my own?"\r
+\r
+The young lady thus claimed as the dowager's special property, reiterated\r
+her question with an explanation.\r
+\r
+"My dearest, don't mention governesses; the word makes me nervous. I\r
+have suffered a martyrdom from their incompetency and caprice. I thank\r
+Heaven I have now done with them!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dent here bent over to the pious lady and whispered something in her\r
+ear; I suppose, from the answer elicited, it was a reminder that one of\r
+the anathematised race was present.\r
+\r
+"Tant pis!" said her Ladyship, "I hope it may do her good!" Then, in a\r
+lower tone, but still loud enough for me to hear, "I noticed her; I am a\r
+judge of physiognomy, and in hers I see all the faults of her class."\r
+\r
+"What are they, madam?" inquired Mr. Rochester aloud.\r
+\r
+"I will tell you in your private ear," replied she, wagging her turban\r
+three times with portentous significancy.\r
+\r
+"But my curiosity will be past its appetite; it craves food now."\r
+\r
+"Ask Blanche; she is nearer you than I."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't refer him to me, mama! I have just one word to say of the\r
+whole tribe; they are a nuisance. Not that I ever suffered much from\r
+them; I took care to turn the tables. What tricks Theodore and I used to\r
+play on our Miss Wilsons, and Mrs. Greys, and Madame Jouberts! Mary was\r
+always too sleepy to join in a plot with spirit. The best fun was with\r
+Madame Joubert: Miss Wilson was a poor sickly thing, lachrymose and low-\r
+spirited, not worth the trouble of vanquishing, in short; and Mrs. Grey\r
+was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But poor Madame\r
+Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to\r
+extremities--spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our\r
+books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk,\r
+the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those merry days?"\r
+\r
+"Yaas, to be sure I do," drawled Lord Ingram; "and the poor old stick\r
+used to cry out 'Oh you villains childs!'--and then we sermonised her on\r
+the presumption of attempting to teach such clever blades as we were,\r
+when she was herself so ignorant."\r
+\r
+"We did; and, Tedo, you know, I helped you in prosecuting (or\r
+persecuting) your tutor, whey-faced Mr. Vining--the parson in the pip, as\r
+we used to call him. He and Miss Wilson took the liberty of falling in\r
+love with each other--at least Tedo and I thought so; we surprised sundry\r
+tender glances and sighs which we interpreted as tokens of 'la belle\r
+passion,' and I promise you the public soon had the benefit of our\r
+discovery; we employed it as a sort of lever to hoist our dead-weights\r
+from the house. Dear mama, there, as soon as she got an inkling of the\r
+business, found out that it was of an immoral tendency. Did you not, my\r
+lady-mother?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly, my best. And I was quite right: depend on that: there are a\r
+thousand reasons why liaisons between governesses and tutors should never\r
+be tolerated a moment in any well-regulated house; firstly--"\r
+\r
+"Oh, gracious, mama! Spare us the enumeration! _Au reste_, we all know\r
+them: danger of bad example to innocence of childhood; distractions and\r
+consequent neglect of duty on the part of the attached--mutual alliance\r
+and reliance; confidence thence resulting--insolence accompanying--mutiny\r
+and general blow-up. Am I right, Baroness Ingram, of Ingram Park?"\r
+\r
+"My lily-flower, you are right now, as always."\r
+\r
+"Then no more need be said: change the subject."\r
+\r
+Amy Eshton, not hearing or not heeding this dictum, joined in with her\r
+soft, infantine tone: "Louisa and I used to quiz our governess too; but\r
+she was such a good creature, she would bear anything: nothing put her\r
+out. She was never cross with us; was she, Louisa?"\r
+\r
+"No, never: we might do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her\r
+workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured,\r
+she would give us anything we asked for."\r
+\r
+"I suppose, now," said Miss Ingram, curling her lip sarcastically, "we\r
+shall have an abstract of the memoirs of all the governesses extant: in\r
+order to avert such a visitation, I again move the introduction of a new\r
+topic. Mr. Rochester, do you second my motion?"\r
+\r
+"Madam, I support you on this point, as on every other."\r
+\r
+"Then on me be the onus of bringing it forward. Signior Eduardo, are you\r
+in voice to-night?"\r
+\r
+"Donna Bianca, if you command it, I will be."\r
+\r
+"Then, signior, I lay on you my sovereign behest to furbish up your lungs\r
+and other vocal organs, as they will be wanted on my royal service."\r
+\r
+"Who would not be the Rizzio of so divine a Mary?"\r
+\r
+"A fig for Rizzio!" cried she, tossing her head with all its curls, as\r
+she moved to the piano. "It is my opinion the fiddler David must have\r
+been an insipid sort of fellow; I like black Bothwell better: to my mind\r
+a man is nothing without a spice of the devil in him; and history may say\r
+what it will of James Hepburn, but I have a notion, he was just the sort\r
+of wild, fierce, bandit hero whom I could have consented to gift with my\r
+hand."\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen, you hear! Now which of you most resembles Bothwell?" cried\r
+Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+"I should say the preference lies with you," responded Colonel Dent.\r
+\r
+"On my honour, I am much obliged to you," was the reply.\r
+\r
+Miss Ingram, who had now seated herself with proud grace at the piano,\r
+spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude, commenced a brilliant\r
+prelude; talking meantime. She appeared to be on her high horse\r
+to-night; both her words and her air seemed intended to excite not only\r
+the admiration, but the amazement of her auditors: she was evidently bent\r
+on striking them as something very dashing and daring indeed.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I am so sick of the young men of the present day!" exclaimed she,\r
+rattling away at the instrument. "Poor, puny things, not fit to stir a\r
+step beyond papa's park gates: nor to go even so far without mama's\r
+permission and guardianship! Creatures so absorbed in care about their\r
+pretty faces, and their white hands, and their small feet; as if a man\r
+had anything to do with beauty! As if loveliness were not the special\r
+prerogative of woman--her legitimate appanage and heritage! I grant an\r
+ugly _woman_ is a blot on the fair face of creation; but as to the\r
+_gentlemen_, let them be solicitous to possess only strength and valour:\r
+let their motto be:--Hunt, shoot, and fight: the rest is not worth a\r
+fillip. Such should be my device, were I a man."\r
+\r
+"Whenever I marry," she continued after a pause which none interrupted,\r
+"I am resolved my husband shall not be a rival, but a foil to me. I will\r
+suffer no competitor near the throne; I shall exact an undivided homage:\r
+his devotions shall not be shared between me and the shape he sees in his\r
+mirror. Mr. Rochester, now sing, and I will play for you."\r
+\r
+"I am all obedience," was the response.\r
+\r
+"Here then is a Corsair-song. Know that I doat on Corsairs; and for that\r
+reason, sing it _con spirito_."\r
+\r
+"Commands from Miss Ingram's lips would put spirit into a mug of milk and\r
+water."\r
+\r
+"Take care, then: if you don't please me, I will shame you by showing how\r
+such things _should_ be done."\r
+\r
+"That is offering a premium on incapacity: I shall now endeavour to\r
+fail."\r
+\r
+"Gardez-vous en bien! If you err wilfully, I shall devise a\r
+proportionate punishment."\r
+\r
+"Miss Ingram ought to be clement, for she has it in her power to inflict\r
+a chastisement beyond mortal endurance."\r
+\r
+"Ha! explain!" commanded the lady.\r
+\r
+"Pardon me, madam: no need of explanation; your own fine sense must\r
+inform you that one of your frowns would be a sufficient substitute for\r
+capital punishment."\r
+\r
+"Sing!" said she, and again touching the piano, she commenced an\r
+accompaniment in spirited style.\r
+\r
+"Now is my time to slip away," thought I: but the tones that then severed\r
+the air arrested me. Mrs. Fairfax had said Mr. Rochester possessed a\r
+fine voice: he did--a mellow, powerful bass, into which he threw his own\r
+feeling, his own force; finding a way through the ear to the heart, and\r
+there waking sensation strangely. I waited till the last deep and full\r
+vibration had expired--till the tide of talk, checked an instant, had\r
+resumed its flow; I then quitted my sheltered corner and made my exit by\r
+the side-door, which was fortunately near. Thence a narrow passage led\r
+into the hall: in crossing it, I perceived my sandal was loose; I stopped\r
+to tie it, kneeling down for that purpose on the mat at the foot of the\r
+staircase. I heard the dining-room door unclose; a gentleman came out;\r
+rising hastily, I stood face to face with him: it was Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+"How do you do?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"I am very well, sir."\r
+\r
+"Why did you not come and speak to me in the room?"\r
+\r
+I thought I might have retorted the question on him who put it: but I\r
+would not take that freedom. I answered--\r
+\r
+"I did not wish to disturb you, as you seemed engaged, sir."\r
+\r
+"What have you been doing during my absence?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing particular; teaching Adele as usual."\r
+\r
+"And getting a good deal paler than you were--as I saw at first sight.\r
+What is the matter?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing at all, sir."\r
+\r
+"Did you take any cold that night you half drowned me?"\r
+\r
+"Not the least."\r
+\r
+"Return to the drawing-room: you are deserting too early."\r
+\r
+"I am tired, sir."\r
+\r
+He looked at me for a minute.\r
+\r
+"And a little depressed," he said. "What about? Tell me."\r
+\r
+"Nothing--nothing, sir. I am not depressed."\r
+\r
+"But I affirm that you are: so much depressed that a few more words would\r
+bring tears to your eyes--indeed, they are there now, shining and\r
+swimming; and a bead has slipped from the lash and fallen on to the flag.\r
+If I had time, and was not in mortal dread of some prating prig of a\r
+servant passing, I would know what all this means. Well, to-night I\r
+excuse you; but understand that so long as my visitors stay, I expect you\r
+to appear in the drawing-room every evening; it is my wish; don't neglect\r
+it. Now go, and send Sophie for Adele. Good-night, my--" He stopped,\r
+bit his lip, and abruptly left me.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Merry days were these at Thornfield Hall; and busy days too: how\r
+different from the first three months of stillness, monotony, and\r
+solitude I had passed beneath its roof! All sad feelings seemed now\r
+driven from the house, all gloomy associations forgotten: there was life\r
+everywhere, movement all day long. You could not now traverse the\r
+gallery, once so hushed, nor enter the front chambers, once so\r
+tenantless, without encountering a smart lady's-maid or a dandy valet.\r
+\r
+The kitchen, the butler's pantry, the servants' hall, the entrance hall,\r
+were equally alive; and the saloons were only left void and still when\r
+the blue sky and halcyon sunshine of the genial spring weather called\r
+their occupants out into the grounds. Even when that weather was broken,\r
+and continuous rain set in for some days, no damp seemed cast over\r
+enjoyment: indoor amusements only became more lively and varied, in\r
+consequence of the stop put to outdoor gaiety.\r
+\r
+I wondered what they were going to do the first evening a change of\r
+entertainment was proposed: they spoke of "playing charades," but in my\r
+ignorance I did not understand the term. The servants were called in,\r
+the dining-room tables wheeled away, the lights otherwise disposed, the\r
+chairs placed in a semicircle opposite the arch. While Mr. Rochester and\r
+the other gentlemen directed these alterations, the ladies were running\r
+up and down stairs ringing for their maids. Mrs. Fairfax was summoned to\r
+give information respecting the resources of the house in shawls,\r
+dresses, draperies of any kind; and certain wardrobes of the third storey\r
+were ransacked, and their contents, in the shape of brocaded and hooped\r
+petticoats, satin sacques, black modes, lace lappets, &c., were brought\r
+down in armfuls by the abigails; then a selection was made, and such\r
+things as were chosen were carried to the boudoir within the\r
+drawing-room.\r
+\r
+Meantime, Mr. Rochester had again summoned the ladies round him, and was\r
+selecting certain of their number to be of his party. "Miss Ingram is\r
+mine, of course," said he: afterwards he named the two Misses Eshton, and\r
+Mrs. Dent. He looked at me: I happened to be near him, as I had been\r
+fastening the clasp of Mrs. Dent's bracelet, which had got loose.\r
+\r
+"Will you play?" he asked. I shook my head. He did not insist, which I\r
+rather feared he would have done; he allowed me to return quietly to my\r
+usual seat.\r
+\r
+He and his aids now withdrew behind the curtain: the other party, which\r
+was headed by Colonel Dent, sat down on the crescent of chairs. One of\r
+the gentlemen, Mr. Eshton, observing me, seemed to propose that I should\r
+be asked to join them; but Lady Ingram instantly negatived the notion.\r
+\r
+"No," I heard her say: "she looks too stupid for any game of the sort."\r
+\r
+Ere long a bell tinkled, and the curtain drew up. Within the arch, the\r
+bulky figure of Sir George Lynn, whom Mr. Rochester had likewise chosen,\r
+was seen enveloped in a white sheet: before him, on a table, lay open a\r
+large book; and at his side stood Amy Eshton, draped in Mr. Rochester's\r
+cloak, and holding a book in her hand. Somebody, unseen, rang the bell\r
+merrily; then Adele (who had insisted on being one of her guardian's\r
+party), bounded forward, scattering round her the contents of a basket of\r
+flowers she carried on her arm. Then appeared the magnificent figure of\r
+Miss Ingram, clad in white, a long veil on her head, and a wreath of\r
+roses round her brow; by her side walked Mr. Rochester, and together they\r
+drew near the table. They knelt; while Mrs. Dent and Louisa Eshton,\r
+dressed also in white, took up their stations behind them. A ceremony\r
+followed, in dumb show, in which it was easy to recognise the pantomime\r
+of a marriage. At its termination, Colonel Dent and his party consulted\r
+in whispers for two minutes, then the Colonel called out--\r
+\r
+"Bride!" Mr. Rochester bowed, and the curtain fell.\r
+\r
+A considerable interval elapsed before it again rose. Its second rising\r
+displayed a more elaborately prepared scene than the last. The drawing-\r
+room, as I have before observed, was raised two steps above the dining-\r
+room, and on the top of the upper step, placed a yard or two back within\r
+the room, appeared a large marble basin--which I recognised as an\r
+ornament of the conservatory--where it usually stood, surrounded by\r
+exotics, and tenanted by gold fish--and whence it must have been\r
+transported with some trouble, on account of its size and weight.\r
+\r
+Seated on the carpet, by the side of this basin, was seen Mr. Rochester,\r
+costumed in shawls, with a turban on his head. His dark eyes and swarthy\r
+skin and Paynim features suited the costume exactly: he looked the very\r
+model of an Eastern emir, an agent or a victim of the bowstring.\r
+Presently advanced into view Miss Ingram. She, too, was attired in\r
+oriental fashion: a crimson scarf tied sash-like round the waist: an\r
+embroidered handkerchief knotted about her temples; her\r
+beautifully-moulded arms bare, one of them upraised in the act of\r
+supporting a pitcher, poised gracefully on her head. Both her cast of\r
+form and feature, her complexion and her general air, suggested the idea\r
+of some Israelitish princess of the patriarchal days; and such was\r
+doubtless the character she intended to represent.\r
+\r
+She approached the basin, and bent over it as if to fill her pitcher; she\r
+again lifted it to her head. The personage on the well-brink now seemed\r
+to accost her; to make some request:--"She hasted, let down her pitcher\r
+on her hand, and gave him to drink." From the bosom of his robe he then\r
+produced a casket, opened it and showed magnificent bracelets and\r
+earrings; she acted astonishment and admiration; kneeling, he laid the\r
+treasure at her feet; incredulity and delight were expressed by her looks\r
+and gestures; the stranger fastened the bracelets on her arms and the\r
+rings in her ears. It was Eliezer and Rebecca: the camels only were\r
+wanting.\r
+\r
+The divining party again laid their heads together: apparently they could\r
+not agree about the word or syllable the scene illustrated. Colonel\r
+Dent, their spokesman, demanded "the tableau of the whole;" whereupon the\r
+curtain again descended.\r
+\r
+On its third rising only a portion of the drawing-room was disclosed; the\r
+rest being concealed by a screen, hung with some sort of dark and coarse\r
+drapery. The marble basin was removed; in its place, stood a deal table\r
+and a kitchen chair: these objects were visible by a very dim light\r
+proceeding from a horn lantern, the wax candles being all extinguished.\r
+\r
+Amidst this sordid scene, sat a man with his clenched hands resting on\r
+his knees, and his eyes bent on the ground. I knew Mr. Rochester; though\r
+the begrimed face, the disordered dress (his coat hanging loose from one\r
+arm, as if it had been almost torn from his back in a scuffle), the\r
+desperate and scowling countenance, the rough, bristling hair might well\r
+have disguised him. As he moved, a chain clanked; to his wrists were\r
+attached fetters.\r
+\r
+"Bridewell!" exclaimed Colonel Dent, and the charade was solved.\r
+\r
+A sufficient interval having elapsed for the performers to resume their\r
+ordinary costume, they re-entered the dining-room. Mr. Rochester led in\r
+Miss Ingram; she was complimenting him on his acting.\r
+\r
+"Do you know," said she, "that, of the three characters, I liked you in\r
+the last best? Oh, had you but lived a few years earlier, what a gallant\r
+gentleman-highwayman you would have made!"\r
+\r
+"Is all the soot washed from my face?" he asked, turning it towards her.\r
+\r
+"Alas! yes: the more's the pity! Nothing could be more becoming to your\r
+complexion than that ruffian's rouge."\r
+\r
+"You would like a hero of the road then?"\r
+\r
+"An English hero of the road would be the next best thing to an Italian\r
+bandit; and that could only be surpassed by a Levantine pirate."\r
+\r
+"Well, whatever I am, remember you are my wife; we were married an hour\r
+since, in the presence of all these witnesses." She giggled, and her\r
+colour rose.\r
+\r
+"Now, Dent," continued Mr. Rochester, "it is your turn." And as the\r
+other party withdrew, he and his band took the vacated seats. Miss\r
+Ingram placed herself at her leader's right hand; the other diviners\r
+filled the chairs on each side of him and her. I did not now watch the\r
+actors; I no longer waited with interest for the curtain to rise; my\r
+attention was absorbed by the spectators; my eyes, erewhile fixed on the\r
+arch, were now irresistibly attracted to the semicircle of chairs. What\r
+charade Colonel Dent and his party played, what word they chose, how they\r
+acquitted themselves, I no longer remember; but I still see the\r
+consultation which followed each scene: I see Mr. Rochester turn to Miss\r
+Ingram, and Miss Ingram to him; I see her incline her head towards him,\r
+till the jetty curls almost touch his shoulder and wave against his\r
+cheek; I hear their mutual whisperings; I recall their interchanged\r
+glances; and something even of the feeling roused by the spectacle\r
+returns in memory at this moment.\r
+\r
+I have told you, reader, that I had learnt to love Mr. Rochester: I could\r
+not unlove him now, merely because I found that he had ceased to notice\r
+me--because I might pass hours in his presence, and he would never once\r
+turn his eyes in my direction--because I saw all his attentions\r
+appropriated by a great lady, who scorned to touch me with the hem of her\r
+robes as she passed; who, if ever her dark and imperious eye fell on me\r
+by chance, would withdraw it instantly as from an object too mean to\r
+merit observation. I could not unlove him, because I felt sure he would\r
+soon marry this very lady--because I read daily in her a proud security\r
+in his intentions respecting her--because I witnessed hourly in him a\r
+style of courtship which, if careless and choosing rather to be sought\r
+than to seek, was yet, in its very carelessness, captivating, and in its\r
+very pride, irresistible.\r
+\r
+There was nothing to cool or banish love in these circumstances, though\r
+much to create despair. Much too, you will think, reader, to engender\r
+jealousy: if a woman, in my position, could presume to be jealous of a\r
+woman in Miss Ingram's. But I was not jealous: or very rarely;--the\r
+nature of the pain I suffered could not be explained by that word. Miss\r
+Ingram was a mark beneath jealousy: she was too inferior to excite the\r
+feeling. Pardon the seeming paradox; I mean what I say. She was very\r
+showy, but she was not genuine: she had a fine person, many brilliant\r
+attainments; but her mind was poor, her heart barren by nature: nothing\r
+bloomed spontaneously on that soil; no unforced natural fruit delighted\r
+by its freshness. She was not good; she was not original: she used to\r
+repeat sounding phrases from books: she never offered, nor had, an\r
+opinion of her own. She advocated a high tone of sentiment; but she did\r
+not know the sensations of sympathy and pity; tenderness and truth were\r
+not in her. Too often she betrayed this, by the undue vent she gave to a\r
+spiteful antipathy she had conceived against little Adele: pushing her\r
+away with some contumelious epithet if she happened to approach her;\r
+sometimes ordering her from the room, and always treating her with\r
+coldness and acrimony. Other eyes besides mine watched these\r
+manifestations of character--watched them closely, keenly, shrewdly. Yes;\r
+the future bridegroom, Mr. Rochester himself, exercised over his intended\r
+a ceaseless surveillance; and it was from this sagacity--this guardedness\r
+of his--this perfect, clear consciousness of his fair one's defects--this\r
+obvious absence of passion in his sentiments towards her, that my ever-\r
+torturing pain arose.\r
+\r
+I saw he was going to marry her, for family, perhaps political reasons,\r
+because her rank and connections suited him; I felt he had not given her\r
+his love, and that her qualifications were ill adapted to win from him\r
+that treasure. This was the point--this was where the nerve was touched\r
+and teased--this was where the fever was sustained and fed: _she could\r
+not charm him_.\r
+\r
+If she had managed the victory at once, and he had yielded and sincerely\r
+laid his heart at her feet, I should have covered my face, turned to the\r
+wall, and (figuratively) have died to them. If Miss Ingram had been a\r
+good and noble woman, endowed with force, fervour, kindness, sense, I\r
+should have had one vital struggle with two tigers--jealousy and despair:\r
+then, my heart torn out and devoured, I should have admired\r
+her--acknowledged her excellence, and been quiet for the rest of my days:\r
+and the more absolute her superiority, the deeper would have been my\r
+admiration--the more truly tranquil my quiescence. But as matters really\r
+stood, to watch Miss Ingram's efforts at fascinating Mr. Rochester, to\r
+witness their repeated failure--herself unconscious that they did fail;\r
+vainly fancying that each shaft launched hit the mark, and infatuatedly\r
+pluming herself on success, when her pride and self-complacency repelled\r
+further and further what she wished to allure--to witness _this_, was to\r
+be at once under ceaseless excitation and ruthless restraint.\r
+\r
+Because, when she failed, I saw how she might have succeeded. Arrows\r
+that continually glanced off from Mr. Rochester's breast and fell\r
+harmless at his feet, might, I knew, if shot by a surer hand, have\r
+quivered keen in his proud heart--have called love into his stern eye,\r
+and softness into his sardonic face; or, better still, without weapons a\r
+silent conquest might have been won.\r
+\r
+"Why can she not influence him more, when she is privileged to draw so\r
+near to him?" I asked myself. "Surely she cannot truly like him, or not\r
+like him with true affection! If she did, she need not coin her smiles\r
+so lavishly, flash her glances so unremittingly, manufacture airs so\r
+elaborate, graces so multitudinous. It seems to me that she might, by\r
+merely sitting quietly at his side, saying little and looking less, get\r
+nigher his heart. I have seen in his face a far different expression\r
+from that which hardens it now while she is so vivaciously accosting him;\r
+but then it came of itself: it was not elicited by meretricious arts and\r
+calculated manoeuvres; and one had but to accept it--to answer what he\r
+asked without pretension, to address him when needful without grimace--and\r
+it increased and grew kinder and more genial, and warmed one like a\r
+fostering sunbeam. How will she manage to please him when they are\r
+married? I do not think she will manage it; and yet it might be managed;\r
+and his wife might, I verily believe, be the very happiest woman the sun\r
+shines on."\r
+\r
+I have not yet said anything condemnatory of Mr. Rochester's project of\r
+marrying for interest and connections. It surprised me when I first\r
+discovered that such was his intention: I had thought him a man unlikely\r
+to be influenced by motives so commonplace in his choice of a wife; but\r
+the longer I considered the position, education, &c., of the parties, the\r
+less I felt justified in judging and blaming either him or Miss Ingram\r
+for acting in conformity to ideas and principles instilled into them,\r
+doubtless, from their childhood. All their class held these principles:\r
+I supposed, then, they had reasons for holding them such as I could not\r
+fathom. It seemed to me that, were I a gentleman like him, I would take\r
+to my bosom only such a wife as I could love; but the very obviousness of\r
+the advantages to the husband's own happiness offered by this plan\r
+convinced me that there must be arguments against its general adoption of\r
+which I was quite ignorant: otherwise I felt sure all the world would act\r
+as I wished to act.\r
+\r
+But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my\r
+master: I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a\r
+sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of\r
+his character: to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing\r
+of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad. The sarcasm\r
+that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only\r
+like keen condiments in a choice dish: their presence was pungent, but\r
+their absence would be felt as comparatively insipid. And as for the\r
+vague something--was it a sinister or a sorrowful, a designing or a\r
+desponding expression?--that opened upon a careful observer, now and\r
+then, in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange\r
+depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and\r
+shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills, and\r
+had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape: that something, I,\r
+at intervals, beheld still; and with throbbing heart, but not with\r
+palsied nerves. Instead of wishing to shun, I longed only to dare--to\r
+divine it; and I thought Miss Ingram happy, because one day she might\r
+look into the abyss at her leisure, explore its secrets and analyse their\r
+nature.\r
+\r
+Meantime, while I thought only of my master and his future bride--saw\r
+only them, heard only their discourse, and considered only their\r
+movements of importance--the rest of the party were occupied with their\r
+own separate interests and pleasures. The Ladies Lynn and Ingram\r
+continued to consort in solemn conferences, where they nodded their two\r
+turbans at each other, and held up their four hands in confronting\r
+gestures of surprise, or mystery, or horror, according to the theme on\r
+which their gossip ran, like a pair of magnified puppets. Mild Mrs. Dent\r
+talked with good-natured Mrs. Eshton; and the two sometimes bestowed a\r
+courteous word or smile on me. Sir George Lynn, Colonel Dent, and Mr.\r
+Eshton discussed politics, or county affairs, or justice business. Lord\r
+Ingram flirted with Amy Eshton; Louisa played and sang to and with one of\r
+the Messrs. Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant\r
+speeches of the other. Sometimes all, as with one consent, suspended\r
+their by-play to observe and listen to the principal actors: for, after\r
+all, Mr. Rochester and--because closely connected with him--Miss Ingram\r
+were the life and soul of the party. If he was absent from the room an\r
+hour, a perceptible dulness seemed to steal over the spirits of his\r
+guests; and his re-entrance was sure to give a fresh impulse to the\r
+vivacity of conversation.\r
+\r
+The want of his animating influence appeared to be peculiarly felt one\r
+day that he had been summoned to Millcote on business, and was not likely\r
+to return till late. The afternoon was wet: a walk the party had\r
+proposed to take to see a gipsy camp, lately pitched on a common beyond\r
+Hay, was consequently deferred. Some of the gentlemen were gone to the\r
+stables: the younger ones, together with the younger ladies, were playing\r
+billiards in the billiard-room. The dowagers Ingram and Lynn sought\r
+solace in a quiet game at cards. Blanche Ingram, after having repelled,\r
+by supercilious taciturnity, some efforts of Mrs. Dent and Mrs. Eshton to\r
+draw her into conversation, had first murmured over some sentimental\r
+tunes and airs on the piano, and then, having fetched a novel from the\r
+library, had flung herself in haughty listlessness on a sofa, and\r
+prepared to beguile, by the spell of fiction, the tedious hours of\r
+absence. The room and the house were silent: only now and then the\r
+merriment of the billiard-players was heard from above.\r
+\r
+It was verging on dusk, and the clock had already given warning of the\r
+hour to dress for dinner, when little Adele, who knelt by me in the\r
+drawing-room window-seat, suddenly exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Voila, Monsieur Rochester, qui revient!"\r
+\r
+I turned, and Miss Ingram darted forwards from her sofa: the others, too,\r
+looked up from their several occupations; for at the same time a\r
+crunching of wheels and a splashing tramp of horse-hoofs became audible\r
+on the wet gravel. A post-chaise was approaching.\r
+\r
+"What can possess him to come home in that style?" said Miss Ingram. "He\r
+rode Mesrour (the black horse), did he not, when he went out? and Pilot\r
+was with him:--what has he done with the animals?"\r
+\r
+As she said this, she approached her tall person and ample garments so\r
+near the window, that I was obliged to bend back almost to the breaking\r
+of my spine: in her eagerness she did not observe me at first, but when\r
+she did, she curled her lip and moved to another casement. The\r
+post-chaise stopped; the driver rang the door-bell, and a gentleman\r
+alighted attired in travelling garb; but it was not Mr. Rochester; it was\r
+a tall, fashionable-looking man, a stranger.\r
+\r
+"How provoking!" exclaimed Miss Ingram: "you tiresome monkey!"\r
+(apostrophising Adele), "who perched you up in the window to give false\r
+intelligence?" and she cast on me an angry glance, as if I were in fault.\r
+\r
+Some parleying was audible in the hall, and soon the new-comer entered.\r
+He bowed to Lady Ingram, as deeming her the eldest lady present.\r
+\r
+"It appears I come at an inopportune time, madam," said he, "when my\r
+friend, Mr. Rochester, is from home; but I arrive from a very long\r
+journey, and I think I may presume so far on old and intimate\r
+acquaintance as to instal myself here till he returns."\r
+\r
+His manner was polite; his accent, in speaking, struck me as being\r
+somewhat unusual,--not precisely foreign, but still not altogether\r
+English: his age might be about Mr. Rochester's,--between thirty and\r
+forty; his complexion was singularly sallow: otherwise he was a\r
+fine-looking man, at first sight especially. On closer examination, you\r
+detected something in his face that displeased, or rather that failed to\r
+please. His features were regular, but too relaxed: his eye was large\r
+and well cut, but the life looking out of it was a tame, vacant life--at\r
+least so I thought.\r
+\r
+The sound of the dressing-bell dispersed the party. It was not till\r
+after dinner that I saw him again: he then seemed quite at his ease. But\r
+I liked his physiognomy even less than before: it struck me as being at\r
+the same time unsettled and inanimate. His eye wandered, and had no\r
+meaning in its wandering: this gave him an odd look, such as I never\r
+remembered to have seen. For a handsome and not an unamiable-looking\r
+man, he repelled me exceedingly: there was no power in that\r
+smooth-skinned face of a full oval shape: no firmness in that aquiline\r
+nose and small cherry mouth; there was no thought on the low, even\r
+forehead; no command in that blank, brown eye.\r
+\r
+As I sat in my usual nook, and looked at him with the light of the\r
+girandoles on the mantelpiece beaming full over him--for he occupied an\r
+arm-chair drawn close to the fire, and kept shrinking still nearer, as if\r
+he were cold, I compared him with Mr. Rochester. I think (with deference\r
+be it spoken) the contrast could not be much greater between a sleek\r
+gander and a fierce falcon: between a meek sheep and the rough-coated\r
+keen-eyed dog, its guardian.\r
+\r
+He had spoken of Mr. Rochester as an old friend. A curious friendship\r
+theirs must have been: a pointed illustration, indeed, of the old adage\r
+that "extremes meet."\r
+\r
+Two or three of the gentlemen sat near him, and I caught at times scraps\r
+of their conversation across the room. At first I could not make much\r
+sense of what I heard; for the discourse of Louisa Eshton and Mary\r
+Ingram, who sat nearer to me, confused the fragmentary sentences that\r
+reached me at intervals. These last were discussing the stranger; they\r
+both called him "a beautiful man." Louisa said he was "a love of a\r
+creature," and she "adored him;" and Mary instanced his "pretty little\r
+mouth, and nice nose," as her ideal of the charming.\r
+\r
+"And what a sweet-tempered forehead he has!" cried Louisa,--"so\r
+smooth--none of those frowning irregularities I dislike so much; and such\r
+a placid eye and smile!"\r
+\r
+And then, to my great relief, Mr. Henry Lynn summoned them to the other\r
+side of the room, to settle some point about the deferred excursion to\r
+Hay Common.\r
+\r
+I was now able to concentrate my attention on the group by the fire, and\r
+I presently gathered that the new-comer was called Mr. Mason; then I\r
+learned that he was but just arrived in England, and that he came from\r
+some hot country: which was the reason, doubtless, his face was so\r
+sallow, and that he sat so near the hearth, and wore a surtout in the\r
+house. Presently the words Jamaica, Kingston, Spanish Town, indicated\r
+the West Indies as his residence; and it was with no little surprise I\r
+gathered, ere long, that he had there first seen and become acquainted\r
+with Mr. Rochester. He spoke of his friend's dislike of the burning\r
+heats, the hurricanes, and rainy seasons of that region. I knew Mr.\r
+Rochester had been a traveller: Mrs. Fairfax had said so; but I thought\r
+the continent of Europe had bounded his wanderings; till now I had never\r
+heard a hint given of visits to more distant shores.\r
+\r
+I was pondering these things, when an incident, and a somewhat unexpected\r
+one, broke the thread of my musings. Mr. Mason, shivering as some one\r
+chanced to open the door, asked for more coal to be put on the fire,\r
+which had burnt out its flame, though its mass of cinder still shone hot\r
+and red. The footman who brought the coal, in going out, stopped near\r
+Mr. Eshton's chair, and said something to him in a low voice, of which I\r
+heard only the words, "old woman,"--"quite troublesome."\r
+\r
+"Tell her she shall be put in the stocks if she does not take herself\r
+off," replied the magistrate.\r
+\r
+"No--stop!" interrupted Colonel Dent. "Don't send her away, Eshton; we\r
+might turn the thing to account; better consult the ladies." And\r
+speaking aloud, he continued--"Ladies, you talked of going to Hay Common\r
+to visit the gipsy camp; Sam here says that one of the old Mother Bunches\r
+is in the servants' hall at this moment, and insists upon being brought\r
+in before 'the quality,' to tell them their fortunes. Would you like to\r
+see her?"\r
+\r
+"Surely, colonel," cried Lady Ingram, "you would not encourage such a low\r
+impostor? Dismiss her, by all means, at once!"\r
+\r
+"But I cannot persuade her to go away, my lady," said the footman; "nor\r
+can any of the servants: Mrs. Fairfax is with her just now, entreating\r
+her to be gone; but she has taken a chair in the chimney-corner, and says\r
+nothing shall stir her from it till she gets leave to come in here."\r
+\r
+"What does she want?" asked Mrs. Eshton.\r
+\r
+"'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she\r
+must and will do it."\r
+\r
+"What is she like?" inquired the Misses Eshton, in a breath.\r
+\r
+"A shockingly ugly old creature, miss; almost as black as a crock."\r
+\r
+"Why, she's a real sorceress!" cried Frederick Lynn. "Let us have her\r
+in, of course."\r
+\r
+"To be sure," rejoined his brother; "it would be a thousand pities to\r
+throw away such a chance of fun."\r
+\r
+"My dear boys, what are you thinking about?" exclaimed Mrs. Lynn.\r
+\r
+"I cannot possibly countenance any such inconsistent proceeding," chimed\r
+in the Dowager Ingram.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, mama, but you can--and will," pronounced the haughty voice of\r
+Blanche, as she turned round on the piano-stool; where till now she had\r
+sat silent, apparently examining sundry sheets of music. "I have a\r
+curiosity to hear my fortune told: therefore, Sam, order the beldame\r
+forward."\r
+\r
+"My darling Blanche! recollect--"\r
+\r
+"I do--I recollect all you can suggest; and I must have my will--quick,\r
+Sam!"\r
+\r
+"Yes--yes--yes!" cried all the juveniles, both ladies and gentlemen. "Let\r
+her come--it will be excellent sport!"\r
+\r
+The footman still lingered. "She looks such a rough one," said he.\r
+\r
+"Go!" ejaculated Miss Ingram, and the man went.\r
+\r
+Excitement instantly seized the whole party: a running fire of raillery\r
+and jests was proceeding when Sam returned.\r
+\r
+"She won't come now," said he. "She says it's not her mission to appear\r
+before the 'vulgar herd' (them's her words). I must show her into a room\r
+by herself, and then those who wish to consult her must go to her one by\r
+one."\r
+\r
+"You see now, my queenly Blanche," began Lady Ingram, "she encroaches. Be\r
+advised, my angel girl--and--"\r
+\r
+"Show her into the library, of course," cut in the "angel girl." "It is\r
+not my mission to listen to her before the vulgar herd either: I mean to\r
+have her all to myself. Is there a fire in the library?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am--but she looks such a tinkler."\r
+\r
+"Cease that chatter, blockhead! and do my bidding."\r
+\r
+Again Sam vanished; and mystery, animation, expectation rose to full flow\r
+once more.\r
+\r
+"She's ready now," said the footman, as he reappeared. "She wishes to\r
+know who will be her first visitor."\r
+\r
+"I think I had better just look in upon her before any of the ladies go,"\r
+said Colonel Dent.\r
+\r
+"Tell her, Sam, a gentleman is coming."\r
+\r
+Sam went and returned.\r
+\r
+"She says, sir, that she'll have no gentlemen; they need not trouble\r
+themselves to come near her; nor," he added, with difficulty suppressing\r
+a titter, "any ladies either, except the young, and single."\r
+\r
+"By Jove, she has taste!" exclaimed Henry Lynn.\r
+\r
+Miss Ingram rose solemnly: "I go first," she said, in a tone which might\r
+have befitted the leader of a forlorn hope, mounting a breach in the van\r
+of his men.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my best! oh, my dearest! pause--reflect!" was her mama's cry; but\r
+she swept past her in stately silence, passed through the door which\r
+Colonel Dent held open, and we heard her enter the library.\r
+\r
+A comparative silence ensued. Lady Ingram thought it "le cas" to wring\r
+her hands: which she did accordingly. Miss Mary declared she felt, for\r
+her part, she never dared venture. Amy and Louisa Eshton tittered under\r
+their breath, and looked a little frightened.\r
+\r
+The minutes passed very slowly: fifteen were counted before the library-\r
+door again opened. Miss Ingram returned to us through the arch.\r
+\r
+Would she laugh? Would she take it as a joke? All eyes met her with a\r
+glance of eager curiosity, and she met all eyes with one of rebuff and\r
+coldness; she looked neither flurried nor merry: she walked stiffly to\r
+her seat, and took it in silence.\r
+\r
+"Well, Blanche?" said Lord Ingram.\r
+\r
+"What did she say, sister?" asked Mary.\r
+\r
+"What did you think? How do you feel?--Is she a real fortune-teller?"\r
+demanded the Misses Eshton.\r
+\r
+"Now, now, good people," returned Miss Ingram, "don't press upon me.\r
+Really your organs of wonder and credulity are easily excited: you seem,\r
+by the importance of you all--my good mama included--ascribe to this\r
+matter, absolutely to believe we have a genuine witch in the house, who\r
+is in close alliance with the old gentleman. I have seen a gipsy\r
+vagabond; she has practised in hackneyed fashion the science of palmistry\r
+and told me what such people usually tell. My whim is gratified; and now\r
+I think Mr. Eshton will do well to put the hag in the stocks to-morrow\r
+morning, as he threatened."\r
+\r
+Miss Ingram took a book, leant back in her chair, and so declined further\r
+conversation. I watched her for nearly half-an-hour: during all that\r
+time she never turned a page, and her face grew momently darker, more\r
+dissatisfied, and more sourly expressive of disappointment. She had\r
+obviously not heard anything to her advantage: and it seemed to me, from\r
+her prolonged fit of gloom and taciturnity, that she herself,\r
+notwithstanding her professed indifference, attached undue importance to\r
+whatever revelations had been made her.\r
+\r
+{During all that time she never turned a page: p184.jpg}\r
+\r
+Meantime, Mary Ingram, Amy and Louisa Eshton, declared they dared not go\r
+alone; and yet they all wished to go. A negotiation was opened through\r
+the medium of the ambassador, Sam; and after much pacing to and fro,\r
+till, I think, the said Sam's calves must have ached with the exercise,\r
+permission was at last, with great difficulty, extorted from the rigorous\r
+Sibyl, for the three to wait upon her in a body.\r
+\r
+Their visit was not so still as Miss Ingram's had been: we heard\r
+hysterical giggling and little shrieks proceeding from the library; and\r
+at the end of about twenty minutes they burst the door open, and came\r
+running across the hall, as if they were half-scared out of their wits.\r
+\r
+"I am sure she is something not right!" they cried, one and all. "She\r
+told us such things! She knows all about us!" and they sank breathless\r
+into the various seats the gentlemen hastened to bring them.\r
+\r
+Pressed for further explanation, they declared she had told them of\r
+things they had said and done when they were mere children; described\r
+books and ornaments they had in their boudoirs at home: keepsakes that\r
+different relations had presented to them. They affirmed that she had\r
+even divined their thoughts, and had whispered in the ear of each the\r
+name of the person she liked best in the world, and informed them of what\r
+they most wished for.\r
+\r
+Here the gentlemen interposed with earnest petitions to be further\r
+enlightened on these two last-named points; but they got only blushes,\r
+ejaculations, tremors, and titters, in return for their importunity. The\r
+matrons, meantime, offered vinaigrettes and wielded fans; and again and\r
+again reiterated the expression of their concern that their warning had\r
+not been taken in time; and the elder gentlemen laughed, and the younger\r
+urged their services on the agitated fair ones.\r
+\r
+In the midst of the tumult, and while my eyes and ears were fully engaged\r
+in the scene before me, I heard a hem close at my elbow: I turned, and\r
+saw Sam.\r
+\r
+"If you please, miss, the gipsy declares that there is another young\r
+single lady in the room who has not been to her yet, and she swears she\r
+will not go till she has seen all. I thought it must be you: there is no\r
+one else for it. What shall I tell her?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I will go by all means," I answered: and I was glad of the\r
+unexpected opportunity to gratify my much-excited curiosity. I slipped\r
+out of the room, unobserved by any eye--for the company were gathered in\r
+one mass about the trembling trio just returned--and I closed the door\r
+quietly behind me.\r
+\r
+"If you like, miss," said Sam, "I'll wait in the hall for you; and if she\r
+frightens you, just call and I'll come in."\r
+\r
+"No, Sam, return to the kitchen: I am not in the least afraid." Nor was\r
+I; but I was a good deal interested and excited.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+\r
+The library looked tranquil enough as I entered it, and the Sibyl--if\r
+Sibyl she were--was seated snugly enough in an easy-chair at the chimney-\r
+corner. She had on a red cloak and a black bonnet: or rather, a broad-\r
+brimmed gipsy hat, tied down with a striped handkerchief under her chin.\r
+An extinguished candle stood on the table; she was bending over the fire,\r
+and seemed reading in a little black book, like a prayer-book, by the\r
+light of the blaze: she muttered the words to herself, as most old women\r
+do, while she read; she did not desist immediately on my entrance: it\r
+appeared she wished to finish a paragraph.\r
+\r
+I stood on the rug and warmed my hands, which were rather cold with\r
+sitting at a distance from the drawing-room fire. I felt now as composed\r
+as ever I did in my life: there was nothing indeed in the gipsy's\r
+appearance to trouble one's calm. She shut her book and slowly looked\r
+up; her hat-brim partially shaded her face, yet I could see, as she\r
+raised it, that it was a strange one. It looked all brown and black: elf-\r
+locks bristled out from beneath a white band which passed under her chin,\r
+and came half over her cheeks, or rather jaws: her eye confronted me at\r
+once, with a bold and direct gaze.\r
+\r
+"Well, and you want your fortune told?" she said, in a voice as decided\r
+as her glance, as harsh as her features.\r
+\r
+"I don't care about it, mother; you may please yourself: but I ought to\r
+warn you, I have no faith."\r
+\r
+"It's like your impudence to say so: I expected it of you; I heard it in\r
+your step as you crossed the threshold."\r
+\r
+"Did you? You've a quick ear."\r
+\r
+"I have; and a quick eye and a quick brain."\r
+\r
+"You need them all in your trade."\r
+\r
+"I do; especially when I've customers like you to deal with. Why don't\r
+you tremble?"\r
+\r
+"I'm not cold."\r
+\r
+"Why don't you turn pale?"\r
+\r
+"I am not sick."\r
+\r
+"Why don't you consult my art?"\r
+\r
+"I'm not silly."\r
+\r
+The old crone "nichered" a laugh under her bonnet and bandage; she then\r
+drew out a short black pipe, and lighting it began to smoke. Having\r
+indulged a while in this sedative, she raised her bent body, took the\r
+pipe from her lips, and while gazing steadily at the fire, said very\r
+deliberately--"You are cold; you are sick; and you are silly."\r
+\r
+"Prove it," I rejoined.\r
+\r
+"I will, in few words. You are cold, because you are alone: no contact\r
+strikes the fire from you that is in you. You are sick; because the best\r
+of feelings, the highest and the sweetest given to man, keeps far away\r
+from you. You are silly, because, suffer as you may, you will not beckon\r
+it to approach, nor will you stir one step to meet it where it waits\r
+you."\r
+\r
+She again put her short black pipe to her lips, and renewed her smoking\r
+with vigour.\r
+\r
+"You might say all that to almost any one who you knew lived as a\r
+solitary dependent in a great house."\r
+\r
+"I might say it to almost any one: but would it be true of almost any\r
+one?"\r
+\r
+"In my circumstances."\r
+\r
+"Yes; just so, in _your_ circumstances: but find me another precisely\r
+placed as you are."\r
+\r
+"It would be easy to find you thousands."\r
+\r
+"You could scarcely find me one. If you knew it, you are peculiarly\r
+situated: very near happiness; yes, within reach of it. The materials\r
+are all prepared; there only wants a movement to combine them. Chance\r
+laid them somewhat apart; let them be once approached and bliss results."\r
+\r
+"I don't understand enigmas. I never could guess a riddle in my life."\r
+\r
+"If you wish me to speak more plainly, show me your palm."\r
+\r
+"And I must cross it with silver, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"To be sure."\r
+\r
+I gave her a shilling: she put it into an old stocking-foot which she\r
+took out of her pocket, and having tied it round and returned it, she\r
+told me to hold out my hand. I did. She approached her face to the\r
+palm, and pored over it without touching it.\r
+\r
+"It is too fine," said she. "I can make nothing of such a hand as that;\r
+almost without lines: besides, what is in a palm? Destiny is not written\r
+there."\r
+\r
+"I believe you," said I.\r
+\r
+"No," she continued, "it is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes,\r
+in the lines of the mouth. Kneel, and lift up your head."\r
+\r
+"Ah! now you are coming to reality," I said, as I obeyed her. "I shall\r
+begin to put some faith in you presently."\r
+\r
+I knelt within half a yard of her. She stirred the fire, so that a\r
+ripple of light broke from the disturbed coal: the glare, however, as she\r
+sat, only threw her face into deeper shadow: mine, it illumined.\r
+\r
+"I wonder with what feelings you came to me to-night," she said, when she\r
+had examined me a while. "I wonder what thoughts are busy in your heart\r
+during all the hours you sit in yonder room with the fine people flitting\r
+before you like shapes in a magic-lantern: just as little sympathetic\r
+communion passing between you and them as if they were really mere\r
+shadows of human forms, and not the actual substance."\r
+\r
+"I feel tired often, sleepy sometimes, but seldom sad."\r
+\r
+"Then you have some secret hope to buoy you up and please you with\r
+whispers of the future?"\r
+\r
+"Not I. The utmost I hope is, to save money enough out of my earnings to\r
+set up a school some day in a little house rented by myself."\r
+\r
+"A mean nutriment for the spirit to exist on: and sitting in that window-\r
+seat (you see I know your habits )--"\r
+\r
+"You have learned them from the servants."\r
+\r
+"Ah! you think yourself sharp. Well, perhaps I have: to speak truth, I\r
+have an acquaintance with one of them, Mrs. Poole--"\r
+\r
+I started to my feet when I heard the name.\r
+\r
+"You have--have you?" thought I; "there is diablerie in the business\r
+after all, then!"\r
+\r
+"Don't be alarmed," continued the strange being; "she's a safe hand is\r
+Mrs. Poole: close and quiet; any one may repose confidence in her. But,\r
+as I was saying: sitting in that window-seat, do you think of nothing but\r
+your future school? Have you no present interest in any of the company\r
+who occupy the sofas and chairs before you? Is there not one face you\r
+study? one figure whose movements you follow with at least curiosity?"\r
+\r
+"I like to observe all the faces and all the figures."\r
+\r
+"But do you never single one from the rest--or it may be, two?"\r
+\r
+"I do frequently; when the gestures or looks of a pair seem telling a\r
+tale: it amuses me to watch them."\r
+\r
+"What tale do you like best to hear?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have not much choice! They generally run on the same\r
+theme--courtship; and promise to end in the same catastrophe--marriage."\r
+\r
+"And do you like that monotonous theme?"\r
+\r
+"Positively, I don't care about it: it is nothing to me."\r
+\r
+"Nothing to you? When a lady, young and full of life and health,\r
+charming with beauty and endowed with the gifts of rank and fortune, sits\r
+and smiles in the eyes of a gentleman you--"\r
+\r
+"I what?"\r
+\r
+"You know--and perhaps think well of."\r
+\r
+"I don't know the gentlemen here. I have scarcely interchanged a\r
+syllable with one of them; and as to thinking well of them, I consider\r
+some respectable, and stately, and middle-aged, and others young,\r
+dashing, handsome, and lively: but certainly they are all at liberty to\r
+be the recipients of whose smiles they please, without my feeling\r
+disposed to consider the transaction of any moment to me."\r
+\r
+"You don't know the gentlemen here? You have not exchanged a syllable\r
+with one of them? Will you say that of the master of the house!"\r
+\r
+"He is not at home."\r
+\r
+"A profound remark! A most ingenious quibble! He went to Millcote this\r
+morning, and will be back here to-night or to-morrow: does that\r
+circumstance exclude him from the list of your acquaintance--blot him, as\r
+it were, out of existence?"\r
+\r
+"No; but I can scarcely see what Mr. Rochester has to do with the theme\r
+you had introduced."\r
+\r
+"I was talking of ladies smiling in the eyes of gentlemen; and of late so\r
+many smiles have been shed into Mr. Rochester's eyes that they overflow\r
+like two cups filled above the brim: have you never remarked that?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester has a right to enjoy the society of his guests."\r
+\r
+"No question about his right: but have you never observed that, of all\r
+the tales told here about matrimony, Mr. Rochester has been favoured with\r
+the most lively and the most continuous?"\r
+\r
+"The eagerness of a listener quickens the tongue of a narrator." I said\r
+this rather to myself than to the gipsy, whose strange talk, voice,\r
+manner, had by this time wrapped me in a kind of dream. One unexpected\r
+sentence came from her lips after another, till I got involved in a web\r
+of mystification; and wondered what unseen spirit had been sitting for\r
+weeks by my heart watching its workings and taking record of every pulse.\r
+\r
+"Eagerness of a listener!" repeated she: "yes; Mr. Rochester has sat by\r
+the hour, his ear inclined to the fascinating lips that took such delight\r
+in their task of communicating; and Mr. Rochester was so willing to\r
+receive and looked so grateful for the pastime given him; you have\r
+noticed this?"\r
+\r
+"Grateful! I cannot remember detecting gratitude in his face."\r
+\r
+"Detecting! You have analysed, then. And what did you detect, if not\r
+gratitude?"\r
+\r
+I said nothing.\r
+\r
+"You have seen love: have you not?--and, looking forward, you have seen\r
+him married, and beheld his bride happy?"\r
+\r
+"Humph! Not exactly. Your witch's skill is rather at fault sometimes."\r
+\r
+"What the devil have you seen, then?"\r
+\r
+"Never mind: I came here to inquire, not to confess. Is it known that\r
+Mr. Rochester is to be married?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; and to the beautiful Miss Ingram."\r
+\r
+"Shortly?"\r
+\r
+"Appearances would warrant that conclusion: and, no doubt (though, with\r
+an audacity that wants chastising out of you, you seem to question it),\r
+they will be a superlatively happy pair. He must love such a handsome,\r
+noble, witty, accomplished lady; and probably she loves him, or, if not\r
+his person, at least his purse. I know she considers the Rochester\r
+estate eligible to the last degree; though (God pardon me!) I told her\r
+something on that point about an hour ago which made her look wondrous\r
+grave: the corners of her mouth fell half an inch. I would advise her\r
+blackaviced suitor to look out: if another comes, with a longer or\r
+clearer rent-roll,--he's dished--"\r
+\r
+"But, mother, I did not come to hear Mr. Rochester's fortune: I came to\r
+hear my own; and you have told me nothing of it."\r
+\r
+"Your fortune is yet doubtful: when I examined your face, one trait\r
+contradicted another. Chance has meted you a measure of happiness: that\r
+I know. I knew it before I came here this evening. She has laid it\r
+carefully on one side for you. I saw her do it. It depends on yourself\r
+to stretch out your hand, and take it up: but whether you will do so, is\r
+the problem I study. Kneel again on the rug."\r
+\r
+"Don't keep me long; the fire scorches me."\r
+\r
+{She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in her chair:\r
+p190.jpg}\r
+\r
+I knelt. She did not stoop towards me, but only gazed, leaning back in\r
+her chair. She began muttering,--\r
+\r
+"The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft\r
+and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible;\r
+impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases\r
+to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that\r
+signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it\r
+will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance,\r
+the truth of the discoveries I have already made,--to disown the charge\r
+both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in\r
+my opinion. The eye is favourable.\r
+\r
+"As to the mouth, it delights at times in laughter; it is disposed to\r
+impart all that the brain conceives; though I daresay it would be silent\r
+on much the heart experiences. Mobile and flexible, it was never\r
+intended to be compressed in the eternal silence of solitude: it is a\r
+mouth which should speak much and smile often, and have human affection\r
+for its interlocutor. That feature too is propitious.\r
+\r
+"I see no enemy to a fortunate issue but in the brow; and that brow\r
+professes to say,--'I can live alone, if self-respect, and circumstances\r
+require me so to do. I need not sell my soul to buy bliss. I have an\r
+inward treasure born with me, which can keep me alive if all extraneous\r
+delights should be withheld, or offered only at a price I cannot afford\r
+to give.' The forehead declares, 'Reason sits firm and holds the reins,\r
+and she will not let the feelings burst away and hurry her to wild\r
+chasms. The passions may rage furiously, like true heathens, as they\r
+are; and the desires may imagine all sorts of vain things: but judgment\r
+shall still have the last word in every argument, and the casting vote in\r
+every decision. Strong wind, earthquake-shock, and fire may pass by: but\r
+I shall follow the guiding of that still small voice which interprets the\r
+dictates of conscience.'\r
+\r
+"Well said, forehead; your declaration shall be respected. I have formed\r
+my plans--right plans I deem them--and in them I have attended to the\r
+claims of conscience, the counsels of reason. I know how soon youth\r
+would fade and bloom perish, if, in the cup of bliss offered, but one\r
+dreg of shame, or one flavour of remorse were detected; and I do not want\r
+sacrifice, sorrow, dissolution--such is not my taste. I wish to foster,\r
+not to blight--to earn gratitude, not to wring tears of blood--no, nor of\r
+brine: my harvest must be in smiles, in endearments, in sweet--That will\r
+do. I think I rave in a kind of exquisite delirium. I should wish now\r
+to protract this moment _ad infinitum_; but I dare not. So far I have\r
+governed myself thoroughly. I have acted as I inwardly swore I would\r
+act; but further might try me beyond my strength. Rise, Miss Eyre: leave\r
+me; the play is played out'."\r
+\r
+Where was I? Did I wake or sleep? Had I been dreaming? Did I dream\r
+still? The old woman's voice had changed: her accent, her gesture, and\r
+all were familiar to me as my own face in a glass--as the speech of my\r
+own tongue. I got up, but did not go. I looked; I stirred the fire, and\r
+I looked again: but she drew her bonnet and her bandage closer about her\r
+face, and again beckoned me to depart. The flame illuminated her hand\r
+stretched out: roused now, and on the alert for discoveries, I at once\r
+noticed that hand. It was no more the withered limb of eld than my own;\r
+it was a rounded supple member, with smooth fingers, symmetrically\r
+turned; a broad ring flashed on the little finger, and stooping forward,\r
+I looked at it, and saw a gem I had seen a hundred times before. Again I\r
+looked at the face; which was no longer turned from me--on the contrary,\r
+the bonnet was doffed, the bandage displaced, the head advanced.\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane, do you know me?" asked the familiar voice.\r
+\r
+"Only take off the red cloak, sir, and then--"\r
+\r
+"But the string is in a knot--help me."\r
+\r
+"Break it, sir."\r
+\r
+"There, then--'Off, ye lendings!'" And Mr. Rochester stepped out of his\r
+disguise.\r
+\r
+"Now, sir, what a strange idea!"\r
+\r
+"But well carried out, eh? Don't you think so?"\r
+\r
+"With the ladies you must have managed well."\r
+\r
+"But not with you?"\r
+\r
+"You did not act the character of a gipsy with me."\r
+\r
+"What character did I act? My own?"\r
+\r
+"No; some unaccountable one. In short, I believe you have been trying to\r
+draw me out--or in; you have been talking nonsense to make me talk\r
+nonsense. It is scarcely fair, sir."\r
+\r
+"Do you forgive me, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot tell till I have thought it all over. If, on reflection, I\r
+find I have fallen into no great absurdity, I shall try to forgive you;\r
+but it was not right."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you have been very correct--very careful, very sensible."\r
+\r
+I reflected, and thought, on the whole, I had. It was a comfort; but,\r
+indeed, I had been on my guard almost from the beginning of the\r
+interview. Something of masquerade I suspected. I knew gipsies and\r
+fortune-tellers did not express themselves as this seeming old woman had\r
+expressed herself; besides I had noted her feigned voice, her anxiety to\r
+conceal her features. But my mind had been running on Grace Poole--that\r
+living enigma, that mystery of mysteries, as I considered her. I had\r
+never thought of Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+"Well," said he, "what are you musing about? What does that grave smile\r
+signify?"\r
+\r
+"Wonder and self-congratulation, sir. I have your permission to retire\r
+now, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No; stay a moment; and tell me what the people in the drawing-room\r
+yonder are doing."\r
+\r
+"Discussing the gipsy, I daresay."\r
+\r
+"Sit down!--Let me hear what they said about me."\r
+\r
+"I had better not stay long, sir; it must be near eleven o'clock. Oh,\r
+are you aware, Mr. Rochester, that a stranger has arrived here since you\r
+left this morning?"\r
+\r
+"A stranger!--no; who can it be? I expected no one; is he gone?"\r
+\r
+"No; he said he had known you long, and that he could take the liberty of\r
+installing himself here till you returned."\r
+\r
+"The devil he did! Did he give his name?"\r
+\r
+"His name is Mason, sir; and he comes from the West Indies; from Spanish\r
+Town, in Jamaica, I think."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester was standing near me; he had taken my hand, as if to lead\r
+me to a chair. As I spoke he gave my wrist a convulsive grip; the smile\r
+on his lips froze: apparently a spasm caught his breath.\r
+\r
+"Mason!--the West Indies!" he said, in the tone one might fancy a\r
+speaking automaton to enounce its single words; "Mason!--the West\r
+Indies!" he reiterated; and he went over the syllables three times,\r
+growing, in the intervals of speaking, whiter than ashes: he hardly\r
+seemed to know what he was doing.\r
+\r
+"Do you feel ill, sir?" I inquired.\r
+\r
+"Jane, I've got a blow; I've got a blow, Jane!" He staggered.\r
+\r
+"Oh, lean on me, sir."\r
+\r
+"Jane, you offered me your shoulder once before; let me have it now."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, yes; and my arm."\r
+\r
+He sat down, and made me sit beside him. Holding my hand in both his\r
+own, he chafed it; gazing on me, at the same time, with the most troubled\r
+and dreary look.\r
+\r
+"My little friend!" said he, "I wish I were in a quiet island with only\r
+you; and trouble, and danger, and hideous recollections removed from me."\r
+\r
+"Can I help you, sir?--I'd give my life to serve you."\r
+\r
+"Jane, if aid is wanted, I'll seek it at your hands; I promise you that."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir. Tell me what to do,--I'll try, at least, to do it."\r
+\r
+"Fetch me now, Jane, a glass of wine from the dining-room: they will be\r
+at supper there; and tell me if Mason is with them, and what he is\r
+doing."\r
+\r
+I went. I found all the party in the dining-room at supper, as Mr.\r
+Rochester had said; they were not seated at table,--the supper was\r
+arranged on the sideboard; each had taken what he chose, and they stood\r
+about here and there in groups, their plates and glasses in their hands.\r
+Every one seemed in high glee; laughter and conversation were general and\r
+animated. Mr. Mason stood near the fire, talking to Colonel and Mrs.\r
+Dent, and appeared as merry as any of them. I filled a wine-glass (I saw\r
+Miss Ingram watch me frowningly as I did so: she thought I was taking a\r
+liberty, I daresay), and I returned to the library.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester's extreme pallor had disappeared, and he looked once more\r
+firm and stern. He took the glass from my hand.\r
+\r
+"Here is to your health, ministrant spirit!" he said. He swallowed the\r
+contents and returned it to me. "What are they doing, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Laughing and talking, sir."\r
+\r
+"They don't look grave and mysterious, as if they had heard something\r
+strange?"\r
+\r
+"Not at all: they are full of jests and gaiety."\r
+\r
+"And Mason?"\r
+\r
+"He was laughing too."\r
+\r
+"If all these people came in a body and spat at me, what would you do,\r
+Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Turn them out of the room, sir, if I could."\r
+\r
+He half smiled. "But if I were to go to them, and they only looked at me\r
+coldly, and whispered sneeringly amongst each other, and then dropped off\r
+and left me one by one, what then? Would you go with them?"\r
+\r
+"I rather think not, sir: I should have more pleasure in staying with\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"To comfort me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, to comfort you, as well as I could."\r
+\r
+"And if they laid you under a ban for adhering to me?"\r
+\r
+"I, probably, should know nothing about their ban; and if I did, I should\r
+care nothing about it."\r
+\r
+"Then, you could dare censure for my sake?"\r
+\r
+"I could dare it for the sake of any friend who deserved my adherence; as\r
+you, I am sure, do."\r
+\r
+"Go back now into the room; step quietly up to Mason, and whisper in his\r
+ear that Mr. Rochester is come and wishes to see him: show him in here\r
+and then leave me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+I did his behest. The company all stared at me as I passed straight\r
+among them. I sought Mr. Mason, delivered the message, and preceded him\r
+from the room: I ushered him into the library, and then I went upstairs.\r
+\r
+At a late hour, after I had been in bed some time, I heard the visitors\r
+repair to their chambers: I distinguished Mr. Rochester's voice, and\r
+heard him say, "This way, Mason; this is your room."\r
+\r
+He spoke cheerfully: the gay tones set my heart at ease. I was soon\r
+asleep.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+\r
+I had forgotten to draw my curtain, which I usually did, and also to let\r
+down my window-blind. The consequence was, that when the moon, which was\r
+full and bright (for the night was fine), came in her course to that\r
+space in the sky opposite my casement, and looked in at me through the\r
+unveiled panes, her glorious gaze roused me. Awaking in the dead of\r
+night, I opened my eyes on her disk--silver-white and crystal clear. It\r
+was beautiful, but too solemn; I half rose, and stretched my arm to draw\r
+the curtain.\r
+\r
+Good God! What a cry!\r
+\r
+The night--its silence--its rest, was rent in twain by a savage, a sharp,\r
+a shrilly sound that ran from end to end of Thornfield Hall.\r
+\r
+My pulse stopped: my heart stood still; my stretched arm was paralysed.\r
+The cry died, and was not renewed. Indeed, whatever being uttered that\r
+fearful shriek could not soon repeat it: not the widest-winged condor on\r
+the Andes could, twice in succession, send out such a yell from the cloud\r
+shrouding his eyrie. The thing delivering such utterance must rest ere\r
+it could repeat the effort.\r
+\r
+It came out of the third storey; for it passed overhead. And\r
+overhead--yes, in the room just above my chamber-ceiling--I now heard a\r
+struggle: a deadly one it seemed from the noise; and a half-smothered\r
+voice shouted--\r
+\r
+"Help! help! help!" three times rapidly.\r
+\r
+"Will no one come?" it cried; and then, while the staggering and stamping\r
+went on wildly, I distinguished through plank and plaster:--\r
+\r
+"Rochester! Rochester! for God's sake, come!"\r
+\r
+A chamber-door opened: some one ran, or rushed, along the gallery.\r
+Another step stamped on the flooring above and something fell; and there\r
+was silence.\r
+\r
+I had put on some clothes, though horror shook all my limbs; I issued\r
+from my apartment. The sleepers were all aroused: ejaculations,\r
+terrified murmurs sounded in every room; door after door unclosed; one\r
+looked out and another looked out; the gallery filled. Gentlemen and\r
+ladies alike had quitted their beds; and "Oh! what is it?"--"Who is\r
+hurt?"--"What has happened?"--"Fetch a light!"--"Is it fire?"--"Are there\r
+robbers?"--"Where shall we run?" was demanded confusedly on all hands.\r
+But for the moonlight they would have been in complete darkness. They\r
+ran to and fro; they crowded together: some sobbed, some stumbled: the\r
+confusion was inextricable.\r
+\r
+"Where the devil is Rochester?" cried Colonel Dent. "I cannot find him\r
+in his bed."\r
+\r
+"Here! here!" was shouted in return. "Be composed, all of you: I'm\r
+coming."\r
+\r
+And the door at the end of the gallery opened, and Mr. Rochester advanced\r
+with a candle: he had just descended from the upper storey. One of the\r
+ladies ran to him directly; she seized his arm: it was Miss Ingram.\r
+\r
+"What awful event has taken place?" said she. "Speak! let us know the\r
+worst at once!"\r
+\r
+"But don't pull me down or strangle me," he replied: for the Misses\r
+Eshton were clinging about him now; and the two dowagers, in vast white\r
+wrappers, were bearing down on him like ships in full sail.\r
+\r
+"All's right!--all's right!" he cried. "It's a mere rehearsal of Much\r
+Ado about Nothing. Ladies, keep off, or I shall wax dangerous."\r
+\r
+And dangerous he looked: his black eyes darted sparks. Calming himself\r
+by an effort, he added--\r
+\r
+"A servant has had the nightmare; that is all. She's an excitable,\r
+nervous person: she construed her dream into an apparition, or something\r
+of that sort, no doubt; and has taken a fit with fright. Now, then, I\r
+must see you all back into your rooms; for, till the house is settled,\r
+she cannot be looked after. Gentlemen, have the goodness to set the\r
+ladies the example. Miss Ingram, I am sure you will not fail in evincing\r
+superiority to idle terrors. Amy and Louisa, return to your nests like a\r
+pair of doves, as you are. Mesdames" (to the dowagers), "you will take\r
+cold to a dead certainty, if you stay in this chill gallery any longer."\r
+\r
+And so, by dint of alternate coaxing and commanding, he contrived to get\r
+them all once more enclosed in their separate dormitories. I did not\r
+wait to be ordered back to mine, but retreated unnoticed, as unnoticed I\r
+had left it.\r
+\r
+Not, however, to go to bed: on the contrary, I began and dressed myself\r
+carefully. The sounds I had heard after the scream, and the words that\r
+had been uttered, had probably been heard only by me; for they had\r
+proceeded from the room above mine: but they assured me that it was not a\r
+servant's dream which had thus struck horror through the house; and that\r
+the explanation Mr. Rochester had given was merely an invention framed to\r
+pacify his guests. I dressed, then, to be ready for emergencies. When\r
+dressed, I sat a long time by the window looking out over the silent\r
+grounds and silvered fields and waiting for I knew not what. It seemed\r
+to me that some event must follow the strange cry, struggle, and call.\r
+\r
+No: stillness returned: each murmur and movement ceased gradually, and in\r
+about an hour Thornfield Hall was again as hushed as a desert. It seemed\r
+that sleep and night had resumed their empire. Meantime the moon\r
+declined: she was about to set. Not liking to sit in the cold and\r
+darkness, I thought I would lie down on my bed, dressed as I was. I left\r
+the window, and moved with little noise across the carpet; as I stooped\r
+to take off my shoes, a cautious hand tapped low at the door.\r
+\r
+"Am I wanted?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Are you up?" asked the voice I expected to hear, viz., my master's.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And dressed?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Come out, then, quietly."\r
+\r
+I obeyed. Mr. Rochester stood in the gallery holding a light.\r
+\r
+"I want you," he said: "come this way: take your time, and make no\r
+noise."\r
+\r
+My slippers were thin: I could walk the matted floor as softly as a cat.\r
+He glided up the gallery and up the stairs, and stopped in the dark, low\r
+corridor of the fateful third storey: I had followed and stood at his\r
+side.\r
+\r
+"Have you a sponge in your room?" he asked in a whisper.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Have you any salts--volatile salts?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Go back and fetch both."\r
+\r
+I returned, sought the sponge on the washstand, the salts in my drawer,\r
+and once more retraced my steps. He still waited; he held a key in his\r
+hand: approaching one of the small, black doors, he put it in the lock;\r
+he paused, and addressed me again.\r
+\r
+"You don't turn sick at the sight of blood?"\r
+\r
+"I think I shall not: I have never been tried yet."\r
+\r
+I felt a thrill while I answered him; but no coldness, and no faintness.\r
+\r
+"Just give me your hand," he said: "it will not do to risk a fainting\r
+fit."\r
+\r
+I put my fingers into his. "Warm and steady," was his remark: he turned\r
+the key and opened the door.\r
+\r
+I saw a room I remembered to have seen before, the day Mrs. Fairfax\r
+showed me over the house: it was hung with tapestry; but the tapestry was\r
+now looped up in one part, and there was a door apparent, which had then\r
+been concealed. This door was open; a light shone out of the room\r
+within: I heard thence a snarling, snatching sound, almost like a dog\r
+quarrelling. Mr. Rochester, putting down his candle, said to me, "Wait a\r
+minute," and he went forward to the inner apartment. A shout of laughter\r
+greeted his entrance; noisy at first, and terminating in Grace Poole's\r
+own goblin ha! ha! _She_ then was there. He made some sort of\r
+arrangement without speaking, though I heard a low voice address him: he\r
+came out and closed the door behind him.\r
+\r
+"Here, Jane!" he said; and I walked round to the other side of a large\r
+bed, which with its drawn curtains concealed a considerable portion of\r
+the chamber. An easy-chair was near the bed-head: a man sat in it,\r
+dressed with the exception of his coat; he was still; his head leant\r
+back; his eyes were closed. Mr. Rochester held the candle over him; I\r
+recognised in his pale and seemingly lifeless face--the stranger, Mason:\r
+I saw too that his linen on one side, and one arm, was almost soaked in\r
+blood.\r
+\r
+"Hold the candle," said Mr. Rochester, and I took it: he fetched a basin\r
+of water from the washstand: "Hold that," said he. I obeyed. He took\r
+the sponge, dipped it in, and moistened the corpse-like face; he asked\r
+for my smelling-bottle, and applied it to the nostrils. Mr. Mason\r
+shortly unclosed his eyes; he groaned. Mr. Rochester opened the shirt of\r
+the wounded man, whose arm and shoulder were bandaged: he sponged away\r
+blood, trickling fast down.\r
+\r
+"Is there immediate danger?" murmured Mr. Mason.\r
+\r
+"Pooh! No--a mere scratch. Don't be so overcome, man: bear up! I'll\r
+fetch a surgeon for you now, myself: you'll be able to be removed by\r
+morning, I hope. Jane," he continued.\r
+\r
+"Sir?"\r
+\r
+"I shall have to leave you in this room with this gentleman, for an hour,\r
+or perhaps two hours: you will sponge the blood as I do when it returns:\r
+if he feels faint, you will put the glass of water on that stand to his\r
+lips, and your salts to his nose. You will not speak to him on any\r
+pretext--and--Richard, it will be at the peril of your life if you speak\r
+to her: open your lips--agitate yourself--and I'll not answer for the\r
+consequences."\r
+\r
+Again the poor man groaned; he looked as if he dared not move; fear,\r
+either of death or of something else, appeared almost to paralyse him.\r
+Mr. Rochester put the now bloody sponge into my hand, and I proceeded to\r
+use it as he had done. He watched me a second, then saying,\r
+"Remember!--No conversation," he left the room. I experienced a strange\r
+feeling as the key grated in the lock, and the sound of his retreating\r
+step ceased to be heard.\r
+\r
+Here then I was in the third storey, fastened into one of its mystic\r
+cells; night around me; a pale and bloody spectacle under my eyes and\r
+hands; a murderess hardly separated from me by a single door: yes--that\r
+was appalling--the rest I could bear; but I shuddered at the thought of\r
+Grace Poole bursting out upon me.\r
+\r
+I must keep to my post, however. I must watch this ghastly\r
+countenance--these blue, still lips forbidden to unclose--these eyes now\r
+shut, now opening, now wandering through the room, now fixing on me, and\r
+ever glazed with the dulness of horror. I must dip my hand again and\r
+again in the basin of blood and water, and wipe away the trickling gore.\r
+I must see the light of the unsnuffed candle wane on my employment; the\r
+shadows darken on the wrought, antique tapestry round me, and grow black\r
+under the hangings of the vast old bed, and quiver strangely over the\r
+doors of a great cabinet opposite--whose front, divided into twelve\r
+panels, bore, in grim design, the heads of the twelve apostles, each\r
+enclosed in its separate panel as in a frame; while above them at the top\r
+rose an ebon crucifix and a dying Christ.\r
+\r
+According as the shifting obscurity and flickering gleam hovered here or\r
+glanced there, it was now the bearded physician, Luke, that bent his\r
+brow; now St. John's long hair that waved; and anon the devilish face of\r
+Judas, that grew out of the panel, and seemed gathering life and\r
+threatening a revelation of the arch-traitor--of Satan himself--in his\r
+subordinate's form.\r
+\r
+Amidst all this, I had to listen as well as watch: to listen for the\r
+movements of the wild beast or the fiend in yonder side den. But since\r
+Mr. Rochester's visit it seemed spellbound: all the night I heard but\r
+three sounds at three long intervals,--a step creak, a momentary renewal\r
+of the snarling, canine noise, and a deep human groan.\r
+\r
+Then my own thoughts worried me. What crime was this that lived\r
+incarnate in this sequestered mansion, and could neither be expelled nor\r
+subdued by the owner?--what mystery, that broke out now in fire and now\r
+in blood, at the deadest hours of night? What creature was it, that,\r
+masked in an ordinary woman's face and shape, uttered the voice, now of a\r
+mocking demon, and anon of a carrion-seeking bird of prey?\r
+\r
+And this man I bent over--this commonplace, quiet stranger--how had he\r
+become involved in the web of horror? and why had the Fury flown at him?\r
+What made him seek this quarter of the house at an untimely season, when\r
+he should have been asleep in bed? I had heard Mr. Rochester assign him\r
+an apartment below--what brought him here! And why, now, was he so tame\r
+under the violence or treachery done him? Why did he so quietly submit\r
+to the concealment Mr. Rochester enforced? Why _did_ Mr. Rochester\r
+enforce this concealment? His guest had been outraged, his own life on a\r
+former occasion had been hideously plotted against; and both attempts he\r
+smothered in secrecy and sank in oblivion! Lastly, I saw Mr. Mason was\r
+submissive to Mr. Rochester; that the impetuous will of the latter held\r
+complete sway over the inertness of the former: the few words which had\r
+passed between them assured me of this. It was evident that in their\r
+former intercourse, the passive disposition of the one had been\r
+habitually influenced by the active energy of the other: whence then had\r
+arisen Mr. Rochester's dismay when he heard of Mr. Mason's arrival? Why\r
+had the mere name of this unresisting individual--whom his word now\r
+sufficed to control like a child--fallen on him, a few hours since, as a\r
+thunderbolt might fall on an oak?\r
+\r
+Oh! I could not forget his look and his paleness when he whispered:\r
+"Jane, I have got a blow--I have got a blow, Jane." I could not forget\r
+how the arm had trembled which he rested on my shoulder: and it was no\r
+light matter which could thus bow the resolute spirit and thrill the\r
+vigorous frame of Fairfax Rochester.\r
+\r
+"When will he come? When will he come?" I cried inwardly, as the night\r
+lingered and lingered--as my bleeding patient drooped, moaned, sickened:\r
+and neither day nor aid arrived. I had, again and again, held the water\r
+to Mason's white lips; again and again offered him the stimulating salts:\r
+my efforts seemed ineffectual: either bodily or mental suffering, or loss\r
+of blood, or all three combined, were fast prostrating his strength. He\r
+moaned so, and looked so weak, wild, and lost, I feared he was dying; and\r
+I might not even speak to him.\r
+\r
+The candle, wasted at last, went out; as it expired, I perceived streaks\r
+of grey light edging the window curtains: dawn was then approaching.\r
+Presently I heard Pilot bark far below, out of his distant kennel in the\r
+courtyard: hope revived. Nor was it unwarranted: in five minutes more\r
+the grating key, the yielding lock, warned me my watch was relieved. It\r
+could not have lasted more than two hours: many a week has seemed\r
+shorter.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester entered, and with him the surgeon he had been to fetch.\r
+\r
+"Now, Carter, be on the alert," he said to this last: "I give you but\r
+half-an-hour for dressing the wound, fastening the bandages, getting the\r
+patient downstairs and all."\r
+\r
+"But is he fit to move, sir?"\r
+\r
+"No doubt of it; it is nothing serious; he is nervous, his spirits must\r
+be kept up. Come, set to work."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester drew back the thick curtain, drew up the holland blind, let\r
+in all the daylight he could; and I was surprised and cheered to see how\r
+far dawn was advanced: what rosy streaks were beginning to brighten the\r
+east. Then he approached Mason, whom the surgeon was already handling.\r
+\r
+"Now, my good fellow, how are you?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"She's done for me, I fear," was the faint reply.\r
+\r
+"Not a whit!--courage! This day fortnight you'll hardly be a pin the\r
+worse of it: you've lost a little blood; that's all. Carter, assure him\r
+there's no danger."\r
+\r
+"I can do that conscientiously," said Carter, who had now undone the\r
+bandages; "only I wish I could have got here sooner: he would not have\r
+bled so much--but how is this? The flesh on the shoulder is torn as well\r
+as cut. This wound was not done with a knife: there have been teeth\r
+here!"\r
+\r
+"She bit me," he murmured. "She worried me like a tigress, when\r
+Rochester got the knife from her."\r
+\r
+"You should not have yielded: you should have grappled with her at once,"\r
+said Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+"But under such circumstances, what could one do?" returned Mason. "Oh,\r
+it was frightful!" he added, shuddering. "And I did not expect it: she\r
+looked so quiet at first."\r
+\r
+"I warned you," was his friend's answer; "I said--be on your guard when\r
+you go near her. Besides, you might have waited till to-morrow, and had\r
+me with you: it was mere folly to attempt the interview to-night, and\r
+alone."\r
+\r
+"I thought I could have done some good."\r
+\r
+"You thought! you thought! Yes, it makes me impatient to hear you: but,\r
+however, you have suffered, and are likely to suffer enough for not\r
+taking my advice; so I'll say no more. Carter--hurry!--hurry! The sun\r
+will soon rise, and I must have him off."\r
+\r
+"Directly, sir; the shoulder is just bandaged. I must look to this other\r
+wound in the arm: she has had her teeth here too, I think."\r
+\r
+"She sucked the blood: she said she'd drain my heart," said Mason.\r
+\r
+I saw Mr. Rochester shudder: a singularly marked expression of disgust,\r
+horror, hatred, warped his countenance almost to distortion; but he only\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Come, be silent, Richard, and never mind her gibberish: don't repeat\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I wish I could forget it," was the answer.\r
+\r
+"You will when you are out of the country: when you get back to Spanish\r
+Town, you may think of her as dead and buried--or rather, you need not\r
+think of her at all."\r
+\r
+"Impossible to forget this night!"\r
+\r
+"It is not impossible: have some energy, man. You thought you were as\r
+dead as a herring two hours since, and you are all alive and talking now.\r
+There!--Carter has done with you or nearly so; I'll make you decent in a\r
+trice. Jane" (he turned to me for the first time since his re-entrance),\r
+"take this key: go down into my bedroom, and walk straight forward into\r
+my dressing-room: open the top drawer of the wardrobe and take out a\r
+clean shirt and neck-handkerchief: bring them here; and be nimble."\r
+\r
+I went; sought the repository he had mentioned, found the articles named,\r
+and returned with them.\r
+\r
+"Now," said he, "go to the other side of the bed while I order his\r
+toilet; but don't leave the room: you may be wanted again."\r
+\r
+I retired as directed.\r
+\r
+"Was anybody stirring below when you went down, Jane?" inquired Mr.\r
+Rochester presently.\r
+\r
+"No, sir; all was very still."\r
+\r
+"We shall get you off cannily, Dick: and it will be better, both for your\r
+sake, and for that of the poor creature in yonder. I have striven long\r
+to avoid exposure, and I should not like it to come at last. Here,\r
+Carter, help him on with his waist-coat. Where did you leave your furred\r
+cloak? You can't travel a mile without that, I know, in this damned cold\r
+climate. In your room?--Jane, run down to Mr. Mason's room,--the one\r
+next mine,--and fetch a cloak you will see there."\r
+\r
+Again I ran, and again returned, bearing an immense mantle lined and\r
+edged with fur.\r
+\r
+"Now, I've another errand for you," said my untiring master; "you must\r
+away to my room again. What a mercy you are shod with velvet, Jane!--a\r
+clod-hopping messenger would never do at this juncture. You must open\r
+the middle drawer of my toilet-table and take out a little phial and a\r
+little glass you will find there,--quick!"\r
+\r
+I flew thither and back, bringing the desired vessels.\r
+\r
+"That's well! Now, doctor, I shall take the liberty of administering a\r
+dose myself, on my own responsibility. I got this cordial at Rome, of an\r
+Italian charlatan--a fellow you would have kicked, Carter. It is not a\r
+thing to be used indiscriminately, but it is good upon occasion: as now,\r
+for instance. Jane, a little water."\r
+\r
+He held out the tiny glass, and I half filled it from the water-bottle on\r
+the washstand.\r
+\r
+"That will do;--now wet the lip of the phial."\r
+\r
+I did so; he measured twelve drops of a crimson liquid, and presented it\r
+to Mason.\r
+\r
+"Drink, Richard: it will give you the heart you lack, for an hour or so."\r
+\r
+"But will it hurt me?--is it inflammatory?"\r
+\r
+"Drink! drink! drink!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Mason obeyed, because it was evidently useless to resist. He was\r
+dressed now: he still looked pale, but he was no longer gory and sullied.\r
+Mr. Rochester let him sit three minutes after he had swallowed the\r
+liquid; he then took his arm--\r
+\r
+"Now I am sure you can get on your feet," he said--"try."\r
+\r
+The patient rose.\r
+\r
+"Carter, take him under the other shoulder. Be of good cheer, Richard;\r
+step out--that's it!"\r
+\r
+"I do feel better," remarked Mr. Mason.\r
+\r
+"I am sure you do. Now, Jane, trip on before us away to the backstairs;\r
+unbolt the side-passage door, and tell the driver of the post-chaise you\r
+will see in the yard--or just outside, for I told him not to drive his\r
+rattling wheels over the pavement--to be ready; we are coming: and, Jane,\r
+if any one is about, come to the foot of the stairs and hem."\r
+\r
+It was by this time half-past five, and the sun was on the point of\r
+rising; but I found the kitchen still dark and silent. The side-passage\r
+door was fastened; I opened it with as little noise as possible: all the\r
+yard was quiet; but the gates stood wide open, and there was a\r
+post-chaise, with horses ready harnessed, and driver seated on the box,\r
+stationed outside. I approached him, and said the gentlemen were coming;\r
+he nodded: then I looked carefully round and listened. The stillness of\r
+early morning slumbered everywhere; the curtains were yet drawn over the\r
+servants' chamber windows; little birds were just twittering in the\r
+blossom-blanched orchard trees, whose boughs drooped like white garlands\r
+over the wall enclosing one side of the yard; the carriage horses stamped\r
+from time to time in their closed stables: all else was still.\r
+\r
+The gentlemen now appeared. Mason, supported by Mr. Rochester and the\r
+surgeon, seemed to walk with tolerable ease: they assisted him into the\r
+chaise; Carter followed.\r
+\r
+"Take care of him," said Mr. Rochester to the latter, "and keep him at\r
+your house till he is quite well: I shall ride over in a day or two to\r
+see how he gets on. Richard, how is it with you?"\r
+\r
+"The fresh air revives me, Fairfax."\r
+\r
+"Leave the window open on his side, Carter; there is no wind--good-bye,\r
+Dick."\r
+\r
+"Fairfax--"\r
+\r
+"Well what is it?"\r
+\r
+"Let her be taken care of; let her be treated as tenderly as may be: let\r
+her--" he stopped and burst into tears.\r
+\r
+"I do my best; and have done it, and will do it," was the answer: he shut\r
+up the chaise door, and the vehicle drove away.\r
+\r
+"Yet would to God there was an end of all this!" added Mr. Rochester, as\r
+he closed and barred the heavy yard-gates.\r
+\r
+This done, he moved with slow step and abstracted air towards a door in\r
+the wall bordering the orchard. I, supposing he had done with me,\r
+prepared to return to the house; again, however, I heard him call "Jane!"\r
+He had opened the portal and stood at it, waiting for me.\r
+\r
+"Come where there is some freshness, for a few moments," he said; "that\r
+house is a mere dungeon: don't you feel it so?"\r
+\r
+"It seems to me a splendid mansion, sir."\r
+\r
+"The glamour of inexperience is over your eyes," he answered; "and you\r
+see it through a charmed medium: you cannot discern that the gilding is\r
+slime and the silk draperies cobwebs; that the marble is sordid slate,\r
+and the polished woods mere refuse chips and scaly bark. Now _here_" (he\r
+pointed to the leafy enclosure we had entered) "all is real, sweet, and\r
+pure."\r
+\r
+He strayed down a walk edged with box, with apple trees, pear trees, and\r
+cherry trees on one side, and a border on the other full of all sorts of\r
+old-fashioned flowers, stocks, sweet-williams, primroses, pansies,\r
+mingled with southernwood, sweet-briar, and various fragrant herbs. They\r
+were fresh now as a succession of April showers and gleams, followed by a\r
+lovely spring morning, could make them: the sun was just entering the\r
+dappled east, and his light illumined the wreathed and dewy orchard trees\r
+and shone down the quiet walks under them.\r
+\r
+"Jane, will you have a flower?"\r
+\r
+He gathered a half-blown rose, the first on the bush, and offered it to\r
+me.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir."\r
+\r
+"Do you like this sunrise, Jane? That sky with its high and light clouds\r
+which are sure to melt away as the day waxes warm--this placid and balmly\r
+atmosphere?"\r
+\r
+"I do, very much."\r
+\r
+"You have passed a strange night, Jane."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And it has made you look pale--were you afraid when I left you alone\r
+with Mason?"\r
+\r
+"I was afraid of some one coming out of the inner room."\r
+\r
+"But I had fastened the door--I had the key in my pocket: I should have\r
+been a careless shepherd if I had left a lamb--my pet lamb--so near a\r
+wolf's den, unguarded: you were safe."\r
+\r
+"Will Grace Poole live here still, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes! don't trouble your head about her--put the thing out of your\r
+thoughts."\r
+\r
+"Yet it seems to me your life is hardly secure while she stays."\r
+\r
+"Never fear--I will take care of myself."\r
+\r
+"Is the danger you apprehended last night gone by now, sir?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot vouch for that till Mason is out of England: nor even then. To\r
+live, for me, Jane, is to stand on a crater-crust which may crack and\r
+spue fire any day."\r
+\r
+"But Mr. Mason seems a man easily led. Your influence, sir, is evidently\r
+potent with him: he will never set you at defiance or wilfully injure\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! Mason will not defy me; nor, knowing it, will he hurt me--but,\r
+unintentionally, he might in a moment, by one careless word, deprive me,\r
+if not of life, yet for ever of happiness."\r
+\r
+"Tell him to be cautious, sir: let him know what you fear, and show him\r
+how to avert the danger."\r
+\r
+He laughed sardonically, hastily took my hand, and as hastily threw it\r
+from him.\r
+\r
+"If I could do that, simpleton, where would the danger be? Annihilated\r
+in a moment. Ever since I have known Mason, I have only had to say to\r
+him 'Do that,' and the thing has been done. But I cannot give him orders\r
+in this case: I cannot say 'Beware of harming me, Richard;' for it is\r
+imperative that I should keep him ignorant that harm to me is possible.\r
+Now you look puzzled; and I will puzzle you further. You are my little\r
+friend, are you not?"\r
+\r
+"I like to serve you, sir, and to obey you in all that is right."\r
+\r
+"Precisely: I see you do. I see genuine contentment in your gait and\r
+mien, your eye and face, when you are helping me and pleasing me--working\r
+for me, and with me, in, as you characteristically say, '_all that is\r
+right_:' for if I bid you do what you thought wrong, there would be no\r
+light-footed running, no neat-handed alacrity, no lively glance and\r
+animated complexion. My friend would then turn to me, quiet and pale,\r
+and would say, 'No, sir; that is impossible: I cannot do it, because it\r
+is wrong;' and would become immutable as a fixed star. Well, you too\r
+have power over me, and may injure me: yet I dare not show you where I am\r
+vulnerable, lest, faithful and friendly as you are, you should transfix\r
+me at once."\r
+\r
+"If you have no more to fear from Mr. Mason than you have from me, sir,\r
+you are very safe."\r
+\r
+"God grant it may be so! Here, Jane, is an arbour; sit down."\r
+\r
+The arbour was an arch in the wall, lined with ivy; it contained a rustic\r
+seat. Mr. Rochester took it, leaving room, however, for me: but I stood\r
+before him.\r
+\r
+"Sit," he said; "the bench is long enough for two. You don't hesitate to\r
+take a place at my side, do you? Is that wrong, Jane?"\r
+\r
+I answered him by assuming it: to refuse would, I felt, have been unwise.\r
+\r
+"Now, my little friend, while the sun drinks the dew--while all the\r
+flowers in this old garden awake and expand, and the birds fetch their\r
+young ones' breakfast out of the Thornfield, and the early bees do their\r
+first spell of work--I'll put a case to you, which you must endeavour to\r
+suppose your own: but first, look at me, and tell me you are at ease, and\r
+not fearing that I err in detaining you, or that you err in staying."\r
+\r
+"No, sir; I am content."\r
+\r
+"Well then, Jane, call to aid your fancy:--suppose you were no longer a\r
+girl well reared and disciplined, but a wild boy indulged from childhood\r
+upwards; imagine yourself in a remote foreign land; conceive that you\r
+there commit a capital error, no matter of what nature or from what\r
+motives, but one whose consequences must follow you through life and\r
+taint all your existence. Mind, I don't say a _crime_; I am not speaking\r
+of shedding of blood or any other guilty act, which might make the\r
+perpetrator amenable to the law: my word is _error_. The results of what\r
+you have done become in time to you utterly insupportable; you take\r
+measures to obtain relief: unusual measures, but neither unlawful nor\r
+culpable. Still you are miserable; for hope has quitted you on the very\r
+confines of life: your sun at noon darkens in an eclipse, which you feel\r
+will not leave it till the time of setting. Bitter and base associations\r
+have become the sole food of your memory: you wander here and there,\r
+seeking rest in exile: happiness in pleasure--I mean in heartless,\r
+sensual pleasure--such as dulls intellect and blights feeling.\r
+Heart-weary and soul-withered, you come home after years of voluntary\r
+banishment: you make a new acquaintance--how or where no matter: you find\r
+in this stranger much of the good and bright qualities which you have\r
+sought for twenty years, and never before encountered; and they are all\r
+fresh, healthy, without soil and without taint. Such society revives,\r
+regenerates: you feel better days come back--higher wishes, purer\r
+feelings; you desire to recommence your life, and to spend what remains\r
+to you of days in a way more worthy of an immortal being. To attain this\r
+end, are you justified in overleaping an obstacle of custom--a mere\r
+conventional impediment which neither your conscience sanctifies nor your\r
+judgment approves?"\r
+\r
+He paused for an answer: and what was I to say? Oh, for some good spirit\r
+to suggest a judicious and satisfactory response! Vain aspiration! The\r
+west wind whispered in the ivy round me; but no gentle Ariel borrowed its\r
+breath as a medium of speech: the birds sang in the tree-tops; but their\r
+song, however sweet, was inarticulate.\r
+\r
+Again Mr. Rochester propounded his query:\r
+\r
+"Is the wandering and sinful, but now rest-seeking and repentant, man\r
+justified in daring the world's opinion, in order to attach to him for\r
+ever this gentle, gracious, genial stranger, thereby securing his own\r
+peace of mind and regeneration of life?"\r
+\r
+"Sir," I answered, "a wanderer's repose or a sinner's reformation should\r
+never depend on a fellow-creature. Men and women die; philosophers\r
+falter in wisdom, and Christians in goodness: if any one you know has\r
+suffered and erred, let him look higher than his equals for strength to\r
+amend and solace to heal."\r
+\r
+"But the instrument--the instrument! God, who does the work, ordains the\r
+instrument. I have myself--I tell it you without parable--been a\r
+worldly, dissipated, restless man; and I believe I have found the\r
+instrument for my cure in--"\r
+\r
+He paused: the birds went on carolling, the leaves lightly rustling. I\r
+almost wondered they did not check their songs and whispers to catch the\r
+suspended revelation; but they would have had to wait many minutes--so\r
+long was the silence protracted. At last I looked up at the tardy\r
+speaker: he was looking eagerly at me.\r
+\r
+"Little friend," said he, in quite a changed tone--while his face changed\r
+too, losing all its softness and gravity, and becoming harsh and\r
+sarcastic--"you have noticed my tender penchant for Miss Ingram: don't\r
+you think if I married her she would regenerate me with a vengeance?"\r
+\r
+He got up instantly, went quite to the other end of the walk, and when he\r
+came back he was humming a tune.\r
+\r
+"Jane, Jane," said he, stopping before me, "you are quite pale with your\r
+vigils: don't you curse me for disturbing your rest?"\r
+\r
+"Curse you? No, sir."\r
+\r
+"Shake hands in confirmation of the word. What cold fingers! They were\r
+warmer last night when I touched them at the door of the mysterious\r
+chamber. Jane, when will you watch with me again?"\r
+\r
+"Whenever I can be useful, sir."\r
+\r
+"For instance, the night before I am married! I am sure I shall not be\r
+able to sleep. Will you promise to sit up with me to bear me company? To\r
+you I can talk of my lovely one: for now you have seen her and know her."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"She's a rare one, is she not, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"A strapper--a real strapper, Jane: big, brown, and buxom; with hair just\r
+such as the ladies of Carthage must have had. Bless me! there's Dent and\r
+Lynn in the stables! Go in by the shrubbery, through that wicket."\r
+\r
+As I went one way, he went another, and I heard him in the yard, saying\r
+cheerfully--\r
+\r
+"Mason got the start of you all this morning; he was gone before sunrise:\r
+I rose at four to see him off."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+\r
+Presentiments are strange things! and so are sympathies; and so are\r
+signs; and the three combined make one mystery to which humanity has not\r
+yet found the key. I never laughed at presentiments in my life, because\r
+I have had strange ones of my own. Sympathies, I believe, exist (for\r
+instance, between far-distant, long-absent, wholly estranged relatives\r
+asserting, notwithstanding their alienation, the unity of the source to\r
+which each traces his origin) whose workings baffle mortal comprehension.\r
+And signs, for aught we know, may be but the sympathies of Nature with\r
+man.\r
+\r
+When I was a little girl, only six years old, I one night heard Bessie\r
+Leaven say to Martha Abbot that she had been dreaming about a little\r
+child; and that to dream of children was a sure sign of trouble, either\r
+to one's self or one's kin. The saying might have worn out of my memory,\r
+had not a circumstance immediately followed which served indelibly to fix\r
+it there. The next day Bessie was sent for home to the deathbed of her\r
+little sister.\r
+\r
+Of late I had often recalled this saying and this incident; for during\r
+the past week scarcely a night had gone over my couch that had not\r
+brought with it a dream of an infant, which I sometimes hushed in my\r
+arms, sometimes dandled on my knee, sometimes watched playing with\r
+daisies on a lawn, or again, dabbling its hands in running water. It was\r
+a wailing child this night, and a laughing one the next: now it nestled\r
+close to me, and now it ran from me; but whatever mood the apparition\r
+evinced, whatever aspect it wore, it failed not for seven successive\r
+nights to meet me the moment I entered the land of slumber.\r
+\r
+I did not like this iteration of one idea--this strange recurrence of one\r
+image, and I grew nervous as bedtime approached and the hour of the\r
+vision drew near. It was from companionship with this baby-phantom I had\r
+been roused on that moonlight night when I heard the cry; and it was on\r
+the afternoon of the day following I was summoned downstairs by a message\r
+that some one wanted me in Mrs. Fairfax's room. On repairing thither, I\r
+found a man waiting for me, having the appearance of a gentleman's\r
+servant: he was dressed in deep mourning, and the hat he held in his hand\r
+was surrounded with a crape band.\r
+\r
+"I daresay you hardly remember me, Miss," he said, rising as I entered;\r
+"but my name is Leaven: I lived coachman with Mrs. Reed when you were at\r
+Gateshead, eight or nine years since, and I live there still."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Robert! how do you do? I remember you very well: you used to give\r
+me a ride sometimes on Miss Georgiana's bay pony. And how is Bessie? You\r
+are married to Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Miss: my wife is very hearty, thank you; she brought me another\r
+little one about two months since--we have three now--and both mother and\r
+child are thriving."\r
+\r
+"And are the family well at the house, Robert?"\r
+\r
+"I am sorry I can't give you better news of them, Miss: they are very\r
+badly at present--in great trouble."\r
+\r
+"I hope no one is dead," I said, glancing at his black dress. He too\r
+looked down at the crape round his hat and replied--\r
+\r
+"Mr. John died yesterday was a week, at his chambers in London."\r
+\r
+"Mr. John?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"And how does his mother bear it?"\r
+\r
+"Why, you see, Miss Eyre, it is not a common mishap: his life has been\r
+very wild: these last three years he gave himself up to strange ways, and\r
+his death was shocking."\r
+\r
+"I heard from Bessie he was not doing well."\r
+\r
+"Doing well! He could not do worse: he ruined his health and his estate\r
+amongst the worst men and the worst women. He got into debt and into\r
+jail: his mother helped him out twice, but as soon as he was free he\r
+returned to his old companions and habits. His head was not strong: the\r
+knaves he lived amongst fooled him beyond anything I ever heard. He came\r
+down to Gateshead about three weeks ago and wanted missis to give up all\r
+to him. Missis refused: her means have long been much reduced by his\r
+extravagance; so he went back again, and the next news was that he was\r
+dead. How he died, God knows!--they say he killed himself."\r
+\r
+I was silent: the things were frightful. Robert Leaven resumed--\r
+\r
+"Missis had been out of health herself for some time: she had got very\r
+stout, but was not strong with it; and the loss of money and fear of\r
+poverty were quite breaking her down. The information about Mr. John's\r
+death and the manner of it came too suddenly: it brought on a stroke. She\r
+was three days without speaking; but last Tuesday she seemed rather\r
+better: she appeared as if she wanted to say something, and kept making\r
+signs to my wife and mumbling. It was only yesterday morning, however,\r
+that Bessie understood she was pronouncing your name; and at last she\r
+made out the words, 'Bring Jane--fetch Jane Eyre: I want to speak to\r
+her.' Bessie is not sure whether she is in her right mind, or means\r
+anything by the words; but she told Miss Reed and Miss Georgiana, and\r
+advised them to send for you. The young ladies put it off at first; but\r
+their mother grew so restless, and said, 'Jane, Jane,' so many times,\r
+that at last they consented. I left Gateshead yesterday: and if you can\r
+get ready, Miss, I should like to take you back with me early to-morrow\r
+morning."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Robert, I shall be ready: it seems to me that I ought to go."\r
+\r
+"I think so too, Miss. Bessie said she was sure you would not refuse:\r
+but I suppose you will have to ask leave before you can get off?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; and I will do it now;" and having directed him to the servants'\r
+hall, and recommended him to the care of John's wife, and the attentions\r
+of John himself, I went in search of Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+He was not in any of the lower rooms; he was not in the yard, the\r
+stables, or the grounds. I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had seen him;--yes:\r
+she believed he was playing billiards with Miss Ingram. To the billiard-\r
+room I hastened: the click of balls and the hum of voices resounded\r
+thence; Mr. Rochester, Miss Ingram, the two Misses Eshton, and their\r
+admirers, were all busied in the game. It required some courage to\r
+disturb so interesting a party; my errand, however, was one I could not\r
+defer, so I approached the master where he stood at Miss Ingram's side.\r
+She turned as I drew near, and looked at me haughtily: her eyes seemed to\r
+demand, "What can the creeping creature want now?" and when I said, in a\r
+low voice, "Mr. Rochester," she made a movement as if tempted to order me\r
+away. I remember her appearance at the moment--it was very graceful and\r
+very striking: she wore a morning robe of sky-blue crape; a gauzy azure\r
+scarf was twisted in her hair. She had been all animation with the game,\r
+and irritated pride did not lower the expression of her haughty\r
+lineaments.\r
+\r
+"Does that person want you?" she inquired of Mr. Rochester; and Mr.\r
+Rochester turned to see who the "person" was. He made a curious\r
+grimace--one of his strange and equivocal demonstrations--threw down his\r
+cue and followed me from the room.\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane?" he said, as he rested his back against the schoolroom door,\r
+which he had shut.\r
+\r
+"If you please, sir, I want leave of absence for a week or two."\r
+\r
+"What to do?--where to go?"\r
+\r
+"To see a sick lady who has sent for me."\r
+\r
+"What sick lady?--where does she live?"\r
+\r
+"At Gateshead; in ---shire."\r
+\r
+"-shire? That is a hundred miles off! Who may she be that sends for\r
+people to see her that distance?"\r
+\r
+"Her name is Reed, sir--Mrs. Reed."\r
+\r
+"Reed of Gateshead? There was a Reed of Gateshead, a magistrate."\r
+\r
+"It is his widow, sir."\r
+\r
+"And what have you to do with her? How do you know her?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Reed was my uncle--my mother's brother."\r
+\r
+"The deuce he was! You never told me that before: you always said you\r
+had no relations."\r
+\r
+"None that would own me, sir. Mr. Reed is dead, and his wife cast me\r
+off."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Because I was poor, and burdensome, and she disliked me."\r
+\r
+"But Reed left children?--you must have cousins? Sir George Lynn was\r
+talking of a Reed of Gateshead yesterday, who, he said, was one of the\r
+veriest rascals on town; and Ingram was mentioning a Georgiana Reed of\r
+the same place, who was much admired for her beauty a season or two ago\r
+in London."\r
+\r
+"John Reed is dead, too, sir: he ruined himself and half-ruined his\r
+family, and is supposed to have committed suicide. The news so shocked\r
+his mother that it brought on an apoplectic attack."\r
+\r
+"And what good can you do her? Nonsense, Jane! I would never think of\r
+running a hundred miles to see an old lady who will, perhaps, be dead\r
+before you reach her: besides, you say she cast you off."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, but that is long ago; and when her circumstances were very\r
+different: I could not be easy to neglect her wishes now."\r
+\r
+"How long will you stay?"\r
+\r
+"As short a time as possible, sir."\r
+\r
+"Promise me only to stay a week--"\r
+\r
+"I had better not pass my word: I might be obliged to break it."\r
+\r
+"At all events you _will_ come back: you will not be induced under any\r
+pretext to take up a permanent residence with her?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! I shall certainly return if all be well."\r
+\r
+"And who goes with you? You don't travel a hundred miles alone."\r
+\r
+"No, sir, she has sent her coachman."\r
+\r
+"A person to be trusted?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, he has lived ten years in the family."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester meditated. "When do you wish to go?"\r
+\r
+"Early to-morrow morning, sir."\r
+\r
+"Well, you must have some money; you can't travel without money, and I\r
+daresay you have not much: I have given you no salary yet. How much have\r
+you in the world, Jane?" he asked, smiling.\r
+\r
+I drew out my purse; a meagre thing it was. "Five shillings, sir." He\r
+took the purse, poured the hoard into his palm, and chuckled over it as\r
+if its scantiness amused him. Soon he produced his pocket-book: "Here,"\r
+said he, offering me a note; it was fifty pounds, and he owed me but\r
+fifteen. I told him I had no change.\r
+\r
+"I don't want change; you know that. Take your wages."\r
+\r
+I declined accepting more than was my due. He scowled at first; then, as\r
+if recollecting something, he said--\r
+\r
+"Right, right! Better not give you all now: you would, perhaps, stay\r
+away three months if you had fifty pounds. There are ten; is it not\r
+plenty?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, but now you owe me five."\r
+\r
+"Come back for it, then; I am your banker for forty pounds."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I may as well mention another matter of business to you\r
+while I have the opportunity."\r
+\r
+"Matter of business? I am curious to hear it."\r
+\r
+"You have as good as informed me, sir, that you are going shortly to be\r
+married?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; what then?"\r
+\r
+"In that case, sir, Adele ought to go to school: I am sure you will\r
+perceive the necessity of it."\r
+\r
+"To get her out of my bride's way, who might otherwise walk over her\r
+rather too emphatically? There's sense in the suggestion; not a doubt of\r
+it. Adele, as you say, must go to school; and you, of course, must march\r
+straight to--the devil?"\r
+\r
+"I hope not, sir; but I must seek another situation somewhere."\r
+\r
+"In course!" he exclaimed, with a twang of voice and a distortion of\r
+features equally fantastic and ludicrous. He looked at me some minutes.\r
+\r
+"And old Madam Reed, or the Misses, her daughters, will be solicited by\r
+you to seek a place, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir; I am not on such terms with my relatives as would justify me in\r
+asking favours of them--but I shall advertise."\r
+\r
+"You shall walk up the pyramids of Egypt!" he growled. "At your peril\r
+you advertise! I wish I had only offered you a sovereign instead of ten\r
+pounds. Give me back nine pounds, Jane; I've a use for it."\r
+\r
+"And so have I, sir," I returned, putting my hands and my purse behind\r
+me. "I could not spare the money on any account."\r
+\r
+"Little niggard!" said he, "refusing me a pecuniary request! Give me\r
+five pounds, Jane."\r
+\r
+"Not five shillings, sir; nor five pence."\r
+\r
+"Just let me look at the cash."\r
+\r
+"No, sir; you are not to be trusted."\r
+\r
+"Jane!"\r
+\r
+"Sir?"\r
+\r
+"Promise me one thing."\r
+\r
+"I'll promise you anything, sir, that I think I am likely to perform."\r
+\r
+"Not to advertise: and to trust this quest of a situation to me. I'll\r
+find you one in time."\r
+\r
+"I shall be glad so to do, sir, if you, in your turn, will promise that I\r
+and Adele shall be both safe out of the house before your bride enters\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Very well! very well! I'll pledge my word on it. You go to-morrow,\r
+then?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; early."\r
+\r
+"Shall you come down to the drawing-room after dinner?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, I must prepare for the journey."\r
+\r
+"Then you and I must bid good-bye for a little while?"\r
+\r
+"I suppose so, sir."\r
+\r
+"And how do people perform that ceremony of parting, Jane? Teach me; I'm\r
+not quite up to it."\r
+\r
+"They say, Farewell, or any other form they prefer."\r
+\r
+"Then say it."\r
+\r
+"Farewell, Mr. Rochester, for the present."\r
+\r
+"What must I say?"\r
+\r
+"The same, if you like, sir."\r
+\r
+"Farewell, Miss Eyre, for the present; is that all?"\r
+\r
+"Yes?"\r
+\r
+"It seems stingy, to my notions, and dry, and unfriendly. I should like\r
+something else: a little addition to the rite. If one shook hands, for\r
+instance; but no--that would not content me either. So you'll do no more\r
+than say Farewell, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"It is enough, sir: as much good-will may be conveyed in one hearty word\r
+as in many."\r
+\r
+"Very likely; but it is blank and cool--'Farewell.'"\r
+\r
+"How long is he going to stand with his back against that door?" I asked\r
+myself; "I want to commence my packing." The dinner-bell rang, and\r
+suddenly away he bolted, without another syllable: I saw him no more\r
+during the day, and was off before he had risen in the morning.\r
+\r
+I reached the lodge at Gateshead about five o'clock in the afternoon of\r
+the first of May: I stepped in there before going up to the hall. It was\r
+very clean and neat: the ornamental windows were hung with little white\r
+curtains; the floor was spotless; the grate and fire-irons were burnished\r
+bright, and the fire burnt clear. Bessie sat on the hearth, nursing her\r
+last-born, and Robert and his sister played quietly in a corner.\r
+\r
+"Bless you!--I knew you would come!" exclaimed Mrs. Leaven, as I entered.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Bessie," said I, after I had kissed her; "and I trust I am not too\r
+late. How is Mrs. Reed?--Alive still, I hope."\r
+\r
+"Yes, she is alive; and more sensible and collected than she was. The\r
+doctor says she may linger a week or two yet; but he hardly thinks she\r
+will finally recover."\r
+\r
+"Has she mentioned me lately?"\r
+\r
+"She was talking of you only this morning, and wishing you would come,\r
+but she is sleeping now, or was ten minutes ago, when I was up at the\r
+house. She generally lies in a kind of lethargy all the afternoon, and\r
+wakes up about six or seven. Will you rest yourself here an hour, Miss,\r
+and then I will go up with you?"\r
+\r
+Robert here entered, and Bessie laid her sleeping child in the cradle and\r
+went to welcome him: afterwards she insisted on my taking off my bonnet\r
+and having some tea; for she said I looked pale and tired. I was glad to\r
+accept her hospitality; and I submitted to be relieved of my travelling\r
+garb just as passively as I used to let her undress me when a child.\r
+\r
+Old times crowded fast back on me as I watched her bustling about--setting\r
+out the tea-tray with her best china, cutting bread and butter, toasting\r
+a tea-cake, and, between whiles, giving little Robert or Jane an\r
+occasional tap or push, just as she used to give me in former days.\r
+Bessie had retained her quick temper as well as her light foot and good\r
+looks.\r
+\r
+Tea ready, I was going to approach the table; but she desired me to sit\r
+still, quite in her old peremptory tones. I must be served at the\r
+fireside, she said; and she placed before me a little round stand with my\r
+cup and a plate of toast, absolutely as she used to accommodate me with\r
+some privately purloined dainty on a nursery chair: and I smiled and\r
+obeyed her as in bygone days.\r
+\r
+She wanted to know if I was happy at Thornfield Hall, and what sort of a\r
+person the mistress was; and when I told her there was only a master,\r
+whether he was a nice gentleman, and if I liked him. I told her he was\r
+rather an ugly man, but quite a gentleman; and that he treated me kindly,\r
+and I was content. Then I went on to describe to her the gay company\r
+that had lately been staying at the house; and to these details Bessie\r
+listened with interest: they were precisely of the kind she relished.\r
+\r
+In such conversation an hour was soon gone: Bessie restored to me my\r
+bonnet, &c., and, accompanied by her, I quitted the lodge for the hall.\r
+It was also accompanied by her that I had, nearly nine years ago, walked\r
+down the path I was now ascending. On a dark, misty, raw morning in\r
+January, I had left a hostile roof with a desperate and embittered\r
+heart--a sense of outlawry and almost of reprobation--to seek the chilly\r
+harbourage of Lowood: that bourne so far away and unexplored. The same\r
+hostile roof now again rose before me: my prospects were doubtful yet;\r
+and I had yet an aching heart. I still felt as a wanderer on the face of\r
+the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own powers,\r
+and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs,\r
+too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished.\r
+\r
+"You shall go into the breakfast-room first," said Bessie, as she\r
+preceded me through the hall; "the young ladies will be there."\r
+\r
+In another moment I was within that apartment. There was every article\r
+of furniture looking just as it did on the morning I was first introduced\r
+to Mr. Brocklehurst: the very rug he had stood upon still covered the\r
+hearth. Glancing at the bookcases, I thought I could distinguish the two\r
+volumes of Bewick's British Birds occupying their old place on the third\r
+shelf, and Gulliver's Travels and the Arabian Nights ranged just above.\r
+The inanimate objects were not changed; but the living things had altered\r
+past recognition.\r
+\r
+Two young ladies appeared before me; one very tall, almost as tall as\r
+Miss Ingram--very thin too, with a sallow face and severe mien. There\r
+was something ascetic in her look, which was augmented by the extreme\r
+plainness of a straight-skirted, black, stuff dress, a starched linen\r
+collar, hair combed away from the temples, and the nun-like ornament of a\r
+string of ebony beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though\r
+I could trace little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and\r
+colourless visage.\r
+\r
+The other was as certainly Georgiana: but not the Georgiana I\r
+remembered--the slim and fairy-like girl of eleven. This was a\r
+full-blown, very plump damsel, fair as waxwork, with handsome and regular\r
+features, languishing blue eyes, and ringleted yellow hair. The hue of\r
+her dress was black too; but its fashion was so different from her\r
+sister's--so much more flowing and becoming--it looked as stylish as the\r
+other's looked puritanical.\r
+\r
+In each of the sisters there was one trait of the mother--and only one;\r
+the thin and pallid elder daughter had her parent's Cairngorm eye: the\r
+blooming and luxuriant younger girl had her contour of jaw and\r
+chin--perhaps a little softened, but still imparting an indescribable\r
+hardness to the countenance otherwise so voluptuous and buxom.\r
+\r
+Both ladies, as I advanced, rose to welcome me, and both addressed me by\r
+the name of "Miss Eyre." Eliza's greeting was delivered in a short,\r
+abrupt voice, without a smile; and then she sat down again, fixed her\r
+eyes on the fire, and seemed to forget me. Georgiana added to her "How\r
+d'ye do?" several commonplaces about my journey, the weather, and so on,\r
+uttered in rather a drawling tone: and accompanied by sundry side-glances\r
+that measured me from head to foot--now traversing the folds of my drab\r
+merino pelisse, and now lingering on the plain trimming of my cottage\r
+bonnet. Young ladies have a remarkable way of letting you know that they\r
+think you a "quiz" without actually saying the words. A certain\r
+superciliousness of look, coolness of manner, nonchalance of tone,\r
+express fully their sentiments on the point, without committing them by\r
+any positive rudeness in word or deed.\r
+\r
+A sneer, however, whether covert or open, had now no longer that power\r
+over me it once possessed: as I sat between my cousins, I was surprised\r
+to find how easy I felt under the total neglect of the one and the semi-\r
+sarcastic attentions of the other--Eliza did not mortify, nor Georgiana\r
+ruffle me. The fact was, I had other things to think about; within the\r
+last few months feelings had been stirred in me so much more potent than\r
+any they could raise--pains and pleasures so much more acute and\r
+exquisite had been excited than any it was in their power to inflict or\r
+bestow--that their airs gave me no concern either for good or bad.\r
+\r
+"How is Mrs. Reed?" I asked soon, looking calmly at Georgiana, who\r
+thought fit to bridle at the direct address, as if it were an unexpected\r
+liberty.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Reed? Ah! mama, you mean; she is extremely poorly: I doubt if you\r
+can see her to-night."\r
+\r
+"If," said I, "you would just step upstairs and tell her I am come, I\r
+should be much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+Georgiana almost started, and she opened her blue eyes wild and wide. "I\r
+know she had a particular wish to see me," I added, "and I would not\r
+defer attending to her desire longer than is absolutely necessary."\r
+\r
+"Mama dislikes being disturbed in an evening," remarked Eliza. I soon\r
+rose, quietly took off my bonnet and gloves, uninvited, and said I would\r
+just step out to Bessie--who was, I dared say, in the kitchen--and ask\r
+her to ascertain whether Mrs. Reed was disposed to receive me or not to-\r
+night. I went, and having found Bessie and despatched her on my errand,\r
+I proceeded to take further measures. It had heretofore been my habit\r
+always to shrink from arrogance: received as I had been to-day, I should,\r
+a year ago, have resolved to quit Gateshead the very next morning; now,\r
+it was disclosed to me all at once that that would be a foolish plan. I\r
+had taken a journey of a hundred miles to see my aunt, and I must stay\r
+with her till she was better--or dead: as to her daughters' pride or\r
+folly, I must put it on one side, make myself independent of it. So I\r
+addressed the housekeeper; asked her to show me a room, told her I should\r
+probably be a visitor here for a week or two, had my trunk conveyed to my\r
+chamber, and followed it thither myself: I met Bessie on the landing.\r
+\r
+"Missis is awake," said she; "I have told her you are here: come and let\r
+us see if she will know you."\r
+\r
+I did not need to be guided to the well-known room, to which I had so\r
+often been summoned for chastisement or reprimand in former days. I\r
+hastened before Bessie; I softly opened the door: a shaded light stood on\r
+the table, for it was now getting dark. There was the great four-post\r
+bed with amber hangings as of old; there the toilet-table, the armchair,\r
+and the footstool, at which I had a hundred times been sentenced to\r
+kneel, to ask pardon for offences by me uncommitted. I looked into a\r
+certain corner near, half-expecting to see the slim outline of a once\r
+dreaded switch which used to lurk there, waiting to leap out imp-like and\r
+lace my quivering palm or shrinking neck. I approached the bed; I opened\r
+the curtains and leant over the high-piled pillows.\r
+\r
+Well did I remember Mrs. Reed's face, and I eagerly sought the familiar\r
+image. It is a happy thing that time quells the longings of vengeance\r
+and hushes the promptings of rage and aversion. I had left this woman in\r
+bitterness and hate, and I came back to her now with no other emotion\r
+than a sort of ruth for her great sufferings, and a strong yearning to\r
+forget and forgive all injuries--to be reconciled and clasp hands in\r
+amity.\r
+\r
+The well-known face was there: stern, relentless as ever--there was that\r
+peculiar eye which nothing could melt, and the somewhat raised,\r
+imperious, despotic eyebrow. How often had it lowered on me menace and\r
+hate! and how the recollection of childhood's terrors and sorrows revived\r
+as I traced its harsh line now! And yet I stooped down and kissed her:\r
+she looked at me.\r
+\r
+"Is this Jane Eyre?" she said.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Aunt Reed. How are you, dear aunt?"\r
+\r
+I had once vowed that I would never call her aunt again: I thought it no\r
+sin to forget and break that vow now. My fingers had fastened on her\r
+hand which lay outside the sheet: had she pressed mine kindly, I should\r
+at that moment have experienced true pleasure. But unimpressionable\r
+natures are not so soon softened, nor are natural antipathies so readily\r
+eradicated. Mrs. Reed took her hand away, and, turning her face rather\r
+from me, she remarked that the night was warm. Again she regarded me so\r
+icily, I felt at once that her opinion of me--her feeling towards me--was\r
+unchanged and unchangeable. I knew by her stony eye--opaque to\r
+tenderness, indissoluble to tears--that she was resolved to consider me\r
+bad to the last; because to believe me good would give her no generous\r
+pleasure: only a sense of mortification.\r
+\r
+I felt pain, and then I felt ire; and then I felt a determination to\r
+subdue her--to be her mistress in spite both of her nature and her will.\r
+My tears had risen, just as in childhood: I ordered them back to their\r
+source. I brought a chair to the bed-head: I sat down and leaned over\r
+the pillow.\r
+\r
+"You sent for me," I said, "and I am here; and it is my intention to stay\r
+till I see how you get on."\r
+\r
+"Oh, of course! You have seen my daughters?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Well, you may tell them I wish you to stay till I can talk some things\r
+over with you I have on my mind: to-night it is too late, and I have a\r
+difficulty in recalling them. But there was something I wished to\r
+say--let me see--"\r
+\r
+The wandering look and changed utterance told what wreck had taken place\r
+in her once vigorous frame. Turning restlessly, she drew the bedclothes\r
+round her; my elbow, resting on a corner of the quilt, fixed it down: she\r
+was at once irritated.\r
+\r
+"Sit up!" said she; "don't annoy me with holding the clothes fast. Are\r
+you Jane Eyre?"\r
+\r
+"I am Jane Eyre."\r
+\r
+"I have had more trouble with that child than any one would believe. Such\r
+a burden to be left on my hands--and so much annoyance as she caused me,\r
+daily and hourly, with her incomprehensible disposition, and her sudden\r
+starts of temper, and her continual, unnatural watchings of one's\r
+movements! I declare she talked to me once like something mad, or like a\r
+fiend--no child ever spoke or looked as she did; I was glad to get her\r
+away from the house. What did they do with her at Lowood? The fever\r
+broke out there, and many of the pupils died. She, however, did not die:\r
+but I said she did--I wish she had died!"\r
+\r
+"A strange wish, Mrs. Reed; why do you hate her so?"\r
+\r
+"I had a dislike to her mother always; for she was my husband's only\r
+sister, and a great favourite with him: he opposed the family's disowning\r
+her when she made her low marriage; and when news came of her death, he\r
+wept like a simpleton. He would send for the baby; though I entreated\r
+him rather to put it out to nurse and pay for its maintenance. I hated\r
+it the first time I set my eyes on it--a sickly, whining, pining thing!\r
+It would wail in its cradle all night long--not screaming heartily like\r
+any other child, but whimpering and moaning. Reed pitied it; and he used\r
+to nurse it and notice it as if it had been his own: more, indeed, than\r
+he ever noticed his own at that age. He would try to make my children\r
+friendly to the little beggar: the darlings could not bear it, and he was\r
+angry with them when they showed their dislike. In his last illness, he\r
+had it brought continually to his bedside; and but an hour before he\r
+died, he bound me by vow to keep the creature. I would as soon have been\r
+charged with a pauper brat out of a workhouse: but he was weak, naturally\r
+weak. John does not at all resemble his father, and I am glad of it:\r
+John is like me and like my brothers--he is quite a Gibson. Oh, I wish\r
+he would cease tormenting me with letters for money? I have no more\r
+money to give him: we are getting poor. I must send away half the\r
+servants and shut up part of the house; or let it off. I can never\r
+submit to do that--yet how are we to get on? Two-thirds of my income\r
+goes in paying the interest of mortgages. John gambles dreadfully, and\r
+always loses--poor boy! He is beset by sharpers: John is sunk and\r
+degraded--his look is frightful--I feel ashamed for him when I see him."\r
+\r
+She was getting much excited. "I think I had better leave her now," said\r
+I to Bessie, who stood on the other side of the bed.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you had, Miss: but she often talks in this way towards night--in\r
+the morning she is calmer."\r
+\r
+I rose. "Stop!" exclaimed Mrs. Reed, "there is another thing I wished to\r
+say. He threatens me--he continually threatens me with his own death, or\r
+mine: and I dream sometimes that I see him laid out with a great wound in\r
+his throat, or with a swollen and blackened face. I am come to a strange\r
+pass: I have heavy troubles. What is to be done? How is the money to be\r
+had?"\r
+\r
+Bessie now endeavoured to persuade her to take a sedative draught: she\r
+succeeded with difficulty. Soon after, Mrs. Reed grew more composed, and\r
+sank into a dozing state. I then left her.\r
+\r
+More than ten days elapsed before I had again any conversation with her.\r
+She continued either delirious or lethargic; and the doctor forbade\r
+everything which could painfully excite her. Meantime, I got on as well\r
+as I could with Georgiana and Eliza. They were very cold, indeed, at\r
+first. Eliza would sit half the day sewing, reading, or writing, and\r
+scarcely utter a word either to me or her sister. Georgiana would\r
+chatter nonsense to her canary bird by the hour, and take no notice of\r
+me. But I was determined not to seem at a loss for occupation or\r
+amusement: I had brought my drawing materials with me, and they served me\r
+for both.\r
+\r
+Provided with a case of pencils, and some sheets of paper, I used to take\r
+a seat apart from them, near the window, and busy myself in sketching\r
+fancy vignettes, representing any scene that happened momentarily to\r
+shape itself in the ever-shifting kaleidoscope of imagination: a glimpse\r
+of sea between two rocks; the rising moon, and a ship crossing its disk;\r
+a group of reeds and water-flags, and a naiad's head, crowned with lotus-\r
+flowers, rising out of them; an elf sitting in a hedge-sparrow's nest,\r
+under a wreath of hawthorn-bloom.\r
+\r
+One morning I fell to sketching a face: what sort of a face it was to be,\r
+I did not care or know. I took a soft black pencil, gave it a broad\r
+point, and worked away. Soon I had traced on the paper a broad and\r
+prominent forehead and a square lower outline of visage: that contour\r
+gave me pleasure; my fingers proceeded actively to fill it with features.\r
+Strongly-marked horizontal eyebrows must be traced under that brow; then\r
+followed, naturally, a well-defined nose, with a straight ridge and full\r
+nostrils; then a flexible-looking mouth, by no means narrow; then a firm\r
+chin, with a decided cleft down the middle of it: of course, some black\r
+whiskers were wanted, and some jetty hair, tufted on the temples, and\r
+waved above the forehead. Now for the eyes: I had left them to the last,\r
+because they required the most careful working. I drew them large; I\r
+shaped them well: the eyelashes I traced long and sombre; the irids\r
+lustrous and large. "Good! but not quite the thing," I thought, as I\r
+surveyed the effect: "they want more force and spirit;" and I wrought the\r
+shades blacker, that the lights might flash more brilliantly--a happy\r
+touch or two secured success. There, I had a friend's face under my\r
+gaze; and what did it signify that those young ladies turned their backs\r
+on me? I looked at it; I smiled at the speaking likeness: I was absorbed\r
+and content.\r
+\r
+"Is that a portrait of some one you know?" asked Eliza, who had\r
+approached me unnoticed. I responded that it was merely a fancy head,\r
+and hurried it beneath the other sheets. Of course, I lied: it was, in\r
+fact, a very faithful representation of Mr. Rochester. But what was that\r
+to her, or to any one but myself? Georgiana also advanced to look. The\r
+other drawings pleased her much, but she called that "an ugly man." They\r
+both seemed surprised at my skill. I offered to sketch their portraits;\r
+and each, in turn, sat for a pencil outline. Then Georgiana produced her\r
+album. I promised to contribute a water-colour drawing: this put her at\r
+once into good humour. She proposed a walk in the grounds. Before we\r
+had been out two hours, we were deep in a confidential conversation: she\r
+had favoured me with a description of the brilliant winter she had spent\r
+in London two seasons ago--of the admiration she had there excited--the\r
+attention she had received; and I even got hints of the titled conquest\r
+she had made. In the course of the afternoon and evening these hints\r
+were enlarged on: various soft conversations were reported, and\r
+sentimental scenes represented; and, in short, a volume of a novel of\r
+fashionable life was that day improvised by her for my benefit. The\r
+communications were renewed from day to day: they always ran on the same\r
+theme--herself, her loves, and woes. It was strange she never once\r
+adverted either to her mother's illness, or her brother's death, or the\r
+present gloomy state of the family prospects. Her mind seemed wholly\r
+taken up with reminiscences of past gaiety, and aspirations after\r
+dissipations to come. She passed about five minutes each day in her\r
+mother's sick-room, and no more.\r
+\r
+Eliza still spoke little: she had evidently no time to talk. I never saw\r
+a busier person than she seemed to be; yet it was difficult to say what\r
+she did: or rather, to discover any result of her diligence. She had an\r
+alarm to call her up early. I know not how she occupied herself before\r
+breakfast, but after that meal she divided her time into regular\r
+portions, and each hour had its allotted task. Three times a day she\r
+studied a little book, which I found, on inspection, was a Common Prayer\r
+Book. I asked her once what was the great attraction of that volume, and\r
+she said, "the Rubric." Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold\r
+thread, the border of a square crimson cloth, almost large enough for a\r
+carpet. In answer to my inquiries after the use of this article, she\r
+informed me it was a covering for the altar of a new church lately\r
+erected near Gateshead. Two hours she devoted to her diary; two to\r
+working by herself in the kitchen-garden; and one to the regulation of\r
+her accounts. She seemed to want no company; no conversation. I believe\r
+she was happy in her way: this routine sufficed for her; and nothing\r
+annoyed her so much as the occurrence of any incident which forced her to\r
+vary its clockwork regularity.\r
+\r
+She told me one evening, when more disposed to be communicative than\r
+usual, that John's conduct, and the threatened ruin of the family, had\r
+been a source of profound affliction to her: but she had now, she said,\r
+settled her mind, and formed her resolution. Her own fortune she had\r
+taken care to secure; and when her mother died--and it was wholly\r
+improbable, she tranquilly remarked, that she should either recover or\r
+linger long--she would execute a long-cherished project: seek a\r
+retirement where punctual habits would be permanently secured from\r
+disturbance, and place safe barriers between herself and a frivolous\r
+world. I asked if Georgiana would accompany her.\r
+\r
+"Of course not. Georgiana and she had nothing in common: they never had\r
+had. She would not be burdened with her society for any consideration.\r
+Georgiana should take her own course; and she, Eliza, would take hers."\r
+\r
+Georgiana, when not unburdening her heart to me, spent most of her time\r
+in lying on the sofa, fretting about the dulness of the house, and\r
+wishing over and over again that her aunt Gibson would send her an\r
+invitation up to town. "It would be so much better," she said, "if she\r
+could only get out of the way for a month or two, till all was over." I\r
+did not ask what she meant by "all being over," but I suppose she\r
+referred to the expected decease of her mother and the gloomy sequel of\r
+funeral rites. Eliza generally took no more notice of her sister's\r
+indolence and complaints than if no such murmuring, lounging object had\r
+been before her. One day, however, as she put away her account-book and\r
+unfolded her embroidery, she suddenly took her up thus--\r
+\r
+"Georgiana, a more vain and absurd animal than you was certainly never\r
+allowed to cumber the earth. You had no right to be born, for you make\r
+no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a\r
+reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some\r
+other person's strength: if no one can be found willing to burden her or\r
+himself with such a fat, weak, puffy, useless thing, you cry out that you\r
+are ill-treated, neglected, miserable. Then, too, existence for you must\r
+be a scene of continual change and excitement, or else the world is a\r
+dungeon: you must be admired, you must be courted, you must be\r
+flattered--you must have music, dancing, and society--or you languish,\r
+you die away. Have you no sense to devise a system which will make you\r
+independent of all efforts, and all wills, but your own? Take one day;\r
+share it into sections; to each section apportion its task: leave no\r
+stray unemployed quarters of an hour, ten minutes, five minutes--include\r
+all; do each piece of business in its turn with method, with rigid\r
+regularity. The day will close almost before you are aware it has begun;\r
+and you are indebted to no one for helping you to get rid of one vacant\r
+moment: you have had to seek no one's company, conversation, sympathy,\r
+forbearance; you have lived, in short, as an independent being ought to\r
+do. Take this advice: the first and last I shall offer you; then you\r
+will not want me or any one else, happen what may. Neglect it--go on as\r
+heretofore, craving, whining, and idling--and suffer the results of your\r
+idiocy, however bad and insuperable they may be. I tell you this\r
+plainly; and listen: for though I shall no more repeat what I am now\r
+about to say, I shall steadily act on it. After my mother's death, I\r
+wash my hands of you: from the day her coffin is carried to the vault in\r
+Gateshead Church, you and I will be as separate as if we had never known\r
+each other. You need not think that because we chanced to be born of the\r
+same parents, I shall suffer you to fasten me down by even the feeblest\r
+claim: I can tell you this--if the whole human race, ourselves excepted,\r
+were swept away, and we two stood alone on the earth, I would leave you\r
+in the old world, and betake myself to the new."\r
+\r
+She closed her lips.\r
+\r
+"You might have spared yourself the trouble of delivering that tirade,"\r
+answered Georgiana. "Everybody knows you are the most selfish, heartless\r
+creature in existence: and _I_ know your spiteful hatred towards me: I\r
+have had a specimen of it before in the trick you played me about Lord\r
+Edwin Vere: you could not bear me to be raised above you, to have a\r
+title, to be received into circles where you dare not show your face, and\r
+so you acted the spy and informer, and ruined my prospects for ever."\r
+Georgiana took out her handkerchief and blew her nose for an hour\r
+afterwards; Eliza sat cold, impassable, and assiduously industrious.\r
+\r
+True, generous feeling is made small account of by some, but here were\r
+two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably\r
+savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgment is a washy\r
+draught indeed; but judgment untempered by feeling is too bitter and\r
+husky a morsel for human deglutition.\r
+\r
+It was a wet and windy afternoon: Georgiana had fallen asleep on the sofa\r
+over the perusal of a novel; Eliza was gone to attend a saint's-day\r
+service at the new church--for in matters of religion she was a rigid\r
+formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual discharge of what she\r
+considered her devotional duties; fair or foul, she went to church thrice\r
+every Sunday, and as often on week-days as there were prayers.\r
+\r
+I bethought myself to go upstairs and see how the dying woman sped, who\r
+lay there almost unheeded: the very servants paid her but a remittent\r
+attention: the hired nurse, being little looked after, would slip out of\r
+the room whenever she could. Bessie was faithful; but she had her own\r
+family to mind, and could only come occasionally to the hall. I found\r
+the sick-room unwatched, as I had expected: no nurse was there; the\r
+patient lay still, and seemingly lethargic; her livid face sunk in the\r
+pillows: the fire was dying in the grate. I renewed the fuel,\r
+re-arranged the bedclothes, gazed awhile on her who could not now gaze on\r
+me, and then I moved away to the window.\r
+\r
+The rain beat strongly against the panes, the wind blew tempestuously:\r
+"One lies there," I thought, "who will soon be beyond the war of earthly\r
+elements. Whither will that spirit--now struggling to quit its material\r
+tenement--flit when at length released?"\r
+\r
+In pondering the great mystery, I thought of Helen Burns, recalled her\r
+dying words--her faith--her doctrine of the equality of disembodied\r
+souls. I was still listening in thought to her well-remembered\r
+tones--still picturing her pale and spiritual aspect, her wasted face and\r
+sublime gaze, as she lay on her placid deathbed, and whispered her\r
+longing to be restored to her divine Father's bosom--when a feeble voice\r
+murmured from the couch behind: "Who is that?"\r
+\r
+I knew Mrs. Reed had not spoken for days: was she reviving? I went up to\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"It is I, Aunt Reed."\r
+\r
+"Who--I?" was her answer. "Who are you?" looking at me with surprise and\r
+a sort of alarm, but still not wildly. "You are quite a stranger to\r
+me--where is Bessie?"\r
+\r
+"She is at the lodge, aunt."\r
+\r
+"Aunt," she repeated. "Who calls me aunt? You are not one of the\r
+Gibsons; and yet I know you--that face, and the eyes and forehead, are\r
+quiet familiar to me: you are like--why, you are like Jane Eyre!"\r
+\r
+I said nothing: I was afraid of occasioning some shock by declaring my\r
+identity.\r
+\r
+"Yet," said she, "I am afraid it is a mistake: my thoughts deceive me. I\r
+wished to see Jane Eyre, and I fancy a likeness where none exists:\r
+besides, in eight years she must be so changed." I now gently assured\r
+her that I was the person she supposed and desired me to be: and seeing\r
+that I was understood, and that her senses were quite collected, I\r
+explained how Bessie had sent her husband to fetch me from Thornfield.\r
+\r
+"I am very ill, I know," she said ere long. "I was trying to turn myself\r
+a few minutes since, and find I cannot move a limb. It is as well I\r
+should ease my mind before I die: what we think little of in health,\r
+burdens us at such an hour as the present is to me. Is the nurse here?\r
+or is there no one in the room but you?"\r
+\r
+I assured her we were alone.\r
+\r
+"Well, I have twice done you a wrong which I regret now. One was in\r
+breaking the promise which I gave my husband to bring you up as my own\r
+child; the other--" she stopped. "After all, it is of no great\r
+importance, perhaps," she murmured to herself: "and then I may get\r
+better; and to humble myself so to her is painful."\r
+\r
+She made an effort to alter her position, but failed: her face changed;\r
+she seemed to experience some inward sensation--the precursor, perhaps,\r
+of the last pang.\r
+\r
+"Well, I must get it over. Eternity is before me: I had better tell\r
+her.--Go to my dressing-case, open it, and take out a letter you will see\r
+there."\r
+\r
+I obeyed her directions. "Read the letter," she said.\r
+\r
+It was short, and thus conceived:--\r
+\r
+ "Madam,--Will you have the goodness to send me the address of my\r
+ niece, Jane Eyre, and to tell me how she is? It is my intention to\r
+ write shortly and desire her to come to me at Madeira. Providence has\r
+ blessed my endeavours to secure a competency; and as I am unmarried\r
+ and childless, I wish to adopt her during my life, and bequeath her at\r
+ my death whatever I may have to leave.--I am, Madam, &c., &c.,\r
+\r
+ "JOHN EYRE, Madeira."\r
+\r
+It was dated three years back.\r
+\r
+"Why did I never hear of this?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Because I disliked you too fixedly and thoroughly ever to lend a hand in\r
+lifting you to prosperity. I could not forget your conduct to me,\r
+Jane--the fury with which you once turned on me; the tone in which you\r
+declared you abhorred me the worst of anybody in the world; the\r
+unchildlike look and voice with which you affirmed that the very thought\r
+of me made you sick, and asserted that I had treated you with miserable\r
+cruelty. I could not forget my own sensations when you thus started up\r
+and poured out the venom of your mind: I felt fear as if an animal that I\r
+had struck or pushed had looked up at me with human eyes and cursed me in\r
+a man's voice.--Bring me some water! Oh, make haste!"\r
+\r
+"Dear Mrs. Reed," said I, as I offered her the draught she required,\r
+"think no more of all this, let it pass away from your mind. Forgive me\r
+for my passionate language: I was a child then; eight, nine years have\r
+passed since that day."\r
+\r
+She heeded nothing of what I said; but when she had tasted the water and\r
+drawn breath, she went on thus--\r
+\r
+"I tell you I could not forget it; and I took my revenge: for you to be\r
+adopted by your uncle, and placed in a state of ease and comfort, was\r
+what I could not endure. I wrote to him; I said I was sorry for his\r
+disappointment, but Jane Eyre was dead: she had died of typhus fever at\r
+Lowood. Now act as you please: write and contradict my assertion--expose\r
+my falsehood as soon as you like. You were born, I think, to be my\r
+torment: my last hour is racked by the recollection of a deed which, but\r
+for you, I should never have been tempted to commit."\r
+\r
+"If you could but be persuaded to think no more of it, aunt, and to\r
+regard me with kindness and forgiveness"\r
+\r
+"You have a very bad disposition," said she, "and one to this day I feel\r
+it impossible to understand: how for nine years you could be patient and\r
+quiescent under any treatment, and in the tenth break out all fire and\r
+violence, I can never comprehend."\r
+\r
+"My disposition is not so bad as you think: I am passionate, but not\r
+vindictive. Many a time, as a little child, I should have been glad to\r
+love you if you would have let me; and I long earnestly to be reconciled\r
+to you now: kiss me, aunt."\r
+\r
+I approached my cheek to her lips: she would not touch it. She said I\r
+oppressed her by leaning over the bed, and again demanded water. As I\r
+laid her down--for I raised her and supported her on my arm while she\r
+drank--I covered her ice-cold and clammy hand with mine: the feeble\r
+fingers shrank from my touch--the glazing eyes shunned my gaze.\r
+\r
+"Love me, then, or hate me, as you will," I said at last, "you have my\r
+full and free forgiveness: ask now for God's, and be at peace."\r
+\r
+Poor, suffering woman! it was too late for her to make now the effort to\r
+change her habitual frame of mind: living, she had ever hated me--dying,\r
+she must hate me still.\r
+\r
+The nurse now entered, and Bessie followed. I yet lingered half-an-hour\r
+longer, hoping to see some sign of amity: but she gave none. She was\r
+fast relapsing into stupor; nor did her mind again rally: at twelve\r
+o'clock that night she died. I was not present to close her eyes, nor\r
+were either of her daughters. They came to tell us the next morning that\r
+all was over. She was by that time laid out. Eliza and I went to look\r
+at her: Georgiana, who had burst out into loud weeping, said she dared\r
+not go. There was stretched Sarah Reed's once robust and active frame,\r
+rigid and still: her eye of flint was covered with its cold lid; her brow\r
+and strong traits wore yet the impress of her inexorable soul. A strange\r
+and solemn object was that corpse to me. I gazed on it with gloom and\r
+pain: nothing soft, nothing sweet, nothing pitying, or hopeful, or\r
+subduing did it inspire; only a grating anguish for _her_ woes--not _my_\r
+loss--and a sombre tearless dismay at the fearfulness of death in such a\r
+form.\r
+\r
+Eliza surveyed her parent calmly. After a silence of some minutes she\r
+observed--\r
+\r
+"With her constitution she should have lived to a good old age: her life\r
+was shortened by trouble." And then a spasm constricted her mouth for an\r
+instant: as it passed away she turned and left the room, and so did I.\r
+Neither of us had dropt a tear.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester had given me but one week's leave of absence: yet a month\r
+elapsed before I quitted Gateshead. I wished to leave immediately after\r
+the funeral, but Georgiana entreated me to stay till she could get off to\r
+London, whither she was now at last invited by her uncle, Mr. Gibson, who\r
+had come down to direct his sister's interment and settle the family\r
+affairs. Georgiana said she dreaded being left alone with Eliza; from\r
+her she got neither sympathy in her dejection, support in her fears, nor\r
+aid in her preparations; so I bore with her feeble-minded wailings and\r
+selfish lamentations as well as I could, and did my best in sewing for\r
+her and packing her dresses. It is true, that while I worked, she would\r
+idle; and I thought to myself, "If you and I were destined to live always\r
+together, cousin, we would commence matters on a different footing. I\r
+should not settle tamely down into being the forbearing party; I should\r
+assign you your share of labour, and compel you to accomplish it, or else\r
+it should be left undone: I should insist, also, on your keeping some of\r
+those drawling, half-insincere complaints hushed in your own breast. It\r
+is only because our connection happens to be very transitory, and comes\r
+at a peculiarly mournful season, that I consent thus to render it so\r
+patient and compliant on my part."\r
+\r
+At last I saw Georgiana off; but now it was Eliza's turn to request me to\r
+stay another week. Her plans required all her time and attention, she\r
+said; she was about to depart for some unknown bourne; and all day long\r
+she stayed in her own room, her door bolted within, filling trunks,\r
+emptying drawers, burning papers, and holding no communication with any\r
+one. She wished me to look after the house, to see callers, and answer\r
+notes of condolence.\r
+\r
+One morning she told me I was at liberty. "And," she added, "I am\r
+obliged to you for your valuable services and discreet conduct! There is\r
+some difference between living with such an one as you and with\r
+Georgiana: you perform your own part in life and burden no one.\r
+To-morrow," she continued, "I set out for the Continent. I shall take up\r
+my abode in a religious house near Lisle--a nunnery you would call it;\r
+there I shall be quiet and unmolested. I shall devote myself for a time\r
+to the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful study\r
+of the workings of their system: if I find it to be, as I half suspect it\r
+is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of all things decently\r
+and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of Rome and probably take the\r
+veil."\r
+\r
+I neither expressed surprise at this resolution nor attempted to dissuade\r
+her from it. "The vocation will fit you to a hair," I thought: "much\r
+good may it do you!"\r
+\r
+When we parted, she said: "Good-bye, cousin Jane Eyre; I wish you well:\r
+you have some sense."\r
+\r
+I then returned: "You are not without sense, cousin Eliza; but what you\r
+have, I suppose, in another year will be walled up alive in a French\r
+convent. However, it is not my business, and so it suits you, I don't\r
+much care."\r
+\r
+"You are in the right," said she; and with these words we each went our\r
+separate way. As I shall not have occasion to refer either to her or her\r
+sister again, I may as well mention here, that Georgiana made an\r
+advantageous match with a wealthy worn-out man of fashion, and that Eliza\r
+actually took the veil, and is at this day superior of the convent where\r
+she passed the period of her novitiate, and which she endowed with her\r
+fortune.\r
+\r
+How people feel when they are returning home from an absence, long or\r
+short, I did not know: I had never experienced the sensation. I had\r
+known what it was to come back to Gateshead when a child after a long\r
+walk, to be scolded for looking cold or gloomy; and later, what it was to\r
+come back from church to Lowood, to long for a plenteous meal and a good\r
+fire, and to be unable to get either. Neither of these returnings was\r
+very pleasant or desirable: no magnet drew me to a given point,\r
+increasing in its strength of attraction the nearer I came. The return\r
+to Thornfield was yet to be tried.\r
+\r
+My journey seemed tedious--very tedious: fifty miles one day, a night\r
+spent at an inn; fifty miles the next day. During the first twelve hours\r
+I thought of Mrs. Reed in her last moments; I saw her disfigured and\r
+discoloured face, and heard her strangely altered voice. I mused on the\r
+funeral day, the coffin, the hearse, the black train of tenants and\r
+servants--few was the number of relatives--the gaping vault, the silent\r
+church, the solemn service. Then I thought of Eliza and Georgiana; I\r
+beheld one the cynosure of a ball-room, the other the inmate of a convent\r
+cell; and I dwelt on and analysed their separate peculiarities of person\r
+and character. The evening arrival at the great town of--scattered these\r
+thoughts; night gave them quite another turn: laid down on my traveller's\r
+bed, I left reminiscence for anticipation.\r
+\r
+I was going back to Thornfield: but how long was I to stay there? Not\r
+long; of that I was sure. I had heard from Mrs. Fairfax in the interim\r
+of my absence: the party at the hall was dispersed; Mr. Rochester had\r
+left for London three weeks ago, but he was then expected to return in a\r
+fortnight. Mrs. Fairfax surmised that he was gone to make arrangements\r
+for his wedding, as he had talked of purchasing a new carriage: she said\r
+the idea of his marrying Miss Ingram still seemed strange to her; but\r
+from what everybody said, and from what she had herself seen, she could\r
+no longer doubt that the event would shortly take place. "You would be\r
+strangely incredulous if you did doubt it," was my mental comment. "I\r
+don't doubt it."\r
+\r
+The question followed, "Where was I to go?" I dreamt of Miss Ingram all\r
+the night: in a vivid morning dream I saw her closing the gates of\r
+Thornfield against me and pointing me out another road; and Mr. Rochester\r
+looked on with his arms folded--smiling sardonically, as it seemed, at\r
+both her and me.\r
+\r
+I had not notified to Mrs. Fairfax the exact day of my return; for I did\r
+not wish either car or carriage to meet me at Millcote. I proposed to\r
+walk the distance quietly by myself; and very quietly, after leaving my\r
+box in the ostler's care, did I slip away from the George Inn, about six\r
+o'clock of a June evening, and take the old road to Thornfield: a road\r
+which lay chiefly through fields, and was now little frequented.\r
+\r
+It was not a bright or splendid summer evening, though fair and soft: the\r
+haymakers were at work all along the road; and the sky, though far from\r
+cloudless, was such as promised well for the future: its blue--where blue\r
+was visible--was mild and settled, and its cloud strata high and thin.\r
+The west, too, was warm: no watery gleam chilled it--it seemed as if\r
+there was a fire lit, an altar burning behind its screen of marbled\r
+vapour, and out of apertures shone a golden redness.\r
+\r
+I felt glad as the road shortened before me: so glad that I stopped once\r
+to ask myself what that joy meant: and to remind reason that it was not\r
+to my home I was going, or to a permanent resting-place, or to a place\r
+where fond friends looked out for me and waited my arrival. "Mrs.\r
+Fairfax will smile you a calm welcome, to be sure," said I; "and little\r
+Adele will clap her hands and jump to see you: but you know very well you\r
+are thinking of another than they, and that he is not thinking of you."\r
+\r
+But what is so headstrong as youth? What so blind as inexperience? These\r
+affirmed that it was pleasure enough to have the privilege of again\r
+looking on Mr. Rochester, whether he looked on me or not; and they\r
+added--"Hasten! hasten! be with him while you may: but a few more days or\r
+weeks, at most, and you are parted from him for ever!" And then I\r
+strangled a new-born agony--a deformed thing which I could not persuade\r
+myself to own and rear--and ran on.\r
+\r
+They are making hay, too, in Thornfield meadows: or rather, the labourers\r
+are just quitting their work, and returning home with their rakes on\r
+their shoulders, now, at the hour I arrive. I have but a field or two to\r
+traverse, and then I shall cross the road and reach the gates. How full\r
+the hedges are of roses! But I have no time to gather any; I want to be\r
+at the house. I passed a tall briar, shooting leafy and flowery branches\r
+across the path; I see the narrow stile with stone steps; and I see--Mr.\r
+Rochester sitting there, a book and a pencil in his hand; he is writing.\r
+\r
+Well, he is not a ghost; yet every nerve I have is unstrung: for a moment\r
+I am beyond my own mastery. What does it mean? I did not think I should\r
+tremble in this way when I saw him, or lose my voice or the power of\r
+motion in his presence. I will go back as soon as I can stir: I need not\r
+make an absolute fool of myself. I know another way to the house. It\r
+does not signify if I knew twenty ways; for he has seen me.\r
+\r
+"Hillo!" he cries; and he puts up his book and his pencil. "There you\r
+are! Come on, if you please."\r
+\r
+I suppose I do come on; though in what fashion I know not; being scarcely\r
+cognisant of my movements, and solicitous only to appear calm; and, above\r
+all, to control the working muscles of my face--which I feel rebel\r
+insolently against my will, and struggle to express what I had resolved\r
+to conceal. But I have a veil--it is down: I may make shift yet to\r
+behave with decent composure.\r
+\r
+"And this is Jane Eyre? Are you coming from Millcote, and on foot?\r
+Yes--just one of your tricks: not to send for a carriage, and come\r
+clattering over street and road like a common mortal, but to steal into\r
+the vicinage of your home along with twilight, just as if you were a\r
+dream or a shade. What the deuce have you done with yourself this last\r
+month?"\r
+\r
+"I have been with my aunt, sir, who is dead."\r
+\r
+"A true Janian reply! Good angels be my guard! She comes from the other\r
+world--from the abode of people who are dead; and tells me so when she\r
+meets me alone here in the gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see\r
+if you are substance or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as soon offer to take\r
+hold of a blue _ignis fatuus_ light in a marsh. Truant! truant!" he\r
+added, when he had paused an instant. "Absent from me a whole month, and\r
+forgetting me quite, I'll be sworn!"\r
+\r
+I knew there would be pleasure in meeting my master again, even though\r
+broken by the fear that he was so soon to cease to be my master, and by\r
+the knowledge that I was nothing to him: but there was ever in Mr.\r
+Rochester (so at least I thought) such a wealth of the power of\r
+communicating happiness, that to taste but of the crumbs he scattered to\r
+stray and stranger birds like me, was to feast genially. His last words\r
+were balm: they seemed to imply that it imported something to him whether\r
+I forgot him or not. And he had spoken of Thornfield as my home--would\r
+that it were my home!\r
+\r
+He did not leave the stile, and I hardly liked to ask to go by. I\r
+inquired soon if he had not been to London.\r
+\r
+"Yes; I suppose you found that out by second-sight."\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Fairfax told me in a letter."\r
+\r
+"And did she inform you what I went to do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, sir! Everybody knew your errand."\r
+\r
+"You must see the carriage, Jane, and tell me if you don't think it will\r
+suit Mrs. Rochester exactly; and whether she won't look like Queen\r
+Boadicea, leaning back against those purple cushions. I wish, Jane, I\r
+were a trifle better adapted to match with her externally. Tell me now,\r
+fairy as you are--can't you give me a charm, or a philter, or something\r
+of that sort, to make me a handsome man?"\r
+\r
+"It would be past the power of magic, sir;" and, in thought, I added, "A\r
+loving eye is all the charm needed: to such you are handsome enough; or\r
+rather your sternness has a power beyond beauty."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester had sometimes read my unspoken thoughts with an acumen to\r
+me incomprehensible: in the present instance he took no notice of my\r
+abrupt vocal response; but he smiled at me with a certain smile he had of\r
+his own, and which he used but on rare occasions. He seemed to think it\r
+too good for common purposes: it was the real sunshine of feeling--he\r
+shed it over me now.\r
+\r
+"Pass, Janet," said he, making room for me to cross the stile: "go up\r
+home, and stay your weary little wandering feet at a friend's threshold."\r
+\r
+All I had now to do was to obey him in silence: no need for me to\r
+colloquise further. I got over the stile without a word, and meant to\r
+leave him calmly. An impulse held me fast--a force turned me round. I\r
+said--or something in me said for me, and in spite of me--\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Mr. Rochester, for your great kindness. I am strangely glad\r
+to get back again to you: and wherever you are is my home--my only home."\r
+\r
+I walked on so fast that even he could hardly have overtaken me had he\r
+tried. Little Adele was half wild with delight when she saw me. Mrs.\r
+Fairfax received me with her usual plain friendliness. Leah smiled, and\r
+even Sophie bid me "bon soir" with glee. This was very pleasant; there\r
+is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow-creatures, and\r
+feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.\r
+\r
+I that evening shut my eyes resolutely against the future: I stopped my\r
+ears against the voice that kept warning me of near separation and coming\r
+grief. When tea was over and Mrs. Fairfax had taken her knitting, and I\r
+had assumed a low seat near her, and Adele, kneeling on the carpet, had\r
+nestled close up to me, and a sense of mutual affection seemed to\r
+surround us with a ring of golden peace, I uttered a silent prayer that\r
+we might not be parted far or soon; but when, as we thus sat, Mr.\r
+Rochester entered, unannounced, and looking at us, seemed to take\r
+pleasure in the spectacle of a group so amicable--when he said he\r
+supposed the old lady was all right now that she had got her adopted\r
+daughter back again, and added that he saw Adele was "prete a croquer sa\r
+petite maman Anglaise"--I half ventured to hope that he would, even after\r
+his marriage, keep us together somewhere under the shelter of his\r
+protection, and not quite exiled from the sunshine of his presence.\r
+\r
+A fortnight of dubious calm succeeded my return to Thornfield Hall.\r
+Nothing was said of the master's marriage, and I saw no preparation going\r
+on for such an event. Almost every day I asked Mrs. Fairfax if she had\r
+yet heard anything decided: her answer was always in the negative. Once\r
+she said she had actually put the question to Mr. Rochester as to when he\r
+was going to bring his bride home; but he had answered her only by a joke\r
+and one of his queer looks, and she could not tell what to make of him.\r
+\r
+One thing specially surprised me, and that was, there were no journeyings\r
+backward and forward, no visits to Ingram Park: to be sure it was twenty\r
+miles off, on the borders of another county; but what was that distance\r
+to an ardent lover? To so practised and indefatigable a horseman as Mr.\r
+Rochester, it would be but a morning's ride. I began to cherish hopes I\r
+had no right to conceive: that the match was broken off; that rumour had\r
+been mistaken; that one or both parties had changed their minds. I used\r
+to look at my master's face to see if it were sad or fierce; but I could\r
+not remember the time when it had been so uniformly clear of clouds or\r
+evil feelings. If, in the moments I and my pupil spent with him, I\r
+lacked spirits and sank into inevitable dejection, he became even gay.\r
+Never had he called me more frequently to his presence; never been kinder\r
+to me when there--and, alas! never had I loved him so well.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII\r
+\r
+\r
+A splendid Midsummer shone over England: skies so pure, suns so radiant\r
+as were then seen in long succession, seldom favour even singly, our wave-\r
+girt land. It was as if a band of Italian days had come from the South,\r
+like a flock of glorious passenger birds, and lighted to rest them on the\r
+cliffs of Albion. The hay was all got in; the fields round Thornfield\r
+were green and shorn; the roads white and baked; the trees were in their\r
+dark prime; hedge and wood, full-leaved and deeply tinted, contrasted\r
+well with the sunny hue of the cleared meadows between.\r
+\r
+On Midsummer-eve, Adele, weary with gathering wild strawberries in Hay\r
+Lane half the day, had gone to bed with the sun. I watched her drop\r
+asleep, and when I left her, I sought the garden.\r
+\r
+It was now the sweetest hour of the twenty-four:--"Day its fervid fires\r
+had wasted," and dew fell cool on panting plain and scorched summit.\r
+Where the sun had gone down in simple state--pure of the pomp of\r
+clouds--spread a solemn purple, burning with the light of red jewel and\r
+furnace flame at one point, on one hill-peak, and extending high and\r
+wide, soft and still softer, over half heaven. The east had its own\r
+charm or fine deep blue, and its own modest gem, a casino and solitary\r
+star: soon it would boast the moon; but she was yet beneath the horizon.\r
+\r
+I walked a while on the pavement; but a subtle, well-known scent--that of\r
+a cigar--stole from some window; I saw the library casement open a\r
+handbreadth; I knew I might be watched thence; so I went apart into the\r
+orchard. No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it\r
+was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers: a very high wall shut it out\r
+from the court, on one side; on the other, a beech avenue screened it\r
+from the lawn. At the bottom was a sunk fence; its sole separation from\r
+lonely fields: a winding walk, bordered with laurels and terminating in a\r
+giant horse-chestnut, circled at the base by a seat, led down to the\r
+fence. Here one could wander unseen. While such honey-dew fell, such\r
+silence reigned, such gloaming gathered, I felt as if I could haunt such\r
+shade for ever; but in threading the flower and fruit parterres at the\r
+upper part of the enclosure, enticed there by the light the now rising\r
+moon cast on this more open quarter, my step is stayed--not by sound, not\r
+by sight, but once more by a warning fragrance.\r
+\r
+Sweet-briar and southernwood, jasmine, pink, and rose have long been\r
+yielding their evening sacrifice of incense: this new scent is neither of\r
+shrub nor flower; it is--I know it well--it is Mr. Rochester's cigar. I\r
+look round and I listen. I see trees laden with ripening fruit. I hear\r
+a nightingale warbling in a wood half a mile off; no moving form is\r
+visible, no coming step audible; but that perfume increases: I must flee.\r
+I make for the wicket leading to the shrubbery, and I see Mr. Rochester\r
+entering. I step aside into the ivy recess; he will not stay long: he\r
+will soon return whence he came, and if I sit still he will never see me.\r
+\r
+But no--eventide is as pleasant to him as to me, and this antique garden\r
+as attractive; and he strolls on, now lifting the gooseberry-tree\r
+branches to look at the fruit, large as plums, with which they are laden;\r
+now taking a ripe cherry from the wall; now stooping towards a knot of\r
+flowers, either to inhale their fragrance or to admire the dew-beads on\r
+their petals. A great moth goes humming by me; it alights on a plant at\r
+Mr. Rochester's foot: he sees it, and bends to examine it.\r
+\r
+"Now, he has his back towards me," thought I, "and he is occupied too;\r
+perhaps, if I walk softly, I can slip away unnoticed."\r
+\r
+I trode on an edging of turf that the crackle of the pebbly gravel might\r
+not betray me: he was standing among the beds at a yard or two distant\r
+from where I had to pass; the moth apparently engaged him. "I shall get\r
+by very well," I meditated. As I crossed his shadow, thrown long over\r
+the garden by the moon, not yet risen high, he said quietly, without\r
+turning--\r
+\r
+"Jane, come and look at this fellow."\r
+\r
+I had made no noise: he had not eyes behind--could his shadow feel? I\r
+started at first, and then I approached him.\r
+\r
+"Look at his wings," said he, "he reminds me rather of a West Indian\r
+insect; one does not often see so large and gay a night-rover in England;\r
+there! he is flown."\r
+\r
+The moth roamed away. I was sheepishly retreating also; but Mr.\r
+Rochester followed me, and when we reached the wicket, he said--\r
+\r
+"Turn back: on so lovely a night it is a shame to sit in the house; and\r
+surely no one can wish to go to bed while sunset is thus at meeting with\r
+moonrise."\r
+\r
+It is one of my faults, that though my tongue is sometimes prompt enough\r
+at an answer, there are times when it sadly fails me in framing an\r
+excuse; and always the lapse occurs at some crisis, when a facile word or\r
+plausible pretext is specially wanted to get me out of painful\r
+embarrassment. I did not like to walk at this hour alone with Mr.\r
+Rochester in the shadowy orchard; but I could not find a reason to allege\r
+for leaving him. I followed with lagging step, and thoughts busily bent\r
+on discovering a means of extrication; but he himself looked so composed\r
+and so grave also, I became ashamed of feeling any confusion: the evil--if\r
+evil existent or prospective there was--seemed to lie with me only; his\r
+mind was unconscious and quiet.\r
+\r
+"Jane," he recommenced, as we entered the laurel walk, and slowly strayed\r
+down in the direction of the sunk fence and the horse-chestnut,\r
+"Thornfield is a pleasant place in summer, is it not?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"You must have become in some degree attached to the house,--you, who\r
+have an eye for natural beauties, and a good deal of the organ of\r
+Adhesiveness?"\r
+\r
+"I am attached to it, indeed."\r
+\r
+"And though I don't comprehend how it is, I perceive you have acquired a\r
+degree of regard for that foolish little child Adele, too; and even for\r
+simple dame Fairfax?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; in different ways, I have an affection for both."\r
+\r
+"And would be sorry to part with them?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Pity!" he said, and sighed and paused. "It is always the way of events\r
+in this life," he continued presently: "no sooner have you got settled in\r
+a pleasant resting-place, than a voice calls out to you to rise and move\r
+on, for the hour of repose is expired."\r
+\r
+"Must I move on, sir?" I asked. "Must I leave Thornfield?"\r
+\r
+"I believe you must, Jane. I am sorry, Janet, but I believe indeed you\r
+must."\r
+\r
+This was a blow: but I did not let it prostrate me.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, I shall be ready when the order to march comes."\r
+\r
+"It is come now--I must give it to-night."\r
+\r
+"Then you _are_ going to be married, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Ex-act-ly--pre-cise-ly: with your usual acuteness, you have hit the nail\r
+straight on the head."\r
+\r
+"Soon, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Very soon, my--that is, Miss Eyre: and you'll remember, Jane, the first\r
+time I, or Rumour, plainly intimated to you that it was my intention to\r
+put my old bachelor's neck into the sacred noose, to enter into the holy\r
+estate of matrimony--to take Miss Ingram to my bosom, in short (she's an\r
+extensive armful: but that's not to the point--one can't have too much of\r
+such a very excellent thing as my beautiful Blanche): well, as I was\r
+saying--listen to me, Jane! You're not turning your head to look after\r
+more moths, are you? That was only a lady-clock, child, 'flying away\r
+home.' I wish to remind you that it was you who first said to me, with\r
+that discretion I respect in you--with that foresight, prudence, and\r
+humility which befit your responsible and dependent position--that in\r
+case I married Miss Ingram, both you and little Adele had better trot\r
+forthwith. I pass over the sort of slur conveyed in this suggestion on\r
+the character of my beloved; indeed, when you are far away, Janet, I'll\r
+try to forget it: I shall notice only its wisdom; which is such that I\r
+have made it my law of action. Adele must go to school; and you, Miss\r
+Eyre, must get a new situation."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I will advertise immediately: and meantime, I suppose--" I was\r
+going to say, "I suppose I may stay here, till I find another shelter to\r
+betake myself to:" but I stopped, feeling it would not do to risk a long\r
+sentence, for my voice was not quite under command.\r
+\r
+"In about a month I hope to be a bridegroom," continued Mr. Rochester;\r
+"and in the interim, I shall myself look out for employment and an asylum\r
+for you."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir; I am sorry to give--"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no need to apologise! I consider that when a dependent does her\r
+duty as well as you have done yours, she has a sort of claim upon her\r
+employer for any little assistance he can conveniently render her; indeed\r
+I have already, through my future mother-in-law, heard of a place that I\r
+think will suit: it is to undertake the education of the five daughters\r
+of Mrs. Dionysius O'Gall of Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught, Ireland. You'll\r
+like Ireland, I think: they're such warm-hearted people there, they say."\r
+\r
+"It is a long way off, sir."\r
+\r
+"No matter--a girl of your sense will not object to the voyage or the\r
+distance."\r
+\r
+"Not the voyage, but the distance: and then the sea is a barrier--"\r
+\r
+"From what, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"From England and from Thornfield: and--"\r
+\r
+"Well?"\r
+\r
+"From _you_, sir."\r
+\r
+I said this almost involuntarily, and, with as little sanction of free\r
+will, my tears gushed out. I did not cry so as to be heard, however; I\r
+avoided sobbing. The thought of Mrs. O'Gall and Bitternutt Lodge struck\r
+cold to my heart; and colder the thought of all the brine and foam,\r
+destined, as it seemed, to rush between me and the master at whose side I\r
+now walked, and coldest the remembrance of the wider ocean--wealth,\r
+caste, custom intervened between me and what I naturally and inevitably\r
+loved.\r
+\r
+"It is a long way," I again said.\r
+\r
+"It is, to be sure; and when you get to Bitternutt Lodge, Connaught,\r
+Ireland, I shall never see you again, Jane: that's morally certain. I\r
+never go over to Ireland, not having myself much of a fancy for the\r
+country. We have been good friends, Jane; have we not?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And when friends are on the eve of separation, they like to spend the\r
+little time that remains to them close to each other. Come! we'll talk\r
+over the voyage and the parting quietly half-an-hour or so, while the\r
+stars enter into their shining life up in heaven yonder: here is the\r
+chestnut tree: here is the bench at its old roots. Come, we will sit\r
+there in peace to-night, though we should never more be destined to sit\r
+there together." He seated me and himself.\r
+\r
+"It is a long way to Ireland, Janet, and I am sorry to send my little\r
+friend on such weary travels: but if I can't do better, how is it to be\r
+helped? Are you anything akin to me, do you think, Jane?"\r
+\r
+I could risk no sort of answer by this time: my heart was still.\r
+\r
+"Because," he said, "I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to\r
+you--especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string\r
+somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a\r
+similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little\r
+frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of\r
+land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be\r
+snapt; and then I've a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.\r
+As for you,--you'd forget me."\r
+\r
+"That I _never_ should, sir: you know--" Impossible to proceed.\r
+\r
+"Jane, do you hear that nightingale singing in the wood? Listen!"\r
+\r
+In listening, I sobbed convulsively; for I could repress what I endured\r
+no longer; I was obliged to yield, and I was shaken from head to foot\r
+with acute distress. When I did speak, it was only to express an\r
+impetuous wish that I had never been born, or never come to Thornfield.\r
+\r
+"Because you are sorry to leave it?"\r
+\r
+The vehemence of emotion, stirred by grief and love within me, was\r
+claiming mastery, and struggling for full sway, and asserting a right to\r
+predominate, to overcome, to live, rise, and reign at last: yes,--and to\r
+speak.\r
+\r
+"I grieve to leave Thornfield: I love Thornfield:--I love it, because I\r
+have lived in it a full and delightful life,--momentarily at least. I\r
+have not been trampled on. I have not been petrified. I have not been\r
+buried with inferior minds, and excluded from every glimpse of communion\r
+with what is bright and energetic and high. I have talked, face to face,\r
+with what I reverence, with what I delight in,--with an original, a\r
+vigorous, an expanded mind. I have known you, Mr. Rochester; and it\r
+strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from\r
+you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking\r
+on the necessity of death."\r
+\r
+"Where do you see the necessity?" he asked suddenly.\r
+\r
+"Where? You, sir, have placed it before me."\r
+\r
+"In what shape?"\r
+\r
+"In the shape of Miss Ingram; a noble and beautiful woman,--your bride."\r
+\r
+"My bride! What bride? I have no bride!"\r
+\r
+"But you will have."\r
+\r
+"Yes;--I will!--I will!" He set his teeth.\r
+\r
+"Then I must go:--you have said it yourself."\r
+\r
+"No: you must stay! I swear it--and the oath shall be kept."\r
+\r
+"I tell you I must go!" I retorted, roused to something like passion. "Do\r
+you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an\r
+automaton?--a machine without feelings? and can bear to have my morsel of\r
+bread snatched from my lips, and my drop of living water dashed from my\r
+cup? Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am\r
+soulless and heartless? You think wrong!--I have as much soul as\r
+you,--and full as much heart! And if God had gifted me with some beauty\r
+and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it\r
+is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the\r
+medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh;--it is my\r
+spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the\r
+grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal,--as we are!"\r
+\r
+"As we are!" repeated Mr. Rochester--"so," he added, enclosing me in his\r
+arms. Gathering me to his breast, pressing his lips on my lips: "so,\r
+Jane!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, so, sir," I rejoined: "and yet not so; for you are a married man--or\r
+as good as a married man, and wed to one inferior to you--to one with\r
+whom you have no sympathy--whom I do not believe you truly love; for I\r
+have seen and heard you sneer at her. I would scorn such a union:\r
+therefore I am better than you--let me go!"\r
+\r
+"Where, Jane? To Ireland?"\r
+\r
+"Yes--to Ireland. I have spoken my mind, and can go anywhere now."\r
+\r
+"Jane, be still; don't struggle so, like a wild frantic bird that is\r
+rending its own plumage in its desperation."\r
+\r
+"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an\r
+independent will, which I now exert to leave you."\r
+\r
+Another effort set me at liberty, and I stood erect before him.\r
+\r
+"And your will shall decide your destiny," he said: "I offer you my hand,\r
+my heart, and a share of all my possessions."\r
+\r
+"You play a farce, which I merely laugh at."\r
+\r
+"I ask you to pass through life at my side--to be my second self, and\r
+best earthly companion."\r
+\r
+"For that fate you have already made your choice, and must abide by it."\r
+\r
+"Jane, be still a few moments: you are over-excited: I will be still\r
+too."\r
+\r
+A waft of wind came sweeping down the laurel-walk, and trembled through\r
+the boughs of the chestnut: it wandered away--away--to an indefinite\r
+distance--it died. The nightingale's song was then the only voice of the\r
+hour: in listening to it, I again wept. Mr. Rochester sat quiet, looking\r
+at me gently and seriously. Some time passed before he spoke; he at last\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Come to my side, Jane, and let us explain and understand one another."\r
+\r
+"I will never again come to your side: I am torn away now, and cannot\r
+return."\r
+\r
+"But, Jane, I summon you as my wife: it is you only I intend to marry."\r
+\r
+I was silent: I thought he mocked me.\r
+\r
+"Come, Jane--come hither."\r
+\r
+"Your bride stands between us."\r
+\r
+He rose, and with a stride reached me.\r
+\r
+"My bride is here," he said, again drawing me to him, "because my equal\r
+is here, and my likeness. Jane, will you marry me?"\r
+\r
+Still I did not answer, and still I writhed myself from his grasp: for I\r
+was still incredulous.\r
+\r
+"Do you doubt me, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Entirely."\r
+\r
+"You have no faith in me?"\r
+\r
+"Not a whit."\r
+\r
+"Am I a liar in your eyes?" he asked passionately. "Little sceptic, you\r
+_shall_ be convinced. What love have I for Miss Ingram? None: and that\r
+you know. What love has she for me? None: as I have taken pains to\r
+prove: I caused a rumour to reach her that my fortune was not a third of\r
+what was supposed, and after that I presented myself to see the result;\r
+it was coldness both from her and her mother. I would not--I could\r
+not--marry Miss Ingram. You--you strange, you almost unearthly thing!--I\r
+love as my own flesh. You--poor and obscure, and small and plain as you\r
+are--I entreat to accept me as a husband."\r
+\r
+"What, me!" I ejaculated, beginning in his earnestness--and especially in\r
+his incivility--to credit his sincerity: "me who have not a friend in the\r
+world but you--if you are my friend: not a shilling but what you have\r
+given me?"\r
+\r
+"You, Jane, I must have you for my own--entirely my own. Will you be\r
+mine? Say yes, quickly."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, let me look at your face: turn to the moonlight."\r
+\r
+"Why?"\r
+\r
+"Because I want to read your countenance--turn!"\r
+\r
+"There! you will find it scarcely more legible than a crumpled, scratched\r
+page. Read on: only make haste, for I suffer."\r
+\r
+His face was very much agitated and very much flushed, and there were\r
+strong workings in the features, and strange gleams in the eyes.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Jane, you torture me!" he exclaimed. "With that searching and yet\r
+faithful and generous look, you torture me!"\r
+\r
+"How can I do that? If you are true, and your offer real, my only\r
+feelings to you must be gratitude and devotion--they cannot torture."\r
+\r
+"Gratitude!" he ejaculated; and added wildly--"Jane accept me quickly.\r
+Say, Edward--give me my name--Edward--I will marry you."\r
+\r
+"Are you in earnest? Do you truly love me? Do you sincerely wish me to\r
+be your wife?"\r
+\r
+"I do; and if an oath is necessary to satisfy you, I swear it."\r
+\r
+"Then, sir, I will marry you."\r
+\r
+"Edward--my little wife!"\r
+\r
+"Dear Edward!"\r
+\r
+"Come to me--come to me entirely now," said he; and added, in his deepest\r
+tone, speaking in my ear as his cheek was laid on mine, "Make my\r
+happiness--I will make yours."\r
+\r
+"God pardon me!" he subjoined ere long; "and man meddle not with me: I\r
+have her, and will hold her."\r
+\r
+"There is no one to meddle, sir. I have no kindred to interfere."\r
+\r
+"No--that is the best of it," he said. And if I had loved him less I\r
+should have thought his accent and look of exultation savage; but,\r
+sitting by him, roused from the nightmare of parting--called to the\r
+paradise of union--I thought only of the bliss given me to drink in so\r
+abundant a flow. Again and again he said, "Are you happy, Jane?" And\r
+again and again I answered, "Yes." After which he murmured, "It will\r
+atone--it will atone. Have I not found her friendless, and cold, and\r
+comfortless? Will I not guard, and cherish, and solace her? Is there\r
+not love in my heart, and constancy in my resolves? It will expiate at\r
+God's tribunal. I know my Maker sanctions what I do. For the world's\r
+judgment--I wash my hands thereof. For man's opinion--I defy it."\r
+\r
+But what had befallen the night? The moon was not yet set, and we were\r
+all in shadow: I could scarcely see my master's face, near as I was. And\r
+what ailed the chestnut tree? it writhed and groaned; while wind roared\r
+in the laurel walk, and came sweeping over us.\r
+\r
+"We must go in," said Mr. Rochester: "the weather changes. I could have\r
+sat with thee till morning, Jane."\r
+\r
+"And so," thought I, "could I with you." I should have said so, perhaps,\r
+but a livid, vivid spark leapt out of a cloud at which I was looking, and\r
+there was a crack, a crash, and a close rattling peal; and I thought only\r
+of hiding my dazzled eyes against Mr. Rochester's shoulder.\r
+\r
+The rain rushed down. He hurried me up the walk, through the grounds,\r
+and into the house; but we were quite wet before we could pass the\r
+threshold. He was taking off my shawl in the hall, and shaking the water\r
+out of my loosened hair, when Mrs. Fairfax emerged from her room. I did\r
+not observe her at first, nor did Mr. Rochester. The lamp was lit. The\r
+clock was on the stroke of twelve.\r
+\r
+"Hasten to take off your wet things," said he; "and before you go, good-\r
+night--good-night, my darling!"\r
+\r
+He kissed me repeatedly. When I looked up, on leaving his arms, there\r
+stood the widow, pale, grave, and amazed. I only smiled at her, and ran\r
+upstairs. "Explanation will do for another time," thought I. Still,\r
+when I reached my chamber, I felt a pang at the idea she should even\r
+temporarily misconstrue what she had seen. But joy soon effaced every\r
+other feeling; and loud as the wind blew, near and deep as the thunder\r
+crashed, fierce and frequent as the lightning gleamed, cataract-like as\r
+the rain fell during a storm of two hours' duration, I experienced no\r
+fear and little awe. Mr. Rochester came thrice to my door in the course\r
+of it, to ask if I was safe and tranquil: and that was comfort, that was\r
+strength for anything.\r
+\r
+Before I left my bed in the morning, little Adele came running in to tell\r
+me that the great horse-chestnut at the bottom of the orchard had been\r
+struck by lightning in the night, and half of it split away.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV\r
+\r
+\r
+As I rose and dressed, I thought over what had happened, and wondered if\r
+it were a dream. I could not be certain of the reality till I had seen\r
+Mr. Rochester again, and heard him renew his words of love and promise.\r
+\r
+While arranging my hair, I looked at my face in the glass, and felt it\r
+was no longer plain: there was hope in its aspect and life in its colour;\r
+and my eyes seemed as if they had beheld the fount of fruition, and\r
+borrowed beams from the lustrous ripple. I had often been unwilling to\r
+look at my master, because I feared he could not be pleased at my look;\r
+but I was sure I might lift my face to his now, and not cool his\r
+affection by its expression. I took a plain but clean and light summer\r
+dress from my drawer and put it on: it seemed no attire had ever so well\r
+become me, because none had I ever worn in so blissful a mood.\r
+\r
+I was not surprised, when I ran down into the hall, to see that a\r
+brilliant June morning had succeeded to the tempest of the night; and to\r
+feel, through the open glass door, the breathing of a fresh and fragrant\r
+breeze. Nature must be gladsome when I was so happy. A beggar-woman and\r
+her little boy--pale, ragged objects both--were coming up the walk, and I\r
+ran down and gave them all the money I happened to have in my purse--some\r
+three or four shillings: good or bad, they must partake of my jubilee.\r
+The rooks cawed, and blither birds sang; but nothing was so merry or so\r
+musical as my own rejoicing heart.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Fairfax surprised me by looking out of the window with a sad\r
+countenance, and saying gravely--"Miss Eyre, will you come to breakfast?"\r
+During the meal she was quiet and cool: but I could not undeceive her\r
+then. I must wait for my master to give explanations; and so must she. I\r
+ate what I could, and then I hastened upstairs. I met Adele leaving the\r
+schoolroom.\r
+\r
+"Where are you going? It is time for lessons."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester has sent me away to the nursery."\r
+\r
+"Where is he?"\r
+\r
+"In there," pointing to the apartment she had left; and I went in, and\r
+there he stood.\r
+\r
+"Come and bid me good-morning," said he. I gladly advanced; and it was\r
+not merely a cold word now, or even a shake of the hand that I received,\r
+but an embrace and a kiss. It seemed natural: it seemed genial to be so\r
+well loved, so caressed by him.\r
+\r
+"Jane, you look blooming, and smiling, and pretty," said he: "truly\r
+pretty this morning. Is this my pale, little elf? Is this my mustard-\r
+seed? This little sunny-faced girl with the dimpled cheek and rosy lips;\r
+the satin-smooth hazel hair, and the radiant hazel eyes?" (I had green\r
+eyes, reader; but you must excuse the mistake: for him they were\r
+new-dyed, I suppose.)\r
+\r
+"It is Jane Eyre, sir."\r
+\r
+"Soon to be Jane Rochester," he added: "in four weeks, Janet; not a day\r
+more. Do you hear that?"\r
+\r
+I did, and I could not quite comprehend it: it made me giddy. The\r
+feeling, the announcement sent through me, was something stronger than\r
+was consistent with joy--something that smote and stunned. It was, I\r
+think almost fear.\r
+\r
+"You blushed, and now you are white, Jane: what is that for?"\r
+\r
+"Because you gave me a new name--Jane Rochester; and it seems so\r
+strange."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mrs. Rochester," said he; "young Mrs. Rochester--Fairfax\r
+Rochester's girl-bride."\r
+\r
+"It can never be, sir; it does not sound likely. Human beings never\r
+enjoy complete happiness in this world. I was not born for a different\r
+destiny to the rest of my species: to imagine such a lot befalling me is\r
+a fairy tale--a day-dream."\r
+\r
+"Which I can and will realise. I shall begin to-day. This morning I\r
+wrote to my banker in London to send me certain jewels he has in his\r
+keeping,--heirlooms for the ladies of Thornfield. In a day or two I hope\r
+to pour them into your lap: for every privilege, every attention shall be\r
+yours that I would accord a peer's daughter, if about to marry her."\r
+\r
+"Oh, sir!--never rain jewels! I don't like to hear them spoken of.\r
+Jewels for Jane Eyre sounds unnatural and strange: I would rather not\r
+have them."\r
+\r
+"I will myself put the diamond chain round your neck, and the circlet on\r
+your forehead,--which it will become: for nature, at least, has stamped\r
+her patent of nobility on this brow, Jane; and I will clasp the bracelets\r
+on these fine wrists, and load these fairy-like fingers with rings."\r
+\r
+"No, no, sir! think of other subjects, and speak of other things, and in\r
+another strain. Don't address me as if I were a beauty; I am your plain,\r
+Quakerish governess."\r
+\r
+"You are a beauty in my eyes, and a beauty just after the desire of my\r
+heart,--delicate and aerial."\r
+\r
+"Puny and insignificant, you mean. You are dreaming, sir,--or you are\r
+sneering. For God's sake don't be ironical!"\r
+\r
+"I will make the world acknowledge you a beauty, too," he went on, while\r
+I really became uneasy at the strain he had adopted, because I felt he\r
+was either deluding himself or trying to delude me. "I will attire my\r
+Jane in satin and lace, and she shall have roses in her hair; and I will\r
+cover the head I love best with a priceless veil."\r
+\r
+"And then you won't know me, sir; and I shall not be your Jane Eyre any\r
+longer, but an ape in a harlequin's jacket--a jay in borrowed plumes. I\r
+would as soon see you, Mr. Rochester, tricked out in stage-trappings, as\r
+myself clad in a court-lady's robe; and I don't call you handsome, sir,\r
+though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't\r
+flatter me."\r
+\r
+He pursued his theme, however, without noticing my deprecation. "This\r
+very day I shall take you in the carriage to Millcote, and you must\r
+choose some dresses for yourself. I told you we shall be married in four\r
+weeks. The wedding is to take place quietly, in the church down below\r
+yonder; and then I shall waft you away at once to town. After a brief\r
+stay there, I shall bear my treasure to regions nearer the sun: to French\r
+vineyards and Italian plains; and she shall see whatever is famous in old\r
+story and in modern record: she shall taste, too, of the life of cities;\r
+and she shall learn to value herself by just comparison with others."\r
+\r
+"Shall I travel?--and with you, sir?"\r
+\r
+"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and\r
+Vienna: all the ground I have wandered over shall be re-trodden by you:\r
+wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also. Ten years\r
+since, I flew through Europe half mad; with disgust, hate, and rage as my\r
+companions: now I shall revisit it healed and cleansed, with a very angel\r
+as my comforter."\r
+\r
+I laughed at him as he said this. "I am not an angel," I asserted; "and\r
+I will not be one till I die: I will be myself. Mr. Rochester, you must\r
+neither expect nor exact anything celestial of me--for you will not get\r
+it, any more than I shall get it of you: which I do not at all\r
+anticipate."\r
+\r
+"What do you anticipate of me?"\r
+\r
+"For a little while you will perhaps be as you are now,--a very little\r
+while; and then you will turn cool; and then you will be capricious; and\r
+then you will be stern, and I shall have much ado to please you: but when\r
+you get well used to me, you will perhaps like me again,--_like_ me, I\r
+say, not _love_ me. I suppose your love will effervesce in six months,\r
+or less. I have observed in books written by men, that period assigned\r
+as the farthest to which a husband's ardour extends. Yet, after all, as\r
+a friend and companion, I hope never to become quite distasteful to my\r
+dear master."\r
+\r
+"Distasteful! and like you again! I think I shall like you again, and\r
+yet again: and I will make you confess I do not only _like_, but _love_\r
+you--with truth, fervour, constancy."\r
+\r
+"Yet are you not capricious, sir?"\r
+\r
+"To women who please me only by their faces, I am the very devil when I\r
+find out they have neither souls nor hearts--when they open to me a\r
+perspective of flatness, triviality, and perhaps imbecility, coarseness,\r
+and ill-temper: but to the clear eye and eloquent tongue, to the soul\r
+made of fire, and the character that bends but does not break--at once\r
+supple and stable, tractable and consistent--I am ever tender and true."\r
+\r
+"Had you ever experience of such a character, sir? Did you ever love\r
+such an one?"\r
+\r
+"I love it now."\r
+\r
+"But before me: if I, indeed, in any respect come up to your difficult\r
+standard?"\r
+\r
+"I never met your likeness. Jane, you please me, and you master me--you\r
+seem to submit, and I like the sense of pliancy you impart; and while I\r
+am twining the soft, silken skein round my finger, it sends a thrill up\r
+my arm to my heart. I am influenced--conquered; and the influence is\r
+sweeter than I can express; and the conquest I undergo has a witchery\r
+beyond any triumph I can win. Why do you smile, Jane? What does that\r
+inexplicable, that uncanny turn of countenance mean?"\r
+\r
+"I was thinking, sir (you will excuse the idea; it was involuntary), I\r
+was thinking of Hercules and Samson with their charmers--"\r
+\r
+"You were, you little elfish--"\r
+\r
+"Hush, sir! You don't talk very wisely just now; any more than those\r
+gentlemen acted very wisely. However, had they been married, they would\r
+no doubt by their severity as husbands have made up for their softness as\r
+suitors; and so will you, I fear. I wonder how you will answer me a year\r
+hence, should I ask a favour it does not suit your convenience or\r
+pleasure to grant."\r
+\r
+"Ask me something now, Jane,--the least thing: I desire to be entreated--"\r
+\r
+"Indeed I will, sir; I have my petition all ready."\r
+\r
+"Speak! But if you look up and smile with that countenance, I shall\r
+swear concession before I know to what, and that will make a fool of me."\r
+\r
+"Not at all, sir; I ask only this: don't send for the jewels, and don't\r
+crown me with roses: you might as well put a border of gold lace round\r
+that plain pocket handkerchief you have there."\r
+\r
+"I might as well 'gild refined gold.' I know it: your request is granted\r
+then--for the time. I will remand the order I despatched to my banker.\r
+But you have not yet asked for anything; you have prayed a gift to be\r
+withdrawn: try again."\r
+\r
+"Well then, sir, have the goodness to gratify my curiosity, which is much\r
+piqued on one point."\r
+\r
+He looked disturbed. "What? what?" he said hastily. "Curiosity is a\r
+dangerous petition: it is well I have not taken a vow to accord every\r
+request--"\r
+\r
+"But there can be no danger in complying with this, sir."\r
+\r
+"Utter it, Jane: but I wish that instead of a mere inquiry into, perhaps,\r
+a secret, it was a wish for half my estate."\r
+\r
+"Now, King Ahasuerus! What do I want with half your estate? Do you\r
+think I am a Jew-usurer, seeking good investment in land? I would much\r
+rather have all your confidence. You will not exclude me from your\r
+confidence if you admit me to your heart?"\r
+\r
+"You are welcome to all my confidence that is worth having, Jane; but for\r
+God's sake, don't desire a useless burden! Don't long for poison--don't\r
+turn out a downright Eve on my hands!"\r
+\r
+"Why not, sir? You have just been telling me how much you liked to be\r
+conquered, and how pleasant over-persuasion is to you. Don't you think I\r
+had better take advantage of the confession, and begin and coax and\r
+entreat--even cry and be sulky if necessary--for the sake of a mere essay\r
+of my power?"\r
+\r
+"I dare you to any such experiment. Encroach, presume, and the game is\r
+up."\r
+\r
+"Is it, sir? You soon give in. How stern you look now! Your eyebrows\r
+have become as thick as my finger, and your forehead resembles what, in\r
+some very astonishing poetry, I once saw styled, 'a blue-piled\r
+thunderloft.' That will be your married look, sir, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"If that will be _your_ married look, I, as a Christian, will soon give\r
+up the notion of consorting with a mere sprite or salamander. But what\r
+had you to ask, thing,--out with it?"\r
+\r
+"There, you are less than civil now; and I like rudeness a great deal\r
+better than flattery. I had rather be a _thing_ than an angel. This is\r
+what I have to ask,--Why did you take such pains to make me believe you\r
+wished to marry Miss Ingram?"\r
+\r
+"Is that all? Thank God it is no worse!" And now he unknit his black\r
+brows; looked down, smiling at me, and stroked my hair, as if well\r
+pleased at seeing a danger averted. "I think I may confess," he\r
+continued, "even although I should make you a little indignant, Jane--and\r
+I have seen what a fire-spirit you can be when you are indignant. You\r
+glowed in the cool moonlight last night, when you mutinied against fate,\r
+and claimed your rank as my equal. Janet, by-the-bye, it was you who\r
+made me the offer."\r
+\r
+"Of course I did. But to the point if you please, sir--Miss Ingram?"\r
+\r
+"Well, I feigned courtship of Miss Ingram, because I wished to render you\r
+as madly in love with me as I was with you; and I knew jealousy would be\r
+the best ally I could call in for the furtherance of that end."\r
+\r
+"Excellent! Now you are small--not one whit bigger than the end of my\r
+little finger. It was a burning shame and a scandalous disgrace to act\r
+in that way. Did you think nothing of Miss Ingram's feelings, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Her feelings are concentrated in one--pride; and that needs humbling.\r
+Were you jealous, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Never mind, Mr. Rochester: it is in no way interesting to you to know\r
+that. Answer me truly once more. Do you think Miss Ingram will not\r
+suffer from your dishonest coquetry? Won't she feel forsaken and\r
+deserted?"\r
+\r
+"Impossible!--when I told you how she, on the contrary, deserted me: the\r
+idea of my insolvency cooled, or rather extinguished, her flame in a\r
+moment."\r
+\r
+"You have a curious, designing mind, Mr. Rochester. I am afraid your\r
+principles on some points are eccentric."\r
+\r
+"My principles were never trained, Jane: they may have grown a little\r
+awry for want of attention."\r
+\r
+"Once again, seriously; may I enjoy the great good that has been\r
+vouchsafed to me, without fearing that any one else is suffering the\r
+bitter pain I myself felt a while ago?"\r
+\r
+"That you may, my good little girl: there is not another being in the\r
+world has the same pure love for me as yourself--for I lay that pleasant\r
+unction to my soul, Jane, a belief in your affection."\r
+\r
+I turned my lips to the hand that lay on my shoulder. I loved him very\r
+much--more than I could trust myself to say--more than words had power to\r
+express.\r
+\r
+"Ask something more," he said presently; "it is my delight to be\r
+entreated, and to yield."\r
+\r
+I was again ready with my request. "Communicate your intentions to Mrs.\r
+Fairfax, sir: she saw me with you last night in the hall, and she was\r
+shocked. Give her some explanation before I see her again. It pains me\r
+to be misjudged by so good a woman."\r
+\r
+"Go to your room, and put on your bonnet," he replied. "I mean you to\r
+accompany me to Millcote this morning; and while you prepare for the\r
+drive, I will enlighten the old lady's understanding. Did she think,\r
+Janet, you had given the world for love, and considered it well lost?"\r
+\r
+"I believe she thought I had forgotten my station, and yours, sir."\r
+\r
+"Station! station!--your station is in my heart, and on the necks of\r
+those who would insult you, now or hereafter.--Go."\r
+\r
+I was soon dressed; and when I heard Mr. Rochester quit Mrs. Fairfax's\r
+parlour, I hurried down to it. The old lady, had been reading her\r
+morning portion of Scripture--the Lesson for the day; her Bible lay open\r
+before her, and her spectacles were upon it. Her occupation, suspended\r
+by Mr. Rochester's announcement, seemed now forgotten: her eyes, fixed on\r
+the blank wall opposite, expressed the surprise of a quiet mind stirred\r
+by unwonted tidings. Seeing me, she roused herself: she made a sort of\r
+effort to smile, and framed a few words of congratulation; but the smile\r
+expired, and the sentence was abandoned unfinished. She put up her\r
+spectacles, shut the Bible, and pushed her chair back from the table.\r
+\r
+"I feel so astonished," she began, "I hardly know what to say to you,\r
+Miss Eyre. I have surely not been dreaming, have I? Sometimes I half\r
+fall asleep when I am sitting alone and fancy things that have never\r
+happened. It has seemed to me more than once when I have been in a doze,\r
+that my dear husband, who died fifteen years since, has come in and sat\r
+down beside me; and that I have even heard him call me by my name, Alice,\r
+as he used to do. Now, can you tell me whether it is actually true that\r
+Mr. Rochester has asked you to marry him? Don't laugh at me. But I\r
+really thought he came in here five minutes ago, and said that in a month\r
+you would be his wife."\r
+\r
+"He has said the same thing to me," I replied.\r
+\r
+"He has! Do you believe him? Have you accepted him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+She looked at me bewildered. "I could never have thought it. He is a\r
+proud man: all the Rochesters were proud: and his father, at least, liked\r
+money. He, too, has always been called careful. He means to marry you?"\r
+\r
+"He tells me so."\r
+\r
+She surveyed my whole person: in her eyes I read that they had there\r
+found no charm powerful enough to solve the enigma.\r
+\r
+"It passes me!" she continued; "but no doubt, it is true since you say\r
+so. How it will answer, I cannot tell: I really don't know. Equality of\r
+position and fortune is often advisable in such cases; and there are\r
+twenty years of difference in your ages. He might almost be your\r
+father."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, Mrs. Fairfax!" exclaimed I, nettled; "he is nothing like my\r
+father! No one, who saw us together, would suppose it for an instant.\r
+Mr. Rochester looks as young, and is as young, as some men at five-and-\r
+twenty."\r
+\r
+"Is it really for love he is going to marry you?" she asked.\r
+\r
+I was so hurt by her coldness and scepticism, that the tears rose to my\r
+eyes.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry to grieve you," pursued the widow; "but you are so young, and\r
+so little acquainted with men, I wished to put you on your guard. It is\r
+an old saying that 'all is not gold that glitters;' and in this case I do\r
+fear there will be something found to be different to what either you or\r
+I expect."\r
+\r
+"Why?--am I a monster?" I said: "is it impossible that Mr. Rochester\r
+should have a sincere affection for me?"\r
+\r
+"No: you are very well; and much improved of late; and Mr. Rochester, I\r
+daresay, is fond of you. I have always noticed that you were a sort of\r
+pet of his. There are times when, for your sake, I have been a little\r
+uneasy at his marked preference, and have wished to put you on your\r
+guard: but I did not like to suggest even the possibility of wrong. I\r
+knew such an idea would shock, perhaps offend you; and you were so\r
+discreet, and so thoroughly modest and sensible, I hoped you might be\r
+trusted to protect yourself. Last night I cannot tell you what I\r
+suffered when I sought all over the house, and could find you nowhere,\r
+nor the master either; and then, at twelve o'clock, saw you come in with\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Well, never mind that now," I interrupted impatiently; "it is enough\r
+that all was right."\r
+\r
+"I hope all will be right in the end," she said: "but believe me, you\r
+cannot be too careful. Try and keep Mr. Rochester at a distance:\r
+distrust yourself as well as him. Gentlemen in his station are not\r
+accustomed to marry their governesses."\r
+\r
+I was growing truly irritated: happily, Adele ran in.\r
+\r
+"Let me go,--let me go to Millcote too!" she cried. "Mr. Rochester\r
+won't: though there is so much room in the new carriage. Beg him to let\r
+me go mademoiselle."\r
+\r
+"That I will, Adele;" and I hastened away with her, glad to quit my\r
+gloomy monitress. The carriage was ready: they were bringing it round to\r
+the front, and my master was pacing the pavement, Pilot following him\r
+backwards and forwards.\r
+\r
+"Adele may accompany us, may she not, sir?"\r
+\r
+"I told her no. I'll have no brats!--I'll have only you."\r
+\r
+"Do let her go, Mr. Rochester, if you please: it would be better."\r
+\r
+"Not it: she will be a restraint."\r
+\r
+He was quite peremptory, both in look and voice. The chill of Mrs.\r
+Fairfax's warnings, and the damp of her doubts were upon me: something of\r
+unsubstantiality and uncertainty had beset my hopes. I half lost the\r
+sense of power over him. I was about mechanically to obey him, without\r
+further remonstrance; but as he helped me into the carriage, he looked at\r
+my face.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" he asked; "all the sunshine is gone. Do you really\r
+wish the bairn to go? Will it annoy you if she is left behind?"\r
+\r
+"I would far rather she went, sir."\r
+\r
+"Then off for your bonnet, and back like a flash of lightning!" cried he\r
+to Adele.\r
+\r
+She obeyed him with what speed she might.\r
+\r
+"After all, a single morning's interruption will not matter much," said\r
+he, "when I mean shortly to claim you--your thoughts, conversation, and\r
+company--for life."\r
+\r
+Adele, when lifted in, commenced kissing me, by way of expressing her\r
+gratitude for my intercession: she was instantly stowed away into a\r
+corner on the other side of him. She then peeped round to where I sat;\r
+so stern a neighbour was too restrictive to him, in his present fractious\r
+mood, she dared whisper no observations, nor ask of him any information.\r
+\r
+"Let her come to me," I entreated: "she will, perhaps, trouble you, sir:\r
+there is plenty of room on this side."\r
+\r
+He handed her over as if she had been a lapdog. "I'll send her to school\r
+yet," he said, but now he was smiling.\r
+\r
+Adele heard him, and asked if she was to go to school "sans\r
+mademoiselle?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," he replied, "absolutely sans mademoiselle; for I am to take\r
+mademoiselle to the moon, and there I shall seek a cave in one of the\r
+white valleys among the volcano-tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me\r
+there, and only me."\r
+\r
+"She will have nothing to eat: you will starve her," observed Adele.\r
+\r
+"I shall gather manna for her morning and night: the plains and hillsides\r
+in the moon are bleached with manna, Adele."\r
+\r
+"She will want to warm herself: what will she do for a fire?"\r
+\r
+"Fire rises out of the lunar mountains: when she is cold, I'll carry her\r
+up to a peak, and lay her down on the edge of a crater."\r
+\r
+"Oh, qu' elle y sera mal--peu comfortable! And her clothes, they will\r
+wear out: how can she get new ones?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester professed to be puzzled. "Hem!" said he. "What would you\r
+do, Adele? Cudgel your brains for an expedient. How would a white or a\r
+pink cloud answer for a gown, do you think? And one could cut a pretty\r
+enough scarf out of a rainbow."\r
+\r
+"She is far better as she is," concluded Adele, after musing some time:\r
+"besides, she would get tired of living with only you in the moon. If I\r
+were mademoiselle, I would never consent to go with you."\r
+\r
+"She has consented: she has pledged her word."\r
+\r
+"But you can't get her there; there is no road to the moon: it is all\r
+air; and neither you nor she can fly."\r
+\r
+"Adele, look at that field." We were now outside Thornfield gates, and\r
+bowling lightly along the smooth road to Millcote, where the dust was\r
+well laid by the thunderstorm, and, where the low hedges and lofty timber\r
+trees on each side glistened green and rain-refreshed.\r
+\r
+"In that field, Adele, I was walking late one evening about a fortnight\r
+since--the evening of the day you helped me to make hay in the orchard\r
+meadows; and, as I was tired with raking swaths, I sat down to rest me on\r
+a stile; and there I took out a little book and a pencil, and began to\r
+write about a misfortune that befell me long ago, and a wish I had for\r
+happy days to come: I was writing away very fast, though daylight was\r
+fading from the leaf, when something came up the path and stopped two\r
+yards off me. I looked at it. It was a little thing with a veil of\r
+gossamer on its head. I beckoned it to come near me; it stood soon at my\r
+knee. I never spoke to it, and it never spoke to me, in words; but I\r
+read its eyes, and it read mine; and our speechless colloquy was to this\r
+effect--\r
+\r
+"It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said; and its errand was to\r
+make me happy: I must go with it out of the common world to a lonely\r
+place--such as the moon, for instance--and it nodded its head towards her\r
+horn, rising over Hay-hill: it told me of the alabaster cave and silver\r
+vale where we might live. I said I should like to go; but reminded it,\r
+as you did me, that I had no wings to fly.\r
+\r
+"'Oh,' returned the fairy, 'that does not signify! Here is a talisman\r
+will remove all difficulties;' and she held out a pretty gold ring. 'Put\r
+it,' she said, 'on the fourth finger of my left hand, and I am yours, and\r
+you are mine; and we shall leave earth, and make our own heaven yonder.'\r
+She nodded again at the moon. The ring, Adele, is in my breeches-pocket,\r
+under the disguise of a sovereign: but I mean soon to change it to a ring\r
+again."\r
+\r
+"But what has mademoiselle to do with it? I don't care for the fairy:\r
+you said it was mademoiselle you would take to the moon?"\r
+\r
+"Mademoiselle is a fairy," he said, whispering mysteriously. Whereupon I\r
+told her not to mind his badinage; and she, on her part, evinced a fund\r
+of genuine French scepticism: denominating Mr. Rochester "un vrai\r
+menteur," and assuring him that she made no account whatever of his\r
+"contes de fee," and that "du reste, il n'y avait pas de fees, et quand\r
+meme il y en avait:" she was sure they would never appear to him, nor\r
+ever give him rings, or offer to live with him in the moon.\r
+\r
+The hour spent at Millcote was a somewhat harassing one to me. Mr.\r
+Rochester obliged me to go to a certain silk warehouse: there I was\r
+ordered to choose half-a-dozen dresses. I hated the business, I begged\r
+leave to defer it: no--it should be gone through with now. By dint of\r
+entreaties expressed in energetic whispers, I reduced the half-dozen to\r
+two: these however, he vowed he would select himself. With anxiety I\r
+watched his eye rove over the gay stores: he fixed on a rich silk of the\r
+most brilliant amethyst dye, and a superb pink satin. I told him in a\r
+new series of whispers, that he might as well buy me a gold gown and a\r
+silver bonnet at once: I should certainly never venture to wear his\r
+choice. With infinite difficulty, for he was stubborn as a stone, I\r
+persuaded him to make an exchange in favour of a sober black satin and\r
+pearl-grey silk. "It might pass for the present," he said; "but he would\r
+yet see me glittering like a parterre."\r
+\r
+Glad was I to get him out of the silk warehouse, and then out of a\r
+jewellers shop: the more he bought me, the more my cheek burned with a\r
+sense of annoyance and degradation. As we re-entered the carriage, and I\r
+sat back feverish and fagged, I remembered what, in the hurry of events,\r
+dark and bright, I had wholly forgotten--the letter of my uncle, John\r
+Eyre, to Mrs. Reed: his intention to adopt me and make me his legatee.\r
+"It would, indeed, be a relief," I thought, "if I had ever so small an\r
+independency; I never can bear being dressed like a doll by Mr.\r
+Rochester, or sitting like a second Danae with the golden shower falling\r
+daily round me. I will write to Madeira the moment I get home, and tell\r
+my uncle John I am going to be married, and to whom: if I had but a\r
+prospect of one day bringing Mr. Rochester an accession of fortune, I\r
+could better endure to be kept by him now." And somewhat relieved by\r
+this idea (which I failed not to execute that day), I ventured once more\r
+to meet my master's and lover's eye, which most pertinaciously sought\r
+mine, though I averted both face and gaze. He smiled; and I thought his\r
+smile was such as a sultan might, in a blissful and fond moment, bestow\r
+on a slave his gold and gems had enriched: I crushed his hand, which was\r
+ever hunting mine, vigorously, and thrust it back to him red with the\r
+passionate pressure.\r
+\r
+"You need not look in that way," I said; "if you do, I'll wear nothing\r
+but my old Lowood frocks to the end of the chapter. I'll be married in\r
+this lilac gingham: you may make a dressing-gown for yourself out of the\r
+pearl-grey silk, and an infinite series of waistcoats out of the black\r
+satin."\r
+\r
+He chuckled; he rubbed his hands. "Oh, it is rich to see and hear her?"\r
+he exclaimed. "Is she original? Is she piquant? I would not exchange\r
+this one little English girl for the Grand Turk's whole seraglio, gazelle-\r
+eyes, houri forms, and all!"\r
+\r
+The Eastern allusion bit me again. "I'll not stand you an inch in the\r
+stead of a seraglio," I said; "so don't consider me an equivalent for\r
+one. If you have a fancy for anything in that line, away with you, sir,\r
+to the bazaars of Stamboul without delay, and lay out in extensive slave-\r
+purchases some of that spare cash you seem at a loss to spend\r
+satisfactorily here."\r
+\r
+"And what will you do, Janet, while I am bargaining for so many tons of\r
+flesh and such an assortment of black eyes?"\r
+\r
+"I'll be preparing myself to go out as a missionary to preach liberty to\r
+them that are enslaved--your harem inmates amongst the rest. I'll get\r
+admitted there, and I'll stir up mutiny; and you, three-tailed bashaw as\r
+you are, sir, shall in a trice find yourself fettered amongst our hands:\r
+nor will I, for one, consent to cut your bonds till you have signed a\r
+charter, the most liberal that despot ever yet conferred."\r
+\r
+"I would consent to be at your mercy, Jane."\r
+\r
+"I would have no mercy, Mr. Rochester, if you supplicated for it with an\r
+eye like that. While you looked so, I should be certain that whatever\r
+charter you might grant under coercion, your first act, when released,\r
+would be to violate its conditions."\r
+\r
+"Why, Jane, what would you have? I fear you will compel me to go through\r
+a private marriage ceremony, besides that performed at the altar. You\r
+will stipulate, I see, for peculiar terms--what will they be?"\r
+\r
+"I only want an easy mind, sir; not crushed by crowded obligations. Do\r
+you remember what you said of Celine Varens?--of the diamonds, the\r
+cashmeres you gave her? I will not be your English Celine Varens. I\r
+shall continue to act as Adele's governess; by that I shall earn my board\r
+and lodging, and thirty pounds a year besides. I'll furnish my own\r
+wardrobe out of that money, and you shall give me nothing but--"\r
+\r
+"Well, but what?"\r
+\r
+"Your regard; and if I give you mine in return, that debt will be quit."\r
+\r
+"Well, for cool native impudence and pure innate pride, you haven't your\r
+equal," said he. We were now approaching Thornfield. "Will it please\r
+you to dine with me to-day?" he asked, as we re-entered the gates.\r
+\r
+"No, thank you, sir."\r
+\r
+"And what for, 'no, thank you?' if one may inquire."\r
+\r
+"I never have dined with you, sir: and I see no reason why I should now:\r
+till--"\r
+\r
+"Till what? You delight in half-phrases."\r
+\r
+"Till I can't help it."\r
+\r
+"Do you suppose I eat like an ogre or a ghoul, that you dread being the\r
+companion of my repast?"\r
+\r
+"I have formed no supposition on the subject, sir; but I want to go on as\r
+usual for another month."\r
+\r
+"You will give up your governessing slavery at once."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, begging your pardon, sir, I shall not. I shall just go on with\r
+it as usual. I shall keep out of your way all day, as I have been\r
+accustomed to do: you may send for me in the evening, when you feel\r
+disposed to see me, and I'll come then; but at no other time."\r
+\r
+"I want a smoke, Jane, or a pinch of snuff, to comfort me under all this,\r
+'pour me donner une contenance,' as Adele would say; and unfortunately I\r
+have neither my cigar-case, nor my snuff-box. But listen--whisper. It\r
+is your time now, little tyrant, but it will be mine presently; and when\r
+once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I'll\r
+just--figuratively speaking--attach you to a chain like this" (touching\r
+his watch-guard). "Yes, bonny wee thing, I'll wear you in my bosom, lest\r
+my jewel I should tyne."\r
+\r
+He said this as he helped me to alight from the carriage, and while he\r
+afterwards lifted out Adele, I entered the house, and made good my\r
+retreat upstairs.\r
+\r
+He duly summoned me to his presence in the evening. I had prepared an\r
+occupation for him; for I was determined not to spend the whole time in a\r
+_tete-a-tete_ conversation. I remembered his fine voice; I knew he liked\r
+to sing--good singers generally do. I was no vocalist myself, and, in\r
+his fastidious judgment, no musician, either; but I delighted in\r
+listening when the performance was good. No sooner had twilight, that\r
+hour of romance, began to lower her blue and starry banner over the\r
+lattice, than I rose, opened the piano, and entreated him, for the love\r
+of heaven, to give me a song. He said I was a capricious witch, and that\r
+he would rather sing another time; but I averred that no time was like\r
+the present.\r
+\r
+"Did I like his voice?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Very much." I was not fond of pampering that susceptible vanity of his;\r
+but for once, and from motives of expediency, I would e'en soothe and\r
+stimulate it.\r
+\r
+"Then, Jane, you must play the accompaniment."\r
+\r
+"Very well, sir, I will try."\r
+\r
+I did try, but was presently swept off the stool and denominated "a\r
+little bungler." Being pushed unceremoniously to one side--which was\r
+precisely what I wished--he usurped my place, and proceeded to accompany\r
+himself: for he could play as well as sing. I hied me to the\r
+window-recess. And while I sat there and looked out on the still trees\r
+and dim lawn, to a sweet air was sung in mellow tones the following\r
+strain:--\r
+\r
+ "The truest love that ever heart\r
+ Felt at its kindled core,\r
+ Did through each vein, in quickened start,\r
+ The tide of being pour.\r
+\r
+ Her coming was my hope each day,\r
+ Her parting was my pain;\r
+ The chance that did her steps delay\r
+ Was ice in every vein.\r
+\r
+ I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,\r
+ As I loved, loved to be;\r
+ And to this object did I press\r
+ As blind as eagerly.\r
+\r
+ But wide as pathless was the space\r
+ That lay our lives between,\r
+ And dangerous as the foamy race\r
+ Of ocean-surges green.\r
+\r
+ And haunted as a robber-path\r
+ Through wilderness or wood;\r
+ For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,\r
+ Between our spirits stood.\r
+\r
+ I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;\r
+ I omens did defy:\r
+ Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,\r
+ I passed impetuous by.\r
+\r
+ On sped my rainbow, fast as light;\r
+ I flew as in a dream;\r
+ For glorious rose upon my sight\r
+ That child of Shower and Gleam.\r
+\r
+ Still bright on clouds of suffering dim\r
+ Shines that soft, solemn joy;\r
+ Nor care I now, how dense and grim\r
+ Disasters gather nigh.\r
+\r
+ I care not in this moment sweet,\r
+ Though all I have rushed o'er\r
+ Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,\r
+ Proclaiming vengeance sore:\r
+\r
+ Though haughty Hate should strike me down,\r
+ Right, bar approach to me,\r
+ And grinding Might, with furious frown,\r
+ Swear endless enmity.\r
+\r
+ My love has placed her little hand\r
+ With noble faith in mine,\r
+ And vowed that wedlock's sacred band\r
+ Our nature shall entwine.\r
+\r
+ My love has sworn, with sealing kiss,\r
+ With me to live--to die;\r
+ I have at last my nameless bliss.\r
+ As I love--loved am I!"\r
+\r
+He rose and came towards me, and I saw his face all kindled, and his full\r
+falcon-eye flashing, and tenderness and passion in every lineament. I\r
+quailed momentarily--then I rallied. Soft scene, daring demonstration, I\r
+would not have; and I stood in peril of both: a weapon of defence must be\r
+prepared--I whetted my tongue: as he reached me, I asked with asperity,\r
+"whom he was going to marry now?"\r
+\r
+"That was a strange question to be put by his darling Jane."\r
+\r
+"Indeed! I considered it a very natural and necessary one: he had talked\r
+of his future wife dying with him. What did he mean by such a pagan\r
+idea? _I_ had no intention of dying with him--he might depend on that."\r
+\r
+"Oh, all he longed, all he prayed for, was that I might live with him!\r
+Death was not for such as I."\r
+\r
+"Indeed it was: I had as good a right to die when my time came as he had:\r
+but I should bide that time, and not be hurried away in a suttee."\r
+\r
+"Would I forgive him for the selfish idea, and prove my pardon by a\r
+reconciling kiss?"\r
+\r
+"No: I would rather be excused."\r
+\r
+Here I heard myself apostrophised as a "hard little thing;" and it was\r
+added, "any other woman would have been melted to marrow at hearing such\r
+stanzas crooned in her praise."\r
+\r
+I assured him I was naturally hard--very flinty, and that he would often\r
+find me so; and that, moreover, I was determined to show him divers\r
+rugged points in my character before the ensuing four weeks elapsed: he\r
+should know fully what sort of a bargain he had made, while there was yet\r
+time to rescind it.\r
+\r
+"Would I be quiet and talk rationally?"\r
+\r
+"I would be quiet if he liked, and as to talking rationally, I flattered\r
+myself I was doing that now."\r
+\r
+He fretted, pished, and pshawed. "Very good," I thought; "you may fume\r
+and fidget as you please: but this is the best plan to pursue with you, I\r
+am certain. I like you more than I can say; but I'll not sink into a\r
+bathos of sentiment: and with this needle of repartee I'll keep you from\r
+the edge of the gulf too; and, moreover, maintain by its pungent aid that\r
+distance between you and myself most conducive to our real mutual\r
+advantage."\r
+\r
+From less to more, I worked him up to considerable irritation; then,\r
+after he had retired, in dudgeon, quite to the other end of the room, I\r
+got up, and saying, "I wish you good-night, sir," in my natural and\r
+wonted respectful manner, I slipped out by the side-door and got away.\r
+\r
+The system thus entered on, I pursued during the whole season of\r
+probation; and with the best success. He was kept, to be sure, rather\r
+cross and crusty; but on the whole I could see he was excellently\r
+entertained, and that a lamb-like submission and turtle-dove sensibility,\r
+while fostering his despotism more, would have pleased his judgment,\r
+satisfied his common-sense, and even suited his taste less.\r
+\r
+In other people's presence I was, as formerly, deferential and quiet; any\r
+other line of conduct being uncalled for: it was only in the evening\r
+conferences I thus thwarted and afflicted him. He continued to send for\r
+me punctually the moment the clock struck seven; though when I appeared\r
+before him now, he had no such honeyed terms as "love" and "darling" on\r
+his lips: the best words at my service were "provoking puppet,"\r
+"malicious elf," "sprite," "changeling," &c. For caresses, too, I now\r
+got grimaces; for a pressure of the hand, a pinch on the arm; for a kiss\r
+on the cheek, a severe tweak of the ear. It was all right: at present I\r
+decidedly preferred these fierce favours to anything more tender. Mrs.\r
+Fairfax, I saw, approved me: her anxiety on my account vanished;\r
+therefore I was certain I did well. Meantime, Mr. Rochester affirmed I\r
+was wearing him to skin and bone, and threatened awful vengeance for my\r
+present conduct at some period fast coming. I laughed in my sleeve at\r
+his menaces. "I can keep you in reasonable check now," I reflected; "and\r
+I don't doubt to be able to do it hereafter: if one expedient loses its\r
+virtue, another must be devised."\r
+\r
+Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have\r
+pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole\r
+world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood\r
+between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes\r
+between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for\r
+His creature: of whom I had made an idol.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV\r
+\r
+\r
+The month of courtship had wasted: its very last hours were being\r
+numbered. There was no putting off the day that advanced--the bridal\r
+day; and all preparations for its arrival were complete. _I_, at least,\r
+had nothing more to do: there were my trunks, packed, locked, corded,\r
+ranged in a row along the wall of my little chamber; to-morrow, at this\r
+time, they would be far on their road to London: and so should I\r
+(D.V.),--or rather, not I, but one Jane Rochester, a person whom as yet I\r
+knew not. The cards of address alone remained to nail on: they lay, four\r
+little squares, in the drawer. Mr. Rochester had himself written the\r
+direction, "Mrs. Rochester, --- Hotel, London," on each: I could not\r
+persuade myself to affix them, or to have them affixed. Mrs. Rochester!\r
+She did not exist: she would not be born till to-morrow, some time after\r
+eight o'clock a.m.; and I would wait to be assured she had come into the\r
+world alive before I assigned to her all that property. It was enough\r
+that in yonder closet, opposite my dressing-table, garments said to be\r
+hers had already displaced my black stuff Lowood frock and straw bonnet:\r
+for not to me appertained that suit of wedding raiment; the\r
+pearl-coloured robe, the vapoury veil pendent from the usurped\r
+portmanteau. I shut the closet to conceal the strange, wraith-like\r
+apparel it contained; which, at this evening hour--nine o'clock--gave out\r
+certainly a most ghostly shimmer through the shadow of my apartment. "I\r
+will leave you by yourself, white dream," I said. "I am feverish: I hear\r
+the wind blowing: I will go out of doors and feel it."\r
+\r
+It was not only the hurry of preparation that made me feverish; not only\r
+the anticipation of the great change--the new life which was to commence\r
+to-morrow: both these circumstances had their share, doubtless, in\r
+producing that restless, excited mood which hurried me forth at this late\r
+hour into the darkening grounds: but a third cause influenced my mind\r
+more than they.\r
+\r
+I had at heart a strange and anxious thought. Something had happened\r
+which I could not comprehend; no one knew of or had seen the event but\r
+myself: it had taken place the preceding night. Mr. Rochester that night\r
+was absent from home; nor was he yet returned: business had called him to\r
+a small estate of two or three farms he possessed thirty miles\r
+off--business it was requisite he should settle in person, previous to\r
+his meditated departure from England. I waited now his return; eager to\r
+disburthen my mind, and to seek of him the solution of the enigma that\r
+perplexed me. Stay till he comes, reader; and, when I disclose my secret\r
+to him, you shall share the confidence.\r
+\r
+I sought the orchard, driven to its shelter by the wind, which all day\r
+had blown strong and full from the south, without, however, bringing a\r
+speck of rain. Instead of subsiding as night drew on, it seemed to\r
+augment its rush and deepen its roar: the trees blew steadfastly one way,\r
+never writhing round, and scarcely tossing back their boughs once in an\r
+hour; so continuous was the strain bending their branchy heads\r
+northward--the clouds drifted from pole to pole, fast following, mass on\r
+mass: no glimpse of blue sky had been visible that July day.\r
+\r
+It was not without a certain wild pleasure I ran before the wind,\r
+delivering my trouble of mind to the measureless air-torrent thundering\r
+through space. Descending the laurel walk, I faced the wreck of the\r
+chestnut-tree; it stood up black and riven: the trunk, split down the\r
+centre, gasped ghastly. The cloven halves were not broken from each\r
+other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below;\r
+though community of vitality was destroyed--the sap could flow no more:\r
+their great boughs on each side were dead, and next winter's tempests\r
+would be sure to fell one or both to earth: as yet, however, they might\r
+be said to form one tree--a ruin, but an entire ruin.\r
+\r
+"You did right to hold fast to each other," I said: as if the monster-\r
+splinters were living things, and could hear me. "I think, scathed as\r
+you look, and charred and scorched, there must be a little sense of life\r
+in you yet, rising out of that adhesion at the faithful, honest roots:\r
+you will never have green leaves more--never more see birds making nests\r
+and singing idyls in your boughs; the time of pleasure and love is over\r
+with you: but you are not desolate: each of you has a comrade to\r
+sympathise with him in his decay." As I looked up at them, the moon\r
+appeared momentarily in that part of the sky which filled their fissure;\r
+her disk was blood-red and half overcast; she seemed to throw on me one\r
+bewildered, dreary glance, and buried herself again instantly in the deep\r
+drift of cloud. The wind fell, for a second, round Thornfield; but far\r
+away over wood and water, poured a wild, melancholy wail: it was sad to\r
+listen to, and I ran off again.\r
+\r
+Here and there I strayed through the orchard, gathered up the apples with\r
+which the grass round the tree roots was thickly strewn; then I employed\r
+myself in dividing the ripe from the unripe; I carried them into the\r
+house and put them away in the store-room. Then I repaired to the\r
+library to ascertain whether the fire was lit, for, though summer, I knew\r
+on such a gloomy evening Mr. Rochester would like to see a cheerful\r
+hearth when he came in: yes, the fire had been kindled some time, and\r
+burnt well. I placed his arm-chair by the chimney-corner: I wheeled the\r
+table near it: I let down the curtain, and had the candles brought in\r
+ready for lighting. More restless than ever, when I had completed these\r
+arrangements I could not sit still, nor even remain in the house: a\r
+little time-piece in the room and the old clock in the hall\r
+simultaneously struck ten.\r
+\r
+"How late it grows!" I said. "I will run down to the gates: it is\r
+moonlight at intervals; I can see a good way on the road. He may be\r
+coming now, and to meet him will save some minutes of suspense."\r
+\r
+The wind roared high in the great trees which embowered the gates; but\r
+the road as far as I could see, to the right hand and the left, was all\r
+still and solitary: save for the shadows of clouds crossing it at\r
+intervals as the moon looked out, it was but a long pale line, unvaried\r
+by one moving speck.\r
+\r
+A puerile tear dimmed my eye while I looked--a tear of disappointment and\r
+impatience; ashamed of it, I wiped it away. I lingered; the moon shut\r
+herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close her curtain of dense\r
+cloud: the night grew dark; rain came driving fast on the gale.\r
+\r
+"I wish he would come! I wish he would come!" I exclaimed, seized with\r
+hypochondriac foreboding. I had expected his arrival before tea; now it\r
+was dark: what could keep him? Had an accident happened? The event of\r
+last night again recurred to me. I interpreted it as a warning of\r
+disaster. I feared my hopes were too bright to be realised; and I had\r
+enjoyed so much bliss lately that I imagined my fortune had passed its\r
+meridian, and must now decline.\r
+\r
+"Well, I cannot return to the house," I thought; "I cannot sit by the\r
+fireside, while he is abroad in inclement weather: better tire my limbs\r
+than strain my heart; I will go forward and meet him."\r
+\r
+I set out; I walked fast, but not far: ere I had measured a quarter of a\r
+mile, I heard the tramp of hoofs; a horseman came on, full gallop; a dog\r
+ran by his side. Away with evil presentiment! It was he: here he was,\r
+mounted on Mesrour, followed by Pilot. He saw me; for the moon had\r
+opened a blue field in the sky, and rode in it watery bright: he took his\r
+hat off, and waved it round his head. I now ran to meet him.\r
+\r
+"There!" he exclaimed, as he stretched out his hand and bent from the\r
+saddle: "You can't do without me, that is evident. Step on my boot-toe;\r
+give me both hands: mount!"\r
+\r
+I obeyed: joy made me agile: I sprang up before him. A hearty kissing I\r
+got for a welcome, and some boastful triumph, which I swallowed as well\r
+as I could. He checked himself in his exultation to demand, "But is\r
+there anything the matter, Janet, that you come to meet me at such an\r
+hour? Is there anything wrong?"\r
+\r
+"No, but I thought you would never come. I could not bear to wait in the\r
+house for you, especially with this rain and wind."\r
+\r
+"Rain and wind, indeed! Yes, you are dripping like a mermaid; pull my\r
+cloak round you: but I think you are feverish, Jane: both your cheek and\r
+hand are burning hot. I ask again, is there anything the matter?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing now; I am neither afraid nor unhappy."\r
+\r
+"Then you have been both?"\r
+\r
+"Rather: but I'll tell you all about it by-and-bye, sir; and I daresay\r
+you will only laugh at me for my pains."\r
+\r
+"I'll laugh at you heartily when to-morrow is past; till then I dare not:\r
+my prize is not certain. This is you, who have been as slippery as an\r
+eel this last month, and as thorny as a briar-rose? I could not lay a\r
+finger anywhere but I was pricked; and now I seem to have gathered up a\r
+stray lamb in my arms. You wandered out of the fold to seek your\r
+shepherd, did you, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"I wanted you: but don't boast. Here we are at Thornfield: now let me\r
+get down."\r
+\r
+He landed me on the pavement. As John took his horse, and he followed me\r
+into the hall, he told me to make haste and put something dry on, and\r
+then return to him in the library; and he stopped me, as I made for the\r
+staircase, to extort a promise that I would not be long: nor was I long;\r
+in five minutes I rejoined him. I found him at supper.\r
+\r
+"Take a seat and bear me company, Jane: please God, it is the last meal\r
+but one you will eat at Thornfield Hall for a long time."\r
+\r
+I sat down near him, but told him I could not eat. "Is it because you\r
+have the prospect of a journey before you, Jane? Is it the thoughts of\r
+going to London that takes away your appetite?"\r
+\r
+"I cannot see my prospects clearly to-night, sir; and I hardly know what\r
+thoughts I have in my head. Everything in life seems unreal."\r
+\r
+"Except me: I am substantial enough--touch me."\r
+\r
+"You, sir, are the most phantom-like of all: you are a mere dream."\r
+\r
+He held out his hand, laughing. "Is that a dream?" said he, placing it\r
+close to my eyes. He had a rounded, muscular, and vigorous hand, as well\r
+as a long, strong arm.\r
+\r
+"Yes; though I touch it, it is a dream," said I, as I put it down from\r
+before my face. "Sir, have you finished supper?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Jane."\r
+\r
+I rang the bell and ordered away the tray. When we were again alone, I\r
+stirred the fire, and then took a low seat at my master's knee.\r
+\r
+"It is near midnight," I said.\r
+\r
+"Yes: but remember, Jane, you promised to wake with me the night before\r
+my wedding."\r
+\r
+"I did; and I will keep my promise, for an hour or two at least: I have\r
+no wish to go to bed."\r
+\r
+"Are all your arrangements complete?"\r
+\r
+"All, sir."\r
+\r
+"And on my part likewise," he returned, "I have settled everything; and\r
+we shall leave Thornfield to-morrow, within half-an-hour after our return\r
+from church."\r
+\r
+"Very well, sir."\r
+\r
+"With what an extraordinary smile you uttered that word--'very well,'\r
+Jane! What a bright spot of colour you have on each cheek! and how\r
+strangely your eyes glitter! Are you well?"\r
+\r
+"I believe I am."\r
+\r
+"Believe! What is the matter? Tell me what you feel."\r
+\r
+"I could not, sir: no words could tell you what I feel. I wish this\r
+present hour would never end: who knows with what fate the next may come\r
+charged?"\r
+\r
+"This is hypochondria, Jane. You have been over-excited, or\r
+over-fatigued."\r
+\r
+"Do you, sir, feel calm and happy?"\r
+\r
+"Calm?--no: but happy--to the heart's core."\r
+\r
+I looked up at him to read the signs of bliss in his face: it was ardent\r
+and flushed.\r
+\r
+"Give me your confidence, Jane," he said: "relieve your mind of any\r
+weight that oppresses it, by imparting it to me. What do you fear?--that\r
+I shall not prove a good husband?"\r
+\r
+"It is the idea farthest from my thoughts."\r
+\r
+"Are you apprehensive of the new sphere you are about to enter?--of the\r
+new life into which you are passing?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"You puzzle me, Jane: your look and tone of sorrowful audacity perplex\r
+and pain me. I want an explanation."\r
+\r
+"Then, sir, listen. You were from home last night?"\r
+\r
+"I was: I know that; and you hinted a while ago at something which had\r
+happened in my absence:--nothing, probably, of consequence; but, in\r
+short, it has disturbed you. Let me hear it. Mrs. Fairfax has said\r
+something, perhaps? or you have overheard the servants talk?--your\r
+sensitive self-respect has been wounded?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir." It struck twelve--I waited till the time-piece had concluded\r
+its silver chime, and the clock its hoarse, vibrating stroke, and then I\r
+proceeded.\r
+\r
+"All day yesterday I was very busy, and very happy in my ceaseless\r
+bustle; for I am not, as you seem to think, troubled by any haunting\r
+fears about the new sphere, et cetera: I think it a glorious thing to\r
+have the hope of living with you, because I love you. No, sir, don't\r
+caress me now--let me talk undisturbed. Yesterday I trusted well in\r
+Providence, and believed that events were working together for your good\r
+and mine: it was a fine day, if you recollect--the calmness of the air\r
+and sky forbade apprehensions respecting your safety or comfort on your\r
+journey. I walked a little while on the pavement after tea, thinking of\r
+you; and I beheld you in imagination so near me, I scarcely missed your\r
+actual presence. I thought of the life that lay before me--_your_ life,\r
+sir--an existence more expansive and stirring than my own: as much more\r
+so as the depths of the sea to which the brook runs are than the shallows\r
+of its own strait channel. I wondered why moralists call this world a\r
+dreary wilderness: for me it blossomed like a rose. Just at sunset, the\r
+air turned cold and the sky cloudy: I went in, Sophie called me upstairs\r
+to look at my wedding-dress, which they had just brought; and under it in\r
+the box I found your present--the veil which, in your princely\r
+extravagance, you sent for from London: resolved, I suppose, since I\r
+would not have jewels, to cheat me into accepting something as costly. I\r
+smiled as I unfolded it, and devised how I would tease you about your\r
+aristocratic tastes, and your efforts to masque your plebeian bride in\r
+the attributes of a peeress. I thought how I would carry down to you the\r
+square of unembroidered blond I had myself prepared as a covering for my\r
+low-born head, and ask if that was not good enough for a woman who could\r
+bring her husband neither fortune, beauty, nor connections. I saw\r
+plainly how you would look; and heard your impetuous republican answers,\r
+and your haughty disavowal of any necessity on your part to augment your\r
+wealth, or elevate your standing, by marrying either a purse or a\r
+coronet."\r
+\r
+"How well you read me, you witch!" interposed Mr. Rochester: "but what\r
+did you find in the veil besides its embroidery? Did you find poison, or\r
+a dagger, that you look so mournful now?"\r
+\r
+"No, no, sir; besides the delicacy and richness of the fabric, I found\r
+nothing save Fairfax Rochester's pride; and that did not scare me,\r
+because I am used to the sight of the demon. But, sir, as it grew dark,\r
+the wind rose: it blew yesterday evening, not as it blows now--wild and\r
+high--but 'with a sullen, moaning sound' far more eerie. I wished you\r
+were at home. I came into this room, and the sight of the empty chair\r
+and fireless hearth chilled me. For some time after I went to bed, I\r
+could not sleep--a sense of anxious excitement distressed me. The gale\r
+still rising, seemed to my ear to muffle a mournful under-sound; whether\r
+in the house or abroad I could not at first tell, but it recurred,\r
+doubtful yet doleful at every lull; at last I made out it must be some\r
+dog howling at a distance. I was glad when it ceased. On sleeping, I\r
+continued in dreams the idea of a dark and gusty night. I continued also\r
+the wish to be with you, and experienced a strange, regretful\r
+consciousness of some barrier dividing us. During all my first sleep, I\r
+was following the windings of an unknown road; total obscurity environed\r
+me; rain pelted me; I was burdened with the charge of a little child: a\r
+very small creature, too young and feeble to walk, and which shivered in\r
+my cold arms, and wailed piteously in my ear. I thought, sir, that you\r
+were on the road a long way before me; and I strained every nerve to\r
+overtake you, and made effort on effort to utter your name and entreat\r
+you to stop--but my movements were fettered, and my voice still died away\r
+inarticulate; while you, I felt, withdrew farther and farther every\r
+moment."\r
+\r
+"And these dreams weigh on your spirits now, Jane, when I am close to\r
+you? Little nervous subject! Forget visionary woe, and think only of\r
+real happiness! You say you love me, Janet: yes--I will not forget that;\r
+and you cannot deny it. _Those_ words did not die inarticulate on your\r
+lips. I heard them clear and soft: a thought too solemn perhaps, but\r
+sweet as music--'I think it is a glorious thing to have the hope of\r
+living with you, Edward, because I love you.' Do you love me,\r
+Jane?--repeat it."\r
+\r
+"I do, sir--I do, with my whole heart."\r
+\r
+"Well," he said, after some minutes' silence, "it is strange; but that\r
+sentence has penetrated my breast painfully. Why? I think because you\r
+said it with such an earnest, religious energy, and because your upward\r
+gaze at me now is the very sublime of faith, truth, and devotion: it is\r
+too much as if some spirit were near me. Look wicked, Jane: as you know\r
+well how to look: coin one of your wild, shy, provoking smiles; tell me\r
+you hate me--tease me, vex me; do anything but move me: I would rather be\r
+incensed than saddened."\r
+\r
+"I will tease you and vex you to your heart's content, when I have\r
+finished my tale: but hear me to the end."\r
+\r
+"I thought, Jane, you had told me all. I thought I had found the source\r
+of your melancholy in a dream."\r
+\r
+I shook my head. "What! is there more? But I will not believe it to be\r
+anything important. I warn you of incredulity beforehand. Go on."\r
+\r
+The disquietude of his air, the somewhat apprehensive impatience of his\r
+manner, surprised me: but I proceeded.\r
+\r
+"I dreamt another dream, sir: that Thornfield Hall was a dreary ruin, the\r
+retreat of bats and owls. I thought that of all the stately front\r
+nothing remained but a shell-like wall, very high and very\r
+fragile-looking. I wandered, on a moonlight night, through the grass-\r
+grown enclosure within: here I stumbled over a marble hearth, and there\r
+over a fallen fragment of cornice. Wrapped up in a shawl, I still\r
+carried the unknown little child: I might not lay it down anywhere,\r
+however tired were my arms--however much its weight impeded my progress,\r
+I must retain it. I heard the gallop of a horse at a distance on the\r
+road; I was sure it was you; and you were departing for many years and\r
+for a distant country. I climbed the thin wall with frantic perilous\r
+haste, eager to catch one glimpse of you from the top: the stones rolled\r
+from under my feet, the ivy branches I grasped gave way, the child clung\r
+round my neck in terror, and almost strangled me; at last I gained the\r
+summit. I saw you like a speck on a white track, lessening every moment.\r
+The blast blew so strong I could not stand. I sat down on the narrow\r
+ledge; I hushed the scared infant in my lap: you turned an angle of the\r
+road: I bent forward to take a last look; the wall crumbled; I was\r
+shaken; the child rolled from my knee, I lost my balance, fell, and\r
+woke."\r
+\r
+"Now, Jane, that is all."\r
+\r
+"All the preface, sir; the tale is yet to come. On waking, a gleam\r
+dazzled my eyes; I thought--Oh, it is daylight! But I was mistaken; it\r
+was only candlelight. Sophie, I supposed, had come in. There was a\r
+light in the dressing-table, and the door of the closet, where, before\r
+going to bed, I had hung my wedding-dress and veil, stood open; I heard a\r
+rustling there. I asked, 'Sophie, what are you doing?' No one answered;\r
+but a form emerged from the closet; it took the light, held it aloft, and\r
+surveyed the garments pendent from the portmanteau. 'Sophie! Sophie!' I\r
+again cried: and still it was silent. I had risen up in bed, I bent\r
+forward: first surprise, then bewilderment, came over me; and then my\r
+blood crept cold through my veins. Mr. Rochester, this was not Sophie,\r
+it was not Leah, it was not Mrs. Fairfax: it was not--no, I was sure of\r
+it, and am still--it was not even that strange woman, Grace Poole."\r
+\r
+"It must have been one of them," interrupted my master.\r
+\r
+"No, sir, I solemnly assure you to the contrary. The shape standing\r
+before me had never crossed my eyes within the precincts of Thornfield\r
+Hall before; the height, the contour were new to me."\r
+\r
+"Describe it, Jane."\r
+\r
+"It seemed, sir, a woman, tall and large, with thick and dark hair\r
+hanging long down her back. I know not what dress she had on: it was\r
+white and straight; but whether gown, sheet, or shroud, I cannot tell."\r
+\r
+"Did you see her face?"\r
+\r
+"Not at first. But presently she took my veil from its place; she held\r
+it up, gazed at it long, and then she threw it over her own head, and\r
+turned to the mirror. At that moment I saw the reflection of the visage\r
+and features quite distinctly in the dark oblong glass."\r
+\r
+"And how were they?"\r
+\r
+"Fearful and ghastly to me--oh, sir, I never saw a face like it! It was\r
+a discoloured face--it was a savage face. I wish I could forget the roll\r
+of the red eyes and the fearful blackened inflation of the lineaments!"\r
+\r
+"Ghosts are usually pale, Jane."\r
+\r
+"This, sir, was purple: the lips were swelled and dark; the brow\r
+furrowed: the black eyebrows widely raised over the bloodshot eyes. Shall\r
+I tell you of what it reminded me?"\r
+\r
+"You may."\r
+\r
+"Of the foul German spectre--the Vampyre."\r
+\r
+"Ah!--what did it do?"\r
+\r
+"Sir, it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and\r
+flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."\r
+\r
+{It removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two parts, and\r
+flinging both on the floor, trampled on them: p272.jpg}\r
+\r
+"Afterwards?"\r
+\r
+"It drew aside the window-curtain and looked out; perhaps it saw dawn\r
+approaching, for, taking the candle, it retreated to the door. Just at\r
+my bedside, the figure stopped: the fiery eyes glared upon me--she thrust\r
+up her candle close to my face, and extinguished it under my eyes. I was\r
+aware her lurid visage flamed over mine, and I lost consciousness: for\r
+the second time in my life--only the second time--I became insensible\r
+from terror."\r
+\r
+"Who was with you when you revived?"\r
+\r
+"No one, sir, but the broad day. I rose, bathed my head and face in\r
+water, drank a long draught; felt that though enfeebled I was not ill,\r
+and determined that to none but you would I impart this vision. Now,\r
+sir, tell me who and what that woman was?"\r
+\r
+"The creature of an over-stimulated brain; that is certain. I must be\r
+careful of you, my treasure: nerves like yours were not made for rough\r
+handling."\r
+\r
+"Sir, depend on it, my nerves were not in fault; the thing was real: the\r
+transaction actually took place."\r
+\r
+"And your previous dreams, were they real too? Is Thornfield Hall a\r
+ruin? Am I severed from you by insuperable obstacles? Am I leaving you\r
+without a tear--without a kiss--without a word?"\r
+\r
+"Not yet."\r
+\r
+"Am I about to do it? Why, the day is already commenced which is to bind\r
+us indissolubly; and when we are once united, there shall be no\r
+recurrence of these mental terrors: I guarantee that."\r
+\r
+"Mental terrors, sir! I wish I could believe them to be only such: I\r
+wish it more now than ever; since even you cannot explain to me the\r
+mystery of that awful visitant."\r
+\r
+"And since I cannot do it, Jane, it must have been unreal."\r
+\r
+"But, sir, when I said so to myself on rising this morning, and when I\r
+looked round the room to gather courage and comfort from the cheerful\r
+aspect of each familiar object in full daylight, there--on the carpet--I\r
+saw what gave the distinct lie to my hypothesis,--the veil, torn from top\r
+to bottom in two halves!"\r
+\r
+I felt Mr. Rochester start and shudder; he hastily flung his arms round\r
+me. "Thank God!" he exclaimed, "that if anything malignant did come near\r
+you last night, it was only the veil that was harmed. Oh, to think what\r
+might have happened!"\r
+\r
+He drew his breath short, and strained me so close to him, I could\r
+scarcely pant. After some minutes' silence, he continued, cheerily--\r
+\r
+"Now, Janet, I'll explain to you all about it. It was half dream, half\r
+reality. A woman did, I doubt not, enter your room: and that woman\r
+was--must have been--Grace Poole. You call her a strange being yourself:\r
+from all you know, you have reason so to call her--what did she do to me?\r
+what to Mason? In a state between sleeping and waking, you noticed her\r
+entrance and her actions; but feverish, almost delirious as you were, you\r
+ascribed to her a goblin appearance different from her own: the long\r
+dishevelled hair, the swelled black face, the exaggerated stature, were\r
+figments of imagination; results of nightmare: the spiteful tearing of\r
+the veil was real: and it is like her. I see you would ask why I keep\r
+such a woman in my house: when we have been married a year and a day, I\r
+will tell you; but not now. Are you satisfied, Jane? Do you accept my\r
+solution of the mystery?"\r
+\r
+I reflected, and in truth it appeared to me the only possible one:\r
+satisfied I was not, but to please him I endeavoured to appear\r
+so--relieved, I certainly did feel; so I answered him with a contented\r
+smile. And now, as it was long past one, I prepared to leave him.\r
+\r
+"Does not Sophie sleep with Adele in the nursery?" he asked, as I lit my\r
+candle.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And there is room enough in Adele's little bed for you. You must share\r
+it with her to-night, Jane: it is no wonder that the incident you have\r
+related should make you nervous, and I would rather you did not sleep\r
+alone: promise me to go to the nursery."\r
+\r
+"I shall be very glad to do so, sir."\r
+\r
+"And fasten the door securely on the inside. Wake Sophie when you go\r
+upstairs, under pretence of requesting her to rouse you in good time to-\r
+morrow; for you must be dressed and have finished breakfast before eight.\r
+And now, no more sombre thoughts: chase dull care away, Janet. Don't you\r
+hear to what soft whispers the wind has fallen? and there is no more\r
+beating of rain against the window-panes: look here" (he lifted up the\r
+curtain)--"it is a lovely night!"\r
+\r
+It was. Half heaven was pure and stainless: the clouds, now trooping\r
+before the wind, which had shifted to the west, were filing off eastward\r
+in long, silvered columns. The moon shone peacefully.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mr. Rochester, gazing inquiringly into my eyes, "how is my\r
+Janet now?"\r
+\r
+"The night is serene, sir; and so am I."\r
+\r
+"And you will not dream of separation and sorrow to-night; but of happy\r
+love and blissful union."\r
+\r
+This prediction was but half fulfilled: I did not indeed dream of sorrow,\r
+but as little did I dream of joy; for I never slept at all. With little\r
+Adele in my arms, I watched the slumber of childhood--so tranquil, so\r
+passionless, so innocent--and waited for the coming day: all my life was\r
+awake and astir in my frame: and as soon as the sun rose I rose too. I\r
+remember Adele clung to me as I left her: I remember I kissed her as I\r
+loosened her little hands from my neck; and I cried over her with strange\r
+emotion, and quitted her because I feared my sobs would break her still\r
+sound repose. She seemed the emblem of my past life; and here I was now\r
+to array myself to meet, the dread, but adored, type of my unknown future\r
+day.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI\r
+\r
+\r
+Sophie came at seven to dress me: she was very long indeed in\r
+accomplishing her task; so long that Mr. Rochester, grown, I suppose,\r
+impatient of my delay, sent up to ask why I did not come. She was just\r
+fastening my veil (the plain square of blond after all) to my hair with a\r
+brooch; I hurried from under her hands as soon as I could.\r
+\r
+"Stop!" she cried in French. "Look at yourself in the mirror: you have\r
+not taken one peep."\r
+\r
+So I turned at the door: I saw a robed and veiled figure, so unlike my\r
+usual self that it seemed almost the image of a stranger. "Jane!" called\r
+a voice, and I hastened down. I was received at the foot of the stairs\r
+by Mr. Rochester.\r
+\r
+"Lingerer!" he said, "my brain is on fire with impatience, and you tarry\r
+so long!"\r
+\r
+He took me into the dining-room, surveyed me keenly all over, pronounced\r
+me "fair as a lily, and not only the pride of his life, but the desire of\r
+his eyes," and then telling me he would give me but ten minutes to eat\r
+some breakfast, he rang the bell. One of his lately hired servants, a\r
+footman, answered it.\r
+\r
+"Is John getting the carriage ready?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Is the luggage brought down?"\r
+\r
+"They are bringing it down, sir."\r
+\r
+"Go you to the church: see if Mr. Wood (the clergyman) and the clerk are\r
+there: return and tell me."\r
+\r
+The church, as the reader knows, was but just beyond the gates; the\r
+footman soon returned.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Wood is in the vestry, sir, putting on his surplice."\r
+\r
+"And the carriage?"\r
+\r
+"The horses are harnessing."\r
+\r
+"We shall not want it to go to church; but it must be ready the moment we\r
+return: all the boxes and luggage arranged and strapped on, and the\r
+coachman in his seat."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Jane, are you ready?"\r
+\r
+I rose. There were no groomsmen, no bridesmaids, no relatives to wait\r
+for or marshal: none but Mr. Rochester and I. Mrs. Fairfax stood in the\r
+hall as we passed. I would fain have spoken to her, but my hand was\r
+held by a grasp of iron: I was hurried along by a stride I could hardly\r
+follow; and to look at Mr. Rochester's face was to feel that not a second\r
+of delay would be tolerated for any purpose. I wonder what other\r
+bridegroom ever looked as he did--so bent up to a purpose, so grimly\r
+resolute: or who, under such steadfast brows, ever revealed such flaming\r
+and flashing eyes.\r
+\r
+I know not whether the day was fair or foul; in descending the drive, I\r
+gazed neither on sky nor earth: my heart was with my eyes; and both\r
+seemed migrated into Mr. Rochester's frame. I wanted to see the\r
+invisible thing on which, as we went along, he appeared to fasten a\r
+glance fierce and fell. I wanted to feel the thoughts whose force he\r
+seemed breasting and resisting.\r
+\r
+At the churchyard wicket he stopped: he discovered I was quite out of\r
+breath. "Am I cruel in my love?" he said. "Delay an instant: lean on\r
+me, Jane."\r
+\r
+And now I can recall the picture of the grey old house of God rising calm\r
+before me, of a rook wheeling round the steeple, of a ruddy morning sky\r
+beyond. I remember something, too, of the green grave-mounds; and I have\r
+not forgotten, either, two figures of strangers straying amongst the low\r
+hillocks and reading the mementoes graven on the few mossy head-stones. I\r
+noticed them, because, as they saw us, they passed round to the back of\r
+the church; and I doubted not they were going to enter by the side-aisle\r
+door and witness the ceremony. By Mr. Rochester they were not observed;\r
+he was earnestly looking at my face from which the blood had, I daresay,\r
+momentarily fled: for I felt my forehead dewy, and my cheeks and lips\r
+cold. When I rallied, which I soon did, he walked gently with me up the\r
+path to the porch.\r
+\r
+We entered the quiet and humble temple; the priest waited in his white\r
+surplice at the lowly altar, the clerk beside him. All was still: two\r
+shadows only moved in a remote corner. My conjecture had been correct:\r
+the strangers had slipped in before us, and they now stood by the vault\r
+of the Rochesters, their backs towards us, viewing through the rails the\r
+old time-stained marble tomb, where a kneeling angel guarded the remains\r
+of Damer de Rochester, slain at Marston Moor in the time of the civil\r
+wars, and of Elizabeth, his wife.\r
+\r
+Our place was taken at the communion rails. Hearing a cautious step\r
+behind me, I glanced over my shoulder: one of the strangers--a gentleman,\r
+evidently--was advancing up the chancel. The service began. The\r
+explanation of the intent of matrimony was gone through; and then the\r
+clergyman came a step further forward, and, bending slightly towards Mr.\r
+Rochester, went on.\r
+\r
+"I require and charge you both (as ye will answer at the dreadful day of\r
+judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed), that if\r
+either of you know any impediment why ye may not lawfully be joined\r
+together in matrimony, ye do now confess it; for be ye well assured that\r
+so many as are coupled together otherwise than God's Word doth allow, are\r
+not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful."\r
+\r
+He paused, as the custom is. When is the pause after that sentence ever\r
+broken by reply? Not, perhaps, once in a hundred years. And the\r
+clergyman, who had not lifted his eyes from his book, and had held his\r
+breath but for a moment, was proceeding: his hand was already stretched\r
+towards Mr. Rochester, as his lips unclosed to ask, "Wilt thou have this\r
+woman for thy wedded wife?"--when a distinct and near voice said--\r
+\r
+"The marriage cannot go on: I declare the existence of an impediment."\r
+\r
+The clergyman looked up at the speaker and stood mute; the clerk did the\r
+same; Mr. Rochester moved slightly, as if an earthquake had rolled under\r
+his feet: taking a firmer footing, and not turning his head or eyes, he\r
+said, "Proceed."\r
+\r
+Profound silence fell when he had uttered that word, with deep but low\r
+intonation. Presently Mr. Wood said--\r
+\r
+"I cannot proceed without some investigation into what has been asserted,\r
+and evidence of its truth or falsehood."\r
+\r
+"The ceremony is quite broken off," subjoined the voice behind us. "I am\r
+in a condition to prove my allegation: an insuperable impediment to this\r
+marriage exists."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester heard, but heeded not: he stood stubborn and rigid, making\r
+no movement but to possess himself of my hand. What a hot and strong\r
+grasp he had! and how like quarried marble was his pale, firm, massive\r
+front at this moment! How his eye shone, still watchful, and yet wild\r
+beneath!\r
+\r
+Mr. Wood seemed at a loss. "What is the nature of the impediment?" he\r
+asked. "Perhaps it may be got over--explained away?"\r
+\r
+"Hardly," was the answer. "I have called it insuperable, and I speak\r
+advisedly."\r
+\r
+The speaker came forward and leaned on the rails. He continued, uttering\r
+each word distinctly, calmly, steadily, but not loudly--\r
+\r
+"It simply consists in the existence of a previous marriage. Mr.\r
+Rochester has a wife now living."\r
+\r
+My nerves vibrated to those low-spoken words as they had never vibrated\r
+to thunder--my blood felt their subtle violence as it had never felt\r
+frost or fire; but I was collected, and in no danger of swooning. I\r
+looked at Mr. Rochester: I made him look at me. His whole face was\r
+colourless rock: his eye was both spark and flint. He disavowed nothing:\r
+he seemed as if he would defy all things. Without speaking, without\r
+smiling, without seeming to recognise in me a human being, he only twined\r
+my waist with his arm and riveted me to his side.\r
+\r
+"Who are you?" he asked of the intruder.\r
+\r
+"My name is Briggs, a solicitor of --- Street, London."\r
+\r
+"And you would thrust on me a wife?"\r
+\r
+"I would remind you of your lady's existence, sir, which the law\r
+recognises, if you do not."\r
+\r
+"Favour me with an account of her--with her name, her parentage, her\r
+place of abode."\r
+\r
+"Certainly." Mr. Briggs calmly took a paper from his pocket, and read\r
+out in a sort of official, nasal voice:--\r
+\r
+"'I affirm and can prove that on the 20th of October A.D. --- (a date of\r
+fifteen years back), Edward Fairfax Rochester, of Thornfield Hall, in the\r
+county of ---, and of Ferndean Manor, in ---shire, England, was married\r
+to my sister, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, daughter of Jonas Mason, merchant,\r
+and of Antoinetta his wife, a Creole, at --- church, Spanish Town,\r
+Jamaica. The record of the marriage will be found in the register of\r
+that church--a copy of it is now in my possession. Signed, Richard\r
+Mason.'"\r
+\r
+"That--if a genuine document--may prove I have been married, but it does\r
+not prove that the woman mentioned therein as my wife is still living."\r
+\r
+"She was living three months ago," returned the lawyer.\r
+\r
+"How do you know?"\r
+\r
+"I have a witness to the fact, whose testimony even you, sir, will\r
+scarcely controvert."\r
+\r
+"Produce him--or go to hell."\r
+\r
+"I will produce him first--he is on the spot. Mr. Mason, have the\r
+goodness to step forward."\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester, on hearing the name, set his teeth; he experienced, too, a\r
+sort of strong convulsive quiver; near to him as I was, I felt the\r
+spasmodic movement of fury or despair run through his frame. The second\r
+stranger, who had hitherto lingered in the background, now drew near; a\r
+pale face looked over the solicitor's shoulder--yes, it was Mason\r
+himself. Mr. Rochester turned and glared at him. His eye, as I have\r
+often said, was a black eye: it had now a tawny, nay, a bloody light in\r
+its gloom; and his face flushed--olive cheek and hueless forehead\r
+received a glow as from spreading, ascending heart-fire: and he stirred,\r
+lifted his strong arm--he could have struck Mason, dashed him on the\r
+church-floor, shocked by ruthless blow the breath from his body--but\r
+Mason shrank away, and cried faintly, "Good God!" Contempt fell cool on\r
+Mr. Rochester--his passion died as if a blight had shrivelled it up: he\r
+only asked--"What have _you_ to say?"\r
+\r
+An inaudible reply escaped Mason's white lips.\r
+\r
+"The devil is in it if you cannot answer distinctly. I again demand,\r
+what have you to say?"\r
+\r
+"Sir--sir," interrupted the clergyman, "do not forget you are in a sacred\r
+place." Then addressing Mason, he inquired gently, "Are you aware, sir,\r
+whether or not this gentleman's wife is still living?"\r
+\r
+"Courage," urged the lawyer,--"speak out."\r
+\r
+"She is now living at Thornfield Hall," said Mason, in more articulate\r
+tones: "I saw her there last April. I am her brother."\r
+\r
+"At Thornfield Hall!" ejaculated the clergyman. "Impossible! I am an\r
+old resident in this neighbourhood, sir, and I never heard of a Mrs.\r
+Rochester at Thornfield Hall."\r
+\r
+I saw a grim smile contort Mr. Rochester's lips, and he muttered--\r
+\r
+"No, by God! I took care that none should hear of it--or of her under\r
+that name." He mused--for ten minutes he held counsel with himself: he\r
+formed his resolve, and announced it--\r
+\r
+"Enough! all shall bolt out at once, like the bullet from the barrel.\r
+Wood, close your book and take off your surplice; John Green (to the\r
+clerk), leave the church: there will be no wedding to-day." The man\r
+obeyed.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester continued, hardily and recklessly: "Bigamy is an ugly\r
+word!--I meant, however, to be a bigamist; but fate has out-manoeuvred\r
+me, or Providence has checked me,--perhaps the last. I am little better\r
+than a devil at this moment; and, as my pastor there would tell me,\r
+deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God, even to the quenchless\r
+fire and deathless worm. Gentlemen, my plan is broken up:--what this\r
+lawyer and his client say is true: I have been married, and the woman to\r
+whom I was married lives! You say you never heard of a Mrs. Rochester at\r
+the house up yonder, Wood; but I daresay you have many a time inclined\r
+your ear to gossip about the mysterious lunatic kept there under watch\r
+and ward. Some have whispered to you that she is my bastard half-sister:\r
+some, my cast-off mistress. I now inform you that she is my wife, whom I\r
+married fifteen years ago,--Bertha Mason by name; sister of this resolute\r
+personage, who is now, with his quivering limbs and white cheeks, showing\r
+you what a stout heart men may bear. Cheer up, Dick!--never fear me!--I'd\r
+almost as soon strike a woman as you. Bertha Mason is mad; and she came\r
+of a mad family; idiots and maniacs through three generations! Her\r
+mother, the Creole, was both a madwoman and a drunkard!--as I found out\r
+after I had wed the daughter: for they were silent on family secrets\r
+before. Bertha, like a dutiful child, copied her parent in both points.\r
+I had a charming partner--pure, wise, modest: you can fancy I was a happy\r
+man. I went through rich scenes! Oh! my experience has been heavenly,\r
+if you only knew it! But I owe you no further explanation. Briggs,\r
+Wood, Mason, I invite you all to come up to the house and visit Mrs.\r
+Poole's patient, and _my wife_! You shall see what sort of a being I was\r
+cheated into espousing, and judge whether or not I had a right to break\r
+the compact, and seek sympathy with something at least human. This\r
+girl," he continued, looking at me, "knew no more than you, Wood, of the\r
+disgusting secret: she thought all was fair and legal and never dreamt\r
+she was going to be entrapped into a feigned union with a defrauded\r
+wretch, already bound to a bad, mad, and embruted partner! Come all of\r
+you--follow!"\r
+\r
+Still holding me fast, he left the church: the three gentlemen came\r
+after. At the front door of the hall we found the carriage.\r
+\r
+"Take it back to the coach-house, John," said Mr. Rochester coolly; "it\r
+will not be wanted to-day."\r
+\r
+At our entrance, Mrs. Fairfax, Adele, Sophie, Leah, advanced to meet and\r
+greet us.\r
+\r
+"To the right-about--every soul!" cried the master; "away with your\r
+congratulations! Who wants them? Not I!--they are fifteen years too\r
+late!"\r
+\r
+He passed on and ascended the stairs, still holding my hand, and still\r
+beckoning the gentlemen to follow him, which they did. We mounted the\r
+first staircase, passed up the gallery, proceeded to the third storey:\r
+the low, black door, opened by Mr. Rochester's master-key, admitted us to\r
+the tapestried room, with its great bed and its pictorial cabinet.\r
+\r
+"You know this place, Mason," said our guide; "she bit and stabbed you\r
+here."\r
+\r
+He lifted the hangings from the wall, uncovering the second door: this,\r
+too, he opened. In a room without a window, there burnt a fire guarded\r
+by a high and strong fender, and a lamp suspended from the ceiling by a\r
+chain. Grace Poole bent over the fire, apparently cooking something in a\r
+saucepan. In the deep shade, at the farther end of the room, a figure\r
+ran backwards and forwards. What it was, whether beast or human being,\r
+one could not, at first sight, tell: it grovelled, seemingly, on all\r
+fours; it snatched and growled like some strange wild animal: but it was\r
+covered with clothing, and a quantity of dark, grizzled hair, wild as a\r
+mane, hid its head and face.\r
+\r
+"Good-morrow, Mrs. Poole!" said Mr. Rochester. "How are you? and how is\r
+your charge to-day?"\r
+\r
+"We're tolerable, sir, I thank you," replied Grace, lifting the boiling\r
+mess carefully on to the hob: "rather snappish, but not 'rageous."\r
+\r
+A fierce cry seemed to give the lie to her favourable report: the clothed\r
+hyena rose up, and stood tall on its hind-feet.\r
+\r
+"Ah! sir, she sees you!" exclaimed Grace: "you'd better not stay."\r
+\r
+"Only a few moments, Grace: you must allow me a few moments."\r
+\r
+"Take care then, sir!--for God's sake, take care!"\r
+\r
+The maniac bellowed: she parted her shaggy locks from her visage, and\r
+gazed wildly at her visitors. I recognised well that purple face,--those\r
+bloated features. Mrs. Poole advanced.\r
+\r
+"Keep out of the way," said Mr. Rochester, thrusting her aside: "she has\r
+no knife now, I suppose, and I'm on my guard."\r
+\r
+"One never knows what she has, sir: she is so cunning: it is not in\r
+mortal discretion to fathom her craft."\r
+\r
+"We had better leave her," whispered Mason.\r
+\r
+"Go to the devil!" was his brother-in-law's recommendation.\r
+\r
+"'Ware!" cried Grace. The three gentlemen retreated simultaneously. Mr.\r
+Rochester flung me behind him: the lunatic sprang and grappled his throat\r
+viciously, and laid her teeth to his cheek: they struggled. She was a\r
+big woman, in stature almost equalling her husband, and corpulent\r
+besides: she showed virile force in the contest--more than once she\r
+almost throttled him, athletic as he was. He could have settled her with\r
+a well-planted blow; but he would not strike: he would only wrestle. At\r
+last he mastered her arms; Grace Poole gave him a cord, and he pinioned\r
+them behind her: with more rope, which was at hand, he bound her to a\r
+chair. The operation was performed amidst the fiercest yells and the\r
+most convulsive plunges. Mr. Rochester then turned to the spectators: he\r
+looked at them with a smile both acrid and desolate.\r
+\r
+"That is _my wife_," said he. "Such is the sole conjugal embrace I am\r
+ever to know--such are the endearments which are to solace my leisure\r
+hours! And _this_ is what I wished to have" (laying his hand on my\r
+shoulder): "this young girl, who stands so grave and quiet at the mouth\r
+of hell, looking collectedly at the gambols of a demon, I wanted her just\r
+as a change after that fierce ragout. Wood and Briggs, look at the\r
+difference! Compare these clear eyes with the red balls yonder--this\r
+face with that mask--this form with that bulk; then judge me, priest of\r
+the gospel and man of the law, and remember with what judgment ye judge\r
+ye shall be judged! Off with you now. I must shut up my prize."\r
+\r
+We all withdrew. Mr. Rochester stayed a moment behind us, to give some\r
+further order to Grace Poole. The solicitor addressed me as he descended\r
+the stair.\r
+\r
+"You, madam," said he, "are cleared from all blame: your uncle will be\r
+glad to hear it--if, indeed, he should be still living--when Mr. Mason\r
+returns to Madeira."\r
+\r
+"My uncle! What of him? Do you know him?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Mason does. Mr. Eyre has been the Funchal correspondent of his\r
+house for some years. When your uncle received your letter intimating\r
+the contemplated union between yourself and Mr. Rochester, Mr. Mason, who\r
+was staying at Madeira to recruit his health, on his way back to Jamaica,\r
+happened to be with him. Mr. Eyre mentioned the intelligence; for he\r
+knew that my client here was acquainted with a gentleman of the name of\r
+Rochester. Mr. Mason, astonished and distressed as you may suppose,\r
+revealed the real state of matters. Your uncle, I am sorry to say, is\r
+now on a sick bed; from which, considering the nature of his\r
+disease--decline--and the stage it has reached, it is unlikely he will\r
+ever rise. He could not then hasten to England himself, to extricate you\r
+from the snare into which you had fallen, but he implored Mr. Mason to\r
+lose no time in taking steps to prevent the false marriage. He referred\r
+him to me for assistance. I used all despatch, and am thankful I was not\r
+too late: as you, doubtless, must be also. Were I not morally certain\r
+that your uncle will be dead ere you reach Madeira, I would advise you to\r
+accompany Mr. Mason back; but as it is, I think you had better remain in\r
+England till you can hear further, either from or of Mr. Eyre. Have we\r
+anything else to stay for?" he inquired of Mr. Mason.\r
+\r
+"No, no--let us be gone," was the anxious reply; and without waiting to\r
+take leave of Mr. Rochester, they made their exit at the hall door. The\r
+clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or\r
+reproof, with his haughty parishioner; this duty done, he too departed.\r
+\r
+I heard him go as I stood at the half-open door of my own room, to which\r
+I had now withdrawn. The house cleared, I shut myself in, fastened the\r
+bolt that none might intrude, and proceeded--not to weep, not to mourn, I\r
+was yet too calm for that, but--mechanically to take off the wedding\r
+dress, and replace it by the stuff gown I had worn yesterday, as I\r
+thought, for the last time. I then sat down: I felt weak and tired. I\r
+leaned my arms on a table, and my head dropped on them. And now I\r
+thought: till now I had only heard, seen, moved--followed up and down\r
+where I was led or dragged--watched event rush on event, disclosure open\r
+beyond disclosure: but _now_, _I thought_.\r
+\r
+The morning had been a quiet morning enough--all except the brief scene\r
+with the lunatic: the transaction in the church had not been noisy; there\r
+was no explosion of passion, no loud altercation, no dispute, no defiance\r
+or challenge, no tears, no sobs: a few words had been spoken, a calmly\r
+pronounced objection to the marriage made; some stern, short questions\r
+put by Mr. Rochester; answers, explanations given, evidence adduced; an\r
+open admission of the truth had been uttered by my master; then the\r
+living proof had been seen; the intruders were gone, and all was over.\r
+\r
+I was in my own room as usual--just myself, without obvious change:\r
+nothing had smitten me, or scathed me, or maimed me. And yet where was\r
+the Jane Eyre of yesterday?--where was her life?--where were her\r
+prospects?\r
+\r
+Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman--almost a bride, was a\r
+cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were\r
+desolate. A Christmas frost had come at midsummer; a white December\r
+storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed\r
+the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud: lanes\r
+which last night blushed full of flowers, to-day were pathless with\r
+untrodden snow; and the woods, which twelve hours since waved leafy and\r
+flagrant as groves between the tropics, now spread, waste, wild, and\r
+white as pine-forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead--struck\r
+with a subtle doom, such as, in one night, fell on all the first-born in\r
+the land of Egypt. I looked on my cherished wishes, yesterday so\r
+blooming and glowing; they lay stark, chill, livid corpses that could\r
+never revive. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my\r
+master's--which he had created; it shivered in my heart, like a suffering\r
+child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not\r
+seek Mr. Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast.\r
+Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence\r
+destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what he had been; for he was not\r
+what I had thought him. I would not ascribe vice to him; I would not say\r
+he had betrayed me; but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from\r
+his idea, and from his presence I must go: _that_ I perceived well.\r
+When--how--whither, I could not yet discern; but he himself, I doubted\r
+not, would hurry me from Thornfield. Real affection, it seemed, he could\r
+not have for me; it had been only fitful passion: that was balked; he\r
+would want me no more. I should fear even to cross his path now: my view\r
+must be hateful to him. Oh, how blind had been my eyes! How weak my\r
+conduct!\r
+\r
+My eyes were covered and closed: eddying darkness seemed to swim round\r
+me, and reflection came in as black and confused a flow. Self-abandoned,\r
+relaxed, and effortless, I seemed to have laid me down in the dried-up\r
+bed of a great river; I heard a flood loosened in remote mountains, and\r
+felt the torrent come: to rise I had no will, to flee I had no strength.\r
+I lay faint, longing to be dead. One idea only still throbbed life-like\r
+within me--a remembrance of God: it begot an unuttered prayer: these\r
+words went wandering up and down in my rayless mind, as something that\r
+should be whispered, but no energy was found to express them--\r
+\r
+"Be not far from me, for trouble is near: there is none to help."\r
+\r
+It was near: and as I had lifted no petition to Heaven to avert it--as I\r
+had neither joined my hands, nor bent my knees, nor moved my lips--it\r
+came: in full heavy swing the torrent poured over me. The whole\r
+consciousness of my life lorn, my love lost, my hope quenched, my faith\r
+death-struck, swayed full and mighty above me in one sullen mass. That\r
+bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, "the waters came into my soul;\r
+I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the\r
+floods overflowed me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII\r
+\r
+\r
+Some time in the afternoon I raised my head, and looking round and seeing\r
+the western sun gilding the sign of its decline on the wall, I asked,\r
+"What am I to do?"\r
+\r
+But the answer my mind gave--"Leave Thornfield at once"--was so prompt,\r
+so dread, that I stopped my ears. I said I could not bear such words\r
+now. "That I am not Edward Rochester's bride is the least part of my\r
+woe," I alleged: "that I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and\r
+found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but\r
+that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I\r
+cannot do it."\r
+\r
+But, then, a voice within me averred that I could do it and foretold that\r
+I should do it. I wrestled with my own resolution: I wanted to be weak\r
+that I might avoid the awful passage of further suffering I saw laid out\r
+for me; and Conscience, turned tyrant, held Passion by the throat, told\r
+her tauntingly, she had yet but dipped her dainty foot in the slough, and\r
+swore that with that arm of iron he would thrust her down to unsounded\r
+depths of agony.\r
+\r
+"Let me be torn away," then I cried. "Let another help me!"\r
+\r
+"No; you shall tear yourself away, none shall help you: you shall\r
+yourself pluck out your right eye; yourself cut off your right hand: your\r
+heart shall be the victim, and you the priest to transfix it."\r
+\r
+I rose up suddenly, terror-struck at the solitude which so ruthless a\r
+judge haunted,--at the silence which so awful a voice filled. My head\r
+swam as I stood erect. I perceived that I was sickening from excitement\r
+and inanition; neither meat nor drink had passed my lips that day, for I\r
+had taken no breakfast. And, with a strange pang, I now reflected that,\r
+long as I had been shut up here, no message had been sent to ask how I\r
+was, or to invite me to come down: not even little Adele had tapped at\r
+the door; not even Mrs. Fairfax had sought me. "Friends always forget\r
+those whom fortune forsakes," I murmured, as I undrew the bolt and passed\r
+out. I stumbled over an obstacle: my head was still dizzy, my sight was\r
+dim, and my limbs were feeble. I could not soon recover myself. I fell,\r
+but not on to the ground: an outstretched arm caught me. I looked up--I\r
+was supported by Mr. Rochester, who sat in a chair across my chamber\r
+threshold.\r
+\r
+"You come out at last," he said. "Well, I have been waiting for you\r
+long, and listening: yet not one movement have I heard, nor one sob: five\r
+minutes more of that death-like hush, and I should have forced the lock\r
+like a burglar. So you shun me?--you shut yourself up and grieve alone!\r
+I would rather you had come and upbraided me with vehemence. You are\r
+passionate. I expected a scene of some kind. I was prepared for the hot\r
+rain of tears; only I wanted them to be shed on my breast: now a\r
+senseless floor has received them, or your drenched handkerchief. But I\r
+err: you have not wept at all! I see a white cheek and a faded eye, but\r
+no trace of tears. I suppose, then, your heart has been weeping blood?"\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane! not a word of reproach? Nothing bitter--nothing poignant?\r
+Nothing to cut a feeling or sting a passion? You sit quietly where I\r
+have placed you, and regard me with a weary, passive look."\r
+\r
+"Jane, I never meant to wound you thus. If the man who had but one\r
+little ewe lamb that was dear to him as a daughter, that ate of his bread\r
+and drank of his cup, and lay in his bosom, had by some mistake\r
+slaughtered it at the shambles, he would not have rued his bloody blunder\r
+more than I now rue mine. Will you ever forgive me?"\r
+\r
+Reader, I forgave him at the moment and on the spot. There was such deep\r
+remorse in his eye, such true pity in his tone, such manly energy in his\r
+manner; and besides, there was such unchanged love in his whole look and\r
+mien--I forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at my\r
+heart's core.\r
+\r
+"You know I am a scoundrel, Jane?" ere long he inquired\r
+wistfully--wondering, I suppose, at my continued silence and tameness,\r
+the result rather of weakness than of will.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Then tell me so roundly and sharply--don't spare me."\r
+\r
+"I cannot: I am tired and sick. I want some water." He heaved a sort of\r
+shuddering sigh, and taking me in his arms, carried me downstairs. At\r
+first I did not know to what room he had borne me; all was cloudy to my\r
+glazed sight: presently I felt the reviving warmth of a fire; for, summer\r
+as it was, I had become icy cold in my chamber. He put wine to my lips;\r
+I tasted it and revived; then I ate something he offered me, and was soon\r
+myself. I was in the library--sitting in his chair--he was quite near.\r
+"If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a pang, it would be\r
+well for me," I thought; "then I should not have to make the effort of\r
+cracking my heart-strings in rending them from among Mr. Rochester's. I\r
+must leave him, it appears. I do not want to leave him--I cannot leave\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"How are you now, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Much better, sir; I shall be well soon."\r
+\r
+"Taste the wine again, Jane."\r
+\r
+I obeyed him; then he put the glass on the table, stood before me, and\r
+looked at me attentively. Suddenly he turned away, with an inarticulate\r
+exclamation, full of passionate emotion of some kind; he walked fast\r
+through the room and came back; he stooped towards me as if to kiss me;\r
+but I remembered caresses were now forbidden. I turned my face away and\r
+put his aside.\r
+\r
+"What!--How is this?" he exclaimed hastily. "Oh, I know! you won't kiss\r
+the husband of Bertha Mason? You consider my arms filled and my embraces\r
+appropriated?"\r
+\r
+"At any rate, there is neither room nor claim for me, sir."\r
+\r
+"Why, Jane? I will spare you the trouble of much talking; I will answer\r
+for you--Because I have a wife already, you would reply.--I guess\r
+rightly?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"If you think so, you must have a strange opinion of me; you must regard\r
+me as a plotting profligate--a base and low rake who has been simulating\r
+disinterested love in order to draw you into a snare deliberately laid,\r
+and strip you of honour and rob you of self-respect. What do you say to\r
+that? I see you can say nothing in the first place, you are faint still,\r
+and have enough to do to draw your breath; in the second place, you\r
+cannot yet accustom yourself to accuse and revile me, and besides, the\r
+flood-gates of tears are opened, and they would rush out if you spoke\r
+much; and you have no desire to expostulate, to upbraid, to make a scene:\r
+you are thinking how _to act_--_talking_ you consider is of no use. I\r
+know you--I am on my guard."\r
+\r
+"Sir, I do not wish to act against you," I said; and my unsteady voice\r
+warned me to curtail my sentence.\r
+\r
+"Not in your sense of the word, but in mine you are scheming to destroy\r
+me. You have as good as said that I am a married man--as a married man\r
+you will shun me, keep out of my way: just now you have refused to kiss\r
+me. You intend to make yourself a complete stranger to me: to live under\r
+this roof only as Adele's governess; if ever I say a friendly word to\r
+you, if ever a friendly feeling inclines you again to me, you will\r
+say,--'That man had nearly made me his mistress: I must be ice and rock\r
+to him;' and ice and rock you will accordingly become."\r
+\r
+I cleared and steadied my voice to reply: "All is changed about me, sir;\r
+I must change too--there is no doubt of that; and to avoid fluctuations\r
+of feeling, and continual combats with recollections and associations,\r
+there is only one way--Adele must have a new governess, sir."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Adele will go to school--I have settled that already; nor do I mean\r
+to torment you with the hideous associations and recollections of\r
+Thornfield Hall--this accursed place--this tent of Achan--this insolent\r
+vault, offering the ghastliness of living death to the light of the open\r
+sky--this narrow stone hell, with its one real fiend, worse than a legion\r
+of such as we imagine. Jane, you shall not stay here, nor will I. I was\r
+wrong ever to bring you to Thornfield Hall, knowing as I did how it was\r
+haunted. I charged them to conceal from you, before I ever saw you, all\r
+knowledge of the curse of the place; merely because I feared Adele never\r
+would have a governess to stay if she knew with what inmate she was\r
+housed, and my plans would not permit me to remove the maniac\r
+elsewhere--though I possess an old house, Ferndean Manor, even more\r
+retired and hidden than this, where I could have lodged her safely\r
+enough, had not a scruple about the unhealthiness of the situation, in\r
+the heart of a wood, made my conscience recoil from the arrangement.\r
+Probably those damp walls would soon have eased me of her charge: but to\r
+each villain his own vice; and mine is not a tendency to indirect\r
+assassination, even of what I most hate.\r
+\r
+"Concealing the mad-woman's neighbourhood from you, however, was\r
+something like covering a child with a cloak and laying it down near a\r
+upas-tree: that demon's vicinage is poisoned, and always was. But I'll\r
+shut up Thornfield Hall: I'll nail up the front door and board the lower\r
+windows: I'll give Mrs. Poole two hundred a year to live here with _my\r
+wife_, as you term that fearful hag: Grace will do much for money, and\r
+she shall have her son, the keeper at Grimsby Retreat, to bear her\r
+company and be at hand to give her aid in the paroxysms, when _my wife_\r
+is prompted by her familiar to burn people in their beds at night, to\r
+stab them, to bite their flesh from their bones, and so on--"\r
+\r
+"Sir," I interrupted him, "you are inexorable for that unfortunate lady:\r
+you speak of her with hate--with vindictive antipathy. It is cruel--she\r
+cannot help being mad."\r
+\r
+"Jane, my little darling (so I will call you, for so you are), you don't\r
+know what you are talking about; you misjudge me again: it is not because\r
+she is mad I hate her. If you were mad, do you think I should hate you?"\r
+\r
+"I do indeed, sir."\r
+\r
+"Then you are mistaken, and you know nothing about me, and nothing about\r
+the sort of love of which I am capable. Every atom of your flesh is as\r
+dear to me as my own: in pain and sickness it would still be dear. Your\r
+mind is my treasure, and if it were broken, it would be my treasure\r
+still: if you raved, my arms should confine you, and not a strait\r
+waistcoat--your grasp, even in fury, would have a charm for me: if you\r
+flew at me as wildly as that woman did this morning, I should receive you\r
+in an embrace, at least as fond as it would be restrictive. I should not\r
+shrink from you with disgust as I did from her: in your quiet moments you\r
+should have no watcher and no nurse but me; and I could hang over you\r
+with untiring tenderness, though you gave me no smile in return; and\r
+never weary of gazing into your eyes, though they had no longer a ray of\r
+recognition for me.--But why do I follow that train of ideas? I was\r
+talking of removing you from Thornfield. All, you know, is prepared for\r
+prompt departure: to-morrow you shall go. I only ask you to endure one\r
+more night under this roof, Jane; and then, farewell to its miseries and\r
+terrors for ever! I have a place to repair to, which will be a secure\r
+sanctuary from hateful reminiscences, from unwelcome intrusion--even from\r
+falsehood and slander."\r
+\r
+"And take Adele with you, sir," I interrupted; "she will be a companion\r
+for you."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean, Jane? I told you I would send Adele to school; and\r
+what do I want with a child for a companion, and not my own child,--a\r
+French dancer's bastard? Why do you importune me about her! I say, why\r
+do you assign Adele to me for a companion?"\r
+\r
+"You spoke of a retirement, sir; and retirement and solitude are dull:\r
+too dull for you."\r
+\r
+"Solitude! solitude!" he reiterated with irritation. "I see I must come\r
+to an explanation. I don't know what sphynx-like expression is forming\r
+in your countenance. You are to share my solitude. Do you understand?"\r
+\r
+I shook my head: it required a degree of courage, excited as he was\r
+becoming, even to risk that mute sign of dissent. He had been walking\r
+fast about the room, and he stopped, as if suddenly rooted to one spot.\r
+He looked at me long and hard: I turned my eyes from him, fixed them on\r
+the fire, and tried to assume and maintain a quiet, collected aspect.\r
+\r
+"Now for the hitch in Jane's character," he said at last, speaking more\r
+calmly than from his look I had expected him to speak. "The reel of silk\r
+has run smoothly enough so far; but I always knew there would come a knot\r
+and a puzzle: here it is. Now for vexation, and exasperation, and\r
+endless trouble! By God! I long to exert a fraction of Samson's\r
+strength, and break the entanglement like tow!"\r
+\r
+He recommenced his walk, but soon again stopped, and this time just\r
+before me.\r
+\r
+"Jane! will you hear reason?" (he stooped and approached his lips to my\r
+ear); "because, if you won't, I'll try violence." His voice was hoarse;\r
+his look that of a man who is just about to burst an insufferable bond\r
+and plunge headlong into wild license. I saw that in another moment, and\r
+with one impetus of frenzy more, I should be able to do nothing with him.\r
+The present--the passing second of time--was all I had in which to\r
+control and restrain him--a movement of repulsion, flight, fear would\r
+have sealed my doom,--and his. But I was not afraid: not in the least. I\r
+felt an inward power; a sense of influence, which supported me. The\r
+crisis was perilous; but not without its charm: such as the Indian,\r
+perhaps, feels when he slips over the rapid in his canoe. I took hold of\r
+his clenched hand, loosened the contorted fingers, and said to him,\r
+soothingly--\r
+\r
+"Sit down; I'll talk to you as long as you like, and hear all you have to\r
+say, whether reasonable or unreasonable."\r
+\r
+He sat down: but he did not get leave to speak directly. I had been\r
+struggling with tears for some time: I had taken great pains to repress\r
+them, because I knew he would not like to see me weep. Now, however, I\r
+considered it well to let them flow as freely and as long as they liked.\r
+If the flood annoyed him, so much the better. So I gave way and cried\r
+heartily.\r
+\r
+Soon I heard him earnestly entreating me to be composed. I said I could\r
+not while he was in such a passion.\r
+\r
+"But I am not angry, Jane: I only love you too well; and you had steeled\r
+your little pale face with such a resolute, frozen look, I could not\r
+endure it. Hush, now, and wipe your eyes."\r
+\r
+His softened voice announced that he was subdued; so I, in my turn,\r
+became calm. Now he made an effort to rest his head on my shoulder, but\r
+I would not permit it. Then he would draw me to him: no.\r
+\r
+"Jane! Jane!" he said, in such an accent of bitter sadness it thrilled\r
+along every nerve I had; "you don't love me, then? It was only my\r
+station, and the rank of my wife, that you valued? Now that you think me\r
+disqualified to become your husband, you recoil from my touch as if I\r
+were some toad or ape."\r
+\r
+These words cut me: yet what could I do or I say? I ought probably to\r
+have done or said nothing; but I was so tortured by a sense of remorse at\r
+thus hurting his feelings, I could not control the wish to drop balm\r
+where I had wounded.\r
+\r
+"I _do_ love you," I said, "more than ever: but I must not show or\r
+indulge the feeling: and this is the last time I must express it."\r
+\r
+"The last time, Jane! What! do you think you can live with me, and see\r
+me daily, and yet, if you still love me, be always cold and distant?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir; that I am certain I could not; and therefore I see there is but\r
+one way: but you will be furious if I mention it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, mention it! If I storm, you have the art of weeping."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I must leave you."\r
+\r
+"For how long, Jane? For a few minutes, while you smooth your hair--which\r
+is somewhat dishevelled; and bathe your face--which looks feverish?"\r
+\r
+"I must leave Adele and Thornfield. I must part with you for my whole\r
+life: I must begin a new existence among strange faces and strange\r
+scenes."\r
+\r
+"Of course: I told you you should. I pass over the madness about parting\r
+from me. You mean you must become a part of me. As to the new\r
+existence, it is all right: you shall yet be my wife: I am not married.\r
+You shall be Mrs. Rochester--both virtually and nominally. I shall keep\r
+only to you so long as you and I live. You shall go to a place I have in\r
+the south of France: a whitewashed villa on the shores of the\r
+Mediterranean. There you shall live a happy, and guarded, and most\r
+innocent life. Never fear that I wish to lure you into error--to make\r
+you my mistress. Why did you shake your head? Jane, you must be\r
+reasonable, or in truth I shall again become frantic."\r
+\r
+His voice and hand quivered: his large nostrils dilated; his eye blazed:\r
+still I dared to speak.\r
+\r
+"Sir, your wife is living: that is a fact acknowledged this morning by\r
+yourself. If I lived with you as you desire, I should then be your\r
+mistress: to say otherwise is sophistical--is false."\r
+\r
+"Jane, I am not a gentle-tempered man--you forget that: I am not long-\r
+enduring; I am not cool and dispassionate. Out of pity to me and\r
+yourself, put your finger on my pulse, feel how it throbs, and--beware!"\r
+\r
+He bared his wrist, and offered it to me: the blood was forsaking his\r
+cheek and lips, they were growing livid; I was distressed on all hands.\r
+To agitate him thus deeply, by a resistance he so abhorred, was cruel: to\r
+yield was out of the question. I did what human beings do instinctively\r
+when they are driven to utter extremity--looked for aid to one higher\r
+than man: the words "God help me!" burst involuntarily from my lips.\r
+\r
+"I am a fool!" cried Mr. Rochester suddenly. "I keep telling her I am\r
+not married, and do not explain to her why. I forget she knows nothing\r
+of the character of that woman, or of the circumstances attending my\r
+infernal union with her. Oh, I am certain Jane will agree with me in\r
+opinion, when she knows all that I know! Just put your hand in mine,\r
+Janet--that I may have the evidence of touch as well as sight, to prove\r
+you are near me--and I will in a few words show you the real state of the\r
+case. Can you listen to me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir; for hours if you will."\r
+\r
+"I ask only minutes. Jane, did you ever hear or know that I was not the\r
+eldest son of my house: that I had once a brother older than I?"\r
+\r
+"I remember Mrs. Fairfax told me so once."\r
+\r
+"And did you ever hear that my father was an avaricious, grasping man?"\r
+\r
+"I have understood something to that effect."\r
+\r
+"Well, Jane, being so, it was his resolution to keep the property\r
+together; he could not bear the idea of dividing his estate and leaving\r
+me a fair portion: all, he resolved, should go to my brother, Rowland.\r
+Yet as little could he endure that a son of his should be a poor man. I\r
+must be provided for by a wealthy marriage. He sought me a partner\r
+betimes. Mr. Mason, a West India planter and merchant, was his old\r
+acquaintance. He was certain his possessions were real and vast: he made\r
+inquiries. Mr. Mason, he found, had a son and daughter; and he learned\r
+from him that he could and would give the latter a fortune of thirty\r
+thousand pounds: that sufficed. When I left college, I was sent out to\r
+Jamaica, to espouse a bride already courted for me. My father said\r
+nothing about her money; but he told me Miss Mason was the boast of\r
+Spanish Town for her beauty: and this was no lie. I found her a fine\r
+woman, in the style of Blanche Ingram: tall, dark, and majestic. Her\r
+family wished to secure me because I was of a good race; and so did she.\r
+They showed her to me in parties, splendidly dressed. I seldom saw her\r
+alone, and had very little private conversation with her. She flattered\r
+me, and lavishly displayed for my pleasure her charms and\r
+accomplishments. All the men in her circle seemed to admire her and envy\r
+me. I was dazzled, stimulated: my senses were excited; and being\r
+ignorant, raw, and inexperienced, I thought I loved her. There is no\r
+folly so besotted that the idiotic rivalries of society, the prurience,\r
+the rashness, the blindness of youth, will not hurry a man to its\r
+commission. Her relatives encouraged me; competitors piqued me; she\r
+allured me: a marriage was achieved almost before I knew where I was. Oh,\r
+I have no respect for myself when I think of that act!--an agony of\r
+inward contempt masters me. I never loved, I never esteemed, I did not\r
+even know her. I was not sure of the existence of one virtue in her\r
+nature: I had marked neither modesty, nor benevolence, nor candour, nor\r
+refinement in her mind or manners--and, I married her:--gross,\r
+grovelling, mole-eyed blockhead that I was! With less sin I might\r
+have--But let me remember to whom I am speaking."\r
+\r
+"My bride's mother I had never seen: I understood she was dead. The\r
+honeymoon over, I learned my mistake; she was only mad, and shut up in a\r
+lunatic asylum. There was a younger brother, too--a complete dumb idiot.\r
+The elder one, whom you have seen (and whom I cannot hate, whilst I abhor\r
+all his kindred, because he has some grains of affection in his feeble\r
+mind, shown in the continued interest he takes in his wretched sister,\r
+and also in a dog-like attachment he once bore me), will probably be in\r
+the same state one day. My father and my brother Rowland knew all this;\r
+but they thought only of the thirty thousand pounds, and joined in the\r
+plot against me."\r
+\r
+"These were vile discoveries; but except for the treachery of\r
+concealment, I should have made them no subject of reproach to my wife,\r
+even when I found her nature wholly alien to mine, her tastes obnoxious\r
+to me, her cast of mind common, low, narrow, and singularly incapable of\r
+being led to anything higher, expanded to anything larger--when I found\r
+that I could not pass a single evening, nor even a single hour of the day\r
+with her in comfort; that kindly conversation could not be sustained\r
+between us, because whatever topic I started, immediately received from\r
+her a turn at once coarse and trite, perverse and imbecile--when I\r
+perceived that I should never have a quiet or settled household, because\r
+no servant would bear the continued outbreaks of her violent and\r
+unreasonable temper, or the vexations of her absurd, contradictory,\r
+exacting orders--even then I restrained myself: I eschewed upbraiding, I\r
+curtailed remonstrance; I tried to devour my repentance and disgust in\r
+secret; I repressed the deep antipathy I felt.\r
+\r
+"Jane, I will not trouble you with abominable details: some strong words\r
+shall express what I have to say. I lived with that woman upstairs four\r
+years, and before that time she had tried me indeed: her character\r
+ripened and developed with frightful rapidity; her vices sprang up fast\r
+and rank: they were so strong, only cruelty could check them, and I would\r
+not use cruelty. What a pigmy intellect she had, and what giant\r
+propensities! How fearful were the curses those propensities entailed on\r
+me! Bertha Mason, the true daughter of an infamous mother, dragged me\r
+through all the hideous and degrading agonies which must attend a man\r
+bound to a wife at once intemperate and unchaste.\r
+\r
+"My brother in the interval was dead, and at the end of the four years my\r
+father died too. I was rich enough now--yet poor to hideous indigence: a\r
+nature the most gross, impure, depraved I ever saw, was associated with\r
+mine, and called by the law and by society a part of me. And I could not\r
+rid myself of it by any legal proceedings: for the doctors now discovered\r
+that _my wife_ was mad--her excesses had prematurely developed the germs\r
+of insanity. Jane, you don't like my narrative; you look almost\r
+sick--shall I defer the rest to another day?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir, finish it now; I pity you--I do earnestly pity you."\r
+\r
+"Pity, Jane, from some people is a noxious and insulting sort of tribute,\r
+which one is justified in hurling back in the teeth of those who offer\r
+it; but that is the sort of pity native to callous, selfish hearts; it is\r
+a hybrid, egotistical pain at hearing of woes, crossed with ignorant\r
+contempt for those who have endured them. But that is not your pity,\r
+Jane; it is not the feeling of which your whole face is full at this\r
+moment--with which your eyes are now almost overflowing--with which your\r
+heart is heaving--with which your hand is trembling in mine. Your pity,\r
+my darling, is the suffering mother of love: its anguish is the very\r
+natal pang of the divine passion. I accept it, Jane; let the daughter\r
+have free advent--my arms wait to receive her."\r
+\r
+"Now, sir, proceed; what did you do when you found she was mad?"\r
+\r
+"Jane, I approached the verge of despair; a remnant of self-respect was\r
+all that intervened between me and the gulf. In the eyes of the world, I\r
+was doubtless covered with grimy dishonour; but I resolved to be clean in\r
+my own sight--and to the last I repudiated the contamination of her\r
+crimes, and wrenched myself from connection with her mental defects.\r
+Still, society associated my name and person with hers; I yet saw her and\r
+heard her daily: something of her breath (faugh!) mixed with the air I\r
+breathed; and besides, I remembered I had once been her husband--that\r
+recollection was then, and is now, inexpressibly odious to me; moreover,\r
+I knew that while she lived I could never be the husband of another and\r
+better wife; and, though five years my senior (her family and her father\r
+had lied to me even in the particular of her age), she was likely to live\r
+as long as I, being as robust in frame as she was infirm in mind. Thus,\r
+at the age of twenty-six, I was hopeless.\r
+\r
+"One night I had been awakened by her yells--(since the medical men had\r
+pronounced her mad, she had, of course, been shut up)--it was a fiery\r
+West Indian night; one of the description that frequently precede the\r
+hurricanes of those climates. Being unable to sleep in bed, I got up and\r
+opened the window. The air was like sulphur-steams--I could find no\r
+refreshment anywhere. Mosquitoes came buzzing in and hummed sullenly\r
+round the room; the sea, which I could hear from thence, rumbled dull\r
+like an earthquake--black clouds were casting up over it; the moon was\r
+setting in the waves, broad and red, like a hot cannon-ball--she threw\r
+her last bloody glance over a world quivering with the ferment of\r
+tempest. I was physically influenced by the atmosphere and scene, and my\r
+ears were filled with the curses the maniac still shrieked out; wherein\r
+she momentarily mingled my name with such a tone of demon-hate, with such\r
+language!--no professed harlot ever had a fouler vocabulary than she:\r
+though two rooms off, I heard every word--the thin partitions of the West\r
+India house opposing but slight obstruction to her wolfish cries.\r
+\r
+"'This life,' said I at last, 'is hell: this is the air--those are the\r
+sounds of the bottomless pit! I have a right to deliver myself from it\r
+if I can. The sufferings of this mortal state will leave me with the\r
+heavy flesh that now cumbers my soul. Of the fanatic's burning eternity\r
+I have no fear: there is not a future state worse than this present\r
+one--let me break away, and go home to God!'\r
+\r
+"I said this whilst I knelt down at, and unlocked a trunk which contained\r
+a brace of loaded pistols: I mean to shoot myself. I only entertained\r
+the intention for a moment; for, not being insane, the crisis of\r
+exquisite and unalloyed despair, which had originated the wish and design\r
+of self-destruction, was past in a second.\r
+\r
+"A wind fresh from Europe blew over the ocean and rushed through the open\r
+casement: the storm broke, streamed, thundered, blazed, and the air grew\r
+pure. I then framed and fixed a resolution. While I walked under the\r
+dripping orange-trees of my wet garden, and amongst its drenched\r
+pomegranates and pine-apples, and while the refulgent dawn of the tropics\r
+kindled round me--I reasoned thus, Jane--and now listen; for it was true\r
+Wisdom that consoled me in that hour, and showed me the right path to\r
+follow.\r
+\r
+"The sweet wind from Europe was still whispering in the refreshed leaves,\r
+and the Atlantic was thundering in glorious liberty; my heart, dried up\r
+and scorched for a long time, swelled to the tone, and filled with living\r
+blood--my being longed for renewal--my soul thirsted for a pure draught.\r
+I saw hope revive--and felt regeneration possible. From a flowery arch\r
+at the bottom of my garden I gazed over the sea--bluer than the sky: the\r
+old world was beyond; clear prospects opened thus:--\r
+\r
+"'Go,' said Hope, 'and live again in Europe: there it is not known what a\r
+sullied name you bear, nor what a filthy burden is bound to you. You may\r
+take the maniac with you to England; confine her with due attendance and\r
+precautions at Thornfield: then travel yourself to what clime you will,\r
+and form what new tie you like. That woman, who has so abused your long-\r
+suffering, so sullied your name, so outraged your honour, so blighted\r
+your youth, is not your wife, nor are you her husband. See that she is\r
+cared for as her condition demands, and you have done all that God and\r
+humanity require of you. Let her identity, her connection with yourself,\r
+be buried in oblivion: you are bound to impart them to no living being.\r
+Place her in safety and comfort: shelter her degradation with secrecy,\r
+and leave her.'\r
+\r
+"I acted precisely on this suggestion. My father and brother had not\r
+made my marriage known to their acquaintance; because, in the very first\r
+letter I wrote to apprise them of the union--having already begun to\r
+experience extreme disgust of its consequences, and, from the family\r
+character and constitution, seeing a hideous future opening to me--I\r
+added an urgent charge to keep it secret: and very soon the infamous\r
+conduct of the wife my father had selected for me was such as to make him\r
+blush to own her as his daughter-in-law. Far from desiring to publish\r
+the connection, he became as anxious to conceal it as myself.\r
+\r
+"To England, then, I conveyed her; a fearful voyage I had with such a\r
+monster in the vessel. Glad was I when I at last got her to Thornfield,\r
+and saw her safely lodged in that third-storey room, of whose secret\r
+inner cabinet she has now for ten years made a wild beast's den--a\r
+goblin's cell. I had some trouble in finding an attendant for her, as it\r
+was necessary to select one on whose fidelity dependence could be placed;\r
+for her ravings would inevitably betray my secret: besides, she had lucid\r
+intervals of days--sometimes weeks--which she filled up with abuse of me.\r
+At last I hired Grace Poole from the Grimbsy Retreat. She and the\r
+surgeon, Carter (who dressed Mason's wounds that night he was stabbed and\r
+worried), are the only two I have ever admitted to my confidence. Mrs.\r
+Fairfax may indeed have suspected something, but she could have gained no\r
+precise knowledge as to facts. Grace has, on the whole, proved a good\r
+keeper; though, owing partly to a fault of her own, of which it appears\r
+nothing can cure her, and which is incident to her harassing profession,\r
+her vigilance has been more than once lulled and baffled. The lunatic is\r
+both cunning and malignant; she has never failed to take advantage of her\r
+guardian's temporary lapses; once to secrete the knife with which she\r
+stabbed her brother, and twice to possess herself of the key of her cell,\r
+and issue therefrom in the night-time. On the first of these occasions,\r
+she perpetrated the attempt to burn me in my bed; on the second, she paid\r
+that ghastly visit to you. I thank Providence, who watched over you,\r
+that she then spent her fury on your wedding apparel, which perhaps\r
+brought back vague reminiscences of her own bridal days: but on what\r
+might have happened, I cannot endure to reflect. When I think of the\r
+thing which flew at my throat this morning, hanging its black and scarlet\r
+visage over the nest of my dove, my blood curdles--"\r
+\r
+"And what, sir," I asked, while he paused, "did you do when you had\r
+settled her here? Where did you go?"\r
+\r
+"What did I do, Jane? I transformed myself into a will-o'-the-wisp.\r
+Where did I go? I pursued wanderings as wild as those of the\r
+March-spirit. I sought the Continent, and went devious through all its\r
+lands. My fixed desire was to seek and find a good and intelligent\r
+woman, whom I could love: a contrast to the fury I left at Thornfield--"\r
+\r
+"But you could not marry, sir."\r
+\r
+"I had determined and was convinced that I could and ought. It was not\r
+my original intention to deceive, as I have deceived you. I meant to\r
+tell my tale plainly, and make my proposals openly: and it appeared to me\r
+so absolutely rational that I should be considered free to love and be\r
+loved, I never doubted some woman might be found willing and able to\r
+understand my case and accept me, in spite of the curse with which I was\r
+burdened."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir?"\r
+\r
+"When you are inquisitive, Jane, you always make me smile. You open your\r
+eyes like an eager bird, and make every now and then a restless movement,\r
+as if answers in speech did not flow fast enough for you, and you wanted\r
+to read the tablet of one's heart. But before I go on, tell me what you\r
+mean by your 'Well, sir?' It is a small phrase very frequent with you;\r
+and which many a time has drawn me on and on through interminable talk: I\r
+don't very well know why."\r
+\r
+"I mean,--What next? How did you proceed? What came of such an event?"\r
+\r
+"Precisely! and what do you wish to know now?"\r
+\r
+"Whether you found any one you liked: whether you asked her to marry you;\r
+and what she said."\r
+\r
+"I can tell you whether I found any one I liked, and whether I asked her\r
+to marry me: but what she said is yet to be recorded in the book of Fate.\r
+For ten long years I roved about, living first in one capital, then\r
+another: sometimes in St. Petersburg; oftener in Paris; occasionally in\r
+Rome, Naples, and Florence. Provided with plenty of money and the\r
+passport of an old name, I could choose my own society: no circles were\r
+closed against me. I sought my ideal of a woman amongst English ladies,\r
+French countesses, Italian signoras, and German grafinnen. I could not\r
+find her. Sometimes, for a fleeting moment, I thought I caught a glance,\r
+heard a tone, beheld a form, which announced the realisation of my dream:\r
+but I was presently undeserved. You are not to suppose that I desired\r
+perfection, either of mind or person. I longed only for what suited\r
+me--for the antipodes of the Creole: and I longed vainly. Amongst them\r
+all I found not one whom, had I been ever so free, I--warned as I was of\r
+the risks, the horrors, the loathings of incongruous unions--would have\r
+asked to marry me. Disappointment made me reckless. I tried\r
+dissipation--never debauchery: that I hated, and hate. That was my\r
+Indian Messalina's attribute: rooted disgust at it and her restrained me\r
+much, even in pleasure. Any enjoyment that bordered on riot seemed to\r
+approach me to her and her vices, and I eschewed it.\r
+\r
+"Yet I could not live alone; so I tried the companionship of mistresses.\r
+The first I chose was Celine Varens--another of those steps which make a\r
+man spurn himself when he recalls them. You already know what she was,\r
+and how my liaison with her terminated. She had two successors: an\r
+Italian, Giacinta, and a German, Clara; both considered singularly\r
+handsome. What was their beauty to me in a few weeks? Giacinta was\r
+unprincipled and violent: I tired of her in three months. Clara was\r
+honest and quiet; but heavy, mindless, and unimpressible: not one whit to\r
+my taste. I was glad to give her a sufficient sum to set her up in a\r
+good line of business, and so get decently rid of her. But, Jane, I see\r
+by your face you are not forming a very favourable opinion of me just\r
+now. You think me an unfeeling, loose-principled rake: don't you?"\r
+\r
+"I don't like you so well as I have done sometimes, indeed, sir. Did it\r
+not seem to you in the least wrong to live in that way, first with one\r
+mistress and then another? You talk of it as a mere matter of course."\r
+\r
+"It was with me; and I did not like it. It was a grovelling fashion of\r
+existence: I should never like to return to it. Hiring a mistress is the\r
+next worse thing to buying a slave: both are often by nature, and always\r
+by position, inferior: and to live familiarly with inferiors is\r
+degrading. I now hate the recollection of the time I passed with Celine,\r
+Giacinta, and Clara."\r
+\r
+I felt the truth of these words; and I drew from them the certain\r
+inference, that if I were so far to forget myself and all the teaching\r
+that had ever been instilled into me, as--under any pretext--with any\r
+justification--through any temptation--to become the successor of these\r
+poor girls, he would one day regard me with the same feeling which now in\r
+his mind desecrated their memory. I did not give utterance to this\r
+conviction: it was enough to feel it. I impressed it on my heart, that\r
+it might remain there to serve me as aid in the time of trial.\r
+\r
+"Now, Jane, why don't you say 'Well, sir?' I have not done. You are\r
+looking grave. You disapprove of me still, I see. But let me come to\r
+the point. Last January, rid of all mistresses--in a harsh, bitter frame\r
+of mind, the result of a useless, roving, lonely life--corroded with\r
+disappointment, sourly disposed against all men, and especially against\r
+all womankind (for I began to regard the notion of an intellectual,\r
+faithful, loving woman as a mere dream), recalled by business, I came\r
+back to England.\r
+\r
+"On a frosty winter afternoon, I rode in sight of Thornfield Hall.\r
+Abhorred spot! I expected no peace--no pleasure there. On a stile in\r
+Hay Lane I saw a quiet little figure sitting by itself. I passed it as\r
+negligently as I did the pollard willow opposite to it: I had no\r
+presentiment of what it would be to me; no inward warning that the\r
+arbitress of my life--my genius for good or evil--waited there in humble\r
+guise. I did not know it, even when, on the occasion of Mesrour's\r
+accident, it came up and gravely offered me help. Childish and slender\r
+creature! It seemed as if a linnet had hopped to my foot and proposed to\r
+bear me on its tiny wing. I was surly; but the thing would not go: it\r
+stood by me with strange perseverance, and looked and spoke with a sort\r
+of authority. I must be aided, and by that hand: and aided I was.\r
+\r
+"When once I had pressed the frail shoulder, something new--a fresh sap\r
+and sense--stole into my frame. It was well I had learnt that this elf\r
+must return to me--that it belonged to my house down below--or I could\r
+not have felt it pass away from under my hand, and seen it vanish behind\r
+the dim hedge, without singular regret. I heard you come home that\r
+night, Jane, though probably you were not aware that I thought of you or\r
+watched for you. The next day I observed you--myself unseen--for half-an-\r
+hour, while you played with Adele in the gallery. It was a snowy day, I\r
+recollect, and you could not go out of doors. I was in my room; the door\r
+was ajar: I could both listen and watch. Adele claimed your outward\r
+attention for a while; yet I fancied your thoughts were elsewhere: but\r
+you were very patient with her, my little Jane; you talked to her and\r
+amused her a long time. When at last she left you, you lapsed at once\r
+into deep reverie: you betook yourself slowly to pace the gallery. Now\r
+and then, in passing a casement, you glanced out at the thick-falling\r
+snow; you listened to the sobbing wind, and again you paced gently on and\r
+dreamed. I think those day visions were not dark: there was a\r
+pleasurable illumination in your eye occasionally, a soft excitement in\r
+your aspect, which told of no bitter, bilious, hypochondriac brooding:\r
+your look revealed rather the sweet musings of youth when its spirit\r
+follows on willing wings the flight of Hope up and on to an ideal heaven.\r
+The voice of Mrs. Fairfax, speaking to a servant in the hall, wakened\r
+you: and how curiously you smiled to and at yourself, Janet! There was\r
+much sense in your smile: it was very shrewd, and seemed to make light of\r
+your own abstraction. It seemed to say--'My fine visions are all very\r
+well, but I must not forget they are absolutely unreal. I have a rosy\r
+sky and a green flowery Eden in my brain; but without, I am perfectly\r
+aware, lies at my feet a rough tract to travel, and around me gather\r
+black tempests to encounter.' You ran downstairs and demanded of Mrs.\r
+Fairfax some occupation: the weekly house accounts to make up, or\r
+something of that sort, I think it was. I was vexed with you for getting\r
+out of my sight.\r
+\r
+"Impatiently I waited for evening, when I might summon you to my\r
+presence. An unusual--to me--a perfectly new character I suspected was\r
+yours: I desired to search it deeper and know it better. You entered the\r
+room with a look and air at once shy and independent: you were quaintly\r
+dressed--much as you are now. I made you talk: ere long I found you full\r
+of strange contrasts. Your garb and manner were restricted by rule; your\r
+air was often diffident, and altogether that of one refined by nature,\r
+but absolutely unused to society, and a good deal afraid of making\r
+herself disadvantageously conspicuous by some solecism or blunder; yet\r
+when addressed, you lifted a keen, a daring, and a glowing eye to your\r
+interlocutor's face: there was penetration and power in each glance you\r
+gave; when plied by close questions, you found ready and round answers.\r
+Very soon you seemed to get used to me: I believe you felt the existence\r
+of sympathy between you and your grim and cross master, Jane; for it was\r
+astonishing to see how quickly a certain pleasant ease tranquillised your\r
+manner: snarl as I would, you showed no surprise, fear, annoyance, or\r
+displeasure at my moroseness; you watched me, and now and then smiled at\r
+me with a simple yet sagacious grace I cannot describe. I was at once\r
+content and stimulated with what I saw: I liked what I had seen, and\r
+wished to see more. Yet, for a long time, I treated you distantly, and\r
+sought your company rarely. I was an intellectual epicure, and wished to\r
+prolong the gratification of making this novel and piquant acquaintance:\r
+besides, I was for a while troubled with a haunting fear that if I\r
+handled the flower freely its bloom would fade--the sweet charm of\r
+freshness would leave it. I did not then know that it was no transitory\r
+blossom, but rather the radiant resemblance of one, cut in an\r
+indestructible gem. Moreover, I wished to see whether you would seek me\r
+if I shunned you--but you did not; you kept in the schoolroom as still as\r
+your own desk and easel; if by chance I met you, you passed me as soon,\r
+and with as little token of recognition, as was consistent with respect.\r
+Your habitual expression in those days, Jane, was a thoughtful look; not\r
+despondent, for you were not sickly; but not buoyant, for you had little\r
+hope, and no actual pleasure. I wondered what you thought of me, or if\r
+you ever thought of me, and resolved to find this out.\r
+\r
+"I resumed my notice of you. There was something glad in your glance,\r
+and genial in your manner, when you conversed: I saw you had a social\r
+heart; it was the silent schoolroom--it was the tedium of your life--that\r
+made you mournful. I permitted myself the delight of being kind to you;\r
+kindness stirred emotion soon: your face became soft in expression, your\r
+tones gentle; I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful happy\r
+accent. I used to enjoy a chance meeting with you, Jane, at this time:\r
+there was a curious hesitation in your manner: you glanced at me with a\r
+slight trouble--a hovering doubt: you did not know what my caprice might\r
+be--whether I was going to play the master and be stern, or the friend\r
+and be benignant. I was now too fond of you often to simulate the first\r
+whim; and, when I stretched my hand out cordially, such bloom and light\r
+and bliss rose to your young, wistful features, I had much ado often to\r
+avoid straining you then and there to my heart."\r
+\r
+"Don't talk any more of those days, sir," I interrupted, furtively\r
+dashing away some tears from my eyes; his language was torture to me; for\r
+I knew what I must do--and do soon--and all these reminiscences, and\r
+these revelations of his feelings only made my work more difficult.\r
+\r
+"No, Jane," he returned: "what necessity is there to dwell on the Past,\r
+when the Present is so much surer--the Future so much brighter?"\r
+\r
+I shuddered to hear the infatuated assertion.\r
+\r
+"You see now how the case stands--do you not?" he continued. "After a\r
+youth and manhood passed half in unutterable misery and half in dreary\r
+solitude, I have for the first time found what I can truly love--I have\r
+found you. You are my sympathy--my better self--my good angel. I am\r
+bound to you with a strong attachment. I think you good, gifted, lovely:\r
+a fervent, a solemn passion is conceived in my heart; it leans to you,\r
+draws you to my centre and spring of life, wraps my existence about you,\r
+and, kindling in pure, powerful flame, fuses you and me in one.\r
+\r
+"It was because I felt and knew this, that I resolved to marry you. To\r
+tell me that I had already a wife is empty mockery: you know now that I\r
+had but a hideous demon. I was wrong to attempt to deceive you; but I\r
+feared a stubbornness that exists in your character. I feared early\r
+instilled prejudice: I wanted to have you safe before hazarding\r
+confidences. This was cowardly: I should have appealed to your nobleness\r
+and magnanimity at first, as I do now--opened to you plainly my life of\r
+agony--described to you my hunger and thirst after a higher and worthier\r
+existence--shown to you, not my _resolution_ (that word is weak), but my\r
+resistless _bent_ to love faithfully and well, where I am faithfully and\r
+well loved in return. Then I should have asked you to accept my pledge\r
+of fidelity and to give me yours. Jane--give it me now."\r
+\r
+A pause.\r
+\r
+"Why are you silent, Jane?"\r
+\r
+I was experiencing an ordeal: a hand of fiery iron grasped my vitals.\r
+Terrible moment: full of struggle, blackness, burning! Not a human being\r
+that ever lived could wish to be loved better than I was loved; and him\r
+who thus loved me I absolutely worshipped: and I must renounce love and\r
+idol. One drear word comprised my intolerable duty--"Depart!"\r
+\r
+"Jane, you understand what I want of you? Just this promise--'I will be\r
+yours, Mr. Rochester.'"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I will _not_ be yours."\r
+\r
+Another long silence.\r
+\r
+"Jane!" recommenced he, with a gentleness that broke me down with grief,\r
+and turned me stone-cold with ominous terror--for this still voice was\r
+the pant of a lion rising--"Jane, do you mean to go one way in the world,\r
+and to let me go another?"\r
+\r
+"I do."\r
+\r
+"Jane" (bending towards and embracing me), "do you mean it now?"\r
+\r
+"I do."\r
+\r
+"And now?" softly kissing my forehead and cheek.\r
+\r
+"I do," extricating myself from restraint rapidly and completely.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Jane, this is bitter! This--this is wicked. It would not be wicked\r
+to love me."\r
+\r
+"It would to obey you."\r
+\r
+A wild look raised his brows--crossed his features: he rose; but he\r
+forebore yet. I laid my hand on the back of a chair for support: I\r
+shook, I feared--but I resolved.\r
+\r
+"One instant, Jane. Give one glance to my horrible life when you are\r
+gone. All happiness will be torn away with you. What then is left? For\r
+a wife I have but the maniac upstairs: as well might you refer me to some\r
+corpse in yonder churchyard. What shall I do, Jane? Where turn for a\r
+companion and for some hope?"\r
+\r
+"Do as I do: trust in God and yourself. Believe in heaven. Hope to meet\r
+again there."\r
+\r
+"Then you will not yield?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Then you condemn me to live wretched and to die accursed?" His voice\r
+rose.\r
+\r
+"I advise you to live sinless, and I wish you to die tranquil."\r
+\r
+"Then you snatch love and innocence from me? You fling me back on lust\r
+for a passion--vice for an occupation?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I no more assign this fate to you than I grasp at it for\r
+myself. We were born to strive and endure--you as well as I: do so. You\r
+will forget me before I forget you."\r
+\r
+"You make me a liar by such language: you sully my honour. I declared I\r
+could not change: you tell me to my face I shall change soon. And what a\r
+distortion in your judgment, what a perversity in your ideas, is proved\r
+by your conduct! Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than\r
+to transgress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach? for\r
+you have neither relatives nor acquaintances whom you need fear to offend\r
+by living with me?"\r
+\r
+This was true: and while he spoke my very conscience and reason turned\r
+traitors against me, and charged me with crime in resisting him. They\r
+spoke almost as loud as Feeling: and that clamoured wildly. "Oh,\r
+comply!" it said. "Think of his misery; think of his danger--look at his\r
+state when left alone; remember his headlong nature; consider the\r
+recklessness following on despair--soothe him; save him; love him; tell\r
+him you love him and will be his. Who in the world cares for _you_? or\r
+who will be injured by what you do?"\r
+\r
+Still indomitable was the reply--"_I_ care for myself. The more\r
+solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will\r
+respect myself. I will keep the law given by God; sanctioned by man. I\r
+will hold to the principles received by me when I was sane, and not\r
+mad--as I am now. Laws and principles are not for the times when there\r
+is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul\r
+rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they\r
+shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would\r
+be their worth? They have a worth--so I have always believed; and if I\r
+cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane--quite insane: with my\r
+veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its\r
+throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have\r
+at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot."\r
+\r
+I did. Mr. Rochester, reading my countenance, saw I had done so. His\r
+fury was wrought to the highest: he must yield to it for a moment,\r
+whatever followed; he crossed the floor and seized my arm and grasped my\r
+waist. He seemed to devour me with his flaming glance: physically, I\r
+felt, at the moment, powerless as stubble exposed to the draught and glow\r
+of a furnace: mentally, I still possessed my soul, and with it the\r
+certainty of ultimate safety. The soul, fortunately, has an\r
+interpreter--often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter--in\r
+the eye. My eye rose to his; and while I looked in his fierce face I\r
+gave an involuntary sigh; his gripe was painful, and my over-taxed\r
+strength almost exhausted.\r
+\r
+"Never," said he, as he ground his teeth, "never was anything at once so\r
+frail and so indomitable. A mere reed she feels in my hand!" (And he\r
+shook me with the force of his hold.) "I could bend her with my finger\r
+and thumb: and what good would it do if I bent, if I uptore, if I crushed\r
+her? Consider that eye: consider the resolute, wild, free thing looking\r
+out of it, defying me, with more than courage--with a stern triumph.\r
+Whatever I do with its cage, I cannot get at it--the savage, beautiful\r
+creature! If I tear, if I rend the slight prison, my outrage will only\r
+let the captive loose. Conqueror I might be of the house; but the inmate\r
+would escape to heaven before I could call myself possessor of its clay\r
+dwelling-place. And it is you, spirit--with will and energy, and virtue\r
+and purity--that I want: not alone your brittle frame. Of yourself you\r
+could come with soft flight and nestle against my heart, if you would:\r
+seized against your will, you will elude the grasp like an essence--you\r
+will vanish ere I inhale your fragrance. Oh! come, Jane, come!"\r
+\r
+As he said this, he released me from his clutch, and only looked at me.\r
+The look was far worse to resist than the frantic strain: only an idiot,\r
+however, would have succumbed now. I had dared and baffled his fury; I\r
+must elude his sorrow: I retired to the door.\r
+\r
+"You are going, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"I am going, sir."\r
+\r
+"You are leaving me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"You will not come? You will not be my comforter, my rescuer? My deep\r
+love, my wild woe, my frantic prayer, are all nothing to you?"\r
+\r
+What unutterable pathos was in his voice! How hard it was to reiterate\r
+firmly, "I am going."\r
+\r
+"Jane!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester!"\r
+\r
+"Withdraw, then,--I consent; but remember, you leave me here in anguish.\r
+Go up to your own room; think over all I have said, and, Jane, cast a\r
+glance on my sufferings--think of me."\r
+\r
+He turned away; he threw himself on his face on the sofa. "Oh, Jane! my\r
+hope--my love--my life!" broke in anguish from his lips. Then came a\r
+deep, strong sob.\r
+\r
+I had already gained the door; but, reader, I walked back--walked back as\r
+determinedly as I had retreated. I knelt down by him; I turned his face\r
+from the cushion to me; I kissed his cheek; I smoothed his hair with my\r
+hand.\r
+\r
+"God bless you, my dear master!" I said. "God keep you from harm and\r
+wrong--direct you, solace you--reward you well for your past kindness to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Little Jane's love would have been my best reward," he answered;\r
+"without it, my heart is broken. But Jane will give me her love:\r
+yes--nobly, generously."\r
+\r
+Up the blood rushed to his face; forth flashed the fire from his eyes;\r
+erect he sprang; he held his arms out; but I evaded the embrace, and at\r
+once quitted the room.\r
+\r
+"Farewell!" was the cry of my heart as I left him. Despair added,\r
+"Farewell for ever!"\r
+\r
+* * * * *\r
+\r
+That night I never thought to sleep; but a slumber fell on me as soon as\r
+I lay down in bed. I was transported in thought to the scenes of\r
+childhood: I dreamt I lay in the red-room at Gateshead; that the night\r
+was dark, and my mind impressed with strange fears. The light that long\r
+ago had struck me into syncope, recalled in this vision, seemed glidingly\r
+to mount the wall, and tremblingly to pause in the centre of the obscured\r
+ceiling. I lifted up my head to look: the roof resolved to clouds, high\r
+and dim; the gleam was such as the moon imparts to vapours she is about\r
+to sever. I watched her come--watched with the strangest anticipation;\r
+as though some word of doom were to be written on her disk. She broke\r
+forth as never moon yet burst from cloud: a hand first penetrated the\r
+sable folds and waved them away; then, not a moon, but a white human form\r
+shone in the azure, inclining a glorious brow earthward. It gazed and\r
+gazed on me. It spoke to my spirit: immeasurably distant was the tone,\r
+yet so near, it whispered in my heart--\r
+\r
+"My daughter, flee temptation."\r
+\r
+"Mother, I will."\r
+\r
+So I answered after I had waked from the trance-like dream. It was yet\r
+night, but July nights are short: soon after midnight, dawn comes. "It\r
+cannot be too early to commence the task I have to fulfil," thought I. I\r
+rose: I was dressed; for I had taken off nothing but my shoes. I knew\r
+where to find in my drawers some linen, a locket, a ring. In seeking\r
+these articles, I encountered the beads of a pearl necklace Mr. Rochester\r
+had forced me to accept a few days ago. I left that; it was not mine: it\r
+was the visionary bride's who had melted in air. The other articles I\r
+made up in a parcel; my purse, containing twenty shillings (it was all I\r
+had), I put in my pocket: I tied on my straw bonnet, pinned my shawl,\r
+took the parcel and my slippers, which I would not put on yet, and stole\r
+from my room.\r
+\r
+"Farewell, kind Mrs. Fairfax!" I whispered, as I glided past her door.\r
+"Farewell, my darling Adele!" I said, as I glanced towards the nursery.\r
+No thought could be admitted of entering to embrace her. I had to\r
+deceive a fine ear: for aught I knew it might now be listening.\r
+\r
+I would have got past Mr. Rochester's chamber without a pause; but my\r
+heart momentarily stopping its beat at that threshold, my foot was forced\r
+to stop also. No sleep was there: the inmate was walking restlessly from\r
+wall to wall; and again and again he sighed while I listened. There was\r
+a heaven--a temporary heaven--in this room for me, if I chose: I had but\r
+to go in and to say--\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I will love you and live with you through life till\r
+death," and a fount of rapture would spring to my lips. I thought of\r
+this.\r
+\r
+That kind master, who could not sleep now, was waiting with impatience\r
+for day. He would send for me in the morning; I should be gone. He\r
+would have me sought for: vainly. He would feel himself forsaken; his\r
+love rejected: he would suffer; perhaps grow desperate. I thought of\r
+this too. My hand moved towards the lock: I caught it back, and glided\r
+on.\r
+\r
+Drearily I wound my way downstairs: I knew what I had to do, and I did it\r
+mechanically. I sought the key of the side-door in the kitchen; I\r
+sought, too, a phial of oil and a feather; I oiled the key and the lock.\r
+I got some water, I got some bread: for perhaps I should have to walk\r
+far; and my strength, sorely shaken of late, must not break down. All\r
+this I did without one sound. I opened the door, passed out, shut it\r
+softly. Dim dawn glimmered in the yard. The great gates were closed and\r
+locked; but a wicket in one of them was only latched. Through that I\r
+departed: it, too, I shut; and now I was out of Thornfield.\r
+\r
+A mile off, beyond the fields, lay a road which stretched in the contrary\r
+direction to Millcote; a road I had never travelled, but often noticed,\r
+and wondered where it led: thither I bent my steps. No reflection was to\r
+be allowed now: not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward.\r
+Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The\r
+first was a page so heavenly sweet--so deadly sad--that to read one line\r
+of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was\r
+an awful blank: something like the world when the deluge was gone by.\r
+\r
+I skirted fields, and hedges, and lanes till after sunrise. I believe it\r
+was a lovely summer morning: I know my shoes, which I had put on when I\r
+left the house, were soon wet with dew. But I looked neither to rising\r
+sun, nor smiling sky, nor wakening nature. He who is taken out to pass\r
+through a fair scene to the scaffold, thinks not of the flowers that\r
+smile on his road, but of the block and axe-edge; of the disseverment of\r
+bone and vein; of the grave gaping at the end: and I thought of drear\r
+flight and homeless wandering--and oh! with agony I thought of what I\r
+left. I could not help it. I thought of him now--in his room--watching\r
+the sunrise; hoping I should soon come to say I would stay with him and\r
+be his. I longed to be his; I panted to return: it was not too late; I\r
+could yet spare him the bitter pang of bereavement. As yet my flight, I\r
+was sure, was undiscovered. I could go back and be his comforter--his\r
+pride; his redeemer from misery, perhaps from ruin. Oh, that fear of his\r
+self-abandonment--far worse than my abandonment--how it goaded me! It\r
+was a barbed arrow-head in my breast; it tore me when I tried to extract\r
+it; it sickened me when remembrance thrust it farther in. Birds began\r
+singing in brake and copse: birds were faithful to their mates; birds\r
+were emblems of love. What was I? In the midst of my pain of heart and\r
+frantic effort of principle, I abhorred myself. I had no solace from\r
+self-approbation: none even from self-respect. I had\r
+injured--wounded--left my master. I was hateful in my own eyes. Still I\r
+could not turn, nor retrace one step. God must have led me on. As to my\r
+own will or conscience, impassioned grief had trampled one and stifled\r
+the other. I was weeping wildly as I walked along my solitary way: fast,\r
+fast I went like one delirious. A weakness, beginning inwardly,\r
+extending to the limbs, seized me, and I fell: I lay on the ground some\r
+minutes, pressing my face to the wet turf. I had some fear--or hope--that\r
+here I should die: but I was soon up; crawling forwards on my hands and\r
+knees, and then again raised to my feet--as eager and as determined as\r
+ever to reach the road.\r
+\r
+When I got there, I was forced to sit to rest me under the hedge; and\r
+while I sat, I heard wheels, and saw a coach come on. I stood up and\r
+lifted my hand; it stopped. I asked where it was going: the driver named\r
+a place a long way off, and where I was sure Mr. Rochester had no\r
+connections. I asked for what sum he would take me there; he said thirty\r
+shillings; I answered I had but twenty; well, he would try to make it do.\r
+He further gave me leave to get into the inside, as the vehicle was\r
+empty: I entered, was shut in, and it rolled on its way.\r
+\r
+Gentle reader, may you never feel what I then felt! May your eyes never\r
+shed such stormy, scalding, heart-wrung tears as poured from mine. May\r
+you never appeal to Heaven in prayers so hopeless and so agonised as in\r
+that hour left my lips; for never may you, like me, dread to be the\r
+instrument of evil to what you wholly love.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII\r
+\r
+\r
+Two days are passed. It is a summer evening; the coachman has set me\r
+down at a place called Whitcross; he could take me no farther for the sum\r
+I had given, and I was not possessed of another shilling in the world.\r
+The coach is a mile off by this time; I am alone. At this moment I\r
+discover that I forgot to take my parcel out of the pocket of the coach,\r
+where I had placed it for safety; there it remains, there it must remain;\r
+and now, I am absolutely destitute.\r
+\r
+Whitcross is no town, nor even a hamlet; it is but a stone pillar set up\r
+where four roads meet: whitewashed, I suppose, to be more obvious at a\r
+distance and in darkness. Four arms spring from its summit: the nearest\r
+town to which these point is, according to the inscription, distant ten\r
+miles; the farthest, above twenty. From the well-known names of these\r
+towns I learn in what county I have lighted; a north-midland shire, dusk\r
+with moorland, ridged with mountain: this I see. There are great moors\r
+behind and on each hand of me; there are waves of mountains far beyond\r
+that deep valley at my feet. The population here must be thin, and I see\r
+no passengers on these roads: they stretch out east, west, north, and\r
+south--white, broad, lonely; they are all cut in the moor, and the\r
+heather grows deep and wild to their very verge. Yet a chance traveller\r
+might pass by; and I wish no eye to see me now: strangers would wonder\r
+what I am doing, lingering here at the sign-post, evidently objectless\r
+and lost. I might be questioned: I could give no answer but what would\r
+sound incredible and excite suspicion. Not a tie holds me to human\r
+society at this moment--not a charm or hope calls me where my\r
+fellow-creatures are--none that saw me would have a kind thought or a\r
+good wish for me. I have no relative but the universal mother, Nature: I\r
+will seek her breast and ask repose.\r
+\r
+I struck straight into the heath; I held on to a hollow I saw deeply\r
+furrowing the brown moorside; I waded knee-deep in its dark growth; I\r
+turned with its turnings, and finding a moss-blackened granite crag in a\r
+hidden angle, I sat down under it. High banks of moor were about me; the\r
+crag protected my head: the sky was over that.\r
+\r
+Some time passed before I felt tranquil even here: I had a vague dread\r
+that wild cattle might be near, or that some sportsman or poacher might\r
+discover me. If a gust of wind swept the waste, I looked up, fearing it\r
+was the rush of a bull; if a plover whistled, I imagined it a man.\r
+Finding my apprehensions unfounded, however, and calmed by the deep\r
+silence that reigned as evening declined at nightfall, I took confidence.\r
+As yet I had not thought; I had only listened, watched, dreaded; now I\r
+regained the faculty of reflection.\r
+\r
+What was I to do? Where to go? Oh, intolerable questions, when I could\r
+do nothing and go nowhere!--when a long way must yet be measured by my\r
+weary, trembling limbs before I could reach human habitation--when cold\r
+charity must be entreated before I could get a lodging: reluctant\r
+sympathy importuned, almost certain repulse incurred, before my tale\r
+could be listened to, or one of my wants relieved!\r
+\r
+I touched the heath: it was dry, and yet warm with the heat of the summer\r
+day. I looked at the sky; it was pure: a kindly star twinkled just above\r
+the chasm ridge. The dew fell, but with propitious softness; no breeze\r
+whispered. Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me,\r
+outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust,\r
+rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night, at\r
+least, I would be her guest, as I was her child: my mother would lodge me\r
+without money and without price. I had one morsel of bread yet: the\r
+remnant of a roll I had bought in a town we passed through at noon with a\r
+stray penny--my last coin. I saw ripe bilberries gleaming here and\r
+there, like jet beads in the heath: I gathered a handful and ate them\r
+with the bread. My hunger, sharp before, was, if not satisfied, appeased\r
+by this hermit's meal. I said my evening prayers at its conclusion, and\r
+then chose my couch.\r
+\r
+{I said my evening prayers: p311.jpg}\r
+\r
+Beside the crag the heath was very deep: when I lay down my feet were\r
+buried in it; rising high on each side, it left only a narrow space for\r
+the night-air to invade. I folded my shawl double, and spread it over me\r
+for a coverlet; a low, mossy swell was my pillow. Thus lodged, I was\r
+not, at least--at the commencement of the night, cold.\r
+\r
+My rest might have been blissful enough, only a sad heart broke it. It\r
+plained of its gaping wounds, its inward bleeding, its riven chords. It\r
+trembled for Mr. Rochester and his doom; it bemoaned him with bitter\r
+pity; it demanded him with ceaseless longing; and, impotent as a bird\r
+with both wings broken, it still quivered its shattered pinions in vain\r
+attempts to seek him.\r
+\r
+Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was\r
+come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the\r
+companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we\r
+feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread\r
+before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel\r
+their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His\r
+omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr.\r
+Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-\r
+way. Remembering what it was--what countless systems there swept space\r
+like a soft trace of light--I felt the might and strength of God. Sure\r
+was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that\r
+neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned\r
+my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of\r
+spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and by God would he be\r
+guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in\r
+sleep forgot sorrow.\r
+\r
+But next day, Want came to me pale and bare. Long after the little birds\r
+had left their nests; long after bees had come in the sweet prime of day\r
+to gather the heath honey before the dew was dried--when the long morning\r
+shadows were curtailed, and the sun filled earth and sky--I got up, and I\r
+looked round me.\r
+\r
+What a still, hot, perfect day! What a golden desert this spreading\r
+moor! Everywhere sunshine. I wished I could live in it and on it. I\r
+saw a lizard run over the crag; I saw a bee busy among the sweet\r
+bilberries. I would fain at the moment have become bee or lizard, that I\r
+might have found fitting nutriment, permanent shelter here. But I was a\r
+human being, and had a human being's wants: I must not linger where there\r
+was nothing to supply them. I rose; I looked back at the bed I had left.\r
+Hopeless of the future, I wished but this--that my Maker had that night\r
+thought good to require my soul of me while I slept; and that this weary\r
+frame, absolved by death from further conflict with fate, had now but to\r
+decay quietly, and mingle in peace with the soil of this wilderness.\r
+Life, however, was yet in my possession, with all its requirements, and\r
+pains, and responsibilities. The burden must be carried; the want\r
+provided for; the suffering endured; the responsibility fulfilled. I set\r
+out.\r
+\r
+Whitcross regained, I followed a road which led from the sun, now fervent\r
+and high. By no other circumstance had I will to decide my choice. I\r
+walked a long time, and when I thought I had nearly done enough, and\r
+might conscientiously yield to the fatigue that almost overpowered\r
+me--might relax this forced action, and, sitting down on a stone I saw\r
+near, submit resistlessly to the apathy that clogged heart and limb--I\r
+heard a bell chime--a church bell.\r
+\r
+I turned in the direction of the sound, and there, amongst the romantic\r
+hills, whose changes and aspect I had ceased to note an hour ago, I saw a\r
+hamlet and a spire. All the valley at my right hand was full of pasture-\r
+fields, and cornfields, and wood; and a glittering stream ran zig-zag\r
+through the varied shades of green, the mellowing grain, the sombre\r
+woodland, the clear and sunny lea. Recalled by the rumbling of wheels to\r
+the road before me, I saw a heavily-laden waggon labouring up the hill,\r
+and not far beyond were two cows and their drover. Human life and human\r
+labour were near. I must struggle on: strive to live and bend to toil\r
+like the rest.\r
+\r
+About two o'clock p.m. I entered the village. At the bottom of its one\r
+street there was a little shop with some cakes of bread in the window. I\r
+coveted a cake of bread. With that refreshment I could perhaps regain a\r
+degree of energy: without it, it would be difficult to proceed. The wish\r
+to have some strength and some vigour returned to me as soon as I was\r
+amongst my fellow-beings. I felt it would be degrading to faint with\r
+hunger on the causeway of a hamlet. Had I nothing about me I could offer\r
+in exchange for one of these rolls? I considered. I had a small silk\r
+handkerchief tied round my throat; I had my gloves. I could hardly tell\r
+how men and women in extremities of destitution proceeded. I did not\r
+know whether either of these articles would be accepted: probably they\r
+would not; but I must try.\r
+\r
+I entered the shop: a woman was there. Seeing a respectably-dressed\r
+person, a lady as she supposed, she came forward with civility. How\r
+could she serve me? I was seized with shame: my tongue would not utter\r
+the request I had prepared. I dared not offer her the half-worn gloves,\r
+the creased handkerchief: besides, I felt it would be absurd. I only\r
+begged permission to sit down a moment, as I was tired. Disappointed in\r
+the expectation of a customer, she coolly acceded to my request. She\r
+pointed to a seat; I sank into it. I felt sorely urged to weep; but\r
+conscious how unseasonable such a manifestation would be, I restrained\r
+it. Soon I asked her "if there were any dressmaker or plain-workwoman in\r
+the village?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; two or three. Quite as many as there was employment for."\r
+\r
+I reflected. I was driven to the point now. I was brought face to face\r
+with Necessity. I stood in the position of one without a resource,\r
+without a friend, without a coin. I must do something. What? I must\r
+apply somewhere. Where?\r
+\r
+"Did she know of any place in the neighbourhood where a servant was\r
+wanted?"\r
+\r
+"Nay; she couldn't say."\r
+\r
+"What was the chief trade in this place? What did most of the people\r
+do?"\r
+\r
+"Some were farm labourers; a good deal worked at Mr. Oliver's\r
+needle-factory, and at the foundry."\r
+\r
+"Did Mr. Oliver employ women?"\r
+\r
+"Nay; it was men's work."\r
+\r
+"And what do the women do?"\r
+\r
+"I knawn't," was the answer. "Some does one thing, and some another.\r
+Poor folk mun get on as they can."\r
+\r
+She seemed to be tired of my questions: and, indeed, what claim had I to\r
+importune her? A neighbour or two came in; my chair was evidently\r
+wanted. I took leave.\r
+\r
+I passed up the street, looking as I went at all the houses to the right\r
+hand and to the left; but I could discover no pretext, nor see an\r
+inducement to enter any. I rambled round the hamlet, going sometimes to\r
+a little distance and returning again, for an hour or more. Much\r
+exhausted, and suffering greatly now for want of food, I turned aside\r
+into a lane and sat down under the hedge. Ere many minutes had elapsed,\r
+I was again on my feet, however, and again searching something--a\r
+resource, or at least an informant. A pretty little house stood at the\r
+top of the lane, with a garden before it, exquisitely neat and\r
+brilliantly blooming. I stopped at it. What business had I to approach\r
+the white door or touch the glittering knocker? In what way could it\r
+possibly be the interest of the inhabitants of that dwelling to serve me?\r
+Yet I drew near and knocked. A mild-looking, cleanly-attired young woman\r
+opened the door. In such a voice as might be expected from a hopeless\r
+heart and fainting frame--a voice wretchedly low and faltering--I asked\r
+if a servant was wanted here?\r
+\r
+"No," said she; "we do not keep a servant."\r
+\r
+"Can you tell me where I could get employment of any kind?" I continued.\r
+"I am a stranger, without acquaintance in this place. I want some work:\r
+no matter what."\r
+\r
+But it was not her business to think for me, or to seek a place for me:\r
+besides, in her eyes, how doubtful must have appeared my character,\r
+position, tale. She shook her head, she "was sorry she could give me no\r
+information," and the white door closed, quite gently and civilly: but it\r
+shut me out. If she had held it open a little longer, I believe I should\r
+have begged a piece of bread; for I was now brought low.\r
+\r
+I could not bear to return to the sordid village, where, besides, no\r
+prospect of aid was visible. I should have longed rather to deviate to a\r
+wood I saw not far off, which appeared in its thick shade to offer\r
+inviting shelter; but I was so sick, so weak, so gnawed with nature's\r
+cravings, instinct kept me roaming round abodes where there was a chance\r
+of food. Solitude would be no solitude--rest no rest--while the vulture,\r
+hunger, thus sank beak and talons in my side.\r
+\r
+I drew near houses; I left them, and came back again, and again I\r
+wandered away: always repelled by the consciousness of having no claim to\r
+ask--no right to expect interest in my isolated lot. Meantime, the\r
+afternoon advanced, while I thus wandered about like a lost and starving\r
+dog. In crossing a field, I saw the church spire before me: I hastened\r
+towards it. Near the churchyard, and in the middle of a garden, stood a\r
+well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the parsonage. I\r
+remembered that strangers who arrive at a place where they have no\r
+friends, and who want employment, sometimes apply to the clergyman for\r
+introduction and aid. It is the clergyman's function to help--at least\r
+with advice--those who wished to help themselves. I seemed to have\r
+something like a right to seek counsel here. Renewing then my courage,\r
+and gathering my feeble remains of strength, I pushed on. I reached the\r
+house, and knocked at the kitchen-door. An old woman opened: I asked was\r
+this the parsonage?\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Was the clergyman in?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Would he be in soon?"\r
+\r
+"No, he was gone from home."\r
+\r
+"To a distance?"\r
+\r
+"Not so far--happen three mile. He had been called away by the sudden\r
+death of his father: he was at Marsh End now, and would very likely stay\r
+there a fortnight longer."\r
+\r
+"Was there any lady of the house?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, there was naught but her, and she was housekeeper;" and of her,\r
+reader, I could not bear to ask the relief for want of which I was\r
+sinking; I could not yet beg; and again I crawled away.\r
+\r
+Once more I took off my handkerchief--once more I thought of the cakes of\r
+bread in the little shop. Oh, for but a crust! for but one mouthful to\r
+allay the pang of famine! Instinctively I turned my face again to the\r
+village; I found the shop again, and I went in; and though others were\r
+there besides the woman I ventured the request--"Would she give me a roll\r
+for this handkerchief?"\r
+\r
+She looked at me with evident suspicion: "Nay, she never sold stuff i'\r
+that way."\r
+\r
+Almost desperate, I asked for half a cake; she again refused. "How could\r
+she tell where I had got the handkerchief?" she said.\r
+\r
+"Would she take my gloves?"\r
+\r
+"No! what could she do with them?"\r
+\r
+Reader, it is not pleasant to dwell on these details. Some say there is\r
+enjoyment in looking back to painful experience past; but at this day I\r
+can scarcely bear to review the times to which I allude: the moral\r
+degradation, blent with the physical suffering, form too distressing a\r
+recollection ever to be willingly dwelt on. I blamed none of those who\r
+repulsed me. I felt it was what was to be expected, and what could not\r
+be helped: an ordinary beggar is frequently an object of suspicion; a\r
+well-dressed beggar inevitably so. To be sure, what I begged was\r
+employment; but whose business was it to provide me with employment? Not,\r
+certainly, that of persons who saw me then for the first time, and who\r
+knew nothing about my character. And as to the woman who would not take\r
+my handkerchief in exchange for her bread, why, she was right, if the\r
+offer appeared to her sinister or the exchange unprofitable. Let me\r
+condense now. I am sick of the subject.\r
+\r
+A little before dark I passed a farm-house, at the open door of which the\r
+farmer was sitting, eating his supper of bread and cheese. I stopped and\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Will you give me a piece of bread? for I am very hungry." He cast on me\r
+a glance of surprise; but without answering, he cut a thick slice from\r
+his loaf, and gave it to me. I imagine he did not think I was a beggar,\r
+but only an eccentric sort of lady, who had taken a fancy to his brown\r
+loaf. As soon as I was out of sight of his house, I sat down and ate it.\r
+\r
+I could not hope to get a lodging under a roof, and sought it in the wood\r
+I have before alluded to. But my night was wretched, my rest broken: the\r
+ground was damp, the air cold: besides, intruders passed near me more\r
+than once, and I had again and again to change my quarters; no sense of\r
+safety or tranquillity befriended me. Towards morning it rained; the\r
+whole of the following day was wet. Do not ask me, reader, to give a\r
+minute account of that day; as before, I sought work; as before, I was\r
+repulsed; as before, I starved; but once did food pass my lips. At the\r
+door of a cottage I saw a little girl about to throw a mess of cold\r
+porridge into a pig trough. "Will you give me that?" I asked.\r
+\r
+{"Will you give me that?" I asked: p316.jpg}\r
+\r
+She stared at me. "Mother!" she exclaimed, "there is a woman wants me to\r
+give her these porridge."\r
+\r
+"Well lass," replied a voice within, "give it her if she's a beggar. T'\r
+pig doesn't want it."\r
+\r
+The girl emptied the stiffened mould into my hand, and I devoured it\r
+ravenously.\r
+\r
+As the wet twilight deepened, I stopped in a solitary bridle-path, which\r
+I had been pursuing an hour or more.\r
+\r
+"My strength is quite failing me," I said in a soliloquy. "I feel I\r
+cannot go much farther. Shall I be an outcast again this night? While\r
+the rain descends so, must I lay my head on the cold, drenched ground? I\r
+fear I cannot do otherwise: for who will receive me? But it will be very\r
+dreadful, with this feeling of hunger, faintness, chill, and this sense\r
+of desolation--this total prostration of hope. In all likelihood,\r
+though, I should die before morning. And why cannot I reconcile myself\r
+to the prospect of death? Why do I struggle to retain a valueless life?\r
+Because I know, or believe, Mr. Rochester is living: and then, to die of\r
+want and cold is a fate to which nature cannot submit passively. Oh,\r
+Providence! sustain me a little longer! Aid!--direct me!"\r
+\r
+My glazed eye wandered over the dim and misty landscape. I saw I had\r
+strayed far from the village: it was quite out of sight. The very\r
+cultivation surrounding it had disappeared. I had, by cross-ways and by-\r
+paths, once more drawn near the tract of moorland; and now, only a few\r
+fields, almost as wild and unproductive as the heath from which they were\r
+scarcely reclaimed, lay between me and the dusky hill.\r
+\r
+"Well, I would rather die yonder than in a street or on a frequented\r
+road," I reflected. "And far better that crows and ravens--if any ravens\r
+there be in these regions--should pick my flesh from my bones, than that\r
+they should be prisoned in a workhouse coffin and moulder in a pauper's\r
+grave."\r
+\r
+To the hill, then, I turned. I reached it. It remained now only to find\r
+a hollow where I could lie down, and feel at least hidden, if not secure.\r
+But all the surface of the waste looked level. It showed no variation\r
+but of tint: green, where rush and moss overgrew the marshes; black,\r
+where the dry soil bore only heath. Dark as it was getting, I could\r
+still see these changes, though but as mere alternations of light and\r
+shade; for colour had faded with the daylight.\r
+\r
+My eye still roved over the sullen swell and along the moor-edge,\r
+vanishing amidst the wildest scenery, when at one dim point, far in among\r
+the marshes and the ridges, a light sprang up. "That is an _ignis\r
+fatuus_," was my first thought; and I expected it would soon vanish. It\r
+burnt on, however, quite steadily, neither receding nor advancing. "Is\r
+it, then, a bonfire just kindled?" I questioned. I watched to see\r
+whether it would spread: but no; as it did not diminish, so it did not\r
+enlarge. "It may be a candle in a house," I then conjectured; "but if\r
+so, I can never reach it. It is much too far away: and were it within a\r
+yard of me, what would it avail? I should but knock at the door to have\r
+it shut in my face."\r
+\r
+And I sank down where I stood, and hid my face against the ground. I lay\r
+still a while: the night-wind swept over the hill and over me, and died\r
+moaning in the distance; the rain fell fast, wetting me afresh to the\r
+skin. Could I but have stiffened to the still frost--the friendly\r
+numbness of death--it might have pelted on; I should not have felt it;\r
+but my yet living flesh shuddered at its chilling influence. I rose ere\r
+long.\r
+\r
+The light was yet there, shining dim but constant through the rain. I\r
+tried to walk again: I dragged my exhausted limbs slowly towards it. It\r
+led me aslant over the hill, through a wide bog, which would have been\r
+impassable in winter, and was splashy and shaking even now, in the height\r
+of summer. Here I fell twice; but as often I rose and rallied my\r
+faculties. This light was my forlorn hope: I must gain it.\r
+\r
+Having crossed the marsh, I saw a trace of white over the moor. I\r
+approached it; it was a road or a track: it led straight up to the light,\r
+which now beamed from a sort of knoll, amidst a clump of trees--firs,\r
+apparently, from what I could distinguish of the character of their forms\r
+and foliage through the gloom. My star vanished as I drew near: some\r
+obstacle had intervened between me and it. I put out my hand to feel the\r
+dark mass before me: I discriminated the rough stones of a low wall--above\r
+it, something like palisades, and within, a high and prickly hedge. I\r
+groped on. Again a whitish object gleamed before me: it was a gate--a\r
+wicket; it moved on its hinges as I touched it. On each side stood a\r
+sable bush-holly or yew.\r
+\r
+Entering the gate and passing the shrubs, the silhouette of a house rose\r
+to view, black, low, and rather long; but the guiding light shone\r
+nowhere. All was obscurity. Were the inmates retired to rest? I feared\r
+it must be so. In seeking the door, I turned an angle: there shot out\r
+the friendly gleam again, from the lozenged panes of a very small\r
+latticed window, within a foot of the ground, made still smaller by the\r
+growth of ivy or some other creeping plant, whose leaves clustered thick\r
+over the portion of the house wall in which it was set. The aperture was\r
+so screened and narrow, that curtain or shutter had been deemed\r
+unnecessary; and when I stooped down and put aside the spray of foliage\r
+shooting over it, I could see all within. I could see clearly a room\r
+with a sanded floor, clean scoured; a dresser of walnut, with pewter\r
+plates ranged in rows, reflecting the redness and radiance of a glowing\r
+peat-fire. I could see a clock, a white deal table, some chairs. The\r
+candle, whose ray had been my beacon, burnt on the table; and by its\r
+light an elderly woman, somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously clean,\r
+like all about her, was knitting a stocking.\r
+\r
+I noticed these objects cursorily only--in them there was nothing\r
+extraordinary. A group of more interest appeared near the hearth,\r
+sitting still amidst the rosy peace and warmth suffusing it. Two young,\r
+graceful women--ladies in every point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair,\r
+the other on a lower stool; both wore deep mourning of crape and\r
+bombazeen, which sombre garb singularly set off very fair necks and\r
+faces: a large old pointer dog rested its massive head on the knee of one\r
+girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat.\r
+\r
+A strange place was this humble kitchen for such occupants! Who were\r
+they? They could not be the daughters of the elderly person at the\r
+table; for she looked like a rustic, and they were all delicacy and\r
+cultivation. I had nowhere seen such faces as theirs: and yet, as I\r
+gazed on them, I seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call\r
+them handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each\r
+bent over a book, they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A stand\r
+between them supported a second candle and two great volumes, to which\r
+they frequently referred, comparing them, seemingly, with the smaller\r
+books they held in their hands, like people consulting a dictionary to\r
+aid them in the task of translation. This scene was as silent as if all\r
+the figures had been shadows and the firelit apartment a picture: so\r
+hushed was it, I could hear the cinders fall from the grate, the clock\r
+tick in its obscure corner; and I even fancied I could distinguish the\r
+click-click of the woman's knitting-needles. When, therefore, a voice\r
+broke the strange stillness at last, it was audible enough to me.\r
+\r
+"Listen, Diana," said one of the absorbed students; "Franz and old Daniel\r
+are together in the night-time, and Franz is telling a dream from which\r
+he has awakened in terror--listen!" And in a low voice she read\r
+something, of which not one word was intelligible to me; for it was in an\r
+unknown tongue--neither French nor Latin. Whether it were Greek or\r
+German I could not tell.\r
+\r
+"That is strong," she said, when she had finished: "I relish it." The\r
+other girl, who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated,\r
+while she gazed at the fire, a line of what had been read. At a later\r
+day, I knew the language and the book; therefore, I will here quote the\r
+line: though, when I first heard it, it was only like a stroke on\r
+sounding brass to me--conveying no meaning:--\r
+\r
+"'Da trat hervor Einer, anzusehen wie die Sternen Nacht.' Good! good!"\r
+she exclaimed, while her dark and deep eye sparkled. "There you have a\r
+dim and mighty archangel fitly set before you! The line is worth a\r
+hundred pages of fustian. 'Ich wage die Gedanken in der Schale meines\r
+Zornes und die Werke mit dem Gewichte meines Grimms.' I like it!"\r
+\r
+Both were again silent.\r
+\r
+"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old woman,\r
+looking up from her knitting.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Hannah--a far larger country than England, where they talk in no\r
+other way."\r
+\r
+"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can understand t' one t'other:\r
+and if either o' ye went there, ye could tell what they said, I guess?"\r
+\r
+"We could probably tell something of what they said, but not all--for we\r
+are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We don't speak German, and we\r
+cannot read it without a dictionary to help us."\r
+\r
+"And what good does it do you?"\r
+\r
+"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they say;\r
+and then we shall get more money than we do now."\r
+\r
+"Varry like: but give ower studying; ye've done enough for to-night."\r
+\r
+"I think we have: at least I'm tired. Mary, are you?"\r
+\r
+"Mortally: after all, it's tough work fagging away at a language with no\r
+master but a lexicon."\r
+\r
+"It is, especially such a language as this crabbed but glorious Deutsch.\r
+I wonder when St. John will come home."\r
+\r
+"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten (looking at a little gold\r
+watch she drew from her girdle). It rains fast, Hannah: will you have\r
+the goodness to look at the fire in the parlour?"\r
+\r
+The woman rose: she opened a door, through which I dimly saw a passage:\r
+soon I heard her stir a fire in an inner room; she presently came back.\r
+\r
+"Ah, childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond' room now:\r
+it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a corner."\r
+\r
+She wiped her eyes with her apron: the two girls, grave before, looked\r
+sad now.\r
+\r
+"But he is in a better place," continued Hannah: "we shouldn't wish him\r
+here again. And then, nobody need to have a quieter death nor he had."\r
+\r
+"You say he never mentioned us?" inquired one of the ladies.\r
+\r
+"He hadn't time, bairn: he was gone in a minute, was your father. He had\r
+been a bit ailing like the day before, but naught to signify; and when\r
+Mr. St. John asked if he would like either o' ye to be sent for, he fair\r
+laughed at him. He began again with a bit of a heaviness in his head the\r
+next day--that is, a fortnight sin'--and he went to sleep and niver\r
+wakened: he wor a'most stark when your brother went into t' chamber and\r
+fand him. Ah, childer! that's t' last o' t' old stock--for ye and Mr.\r
+St. John is like of different soart to them 'at's gone; for all your\r
+mother wor mich i' your way, and a'most as book-learned. She wor the\r
+pictur' o' ye, Mary: Diana is more like your father."\r
+\r
+I thought them so similar I could not tell where the old servant (for\r
+such I now concluded her to be) saw the difference. Both were fair\r
+complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed faces full of distinction\r
+and intelligence. One, to be sure, had hair a shade darker than the\r
+other, and there was a difference in their style of wearing it; Mary's\r
+pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth: Diana's duskier tresses\r
+covered her neck with thick curls. The clock struck ten.\r
+\r
+"Ye'll want your supper, I am sure," observed Hannah; "and so will Mr.\r
+St. John when he comes in."\r
+\r
+And she proceeded to prepare the meal. The ladies rose; they seemed\r
+about to withdraw to the parlour. Till this moment, I had been so intent\r
+on watching them, their appearance and conversation had excited in me so\r
+keen an interest, I had half-forgotten my own wretched position: now it\r
+recurred to me. More desolate, more desperate than ever, it seemed from\r
+contrast. And how impossible did it appear to touch the inmates of this\r
+house with concern on my behalf; to make them believe in the truth of my\r
+wants and woes--to induce them to vouchsafe a rest for my wanderings! As\r
+I groped out the door, and knocked at it hesitatingly, I felt that last\r
+idea to be a mere chimera. Hannah opened.\r
+\r
+"What do you want?" she inquired, in a voice of surprise, as she surveyed\r
+me by the light of the candle she held.\r
+\r
+"May I speak to your mistresses?" I said.\r
+\r
+"You had better tell me what you have to say to them. Where do you come\r
+from?"\r
+\r
+"I am a stranger."\r
+\r
+"What is your business here at this hour?"\r
+\r
+"I want a night's shelter in an out-house or anywhere, and a morsel of\r
+bread to eat."\r
+\r
+Distrust, the very feeling I dreaded, appeared in Hannah's face. "I'll\r
+give you a piece of bread," she said, after a pause; "but we can't take\r
+in a vagrant to lodge. It isn't likely."\r
+\r
+"Do let me speak to your mistresses."\r
+\r
+"No, not I. What can they do for you? You should not be roving about\r
+now; it looks very ill."\r
+\r
+"But where shall I go if you drive me away? What shall I do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll warrant you know where to go and what to do. Mind you don't do\r
+wrong, that's all. Here is a penny; now go--"\r
+\r
+"A penny cannot feed me, and I have no strength to go farther. Don't\r
+shut the door:--oh, don't, for God's sake!"\r
+\r
+"I must; the rain is driving in--"\r
+\r
+"Tell the young ladies. Let me see them--"\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I will not. You are not what you ought to be, or you wouldn't\r
+make such a noise. Move off."\r
+\r
+"But I must die if I am turned away."\r
+\r
+"Not you. I'm fear'd you have some ill plans agate, that bring you about\r
+folk's houses at this time o' night. If you've any\r
+followers--housebreakers or such like--anywhere near, you may tell them\r
+we are not by ourselves in the house; we have a gentleman, and dogs, and\r
+guns." Here the honest but inflexible servant clapped the door to and\r
+bolted it within.\r
+\r
+This was the climax. A pang of exquisite suffering--a throe of true\r
+despair--rent and heaved my heart. Worn out, indeed, I was; not another\r
+step could I stir. I sank on the wet doorstep: I groaned--I wrung my\r
+hands--I wept in utter anguish. Oh, this spectre of death! Oh, this\r
+last hour, approaching in such horror! Alas, this isolation--this\r
+banishment from my kind! Not only the anchor of hope, but the footing of\r
+fortitude was gone--at least for a moment; but the last I soon\r
+endeavoured to regain.\r
+\r
+"I can but die," I said, "and I believe in God. Let me try to wait His\r
+will in silence."\r
+\r
+These words I not only thought, but uttered; and thrusting back all my\r
+misery into my heart, I made an effort to compel it to remain there--dumb\r
+and still.\r
+\r
+"All men must die," said a voice quite close at hand; "but all are not\r
+condemned to meet a lingering and premature doom, such as yours would be\r
+if you perished here of want."\r
+\r
+"Who or what speaks?" I asked, terrified at the unexpected sound, and\r
+incapable now of deriving from any occurrence a hope of aid. A form was\r
+near--what form, the pitch-dark night and my enfeebled vision prevented\r
+me from distinguishing. With a loud long knock, the new-comer appealed\r
+to the door.\r
+\r
+"Is it you, Mr. St. John?" cried Hannah.\r
+\r
+"Yes--yes; open quickly."\r
+\r
+"Well, how wet and cold you must be, such a wild night as it is! Come\r
+in--your sisters are quite uneasy about you, and I believe there are bad\r
+folks about. There has been a beggar-woman--I declare she is not gone\r
+yet!--laid down there. Get up! for shame! Move off, I say!"\r
+\r
+"Hush, Hannah! I have a word to say to the woman. You have done your\r
+duty in excluding, now let me do mine in admitting her. I was near, and\r
+listened to both you and her. I think this is a peculiar case--I must at\r
+least examine into it. Young woman, rise, and pass before me into the\r
+house."\r
+\r
+{Hush, Hannah; I have a word to say to the woman: p323.jpg}\r
+\r
+With difficulty I obeyed him. Presently I stood within that clean,\r
+bright kitchen--on the very hearth--trembling, sickening; conscious of an\r
+aspect in the last degree ghastly, wild, and weather-beaten. The two\r
+ladies, their brother, Mr. St. John, the old servant, were all gazing at\r
+me.\r
+\r
+"St. John, who is it?" I heard one ask.\r
+\r
+"I cannot tell: I found her at the door," was the reply.\r
+\r
+"She does look white," said Hannah.\r
+\r
+"As white as clay or death," was responded. "She will fall: let her\r
+sit."\r
+\r
+And indeed my head swam: I dropped, but a chair received me. I still\r
+possessed my senses, though just now I could not speak.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps a little water would restore her. Hannah, fetch some. But she\r
+is worn to nothing. How very thin, and how very bloodless!"\r
+\r
+"A mere spectre!"\r
+\r
+"Is she ill, or only famished?"\r
+\r
+"Famished, I think. Hannah, is that milk? Give it me, and a piece of\r
+bread."\r
+\r
+Diana (I knew her by the long curls which I saw drooping between me and\r
+the fire as she bent over me) broke some bread, dipped it in milk, and\r
+put it to my lips. Her face was near mine: I saw there was pity in it,\r
+and I felt sympathy in her hurried breathing. In her simple words, too,\r
+the same balm-like emotion spoke: "Try to eat."\r
+\r
+"Yes--try," repeated Mary gently; and Mary's hand removed my sodden\r
+bonnet and lifted my head. I tasted what they offered me: feebly at\r
+first, eagerly soon.\r
+\r
+"Not too much at first--restrain her," said the brother; "she has had\r
+enough." And he withdrew the cup of milk and the plate of bread.\r
+\r
+"A little more, St. John--look at the avidity in her eyes."\r
+\r
+"No more at present, sister. Try if she can speak now--ask her her\r
+name."\r
+\r
+I felt I could speak, and I answered--"My name is Jane Elliott." Anxious\r
+as ever to avoid discovery, I had before resolved to assume an _alias_.\r
+\r
+"And where do you live? Where are your friends?"\r
+\r
+I was silent.\r
+\r
+"Can we send for any one you know?"\r
+\r
+I shook my head.\r
+\r
+"What account can you give of yourself?"\r
+\r
+Somehow, now that I had once crossed the threshold of this house, and\r
+once was brought face to face with its owners, I felt no longer outcast,\r
+vagrant, and disowned by the wide world. I dared to put off the\r
+mendicant--to resume my natural manner and character. I began once more\r
+to know myself; and when Mr. St. John demanded an account--which at\r
+present I was far too weak to render--I said after a brief pause--\r
+\r
+"Sir, I can give you no details to-night."\r
+\r
+"But what, then," said he, "do you expect me to do for you?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing," I replied. My strength sufficed for but short answers. Diana\r
+took the word--\r
+\r
+"Do you mean," she asked, "that we have now given you what aid you\r
+require? and that we may dismiss you to the moor and the rainy night?"\r
+\r
+I looked at her. She had, I thought, a remarkable countenance, instinct\r
+both with power and goodness. I took sudden courage. Answering her\r
+compassionate gaze with a smile, I said--"I will trust you. If I were a\r
+masterless and stray dog, I know that you would not turn me from your\r
+hearth to-night: as it is, I really have no fear. Do with me and for me\r
+as you like; but excuse me from much discourse--my breath is short--I\r
+feel a spasm when I speak." All three surveyed me, and all three were\r
+silent.\r
+\r
+"Hannah," said Mr. St. John, at last, "let her sit there at present, and\r
+ask her no questions; in ten minutes more, give her the remainder of that\r
+milk and bread. Mary and Diana, let us go into the parlour and talk the\r
+matter over."\r
+\r
+They withdrew. Very soon one of the ladies returned--I could not tell\r
+which. A kind of pleasant stupor was stealing over me as I sat by the\r
+genial fire. In an undertone she gave some directions to Hannah. Ere\r
+long, with the servant's aid, I contrived to mount a staircase; my\r
+dripping clothes were removed; soon a warm, dry bed received me. I\r
+thanked God--experienced amidst unutterable exhaustion a glow of grateful\r
+joy--and slept.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX\r
+\r
+\r
+The recollection of about three days and nights succeeding this is very\r
+dim in my mind. I can recall some sensations felt in that interval; but\r
+few thoughts framed, and no actions performed. I knew I was in a small\r
+room and in a narrow bed. To that bed I seemed to have grown; I lay on\r
+it motionless as a stone; and to have torn me from it would have been\r
+almost to kill me. I took no note of the lapse of time--of the change\r
+from morning to noon, from noon to evening. I observed when any one\r
+entered or left the apartment: I could even tell who they were; I could\r
+understand what was said when the speaker stood near to me; but I could\r
+not answer; to open my lips or move my limbs was equally impossible.\r
+Hannah, the servant, was my most frequent visitor. Her coming disturbed\r
+me. I had a feeling that she wished me away: that she did not understand\r
+me or my circumstances; that she was prejudiced against me. Diana and\r
+Mary appeared in the chamber once or twice a day. They would whisper\r
+sentences of this sort at my bedside--\r
+\r
+"It is very well we took her in."\r
+\r
+"Yes; she would certainly have been found dead at the door in the morning\r
+had she been left out all night. I wonder what she has gone through?"\r
+\r
+"Strange hardships, I imagine--poor, emaciated, pallid wanderer?"\r
+\r
+"She is not an uneducated person, I should think, by her manner of\r
+speaking; her accent was quite pure; and the clothes she took off, though\r
+splashed and wet, were little worn and fine."\r
+\r
+"She has a peculiar face; fleshless and haggard as it is, I rather like\r
+it; and when in good health and animated, I can fancy her physiognomy\r
+would be agreeable."\r
+\r
+Never once in their dialogues did I hear a syllable of regret at the\r
+hospitality they had extended to me, or of suspicion of, or aversion to,\r
+myself. I was comforted.\r
+\r
+Mr. St. John came but once: he looked at me, and said my state of\r
+lethargy was the result of reaction from excessive and protracted\r
+fatigue. He pronounced it needless to send for a doctor: nature, he was\r
+sure, would manage best, left to herself. He said every nerve had been\r
+overstrained in some way, and the whole system must sleep torpid a while.\r
+There was no disease. He imagined my recovery would be rapid enough when\r
+once commenced. These opinions he delivered in a few words, in a quiet,\r
+low voice; and added, after a pause, in the tone of a man little\r
+accustomed to expansive comment, "Rather an unusual physiognomy;\r
+certainly, not indicative of vulgarity or degradation."\r
+\r
+"Far otherwise," responded Diana. "To speak truth, St. John, my heart\r
+rather warms to the poor little soul. I wish we may be able to benefit\r
+her permanently."\r
+\r
+"That is hardly likely," was the reply. "You will find she is some young\r
+lady who has had a misunderstanding with her friends, and has probably\r
+injudiciously left them. We may, perhaps, succeed in restoring her to\r
+them, if she is not obstinate: but I trace lines of force in her face\r
+which make me sceptical of her tractability." He stood considering me\r
+some minutes; then added, "She looks sensible, but not at all handsome."\r
+\r
+"She is so ill, St. John."\r
+\r
+"Ill or well, she would always be plain. The grace and harmony of beauty\r
+are quite wanting in those features."\r
+\r
+On the third day I was better; on the fourth, I could speak, move, rise\r
+in bed, and turn. Hannah had brought me some gruel and dry toast, about,\r
+as I supposed, the dinner-hour. I had eaten with relish: the food was\r
+good--void of the feverish flavour which had hitherto poisoned what I had\r
+swallowed. When she left me, I felt comparatively strong and revived:\r
+ere long satiety of repose and desire for action stirred me. I wished to\r
+rise; but what could I put on? Only my damp and bemired apparel; in\r
+which I had slept on the ground and fallen in the marsh. I felt ashamed\r
+to appear before my benefactors so clad. I was spared the humiliation.\r
+\r
+On a chair by the bedside were all my own things, clean and dry. My\r
+black silk frock hung against the wall. The traces of the bog were\r
+removed from it; the creases left by the wet smoothed out: it was quite\r
+decent. My very shoes and stockings were purified and rendered\r
+presentable. There were the means of washing in the room, and a comb and\r
+brush to smooth my hair. After a weary process, and resting every five\r
+minutes, I succeeded in dressing myself. My clothes hung loose on me;\r
+for I was much wasted, but I covered deficiencies with a shawl, and once\r
+more, clean and respectable looking--no speck of the dirt, no trace of\r
+the disorder I so hated, and which seemed so to degrade me, left--I crept\r
+down a stone staircase with the aid of the banisters, to a narrow low\r
+passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.\r
+\r
+It was full of the fragrance of new bread and the warmth of a generous\r
+fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most\r
+difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened\r
+or fertilised by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones.\r
+Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly she had\r
+begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and\r
+well-dressed, she even smiled.\r
+\r
+"What, you have got up!" she said. "You are better, then. You may sit\r
+you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."\r
+\r
+She pointed to the rocking-chair: I took it. She bustled about,\r
+examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to\r
+me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked bluntly--\r
+\r
+"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"\r
+\r
+I was indignant for a moment; but remembering that anger was out of the\r
+question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered\r
+quietly, but still not without a certain marked firmness--\r
+\r
+"You are mistaken in supposing me a beggar. I am no beggar; any more\r
+than yourself or your young ladies."\r
+\r
+After a pause she said, "I dunnut understand that: you've like no house,\r
+nor no brass, I guess?"\r
+\r
+"The want of house or brass (by which I suppose you mean money) does not\r
+make a beggar in your sense of the word."\r
+\r
+"Are you book-learned?" she inquired presently.\r
+\r
+"Yes, very."\r
+\r
+"But you've never been to a boarding-school?"\r
+\r
+"I was at a boarding-school eight years."\r
+\r
+She opened her eyes wide. "Whatever cannot ye keep yourself for, then?"\r
+\r
+"I have kept myself; and, I trust, shall keep myself again. What are you\r
+going to do with these gooseberries?" I inquired, as she brought out a\r
+basket of the fruit.\r
+\r
+"Mak' 'em into pies."\r
+\r
+"Give them to me and I'll pick them."\r
+\r
+"Nay; I dunnut want ye to do nought."\r
+\r
+"But I must do something. Let me have them."\r
+\r
+She consented; and she even brought me a clean towel to spread over my\r
+dress, "lest," as she said, "I should mucky it."\r
+\r
+"Ye've not been used to sarvant's wark, I see by your hands," she\r
+remarked. "Happen ye've been a dressmaker?"\r
+\r
+"No, you are wrong. And now, never mind what I have been: don't trouble\r
+your head further about me; but tell me the name of the house where we\r
+are."\r
+\r
+"Some calls it Marsh End, and some calls it Moor House."\r
+\r
+"And the gentleman who lives here is called Mr. St. John?"\r
+\r
+"Nay; he doesn't live here: he is only staying a while. When he is at\r
+home, he is in his own parish at Morton."\r
+\r
+"That village a few miles off?\r
+\r
+"Aye."\r
+\r
+"And what is he?"\r
+\r
+"He is a parson."\r
+\r
+I remembered the answer of the old housekeeper at the parsonage, when I\r
+had asked to see the clergyman. "This, then, was his father's\r
+residence?"\r
+\r
+"Aye; old Mr. Rivers lived here, and his father, and grandfather, and\r
+gurt (great) grandfather afore him."\r
+\r
+"The name, then, of that gentleman, is Mr. St. John Rivers?"\r
+\r
+"Aye; St. John is like his kirstened name."\r
+\r
+"And his sisters are called Diana and Mary Rivers?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Their father is dead?"\r
+\r
+"Dead three weeks sin' of a stroke."\r
+\r
+"They have no mother?"\r
+\r
+"The mistress has been dead this mony a year."\r
+\r
+"Have you lived with the family long?"\r
+\r
+"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three."\r
+\r
+"That proves you must have been an honest and faithful servant. I will\r
+say so much for you, though you have had the incivility to call me a\r
+beggar."\r
+\r
+She again regarded me with a surprised stare. "I believe," she said, "I\r
+was quite mista'en in my thoughts of you: but there is so mony cheats\r
+goes about, you mun forgie me."\r
+\r
+"And though," I continued, rather severely, "you wished to turn me from\r
+the door, on a night when you should not have shut out a dog."\r
+\r
+"Well, it was hard: but what can a body do? I thought more o' th'\r
+childer nor of mysel: poor things! They've like nobody to tak' care on\r
+'em but me. I'm like to look sharpish."\r
+\r
+I maintained a grave silence for some minutes.\r
+\r
+"You munnut think too hardly of me," she again remarked.\r
+\r
+"But I do think hardly of you," I said; "and I'll tell you why--not so\r
+much because you refused to give me shelter, or regarded me as an\r
+impostor, as because you just now made it a species of reproach that I\r
+had no 'brass' and no house. Some of the best people that ever lived\r
+have been as destitute as I am; and if you are a Christian, you ought not\r
+to consider poverty a crime."\r
+\r
+"No more I ought," said she: "Mr. St. John tells me so too; and I see I\r
+wor wrang--but I've clear a different notion on you now to what I had.\r
+You look a raight down dacent little crater."\r
+\r
+"That will do--I forgive you now. Shake hands."\r
+\r
+She put her floury and horny hand into mine; another and heartier smile\r
+illumined her rough face, and from that moment we were friends.\r
+\r
+Hannah was evidently fond of talking. While I picked the fruit, and she\r
+made the paste for the pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details\r
+about her deceased master and mistress, and "the childer," as she called\r
+the young people.\r
+\r
+Old Mr. Rivers, she said, was a plain man enough, but a gentleman, and of\r
+as ancient a family as could be found. Marsh End had belonged to the\r
+Rivers ever since it was a house: and it was, she affirmed, "aboon two\r
+hundred year old--for all it looked but a small, humble place, naught to\r
+compare wi' Mr. Oliver's grand hall down i' Morton Vale. But she could\r
+remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers\r
+wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking\r
+into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry." Still, she allowed, "the\r
+owd maister was like other folk--naught mich out o' t' common way: stark\r
+mad o' shooting, and farming, and sich like." The mistress was\r
+different. She was a great reader, and studied a deal; and the "bairns"\r
+had taken after her. There was nothing like them in these parts, nor\r
+ever had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time\r
+they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak' of their own." Mr.\r
+St. John, when he grew up, would go to college and be a parson; and the\r
+girls, as soon as they left school, would seek places as governesses: for\r
+they had told her their father had some years ago lost a great deal of\r
+money by a man he had trusted turning bankrupt; and as he was now not\r
+rich enough to give them fortunes, they must provide for themselves. They\r
+had lived very little at home for a long while, and were only come now to\r
+stay a few weeks on account of their father's death; but they did so like\r
+Marsh End and Morton, and all these moors and hills about. They had been\r
+in London, and many other grand towns; but they always said there was no\r
+place like home; and then they were so agreeable with each other--never\r
+fell out nor "threaped." She did not know where there was such a family\r
+for being united.\r
+\r
+Having finished my task of gooseberry picking, I asked where the two\r
+ladies and their brother were now.\r
+\r
+"Gone over to Morton for a walk; but they would be back in half-an-hour\r
+to tea."\r
+\r
+They returned within the time Hannah had allotted them: they entered by\r
+the kitchen door. Mr. St. John, when he saw me, merely bowed and passed\r
+through; the two ladies stopped: Mary, in a few words, kindly and calmly\r
+expressed the pleasure she felt in seeing me well enough to be able to\r
+come down; Diana took my hand: she shook her head at me.\r
+\r
+"You should have waited for my leave to descend," she said. "You still\r
+look very pale--and so thin! Poor child!--poor girl!"\r
+\r
+Diana had a voice toned, to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She\r
+possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face\r
+seemed to me full of charm. Mary's countenance was equally\r
+intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her expression was more\r
+reserved, and her manners, though gentle, more distant. Diana looked and\r
+spoke with a certain authority: she had a will, evidently. It was my\r
+nature to feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers,\r
+and to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an active\r
+will.\r
+\r
+"And what business have you here?" she continued. "It is not your place.\r
+Mary and I sit in the kitchen sometimes, because at home we like to be\r
+free, even to license--but you are a visitor, and must go into the\r
+parlour."\r
+\r
+"I am very well here."\r
+\r
+"Not at all, with Hannah bustling about and covering you with flour."\r
+\r
+"Besides, the fire is too hot for you," interposed Mary.\r
+\r
+"To be sure," added her sister. "Come, you must be obedient." And still\r
+holding my hand she made me rise, and led me into the inner room.\r
+\r
+"Sit there," she said, placing me on the sofa, "while we take our things\r
+off and get the tea ready; it is another privilege we exercise in our\r
+little moorland home--to prepare our own meals when we are so inclined,\r
+or when Hannah is baking, brewing, washing, or ironing."\r
+\r
+She closed the door, leaving me solus with Mr. St. John, who sat\r
+opposite, a book or newspaper in his hand. I examined first, the\r
+parlour, and then its occupant.\r
+\r
+The parlour was rather a small room, very plainly furnished, yet\r
+comfortable, because clean and neat. The old-fashioned chairs were very\r
+bright, and the walnut-wood table was like a looking-glass. A few\r
+strange, antique portraits of the men and women of other days decorated\r
+the stained walls; a cupboard with glass doors contained some books and\r
+an ancient set of china. There was no superfluous ornament in the\r
+room--not one modern piece of furniture, save a brace of workboxes and a\r
+lady's desk in rosewood, which stood on a side-table:\r
+everything--including the carpet and curtains--looked at once well worn\r
+and well saved.\r
+\r
+Mr. St. John--sitting as still as one of the dusty pictures on the walls,\r
+keeping his eyes fixed on the page he perused, and his lips mutely\r
+sealed--was easy enough to examine. Had he been a statue instead of a\r
+man, he could not have been easier. He was young--perhaps from twenty-\r
+eight to thirty--tall, slender; his face riveted the eye; it was like a\r
+Greek face, very pure in outline: quite a straight, classic nose; quite\r
+an Athenian mouth and chin. It is seldom, indeed, an English face comes\r
+so near the antique models as did his. He might well be a little shocked\r
+at the irregularity of my lineaments, his own being so harmonious. His\r
+eyes were large and blue, with brown lashes; his high forehead,\r
+colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks of\r
+fair hair.\r
+\r
+This is a gentle delineation, is it not, reader? Yet he whom it\r
+describes scarcely impressed one with the idea of a gentle, a yielding,\r
+an impressible, or even of a placid nature. Quiescent as he now sat,\r
+there was something about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which, to my\r
+perceptions, indicated elements within either restless, or hard, or\r
+eager. He did not speak to me one word, nor even direct to me one\r
+glance, till his sisters returned. Diana, as she passed in and out, in\r
+the course of preparing tea, brought me a little cake, baked on the top\r
+of the oven.\r
+\r
+"Eat that now," she said: "you must be hungry. Hannah says you have had\r
+nothing but some gruel since breakfast."\r
+\r
+I did not refuse it, for my appetite was awakened and keen. Mr. Rivers\r
+now closed his book, approached the table, and, as he took a seat, fixed\r
+his blue pictorial-looking eyes full on me. There was an unceremonious\r
+directness, a searching, decided steadfastness in his gaze now, which\r
+told that intention, and not diffidence, had hitherto kept it averted\r
+from the stranger.\r
+\r
+"You are very hungry," he said.\r
+\r
+"I am, sir." It is my way--it always was my way, by instinct--ever to\r
+meet the brief with brevity, the direct with plainness.\r
+\r
+"It is well for you that a low fever has forced you to abstain for the\r
+last three days: there would have been danger in yielding to the cravings\r
+of your appetite at first. Now you may eat, though still not\r
+immoderately."\r
+\r
+"I trust I shall not eat long at your expense, sir," was my very clumsily-\r
+contrived, unpolished answer.\r
+\r
+"No," he said coolly: "when you have indicated to us the residence of\r
+your friends, we can write to them, and you may be restored to home."\r
+\r
+"That, I must plainly tell you, is out of my power to do; being\r
+absolutely without home and friends."\r
+\r
+The three looked at me, but not distrustfully; I felt there was no\r
+suspicion in their glances: there was more of curiosity. I speak\r
+particularly of the young ladies. St. John's eyes, though clear enough\r
+in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom. He\r
+seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other people's\r
+thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which combination of\r
+keenness and reserve was considerably more calculated to embarrass than\r
+to encourage.\r
+\r
+"Do you mean to say," he asked, "that you are completely isolated from\r
+every connection?"\r
+\r
+"I do. Not a tie links me to any living thing: not a claim do I possess\r
+to admittance under any roof in England."\r
+\r
+"A most singular position at your age!"\r
+\r
+Here I saw his glance directed to my hands, which were folded on the\r
+table before me. I wondered what he sought there: his words soon\r
+explained the quest.\r
+\r
+"You have never been married? You are a spinster?"\r
+\r
+Diana laughed. "Why, she can't be above seventeen or eighteen years old,\r
+St. John," said she.\r
+\r
+"I am near nineteen: but I am not married. No."\r
+\r
+I felt a burning glow mount to my face; for bitter and agitating\r
+recollections were awakened by the allusion to marriage. They all saw\r
+the embarrassment and the emotion. Diana and Mary relieved me by turning\r
+their eyes elsewhere than to my crimsoned visage; but the colder and\r
+sterner brother continued to gaze, till the trouble he had excited forced\r
+out tears as well as colour.\r
+\r
+"Where did you last reside?" he now asked.\r
+\r
+"You are too inquisitive, St. John," murmured Mary in a low voice; but he\r
+leaned over the table and required an answer by a second firm and\r
+piercing look.\r
+\r
+"The name of the place where, and of the person with whom I lived, is my\r
+secret," I replied concisely.\r
+\r
+"Which, if you like, you have, in my opinion, a right to keep, both from\r
+St. John and every other questioner," remarked Diana.\r
+\r
+"Yet if I know nothing about you or your history, I cannot help you," he\r
+said. "And you need help, do you not?"\r
+\r
+"I need it, and I seek it so far, sir, that some true philanthropist will\r
+put me in the way of getting work which I can do, and the remuneration\r
+for which will keep me, if but in the barest necessaries of life."\r
+\r
+"I know not whether I am a true philanthropist; yet I am willing to aid\r
+you to the utmost of my power in a purpose so honest. First, then, tell\r
+me what you have been accustomed to do, and what you _can_ do."\r
+\r
+I had now swallowed my tea. I was mightily refreshed by the beverage; as\r
+much so as a giant with wine: it gave new tone to my unstrung nerves, and\r
+enabled me to address this penetrating young judge steadily.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rivers," I said, turning to him, and looking at him, as he looked at\r
+me, openly and without diffidence, "you and your sisters have done me a\r
+great service--the greatest man can do his fellow-being; you have rescued\r
+me, by your noble hospitality, from death. This benefit conferred gives\r
+you an unlimited claim on my gratitude, and a claim, to a certain extent,\r
+on my confidence. I will tell you as much of the history of the wanderer\r
+you have harboured, as I can tell without compromising my own peace of\r
+mind--my own security, moral and physical, and that of others.\r
+\r
+"I am an orphan, the daughter of a clergyman. My parents died before I\r
+could know them. I was brought up a dependant; educated in a charitable\r
+institution. I will even tell you the name of the establishment, where I\r
+passed six years as a pupil, and two as a teacher--Lowood Orphan Asylum,\r
+---shire: you will have heard of it, Mr. Rivers?--the Rev. Robert\r
+Brocklehurst is the treasurer."\r
+\r
+"I have heard of Mr. Brocklehurst, and I have seen the school."\r
+\r
+"I left Lowood nearly a year since to become a private governess. I\r
+obtained a good situation, and was happy. This place I was obliged to\r
+leave four days before I came here. The reason of my departure I cannot\r
+and ought not to explain: it would be useless, dangerous, and would sound\r
+incredible. No blame attached to me: I am as free from culpability as\r
+any one of you three. Miserable I am, and must be for a time; for the\r
+catastrophe which drove me from a house I had found a paradise was of a\r
+strange and direful nature. I observed but two points in planning my\r
+departure--speed, secrecy: to secure these, I had to leave behind me\r
+everything I possessed except a small parcel; which, in my hurry and\r
+trouble of mind, I forgot to take out of the coach that brought me to\r
+Whitcross. To this neighbourhood, then, I came, quite destitute. I\r
+slept two nights in the open air, and wandered about two days without\r
+crossing a threshold: but twice in that space of time did I taste food;\r
+and it was when brought by hunger, exhaustion, and despair almost to the\r
+last gasp, that you, Mr. Rivers, forbade me to perish of want at your\r
+door, and took me under the shelter of your roof. I know all your\r
+sisters have done for me since--for I have not been insensible during my\r
+seeming torpor--and I owe to their spontaneous, genuine, genial\r
+compassion as large a debt as to your evangelical charity."\r
+\r
+"Don't make her talk any more now, St. John," said Diana, as I paused;\r
+"she is evidently not yet fit for excitement. Come to the sofa and sit\r
+down now, Miss Elliott."\r
+\r
+I gave an involuntary half start at hearing the _alias_: I had forgotten\r
+my new name. Mr. Rivers, whom nothing seemed to escape, noticed it at\r
+once.\r
+\r
+"You said your name was Jane Elliott?" he observed.\r
+\r
+"I did say so; and it is the name by which I think it expedient to be\r
+called at present, but it is not my real name, and when I hear it, it\r
+sounds strange to me."\r
+\r
+"Your real name you will not give?"\r
+\r
+"No: I fear discovery above all things; and whatever disclosure would\r
+lead to it, I avoid."\r
+\r
+"You are quite right, I am sure," said Diana. "Now do, brother, let her\r
+be at peace a while."\r
+\r
+But when St. John had mused a few moments he recommenced as imperturbably\r
+and with as much acumen as ever.\r
+\r
+"You would not like to be long dependent on our hospitality--you would\r
+wish, I see, to dispense as soon as may be with my sisters' compassion,\r
+and, above all, with my _charity_ (I am quite sensible of the distinction\r
+drawn, nor do I resent it--it is just): you desire to be independent of\r
+us?"\r
+\r
+"I do: I have already said so. Show me how to work, or how to seek work:\r
+that is all I now ask; then let me go, if it be but to the meanest\r
+cottage; but till then, allow me to stay here: I dread another essay of\r
+the horrors of homeless destitution."\r
+\r
+"Indeed you _shall_ stay here," said Diana, putting her white hand on my\r
+head. "You _shall_," repeated Mary, in the tone of undemonstrative\r
+sincerity which seemed natural to her.\r
+\r
+"My sisters, you see, have a pleasure in keeping you," said Mr. St. John,\r
+"as they would have a pleasure in keeping and cherishing a half-frozen\r
+bird, some wintry wind might have driven through their casement. I feel\r
+more inclination to put you in the way of keeping yourself, and shall\r
+endeavour to do so; but observe, my sphere is narrow. I am but the\r
+incumbent of a poor country parish: my aid must be of the humblest sort.\r
+And if you are inclined to despise the day of small things, seek some\r
+more efficient succour than such as I can offer."\r
+\r
+"She has already said that she is willing to do anything honest she can\r
+do," answered Diana for me; "and you know, St. John, she has no choice of\r
+helpers: she is forced to put up with such crusty people as you."\r
+\r
+"I will be a dressmaker; I will be a plain-workwoman; I will be a\r
+servant, a nurse-girl, if I can be no better," I answered.\r
+\r
+"Right," said Mr. St. John, quite coolly. "If such is your spirit, I\r
+promise to aid you, in my own time and way."\r
+\r
+He now resumed the book with which he had been occupied before tea. I\r
+soon withdrew, for I had talked as much, and sat up as long, as my\r
+present strength would permit.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX\r
+\r
+\r
+The more I knew of the inmates of Moor House, the better I liked them. In\r
+a few days I had so far recovered my health that I could sit up all day,\r
+and walk out sometimes. I could join with Diana and Mary in all their\r
+occupations; converse with them as much as they wished, and aid them when\r
+and where they would allow me. There was a reviving pleasure in this\r
+intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time--the pleasure\r
+arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles.\r
+\r
+I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me;\r
+what they approved, I reverenced. They loved their sequestered home. I,\r
+too, in the grey, small, antique structure, with its low roof, its\r
+latticed casements, its mouldering walls, its avenue of aged firs--all\r
+grown aslant under the stress of mountain winds; its garden, dark with\r
+yew and holly--and where no flowers but of the hardiest species would\r
+bloom--found a charm both potent and permanent. They clung to the purple\r
+moors behind and around their dwelling--to the hollow vale into which the\r
+pebbly bridle-path leading from their gate descended, and which wound\r
+between fern-banks first, and then amongst a few of the wildest little\r
+pasture-fields that ever bordered a wilderness of heath, or gave\r
+sustenance to a flock of grey moorland sheep, with their little mossy-\r
+faced lambs:--they clung to this scene, I say, with a perfect enthusiasm\r
+of attachment. I could comprehend the feeling, and share both its\r
+strength and truth. I saw the fascination of the locality. I felt the\r
+consecration of its loneliness: my eye feasted on the outline of swell\r
+and sweep--on the wild colouring communicated to ridge and dell by moss,\r
+by heath-bell, by flower-sprinkled turf, by brilliant bracken, and mellow\r
+granite crag. These details were just to me what they were to them--so\r
+many pure and sweet sources of pleasure. The strong blast and the soft\r
+breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and sunset;\r
+the moonlight and the clouded night, developed for me, in these regions,\r
+the same attraction as for them--wound round my faculties the same spell\r
+that entranced theirs.\r
+\r
+Indoors we agreed equally well. They were both more accomplished and\r
+better read than I was; but with eagerness I followed in the path of\r
+knowledge they had trodden before me. I devoured the books they lent me:\r
+then it was full satisfaction to discuss with them in the evening what I\r
+had perused during the day. Thought fitted thought; opinion met opinion:\r
+we coincided, in short, perfectly.\r
+\r
+If in our trio there was a superior and a leader, it was Diana.\r
+Physically, she far excelled me: she was handsome; she was vigorous. In\r
+her animal spirits there was an affluence of life and certainty of flow,\r
+such as excited my wonder, while it baffled my comprehension. I could\r
+talk a while when the evening commenced, but the first gush of vivacity\r
+and fluency gone, I was fain to sit on a stool at Diana's feet, to rest\r
+my head on her knee, and listen alternately to her and Mary, while they\r
+sounded thoroughly the topic on which I had but touched. Diana offered\r
+to teach me German. I liked to learn of her: I saw the part of\r
+instructress pleased and suited her; that of scholar pleased and suited\r
+me no less. Our natures dovetailed: mutual affection--of the strongest\r
+kind--was the result. They discovered I could draw: their pencils and\r
+colour-boxes were immediately at my service. My skill, greater in this\r
+one point than theirs, surprised and charmed them. Mary would sit and\r
+watch me by the hour together: then she would take lessons; and a docile,\r
+intelligent, assiduous pupil she made. Thus occupied, and mutually\r
+entertained, days passed like hours, and weeks like days.\r
+\r
+As to Mr. St John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally and rapidly\r
+between me and his sisters did not extend to him. One reason of the\r
+distance yet observed between us was, that he was comparatively seldom at\r
+home: a large proportion of his time appeared devoted to visiting the\r
+sick and poor among the scattered population of his parish.\r
+\r
+No weather seemed to hinder him in these pastoral excursions: rain or\r
+fair, he would, when his hours of morning study were over, take his hat,\r
+and, followed by his father's old pointer, Carlo, go out on his mission\r
+of love or duty--I scarcely know in which light he regarded it.\r
+Sometimes, when the day was very unfavourable, his sisters would\r
+expostulate. He would then say, with a peculiar smile, more solemn than\r
+cheerful--\r
+\r
+"And if I let a gust of wind or a sprinkling of rain turn me aside from\r
+these easy tasks, what preparation would such sloth be for the future I\r
+propose to myself?"\r
+\r
+Diana and Mary's general answer to this question was a sigh, and some\r
+minutes of apparently mournful meditation.\r
+\r
+But besides his frequent absences, there was another barrier to\r
+friendship with him: he seemed of a reserved, an abstracted, and even of\r
+a brooding nature. Zealous in his ministerial labours, blameless in his\r
+life and habits, he yet did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity,\r
+that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere\r
+Christian and practical philanthropist. Often, of an evening, when he\r
+sat at the window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading\r
+or writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I know\r
+not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and exciting might\r
+be seen in the frequent flash and changeful dilation of his eye.\r
+\r
+I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of delight it\r
+was to his sisters. He expressed once, and but once in my hearing, a\r
+strong sense of the rugged charm of the hills, and an inborn affection\r
+for the dark roof and hoary walls he called his home; but there was more\r
+of gloom than pleasure in the tone and words in which the sentiment was\r
+manifested; and never did he seem to roam the moors for the sake of their\r
+soothing silence--never seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful\r
+delights they could yield.\r
+\r
+Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an opportunity\r
+of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its calibre when I heard him\r
+preach in his own church at Morton. I wish I could describe that sermon:\r
+but it is past my power. I cannot even render faithfully the effect it\r
+produced on me.\r
+\r
+It began calm--and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice went, it\r
+was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly restrained zeal\r
+breathed soon in the distinct accents, and prompted the nervous language.\r
+This grew to force--compressed, condensed, controlled. The heart was\r
+thrilled, the mind astonished, by the power of the preacher: neither were\r
+softened. Throughout there was a strange bitterness; an absence of\r
+consolatory gentleness; stern allusions to Calvinistic\r
+doctrines--election, predestination, reprobation--were frequent; and each\r
+reference to these points sounded like a sentence pronounced for doom.\r
+When he had done, instead of feeling better, calmer, more enlightened by\r
+his discourse, I experienced an inexpressible sadness; for it seemed to\r
+me--I know not whether equally so to others--that the eloquence to which\r
+I had been listening had sprung from a depth where lay turbid dregs of\r
+disappointment--where moved troubling impulses of insatiate yearnings and\r
+disquieting aspirations. I was sure St. John Rivers--pure-lived,\r
+conscientious, zealous as he was--had not yet found that peace of God\r
+which passeth all understanding: he had no more found it, I thought, than\r
+had I with my concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost\r
+elysium--regrets to which I have latterly avoided referring, but which\r
+possessed me and tyrannised over me ruthlessly.\r
+\r
+Meantime a month was gone. Diana and Mary were soon to leave Moor House,\r
+and return to the far different life and scene which awaited them, as\r
+governesses in a large, fashionable, south-of-England city, where each\r
+held a situation in families by whose wealthy and haughty members they\r
+were regarded only as humble dependants, and who neither knew nor sought\r
+out their innate excellences, and appreciated only their acquired\r
+accomplishments as they appreciated the skill of their cook or the taste\r
+of their waiting-woman. Mr. St. John had said nothing to me yet about\r
+the employment he had promised to obtain for me; yet it became urgent\r
+that I should have a vocation of some kind. One morning, being left\r
+alone with him a few minutes in the parlour, I ventured to approach the\r
+window-recess--which his table, chair, and desk consecrated as a kind of\r
+study--and I was going to speak, though not very well knowing in what\r
+words to frame my inquiry--for it is at all times difficult to break the\r
+ice of reserve glassing over such natures as his--when he saved me the\r
+trouble by being the first to commence a dialogue.\r
+\r
+Looking up as I drew near--"You have a question to ask of me?" he said.\r
+\r
+"Yes; I wish to know whether you have heard of any service I can offer\r
+myself to undertake?"\r
+\r
+"I found or devised something for you three weeks ago; but as you seemed\r
+both useful and happy here--as my sisters had evidently become attached\r
+to you, and your society gave them unusual pleasure--I deemed it\r
+inexpedient to break in on your mutual comfort till their approaching\r
+departure from Marsh End should render yours necessary."\r
+\r
+"And they will go in three days now?" I said.\r
+\r
+"Yes; and when they go, I shall return to the parsonage at Morton: Hannah\r
+will accompany me; and this old house will be shut up."\r
+\r
+I waited a few moments, expecting he would go on with the subject first\r
+broached: but he seemed to have entered another train of reflection: his\r
+look denoted abstraction from me and my business. I was obliged to\r
+recall him to a theme which was of necessity one of close and anxious\r
+interest to me.\r
+\r
+"What is the employment you had in view, Mr. Rivers? I hope this delay\r
+will not have increased the difficulty of securing it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no; since it is an employment which depends only on me to give, and\r
+you to accept."\r
+\r
+He again paused: there seemed a reluctance to continue. I grew\r
+impatient: a restless movement or two, and an eager and exacting glance\r
+fastened on his face, conveyed the feeling to him as effectually as words\r
+could have done, and with less trouble.\r
+\r
+"You need be in no hurry to hear," he said: "let me frankly tell you, I\r
+have nothing eligible or profitable to suggest. Before I explain,\r
+recall, if you please, my notice, clearly given, that if I helped you, it\r
+must be as the blind man would help the lame. I am poor; for I find\r
+that, when I have paid my father's debts, all the patrimony remaining to\r
+me will be this crumbling grange, the row of scathed firs behind, and the\r
+patch of moorish soil, with the yew-trees and holly-bushes in front. I\r
+am obscure: Rivers is an old name; but of the three sole descendants of\r
+the race, two earn the dependant's crust among strangers, and the third\r
+considers himself an alien from his native country--not only for life,\r
+but in death. Yes, and deems, and is bound to deem, himself honoured by\r
+the lot, and aspires but after the day when the cross of separation from\r
+fleshly ties shall be laid on his shoulders, and when the Head of that\r
+church-militant of whose humblest members he is one, shall give the word,\r
+'Rise, follow Me!'"\r
+\r
+St. John said these words as he pronounced his sermons, with a quiet,\r
+deep voice; with an unflushed cheek, and a coruscating radiance of\r
+glance. He resumed--\r
+\r
+"And since I am myself poor and obscure, I can offer you but a service of\r
+poverty and obscurity. _You_ may even think it degrading--for I see now\r
+your habits have been what the world calls refined: your tastes lean to\r
+the ideal, and your society has at least been amongst the educated; but\r
+_I_ consider that no service degrades which can better our race. I hold\r
+that the more arid and unreclaimed the soil where the Christian\r
+labourer's task of tillage is appointed him--the scantier the meed his\r
+toil brings--the higher the honour. His, under such circumstances, is\r
+the destiny of the pioneer; and the first pioneers of the Gospel were the\r
+Apostles--their captain was Jesus, the Redeemer, Himself."\r
+\r
+"Well?" I said, as he again paused--"proceed."\r
+\r
+He looked at me before he proceeded: indeed, he seemed leisurely to read\r
+my face, as if its features and lines were characters on a page. The\r
+conclusions drawn from this scrutiny he partially expressed in his\r
+succeeding observations.\r
+\r
+"I believe you will accept the post I offer you," said he, "and hold it\r
+for a while: not permanently, though: any more than I could permanently\r
+keep the narrow and narrowing--the tranquil, hidden office of English\r
+country incumbent; for in your nature is an alloy as detrimental to\r
+repose as that in mine, though of a different kind."\r
+\r
+"Do explain," I urged, when he halted once more.\r
+\r
+"I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,--how trivial--how\r
+cramping. I shall not stay long at Morton, now that my father is dead,\r
+and that I am my own master. I shall leave the place probably in the\r
+course of a twelve-month; but while I do stay, I will exert myself to the\r
+utmost for its improvement. Morton, when I came to it two years ago, had\r
+no school: the children of the poor were excluded from every hope of\r
+progress. I established one for boys: I mean now to open a second school\r
+for girls. I have hired a building for the purpose, with a cottage of\r
+two rooms attached to it for the mistress's house. Her salary will be\r
+thirty pounds a year: her house is already furnished, very simply, but\r
+sufficiently, by the kindness of a lady, Miss Oliver; the only daughter\r
+of the sole rich man in my parish--Mr. Oliver, the proprietor of a needle-\r
+factory and iron-foundry in the valley. The same lady pays for the\r
+education and clothing of an orphan from the workhouse, on condition that\r
+she shall aid the mistress in such menial offices connected with her own\r
+house and the school as her occupation of teaching will prevent her\r
+having time to discharge in person. Will you be this mistress?"\r
+\r
+He put the question rather hurriedly; he seemed half to expect an\r
+indignant, or at least a disdainful rejection of the offer: not knowing\r
+all my thoughts and feelings, though guessing some, he could not tell in\r
+what light the lot would appear to me. In truth it was humble--but then\r
+it was sheltered, and I wanted a safe asylum: it was plodding--but then,\r
+compared with that of a governess in a rich house, it was independent;\r
+and the fear of servitude with strangers entered my soul like iron: it\r
+was not ignoble--not unworthy--not mentally degrading, I made my\r
+decision.\r
+\r
+"I thank you for the proposal, Mr. Rivers, and I accept it with all my\r
+heart."\r
+\r
+"But you comprehend me?" he said. "It is a village school: your scholars\r
+will be only poor girls--cottagers' children--at the best, farmers'\r
+daughters. Knitting, sewing, reading, writing, ciphering, will be all\r
+you will have to teach. What will you do with your accomplishments?\r
+What, with the largest portion of your mind--sentiments--tastes?"\r
+\r
+"Save them till they are wanted. They will keep."\r
+\r
+"You know what you undertake, then?"\r
+\r
+"I do."\r
+\r
+He now smiled: and not a bitter or a sad smile, but one well pleased and\r
+deeply gratified.\r
+\r
+"And when will you commence the exercise of your function?"\r
+\r
+"I will go to my house to-morrow, and open the school, if you like, next\r
+week."\r
+\r
+"Very well: so be it."\r
+\r
+He rose and walked through the room. Standing still, he again looked at\r
+me. He shook his head.\r
+\r
+"What do you disapprove of, Mr. Rivers?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"You will not stay at Morton long: no, no!"\r
+\r
+"Why? What is your reason for saying so?"\r
+\r
+"I read it in your eye; it is not of that description which promises the\r
+maintenance of an even tenor in life."\r
+\r
+"I am not ambitious."\r
+\r
+He started at the word "ambitious." He repeated, "No. What made you\r
+think of ambition? Who is ambitious? I know I am: but how did you find\r
+it out?"\r
+\r
+"I was speaking of myself."\r
+\r
+"Well, if you are not ambitious, you are--" He paused.\r
+\r
+"What?"\r
+\r
+"I was going to say, impassioned: but perhaps you would have\r
+misunderstood the word, and been displeased. I mean, that human\r
+affections and sympathies have a most powerful hold on you. I am sure\r
+you cannot long be content to pass your leisure in solitude, and to\r
+devote your working hours to a monotonous labour wholly void of stimulus:\r
+any more than I can be content," he added, with emphasis, "to live here\r
+buried in morass, pent in with mountains--my nature, that God gave me,\r
+contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed--made useless. You\r
+hear now how I contradict myself. I, who preached contentment with a\r
+humble lot, and justified the vocation even of hewers of wood and drawers\r
+of water in God's service--I, His ordained minister, almost rave in my\r
+restlessness. Well, propensities and principles must be reconciled by\r
+some means."\r
+\r
+He left the room. In this brief hour I had learnt more of him than in\r
+the whole previous month: yet still he puzzled me.\r
+\r
+Diana and Mary Rivers became more sad and silent as the day approached\r
+for leaving their brother and their home. They both tried to appear as\r
+usual; but the sorrow they had to struggle against was one that could not\r
+be entirely conquered or concealed. Diana intimated that this would be a\r
+different parting from any they had ever yet known. It would probably,\r
+as far as St. John was concerned, be a parting for years: it might be a\r
+parting for life.\r
+\r
+"He will sacrifice all to his long-framed resolves," she said: "natural\r
+affection and feelings more potent still. St. John looks quiet, Jane;\r
+but he hides a fever in his vitals. You would think him gentle, yet in\r
+some things he is inexorable as death; and the worst of it is, my\r
+conscience will hardly permit me to dissuade him from his severe\r
+decision: certainly, I cannot for a moment blame him for it. It is\r
+right, noble, Christian: yet it breaks my heart!" And the tears gushed\r
+to her fine eyes. Mary bent her head low over her work.\r
+\r
+"We are now without father: we shall soon be without home and brother,"\r
+she murmured.\r
+\r
+At that moment a little accident supervened, which seemed decreed by fate\r
+purposely to prove the truth of the adage, that "misfortunes never come\r
+singly," and to add to their distresses the vexing one of the slip\r
+between the cup and the lip. St. John passed the window reading a\r
+letter. He entered.\r
+\r
+"Our uncle John is dead," said he.\r
+\r
+Both the sisters seemed struck: not shocked or appalled; the tidings\r
+appeared in their eyes rather momentous than afflicting.\r
+\r
+"Dead?" repeated Diana.\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+She riveted a searching gaze on her brother's face. "And what then?" she\r
+demanded, in a low voice.\r
+\r
+"What then, Die?" he replied, maintaining a marble immobility of feature.\r
+"What then? Why--nothing. Read."\r
+\r
+He threw the letter into her lap. She glanced over it, and handed it to\r
+Mary. Mary perused it in silence, and returned it to her brother. All\r
+three looked at each other, and all three smiled--a dreary, pensive smile\r
+enough.\r
+\r
+"Amen! We can yet live," said Diana at last.\r
+\r
+"At any rate, it makes us no worse off than we were before," remarked\r
+Mary.\r
+\r
+"Only it forces rather strongly on the mind the picture of what _might\r
+have been_," said Mr. Rivers, "and contrasts it somewhat too vividly with\r
+what _is_."\r
+\r
+He folded the letter, locked it in his desk, and again went out.\r
+\r
+For some minutes no one spoke. Diana then turned to me.\r
+\r
+"Jane, you will wonder at us and our mysteries," she said, "and think us\r
+hard-hearted beings not to be more moved at the death of so near a\r
+relation as an uncle; but we have never seen him or known him. He was my\r
+mother's brother. My father and he quarrelled long ago. It was by his\r
+advice that my father risked most of his property in the speculation that\r
+ruined him. Mutual recrimination passed between them: they parted in\r
+anger, and were never reconciled. My uncle engaged afterwards in more\r
+prosperous undertakings: it appears he realised a fortune of twenty\r
+thousand pounds. He was never married, and had no near kindred but\r
+ourselves and one other person, not more closely related than we. My\r
+father always cherished the idea that he would atone for his error by\r
+leaving his possessions to us; that letter informs us that he has\r
+bequeathed every penny to the other relation, with the exception of\r
+thirty guineas, to be divided between St. John, Diana, and Mary Rivers,\r
+for the purchase of three mourning rings. He had a right, of course, to\r
+do as he pleased: and yet a momentary damp is cast on the spirits by the\r
+receipt of such news. Mary and I would have esteemed ourselves rich with\r
+a thousand pounds each; and to St. John such a sum would have been\r
+valuable, for the good it would have enabled him to do."\r
+\r
+This explanation given, the subject was dropped, and no further reference\r
+made to it by either Mr. Rivers or his sisters. The next day I left\r
+Marsh End for Morton. The day after, Diana and Mary quitted it for\r
+distant B-. In a week, Mr. Rivers and Hannah repaired to the parsonage:\r
+and so the old grange was abandoned.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI\r
+\r
+\r
+My home, then, when I at last find a home,--is a cottage; a little room\r
+with whitewashed walls and a sanded floor, containing four painted chairs\r
+and a table, a clock, a cupboard, with two or three plates and dishes,\r
+and a set of tea-things in delf. Above, a chamber of the same dimensions\r
+as the kitchen, with a deal bedstead and chest of drawers; small, yet too\r
+large to be filled with my scanty wardrobe: though the kindness of my\r
+gentle and generous friends has increased that, by a modest stock of such\r
+things as are necessary.\r
+\r
+It is evening. I have dismissed, with the fee of an orange, the little\r
+orphan who serves me as a handmaid. I am sitting alone on the hearth.\r
+This morning, the village school opened. I had twenty scholars. But\r
+three of the number can read: none write or cipher. Several knit, and a\r
+few sew a little. They speak with the broadest accent of the district.\r
+At present, they and I have a difficulty in understanding each other's\r
+language. Some of them are unmannered, rough, intractable, as well as\r
+ignorant; but others are docile, have a wish to learn, and evince a\r
+disposition that pleases me. I must not forget that these coarsely-clad\r
+little peasants are of flesh and blood as good as the scions of gentlest\r
+genealogy; and that the germs of native excellence, refinement,\r
+intelligence, kind feeling, are as likely to exist in their hearts as in\r
+those of the best-born. My duty will be to develop these germs: surely I\r
+shall find some happiness in discharging that office. Much enjoyment I\r
+do not expect in the life opening before me: yet it will, doubtless, if I\r
+regulate my mind, and exert my powers as I ought, yield me enough to live\r
+on from day to day.\r
+\r
+Was I very gleeful, settled, content, during the hours I passed in yonder\r
+bare, humble schoolroom this morning and afternoon? Not to deceive\r
+myself, I must reply--No: I felt desolate to a degree. I felt--yes,\r
+idiot that I am--I felt degraded. I doubted I had taken a step which\r
+sank instead of raising me in the scale of social existence. I was\r
+weakly dismayed at the ignorance, the poverty, the coarseness of all I\r
+heard and saw round me. But let me not hate and despise myself too much\r
+for these feelings; I know them to be wrong--that is a great step gained;\r
+I shall strive to overcome them. To-morrow, I trust, I shall get the\r
+better of them partially; and in a few weeks, perhaps, they will be quite\r
+subdued. In a few months, it is possible, the happiness of seeing\r
+progress, and a change for the better in my scholars may substitute\r
+gratification for disgust.\r
+\r
+Meantime, let me ask myself one question--Which is better?--To have\r
+surrendered to temptation; listened to passion; made no painful effort--no\r
+struggle;--but to have sunk down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on\r
+the flowers covering it; wakened in a southern clime, amongst the\r
+luxuries of a pleasure villa: to have been now living in France, Mr.\r
+Rochester's mistress; delirious with his love half my time--for he\r
+would--oh, yes, he would have loved me well for a while. He _did_ love\r
+me--no one will ever love me so again. I shall never more know the sweet\r
+homage given to beauty, youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall\r
+I seem to possess these charms. He was fond and proud of me--it is what\r
+no man besides will ever be.--But where am I wandering, and what am I\r
+saying, and above all, feeling? Whether is it better, I ask, to be a\r
+slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one\r
+hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the\r
+next--or to be a village-schoolmistress, free and honest, in a breezy\r
+mountain nook in the healthy heart of England?\r
+\r
+Yes; I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and\r
+scorned and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God\r
+directed me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance!\r
+\r
+Having brought my eventide musings to this point, I rose, went to my\r
+door, and looked at the sunset of the harvest-day, and at the quiet\r
+fields before my cottage, which, with the school, was distant half a mile\r
+from the village. The birds were singing their last strains--\r
+\r
+ "The air was mild, the dew was balm."\r
+\r
+While I looked, I thought myself happy, and was surprised to find myself\r
+ere long weeping--and why? For the doom which had reft me from adhesion\r
+to my master: for him I was no more to see; for the desperate grief and\r
+fatal fury--consequences of my departure--which might now, perhaps, be\r
+dragging him from the path of right, too far to leave hope of ultimate\r
+restoration thither. At this thought, I turned my face aside from the\r
+lovely sky of eve and lonely vale of Morton--I say _lonely_, for in that\r
+bend of it visible to me there was no building apparent save the church\r
+and the parsonage, half-hid in trees, and, quite at the extremity, the\r
+roof of Vale Hall, where the rich Mr. Oliver and his daughter lived. I\r
+hid my eyes, and leant my head against the stone frame of my door; but\r
+soon a slight noise near the wicket which shut in my tiny garden from the\r
+meadow beyond it made me look up. A dog--old Carlo, Mr. Rivers' pointer,\r
+as I saw in a moment--was pushing the gate with his nose, and St. John\r
+himself leant upon it with folded arms; his brow knit, his gaze, grave\r
+almost to displeasure, fixed on me. I asked him to come in.\r
+\r
+"No, I cannot stay; I have only brought you a little parcel my sisters\r
+left for you. I think it contains a colour-box, pencils, and paper."\r
+\r
+I approached to take it: a welcome gift it was. He examined my face, I\r
+thought, with austerity, as I came near: the traces of tears were\r
+doubtless very visible upon it.\r
+\r
+"Have you found your first day's work harder than you expected?" he\r
+asked.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! On the contrary, I think in time I shall get on with my\r
+scholars very well."\r
+\r
+"But perhaps your accommodations--your cottage--your furniture--have\r
+disappointed your expectations? They are, in truth, scanty enough; but--"\r
+I interrupted--\r
+\r
+"My cottage is clean and weather-proof; my furniture sufficient and\r
+commodious. All I see has made me thankful, not despondent. I am not\r
+absolutely such a fool and sensualist as to regret the absence of a\r
+carpet, a sofa, and silver plate; besides, five weeks ago I had nothing--I\r
+was an outcast, a beggar, a vagrant; now I have acquaintance, a home, a\r
+business. I wonder at the goodness of God; the generosity of my friends;\r
+the bounty of my lot. I do not repine."\r
+\r
+"But you feel solitude an oppression? The little house there behind you\r
+is dark and empty."\r
+\r
+"I have hardly had time yet to enjoy a sense of tranquillity, much less\r
+to grow impatient under one of loneliness."\r
+\r
+"Very well; I hope you feel the content you express: at any rate, your\r
+good sense will tell you that it is too soon yet to yield to the\r
+vacillating fears of Lot's wife. What you had left before I saw you, of\r
+course I do not know; but I counsel you to resist firmly every temptation\r
+which would incline you to look back: pursue your present career\r
+steadily, for some months at least."\r
+\r
+"It is what I mean to do," I answered. St. John continued--\r
+\r
+"It is hard work to control the workings of inclination and turn the bent\r
+of nature; but that it may be done, I know from experience. God has\r
+given us, in a measure, the power to make our own fate; and when our\r
+energies seem to demand a sustenance they cannot get--when our will\r
+strains after a path we may not follow--we need neither starve from\r
+inanition, nor stand still in despair: we have but to seek another\r
+nourishment for the mind, as strong as the forbidden food it longed to\r
+taste--and perhaps purer; and to hew out for the adventurous foot a road\r
+as direct and broad as the one Fortune has blocked up against us, if\r
+rougher than it.\r
+\r
+"A year ago I was myself intensely miserable, because I thought I had\r
+made a mistake in entering the ministry: its uniform duties wearied me to\r
+death. I burnt for the more active life of the world--for the more\r
+exciting toils of a literary career--for the destiny of an artist,\r
+author, orator; anything rather than that of a priest: yes, the heart of\r
+a politician, of a soldier, of a votary of glory, a lover of renown, a\r
+luster after power, beat under my curate's surplice. I considered; my\r
+life was so wretched, it must be changed, or I must die. After a season\r
+of darkness and struggling, light broke and relief fell: my cramped\r
+existence all at once spread out to a plain without bounds--my powers\r
+heard a call from heaven to rise, gather their full strength, spread\r
+their wings, and mount beyond ken. God had an errand for me; to bear\r
+which afar, to deliver it well, skill and strength, courage and\r
+eloquence, the best qualifications of soldier, statesman, and orator,\r
+were all needed: for these all centre in the good missionary.\r
+\r
+"A missionary I resolved to be. From that moment my state of mind\r
+changed; the fetters dissolved and dropped from every faculty, leaving\r
+nothing of bondage but its galling soreness--which time only can heal. My\r
+father, indeed, imposed the determination, but since his death, I have\r
+not a legitimate obstacle to contend with; some affairs settled, a\r
+successor for Morton provided, an entanglement or two of the feelings\r
+broken through or cut asunder--a last conflict with human weakness, in\r
+which I know I shall overcome, because I have vowed that I _will_\r
+overcome--and I leave Europe for the East."\r
+\r
+He said this, in his peculiar, subdued, yet emphatic voice; looking, when\r
+he had ceased speaking, not at me, but at the setting sun, at which I\r
+looked too. Both he and I had our backs towards the path leading up the\r
+field to the wicket. We had heard no step on that grass-grown track; the\r
+water running in the vale was the one lulling sound of the hour and\r
+scene; we might well then start when a gay voice, sweet as a silver bell,\r
+exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Good evening, Mr. Rivers. And good evening, old Carlo. Your dog is\r
+quicker to recognise his friends than you are, sir; he pricked his ears\r
+and wagged his tail when I was at the bottom of the field, and you have\r
+your back towards me now."\r
+\r
+It was true. Though Mr. Rivers had started at the first of those musical\r
+accents, as if a thunderbolt had split a cloud over his head, he stood\r
+yet, at the close of the sentence, in the same attitude in which the\r
+speaker had surprised him--his arm resting on the gate, his face directed\r
+towards the west. He turned at last, with measured deliberation. A\r
+vision, as it seemed to me, had risen at his side. There appeared,\r
+within three feet of him, a form clad in pure white--a youthful, graceful\r
+form: full, yet fine in contour; and when, after bending to caress Carlo,\r
+it lifted up its head, and threw back a long veil, there bloomed under\r
+his glance a face of perfect beauty. Perfect beauty is a strong\r
+expression; but I do not retrace or qualify it: as sweet features as ever\r
+the temperate clime of Albion moulded; as pure hues of rose and lily as\r
+ever her humid gales and vapoury skies generated and screened, justified,\r
+in this instance, the term. No charm was wanting, no defect was\r
+perceptible; the young girl had regular and delicate lineaments; eyes\r
+shaped and coloured as we see them in lovely pictures, large, and dark,\r
+and full; the long and shadowy eyelash which encircles a fine eye with so\r
+soft a fascination; the pencilled brow which gives such clearness; the\r
+white smooth forehead, which adds such repose to the livelier beauties of\r
+tint and ray; the cheek oval, fresh, and smooth; the lips, fresh too,\r
+ruddy, healthy, sweetly formed; the even and gleaming teeth without flaw;\r
+the small dimpled chin; the ornament of rich, plenteous tresses--all\r
+advantages, in short, which, combined, realise the ideal of beauty, were\r
+fully hers. I wondered, as I looked at this fair creature: I admired her\r
+with my whole heart. Nature had surely formed her in a partial mood;\r
+and, forgetting her usual stinted step-mother dole of gifts, had endowed\r
+this, her darling, with a grand-dame's bounty.\r
+\r
+What did St. John Rivers think of this earthly angel? I naturally asked\r
+myself that question as I saw him turn to her and look at her; and, as\r
+naturally, I sought the answer to the inquiry in his countenance. He had\r
+already withdrawn his eye from the Peri, and was looking at a humble tuft\r
+of daisies which grew by the wicket.\r
+\r
+"A lovely evening, but late for you to be out alone," he said, as he\r
+crushed the snowy heads of the closed flowers with his foot.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I only came home from S-" (she mentioned the name of a large town\r
+some twenty miles distant) "this afternoon. Papa told me you had opened\r
+your school, and that the new mistress was come; and so I put on my\r
+bonnet after tea, and ran up the valley to see her: this is she?"\r
+pointing to me.\r
+\r
+"It is," said St. John.\r
+\r
+"Do you think you shall like Morton?" she asked of me, with a direct and\r
+naive simplicity of tone and manner, pleasing, if child-like.\r
+\r
+"I hope I shall. I have many inducements to do so."\r
+\r
+"Did you find your scholars as attentive as you expected?"\r
+\r
+"Quite."\r
+\r
+"Do you like your house?"\r
+\r
+"Very much."\r
+\r
+"Have I furnished it nicely?"\r
+\r
+"Very nicely, indeed."\r
+\r
+"And made a good choice of an attendant for you in Alice Wood?"\r
+\r
+"You have indeed. She is teachable and handy." (This then, I thought,\r
+is Miss Oliver, the heiress; favoured, it seems, in the gifts of fortune,\r
+as well as in those of nature! What happy combination of the planets\r
+presided over her birth, I wonder?)\r
+\r
+"I shall come up and help you to teach sometimes," she added. "It will\r
+be a change for me to visit you now and then; and I like a change. Mr.\r
+Rivers, I have been _so_ gay during my stay at S-. Last night, or rather\r
+this morning, I was dancing till two o'clock. The ---th regiment are\r
+stationed there since the riots; and the officers are the most agreeable\r
+men in the world: they put all our young knife-grinders and scissor\r
+merchants to shame."\r
+\r
+It seemed to me that Mr. St. John's under lip protruded, and his upper\r
+lip curled a moment. His mouth certainly looked a good deal compressed,\r
+and the lower part of his face unusually stern and square, as the\r
+laughing girl gave him this information. He lifted his gaze, too, from\r
+the daisies, and turned it on her. An unsmiling, a searching, a meaning\r
+gaze it was. She answered it with a second laugh, and laughter well\r
+became her youth, her roses, her dimples, her bright eyes.\r
+\r
+As he stood, mute and grave, she again fell to caressing Carlo. "Poor\r
+Carlo loves me," said she. "_He_ is not stern and distant to his\r
+friends; and if he could speak, he would not be silent."\r
+\r
+As she patted the dog's head, bending with native grace before his young\r
+and austere master, I saw a glow rise to that master's face. I saw his\r
+solemn eye melt with sudden fire, and flicker with resistless emotion.\r
+Flushed and kindled thus, he looked nearly as beautiful for a man as she\r
+for a woman. His chest heaved once, as if his large heart, weary of\r
+despotic constriction, had expanded, despite the will, and made a\r
+vigorous bound for the attainment of liberty. But he curbed it, I think,\r
+as a resolute rider would curb a rearing steed. He responded neither by\r
+word nor movement to the gentle advances made him.\r
+\r
+"Papa says you never come to see us now," continued Miss Oliver, looking\r
+up. "You are quite a stranger at Vale Hall. He is alone this evening,\r
+and not very well: will you return with me and visit him?"\r
+\r
+"It is not a seasonable hour to intrude on Mr. Oliver," answered St.\r
+John.\r
+\r
+"Not a seasonable hour! But I declare it is. It is just the hour when\r
+papa most wants company: when the works are closed and he has no business\r
+to occupy him. Now, Mr. Rivers, _do_ come. Why are you so very shy, and\r
+so very sombre?" She filled up the hiatus his silence left by a reply of\r
+her own.\r
+\r
+"I forgot!" she exclaimed, shaking her beautiful curled head, as if\r
+shocked at herself. "I am so giddy and thoughtless! _Do_ excuse me. It\r
+had slipped my memory that you have good reasons to be indisposed for\r
+joining in my chatter. Diana and Mary have left you, and Moor House is\r
+shut up, and you are so lonely. I am sure I pity you. Do come and see\r
+papa."\r
+\r
+"Not to-night, Miss Rosamond, not to-night."\r
+\r
+Mr. St. John spoke almost like an automaton: himself only knew the effort\r
+it cost him thus to refuse.\r
+\r
+"Well, if you are so obstinate, I will leave you; for I dare not stay any\r
+longer: the dew begins to fall. Good evening!"\r
+\r
+She held out her hand. He just touched it. "Good evening!" he repeated,\r
+in a voice low and hollow as an echo. She turned, but in a moment\r
+returned.\r
+\r
+"Are you well?" she asked. Well might she put the question: his face was\r
+blanched as her gown.\r
+\r
+"Quite well," he enunciated; and, with a bow, he left the gate. She went\r
+one way; he another. She turned twice to gaze after him as she tripped\r
+fairy-like down the field; he, as he strode firmly across, never turned\r
+at all.\r
+\r
+This spectacle of another's suffering and sacrifice rapt my thoughts from\r
+exclusive meditation on my own. Diana Rivers had designated her brother\r
+"inexorable as death." She had not exaggerated.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII\r
+\r
+\r
+I continued the labours of the village-school as actively and faithfully\r
+as I could. It was truly hard work at first. Some time elapsed before,\r
+with all my efforts, I could comprehend my scholars and their nature.\r
+Wholly untaught, with faculties quite torpid, they seemed to me\r
+hopelessly dull; and, at first sight, all dull alike: but I soon found I\r
+was mistaken. There was a difference amongst them as amongst the\r
+educated; and when I got to know them, and they me, this difference\r
+rapidly developed itself. Their amazement at me, my language, my rules,\r
+and ways, once subsided, I found some of these heavy-looking, gaping\r
+rustics wake up into sharp-witted girls enough. Many showed themselves\r
+obliging, and amiable too; and I discovered amongst them not a few\r
+examples of natural politeness, and innate self-respect, as well as of\r
+excellent capacity, that won both my goodwill and my admiration. These\r
+soon took a pleasure in doing their work well, in keeping their persons\r
+neat, in learning their tasks regularly, in acquiring quiet and orderly\r
+manners. The rapidity of their progress, in some instances, was even\r
+surprising; and an honest and happy pride I took in it: besides, I began\r
+personally to like some of the best girls; and they liked me. I had\r
+amongst my scholars several farmers' daughters: young women grown,\r
+almost. These could already read, write, and sew; and to them I taught\r
+the elements of grammar, geography, history, and the finer kinds of\r
+needlework. I found estimable characters amongst them--characters\r
+desirous of information and disposed for improvement--with whom I passed\r
+many a pleasant evening hour in their own homes. Their parents then (the\r
+farmer and his wife) loaded me with attentions. There was an enjoyment\r
+in accepting their simple kindness, and in repaying it by a\r
+consideration--a scrupulous regard to their feelings--to which they were\r
+not, perhaps, at all times accustomed, and which both charmed and\r
+benefited them; because, while it elevated them in their own eyes, it\r
+made them emulous to merit the deferential treatment they received.\r
+\r
+I felt I became a favourite in the neighbourhood. Whenever I went out, I\r
+heard on all sides cordial salutations, and was welcomed with friendly\r
+smiles. To live amidst general regard, though it be but the regard of\r
+working people, is like "sitting in sunshine, calm and sweet;" serene\r
+inward feelings bud and bloom under the ray. At this period of my life,\r
+my heart far oftener swelled with thankfulness than sank with dejection:\r
+and yet, reader, to tell you all, in the midst of this calm, this useful\r
+existence--after a day passed in honourable exertion amongst my scholars,\r
+an evening spent in drawing or reading contentedly alone--I used to rush\r
+into strange dreams at night: dreams many-coloured, agitated, full of the\r
+ideal, the stirring, the stormy--dreams where, amidst unusual scenes,\r
+charged with adventure, with agitating risk and romantic chance, I still\r
+again and again met Mr. Rochester, always at some exciting crisis; and\r
+then the sense of being in his arms, hearing his voice, meeting his eye,\r
+touching his hand and cheek, loving him, being loved by him--the hope of\r
+passing a lifetime at his side, would be renewed, with all its first\r
+force and fire. Then I awoke. Then I recalled where I was, and how\r
+situated. Then I rose up on my curtainless bed, trembling and quivering;\r
+and then the still, dark night witnessed the convulsion of despair, and\r
+heard the burst of passion. By nine o'clock the next morning I was\r
+punctually opening the school; tranquil, settled, prepared for the steady\r
+duties of the day.\r
+\r
+Rosamond Oliver kept her word in coming to visit me. Her call at the\r
+school was generally made in the course of her morning ride. She would\r
+canter up to the door on her pony, followed by a mounted livery servant.\r
+Anything more exquisite than her appearance, in her purple habit, with\r
+her Amazon's cap of black velvet placed gracefully above the long curls\r
+that kissed her cheek and floated to her shoulders, can scarcely be\r
+imagined: and it was thus she would enter the rustic building, and glide\r
+through the dazzled ranks of the village children. She generally came at\r
+the hour when Mr. Rivers was engaged in giving his daily catechising\r
+lesson. Keenly, I fear, did the eye of the visitress pierce the young\r
+pastor's heart. A sort of instinct seemed to warn him of her entrance,\r
+even when he did not see it; and when he was looking quite away from the\r
+door, if she appeared at it, his cheek would glow, and his marble-seeming\r
+features, though they refused to relax, changed indescribably, and in\r
+their very quiescence became expressive of a repressed fervour, stronger\r
+than working muscle or darting glance could indicate.\r
+\r
+Of course, she knew her power: indeed, he did not, because he could not,\r
+conceal it from her. In spite of his Christian stoicism, when she went\r
+up and addressed him, and smiled gaily, encouragingly, even fondly in his\r
+face, his hand would tremble and his eye burn. He seemed to say, with\r
+his sad and resolute look, if he did not say it with his lips, "I love\r
+you, and I know you prefer me. It is not despair of success that keeps\r
+me dumb. If I offered my heart, I believe you would accept it. But that\r
+heart is already laid on a sacred altar: the fire is arranged round it.\r
+It will soon be no more than a sacrifice consumed."\r
+\r
+And then she would pout like a disappointed child; a pensive cloud would\r
+soften her radiant vivacity; she would withdraw her hand hastily from\r
+his, and turn in transient petulance from his aspect, at once so heroic\r
+and so martyr-like. St. John, no doubt, would have given the world to\r
+follow, recall, retain her, when she thus left him; but he would not give\r
+one chance of heaven, nor relinquish, for the elysium of her love, one\r
+hope of the true, eternal Paradise. Besides, he could not bind all that\r
+he had in his nature--the rover, the aspirant, the poet, the priest--in\r
+the limits of a single passion. He could not--he would not--renounce his\r
+wild field of mission warfare for the parlours and the peace of Vale\r
+Hall. I learnt so much from himself in an inroad I once, despite his\r
+reserve, had the daring to make on his confidence.\r
+\r
+Miss Oliver already honoured me with frequent visits to my cottage. I\r
+had learnt her whole character, which was without mystery or disguise:\r
+she was coquettish but not heartless; exacting, but not worthlessly\r
+selfish. She had been indulged from her birth, but was not absolutely\r
+spoilt. She was hasty, but good-humoured; vain (she could not help it,\r
+when every glance in the glass showed her such a flush of loveliness),\r
+but not affected; liberal-handed; innocent of the pride of wealth;\r
+ingenuous; sufficiently intelligent; gay, lively, and unthinking: she was\r
+very charming, in short, even to a cool observer of her own sex like me;\r
+but she was not profoundly interesting or thoroughly impressive. A very\r
+different sort of mind was hers from that, for instance, of the sisters\r
+of St. John. Still, I liked her almost as I liked my pupil Adele; except\r
+that, for a child whom we have watched over and taught, a closer\r
+affection is engendered than we can give an equally attractive adult\r
+acquaintance.\r
+\r
+She had taken an amiable caprice to me. She said I was like Mr. Rivers,\r
+only, certainly, she allowed, "not one-tenth so handsome, though I was a\r
+nice neat little soul enough, but he was an angel." I was, however,\r
+good, clever, composed, and firm, like him. I was a _lusus naturae_, she\r
+affirmed, as a village schoolmistress: she was sure my previous history,\r
+if known, would make a delightful romance.\r
+\r
+One evening, while, with her usual child-like activity, and thoughtless\r
+yet not offensive inquisitiveness, she was rummaging the cupboard and the\r
+table-drawer of my little kitchen, she discovered first two French books,\r
+a volume of Schiller, a German grammar and dictionary, and then my\r
+drawing-materials and some sketches, including a pencil-head of a pretty\r
+little cherub-like girl, one of my scholars, and sundry views from\r
+nature, taken in the Vale of Morton and on the surrounding moors. She\r
+was first transfixed with surprise, and then electrified with delight.\r
+\r
+"Had I done these pictures? Did I know French and German? What a\r
+love--what a miracle I was! I drew better than her master in the first\r
+school in S-. Would I sketch a portrait of her, to show to papa?"\r
+\r
+"With pleasure," I replied; and I felt a thrill of artist-delight at the\r
+idea of copying from so perfect and radiant a model. She had then on a\r
+dark-blue silk dress; her arms and her neck were bare; her only ornament\r
+was her chestnut tresses, which waved over her shoulders with all the\r
+wild grace of natural curls. I took a sheet of fine card-board, and drew\r
+a careful outline. I promised myself the pleasure of colouring it; and,\r
+as it was getting late then, I told her she must come and sit another\r
+day.\r
+\r
+She made such a report of me to her father, that Mr. Oliver himself\r
+accompanied her next evening--a tall, massive-featured, middle-aged, and\r
+grey-headed man, at whose side his lovely daughter looked like a bright\r
+flower near a hoary turret. He appeared a taciturn, and perhaps a proud\r
+personage; but he was very kind to me. The sketch of Rosamond's portrait\r
+pleased him highly: he said I must make a finished picture of it. He\r
+insisted, too, on my coming the next day to spend the evening at Vale\r
+Hall.\r
+\r
+I went. I found it a large, handsome residence, showing abundant\r
+evidences of wealth in the proprietor. Rosamond was full of glee and\r
+pleasure all the time I stayed. Her father was affable; and when he\r
+entered into conversation with me after tea, he expressed in strong terms\r
+his approbation of what I had done in Morton school, and said he only\r
+feared, from what he saw and heard, I was too good for the place, and\r
+would soon quit it for one more suitable.\r
+\r
+"Indeed," cried Rosamond, "she is clever enough to be a governess in a\r
+high family, papa."\r
+\r
+I thought I would far rather be where I am than in any high family in the\r
+land. Mr. Oliver spoke of Mr. Rivers--of the Rivers family--with great\r
+respect. He said it was a very old name in that neighbourhood; that the\r
+ancestors of the house were wealthy; that all Morton had once belonged to\r
+them; that even now he considered the representative of that house might,\r
+if he liked, make an alliance with the best. He accounted it a pity that\r
+so fine and talented a young man should have formed the design of going\r
+out as a missionary; it was quite throwing a valuable life away. It\r
+appeared, then, that her father would throw no obstacle in the way of\r
+Rosamond's union with St. John. Mr. Oliver evidently regarded the young\r
+clergyman's good birth, old name, and sacred profession as sufficient\r
+compensation for the want of fortune.\r
+\r
+It was the 5th of November, and a holiday. My little servant, after\r
+helping me to clean my house, was gone, well satisfied with the fee of a\r
+penny for her aid. All about me was spotless and bright--scoured floor,\r
+polished grate, and well-rubbed chairs. I had also made myself neat, and\r
+had now the afternoon before me to spend as I would.\r
+\r
+The translation of a few pages of German occupied an hour; then I got my\r
+palette and pencils, and fell to the more soothing, because easier\r
+occupation, of completing Rosamond Oliver's miniature. The head was\r
+finished already: there was but the background to tint and the drapery to\r
+shade off; a touch of carmine, too, to add to the ripe lips--a soft curl\r
+here and there to the tresses--a deeper tinge to the shadow of the lash\r
+under the azured eyelid. I was absorbed in the execution of these nice\r
+details, when, after one rapid tap, my door unclosed, admitting St. John\r
+Rivers.\r
+\r
+"I am come to see how you are spending your holiday," he said. "Not, I\r
+hope, in thought? No, that is well: while you draw you will not feel\r
+lonely. You see, I mistrust you still, though you have borne up\r
+wonderfully so far. I have brought you a book for evening solace," and\r
+he laid on the table a new publication--a poem: one of those genuine\r
+productions so often vouchsafed to the fortunate public of those days--the\r
+golden age of modern literature. Alas! the readers of our era are less\r
+favoured. But courage! I will not pause either to accuse or repine. I\r
+know poetry is not dead, nor genius lost; nor has Mammon gained power\r
+over either, to bind or slay: they will both assert their existence,\r
+their presence, their liberty and strength again one day. Powerful\r
+angels, safe in heaven! they smile when sordid souls triumph, and feeble\r
+ones weep over their destruction. Poetry destroyed? Genius banished?\r
+No! Mediocrity, no: do not let envy prompt you to the thought. No; they\r
+not only live, but reign and redeem: and without their divine influence\r
+spread everywhere, you would be in hell--the hell of your own meanness.\r
+\r
+While I was eagerly glancing at the bright pages of "Marmion" (for\r
+"Marmion" it was), St. John stooped to examine my drawing. His tall\r
+figure sprang erect again with a start: he said nothing. I looked up at\r
+him: he shunned my eye. I knew his thoughts well, and could read his\r
+heart plainly; at the moment I felt calmer and cooler than he: I had then\r
+temporarily the advantage of him, and I conceived an inclination to do\r
+him some good, if I could.\r
+\r
+"With all his firmness and self-control," thought I, "he tasks himself\r
+too far: locks every feeling and pang within--expresses, confesses,\r
+imparts nothing. I am sure it would benefit him to talk a little about\r
+this sweet Rosamond, whom he thinks he ought not to marry: I will make\r
+him talk."\r
+\r
+I said first, "Take a chair, Mr. Rivers." But he answered, as he always\r
+did, that he could not stay. "Very well," I responded, mentally, "stand\r
+if you like; but you shall not go just yet, I am determined: solitude is\r
+at least as bad for you as it is for me. I'll try if I cannot discover\r
+the secret spring of your confidence, and find an aperture in that marble\r
+breast through which I can shed one drop of the balm of sympathy."\r
+\r
+"Is this portrait like?" I asked bluntly.\r
+\r
+"Like! Like whom? I did not observe it closely."\r
+\r
+"You did, Mr. Rivers."\r
+\r
+He almost started at my sudden and strange abruptness: he looked at me\r
+astonished. "Oh, that is nothing yet," I muttered within. "I don't mean\r
+to be baffled by a little stiffness on your part; I'm prepared to go to\r
+considerable lengths." I continued, "You observed it closely and\r
+distinctly; but I have no objection to your looking at it again," and I\r
+rose and placed it in his hand.\r
+\r
+"A well-executed picture," he said; "very soft, clear colouring; very\r
+graceful and correct drawing."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes; I know all that. But what of the resemblance? Who is it\r
+like?"\r
+\r
+Mastering some hesitation, he answered, "Miss Oliver, I presume."\r
+\r
+"Of course. And now, sir, to reward you for the accurate guess, I will\r
+promise to paint you a careful and faithful duplicate of this very\r
+picture, provided you admit that the gift would be acceptable to you. I\r
+don't wish to throw away my time and trouble on an offering you would\r
+deem worthless."\r
+\r
+He continued to gaze at the picture: the longer he looked, the firmer he\r
+held it, the more he seemed to covet it. "It is like!" he murmured; "the\r
+eye is well managed: the colour, light, expression, are perfect. It\r
+smiles!"\r
+\r
+"Would it comfort, or would it wound you to have a similar painting? Tell\r
+me that. When you are at Madagascar, or at the Cape, or in India, would\r
+it be a consolation to have that memento in your possession? or would the\r
+sight of it bring recollections calculated to enervate and distress?"\r
+\r
+He now furtively raised his eyes: he glanced at me, irresolute,\r
+disturbed: he again surveyed the picture.\r
+\r
+"That I should like to have it is certain: whether it would be judicious\r
+or wise is another question."\r
+\r
+Since I had ascertained that Rosamond really preferred him, and that her\r
+father was not likely to oppose the match, I--less exalted in my views\r
+than St. John--had been strongly disposed in my own heart to advocate\r
+their union. It seemed to me that, should he become the possessor of Mr.\r
+Oliver's large fortune, he might do as much good with it as if he went\r
+and laid his genius out to wither, and his strength to waste, under a\r
+tropical sun. With this persuasion I now answered--\r
+\r
+"As far as I can see, it would be wiser and more judicious if you were to\r
+take to yourself the original at once."\r
+\r
+By this time he had sat down: he had laid the picture on the table before\r
+him, and with his brow supported on both hands, hung fondly over it. I\r
+discerned he was now neither angry nor shocked at my audacity. I saw\r
+even that to be thus frankly addressed on a subject he had deemed\r
+unapproachable--to hear it thus freely handled--was beginning to be felt\r
+by him as a new pleasure--an unhoped-for relief. Reserved people often\r
+really need the frank discussion of their sentiments and griefs more than\r
+the expansive. The sternest-seeming stoic is human after all; and to\r
+"burst" with boldness and good-will into "the silent sea" of their souls\r
+is often to confer on them the first of obligations.\r
+\r
+"She likes you, I am sure," said I, as I stood behind his chair, "and her\r
+father respects you. Moreover, she is a sweet girl--rather thoughtless;\r
+but you would have sufficient thought for both yourself and her. You\r
+ought to marry her."\r
+\r
+"_Does_ she like me?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Certainly; better than she likes any one else. She talks of you\r
+continually: there is no subject she enjoys so much or touches upon so\r
+often."\r
+\r
+"It is very pleasant to hear this," he said--"very: go on for another\r
+quarter of an hour." And he actually took out his watch and laid it upon\r
+the table to measure the time.\r
+\r
+"But where is the use of going on," I asked, "when you are probably\r
+preparing some iron blow of contradiction, or forging a fresh chain to\r
+fetter your heart?"\r
+\r
+"Don't imagine such hard things. Fancy me yielding and melting, as I am\r
+doing: human love rising like a freshly opened fountain in my mind and\r
+overflowing with sweet inundation all the field I have so carefully and\r
+with such labour prepared--so assiduously sown with the seeds of good\r
+intentions, of self-denying plans. And now it is deluged with a\r
+nectarous flood--the young germs swamped--delicious poison cankering\r
+them: now I see myself stretched on an ottoman in the drawing-room at\r
+Vale Hall at my bride Rosamond Oliver's feet: she is talking to me with\r
+her sweet voice--gazing down on me with those eyes your skilful hand has\r
+copied so well--smiling at me with these coral lips. She is mine--I am\r
+hers--this present life and passing world suffice to me. Hush! say\r
+nothing--my heart is full of delight--my senses are entranced--let the\r
+time I marked pass in peace."\r
+\r
+I humoured him: the watch ticked on: he breathed fast and low: I stood\r
+silent. Amidst this hush the quartet sped; he replaced the watch, laid\r
+the picture down, rose, and stood on the hearth.\r
+\r
+"Now," said he, "that little space was given to delirium and delusion. I\r
+rested my temples on the breast of temptation, and put my neck\r
+voluntarily under her yoke of flowers. I tasted her cup. The pillow was\r
+burning: there is an asp in the garland: the wine has a bitter taste: her\r
+promises are hollow--her offers false: I see and know all this."\r
+\r
+I gazed at him in wonder.\r
+\r
+"It is strange," pursued he, "that while I love Rosamond Oliver so\r
+wildly--with all the intensity, indeed, of a first passion, the object of\r
+which is exquisitely beautiful, graceful, fascinating--I experience at\r
+the same time a calm, unwarped consciousness that she would not make me a\r
+good wife; that she is not the partner suited to me; that I should\r
+discover this within a year after marriage; and that to twelve months'\r
+rapture would succeed a lifetime of regret. This I know."\r
+\r
+"Strange indeed!" I could not help ejaculating.\r
+\r
+"While something in me," he went on, "is acutely sensible to her charms,\r
+something else is as deeply impressed with her defects: they are such\r
+that she could sympathise in nothing I aspired to--co-operate in nothing\r
+I undertook. Rosamond a sufferer, a labourer, a female apostle? Rosamond\r
+a missionary's wife? No!"\r
+\r
+"But you need not be a missionary. You might relinquish that scheme."\r
+\r
+"Relinquish! What! my vocation? My great work? My foundation laid on\r
+earth for a mansion in heaven? My hopes of being numbered in the band\r
+who have merged all ambitions in the glorious one of bettering their\r
+race--of carrying knowledge into the realms of ignorance--of substituting\r
+peace for war--freedom for bondage--religion for superstition--the hope\r
+of heaven for the fear of hell? Must I relinquish that? It is dearer\r
+than the blood in my veins. It is what I have to look forward to, and to\r
+live for."\r
+\r
+After a considerable pause, I said--"And Miss Oliver? Are her\r
+disappointment and sorrow of no interest to you?"\r
+\r
+"Miss Oliver is ever surrounded by suitors and flatterers: in less than a\r
+month, my image will be effaced from her heart. She will forget me; and\r
+will marry, probably, some one who will make her far happier than I\r
+should do."\r
+\r
+"You speak coolly enough; but you suffer in the conflict. You are\r
+wasting away."\r
+\r
+"No. If I get a little thin, it is with anxiety about my prospects, yet\r
+unsettled--my departure, continually procrastinated. Only this morning,\r
+I received intelligence that the successor, whose arrival I have been so\r
+long expecting, cannot be ready to replace me for three months to come\r
+yet; and perhaps the three months may extend to six."\r
+\r
+"You tremble and become flushed whenever Miss Oliver enters the\r
+schoolroom."\r
+\r
+Again the surprised expression crossed his face. He had not imagined\r
+that a woman would dare to speak so to a man. For me, I felt at home in\r
+this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong,\r
+discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed\r
+the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of\r
+confidence, and won a place by their heart's very hearthstone.\r
+\r
+"You are original," said he, "and not timid. There is something brave in\r
+your spirit, as well as penetrating in your eye; but allow me to assure\r
+you that you partially misinterpret my emotions. You think them more\r
+profound and potent than they are. You give me a larger allowance of\r
+sympathy than I have a just claim to. When I colour, and when I shade\r
+before Miss Oliver, I do not pity myself. I scorn the weakness. I know\r
+it is ignoble: a mere fever of the flesh: not, I declare, the convulsion\r
+of the soul. _That_ is just as fixed as a rock, firm set in the depths\r
+of a restless sea. Know me to be what I am--a cold hard man."\r
+\r
+I smiled incredulously.\r
+\r
+"You have taken my confidence by storm," he continued, "and now it is\r
+much at your service. I am simply, in my original state--stripped of\r
+that blood-bleached robe with which Christianity covers human deformity--a\r
+cold, hard, ambitious man. Natural affection only, of all the\r
+sentiments, has permanent power over me. Reason, and not feeling, is my\r
+guide; my ambition is unlimited: my desire to rise higher, to do more\r
+than others, insatiable. I honour endurance, perseverance, industry,\r
+talent; because these are the means by which men achieve great ends and\r
+mount to lofty eminence. I watch your career with interest, because I\r
+consider you a specimen of a diligent, orderly, energetic woman: not\r
+because I deeply compassionate what you have gone through, or what you\r
+still suffer."\r
+\r
+"You would describe yourself as a mere pagan philosopher," I said.\r
+\r
+"No. There is this difference between me and deistic philosophers: I\r
+believe; and I believe the Gospel. You missed your epithet. I am not a\r
+pagan, but a Christian philosopher--a follower of the sect of Jesus. As\r
+His disciple I adopt His pure, His merciful, His benignant doctrines. I\r
+advocate them: I am sworn to spread them. Won in youth to religion, she\r
+has cultivated my original qualities thus:--From the minute germ, natural\r
+affection, she has developed the overshadowing tree, philanthropy. From\r
+the wild stringy root of human uprightness, she has reared a due sense of\r
+the Divine justice. Of the ambition to win power and renown for my\r
+wretched self, she has formed the ambition to spread my Master's kingdom;\r
+to achieve victories for the standard of the cross. So much has religion\r
+done for me; turning the original materials to the best account; pruning\r
+and training nature. But she could not eradicate nature: nor will it be\r
+eradicated 'till this mortal shall put on immortality.'"\r
+\r
+Having said this, he took his hat, which lay on the table beside my\r
+palette. Once more he looked at the portrait.\r
+\r
+"She _is_ lovely," he murmured. "She is well named the Rose of the\r
+World, indeed!"\r
+\r
+"And may I not paint one like it for you?"\r
+\r
+"_Cui bono_? No."\r
+\r
+He drew over the picture the sheet of thin paper on which I was\r
+accustomed to rest my hand in painting, to prevent the cardboard from\r
+being sullied. What he suddenly saw on this blank paper, it was\r
+impossible for me to tell; but something had caught his eye. He took it\r
+up with a snatch; he looked at the edge; then shot a glance at me,\r
+inexpressibly peculiar, and quite incomprehensible: a glance that seemed\r
+to take and make note of every point in my shape, face, and dress; for it\r
+traversed all, quick, keen as lightning. His lips parted, as if to\r
+speak: but he checked the coming sentence, whatever it was.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Nothing in the world," was the reply; and, replacing the paper, I saw\r
+him dexterously tear a narrow slip from the margin. It disappeared in\r
+his glove; and, with one hasty nod and "good-afternoon," he vanished.\r
+\r
+"Well!" I exclaimed, using an expression of the district, "that caps the\r
+globe, however!"\r
+\r
+I, in my turn, scrutinised the paper; but saw nothing on it save a few\r
+dingy stains of paint where I had tried the tint in my pencil. I\r
+pondered the mystery a minute or two; but finding it insolvable, and\r
+being certain it could not be of much moment, I dismissed, and soon\r
+forgot it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+\r
+When Mr. St. John went, it was beginning to snow; the whirling storm\r
+continued all night. The next day a keen wind brought fresh and blinding\r
+falls; by twilight the valley was drifted up and almost impassable. I\r
+had closed my shutter, laid a mat to the door to prevent the snow from\r
+blowing in under it, trimmed my fire, and after sitting nearly an hour on\r
+the hearth listening to the muffled fury of the tempest, I lit a candle,\r
+took down "Marmion," and beginning--\r
+\r
+ "Day set on Norham's castled steep,\r
+ And Tweed's fair river broad and deep,\r
+ And Cheviot's mountains lone;\r
+ The massive towers, the donjon keep,\r
+ The flanking walls that round them sweep,\r
+ In yellow lustre shone"--\r
+\r
+I soon forgot storm in music.\r
+\r
+I heard a noise: the wind, I thought, shook the door. No; it was St.\r
+John Rivers, who, lifting the latch, came in out of the frozen\r
+hurricane--the howling darkness--and stood before me: the cloak that\r
+covered his tall figure all white as a glacier. I was almost in\r
+consternation, so little had I expected any guest from the blocked-up\r
+vale that night.\r
+\r
+"Any ill news?" I demanded. "Has anything happened?"\r
+\r
+"No. How very easily alarmed you are!" he answered, removing his cloak\r
+and hanging it up against the door, towards which he again coolly pushed\r
+the mat which his entrance had deranged. He stamped the snow from his\r
+boots.\r
+\r
+"I shall sully the purity of your floor," said he, "but you must excuse\r
+me for once." Then he approached the fire. "I have had hard work to get\r
+here, I assure you," he observed, as he warmed his hands over the flame.\r
+"One drift took me up to the waist; happily the snow is quite soft yet."\r
+\r
+"But why are you come?" I could not forbear saying.\r
+\r
+"Rather an inhospitable question to put to a visitor; but since you ask\r
+it, I answer simply to have a little talk with you; I got tired of my\r
+mute books and empty rooms. Besides, since yesterday I have experienced\r
+the excitement of a person to whom a tale has been half-told, and who is\r
+impatient to hear the sequel."\r
+\r
+He sat down. I recalled his singular conduct of yesterday, and really I\r
+began to fear his wits were touched. If he were insane, however, his was\r
+a very cool and collected insanity: I had never seen that\r
+handsome-featured face of his look more like chiselled marble than it did\r
+just now, as he put aside his snow-wet hair from his forehead and let the\r
+firelight shine free on his pale brow and cheek as pale, where it grieved\r
+me to discover the hollow trace of care or sorrow now so plainly graved.\r
+I waited, expecting he would say something I could at least comprehend;\r
+but his hand was now at his chin, his finger on his lip: he was thinking.\r
+It struck me that his hand looked wasted like his face. A perhaps\r
+uncalled-for gush of pity came over my heart: I was moved to say--\r
+\r
+"I wish Diana or Mary would come and live with you: it is too bad that\r
+you should be quite alone; and you are recklessly rash about your own\r
+health."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said he: "I care for myself when necessary. I am well now.\r
+What do you see amiss in me?"\r
+\r
+This was said with a careless, abstracted indifference, which showed that\r
+my solicitude was, at least in his opinion, wholly superfluous. I was\r
+silenced.\r
+\r
+He still slowly moved his finger over his upper lip, and still his eye\r
+dwelt dreamily on the glowing grate; thinking it urgent to say something,\r
+I asked him presently if he felt any cold draught from the door, which\r
+was behind him.\r
+\r
+"No, no!" he responded shortly and somewhat testily.\r
+\r
+"Well," I reflected, "if you won't talk, you may be still; I'll let you\r
+alone now, and return to my book."\r
+\r
+So I snuffed the candle and resumed the perusal of "Marmion." He soon\r
+stirred; my eye was instantly drawn to his movements; he only took out a\r
+morocco pocket-book, thence produced a letter, which he read in silence,\r
+folded it, put it back, relapsed into meditation. It was vain to try to\r
+read with such an inscrutable fixture before me; nor could I, in\r
+impatience, consent to be dumb; he might rebuff me if he liked, but talk\r
+I would.\r
+\r
+"Have you heard from Diana and Mary lately?"\r
+\r
+"Not since the letter I showed you a week ago."\r
+\r
+"There has not been any change made about your own arrangements? You\r
+will not be summoned to leave England sooner than you expected?"\r
+\r
+"I fear not, indeed: such chance is too good to befall me." Baffled so\r
+far, I changed my ground. I bethought myself to talk about the school\r
+and my scholars.\r
+\r
+"Mary Garrett's mother is better, and Mary came back to the school this\r
+morning, and I shall have four new girls next week from the Foundry\r
+Close--they would have come to-day but for the snow."\r
+\r
+"Indeed!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Oliver pays for two."\r
+\r
+"Does he?"\r
+\r
+"He means to give the whole school a treat at Christmas."\r
+\r
+"I know."\r
+\r
+"Was it your suggestion?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Whose, then?"\r
+\r
+"His daughter's, I think."\r
+\r
+"It is like her: she is so good-natured."\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+Again came the blank of a pause: the clock struck eight strokes. It\r
+aroused him; he uncrossed his legs, sat erect, turned to me.\r
+\r
+"Leave your book a moment, and come a little nearer the fire," he said.\r
+\r
+Wondering, and of my wonder finding no end, I complied.\r
+\r
+"Half-an-hour ago," he pursued, "I spoke of my impatience to hear the\r
+sequel of a tale: on reflection, I find the matter will be better managed\r
+by my assuming the narrator's part, and converting you into a listener.\r
+Before commencing, it is but fair to warn you that the story will sound\r
+somewhat hackneyed in your ears; but stale details often regain a degree\r
+of freshness when they pass through new lips. For the rest, whether\r
+trite or novel, it is short.\r
+\r
+"Twenty years ago, a poor curate--never mind his name at this moment--fell\r
+in love with a rich man's daughter; she fell in love with him, and\r
+married him, against the advice of all her friends, who consequently\r
+disowned her immediately after the wedding. Before two years passed, the\r
+rash pair were both dead, and laid quietly side by side under one slab.\r
+(I have seen their grave; it formed part of the pavement of a huge\r
+churchyard surrounding the grim, soot-black old cathedral of an overgrown\r
+manufacturing town in ---shire.) They left a daughter, which, at its\r
+very birth, Charity received in her lap--cold as that of the snow-drift I\r
+almost stuck fast in to-night. Charity carried the friendless thing to\r
+the house of its rich maternal relations; it was reared by an aunt-in-\r
+law, called (I come to names now) Mrs. Reed of Gateshead. You start--did\r
+you hear a noise? I daresay it is only a rat scrambling along the\r
+rafters of the adjoining schoolroom: it was a barn before I had it\r
+repaired and altered, and barns are generally haunted by rats.--To\r
+proceed. Mrs. Reed kept the orphan ten years: whether it was happy or\r
+not with her, I cannot say, never having been told; but at the end of\r
+that time she transferred it to a place you know--being no other than\r
+Lowood School, where you so long resided yourself. It seems her career\r
+there was very honourable: from a pupil, she became a teacher, like\r
+yourself--really it strikes me there are parallel points in her history\r
+and yours--she left it to be a governess: there, again, your fates were\r
+analogous; she undertook the education of the ward of a certain Mr.\r
+Rochester."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rivers!" I interrupted.\r
+\r
+"I can guess your feelings," he said, "but restrain them for a while: I\r
+have nearly finished; hear me to the end. Of Mr. Rochester's character I\r
+know nothing, but the one fact that he professed to offer honourable\r
+marriage to this young girl, and that at the very altar she discovered he\r
+had a wife yet alive, though a lunatic. What his subsequent conduct and\r
+proposals were is a matter of pure conjecture; but when an event\r
+transpired which rendered inquiry after the governess necessary, it was\r
+discovered she was gone--no one could tell when, where, or how. She had\r
+left Thornfield Hall in the night; every research after her course had\r
+been vain: the country had been scoured far and wide; no vestige of\r
+information could be gathered respecting her. Yet that she should be\r
+found is become a matter of serious urgency: advertisements have been put\r
+in all the papers; I myself have received a letter from one Mr. Briggs, a\r
+solicitor, communicating the details I have just imparted. Is it not an\r
+odd tale?"\r
+\r
+"Just tell me this," said I, "and since you know so much, you surely can\r
+tell it me--what of Mr. Rochester? How and where is he? What is he\r
+doing? Is he well?"\r
+\r
+"I am ignorant of all concerning Mr. Rochester: the letter never mentions\r
+him but to narrate the fraudulent and illegal attempt I have adverted to.\r
+You should rather ask the name of the governess--the nature of the event\r
+which requires her appearance."\r
+\r
+"Did no one go to Thornfield Hall, then? Did no one see Mr. Rochester?"\r
+\r
+"I suppose not."\r
+\r
+"But they wrote to him?"\r
+\r
+"Of course."\r
+\r
+"And what did he say? Who has his letters?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Briggs intimates that the answer to his application was not from Mr.\r
+Rochester, but from a lady: it is signed 'Alice Fairfax.'"\r
+\r
+I felt cold and dismayed: my worst fears then were probably true: he had\r
+in all probability left England and rushed in reckless desperation to\r
+some former haunt on the Continent. And what opiate for his severe\r
+sufferings--what object for his strong passions--had he sought there? I\r
+dared not answer the question. Oh, my poor master--once almost my\r
+husband--whom I had often called "my dear Edward!"\r
+\r
+"He must have been a bad man," observed Mr. Rivers.\r
+\r
+"You don't know him--don't pronounce an opinion upon him," I said, with\r
+warmth.\r
+\r
+"Very well," he answered quietly: "and indeed my head is otherwise\r
+occupied than with him: I have my tale to finish. Since you won't ask\r
+the governess's name, I must tell it of my own accord. Stay! I have it\r
+here--it is always more satisfactory to see important points written\r
+down, fairly committed to black and white."\r
+\r
+And the pocket-book was again deliberately produced, opened, sought\r
+through; from one of its compartments was extracted a shabby slip of\r
+paper, hastily torn off: I recognised in its texture and its stains of\r
+ultra-marine, and lake, and vermillion, the ravished margin of the\r
+portrait-cover. He got up, held it close to my eyes: and I read, traced\r
+in Indian ink, in my own handwriting, the words "JANE EYRE"--the work\r
+doubtless of some moment of abstraction.\r
+\r
+"Briggs wrote to me of a Jane Eyre:" he said, "the advertisements\r
+demanded a Jane Eyre: I knew a Jane Elliott.--I confess I had my\r
+suspicions, but it was only yesterday afternoon they were at once\r
+resolved into certainty. You own the name and renounce the _alias_?"\r
+\r
+"Yes--yes; but where is Mr. Briggs? He perhaps knows more of Mr.\r
+Rochester than you do."\r
+\r
+"Briggs is in London. I should doubt his knowing anything at all about\r
+Mr. Rochester; it is not in Mr. Rochester he is interested. Meantime,\r
+you forget essential points in pursuing trifles: you do not inquire why\r
+Mr. Briggs sought after you--what he wanted with you."\r
+\r
+"Well, what did he want?"\r
+\r
+"Merely to tell you that your uncle, Mr. Eyre of Madeira, is dead; that\r
+he has left you all his property, and that you are now rich--merely\r
+that--nothing more."\r
+\r
+"I!--rich?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, you, rich--quite an heiress."\r
+\r
+Silence succeeded.\r
+\r
+"You must prove your identity of course," resumed St. John presently: "a\r
+step which will offer no difficulties; you can then enter on immediate\r
+possession. Your fortune is vested in the English funds; Briggs has the\r
+will and the necessary documents."\r
+\r
+Here was a new card turned up! It is a fine thing, reader, to be lifted\r
+in a moment from indigence to wealth--a very fine thing; but not a matter\r
+one can comprehend, or consequently enjoy, all at once. And then there\r
+are other chances in life far more thrilling and rapture-giving: _this_\r
+is solid, an affair of the actual world, nothing ideal about it: all its\r
+associations are solid and sober, and its manifestations are the same.\r
+One does not jump, and spring, and shout hurrah! at hearing one has got a\r
+fortune; one begins to consider responsibilities, and to ponder business;\r
+on a base of steady satisfaction rise certain grave cares, and we contain\r
+ourselves, and brood over our bliss with a solemn brow.\r
+\r
+Besides, the words Legacy, Bequest, go side by side with the words,\r
+Death, Funeral. My uncle I had heard was dead--my only relative; ever\r
+since being made aware of his existence, I had cherished the hope of one\r
+day seeing him: now, I never should. And then this money came only to\r
+me: not to me and a rejoicing family, but to my isolated self. It was a\r
+grand boon doubtless; and independence would be glorious--yes, I felt\r
+that--that thought swelled my heart.\r
+\r
+"You unbend your forehead at last," said Mr. Rivers. "I thought Medusa\r
+had looked at you, and that you were turning to stone. Perhaps now you\r
+will ask how much you are worth?"\r
+\r
+"How much am I worth?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, a trifle! Nothing of course to speak of--twenty thousand pounds, I\r
+think they say--but what is that?"\r
+\r
+"Twenty thousand pounds?"\r
+\r
+Here was a new stunner--I had been calculating on four or five thousand.\r
+This news actually took my breath for a moment: Mr. St. John, whom I had\r
+never heard laugh before, laughed now.\r
+\r
+"Well," said he, "if you had committed a murder, and I had told you your\r
+crime was discovered, you could scarcely look more aghast."\r
+\r
+"It is a large sum--don't you think there is a mistake?"\r
+\r
+"No mistake at all."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you have read the figures wrong--it may be two thousand!"\r
+\r
+"It is written in letters, not figures,--twenty thousand."\r
+\r
+I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical\r
+powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for\r
+a hundred. Mr. Rivers rose now and put his cloak on.\r
+\r
+"If it were not such a very wild night," he said, "I would send Hannah\r
+down to keep you company: you look too desperately miserable to be left\r
+alone. But Hannah, poor woman! could not stride the drifts so well as I:\r
+her legs are not quite so long: so I must e'en leave you to your sorrows.\r
+Good-night."\r
+\r
+He was lifting the latch: a sudden thought occurred to me. "Stop one\r
+minute!" I cried.\r
+\r
+"Well?"\r
+\r
+"It puzzles me to know why Mr. Briggs wrote to you about me; or how he\r
+knew you, or could fancy that you, living in such an out-of-the-way\r
+place, had the power to aid in my discovery."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I am a clergyman," he said; "and the clergy are often appealed to\r
+about odd matters." Again the latch rattled.\r
+\r
+"No; that does not satisfy me!" I exclaimed: and indeed there was\r
+something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which, instead of\r
+allaying, piqued my curiosity more than ever.\r
+\r
+"It is a very strange piece of business," I added; "I must know more\r
+about it."\r
+\r
+"Another time."\r
+\r
+"No; to-night!--to-night!" and as he turned from the door, I placed\r
+myself between it and him. He looked rather embarrassed.\r
+\r
+"You certainly shall not go till you have told me all," I said.\r
+\r
+"I would rather not just now."\r
+\r
+"You shall!--you must!"\r
+\r
+"I would rather Diana or Mary informed you."\r
+\r
+Of course these objections wrought my eagerness to a climax: gratified it\r
+must be, and that without delay; and I told him so.\r
+\r
+"But I apprised you that I was a hard man," said he, "difficult to\r
+persuade."\r
+\r
+"And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off."\r
+\r
+{And I am a hard woman,--impossible to put off: p369.jpg}\r
+\r
+"And then," he pursued, "I am cold: no fervour infects me."\r
+\r
+"Whereas I am hot, and fire dissolves ice. The blaze there has thawed\r
+all the snow from your cloak; by the same token, it has streamed on to my\r
+floor, and made it like a trampled street. As you hope ever to be\r
+forgiven, Mr. Rivers, the high crime and misdemeanour of spoiling a\r
+sanded kitchen, tell me what I wish to know."\r
+\r
+"Well, then," he said, "I yield; if not to your earnestness, to your\r
+perseverance: as stone is worn by continual dropping. Besides, you must\r
+know some day,--as well now as later. Your name is Jane Eyre?"\r
+\r
+"Of course: that was all settled before."\r
+\r
+"You are not, perhaps, aware that I am your namesake?--that I was\r
+christened St. John Eyre Rivers?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed! I remember now seeing the letter E. comprised in your\r
+initials written in books you have at different times lent me; but I\r
+never asked for what name it stood. But what then? Surely--"\r
+\r
+I stopped: I could not trust myself to entertain, much less to express,\r
+the thought that rushed upon me--that embodied itself,--that, in a\r
+second, stood out a strong, solid probability. Circumstances knit\r
+themselves, fitted themselves, shot into order: the chain that had been\r
+lying hitherto a formless lump of links was drawn out straight,--every\r
+ring was perfect, the connection complete. I knew, by instinct, how the\r
+matter stood, before St. John had said another word; but I cannot expect\r
+the reader to have the same intuitive perception, so I must repeat his\r
+explanation.\r
+\r
+"My mother's name was Eyre; she had two brothers; one a clergyman, who\r
+married Miss Jane Reed, of Gateshead; the other, John Eyre, Esq.,\r
+merchant, late of Funchal, Madeira. Mr. Briggs, being Mr. Eyre's\r
+solicitor, wrote to us last August to inform us of our uncle's death, and\r
+to say that he had left his property to his brother the clergyman's\r
+orphan daughter, overlooking us, in consequence of a quarrel, never\r
+forgiven, between him and my father. He wrote again a few weeks since,\r
+to intimate that the heiress was lost, and asking if we knew anything of\r
+her. A name casually written on a slip of paper has enabled me to find\r
+her out. You know the rest." Again he was going, but I set my back\r
+against the door.\r
+\r
+"Do let me speak," I said; "let me have one moment to draw breath and\r
+reflect." I paused--he stood before me, hat in hand, looking composed\r
+enough. I resumed--\r
+\r
+"Your mother was my father's sister?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"My aunt, consequently?"\r
+\r
+He bowed.\r
+\r
+"My uncle John was your uncle John? You, Diana, and Mary are his\r
+sister's children, as I am his brother's child?"\r
+\r
+"Undeniably."\r
+\r
+"You three, then, are my cousins; half our blood on each side flows from\r
+the same source?"\r
+\r
+"We are cousins; yes."\r
+\r
+I surveyed him. It seemed I had found a brother: one I could be proud\r
+of,--one I could love; and two sisters, whose qualities were such, that,\r
+when I knew them but as mere strangers, they had inspired me with genuine\r
+affection and admiration. The two girls, on whom, kneeling down on the\r
+wet ground, and looking through the low, latticed window of Moor House\r
+kitchen, I had gazed with so bitter a mixture of interest and despair,\r
+were my near kinswomen; and the young and stately gentleman who had found\r
+me almost dying at his threshold was my blood relation. Glorious\r
+discovery to a lonely wretch! This was wealth indeed!--wealth to the\r
+heart!--a mine of pure, genial affections. This was a blessing, bright,\r
+vivid, and exhilarating;--not like the ponderous gift of gold: rich and\r
+welcome enough in its way, but sobering from its weight. I now clapped\r
+my hands in sudden joy--my pulse bounded, my veins thrilled.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I am glad!--I am glad!" I exclaimed.\r
+\r
+St. John smiled. "Did I not say you neglected essential points to pursue\r
+trifles?" he asked. "You were serious when I told you you had got a\r
+fortune; and now, for a matter of no moment, you are excited."\r
+\r
+"What can you mean? It may be of no moment to you; you have sisters and\r
+don't care for a cousin; but I had nobody; and now three relations,--or\r
+two, if you don't choose to be counted,--are born into my world\r
+full-grown. I say again, I am glad!"\r
+\r
+I walked fast through the room: I stopped, half suffocated with the\r
+thoughts that rose faster than I could receive, comprehend, settle\r
+them:--thoughts of what might, could, would, and should be, and that ere\r
+long. I looked at the blank wall: it seemed a sky thick with ascending\r
+stars,--every one lit me to a purpose or delight. Those who had saved my\r
+life, whom, till this hour, I had loved barrenly, I could now benefit.\r
+They were under a yoke,--I could free them: they were scattered,--I could\r
+reunite them: the independence, the affluence which was mine, might be\r
+theirs too. Were we not four? Twenty thousand pounds shared equally\r
+would be five thousand each, justice--enough and to spare: justice would\r
+be done,--mutual happiness secured. Now the wealth did not weigh on me:\r
+now it was not a mere bequest of coin,--it was a legacy of life, hope,\r
+enjoyment.\r
+\r
+How I looked while these ideas were taking my spirit by storm, I cannot\r
+tell; but I perceived soon that Mr. Rivers had placed a chair behind me,\r
+and was gently attempting to make me sit down on it. He also advised me\r
+to be composed; I scorned the insinuation of helplessness and\r
+distraction, shook off his hand, and began to walk about again.\r
+\r
+"Write to Diana and Mary to-morrow," I said, "and tell them to come home\r
+directly. Diana said they would both consider themselves rich with a\r
+thousand pounds, so with five thousand they will do very well."\r
+\r
+"Tell me where I can get you a glass of water," said St. John; "you must\r
+really make an effort to tranquillise your feelings."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! and what sort of an effect will the bequest have on you? Will\r
+it keep you in England, induce you to marry Miss Oliver, and settle down\r
+like an ordinary mortal?"\r
+\r
+"You wander: your head becomes confused. I have been too abrupt in\r
+communicating the news; it has excited you beyond your strength."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rivers! you quite put me out of patience: I am rational enough; it\r
+is you who misunderstand, or rather who affect to misunderstand."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps, if you explained yourself a little more fully, I should\r
+comprehend better."\r
+\r
+"Explain! What is there to explain? You cannot fail to see that twenty\r
+thousand pounds, the sum in question, divided equally between the nephew\r
+and three nieces of our uncle, will give five thousand to each? What I\r
+want is, that you should write to your sisters and tell them of the\r
+fortune that has accrued to them."\r
+\r
+"To you, you mean."\r
+\r
+"I have intimated my view of the case: I am incapable of taking any\r
+other. I am not brutally selfish, blindly unjust, or fiendishly\r
+ungrateful. Besides, I am resolved I will have a home and connections. I\r
+like Moor House, and I will live at Moor House; I like Diana and Mary,\r
+and I will attach myself for life to Diana and Mary. It would please and\r
+benefit me to have five thousand pounds; it would torment and oppress me\r
+to have twenty thousand; which, moreover, could never be mine in justice,\r
+though it might in law. I abandon to you, then, what is absolutely\r
+superfluous to me. Let there be no opposition, and no discussion about\r
+it; let us agree amongst each other, and decide the point at once."\r
+\r
+"This is acting on first impulses; you must take days to consider such a\r
+matter, ere your word can be regarded as valid."\r
+\r
+"Oh! if all you doubt is my sincerity, I am easy: you see the justice of\r
+the case?"\r
+\r
+"I _do_ see a certain justice; but it is contrary to all custom. Besides,\r
+the entire fortune is your right: my uncle gained it by his own efforts;\r
+he was free to leave it to whom he would: he left it to you. After all,\r
+justice permits you to keep it: you may, with a clear conscience,\r
+consider it absolutely your own."\r
+\r
+"With me," said I, "it is fully as much a matter of feeling as of\r
+conscience: I must indulge my feelings; I so seldom have had an\r
+opportunity of doing so. Were you to argue, object, and annoy me for a\r
+year, I could not forego the delicious pleasure of which I have caught a\r
+glimpse--that of repaying, in part, a mighty obligation, and winning to\r
+myself lifelong friends."\r
+\r
+"You think so now," rejoined St. John, "because you do not know what it\r
+is to possess, nor consequently to enjoy wealth: you cannot form a notion\r
+of the importance twenty thousand pounds would give you; of the place it\r
+would enable you to take in society; of the prospects it would open to\r
+you: you cannot--"\r
+\r
+"And you," I interrupted, "cannot at all imagine the craving I have for\r
+fraternal and sisterly love. I never had a home, I never had brothers or\r
+sisters; I must and will have them now: you are not reluctant to admit me\r
+and own me, are you?"\r
+\r
+"Jane, I will be your brother--my sisters will be your sisters--without\r
+stipulating for this sacrifice of your just rights."\r
+\r
+"Brother? Yes; at the distance of a thousand leagues! Sisters? Yes;\r
+slaving amongst strangers! I, wealthy--gorged with gold I never earned\r
+and do not merit! You, penniless! Famous equality and fraternisation!\r
+Close union! Intimate attachment!"\r
+\r
+"But, Jane, your aspirations after family ties and domestic happiness may\r
+be realised otherwise than by the means you contemplate: you may marry."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, again! Marry! I don't want to marry, and never shall marry."\r
+\r
+"That is saying too much: such hazardous affirmations are a proof of the\r
+excitement under which you labour."\r
+\r
+"It is not saying too much: I know what I feel, and how averse are my\r
+inclinations to the bare thought of marriage. No one would take me for\r
+love; and I will not be regarded in the light of a mere money\r
+speculation. And I do not want a stranger--unsympathising, alien,\r
+different from me; I want my kindred: those with whom I have full fellow-\r
+feeling. Say again you will be my brother: when you uttered the words I\r
+was satisfied, happy; repeat them, if you can, repeat them sincerely."\r
+\r
+"I think I can. I know I have always loved my own sisters; and I know on\r
+what my affection for them is grounded,--respect for their worth and\r
+admiration of their talents. You too have principle and mind: your\r
+tastes and habits resemble Diana's and Mary's; your presence is always\r
+agreeable to me; in your conversation I have already for some time found\r
+a salutary solace. I feel I can easily and naturally make room in my\r
+heart for you, as my third and youngest sister."\r
+\r
+"Thank you: that contents me for to-night. Now you had better go; for if\r
+you stay longer, you will perhaps irritate me afresh by some mistrustful\r
+scruple."\r
+\r
+"And the school, Miss Eyre? It must now be shut up, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No. I will retain my post of mistress till you get a substitute."\r
+\r
+He smiled approbation: we shook hands, and he took leave.\r
+\r
+I need not narrate in detail the further struggles I had, and arguments I\r
+used, to get matters regarding the legacy settled as I wished. My task\r
+was a very hard one; but, as I was absolutely resolved--as my cousins saw\r
+at length that my mind was really and immutably fixed on making a just\r
+division of the property--as they must in their own hearts have felt the\r
+equity of the intention; and must, besides, have been innately conscious\r
+that in my place they would have done precisely what I wished to do--they\r
+yielded at length so far as to consent to put the affair to arbitration.\r
+The judges chosen were Mr. Oliver and an able lawyer: both coincided in\r
+my opinion: I carried my point. The instruments of transfer were drawn\r
+out: St. John, Diana, Mary, and I, each became possessed of a competency.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV\r
+\r
+\r
+It was near Christmas by the time all was settled: the season of general\r
+holiday approached. I now closed Morton school, taking care that the\r
+parting should not be barren on my side. Good fortune opens the hand as\r
+well as the heart wonderfully; and to give somewhat when we have largely\r
+received, is but to afford a vent to the unusual ebullition of the\r
+sensations. I had long felt with pleasure that many of my rustic\r
+scholars liked me, and when we parted, that consciousness was confirmed:\r
+they manifested their affection plainly and strongly. Deep was my\r
+gratification to find I had really a place in their unsophisticated\r
+hearts: I promised them that never a week should pass in future that I\r
+did not visit them, and give them an hour's teaching in their school.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rivers came up as, having seen the classes, now numbering sixty\r
+girls, file out before me, and locked the door, I stood with the key in\r
+my hand, exchanging a few words of special farewell with some half-dozen\r
+of my best scholars: as decent, respectable, modest, and well-informed\r
+young women as could be found in the ranks of the British peasantry. And\r
+that is saying a great deal; for after all, the British peasantry are the\r
+best taught, best mannered, most self-respecting of any in Europe: since\r
+those days I have seen paysannes and Bauerinnen; and the best of them\r
+seemed to me ignorant, coarse, and besotted, compared with my Morton\r
+girls.\r
+\r
+"Do you consider you have got your reward for a season of exertion?"\r
+asked Mr. Rivers, when they were gone. "Does not the consciousness of\r
+having done some real good in your day and generation give pleasure?"\r
+\r
+"Doubtless."\r
+\r
+"And you have only toiled a few months! Would not a life devoted to the\r
+task of regenerating your race be well spent?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," I said; "but I could not go on for ever so: I want to enjoy my own\r
+faculties as well as to cultivate those of other people. I must enjoy\r
+them now; don't recall either my mind or body to the school; I am out of\r
+it and disposed for full holiday."\r
+\r
+He looked grave. "What now? What sudden eagerness is this you evince?\r
+What are you going to do?"\r
+\r
+"To be active: as active as I can. And first I must beg you to set\r
+Hannah at liberty, and get somebody else to wait on you."\r
+\r
+"Do you want her?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, to go with me to Moor House. Diana and Mary will be at home in a\r
+week, and I want to have everything in order against their arrival."\r
+\r
+"I understand. I thought you were for flying off on some excursion. It\r
+is better so: Hannah shall go with you."\r
+\r
+"Tell her to be ready by to-morrow then; and here is the schoolroom key:\r
+I will give you the key of my cottage in the morning."\r
+\r
+He took it. "You give it up very gleefully," said he; "I don't quite\r
+understand your light-heartedness, because I cannot tell what employment\r
+you propose to yourself as a substitute for the one you are\r
+relinquishing. What aim, what purpose, what ambition in life have you\r
+now?"\r
+\r
+"My first aim will be to _clean down_ (do you comprehend the full force\r
+of the expression?)--to _clean down_ Moor House from chamber to cellar;\r
+my next to rub it up with bees-wax, oil, and an indefinite number of\r
+cloths, till it glitters again; my third, to arrange every chair, table,\r
+bed, carpet, with mathematical precision; afterwards I shall go near to\r
+ruin you in coals and peat to keep up good fires in every room; and\r
+lastly, the two days preceding that on which your sisters are expected\r
+will be devoted by Hannah and me to such a beating of eggs, sorting of\r
+currants, grating of spices, compounding of Christmas cakes, chopping up\r
+of materials for mince-pies, and solemnising of other culinary rites, as\r
+words can convey but an inadequate notion of to the uninitiated like you.\r
+My purpose, in short, is to have all things in an absolutely perfect\r
+state of readiness for Diana and Mary before next Thursday; and my\r
+ambition is to give them a beau-ideal of a welcome when they come."\r
+\r
+St. John smiled slightly: still he was dissatisfied.\r
+\r
+"It is all very well for the present," said he; "but seriously, I trust\r
+that when the first flush of vivacity is over, you will look a little\r
+higher than domestic endearments and household joys."\r
+\r
+"The best things the world has!" I interrupted.\r
+\r
+"No, Jane, no: this world is not the scene of fruition; do not attempt to\r
+make it so: nor of rest; do not turn slothful."\r
+\r
+"I mean, on the contrary, to be busy."\r
+\r
+"Jane, I excuse you for the present: two months' grace I allow you for\r
+the full enjoyment of your new position, and for pleasing yourself with\r
+this late-found charm of relationship; but _then_, I hope you will begin\r
+to look beyond Moor House and Morton, and sisterly society, and the\r
+selfish calm and sensual comfort of civilised affluence. I hope your\r
+energies will then once more trouble you with their strength."\r
+\r
+I looked at him with surprise. "St. John," I said, "I think you are\r
+almost wicked to talk so. I am disposed to be as content as a queen, and\r
+you try to stir me up to restlessness! To what end?"\r
+\r
+"To the end of turning to profit the talents which God has committed to\r
+your keeping; and of which He will surely one day demand a strict\r
+account. Jane, I shall watch you closely and anxiously--I warn you of\r
+that. And try to restrain the disproportionate fervour with which you\r
+throw yourself into commonplace home pleasures. Don't cling so\r
+tenaciously to ties of the flesh; save your constancy and ardour for an\r
+adequate cause; forbear to waste them on trite transient objects. Do you\r
+hear, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; just as if you were speaking Greek. I feel I have adequate cause\r
+to be happy, and I _will_ be happy. Goodbye!"\r
+\r
+Happy at Moor House I was, and hard I worked; and so did Hannah: she was\r
+charmed to see how jovial I could be amidst the bustle of a house turned\r
+topsy-turvy--how I could brush, and dust, and clean, and cook. And\r
+really, after a day or two of confusion worse confounded, it was\r
+delightful by degrees to invoke order from the chaos ourselves had made.\r
+I had previously taken a journey to S--- to purchase some new furniture:\r
+my cousins having given me _carte blanche_ to effect what alterations I\r
+pleased, and a sum having been set aside for that purpose. The ordinary\r
+sitting-room and bedrooms I left much as they were: for I knew Diana and\r
+Mary would derive more pleasure from seeing again the old homely tables,\r
+and chairs, and beds, than from the spectacle of the smartest\r
+innovations. Still some novelty was necessary, to give to their return\r
+the piquancy with which I wished it to be invested. Dark handsome new\r
+carpets and curtains, an arrangement of some carefully selected antique\r
+ornaments in porcelain and bronze, new coverings, and mirrors, and\r
+dressing-cases, for the toilet tables, answered the end: they looked\r
+fresh without being glaring. A spare parlour and bedroom I refurnished\r
+entirely, with old mahogany and crimson upholstery: I laid canvas on the\r
+passage, and carpets on the stairs. When all was finished, I thought\r
+Moor House as complete a model of bright modest snugness within, as it\r
+was, at this season, a specimen of wintry waste and desert dreariness\r
+without.\r
+\r
+The eventful Thursday at length came. They were expected about dark, and\r
+ere dusk fires were lit upstairs and below; the kitchen was in perfect\r
+trim; Hannah and I were dressed, and all was in readiness.\r
+\r
+St. John arrived first. I had entreated him to keep quite clear of the\r
+house till everything was arranged: and, indeed, the bare idea of the\r
+commotion, at once sordid and trivial, going on within its walls sufficed\r
+to scare him to estrangement. He found me in the kitchen, watching the\r
+progress of certain cakes for tea, then baking. Approaching the hearth,\r
+he asked, "If I was at last satisfied with housemaid's work?" I answered\r
+by inviting him to accompany me on a general inspection of the result of\r
+my labours. With some difficulty, I got him to make the tour of the\r
+house. He just looked in at the doors I opened; and when he had wandered\r
+upstairs and downstairs, he said I must have gone through a great deal of\r
+fatigue and trouble to have effected such considerable changes in so\r
+short a time: but not a syllable did he utter indicating pleasure in the\r
+improved aspect of his abode.\r
+\r
+This silence damped me. I thought perhaps the alterations had disturbed\r
+some old associations he valued. I inquired whether this was the case:\r
+no doubt in a somewhat crest-fallen tone.\r
+\r
+"Not at all; he had, on the contrary, remarked that I had scrupulously\r
+respected every association: he feared, indeed, I must have bestowed more\r
+thought on the matter than it was worth. How many minutes, for instance,\r
+had I devoted to studying the arrangement of this very room?--By-the-bye,\r
+could I tell him where such a book was?"\r
+\r
+I showed him the volume on the shelf: he took it down, and withdrawing to\r
+his accustomed window recess, he began to read it.\r
+\r
+Now, I did not like this, reader. St. John was a good man; but I began\r
+to feel he had spoken truth of himself when he said he was hard and cold.\r
+The humanities and amenities of life had no attraction for him--its\r
+peaceful enjoyments no charm. Literally, he lived only to aspire--after\r
+what was good and great, certainly; but still he would never rest, nor\r
+approve of others resting round him. As I looked at his lofty forehead,\r
+still and pale as a white stone--at his fine lineaments fixed in study--I\r
+comprehended all at once that he would hardly make a good husband: that\r
+it would be a trying thing to be his wife. I understood, as by\r
+inspiration, the nature of his love for Miss Oliver; I agreed with him\r
+that it was but a love of the senses. I comprehended how he should\r
+despise himself for the feverish influence it exercised over him; how he\r
+should wish to stifle and destroy it; how he should mistrust its ever\r
+conducting permanently to his happiness or hers. I saw he was of the\r
+material from which nature hews her heroes--Christian and Pagan--her\r
+lawgivers, her statesmen, her conquerors: a steadfast bulwark for great\r
+interests to rest upon; but, at the fireside, too often a cold cumbrous\r
+column, gloomy and out of place.\r
+\r
+"This parlour is not his sphere," I reflected: "the Himalayan ridge or\r
+Caffre bush, even the plague-cursed Guinea Coast swamp would suit him\r
+better. Well may he eschew the calm of domestic life; it is not his\r
+element: there his faculties stagnate--they cannot develop or appear to\r
+advantage. It is in scenes of strife and danger--where courage is\r
+proved, and energy exercised, and fortitude tasked--that he will speak\r
+and move, the leader and superior. A merry child would have the\r
+advantage of him on this hearth. He is right to choose a missionary's\r
+career--I see it now."\r
+\r
+"They are coming! they are coming!" cried Hannah, throwing open the\r
+parlour door. At the same moment old Carlo barked joyfully. Out I ran.\r
+It was now dark; but a rumbling of wheels was audible. Hannah soon had a\r
+lantern lit. The vehicle had stopped at the wicket; the driver opened\r
+the door: first one well-known form, then another, stepped out. In a\r
+minute I had my face under their bonnets, in contact first with Mary's\r
+soft cheek, then with Diana's flowing curls. They laughed--kissed\r
+me--then Hannah: patted Carlo, who was half wild with delight; asked\r
+eagerly if all was well; and being assured in the affirmative, hastened\r
+into the house.\r
+\r
+They were stiff with their long and jolting drive from Whitcross, and\r
+chilled with the frosty night air; but their pleasant countenances\r
+expanded to the cheerful firelight. While the driver and Hannah brought\r
+in the boxes, they demanded St. John. At this moment he advanced from\r
+the parlour. They both threw their arms round his neck at once. He gave\r
+each one quiet kiss, said in a low tone a few words of welcome, stood a\r
+while to be talked to, and then, intimating that he supposed they would\r
+soon rejoin him in the parlour, withdrew there as to a place of refuge.\r
+\r
+I had lit their candles to go upstairs, but Diana had first to give\r
+hospitable orders respecting the driver; this done, both followed me.\r
+They were delighted with the renovation and decorations of their rooms;\r
+with the new drapery, and fresh carpets, and rich tinted china vases:\r
+they expressed their gratification ungrudgingly. I had the pleasure of\r
+feeling that my arrangements met their wishes exactly, and that what I\r
+had done added a vivid charm to their joyous return home.\r
+\r
+Sweet was that evening. My cousins, full of exhilaration, were so\r
+eloquent in narrative and comment, that their fluency covered St. John's\r
+taciturnity: he was sincerely glad to see his sisters; but in their glow\r
+of fervour and flow of joy he could not sympathise. The event of the\r
+day--that is, the return of Diana and Mary--pleased him; but the\r
+accompaniments of that event, the glad tumult, the garrulous glee of\r
+reception irked him: I saw he wished the calmer morrow was come. In the\r
+very meridian of the night's enjoyment, about an hour after tea, a rap\r
+was heard at the door. Hannah entered with the intimation that "a poor\r
+lad was come, at that unlikely time, to fetch Mr. Rivers to see his\r
+mother, who was drawing away."\r
+\r
+"Where does she live, Hannah?"\r
+\r
+"Clear up at Whitcross Brow, almost four miles off, and moor and moss all\r
+the way."\r
+\r
+"Tell him I will go."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure, sir, you had better not. It's the worst road to travel after\r
+dark that can be: there's no track at all over the bog. And then it is\r
+such a bitter night--the keenest wind you ever felt. You had better send\r
+word, sir, that you will be there in the morning."\r
+\r
+But he was already in the passage, putting on his cloak; and without one\r
+objection, one murmur, he departed. It was then nine o'clock: he did not\r
+return till midnight. Starved and tired enough he was: but he looked\r
+happier than when he set out. He had performed an act of duty; made an\r
+exertion; felt his own strength to do and deny, and was on better terms\r
+with himself.\r
+\r
+I am afraid the whole of the ensuing week tried his patience. It was\r
+Christmas week: we took to no settled employment, but spent it in a sort\r
+of merry domestic dissipation. The air of the moors, the freedom of\r
+home, the dawn of prosperity, acted on Diana and Mary's spirits like some\r
+life-giving elixir: they were gay from morning till noon, and from noon\r
+till night. They could always talk; and their discourse, witty, pithy,\r
+original, had such charms for me, that I preferred listening to, and\r
+sharing in it, to doing anything else. St. John did not rebuke our\r
+vivacity; but he escaped from it: he was seldom in the house; his parish\r
+was large, the population scattered, and he found daily business in\r
+visiting the sick and poor in its different districts.\r
+\r
+One morning at breakfast, Diana, after looking a little pensive for some\r
+minutes, asked him, "If his plans were yet unchanged."\r
+\r
+"Unchanged and unchangeable," was the reply. And he proceeded to inform\r
+us that his departure from England was now definitively fixed for the\r
+ensuing year.\r
+\r
+"And Rosamond Oliver?" suggested Mary, the words seeming to escape her\r
+lips involuntarily: for no sooner had she uttered them, than she made a\r
+gesture as if wishing to recall them. St. John had a book in his hand--it\r
+was his unsocial custom to read at meals--he closed it, and looked up.\r
+\r
+"Rosamond Oliver," said he, "is about to be married to Mr. Granby, one of\r
+the best connected and most estimable residents in S-, grandson and heir\r
+to Sir Frederic Granby: I had the intelligence from her father\r
+yesterday."\r
+\r
+His sisters looked at each other and at me; we all three looked at him:\r
+he was serene as glass.\r
+\r
+"The match must have been got up hastily," said Diana: "they cannot have\r
+known each other long."\r
+\r
+"But two months: they met in October at the county ball at S-. But where\r
+there are no obstacles to a union, as in the present case, where the\r
+connection is in every point desirable, delays are unnecessary: they will\r
+be married as soon as S--- Place, which Sir Frederic gives up to them,\r
+can he refitted for their reception."\r
+\r
+The first time I found St. John alone after this communication, I felt\r
+tempted to inquire if the event distressed him: but he seemed so little\r
+to need sympathy, that, so far from venturing to offer him more, I\r
+experienced some shame at the recollection of what I had already\r
+hazarded. Besides, I was out of practice in talking to him: his reserve\r
+was again frozen over, and my frankness was congealed beneath it. He had\r
+not kept his promise of treating me like his sisters; he continually made\r
+little chilling differences between us, which did not at all tend to the\r
+development of cordiality: in short, now that I was acknowledged his\r
+kinswoman, and lived under the same roof with him, I felt the distance\r
+between us to be far greater than when he had known me only as the\r
+village schoolmistress. When I remembered how far I had once been\r
+admitted to his confidence, I could hardly comprehend his present\r
+frigidity.\r
+\r
+Such being the case, I felt not a little surprised when he raised his\r
+head suddenly from the desk over which he was stooping, and said--\r
+\r
+"You see, Jane, the battle is fought and the victory won."\r
+\r
+Startled at being thus addressed, I did not immediately reply: after a\r
+moment's hesitation I answered--\r
+\r
+"But are you sure you are not in the position of those conquerors whose\r
+triumphs have cost them too dear? Would not such another ruin you?"\r
+\r
+"I think not; and if I were, it does not much signify; I shall never be\r
+called upon to contend for such another. The event of the conflict is\r
+decisive: my way is now clear; I thank God for it!" So saying, he\r
+returned to his papers and his silence.\r
+\r
+As our mutual happiness (_i.e._, Diana's, Mary's, and mine) settled into\r
+a quieter character, and we resumed our usual habits and regular studies,\r
+St. John stayed more at home: he sat with us in the same room, sometimes\r
+for hours together. While Mary drew, Diana pursued a course of\r
+encyclopaedic reading she had (to my awe and amazement) undertaken, and I\r
+fagged away at German, he pondered a mystic lore of his own: that of some\r
+Eastern tongue, the acquisition of which he thought necessary to his\r
+plans.\r
+\r
+Thus engaged, he appeared, sitting in his own recess, quiet and absorbed\r
+enough; but that blue eye of his had a habit of leaving the outlandish-\r
+looking grammar, and wandering over, and sometimes fixing upon us, his\r
+fellow-students, with a curious intensity of observation: if caught, it\r
+would be instantly withdrawn; yet ever and anon, it returned searchingly\r
+to our table. I wondered what it meant: I wondered, too, at the punctual\r
+satisfaction he never failed to exhibit on an occasion that seemed to me\r
+of small moment, namely, my weekly visit to Morton school; and still more\r
+was I puzzled when, if the day was unfavourable, if there was snow, or\r
+rain, or high wind, and his sisters urged me not to go, he would\r
+invariably make light of their solicitude, and encourage me to accomplish\r
+the task without regard to the elements.\r
+\r
+"Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would say: "she\r
+can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well\r
+as any of us. Her constitution is both sound and elastic;--better\r
+calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust."\r
+\r
+And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little\r
+weather-beaten, I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur\r
+would be to vex him: on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse\r
+was a special annoyance.\r
+\r
+One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had\r
+a cold. His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading\r
+Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls. As I exchanged a\r
+translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found\r
+myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it\r
+had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot\r
+tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment\r
+superstitious--as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.\r
+\r
+"Jane, what are you doing?"\r
+\r
+"Learning German."\r
+\r
+"I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee."\r
+\r
+"You are not in earnest?"\r
+\r
+"In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why."\r
+\r
+He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was\r
+himself at present studying; that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget\r
+the commencement; that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with\r
+whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them\r
+thoroughly in his mind; that his choice had hovered for some time between\r
+me and his sisters; but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could\r
+sit at a task the longest of the three. Would I do him this favour? I\r
+should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now\r
+barely three months to his departure.\r
+\r
+St. John was not a man to be lightly refused: you felt that every\r
+impression made on him, either for pain or pleasure, was deep-graved and\r
+permanent. I consented. When Diana and Mary returned, the former found\r
+her scholar transferred from her to her brother: she laughed, and both\r
+she and Mary agreed that St. John should never have persuaded them to\r
+such a step. He answered quietly--\r
+\r
+"I know it."\r
+\r
+I found him a very patient, very forbearing, and yet an exacting master:\r
+he expected me to do a great deal; and when I fulfilled his expectations,\r
+he, in his own way, fully testified his approbation. By degrees, he\r
+acquired a certain influence over me that took away my liberty of mind:\r
+his praise and notice were more restraining than his indifference. I\r
+could no longer talk or laugh freely when he was by, because a tiresomely\r
+importunate instinct reminded me that vivacity (at least in me) was\r
+distasteful to him. I was so fully aware that only serious moods and\r
+occupations were acceptable, that in his presence every effort to sustain\r
+or follow any other became vain: I fell under a freezing spell. When he\r
+said "go," I went; "come," I came; "do this," I did it. But I did not\r
+love my servitude: I wished, many a time, he had continued to neglect me.\r
+\r
+One evening when, at bedtime, his sisters and I stood round him, bidding\r
+him good-night, he kissed each of them, as was his custom; and, as was\r
+equally his custom, he gave me his hand. Diana, who chanced to be in a\r
+frolicsome humour (_she_ was not painfully controlled by his will; for\r
+hers, in another way, was as strong), exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"St. John! you used to call Jane your third sister, but you don't treat\r
+her as such: you should kiss her too."\r
+\r
+She pushed me towards him. I thought Diana very provoking, and felt\r
+uncomfortably confused; and while I was thus thinking and feeling, St.\r
+John bent his head; his Greek face was brought to a level with mine, his\r
+eyes questioned my eyes piercingly--he kissed me. There are no such\r
+things as marble kisses or ice kisses, or I should say my ecclesiastical\r
+cousin's salute belonged to one of these classes; but there may be\r
+experiment kisses, and his was an experiment kiss. When given, he viewed\r
+me to learn the result; it was not striking: I am sure I did not blush;\r
+perhaps I might have turned a little pale, for I felt as if this kiss\r
+were a seal affixed to my fetters. He never omitted the ceremony\r
+afterwards, and the gravity and quiescence with which I underwent it,\r
+seemed to invest it for him with a certain charm.\r
+\r
+As for me, I daily wished more to please him; but to do so, I felt daily\r
+more and more that I must disown half my nature, stifle half my\r
+faculties, wrest my tastes from their original bent, force myself to the\r
+adoption of pursuits for which I had no natural vocation. He wanted to\r
+train me to an elevation I could never reach; it racked me hourly to\r
+aspire to the standard he uplifted. The thing was as impossible as to\r
+mould my irregular features to his correct and classic pattern, to give\r
+to my changeable green eyes the sea-blue tint and solemn lustre of his\r
+own.\r
+\r
+Not his ascendancy alone, however, held me in thrall at present. Of late\r
+it had been easy enough for me to look sad: a cankering evil sat at my\r
+heart and drained my happiness at its source--the evil of suspense.\r
+\r
+Perhaps you think I had forgotten Mr. Rochester, reader, amidst these\r
+changes of place and fortune. Not for a moment. His idea was still with\r
+me, because it was not a vapour sunshine could disperse, nor a\r
+sand-traced effigy storms could wash away; it was a name graven on a\r
+tablet, fated to last as long as the marble it inscribed. The craving to\r
+know what had become of him followed me everywhere; when I was at Morton,\r
+I re-entered my cottage every evening to think of that; and now at Moor\r
+House, I sought my bedroom each night to brood over it.\r
+\r
+In the course of my necessary correspondence with Mr. Briggs about the\r
+will, I had inquired if he knew anything of Mr. Rochester's present\r
+residence and state of health; but, as St. John had conjectured, he was\r
+quite ignorant of all concerning him. I then wrote to Mrs. Fairfax,\r
+entreating information on the subject. I had calculated with certainty\r
+on this step answering my end: I felt sure it would elicit an early\r
+answer. I was astonished when a fortnight passed without reply; but when\r
+two months wore away, and day after day the post arrived and brought\r
+nothing for me, I fell a prey to the keenest anxiety.\r
+\r
+I wrote again: there was a chance of my first letter having missed.\r
+Renewed hope followed renewed effort: it shone like the former for some\r
+weeks, then, like it, it faded, flickered: not a line, not a word reached\r
+me. When half a year wasted in vain expectancy, my hope died out, and\r
+then I felt dark indeed.\r
+\r
+A fine spring shone round me, which I could not enjoy. Summer\r
+approached; Diana tried to cheer me: she said I looked ill, and wished to\r
+accompany me to the sea-side. This St. John opposed; he said I did not\r
+want dissipation, I wanted employment; my present life was too\r
+purposeless, I required an aim; and, I suppose, by way of supplying\r
+deficiencies, he prolonged still further my lessons in Hindostanee, and\r
+grew more urgent in requiring their accomplishment: and I, like a fool,\r
+never thought of resisting him--I could not resist him.\r
+\r
+One day I had come to my studies in lower spirits than usual; the ebb was\r
+occasioned by a poignantly felt disappointment. Hannah had told me in\r
+the morning there was a letter for me, and when I went down to take it,\r
+almost certain that the long-looked for tidings were vouchsafed me at\r
+last, I found only an unimportant note from Mr. Briggs on business. The\r
+bitter check had wrung from me some tears; and now, as I sat poring over\r
+the crabbed characters and flourishing tropes of an Indian scribe, my\r
+eyes filled again.\r
+\r
+St. John called me to his side to read; in attempting to do this my voice\r
+failed me: words were lost in sobs. He and I were the only occupants of\r
+the parlour: Diana was practising her music in the drawing-room, Mary was\r
+gardening--it was a very fine May day, clear, sunny, and breezy. My\r
+companion expressed no surprise at this emotion, nor did he question me\r
+as to its cause; he only said--\r
+\r
+"We will wait a few minutes, Jane, till you are more composed." And\r
+while I smothered the paroxysm with all haste, he sat calm and patient,\r
+leaning on his desk, and looking like a physician watching with the eye\r
+of science an expected and fully understood crisis in a patient's malady.\r
+Having stifled my sobs, wiped my eyes, and muttered something about not\r
+being very well that morning, I resumed my task, and succeeded in\r
+completing it. St. John put away my books and his, locked his desk, and\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Now, Jane, you shall take a walk; and with me."\r
+\r
+"I will call Diana and Mary."\r
+\r
+"No; I want only one companion this morning, and that must be you. Put\r
+on your things; go out by the kitchen-door: take the road towards the\r
+head of Marsh Glen: I will join you in a moment."\r
+\r
+I know no medium: I never in my life have known any medium in my dealings\r
+with positive, hard characters, antagonistic to my own, between absolute\r
+submission and determined revolt. I have always faithfully observed the\r
+one, up to the very moment of bursting, sometimes with volcanic\r
+vehemence, into the other; and as neither present circumstances\r
+warranted, nor my present mood inclined me to mutiny, I observed careful\r
+obedience to St. John's directions; and in ten minutes I was treading the\r
+wild track of the glen, side by side with him.\r
+\r
+The breeze was from the west: it came over the hills, sweet with scents\r
+of heath and rush; the sky was of stainless blue; the stream descending\r
+the ravine, swelled with past spring rains, poured along plentiful and\r
+clear, catching golden gleams from the sun, and sapphire tints from the\r
+firmament. As we advanced and left the track, we trod a soft turf, mossy\r
+fine and emerald green, minutely enamelled with a tiny white flower, and\r
+spangled with a star-like yellow blossom: the hills, meantime, shut us\r
+quite in; for the glen, towards its head, wound to their very core.\r
+\r
+"Let us rest here," said St. John, as we reached the first stragglers of\r
+a battalion of rocks, guarding a sort of pass, beyond which the beck\r
+rushed down a waterfall; and where, still a little farther, the mountain\r
+shook off turf and flower, had only heath for raiment and crag for\r
+gem--where it exaggerated the wild to the savage, and exchanged the fresh\r
+for the frowning--where it guarded the forlorn hope of solitude, and a\r
+last refuge for silence.\r
+\r
+I took a seat: St. John stood near me. He looked up the pass and down\r
+the hollow; his glance wandered away with the stream, and returned to\r
+traverse the unclouded heaven which coloured it: he removed his hat, let\r
+the breeze stir his hair and kiss his brow. He seemed in communion with\r
+the genius of the haunt: with his eye he bade farewell to something.\r
+\r
+"And I shall see it again," he said aloud, "in dreams when I sleep by the\r
+Ganges: and again in a more remote hour--when another slumber overcomes\r
+me--on the shore of a darker stream!"\r
+\r
+Strange words of a strange love! An austere patriot's passion for his\r
+fatherland! He sat down; for half-an-hour we never spoke; neither he to\r
+me nor I to him: that interval past, he recommenced--\r
+\r
+"Jane, I go in six weeks; I have taken my berth in an East Indiaman which\r
+sails on the 20th of June."\r
+\r
+"God will protect you; for you have undertaken His work," I answered.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said he, "there is my glory and joy. I am the servant of an\r
+infallible Master. I am not going out under human guidance, subject to\r
+the defective laws and erring control of my feeble fellow-worms: my king,\r
+my lawgiver, my captain, is the All-perfect. It seems strange to me that\r
+all round me do not burn to enlist under the same banner,--to join in the\r
+same enterprise."\r
+\r
+"All have not your powers, and it would be folly for the feeble to wish\r
+to march with the strong."\r
+\r
+"I do not speak to the feeble, or think of them: I address only such as\r
+are worthy of the work, and competent to accomplish it."\r
+\r
+"Those are few in number, and difficult to discover."\r
+\r
+"You say truly; but when found, it is right to stir them up--to urge and\r
+exhort them to the effort--to show them what their gifts are, and why\r
+they were given--to speak Heaven's message in their ear,--to offer them,\r
+direct from God, a place in the ranks of His chosen."\r
+\r
+"If they are really qualified for the task, will not their own hearts be\r
+the first to inform them of it?"\r
+\r
+I felt as if an awful charm was framing round and gathering over me: I\r
+trembled to hear some fatal word spoken which would at once declare and\r
+rivet the spell.\r
+\r
+"And what does _your_ heart say?" demanded St. John.\r
+\r
+"My heart is mute,--my heart is mute," I answered, struck and thrilled.\r
+\r
+"Then I must speak for it," continued the deep, relentless voice. "Jane,\r
+come with me to India: come as my helpmeet and fellow-labourer."\r
+\r
+The glen and sky spun round: the hills heaved! It was as if I had heard\r
+a summons from Heaven--as if a visionary messenger, like him of\r
+Macedonia, had enounced, "Come over and help us!" But I was no\r
+apostle,--I could not behold the herald,--I could not receive his call.\r
+\r
+"Oh, St. John!" I cried, "have some mercy!"\r
+\r
+I appealed to one who, in the discharge of what he believed his duty,\r
+knew neither mercy nor remorse. He continued--\r
+\r
+"God and nature intended you for a missionary's wife. It is not\r
+personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for\r
+labour, not for love. A missionary's wife you must--shall be. You shall\r
+be mine: I claim you--not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign's\r
+service."\r
+\r
+"I am not fit for it: I have no vocation," I said.\r
+\r
+He had calculated on these first objections: he was not irritated by\r
+them. Indeed, as he leaned back against the crag behind him, folded his\r
+arms on his chest, and fixed his countenance, I saw he was prepared for a\r
+long and trying opposition, and had taken in a stock of patience to last\r
+him to its close--resolved, however, that that close should be conquest\r
+for him.\r
+\r
+"Humility, Jane," said he, "is the groundwork of Christian virtues: you\r
+say right that you are not fit for the work. Who is fit for it? Or who,\r
+that ever was truly called, believed himself worthy of the summons? I,\r
+for instance, am but dust and ashes. With St. Paul, I acknowledge myself\r
+the chiefest of sinners; but I do not suffer this sense of my personal\r
+vileness to daunt me. I know my Leader: that He is just as well as\r
+mighty; and while He has chosen a feeble instrument to perform a great\r
+task, He will, from the boundless stores of His providence, supply the\r
+inadequacy of the means to the end. Think like me, Jane--trust like me.\r
+It is the Rock of Ages I ask you to lean on: do not doubt but it will\r
+bear the weight of your human weakness."\r
+\r
+"I do not understand a missionary life: I have never studied missionary\r
+labours."\r
+\r
+"There I, humble as I am, can give you the aid you want: I can set you\r
+your task from hour to hour; stand by you always; help you from moment to\r
+moment. This I could do in the beginning: soon (for I know your powers)\r
+you would be as strong and apt as myself, and would not require my help."\r
+\r
+"But my powers--where are they for this undertaking? I do not feel them.\r
+Nothing speaks or stirs in me while you talk. I am sensible of no light\r
+kindling--no life quickening--no voice counselling or cheering. Oh, I\r
+wish I could make you see how much my mind is at this moment like a\r
+rayless dungeon, with one shrinking fear fettered in its depths--the fear\r
+of being persuaded by you to attempt what I cannot accomplish!"\r
+\r
+"I have an answer for you--hear it. I have watched you ever since we\r
+first met: I have made you my study for ten months. I have proved you in\r
+that time by sundry tests: and what have I seen and elicited? In the\r
+village school I found you could perform well, punctually, uprightly,\r
+labour uncongenial to your habits and inclinations; I saw you could\r
+perform it with capacity and tact: you could win while you controlled. In\r
+the calm with which you learnt you had become suddenly rich, I read a\r
+mind clear of the vice of Demas:--lucre had no undue power over you. In\r
+the resolute readiness with which you cut your wealth into four shares,\r
+keeping but one to yourself, and relinquishing the three others to the\r
+claim of abstract justice, I recognised a soul that revelled in the flame\r
+and excitement of sacrifice. In the tractability with which, at my wish,\r
+you forsook a study in which you were interested, and adopted another\r
+because it interested me; in the untiring assiduity with which you have\r
+since persevered in it--in the unflagging energy and unshaken temper with\r
+which you have met its difficulties--I acknowledge the complement of the\r
+qualities I seek. Jane, you are docile, diligent, disinterested,\r
+faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic: cease\r
+to mistrust yourself--I can trust you unreservedly. As a conductress of\r
+Indian schools, and a helper amongst Indian women, your assistance will\r
+be to me invaluable."\r
+\r
+My iron shroud contracted round me; persuasion advanced with slow sure\r
+step. Shut my eyes as I would, these last words of his succeeded in\r
+making the way, which had seemed blocked up, comparatively clear. My\r
+work, which had appeared so vague, so hopelessly diffuse, condensed\r
+itself as he proceeded, and assumed a definite form under his shaping\r
+hand. He waited for an answer. I demanded a quarter of an hour to\r
+think, before I again hazarded a reply.\r
+\r
+"Very willingly," he rejoined; and rising, he strode a little distance up\r
+the pass, threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still.\r
+\r
+{He threw himself down on a swell of heath, and there lay still:\r
+p389.jpg}\r
+\r
+"I _can_ do what he wants me to do: I am forced to see and acknowledge\r
+that," I meditated,--"that is, if life be spared me. But I feel mine is\r
+not the existence to be long protracted under an Indian sun. What then?\r
+He does not care for that: when my time came to die, he would resign me,\r
+in all serenity and sanctity, to the God who gave me. The case is very\r
+plain before me. In leaving England, I should leave a loved but empty\r
+land--Mr. Rochester is not there; and if he were, what is, what can that\r
+ever be to me? My business is to live without him now: nothing so\r
+absurd, so weak as to drag on from day to day, as if I were waiting some\r
+impossible change in circumstances, which might reunite me to him. Of\r
+course (as St. John once said) I must seek another interest in life to\r
+replace the one lost: is not the occupation he now offers me truly the\r
+most glorious man can adopt or God assign? Is it not, by its noble cares\r
+and sublime results, the one best calculated to fill the void left by\r
+uptorn affections and demolished hopes? I believe I must say, Yes--and\r
+yet I shudder. Alas! If I join St. John, I abandon half myself: if I go\r
+to India, I go to premature death. And how will the interval between\r
+leaving England for India, and India for the grave, be filled? Oh, I\r
+know well! That, too, is very clear to my vision. By straining to\r
+satisfy St. John till my sinews ache, I _shall_ satisfy him--to the\r
+finest central point and farthest outward circle of his expectations. If\r
+I _do_ go with him--if I _do_ make the sacrifice he urges, I will make it\r
+absolutely: I will throw all on the altar--heart, vitals, the entire\r
+victim. He will never love me; but he shall approve me; I will show him\r
+energies he has not yet seen, resources he has never suspected. Yes, I\r
+can work as hard as he can, and with as little grudging.\r
+\r
+"Consent, then, to his demand is possible: but for one item--one dreadful\r
+item. It is--that he asks me to be his wife, and has no more of a\r
+husband's heart for me than that frowning giant of a rock, down which the\r
+stream is foaming in yonder gorge. He prizes me as a soldier would a\r
+good weapon; and that is all. Unmarried to him, this would never grieve\r
+me; but can I let him complete his calculations--coolly put into practice\r
+his plans--go through the wedding ceremony? Can I receive from him the\r
+bridal ring, endure all the forms of love (which I doubt not he would\r
+scrupulously observe) and know that the spirit was quite absent? Can I\r
+bear the consciousness that every endearment he bestows is a sacrifice\r
+made on principle? No: such a martyrdom would be monstrous. I will\r
+never undergo it. As his sister, I might accompany him--not as his wife:\r
+I will tell him so."\r
+\r
+I looked towards the knoll: there he lay, still as a prostrate column;\r
+his face turned to me: his eye beaming watchful and keen. He started to\r
+his feet and approached me.\r
+\r
+"I am ready to go to India, if I may go free."\r
+\r
+"Your answer requires a commentary," he said; "it is not clear."\r
+\r
+"You have hitherto been my adopted brother--I, your adopted sister: let\r
+us continue as such: you and I had better not marry."\r
+\r
+He shook his head. "Adopted fraternity will not do in this case. If you\r
+were my real sister it would be different: I should take you, and seek no\r
+wife. But as it is, either our union must be consecrated and sealed by\r
+marriage, or it cannot exist: practical obstacles oppose themselves to\r
+any other plan. Do you not see it, Jane? Consider a moment--your strong\r
+sense will guide you."\r
+\r
+I did consider; and still my sense, such as it was, directed me only to\r
+the fact that we did not love each other as man and wife should: and\r
+therefore it inferred we ought not to marry. I said so. "St. John," I\r
+returned, "I regard you as a brother--you, me as a sister: so let us\r
+continue."\r
+\r
+"We cannot--we cannot," he answered, with short, sharp determination: "it\r
+would not do. You have said you will go with me to India: remember--you\r
+have said that."\r
+\r
+"Conditionally."\r
+\r
+"Well--well. To the main point--the departure with me from England, the\r
+co-operation with me in my future labours--you do not object. You have\r
+already as good as put your hand to the plough: you are too consistent to\r
+withdraw it. You have but one end to keep in view--how the work you have\r
+undertaken can best be done. Simplify your complicated interests,\r
+feelings, thoughts, wishes, aims; merge all considerations in one\r
+purpose: that of fulfilling with effect--with power--the mission of your\r
+great Master. To do so, you must have a coadjutor: not a brother--that\r
+is a loose tie--but a husband. I, too, do not want a sister: a sister\r
+might any day be taken from me. I want a wife: the sole helpmeet I can\r
+influence efficiently in life, and retain absolutely till death."\r
+\r
+I shuddered as he spoke: I felt his influence in my marrow--his hold on\r
+my limbs.\r
+\r
+"Seek one elsewhere than in me, St. John: seek one fitted to you."\r
+\r
+"One fitted to my purpose, you mean--fitted to my vocation. Again I tell\r
+you it is not the insignificant private individual--the mere man, with\r
+the man's selfish senses--I wish to mate: it is the missionary."\r
+\r
+"And I will give the missionary my energies--it is all he wants--but not\r
+myself: that would be only adding the husk and shell to the kernel. For\r
+them he has no use: I retain them."\r
+\r
+"You cannot--you ought not. Do you think God will be satisfied with half\r
+an oblation? Will He accept a mutilated sacrifice? It is the cause of\r
+God I advocate: it is under His standard I enlist you. I cannot accept\r
+on His behalf a divided allegiance: it must be entire."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I will give my heart to God," I said. "_You_ do not want it."\r
+\r
+I will not swear, reader, that there was not something of repressed\r
+sarcasm both in the tone in which I uttered this sentence, and in the\r
+feeling that accompanied it. I had silently feared St. John till now,\r
+because I had not understood him. He had held me in awe, because he had\r
+held me in doubt. How much of him was saint, how much mortal, I could\r
+not heretofore tell: but revelations were being made in this conference:\r
+the analysis of his nature was proceeding before my eyes. I saw his\r
+fallibilities: I comprehended them. I understood that, sitting there\r
+where I did, on the bank of heath, and with that handsome form before me,\r
+I sat at the feet of a man, caring as I. The veil fell from his hardness\r
+and despotism. Having felt in him the presence of these qualities, I\r
+felt his imperfection and took courage. I was with an equal--one with\r
+whom I might argue--one whom, if I saw good, I might resist.\r
+\r
+He was silent after I had uttered the last sentence, and I presently\r
+risked an upward glance at his countenance.\r
+\r
+His eye, bent on me, expressed at once stern surprise and keen inquiry.\r
+"Is she sarcastic, and sarcastic to _me_!" it seemed to say. "What does\r
+this signify?"\r
+\r
+"Do not let us forget that this is a solemn matter," he said ere long;\r
+"one of which we may neither think nor talk lightly without sin. I\r
+trust, Jane, you are in earnest when you say you will serve your heart to\r
+God: it is all I want. Once wrench your heart from man, and fix it on\r
+your Maker, the advancement of that Maker's spiritual kingdom on earth\r
+will be your chief delight and endeavour; you will be ready to do at once\r
+whatever furthers that end. You will see what impetus would be given to\r
+your efforts and mine by our physical and mental union in marriage: the\r
+only union that gives a character of permanent conformity to the\r
+destinies and designs of human beings; and, passing over all minor\r
+caprices--all trivial difficulties and delicacies of feeling--all scruple\r
+about the degree, kind, strength or tenderness of mere personal\r
+inclination--you will hasten to enter into that union at once."\r
+\r
+"Shall I?" I said briefly; and I looked at his features, beautiful in\r
+their harmony, but strangely formidable in their still severity; at his\r
+brow, commanding but not open; at his eyes, bright and deep and\r
+searching, but never soft; at his tall imposing figure; and fancied\r
+myself in idea _his wife_. Oh! it would never do! As his curate, his\r
+comrade, all would be right: I would cross oceans with him in that\r
+capacity; toil under Eastern suns, in Asian deserts with him in that\r
+office; admire and emulate his courage and devotion and vigour;\r
+accommodate quietly to his masterhood; smile undisturbed at his\r
+ineradicable ambition; discriminate the Christian from the man:\r
+profoundly esteem the one, and freely forgive the other. I should suffer\r
+often, no doubt, attached to him only in this capacity: my body would be\r
+under rather a stringent yoke, but my heart and mind would be free. I\r
+should still have my unblighted self to turn to: my natural unenslaved\r
+feelings with which to communicate in moments of loneliness. There would\r
+be recesses in my mind which would be only mine, to which he never came,\r
+and sentiments growing there fresh and sheltered which his austerity\r
+could never blight, nor his measured warrior-march trample down: but as\r
+his wife--at his side always, and always restrained, and always\r
+checked--forced to keep the fire of my nature continually low, to compel\r
+it to burn inwardly and never utter a cry, though the imprisoned flame\r
+consumed vital after vital--_this_ would be unendurable.\r
+\r
+"St. John!" I exclaimed, when I had got so far in my meditation.\r
+\r
+"Well?" he answered icily.\r
+\r
+"I repeat I freely consent to go with you as your fellow-missionary, but\r
+not as your wife; I cannot marry you and become part of you."\r
+\r
+"A part of me you must become," he answered steadily; "otherwise the\r
+whole bargain is void. How can I, a man not yet thirty, take out with me\r
+to India a girl of nineteen, unless she be married to me? How can we be\r
+for ever together--sometimes in solitudes, sometimes amidst savage\r
+tribes--and unwed?"\r
+\r
+"Very well," I said shortly; "under the circumstances, quite as well as\r
+if I were either your real sister, or a man and a clergyman like\r
+yourself."\r
+\r
+"It is known that you are not my sister; I cannot introduce you as such:\r
+to attempt it would be to fasten injurious suspicions on us both. And\r
+for the rest, though you have a man's vigorous brain, you have a woman's\r
+heart and--it would not do."\r
+\r
+"It would do," I affirmed with some disdain, "perfectly well. I have a\r
+woman's heart, but not where you are concerned; for you I have only a\r
+comrade's constancy; a fellow-soldier's frankness, fidelity, fraternity,\r
+if you like; a neophyte's respect and submission to his hierophant:\r
+nothing more--don't fear."\r
+\r
+"It is what I want," he said, speaking to himself; "it is just what I\r
+want. And there are obstacles in the way: they must be hewn down. Jane,\r
+you would not repent marrying me--be certain of that; we _must_ be\r
+married. I repeat it: there is no other way; and undoubtedly enough of\r
+love would follow upon marriage to render the union right even in your\r
+eyes."\r
+\r
+"I scorn your idea of love," I could not help saying, as I rose up and\r
+stood before him, leaning my back against the rock. "I scorn the\r
+counterfeit sentiment you offer: yes, St. John, and I scorn you when you\r
+offer it."\r
+\r
+He looked at me fixedly, compressing his well-cut lips while he did so.\r
+Whether he was incensed or surprised, or what, it was not easy to tell:\r
+he could command his countenance thoroughly.\r
+\r
+"I scarcely expected to hear that expression from you," he said: "I think\r
+I have done and uttered nothing to deserve scorn."\r
+\r
+I was touched by his gentle tone, and overawed by his high, calm mien.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me the words, St. John; but it is your own fault that I have\r
+been roused to speak so unguardedly. You have introduced a topic on\r
+which our natures are at variance--a topic we should never discuss: the\r
+very name of love is an apple of discord between us. If the reality were\r
+required, what should we do? How should we feel? My dear cousin,\r
+abandon your scheme of marriage--forget it."\r
+\r
+"No," said he; "it is a long-cherished scheme, and the only one which can\r
+secure my great end: but I shall urge you no further at present.\r
+To-morrow, I leave home for Cambridge: I have many friends there to whom\r
+I should wish to say farewell. I shall be absent a fortnight--take that\r
+space of time to consider my offer: and do not forget that if you reject\r
+it, it is not me you deny, but God. Through my means, He opens to you a\r
+noble career; as my wife only can you enter upon it. Refuse to be my\r
+wife, and you limit yourself for ever to a track of selfish ease and\r
+barren obscurity. Tremble lest in that case you should be numbered with\r
+those who have denied the faith, and are worse than infidels!"\r
+\r
+He had done. Turning from me, he once more\r
+\r
+ "Looked to river, looked to hill."\r
+\r
+But this time his feelings were all pent in his heart: I was not worthy\r
+to hear them uttered. As I walked by his side homeward, I read well in\r
+his iron silence all he felt towards me: the disappointment of an austere\r
+and despotic nature, which has met resistance where it expected\r
+submission--the disapprobation of a cool, inflexible judgment, which has\r
+detected in another feelings and views in which it has no power to\r
+sympathise: in short, as a man, he would have wished to coerce me into\r
+obedience: it was only as a sincere Christian he bore so patiently with\r
+my perversity, and allowed so long a space for reflection and repentance.\r
+\r
+That night, after he had kissed his sisters, he thought proper to forget\r
+even to shake hands with me, but left the room in silence. I--who,\r
+though I had no love, had much friendship for him--was hurt by the marked\r
+omission: so much hurt that tears started to my eyes.\r
+\r
+"I see you and St. John have been quarrelling, Jane," said Diana, "during\r
+your walk on the moor. But go after him; he is now lingering in the\r
+passage expecting you--he will make it up."\r
+\r
+I have not much pride under such circumstances: I would always rather be\r
+happy than dignified; and I ran after him--he stood at the foot of the\r
+stairs.\r
+\r
+"Good-night, St. John," said I.\r
+\r
+"Good-night, Jane," he replied calmly.\r
+\r
+"Then shake hands," I added.\r
+\r
+What a cold, loose touch, he impressed on my fingers! He was deeply\r
+displeased by what had occurred that day; cordiality would not warm, nor\r
+tears move him. No happy reconciliation was to be had with him--no\r
+cheering smile or generous word: but still the Christian was patient and\r
+placid; and when I asked him if he forgave me, he answered that he was\r
+not in the habit of cherishing the remembrance of vexation; that he had\r
+nothing to forgive, not having been offended.\r
+\r
+And with that answer he left me. I would much rather he had knocked me\r
+down.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXV\r
+\r
+\r
+He did not leave for Cambridge the next day, as he had said he would. He\r
+deferred his departure a whole week, and during that time he made me feel\r
+what severe punishment a good yet stern, a conscientious yet implacable\r
+man can inflict on one who has offended him. Without one overt act of\r
+hostility, one upbraiding word, he contrived to impress me momently with\r
+the conviction that I was put beyond the pale of his favour.\r
+\r
+Not that St. John harboured a spirit of unchristian vindictiveness--not\r
+that he would have injured a hair of my head, if it had been fully in his\r
+power to do so. Both by nature and principle, he was superior to the\r
+mean gratification of vengeance: he had forgiven me for saying I scorned\r
+him and his love, but he had not forgotten the words; and as long as he\r
+and I lived he never would forget them. I saw by his look, when he\r
+turned to me, that they were always written on the air between me and\r
+him; whenever I spoke, they sounded in my voice to his ear, and their\r
+echo toned every answer he gave me.\r
+\r
+He did not abstain from conversing with me: he even called me as usual\r
+each morning to join him at his desk; and I fear the corrupt man within\r
+him had a pleasure unimparted to, and unshared by, the pure Christian, in\r
+evincing with what skill he could, while acting and speaking apparently\r
+just as usual, extract from every deed and every phrase the spirit of\r
+interest and approval which had formerly communicated a certain austere\r
+charm to his language and manner. To me, he was in reality become no\r
+longer flesh, but marble; his eye was a cold, bright, blue gem; his\r
+tongue a speaking instrument--nothing more.\r
+\r
+All this was torture to me--refined, lingering torture. It kept up a\r
+slow fire of indignation and a trembling trouble of grief, which harassed\r
+and crushed me altogether. I felt how--if I were his wife, this good\r
+man, pure as the deep sunless source, could soon kill me, without drawing\r
+from my veins a single drop of blood, or receiving on his own crystal\r
+conscience the faintest stain of crime. Especially I felt this when I\r
+made any attempt to propitiate him. No ruth met my ruth. _He_\r
+experienced no suffering from estrangement--no yearning after\r
+reconciliation; and though, more than once, my fast falling tears\r
+blistered the page over which we both bent, they produced no more effect\r
+on him than if his heart had been really a matter of stone or metal. To\r
+his sisters, meantime, he was somewhat kinder than usual: as if afraid\r
+that mere coldness would not sufficiently convince me how completely I\r
+was banished and banned, he added the force of contrast; and this I am\r
+sure he did not by force, but on principle.\r
+\r
+The night before he left home, happening to see him walking in the garden\r
+about sunset, and remembering, as I looked at him, that this man,\r
+alienated as he now was, had once saved my life, and that we were near\r
+relations, I was moved to make a last attempt to regain his friendship. I\r
+went out and approached him as he stood leaning over the little gate; I\r
+spoke to the point at once.\r
+\r
+"St. John, I am unhappy because you are still angry with me. Let us be\r
+friends."\r
+\r
+"I hope we are friends," was the unmoved reply; while he still watched\r
+the rising of the moon, which he had been contemplating as I approached.\r
+\r
+"No, St. John, we are not friends as we were. You know that."\r
+\r
+"Are we not? That is wrong. For my part, I wish you no ill and all\r
+good."\r
+\r
+"I believe you, St. John; for I am sure you are incapable of wishing any\r
+one ill; but, as I am your kinswoman, I should desire somewhat more of\r
+affection than that sort of general philanthropy you extend to mere\r
+strangers."\r
+\r
+"Of course," he said. "Your wish is reasonable, and I am far from\r
+regarding you as a stranger."\r
+\r
+This, spoken in a cool, tranquil tone, was mortifying and baffling\r
+enough. Had I attended to the suggestions of pride and ire, I should\r
+immediately have left him; but something worked within me more strongly\r
+than those feelings could. I deeply venerated my cousin's talent and\r
+principle. His friendship was of value to me: to lose it tried me\r
+severely. I would not so soon relinquish the attempt to reconquer it.\r
+\r
+"Must we part in this way, St. John? And when you go to India, will you\r
+leave me so, without a kinder word than you have yet spoken?"\r
+\r
+He now turned quite from the moon and faced me.\r
+\r
+"When I go to India, Jane, will I leave you! What! do you not go to\r
+India?"\r
+\r
+"You said I could not unless I married you."\r
+\r
+"And you will not marry me! You adhere to that resolution?"\r
+\r
+Reader, do you know, as I do, what terror those cold people can put into\r
+the ice of their questions? How much of the fall of the avalanche is in\r
+their anger? of the breaking up of the frozen sea in their displeasure?\r
+\r
+"No. St. John, I will not marry you. I adhere to my resolution."\r
+\r
+The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet\r
+crash down.\r
+\r
+"Once more, why this refusal?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Formerly," I answered, "because you did not love me; now, I reply,\r
+because you almost hate me. If I were to marry you, you would kill me.\r
+You are killing me now."\r
+\r
+His lips and cheeks turned white--quite white.\r
+\r
+"_I should kill you_--_I am killing you_? Your words are such as ought\r
+not to be used: violent, unfeminine, and untrue. They betray an\r
+unfortunate state of mind: they merit severe reproof: they would seem\r
+inexcusable, but that it is the duty of man to forgive his fellow even\r
+until seventy-and-seven times."\r
+\r
+I had finished the business now. While earnestly wishing to erase from\r
+his mind the trace of my former offence, I had stamped on that tenacious\r
+surface another and far deeper impression, I had burnt it in.\r
+\r
+"Now you will indeed hate me," I said. "It is useless to attempt to\r
+conciliate you: I see I have made an eternal enemy of you."\r
+\r
+A fresh wrong did these words inflict: the worse, because they touched on\r
+the truth. That bloodless lip quivered to a temporary spasm. I knew the\r
+steely ire I had whetted. I was heart-wrung.\r
+\r
+"You utterly misinterpret my words," I said, at once seizing his hand: "I\r
+have no intention to grieve or pain you--indeed, I have not."\r
+\r
+Most bitterly he smiled--most decidedly he withdrew his hand from mine.\r
+"And now you recall your promise, and will not go to India at all, I\r
+presume?" said he, after a considerable pause.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I will, as your assistant," I answered.\r
+\r
+A very long silence succeeded. What struggle there was in him between\r
+Nature and Grace in this interval, I cannot tell: only singular gleams\r
+scintillated in his eyes, and strange shadows passed over his face. He\r
+spoke at last.\r
+\r
+"I before proved to you the absurdity of a single woman of your age\r
+proposing to accompany abroad a single man of mine. I proved it to you\r
+in such terms as, I should have thought, would have prevented your ever\r
+again alluding to the plan. That you have done so, I regret--for your\r
+sake."\r
+\r
+I interrupted him. Anything like a tangible reproach gave me courage at\r
+once. "Keep to common sense, St. John: you are verging on nonsense. You\r
+pretend to be shocked by what I have said. You are not really shocked:\r
+for, with your superior mind, you cannot be either so dull or so\r
+conceited as to misunderstand my meaning. I say again, I will be your\r
+curate, if you like, but never your wife."\r
+\r
+Again he turned lividly pale; but, as before, controlled his passion\r
+perfectly. He answered emphatically but calmly--\r
+\r
+"A female curate, who is not my wife, would never suit me. With me,\r
+then, it seems, you cannot go: but if you are sincere in your offer, I\r
+will, while in town, speak to a married missionary, whose wife needs a\r
+coadjutor. Your own fortune will make you independent of the Society's\r
+aid; and thus you may still be spared the dishonour of breaking your\r
+promise and deserting the band you engaged to join."\r
+\r
+Now I never had, as the reader knows, either given any formal promise or\r
+entered into any engagement; and this language was all much too hard and\r
+much too despotic for the occasion. I replied--\r
+\r
+"There is no dishonour, no breach of promise, no desertion in the case. I\r
+am not under the slightest obligation to go to India, especially with\r
+strangers. With you I would have ventured much, because I admire,\r
+confide in, and, as a sister, I love you; but I am convinced that, go\r
+when and with whom I would, I should not live long in that climate."\r
+\r
+"Ah! you are afraid of yourself," he said, curling his lip.\r
+\r
+"I am. God did not give me my life to throw away; and to do as you wish\r
+me would, I begin to think, be almost equivalent to committing suicide.\r
+Moreover, before I definitively resolve on quitting England, I will know\r
+for certain whether I cannot be of greater use by remaining in it than by\r
+leaving it."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"It would be fruitless to attempt to explain; but there is a point on\r
+which I have long endured painful doubt, and I can go nowhere till by\r
+some means that doubt is removed."\r
+\r
+"I know where your heart turns and to what it clings. The interest you\r
+cherish is lawless and unconsecrated. Long since you ought to have\r
+crushed it: now you should blush to allude to it. You think of Mr.\r
+Rochester?"\r
+\r
+It was true. I confessed it by silence.\r
+\r
+"Are you going to seek Mr. Rochester?"\r
+\r
+"I must find out what is become of him."\r
+\r
+"It remains for me, then," he said, "to remember you in my prayers, and\r
+to entreat God for you, in all earnestness, that you may not indeed\r
+become a castaway. I had thought I recognised in you one of the chosen.\r
+But God sees not as man sees: _His_ will be done--"\r
+\r
+He opened the gate, passed through it, and strayed away down the glen. He\r
+was soon out of sight.\r
+\r
+On re-entering the parlour, I found Diana standing at the window, looking\r
+very thoughtful. Diana was a great deal taller than I: she put her hand\r
+on my shoulder, and, stooping, examined my face.\r
+\r
+"Jane," she said, "you are always agitated and pale now. I am sure there\r
+is something the matter. Tell me what business St. John and you have on\r
+hands. I have watched you this half hour from the window; you must\r
+forgive my being such a spy, but for a long time I have fancied I hardly\r
+know what. St. John is a strange being--"\r
+\r
+She paused--I did not speak: soon she resumed--\r
+\r
+"That brother of mine cherishes peculiar views of some sort respecting\r
+you, I am sure: he has long distinguished you by a notice and interest he\r
+never showed to any one else--to what end? I wish he loved you--does he,\r
+Jane?"\r
+\r
+I put her cool hand to my hot forehead; "No, Die, not one whit."\r
+\r
+"Then why does he follow you so with his eyes, and get you so frequently\r
+alone with him, and keep you so continually at his side? Mary and I had\r
+both concluded he wished you to marry him."\r
+\r
+"He does--he has asked me to be his wife."\r
+\r
+Diana clapped her hands. "That is just what we hoped and thought! And\r
+you will marry him, Jane, won't you? And then he will stay in England."\r
+\r
+"Far from that, Diana; his sole idea in proposing to me is to procure a\r
+fitting fellow-labourer in his Indian toils."\r
+\r
+"What! He wishes you to go to India?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"Madness!" she exclaimed. "You would not live three months there, I am\r
+certain. You never shall go: you have not consented, have you, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"I have refused to marry him--"\r
+\r
+"And have consequently displeased him?" she suggested.\r
+\r
+"Deeply: he will never forgive me, I fear: yet I offered to accompany him\r
+as his sister."\r
+\r
+"It was frantic folly to do so, Jane. Think of the task you\r
+undertook--one of incessant fatigue, where fatigue kills even the strong,\r
+and you are weak. St. John--you know him--would urge you to\r
+impossibilities: with him there would be no permission to rest during the\r
+hot hours; and unfortunately, I have noticed, whatever he exacts, you\r
+force yourself to perform. I am astonished you found courage to refuse\r
+his hand. You do not love him then, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Not as a husband."\r
+\r
+"Yet he is a handsome fellow."\r
+\r
+"And I am so plain, you see, Die. We should never suit."\r
+\r
+"Plain! You? Not at all. You are much too pretty, as well as too good,\r
+to be grilled alive in Calcutta." And again she earnestly conjured me to\r
+give up all thoughts of going out with her brother.\r
+\r
+"I must indeed," I said; "for when just now I repeated the offer of\r
+serving him for a deacon, he expressed himself shocked at my want of\r
+decency. He seemed to think I had committed an impropriety in proposing\r
+to accompany him unmarried: as if I had not from the first hoped to find\r
+in him a brother, and habitually regarded him as such."\r
+\r
+"What makes you say he does not love you, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"You should hear himself on the subject. He has again and again\r
+explained that it is not himself, but his office he wishes to mate. He\r
+has told me I am formed for labour--not for love: which is true, no\r
+doubt. But, in my opinion, if I am not formed for love, it follows that\r
+I am not formed for marriage. Would it not be strange, Die, to be\r
+chained for life to a man who regarded one but as a useful tool?"\r
+\r
+"Insupportable--unnatural--out of the question!"\r
+\r
+"And then," I continued, "though I have only sisterly affection for him\r
+now, yet, if forced to be his wife, I can imagine the possibility of\r
+conceiving an inevitable, strange, torturing kind of love for him,\r
+because he is so talented; and there is often a certain heroic grandeur\r
+in his look, manner, and conversation. In that case, my lot would become\r
+unspeakably wretched. He would not want me to love him; and if I showed\r
+the feeling, he would make me sensible that it was a superfluity,\r
+unrequired by him, unbecoming in me. I know he would."\r
+\r
+"And yet St. John is a good man," said Diana.\r
+\r
+"He is a good and a great man; but he forgets, pitilessly, the feelings\r
+and claims of little people, in pursuing his own large views. It is\r
+better, therefore, for the insignificant to keep out of his way, lest, in\r
+his progress, he should trample them down. Here he comes! I will leave\r
+you, Diana." And I hastened upstairs as I saw him entering the garden.\r
+\r
+But I was forced to meet him again at supper. During that meal he\r
+appeared just as composed as usual. I had thought he would hardly speak\r
+to me, and I was certain he had given up the pursuit of his matrimonial\r
+scheme: the sequel showed I was mistaken on both points. He addressed me\r
+precisely in his ordinary manner, or what had, of late, been his ordinary\r
+manner--one scrupulously polite. No doubt he had invoked the help of the\r
+Holy Spirit to subdue the anger I had roused in him, and now believed he\r
+had forgiven me once more.\r
+\r
+For the evening reading before prayers, he selected the twenty-first\r
+chapter of Revelation. It was at all times pleasant to listen while from\r
+his lips fell the words of the Bible: never did his fine voice sound at\r
+once so sweet and full--never did his manner become so impressive in its\r
+noble simplicity, as when he delivered the oracles of God: and to-night\r
+that voice took a more solemn tone--that manner a more thrilling\r
+meaning--as he sat in the midst of his household circle (the May moon\r
+shining in through the uncurtained window, and rendering almost\r
+unnecessary the light of the candle on the table): as he sat there,\r
+bending over the great old Bible, and described from its page the vision\r
+of the new heaven and the new earth--told how God would come to dwell\r
+with men, how He would wipe away all tears from their eyes, and promised\r
+that there should be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, nor any\r
+more pain, because the former things were passed away.\r
+\r
+The succeeding words thrilled me strangely as he spoke them: especially\r
+as I felt, by the slight, indescribable alteration in sound, that in\r
+uttering them, his eye had turned on me.\r
+\r
+"He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and\r
+he shall be my son. But," was slowly, distinctly read, "the fearful, the\r
+unbelieving, &c., shall have their part in the lake which burneth with\r
+fire and brimstone, which is the second death."\r
+\r
+Henceforward, I knew what fate St. John feared for me.\r
+\r
+A calm, subdued triumph, blent with a longing earnestness, marked his\r
+enunciation of the last glorious verses of that chapter. The reader\r
+believed his name was already written in the Lamb's book of life, and he\r
+yearned after the hour which should admit him to the city to which the\r
+kings of the earth bring their glory and honour; which has no need of sun\r
+or moon to shine in it, because the glory of God lightens it, and the\r
+Lamb is the light thereof.\r
+\r
+In the prayer following the chapter, all his energy gathered--all his\r
+stern zeal woke: he was in deep earnest, wrestling with God, and resolved\r
+on a conquest. He supplicated strength for the weak-hearted; guidance\r
+for wanderers from the fold: a return, even at the eleventh hour, for\r
+those whom the temptations of the world and the flesh were luring from\r
+the narrow path. He asked, he urged, he claimed the boon of a brand\r
+snatched from the burning. Earnestness is ever deeply solemn: first, as\r
+I listened to that prayer, I wondered at his; then, when it continued and\r
+rose, I was touched by it, and at last awed. He felt the greatness and\r
+goodness of his purpose so sincerely: others who heard him plead for it,\r
+could not but feel it too.\r
+\r
+The prayer over, we took leave of him: he was to go at a very early hour\r
+in the morning. Diana and Mary having kissed him, left the room--in\r
+compliance, I think, with a whispered hint from him: I tendered my hand,\r
+and wished him a pleasant journey.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Jane. As I said, I shall return from Cambridge in a\r
+fortnight: that space, then, is yet left you for reflection. If I\r
+listened to human pride, I should say no more to you of marriage with me;\r
+but I listen to my duty, and keep steadily in view my first aim--to do\r
+all things to the glory of God. My Master was long-suffering: so will I\r
+be. I cannot give you up to perdition as a vessel of wrath:\r
+repent--resolve, while there is yet time. Remember, we are bid to work\r
+while it is day--warned that 'the night cometh when no man shall work.'\r
+Remember the fate of Dives, who had his good things in this life. God\r
+give you strength to choose that better part which shall not be taken\r
+from you!"\r
+\r
+He laid his hand on my head as he uttered the last words. He had spoken\r
+earnestly, mildly: his look was not, indeed, that of a lover beholding\r
+his mistress, but it was that of a pastor recalling his wandering\r
+sheep--or better, of a guardian angel watching the soul for which he is\r
+responsible. All men of talent, whether they be men of feeling or not;\r
+whether they be zealots, or aspirants, or despots--provided only they be\r
+sincere--have their sublime moments, when they subdue and rule. I felt\r
+veneration for St. John--veneration so strong that its impetus thrust me\r
+at once to the point I had so long shunned. I was tempted to cease\r
+struggling with him--to rush down the torrent of his will into the gulf\r
+of his existence, and there lose my own. I was almost as hard beset by\r
+him now as I had been once before, in a different way, by another. I was\r
+a fool both times. To have yielded then would have been an error of\r
+principle; to have yielded now would have been an error of judgment. So\r
+I think at this hour, when I look back to the crisis through the quiet\r
+medium of time: I was unconscious of folly at the instant.\r
+\r
+I stood motionless under my hierophant's touch. My refusals were\r
+forgotten--my fears overcome--my wrestlings paralysed. The\r
+Impossible--_i.e._, my marriage with St. John--was fast becoming the\r
+Possible. All was changing utterly with a sudden sweep. Religion\r
+called--Angels beckoned--God commanded--life rolled together like a\r
+scroll--death's gates opening, showed eternity beyond: it seemed, that\r
+for safety and bliss there, all here might be sacrificed in a second. The\r
+dim room was full of visions.\r
+\r
+"Could you decide now?" asked the missionary. The inquiry was put in\r
+gentle tones: he drew me to him as gently. Oh, that gentleness! how far\r
+more potent is it than force! I could resist St. John's wrath: I grew\r
+pliant as a reed under his kindness. Yet I knew all the time, if I\r
+yielded now, I should not the less be made to repent, some day, of my\r
+former rebellion. His nature was not changed by one hour of solemn\r
+prayer: it was only elevated.\r
+\r
+"I could decide if I were but certain," I answered: "were I but convinced\r
+that it is God's will I should marry you, I could vow to marry you here\r
+and now--come afterwards what would!"\r
+\r
+"My prayers are heard!" ejaculated St. John. He pressed his hand firmer\r
+on my head, as if he claimed me: he surrounded me with his arm, _almost_\r
+as if he loved me (I say _almost_--I knew the difference--for I had felt\r
+what it was to be loved; but, like him, I had now put love out of the\r
+question, and thought only of duty). I contended with my inward dimness\r
+of vision, before which clouds yet rolled. I sincerely, deeply,\r
+fervently longed to do what was right; and only that. "Show me, show me\r
+the path!" I entreated of Heaven. I was excited more than I had ever\r
+been; and whether what followed was the effect of excitement the reader\r
+shall judge.\r
+\r
+All the house was still; for I believe all, except St. John and myself,\r
+were now retired to rest. The one candle was dying out: the room was\r
+full of moonlight. My heart beat fast and thick: I heard its throb.\r
+Suddenly it stood still to an inexpressible feeling that thrilled it\r
+through, and passed at once to my head and extremities. The feeling was\r
+not like an electric shock, but it was quite as sharp, as strange, as\r
+startling: it acted on my senses as if their utmost activity hitherto had\r
+been but torpor, from which they were now summoned and forced to wake.\r
+They rose expectant: eye and ear waited while the flesh quivered on my\r
+bones.\r
+\r
+"What have you heard? What do you see?" asked St. John. I saw nothing,\r
+but I heard a voice somewhere cry--\r
+\r
+"Jane! Jane! Jane!"--nothing more.\r
+\r
+"O God! what is it?" I gasped.\r
+\r
+I might have said, "Where is it?" for it did not seem in the room--nor in\r
+the house--nor in the garden; it did not come out of the air--nor from\r
+under the earth--nor from overhead. I had heard it--where, or whence,\r
+for ever impossible to know! And it was the voice of a human being--a\r
+known, loved, well-remembered voice--that of Edward Fairfax Rochester;\r
+and it spoke in pain and woe, wildly, eerily, urgently.\r
+\r
+"I am coming!" I cried. "Wait for me! Oh, I will come!" I flew to the\r
+door and looked into the passage: it was dark. I ran out into the\r
+garden: it was void.\r
+\r
+"Where are you?" I exclaimed.\r
+\r
+The hills beyond Marsh Glen sent the answer faintly back--"Where are\r
+you?" I listened. The wind sighed low in the firs: all was moorland\r
+loneliness and midnight hush.\r
+\r
+"Down superstition!" I commented, as that spectre rose up black by the\r
+black yew at the gate. "This is not thy deception, nor thy witchcraft:\r
+it is the work of nature. She was roused, and did--no miracle--but her\r
+best."\r
+\r
+I broke from St. John, who had followed, and would have detained me. It\r
+was _my_ time to assume ascendency. _My_ powers were in play and in\r
+force. I told him to forbear question or remark; I desired him to leave\r
+me: I must and would be alone. He obeyed at once. Where there is energy\r
+to command well enough, obedience never fails. I mounted to my chamber;\r
+locked myself in; fell on my knees; and prayed in my way--a different way\r
+to St. John's, but effective in its own fashion. I seemed to penetrate\r
+very near a Mighty Spirit; and my soul rushed out in gratitude at His\r
+feet. I rose from the thanksgiving--took a resolve--and lay down,\r
+unscared, enlightened--eager but for the daylight.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVI\r
+\r
+\r
+The daylight came. I rose at dawn. I busied myself for an hour or two\r
+with arranging my things in my chamber, drawers, and wardrobe, in the\r
+order wherein I should wish to leave them during a brief absence.\r
+Meantime, I heard St. John quit his room. He stopped at my door: I\r
+feared he would knock--no, but a slip of paper was passed under the door.\r
+I took it up. It bore these words--\r
+\r
+"You left me too suddenly last night. Had you stayed but a little\r
+longer, you would have laid your hand on the Christian's cross and the\r
+angel's crown. I shall expect your clear decision when I return this day\r
+fortnight. Meantime, watch and pray that you enter not into temptation:\r
+the spirit, I trust, is willing, but the flesh, I see, is weak. I shall\r
+pray for you hourly.--Yours, ST. JOHN."\r
+\r
+"My spirit," I answered mentally, "is willing to do what is right; and my\r
+flesh, I hope, is strong enough to accomplish the will of Heaven, when\r
+once that will is distinctly known to me. At any rate, it shall be\r
+strong enough to search--inquire--to grope an outlet from this cloud of\r
+doubt, and find the open day of certainty."\r
+\r
+It was the first of June; yet the morning was overcast and chilly: rain\r
+beat fast on my casement. I heard the front-door open, and St. John pass\r
+out. Looking through the window, I saw him traverse the garden. He took\r
+the way over the misty moors in the direction of Whitcross--there he\r
+would meet the coach.\r
+\r
+"In a few more hours I shall succeed you in that track, cousin," thought\r
+I: "I too have a coach to meet at Whitcross. I too have some to see and\r
+ask after in England, before I depart for ever."\r
+\r
+It wanted yet two hours of breakfast-time. I filled the interval in\r
+walking softly about my room, and pondering the visitation which had\r
+given my plans their present bent. I recalled that inward sensation I\r
+had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable\r
+strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence\r
+it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in _me_--not in the external\r
+world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression--a delusion? I could\r
+not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous\r
+shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations\r
+of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell\r
+and loosed its bands--it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it\r
+sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my\r
+startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which\r
+neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of\r
+one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous\r
+body.\r
+\r
+"Ere many days," I said, as I terminated my musings, "I will know\r
+something of him whose voice seemed last night to summon me. Letters\r
+have proved of no avail--personal inquiry shall replace them."\r
+\r
+At breakfast I announced to Diana and Mary that I was going a journey,\r
+and should be absent at least four days.\r
+\r
+"Alone, Jane?" they asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes; it was to see or hear news of a friend about whom I had for some\r
+time been uneasy."\r
+\r
+They might have said, as I have no doubt they thought, that they had\r
+believed me to be without any friends save them: for, indeed, I had often\r
+said so; but, with their true natural delicacy, they abstained from\r
+comment, except that Diana asked me if I was sure I was well enough to\r
+travel. I looked very pale, she observed. I replied, that nothing ailed\r
+me save anxiety of mind, which I hoped soon to alleviate.\r
+\r
+It was easy to make my further arrangements; for I was troubled with no\r
+inquiries--no surmises. Having once explained to them that I could not\r
+now be explicit about my plans, they kindly and wisely acquiesced in the\r
+silence with which I pursued them, according to me the privilege of free\r
+action I should under similar circumstances have accorded them.\r
+\r
+I left Moor House at three o'clock p.m., and soon after four I stood at\r
+the foot of the sign-post of Whitcross, waiting the arrival of the coach\r
+which was to take me to distant Thornfield. Amidst the silence of those\r
+solitary roads and desert hills, I heard it approach from a great\r
+distance. It was the same vehicle whence, a year ago, I had alighted one\r
+summer evening on this very spot--how desolate, and hopeless, and\r
+objectless! It stopped as I beckoned. I entered--not now obliged to\r
+part with my whole fortune as the price of its accommodation. Once more\r
+on the road to Thornfield, I felt like the messenger-pigeon flying home.\r
+\r
+It was a journey of six-and-thirty hours. I had set out from Whitcross\r
+on a Tuesday afternoon, and early on the succeeding Thursday morning the\r
+coach stopped to water the horses at a wayside inn, situated in the midst\r
+of scenery whose green hedges and large fields and low pastoral hills\r
+(how mild of feature and verdant of hue compared with the stern North-\r
+Midland moors of Morton!) met my eye like the lineaments of a once\r
+familiar face. Yes, I knew the character of this landscape: I was sure\r
+we were near my bourne.\r
+\r
+"How far is Thornfield Hall from here?" I asked of the ostler.\r
+\r
+"Just two miles, ma'am, across the fields."\r
+\r
+"My journey is closed," I thought to myself. I got out of the coach,\r
+gave a box I had into the ostler's charge, to be kept till I called for\r
+it; paid my fare; satisfied the coachman, and was going: the brightening\r
+day gleamed on the sign of the inn, and I read in gilt letters, "The\r
+Rochester Arms." My heart leapt up: I was already on my master's very\r
+lands. It fell again: the thought struck it:--\r
+\r
+"Your master himself may be beyond the British Channel, for aught you\r
+know: and then, if he is at Thornfield Hall, towards which you hasten,\r
+who besides him is there? His lunatic wife: and you have nothing to do\r
+with him: you dare not speak to him or seek his presence. You have lost\r
+your labour--you had better go no farther," urged the monitor. "Ask\r
+information of the people at the inn; they can give you all you seek:\r
+they can solve your doubts at once. Go up to that man, and inquire if\r
+Mr. Rochester be at home."\r
+\r
+The suggestion was sensible, and yet I could not force myself to act on\r
+it. I so dreaded a reply that would crush me with despair. To prolong\r
+doubt was to prolong hope. I might yet once more see the Hall under the\r
+ray of her star. There was the stile before me--the very fields through\r
+which I had hurried, blind, deaf, distracted with a revengeful fury\r
+tracking and scourging me, on the morning I fled from Thornfield: ere I\r
+well knew what course I had resolved to take, I was in the midst of them.\r
+How fast I walked! How I ran sometimes! How I looked forward to catch\r
+the first view of the well-known woods! With what feelings I welcomed\r
+single trees I knew, and familiar glimpses of meadow and hill between\r
+them!\r
+\r
+At last the woods rose; the rookery clustered dark; a loud cawing broke\r
+the morning stillness. Strange delight inspired me: on I hastened.\r
+Another field crossed--a lane threaded--and there were the courtyard\r
+walls--the back offices: the house itself, the rookery still hid. "My\r
+first view of it shall be in front," I determined, "where its bold\r
+battlements will strike the eye nobly at once, and where I can single out\r
+my master's very window: perhaps he will be standing at it--he rises\r
+early: perhaps he is now walking in the orchard, or on the pavement in\r
+front. Could I but see him!--but a moment! Surely, in that case, I\r
+should not be so mad as to run to him? I cannot tell--I am not certain.\r
+And if I did--what then? God bless him! What then? Who would be hurt\r
+by my once more tasting the life his glance can give me? I rave: perhaps\r
+at this moment he is watching the sun rise over the Pyrenees, or on the\r
+tideless sea of the south."\r
+\r
+I had coasted along the lower wall of the orchard--turned its angle:\r
+there was a gate just there, opening into the meadow, between two stone\r
+pillars crowned by stone balls. From behind one pillar I could peep\r
+round quietly at the full front of the mansion. I advanced my head with\r
+precaution, desirous to ascertain if any bedroom window-blinds were yet\r
+drawn up: battlements, windows, long front--all from this sheltered\r
+station were at my command.\r
+\r
+The crows sailing overhead perhaps watched me while I took this survey. I\r
+wonder what they thought. They must have considered I was very careful\r
+and timid at first, and that gradually I grew very bold and reckless. A\r
+peep, and then a long stare; and then a departure from my niche and a\r
+straying out into the meadow; and a sudden stop full in front of the\r
+great mansion, and a protracted, hardy gaze towards it. "What\r
+affectation of diffidence was this at first?" they might have demanded;\r
+"what stupid regardlessness now?"\r
+\r
+Hear an illustration, reader.\r
+\r
+A lover finds his mistress asleep on a mossy bank; he wishes to catch a\r
+glimpse of her fair face without waking her. He steals softly over the\r
+grass, careful to make no sound; he pauses--fancying she has stirred: he\r
+withdraws: not for worlds would he be seen. All is still: he again\r
+advances: he bends above her; a light veil rests on her features: he\r
+lifts it, bends lower; now his eyes anticipate the vision of beauty--warm,\r
+and blooming, and lovely, in rest. How hurried was their first glance!\r
+But how they fix! How he starts! How he suddenly and vehemently clasps\r
+in both arms the form he dared not, a moment since, touch with his\r
+finger! How he calls aloud a name, and drops his burden, and gazes on it\r
+wildly! He thus grasps and cries, and gazes, because he no longer fears\r
+to waken by any sound he can utter--by any movement he can make. He\r
+thought his love slept sweetly: he finds she is stone dead.\r
+\r
+I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened\r
+ruin.\r
+\r
+No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed!--to peep up at chamber\r
+lattices, fearing life was astir behind them! No need to listen for\r
+doors opening--to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk! The\r
+lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void. The\r
+front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a well-like wall, very\r
+high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows: no roof,\r
+no battlements, no chimneys--all had crashed in.\r
+\r
+And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome\r
+wild. No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received\r
+an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle. The\r
+grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen--by\r
+conflagration: but how kindled? What story belonged to this disaster?\r
+What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had followed upon it?\r
+Had life been wrecked as well as property? If so, whose? Dreadful\r
+question: there was no one here to answer it--not even dumb sign, mute\r
+token.\r
+\r
+In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated\r
+interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late\r
+occurrence. Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch,\r
+winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements; for, amidst the\r
+drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and\r
+weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters. And oh!\r
+where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck? In what land? Under\r
+what auspices? My eye involuntarily wandered to the grey church tower\r
+near the gates, and I asked, "Is he with Damer de Rochester, sharing the\r
+shelter of his narrow marble house?"\r
+\r
+Some answer must be had to these questions. I could find it nowhere but\r
+at the inn, and thither, ere long, I returned. The host himself brought\r
+my breakfast into the parlour. I requested him to shut the door and sit\r
+down: I had some questions to ask him. But when he complied, I scarcely\r
+knew how to begin; such horror had I of the possible answers. And yet\r
+the spectacle of desolation I had just left prepared me in a measure for\r
+a tale of misery. The host was a respectable-looking, middle-aged man.\r
+\r
+"You know Thornfield Hall, of course?" I managed to say at last.\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am; I lived there once."\r
+\r
+"Did you?" Not in my time, I thought: you are a stranger to me.\r
+\r
+"I was the late Mr. Rochester's butler," he added.\r
+\r
+The late! I seem to have received, with full force, the blow I had been\r
+trying to evade.\r
+\r
+"The late!" I gasped. "Is he dead?"\r
+\r
+"I mean the present gentleman, Mr. Edward's father," he explained. I\r
+breathed again: my blood resumed its flow. Fully assured by these words\r
+that Mr. Edward--_my_ Mr. Rochester (God bless him, wherever he was!)--was\r
+at least alive: was, in short, "the present gentleman." Gladdening\r
+words! It seemed I could hear all that was to come--whatever the\r
+disclosures might be--with comparative tranquillity. Since he was not in\r
+the grave, I could bear, I thought, to learn that he was at the\r
+Antipodes.\r
+\r
+"Is Mr. Rochester living at Thornfield Hall now?" I asked, knowing, of\r
+course, what the answer would be, but yet desirous of deferring the\r
+direct question as to where he really was.\r
+\r
+"No, ma'am--oh, no! No one is living there. I suppose you are a\r
+stranger in these parts, or you would have heard what happened last\r
+autumn,--Thornfield Hall is quite a ruin: it was burnt down just about\r
+harvest-time. A dreadful calamity! such an immense quantity of valuable\r
+property destroyed: hardly any of the furniture could be saved. The fire\r
+broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote,\r
+the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle: I\r
+witnessed it myself."\r
+\r
+"At dead of night!" I muttered. Yes, that was ever the hour of fatality\r
+at Thornfield. "Was it known how it originated?" I demanded.\r
+\r
+"They guessed, ma'am: they guessed. Indeed, I should say it was\r
+ascertained beyond a doubt. You are not perhaps aware," he continued,\r
+edging his chair a little nearer the table, and speaking low, "that there\r
+was a lady--a--a lunatic, kept in the house?"\r
+\r
+"I have heard something of it."\r
+\r
+"She was kept in very close confinement, ma'am: people even for some\r
+years was not absolutely certain of her existence. No one saw her: they\r
+only knew by rumour that such a person was at the Hall; and who or what\r
+she was it was difficult to conjecture. They said Mr. Edward had brought\r
+her from abroad, and some believed she had been his mistress. But a\r
+queer thing happened a year since--a very queer thing."\r
+\r
+I feared now to hear my own story. I endeavoured to recall him to the\r
+main fact.\r
+\r
+"And this lady?"\r
+\r
+"This lady, ma'am," he answered, "turned out to be Mr. Rochester's wife!\r
+The discovery was brought about in the strangest way. There was a young\r
+lady, a governess at the Hall, that Mr. Rochester fell in--"\r
+\r
+"But the fire," I suggested.\r
+\r
+"I'm coming to that, ma'am--that Mr. Edward fell in love with. The\r
+servants say they never saw anybody so much in love as he was: he was\r
+after her continually. They used to watch him--servants will, you know,\r
+ma'am--and he set store on her past everything: for all, nobody but him\r
+thought her so very handsome. She was a little small thing, they say,\r
+almost like a child. I never saw her myself; but I've heard Leah, the\r
+house-maid, tell of her. Leah liked her well enough. Mr. Rochester was\r
+about forty, and this governess not twenty; and you see, when gentlemen\r
+of his age fall in love with girls, they are often like as if they were\r
+bewitched. Well, he would marry her."\r
+\r
+"You shall tell me this part of the story another time," I said; "but now\r
+I have a particular reason for wishing to hear all about the fire. Was\r
+it suspected that this lunatic, Mrs. Rochester, had any hand in it?"\r
+\r
+"You've hit it, ma'am: it's quite certain that it was her, and nobody but\r
+her, that set it going. She had a woman to take care of her called Mrs.\r
+Poole--an able woman in her line, and very trustworthy, but for one\r
+fault--a fault common to a deal of them nurses and matrons--she _kept a\r
+private bottle of gin by her_, and now and then took a drop over-much. It\r
+is excusable, for she had a hard life of it: but still it was dangerous;\r
+for when Mrs. Poole was fast asleep after the gin and water, the mad\r
+lady, who was as cunning as a witch, would take the keys out of her\r
+pocket, let herself out of her chamber, and go roaming about the house,\r
+doing any wild mischief that came into her head. They say she had nearly\r
+burnt her husband in his bed once: but I don't know about that. However,\r
+on this night, she set fire first to the hangings of the room next her\r
+own, and then she got down to a lower storey, and made her way to the\r
+chamber that had been the governess's--(she was like as if she knew\r
+somehow how matters had gone on, and had a spite at her)--and she kindled\r
+the bed there; but there was nobody sleeping in it, fortunately. The\r
+governess had run away two months before; and for all Mr. Rochester\r
+sought her as if she had been the most precious thing he had in the\r
+world, he never could hear a word of her; and he grew savage--quite\r
+savage on his disappointment: he never was a wild man, but he got\r
+dangerous after he lost her. He would be alone, too. He sent Mrs.\r
+Fairfax, the housekeeper, away to her friends at a distance; but he did\r
+it handsomely, for he settled an annuity on her for life: and she\r
+deserved it--she was a very good woman. Miss Adele, a ward he had, was\r
+put to school. He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut\r
+himself up like a hermit at the Hall."\r
+\r
+"What! did he not leave England?"\r
+\r
+"Leave England? Bless you, no! He would not cross the door-stones of\r
+the house, except at night, when he walked just like a ghost about the\r
+grounds and in the orchard as if he had lost his senses--which it is my\r
+opinion he had; for a more spirited, bolder, keener gentleman than he was\r
+before that midge of a governess crossed him, you never saw, ma'am. He\r
+was not a man given to wine, or cards, or racing, as some are, and he was\r
+not so very handsome; but he had a courage and a will of his own, if ever\r
+man had. I knew him from a boy, you see: and for my part, I have often\r
+wished that Miss Eyre had been sunk in the sea before she came to\r
+Thornfield Hall."\r
+\r
+"Then Mr. Rochester was at home when the fire broke out?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed was he; and he went up to the attics when all was burning\r
+above and below, and got the servants out of their beds and helped them\r
+down himself, and went back to get his mad wife out of her cell. And\r
+then they called out to him that she was on the roof, where she was\r
+standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and shouting out till\r
+they could hear her a mile off: I saw her and heard her with my own eyes.\r
+She was a big woman, and had long black hair: we could see it streaming\r
+against the flames as she stood. I witnessed, and several more\r
+witnessed, Mr. Rochester ascend through the sky-light on to the roof; we\r
+heard him call 'Bertha!' We saw him approach her; and then, ma'am, she\r
+yelled and gave a spring, and the next minute she lay smashed on the\r
+pavement."\r
+\r
+{The next minute she lay smashed on the pavement: p413.jpg}\r
+\r
+"Dead?"\r
+\r
+"Dead! Ay, dead as the stones on which her brains and blood were\r
+scattered."\r
+\r
+"Good God!"\r
+\r
+"You may well say so, ma'am: it was frightful!"\r
+\r
+He shuddered.\r
+\r
+"And afterwards?" I urged.\r
+\r
+"Well, ma'am, afterwards the house was burnt to the ground: there are\r
+only some bits of walls standing now."\r
+\r
+"Were any other lives lost?"\r
+\r
+"No--perhaps it would have been better if there had."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?"\r
+\r
+"Poor Mr. Edward!" he ejaculated, "I little thought ever to have seen it!\r
+Some say it was a just judgment on him for keeping his first marriage\r
+secret, and wanting to take another wife while he had one living: but I\r
+pity him, for my part."\r
+\r
+"You said he was alive?" I exclaimed.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes: he is alive; but many think he had better be dead."\r
+\r
+"Why? How?" My blood was again running cold. "Where is he?" I\r
+demanded. "Is he in England?"\r
+\r
+"Ay--ay--he's in England; he can't get out of England, I fancy--he's a\r
+fixture now."\r
+\r
+What agony was this! And the man seemed resolved to protract it.\r
+\r
+"He is stone-blind," he said at last. "Yes, he is stone-blind, is Mr.\r
+Edward."\r
+\r
+I had dreaded worse. I had dreaded he was mad. I summoned strength to\r
+ask what had caused this calamity.\r
+\r
+"It was all his own courage, and a body may say, his kindness, in a way,\r
+ma'am: he wouldn't leave the house till every one else was out before\r
+him. As he came down the great staircase at last, after Mrs. Rochester\r
+had flung herself from the battlements, there was a great crash--all\r
+fell. He was taken out from under the ruins, alive, but sadly hurt: a\r
+beam had fallen in such a way as to protect him partly; but one eye was\r
+knocked out, and one hand so crushed that Mr. Carter, the surgeon, had to\r
+amputate it directly. The other eye inflamed: he lost the sight of that\r
+also. He is now helpless, indeed--blind and a cripple."\r
+\r
+"Where is he? Where does he now live?"\r
+\r
+"At Ferndean, a manor-house on a farm he has, about thirty miles off:\r
+quite a desolate spot."\r
+\r
+"Who is with him?"\r
+\r
+"Old John and his wife: he would have none else. He is quite broken\r
+down, they say."\r
+\r
+"Have you any sort of conveyance?"\r
+\r
+"We have a chaise, ma'am, a very handsome chaise."\r
+\r
+"Let it be got ready instantly; and if your post-boy can drive me to\r
+Ferndean before dark this day, I'll pay both you and him twice the hire\r
+you usually demand."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVII\r
+\r
+\r
+The manor-house of Ferndean was a building of considerable antiquity,\r
+moderate size, and no architectural pretensions, deep buried in a wood. I\r
+had heard of it before. Mr. Rochester often spoke of it, and sometimes\r
+went there. His father had purchased the estate for the sake of the game\r
+covers. He would have let the house, but could find no tenant, in\r
+consequence of its ineligible and insalubrious site. Ferndean then\r
+remained uninhabited and unfurnished, with the exception of some two or\r
+three rooms fitted up for the accommodation of the squire when he went\r
+there in the season to shoot.\r
+\r
+To this house I came just ere dark on an evening marked by the\r
+characteristics of sad sky, cold gale, and continued small penetrating\r
+rain. The last mile I performed on foot, having dismissed the chaise and\r
+driver with the double remuneration I had promised. Even when within a\r
+very short distance of the manor-house, you could see nothing of it, so\r
+thick and dark grew the timber of the gloomy wood about it. Iron gates\r
+between granite pillars showed me where to enter, and passing through\r
+them, I found myself at once in the twilight of close-ranked trees. There\r
+was a grass-grown track descending the forest aisle between hoar and\r
+knotty shafts and under branched arches. I followed it, expecting soon\r
+to reach the dwelling; but it stretched on and on, it wound far and\r
+farther: no sign of habitation or grounds was visible.\r
+\r
+I thought I had taken a wrong direction and lost my way. The darkness of\r
+natural as well as of sylvan dusk gathered over me. I looked round in\r
+search of another road. There was none: all was interwoven stem,\r
+columnar trunk, dense summer foliage--no opening anywhere.\r
+\r
+I proceeded: at last my way opened, the trees thinned a little; presently\r
+I beheld a railing, then the house--scarce, by this dim light,\r
+distinguishable from the trees; so dank and green were its decaying\r
+walls. Entering a portal, fastened only by a latch, I stood amidst a\r
+space of enclosed ground, from which the wood swept away in a semicircle.\r
+There were no flowers, no garden-beds; only a broad gravel-walk girdling\r
+a grass-plat, and this set in the heavy frame of the forest. The house\r
+presented two pointed gables in its front; the windows were latticed and\r
+narrow: the front door was narrow too, one step led up to it. The whole\r
+looked, as the host of the Rochester Arms had said, "quite a desolate\r
+spot." It was as still as a church on a week-day: the pattering rain on\r
+the forest leaves was the only sound audible in its vicinage.\r
+\r
+"Can there be life here?" I asked.\r
+\r
+Yes, life of some kind there was; for I heard a movement--that narrow\r
+front-door was unclosing, and some shape was about to issue from the\r
+grange.\r
+\r
+It opened slowly: a figure came out into the twilight and stood on the\r
+step; a man without a hat: he stretched forth his hand as if to feel\r
+whether it rained. Dusk as it was, I had recognised him--it was my\r
+master, Edward Fairfax Rochester, and no other.\r
+\r
+I stayed my step, almost my breath, and stood to watch him--to examine\r
+him, myself unseen, and alas! to him invisible. It was a sudden meeting,\r
+and one in which rapture was kept well in check by pain. I had no\r
+difficulty in restraining my voice from exclamation, my step from hasty\r
+advance.\r
+\r
+His form was of the same strong and stalwart contour as ever: his port\r
+was still erect, his hair was still raven black; nor were his features\r
+altered or sunk: not in one year's space, by any sorrow, could his\r
+athletic strength be quelled or his vigorous prime blighted. But in his\r
+countenance I saw a change: that looked desperate and brooding--that\r
+reminded me of some wronged and fettered wild beast or bird, dangerous to\r
+approach in his sullen woe. The caged eagle, whose gold-ringed eyes\r
+cruelty has extinguished, might look as looked that sightless Samson.\r
+\r
+And, reader, do you think I feared him in his blind ferocity?--if you do,\r
+you little know me. A soft hope blest with my sorrow that soon I should\r
+dare to drop a kiss on that brow of rock, and on those lips so sternly\r
+sealed beneath it: but not yet. I would not accost him yet.\r
+\r
+He descended the one step, and advanced slowly and gropingly towards the\r
+grass-plat. Where was his daring stride now? Then he paused, as if he\r
+knew not which way to turn. He lifted his hand and opened his eyelids;\r
+gazed blank, and with a straining effort, on the sky, and toward the\r
+amphitheatre of trees: one saw that all to him was void darkness. He\r
+stretched his right hand (the left arm, the mutilated one, he kept hidden\r
+in his bosom); he seemed to wish by touch to gain an idea of what lay\r
+around him: he met but vacancy still; for the trees were some yards off\r
+where he stood. He relinquished the endeavour, folded his arms, and\r
+stood quiet and mute in the rain, now falling fast on his uncovered head.\r
+At this moment John approached him from some quarter.\r
+\r
+"Will you take my arm, sir?" he said; "there is a heavy shower coming on:\r
+had you not better go in?"\r
+\r
+"Let me alone," was the answer.\r
+\r
+John withdrew without having observed me. Mr. Rochester now tried to\r
+walk about: vainly,--all was too uncertain. He groped his way back to\r
+the house, and, re-entering it, closed the door.\r
+\r
+I now drew near and knocked: John's wife opened for me. "Mary," I said,\r
+"how are you?"\r
+\r
+She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried "Is\r
+it really you, miss, come at this late hour to this lonely place?" I\r
+answered by taking her hand; and then I followed her into the kitchen,\r
+where John now sat by a good fire. I explained to them, in few words,\r
+that I had heard all which had happened since I left Thornfield, and that\r
+I was come to see Mr. Rochester. I asked John to go down to the turn-\r
+pike-house, where I had dismissed the chaise, and bring my trunk, which I\r
+had left there: and then, while I removed my bonnet and shawl, I\r
+questioned Mary as to whether I could be accommodated at the Manor House\r
+for the night; and finding that arrangements to that effect, though\r
+difficult, would not be impossible, I informed her I should stay. Just\r
+at this moment the parlour-bell rang.\r
+\r
+"When you go in," said I, "tell your master that a person wishes to speak\r
+to him, but do not give my name."\r
+\r
+"I don't think he will see you," she answered; "he refuses everybody."\r
+\r
+When she returned, I inquired what he had said. "You are to send in your\r
+name and your business," she replied. She then proceeded to fill a glass\r
+with water, and place it on a tray, together with candles.\r
+\r
+"Is that what he rang for?" I asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes: he always has candles brought in at dark, though he is blind."\r
+\r
+"Give the tray to me; I will carry it in."\r
+\r
+I took it from her hand: she pointed me out the parlour door. The tray\r
+shook as I held it; the water spilt from the glass; my heart struck my\r
+ribs loud and fast. Mary opened the door for me, and shut it behind me.\r
+\r
+This parlour looked gloomy: a neglected handful of fire burnt low in the\r
+grate; and, leaning over it, with his head supported against the high,\r
+old-fashioned mantelpiece, appeared the blind tenant of the room. His\r
+old dog, Pilot, lay on one side, removed out of the way, and coiled up as\r
+if afraid of being inadvertently trodden upon. Pilot pricked up his ears\r
+when I came in: then he jumped up with a yelp and a whine, and bounded\r
+towards me: he almost knocked the tray from my hands. I set it on the\r
+table; then patted him, and said softly, "Lie down!" Mr. Rochester\r
+turned mechanically to _see_ what the commotion was: but as he _saw_\r
+nothing, he returned and sighed.\r
+\r
+"Give me the water, Mary," he said.\r
+\r
+I approached him with the now only half-filled glass; Pilot followed me,\r
+still excited.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" he inquired.\r
+\r
+"Down, Pilot!" I again said. He checked the water on its way to his\r
+lips, and seemed to listen: he drank, and put the glass down. "This is\r
+you, Mary, is it not?"\r
+\r
+"Mary is in the kitchen," I answered.\r
+\r
+He put out his hand with a quick gesture, but not seeing where I stood,\r
+he did not touch me. "Who is this? Who is this?" he demanded, trying,\r
+as it seemed, to _see_ with those sightless eyes--unavailing and\r
+distressing attempt! "Answer me--speak again!" he ordered, imperiously\r
+and aloud.\r
+\r
+"Will you have a little more water, sir? I spilt half of what was in the\r
+glass," I said.\r
+\r
+"_Who_ is it? _What_ is it? Who speaks?"\r
+\r
+"Pilot knows me, and John and Mary know I am here. I came only this\r
+evening," I answered.\r
+\r
+"Great God!--what delusion has come over me? What sweet madness has\r
+seized me?"\r
+\r
+"No delusion--no madness: your mind, sir, is too strong for delusion,\r
+your health too sound for frenzy."\r
+\r
+"And where is the speaker? Is it only a voice? Oh! I _cannot_ see, but\r
+I must feel, or my heart will stop and my brain burst. Whatever--whoever\r
+you are--be perceptible to the touch or I cannot live!"\r
+\r
+He groped; I arrested his wandering hand, and prisoned it in both mine.\r
+\r
+"Her very fingers!" he cried; "her small, slight fingers! If so there\r
+must be more of her."\r
+\r
+The muscular hand broke from my custody; my arm was seized, my\r
+shoulder--neck--waist--I was entwined and gathered to him.\r
+\r
+"Is it Jane? _What_ is it? This is her shape--this is her size--"\r
+\r
+"And this her voice," I added. "She is all here: her heart, too. God\r
+bless you, sir! I am glad to be so near you again."\r
+\r
+"Jane Eyre!--Jane Eyre," was all he said.\r
+\r
+"My dear master," I answered, "I am Jane Eyre: I have found you out--I am\r
+come back to you."\r
+\r
+"In truth?--in the flesh? My living Jane?"\r
+\r
+"You touch me, sir,--you hold me, and fast enough: I am not cold like a\r
+corpse, nor vacant like air, am I?"\r
+\r
+"My living darling! These are certainly her limbs, and these her\r
+features; but I cannot be so blest, after all my misery. It is a dream;\r
+such dreams as I have had at night when I have clasped her once more to\r
+my heart, as I do now; and kissed her, as thus--and felt that she loved\r
+me, and trusted that she would not leave me."\r
+\r
+"Which I never will, sir, from this day."\r
+\r
+"Never will, says the vision? But I always woke and found it an empty\r
+mockery; and I was desolate and abandoned--my life dark, lonely,\r
+hopeless--my soul athirst and forbidden to drink--my heart famished and\r
+never to be fed. Gentle, soft dream, nestling in my arms now, you will\r
+fly, too, as your sisters have all fled before you: but kiss me before\r
+you go--embrace me, Jane."\r
+\r
+"There, sir--and there!"'\r
+\r
+I pressed my lips to his once brilliant and now rayless eyes--I swept his\r
+hair from his brow, and kissed that too. He suddenly seemed to arouse\r
+himself: the conviction of the reality of all this seized him.\r
+\r
+"It is you--is it, Jane? You are come back to me then?"\r
+\r
+"I am."\r
+\r
+"And you do not lie dead in some ditch under some stream? And you are\r
+not a pining outcast amongst strangers?"\r
+\r
+"No, sir! I am an independent woman now."\r
+\r
+"Independent! What do you mean, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"My uncle in Madeira is dead, and he left me five thousand pounds."\r
+\r
+"Ah! this is practical--this is real!" he cried: "I should never dream\r
+that. Besides, there is that peculiar voice of hers, so animating and\r
+piquant, as well as soft: it cheers my withered heart; it puts life into\r
+it.--What, Janet! Are you an independent woman? A rich woman?"\r
+\r
+"If you won't let me live with you, I can build a house of my own close\r
+up to your door, and you may come and sit in my parlour when you want\r
+company of an evening."\r
+\r
+"But as you are rich, Jane, you have now, no doubt, friends who will look\r
+after you, and not suffer you to devote yourself to a blind lameter like\r
+me?"\r
+\r
+"I told you I am independent, sir, as well as rich: I am my own\r
+mistress."\r
+\r
+"And you will stay with me?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly--unless you object. I will be your neighbour, your nurse,\r
+your housekeeper. I find you lonely: I will be your companion--to read\r
+to you, to walk with you, to sit with you, to wait on you, to be eyes and\r
+hands to you. Cease to look so melancholy, my dear master; you shall not\r
+be left desolate, so long as I live."\r
+\r
+He replied not: he seemed serious--abstracted; he sighed; he half-opened\r
+his lips as if to speak: he closed them again. I felt a little\r
+embarrassed. Perhaps I had too rashly over-leaped conventionalities; and\r
+he, like St. John, saw impropriety in my inconsiderateness. I had indeed\r
+made my proposal from the idea that he wished and would ask me to be his\r
+wife: an expectation, not the less certain because unexpressed, had\r
+buoyed me up, that he would claim me at once as his own. But no hint to\r
+that effect escaping him and his countenance becoming more overcast, I\r
+suddenly remembered that I might have been all wrong, and was perhaps\r
+playing the fool unwittingly; and I began gently to withdraw myself from\r
+his arms--but he eagerly snatched me closer.\r
+\r
+"No--no--Jane; you must not go. No--I have touched you, heard you, felt\r
+the comfort of your presence--the sweetness of your consolation: I cannot\r
+give up these joys. I have little left in myself--I must have you. The\r
+world may laugh--may call me absurd, selfish--but it does not signify. My\r
+very soul demands you: it will be satisfied, or it will take deadly\r
+vengeance on its frame."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, I will stay with you: I have said so."\r
+\r
+"Yes--but you understand one thing by staying with me; and I understand\r
+another. You, perhaps, could make up your mind to be about my hand and\r
+chair--to wait on me as a kind little nurse (for you have an affectionate\r
+heart and a generous spirit, which prompt you to make sacrifices for\r
+those you pity), and that ought to suffice for me no doubt. I suppose I\r
+should now entertain none but fatherly feelings for you: do you think so?\r
+Come--tell me."\r
+\r
+"I will think what you like, sir: I am content to be only your nurse, if\r
+you think it better."\r
+\r
+"But you cannot always be my nurse, Janet: you are young--you must marry\r
+one day."\r
+\r
+"I don't care about being married."\r
+\r
+"You should care, Janet: if I were what I once was, I would try to make\r
+you care--but--a sightless block!"\r
+\r
+He relapsed again into gloom. I, on the contrary, became more cheerful,\r
+and took fresh courage: these last words gave me an insight as to where\r
+the difficulty lay; and as it was no difficulty with me, I felt quite\r
+relieved from my previous embarrassment. I resumed a livelier vein of\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+"It is time some one undertook to rehumanise you," said I, parting his\r
+thick and long uncut locks; "for I see you are being metamorphosed into a\r
+lion, or something of that sort. You have a 'faux air' of Nebuchadnezzar\r
+in the fields about you, that is certain: your hair reminds me of eagles'\r
+feathers; whether your nails are grown like birds' claws or not, I have\r
+not yet noticed."\r
+\r
+"On this arm, I have neither hand nor nails," he said, drawing the\r
+mutilated limb from his breast, and showing it to me. "It is a mere\r
+stump--a ghastly sight! Don't you think so, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"It is a pity to see it; and a pity to see your eyes--and the scar of\r
+fire on your forehead: and the worst of it is, one is in danger of loving\r
+you too well for all this; and making too much of you."\r
+\r
+"I thought you would be revolted, Jane, when you saw my arm, and my\r
+cicatrised visage."\r
+\r
+"Did you? Don't tell me so--lest I should say something disparaging to\r
+your judgment. Now, let me leave you an instant, to make a better fire,\r
+and have the hearth swept up. Can you tell when there is a good fire?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; with the right eye I see a glow--a ruddy haze."\r
+\r
+"And you see the candles?"\r
+\r
+"Very dimly--each is a luminous cloud."\r
+\r
+"Can you see me?"\r
+\r
+"No, my fairy: but I am only too thankful to hear and feel you."\r
+\r
+"When do you take supper?"\r
+\r
+"I never take supper."\r
+\r
+"But you shall have some to-night. I am hungry: so are you, I daresay,\r
+only you forget."\r
+\r
+Summoning Mary, I soon had the room in more cheerful order: I prepared\r
+him, likewise, a comfortable repast. My spirits were excited, and with\r
+pleasure and ease I talked to him during supper, and for a long time\r
+after. There was no harassing restraint, no repressing of glee and\r
+vivacity with him; for with him I was at perfect ease, because I knew I\r
+suited him; all I said or did seemed either to console or revive him.\r
+Delightful consciousness! It brought to life and light my whole nature:\r
+in his presence I thoroughly lived; and he lived in mine. Blind as he\r
+was, smiles played over his face, joy dawned on his forehead: his\r
+lineaments softened and warmed.\r
+\r
+After supper, he began to ask me many questions, of where I had been,\r
+what I had been doing, how I had found him out; but I gave him only very\r
+partial replies: it was too late to enter into particulars that night.\r
+Besides, I wished to touch no deep-thrilling chord--to open no fresh well\r
+of emotion in his heart: my sole present aim was to cheer him. Cheered,\r
+as I have said, he was: and yet but by fits. If a moment's silence broke\r
+the conversation, he would turn restless, touch me, then say, "Jane."\r
+\r
+"You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?"\r
+\r
+{You are altogether a human being, Jane? You are certain of that?:\r
+p422.jpg}\r
+\r
+"I conscientiously believe so, Mr. Rochester."\r
+\r
+"Yet how, on this dark and doleful evening, could you so suddenly rise on\r
+my lone hearth? I stretched my hand to take a glass of water from a\r
+hireling, and it was given me by you: I asked a question, expecting\r
+John's wife to answer me, and your voice spoke at my ear."\r
+\r
+"Because I had come in, in Mary's stead, with the tray."\r
+\r
+"And there is enchantment in the very hour I am now spending with you.\r
+Who can tell what a dark, dreary, hopeless life I have dragged on for\r
+months past? Doing nothing, expecting nothing; merging night in day;\r
+feeling but the sensation of cold when I let the fire go out, of hunger\r
+when I forgot to eat: and then a ceaseless sorrow, and, at times, a very\r
+delirium of desire to behold my Jane again. Yes: for her restoration I\r
+longed, far more than for that of my lost sight. How can it be that Jane\r
+is with me, and says she loves me? Will she not depart as suddenly as\r
+she came? To-morrow, I fear I shall find her no more."\r
+\r
+A commonplace, practical reply, out of the train of his own disturbed\r
+ideas, was, I was sure, the best and most reassuring for him in this\r
+frame of mind. I passed my finger over his eyebrows, and remarked that\r
+they were scorched, and that I would apply something which would make\r
+them grow as broad and black as ever.\r
+\r
+"Where is the use of doing me good in any way, beneficent spirit, when,\r
+at some fatal moment, you will again desert me--passing like a shadow,\r
+whither and how to me unknown, and for me remaining afterwards\r
+undiscoverable?\r
+\r
+"Have you a pocket-comb about you, sir?"\r
+\r
+"What for, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Just to comb out this shaggy black mane. I find you rather alarming,\r
+when I examine you close at hand: you talk of my being a fairy, but I am\r
+sure, you are more like a brownie."\r
+\r
+"Am I hideous, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Very, sir: you always were, you know."\r
+\r
+"Humph! The wickedness has not been taken out of you, wherever you have\r
+sojourned."\r
+\r
+"Yet I have been with good people; far better than you: a hundred times\r
+better people; possessed of ideas and views you never entertained in your\r
+life: quite more refined and exalted."\r
+\r
+"Who the deuce have you been with?"\r
+\r
+"If you twist in that way you will make me pull the hair out of your\r
+head; and then I think you will cease to entertain doubts of my\r
+substantiality."\r
+\r
+"Who have you been with, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"You shall not get it out of me to-night, sir; you must wait till\r
+to-morrow; to leave my tale half told, will, you know, be a sort of\r
+security that I shall appear at your breakfast table to finish it. By\r
+the bye, I must mind not to rise on your hearth with only a glass of\r
+water then: I must bring an egg at the least, to say nothing of fried\r
+ham."\r
+\r
+"You mocking changeling--fairy-born and human-bred! You make me feel as\r
+I have not felt these twelve months. If Saul could have had you for his\r
+David, the evil spirit would have been exorcised without the aid of the\r
+harp."\r
+\r
+"There, sir, you are redd up and made decent. Now I'll leave you: I have\r
+been travelling these last three days, and I believe I am tired. Good\r
+night."\r
+\r
+"Just one word, Jane: were there only ladies in the house where you have\r
+been?"\r
+\r
+I laughed and made my escape, still laughing as I ran upstairs. "A good\r
+idea!" I thought with glee. "I see I have the means of fretting him out\r
+of his melancholy for some time to come."\r
+\r
+Very early the next morning I heard him up and astir, wandering from one\r
+room to another. As soon as Mary came down I heard the question: "Is\r
+Miss Eyre here?" Then: "Which room did you put her into? Was it dry? Is\r
+she up? Go and ask if she wants anything; and when she will come down."\r
+\r
+I came down as soon as I thought there was a prospect of breakfast.\r
+Entering the room very softly, I had a view of him before he discovered\r
+my presence. It was mournful, indeed, to witness the subjugation of that\r
+vigorous spirit to a corporeal infirmity. He sat in his chair--still,\r
+but not at rest: expectant evidently; the lines of now habitual sadness\r
+marking his strong features. His countenance reminded one of a lamp\r
+quenched, waiting to be re-lit--and alas! it was not himself that could\r
+now kindle the lustre of animated expression: he was dependent on another\r
+for that office! I had meant to be gay and careless, but the\r
+powerlessness of the strong man touched my heart to the quick: still I\r
+accosted him with what vivacity I could.\r
+\r
+"It is a bright, sunny morning, sir," I said. "The rain is over and\r
+gone, and there is a tender shining after it: you shall have a walk\r
+soon."\r
+\r
+I had wakened the glow: his features beamed.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you are indeed there, my skylark! Come to me. You are not gone:\r
+not vanished? I heard one of your kind an hour ago, singing high over\r
+the wood: but its song had no music for me, any more than the rising sun\r
+had rays. All the melody on earth is concentrated in my Jane's tongue to\r
+my ear (I am glad it is not naturally a silent one): all the sunshine I\r
+can feel is in her presence."\r
+\r
+The water stood in my eyes to hear this avowal of his dependence; just as\r
+if a royal eagle, chained to a perch, should be forced to entreat a\r
+sparrow to become its purveyor. But I would not be lachrymose: I dashed\r
+off the salt drops, and busied myself with preparing breakfast.\r
+\r
+Most of the morning was spent in the open air. I led him out of the wet\r
+and wild wood into some cheerful fields: I described to him how\r
+brilliantly green they were; how the flowers and hedges looked refreshed;\r
+how sparklingly blue was the sky. I sought a seat for him in a hidden\r
+and lovely spot, a dry stump of a tree; nor did I refuse to let him, when\r
+seated, place me on his knee. Why should I, when both he and I were\r
+happier near than apart? Pilot lay beside us: all was quiet. He broke\r
+out suddenly while clasping me in his arms--\r
+\r
+"Cruel, cruel deserter! Oh, Jane, what did I feel when I discovered you\r
+had fled from Thornfield, and when I could nowhere find you; and, after\r
+examining your apartment, ascertained that you had taken no money, nor\r
+anything which could serve as an equivalent! A pearl necklace I had\r
+given you lay untouched in its little casket; your trunks were left\r
+corded and locked as they had been prepared for the bridal tour. What\r
+could my darling do, I asked, left destitute and penniless? And what did\r
+she do? Let me hear now."\r
+\r
+Thus urged, I began the narrative of my experience for the last year. I\r
+softened considerably what related to the three days of wandering and\r
+starvation, because to have told him all would have been to inflict\r
+unnecessary pain: the little I did say lacerated his faithful heart\r
+deeper than I wished.\r
+\r
+I should not have left him thus, he said, without any means of making my\r
+way: I should have told him my intention. I should have confided in him:\r
+he would never have forced me to be his mistress. Violent as he had\r
+seemed in his despair, he, in truth, loved me far too well and too\r
+tenderly to constitute himself my tyrant: he would have given me half his\r
+fortune, without demanding so much as a kiss in return, rather than I\r
+should have flung myself friendless on the wide world. I had endured, he\r
+was certain, more than I had confessed to him.\r
+\r
+"Well, whatever my sufferings had been, they were very short," I\r
+answered: and then I proceeded to tell him how I had been received at\r
+Moor House; how I had obtained the office of schoolmistress, &c. The\r
+accession of fortune, the discovery of my relations, followed in due\r
+order. Of course, St. John Rivers' name came in frequently in the\r
+progress of my tale. When I had done, that name was immediately taken\r
+up.\r
+\r
+"This St. John, then, is your cousin?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"You have spoken of him often: do you like him?"\r
+\r
+"He was a very good man, sir; I could not help liking him."\r
+\r
+"A good man. Does that mean a respectable well-conducted man of fifty?\r
+Or what does it mean?"\r
+\r
+"St John was only twenty-nine, sir."\r
+\r
+"'_Jeune encore_,' as the French say. Is he a person of low stature,\r
+phlegmatic, and plain. A person whose goodness consists rather in his\r
+guiltlessness of vice, than in his prowess in virtue."\r
+\r
+"He is untiringly active. Great and exalted deeds are what he lives to\r
+perform."\r
+\r
+"But his brain? That is probably rather soft? He means well: but you\r
+shrug your shoulders to hear him talk?"\r
+\r
+"He talks little, sir: what he does say is ever to the point. His brain\r
+is first-rate, I should think not impressible, but vigorous."\r
+\r
+"Is he an able man, then?"\r
+\r
+"Truly able."\r
+\r
+"A thoroughly educated man?"\r
+\r
+"St. John is an accomplished and profound scholar."\r
+\r
+"His manners, I think, you said are not to your taste?--priggish and\r
+parsonic?"\r
+\r
+"I never mentioned his manners; but, unless I had a very bad taste, they\r
+must suit it; they are polished, calm, and gentlemanlike."\r
+\r
+"His appearance,--I forget what description you gave of his appearance;--a\r
+sort of raw curate, half strangled with his white neckcloth, and stilted\r
+up on his thick-soled high-lows, eh?"\r
+\r
+"St. John dresses well. He is a handsome man: tall, fair, with blue\r
+eyes, and a Grecian profile."\r
+\r
+(Aside.) "Damn him!"--(To me.) "Did you like him, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mr. Rochester, I liked him: but you asked me that before."\r
+\r
+I perceived, of course, the drift of my interlocutor. Jealousy had got\r
+hold of him: she stung him; but the sting was salutary: it gave him\r
+respite from the gnawing fang of melancholy. I would not, therefore,\r
+immediately charm the snake.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps you would rather not sit any longer on my knee, Miss Eyre?" was\r
+the next somewhat unexpected observation.\r
+\r
+"Why not, Mr. Rochester?"\r
+\r
+"The picture you have just drawn is suggestive of a rather too\r
+overwhelming contrast. Your words have delineated very prettily a\r
+graceful Apollo: he is present to your imagination,--tall, fair, blue-\r
+eyed, and with a Grecian profile. Your eyes dwell on a Vulcan,--a real\r
+blacksmith, brown, broad-shouldered: and blind and lame into the\r
+bargain."\r
+\r
+"I never thought of it, before; but you certainly are rather like Vulcan,\r
+sir."\r
+\r
+"Well, you can leave me, ma'am: but before you go" (and he retained me by\r
+a firmer grasp than ever), "you will be pleased just to answer me a\r
+question or two." He paused.\r
+\r
+"What questions, Mr. Rochester?"\r
+\r
+Then followed this cross-examination.\r
+\r
+"St. John made you schoolmistress of Morton before he knew you were his\r
+cousin?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+"You would often see him? He would visit the school sometimes?"\r
+\r
+"Daily."\r
+\r
+"He would approve of your plans, Jane? I know they would be clever, for\r
+you are a talented creature!"\r
+\r
+"He approved of them--yes."\r
+\r
+"He would discover many things in you he could not have expected to find?\r
+Some of your accomplishments are not ordinary."\r
+\r
+"I don't know about that."\r
+\r
+"You had a little cottage near the school, you say: did he ever come\r
+there to see you?"\r
+\r
+"Now and then?"\r
+\r
+"Of an evening?"\r
+\r
+"Once or twice."\r
+\r
+A pause.\r
+\r
+"How long did you reside with him and his sisters after the cousinship\r
+was discovered?"\r
+\r
+"Five months."\r
+\r
+"Did Rivers spend much time with the ladies of his family?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; the back parlour was both his study and ours: he sat near the\r
+window, and we by the table."\r
+\r
+"Did he study much?"\r
+\r
+"A good deal."\r
+\r
+"What?"\r
+\r
+"Hindostanee."\r
+\r
+"And what did you do meantime?"\r
+\r
+"I learnt German, at first."\r
+\r
+"Did he teach you?"\r
+\r
+"He did not understand German."\r
+\r
+"Did he teach you nothing?"\r
+\r
+"A little Hindostanee."\r
+\r
+"Rivers taught you Hindostanee?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"And his sisters also?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Only you?"\r
+\r
+"Only me."\r
+\r
+"Did you ask to learn?"\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"He wished to teach you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+A second pause.\r
+\r
+"Why did he wish it? Of what use could Hindostanee be to you?"\r
+\r
+"He intended me to go with him to India."\r
+\r
+"Ah! here I reach the root of the matter. He wanted you to marry him?"\r
+\r
+"He asked me to marry him."\r
+\r
+"That is a fiction--an impudent invention to vex me."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, it is the literal truth: he asked me more than once,\r
+and was as stiff about urging his point as ever you could be."\r
+\r
+"Miss Eyre, I repeat it, you can leave me. How often am I to say the\r
+same thing? Why do you remain pertinaciously perched on my knee, when I\r
+have given you notice to quit?"\r
+\r
+"Because I am comfortable there."\r
+\r
+"No, Jane, you are not comfortable there, because your heart is not with\r
+me: it is with this cousin--this St. John. Oh, till this moment, I\r
+thought my little Jane was all mine! I had a belief she loved me even\r
+when she left me: that was an atom of sweet in much bitter. Long as we\r
+have been parted, hot tears as I have wept over our separation, I never\r
+thought that while I was mourning her, she was loving another! But it is\r
+useless grieving. Jane, leave me: go and marry Rivers."\r
+\r
+"Shake me off, then, sir,--push me away, for I'll not leave you of my own\r
+accord."\r
+\r
+"Jane, I ever like your tone of voice: it still renews hope, it sounds so\r
+truthful. When I hear it, it carries me back a year. I forget that you\r
+have formed a new tie. But I am not a fool--go--"\r
+\r
+"Where must I go, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Your own way--with the husband you have chosen."\r
+\r
+"Who is that?"\r
+\r
+"You know--this St. John Rivers."\r
+\r
+"He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not\r
+love him. He loves (as he _can_ love, and that is not as you love) a\r
+beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because\r
+he thought I should make a suitable missionary's wife, which she would\r
+not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an\r
+iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near\r
+him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me--no fondness. He sees\r
+nothing attractive in me; not even youth--only a few useful mental\r
+points.--Then I must leave you, sir, to go to him?"\r
+\r
+I shuddered involuntarily, and clung instinctively closer to my blind but\r
+beloved master. He smiled.\r
+\r
+"What, Jane! Is this true? Is such really the state of matters between\r
+you and Rivers?"\r
+\r
+"Absolutely, sir! Oh, you need not be jealous! I wanted to tease you a\r
+little to make you less sad: I thought anger would be better than grief.\r
+But if you wish me to love you, could you but see how much I _do_ love\r
+you, you would be proud and content. All my heart is yours, sir: it\r
+belongs to you; and with you it would remain, were fate to exile the rest\r
+of me from your presence for ever."\r
+\r
+Again, as he kissed me, painful thoughts darkened his aspect.\r
+\r
+"My seared vision! My crippled strength!" he murmured regretfully.\r
+\r
+I caressed, in order to soothe him. I knew of what he was thinking, and\r
+wanted to speak for him, but dared not. As he turned aside his face a\r
+minute, I saw a tear slide from under the sealed eyelid, and trickle down\r
+the manly cheek. My heart swelled.\r
+\r
+"I am no better than the old lightning-struck chestnut-tree in Thornfield\r
+orchard," he remarked ere long. "And what right would that ruin have to\r
+bid a budding woodbine cover its decay with freshness?"\r
+\r
+"You are no ruin, sir--no lightning-struck tree: you are green and\r
+vigorous. Plants will grow about your roots, whether you ask them or\r
+not, because they take delight in your bountiful shadow; and as they grow\r
+they will lean towards you, and wind round you, because your strength\r
+offers them so safe a prop."\r
+\r
+Again he smiled: I gave him comfort.\r
+\r
+"You speak of friends, Jane?" he asked.\r
+\r
+"Yes, of friends," I answered rather hesitatingly: for I knew I meant\r
+more than friends, but could not tell what other word to employ. He\r
+helped me.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Jane. But I want a wife."\r
+\r
+"Do you, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Yes: is it news to you?"\r
+\r
+"Of course: you said nothing about it before."\r
+\r
+"Is it unwelcome news?"\r
+\r
+"That depends on circumstances, sir--on your choice."\r
+\r
+"Which you shall make for me, Jane. I will abide by your decision."\r
+\r
+"Choose then, sir--_her who loves you best_."\r
+\r
+"I will at least choose--_her I love best_. Jane, will you marry me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"A poor blind man, whom you will have to lead about by the hand?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"A crippled man, twenty years older than you, whom you will have to wait\r
+on?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Truly, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"Most truly, sir."\r
+\r
+"Oh! my darling! God bless you and reward you!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life--if ever I thought a\r
+good thought--if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer--if ever I\r
+wished a righteous wish,--I am rewarded now. To be your wife is, for me,\r
+to be as happy as I can be on earth."\r
+\r
+"Because you delight in sacrifice."\r
+\r
+"Sacrifice! What do I sacrifice? Famine for food, expectation for\r
+content. To be privileged to put my arms round what I value--to press my\r
+lips to what I love--to repose on what I trust: is that to make a\r
+sacrifice? If so, then certainly I delight in sacrifice."\r
+\r
+"And to bear with my infirmities, Jane: to overlook my deficiencies."\r
+\r
+"Which are none, sir, to me. I love you better now, when I can really be\r
+useful to you, than I did in your state of proud independence, when you\r
+disdained every part but that of the giver and protector."\r
+\r
+"Hitherto I have hated to be helped--to be led: henceforth, I feel I\r
+shall hate it no more. I did not like to put my hand into a hireling's,\r
+but it is pleasant to feel it circled by Jane's little fingers. I\r
+preferred utter loneliness to the constant attendance of servants; but\r
+Jane's soft ministry will be a perpetual joy. Jane suits me: do I suit\r
+her?"\r
+\r
+"To the finest fibre of my nature, sir."\r
+\r
+"The case being so, we have nothing in the world to wait for: we must be\r
+married instantly."\r
+\r
+He looked and spoke with eagerness: his old impetuosity was rising.\r
+\r
+"We must become one flesh without any delay, Jane: there is but the\r
+licence to get--then we marry."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Rochester, I have just discovered the sun is far declined from its\r
+meridian, and Pilot is actually gone home to his dinner. Let me look at\r
+your watch."\r
+\r
+"Fasten it into your girdle, Janet, and keep it henceforward: I have no\r
+use for it."\r
+\r
+"It is nearly four o'clock in the afternoon, sir. Don't you feel\r
+hungry?"\r
+\r
+"The third day from this must be our wedding-day, Jane. Never mind fine\r
+clothes and jewels, now: all that is not worth a fillip."\r
+\r
+"The sun has dried up all the rain-drops, sir. The breeze is still: it\r
+is quite hot."\r
+\r
+"Do you know, Jane, I have your little pearl necklace at this moment\r
+fastened round my bronze scrag under my cravat? I have worn it since the\r
+day I lost my only treasure, as a memento of her."\r
+\r
+"We will go home through the wood: that will be the shadiest way."\r
+\r
+He pursued his own thoughts without heeding me.\r
+\r
+"Jane! you think me, I daresay, an irreligious dog: but my heart swells\r
+with gratitude to the beneficent God of this earth just now. He sees not\r
+as man sees, but far clearer: judges not as man judges, but far more\r
+wisely. I did wrong: I would have sullied my innocent flower--breathed\r
+guilt on its purity: the Omnipotent snatched it from me. I, in my stiff-\r
+necked rebellion, almost cursed the dispensation: instead of bending to\r
+the decree, I defied it. Divine justice pursued its course; disasters\r
+came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow\r
+of death. _His_ chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has\r
+humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it\r
+now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its\r
+weakness? Of late, Jane--only--only of late--I began to see and\r
+acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse,\r
+repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began sometimes to\r
+pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere.\r
+\r
+"Some days since: nay, I can number them--four; it was last Monday night,\r
+a singular mood came over me: one in which grief replaced frenzy--sorrow,\r
+sullenness. I had long had the impression that since I could nowhere\r
+find you, you must be dead. Late that night--perhaps it might be between\r
+eleven and twelve o'clock--ere I retired to my dreary rest, I supplicated\r
+God, that, if it seemed good to Him, I might soon be taken from this\r
+life, and admitted to that world to come, where there was still hope of\r
+rejoining Jane.\r
+\r
+"I was in my own room, and sitting by the window, which was open: it\r
+soothed me to feel the balmy night-air; though I could see no stars and\r
+only by a vague, luminous haze, knew the presence of a moon. I longed\r
+for thee, Janet! Oh, I longed for thee both with soul and flesh! I\r
+asked of God, at once in anguish and humility, if I had not been long\r
+enough desolate, afflicted, tormented; and might not soon taste bliss and\r
+peace once more. That I merited all I endured, I acknowledged--that I\r
+could scarcely endure more, I pleaded; and the alpha and omega of my\r
+heart's wishes broke involuntarily from my lips in the words--'Jane!\r
+Jane! Jane!'"\r
+\r
+"Did you speak these words aloud?"\r
+\r
+"I did, Jane. If any listener had heard me, he would have thought me\r
+mad: I pronounced them with such frantic energy."\r
+\r
+"And it was last Monday night, somewhere near midnight?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; but the time is of no consequence: what followed is the strange\r
+point. You will think me superstitious,--some superstition I have in my\r
+blood, and always had: nevertheless, this is true--true at least it is\r
+that I heard what I now relate.\r
+\r
+"As I exclaimed 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' a voice--I cannot tell whence the\r
+voice came, but I know whose voice it was--replied, 'I am coming: wait\r
+for me;' and a moment after, went whispering on the wind the words--'Where\r
+are you?'\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you, if I can, the idea, the picture these words opened to my\r
+mind: yet it is difficult to express what I want to express. Ferndean is\r
+buried, as you see, in a heavy wood, where sound falls dull, and dies\r
+unreverberating. 'Where are you?' seemed spoken amongst mountains; for I\r
+heard a hill-sent echo repeat the words. Cooler and fresher at the\r
+moment the gale seemed to visit my brow: I could have deemed that in some\r
+wild, lone scene, I and Jane were meeting. In spirit, I believe we must\r
+have met. You no doubt were, at that hour, in unconscious sleep, Jane:\r
+perhaps your soul wandered from its cell to comfort mine; for those were\r
+your accents--as certain as I live--they were yours!"\r
+\r
+Reader, it was on Monday night--near midnight--that I too had received\r
+the mysterious summons: those were the very words by which I replied to\r
+it. I listened to Mr. Rochester's narrative, but made no disclosure in\r
+return. The coincidence struck me as too awful and inexplicable to be\r
+communicated or discussed. If I told anything, my tale would be such as\r
+must necessarily make a profound impression on the mind of my hearer: and\r
+that mind, yet from its sufferings too prone to gloom, needed not the\r
+deeper shade of the supernatural. I kept these things then, and pondered\r
+them in my heart.\r
+\r
+"You cannot now wonder," continued my master, "that when you rose upon me\r
+so unexpectedly last night, I had difficulty in believing you any other\r
+than a mere voice and vision, something that would melt to silence and\r
+annihilation, as the midnight whisper and mountain echo had melted\r
+before. Now, I thank God! I know it to be otherwise. Yes, I thank\r
+God!"\r
+\r
+He put me off his knee, rose, and reverently lifting his hat from his\r
+brow, and bending his sightless eyes to the earth, he stood in mute\r
+devotion. Only the last words of the worship were audible.\r
+\r
+"I thank my Maker, that, in the midst of judgment, he has remembered\r
+mercy. I humbly entreat my Redeemer to give me strength to lead\r
+henceforth a purer life than I have done hitherto!"\r
+\r
+Then he stretched his hand out to be led. I took that dear hand, held it\r
+a moment to my lips, then let it pass round my shoulder: being so much\r
+lower of stature than he, I served both for his prop and guide. We\r
+entered the wood, and wended homeward.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVIII--CONCLUSION\r
+\r
+\r
+Reader, I married him. A quiet wedding we had: he and I, the parson and\r
+clerk, were alone present. When we got back from church, I went into the\r
+kitchen of the manor-house, where Mary was cooking the dinner and John\r
+cleaning the knives, and I said--\r
+\r
+"Mary, I have been married to Mr. Rochester this morning." The\r
+housekeeper and her husband were both of that decent phlegmatic order of\r
+people, to whom one may at any time safely communicate a remarkable piece\r
+of news without incurring the danger of having one's ears pierced by some\r
+shrill ejaculation, and subsequently stunned by a torrent of wordy\r
+wonderment. Mary did look up, and she did stare at me: the ladle with\r
+which she was basting a pair of chickens roasting at the fire, did for\r
+some three minutes hang suspended in air; and for the same space of time\r
+John's knives also had rest from the polishing process: but Mary, bending\r
+again over the roast, said only--\r
+\r
+"Have you, Miss? Well, for sure!"\r
+\r
+A short time after she pursued--"I seed you go out with the master, but I\r
+didn't know you were gone to church to be wed;" and she basted away.\r
+John, when I turned to him, was grinning from ear to ear.\r
+\r
+"I telled Mary how it would be," he said: "I knew what Mr. Edward" (John\r
+was an old servant, and had known his master when he was the cadet of the\r
+house, therefore, he often gave him his Christian name)--"I knew what Mr.\r
+Edward would do; and I was certain he would not wait long neither: and\r
+he's done right, for aught I know. I wish you joy, Miss!" and he\r
+politely pulled his forelock.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, John. Mr. Rochester told me to give you and Mary this." I\r
+put into his hand a five-pound note. Without waiting to hear more, I\r
+left the kitchen. In passing the door of that sanctum some time after, I\r
+caught the words--\r
+\r
+"She'll happen do better for him nor ony o't' grand ladies." And again,\r
+"If she ben't one o' th' handsomest, she's noan faal and varry\r
+good-natured; and i' his een she's fair beautiful, onybody may see that."\r
+\r
+I wrote to Moor House and to Cambridge immediately, to say what I had\r
+done: fully explaining also why I had thus acted. Diana and Mary\r
+approved the step unreservedly. Diana announced that she would just give\r
+me time to get over the honeymoon, and then she would come and see me.\r
+\r
+"She had better not wait till then, Jane," said Mr. Rochester, when I\r
+read her letter to him; "if she does, she will be too late, for our\r
+honeymoon will shine our life long: its beams will only fade over your\r
+grave or mine."\r
+\r
+How St. John received the news, I don't know: he never answered the\r
+letter in which I communicated it: yet six months after he wrote to me,\r
+without, however, mentioning Mr. Rochester's name or alluding to my\r
+marriage. His letter was then calm, and, though very serious, kind. He\r
+has maintained a regular, though not frequent, correspondence ever since:\r
+he hopes I am happy, and trusts I am not of those who live without God in\r
+the world, and only mind earthly things.\r
+\r
+You have not quite forgotten little Adele, have you, reader? I had not;\r
+I soon asked and obtained leave of Mr. Rochester, to go and see her at\r
+the school where he had placed her. Her frantic joy at beholding me\r
+again moved me much. She looked pale and thin: she said she was not\r
+happy. I found the rules of the establishment were too strict, its\r
+course of study too severe for a child of her age: I took her home with\r
+me. I meant to become her governess once more, but I soon found this\r
+impracticable; my time and cares were now required by another--my husband\r
+needed them all. So I sought out a school conducted on a more indulgent\r
+system, and near enough to permit of my visiting her often, and bringing\r
+her home sometimes. I took care she should never want for anything that\r
+could contribute to her comfort: she soon settled in her new abode,\r
+became very happy there, and made fair progress in her studies. As she\r
+grew up, a sound English education corrected in a great measure her\r
+French defects; and when she left school, I found in her a pleasing and\r
+obliging companion: docile, good-tempered, and well-principled. By her\r
+grateful attention to me and mine, she has long since well repaid any\r
+little kindness I ever had it in my power to offer her.\r
+\r
+My tale draws to its close: one word respecting my experience of married\r
+life, and one brief glance at the fortunes of those whose names have most\r
+frequently recurred in this narrative, and I have done.\r
+\r
+I have now been married ten years. I know what it is to live entirely\r
+for and with what I love best on earth. I hold myself supremely\r
+blest--blest beyond what language can express; because I am my husband's\r
+life as fully as he is mine. No woman was ever nearer to her mate than I\r
+am: ever more absolutely bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. I know\r
+no weariness of my Edward's society: he knows none of mine, any more than\r
+we each do of the pulsation of the heart that beats in our separate\r
+bosoms; consequently, we are ever together. To be together is for us to\r
+be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I\r
+believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but a more animated and\r
+an audible thinking. All my confidence is bestowed on him, all his\r
+confidence is devoted to me; we are precisely suited in character--perfect\r
+concord is the result.\r
+\r
+Mr. Rochester continued blind the first two years of our union; perhaps\r
+it was that circumstance that drew us so very near--that knit us so very\r
+close: for I was then his vision, as I am still his right hand.\r
+Literally, I was (what he often called me) the apple of his eye. He saw\r
+nature--he saw books through me; and never did I weary of gazing for his\r
+behalf, and of putting into words the effect of field, tree, town, river,\r
+cloud, sunbeam--of the landscape before us; of the weather round us--and\r
+impressing by sound on his ear what light could no longer stamp on his\r
+eye. Never did I weary of reading to him; never did I weary of\r
+conducting him where he wished to go: of doing for him what he wished to\r
+be done. And there was a pleasure in my services, most full, most\r
+exquisite, even though sad--because he claimed these services without\r
+painful shame or damping humiliation. He loved me so truly, that he knew\r
+no reluctance in profiting by my attendance: he felt I loved him so\r
+fondly, that to yield that attendance was to indulge my sweetest wishes.\r
+\r
+One morning at the end of the two years, as I was writing a letter to his\r
+dictation, he came and bent over me, and said--"Jane, have you a\r
+glittering ornament round your neck?"\r
+\r
+I had a gold watch-chain: I answered "Yes."\r
+\r
+"And have you a pale blue dress on?"\r
+\r
+{And have you a pale blue dress on?: p435.jpg}\r
+\r
+I had. He informed me then, that for some time he had fancied the\r
+obscurity clouding one eye was becoming less dense; and that now he was\r
+sure of it.\r
+\r
+He and I went up to London. He had the advice of an eminent oculist; and\r
+he eventually recovered the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see\r
+very distinctly: he cannot read or write much; but he can find his way\r
+without being led by the hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him--the\r
+earth no longer a void. When his first-born was put into his arms, he\r
+could see that the boy had inherited his own eyes, as they once\r
+were--large, brilliant, and black. On that occasion, he again, with a\r
+full heart, acknowledged that God had tempered judgment with mercy.\r
+\r
+My Edward and I, then, are happy: and the more so, because those we most\r
+love are happy likewise. Diana and Mary Rivers are both married:\r
+alternately, once every year, they come to see us, and we go to see them.\r
+Diana's husband is a captain in the navy, a gallant officer and a good\r
+man. Mary's is a clergyman, a college friend of her brother's, and, from\r
+his attainments and principles, worthy of the connection. Both Captain\r
+Fitzjames and Mr. Wharton love their wives, and are loved by them.\r
+\r
+As to St. John Rivers, he left England: he went to India. He entered on\r
+the path he had marked for himself; he pursues it still. A more\r
+resolute, indefatigable pioneer never wrought amidst rocks and dangers.\r
+Firm, faithful, and devoted, full of energy, and zeal, and truth, he\r
+labours for his race; he clears their painful way to improvement; he hews\r
+down like a giant the prejudices of creed and caste that encumber it. He\r
+may be stern; he may be exacting; he may be ambitious yet; but his is the\r
+sternness of the warrior Greatheart, who guards his pilgrim convoy from\r
+the onslaught of Apollyon. His is the exaction of the apostle, who\r
+speaks but for Christ, when he says--"Whosoever will come after me, let\r
+him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me." His is the\r
+ambition of the high master-spirit, which aims to fill a place in the\r
+first rank of those who are redeemed from the earth--who stand without\r
+fault before the throne of God, who share the last mighty victories of\r
+the Lamb, who are called, and chosen, and faithful.\r
+\r
+St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now. Himself has hitherto\r
+sufficed to the toil, and the toil draws near its close: his glorious sun\r
+hastens to its setting. The last letter I received from him drew from my\r
+eyes human tears, and yet filled my heart with divine joy: he anticipated\r
+his sure reward, his incorruptible crown. I know that a stranger's hand\r
+will write to me next, to say that the good and faithful servant has been\r
+called at length into the joy of his Lord. And why weep for this? No\r
+fear of death will darken St. John's last hour: his mind will be\r
+unclouded, his heart will be undaunted, his hope will be sure, his faith\r
+steadfast. His own words are a pledge of this--\r
+\r
+"My Master," he says, "has forewarned me. Daily He announces more\r
+distinctly,--'Surely I come quickly!' and hourly I more eagerly\r
+respond,--'Amen; even so come, Lord Jesus!'"\r
--- /dev/null
+Middlemarch\r
+\r
+\r
+By\r
+\r
+George Eliot\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+New York and Boston\r
+\r
+H. M. Caldwell Company Publishers\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+To my dear Husband, George Henry Lewes, in this nineteenth year of our\r
+blessed union.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CONTENTS\r
+\r
+BOOK I\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI\r
+CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK II\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII\r
+CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK III\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX CHAPTER XXXI CHAPTER XXXII\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK IV\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV CHAPTER XXXV CHAPTER XXXVI CHAPTER XXXVII CHAPTER XXXVIII\r
+CHAPTER XXXIX CHAPTER XL CHAPTER XLI CHAPTER XLII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK V\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIII CHAPTER XLIV CHAPTER XLV CHAPTER XLVI CHAPTER XLVII\r
+CHAPTER XLVIII CHAPTER XLIX CHAPTER L CHAPTER LI CHAPTER LII\r
+CHAPTER LIII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VI\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LIV CHAPTER LV CHAPTER LVI CHAPTER LVII CHAPTER LVIII\r
+CHAPTER LIX CHAPTER LX CHAPTER LXI CHAPTER LXII\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXIII CHAPTER LXIV CHAPTER LXV CHAPTER LXVI CHAPTER LXVII\r
+CHAPTER LXVIII CHAPTER LXIX CHAPTER LXX CHAPTER LXXI\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VIII\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXII CHAPTER LXXIII CHAPTER LXXIV CHAPTER LXXV CHAPTER LXXVI\r
+CHAPTER LXXVII CHAPTER LXXVIII CHAPTER LXXIX CHAPTER LXXX CHAPTER LXXXI\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+PRELUDE\r
+\r
+\r
+Who that cares much to know the history of man, and how the mysterious\r
+mixture behaves under the varying experiments of Time, has not dwelt,\r
+at least briefly, on the life of Saint Theresa, has not smiled with\r
+some gentleness at the thought of the little girl walking forth one\r
+morning hand-in-hand with her still smaller brother, to go and seek\r
+martyrdom in the country of the Moors? Out they toddled from rugged\r
+Avila, wide-eyed and helpless-looking as two fawns, but with human\r
+hearts, already beating to a national idea; until domestic reality met\r
+them in the shape of uncles, and turned them back from their great\r
+resolve. That child-pilgrimage was a fit beginning. Theresa's\r
+passionate, ideal nature demanded an epic life: what were many-volumed\r
+romances of chivalry and the social conquests of a brilliant girl to\r
+her? Her flame quickly burned up that light fuel; and, fed from\r
+within, soared after some illimitable satisfaction, some object which\r
+would never justify weariness, which would reconcile self-despair with\r
+the rapturous consciousness of life beyond self. She found her epos in\r
+the reform of a religious order.\r
+\r
+That Spanish woman who lived three hundred years ago, was certainly not\r
+the last of her kind. Many Theresas have been born who found for\r
+themselves no epic life wherein there was a constant unfolding of\r
+far-resonant action; perhaps only a life of mistakes, the offspring of\r
+a certain spiritual grandeur ill-matched with the meanness of\r
+opportunity; perhaps a tragic failure which found no sacred poet and\r
+sank unwept into oblivion. With dim lights and tangled circumstance\r
+they tried to shape their thought and deed in noble agreement; but\r
+after all, to common eyes their struggles seemed mere inconsistency and\r
+formlessness; for these later-born Theresas were helped by no coherent\r
+social faith and order which could perform the function of knowledge\r
+for the ardently willing soul. Their ardor alternated between a vague\r
+ideal and the common yearning of womanhood; so that the one was\r
+disapproved as extravagance, and the other condemned as a lapse.\r
+\r
+Some have felt that these blundering lives are due to the inconvenient\r
+indefiniteness with which the Supreme Power has fashioned the natures\r
+of women: if there were one level of feminine incompetence as strict as\r
+the ability to count three and no more, the social lot of women might\r
+be treated with scientific certitude. Meanwhile the indefiniteness\r
+remains, and the limits of variation are really much wider than any one\r
+would imagine from the sameness of women's coiffure and the favorite\r
+love-stories in prose and verse. Here and there a cygnet is reared\r
+uneasily among the ducklings in the brown pond, and never finds the\r
+living stream in fellowship with its own oary-footed kind. Here and\r
+there is born a Saint Theresa, foundress of nothing, whose loving\r
+heart-beats and sobs after an unattained goodness tremble off and are\r
+dispersed among hindrances, instead of centring in some\r
+long-recognizable deed.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK I.\r
+\r
+MISS BROOKE.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I.\r
+\r
+ "Since I can do no good because a woman,\r
+ Reach constantly at something that is near it.\r
+ --The Maid's Tragedy: BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.\r
+\r
+\r
+Miss Brooke had that kind of beauty which seems to be thrown into\r
+relief by poor dress. Her hand and wrist were so finely formed that\r
+she could wear sleeves not less bare of style than those in which the\r
+Blessed Virgin appeared to Italian painters; and her profile as well as\r
+her stature and bearing seemed to gain the more dignity from her plain\r
+garments, which by the side of provincial fashion gave her the\r
+impressiveness of a fine quotation from the Bible,--or from one of our\r
+elder poets,--in a paragraph of to-day's newspaper. She was usually\r
+spoken of as being remarkably clever, but with the addition that her\r
+sister Celia had more common-sense. Nevertheless, Celia wore scarcely\r
+more trimmings; and it was only to close observers that her dress\r
+differed from her sister's, and had a shade of coquetry in its\r
+arrangements; for Miss Brooke's plain dressing was due to mixed\r
+conditions, in most of which her sister shared. The pride of being\r
+ladies had something to do with it: the Brooke connections, though not\r
+exactly aristocratic, were unquestionably "good:" if you inquired\r
+backward for a generation or two, you would not find any yard-measuring\r
+or parcel-tying forefathers--anything lower than an admiral or a\r
+clergyman; and there was even an ancestor discernible as a Puritan\r
+gentleman who served under Cromwell, but afterwards conformed, and\r
+managed to come out of all political troubles as the proprietor of a\r
+respectable family estate. Young women of such birth, living in a\r
+quiet country-house, and attending a village church hardly larger than\r
+a parlor, naturally regarded frippery as the ambition of a huckster's\r
+daughter. Then there was well-bred economy, which in those days made\r
+show in dress the first item to be deducted from, when any margin was\r
+required for expenses more distinctive of rank. Such reasons would\r
+have been enough to account for plain dress, quite apart from religious\r
+feeling; but in Miss Brooke's case, religion alone would have\r
+determined it; and Celia mildly acquiesced in all her sister's\r
+sentiments, only infusing them with that common-sense which is able to\r
+accept momentous doctrines without any eccentric agitation. Dorothea\r
+knew many passages of Pascal's Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart;\r
+and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity,\r
+made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for\r
+Bedlam. She could not reconcile the anxieties of a spiritual life\r
+involving eternal consequences, with a keen interest in gimp and\r
+artificial protrusions of drapery. Her mind was theoretic, and yearned\r
+by its nature after some lofty conception of the world which might\r
+frankly include the parish of Tipton and her own rule of conduct there;\r
+she was enamoured of intensity and greatness, and rash in embracing\r
+whatever seemed to her to have those aspects; likely to seek martyrdom,\r
+to make retractations, and then to incur martyrdom after all in a\r
+quarter where she had not sought it. Certainly such elements in the\r
+character of a marriageable girl tended to interfere with her lot, and\r
+hinder it from being decided according to custom, by good looks,\r
+vanity, and merely canine affection. With all this, she, the elder of\r
+the sisters, was not yet twenty, and they had both been educated, since\r
+they were about twelve years old and had lost their parents, on plans\r
+at once narrow and promiscuous, first in an English family and\r
+afterwards in a Swiss family at Lausanne, their bachelor uncle and\r
+guardian trying in this way to remedy the disadvantages of their\r
+orphaned condition.\r
+\r
+It was hardly a year since they had come to live at Tipton Grange with\r
+their uncle, a man nearly sixty, of acquiescent temper, miscellaneous\r
+opinions, and uncertain vote. He had travelled in his younger years,\r
+and was held in this part of the county to have contracted a too\r
+rambling habit of mind. Mr. Brooke's conclusions were as difficult to\r
+predict as the weather: it was only safe to say that he would act with\r
+benevolent intentions, and that he would spend as little money as\r
+possible in carrying them out. For the most glutinously indefinite\r
+minds enclose some hard grains of habit; and a man has been seen lax\r
+about all his own interests except the retention of his snuff-box,\r
+concerning which he was watchful, suspicious, and greedy of clutch.\r
+\r
+In Mr. Brooke the hereditary strain of Puritan energy was clearly in\r
+abeyance; but in his niece Dorothea it glowed alike through faults and\r
+virtues, turning sometimes into impatience of her uncle's talk or his\r
+way of "letting things be" on his estate, and making her long all the\r
+more for the time when she would be of age and have some command of\r
+money for generous schemes. She was regarded as an heiress; for not\r
+only had the sisters seven hundred a-year each from their parents, but\r
+if Dorothea married and had a son, that son would inherit Mr. Brooke's\r
+estate, presumably worth about three thousand a-year--a rental which\r
+seemed wealth to provincial families, still discussing Mr. Peel's late\r
+conduct on the Catholic question, innocent of future gold-fields, and\r
+of that gorgeous plutocracy which has so nobly exalted the necessities\r
+of genteel life.\r
+\r
+And how should Dorothea not marry?--a girl so handsome and with such\r
+prospects? Nothing could hinder it but her love of extremes, and her\r
+insistence on regulating life according to notions which might cause a\r
+wary man to hesitate before he made her an offer, or even might lead\r
+her at last to refuse all offers. A young lady of some birth and\r
+fortune, who knelt suddenly down on a brick floor by the side of a sick\r
+laborer and prayed fervidly as if she thought herself living in the\r
+time of the Apostles--who had strange whims of fasting like a Papist,\r
+and of sitting up at night to read old theological books! Such a wife\r
+might awaken you some fine morning with a new scheme for the\r
+application of her income which would interfere with political economy\r
+and the keeping of saddle-horses: a man would naturally think twice\r
+before he risked himself in such fellowship. Women were expected to\r
+have weak opinions; but the great safeguard of society and of domestic\r
+life was, that opinions were not acted on. Sane people did what their\r
+neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know\r
+and avoid them.\r
+\r
+The rural opinion about the new young ladies, even among the cottagers,\r
+was generally in favor of Celia, as being so amiable and\r
+innocent-looking, while Miss Brooke's large eyes seemed, like her\r
+religion, too unusual and striking. Poor Dorothea! compared with her,\r
+the innocent-looking Celia was knowing and worldly-wise; so much\r
+subtler is a human mind than the outside tissues which make a sort of\r
+blazonry or clock-face for it.\r
+\r
+Yet those who approached Dorothea, though prejudiced against her by\r
+this alarming hearsay, found that she had a charm unaccountably\r
+reconcilable with it. Most men thought her bewitching when she was on\r
+horseback. She loved the fresh air and the various aspects of the\r
+country, and when her eyes and cheeks glowed with mingled pleasure she\r
+looked very little like a devotee. Riding was an indulgence which she\r
+allowed herself in spite of conscientious qualms; she felt that she\r
+enjoyed it in a pagan sensuous way, and always looked forward to\r
+renouncing it.\r
+\r
+She was open, ardent, and not in the least self-admiring; indeed, it\r
+was pretty to see how her imagination adorned her sister Celia with\r
+attractions altogether superior to her own, and if any gentleman\r
+appeared to come to the Grange from some other motive than that of\r
+seeing Mr. Brooke, she concluded that he must be in love with Celia:\r
+Sir James Chettam, for example, whom she constantly considered from\r
+Celia's point of view, inwardly debating whether it would be good for\r
+Celia to accept him. That he should be regarded as a suitor to herself\r
+would have seemed to her a ridiculous irrelevance. Dorothea, with all\r
+her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas\r
+about marriage. She felt sure that she would have accepted the\r
+judicious Hooker, if she had been born in time to save him from that\r
+wretched mistake he made in matrimony; or John Milton when his\r
+blindness had come on; or any of the other great men whose odd habits\r
+it would have been glorious piety to endure; but an amiable handsome\r
+baronet, who said "Exactly" to her remarks even when she expressed\r
+uncertainty,--how could he affect her as a lover? The really\r
+delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of\r
+father, and could teach you even Hebrew, if you wished it.\r
+\r
+These peculiarities of Dorothea's character caused Mr. Brooke to be all\r
+the more blamed in neighboring families for not securing some\r
+middle-aged lady as guide and companion to his nieces. But he himself\r
+dreaded so much the sort of superior woman likely to be available for\r
+such a position, that he allowed himself to be dissuaded by Dorothea's\r
+objections, and was in this case brave enough to defy the world--that\r
+is to say, Mrs. Cadwallader the Rector's wife, and the small group of\r
+gentry with whom he visited in the northeast corner of Loamshire. So\r
+Miss Brooke presided in her uncle's household, and did not at all\r
+dislike her new authority, with the homage that belonged to it.\r
+\r
+Sir James Chettam was going to dine at the Grange to-day with another\r
+gentleman whom the girls had never seen, and about whom Dorothea felt\r
+some venerating expectation. This was the Reverend Edward Casaubon,\r
+noted in the county as a man of profound learning, understood for many\r
+years to be engaged on a great work concerning religious history; also\r
+as a man of wealth enough to give lustre to his piety, and having views\r
+of his own which were to be more clearly ascertained on the publication\r
+of his book. His very name carried an impressiveness hardly to be\r
+measured without a precise chronology of scholarship.\r
+\r
+Early in the day Dorothea had returned from the infant school which she\r
+had set going in the village, and was taking her usual place in the\r
+pretty sitting-room which divided the bedrooms of the sisters, bent on\r
+finishing a plan for some buildings (a kind of work which she delighted\r
+in), when Celia, who had been watching her with a hesitating desire to\r
+propose something, said--\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, dear, if you don't mind--if you are not very busy--suppose\r
+we looked at mamma's jewels to-day, and divided them? It is exactly\r
+six months to-day since uncle gave them to you, and you have not looked\r
+at them yet."\r
+\r
+Celia's face had the shadow of a pouting expression in it, the full\r
+presence of the pout being kept back by an habitual awe of Dorothea and\r
+principle; two associated facts which might show a mysterious\r
+electricity if you touched them incautiously. To her relief,\r
+Dorothea's eyes were full of laughter as she looked up.\r
+\r
+"What a wonderful little almanac you are, Celia! Is it six calendar or\r
+six lunar months?"\r
+\r
+"It is the last day of September now, and it was the first of April\r
+when uncle gave them to you. You know, he said that he had forgotten\r
+them till then. I believe you have never thought of them since you\r
+locked them up in the cabinet here."\r
+\r
+"Well, dear, we should never wear them, you know." Dorothea spoke in a\r
+full cordial tone, half caressing, half explanatory. She had her\r
+pencil in her hand, and was making tiny side-plans on a margin.\r
+\r
+Celia colored, and looked very grave. "I think, dear, we are wanting\r
+in respect to mamma's memory, to put them by and take no notice of\r
+them. And," she added, after hesitating a little, with a rising sob of\r
+mortification, "necklaces are quite usual now; and Madame Poincon, who\r
+was stricter in some things even than you are, used to wear ornaments.\r
+And Christians generally--surely there are women in heaven now who wore\r
+jewels." Celia was conscious of some mental strength when she really\r
+applied herself to argument.\r
+\r
+"You would like to wear them?" exclaimed Dorothea, an air of astonished\r
+discovery animating her whole person with a dramatic action which she\r
+had caught from that very Madame Poincon who wore the ornaments. "Of\r
+course, then, let us have them out. Why did you not tell me before?\r
+But the keys, the keys!" She pressed her hands against the sides of her\r
+head and seemed to despair of her memory.\r
+\r
+"They are here," said Celia, with whom this explanation had been long\r
+meditated and prearranged.\r
+\r
+"Pray open the large drawer of the cabinet and get out the jewel-box."\r
+\r
+The casket was soon open before them, and the various jewels spread\r
+out, making a bright parterre on the table. It was no great\r
+collection, but a few of the ornaments were really of remarkable\r
+beauty, the finest that was obvious at first being a necklace of purple\r
+amethysts set in exquisite gold work, and a pearl cross with five\r
+brilliants in it. Dorothea immediately took up the necklace and\r
+fastened it round her sister's neck, where it fitted almost as closely\r
+as a bracelet; but the circle suited the Henrietta-Maria style of\r
+Celia's head and neck, and she could see that it did, in the pier-glass\r
+opposite.\r
+\r
+"There, Celia! you can wear that with your Indian muslin. But this\r
+cross you must wear with your dark dresses."\r
+\r
+Celia was trying not to smile with pleasure. "O Dodo, you must keep\r
+the cross yourself."\r
+\r
+"No, no, dear, no," said Dorothea, putting up her hand with careless\r
+deprecation.\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed you must; it would suit you--in your black dress, now,"\r
+said Celia, insistingly. "You _might_ wear that."\r
+\r
+"Not for the world, not for the world. A cross is the last thing I\r
+would wear as a trinket." Dorothea shuddered slightly.\r
+\r
+"Then you will think it wicked in me to wear it," said Celia, uneasily.\r
+\r
+"No, dear, no," said Dorothea, stroking her sister's cheek. "Souls\r
+have complexions too: what will suit one will not suit another."\r
+\r
+"But you might like to keep it for mamma's sake."\r
+\r
+"No, I have other things of mamma's--her sandal-wood box which I am so\r
+fond of--plenty of things. In fact, they are all yours, dear. We need\r
+discuss them no longer. There--take away your property."\r
+\r
+Celia felt a little hurt. There was a strong assumption of superiority\r
+in this Puritanic toleration, hardly less trying to the blond flesh of\r
+an unenthusiastic sister than a Puritanic persecution.\r
+\r
+"But how can I wear ornaments if you, who are the elder sister, will\r
+never wear them?"\r
+\r
+"Nay, Celia, that is too much to ask, that I should wear trinkets to\r
+keep you in countenance. If I were to put on such a necklace as that,\r
+I should feel as if I had been pirouetting. The world would go round\r
+with me, and I should not know how to walk."\r
+\r
+Celia had unclasped the necklace and drawn it off. "It would be a\r
+little tight for your neck; something to lie down and hang would suit\r
+you better," she said, with some satisfaction. The complete unfitness\r
+of the necklace from all points of view for Dorothea, made Celia\r
+happier in taking it. She was opening some ring-boxes, which disclosed\r
+a fine emerald with diamonds, and just then the sun passing beyond a\r
+cloud sent a bright gleam over the table.\r
+\r
+"How very beautiful these gems are!" said Dorothea, under a new current\r
+of feeling, as sudden as the gleam. "It is strange how deeply colors\r
+seem to penetrate one, like scent. I suppose that is the reason why\r
+gems are used as spiritual emblems in the Revelation of St. John. They\r
+look like fragments of heaven. I think that emerald is more beautiful\r
+than any of them."\r
+\r
+"And there is a bracelet to match it," said Celia. "We did not notice\r
+this at first."\r
+\r
+"They are lovely," said Dorothea, slipping the ring and bracelet on her\r
+finely turned finger and wrist, and holding them towards the window on\r
+a level with her eyes. All the while her thought was trying to justify\r
+her delight in the colors by merging them in her mystic religious joy.\r
+\r
+"You _would_ like those, Dorothea," said Celia, rather falteringly,\r
+beginning to think with wonder that her sister showed some weakness,\r
+and also that emeralds would suit her own complexion even better than\r
+purple amethysts. "You must keep that ring and bracelet--if nothing\r
+else. But see, these agates are very pretty and quiet."\r
+\r
+"Yes! I will keep these--this ring and bracelet," said Dorothea.\r
+Then, letting her hand fall on the table, she said in another\r
+tone--"Yet what miserable men find such things, and work at them, and\r
+sell them!" She paused again, and Celia thought that her sister was\r
+going to renounce the ornaments, as in consistency she ought to do.\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear, I will keep these," said Dorothea, decidedly. "But take\r
+all the rest away, and the casket."\r
+\r
+She took up her pencil without removing the jewels, and still looking\r
+at them. She thought of often having them by her, to feed her eye at\r
+these little fountains of pure color.\r
+\r
+"Shall you wear them in company?" said Celia, who was watching her with\r
+real curiosity as to what she would do.\r
+\r
+Dorothea glanced quickly at her sister. Across all her imaginative\r
+adornment of those whom she loved, there darted now and then a keen\r
+discernment, which was not without a scorching quality. If Miss Brooke\r
+ever attained perfect meekness, it would not be for lack of inward fire.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps," she said, rather haughtily. "I cannot tell to what level I\r
+may sink."\r
+\r
+Celia blushed, and was unhappy: she saw that she had offended her\r
+sister, and dared not say even anything pretty about the gift of the\r
+ornaments which she put back into the box and carried away. Dorothea\r
+too was unhappy, as she went on with her plan-drawing, questioning the\r
+purity of her own feeling and speech in the scene which had ended with\r
+that little explosion.\r
+\r
+Celia's consciousness told her that she had not been at all in the\r
+wrong: it was quite natural and justifiable that she should have asked\r
+that question, and she repeated to herself that Dorothea was\r
+inconsistent: either she should have taken her full share of the\r
+jewels, or, after what she had said, she should have renounced them\r
+altogether.\r
+\r
+"I am sure--at least, I trust," thought Celia, "that the wearing of a\r
+necklace will not interfere with my prayers. And I do not see that I\r
+should be bound by Dorothea's opinions now we are going into society,\r
+though of course she herself ought to be bound by them. But Dorothea\r
+is not always consistent."\r
+\r
+Thus Celia, mutely bending over her tapestry, until she heard her\r
+sister calling her.\r
+\r
+"Here, Kitty, come and look at my plan; I shall think I am a great\r
+architect, if I have not got incompatible stairs and fireplaces."\r
+\r
+As Celia bent over the paper, Dorothea put her cheek against her\r
+sister's arm caressingly. Celia understood the action. Dorothea saw\r
+that she had been in the wrong, and Celia pardoned her. Since they\r
+could remember, there had been a mixture of criticism and awe in the\r
+attitude of Celia's mind towards her elder sister. The younger had\r
+always worn a yoke; but is there any yoked creature without its private\r
+opinions?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II.\r
+\r
+ "'Dime; no ves aquel caballero que hacia nosotros viene\r
+ sobre un caballo rucio rodado que trae puesto en la cabeza\r
+ un yelmo de oro?' 'Lo que veo y columbro,' respondio Sancho,\r
+ 'no es sino un hombre sobre un as no pardo como el mio, que\r
+ trae sobre la cabeza una cosa que relumbra.' 'Pues ese es el\r
+ yelmo de Mambrino,' dijo Don Quijote."--CERVANTES.\r
+\r
+ "'Seest thou not yon cavalier who cometh toward us on a\r
+ dapple-gray steed, and weareth a golden helmet?' 'What I\r
+ see,' answered Sancho, 'is nothing but a man on a gray ass\r
+ like my own, who carries something shiny on his head.' 'Just\r
+ so,' answered Don Quixote: 'and that resplendent object is\r
+ the helmet of Mambrino.'"\r
+\r
+\r
+"Sir Humphry Davy?" said Mr. Brooke, over the soup, in his easy smiling\r
+way, taking up Sir James Chettam's remark that he was studying Davy's\r
+Agricultural Chemistry. "Well, now, Sir Humphry Davy; I dined with him\r
+years ago at Cartwright's, and Wordsworth was there too--the poet\r
+Wordsworth, you know. Now there was something singular. I was at\r
+Cambridge when Wordsworth was there, and I never met him--and I dined\r
+with him twenty years afterwards at Cartwright's. There's an oddity in\r
+things, now. But Davy was there: he was a poet too. Or, as I may say,\r
+Wordsworth was poet one, and Davy was poet two. That was true in every\r
+sense, you know."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt a little more uneasy than usual. In the beginning of\r
+dinner, the party being small and the room still, these motes from the\r
+mass of a magistrate's mind fell too noticeably. She wondered how a\r
+man like Mr. Casaubon would support such triviality. His manners, she\r
+thought, were very dignified; the set of his iron-gray hair and his\r
+deep eye-sockets made him resemble the portrait of Locke. He had the\r
+spare form and the pale complexion which became a student; as different\r
+as possible from the blooming Englishman of the red-whiskered type\r
+represented by Sir James Chettam.\r
+\r
+"I am reading the Agricultural Chemistry," said this excellent baronet,\r
+"because I am going to take one of the farms into my own hands, and see\r
+if something cannot be done in setting a good pattern of farming among\r
+my tenants. Do you approve of that, Miss Brooke?"\r
+\r
+"A great mistake, Chettam," interposed Mr. Brooke, "going into\r
+electrifying your land and that kind of thing, and making a parlor of\r
+your cow-house. It won't do. I went into science a great deal myself\r
+at one time; but I saw it would not do. It leads to everything; you\r
+can let nothing alone. No, no--see that your tenants don't sell their\r
+straw, and that kind of thing; and give them draining-tiles, you know.\r
+But your fancy farming will not do--the most expensive sort of whistle\r
+you can buy: you may as well keep a pack of hounds."\r
+\r
+"Surely," said Dorothea, "it is better to spend money in finding out\r
+how men can make the most of the land which supports them all, than in\r
+keeping dogs and horses only to gallop over it. It is not a sin to\r
+make yourself poor in performing experiments for the good of all."\r
+\r
+She spoke with more energy than is expected of so young a lady, but Sir\r
+James had appealed to her. He was accustomed to do so, and she had\r
+often thought that she could urge him to many good actions when he was\r
+her brother-in-law.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon turned his eyes very markedly on Dorothea while she was\r
+speaking, and seemed to observe her newly.\r
+\r
+"Young ladies don't understand political economy, you know," said Mr.\r
+Brooke, smiling towards Mr. Casaubon. "I remember when we were all\r
+reading Adam Smith. _There_ is a book, now. I took in all the new\r
+ideas at one time--human perfectibility, now. But some say, history\r
+moves in circles; and that may be very well argued; I have argued it\r
+myself. The fact is, human reason may carry you a little too far--over\r
+the hedge, in fact. It carried me a good way at one time; but I saw it\r
+would not do. I pulled up; I pulled up in time. But not too hard. I\r
+have always been in favor of a little theory: we must have Thought;\r
+else we shall be landed back in the dark ages. But talking of books,\r
+there is Southey's 'Peninsular War.' I am reading that of a morning.\r
+You know Southey?"\r
+\r
+"No" said Mr. Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr. Brooke's impetuous\r
+reason, and thinking of the book only. "I have little leisure for such\r
+literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on old\r
+characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I\r
+am fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect\r
+reader. It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the\r
+inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something\r
+like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying\r
+mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and\r
+confusing changes. But I find it necessary to use the utmost caution\r
+about my eyesight."\r
+\r
+This was the first time that Mr. Casaubon had spoken at any length. He\r
+delivered himself with precision, as if he had been called upon to make\r
+a public statement; and the balanced sing-song neatness of his speech,\r
+occasionally corresponded to by a movement of his head, was the more\r
+conspicuous from its contrast with good Mr. Brooke's scrappy\r
+slovenliness. Dorothea said to herself that Mr. Casaubon was the most\r
+interesting man she had ever seen, not excepting even Monsieur Liret,\r
+the Vaudois clergyman who had given conferences on the history of the\r
+Waldenses. To reconstruct a past world, doubtless with a view to the\r
+highest purposes of truth--what a work to be in any way present at, to\r
+assist in, though only as a lamp-holder! This elevating thought lifted\r
+her above her annoyance at being twitted with her ignorance of\r
+political economy, that never-explained science which was thrust as an\r
+extinguisher over all her lights.\r
+\r
+"But you are fond of riding, Miss Brooke," Sir James presently took an\r
+opportunity of saying. "I should have thought you would enter a little\r
+into the pleasures of hunting. I wish you would let me send over a\r
+chestnut horse for you to try. It has been trained for a lady. I saw\r
+you on Saturday cantering over the hill on a nag not worthy of you. My\r
+groom shall bring Corydon for you every day, if you will only mention\r
+the time."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, you are very good. I mean to give up riding. I shall not\r
+ride any more," said Dorothea, urged to this brusque resolution by a\r
+little annoyance that Sir James would be soliciting her attention when\r
+she wanted to give it all to Mr. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+"No, that is too hard," said Sir James, in a tone of reproach that\r
+showed strong interest. "Your sister is given to self-mortification,\r
+is she not?" he continued, turning to Celia, who sat at his right hand.\r
+\r
+"I think she is," said Celia, feeling afraid lest she should say\r
+something that would not please her sister, and blushing as prettily as\r
+possible above her necklace. "She likes giving up."\r
+\r
+"If that were true, Celia, my giving-up would be self-indulgence, not\r
+self-mortification. But there may be good reasons for choosing not to\r
+do what is very agreeable," said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke was speaking at the same time, but it was evident that Mr.\r
+Casaubon was observing Dorothea, and she was aware of it.\r
+\r
+"Exactly," said Sir James. "You give up from some high, generous\r
+motive."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, not exactly. I did not say that of myself," answered\r
+Dorothea, reddening. Unlike Celia, she rarely blushed, and only from\r
+high delight or anger. At this moment she felt angry with the perverse\r
+Sir James. Why did he not pay attention to Celia, and leave her to\r
+listen to Mr. Casaubon?--if that learned man would only talk, instead\r
+of allowing himself to be talked to by Mr. Brooke, who was just then\r
+informing him that the Reformation either meant something or it did\r
+not, that he himself was a Protestant to the core, but that Catholicism\r
+was a fact; and as to refusing an acre of your ground for a Romanist\r
+chapel, all men needed the bridle of religion, which, properly\r
+speaking, was the dread of a Hereafter.\r
+\r
+"I made a great study of theology at one time," said Mr. Brooke, as if\r
+to explain the insight just manifested. "I know something of all\r
+schools. I knew Wilberforce in his best days. Do you know\r
+Wilberforce?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon said, "No."\r
+\r
+"Well, Wilberforce was perhaps not enough of a thinker; but if I went\r
+into Parliament, as I have been asked to do, I should sit on the\r
+independent bench, as Wilberforce did, and work at philanthropy."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon bowed, and observed that it was a wide field.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mr. Brooke, with an easy smile, "but I have documents. I\r
+began a long while ago to collect documents. They want arranging, but\r
+when a question has struck me, I have written to somebody and got an\r
+answer. I have documents at my back. But now, how do you arrange your\r
+documents?"\r
+\r
+"In pigeon-holes partly," said Mr. Casaubon, with rather a startled air\r
+of effort.\r
+\r
+"Ah, pigeon-holes will not do. I have tried pigeon-holes, but\r
+everything gets mixed in pigeon-holes: I never know whether a paper is\r
+in A or Z."\r
+\r
+"I wish you would let me sort your papers for you, uncle," said\r
+Dorothea. "I would letter them all, and then make a list of subjects\r
+under each letter."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon gravely smiled approval, and said to Mr. Brooke, "You have\r
+an excellent secretary at hand, you perceive."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Brooke, shaking his head; "I cannot let young ladies\r
+meddle with my documents. Young ladies are too flighty."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt hurt. Mr. Casaubon would think that her uncle had some\r
+special reason for delivering this opinion, whereas the remark lay in\r
+his mind as lightly as the broken wing of an insect among all the other\r
+fragments there, and a chance current had sent it alighting on _her_.\r
+\r
+When the two girls were in the drawing-room alone, Celia said--\r
+\r
+"How very ugly Mr. Casaubon is!"\r
+\r
+"Celia! He is one of the most distinguished-looking men I ever saw.\r
+He is remarkably like the portrait of Locke. He has the same deep\r
+eye-sockets."\r
+\r
+"Had Locke those two white moles with hairs on them?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say! when people of a certain sort looked at him," said\r
+Dorothea, walking away a little.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Casaubon is so sallow."\r
+\r
+"All the better. I suppose you admire a man with the complexion of a\r
+cochon de lait."\r
+\r
+"Dodo!" exclaimed Celia, looking after her in surprise. "I never heard\r
+you make such a comparison before."\r
+\r
+"Why should I make it before the occasion came? It is a good\r
+comparison: the match is perfect."\r
+\r
+Miss Brooke was clearly forgetting herself, and Celia thought so.\r
+\r
+"I wonder you show temper, Dorothea."\r
+\r
+"It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as\r
+if they were merely animals with a toilet, and never see the great soul\r
+in a man's face."\r
+\r
+"Has Mr. Casaubon a great soul?" Celia was not without a touch of naive\r
+malice.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I believe he has," said Dorothea, with the full voice of\r
+decision. "Everything I see in him corresponds to his pamphlet on\r
+Biblical Cosmology."\r
+\r
+"He talks very little," said Celia\r
+\r
+"There is no one for him to talk to."\r
+\r
+Celia thought privately, "Dorothea quite despises Sir James Chettam; I\r
+believe she would not accept him." Celia felt that this was a pity.\r
+She had never been deceived as to the object of the baronet's interest.\r
+Sometimes, indeed, she had reflected that Dodo would perhaps not make a\r
+husband happy who had not her way of looking at things; and stifled in\r
+the depths of her heart was the feeling that her sister was too\r
+religious for family comfort. Notions and scruples were like spilt\r
+needles, making one afraid of treading, or sitting down, or even eating.\r
+\r
+When Miss Brooke was at the tea-table, Sir James came to sit down by\r
+her, not having felt her mode of answering him at all offensive. Why\r
+should he? He thought it probable that Miss Brooke liked him, and\r
+manners must be very marked indeed before they cease to be interpreted\r
+by preconceptions either confident or distrustful. She was thoroughly\r
+charming to him, but of course he theorized a little about his\r
+attachment. He was made of excellent human dough, and had the rare\r
+merit of knowing that his talents, even if let loose, would not set the\r
+smallest stream in the county on fire: hence he liked the prospect of a\r
+wife to whom he could say, "What shall we do?" about this or that; who\r
+could help her husband out with reasons, and would also have the\r
+property qualification for doing so. As to the excessive religiousness\r
+alleged against Miss Brooke, he had a very indefinite notion of what it\r
+consisted in, and thought that it would die out with marriage. In\r
+short, he felt himself to be in love in the right place, and was ready\r
+to endure a great deal of predominance, which, after all, a man could\r
+always put down when he liked. Sir James had no idea that he should\r
+ever like to put down the predominance of this handsome girl, in whose\r
+cleverness he delighted. Why not? A man's mind--what there is of\r
+it--has always the advantage of being masculine,--as the smallest\r
+birch-tree is of a higher kind than the most soaring palm,--and even\r
+his ignorance is of a sounder quality. Sir James might not have\r
+originated this estimate; but a kind Providence furnishes the limpest\r
+personality with a little gum or starch in the form of tradition.\r
+\r
+"Let me hope that you will rescind that resolution about the horse,\r
+Miss Brooke," said the persevering admirer. "I assure you, riding is\r
+the most healthy of exercises."\r
+\r
+"I am aware of it," said Dorothea, coldly. "I think it would do Celia\r
+good--if she would take to it."\r
+\r
+"But you are such a perfect horsewoman."\r
+\r
+"Excuse me; I have had very little practice, and I should be easily\r
+thrown."\r
+\r
+"Then that is a reason for more practice. Every lady ought to be a\r
+perfect horsewoman, that she may accompany her husband."\r
+\r
+"You see how widely we differ, Sir James. I have made up my mind that\r
+I ought not to be a perfect horsewoman, and so I should never\r
+correspond to your pattern of a lady." Dorothea looked straight before\r
+her, and spoke with cold brusquerie, very much with the air of a\r
+handsome boy, in amusing contrast with the solicitous amiability of her\r
+admirer.\r
+\r
+"I should like to know your reasons for this cruel resolution. It is\r
+not possible that you should think horsemanship wrong."\r
+\r
+"It is quite possible that I should think it wrong for me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, why?" said Sir James, in a tender tone of remonstrance.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon had come up to the table, teacup in hand, and was\r
+listening.\r
+\r
+"We must not inquire too curiously into motives," he interposed, in his\r
+measured way. "Miss Brooke knows that they are apt to become feeble in\r
+the utterance: the aroma is mixed with the grosser air. We must keep\r
+the germinating grain away from the light."\r
+\r
+Dorothea colored with pleasure, and looked up gratefully to the\r
+speaker. Here was a man who could understand the higher inward life,\r
+and with whom there could be some spiritual communion; nay, who could\r
+illuminate principle with the widest knowledge a man whose learning\r
+almost amounted to a proof of whatever he believed!\r
+\r
+Dorothea's inferences may seem large; but really life could never have\r
+gone on at any period but for this liberal allowance of conclusions,\r
+which has facilitated marriage under the difficulties of civilization.\r
+Has any one ever pinched into its pilulous smallness the cobweb of\r
+pre-matrimonial acquaintanceship?\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said good Sir James. "Miss Brooke shall not be urged to\r
+tell reasons she would rather be silent upon. I am sure her reasons\r
+would do her honor."\r
+\r
+He was not in the least jealous of the interest with which Dorothea had\r
+looked up at Mr. Casaubon: it never occurred to him that a girl to whom\r
+he was meditating an offer of marriage could care for a dried bookworm\r
+towards fifty, except, indeed, in a religious sort of way, as for a\r
+clergyman of some distinction.\r
+\r
+However, since Miss Brooke had become engaged in a conversation with\r
+Mr. Casaubon about the Vaudois clergy, Sir James betook himself to\r
+Celia, and talked to her about her sister; spoke of a house in town,\r
+and asked whether Miss Brooke disliked London. Away from her sister,\r
+Celia talked quite easily, and Sir James said to himself that the\r
+second Miss Brooke was certainly very agreeable as well as pretty,\r
+though not, as some people pretended, more clever and sensible than the\r
+elder sister. He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all\r
+respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to\r
+having the best. He would be the very Mawworm of bachelors who\r
+pretended not to expect it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III.\r
+\r
+ "Say, goddess, what ensued, when Raphael,\r
+ The affable archangel . . .\r
+ Eve\r
+ The story heard attentive, and was filled\r
+ With admiration, and deep muse, to hear\r
+ Of things so high and strange."\r
+ --Paradise Lost, B. vii.\r
+\r
+\r
+If it had really occurred to Mr. Casaubon to think of Miss Brooke as a\r
+suitable wife for him, the reasons that might induce her to accept him\r
+were already planted in her mind, and by the evening of the next day\r
+the reasons had budded and bloomed. For they had had a long\r
+conversation in the morning, while Celia, who did not like the company\r
+of Mr. Casaubon's moles and sallowness, had escaped to the vicarage to\r
+play with the curate's ill-shod but merry children.\r
+\r
+Dorothea by this time had looked deep into the ungauged reservoir of\r
+Mr. Casaubon's mind, seeing reflected there in vague labyrinthine\r
+extension every quality she herself brought; had opened much of her own\r
+experience to him, and had understood from him the scope of his great\r
+work, also of attractively labyrinthine extent. For he had been as\r
+instructive as Milton's "affable archangel;" and with something of the\r
+archangelic manner he told her how he had undertaken to show (what\r
+indeed had been attempted before, but not with that thoroughness,\r
+justice of comparison, and effectiveness of arrangement at which Mr.\r
+Casaubon aimed) that all the mythical systems or erratic mythical\r
+fragments in the world were corruptions of a tradition originally\r
+revealed. Having once mastered the true position and taken a firm\r
+footing there, the vast field of mythical constructions became\r
+intelligible, nay, luminous with the reflected light of\r
+correspondences. But to gather in this great harvest of truth was no\r
+light or speedy work. His notes already made a formidable range of\r
+volumes, but the crowning task would be to condense these voluminous\r
+still-accumulating results and bring them, like the earlier vintage of\r
+Hippocratic books, to fit a little shelf. In explaining this to\r
+Dorothea, Mr. Casaubon expressed himself nearly as he would have done\r
+to a fellow-student, for he had not two styles of talking at command:\r
+it is true that when he used a Greek or Latin phrase he always gave the\r
+English with scrupulous care, but he would probably have done this in\r
+any case. A learned provincial clergyman is accustomed to think of his\r
+acquaintances as of "lords, knyghtes, and other noble and worthi men,\r
+that conne Latyn but lytille."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was altogether captivated by the wide embrace of this\r
+conception. Here was something beyond the shallows of ladies' school\r
+literature: here was a living Bossuet, whose work would reconcile\r
+complete knowledge with devoted piety; here was a modern Augustine who\r
+united the glories of doctor and saint.\r
+\r
+The sanctity seemed no less clearly marked than the learning, for when\r
+Dorothea was impelled to open her mind on certain themes which she\r
+could speak of to no one whom she had before seen at Tipton, especially\r
+on the secondary importance of ecclesiastical forms and articles of\r
+belief compared with that spiritual religion, that submergence of self\r
+in communion with Divine perfection which seemed to her to be expressed\r
+in the best Christian books of widely distant ages, she found in Mr.\r
+Casaubon a listener who understood her at once, who could assure her of\r
+his own agreement with that view when duly tempered with wise\r
+conformity, and could mention historical examples before unknown to her.\r
+\r
+"He thinks with me," said Dorothea to herself, "or rather, he thinks a\r
+whole world of which my thought is but a poor twopenny mirror. And his\r
+feelings too, his whole experience--what a lake compared with my little\r
+pool!"\r
+\r
+Miss Brooke argued from words and dispositions not less unhesitatingly\r
+than other young ladies of her age. Signs are small measurable things,\r
+but interpretations are illimitable, and in girls of sweet, ardent\r
+nature, every sign is apt to conjure up wonder, hope, belief, vast as a\r
+sky, and colored by a diffused thimbleful of matter in the shape of\r
+knowledge. They are not always too grossly deceived; for Sinbad\r
+himself may have fallen by good-luck on a true description, and wrong\r
+reasoning sometimes lands poor mortals in right conclusions: starting a\r
+long way off the true point, and proceeding by loops and zigzags, we\r
+now and then arrive just where we ought to be. Because Miss Brooke was\r
+hasty in her trust, it is not therefore clear that Mr. Casaubon was\r
+unworthy of it.\r
+\r
+He stayed a little longer than he had intended, on a slight pressure of\r
+invitation from Mr. Brooke, who offered no bait except his own\r
+documents on machine-breaking and rick-burning. Mr. Casaubon was called\r
+into the library to look at these in a heap, while his host picked up\r
+first one and then the other to read aloud from in a skipping and\r
+uncertain way, passing from one unfinished passage to another with a\r
+"Yes, now, but here!" and finally pushing them all aside to open the\r
+journal of his youthful Continental travels.\r
+\r
+"Look here--here is all about Greece. Rhamnus, the ruins of\r
+Rhamnus--you are a great Grecian, now. I don't know whether you have\r
+given much study to the topography. I spent no end of time in making\r
+out these things--Helicon, now. Here, now!--'We started the next\r
+morning for Parnassus, the double-peaked Parnassus.' All this volume is\r
+about Greece, you know," Mr. Brooke wound up, rubbing his thumb\r
+transversely along the edges of the leaves as he held the book forward.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon made a dignified though somewhat sad audience; bowed in\r
+the right place, and avoided looking at anything documentary as far as\r
+possible, without showing disregard or impatience; mindful that this\r
+desultoriness was associated with the institutions of the country, and\r
+that the man who took him on this severe mental scamper was not only an\r
+amiable host, but a landholder and custos rotulorum. Was his endurance\r
+aided also by the reflection that Mr. Brooke was the uncle of Dorothea?\r
+\r
+Certainly he seemed more and more bent on making her talk to him, on\r
+drawing her out, as Celia remarked to herself; and in looking at her\r
+his face was often lit up by a smile like pale wintry sunshine. Before\r
+he left the next morning, while taking a pleasant walk with Miss Brooke\r
+along the gravelled terrace, he had mentioned to her that he felt the\r
+disadvantage of loneliness, the need of that cheerful companionship\r
+with which the presence of youth can lighten or vary the serious toils\r
+of maturity. And he delivered this statement with as much careful\r
+precision as if he had been a diplomatic envoy whose words would be\r
+attended with results. Indeed, Mr. Casaubon was not used to expect\r
+that he should have to repeat or revise his communications of a\r
+practical or personal kind. The inclinations which he had deliberately\r
+stated on the 2d of October he would think it enough to refer to by the\r
+mention of that date; judging by the standard of his own memory, which\r
+was a volume where a vide supra could serve instead of repetitions, and\r
+not the ordinary long-used blotting-book which only tells of forgotten\r
+writing. But in this case Mr. Casaubon's confidence was not likely to\r
+be falsified, for Dorothea heard and retained what he said with the\r
+eager interest of a fresh young nature to which every variety in\r
+experience is an epoch.\r
+\r
+It was three o'clock in the beautiful breezy autumn day when Mr.\r
+Casaubon drove off to his Rectory at Lowick, only five miles from\r
+Tipton; and Dorothea, who had on her bonnet and shawl, hurried along\r
+the shrubbery and across the park that she might wander through the\r
+bordering wood with no other visible companionship than that of Monk,\r
+the Great St. Bernard dog, who always took care of the young ladies in\r
+their walks. There had risen before her the girl's vision of a\r
+possible future for herself to which she looked forward with trembling\r
+hope, and she wanted to wander on in that visionary future without\r
+interruption. She walked briskly in the brisk air, the color rose in\r
+her cheeks, and her straw bonnet (which our contemporaries might look\r
+at with conjectural curiosity as at an obsolete form of basket) fell a\r
+little backward. She would perhaps be hardly characterized enough if\r
+it were omitted that she wore her brown hair flatly braided and coiled\r
+behind so as to expose the outline of her head in a daring manner at a\r
+time when public feeling required the meagreness of nature to be\r
+dissimulated by tall barricades of frizzed curls and bows, never\r
+surpassed by any great race except the Feejeean. This was a trait of\r
+Miss Brooke's asceticism. But there was nothing of an ascetic's\r
+expression in her bright full eyes, as she looked before her, not\r
+consciously seeing, but absorbing into the intensity of her mood, the\r
+solemn glory of the afternoon with its long swathes of light between\r
+the far-off rows of limes, whose shadows touched each other.\r
+\r
+All people, young or old (that is, all people in those ante-reform\r
+times), would have thought her an interesting object if they had\r
+referred the glow in her eyes and cheeks to the newly awakened ordinary\r
+images of young love: the illusions of Chloe about Strephon have been\r
+sufficiently consecrated in poetry, as the pathetic loveliness of all\r
+spontaneous trust ought to be. Miss Pippin adoring young Pumpkin, and\r
+dreaming along endless vistas of unwearying companionship, was a little\r
+drama which never tired our fathers and mothers, and had been put into\r
+all costumes. Let but Pumpkin have a figure which would sustain the\r
+disadvantages of the shortwaisted swallow-tail, and everybody felt it\r
+not only natural but necessary to the perfection of womanhood, that a\r
+sweet girl should be at once convinced of his virtue, his exceptional\r
+ability, and above all, his perfect sincerity. But perhaps no persons\r
+then living--certainly none in the neighborhood of Tipton--would have\r
+had a sympathetic understanding for the dreams of a girl whose notions\r
+about marriage took their color entirely from an exalted enthusiasm\r
+about the ends of life, an enthusiasm which was lit chiefly by its own\r
+fire, and included neither the niceties of the trousseau, the pattern\r
+of plate, nor even the honors and sweet joys of the blooming matron.\r
+\r
+It had now entered Dorothea's mind that Mr. Casaubon might wish to make\r
+her his wife, and the idea that he would do so touched her with a sort\r
+of reverential gratitude. How good of him--nay, it would be almost as\r
+if a winged messenger had suddenly stood beside her path and held out\r
+his hand towards her! For a long while she had been oppressed by the\r
+indefiniteness which hung in her mind, like a thick summer haze, over\r
+all her desire to make her life greatly effective. What could she do,\r
+what ought she to do?--she, hardly more than a budding woman, but yet\r
+with an active conscience and a great mental need, not to be satisfied\r
+by a girlish instruction comparable to the nibblings and judgments of a\r
+discursive mouse. With some endowment of stupidity and conceit, she\r
+might have thought that a Christian young lady of fortune should find\r
+her ideal of life in village charities, patronage of the humbler\r
+clergy, the perusal of "Female Scripture Characters," unfolding the\r
+private experience of Sara under the Old Dispensation, and Dorcas under\r
+the New, and the care of her soul over her embroidery in her own\r
+boudoir--with a background of prospective marriage to a man who, if\r
+less strict than herself, as being involved in affairs religiously\r
+inexplicable, might be prayed for and seasonably exhorted. From such\r
+contentment poor Dorothea was shut out. The intensity of her religious\r
+disposition, the coercion it exercised over her life, was but one\r
+aspect of a nature altogether ardent, theoretic, and intellectually\r
+consequent: and with such a nature struggling in the bands of a narrow\r
+teaching, hemmed in by a social life which seemed nothing but a\r
+labyrinth of petty courses, a walled-in maze of small paths that led no\r
+whither, the outcome was sure to strike others as at once exaggeration\r
+and inconsistency. The thing which seemed to her best, she wanted to\r
+justify by the completest knowledge; and not to live in a pretended\r
+admission of rules which were never acted on. Into this soul-hunger as\r
+yet all her youthful passion was poured; the union which attracted her\r
+was one that would deliver her from her girlish subjection to her own\r
+ignorance, and give her the freedom of voluntary submission to a guide\r
+who would take her along the grandest path.\r
+\r
+"I should learn everything then," she said to herself, still walking\r
+quickly along the bridle road through the wood. "It would be my duty\r
+to study that I might help him the better in his great works. There\r
+would be nothing trivial about our lives. Every-day things with us\r
+would mean the greatest things. It would be like marrying Pascal. I\r
+should learn to see the truth by the same light as great men have seen\r
+it by. And then I should know what to do, when I got older: I should\r
+see how it was possible to lead a grand life here--now--in England. I\r
+don't feel sure about doing good in any way now: everything seems like\r
+going on a mission to a people whose language I don't know;--unless it\r
+were building good cottages--there can be no doubt about that. Oh, I\r
+hope I should be able to get the people well housed in Lowick! I will\r
+draw plenty of plans while I have time."\r
+\r
+Dorothea checked herself suddenly with self-rebuke for the presumptuous\r
+way in which she was reckoning on uncertain events, but she was spared\r
+any inward effort to change the direction of her thoughts by the\r
+appearance of a cantering horseman round a turning of the road. The\r
+well-groomed chestnut horse and two beautiful setters could leave no\r
+doubt that the rider was Sir James Chettam. He discerned Dorothea,\r
+jumped off his horse at once, and, having delivered it to his groom,\r
+advanced towards her with something white on his arm, at which the two\r
+setters were barking in an excited manner.\r
+\r
+"How delightful to meet you, Miss Brooke," he said, raising his hat and\r
+showing his sleekly waving blond hair. "It has hastened the pleasure I\r
+was looking forward to."\r
+\r
+Miss Brooke was annoyed at the interruption. This amiable baronet,\r
+really a suitable husband for Celia, exaggerated the necessity of\r
+making himself agreeable to the elder sister. Even a prospective\r
+brother-in-law may be an oppression if he will always be presupposing\r
+too good an understanding with you, and agreeing with you even when you\r
+contradict him. The thought that he had made the mistake of paying his\r
+addresses to herself could not take shape: all her mental activity was\r
+used up in persuasions of another kind. But he was positively\r
+obtrusive at this moment, and his dimpled hands were quite\r
+disagreeable. Her roused temper made her color deeply, as she returned\r
+his greeting with some haughtiness.\r
+\r
+Sir James interpreted the heightened color in the way most gratifying\r
+to himself, and thought he never saw Miss Brooke looking so handsome.\r
+\r
+"I have brought a little petitioner," he said, "or rather, I have\r
+brought him to see if he will be approved before his petition is\r
+offered." He showed the white object under his arm, which was a tiny\r
+Maltese puppy, one of nature's most naive toys.\r
+\r
+"It is painful to me to see these creatures that are bred merely as\r
+pets," said Dorothea, whose opinion was forming itself that very moment\r
+(as opinions will) under the heat of irritation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, why?" said Sir James, as they walked forward.\r
+\r
+"I believe all the petting that is given them does not make them happy.\r
+They are too helpless: their lives are too frail. A weasel or a mouse\r
+that gets its own living is more interesting. I like to think that the\r
+animals about us have souls something like our own, and either carry on\r
+their own little affairs or can be companions to us, like Monk here.\r
+Those creatures are parasitic."\r
+\r
+"I am so glad I know that you do not like them," said good Sir James.\r
+"I should never keep them for myself, but ladies usually are fond of\r
+these Maltese dogs. Here, John, take this dog, will you?"\r
+\r
+The objectionable puppy, whose nose and eyes were equally black and\r
+expressive, was thus got rid of, since Miss Brooke decided that it had\r
+better not have been born. But she felt it necessary to explain.\r
+\r
+"You must not judge of Celia's feeling from mine. I think she likes\r
+these small pets. She had a tiny terrier once, which she was very fond\r
+of. It made me unhappy, because I was afraid of treading on it. I am\r
+rather short-sighted."\r
+\r
+"You have your own opinion about everything, Miss Brooke, and it is\r
+always a good opinion."\r
+\r
+What answer was possible to such stupid complimenting?\r
+\r
+"Do you know, I envy you that," Sir James said, as they continued\r
+walking at the rather brisk pace set by Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"I don't quite understand what you mean."\r
+\r
+"Your power of forming an opinion. I can form an opinion of persons.\r
+I know when I like people. But about other matters, do you know, I\r
+have often a difficulty in deciding. One hears very sensible things\r
+said on opposite sides."\r
+\r
+"Or that seem sensible. Perhaps we don't always discriminate between\r
+sense and nonsense."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt that she was rather rude.\r
+\r
+"Exactly," said Sir James. "But you seem to have the power of\r
+discrimination."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, I am often unable to decide. But that is from\r
+ignorance. The right conclusion is there all the same, though I am\r
+unable to see it."\r
+\r
+"I think there are few who would see it more readily. Do you know,\r
+Lovegood was telling me yesterday that you had the best notion in the\r
+world of a plan for cottages--quite wonderful for a young lady, he\r
+thought. You had a real _genus_, to use his expression. He said you\r
+wanted Mr. Brooke to build a new set of cottages, but he seemed to\r
+think it hardly probable that your uncle would consent. Do you know,\r
+that is one of the things I wish to do--I mean, on my own estate. I\r
+should be so glad to carry out that plan of yours, if you would let me\r
+see it. Of course, it is sinking money; that is why people object to\r
+it. Laborers can never pay rent to make it answer. But, after all, it\r
+is worth doing."\r
+\r
+"Worth doing! yes, indeed," said Dorothea, energetically, forgetting\r
+her previous small vexations. "I think we deserve to be beaten out of\r
+our beautiful houses with a scourge of small cords--all of us who let\r
+tenants live in such sties as we see round us. Life in cottages might\r
+be happier than ours, if they were real houses fit for human beings\r
+from whom we expect duties and affections."\r
+\r
+"Will you show me your plan?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, certainly. I dare say it is very faulty. But I have been\r
+examining all the plans for cottages in Loudon's book, and picked out\r
+what seem the best things. Oh what a happiness it would be to set the\r
+pattern about here! I think instead of Lazarus at the gate, we should\r
+put the pigsty cottages outside the park-gate."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was in the best temper now. Sir James, as brother in-law,\r
+building model cottages on his estate, and then, perhaps, others being\r
+built at Lowick, and more and more elsewhere in imitation--it would be\r
+as if the spirit of Oberlin had passed over the parishes to make the\r
+life of poverty beautiful!\r
+\r
+Sir James saw all the plans, and took one away to consult upon with\r
+Lovegood. He also took away a complacent sense that he was making\r
+great progress in Miss Brooke's good opinion. The Maltese puppy was\r
+not offered to Celia; an omission which Dorothea afterwards thought of\r
+with surprise; but she blamed herself for it. She had been engrossing\r
+Sir James. After all, it was a relief that there was no puppy to tread\r
+upon.\r
+\r
+Celia was present while the plans were being examined, and observed Sir\r
+James's illusion. "He thinks that Dodo cares about him, and she only\r
+cares about her plans. Yet I am not certain that she would refuse him\r
+if she thought he would let her manage everything and carry out all her\r
+notions. And how very uncomfortable Sir James would be! I cannot bear\r
+notions."\r
+\r
+It was Celia's private luxury to indulge in this dislike. She dared\r
+not confess it to her sister in any direct statement, for that would be\r
+laying herself open to a demonstration that she was somehow or other at\r
+war with all goodness. But on safe opportunities, she had an indirect\r
+mode of making her negative wisdom tell upon Dorothea, and calling her\r
+down from her rhapsodic mood by reminding her that people were staring,\r
+not listening. Celia was not impulsive: what she had to say could\r
+wait, and came from her always with the same quiet staccato evenness.\r
+When people talked with energy and emphasis she watched their faces and\r
+features merely. She never could understand how well-bred persons\r
+consented to sing and open their mouths in the ridiculous manner\r
+requisite for that vocal exercise.\r
+\r
+It was not many days before Mr. Casaubon paid a morning visit, on which\r
+he was invited again for the following week to dine and stay the night.\r
+Thus Dorothea had three more conversations with him, and was convinced\r
+that her first impressions had been just. He was all she had at first\r
+imagined him to be: almost everything he had said seemed like a\r
+specimen from a mine, or the inscription on the door of a museum which\r
+might open on the treasures of past ages; and this trust in his mental\r
+wealth was all the deeper and more effective on her inclination because\r
+it was now obvious that his visits were made for her sake. This\r
+accomplished man condescended to think of a young girl, and take the\r
+pains to talk to her, not with absurd compliment, but with an appeal to\r
+her understanding, and sometimes with instructive correction. What\r
+delightful companionship! Mr. Casaubon seemed even unconscious that\r
+trivialities existed, and never handed round that small-talk of heavy\r
+men which is as acceptable as stale bride-cake brought forth with an\r
+odor of cupboard. He talked of what he was interested in, or else he\r
+was silent and bowed with sad civility. To Dorothea this was adorable\r
+genuineness, and religious abstinence from that artificiality which\r
+uses up the soul in the efforts of pretence. For she looked as\r
+reverently at Mr. Casaubon's religious elevation above herself as she\r
+did at his intellect and learning. He assented to her expressions of\r
+devout feeling, and usually with an appropriate quotation; he allowed\r
+himself to say that he had gone through some spiritual conflicts in his\r
+youth; in short, Dorothea saw that here she might reckon on\r
+understanding, sympathy, and guidance. On one--only one--of her\r
+favorite themes she was disappointed. Mr. Casaubon apparently did not\r
+care about building cottages, and diverted the talk to the extremely\r
+narrow accommodation which was to be had in the dwellings of the\r
+ancient Egyptians, as if to check a too high standard. After he was\r
+gone, Dorothea dwelt with some agitation on this indifference of his;\r
+and her mind was much exercised with arguments drawn from the varying\r
+conditions of climate which modify human needs, and from the admitted\r
+wickedness of pagan despots. Should she not urge these arguments on\r
+Mr. Casaubon when he came again? But further reflection told her that\r
+she was presumptuous in demanding his attention to such a subject; he\r
+would not disapprove of her occupying herself with it in leisure\r
+moments, as other women expected to occupy themselves with their dress\r
+and embroidery--would not forbid it when--Dorothea felt rather ashamed\r
+as she detected herself in these speculations. But her uncle had been\r
+invited to go to Lowick to stay a couple of days: was it reasonable to\r
+suppose that Mr. Casaubon delighted in Mr. Brooke's society for its own\r
+sake, either with or without documents?\r
+\r
+Meanwhile that little disappointment made her delight the more in Sir\r
+James Chettam's readiness to set on foot the desired improvements. He\r
+came much oftener than Mr. Casaubon, and Dorothea ceased to find him\r
+disagreeable since he showed himself so entirely in earnest; for he had\r
+already entered with much practical ability into Lovegood's estimates,\r
+and was charmingly docile. She proposed to build a couple of cottages,\r
+and transfer two families from their old cabins, which could then be\r
+pulled down, so that new ones could be built on the old sites. Sir\r
+James said "Exactly," and she bore the word remarkably well.\r
+\r
+Certainly these men who had so few spontaneous ideas might be very\r
+useful members of society under good feminine direction, if they were\r
+fortunate in choosing their sisters-in-law! It is difficult to say\r
+whether there was or was not a little wilfulness in her continuing\r
+blind to the possibility that another sort of choice was in question in\r
+relation to her. But her life was just now full of hope and action:\r
+she was not only thinking of her plans, but getting down learned books\r
+from the library and reading many things hastily (that she might be a\r
+little less ignorant in talking to Mr. Casaubon), all the while being\r
+visited with conscientious questionings whether she were not exalting\r
+these poor doings above measure and contemplating them with that\r
+self-satisfaction which was the last doom of ignorance and folly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. Our deeds are fetters that we forge ourselves.\r
+ 2d Gent. Ay, truly: but I think it is the world\r
+ That brings the iron.\r
+\r
+\r
+"Sir James seems determined to do everything you wish," said Celia, as\r
+they were driving home from an inspection of the new building-site.\r
+\r
+"He is a good creature, and more sensible than any one would imagine,"\r
+said Dorothea, inconsiderately.\r
+\r
+"You mean that he appears silly."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Dorothea, recollecting herself, and laying her hand on\r
+her sister's a moment, "but he does not talk equally well on all\r
+subjects."\r
+\r
+"I should think none but disagreeable people do," said Celia, in her\r
+usual purring way. "They must be very dreadful to live with. Only\r
+think! at breakfast, and always."\r
+\r
+Dorothea laughed. "O Kitty, you are a wonderful creature!" She pinched\r
+Celia's chin, being in the mood now to think her very winning and\r
+lovely--fit hereafter to be an eternal cherub, and if it were not\r
+doctrinally wrong to say so, hardly more in need of salvation than a\r
+squirrel. "Of course people need not be always talking well. Only one\r
+tells the quality of their minds when they try to talk well."\r
+\r
+"You mean that Sir James tries and fails."\r
+\r
+"I was speaking generally. Why do you catechise me about Sir James?\r
+It is not the object of his life to please me."\r
+\r
+"Now, Dodo, can you really believe that?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly. He thinks of me as a future sister--that is all." Dorothea\r
+had never hinted this before, waiting, from a certain shyness on such\r
+subjects which was mutual between the sisters, until it should be\r
+introduced by some decisive event. Celia blushed, but said at once--\r
+\r
+"Pray do not make that mistake any longer, Dodo. When Tantripp was\r
+brushing my hair the other day, she said that Sir James's man knew from\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader's maid that Sir James was to marry the eldest Miss\r
+Brooke."\r
+\r
+"How can you let Tantripp talk such gossip to you, Celia?" said\r
+Dorothea, indignantly, not the less angry because details asleep in her\r
+memory were now awakened to confirm the unwelcome revelation. "You\r
+must have asked her questions. It is degrading."\r
+\r
+"I see no harm at all in Tantripp's talking to me. It is better to\r
+hear what people say. You see what mistakes you make by taking up\r
+notions. I am quite sure that Sir James means to make you an offer;\r
+and he believes that you will accept him, especially since you have\r
+been so pleased with him about the plans. And uncle too--I know he\r
+expects it. Every one can see that Sir James is very much in love with\r
+you."\r
+\r
+The revulsion was so strong and painful in Dorothea's mind that the\r
+tears welled up and flowed abundantly. All her dear plans were\r
+embittered, and she thought with disgust of Sir James's conceiving that\r
+she recognized him as her lover. There was vexation too on account of\r
+Celia.\r
+\r
+"How could he expect it?" she burst forth in her most impetuous manner.\r
+"I have never agreed with him about anything but the cottages: I was\r
+barely polite to him before."\r
+\r
+"But you have been so pleased with him since then; he has begun to feel\r
+quite sure that you are fond of him."\r
+\r
+"Fond of him, Celia! How can you choose such odious expressions?" said\r
+Dorothea, passionately.\r
+\r
+"Dear me, Dorothea, I suppose it would be right for you to be fond of a\r
+man whom you accepted for a husband."\r
+\r
+"It is offensive to me to say that Sir James could think I was fond of\r
+him. Besides, it is not the right word for the feeling I must have\r
+towards the man I would accept as a husband."\r
+\r
+"Well, I am sorry for Sir James. I thought it right to tell you,\r
+because you went on as you always do, never looking just where you are,\r
+and treading in the wrong place. You always see what nobody else sees;\r
+it is impossible to satisfy you; yet you never see what is quite plain.\r
+That's your way, Dodo." Something certainly gave Celia unusual courage;\r
+and she was not sparing the sister of whom she was occasionally in awe.\r
+Who can tell what just criticisms Murr the Cat may be passing on us\r
+beings of wider speculation?\r
+\r
+"It is very painful," said Dorothea, feeling scourged. "I can have no\r
+more to do with the cottages. I must be uncivil to him. I must tell\r
+him I will have nothing to do with them. It is very painful." Her eyes\r
+filled again with tears.\r
+\r
+"Wait a little. Think about it. You know he is going away for a day\r
+or two to see his sister. There will be nobody besides Lovegood."\r
+Celia could not help relenting. "Poor Dodo," she went on, in an\r
+amiable staccato. "It is very hard: it is your favorite _fad_ to draw\r
+plans."\r
+\r
+"_Fad_ to draw plans! Do you think I only care about my\r
+fellow-creatures' houses in that childish way? I may well make\r
+mistakes. How can one ever do anything nobly Christian, living among\r
+people with such petty thoughts?"\r
+\r
+No more was said; Dorothea was too much jarred to recover her temper\r
+and behave so as to show that she admitted any error in herself. She\r
+was disposed rather to accuse the intolerable narrowness and the\r
+purblind conscience of the society around her: and Celia was no longer\r
+the eternal cherub, but a thorn in her spirit, a pink-and-white\r
+nullifidian, worse than any discouraging presence in the "Pilgrim's\r
+Progress." The _fad_ of drawing plans! What was life worth--what great\r
+faith was possible when the whole effect of one's actions could be\r
+withered up into such parched rubbish as that? When she got out of the\r
+carriage, her cheeks were pale and her eyelids red. She was an image\r
+of sorrow, and her uncle who met her in the hall would have been\r
+alarmed, if Celia had not been close to her looking so pretty and\r
+composed, that he at once concluded Dorothea's tears to have their\r
+origin in her excessive religiousness. He had returned, during their\r
+absence, from a journey to the county town, about a petition for the\r
+pardon of some criminal.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dears," he said, kindly, as they went up to kiss him, "I hope\r
+nothing disagreeable has happened while I have been away."\r
+\r
+"No, uncle," said Celia, "we have been to Freshitt to look at the\r
+cottages. We thought you would have been at home to lunch."\r
+\r
+"I came by Lowick to lunch--you didn't know I came by Lowick. And I\r
+have brought a couple of pamphlets for you, Dorothea--in the library,\r
+you know; they lie on the table in the library."\r
+\r
+It seemed as if an electric stream went through Dorothea, thrilling her\r
+from despair into expectation. They were pamphlets about the early\r
+Church. The oppression of Celia, Tantripp, and Sir James was shaken\r
+off, and she walked straight to the library. Celia went up-stairs. Mr.\r
+Brooke was detained by a message, but when he re-entered the library,\r
+he found Dorothea seated and already deep in one of the pamphlets which\r
+had some marginal manuscript of Mr. Casaubon's,--taking it in as\r
+eagerly as she might have taken in the scent of a fresh bouquet after a\r
+dry, hot, dreary walk.\r
+\r
+She was getting away from Tipton and Freshitt, and her own sad\r
+liability to tread in the wrong places on her way to the New Jerusalem.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke sat down in his arm-chair, stretched his legs towards the\r
+wood-fire, which had fallen into a wondrous mass of glowing dice\r
+between the dogs, and rubbed his hands gently, looking very mildly\r
+towards Dorothea, but with a neutral leisurely air, as if he had\r
+nothing particular to say. Dorothea closed her pamphlet, as soon as\r
+she was aware of her uncle's presence, and rose as if to go. Usually\r
+she would have been interested about her uncle's merciful errand on\r
+behalf of the criminal, but her late agitation had made her\r
+absent-minded.\r
+\r
+"I came back by Lowick, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not as if with any\r
+intention to arrest her departure, but apparently from his usual\r
+tendency to say what he had said before. This fundamental principle of\r
+human speech was markedly exhibited in Mr. Brooke. "I lunched there\r
+and saw Casaubon's library, and that kind of thing. There's a sharp\r
+air, driving. Won't you sit down, my dear? You look cold."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt quite inclined to accept the invitation. Some times,\r
+when her uncle's easy way of taking things did not happen to be\r
+exasperating, it was rather soothing. She threw off her mantle and\r
+bonnet, and sat down opposite to him, enjoying the glow, but lifting up\r
+her beautiful hands for a screen. They were not thin hands, or small\r
+hands; but powerful, feminine, maternal hands. She seemed to be\r
+holding them up in propitiation for her passionate desire to know and\r
+to think, which in the unfriendly mediums of Tipton and Freshitt had\r
+issued in crying and red eyelids.\r
+\r
+She bethought herself now of the condemned criminal. "What news have\r
+you brought about the sheep-stealer, uncle?"\r
+\r
+"What, poor Bunch?--well, it seems we can't get him off--he is to be\r
+hanged."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's brow took an expression of reprobation and pity.\r
+\r
+"Hanged, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with a quiet nod. "Poor Romilly!\r
+he would have helped us. I knew Romilly. Casaubon didn't know\r
+Romilly. He is a little buried in books, you know, Casaubon is."\r
+\r
+"When a man has great studies and is writing a great work, he must of\r
+course give up seeing much of the world. How can he go about making\r
+acquaintances?"\r
+\r
+"That's true. But a man mopes, you know. I have always been a\r
+bachelor too, but I have that sort of disposition that I never moped;\r
+it was my way to go about everywhere and take in everything. I never\r
+moped: but I can see that Casaubon does, you know. He wants a\r
+companion--a companion, you know."\r
+\r
+"It would be a great honor to any one to be his companion," said\r
+Dorothea, energetically.\r
+\r
+"You like him, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, without showing any surprise, or\r
+other emotion. "Well, now, I've known Casaubon ten years, ever since\r
+he came to Lowick. But I never got anything out of him--any ideas, you\r
+know. However, he is a tiptop man and may be a bishop--that kind of\r
+thing, you know, if Peel stays in. And he has a very high opinion of\r
+you, my dear."\r
+\r
+Dorothea could not speak.\r
+\r
+"The fact is, he has a very high opinion indeed of you. And he speaks\r
+uncommonly well--does Casaubon. He has deferred to me, you not being\r
+of age. In short, I have promised to speak to you, though I told him I\r
+thought there was not much chance. I was bound to tell him that. I\r
+said, my niece is very young, and that kind of thing. But I didn't\r
+think it necessary to go into everything. However, the long and the\r
+short of it is, that he has asked my permission to make you an offer of\r
+marriage--of marriage, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with his explanatory\r
+nod. "I thought it better to tell you, my dear."\r
+\r
+No one could have detected any anxiety in Mr. Brooke's manner, but he\r
+did really wish to know something of his niece's mind, that, if there\r
+were any need for advice, he might give it in time. What feeling he,\r
+as a magistrate who had taken in so many ideas, could make room for,\r
+was unmixedly kind. Since Dorothea did not speak immediately, he\r
+repeated, "I thought it better to tell you, my dear."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, uncle," said Dorothea, in a clear unwavering tone. "I am\r
+very grateful to Mr. Casaubon. If he makes me an offer, I shall accept\r
+him. I admire and honor him more than any man I ever saw."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke paused a little, and then said in a lingering low tone, "Ah?\r
+. . . Well! He is a good match in some respects. But now, Chettam is\r
+a good match. And our land lies together. I shall never interfere\r
+against your wishes, my dear. People should have their own way in\r
+marriage, and that sort of thing--up to a certain point, you know. I\r
+have always said that, up to a certain point. I wish you to marry\r
+well; and I have good reason to believe that Chettam wishes to marry\r
+you. I mention it, you know."\r
+\r
+"It is impossible that I should ever marry Sir James Chettam," said\r
+Dorothea. "If he thinks of marrying me, he has made a great mistake."\r
+\r
+"That is it, you see. One never knows. I should have thought Chettam\r
+was just the sort of man a woman would like, now."\r
+\r
+"Pray do not mention him in that light again, uncle," said Dorothea,\r
+feeling some of her late irritation revive.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke wondered, and felt that women were an inexhaustible subject\r
+of study, since even he at his age was not in a perfect state of\r
+scientific prediction about them. Here was a fellow like Chettam with\r
+no chance at all.\r
+\r
+"Well, but Casaubon, now. There is no hurry--I mean for you. It's\r
+true, every year will tell upon him. He is over five-and-forty, you\r
+know. I should say a good seven-and-twenty years older than you. To\r
+be sure,--if you like learning and standing, and that sort of thing, we\r
+can't have everything. And his income is good--he has a handsome\r
+property independent of the Church--his income is good. Still he is\r
+not young, and I must not conceal from you, my dear, that I think his\r
+health is not over-strong. I know nothing else against him."\r
+\r
+"I should not wish to have a husband very near my own age," said\r
+Dorothea, with grave decision. "I should wish to have a husband who\r
+was above me in judgment and in all knowledge."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke repeated his subdued, "Ah?--I thought you had more of your\r
+own opinion than most girls. I thought you liked your own\r
+opinion--liked it, you know."\r
+\r
+"I cannot imagine myself living without some opinions, but I should\r
+wish to have good reasons for them, and a wise man could help me to see\r
+which opinions had the best foundation, and would help me to live\r
+according to them."\r
+\r
+"Very true. You couldn't put the thing better--couldn't put it better,\r
+beforehand, you know. But there are oddities in things," continued Mr.\r
+Brooke, whose conscience was really roused to do the best he could for\r
+his niece on this occasion. "Life isn't cast in a mould--not cut out\r
+by rule and line, and that sort of thing. I never married myself, and\r
+it will be the better for you and yours. The fact is, I never loved\r
+any one well enough to put myself into a noose for them. It _is_ a\r
+noose, you know. Temper, now. There is temper. And a husband likes\r
+to be master."\r
+\r
+"I know that I must expect trials, uncle. Marriage is a state of\r
+higher duties. I never thought of it as mere personal ease," said poor\r
+Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"Well, you are not fond of show, a great establishment, balls, dinners,\r
+that kind of thing. I can see that Casaubon's ways might suit you\r
+better than Chettam's. And you shall do as you like, my dear. I would\r
+not hinder Casaubon; I said so at once; for there is no knowing how\r
+anything may turn out. You have not the same tastes as every young\r
+lady; and a clergyman and scholar--who may be a bishop--that kind of\r
+thing--may suit you better than Chettam. Chettam is a good fellow, a\r
+good sound-hearted fellow, you know; but he doesn't go much into ideas.\r
+I did, when I was his age. But Casaubon's eyes, now. I think he has\r
+hurt them a little with too much reading."\r
+\r
+"I should be all the happier, uncle, the more room there was for me to\r
+help him," said Dorothea, ardently.\r
+\r
+"You have quite made up your mind, I see. Well, my dear, the fact is,\r
+I have a letter for you in my pocket." Mr. Brooke handed the letter to\r
+Dorothea, but as she rose to go away, he added, "There is not too much\r
+hurry, my dear. Think about it, you know."\r
+\r
+When Dorothea had left him, he reflected that he had certainly spoken\r
+strongly: he had put the risks of marriage before her in a striking\r
+manner. It was his duty to do so. But as to pretending to be wise for\r
+young people,--no uncle, however much he had travelled in his youth,\r
+absorbed the new ideas, and dined with celebrities now deceased, could\r
+pretend to judge what sort of marriage would turn out well for a young\r
+girl who preferred Casaubon to Chettam. In short, woman was a problem\r
+which, since Mr. Brooke's mind felt blank before it, could be hardly\r
+less complicated than the revolutions of an irregular solid.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V.\r
+\r
+ "Hard students are commonly troubled with gowts, catarrhs,\r
+ rheums, cachexia, bradypepsia, bad eyes, stone, and collick,\r
+ crudities, oppilations, vertigo, winds, consumptions, and\r
+ all such diseases as come by over-much sitting: they are\r
+ most part lean, dry, ill-colored . . . and all through\r
+ immoderate pains and extraordinary studies. If you will not\r
+ believe the truth of this, look upon great Tostatus and\r
+ Thomas Aquainas' works; and tell me whether those men took\r
+ pains."--BURTON'S Anatomy of Melancholy, P. I, s. 2.\r
+\r
+\r
+This was Mr. Casaubon's letter.\r
+\r
+\r
+MY DEAR MISS BROOKE,--I have your guardian's permission to address you\r
+on a subject than which I have none more at heart. I am not, I trust,\r
+mistaken in the recognition of some deeper correspondence than that of\r
+date in the fact that a consciousness of need in my own life had arisen\r
+contemporaneously with the possibility of my becoming acquainted with\r
+you. For in the first hour of meeting you, I had an impression of your\r
+eminent and perhaps exclusive fitness to supply that need (connected, I\r
+may say, with such activity of the affections as even the\r
+preoccupations of a work too special to be abdicated could not\r
+uninterruptedly dissimulate); and each succeeding opportunity for\r
+observation has given the impression an added depth by convincing me\r
+more emphatically of that fitness which I had preconceived, and thus\r
+evoking more decisively those affections to which I have but now\r
+referred. Our conversations have, I think, made sufficiently clear to\r
+you the tenor of my life and purposes: a tenor unsuited, I am aware, to\r
+the commoner order of minds. But I have discerned in you an elevation\r
+of thought and a capability of devotedness, which I had hitherto not\r
+conceived to be compatible either with the early bloom of youth or with\r
+those graces of sex that may be said at once to win and to confer\r
+distinction when combined, as they notably are in you, with the mental\r
+qualities above indicated. It was, I confess, beyond my hope to meet\r
+with this rare combination of elements both solid and attractive,\r
+adapted to supply aid in graver labors and to cast a charm over vacant\r
+hours; and but for the event of my introduction to you (which, let me\r
+again say, I trust not to be superficially coincident with\r
+foreshadowing needs, but providentially related thereto as stages\r
+towards the completion of a life's plan), I should presumably have gone\r
+on to the last without any attempt to lighten my solitariness by a\r
+matrimonial union.\r
+\r
+Such, my dear Miss Brooke, is the accurate statement of my feelings;\r
+and I rely on your kind indulgence in venturing now to ask you how far\r
+your own are of a nature to confirm my happy presentiment. To be\r
+accepted by you as your husband and the earthly guardian of your\r
+welfare, I should regard as the highest of providential gifts. In\r
+return I can at least offer you an affection hitherto unwasted, and the\r
+faithful consecration of a life which, however short in the sequel, has\r
+no backward pages whereon, if you choose to turn them, you will find\r
+records such as might justly cause you either bitterness or shame. I\r
+await the expression of your sentiments with an anxiety which it would\r
+be the part of wisdom (were it possible) to divert by a more arduous\r
+labor than usual. But in this order of experience I am still young,\r
+and in looking forward to an unfavorable possibility I cannot but feel\r
+that resignation to solitude will be more difficult after the temporary\r
+illumination of hope.\r
+\r
+ In any case, I shall remain,\r
+ Yours with sincere devotion,\r
+ EDWARD CASAUBON.\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea trembled while she read this letter; then she fell on her\r
+knees, buried her face, and sobbed. She could not pray: under the rush\r
+of solemn emotion in which thoughts became vague and images floated\r
+uncertainly, she could but cast herself, with a childlike sense of\r
+reclining, in the lap of a divine consciousness which sustained her\r
+own. She remained in that attitude till it was time to dress for\r
+dinner.\r
+\r
+How could it occur to her to examine the letter, to look at it\r
+critically as a profession of love? Her whole soul was possessed by\r
+the fact that a fuller life was opening before her: she was a neophyte\r
+about to enter on a higher grade of initiation. She was going to have\r
+room for the energies which stirred uneasily under the dimness and\r
+pressure of her own ignorance and the petty peremptoriness of the\r
+world's habits.\r
+\r
+Now she would be able to devote herself to large yet definite duties;\r
+now she would be allowed to live continually in the light of a mind\r
+that she could reverence. This hope was not unmixed with the glow of\r
+proud delight--the joyous maiden surprise that she was chosen by the\r
+man whom her admiration had chosen. All Dorothea's passion was\r
+transfused through a mind struggling towards an ideal life; the\r
+radiance of her transfigured girlhood fell on the first object that\r
+came within its level. The impetus with which inclination became\r
+resolution was heightened by those little events of the day which had\r
+roused her discontent with the actual conditions of her life.\r
+\r
+After dinner, when Celia was playing an "air, with variations," a small\r
+kind of tinkling which symbolized the aesthetic part of the young\r
+ladies' education, Dorothea went up to her room to answer Mr.\r
+Casaubon's letter. Why should she defer the answer? She wrote it over\r
+three times, not because she wished to change the wording, but because\r
+her hand was unusually uncertain, and she could not bear that Mr.\r
+Casaubon should think her handwriting bad and illegible. She piqued\r
+herself on writing a hand in which each letter was distinguishable\r
+without any large range of conjecture, and she meant to make much use\r
+of this accomplishment, to save Mr. Casaubon's eyes. Three times she\r
+wrote.\r
+\r
+MY DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I am very grateful to you for loving me, and\r
+thinking me worthy to be your wife. I can look forward to no better\r
+happiness than that which would be one with yours. If I said more, it\r
+would only be the same thing written out at greater length, for I\r
+cannot now dwell on any other thought than that I may be through life\r
+\r
+ Yours devotedly,\r
+ DOROTHEA BROOKE.\r
+\r
+\r
+Later in the evening she followed her uncle into the library to give\r
+him the letter, that he might send it in the morning. He was\r
+surprised, but his surprise only issued in a few moments' silence,\r
+during which he pushed about various objects on his writing-table, and\r
+finally stood with his back to the fire, his glasses on his nose,\r
+looking at the address of Dorothea's letter.\r
+\r
+"Have you thought enough about this, my dear?" he said at last.\r
+\r
+"There was no need to think long, uncle. I know of nothing to make me\r
+vacillate. If I changed my mind, it must be because of something\r
+important and entirely new to me."\r
+\r
+"Ah!--then you have accepted him? Then Chettam has no chance? Has\r
+Chettam offended you--offended you, you know? What is it you don't\r
+like in Chettam?"\r
+\r
+"There is nothing that I like in him," said Dorothea, rather\r
+impetuously.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke threw his head and shoulders backward as if some one had\r
+thrown a light missile at him. Dorothea immediately felt some\r
+self-rebuke, and said--\r
+\r
+"I mean in the light of a husband. He is very kind, I think--really\r
+very good about the cottages. A well-meaning man."\r
+\r
+"But you must have a scholar, and that sort of thing? Well, it lies a\r
+little in our family. I had it myself--that love of knowledge, and\r
+going into everything--a little too much--it took me too far; though\r
+that sort of thing doesn't often run in the female-line; or it runs\r
+underground like the rivers in Greece, you know--it comes out in the\r
+sons. Clever sons, clever mothers. I went a good deal into that, at\r
+one time. However, my dear, I have always said that people should do\r
+as they like in these things, up to a certain point. I couldn't, as\r
+your guardian, have consented to a bad match. But Casaubon stands\r
+well: his position is good. I am afraid Chettam will be hurt, though,\r
+and Mrs. Cadwallader will blame me."\r
+\r
+That evening, of course, Celia knew nothing of what had happened. She\r
+attributed Dorothea's abstracted manner, and the evidence of further\r
+crying since they had got home, to the temper she had been in about Sir\r
+James Chettam and the buildings, and was careful not to give further\r
+offence: having once said what she wanted to say, Celia had no\r
+disposition to recur to disagreeable subjects. It had been her nature\r
+when a child never to quarrel with any one--only to observe with wonder\r
+that they quarrelled with her, and looked like turkey-cocks; whereupon\r
+she was ready to play at cat's cradle with them whenever they recovered\r
+themselves. And as to Dorothea, it had always been her way to find\r
+something wrong in her sister's words, though Celia inwardly protested\r
+that she always said just how things were, and nothing else: she never\r
+did and never could put words together out of her own head. But the\r
+best of Dodo was, that she did not keep angry for long together. Now,\r
+though they had hardly spoken to each other all the evening, yet when\r
+Celia put by her work, intending to go to bed, a proceeding in which\r
+she was always much the earlier, Dorothea, who was seated on a low\r
+stool, unable to occupy herself except in meditation, said, with the\r
+musical intonation which in moments of deep but quiet feeling made her\r
+speech like a fine bit of recitative--\r
+\r
+"Celia, dear, come and kiss me," holding her arms open as she spoke.\r
+\r
+Celia knelt down to get the right level and gave her little butterfly\r
+kiss, while Dorothea encircled her with gentle arms and pressed her\r
+lips gravely on each cheek in turn.\r
+\r
+"Don't sit up, Dodo, you are so pale to-night: go to bed soon," said\r
+Celia, in a comfortable way, without any touch of pathos.\r
+\r
+"No, dear, I am very, very happy," said Dorothea, fervently.\r
+\r
+"So much the better," thought Celia. "But how strangely Dodo goes from\r
+one extreme to the other."\r
+\r
+The next day, at luncheon, the butler, handing something to Mr. Brooke,\r
+said, "Jonas is come back, sir, and has brought this letter."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke read the letter, and then, nodding toward Dorothea, said,\r
+"Casaubon, my dear: he will be here to dinner; he didn't wait to write\r
+more--didn't wait, you know."\r
+\r
+It could not seem remarkable to Celia that a dinner guest should be\r
+announced to her sister beforehand, but, her eyes following the same\r
+direction as her uncle's, she was struck with the peculiar effect of\r
+the announcement on Dorothea. It seemed as if something like the\r
+reflection of a white sunlit wing had passed across her features,\r
+ending in one of her rare blushes. For the first time it entered into\r
+Celia's mind that there might be something more between Mr. Casaubon\r
+and her sister than his delight in bookish talk and her delight in\r
+listening. Hitherto she had classed the admiration for this "ugly" and\r
+learned acquaintance with the admiration for Monsieur Liret at\r
+Lausanne, also ugly and learned. Dorothea had never been tired of\r
+listening to old Monsieur Liret when Celia's feet were as cold as\r
+possible, and when it had really become dreadful to see the skin of his\r
+bald head moving about. Why then should her enthusiasm not extend to\r
+Mr. Casaubon simply in the same way as to Monsieur Liret? And it\r
+seemed probable that all learned men had a sort of schoolmaster's view\r
+of young people.\r
+\r
+But now Celia was really startled at the suspicion which had darted\r
+into her mind. She was seldom taken by surprise in this way, her\r
+marvellous quickness in observing a certain order of signs generally\r
+preparing her to expect such outward events as she had an interest in.\r
+Not that she now imagined Mr. Casaubon to be already an accepted lover:\r
+she had only begun to feel disgust at the possibility that anything in\r
+Dorothea's mind could tend towards such an issue. Here was something\r
+really to vex her about Dodo: it was all very well not to accept Sir\r
+James Chettam, but the idea of marrying Mr. Casaubon! Celia felt a\r
+sort of shame mingled with a sense of the ludicrous. But perhaps Dodo,\r
+if she were really bordering on such an extravagance, might be turned\r
+away from it: experience had often shown that her impressibility might\r
+be calculated on. The day was damp, and they were not going to walk\r
+out, so they both went up to their sitting-room; and there Celia\r
+observed that Dorothea, instead of settling down with her usual\r
+diligent interest to some occupation, simply leaned her elbow on an\r
+open book and looked out of the window at the great cedar silvered with\r
+the damp. She herself had taken up the making of a toy for the\r
+curate's children, and was not going to enter on any subject too\r
+precipitately.\r
+\r
+Dorothea was in fact thinking that it was desirable for Celia to know\r
+of the momentous change in Mr. Casaubon's position since he had last\r
+been in the house: it did not seem fair to leave her in ignorance of\r
+what would necessarily affect her attitude towards him; but it was\r
+impossible not to shrink from telling her. Dorothea accused herself of\r
+some meanness in this timidity: it was always odious to her to have any\r
+small fears or contrivances about her actions, but at this moment she\r
+was seeking the highest aid possible that she might not dread the\r
+corrosiveness of Celia's pretty carnally minded prose. Her reverie was\r
+broken, and the difficulty of decision banished, by Celia's small and\r
+rather guttural voice speaking in its usual tone, of a remark aside or\r
+a "by the bye."\r
+\r
+"Is any one else coming to dine besides Mr. Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+"Not that I know of."\r
+\r
+"I hope there is some one else. Then I shall not hear him eat his soup\r
+so."\r
+\r
+"What is there remarkable about his soup-eating?"\r
+\r
+"Really, Dodo, can't you hear how he scrapes his spoon? And he always\r
+blinks before he speaks. I don't know whether Locke blinked, but I'm\r
+sure I am sorry for those who sat opposite to him if he did."\r
+\r
+"Celia," said Dorothea, with emphatic gravity, "pray don't make any\r
+more observations of that kind."\r
+\r
+"Why not? They are quite true," returned Celia, who had her reasons\r
+for persevering, though she was beginning to be a little afraid.\r
+\r
+"Many things are true which only the commonest minds observe."\r
+\r
+"Then I think the commonest minds must be rather useful. I think it is\r
+a pity Mr. Casaubon's mother had not a commoner mind: she might have\r
+taught him better." Celia was inwardly frightened, and ready to run\r
+away, now she had hurled this light javelin.\r
+\r
+Dorothea's feelings had gathered to an avalanche, and there could be no\r
+further preparation.\r
+\r
+"It is right to tell you, Celia, that I am engaged to marry Mr.\r
+Casaubon."\r
+\r
+Perhaps Celia had never turned so pale before. The paper man she was\r
+making would have had his leg injured, but for her habitual care of\r
+whatever she held in her hands. She laid the fragile figure down at\r
+once, and sat perfectly still for a few moments. When she spoke there\r
+was a tear gathering.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Dodo, I hope you will be happy." Her sisterly tenderness could not\r
+but surmount other feelings at this moment, and her fears were the\r
+fears of affection.\r
+\r
+Dorothea was still hurt and agitated.\r
+\r
+"It is quite decided, then?" said Celia, in an awed under tone. "And\r
+uncle knows?"\r
+\r
+"I have accepted Mr. Casaubon's offer. My uncle brought me the letter\r
+that contained it; he knew about it beforehand."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, if I have said anything to hurt you, Dodo," said\r
+Celia, with a slight sob. She never could have thought that she should\r
+feel as she did. There was something funereal in the whole affair, and\r
+Mr. Casaubon seemed to be the officiating clergyman, about whom it\r
+would be indecent to make remarks.\r
+\r
+"Never mind, Kitty, do not grieve. We should never admire the same\r
+people. I often offend in something of the same way; I am apt to speak\r
+too strongly of those who don't please me."\r
+\r
+In spite of this magnanimity Dorothea was still smarting: perhaps as\r
+much from Celia's subdued astonishment as from her small criticisms.\r
+Of course all the world round Tipton would be out of sympathy with this\r
+marriage. Dorothea knew of no one who thought as she did about life\r
+and its best objects.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless before the evening was at an end she was very happy. In\r
+an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more\r
+freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the\r
+thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best\r
+share and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was touched with an\r
+unknown delight (what man would not have been?) at this childlike\r
+unrestrained ardor: he was not surprised (what lover would have been?)\r
+that he should be the object of it.\r
+\r
+"My dear young lady--Miss Brooke--Dorothea!" he said, pressing her hand\r
+between his hands, "this is a happiness greater than I had ever\r
+imagined to be in reserve for me. That I should ever meet with a mind\r
+and person so rich in the mingled graces which could render marriage\r
+desirable, was far indeed from my conception. You have all--nay, more\r
+than all--those qualities which I have ever regarded as the\r
+characteristic excellences of womanhood. The great charm of your sex\r
+is its capability of an ardent self-sacrificing affection, and herein\r
+we see its fitness to round and complete the existence of our own.\r
+Hitherto I have known few pleasures save of the severer kind: my\r
+satisfactions have been those of the solitary student. I have been\r
+little disposed to gather flowers that would wither in my hand, but now\r
+I shall pluck them with eagerness, to place them in your bosom."\r
+\r
+No speech could have been more thoroughly honest in its intention: the\r
+frigid rhetoric at the end was as sincere as the bark of a dog, or the\r
+cawing of an amorous rook. Would it not be rash to conclude that there\r
+was no passion behind those sonnets to Delia which strike us as the\r
+thin music of a mandolin?\r
+\r
+Dorothea's faith supplied all that Mr. Casaubon's words seemed to leave\r
+unsaid: what believer sees a disturbing omission or infelicity? The\r
+text, whether of prophet or of poet, expands for whatever we can put\r
+into it, and even his bad grammar is sublime.\r
+\r
+"I am very ignorant--you will quite wonder at my ignorance," said\r
+Dorothea. "I have so many thoughts that may be quite mistaken; and now\r
+I shall be able to tell them all to you, and ask you about them. But,"\r
+she added, with rapid imagination of Mr. Casaubon's probable feeling,\r
+"I will not trouble you too much; only when you are inclined to listen\r
+to me. You must often be weary with the pursuit of subjects in your\r
+own track. I shall gain enough if you will take me with you there."\r
+\r
+"How should I be able now to persevere in any path without your\r
+companionship?" said Mr. Casaubon, kissing her candid brow, and feeling\r
+that heaven had vouchsafed him a blessing in every way suited to his\r
+peculiar wants. He was being unconsciously wrought upon by the charms\r
+of a nature which was entirely without hidden calculations either for\r
+immediate effects or for remoter ends. It was this which made Dorothea\r
+so childlike, and, according to some judges, so stupid, with all her\r
+reputed cleverness; as, for example, in the present case of throwing\r
+herself, metaphorically speaking, at Mr. Casaubon's feet, and kissing\r
+his unfashionable shoe-ties as if he were a Protestant Pope. She was\r
+not in the least teaching Mr. Casaubon to ask if he were good enough\r
+for her, but merely asking herself anxiously how she could be good\r
+enough for Mr. Casaubon. Before he left the next day it had been\r
+decided that the marriage should take place within six weeks. Why not?\r
+Mr. Casaubon's house was ready. It was not a parsonage, but a\r
+considerable mansion, with much land attached to it. The parsonage was\r
+inhabited by the curate, who did all the duty except preaching the\r
+morning sermon.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI.\r
+\r
+ My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,\r
+ That cut you stroking them with idle hand.\r
+ Nice cutting is her function: she divides\r
+ With spiritual edge the millet-seed,\r
+ And makes intangible savings.\r
+\r
+\r
+As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway, it arrested\r
+the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady with a servant seated\r
+behind. It was doubtful whether the recognition had been mutual, for\r
+Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him; but the lady was\r
+quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?" in the nick of time.\r
+In spite of her shabby bonnet and very old Indian shawl, it was plain\r
+that the lodge-keeper regarded her as an important personage, from the\r
+low curtsy which was dropped on the entrance of the small phaeton.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?" said the\r
+high-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.\r
+\r
+"Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating their eggs:\r
+I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all."\r
+\r
+"Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What will you\r
+sell them a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad character at a high\r
+price."\r
+\r
+"Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under."\r
+\r
+"Half-a-crown, these times! Come now--for the Rector's chicken-broth\r
+on a Sunday. He has consumed all ours that I can spare. You are half\r
+paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that. Take a pair of\r
+tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties. You must come and see them.\r
+You have no tumblers among your pigeons."\r
+\r
+"Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work. He's\r
+very hot on new sorts; to oblige you."\r
+\r
+"Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pair of\r
+church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eat their own\r
+eggs! Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!"\r
+\r
+The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.\r
+Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional\r
+"Sure_ly_, sure_ly_!"--from which it might be inferred that she would\r
+have found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's lady had\r
+been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both the\r
+farmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tipton would have\r
+felt a sad lack of conversation but for the stories about what Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurably high birth, descended,\r
+as it were, from unknown earls, dim as the crowd of heroic shades--who\r
+pleaded poverty, pared down prices, and cut jokes in the most\r
+companionable manner, though with a turn of tongue that let you know\r
+who she was. Such a lady gave a neighborliness to both rank and\r
+religion, and mitigated the bitterness of uncommuted tithe. A much\r
+more exemplary character with an infusion of sour dignity would not\r
+have furthered their comprehension of the Thirty-nine Articles, and\r
+would have been less socially uniting.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader's merits from a different point of\r
+view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library, where\r
+he was sitting alone.\r
+\r
+"I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here," she said, seating herself\r
+comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thin but well-built\r
+figure. "I suspect you and he are brewing some bad polities, else you\r
+would not be seeing so much of the lively man. I shall inform against\r
+you: remember you are both suspicious characters since you took Peel's\r
+side about the Catholic Bill. I shall tell everybody that you are\r
+going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whig side when old Pinkerton\r
+resigns, and that Casaubon is going to help you in an underhand manner:\r
+going to bribe the voters with pamphlets, and throw open the\r
+public-houses to distribute them. Come, confess!"\r
+\r
+"Nothing of the sort," said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing his\r
+eye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment.\r
+"Casaubon and I don't talk politics much. He doesn't care much about\r
+the philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing.\r
+He only cares about Church questions. That is not my line of action,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+"Ra-a-ther too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings. Who was\r
+it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch? I believe\r
+you bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Faux. See if you are\r
+not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming. Humphrey would not\r
+come to quarrel with you about it, so I am come."\r
+\r
+"Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting--not\r
+persecuting, you know."\r
+\r
+"There you go! That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready for the\r
+hustings. Now, _do not_ let them lure you to the hustings, my dear Mr.\r
+Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself, speechifying: there's no\r
+excuse but being on the right side, so that you can ask a blessing on\r
+your humming and hawing. You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You\r
+will make a Saturday pie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by\r
+everybody."\r
+\r
+"That is what I expect, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not wishing to\r
+betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what I expect as\r
+an independent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goes with the thinkers\r
+is not likely to be hooked on by any party. He may go with them up to\r
+a certain point--up to a certain point, you know. But that is what you\r
+ladies never understand."\r
+\r
+"Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a man\r
+can have any certain point when he belongs to no party--leading a\r
+roving life, and never letting his friends know his address. 'Nobody\r
+knows where Brooke will be--there's no counting on Brooke'--that is\r
+what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable.\r
+How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shy on you,\r
+and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?"\r
+\r
+"I don't pretend to argue with a lady on politics," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+with an air of smiling indifference, but feeling rather unpleasantly\r
+conscious that this attack of Mrs. Cadwallader's had opened the\r
+defensive campaign to which certain rash steps had exposed him. "Your\r
+sex are not thinkers, you know--varium et mutabile semper--that kind of\r
+thing. You don't know Virgil. I knew"--Mr. Brooke reflected in time\r
+that he had not had the personal acquaintance of the Augustan poet--"I\r
+was going to say, poor Stoddart, you know. That was what _he_ said.\r
+You ladies are always against an independent attitude--a man's caring\r
+for nothing but truth, and that sort of thing. And there is no part of\r
+the county where opinion is narrower than it is here--I don't mean to\r
+throw stones, you know, but somebody is wanted to take the independent\r
+line; and if I don't take it, who will?"\r
+\r
+"Who? Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position. People\r
+of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home, not hawk\r
+it about. And you! who are going to marry your niece, as good as your\r
+daughter, to one of our best men. Sir James would be cruelly annoyed:\r
+it will be too hard on him if you turn round now and make yourself a\r
+Whig sign-board."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothea's engagement had no\r
+sooner been decided, than he had thought of Mrs. Cadwallader's\r
+prospective taunts. It might have been easy for ignorant observers to\r
+say, "Quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader;" but where is a country gentleman\r
+to go who quarrels with his oldest neighbors? Who could taste the fine\r
+flavor in the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually, like wine\r
+without a seal? Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitan up to a\r
+certain point.\r
+\r
+"I hope Chettam and I shall always be good friends; but I am sorry to\r
+say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+much relieved to see through the window that Celia was coming in.\r
+\r
+"Why not?" said Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharp note of surprise. "It\r
+is hardly a fortnight since you and I were talking about it."\r
+\r
+"My niece has chosen another suitor--has chosen him, you know. I have\r
+had nothing to do with it. I should have preferred Chettam; and I\r
+should have said Chettam was the man any girl would have chosen. But\r
+there is no accounting for these things. Your sex is capricious, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"Why, whom do you mean to say that you are going to let her marry?"\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilities of\r
+choice for Dorothea.\r
+\r
+But here Celia entered, blooming from a walk in the garden, and the\r
+greeting with her delivered Mr. Brooke from the necessity of answering\r
+immediately. He got up hastily, and saying, "By the way, I must speak\r
+to Wright about the horses," shuffled quickly out of the room.\r
+\r
+"My dear child, what is this?--this about your sister's engagement?"\r
+said Mrs. Cadwallader.\r
+\r
+"She is engaged to marry Mr. Casaubon," said Celia, resorting, as\r
+usual, to the simplest statement of fact, and enjoying this opportunity\r
+of speaking to the Rector's wife alone.\r
+\r
+"This is frightful. How long has it been going on?"\r
+\r
+"I only knew of it yesterday. They are to be married in six weeks."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, I wish you joy of your brother-in-law."\r
+\r
+"I am so sorry for Dorothea."\r
+\r
+"Sorry! It is her doing, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon has a great soul."\r
+\r
+"With all my heart."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader, I don't think it can be nice to marry a man with\r
+a great soul."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, take warning. You know the look of one now; when the\r
+next comes and wants to marry you, don't you accept him."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure I never should."\r
+\r
+"No; one such in a family is enough. So your sister never cared about\r
+Sir James Chettam? What would you have said to _him_ for a\r
+brother-in-law?"\r
+\r
+"I should have liked that very much. I am sure he would have been a\r
+good husband. Only," Celia added, with a slight blush (she sometimes\r
+seemed to blush as she breathed), "I don't think he would have suited\r
+Dorothea."\r
+\r
+"Not high-flown enough?"\r
+\r
+"Dodo is very strict. She thinks so much about everything, and is so\r
+particular about what one says. Sir James never seemed to please her."\r
+\r
+"She must have encouraged him, I am sure. That is not very creditable."\r
+\r
+"Please don't be angry with Dodo; she does not see things. She thought\r
+so much about the cottages, and she was rude to Sir James sometimes;\r
+but he is so kind, he never noticed it."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Cadwallader, putting on her shawl, and rising, as if\r
+in haste, "I must go straight to Sir James and break this to him. He\r
+will have brought his mother back by this time, and I must call. Your\r
+uncle will never tell him. We are all disappointed, my dear. Young\r
+people should think of their families in marrying. I set a bad\r
+example--married a poor clergyman, and made myself a pitiable object\r
+among the De Bracys--obliged to get my coals by stratagem, and pray to\r
+heaven for my salad oil. However, Casaubon has money enough; I must do\r
+him that justice. As to his blood, I suppose the family quarterings\r
+are three cuttle-fish sable, and a commentator rampant. By the bye,\r
+before I go, my dear, I must speak to your Mrs. Carter about pastry. I\r
+want to send my young cook to learn of her. Poor people with four\r
+children, like us, you know, can't afford to keep a good cook. I have\r
+no doubt Mrs. Carter will oblige me. Sir James's cook is a perfect\r
+dragon."\r
+\r
+In less than an hour, Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carter and\r
+driven to Freshitt Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage, her\r
+husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton.\r
+\r
+Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which had kept\r
+him absent for a couple of days, and had changed his dress, intending\r
+to ride over to Tipton Grange. His horse was standing at the door when\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appeared there himself,\r
+whip in hand. Lady Chettam had not yet returned, but Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader's errand could not be despatched in the presence of grooms,\r
+so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by, to look at the\r
+new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand, she said--\r
+\r
+"I have a great shock for you; I hope you are not so far gone in love\r
+as you pretended to be."\r
+\r
+It was of no use protesting, against Mrs. Cadwallader's way of putting\r
+things. But Sir James's countenance changed a little. He felt a vague\r
+alarm.\r
+\r
+"I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all. I accused\r
+him of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and he\r
+looked silly and never denied it--talked about the independent line,\r
+and the usual nonsense."\r
+\r
+"Is that all?" said Sir James, much relieved.\r
+\r
+"Why," rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharper note, "you don't mean\r
+to say that you would like him to turn public man in that way--making a\r
+sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?"\r
+\r
+"He might be dissuaded, I should think. He would not like the expense."\r
+\r
+"That is what I told him. He is vulnerable to reason there--always a\r
+few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness. Miserliness is\r
+a capital quality to run in families; it's the safe side for madness to\r
+dip on. And there must be a little crack in the Brooke family, else we\r
+should not see what we are to see."\r
+\r
+"What? Brooke standing for Middlemarch?"\r
+\r
+"Worse than that. I really feel a little responsible. I always told\r
+you Miss Brooke would be such a fine match. I knew there was a great\r
+deal of nonsense in her--a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff. But\r
+these things wear out of girls. However, I am taken by surprise for\r
+once."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader?" said Sir James. His fear lest\r
+Miss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian Brethren, or some\r
+preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a little allayed by the\r
+knowledge that Mrs. Cadwallader always made the worst of things. "What\r
+has happened to Miss Brooke? Pray speak out."\r
+\r
+"Very well. She is engaged to be married." Mrs. Cadwallader paused a\r
+few moments, observing the deeply hurt expression in her friend's face,\r
+which he was trying to conceal by a nervous smile, while he whipped his\r
+boot; but she soon added, "Engaged to Casaubon."\r
+\r
+Sir James let his whip fall and stooped to pick it up. Perhaps his\r
+face had never before gathered so much concentrated disgust as when he\r
+turned to Mrs. Cadwallader and repeated, "Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+"Even so. You know my errand now."\r
+\r
+"Good God! It is horrible! He is no better than a mummy!" (The point\r
+of view has to be allowed for, as that of a blooming and disappointed\r
+rival.)\r
+\r
+"She says, he is a great soul.--A great bladder for dried peas to\r
+rattle in!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.\r
+\r
+"What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?" said Sir James.\r
+"He has one foot in the grave."\r
+\r
+"He means to draw it out again, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"Brooke ought not to allow it: he should insist on its being put off\r
+till she is of age. She would think better of it then. What is a\r
+guardian for?"\r
+\r
+"As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke!"\r
+\r
+"Cadwallader might talk to him."\r
+\r
+"Not he! Humphrey finds everybody charming. I never can get him to\r
+abuse Casaubon. He will even speak well of the bishop, though I tell\r
+him it is unnatural in a beneficed clergyman; what can one do with a\r
+husband who attends so little to the decencies? I hide it as well as I\r
+can by abusing everybody myself. Come, come, cheer up! you are well\r
+rid of Miss Brooke, a girl who would have been requiring you to see the\r
+stars by daylight. Between ourselves, little Celia is worth two of\r
+her, and likely after all to be the better match. For this marriage to\r
+Casaubon is as good as going to a nunnery."\r
+\r
+"Oh, on my own account--it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think her\r
+friends should try to use their influence."\r
+\r
+"Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet. But when I tell him, you may depend\r
+on it he will say, 'Why not? Casaubon is a good fellow--and\r
+young--young enough.' These charitable people never know vinegar from\r
+wine till they have swallowed it and got the colic. However, if I were\r
+a man I should prefer Celia, especially when Dorothea was gone. The\r
+truth is, you have been courting one and have won the other. I can see\r
+that she admires you almost as much as a man expects to be admired. If\r
+it were any one but me who said so, you might think it exaggeration.\r
+Good-by!"\r
+\r
+Sir James handed Mrs. Cadwallader to the phaeton, and then jumped on\r
+his horse. He was not going to renounce his ride because of his\r
+friend's unpleasant news--only to ride the faster in some other\r
+direction than that of Tipton Grange.\r
+\r
+Now, why on earth should Mrs. Cadwallader have been at all busy about\r
+Miss Brooke's marriage; and why, when one match that she liked to think\r
+she had a hand in was frustrated, should she have straightway contrived\r
+the preliminaries of another? Was there any ingenious plot, any\r
+hide-and-seek course of action, which might be detected by a careful\r
+telescopic watch? Not at all: a telescope might have swept the\r
+parishes of Tipton and Freshitt, the whole area visited by Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader in her phaeton, without witnessing any interview that could\r
+excite suspicion, or any scene from which she did not return with the\r
+same unperturbed keenness of eye and the same high natural color. In\r
+fact, if that convenient vehicle had existed in the days of the Seven\r
+Sages, one of them would doubtless have remarked, that you can know\r
+little of women by following them about in their pony-phaetons. Even\r
+with a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves making\r
+interpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereas under a\r
+weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an active voracity\r
+into which other smaller creatures actively play as if they were so\r
+many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to you certain\r
+tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victims while the\r
+swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom. In this way,\r
+metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied to Mrs. Cadwallader's\r
+match-making will show a play of minute causes producing what may be\r
+called thought and speech vortices to bring her the sort of food she\r
+needed. Her life was rurally simple, quite free from secrets either\r
+foul, dangerous, or otherwise important, and not consciously affected\r
+by the great affairs of the world. All the more did the affairs of the\r
+great world interest her, when communicated in the letters of high-born\r
+relations: the way in which fascinating younger sons had gone to the\r
+dogs by marrying their mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young\r
+Lord Tapir, and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the\r
+exact crossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new\r
+branch and widened the relations of scandal,--these were topics of\r
+which she retained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced\r
+them in an excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the\r
+more because she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as\r
+she did in game and vermin. She would never have disowned any one on\r
+the ground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basin\r
+would have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating, and I\r
+fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her. But her\r
+feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred: they\r
+had probably made all their money out of high retail prices, and Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was not paid in\r
+kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's design in making\r
+the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears. A town\r
+where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sort of low comedy,\r
+which could not be taken account of in a well-bred scheme of the\r
+universe. Let any lady who is inclined to be hard on Mrs. Cadwallader\r
+inquire into the comprehensiveness of her own beautiful views, and be\r
+quite sure that they afford accommodation for all the lives which have\r
+the honor to coexist with hers.\r
+\r
+With such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that came\r
+near into the form that suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feel that\r
+the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were alien to her?\r
+especially as it had been the habit of years for her to scold Mr.\r
+Brooke with the friendliest frankness, and let him know in confidence\r
+that she thought him a poor creature. From the first arrival of the\r
+young ladies in Tipton she had prearranged Dorothea's marriage with Sir\r
+James, and if it had taken place would have been quite sure that it was\r
+her doing: that it should not take place after she had preconceived it,\r
+caused her an irritation which every thinker will sympathize with. She\r
+was the diplomatist of Tipton and Freshitt, and for anything to happen\r
+in spite of her was an offensive irregularity. As to freaks like this\r
+of Miss Brooke's, Mrs. Cadwallader had no patience with them, and now\r
+saw that her opinion of this girl had been infected with some of her\r
+husband's weak charitableness: those Methodistical whims, that air of\r
+being more religious than the rector and curate together, came from a\r
+deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willing to\r
+believe.\r
+\r
+"However," said Mrs. Cadwallader, first to herself and afterwards to\r
+her husband, "I throw her over: there was a chance, if she had married\r
+Sir James, of her becoming a sane, sensible woman. He would never have\r
+contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted, she has no\r
+motive for obstinacy in her absurdities. But now I wish her joy of her\r
+hair shirt."\r
+\r
+It followed that Mrs. Cadwallader must decide on another match for Sir\r
+James, and having made up her mind that it was to be the younger Miss\r
+Brooke, there could not have been a more skilful move towards the\r
+success of her plan than her hint to the baronet that he had made an\r
+impression on Celia's heart. For he was not one of those gentlemen who\r
+languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughs from the\r
+topmost bough--the charms which\r
+\r
+ "Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff,\r
+ Not to be come at by the willing hand."\r
+\r
+He had no sonnets to write, and it could not strike him agreeably that\r
+he was not an object of preference to the woman whom he had preferred.\r
+Already the knowledge that Dorothea had chosen Mr. Casaubon had bruised\r
+his attachment and relaxed its hold. Although Sir James was a\r
+sportsman, he had some other feelings towards women than towards grouse\r
+and foxes, and did not regard his future wife in the light of prey,\r
+valuable chiefly for the excitements of the chase. Neither was he so\r
+well acquainted with the habits of primitive races as to feel that an\r
+ideal combat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessary to\r
+the historical continuity of the marriage-tie. On the contrary, having\r
+the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us, and\r
+disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a good grateful\r
+nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towards him spun\r
+little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers.\r
+\r
+Thus it happened, that after Sir James had ridden rather fast for half\r
+an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackened his pace,\r
+and at last turned into a road which would lead him back by a shorter\r
+cut. Various feelings wrought in him the determination after all to go\r
+to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened. He could not help\r
+rejoicing that he had never made the offer and been rejected; mere\r
+friendly politeness required that he should call to see Dorothea about\r
+the cottages, and now happily Mrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to\r
+offer his congratulations, if necessary, without showing too much\r
+awkwardness. He really did not like it: giving up Dorothea was very\r
+painful to him; but there was something in the resolve to make this\r
+visit forthwith and conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of\r
+file-biting and counter-irritant. And without his distinctly\r
+recognizing the impulse, there certainly was present in him the sense\r
+that Celia would be there, and that he should pay her more attention\r
+than he had done before.\r
+\r
+We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between\r
+breakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a little pale\r
+about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!" Pride\r
+helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges us to hide\r
+our own hurts--not to hurt others.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII.\r
+\r
+ "Piacer e popone\r
+ Vuol la sua stagione."\r
+ --Italian Proverb.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon, as might be expected, spent a great deal of his time at\r
+the Grange in these weeks, and the hindrance which courtship occasioned\r
+to the progress of his great work--the Key to all\r
+Mythologies--naturally made him look forward the more eagerly to the\r
+happy termination of courtship. But he had deliberately incurred the\r
+hindrance, having made up his mind that it was now time for him to\r
+adorn his life with the graces of female companionship, to irradiate\r
+the gloom which fatigue was apt to hang over the intervals of studious\r
+labor with the play of female fancy, and to secure in this, his\r
+culminating age, the solace of female tendance for his declining years.\r
+Hence he determined to abandon himself to the stream of feeling, and\r
+perhaps was surprised to find what an exceedingly shallow rill it was.\r
+As in droughty regions baptism by immersion could only be performed\r
+symbolically, Mr. Casaubon found that sprinkling was the utmost\r
+approach to a plunge which his stream would afford him; and he\r
+concluded that the poets had much exaggerated the force of masculine\r
+passion. Nevertheless, he observed with pleasure that Miss Brooke\r
+showed an ardent submissive affection which promised to fulfil his most\r
+agreeable previsions of marriage. It had once or twice crossed his\r
+mind that possibly there was some deficiency in Dorothea to account for\r
+the moderation of his abandonment; but he was unable to discern the\r
+deficiency, or to figure to himself a woman who would have pleased him\r
+better; so that there was clearly no reason to fall back upon but the\r
+exaggerations of human tradition.\r
+\r
+"Could I not be preparing myself now to be more useful?" said Dorothea\r
+to him, one morning, early in the time of courtship; "could I not learn\r
+to read Latin and Greek aloud to you, as Milton's daughters did to\r
+their father, without understanding what they read?"\r
+\r
+"I fear that would be wearisome to you," said Mr. Casaubon, smiling;\r
+"and, indeed, if I remember rightly, the young women you have mentioned\r
+regarded that exercise in unknown tongues as a ground for rebellion\r
+against the poet."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but in the first place they were very naughty girls, else they\r
+would have been proud to minister to such a father; and in the second\r
+place they might have studied privately and taught themselves to\r
+understand what they read, and then it would have been interesting. I\r
+hope you don't expect me to be naughty and stupid?"\r
+\r
+"I expect you to be all that an exquisite young lady can be in every\r
+possible relation of life. Certainly it might be a great advantage if\r
+you were able to copy the Greek character, and to that end it were well\r
+to begin with a little reading."\r
+\r
+Dorothea seized this as a precious permission. She would not have\r
+asked Mr. Casaubon at once to teach her the languages, dreading of all\r
+things to be tiresome instead of helpful; but it was not entirely out\r
+of devotion to her future husband that she wished to know Latin and\r
+Greek. Those provinces of masculine knowledge seemed to her a\r
+standing-ground from which all truth could be seen more truly. As it\r
+was, she constantly doubted her own conclusions, because she felt her\r
+own ignorance: how could she be confident that one-roomed cottages were\r
+not for the glory of God, when men who knew the classics appeared to\r
+conciliate indifference to the cottages with zeal for the glory?\r
+Perhaps even Hebrew might be necessary--at least the alphabet and a few\r
+roots--in order to arrive at the core of things, and judge soundly on\r
+the social duties of the Christian. And she had not reached that point\r
+of renunciation at which she would have been satisfied with having a\r
+wise husband: she wished, poor child, to be wise herself. Miss Brooke\r
+was certainly very naive with all her alleged cleverness. Celia, whose\r
+mind had never been thought too powerful, saw the emptiness of other\r
+people's pretensions much more readily. To have in general but little\r
+feeling, seems to be the only security against feeling too much on any\r
+particular occasion.\r
+\r
+However, Mr. Casaubon consented to listen and teach for an hour\r
+together, like a schoolmaster of little boys, or rather like a lover,\r
+to whom a mistress's elementary ignorance and difficulties have a\r
+touching fitness. Few scholars would have disliked teaching the\r
+alphabet under such circumstances. But Dorothea herself was a little\r
+shocked and discouraged at her own stupidity, and the answers she got\r
+to some timid questions about the value of the Greek accents gave her a\r
+painful suspicion that here indeed there might be secrets not capable\r
+of explanation to a woman's reason.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke had no doubt on that point, and expressed himself with his\r
+usual strength upon it one day that he came into the library while the\r
+reading was going forward.\r
+\r
+"Well, but now, Casaubon, such deep studies, classics, mathematics,\r
+that kind of thing, are too taxing for a woman--too taxing, you know."\r
+\r
+"Dorothea is learning to read the characters simply," said Mr.\r
+Casaubon, evading the question. "She had the very considerate thought\r
+of saving my eyes."\r
+\r
+"Ah, well, without understanding, you know--that may not be so bad.\r
+But there is a lightness about the feminine mind--a touch and\r
+go--music, the fine arts, that kind of thing--they should study those\r
+up to a certain point, women should; but in a light way, you know. A\r
+woman should be able to sit down and play you or sing you a good old\r
+English tune. That is what I like; though I have heard most\r
+things--been at the opera in Vienna: Gluck, Mozart, everything of that\r
+sort. But I'm a conservative in music--it's not like ideas, you know.\r
+I stick to the good old tunes."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Casaubon is not fond of the piano, and I am very glad he is not,"\r
+said Dorothea, whose slight regard for domestic music and feminine fine\r
+art must be forgiven her, considering the small tinkling and smearing\r
+in which they chiefly consisted at that dark period. She smiled and\r
+looked up at her betrothed with grateful eyes. If he had always been\r
+asking her to play the "Last Rose of Summer," she would have required\r
+much resignation. "He says there is only an old harpsichord at Lowick,\r
+and it is covered with books."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there you are behind Celia, my dear. Celia, now, plays very\r
+prettily, and is always ready to play. However, since Casaubon does\r
+not like it, you are all right. But it's a pity you should not have\r
+little recreations of that sort, Casaubon: the bow always strung--that\r
+kind of thing, you know--will not do."\r
+\r
+"I never could look on it in the light of a recreation to have my ears\r
+teased with measured noises," said Mr. Casaubon. "A tune much iterated\r
+has the ridiculous effect of making the words in my mind perform a sort\r
+of minuet to keep time--an effect hardly tolerable, I imagine, after\r
+boyhood. As to the grander forms of music, worthy to accompany solemn\r
+celebrations, and even to serve as an educating influence according to\r
+the ancient conception, I say nothing, for with these we are not\r
+immediately concerned."\r
+\r
+"No; but music of that sort I should enjoy," said Dorothea. "When we\r
+were coming home from Lausanne my uncle took us to hear the great organ\r
+at Freiberg, and it made me sob."\r
+\r
+"That kind of thing is not healthy, my dear," said Mr. Brooke.\r
+"Casaubon, she will be in your hands now: you must teach my niece to\r
+take things more quietly, eh, Dorothea?"\r
+\r
+He ended with a smile, not wishing to hurt his niece, but really\r
+thinking that it was perhaps better for her to be early married to so\r
+sober a fellow as Casaubon, since she would not hear of Chettam.\r
+\r
+"It is wonderful, though," he said to himself as he shuffled out of the\r
+room--"it is wonderful that she should have liked him. However, the\r
+match is good. I should have been travelling out of my brief to have\r
+hindered it, let Mrs. Cadwallader say what she will. He is pretty\r
+certain to be a bishop, is Casaubon. That was a very seasonable\r
+pamphlet of his on the Catholic Question:--a deanery at least. They\r
+owe him a deanery."\r
+\r
+And here I must vindicate a claim to philosophical reflectiveness, by\r
+remarking that Mr. Brooke on this occasion little thought of the\r
+Radical speech which, at a later period, he was led to make on the\r
+incomes of the bishops. What elegant historian would neglect a\r
+striking opportunity for pointing out that his heroes did not foresee\r
+the history of the world, or even their own actions?--For example, that\r
+Henry of Navarre, when a Protestant baby, little thought of being a\r
+Catholic monarch; or that Alfred the Great, when he measured his\r
+laborious nights with burning candles, had no idea of future gentlemen\r
+measuring their idle days with watches. Here is a mine of truth,\r
+which, however vigorously it may be worked, is likely to outlast our\r
+coal.\r
+\r
+But of Mr. Brooke I make a further remark perhaps less warranted by\r
+precedent--namely, that if he had foreknown his speech, it might not\r
+have made any great difference. To think with pleasure of his niece's\r
+husband having a large ecclesiastical income was one thing--to make a\r
+Liberal speech was another thing; and it is a narrow mind which cannot\r
+look at a subject from various points of view.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII.\r
+\r
+ "Oh, rescue her! I am her brother now,\r
+ And you her father. Every gentle maid\r
+ Should have a guardian in each gentleman."\r
+\r
+\r
+It was wonderful to Sir James Chettam how well he continued to like\r
+going to the Grange after he had once encountered the difficulty of\r
+seeing Dorothea for the first time in the light of a woman who was\r
+engaged to another man. Of course the forked lightning seemed to pass\r
+through him when he first approached her, and he remained conscious\r
+throughout the interview of hiding uneasiness; but, good as he was, it\r
+must be owned that his uneasiness was less than it would have been if\r
+he had thought his rival a brilliant and desirable match. He had no\r
+sense of being eclipsed by Mr. Casaubon; he was only shocked that\r
+Dorothea was under a melancholy illusion, and his mortification lost\r
+some of its bitterness by being mingled with compassion.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless, while Sir James said to himself that he had completely\r
+resigned her, since with the perversity of a Desdemona she had not\r
+affected a proposed match that was clearly suitable and according to\r
+nature; he could not yet be quite passive under the idea of her\r
+engagement to Mr. Casaubon. On the day when he first saw them together\r
+in the light of his present knowledge, it seemed to him that he had not\r
+taken the affair seriously enough. Brooke was really culpable; he\r
+ought to have hindered it. Who could speak to him? Something might be\r
+done perhaps even now, at least to defer the marriage. On his way home\r
+he turned into the Rectory and asked for Mr. Cadwallader. Happily, the\r
+Rector was at home, and his visitor was shown into the study, where all\r
+the fishing tackle hung. But he himself was in a little room\r
+adjoining, at work with his turning apparatus, and he called to the\r
+baronet to join him there. The two were better friends than any other\r
+landholder and clergyman in the county--a significant fact which was in\r
+agreement with the amiable expression of their faces.\r
+\r
+Mr. Cadwallader was a large man, with full lips and a sweet smile; very\r
+plain and rough in his exterior, but with that solid imperturbable ease\r
+and good-humor which is infectious, and like great grassy hills in the\r
+sunshine, quiets even an irritated egoism, and makes it rather ashamed\r
+of itself. "Well, how are you?" he said, showing a hand not quite fit\r
+to be grasped. "Sorry I missed you before. Is there anything\r
+particular? You look vexed."\r
+\r
+Sir James's brow had a little crease in it, a little depression of the\r
+eyebrow, which he seemed purposely to exaggerate as he answered.\r
+\r
+"It is only this conduct of Brooke's. I really think somebody should\r
+speak to him."\r
+\r
+"What? meaning to stand?" said Mr. Cadwallader, going on with the\r
+arrangement of the reels which he had just been turning. "I hardly\r
+think he means it. But where's the harm, if he likes it? Any one who\r
+objects to Whiggery should be glad when the Whigs don't put up the\r
+strongest fellow. They won't overturn the Constitution with our friend\r
+Brooke's head for a battering ram."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't mean that," said Sir James, who, after putting down his\r
+hat and throwing himself into a chair, had begun to nurse his leg and\r
+examine the sole of his boot with much bitterness. "I mean this\r
+marriage. I mean his letting that blooming young girl marry Casaubon."\r
+\r
+"What is the matter with Casaubon? I see no harm in him--if the girl\r
+likes him."\r
+\r
+"She is too young to know what she likes. Her guardian ought to\r
+interfere. He ought not to allow the thing to be done in this headlong\r
+manner. I wonder a man like you, Cadwallader--a man with daughters,\r
+can look at the affair with indifference: and with such a heart as\r
+yours! Do think seriously about it."\r
+\r
+"I am not joking; I am as serious as possible," said the Rector, with a\r
+provoking little inward laugh. "You are as bad as Elinor. She has\r
+been wanting me to go and lecture Brooke; and I have reminded her that\r
+her friends had a very poor opinion of the match she made when she\r
+married me."\r
+\r
+"But look at Casaubon," said Sir James, indignantly. "He must be\r
+fifty, and I don't believe he could ever have been much more than the\r
+shadow of a man. Look at his legs!"\r
+\r
+"Confound you handsome young fellows! you think of having it all your\r
+own way in the world. You don't under stand women. They don't admire\r
+you half so much as you admire yourselves. Elinor used to tell her\r
+sisters that she married me for my ugliness--it was so various and\r
+amusing that it had quite conquered her prudence."\r
+\r
+"You! it was easy enough for a woman to love you. But this is no\r
+question of beauty. I don't _like_ Casaubon." This was Sir James's\r
+strongest way of implying that he thought ill of a man's character.\r
+\r
+"Why? what do you know against him?" said the Rector laying down his\r
+reels, and putting his thumbs into his armholes with an air of\r
+attention.\r
+\r
+Sir James paused. He did not usually find it easy to give his reasons:\r
+it seemed to him strange that people should not know them without being\r
+told, since he only felt what was reasonable. At last he said--\r
+\r
+"Now, Cadwallader, has he got any heart?"\r
+\r
+"Well, yes. I don't mean of the melting sort, but a sound kernel,\r
+_that_ you may be sure of. He is very good to his poor relations:\r
+pensions several of the women, and is educating a young fellow at a\r
+good deal of expense. Casaubon acts up to his sense of justice. His\r
+mother's sister made a bad match--a Pole, I think--lost herself--at any\r
+rate was disowned by her family. If it had not been for that, Casaubon\r
+would not have had so much money by half. I believe he went himself to\r
+find out his cousins, and see what he could do for them. Every man\r
+would not ring so well as that, if you tried his metal. _You_ would,\r
+Chettam; but not every man."\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Sir James, coloring. "I am not so sure of\r
+myself." He paused a moment, and then added, "That was a right thing\r
+for Casaubon to do. But a man may wish to do what is right, and yet be\r
+a sort of parchment code. A woman may not be happy with him. And I\r
+think when a girl is so young as Miss Brooke is, her friends ought to\r
+interfere a little to hinder her from doing anything foolish. You\r
+laugh, because you fancy I have some feeling on my own account. But\r
+upon my honor, it is not that. I should feel just the same if I were\r
+Miss Brooke's brother or uncle."\r
+\r
+"Well, but what should you do?"\r
+\r
+"I should say that the marriage must not be decided on until she was of\r
+age. And depend upon it, in that case, it would never come off. I\r
+wish you saw it as I do--I wish you would talk to Brooke about it."\r
+\r
+Sir James rose as he was finishing his sentence, for he saw Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader entering from the study. She held by the hand her youngest\r
+girl, about five years old, who immediately ran to papa, and was made\r
+comfortable on his knee.\r
+\r
+"I hear what you are talking about," said the wife. "But you will make\r
+no impression on Humphrey. As long as the fish rise to his bait,\r
+everybody is what he ought to be. Bless you, Casaubon has got a\r
+trout-stream, and does not care about fishing in it himself: could\r
+there be a better fellow?"\r
+\r
+"Well, there is something in that," said the Rector, with his quiet,\r
+inward laugh. "It is a very good quality in a man to have a\r
+trout-stream."\r
+\r
+"But seriously," said Sir James, whose vexation had not yet spent\r
+itself, "don't you think the Rector might do some good by speaking?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I told you beforehand what he would say," answered Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, lifting up her eyebrows. "I have done what I could: I\r
+wash my hands of the marriage."\r
+\r
+"In the first place," said the Rector, looking rather grave, "it would\r
+be nonsensical to expect that I could convince Brooke, and make him act\r
+accordingly. Brooke is a very good fellow, but pulpy; he will run into\r
+any mould, but he won't keep shape."\r
+\r
+"He might keep shape long enough to defer the marriage," said Sir James.\r
+\r
+"But, my dear Chettam, why should I use my influence to Casaubon's\r
+disadvantage, unless I were much surer than I am that I should be\r
+acting for the advantage of Miss Brooke? I know no harm of Casaubon.\r
+I don't care about his Xisuthrus and Fee-fo-fum and the rest; but then\r
+he doesn't care about my fishing-tackle. As to the line he took on the\r
+Catholic Question, that was unexpected; but he has always been civil to\r
+me, and I don't see why I should spoil his sport. For anything I can\r
+tell, Miss Brooke may be happier with him than she would be with any\r
+other man."\r
+\r
+"Humphrey! I have no patience with you. You know you would rather\r
+dine under the hedge than with Casaubon alone. You have nothing to say\r
+to each other."\r
+\r
+"What has that to do with Miss Brooke's marrying him? She does not do\r
+it for my amusement."\r
+\r
+"He has got no good red blood in his body," said Sir James.\r
+\r
+"No. Somebody put a drop under a magnifying-glass and it was all\r
+semicolons and parentheses," said Mrs. Cadwallader.\r
+\r
+"Why does he not bring out his book, instead of marrying," said Sir\r
+James, with a disgust which he held warranted by the sound feeling of\r
+an English layman.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he dreams footnotes, and they run away with all his brains. They\r
+say, when he was a little boy, he made an abstract of 'Hop o' my\r
+Thumb,' and he has been making abstracts ever since. Ugh! And that is\r
+the man Humphrey goes on saying that a woman may be happy with."\r
+\r
+"Well, he is what Miss Brooke likes," said the Rector. "I don't\r
+profess to understand every young lady's taste."\r
+\r
+"But if she were your own daughter?" said Sir James.\r
+\r
+"That would be a different affair. She is _not_ my daughter, and I\r
+don't feel called upon to interfere. Casaubon is as good as most of\r
+us. He is a scholarly clergyman, and creditable to the cloth. Some\r
+Radical fellow speechifying at Middlemarch said Casaubon was the\r
+learned straw-chopping incumbent, and Freke was the brick-and-mortar\r
+incumbent, and I was the angling incumbent. And upon my word, I don't\r
+see that one is worse or better than the other." The Rector ended with\r
+his silent laugh. He always saw the joke of any satire against\r
+himself. His conscience was large and easy, like the rest of him: it\r
+did only what it could do without any trouble.\r
+\r
+Clearly, there would be no interference with Miss Brooke's marriage\r
+through Mr. Cadwallader; and Sir James felt with some sadness that she\r
+was to have perfect liberty of misjudgment. It was a sign of his good\r
+disposition that he did not slacken at all in his intention of carrying\r
+out Dorothea's design of the cottages. Doubtless this persistence was\r
+the best course for his own dignity: but pride only helps us to be\r
+generous; it never makes us so, any more than vanity makes us witty.\r
+She was now enough aware of Sir James's position with regard to her, to\r
+appreciate the rectitude of his perseverance in a landlord's duty, to\r
+which he had at first been urged by a lover's complaisance, and her\r
+pleasure in it was great enough to count for something even in her\r
+present happiness. Perhaps she gave to Sir James Chettam's cottages\r
+all the interest she could spare from Mr. Casaubon, or rather from the\r
+symphony of hopeful dreams, admiring trust, and passionate self\r
+devotion which that learned gentleman had set playing in her soul.\r
+Hence it happened that in the good baronet's succeeding visits, while\r
+he was beginning to pay small attentions to Celia, he found himself\r
+talking with more and more pleasure to Dorothea. She was perfectly\r
+unconstrained and without irritation towards him now, and he was\r
+gradually discovering the delight there is in frank kindness and\r
+companionship between a man and a woman who have no passion to hide or\r
+confess.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. An ancient land in ancient oracles\r
+ Is called "law-thirsty": all the struggle there\r
+ Was after order and a perfect rule.\r
+ Pray, where lie such lands now? . . .\r
+ 2d Gent. Why, where they lay of old--in human souls.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon's behavior about settlements was highly satisfactory to\r
+Mr. Brooke, and the preliminaries of marriage rolled smoothly along,\r
+shortening the weeks of courtship. The betrothed bride must see her\r
+future home, and dictate any changes that she would like to have made\r
+there. A woman dictates before marriage in order that she may have an\r
+appetite for submission afterwards. And certainly, the mistakes that\r
+we male and female mortals make when we have our own way might fairly\r
+raise some wonder that we are so fond of it.\r
+\r
+On a gray but dry November morning Dorothea drove to Lowick in company\r
+with her uncle and Celia. Mr. Casaubon's home was the manor-house.\r
+Close by, visible from some parts of the garden, was the little church,\r
+with the old parsonage opposite. In the beginning of his career, Mr.\r
+Casaubon had only held the living, but the death of his brother had put\r
+him in possession of the manor also. It had a small park, with a fine\r
+old oak here and there, and an avenue of limes towards the southwest\r
+front, with a sunk fence between park and pleasure-ground, so that from\r
+the drawing-room windows the glance swept uninterruptedly along a slope\r
+of greensward till the limes ended in a level of corn and pastures,\r
+which often seemed to melt into a lake under the setting sun. This was\r
+the happy side of the house, for the south and east looked rather\r
+melancholy even under the brightest morning. The grounds here were\r
+more confined, the flower-beds showed no very careful tendance, and\r
+large clumps of trees, chiefly of sombre yews, had risen high, not ten\r
+yards from the windows. The building, of greenish stone, was in the\r
+old English style, not ugly, but small-windowed and melancholy-looking:\r
+the sort of house that must have children, many flowers, open windows,\r
+and little vistas of bright things, to make it seem a joyous home. In\r
+this latter end of autumn, with a sparse remnant of yellow leaves\r
+falling slowly athwart the dark evergreens in a stillness without\r
+sunshine, the house too had an air of autumnal decline, and Mr.\r
+Casaubon, when he presented himself, had no bloom that could be thrown\r
+into relief by that background.\r
+\r
+"Oh dear!" Celia said to herself, "I am sure Freshitt Hall would have\r
+been pleasanter than this." She thought of the white freestone, the\r
+pillared portico, and the terrace full of flowers, Sir James smiling\r
+above them like a prince issuing from his enchantment in a rose-bush,\r
+with a handkerchief swiftly metamorphosed from the most delicately\r
+odorous petals--Sir James, who talked so agreeably, always about things\r
+which had common-sense in them, and not about learning! Celia had\r
+those light young feminine tastes which grave and weatherworn gentlemen\r
+sometimes prefer in a wife; but happily Mr. Casaubon's bias had been\r
+different, for he would have had no chance with Celia.\r
+\r
+Dorothea, on the contrary, found the house and grounds all that she\r
+could wish: the dark book-shelves in the long library, the carpets and\r
+curtains with colors subdued by time, the curious old maps and\r
+bird's-eye views on the walls of the corridor, with here and there an\r
+old vase below, had no oppression for her, and seemed more cheerful\r
+than the easts and pictures at the Grange, which her uncle had long ago\r
+brought home from his travels--they being probably among the ideas he\r
+had taken in at one time. To poor Dorothea these severe classical\r
+nudities and smirking Renaissance-Correggiosities were painfully\r
+inexplicable, staring into the midst of her Puritanic conceptions: she\r
+had never been taught how she could bring them into any sort of\r
+relevance with her life. But the owners of Lowick apparently had not\r
+been travellers, and Mr. Casaubon's studies of the past were not\r
+carried on by means of such aids.\r
+\r
+Dorothea walked about the house with delightful emotion. Everything\r
+seemed hallowed to her: this was to be the home of her wifehood, and\r
+she looked up with eyes full of confidence to Mr. Casaubon when he drew\r
+her attention specially to some actual arrangement and asked her if she\r
+would like an alteration. All appeals to her taste she met gratefully,\r
+but saw nothing to alter. His efforts at exact courtesy and formal\r
+tenderness had no defect for her. She filled up all blanks with\r
+unmanifested perfections, interpreting him as she interpreted the works\r
+of Providence, and accounting for seeming discords by her own deafness\r
+to the higher harmonies. And there are many blanks left in the weeks\r
+of courtship which a loving faith fills with happy assurance.\r
+\r
+"Now, my dear Dorothea, I wish you to favor me by pointing out which\r
+room you would like to have as your boudoir," said Mr. Casaubon,\r
+showing that his views of the womanly nature were sufficiently large to\r
+include that requirement.\r
+\r
+"It is very kind of you to think of that," said Dorothea, "but I assure\r
+you I would rather have all those matters decided for me. I shall be\r
+much happier to take everything as it is--just as you have been used to\r
+have it, or as you will yourself choose it to be. I have no motive for\r
+wishing anything else."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Dodo," said Celia, "will you not have the bow-windowed room\r
+up-stairs?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon led the way thither. The bow-window looked down the\r
+avenue of limes; the furniture was all of a faded blue, and there were\r
+miniatures of ladies and gentlemen with powdered hair hanging in a\r
+group. A piece of tapestry over a door also showed a blue-green world\r
+with a pale stag in it. The chairs and tables were thin-legged and\r
+easy to upset. It was a room where one might fancy the ghost of a\r
+tight-laced lady revisiting the scene of her embroidery. A light\r
+bookcase contained duodecimo volumes of polite literature in calf,\r
+completing the furniture.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mr. Brooke, "this would be a pretty room with some new\r
+hangings, sofas, and that sort of thing. A little bare now."\r
+\r
+"No, uncle," said Dorothea, eagerly. "Pray do not speak of altering\r
+anything. There are so many other things in the world that want\r
+altering--I like to take these things as they are. And you like them\r
+as they are, don't you?" she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon. "Perhaps\r
+this was your mother's room when she was young."\r
+\r
+"It was," he said, with his slow bend of the head.\r
+\r
+"This is your mother," said Dorothea, who had turned to examine the\r
+group of miniatures. "It is like the tiny one you brought me; only, I\r
+should think, a better portrait. And this one opposite, who is this?"\r
+\r
+"Her elder sister. They were, like you and your sister, the only two\r
+children of their parents, who hang above them, you see."\r
+\r
+"The sister is pretty," said Celia, implying that she thought less\r
+favorably of Mr. Casaubon's mother. It was a new opening to Celia's\r
+imagination, that he came of a family who had all been young in their\r
+time--the ladies wearing necklaces.\r
+\r
+"It is a peculiar face," said Dorothea, looking closely. "Those deep\r
+gray eyes rather near together--and the delicate irregular nose with a\r
+sort of ripple in it--and all the powdered curls hanging backward.\r
+Altogether it seems to me peculiar rather than pretty. There is not\r
+even a family likeness between her and your mother."\r
+\r
+"No. And they were not alike in their lot."\r
+\r
+"You did not mention her to me," said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"My aunt made an unfortunate marriage. I never saw her."\r
+\r
+Dorothea wondered a little, but felt that it would be indelicate just\r
+then to ask for any information which Mr. Casaubon did not proffer, and\r
+she turned to the window to admire the view. The sun had lately\r
+pierced the gray, and the avenue of limes cast shadows.\r
+\r
+"Shall we not walk in the garden now?" said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"And you would like to see the church, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "It\r
+is a droll little church. And the village. It all lies in a\r
+nut-shell. By the way, it will suit you, Dorothea; for the cottages are\r
+like a row of alms-houses--little gardens, gilly-flowers, that sort of\r
+thing."\r
+\r
+"Yes, please," said Dorothea, looking at Mr. Casaubon, "I should like\r
+to see all that." She had got nothing from him more graphic about the\r
+Lowick cottages than that they were "not bad."\r
+\r
+They were soon on a gravel walk which led chiefly between grassy\r
+borders and clumps of trees, this being the nearest way to the church,\r
+Mr. Casaubon said. At the little gate leading into the churchyard\r
+there was a pause while Mr. Casaubon went to the parsonage close by to\r
+fetch a key. Celia, who had been hanging a little in the rear, came up\r
+presently, when she saw that Mr. Casaubon was gone away, and said in\r
+her easy staccato, which always seemed to contradict the suspicion of\r
+any malicious intent--\r
+\r
+"Do you know, Dorothea, I saw some one quite young coming up one of the\r
+walks."\r
+\r
+"Is that astonishing, Celia?"\r
+\r
+"There may be a young gardener, you know--why not?" said Mr. Brooke.\r
+"I told Casaubon he should change his gardener."\r
+\r
+"No, not a gardener," said Celia; "a gentleman with a sketch-book. He\r
+had light-brown curls. I only saw his back. But he was quite young."\r
+\r
+"The curate's son, perhaps," said Mr. Brooke. "Ah, there is Casaubon\r
+again, and Tucker with him. He is going to introduce Tucker. You\r
+don't know Tucker yet."\r
+\r
+Mr. Tucker was the middle-aged curate, one of the "inferior clergy,"\r
+who are usually not wanting in sons. But after the introduction, the\r
+conversation did not lead to any question about his family, and the\r
+startling apparition of youthfulness was forgotten by every one but\r
+Celia. She inwardly declined to believe that the light-brown curls and\r
+slim figure could have any relationship to Mr. Tucker, who was just as\r
+old and musty-looking as she would have expected Mr. Casaubon's curate\r
+to be; doubtless an excellent man who would go to heaven (for Celia\r
+wished not to be unprincipled), but the corners of his mouth were so\r
+unpleasant. Celia thought with some dismalness of the time she should\r
+have to spend as bridesmaid at Lowick, while the curate had probably no\r
+pretty little children whom she could like, irrespective of principle.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tucker was invaluable in their walk; and perhaps Mr. Casaubon had\r
+not been without foresight on this head, the curate being able to\r
+answer all Dorothea's questions about the villagers and the other\r
+parishioners. Everybody, he assured her, was well off in Lowick: not a\r
+cottager in those double cottages at a low rent but kept a pig, and the\r
+strips of garden at the back were well tended. The small boys wore\r
+excellent corduroy, the girls went out as tidy servants, or did a\r
+little straw-plaiting at home: no looms here, no Dissent; and though\r
+the public disposition was rather towards laying by money than towards\r
+spirituality, there was not much vice. The speckled fowls were so\r
+numerous that Mr. Brooke observed, "Your farmers leave some barley for\r
+the women to glean, I see. The poor folks here might have a fowl in\r
+their pot, as the good French king used to wish for all his people.\r
+The French eat a good many fowls--skinny fowls, you know."\r
+\r
+"I think it was a very cheap wish of his," said Dorothea, indignantly.\r
+"Are kings such monsters that a wish like that must be reckoned a royal\r
+virtue?"\r
+\r
+"And if he wished them a skinny fowl," said Celia, "that would not be\r
+nice. But perhaps he wished them to have fat fowls."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but the word has dropped out of the text, or perhaps was\r
+subauditum; that is, present in the king's mind, but not uttered," said\r
+Mr. Casaubon, smiling and bending his head towards Celia, who\r
+immediately dropped backward a little, because she could not bear Mr.\r
+Casaubon to blink at her.\r
+\r
+Dorothea sank into silence on the way back to the house. She felt some\r
+disappointment, of which she was yet ashamed, that there was nothing\r
+for her to do in Lowick; and in the next few minutes her mind had\r
+glanced over the possibility, which she would have preferred, of\r
+finding that her home would be in a parish which had a larger share of\r
+the world's misery, so that she might have had more active duties in\r
+it. Then, recurring to the future actually before her, she made a\r
+picture of more complete devotion to Mr. Casaubon's aims in which she\r
+would await new duties. Many such might reveal themselves to the\r
+higher knowledge gained by her in that companionship.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tucker soon left them, having some clerical work which would not\r
+allow him to lunch at the Hall; and as they were re-entering the garden\r
+through the little gate, Mr. Casaubon said--\r
+\r
+"You seem a little sad, Dorothea. I trust you are pleased with what\r
+you have seen."\r
+\r
+"I am feeling something which is perhaps foolish and wrong," answered\r
+Dorothea, with her usual openness--"almost wishing that the people\r
+wanted more to be done for them here. I have known so few ways of\r
+making my life good for anything. Of course, my notions of usefulness\r
+must be narrow. I must learn new ways of helping people."\r
+\r
+"Doubtless," said Mr. Casaubon. "Each position has its corresponding\r
+duties. Yours, I trust, as the mistress of Lowick, will not leave any\r
+yearning unfulfilled."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I believe that," said Dorothea, earnestly. "Do not suppose\r
+that I am sad."\r
+\r
+"That is well. But, if you are not tired, we will take another way to\r
+the house than that by which we came."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was not at all tired, and a little circuit was made towards a\r
+fine yew-tree, the chief hereditary glory of the grounds on this side\r
+of the house. As they approached it, a figure, conspicuous on a dark\r
+background of evergreens, was seated on a bench, sketching the old\r
+tree. Mr. Brooke, who was walking in front with Celia, turned his\r
+head, and said--\r
+\r
+"Who is that youngster, Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+They had come very near when Mr. Casaubon answered--\r
+\r
+"That is a young relative of mine, a second cousin: the grandson, in\r
+fact," he added, looking at Dorothea, "of the lady whose portrait you\r
+have been noticing, my aunt Julia."\r
+\r
+The young man had laid down his sketch-book and risen. His bushy\r
+light-brown curls, as well as his youthfulness, identified him at once\r
+with Celia's apparition.\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, let me introduce to you my cousin, Mr. Ladislaw. Will, this\r
+is Miss Brooke."\r
+\r
+The cousin was so close now, that, when he lifted his hat, Dorothea\r
+could see a pair of gray eyes rather near together, a delicate\r
+irregular nose with a little ripple in it, and hair falling backward;\r
+but there was a mouth and chin of a more prominent, threatening aspect\r
+than belonged to the type of the grandmother's miniature. Young\r
+Ladislaw did not feel it necessary to smile, as if he were charmed with\r
+this introduction to his future second cousin and her relatives; but\r
+wore rather a pouting air of discontent.\r
+\r
+"You are an artist, I see," said Mr. Brooke, taking up the sketch-book\r
+and turning it over in his unceremonious fashion.\r
+\r
+"No, I only sketch a little. There is nothing fit to be seen there,"\r
+said young Ladislaw, coloring, perhaps with temper rather than modesty.\r
+\r
+"Oh, come, this is a nice bit, now. I did a little in this way myself\r
+at one time, you know. Look here, now; this is what I call a nice\r
+thing, done with what we used to call _brio_." Mr. Brooke held out\r
+towards the two girls a large colored sketch of stony ground and trees,\r
+with a pool.\r
+\r
+"I am no judge of these things," said Dorothea, not coldly, but with an\r
+eager deprecation of the appeal to her. "You know, uncle, I never see\r
+the beauty of those pictures which you say are so much praised. They\r
+are a language I do not understand. I suppose there is some relation\r
+between pictures and nature which I am too ignorant to feel--just as\r
+you see what a Greek sentence stands for which means nothing to me."\r
+Dorothea looked up at Mr. Casaubon, who bowed his head towards her,\r
+while Mr. Brooke said, smiling nonchalantly--\r
+\r
+"Bless me, now, how different people are! But you had a bad style of\r
+teaching, you know--else this is just the thing for girls--sketching,\r
+fine art and so on. But you took to drawing plans; you don't\r
+understand morbidezza, and that kind of thing. You will come to my\r
+house, I hope, and I will show you what I did in this way," he\r
+continued, turning to young Ladislaw, who had to be recalled from his\r
+preoccupation in observing Dorothea. Ladislaw had made up his mind\r
+that she must be an unpleasant girl, since she was going to marry\r
+Casaubon, and what she said of her stupidity about pictures would have\r
+confirmed that opinion even if he had believed her. As it was, he took\r
+her words for a covert judgment, and was certain that she thought his\r
+sketch detestable. There was too much cleverness in her apology: she\r
+was laughing both at her uncle and himself. But what a voice! It was\r
+like the voice of a soul that had once lived in an Aeolian harp. This\r
+must be one of Nature's inconsistencies. There could be no sort of\r
+passion in a girl who would marry Casaubon. But he turned from her,\r
+and bowed his thanks for Mr. Brooke's invitation.\r
+\r
+"We will turn over my Italian engravings together," continued that\r
+good-natured man. "I have no end of those things, that I have laid by\r
+for years. One gets rusty in this part of the country, you know. Not\r
+you, Casaubon; you stick to your studies; but my best ideas get\r
+undermost--out of use, you know. You clever young men must guard\r
+against indolence. I was too indolent, you know: else I might have\r
+been anywhere at one time."\r
+\r
+"That is a seasonable admonition," said Mr. Casaubon; "but now we will\r
+pass on to the house, lest the young ladies should be tired of\r
+standing."\r
+\r
+When their backs were turned, young Ladislaw sat down to go on with his\r
+sketching, and as he did so his face broke into an expression of\r
+amusement which increased as he went on drawing, till at last he threw\r
+back his head and laughed aloud. Partly it was the reception of his\r
+own artistic production that tickled him; partly the notion of his\r
+grave cousin as the lover of that girl; and partly Mr. Brooke's\r
+definition of the place he might have held but for the impediment of\r
+indolence. Mr. Will Ladislaw's sense of the ludicrous lit up his\r
+features very agreeably: it was the pure enjoyment of comicality, and\r
+had no mixture of sneering and self-exaltation.\r
+\r
+"What is your nephew going to do with himself, Casaubon?" said Mr.\r
+Brooke, as they went on.\r
+\r
+"My cousin, you mean--not my nephew."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, cousin. But in the way of a career, you know."\r
+\r
+"The answer to that question is painfully doubtful. On leaving Rugby\r
+he declined to go to an English university, where I would gladly have\r
+placed him, and chose what I must consider the anomalous course of\r
+studying at Heidelberg. And now he wants to go abroad again, without\r
+any special object, save the vague purpose of what he calls culture,\r
+preparation for he knows not what. He declines to choose a profession."\r
+\r
+"He has no means but what you furnish, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"I have always given him and his friends reason to understand that I\r
+would furnish in moderation what was necessary for providing him with a\r
+scholarly education, and launching him respectably. I am-therefore\r
+bound to fulfil the expectation so raised," said Mr. Casaubon, putting\r
+his conduct in the light of mere rectitude: a trait of delicacy which\r
+Dorothea noticed with admiration.\r
+\r
+"He has a thirst for travelling; perhaps he may turn out a Bruce or a\r
+Mungo Park," said Mr. Brooke. "I had a notion of that myself at one\r
+time."\r
+\r
+"No, he has no bent towards exploration, or the enlargement of our\r
+geognosis: that would be a special purpose which I could recognize with\r
+some approbation, though without felicitating him on a career which so\r
+often ends in premature and violent death. But so far is he from\r
+having any desire for a more accurate knowledge of the earth's surface,\r
+that he said he should prefer not to know the sources of the Nile, and\r
+that there should be some unknown regions preserved as hunting grounds\r
+for the poetic imagination."\r
+\r
+"Well, there is something in that, you know," said Mr. Brooke, who had\r
+certainly an impartial mind.\r
+\r
+"It is, I fear, nothing more than a part of his general inaccuracy and\r
+indisposition to thoroughness of all kinds, which would be a bad augury\r
+for him in any profession, civil or sacred, even were he so far\r
+submissive to ordinary rule as to choose one."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he has conscientious scruples founded on his own unfitness,"\r
+said Dorothea, who was interesting herself in finding a favorable\r
+explanation. "Because the law and medicine should be very serious\r
+professions to undertake, should they not? People's lives and fortunes\r
+depend on them."\r
+\r
+"Doubtless; but I fear that my young relative Will Ladislaw is chiefly\r
+determined in his aversion to these callings by a dislike to steady\r
+application, and to that kind of acquirement which is needful\r
+instrumentally, but is not charming or immediately inviting to\r
+self-indulgent taste. I have insisted to him on what Aristotle has\r
+stated with admirable brevity, that for the achievement of any work\r
+regarded as an end there must be a prior exercise of many energies or\r
+acquired facilities of a secondary order, demanding patience. I have\r
+pointed to my own manuscript volumes, which represent the toil of years\r
+preparatory to a work not yet accomplished. But in vain. To careful\r
+reasoning of this kind he replies by calling himself Pegasus, and every\r
+form of prescribed work 'harness.'"\r
+\r
+Celia laughed. She was surprised to find that Mr. Casaubon could say\r
+something quite amusing.\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, he may turn out a Byron, a Chatterton, a\r
+Churchill--that sort of thing--there's no telling," said Mr. Brooke.\r
+"Shall you let him go to Italy, or wherever else he wants to go?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; I have agreed to furnish him with moderate supplies for a year or\r
+so; he asks no more. I shall let him be tried by the test of freedom."\r
+\r
+"That is very kind of you," said Dorothea, looking up at Mr. Casaubon\r
+with delight. "It is noble. After all, people may really have in them\r
+some vocation which is not quite plain to themselves, may they not?\r
+They may seem idle and weak because they are growing. We should be\r
+very patient with each other, I think."\r
+\r
+"I suppose it is being engaged to be married that has made you think\r
+patience good," said Celia, as soon as she and Dorothea were alone\r
+together, taking off their wrappings.\r
+\r
+"You mean that I am very impatient, Celia."\r
+\r
+"Yes; when people don't do and say just what you like." Celia had\r
+become less afraid of "saying things" to Dorothea since this\r
+engagement: cleverness seemed to her more pitiable than ever.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X.\r
+\r
+ "He had catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes\r
+ to wear than the skin of a bear not yet killed."--FULLER.\r
+\r
+\r
+Young Ladislaw did not pay that visit to which Mr. Brooke had invited\r
+him, and only six days afterwards Mr. Casaubon mentioned that his young\r
+relative had started for the Continent, seeming by this cold vagueness\r
+to waive inquiry. Indeed, Will had declined to fix on any more precise\r
+destination than the entire area of Europe. Genius, he held, is\r
+necessarily intolerant of fetters: on the one hand it must have the\r
+utmost play for its spontaneity; on the other, it may confidently await\r
+those messages from the universe which summon it to its peculiar work,\r
+only placing itself in an attitude of receptivity towards all sublime\r
+chances. The attitudes of receptivity are various, and Will had\r
+sincerely tried many of them. He was not excessively fond of wine, but\r
+he had several times taken too much, simply as an experiment in that\r
+form of ecstasy; he had fasted till he was faint, and then supped on\r
+lobster; he had made himself ill with doses of opium. Nothing greatly\r
+original had resulted from these measures; and the effects of the opium\r
+had convinced him that there was an entire dissimilarity between his\r
+constitution and De Quincey's. The superadded circumstance which would\r
+evolve the genius had not yet come; the universe had not yet beckoned.\r
+Even Caesar's fortune at one time was, but a grand presentiment. We\r
+know what a masquerade all development is, and what effective shapes\r
+may be disguised in helpless embryos.--In fact, the world is full of\r
+hopeful analogies and handsome dubious eggs called possibilities. Will\r
+saw clearly enough the pitiable instances of long incubation producing\r
+no chick, and but for gratitude would have laughed at Casaubon, whose\r
+plodding application, rows of note-books, and small taper of learned\r
+theory exploring the tossed ruins of the world, seemed to enforce a\r
+moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous reliance on the\r
+intentions of the universe with regard to himself. He held that\r
+reliance to be a mark of genius; and certainly it is no mark to the\r
+contrary; genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor in humility,\r
+but in a power to make or do, not anything in general, but something in\r
+particular. Let him start for the Continent, then, without our\r
+pronouncing on his future. Among all forms of mistake, prophecy is the\r
+most gratuitous.\r
+\r
+But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests me\r
+more in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin. If to\r
+Dorothea Mr. Casaubon had been the mere occasion which had set alight\r
+the fine inflammable material of her youthful illusions, does it follow\r
+that he was fairly represented in the minds of those less impassioned\r
+personages who have hitherto delivered their judgments concerning him?\r
+I protest against any absolute conclusion, any prejudice derived from\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a neighboring clergyman's alleged\r
+greatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor opinion of his rival's\r
+legs,--from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit a companion's ideas, or from\r
+Celia's criticism of a middle-aged scholar's personal appearance. I am\r
+not sure that the greatest man of his age, if ever that solitary\r
+superlative existed, could escape these unfavorable reflections of\r
+himself in various small mirrors; and even Milton, looking for his\r
+portrait in a spoon, must submit to have the facial angle of a bumpkin.\r
+Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon, speaking for himself, has rather a chilling\r
+rhetoric, it is not therefore certain that there is no good work or\r
+fine feeling in him. Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of\r
+hieroglyphs write detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar\r
+system been advanced by graceful manners and conversational tact?\r
+Suppose we turn from outside estimates of a man, to wonder, with keener\r
+interest, what is the report of his own consciousness about his doings\r
+or capacity: with what hindrances he is carrying on his daily labors;\r
+what fading of hopes, or what deeper fixity of self-delusion the years\r
+are marking off within him; and with what spirit he wrestles against\r
+universal pressure, which will one day be too heavy for him, and bring\r
+his heart to its final pause. Doubtless his lot is important in his\r
+own eyes; and the chief reason that we think he asks too large a place\r
+in our consideration must be our want of room for him, since we refer\r
+him to the Divine regard with perfect confidence; nay, it is even held\r
+sublime for our neighbor to expect the utmost there, however little he\r
+may have got from us. Mr. Casaubon, too, was the centre of his own\r
+world; if he was liable to think that others were providentially made\r
+for him, and especially to consider them in the light of their fitness\r
+for the author of a "Key to all Mythologies," this trait is not quite\r
+alien to us, and, like the other mendicant hopes of mortals, claims\r
+some of our pity.\r
+\r
+Certainly this affair of his marriage with Miss Brooke touched him more\r
+nearly than it did any one of the persons who have hitherto shown their\r
+disapproval of it, and in the present stage of things I feel more\r
+tenderly towards his experience of success than towards the\r
+disappointment of the amiable Sir James. For in truth, as the day\r
+fixed for his marriage came nearer, Mr. Casaubon did not find his\r
+spirits rising; nor did the contemplation of that matrimonial garden\r
+scene, where, as all experience showed, the path was to be bordered\r
+with flowers, prove persistently more enchanting to him than the\r
+accustomed vaults where he walked taper in hand. He did not confess to\r
+himself, still less could he have breathed to another, his surprise\r
+that though he had won a lovely and noble-hearted girl he had not won\r
+delight,--which he had also regarded as an object to be found by\r
+search. It is true that he knew all the classical passages implying\r
+the contrary; but knowing classical passages, we find, is a mode of\r
+motion, which explains why they leave so little extra force for their\r
+personal application.\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Casaubon had imagined that his long studious bachelorhood had\r
+stored up for him a compound interest of enjoyment, and that large\r
+drafts on his affections would not fail to be honored; for we all of\r
+us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors, and act\r
+fatally on the strength of them. And now he was in danger of being\r
+saddened by the very conviction that his circumstances were unusually\r
+happy: there was nothing external by which he could account for a\r
+certain blankness of sensibility which came over him just when his\r
+expectant gladness should have been most lively, just when he exchanged\r
+the accustomed dulness of his Lowick library for his visits to the\r
+Grange. Here was a weary experience in which he was as utterly\r
+condemned to loneliness as in the despair which sometimes threatened\r
+him while toiling in the morass of authorship without seeming nearer to\r
+the goal. And his was that worst loneliness which would shrink from\r
+sympathy. He could not but wish that Dorothea should think him not\r
+less happy than the world would expect her successful suitor to be; and\r
+in relation to his authorship he leaned on her young trust and\r
+veneration, he liked to draw forth her fresh interest in listening, as\r
+a means of encouragement to himself: in talking to her he presented all\r
+his performance and intention with the reflected confidence of the\r
+pedagogue, and rid himself for the time of that chilling ideal audience\r
+which crowded his laborious uncreative hours with the vaporous pressure\r
+of Tartarean shades.\r
+\r
+For to Dorothea, after that toy-box history of the world adapted to\r
+young ladies which had made the chief part of her education, Mr.\r
+Casaubon's talk about his great book was full of new vistas; and this\r
+sense of revelation, this surprise of a nearer introduction to Stoics\r
+and Alexandrians, as people who had ideas not totally unlike her own,\r
+kept in abeyance for the time her usual eagerness for a binding theory\r
+which could bring her own life and doctrine into strict connection with\r
+that amazing past, and give the remotest sources of knowledge some\r
+bearing on her actions. That more complete teaching would come--Mr.\r
+Casaubon would tell her all that: she was looking forward to higher\r
+initiation in ideas, as she was looking forward to marriage, and\r
+blending her dim conceptions of both. It would be a great mistake to\r
+suppose that Dorothea would have cared about any share in Mr.\r
+Casaubon's learning as mere accomplishment; for though opinion in the\r
+neighborhood of Freshitt and Tipton had pronounced her clever, that\r
+epithet would not have described her to circles in whose more precise\r
+vocabulary cleverness implies mere aptitude for knowing and doing,\r
+apart from character. All her eagerness for acquirement lay within\r
+that full current of sympathetic motive in which her ideas and impulses\r
+were habitually swept along. She did not want to deck herself with\r
+knowledge--to wear it loose from the nerves and blood that fed her\r
+action; and if she had written a book she must have done it as Saint\r
+Theresa did, under the command of an authority that constrained her\r
+conscience. But something she yearned for by which her life might be\r
+filled with action at once rational and ardent; and since the time was\r
+gone by for guiding visions and spiritual directors, since prayer\r
+heightened yearning but not instruction, what lamp was there but\r
+knowledge? Surely learned men kept the only oil; and who more learned\r
+than Mr. Casaubon?\r
+\r
+Thus in these brief weeks Dorothea's joyous grateful expectation was\r
+unbroken, and however her lover might occasionally be conscious of\r
+flatness, he could never refer it to any slackening of her affectionate\r
+interest.\r
+\r
+The season was mild enough to encourage the project of extending the\r
+wedding journey as far as Rome, and Mr. Casaubon was anxious for this\r
+because he wished to inspect some manuscripts in the Vatican.\r
+\r
+"I still regret that your sister is not to accompany us," he said one\r
+morning, some time after it had been ascertained that Celia objected to\r
+go, and that Dorothea did not wish for her companionship. "You will\r
+have many lonely hours, Dorothea, for I shall be constrained to make\r
+the utmost use of my time during our stay in Rome, and I should feel\r
+more at liberty if you had a companion."\r
+\r
+The words "I should feel more at liberty" grated on Dorothea. For the\r
+first time in speaking to Mr. Casaubon she colored from annoyance.\r
+\r
+"You must have misunderstood me very much," she said, "if you think I\r
+should not enter into the value of your time--if you think that I\r
+should not willingly give up whatever interfered with your using it to\r
+the best purpose."\r
+\r
+"That is very amiable in you, my dear Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon, not\r
+in the least noticing that she was hurt; "but if you had a lady as your\r
+companion, I could put you both under the care of a cicerone, and we\r
+could thus achieve two purposes in the same space of time."\r
+\r
+"I beg you will not refer to this again," said Dorothea, rather\r
+haughtily. But immediately she feared that she was wrong, and turning\r
+towards him she laid her hand on his, adding in a different tone, "Pray\r
+do not be anxious about me. I shall have so much to think of when I am\r
+alone. And Tantripp will be a sufficient companion, just to take care\r
+of me. I could not bear to have Celia: she would be miserable."\r
+\r
+It was time to dress. There was to be a dinner-party that day, the\r
+last of the parties which were held at the Grange as proper\r
+preliminaries to the wedding, and Dorothea was glad of a reason for\r
+moving away at once on the sound of the bell, as if she needed more\r
+than her usual amount of preparation. She was ashamed of being\r
+irritated from some cause she could not define even to herself; for\r
+though she had no intention to be untruthful, her reply had not touched\r
+the real hurt within her. Mr. Casaubon's words had been quite\r
+reasonable, yet they had brought a vague instantaneous sense of\r
+aloofness on his part.\r
+\r
+"Surely I am in a strangely selfish weak state of mind," she said to\r
+herself. "How can I have a husband who is so much above me without\r
+knowing that he needs me less than I need him?"\r
+\r
+Having convinced herself that Mr. Casaubon was altogether right, she\r
+recovered her equanimity, and was an agreeable image of serene dignity\r
+when she came into the drawing-room in her silver-gray dress--the\r
+simple lines of her dark-brown hair parted over her brow and coiled\r
+massively behind, in keeping with the entire absence from her manner\r
+and expression of all search after mere effect. Sometimes when\r
+Dorothea was in company, there seemed to be as complete an air of\r
+repose about her as if she had been a picture of Santa Barbara looking\r
+out from her tower into the clear air; but these intervals of quietude\r
+made the energy of her speech and emotion the more remarked when some\r
+outward appeal had touched her.\r
+\r
+She was naturally the subject of many observations this evening, for\r
+the dinner-party was large and rather more miscellaneous as to the male\r
+portion than any which had been held at the Grange since Mr. Brooke's\r
+nieces had resided with him, so that the talking was done in duos and\r
+trios more or less inharmonious. There was the newly elected mayor of\r
+Middlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropic\r
+banker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that\r
+some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the\r
+resources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men.\r
+In fact, Mrs. Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the\r
+Middlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner,\r
+who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their\r
+grandfathers' furniture. For in that part of the country, before\r
+reform had done its notable part in developing the political\r
+consciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmer\r
+distinction of parties; so that Mr. Brooke's miscellaneous invitations\r
+seemed to belong to that general laxity which came from his inordinate\r
+travel and habit of taking too much in the form of ideas.\r
+\r
+Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity was\r
+found for some interjectional "asides."\r
+\r
+"A fine woman, Miss Brooke! an uncommonly fine woman, by God!" said Mr.\r
+Standish, the old lawyer, who had been so long concerned with the\r
+landed gentry that he had become landed himself, and used that oath in\r
+a deep-mouthed manner as a sort of armorial bearings, stamping the\r
+speech of a man who held a good position.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman\r
+disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was\r
+taken up by Mr. Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing\r
+celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few\r
+hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of\r
+a distinguished appearance.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a\r
+little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a\r
+woman--something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge.\r
+The more of a dead set she makes at you the better."\r
+\r
+"There's some truth in that," said Mr. Standish, disposed to be genial.\r
+"And, by God, it's usually the way with them. I suppose it answers\r
+some wise ends: Providence made them so, eh, Bulstrode?"\r
+\r
+"I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source," said Mr.\r
+Bulstrode. "I should rather refer it to the devil."\r
+\r
+"Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman," said Mr.\r
+Chichely, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental\r
+to his theology. "And I like them blond, with a certain gait, and a\r
+swan neck. Between ourselves, the mayor's daughter is more to my taste\r
+than Miss Brooke or Miss Celia either. If I were a marrying man I\r
+should choose Miss Vincy before either of them."\r
+\r
+"Well, make up, make up," said Mr. Standish, jocosely; "you see the\r
+middle-aged fellows early the day."\r
+\r
+Mr. Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to\r
+incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose.\r
+\r
+The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr. Chichely's ideal was of\r
+course not present; for Mr. Brooke, always objecting to go too far,\r
+would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a\r
+Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. The\r
+feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs. Renfrew, the colonel's widow, was\r
+not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on\r
+the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed\r
+clearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might need\r
+the supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her own\r
+remarkable health to home-made bitters united with constant medical\r
+attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs.\r
+Renfrew's account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her\r
+case of all strengthening medicines.\r
+\r
+"Where can all the strength of those medicines go, my dear?" said the\r
+mild but stately dowager, turning to Mrs. Cadwallader reflectively,\r
+when Mrs. Renfrew's attention was called away.\r
+\r
+"It strengthens the disease," said the Rector's wife, much too\r
+well-born not to be an amateur in medicine. "Everything depends on the\r
+constitution: some people make fat, some blood, and some bile--that's\r
+my view of the matter; and whatever they take is a sort of grist to the\r
+mill."\r
+\r
+"Then she ought to take medicines that would reduce--reduce the\r
+disease, you know, if you are right, my dear. And I think what you say\r
+is reasonable."\r
+\r
+"Certainly it is reasonable. You have two sorts of potatoes, fed on\r
+the same soil. One of them grows more and more watery--"\r
+\r
+"Ah! like this poor Mrs. Renfrew--that is what I think. Dropsy! There\r
+is no swelling yet--it is inward. I should say she ought to take\r
+drying medicines, shouldn't you?--or a dry hot-air bath. Many things\r
+might be tried, of a drying nature."\r
+\r
+"Let her try a certain person's pamphlets," said Mrs. Cadwallader in an\r
+undertone, seeing the gentlemen enter. "He does not want drying."\r
+\r
+"Who, my dear?" said Lady Chettam, a charming woman, not so quick as to\r
+nullify the pleasure of explanation.\r
+\r
+"The bridegroom--Casaubon. He has certainly been drying up faster since\r
+the engagement: the flame of passion, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"I should think he is far from having a good constitution," said Lady\r
+Chettam, with a still deeper undertone. "And then his studies--so very\r
+dry, as you say."\r
+\r
+"Really, by the side of Sir James, he looks like a death's head skinned\r
+over for the occasion. Mark my words: in a year from this time that\r
+girl will hate him. She looks up to him as an oracle now, and\r
+by-and-by she will be at the other extreme. All flightiness!"\r
+\r
+"How very shocking! I fear she is headstrong. But tell me--you know\r
+all about him--is there anything very bad? What is the truth?"\r
+\r
+"The truth? he is as bad as the wrong physic--nasty to take, and sure\r
+to disagree."\r
+\r
+"There could not be anything worse than that," said Lady Chettam, with\r
+so vivid a conception of the physic that she seemed to have learned\r
+something exact about Mr. Casaubon's disadvantages. "However, James\r
+will hear nothing against Miss Brooke. He says she is the mirror of\r
+women still."\r
+\r
+"That is a generous make-believe of his. Depend upon it, he likes\r
+little Celia better, and she appreciates him. I hope you like my\r
+little Celia?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly; she is fonder of geraniums, and seems more docile, though\r
+not so fine a figure. But we were talking of physic. Tell me about\r
+this new young surgeon, Mr. Lydgate. I am told he is wonderfully\r
+clever: he certainly looks it--a fine brow indeed."\r
+\r
+"He is a gentleman. I heard him talking to Humphrey. He talks well."\r
+\r
+"Yes. Mr. Brooke says he is one of the Lydgates of Northumberland,\r
+really well connected. One does not expect it in a practitioner of\r
+that kind. For my own part, I like a medical man more on a footing\r
+with the servants; they are often all the cleverer. I assure you I\r
+found poor Hicks's judgment unfailing; I never knew him wrong. He was\r
+coarse and butcher-like, but he knew my constitution. It was a loss to\r
+me his going off so suddenly. Dear me, what a very animated\r
+conversation Miss Brooke seems to be having with this Mr. Lydgate!"\r
+\r
+"She is talking cottages and hospitals with him," said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, whose ears and power of interpretation were quick. "I\r
+believe he is a sort of philanthropist, so Brooke is sure to take him\r
+up."\r
+\r
+"James," said Lady Chettam when her son came near, "bring Mr. Lydgate\r
+and introduce him to me. I want to test him."\r
+\r
+The affable dowager declared herself delighted with this opportunity of\r
+making Mr. Lydgate's acquaintance, having heard of his success in\r
+treating fever on a new plan.\r
+\r
+Mr. Lydgate had the medical accomplishment of looking perfectly grave\r
+whatever nonsense was talked to him, and his dark steady eyes gave him\r
+impressiveness as a listener. He was as little as possible like the\r
+lamented Hicks, especially in a certain careless refinement about his\r
+toilet and utterance. Yet Lady Chettam gathered much confidence in\r
+him. He confirmed her view of her own constitution as being peculiar,\r
+by admitting that all constitutions might be called peculiar, and he\r
+did not deny that hers might be more peculiar than others. He did not\r
+approve of a too lowering system, including reckless cupping, nor, on\r
+the other hand, of incessant port wine and bark. He said "I think so"\r
+with an air of so much deference accompanying the insight of agreement,\r
+that she formed the most cordial opinion of his talents.\r
+\r
+"I am quite pleased with your protege," she said to Mr. Brooke before\r
+going away.\r
+\r
+"My protege?--dear me!--who is that?" said Mr. Brooke.\r
+\r
+"This young Lydgate, the new doctor. He seems to me to understand his\r
+profession admirably."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Lydgate! he is not my protege, you know; only I knew an uncle of\r
+his who sent me a letter about him. However, I think he is likely to\r
+be first-rate--has studied in Paris, knew Broussais; has ideas, you\r
+know--wants to raise the profession."\r
+\r
+"Lydgate has lots of ideas, quite new, about ventilation and diet, that\r
+sort of thing," resumed Mr. Brooke, after he had handed out Lady\r
+Chettam, and had returned to be civil to a group of Middlemarchers.\r
+\r
+"Hang it, do you think that is quite sound?--upsetting The old\r
+treatment, which has made Englishmen what they are?" said Mr. Standish.\r
+\r
+"Medical knowledge is at a low ebb among us," said Mr. Bulstrode, who\r
+spoke in a subdued tone, and had rather a sickly air. "I, for my part,\r
+hail the advent of Mr. Lydgate. I hope to find good reason for\r
+confiding the new hospital to his management."\r
+\r
+"That is all very fine," replied Mr. Standish, who was not fond of Mr.\r
+Bulstrode; "if you like him to try experiments on your hospital\r
+patients, and kill a few people for charity I have no objection. But I\r
+am not going to hand money out of my purse to have experiments tried on\r
+me. I like treatment that has been tested a little."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Standish, every dose you take is an experiment-an\r
+experiment, you know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding towards the lawyer.\r
+\r
+"Oh, if you talk in that sense!" said Mr. Standish, with as much\r
+disgust at such non-legal quibbling as a man can well betray towards a\r
+valuable client.\r
+\r
+"I should be glad of any treatment that would cure me without reducing\r
+me to a skeleton, like poor Grainger," said Mr. Vincy, the mayor, a\r
+florid man, who would have served for a study of flesh in striking\r
+contrast with the Franciscan tints of Mr. Bulstrode. "It's an\r
+uncommonly dangerous thing to be left without any padding against the\r
+shafts of disease, as somebody said,--and I think it a very good\r
+expression myself."\r
+\r
+Mr. Lydgate, of course, was out of hearing. He had quitted the party\r
+early, and would have thought it altogether tedious but for the novelty\r
+of certain introductions, especially the introduction to Miss Brooke,\r
+whose youthful bloom, with her approaching marriage to that faded\r
+scholar, and her interest in matters socially useful, gave her the\r
+piquancy of an unusual combination.\r
+\r
+"She is a good creature--that fine girl--but a little too earnest," he\r
+thought. "It is troublesome to talk to such women. They are always\r
+wanting reasons, yet they are too ignorant to understand the merits of\r
+any question, and usually fall back on their moral sense to settle\r
+things after their own taste."\r
+\r
+Evidently Miss Brooke was not Mr. Lydgate's style of woman any more\r
+than Mr. Chichely's. Considered, indeed, in relation to the latter,\r
+whose mind was matured, she was altogether a mistake, and calculated to\r
+shock his trust in final causes, including the adaptation of fine young\r
+women to purplefaced bachelors. But Lydgate was less ripe, and might\r
+possibly have experience before him which would modify his opinion as\r
+to the most excellent things in woman.\r
+\r
+Miss Brooke, however, was not again seen by either of these gentlemen\r
+under her maiden name. Not long after that dinner-party she had become\r
+Mrs. Casaubon, and was on her way to Rome.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI.\r
+\r
+ "But deeds and language such as men do use,\r
+ And persons such as comedy would choose,\r
+ When she would show an image of the times,\r
+ And sport with human follies, not with crimes."\r
+ --BEN JONSON.\r
+\r
+\r
+Lydgate, in fact, was already conscious of being fascinated by a woman\r
+strikingly different from Miss Brooke: he did not in the least suppose\r
+that he had lost his balance and fallen in love, but he had said of\r
+that particular woman, "She is grace itself; she is perfectly lovely\r
+and accomplished. That is what a woman ought to be: she ought to\r
+produce the effect of exquisite music." Plain women he regarded as he\r
+did the other severe facts of life, to be faced with philosophy and\r
+investigated by science. But Rosamond Vincy seemed to have the true\r
+melodic charm; and when a man has seen the woman whom he would have\r
+chosen if he had intended to marry speedily, his remaining a bachelor\r
+will usually depend on her resolution rather than on his. Lydgate\r
+believed that he should not marry for several years: not marry until he\r
+had trodden out a good clear path for himself away from the broad road\r
+which was quite ready made. He had seen Miss Vincy above his horizon\r
+almost as long as it had taken Mr. Casaubon to become engaged and\r
+married: but this learned gentleman was possessed of a fortune; he had\r
+assembled his voluminous notes, and had made that sort of reputation\r
+which precedes performance,--often the larger part of a man's fame. He\r
+took a wife, as we have seen, to adorn the remaining quadrant of his\r
+course, and be a little moon that would cause hardly a calculable\r
+perturbation. But Lydgate was young, poor, ambitious. He had his\r
+half-century before him instead of behind him, and he had come to\r
+Middlemarch bent on doing many things that were not directly fitted to\r
+make his fortune or even secure him a good income. To a man under such\r
+circumstances, taking a wife is something more than a question of\r
+adornment, however highly he may rate this; and Lydgate was disposed to\r
+give it the first place among wifely functions. To his taste, guided\r
+by a single conversation, here was the point on which Miss Brooke would\r
+be found wanting, notwithstanding her undeniable beauty. She did not\r
+look at things from the proper feminine angle. The society of such\r
+women was about as relaxing as going from your work to teach the second\r
+form, instead of reclining in a paradise with sweet laughs for\r
+bird-notes, and blue eyes for a heaven.\r
+\r
+Certainly nothing at present could seem much less important to Lydgate\r
+than the turn of Miss Brooke's mind, or to Miss Brooke than the\r
+qualities of the woman who had attracted this young surgeon. But any\r
+one watching keenly the stealthy convergence of human lots, sees a slow\r
+preparation of effects from one life on another, which tells like a\r
+calculated irony on the indifference or the frozen stare with which we\r
+look at our unintroduced neighbor. Destiny stands by sarcastic with\r
+our dramatis personae folded in her hand.\r
+\r
+Old provincial society had its share of this subtle movement: had not\r
+only its striking downfalls, its brilliant young professional dandies\r
+who ended by living up an entry with a drab and six children for their\r
+establishment, but also those less marked vicissitudes which are\r
+constantly shifting the boundaries of social intercourse, and begetting\r
+new consciousness of interdependence. Some slipped a little downward,\r
+some got higher footing: people denied aspirates, gained wealth, and\r
+fastidious gentlemen stood for boroughs; some were caught in political\r
+currents, some in ecclesiastical, and perhaps found themselves\r
+surprisingly grouped in consequence; while a few personages or families\r
+that stood with rocky firmness amid all this fluctuation, were slowly\r
+presenting new aspects in spite of solidity, and altering with the\r
+double change of self and beholder. Municipal town and rural parish\r
+gradually made fresh threads of connection--gradually, as the old\r
+stocking gave way to the savings-bank, and the worship of the solar\r
+guinea became extinct; while squires and baronets, and even lords who\r
+had once lived blamelessly afar from the civic mind, gathered the\r
+faultiness of closer acquaintanceship. Settlers, too, came from\r
+distant counties, some with an alarming novelty of skill, others with\r
+an offensive advantage in cunning. In fact, much the same sort of\r
+movement and mixture went on in old England as we find in older\r
+Herodotus, who also, in telling what had been, thought it well to take\r
+a woman's lot for his starting-point; though Io, as a maiden apparently\r
+beguiled by attractive merchandise, was the reverse of Miss Brooke, and\r
+in this respect perhaps bore more resemblance to Rosamond Vincy, who\r
+had excellent taste in costume, with that nymph-like figure and pure\r
+blindness which give the largest range to choice in the flow and color\r
+of drapery. But these things made only part of her charm. She was\r
+admitted to be the flower of Mrs. Lemon's school, the chief school in\r
+the county, where the teaching included all that was demanded in the\r
+accomplished female--even to extras, such as the getting in and out of\r
+a carriage. Mrs. Lemon herself had always held up Miss Vincy as an\r
+example: no pupil, she said, exceeded that young lady for mental\r
+acquisition and propriety of speech, while her musical execution was\r
+quite exceptional. We cannot help the way in which people speak of us,\r
+and probably if Mrs. Lemon had undertaken to describe Juliet or Imogen,\r
+these heroines would not have seemed poetical. The first vision of\r
+Rosamond would have been enough with most judges to dispel any\r
+prejudice excited by Mrs. Lemon's praise.\r
+\r
+Lydgate could not be long in Middlemarch without having that agreeable\r
+vision, or even without making the acquaintance of the Vincy family;\r
+for though Mr. Peacock, whose practice he had paid something to enter\r
+on, had not been their doctor (Mrs. Vincy not liking the lowering\r
+system adopted by him), he had many patients among their connections\r
+and acquaintances. For who of any consequence in Middlemarch was not\r
+connected or at least acquainted with the Vincys? They were old\r
+manufacturers, and had kept a good house for three generations, in\r
+which there had naturally been much intermarrying with neighbors more\r
+or less decidedly genteel. Mr. Vincy's sister had made a wealthy match\r
+in accepting Mr. Bulstrode, who, however, as a man not born in the\r
+town, and altogether of dimly known origin, was considered to have done\r
+well in uniting himself with a real Middlemarch family; on the other\r
+hand, Mr. Vincy had descended a little, having taken an innkeeper's\r
+daughter. But on this side too there was a cheering sense of money;\r
+for Mrs. Vincy's sister had been second wife to rich old Mr.\r
+Featherstone, and had died childless years ago, so that her nephews and\r
+nieces might be supposed to touch the affections of the widower. And\r
+it happened that Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Featherstone, two of Peacock's\r
+most important patients, had, from different causes, given an\r
+especially good reception to his successor, who had raised some\r
+partisanship as well as discussion. Mr. Wrench, medical attendant to\r
+the Vincy family, very early had grounds for thinking lightly of\r
+Lydgate's professional discretion, and there was no report about him\r
+which was not retailed at the Vincys', where visitors were frequent.\r
+Mr. Vincy was more inclined to general good-fellowship than to taking\r
+sides, but there was no need for him to be hasty in making any new man\r
+acquaintance. Rosamond silently wished that her father would invite\r
+Mr. Lydgate. She was tired of the faces and figures she had always\r
+been used to--the various irregular profiles and gaits and turns of\r
+phrase distinguishing those Middlemarch young men whom she had known as\r
+boys. She had been at school with girls of higher position, whose\r
+brothers, she felt sure, it would have been possible for her to be more\r
+interested in, than in these inevitable Middlemarch companions. But\r
+she would not have chosen to mention her wish to her father; and he,\r
+for his part, was in no hurry on the subject. An alderman about to be\r
+mayor must by-and-by enlarge his dinner-parties, but at present there\r
+were plenty of guests at his well-spread table.\r
+\r
+That table often remained covered with the relics of the family\r
+breakfast long after Mr. Vincy had gone with his second son to the\r
+warehouse, and when Miss Morgan was already far on in morning lessons\r
+with the younger girls in the schoolroom. It awaited the family\r
+laggard, who found any sort of inconvenience (to others) less\r
+disagreeable than getting up when he was called. This was the case one\r
+morning of the October in which we have lately seen Mr. Casaubon\r
+visiting the Grange; and though the room was a little overheated with\r
+the fire, which had sent the spaniel panting to a remote corner,\r
+Rosamond, for some reason, continued to sit at her embroidery longer\r
+than usual, now and then giving herself a little shake, and laying her\r
+work on her knee to contemplate it with an air of hesitating weariness.\r
+Her mamma, who had returned from an excursion to the kitchen, sat on\r
+the other side of the small work-table with an air of more entire\r
+placidity, until, the clock again giving notice that it was going to\r
+strike, she looked up from the lace-mending which was occupying her\r
+plump fingers and rang the bell.\r
+\r
+"Knock at Mr. Fred's door again, Pritchard, and tell him it has struck\r
+half-past ten."\r
+\r
+This was said without any change in the radiant good-humor of Mrs.\r
+Vincy's face, in which forty-five years had delved neither angles nor\r
+parallels; and pushing back her pink capstrings, she let her work rest\r
+on her lap, while she looked admiringly at her daughter.\r
+\r
+"Mamma," said Rosamond, "when Fred comes down I wish you would not let\r
+him have red herrings. I cannot bear the smell of them all over the\r
+house at this hour of the morning."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, you are so hard on your brothers! It is the only fault I\r
+have to find with you. You are the sweetest temper in the world, but\r
+you are so tetchy with your brothers."\r
+\r
+"Not tetchy, mamma: you never hear me speak in an unladylike way."\r
+\r
+"Well, but you want to deny them things."\r
+\r
+"Brothers are so unpleasant."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, you must allow for young men. Be thankful if they have\r
+good hearts. A woman must learn to put up with little things. You\r
+will be married some day."\r
+\r
+"Not to any one who is like Fred."\r
+\r
+"Don't decry your own brother, my dear. Few young men have less\r
+against them, although he couldn't take his degree--I'm sure I can't\r
+understand why, for he seems to me most clever. And you know yourself\r
+he was thought equal to the best society at college. So particular as\r
+you are, my dear, I wonder you are not glad to have such a gentlemanly\r
+young man for a brother. You are always finding fault with Bob because\r
+he is not Fred."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, mamma, only because he is Bob."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, you will not find any Middlemarch young man who has not\r
+something against him."\r
+\r
+"But"--here Rosamond's face broke into a smile which suddenly revealed\r
+two dimples. She herself thought unfavorably of these dimples and\r
+smiled little in general society. "But I shall not marry any\r
+Middlemarch young man."\r
+\r
+"So it seems, my love, for you have as good as refused the pick of\r
+them; and if there's better to be had, I'm sure there's no girl better\r
+deserves it."\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, mamma--I wish you would not say, 'the pick of them.'"\r
+\r
+"Why, what else are they?"\r
+\r
+"I mean, mamma, it is rather a vulgar expression."\r
+\r
+"Very likely, my dear; I never was a good speaker. What should I say?"\r
+\r
+"The best of them."\r
+\r
+"Why, that seems just as plain and common. If I had had time to think,\r
+I should have said, 'the most superior young men.' But with your\r
+education you must know."\r
+\r
+"What must Rosy know, mother?" said Mr. Fred, who had slid in\r
+unobserved through the half-open door while the ladies were bending\r
+over their work, and now going up to the fire stood with his back\r
+towards it, warming the soles of his slippers.\r
+\r
+"Whether it's right to say 'superior young men,'" said Mrs. Vincy,\r
+ringing the bell.\r
+\r
+"Oh, there are so many superior teas and sugars now. Superior is\r
+getting to be shopkeepers' slang."\r
+\r
+"Are you beginning to dislike slang, then?" said Rosamond, with mild\r
+gravity.\r
+\r
+"Only the wrong sort. All choice of words is slang. It marks a class."\r
+\r
+"There is correct English: that is not slang."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon: correct English is the slang of prigs who write\r
+history and essays. And the strongest slang of all is the slang of\r
+poets."\r
+\r
+"You will say anything, Fred, to gain your point."\r
+\r
+"Well, tell me whether it is slang or poetry to call an ox a\r
+leg-plaiter."\r
+\r
+"Of course you can call it poetry if you like."\r
+\r
+"Aha, Miss Rosy, you don't know Homer from slang. I shall invent a new\r
+game; I shall write bits of slang and poetry on slips, and give them to\r
+you to separate."\r
+\r
+"Dear me, how amusing it is to hear young people talk!" said Mrs.\r
+Vincy, with cheerful admiration.\r
+\r
+"Have you got nothing else for my breakfast, Pritchard?" said Fred, to\r
+the servant who brought in coffee and buttered toast; while he walked\r
+round the table surveying the ham, potted beef, and other cold\r
+remnants, with an air of silent rejection, and polite forbearance from\r
+signs of disgust.\r
+\r
+"Should you like eggs, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Eggs, no! Bring me a grilled bone."\r
+\r
+"Really, Fred," said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, "if\r
+you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down\r
+earlier. You can get up at six o'clock to go out hunting; I cannot\r
+understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings."\r
+\r
+"That is your want of understanding, Rosy. I can get up to go hunting\r
+because I like it."\r
+\r
+"What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one\r
+else and ordered grilled bone?"\r
+\r
+"I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady," said Fred,\r
+eating his toast with the utmost composure.\r
+\r
+"I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable, any\r
+more than sisters."\r
+\r
+"I don't make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so.\r
+Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions."\r
+\r
+"I think it describes the smell of grilled bone."\r
+\r
+"Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose associated\r
+with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs. Lemon's\r
+school. Look at my mother; you don't see her objecting to everything\r
+except what she does herself. She is my notion of a pleasant woman."\r
+\r
+"Bless you both, my dears, and don't quarrel," said Mrs. Vincy, with\r
+motherly cordiality. "Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor.\r
+How is your uncle pleased with him?"\r
+\r
+"Pretty well, I think. He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions and then\r
+screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching\r
+his toes. That's his way. Ah, here comes my grilled bone."\r
+\r
+"But how came you to stay out so late, my dear? You only said you were\r
+going to your uncle's."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dined at Plymdale's. We had whist. Lydgate was there too."\r
+\r
+"And what do you think of him? He is very gentlemanly, I suppose.\r
+They say he is of excellent family--his relations quite county people."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Fred. "There was a Lydgate at John's who spent no end of\r
+money. I find this man is a second cousin of his. But rich men may\r
+have very poor devils for second cousins."\r
+\r
+"It always makes a difference, though, to be of good family," said\r
+Rosamond, with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on\r
+this subject. Rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she\r
+had not been the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer. She disliked\r
+anything which reminded her that her mother's father had been an\r
+innkeeper. Certainly any one remembering the fact might think that\r
+Mrs. Vincy had the air of a very handsome good-humored landlady,\r
+accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen.\r
+\r
+"I thought it was odd his name was Tertius," said the bright-faced\r
+matron, "but of course it's a name in the family. But now, tell us\r
+exactly what sort of man he is."\r
+\r
+"Oh, tallish, dark, clever--talks well--rather a prig, I think."\r
+\r
+"I never can make out what you mean by a prig," said Rosamond.\r
+\r
+"A fellow who wants to show that he has opinions."\r
+\r
+"Why, my dear, doctors must have opinions," said Mrs. Vincy. "What are\r
+they there for else?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, mother, the opinions they are paid for. But a prig is a fellow\r
+who is always making you a present of his opinions."\r
+\r
+"I suppose Mary Garth admires Mr. Lydgate," said Rosamond, not without\r
+a touch of innuendo.\r
+\r
+"Really, I can't say." said Fred, rather glumly, as he left the table,\r
+and taking up a novel which he had brought down with him, threw himself\r
+into an arm-chair. "If you are jealous of her, go oftener to Stone\r
+Court yourself and eclipse her."\r
+\r
+"I wish you would not be so vulgar, Fred. If you have finished, pray\r
+ring the bell."\r
+\r
+"It is true, though--what your brother says, Rosamond," Mrs. Vincy\r
+began, when the servant had cleared the table. "It is a thousand\r
+pities you haven't patience to go and see your uncle more, so proud of\r
+you as he is, and wanted you to live with him. There's no knowing what\r
+he might have done for you as well as for Fred. God knows, I'm fond of\r
+having you at home with me, but I can part with my children for their\r
+good. And now it stands to reason that your uncle Featherstone will do\r
+something for Mary Garth."\r
+\r
+"Mary Garth can bear being at Stone Court, because she likes that\r
+better than being a governess," said Rosamond, folding up her work. "I\r
+would rather not have anything left to me if I must earn it by enduring\r
+much of my uncle's cough and his ugly relations."\r
+\r
+"He can't be long for this world, my dear; I wouldn't hasten his end,\r
+but what with asthma and that inward complaint, let us hope there is\r
+something better for him in another. And I have no ill-will toward's\r
+Mary Garth, but there's justice to be thought of. And Mr.\r
+Featherstone's first wife brought him no money, as my sister did. Her\r
+nieces and nephews can't have so much claim as my sister's. And I must\r
+say I think Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl--more fit for a governess."\r
+\r
+"Every one would not agree with you there, mother," said Fred, who\r
+seemed to be able to read and listen too.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, wheeling skilfully, "if she _had_\r
+some fortune left her,--a man marries his wife's relations, and the\r
+Garths are so poor, and live in such a small way. But I shall leave\r
+you to your studies, my dear; for I must go and do some shopping."\r
+\r
+"Fred's studies are not very deep," said Rosamond, rising with her\r
+mamma, "he is only reading a novel."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, by-and-by he'll go to his Latin and things," said Mrs.\r
+Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son's head. "There's a fire in the\r
+smoking-room on purpose. It's your father's wish, you know--Fred, my\r
+dear--and I always tell him you will be good, and go to college again\r
+to take your degree."\r
+\r
+Fred drew his mother's hand down to his lips, but said nothing.\r
+\r
+"I suppose you are not going out riding to-day?" said Rosamond,\r
+lingering a little after her mamma was gone.\r
+\r
+"No; why?"\r
+\r
+"Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now."\r
+\r
+"You can go with me to-morrow, if you like. Only I am going to Stone\r
+Court, remember."\r
+\r
+"I want to ride so much, it is indifferent to me where we go." Rosamond\r
+really wished to go to Stone Court, of all other places.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I say, Rosy," said Fred, as she was passing out of the room, "if\r
+you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you."\r
+\r
+"Pray do not ask me this morning."\r
+\r
+"Why not this morning?"\r
+\r
+"Really, Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute. A man\r
+looks very silly playing the flute. And you play so out of tune."\r
+\r
+"When next any one makes love to you, Miss Rosamond, I will tell him\r
+how obliging you are."\r
+\r
+"Why should you expect me to oblige you by hearing you play the flute,\r
+any more than I should expect you to oblige me by not playing it?"\r
+\r
+"And why should you expect me to take you out riding?"\r
+\r
+This question led to an adjustment, for Rosamond had set her mind on\r
+that particular ride.\r
+\r
+So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour's practice of "Ar hyd y nos,"\r
+"Ye banks and braes," and other favorite airs from his "Instructor on\r
+the Flute;" a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and\r
+an irrepressible hopefulness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII.\r
+\r
+ "He had more tow on his distaffe\r
+ Than Gerveis knew."\r
+ --CHAUCER.\r
+\r
+\r
+The ride to Stone Court, which Fred and Rosamond took the next morning,\r
+lay through a pretty bit of midland landscape, almost all meadows and\r
+pastures, with hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to\r
+spread out coral fruit for the birds. Little details gave each field a\r
+particular physiognomy, dear to the eyes that have looked on them from\r
+childhood: the pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees\r
+leaned whisperingly; the great oak shadowing a bare place in\r
+mid-pasture; the high bank where the ash-trees grew; the sudden slope\r
+of the old marl-pit making a red background for the burdock; the\r
+huddled roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of\r
+approach; the gray gate and fences against the depths of the bordering\r
+wood; and the stray hovel, its old, old thatch full of mossy hills and\r
+valleys with wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel\r
+far to see in later life, and see larger, but not more beautiful.\r
+These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to\r
+midland-bred souls--the things they toddled among, or perhaps learned\r
+by heart standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.\r
+\r
+But the road, even the byroad, was excellent; for Lowick, as we have\r
+seen, was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants; and it was into\r
+Lowick parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles'\r
+riding. Another mile would bring them to Stone Court, and at the end\r
+of the first half, the house was already visible, looking as if it had\r
+been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected\r
+budding of farm-buildings on its left flank, which had hindered it from\r
+becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman\r
+farmer. It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for\r
+the cluster of pinnacled corn-ricks which balanced the fine row of\r
+walnuts on the right.\r
+\r
+Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on\r
+the circular drive before the front door.\r
+\r
+"Dear me," said Rosamond, "I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations\r
+are there."\r
+\r
+"They are, though. That is Mrs. Waule's gig--the last yellow gig left,\r
+I should think. When I see Mrs. Waule in it, I understand how yellow\r
+can have been worn for mourning. That gig seems to me more funereal\r
+than a hearse. But then Mrs. Waule always has black crape on. How\r
+does she manage it, Rosy? Her friends can't always be dying."\r
+\r
+"I don't know at all. And she is not in the least evangelical," said\r
+Rosamond, reflectively, as if that religious point of view would have\r
+fully accounted for perpetual crape. "And, not poor," she added, after\r
+a moment's pause.\r
+\r
+"No, by George! They are as rich as Jews, those Waules and\r
+Featherstones; I mean, for people like them, who don't want to spend\r
+anything. And yet they hang about my uncle like vultures, and are\r
+afraid of a farthing going away from their side of the family. But I\r
+believe he hates them all."\r
+\r
+The Mrs. Waule who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of these\r
+distant connections, had happened to say this very morning (not at all\r
+with a defiant air, but in a low, muffled, neutral tone, as of a voice\r
+heard through cotton wool) that she did not wish "to enjoy their good\r
+opinion." She was seated, as she observed, on her own brother's hearth,\r
+and had been Jane Featherstone five-and-twenty years before she had\r
+been Jane Waule, which entitled her to speak when her own brother's\r
+name had been made free with by those who had no right to it.\r
+\r
+"What are you driving at there?" said Mr. Featherstone, holding his\r
+stick between his knees and settling his wig, while he gave her a\r
+momentary sharp glance, which seemed to react on him like a draught of\r
+cold air and set him coughing.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Waule had to defer her answer till he was quiet again, till Mary\r
+Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup, and he had begun to rub the\r
+gold knob of his stick, looking bitterly at the fire. It was a bright\r
+fire, but it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of\r
+Mrs. Waule's face, which was as neutral as her voice; having mere\r
+chinks for eyes, and lips that hardly moved in speaking.\r
+\r
+"The doctors can't master that cough, brother. It's just like what I\r
+have; for I'm your own sister, constitution and everything. But, as I\r
+was saying, it's a pity Mrs. Vincy's family can't be better conducted."\r
+\r
+"Tchah! you said nothing o' the sort. You said somebody had made free\r
+with my name."\r
+\r
+"And no more than can be proved, if what everybody says is true. My\r
+brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down in Middlemarch how\r
+unsteady young Vincy is, and has been forever gambling at billiards\r
+since home he came."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! What's a game at billiards? It's a good gentlemanly game;\r
+and young Vincy is not a clodhopper. If your son John took to\r
+billiards, now, he'd make a fool of himself."\r
+\r
+"Your nephew John never took to billiards or any other game, brother,\r
+and is far from losing hundreds of pounds, which, if what everybody\r
+says is true, must be found somewhere else than out of Mr. Vincy the\r
+father's pocket. For they say he's been losing money for years, though\r
+nobody would think so, to see him go coursing and keeping open house as\r
+they do. And I've heard say Mr. Bulstrode condemns Mrs. Vincy beyond\r
+anything for her flightiness, and spoiling her children so."\r
+\r
+"What's Bulstrode to me? I don't bank with him."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mrs. Bulstrode is Mr. Vincy's own sister, and they do say that\r
+Mr. Vincy mostly trades on the Bank money; and you may see yourself,\r
+brother, when a woman past forty has pink strings always flying, and\r
+that light way of laughing at everything, it's very unbecoming. But\r
+indulging your children is one thing, and finding money to pay their\r
+debts is another. And it's openly said that young Vincy has raised\r
+money on his expectations. I don't say what expectations. Miss Garth\r
+hears me, and is welcome to tell again. I know young people hang\r
+together."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you, Mrs. Waule," said Mary Garth. "I dislike hearing\r
+scandal too much to wish to repeat it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief\r
+convulsive show of laughter, which had much the same genuineness as an\r
+old whist-player's chuckle over a bad hand. Still looking at the fire,\r
+he said--\r
+\r
+"And who pretends to say Fred Vincy hasn't got expectations? Such a\r
+fine, spirited fellow is like enough to have 'em."\r
+\r
+There was a slight pause before Mrs. Waule replied, and when she did\r
+so, her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears, though her\r
+face was still dry.\r
+\r
+"Whether or no, brother, it is naturally painful to me and my brother\r
+Solomon to hear your name made free with, and your complaint being such\r
+as may carry you off sudden, and people who are no more Featherstones\r
+than the Merry-Andrew at the fair, openly reckoning on your property\r
+coming to _them_. And me your own sister, and Solomon your own\r
+brother! And if that's to be it, what has it pleased the Almighty to\r
+make families for?" Here Mrs. Waule's tears fell, but with moderation.\r
+\r
+"Come, out with it, Jane!" said Mr. Featherstone, looking at her. "You\r
+mean to say, Fred Vincy has been getting somebody to advance him money\r
+on what he says he knows about my will, eh?"\r
+\r
+"I never said so, brother" (Mrs. Waule's voice had again become dry and\r
+unshaken). "It was told me by my brother Solomon last night when he\r
+called coming from market to give me advice about the old wheat, me\r
+being a widow, and my son John only three-and-twenty, though steady\r
+beyond anything. And he had it from most undeniable authority, and not\r
+one, but many."\r
+\r
+"Stuff and nonsense! I don't believe a word of it. It's all a got-up\r
+story. Go to the window, missy; I thought I heard a horse. See if the\r
+doctor's coming."\r
+\r
+"Not got up by me, brother, nor yet by Solomon, who, whatever else he\r
+may be--and I don't deny he has oddities--has made his will and parted\r
+his property equal between such kin as he's friends with; though, for\r
+my part, I think there are times when some should be considered more\r
+than others. But Solomon makes it no secret what he means to do."\r
+\r
+"The more fool he!" said Mr. Featherstone, with some difficulty;\r
+breaking into a severe fit of coughing that required Mary Garth to\r
+stand near him, so that she did not find out whose horses they were\r
+which presently paused stamping on the gravel before the door.\r
+\r
+Before Mr. Featherstone's cough was quiet, Rosamond entered, bearing up\r
+her riding-habit with much grace. She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs.\r
+Waule, who said stiffly, "How do you do, miss?" smiled and nodded\r
+silently to Mary, and remained standing till the coughing should cease,\r
+and allow her uncle to notice her.\r
+\r
+"Heyday, miss!" he said at last, "you have a fine color. Where's Fred?"\r
+\r
+"Seeing about the horses. He will be in presently."\r
+\r
+"Sit down, sit down. Mrs. Waule, you'd better go."\r
+\r
+Even those neighbors who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox, had\r
+never accused him of being insincerely polite, and his sister was quite\r
+used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense\r
+of blood-relationship. Indeed, she herself was accustomed to think that\r
+entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in\r
+the Almighty's intentions about families. She rose slowly without any\r
+sign of resentment, and said in her usual muffled monotone, "Brother, I\r
+hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you. Solomon says\r
+there's great talk of his cleverness. I'm sure it's my wish you should\r
+be spared. And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own\r
+sister and your own nieces, if you'd only say the word. There's\r
+Rebecca, and Joanna, and Elizabeth, you know."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, I remember--you'll see I've remembered 'em all--all dark and\r
+ugly. They'd need have some money, eh? There never was any beauty in\r
+the women of our family; but the Featherstones have always had some\r
+money, and the Waules too. Waule had money too. A warm man was Waule.\r
+Ay, ay; money's a good egg; and if you 've got money to leave behind\r
+you, lay it in a warm nest. Good-by, Mrs. Waule." Here Mr.\r
+Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to deafen\r
+himself, and his sister went away ruminating on this oracular speech of\r
+his. Notwithstanding her jealousy of the Vincys and of Mary Garth,\r
+there remained as the nethermost sediment in her mental shallows a\r
+persuasion that her brother Peter Featherstone could never leave his\r
+chief property away from his blood-relations:--else, why had the\r
+Almighty carried off his two wives both childless, after he had gained\r
+so much by manganese and things, turning up when nobody expected\r
+it?--and why was there a Lowick parish church, and the Waules and\r
+Powderells all sitting in the same pew for generations, and the\r
+Featherstone pew next to them, if, the Sunday after her brother Peter's\r
+death, everybody was to know that the property was gone out of the\r
+family? The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos; and so\r
+preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable. But we are\r
+frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable.\r
+\r
+When Fred came in the old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle, which\r
+the younger had often had reason to interpret as pride in the\r
+satisfactory details of his appearance.\r
+\r
+"You two misses go away," said Mr. Featherstone. "I want to speak to\r
+Fred."\r
+\r
+"Come into my room, Rosamond, you will not mind the cold for a little\r
+while," said Mary. The two girls had not only known each other in\r
+childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together (Mary as\r
+an articled pupil), so that they had many memories in common, and liked\r
+very well to talk in private. Indeed, this tete-a-tete was one of\r
+Rosamond's objects in coming to Stone Court.\r
+\r
+Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been\r
+closed. He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with\r
+one of his habitual grimaces, alternately screwing and widening his\r
+mouth; and when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken\r
+for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the\r
+tone of an offended senior. He was not a man to feel any strong moral\r
+indignation even on account of trespasses against himself. It was\r
+natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then,\r
+he was a little too cunning for them.\r
+\r
+"So, sir, you've been paying ten per cent for money which you've\r
+promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone, eh?\r
+You put my life at a twelvemonth, say. But I can alter my will yet."\r
+\r
+Fred blushed. He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent\r
+reasons. But he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence\r
+(perhaps with more than he exactly remembered) about his prospect of\r
+getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what you refer to, sir. I have certainly never borrowed\r
+any money on such an insecurity. Please do explain."\r
+\r
+"No, sir, it's you must explain. I can alter my will yet, let me tell\r
+you. I'm of sound mind--can reckon compound interest in my head, and\r
+remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago. What\r
+the deuce? I'm under eighty. I say, you must contradict this story."\r
+\r
+"I have contradicted it, sir," Fred answered, with a touch of\r
+impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally\r
+discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further\r
+from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often\r
+wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs. "But I\r
+contradict it again. The story is a silly lie."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! you must bring dockiments. It comes from authority."\r
+\r
+"Name the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the\r
+money, and then I can disprove the story."\r
+\r
+"It's pretty good authority, I think--a man who knows most of what goes\r
+on in Middlemarch. It's that fine, religious, charitable uncle o'\r
+yours. Come now!" Here Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake\r
+which signified merriment.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bulstrode?"\r
+\r
+"Who else, eh?"\r
+\r
+"Then the story has grown into this lie out of some sermonizing words\r
+he may have let fall about me. Do they pretend that he named the man\r
+who lent me the money?"\r
+\r
+"If there is such a man, depend upon it Bulstrode knows him. But,\r
+supposing you only tried to get the money lent, and didn't get\r
+it--Bulstrode 'ud know that too. You bring me a writing from Bulstrode\r
+to say he doesn't believe you've ever promised to pay your debts out o'\r
+my land. Come now!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Featherstone's face required its whole scale of grimaces as a\r
+muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.\r
+\r
+Fred felt himself to be in a disgusting dilemma.\r
+\r
+"You must be joking, sir. Mr. Bulstrode, like other men, believes\r
+scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me.\r
+I could easily get him to write that he knew no facts in proof of the\r
+report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness. But I\r
+could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe\r
+about me." Fred paused an instant, and then added, in politic appeal to\r
+his uncle's vanity, "That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask."\r
+But he was disappointed in the result.\r
+\r
+"Ay, I know what you mean. You'd sooner offend me than Bulstrode. And\r
+what's he?--he's got no land hereabout that ever I heard tell of. A\r
+speckilating fellow! He may come down any day, when the devil leaves\r
+off backing him. And that's what his religion means: he wants God\r
+A'mighty to come in. That's nonsense! There's one thing I made out\r
+pretty clear when I used to go to church--and it's this: God A'mighty\r
+sticks to the land. He promises land, and He gives land, and He makes\r
+chaps rich with corn and cattle. But you take the other side. You\r
+like Bulstrode and speckilation better than Featherstone and land."\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, sir," said Fred, rising, standing with his back to\r
+the fire and beating his boot with his whip. "I like neither Bulstrode\r
+nor speculation." He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated.\r
+\r
+"Well, well, you can do without me, that's pretty clear," said old\r
+Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show\r
+himself at all independent. "You neither want a bit of land to make a\r
+squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred\r
+pound by the way. It's all one to me. I can make five codicils if I\r
+like, and I shall keep my bank-notes for a nest-egg. It's all one to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+Fred colored again. Featherstone had rarely given him presents of\r
+money, and at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the\r
+immediate prospect of bank-notes than with the more distant prospect of\r
+the land.\r
+\r
+"I am not ungrateful, sir. I never meant to show disregard for any\r
+kind intentions you might have towards me. On the contrary."\r
+\r
+"Very good. Then prove it. You bring me a letter from Bulstrode\r
+saying he doesn't believe you've been cracking and promising to pay\r
+your debts out o' my land, and then, if there's any scrape you've got\r
+into, we'll see if I can't back you a bit. Come now! That's a\r
+bargain. Here, give me your arm. I'll try and walk round the room."\r
+\r
+Fred, in spite of his irritation, had kindness enough in him to be a\r
+little sorry for the unloved, unvenerated old man, who with his\r
+dropsical legs looked more than usually pitiable in walking. While\r
+giving his arm, he thought that he should not himself like to be an old\r
+fellow with his constitution breaking up; and he waited\r
+good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the wonted remarks\r
+about the guinea-fowls and the weather-cock, and then before the scanty\r
+book-shelves, of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus,\r
+Culpepper, Klopstock's "Messiah," and several volumes of the\r
+"Gentleman's Magazine."\r
+\r
+"Read me the names o' the books. Come now! you're a college man."\r
+\r
+Fred gave him the titles.\r
+\r
+"What did missy want with more books? What must you be bringing her\r
+more books for?"\r
+\r
+"They amuse her, sir. She is very fond of reading."\r
+\r
+"A little too fond," said Mr. Featherstone, captiously. "She was for\r
+reading when she sat with me. But I put a stop to that. She's got the\r
+newspaper to read out loud. That's enough for one day, I should think.\r
+I can't abide to see her reading to herself. You mind and not bring\r
+her any more books, do you hear?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I hear." Fred had received this order before, and had\r
+secretly disobeyed it. He intended to disobey it again.\r
+\r
+"Ring the bell," said Mr. Featherstone; "I want missy to come down."\r
+\r
+Rosamond and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends.\r
+They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet-table near\r
+the window while Rosamond took off her hat, adjusted her veil, and\r
+applied little touches of her finger-tips to her hair--hair of\r
+infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow. Mary Garth seemed all\r
+the plainer standing at an angle between the two nymphs--the one in the\r
+glass, and the one out of it, who looked at each other with eyes of\r
+heavenly blue, deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an\r
+ingenious beholder could put into them, and deep enough to hide the\r
+meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite.\r
+Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blond by the side of\r
+Rosamond, and the slim figure displayed by her riding-habit had\r
+delicate undulations. In fact, most men in Middlemarch, except her\r
+brothers, held that Miss Vincy was the best girl in the world, and some\r
+called her an angel. Mary Garth, on the contrary, had the aspect of an\r
+ordinary sinner: she was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and\r
+stubborn; her stature was low; and it would not be true to declare, in\r
+satisfactory antithesis, that she had all the virtues. Plainness has\r
+its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty; it is apt\r
+either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the\r
+repulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called an ugly thing in\r
+contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce\r
+some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase.\r
+At the age of two-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that\r
+perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to\r
+the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities\r
+ready mixed, with a flavor of resignation as required. Her shrewdness\r
+had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed and never\r
+carried utterly out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude\r
+towards those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be\r
+contented, did something to make her so. Advancing womanhood had\r
+tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the\r
+mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a\r
+more or less becoming headgear. Rembrandt would have painted her with\r
+pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas\r
+with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was\r
+Mary's reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor\r
+indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood\r
+she had humor enough in her to laugh at herself. When she and Rosamond\r
+happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said, laughingly--\r
+\r
+"What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy! You are the most\r
+unbecoming companion."\r
+\r
+"Oh no! No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and\r
+useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality," said\r
+Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards\r
+the new view of her neck in the glass.\r
+\r
+"You mean my beauty," said Mary, rather sardonically.\r
+\r
+Rosamond thought, "Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill." Aloud\r
+she said, "What have you been doing lately?"\r
+\r
+"I? Oh, minding the house--pouring out syrup--pretending to be amiable\r
+and contented--learning to have a bad opinion of everybody."\r
+\r
+"It is a wretched life for you."\r
+\r
+"No," said Mary, curtly, with a little toss of her head. "I think my\r
+life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's."\r
+\r
+"Yes; but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young."\r
+\r
+"She is interesting to herself, I suppose; and I am not at all sure\r
+that everything gets easier as one gets older."\r
+\r
+"No," said Rosamond, reflectively; "one wonders what such people do,\r
+without any prospect. To be sure, there is religion as a support.\r
+But," she added, dimpling, "it is very different with you, Mary. You\r
+may have an offer."\r
+\r
+"Has any one told you he means to make me one?"\r
+\r
+"Of course not. I mean, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with\r
+you, seeing you almost every day."\r
+\r
+A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve\r
+not to show any change.\r
+\r
+"Does that always make people fall in love?" she answered, carelessly;\r
+"it seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other."\r
+\r
+"Not when they are interesting and agreeable. I hear that Mr. Lydgate\r
+is both."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Mr. Lydgate!" said Mary, with an unmistakable lapse into\r
+indifference. "You want to know something about him," she added, not\r
+choosing to indulge Rosamond's indirectness.\r
+\r
+"Merely, how you like him."\r
+\r
+"There is no question of liking at present. My liking always wants\r
+some little kindness to kindle it. I am not magnanimous enough to like\r
+people who speak to me without seeming to see me."\r
+\r
+"Is he so haughty?" said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction. "You\r
+know that he is of good family?"\r
+\r
+"No; he did not give that as a reason."\r
+\r
+"Mary! you are the oddest girl. But what sort of looking man is he?\r
+Describe him to me."\r
+\r
+"How can one describe a man? I can give you an inventory: heavy\r
+eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight nose, thick dark hair, large solid\r
+white hands--and--let me see--oh, an exquisite cambric\r
+pocket-handkerchief. But you will see him. You know this is about the\r
+time of his visits."\r
+\r
+Rosamond blushed a little, but said, meditatively, "I rather like a\r
+haughty manner. I cannot endure a rattling young man."\r
+\r
+"I did not tell you that Mr. Lydgate was haughty; but il y en a pour\r
+tous les gouts, as little Mamselle used to say, and if any girl can\r
+choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think it\r
+is you, Rosy."\r
+\r
+"Haughtiness is not conceit; I call Fred conceited."\r
+\r
+"I wish no one said any worse of him. He should be more careful. Mrs.\r
+Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady." Mary spoke\r
+from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgment. There was\r
+a vague uneasiness associated with the word "unsteady" which she hoped\r
+Rosamond might say something to dissipate. But she purposely abstained\r
+from mentioning Mrs. Waule's more special insinuation.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Fred is horrid!" said Rosamond. She would not have allowed\r
+herself so unsuitable a word to any one but Mary.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean by horrid?"\r
+\r
+"He is so idle, and makes papa so angry, and says he will not take\r
+orders."\r
+\r
+"I think Fred is quite right."\r
+\r
+"How can you say he is quite right, Mary? I thought you had more sense\r
+of religion."\r
+\r
+"He is not fit to be a clergyman."\r
+\r
+"But he ought to be fit."--"Well, then, he is not what he ought to be.\r
+I know some other people who are in the same case."\r
+\r
+"But no one approves of them. I should not like to marry a clergyman;\r
+but there must be clergymen."\r
+\r
+"It does not follow that Fred must be one."\r
+\r
+"But when papa has been at the expense of educating him for it! And\r
+only suppose, if he should have no fortune left him?"\r
+\r
+"I can suppose that very well," said Mary, dryly.\r
+\r
+"Then I wonder you can defend Fred," said Rosamond, inclined to push\r
+this point.\r
+\r
+"I don't defend him," said Mary, laughing; "I would defend any parish\r
+from having him for a clergyman."\r
+\r
+"But of course if he were a clergyman, he must be different."\r
+\r
+"Yes, he would be a great hypocrite; and he is not that yet."\r
+\r
+"It is of no use saying anything to you, Mary. You always take Fred's\r
+part."\r
+\r
+"Why should I not take his part?" said Mary, lighting up. "He would\r
+take mine. He is the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"You make me feel very uncomfortable, Mary," said Rosamond, with her\r
+gravest mildness; "I would not tell mamma for the world."\r
+\r
+"What would you not tell her?" said Mary, angrily.\r
+\r
+"Pray do not go into a rage, Mary," said Rosamond, mildly as ever.\r
+\r
+"If your mamma is afraid that Fred will make me an offer, tell her that\r
+I would not marry him if he asked me. But he is not going to do so,\r
+that I am aware. He certainly never has asked me."\r
+\r
+"Mary, you are always so violent."\r
+\r
+"And you are always so exasperating."\r
+\r
+"I? What can you blame me for?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, blameless people are always the most exasperating. There is the\r
+bell--I think we must go down."\r
+\r
+"I did not mean to quarrel," said Rosamond, putting on her hat.\r
+\r
+"Quarrel? Nonsense; we have not quarrelled. If one is not to get into\r
+a rage sometimes, what is the good of being friends?"\r
+\r
+"Am I to repeat what you have said?" "Just as you please. I never say\r
+what I am afraid of having repeated. But let us go down."\r
+\r
+Mr. Lydgate was rather late this morning, but the visitors stayed long\r
+enough to see him; for Mr. Featherstone asked Rosamond to sing to him,\r
+and she herself was so kind as to propose a second favorite song of\r
+his--"Flow on, thou shining river"--after she had sung "Home, sweet\r
+home" (which she detested). This hard-headed old Overreach approved of\r
+the sentimental song, as the suitable garnish for girls, and also as\r
+fundamentally fine, sentiment being the right thing for a song.\r
+\r
+Mr. Featherstone was still applauding the last performance, and\r
+assuring missy that her voice was as clear as a blackbird's, when Mr.\r
+Lydgate's horse passed the window.\r
+\r
+His dull expectation of the usual disagreeable routine with an aged\r
+patient--who can hardly believe that medicine would not "set him up" if\r
+the doctor were only clever enough--added to his general disbelief in\r
+Middlemarch charms, made a doubly effective background to this vision\r
+of Rosamond, whom old Featherstone made haste ostentatiously to\r
+introduce as his niece, though he had never thought it worth while to\r
+speak of Mary Garth in that light. Nothing escaped Lydgate in\r
+Rosamond's graceful behavior: how delicately she waived the notice\r
+which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet\r
+gravity, not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion, but showing\r
+them afterwards in speaking to Mary, to whom she addressed herself with\r
+so much good-natured interest, that Lydgate, after quickly examining\r
+Mary more fully than he had done before, saw an adorable kindness in\r
+Rosamond's eyes. But Mary from some cause looked rather out of temper.\r
+\r
+"Miss Rosy has been singing me a song--you've nothing to say against\r
+that, eh, doctor?" said Mr. Featherstone. "I like it better than your\r
+physic."\r
+\r
+"That has made me forget how the time was going," said Rosamond, rising\r
+to reach her hat, which she had laid aside before singing, so that her\r
+flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above-her\r
+riding-habit. "Fred, we must really go."\r
+\r
+"Very good," said Fred, who had his own reasons for not being in the\r
+best spirits, and wanted to get away.\r
+\r
+"Miss Vincy is a musician?" said Lydgate, following her with his eyes.\r
+(Every nerve and muscle in Rosamond was adjusted to the consciousness\r
+that she was being looked at. She was by nature an actress of parts\r
+that entered into her physique: she even acted her own character, and\r
+so well, that she did not know it to be precisely her own.)\r
+\r
+"The best in Middlemarch, I'll be bound," said Mr. Featherstone, "let\r
+the next be who she will. Eh, Fred? Speak up for your sister."\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid I'm out of court, sir. My evidence would be good for\r
+nothing."\r
+\r
+"Middlemarch has not a very high standard, uncle," said Rosamond, with\r
+a pretty lightness, going towards her whip, which lay at a distance.\r
+\r
+Lydgate was quick in anticipating her. He reached the whip before she\r
+did, and turned to present it to her. She bowed and looked at him: he\r
+of course was looking at her, and their eyes met with that peculiar\r
+meeting which is never arrived at by effort, but seems like a sudden\r
+divine clearance of haze. I think Lydgate turned a little paler than\r
+usual, but Rosamond blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment.\r
+After that, she was really anxious to go, and did not know what sort of\r
+stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Yet this result, which she took to be a mutual impression, called\r
+falling in love, was just what Rosamond had contemplated beforehand.\r
+Ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a\r
+little future, of which something like this scene was the necessary\r
+beginning. Strangers, whether wrecked and clinging to a raft, or duly\r
+escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus, have always had a\r
+circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind, against which native\r
+merit has urged itself in vain. And a stranger was absolutely\r
+necessary to Rosamond's social romance, which had always turned on a\r
+lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher, and who had no\r
+connections at all like her own: of late, indeed, the construction\r
+seemed to demand that he should somehow be related to a baronet. Now\r
+that she and the stranger had met, reality proved much more moving than\r
+anticipation, and Rosamond could not doubt that this was the great\r
+epoch of her life. She judged of her own symptoms as those of\r
+awakening love, and she held it still more natural that Mr. Lydgate\r
+should have fallen in love at first sight of her. These things\r
+happened so often at balls, and why not by the morning light, when the\r
+complexion showed all the better for it? Rosamond, though no older\r
+than Mary, was rather used to being fallen in love with; but she, for\r
+her part, had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards\r
+both fresh sprig and faded bachelor. And here was Mr. Lydgate suddenly\r
+corresponding to her ideal, being altogether foreign to Middlemarch,\r
+carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family, and\r
+possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle-class\r
+heaven, rank; a man of talent, also, whom it would be especially\r
+delightful to enslave: in fact, a man who had touched her nature quite\r
+newly, and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than\r
+any fancied "might-be" such as she was in the habit of opposing to the\r
+actual.\r
+\r
+Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied\r
+and inclined to be silent. Rosamond, whose basis for her structure had\r
+the usual airy slightness, was of remarkably detailed and realistic\r
+imagination when the foundation had been once presupposed; and before\r
+they had ridden a mile she was far on in the costume and introductions\r
+of her wedded life, having determined on her house in Middlemarch, and\r
+foreseen the visits she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives\r
+at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as\r
+thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing\r
+herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come. There\r
+was nothing financial, still less sordid, in her previsions: she cared\r
+about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that\r
+was to pay for them.\r
+\r
+Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which even his\r
+ready hopefulness could not immediately quell. He saw no way of\r
+eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring consequences\r
+which he liked less even than the task of fulfilling it. His father\r
+was already out of humor with him, and would be still more so if he\r
+were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and\r
+the Bulstrodes. Then, he himself hated having to go and speak to his\r
+uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many\r
+foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been\r
+magnified by report. Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a\r
+fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like\r
+Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding.\r
+But--those expectations! He really had them, and he saw no agreeable\r
+alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had lately made a debt\r
+which galled him extremely, and old Featherstone had almost bargained\r
+to pay it off. The whole affair was miserably small: his debts were\r
+small, even his expectations were not anything so very magnificent.\r
+Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the\r
+smallness of his scrapes. Such ruminations naturally produced a streak\r
+of misanthropic bitterness. To be born the son of a Middlemarch\r
+manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such\r
+men as Mainwaring and Vyan--certainly life was a poor business, when a\r
+spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything,\r
+had so poor an outlook.\r
+\r
+It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name\r
+in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's; nor could this have\r
+made any difference to his position. He saw plainly enough that the\r
+old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, and\r
+also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant\r
+terms with Bulstrode. Fred fancied that he saw to the bottom of his\r
+uncle Featherstone's soul, though in reality half what he saw there was\r
+no more than the reflex of his own inclinations. The difficult task of\r
+knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is\r
+chiefly made up of their own wishes.\r
+\r
+Fred's main point of debate with himself was, whether he should tell\r
+his father, or try to get through the affair without his father's\r
+knowledge. It was probably Mrs. Waule who had been talking about him;\r
+and if Mary Garth had repeated Mrs. Waule's report to Rosamond, it\r
+would be sure to reach his father, who would as surely question him\r
+about it. He said to Rosamond, as they slackened their pace--\r
+\r
+"Rosy, did Mary tell you that Mrs. Waule had said anything about me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, she did."\r
+\r
+"What?"\r
+\r
+"That you were very unsteady."\r
+\r
+"Was that all?"\r
+\r
+"I should think that was enough, Fred."\r
+\r
+"You are sure she said no more?"\r
+\r
+"Mary mentioned nothing else. But really, Fred, I think you ought to\r
+be ashamed."\r
+\r
+"Oh, fudge! Don't lecture me. What did Mary say about it?"\r
+\r
+"I am not obliged to tell you. You care so very much what Mary says,\r
+and you are too rude to allow me to speak."\r
+\r
+"Of course I care what Mary says. She is the best girl I know."\r
+\r
+"I should never have thought she was a girl to fall in love with."\r
+\r
+"How do you know what men would fall in love with? Girls never know."\r
+\r
+"At least, Fred, let me advise _you_ not to fall in love with her, for\r
+she says she would not marry you if you asked her."\r
+\r
+"She might have waited till I did ask her."\r
+\r
+"I knew it would nettle you, Fred."\r
+\r
+"Not at all. She would not have said so if you had not provoked her."\r
+Before reaching home, Fred concluded that he would tell the whole\r
+affair as simply as possible to his father, who might perhaps take on\r
+himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK II.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+OLD AND YOUNG.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. How class your man?--as better than the most,\r
+ Or, seeming better, worse beneath that cloak?\r
+ As saint or knave, pilgrim or hypocrite?\r
+ 2d Gent. Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of books\r
+ The drifted relics of all time.\r
+ As well sort them at once by size and livery:\r
+ Vellum, tall copies, and the common calf\r
+ Will hardly cover more diversity\r
+ Than all your labels cunningly devised\r
+ To class your unread authors.\r
+\r
+\r
+In consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined to\r
+speak with Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank at half-past\r
+one, when he was usually free from other callers. But a visitor had\r
+come in at one o'clock, and Mr. Bulstrode had so much to say to him,\r
+that there was little chance of the interview being over in half an\r
+hour. The banker's speech was fluent, but it was also copious, and he\r
+used up an appreciable amount of time in brief meditative pauses. Do\r
+not imagine his sickly aspect to have been of the yellow, black-haired\r
+sort: he had a pale blond skin, thin gray-besprinkled brown hair,\r
+light-gray eyes, and a large forehead. Loud men called his subdued\r
+tone an undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with\r
+openness; though there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not\r
+be given to concealment of anything except his own voice, unless it can\r
+be shown that Holy Writ has placed the seat of candor in the lungs.\r
+Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential bending attitude in listening, and\r
+an apparently fixed attentiveness in his eyes which made those persons\r
+who thought themselves worth hearing infer that he was seeking the\r
+utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who expected to make\r
+no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on them.\r
+If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction\r
+in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look\r
+judicial. Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. Hence Mr.\r
+Bulstrode's close attention was not agreeable to the publicans and\r
+sinners in Middlemarch; it was attributed by some to his being a\r
+Pharisee, and by others to his being Evangelical. Less superficial\r
+reasoners among them wished to know who his father and grandfather\r
+were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody had ever heard of\r
+a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. To his present visitor, Lydgate, the\r
+scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference: he simply formed an\r
+unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he\r
+had an eager inward life with little enjoyment of tangible things.\r
+\r
+"I shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here\r
+occasionally, Mr. Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause.\r
+"If, as I dare to hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable\r
+coadjutor in the interesting matter of hospital management, there will\r
+be many questions which we shall need to discuss in private. As to the\r
+new hospital, which is nearly finished, I shall consider what you have\r
+said about the advantages of the special destination for fevers. The\r
+decision will rest with me, for though Lord Medlicote has given the\r
+land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to give his\r
+personal attention to the object."\r
+\r
+"There are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like\r
+this," said Lydgate. "A fine fever hospital in addition to the old\r
+infirmary might be the nucleus of a medical school here, when once we\r
+get our medical reforms; and what would do more for medical education\r
+than the spread of such schools over the country? A born provincial\r
+man who has a grain of public spirit as well as a few ideas, should do\r
+what he can to resist the rush of everything that is a little better\r
+than common towards London. Any valid professional aims may often find\r
+a freer, if not a richer field, in the provinces."\r
+\r
+One of Lydgate's gifts was a voice habitually deep and sonorous, yet\r
+capable of becoming very low and gentle at the right moment. About his\r
+ordinary bearing there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of\r
+success, a confidence in his own powers and integrity much fortified by\r
+contempt for petty obstacles or seductions of which he had had no\r
+experience. But this proud openness was made lovable by an expression\r
+of unaffected good-will. Mr. Bulstrode perhaps liked him the better for\r
+the difference between them in pitch and manners; he certainly liked\r
+him the better, as Rosamond did, for being a stranger in Middlemarch.\r
+One can begin so many things with a new person!--even begin to be a\r
+better man.\r
+\r
+"I shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities," Mr.\r
+Bulstrode answered; "I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of\r
+my new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favor that issue, for I am\r
+determined that so great an object shall not be shackled by our two\r
+physicians. Indeed, I am encouraged to consider your advent to this\r
+town as a gracious indication that a more manifest blessing is now to\r
+be awarded to my efforts, which have hitherto been much with stood.\r
+With regard to the old infirmary, we have gained the initial point--I\r
+mean your election. And now I hope you will not shrink from incurring\r
+a certain amount of jealousy and dislike from your professional\r
+brethren by presenting yourself as a reformer."\r
+\r
+"I will not profess bravery," said Lydgate, smiling, "but I acknowledge\r
+a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not care for my\r
+profession, if I did not believe that better methods were to be found\r
+and enforced there as well as everywhere else."\r
+\r
+"The standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir,"\r
+said the banker. "I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status,\r
+for our medical men are most of them connected with respectable\r
+townspeople here. My own imperfect health has induced me to give some\r
+attention to those palliative resources which the divine mercy has\r
+placed within our reach. I have consulted eminent men in the\r
+metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness under which\r
+medical treatment labors in our provincial districts."\r
+\r
+"Yes;--with our present medical rules and education, one must be\r
+satisfied now and then to meet with a fair practitioner. As to all the\r
+higher questions which determine the starting-point of a diagnosis--as\r
+to the philosophy of medical evidence--any glimmering of these can only\r
+come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have\r
+usually no more notion than the man in the moon."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form which\r
+Lydgate had given to his agreement not quite suited to his\r
+comprehension. Under such circumstances a judicious man changes the\r
+topic and enters on ground where his own gifts may be more useful.\r
+\r
+"I am aware," he said, "that the peculiar bias of medical ability is\r
+towards material means. Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not\r
+vary in sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be\r
+actively concerned, but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an\r
+aid to me. You recognize, I hope; the existence of spiritual interests\r
+in your patients?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly I do. But those words are apt to cover different meanings\r
+to different minds."\r
+\r
+"Precisely. And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no\r
+teaching. Now a point which I have much at heart to secure is a new\r
+regulation as to clerical attendance at the old infirmary. The\r
+building stands in Mr. Farebrother's parish. You know Mr. Farebrother?"\r
+\r
+"I have seen him. He gave me his vote. I must call to thank him. He\r
+seems a very bright pleasant little fellow. And I understand he is a\r
+naturalist."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Farebrother, my dear sir, is a man deeply painful to contemplate.\r
+I suppose there is not a clergyman in this country who has greater\r
+talents." Mr. Bulstrode paused and looked meditative.\r
+\r
+"I have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in\r
+Middlemarch," said Lydgate, bluntly.\r
+\r
+"What I desire," Mr. Bulstrode continued, looking still more serious,\r
+"is that Mr. Farebrother's attendance at the hospital should be\r
+superseded by the appointment of a chaplain--of Mr. Tyke, in fact--and\r
+that no other spiritual aid should be called in."\r
+\r
+"As a medical man I could have no opinion on such a point unless I knew\r
+Mr. Tyke, and even then I should require to know the cases in which he\r
+was applied." Lydgate smiled, but he was bent on being circumspect.\r
+\r
+"Of course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure at\r
+present. But"--here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak with a more chiselled\r
+emphasis--"the subject is likely to be referred to the medical board of\r
+the infirmary, and what I trust I may ask of you is, that in virtue of\r
+the cooperation between us which I now look forward to, you will not,\r
+so far as you are concerned, be influenced by my opponents in this\r
+matter."\r
+\r
+"I hope I shall have nothing to do with clerical disputes," said\r
+Lydgate. "The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession."\r
+\r
+"My responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind. With me,\r
+indeed, this question is one of sacred accountableness; whereas with my\r
+opponents, I have good reason to say that it is an occasion for\r
+gratifying a spirit of worldly opposition. But I shall not therefore\r
+drop one iota of my convictions, or cease to identify myself with that\r
+truth which an evil generation hates. I have devoted myself to this\r
+object of hospital-improvement, but I will boldly confess to you, Mr.\r
+Lydgate, that I should have no interest in hospitals if I believed that\r
+nothing more was concerned therein than the cure of mortal diseases. I\r
+have another ground of action, and in the face of persecution I will\r
+not conceal it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper as he said\r
+the last words.\r
+\r
+"There we certainly differ," said Lydgate. But he was not sorry that\r
+the door was now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced. That florid\r
+sociable personage was become more interesting to him since he had seen\r
+Rosamond. Not that, like her, he had been weaving any future in which\r
+their lots were united; but a man naturally remembers a charming girl\r
+with pleasure, and is willing to dine where he may see her again.\r
+Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy had given that invitation which he had\r
+been "in no hurry about," for Rosamond at breakfast had mentioned that\r
+she thought her uncle Featherstone had taken the new doctor into great\r
+favor.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, alone with his brother-in-law, poured himself out a\r
+glass of water, and opened a sandwich-box.\r
+\r
+"I cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy?"\r
+\r
+"No, no; I've no opinion of that system. Life wants padding," said Mr.\r
+Vincy, unable to omit his portable theory. "However," he went on,\r
+accenting the word, as if to dismiss all irrelevance, "what I came here\r
+to talk about was a little affair of my young scapegrace, Fred's."\r
+\r
+"That is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite as\r
+different views as on diet, Vincy."\r
+\r
+"I hope not this time." (Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humored.)\r
+"The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. Somebody has\r
+been cooking up a story out of spite, and telling it to the old man, to\r
+try to set him against Fred. He's very fond of Fred, and is likely to\r
+do something handsome for him; indeed he has as good as told Fred that\r
+he means to leave him his land, and that makes other people jealous."\r
+\r
+"Vincy, I must repeat, that you will not get any concurrence from me as\r
+to the course you have pursued with your eldest son. It was entirely\r
+from worldly vanity that you destined him for the Church: with a family\r
+of three sons and four daughters, you were not warranted in devoting\r
+money to an expensive education which has succeeded in nothing but in\r
+giving him extravagant idle habits. You are now reaping the\r
+consequences."\r
+\r
+To point out other people's errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely\r
+shrank from, but Mr. Vincy was not equally prepared to be patient.\r
+When a man has the immediate prospect of being mayor, and is ready, in\r
+the interests of commerce, to take up a firm attitude on politics\r
+generally, he has naturally a sense of his importance to the framework\r
+of things which seems to throw questions of private conduct into the\r
+background. And this particular reproof irritated him more than any\r
+other. It was eminently superfluous to him to be told that he was\r
+reaping the consequences. But he felt his neck under Bulstrode's yoke;\r
+and though he usually enjoyed kicking, he was anxious to refrain from\r
+that relief.\r
+\r
+"As to that, Bulstrode, it's no use going back. I'm not one of your\r
+pattern men, and I don't pretend to be. I couldn't foresee everything\r
+in the trade; there wasn't a finer business in Middlemarch than ours,\r
+and the lad was clever. My poor brother was in the Church, and would\r
+have done well--had got preferment already, but that stomach fever took\r
+him off: else he might have been a dean by this time. I think I was\r
+justified in what I tried to do for Fred. If you come to religion, it\r
+seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an ounce\r
+beforehand:--one must trust a little to Providence and be generous.\r
+It's a good British feeling to try and raise your family a little: in\r
+my opinion, it's a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance."\r
+\r
+"I don't wish to act otherwise than as your best friend, Vincy, when I\r
+say that what you have been uttering just now is one mass of\r
+worldliness and inconsistent folly."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions, "I never\r
+professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more, I don't see\r
+anybody else who is not worldly. I suppose you don't conduct business\r
+on what you call unworldly principles. The only difference I see is\r
+that one worldliness is a little bit honester than another."\r
+\r
+"This kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy," said Mr. Bulstrode,\r
+who, finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair, and\r
+shaded his eyes as if weary. "You had some more particular business."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes. The long and short of it is, somebody has told old\r
+Featherstone, giving you as the authority, that Fred has been borrowing\r
+or trying to borrow money on the prospect of his land. Of course you\r
+never said any such nonsense. But the old fellow will insist on it\r
+that Fred should bring him a denial in your handwriting; that is, just\r
+a bit of a note saying you don't believe a word of such stuff, either\r
+of his having borrowed or tried to borrow in such a fool's way. I\r
+suppose you can have no objection to do that."\r
+\r
+"Pardon me. I have an objection. I am by no means sure that your son,\r
+in his recklessness and ignorance--I will use no severer word--has not\r
+tried to raise money by holding out his future prospects, or even that\r
+some one may not have been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a\r
+presumption: there is plenty of such lax money-lending as of other\r
+folly in the world."\r
+\r
+"But Fred gives me his honor that he has never borrowed money on the\r
+pretence of any understanding about his uncle's land. He is not a\r
+liar. I don't want to make him better than he is. I have blown him up\r
+well--nobody can say I wink at what he does. But he is not a liar.\r
+And I should have thought--but I may be wrong--that there was no\r
+religion to hinder a man from believing the best of a young fellow,\r
+when you don't know worse. It seems to me it would be a poor sort of\r
+religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't\r
+believe such harm of him as you've got no good reason to believe."\r
+\r
+"I am not at all sure that I should be befriending your son by\r
+smoothing his way to the future possession of Featherstone's property.\r
+I cannot regard wealth as a blessing to those who use it simply as a\r
+harvest for this world. You do not like to hear these things, Vincy,\r
+but on this occasion I feel called upon to tell you that I have no\r
+motive for furthering such a disposition of property as that which you\r
+refer to. I do not shrink from saying that it will not tend to your\r
+son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God. Why then should you\r
+expect me to pen this kind of affidavit, which has no object but to\r
+keep up a foolish partiality and secure a foolish bequest?"\r
+\r
+"If you mean to hinder everybody from having money but saints and\r
+evangelists, you must give up some profitable partnerships, that's all\r
+I can say," Mr. Vincy burst out very bluntly. "It may be for the glory\r
+of God, but it is not for the glory of the Middlemarch trade, that\r
+Plymdale's house uses those blue and green dyes it gets from the\r
+Brassing manufactory; they rot the silk, that's all I know about it.\r
+Perhaps if other people knew so much of the profit went to the glory of\r
+God, they might like it better. But I don't mind so much about that--I\r
+could get up a pretty row, if I chose."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode paused a little before he answered. "You pain me very\r
+much by speaking in this way, Vincy. I do not expect you to understand\r
+my grounds of action--it is not an easy thing even to thread a path for\r
+principles in the intricacies of the world--still less to make the\r
+thread clear for the careless and the scoffing. You must remember, if\r
+you please, that I stretch my tolerance towards you as my wife's\r
+brother, and that it little becomes you to complain of me as\r
+withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family.\r
+I must remind you that it is not your own prudence or judgment that has\r
+enabled you to keep your place in the trade."\r
+\r
+"Very likely not; but you have been no loser by my trade yet," said Mr.\r
+Vincy, thoroughly nettled (a result which was seldom much retarded by\r
+previous resolutions). "And when you married Harriet, I don't see how\r
+you could expect that our families should not hang by the same nail.\r
+If you've changed your mind, and want my family to come down in the\r
+world, you'd better say so. I've never changed; I'm a plain Churchman\r
+now, just as I used to be before doctrines came up. I take the world\r
+as I find it, in trade and everything else. I'm contented to be no\r
+worse than my neighbors. But if you want us to come down in the world,\r
+say so. I shall know better what to do then."\r
+\r
+"You talk unreasonably. Shall you come down in the world for want of\r
+this letter about your son?"\r
+\r
+"Well, whether or not, I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse\r
+it. Such doings may be lined with religion, but outside they have a\r
+nasty, dog-in-the-manger look. You might as well slander Fred: it\r
+comes pretty near to it when you refuse to say you didn't set a slander\r
+going. It's this sort of thing--this tyrannical spirit, wanting to\r
+play bishop and banker everywhere--it's this sort of thing makes a\r
+man's name stink."\r
+\r
+"Vincy, if you insist on quarrelling with me, it will be exceedingly\r
+painful to Harriet as well as myself," said Mr. Bulstrode, with a\r
+trifle more eagerness and paleness than usual.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to quarrel. It's for my interest--and perhaps for yours\r
+too--that we should be friends. I bear you no grudge; I think no worse\r
+of you than I do of other people. A man who half starves himself, and\r
+goes the length in family prayers, and so on, that you do, believes in\r
+his religion whatever it may be: you could turn over your capital just\r
+as fast with cursing and swearing:--plenty of fellows do. You like to\r
+be master, there's no denying that; you must be first chop in heaven,\r
+else you won't like it much. But you're my sister's husband, and we\r
+ought to stick together; and if I know Harriet, she'll consider it your\r
+fault if we quarrel because you strain at a gnat in this way, and\r
+refuse to do Fred a good turn. And I don't mean to say I shall bear it\r
+well. I consider it unhandsome."\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy rose, began to button his great-coat, and looked steadily at\r
+his brother-in-law, meaning to imply a demand for a decisive answer.\r
+\r
+This was not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing\r
+Mr. Vincy, and had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of\r
+himself in the coarse unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's\r
+mind presented to the subtler lights and shadows of his fellow-men; and\r
+perhaps his experience ought to have warned him how the scene would\r
+end. But a full-fed fountain will be generous with its waters even in\r
+the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine fount of\r
+admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.\r
+\r
+It was not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence\r
+of uncomfortable suggestions. Before changing his course, he always\r
+needed to shape his motives and bring them into accordance with his\r
+habitual standard. He said, at last--\r
+\r
+"I will reflect a little, Vincy. I will mention the subject to\r
+Harriet. I shall probably send you a letter."\r
+\r
+"Very well. As soon as you can, please. I hope it will all be settled\r
+before I see you to-morrow."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV.\r
+\r
+ "Follows here the strict receipt\r
+ For that sauce to dainty meat,\r
+ Named Idleness, which many eat\r
+ By preference, and call it sweet:\r
+ First watch for morsels, like a hound\r
+ Mix well with buffets, stir them round\r
+ With good thick oil of flatteries,\r
+ And froth with mean self-lauding lies.\r
+ Serve warm: the vessels you must choose\r
+ To keep it in are dead men's shoes."\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's consultation of Harriet seemed to have had the effect\r
+desired by Mr. Vincy, for early the next morning a letter came which\r
+Fred could carry to Mr. Featherstone as the required testimony.\r
+\r
+The old gentleman was staying in bed on account of the cold weather,\r
+and as Mary Garth was not to be seen in the sitting-room, Fred went\r
+up-stairs immediately and presented the letter to his uncle, who,\r
+propped up comfortably on a bed-rest, was not less able than usual to\r
+enjoy his consciousness of wisdom in distrusting and frustrating\r
+mankind. He put on his spectacles to read the letter, pursing up his\r
+lips and drawing down their corners.\r
+\r
+"Under the circumstances I will not decline to state my\r
+conviction--tchah! what fine words the fellow puts! He's as fine as an\r
+auctioneer--that your son Frederic has not obtained any advance of\r
+money on bequests promised by Mr. Featherstone--promised? who said I\r
+had ever promised? I promise nothing--I shall make codicils as long as\r
+I like--and that considering the nature of such a proceeding, it is\r
+unreasonable to presume that a young man of sense and character would\r
+attempt it--ah, but the gentleman doesn't say you are a young man of\r
+sense and character, mark you that, sir!--As to my own concern with any\r
+report of such a nature, I distinctly affirm that I never made any\r
+statement to the effect that your son had borrowed money on any\r
+property that might accrue to him on Mr. Featherstone's demise--bless\r
+my heart! 'property'--accrue--demise! Lawyer Standish is nothing to\r
+him. He couldn't speak finer if he wanted to borrow. Well," Mr.\r
+Featherstone here looked over his spectacles at Fred, while he handed\r
+back the letter to him with a contemptuous gesture, "you don't suppose\r
+I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it out fine, eh?"\r
+\r
+Fred colored. "You wished to have the letter, sir. I should think it\r
+very likely that Mr. Bulstrode's denial is as good as the authority\r
+which told you what he denies."\r
+\r
+"Every bit. I never said I believed either one or the other. And now\r
+what d' you expect?" said Mr. Featherstone, curtly, keeping on his\r
+spectacles, but withdrawing his hands under his wraps.\r
+\r
+"I expect nothing, sir." Fred with difficulty restrained himself from\r
+venting his irritation. "I came to bring you the letter. If you like\r
+I will bid you good morning."\r
+\r
+"Not yet, not yet. Ring the bell; I want missy to come."\r
+\r
+It was a servant who came in answer to the bell.\r
+\r
+"Tell missy to come!" said Mr. Featherstone, impatiently. "What\r
+business had she to go away?" He spoke in the same tone when Mary came.\r
+\r
+"Why couldn't you sit still here till I told you to go? I want my\r
+waistcoat now. I told you always to put it on the bed."\r
+\r
+Mary's eyes looked rather red, as if she had been crying. It was clear\r
+that Mr. Featherstone was in one of his most snappish humors this\r
+morning, and though Fred had now the prospect of receiving the\r
+much-needed present of money, he would have preferred being free to\r
+turn round on the old tyrant and tell him that Mary Garth was too good\r
+to be at his beck. Though Fred had risen as she entered the room, she\r
+had barely noticed him, and looked as if her nerves were quivering with\r
+the expectation that something would be thrown at her. But she never\r
+had anything worse than words to dread. When she went to reach the\r
+waistcoat from a peg, Fred went up to her and said, "Allow me."\r
+\r
+"Let it alone! You bring it, missy, and lay it down here," said Mr.\r
+Featherstone. "Now you go away again till I call you," he added, when\r
+the waistcoat was laid down by him. It was usual with him to season\r
+his pleasure in showing favor to one person by being especially\r
+disagreeable to another, and Mary was always at hand to furnish the\r
+condiment. When his own relatives came she was treated better. Slowly\r
+he took out a bunch of keys from the waistcoat pocket, and slowly he\r
+drew forth a tin box which was under the bed-clothes.\r
+\r
+"You expect I am going to give you a little fortune, eh?" he said,\r
+looking above his spectacles and pausing in the act of opening the lid.\r
+\r
+"Not at all, sir. You were good enough to speak of making me a present\r
+the other day, else, of course, I should not have thought of the\r
+matter." But Fred was of a hopeful disposition, and a vision had\r
+presented itself of a sum just large enough to deliver him from a\r
+certain anxiety. When Fred got into debt, it always seemed to him\r
+highly probable that something or other--he did not necessarily\r
+conceive what--would come to pass enabling him to pay in due time. And\r
+now that the providential occurrence was apparently close at hand, it\r
+would have been sheer absurdity to think that the supply would be short\r
+of the need: as absurd as a faith that believed in half a miracle for\r
+want of strength to believe in a whole one.\r
+\r
+The deep-veined hands fingered many bank-notes-one after the other,\r
+laying them down flat again, while Fred leaned back in his chair,\r
+scorning to look eager. He held himself to be a gentleman at heart,\r
+and did not like courting an old fellow for his money. At last, Mr.\r
+Featherstone eyed him again over his spectacles and presented him with\r
+a little sheaf of notes: Fred could see distinctly that there were but\r
+five, as the less significant edges gaped towards him. But then, each\r
+might mean fifty pounds. He took them, saying--\r
+\r
+"I am very much obliged to you, sir," and was going to roll them up\r
+without seeming to think of their value. But this did not suit Mr.\r
+Featherstone, who was eying him intently.\r
+\r
+"Come, don't you think it worth your while to count 'em? You take\r
+money like a lord; I suppose you lose it like one."\r
+\r
+"I thought I was not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, sir. But I\r
+shall be very happy to count them."\r
+\r
+Fred was not so happy, however, after he had counted them. For they\r
+actually presented the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had\r
+decided that they must be. What can the fitness of things mean, if not\r
+their fitness to a man's expectations? Failing this, absurdity and\r
+atheism gape behind him. The collapse for Fred was severe when he\r
+found that he held no more than five twenties, and his share in the\r
+higher education of this country did not seem to help him.\r
+Nevertheless he said, with rapid changes in his fair complexion--\r
+\r
+"It is very handsome of you, sir."\r
+\r
+"I should think it is," said Mr. Featherstone, locking his box and\r
+replacing it, then taking off his spectacles deliberately, and at\r
+length, as if his inward meditation had more deeply convinced him,\r
+repeating, "I should think it handsome."\r
+\r
+"I assure you, sir, I am very grateful," said Fred, who had had time to\r
+recover his cheerful air.\r
+\r
+"So you ought to be. You want to cut a figure in the world, and I\r
+reckon Peter Featherstone is the only one you've got to trust to." Here\r
+the old man's eyes gleamed with a curiously mingled satisfaction in the\r
+consciousness that this smart young fellow relied upon him, and that\r
+the smart young fellow was rather a fool for doing so.\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed: I was not born to very splendid chances. Few men have\r
+been more cramped than I have been," said Fred, with some sense of\r
+surprise at his own virtue, considering how hardly he was dealt with.\r
+"It really seems a little too bad to have to ride a broken-winded\r
+hunter, and see men, who, are not half such good judges as yourself,\r
+able to throw away any amount of money on buying bad bargains."\r
+\r
+"Well, you can buy yourself a fine hunter now. Eighty pound is enough\r
+for that, I reckon--and you'll have twenty pound over to get yourself\r
+out of any little scrape," said Mr. Featherstone, chuckling slightly.\r
+\r
+"You are very good, sir," said Fred, with a fine sense of contrast\r
+between the words and his feeling.\r
+\r
+"Ay, rather a better uncle than your fine uncle Bulstrode. You won't\r
+get much out of his spekilations, I think. He's got a pretty strong\r
+string round your father's leg, by what I hear, eh?"\r
+\r
+"My father never tells me anything about his affairs, sir."\r
+\r
+"Well, he shows some sense there. But other people find 'em out\r
+without his telling. _He'll_ never have much to leave you: he'll\r
+most-like die without a will--he's the sort of man to do it--let 'em\r
+make him mayor of Middlemarch as much as they like. But you won't get\r
+much by his dying without a will, though you _are_ the eldest son."\r
+\r
+Fred thought that Mr. Featherstone had never been so disagreeable\r
+before. True, he had never before given him quite so much money at\r
+once.\r
+\r
+"Shall I destroy this letter of Mr. Bulstrode's, sir?" said Fred,\r
+rising with the letter as if he would put it in the fire.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, I don't want it. It's worth no money to me."\r
+\r
+Fred carried the letter to the fire, and thrust the poker through it\r
+with much zest. He longed to get out of the room, but he was a little\r
+ashamed before his inner self, as well as before his uncle, to run away\r
+immediately after pocketing the money. Presently, the farm-bailiff\r
+came up to give his master a report, and Fred, to his unspeakable\r
+relief, was dismissed with the injunction to come again soon.\r
+\r
+He had longed not only to be set free from his uncle, but also to find\r
+Mary Garth. She was now in her usual place by the fire, with sewing in\r
+her hands and a book open on the little table by her side. Her eyelids\r
+had lost some of their redness now, and she had her usual air of\r
+self-command.\r
+\r
+"Am I wanted up-stairs?" she said, half rising as Fred entered.\r
+\r
+"No; I am only dismissed, because Simmons is gone up."\r
+\r
+Mary sat down again, and resumed her work. She was certainly treating\r
+him with more indifference than usual: she did not know how\r
+affectionately indignant he had felt on her behalf up-stairs.\r
+\r
+"May I stay here a little, Mary, or shall I bore you?"\r
+\r
+"Pray sit down," said Mary; "you will not be so heavy a bore as Mr.\r
+John Waule, who was here yesterday, and he sat down without asking my\r
+leave."\r
+\r
+"Poor fellow! I think he is in love with you."\r
+\r
+"I am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things\r
+in a girl's life, that there must always be some supposition of falling\r
+in love coming between her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom\r
+she is grateful. I should have thought that I, at least, might have\r
+been safe from all that. I have no ground for the nonsensical vanity\r
+of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love with me."\r
+\r
+Mary did not mean to betray any feeling, but in spite of herself she\r
+ended in a tremulous tone of vexation.\r
+\r
+"Confound John Waule! I did not mean to make you angry. I didn't know\r
+you had any reason for being grateful to me. I forgot what a great\r
+service you think it if any one snuffs a candle for you." Fred also had\r
+his pride, and was not going to show that he knew what had called forth\r
+this outburst of Mary's.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I am not angry, except with the ways of the world. I do like to\r
+be spoken to as if I had common-sense. I really often feel as if I\r
+could understand a little more than I ever hear even from young\r
+gentlemen who have been to college." Mary had recovered, and she spoke\r
+with a suppressed rippling under-current of laughter pleasant to hear.\r
+\r
+"I don't care how merry you are at my expense this morning," said Fred,\r
+"I thought you looked so sad when you came up-stairs. It is a shame you\r
+should stay here to be bullied in that way."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have an easy life--by comparison. I have tried being a teacher,\r
+and I am not fit for that: my mind is too fond of wandering on its own\r
+way. I think any hardship is better than pretending to do what one is\r
+paid for, and never really doing it. Everything here I can do as well\r
+as any one else could; perhaps better than some--Rosy, for example.\r
+Though she is just the sort of beautiful creature that is imprisoned\r
+with ogres in fairy tales."\r
+\r
+"_Rosy!_" cried Fred, in a tone of profound brotherly scepticism.\r
+\r
+"Come, Fred!" said Mary, emphatically; "you have no right to be so\r
+critical."\r
+\r
+"Do you mean anything particular--just now?"\r
+\r
+"No, I mean something general--always."\r
+\r
+"Oh, that I am idle and extravagant. Well, I am not fit to be a poor\r
+man. I should not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich."\r
+\r
+"You would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has\r
+not pleased God to call you," said Mary, laughing.\r
+\r
+"Well, I couldn't do my duty as a clergyman, any more than you could do\r
+yours as a governess. You ought to have a little fellow-feeling there,\r
+Mary."\r
+\r
+"I never said you ought to be a clergyman. There are other sorts of\r
+work. It seems to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and\r
+act accordingly."\r
+\r
+"So I could, if--" Fred broke off, and stood up, leaning against the\r
+mantel-piece.\r
+\r
+"If you were sure you should not have a fortune?"\r
+\r
+"I did not say that. You want to quarrel with me. It is too bad of\r
+you to be guided by what other people say about me."\r
+\r
+"How can I want to quarrel with you? I should be quarrelling with all\r
+my new books," said Mary, lifting the volume on the table. "However\r
+naughty you may be to other people, you are good to me."\r
+\r
+"Because I like you better than any one else. But I know you despise\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do--a little," said Mary, nodding, with a smile.\r
+\r
+"You would admire a stupendous fellow, who would have wise opinions\r
+about everything."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I should." Mary was sewing swiftly, and seemed provokingly\r
+mistress of the situation. When a conversation has taken a wrong turn\r
+for us, we only get farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness.\r
+This was what Fred Vincy felt.\r
+\r
+"I suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always\r
+known--ever since she can remember; as a man often is. It is always\r
+some new fellow who strikes a girl."\r
+\r
+"Let me see," said Mary, the corners of her mouth curling archly; "I\r
+must go back on my experience. There is Juliet--she seems an example\r
+of what you say. But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long\r
+while; and Brenda Troil--she had known Mordaunt Merton ever since they\r
+were children; but then he seems to have been an estimable young man;\r
+and Minna was still more deeply in love with Cleveland, who was a\r
+stranger. Waverley was new to Flora MacIvor; but then she did not fall\r
+in love with him. And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose, and\r
+Corinne--they may be said to have fallen in love with new men.\r
+Altogether, my experience is rather mixed."\r
+\r
+Mary looked up with some roguishness at Fred, and that look of hers was\r
+very dear to him, though the eyes were nothing more than clear windows\r
+where observation sat laughingly. He was certainly an affectionate\r
+fellow, and as he had grown from boy to man, he had grown in love with\r
+his old playmate, notwithstanding that share in the higher education of\r
+the country which had exalted his views of rank and income.\r
+\r
+"When a man is not loved, it is no use for him to say that he could be\r
+a better fellow--could do anything--I mean, if he were sure of being\r
+loved in return."\r
+\r
+"Not of the least use in the world for him to say he _could_ be better.\r
+Might, could, would--they are contemptible auxiliaries."\r
+\r
+"I don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one\r
+woman to love him dearly."\r
+\r
+"I think the goodness should come before he expects that."\r
+\r
+"You know better, Mary. Women don't love men for their goodness."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps not. But if they love them, they never think them bad."\r
+\r
+"It is hardly fair to say I am bad."\r
+\r
+"I said nothing at all about you."\r
+\r
+"I never shall be good for anything, Mary, if you will not say that you\r
+love me--if you will not promise to marry me--I mean, when I am able to\r
+marry."\r
+\r
+"If I did love you, I would not marry you: I would certainly not\r
+promise ever to marry you."\r
+\r
+"I think that is quite wicked, Mary. If you love me, you ought to\r
+promise to marry me."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, I think it would be wicked in me to marry you even if\r
+I did love you."\r
+\r
+"You mean, just as I am, without any means of maintaining a wife. Of\r
+course: I am but three-and-twenty."\r
+\r
+"In that last point you will alter. But I am not so sure of any other\r
+alteration. My father says an idle man ought not to exist, much less,\r
+be married."\r
+\r
+"Then I am to blow my brains out?"\r
+\r
+"No; on the whole I should think you would do better to pass your\r
+examination. I have heard Mr. Farebrother say it is disgracefully\r
+easy."\r
+\r
+"That is all very fine. Anything is easy to him. Not that cleverness\r
+has anything to do with it. I am ten times cleverer than many men who\r
+pass."\r
+\r
+"Dear me!" said Mary, unable to repress her sarcasm; "that accounts for\r
+the curates like Mr. Crowse. Divide your cleverness by ten, and the\r
+quotient--dear me!--is able to take a degree. But that only shows you\r
+are ten times more idle than the others."\r
+\r
+"Well, if I did pass, you would not want me to go into the Church?"\r
+\r
+"That is not the question--what I want you to do. You have a\r
+conscience of your own, I suppose. There! there is Mr. Lydgate. I\r
+must go and tell my uncle."\r
+\r
+"Mary," said Fred, seizing her hand as she rose; "if you will not give\r
+me some encouragement, I shall get worse instead of better."\r
+\r
+"I will not give you any encouragement," said Mary, reddening. "Your\r
+friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would think it\r
+a disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not\r
+work!"\r
+\r
+Fred was stung, and released her hand. She walked to the door, but\r
+there she turned and said: "Fred, you have always been so good, so\r
+generous to me. I am not ungrateful. But never speak to me in that\r
+way again."\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip. His\r
+complexion showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Like many a\r
+plucked idle young gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a\r
+plain girl, who had no money! But having Mr. Featherstone's land in\r
+the background, and a persuasion that, let Mary say what she would, she\r
+really did care for him, Fred was not utterly in despair.\r
+\r
+When he got home, he gave four of the twenties to his mother, asking\r
+her to keep them for him. "I don't want to spend that money, mother.\r
+I want it to pay a debt with. So keep it safe away from my fingers."\r
+\r
+"Bless you, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy. She doted on her eldest son and\r
+her youngest girl (a child of six), whom others thought her two\r
+naughtiest children. The mother's eyes are not always deceived in\r
+their partiality: she at least can best judge who is the tender,\r
+filial-hearted child. And Fred was certainly very fond of his mother.\r
+Perhaps it was his fondness for another person also that made him\r
+particularly anxious to take some security against his own liability to\r
+spend the hundred pounds. For the creditor to whom he owed a hundred\r
+and sixty held a firmer security in the shape of a bill signed by\r
+Mary's father.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV.\r
+\r
+ "Black eyes you have left, you say,\r
+ Blue eyes fail to draw you;\r
+ Yet you seem more rapt to-day,\r
+ Than of old we saw you.\r
+\r
+ "Oh, I track the fairest fair\r
+ Through new haunts of pleasure;\r
+ Footprints here and echoes there\r
+ Guide me to my treasure:\r
+\r
+ "Lo! she turns--immortal youth\r
+ Wrought to mortal stature,\r
+ Fresh as starlight's aged truth--\r
+ Many-named Nature!"\r
+\r
+\r
+A great historian, as he insisted on calling himself, who had the\r
+happiness to be dead a hundred and twenty years ago, and so to take his\r
+place among the colossi whose huge legs our living pettiness is\r
+observed to walk under, glories in his copious remarks and digressions\r
+as the least imitable part of his work, and especially in those initial\r
+chapters to the successive books of his history, where he seems to\r
+bring his armchair to the proscenium and chat with us in all the lusty\r
+ease of his fine English. But Fielding lived when the days were longer\r
+(for time, like money, is measured by our needs), when summer\r
+afternoons were spacious, and the clock ticked slowly in the winter\r
+evenings. We belated historians must not linger after his example; and\r
+if we did so, it is probable that our chat would be thin and eager, as\r
+if delivered from a campstool in a parrot-house. I at least have so\r
+much to do in unraveling certain human lots, and seeing how they were\r
+woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be\r
+concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that\r
+tempting range of relevancies called the universe.\r
+\r
+At present I have to make the new settler Lydgate better known to any\r
+one interested in him than he could possibly be even to those who had\r
+seen the most of him since his arrival in Middlemarch. For surely all\r
+must admit that a man may be puffed and belauded, envied, ridiculed,\r
+counted upon as a tool and fallen in love with, or at least selected as\r
+a future husband, and yet remain virtually unknown--known merely as a\r
+cluster of signs for his neighbors' false suppositions. There was a\r
+general impression, however, that Lydgate was not altogether a common\r
+country doctor, and in Middlemarch at that time such an impression was\r
+significant of great things being expected from him. For everybody's\r
+family doctor was remarkably clever, and was understood to have\r
+immeasurable skill in the management and training of the most skittish\r
+or vicious diseases. The evidence of his cleverness was of the higher\r
+intuitive order, lying in his lady-patients' immovable conviction, and\r
+was unassailable by any objection except that their intuitions were\r
+opposed by others equally strong; each lady who saw medical truth in\r
+Wrench and "the strengthening treatment" regarding Toller and "the\r
+lowering system" as medical perdition. For the heroic times of copious\r
+bleeding and blistering had not yet departed, still less the times of\r
+thorough-going theory, when disease in general was called by some bad\r
+name, and treated accordingly without shilly-shally--as if, for\r
+example, it were to be called insurrection, which must not be fired on\r
+with blank-cartridge, but have its blood drawn at once. The\r
+strengtheners and the lowerers were all "clever" men in somebody's\r
+opinion, which is really as much as can be said for any living talents.\r
+Nobody's imagination had gone so far as to conjecture that Mr. Lydgate\r
+could know as much as Dr. Sprague and Dr. Minchin, the two physicians,\r
+who alone could offer any hope when danger was extreme, and when the\r
+smallest hope was worth a guinea. Still, I repeat, there was a general\r
+impression that Lydgate was something rather more uncommon than any\r
+general practitioner in Middlemarch. And this was true. He was but\r
+seven-and-twenty, an age at which many men are not quite common--at\r
+which they are hopeful of achievement, resolute in avoidance, thinking\r
+that Mammon shall never put a bit in their mouths and get astride their\r
+backs, but rather that Mammon, if they have anything to do with him,\r
+shall draw their chariot.\r
+\r
+He had been left an orphan when he was fresh from a public school. His\r
+father, a military man, had made but little provision for three\r
+children, and when the boy Tertius asked to have a medical education,\r
+it seemed easier to his guardians to grant his request by apprenticing\r
+him to a country practitioner than to make any objections on the score\r
+of family dignity. He was one of the rarer lads who early get a\r
+decided bent and make up their minds that there is something particular\r
+in life which they would like to do for its own sake, and not because\r
+their fathers did it. Most of us who turn to any subject with love\r
+remember some morning or evening hour when we got on a high stool to\r
+reach down an untried volume, or sat with parted lips listening to a\r
+new talker, or for very lack of books began to listen to the voices\r
+within, as the first traceable beginning of our love. Something of\r
+that sort happened to Lydgate. He was a quick fellow, and when hot\r
+from play, would toss himself in a corner, and in five minutes be deep\r
+in any sort of book that he could lay his hands on: if it were Rasselas\r
+or Gulliver, so much the better, but Bailey's Dictionary would do, or\r
+the Bible with the Apocrypha in it. Something he must read, when he\r
+was not riding the pony, or running and hunting, or listening to the\r
+talk of men. All this was true of him at ten years of age; he had then\r
+read through "Chrysal, or the Adventures of a Guinea," which was\r
+neither milk for babes, nor any chalky mixture meant to pass for milk,\r
+and it had already occurred to him that books were stuff, and that life\r
+was stupid. His school studies had not much modified that opinion, for\r
+though he "did" his classics and mathematics, he was not pre-eminent in\r
+them. It was said of him, that Lydgate could do anything he liked, but\r
+he had certainly not yet liked to do anything remarkable. He was a\r
+vigorous animal with a ready understanding, but no spark had yet\r
+kindled in him an intellectual passion; knowledge seemed to him a very\r
+superficial affair, easily mastered: judging from the conversation of\r
+his elders, he had apparently got already more than was necessary for\r
+mature life. Probably this was not an exceptional result of expensive\r
+teaching at that period of short-waisted coats, and other fashions\r
+which have not yet recurred. But, one vacation, a wet day sent him to\r
+the small home library to hunt once more for a book which might have\r
+some freshness for him: in vain! unless, indeed, he took down a dusty\r
+row of volumes with gray-paper backs and dingy labels--the volumes of\r
+an old Cyclopaedia which he had never disturbed. It would at least be\r
+a novelty to disturb them. They were on the highest shelf, and he\r
+stood on a chair to get them down. But he opened the volume which he\r
+first took from the shelf: somehow, one is apt to read in a makeshift\r
+attitude, just where it might seem inconvenient to do so. The page he\r
+opened on was under the head of Anatomy, and the first passage that\r
+drew his eyes was on the valves of the heart. He was not much\r
+acquainted with valves of any sort, but he knew that valvae were\r
+folding-doors, and through this crevice came a sudden light startling\r
+him with his first vivid notion of finely adjusted mechanism in the\r
+human frame. A liberal education had of course left him free to read\r
+the indecent passages in the school classics, but beyond a general\r
+sense of secrecy and obscenity in connection with his internal\r
+structure, had left his imagination quite unbiassed, so that for\r
+anything he knew his brains lay in small bags at his temples, and he\r
+had no more thought of representing to himself how his blood circulated\r
+than how paper served instead of gold. But the moment of vocation had\r
+come, and before he got down from his chair, the world was made new to\r
+him by a presentiment of endless processes filling the vast spaces\r
+planked out of his sight by that wordy ignorance which he had supposed\r
+to be knowledge. From that hour Lydgate felt the growth of an\r
+intellectual passion.\r
+\r
+We are not afraid of telling over and over again how a man comes to\r
+fall in love with a woman and be wedded to her, or else be fatally\r
+parted from her. Is it due to excess of poetry or of stupidity that we\r
+are never weary of describing what King James called a woman's "makdom\r
+and her fairnesse," never weary of listening to the twanging of the old\r
+Troubadour strings, and are comparatively uninterested in that other\r
+kind of "makdom and fairnesse" which must be wooed with industrious\r
+thought and patient renunciation of small desires? In the story of\r
+this passion, too, the development varies: sometimes it is the glorious\r
+marriage, sometimes frustration and final parting. And not seldom the\r
+catastrophe is bound up with the other passion, sung by the\r
+Troubadours. For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about\r
+their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same\r
+way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once\r
+meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little. The story\r
+of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be packed by\r
+the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness; for perhaps\r
+their ardor in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the\r
+ardor of other youthful loves, till one day their earlier self walked\r
+like a ghost in its old home and made the new furniture ghastly.\r
+Nothing in the world more subtle than the process of their gradual\r
+change! In the beginning they inhaled it unknowingly: you and I may\r
+have sent some of our breath towards infecting them, when we uttered\r
+our conforming falsities or drew our silly conclusions: or perhaps it\r
+came with the vibrations from a woman's glance.\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not mean to be one of those failures, and there was the\r
+better hope of him because his scientific interest soon took the form\r
+of a professional enthusiasm: he had a youthful belief in his\r
+bread-winning work, not to be stifled by that initiation in makeshift\r
+called his 'prentice days; and he carried to his studies in London,\r
+Edinburgh, and Paris, the conviction that the medical profession as it\r
+might be was the finest in the world; presenting the most perfect\r
+interchange between science and art; offering the most direct alliance\r
+between intellectual conquest and the social good. Lydgate's nature\r
+demanded this combination: he was an emotional creature, with a\r
+flesh-and-blood sense of fellowship which withstood all the\r
+abstractions of special study. He cared not only for "cases," but for\r
+John and Elizabeth, especially Elizabeth.\r
+\r
+There was another attraction in his profession: it wanted reform, and\r
+gave a man an opportunity for some indignant resolve to reject its\r
+venal decorations and other humbug, and to be the possessor of genuine\r
+though undemanded qualifications. He went to study in Paris with the\r
+determination that when he came home again he would settle in some\r
+provincial town as a general practitioner, and resist the\r
+irrational severance between medical and surgical knowledge in the\r
+interest of his own scientific pursuits, as well as of the general\r
+advance: he would keep away from the range of London intrigues,\r
+jealousies, and social truckling, and win celebrity, however slowly, as\r
+Jenner had done, by the independent value of his work. For it must be\r
+remembered that this was a dark period; and in spite of venerable\r
+colleges which used great efforts to secure purity of knowledge by\r
+making it scarce, and to exclude error by a rigid exclusiveness in\r
+relation to fees and appointments, it happened that very ignorant young\r
+gentlemen were promoted in town, and many more got a legal right to\r
+practise over large areas in the country. Also, the high standard held\r
+up to the public mind by the College of Physicians, which gave its peculiar\r
+sanction to the expensive and highly rarefied medical instruction\r
+obtained by graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, did not hinder quackery\r
+from having an excellent time of it; for since professional practice\r
+chiefly consisted in giving a great many drugs, the public inferred\r
+that it might be better off with more drugs still, if they could only\r
+be got cheaply, and hence swallowed large cubic measures of physic\r
+prescribed by unscrupulous ignorance which had taken no degrees.\r
+Considering that statistics had not yet embraced a calculation as to\r
+the number of ignorant or canting doctors which absolutely must exist\r
+in the teeth of all changes, it seemed to Lydgate that a change in the\r
+units was the most direct mode of changing the numbers. He meant to be\r
+a unit who would make a certain amount of difference towards that\r
+spreading change which would one day tell appreciably upon the\r
+averages, and in the mean time have the pleasure of making an\r
+advantageous difference to the viscera of his own patients. But he did\r
+not simply aim at a more genuine kind of practice than was common. He\r
+was ambitious of a wider effect: he was fired with the possibility that\r
+he might work out the proof of an anatomical conception and make a link\r
+in the chain of discovery.\r
+\r
+Does it seem incongruous to you that a Middlemarch surgeon should dream\r
+of himself as a discoverer? Most of us, indeed, know little of the\r
+great originators until they have been lifted up among the\r
+constellations and already rule our fates. But that Herschel, for\r
+example, who "broke the barriers of the heavens"--did he not once play\r
+a provincial church-organ, and give music-lessons to stumbling\r
+pianists? Each of those Shining Ones had to walk on the earth among\r
+neighbors who perhaps thought much more of his gait and his garments\r
+than of anything which was to give him a title to everlasting fame:\r
+each of them had his little local personal history sprinkled with small\r
+temptations and sordid cares, which made the retarding friction of his\r
+course towards final companionship with the immortals. Lydgate was not\r
+blind to the dangers of such friction, but he had plenty of confidence\r
+in his resolution to avoid it as far as possible: being\r
+seven-and-twenty, he felt himself experienced. And he was not going to\r
+have his vanities provoked by contact with the showy worldly successes\r
+of the capital, but to live among people who could hold no rivalry with\r
+that pursuit of a great idea which was to be a twin object with the\r
+assiduous practice of his profession. There was fascination in the\r
+hope that the two purposes would illuminate each other: the careful\r
+observation and inference which was his daily work, the use of the lens\r
+to further his judgment in special cases, would further his thought as\r
+an instrument of larger inquiry. Was not this the typical pre-eminence\r
+of his profession? He would be a good Middlemarch doctor, and by that\r
+very means keep himself in the track of far-reaching investigation. On\r
+one point he may fairly claim approval at this particular stage of his\r
+career: he did not mean to imitate those philanthropic models who make\r
+a profit out of poisonous pickles to support themselves while they are\r
+exposing adulteration, or hold shares in a gambling-hell that they may\r
+have leisure to represent the cause of public morality. He intended to\r
+begin in his own case some particular reforms which were quite\r
+certainly within his reach, and much less of a problem than the\r
+demonstrating of an anatomical conception. One of these reforms was to\r
+act stoutly on the strength of a recent legal decision, and simply\r
+prescribe, without dispensing drugs or taking percentage from\r
+druggists. This was an innovation for one who had chosen to adopt the\r
+style of general practitioner in a country town, and would be felt as\r
+offensive criticism by his professional brethren. But Lydgate meant to\r
+innovate in his treatment also, and he was wise enough to see that the\r
+best security for his practising honestly according to his belief was\r
+to get rid of systematic temptations to the contrary.\r
+\r
+Perhaps that was a more cheerful time for observers and theorizers than\r
+the present; we are apt to think it the finest era of the world when\r
+America was beginning to be discovered, when a bold sailor, even if he\r
+were wrecked, might alight on a new kingdom; and about 1829 the dark\r
+territories of Pathology were a fine America for a spirited young\r
+adventurer. Lydgate was ambitious above all to contribute towards\r
+enlarging the scientific, rational basis of his profession. The more\r
+he became interested in special questions of disease, such as the\r
+nature of fever or fevers, the more keenly he felt the need for that\r
+fundamental knowledge of structure which just at the beginning of the\r
+century had been illuminated by the brief and glorious career of\r
+Bichat, who died when he was only one-and-thirty, but, like another\r
+Alexander, left a realm large enough for many heirs. That great\r
+Frenchman first carried out the conception that living bodies,\r
+fundamentally considered, are not associations of organs which can be\r
+understood by studying them first apart, and then as it were federally;\r
+but must be regarded as consisting of certain primary webs or tissues,\r
+out of which the various organs--brain, heart, lungs, and so on--are\r
+compacted, as the various accommodations of a house are built up in\r
+various proportions of wood, iron, stone, brick, zinc, and the rest,\r
+each material having its peculiar composition and proportions. No man,\r
+one sees, can understand and estimate the entire structure or its\r
+parts--what are its frailties and what its repairs, without knowing the\r
+nature of the materials. And the conception wrought out by Bichat,\r
+with his detailed study of the different tissues, acted necessarily on\r
+medical questions as the turning of gas-light would act on a dim,\r
+oil-lit street, showing new connections and hitherto hidden facts of\r
+structure which must be taken into account in considering the symptoms\r
+of maladies and the action of medicaments. But results which depend on\r
+human conscience and intelligence work slowly, and now at the end of\r
+1829, most medical practice was still strutting or shambling along the\r
+old paths, and there was still scientific work to be done which might\r
+have seemed to be a direct sequence of Bichat's. This great seer did\r
+not go beyond the consideration of the tissues as ultimate facts in the\r
+living organism, marking the limit of anatomical analysis; but it was\r
+open to another mind to say, have not these structures some common\r
+basis from which they have all started, as your sarsnet, gauze, net,\r
+satin, and velvet from the raw cocoon? Here would be another light, as\r
+of oxy-hydrogen, showing the very grain of things, and revising all\r
+former explanations. Of this sequence to Bichat's work, already\r
+vibrating along many currents of the European mind, Lydgate was\r
+enamoured; he longed to demonstrate the more intimate relations of\r
+living structure, and help to define men's thought more accurately\r
+after the true order. The work had not yet been done, but only\r
+prepared for those who knew how to use the preparation. What was the\r
+primitive tissue? In that way Lydgate put the question--not quite in\r
+the way required by the awaiting answer; but such missing of the right\r
+word befalls many seekers. And he counted on quiet intervals to be\r
+watchfully seized, for taking up the threads of investigation--on many\r
+hints to be won from diligent application, not only of the scalpel, but\r
+of the microscope, which research had begun to use again with new\r
+enthusiasm of reliance. Such was Lydgate's plan of his future: to do\r
+good small work for Middlemarch, and great work for the world.\r
+\r
+He was certainly a happy fellow at this time: to be seven-and-twenty,\r
+without any fixed vices, with a generous resolution that his action\r
+should be beneficent, and with ideas in his brain that made life\r
+interesting quite apart from the cultus of horseflesh and other mystic\r
+rites of costly observance, which the eight hundred pounds left him\r
+after buying his practice would certainly not have gone far in paying\r
+for. He was at a starting-point which makes many a man's career a fine\r
+subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that\r
+amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an\r
+arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of\r
+circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swims\r
+and makes his point or else is carried headlong. The risk would remain\r
+even with close knowledge of Lydgate's character; for character too is\r
+a process and an unfolding. The man was still in the making, as much\r
+as the Middlemarch doctor and immortal discoverer, and there were both\r
+virtues and faults capable of shrinking or expanding. The faults will\r
+not, I hope, be a reason for the withdrawal of your interest in him.\r
+Among our valued friends is there not some one or other who is a little\r
+too self-confident and disdainful; whose distinguished mind is a little\r
+spotted with commonness; who is a little pinched here and protuberant\r
+there with native prejudices; or whose better energies are liable to\r
+lapse down the wrong channel under the influence of transient\r
+solicitations? All these things might be alleged against Lydgate, but\r
+then, they are the periphrases of a polite preacher, who talks of Adam,\r
+and would not like to mention anything painful to the pew-renters. The\r
+particular faults from which these delicate generalities are distilled\r
+have distinguishable physiognomies, diction, accent, and grimaces;\r
+filling up parts in very various dramas. Our vanities differ as our\r
+noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in\r
+correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us\r
+differs from another. Lydgate's conceit was of the arrogant sort,\r
+never simpering, never impertinent, but massive in its claims and\r
+benevolently contemptuous. He would do a great deal for noodles, being\r
+sorry for them, and feeling quite sure that they could have no power\r
+over him: he had thought of joining the Saint Simonians when he was in\r
+Paris, in order to turn them against some of their own doctrines. All\r
+his faults were marked by kindred traits, and were those of a man who\r
+had a fine baritone, whose clothes hung well upon him, and who even in\r
+his ordinary gestures had an air of inbred distinction. Where then lay\r
+the spots of commonness? says a young lady enamoured of that careless\r
+grace. How could there be any commonness in a man so well-bred, so\r
+ambitious of social distinction, so generous and unusual in his views\r
+of social duty? As easily as there may be stupidity in a man of genius\r
+if you take him unawares on the wrong subject, or as many a man who has\r
+the best will to advance the social millennium might be ill-inspired in\r
+imagining its lighter pleasures; unable to go beyond Offenbach's music,\r
+or the brilliant punning in the last burlesque. Lydgate's spots of\r
+commonness lay in the complexion of his prejudices, which, in spite of\r
+noble intention and sympathy, were half of them such as are found in\r
+ordinary men of the world: that distinction of mind which belonged to\r
+his intellectual ardor, did not penetrate his feeling and judgment\r
+about furniture, or women, or the desirability of its being known\r
+(without his telling) that he was better born than other country\r
+surgeons. He did not mean to think of furniture at present; but\r
+whenever he did so it was to be feared that neither biology nor schemes\r
+of reform would lift him above the vulgarity of feeling that there\r
+would be an incompatibility in his furniture not being of the best.\r
+\r
+As to women, he had once already been drawn headlong by impetuous\r
+folly, which he meant to be final, since marriage at some distant\r
+period would of course not be impetuous. For those who want to be\r
+acquainted with Lydgate it will be good to know what was that case of\r
+impetuous folly, for it may stand as an example of the fitful swerving\r
+of passion to which he was prone, together with the chivalrous kindness\r
+which helped to make him morally lovable. The story can be told\r
+without many words. It happened when he was studying in Paris, and\r
+just at the time when, over and above his other work, he was occupied\r
+with some galvanic experiments. One evening, tired with his\r
+experimenting, and not being able to elicit the facts he needed, he\r
+left his frogs and rabbits to some repose under their trying and\r
+mysterious dispensation of unexplained shocks, and went to finish his\r
+evening at the theatre of the Porte Saint Martin, where there was a\r
+melodrama which he had already seen several times; attracted, not by\r
+the ingenious work of the collaborating authors, but by an actress\r
+whose part it was to stab her lover, mistaking him for the\r
+evil-designing duke of the piece. Lydgate was in love with this\r
+actress, as a man is in love with a woman whom he never expects to\r
+speak to. She was a Provencale, with dark eyes, a Greek profile, and\r
+rounded majestic form, having that sort of beauty which carries a sweet\r
+matronliness even in youth, and her voice was a soft cooing. She had\r
+but lately come to Paris, and bore a virtuous reputation, her husband\r
+acting with her as the unfortunate lover. It was her acting which was\r
+"no better than it should be," but the public was satisfied. Lydgate's\r
+only relaxation now was to go and look at this woman, just as he might\r
+have thrown himself under the breath of the sweet south on a bank of\r
+violets for a while, without prejudice to his galvanism, to which he\r
+would presently return. But this evening the old drama had a new\r
+catastrophe. At the moment when the heroine was to act the stabbing of\r
+her lover, and he was to fall gracefully, the wife veritably stabbed\r
+her husband, who fell as death willed. A wild shriek pierced the\r
+house, and the Provencale fell swooning: a shriek and a swoon were\r
+demanded by the play, but the swooning too was real this time. Lydgate\r
+leaped and climbed, he hardly knew how, on to the stage, and was active\r
+in help, making the acquaintance of his heroine by finding a contusion\r
+on her head and lifting her gently in his arms. Paris rang with the\r
+story of this death:--was it a murder? Some of the actress's warmest\r
+admirers were inclined to believe in her guilt, and liked her the\r
+better for it (such was the taste of those times); but Lydgate was not\r
+one of these. He vehemently contended for her innocence, and the\r
+remote impersonal passion for her beauty which he had felt before, had\r
+passed now into personal devotion, and tender thought of her lot. The\r
+notion of murder was absurd: no motive was discoverable, the young\r
+couple being understood to dote on each other; and it was not\r
+unprecedented that an accidental slip of the foot should have brought\r
+these grave consequences. The legal investigation ended in Madame\r
+Laure's release. Lydgate by this time had had many interviews with\r
+her, and found her more and more adorable. She talked little; but that\r
+was an additional charm. She was melancholy, and seemed grateful; her\r
+presence was enough, like that of the evening light. Lydgate was madly\r
+anxious about her affection, and jealous lest any other man than\r
+himself should win it and ask her to marry him. But instead of\r
+reopening her engagement at the Porte Saint Martin, where she would\r
+have been all the more popular for the fatal episode, she left Paris\r
+without warning, forsaking her little court of admirers. Perhaps no\r
+one carried inquiry far except Lydgate, who felt that all science had\r
+come to a stand-still while he imagined the unhappy Laure, stricken by\r
+ever-wandering sorrow, herself wandering, and finding no faithful\r
+comforter. Hidden actresses, however, are not so difficult to find as\r
+some other hidden facts, and it was not long before Lydgate gathered\r
+indications that Laure had taken the route to Lyons. He found her at\r
+last acting with great success at Avignon under the same name, looking\r
+more majestic than ever as a forsaken wife carrying her child in her\r
+arms. He spoke to her after the play, was received with the usual\r
+quietude which seemed to him beautiful as clear depths of water, and\r
+obtained leave to visit her the next day; when he was bent on telling\r
+her that he adored her, and on asking her to marry him. He knew that\r
+this was like the sudden impulse of a madman--incongruous even with his\r
+habitual foibles. No matter! It was the one thing which he was\r
+resolved to do. He had two selves within him apparently, and they must\r
+learn to accommodate each other and bear reciprocal impediments.\r
+Strange, that some of us, with quick alternate vision, see beyond our\r
+infatuations, and even while we rave on the heights, behold the wide\r
+plain where our persistent self pauses and awaits us.\r
+\r
+To have approached Laure with any suit that was not reverentially\r
+tender would have been simply a contradiction of his whole feeling\r
+towards her.\r
+\r
+"You have come all the way from Paris to find me?" she said to him the\r
+next day, sitting before him with folded arms, and looking at him with\r
+eyes that seemed to wonder as an untamed ruminating animal wonders.\r
+"Are all Englishmen like that?"\r
+\r
+"I came because I could not live without trying to see you. You are\r
+lonely; I love you; I want you to consent to be my wife; I will wait,\r
+but I want you to promise that you will marry me--no one else."\r
+\r
+Laure looked at him in silence with a melancholy radiance from under\r
+her grand eyelids, until he was full of rapturous certainty, and knelt\r
+close to her knees.\r
+\r
+"I will tell you something," she said, in her cooing way, keeping her\r
+arms folded. "My foot really slipped."\r
+\r
+"I know, I know," said Lydgate, deprecatingly. "It was a fatal\r
+accident--a dreadful stroke of calamity that bound me to you the more."\r
+\r
+Again Laure paused a little and then said, slowly, "_I meant to do it._"\r
+\r
+Lydgate, strong man as he was, turned pale and trembled: moments seemed\r
+to pass before he rose and stood at a distance from her.\r
+\r
+"There was a secret, then," he said at last, even vehemently. "He was\r
+brutal to you: you hated him."\r
+\r
+"No! he wearied me; he was too fond: he would live in Paris, and not in\r
+my country; that was not agreeable to me."\r
+\r
+"Great God!" said Lydgate, in a groan of horror. "And you planned to\r
+murder him?"\r
+\r
+"I did not plan: it came to me in the play--_I meant to do it._"\r
+\r
+Lydgate stood mute, and unconsciously pressed his hat on while he\r
+looked at her. He saw this woman--the first to whom he had given his\r
+young adoration--amid the throng of stupid criminals.\r
+\r
+"You are a good young man," she said. "But I do not like husbands. I\r
+will never have another."\r
+\r
+Three days afterwards Lydgate was at his galvanism again in his Paris\r
+chambers, believing that illusions were at an end for him. He was\r
+saved from hardening effects by the abundant kindness of his heart and\r
+his belief that human life might be made better. But he had more\r
+reason than ever for trusting his judgment, now that it was so\r
+experienced; and henceforth he would take a strictly scientific view of\r
+woman, entertaining no expectations but such as were justified\r
+beforehand.\r
+\r
+No one in Middlemarch was likely to have such a notion of Lydgate's\r
+past as has here been faintly shadowed, and indeed the respectable\r
+townsfolk there were not more given than mortals generally to any eager\r
+attempt at exactness in the representation to themselves of what did\r
+not come under their own senses. Not only young virgins of that town,\r
+but gray-bearded men also, were often in haste to conjecture how a new\r
+acquaintance might be wrought into their purposes, contented with very\r
+vague knowledge as to the way in which life had been shaping him for\r
+that instrumentality. Middlemarch, in fact, counted on swallowing\r
+Lydgate and assimilating him very comfortably.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI.\r
+\r
+ "All that in woman is adored\r
+ In thy fair self I find--\r
+ For the whole sex can but afford\r
+ The handsome and the kind."\r
+ --SIR CHARLES SEDLEY.\r
+\r
+\r
+The question whether Mr. Tyke should be appointed as salaried chaplain\r
+to the hospital was an exciting topic to the Middlemarchers; and\r
+Lydgate heard it discussed in a way that threw much light on the power\r
+exercised in the town by Mr. Bulstrode. The banker was evidently a\r
+ruler, but there was an opposition party, and even among his supporters\r
+there were some who allowed it to be seen that their support was a\r
+compromise, and who frankly stated their impression that the general\r
+scheme of things, and especially the casualties of trade, required you\r
+to hold a candle to the devil.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's power was not due simply to his being a country banker,\r
+who knew the financial secrets of most traders in the town and could\r
+touch the springs of their credit; it was fortified by a beneficence\r
+that was at once ready and severe--ready to confer obligations, and\r
+severe in watching the result. He had gathered, as an industrious man\r
+always at his post, a chief share in administering the town charities,\r
+and his private charities were both minute and abundant. He would take\r
+a great deal of pains about apprenticing Tegg the shoemaker's son, and\r
+he would watch over Tegg's church-going; he would defend Mrs. Strype\r
+the washerwoman against Stubbs's unjust exaction on the score of her\r
+drying-ground, and he would himself scrutinize a calumny against Mrs.\r
+Strype. His private minor loans were numerous, but he would inquire\r
+strictly into the circumstances both before and after. In this way a\r
+man gathers a domain in his neighbors' hope and fear as well as\r
+gratitude; and power, when once it has got into that subtle region,\r
+propagates itself, spreading out of all proportion to its external\r
+means. It was a principle with Mr. Bulstrode to gain as much power as\r
+possible, that he might use it for the glory of God. He went through a\r
+great deal of spiritual conflict and inward argument in order to adjust\r
+his motives, and make clear to himself what God's glory required. But,\r
+as we have seen, his motives were not always rightly appreciated.\r
+There were many crass minds in Middlemarch whose reflective scales\r
+could only weigh things in the lump; and they had a strong suspicion\r
+that since Mr. Bulstrode could not enjoy life in their fashion, eating\r
+and drinking so little as he did, and worreting himself about\r
+everything, he must have a sort of vampire's feast in the sense of\r
+mastery.\r
+\r
+The subject of the chaplaincy came up at Mr. Vincy's table when Lydgate\r
+was dining there, and the family connection with Mr. Bulstrode did not,\r
+he observed, prevent some freedom of remark even on the part of the\r
+host himself, though his reasons against the proposed arrangement\r
+turned entirely on his objection to Mr. Tyke's sermons, which were all\r
+doctrine, and his preference for Mr. Farebrother, whose sermons were\r
+free from that taint. Mr. Vincy liked well enough the notion of the\r
+chaplain's having a salary, supposing it were given to Farebrother, who\r
+was as good a little fellow as ever breathed, and the best preacher\r
+anywhere, and companionable too.\r
+\r
+"What line shall you take, then?" said Mr. Chichely, the coroner, a\r
+great coursing comrade of Mr. Vincy's.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm precious glad I'm not one of the Directors now. I shall vote\r
+for referring the matter to the Directors and the Medical Board\r
+together. I shall roll some of my responsibility on your shoulders,\r
+Doctor," said Mr. Vincy, glancing first at Dr. Sprague, the senior\r
+physician of the town, and then at Lydgate who sat opposite. "You\r
+medical gentlemen must consult which sort of black draught you will\r
+prescribe, eh, Mr. Lydgate?"\r
+\r
+"I know little of either," said Lydgate; "but in general, appointments\r
+are apt to be made too much a question of personal liking. The fittest\r
+man for a particular post is not always the best fellow or the most\r
+agreeable. Sometimes, if you wanted to get a reform, your only way\r
+would be to pension off the good fellows whom everybody is fond of, and\r
+put them out of the question."\r
+\r
+Dr. Sprague, who was considered the physician of most "weight," though\r
+Dr. Minchin was usually said to have more "penetration," divested his\r
+large heavy face of all expression, and looked at his wine-glass while\r
+Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected\r
+about this young man--for example, a certain showiness as to foreign\r
+ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and\r
+forgotten by his elders--was positively unwelcome to a physician whose\r
+standing had been fixed thirty years before by a treatise on\r
+Meningitis, of which at least one copy marked "own" was bound in calf.\r
+For my part I have some fellow-feeling with Dr. Sprague: one's\r
+self-satisfaction is an untaxed kind of property which it is very\r
+unpleasant to find deprecated.\r
+\r
+Lydgate's remark, however, did not meet the sense of the company. Mr.\r
+Vincy said, that if he could have _his_ way, he would not put\r
+disagreeable fellows anywhere.\r
+\r
+"Hang your reforms!" said Mr. Chichely. "There's no greater humbug in\r
+the world. You never hear of a reform, but it means some trick to put\r
+in new men. I hope you are not one of the 'Lancet's' men, Mr.\r
+Lydgate--wanting to take the coronership out of the hands of the legal\r
+profession: your words appear to point that way."\r
+\r
+"I disapprove of Wakley," interposed Dr. Sprague, "no man more: he is\r
+an ill-intentioned fellow, who would sacrifice the respectability of\r
+the profession, which everybody knows depends on the London Colleges,\r
+for the sake of getting some notoriety for himself. There are men who\r
+don't mind about being kicked blue if they can only get talked about.\r
+But Wakley is right sometimes," the Doctor added, judicially. "I could\r
+mention one or two points in which Wakley is in the right."\r
+\r
+"Oh, well," said Mr. Chichely, "I blame no man for standing up in favor\r
+of his own cloth; but, coming to argument, I should like to know how a\r
+coroner is to judge of evidence if he has not had a legal training?"\r
+\r
+"In my opinion," said Lydgate, "legal training only makes a man more\r
+incompetent in questions that require knowledge a of another kind.\r
+People talk about evidence as if it could really be weighed in scales\r
+by a blind Justice. No man can judge what is good evidence on any\r
+particular subject, unless he knows that subject well. A lawyer is no\r
+better than an old woman at a post-mortem examination. How is he to\r
+know the action of a poison? You might as well say that scanning verse\r
+will teach you to scan the potato crops."\r
+\r
+"You are aware, I suppose, that it is not the coroner's business to\r
+conduct the post-mortem, but only to take the evidence of the medical\r
+witness?" said Mr. Chichely, with some scorn.\r
+\r
+"Who is often almost as ignorant as the coroner himself," said Lydgate.\r
+"Questions of medical jurisprudence ought not to be left to the chance\r
+of decent knowledge in a medical witness, and the coroner ought not to\r
+be a man who will believe that strychnine will destroy the coats of the\r
+stomach if an ignorant practitioner happens to tell him so."\r
+\r
+Lydgate had really lost sight of the fact that Mr. Chichely was his\r
+Majesty's coroner, and ended innocently with the question, "Don't you\r
+agree with me, Dr. Sprague?"\r
+\r
+"To a certain extent--with regard to populous districts, and in the\r
+metropolis," said the Doctor. "But I hope it will be long before this\r
+part of the country loses the services of my friend Chichely, even\r
+though it might get the best man in our profession to succeed him. I\r
+am sure Vincy will agree with me."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, give me a coroner who is a good coursing man," said Mr.\r
+Vincy, jovially. "And in my opinion, you're safest with a lawyer.\r
+Nobody can know everything. Most things are 'visitation of God.' And as\r
+to poisoning, why, what you want to know is the law. Come, shall we\r
+join the ladies?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate's private opinion was that Mr. Chichely might be the very\r
+coroner without bias as to the coats of the stomach, but he had not\r
+meant to be personal. This was one of the difficulties of moving in\r
+good Middlemarch society: it was dangerous to insist on knowledge as a\r
+qualification for any salaried office. Fred Vincy had called Lydgate a\r
+prig, and now Mr. Chichely was inclined to call him prick-eared;\r
+especially when, in the drawing-room, he seemed to be making himself\r
+eminently agreeable to Rosamond, whom he had easily monopolized in a\r
+tete-a-tete, since Mrs. Vincy herself sat at the tea-table. She\r
+resigned no domestic function to her daughter; and the matron's\r
+blooming good-natured face, with the two volatile pink strings floating\r
+from her fine throat, and her cheery manners to husband and children,\r
+was certainly among the great attractions of the Vincy\r
+house--attractions which made it all the easier to fall in love with\r
+the daughter. The tinge of unpretentious, inoffensive vulgarity in\r
+Mrs. Vincy gave more effect to Rosamond's refinement, which was beyond\r
+what Lydgate had expected.\r
+\r
+Certainly, small feet and perfectly turned shoulders aid the impression\r
+of refined manners, and the right thing said seems quite astonishingly\r
+right when it is accompanied with exquisite curves of lip and eyelid.\r
+And Rosamond could say the right thing; for she was clever with that\r
+sort of cleverness which catches every tone except the humorous.\r
+Happily she never attempted to joke, and this perhaps was the most\r
+decisive mark of her cleverness.\r
+\r
+She and Lydgate readily got into conversation. He regretted that he\r
+had not heard her sing the other day at Stone Court. The only pleasure\r
+he allowed himself during the latter part of his stay in Paris was to\r
+go and hear music.\r
+\r
+"You have studied music, probably?" said Rosamond.\r
+\r
+"No, I know the notes of many birds, and I know many melodies by ear;\r
+but the music that I don't know at all, and have no notion about,\r
+delights me--affects me. How stupid the world is that it does not make\r
+more use of such a pleasure within its reach!"\r
+\r
+"Yes, and you will find Middlemarch very tuneless. There are hardly\r
+any good musicians. I only know two gentlemen who sing at all well."\r
+\r
+"I suppose it is the fashion to sing comic songs in a rhythmic way,\r
+leaving you to fancy the tune--very much as if it were tapped on a\r
+drum?"\r
+\r
+"Ah, you have heard Mr. Bowyer," said Rosamond, with one of her rare\r
+smiles. "But we are speaking very ill of our neighbors."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was almost forgetting that he must carry on the conversation,\r
+in thinking how lovely this creature was, her garment seeming to be\r
+made out of the faintest blue sky, herself so immaculately blond, as if\r
+the petals of some gigantic flower had just opened and disclosed her;\r
+and yet with this infantine blondness showing so much ready,\r
+self-possessed grace. Since he had had the memory of Laure, Lydgate\r
+had lost all taste for large-eyed silence: the divine cow no longer\r
+attracted him, and Rosamond was her very opposite. But he recalled\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+"You will let me hear some music to-night, I hope."\r
+\r
+"I will let you hear my attempts, if you like," said Rosamond. "Papa\r
+is sure to insist on my singing. But I shall tremble before you, who\r
+have heard the best singers in Paris. I have heard very little: I have\r
+only once been to London. But our organist at St. Peter's is a good\r
+musician, and I go on studying with him."\r
+\r
+"Tell me what you saw in London."\r
+\r
+"Very little." (A more naive girl would have said, "Oh, everything!"\r
+But Rosamond knew better.) "A few of the ordinary sights, such as raw\r
+country girls are always taken to."\r
+\r
+"Do you call yourself a raw country girl?" said Lydgate, looking at her\r
+with an involuntary emphasis of admiration, which made Rosamond blush\r
+with pleasure. But she remained simply serious, turned her long neck a\r
+little, and put up her hand to touch her wondrous hair-plaits--an\r
+habitual gesture with her as pretty as any movements of a kitten's paw.\r
+Not that Rosamond was in the least like a kitten: she was a sylph\r
+caught young and educated at Mrs. Lemon's.\r
+\r
+"I assure you my mind is raw," she said immediately; "I pass at\r
+Middlemarch. I am not afraid of talking to our old neighbors. But I\r
+am really afraid of you."\r
+\r
+"An accomplished woman almost always knows more than we men, though her\r
+knowledge is of a different sort. I am sure you could teach me a\r
+thousand things--as an exquisite bird could teach a bear if there were\r
+any common language between them. Happily, there is a common language\r
+between women and men, and so the bears can get taught."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there is Fred beginning to strum! I must go and hinder him from\r
+jarring all your nerves," said Rosamond, moving to the other side of\r
+the room, where Fred having opened the piano, at his father's desire,\r
+that Rosamond might give them some music, was parenthetically\r
+performing "Cherry Ripe!" with one hand. Able men who have passed\r
+their examinations will do these things sometimes, not less than the\r
+plucked Fred.\r
+\r
+"Fred, pray defer your practising till to-morrow; you will make Mr.\r
+Lydgate ill," said Rosamond. "He has an ear."\r
+\r
+Fred laughed, and went on with his tune to the end.\r
+\r
+Rosamond turned to Lydgate, smiling gently, and said, "You perceive,\r
+the bears will not always be taught."\r
+\r
+"Now then, Rosy!" said Fred, springing from the stool and twisting it\r
+upward for her, with a hearty expectation of enjoyment. "Some good\r
+rousing tunes first."\r
+\r
+Rosamond played admirably. Her master at Mrs. Lemon's school (close to\r
+a county town with a memorable history that had its relics in church\r
+and castle) was one of those excellent musicians here and there to be\r
+found in our provinces, worthy to compare with many a noted\r
+Kapellmeister in a country which offers more plentiful conditions of\r
+musical celebrity. Rosamond, with the executant's instinct, had seized\r
+his manner of playing, and gave forth his large rendering of noble\r
+music with the precision of an echo. It was almost startling, heard\r
+for the first time. A hidden soul seemed to be flowing forth from\r
+Rosamond's fingers; and so indeed it was, since souls live on in\r
+perpetual echoes, and to all fine expression there goes somewhere an\r
+originating activity, if it be only that of an interpreter. Lydgate\r
+was taken possession of, and began to believe in her as something\r
+exceptional. After all, he thought, one need not be surprised to find\r
+the rare conjunctions of nature under circumstances apparently\r
+unfavorable: come where they may, they always depend on conditions that\r
+are not obvious. He sat looking at her, and did not rise to pay her\r
+any compliments, leaving that to others, now that his admiration was\r
+deepened.\r
+\r
+Her singing was less remarkable, but also well trained, and sweet to\r
+hear as a chime perfectly in tune. It is true she sang "Meet me by\r
+moonlight," and "I've been roaming"; for mortals must share the\r
+fashions of their time, and none but the ancients can be always\r
+classical. But Rosamond could also sing "Black-eyed Susan" with\r
+effect, or Haydn's canzonets, or "Voi, che sapete," or "Batti,\r
+batti"--she only wanted to know what her audience liked.\r
+\r
+Her father looked round at the company, delighting in their admiration.\r
+Her mother sat, like a Niobe before her troubles, with her youngest\r
+little girl on her lap, softly beating the child's hand up and down in\r
+time to the music. And Fred, notwithstanding his general scepticism\r
+about Rosy, listened to her music with perfect allegiance, wishing he\r
+could do the same thing on his flute. It was the pleasantest family\r
+party that Lydgate had seen since he came to Middlemarch. The Vincys\r
+had the readiness to enjoy, the rejection of all anxiety, and the\r
+belief in life as a merry lot, which made a house exceptional in most\r
+county towns at that time, when Evangelicalism had cast a certain\r
+suspicion as of plague-infection over the few amusements which survived\r
+in the provinces. At the Vincys' there was always whist, and the\r
+card-tables stood ready now, making some of the company secretly\r
+impatient of the music. Before it ceased Mr. Farebrother came in--a\r
+handsome, broad-chested but otherwise small man, about forty, whose\r
+black was very threadbare: the brilliancy was all in his quick gray\r
+eyes. He came like a pleasant change in the light, arresting little\r
+Louisa with fatherly nonsense as she was being led out of the room by\r
+Miss Morgan, greeting everybody with some special word, and seeming to\r
+condense more talk into ten minutes than had been held all through the\r
+evening. He claimed from Lydgate the fulfilment of a promise to come\r
+and see him. "I can't let you off, you know, because I have some\r
+beetles to show you. We collectors feel an interest in every new man\r
+till he has seen all we have to show him."\r
+\r
+But soon he swerved to the whist-table, rubbing his hands and saying,\r
+"Come now, let us be serious! Mr. Lydgate? not play? Ah! you are too\r
+young and light for this kind of thing."\r
+\r
+Lydgate said to himself that the clergyman whose abilities were so\r
+painful to Mr. Bulstrode, appeared to have found an agreeable resort in\r
+this certainly not erudite household. He could half understand it: the\r
+good-humor, the good looks of elder and younger, and the provision for\r
+passing the time without any labor of intelligence, might make the\r
+house beguiling to people who had no particular use for their odd hours.\r
+\r
+Everything looked blooming and joyous except Miss Morgan, who was\r
+brown, dull, and resigned, and altogether, as Mrs. Vincy often said,\r
+just the sort of person for a governess. Lydgate did not mean to pay\r
+many such visits himself. They were a wretched waste of the evenings;\r
+and now, when he had talked a little more to Rosamond, he meant to\r
+excuse himself and go.\r
+\r
+"You will not like us at Middlemarch, I feel sure," she said, when the\r
+whist-players were settled. "We are very stupid, and you have been\r
+used to something quite different."\r
+\r
+"I suppose all country towns are pretty much alike," said Lydgate.\r
+"But I have noticed that one always believes one's own town to be more\r
+stupid than any other. I have made up my mind to take Middlemarch as\r
+it comes, and shall be much obliged if the town will take me in the\r
+same way. I have certainly found some charms in it which are much\r
+greater than I had expected."\r
+\r
+"You mean the rides towards Tipton and Lowick; every one is pleased\r
+with those," said Rosamond, with simplicity.\r
+\r
+"No, I mean something much nearer to me."\r
+\r
+Rosamond rose and reached her netting, and then said, "Do you care\r
+about dancing at all? I am not quite sure whether clever men ever\r
+dance."\r
+\r
+"I would dance with you if you would allow me."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Rosamond, with a slight deprecatory laugh. "I was only\r
+going to say that we sometimes have dancing, and I wanted to know\r
+whether you would feel insulted if you were asked to come."\r
+\r
+"Not on the condition I mentioned."\r
+\r
+After this chat Lydgate thought that he was going, but on moving\r
+towards the whist-tables, he got interested in watching Mr.\r
+Farebrother's play, which was masterly, and also his face, which was a\r
+striking mixture of the shrewd and the mild. At ten o'clock supper was\r
+brought in (such were the customs of Middlemarch) and there was\r
+punch-drinking; but Mr. Farebrother had only a glass of water. He was\r
+winning, but there seemed to be no reason why the renewal of rubbers\r
+should end, and Lydgate at last took his leave.\r
+\r
+But as it was not eleven o'clock, he chose to walk in the brisk air\r
+towards the tower of St. Botolph's, Mr. Farebrother's church, which\r
+stood out dark, square, and massive against the starlight. It was the\r
+oldest church in Middlemarch; the living, however, was but a vicarage\r
+worth barely four hundred a-year. Lydgate had heard that, and he\r
+wondered now whether Mr. Farebrother cared about the money he won at\r
+cards; thinking, "He seems a very pleasant fellow, but Bulstrode may\r
+have his good reasons." Many things would be easier to Lydgate if it\r
+should turn out that Mr. Bulstrode was generally justifiable. "What is\r
+his religious doctrine to me, if he carries some good notions along\r
+with it? One must use such brains as are to be found."\r
+\r
+These were actually Lydgate's first meditations as he walked away from\r
+Mr. Vincy's, and on this ground I fear that many ladies will consider\r
+him hardly worthy of their attention. He thought of Rosamond and her\r
+music only in the second place; and though, when her turn came, he\r
+dwelt on the image of her for the rest of his walk, he felt no\r
+agitation, and had no sense that any new current had set into his life.\r
+He could not marry yet; he wished not to marry for several years; and\r
+therefore he was not ready to entertain the notion of being in love\r
+with a girl whom he happened to admire. He did admire Rosamond\r
+exceedingly; but that madness which had once beset him about Laure was\r
+not, he thought, likely to recur in relation to any other woman.\r
+Certainly, if falling in love had been at all in question, it would\r
+have been quite safe with a creature like this Miss Vincy, who had just\r
+the kind of intelligence one would desire in a woman--polished,\r
+refined, docile, lending itself to finish in all the delicacies of\r
+life, and enshrined in a body which expressed this with a force of\r
+demonstration that excluded the need for other evidence. Lydgate felt\r
+sure that if ever he married, his wife would have that feminine\r
+radiance, that distinctive womanhood which must be classed with flowers\r
+and music, that sort of beauty which by its very nature was virtuous,\r
+being moulded only for pure and delicate joys.\r
+\r
+But since he did not mean to marry for the next five years--his more\r
+pressing business was to look into Louis' new book on Fever, which he\r
+was specially interested in, because he had known Louis in Paris, and\r
+had followed many anatomical demonstrations in order to ascertain the\r
+specific differences of typhus and typhoid. He went home and read far\r
+into the smallest hour, bringing a much more testing vision of details\r
+and relations into this pathological study than he had ever thought it\r
+necessary to apply to the complexities of love and marriage, these\r
+being subjects on which he felt himself amply informed by literature,\r
+and that traditional wisdom which is handed down in the genial\r
+conversation of men. Whereas Fever had obscure conditions, and gave\r
+him that delightful labor of the imagination which is not mere\r
+arbitrariness, but the exercise of disciplined power--combining and\r
+constructing with the clearest eye for probabilities and the fullest\r
+obedience to knowledge; and then, in yet more energetic alliance with\r
+impartial Nature, standing aloof to invent tests by which to try its\r
+own work.\r
+\r
+Many men have been praised as vividly imaginative on the strength of\r
+their profuseness in indifferent drawing or cheap narration:--reports\r
+of very poor talk going on in distant orbs; or portraits of Lucifer\r
+coming down on his bad errands as a large ugly man with bat's wings and\r
+spurts of phosphorescence; or exaggerations of wantonness that seem to\r
+reflect life in a diseased dream. But these kinds of inspiration\r
+Lydgate regarded as rather vulgar and vinous compared with the\r
+imagination that reveals subtle actions inaccessible by any sort of\r
+lens, but tracked in that outer darkness through long pathways of\r
+necessary sequence by the inward light which is the last refinement of\r
+Energy, capable of bathing even the ethereal atoms in its ideally\r
+illuminated space. He for his part had tossed away all cheap\r
+inventions where ignorance finds itself able and at ease: he was\r
+enamoured of that arduous invention which is the very eye of research,\r
+provisionally framing its object and correcting it to more and more\r
+exactness of relation; he wanted to pierce the obscurity of those\r
+minute processes which prepare human misery and joy, those invisible\r
+thoroughfares which are the first lurking-places of anguish, mania, and\r
+crime, that delicate poise and transition which determine the growth of\r
+happy or unhappy consciousness.\r
+\r
+As he threw down his book, stretched his legs towards the embers in the\r
+grate, and clasped his hands at the back of his head, in that agreeable\r
+afterglow of excitement when thought lapses from examination of a\r
+specific object into a suffusive sense of its connections with all the\r
+rest of our existence--seems, as it were, to throw itself on its back\r
+after vigorous swimming and float with the repose of unexhausted\r
+strength--Lydgate felt a triumphant delight in his studies, and\r
+something like pity for those less lucky men who were not of his\r
+profession.\r
+\r
+"If I had not taken that turn when I was a lad," he thought, "I might\r
+have got into some stupid draught-horse work or other, and lived always\r
+in blinkers. I should never have been happy in any profession that did\r
+not call forth the highest intellectual strain, and yet keep me in good\r
+warm contact with my neighbors. There is nothing like the medical\r
+profession for that: one can have the exclusive scientific life that\r
+touches the distance and befriend the old fogies in the parish too. It\r
+is rather harder for a clergyman: Farebrother seems to be an anomaly."\r
+\r
+This last thought brought back the Vincys and all the pictures of the\r
+evening. They floated in his mind agreeably enough, and as he took up\r
+his bed-candle his lips were curled with that incipient smile which is\r
+apt to accompany agreeable recollections. He was an ardent fellow, but\r
+at present his ardor was absorbed in love of his work and in the\r
+ambition of making his life recognized as a factor in the better life\r
+of mankind--like other heroes of science who had nothing but an obscure\r
+country practice to begin with.\r
+\r
+Poor Lydgate! or shall I say, Poor Rosamond! Each lived in a world of\r
+which the other knew nothing. It had not occurred to Lydgate that he\r
+had been a subject of eager meditation to Rosamond, who had neither any\r
+reason for throwing her marriage into distant perspective, nor any\r
+pathological studies to divert her mind from that ruminating habit,\r
+that inward repetition of looks, words, and phrases, which makes a\r
+large part in the lives of most girls. He had not meant to look at her\r
+or speak to her with more than the inevitable amount of admiration and\r
+compliment which a man must give to a beautiful girl; indeed, it seemed\r
+to him that his enjoyment of her music had remained almost silent, for\r
+he feared falling into the rudeness of telling her his great surprise\r
+at her possession of such accomplishment. But Rosamond had registered\r
+every look and word, and estimated them as the opening incidents of a\r
+preconceived romance--incidents which gather value from the foreseen\r
+development and climax. In Rosamond's romance it was not necessary to\r
+imagine much about the inward life of the hero, or of his serious\r
+business in the world: of course, he had a profession and was clever,\r
+as well as sufficiently handsome; but the piquant fact about Lydgate\r
+was his good birth, which distinguished him from all Middlemarch\r
+admirers, and presented marriage as a prospect of rising in rank and\r
+getting a little nearer to that celestial condition on earth in which\r
+she would have nothing to do with vulgar people, and perhaps at last\r
+associate with relatives quite equal to the county people who looked\r
+down on the Middlemarchers. It was part of Rosamond's cleverness to\r
+discern very subtly the faintest aroma of rank, and once when she had\r
+seen the Miss Brookes accompanying their uncle at the county assizes,\r
+and seated among the aristocracy, she had envied them, notwithstanding\r
+their plain dress.\r
+\r
+If you think it incredible that to imagine Lydgate as a man of family\r
+could cause thrills of satisfaction which had anything to do with the\r
+sense that she was in love with him, I will ask you to use your power\r
+of comparison a little more effectively, and consider whether red cloth\r
+and epaulets have never had an influence of that sort. Our passions do\r
+not live apart in locked chambers, but, dressed in their small wardrobe\r
+of notions, bring their provisions to a common table and mess together,\r
+feeding out of the common store according to their appetite.\r
+\r
+Rosamond, in fact, was entirely occupied not exactly with Tertius\r
+Lydgate as he was in himself, but with his relation to her; and it was\r
+excusable in a girl who was accustomed to hear that all young men\r
+might, could, would be, or actually were in love with her, to believe\r
+at once that Lydgate could be no exception. His looks and words meant\r
+more to her than other men's, because she cared more for them: she\r
+thought of them diligently, and diligently attended to that perfection\r
+of appearance, behavior, sentiments, and all other elegancies, which\r
+would find in Lydgate a more adequate admirer than she had yet been\r
+conscious of.\r
+\r
+For Rosamond, though she would never do anything that was disagreeable\r
+to her, was industrious; and now more than ever she was active in\r
+sketching her landscapes and market-carts and portraits of friends, in\r
+practising her music, and in being from morning till night her own\r
+standard of a perfect lady, having always an audience in her own\r
+consciousness, with sometimes the not unwelcome addition of a more\r
+variable external audience in the numerous visitors of the house. She\r
+found time also to read the best novels, and even the second best, and\r
+she knew much poetry by heart. Her favorite poem was "Lalla Rookh."\r
+\r
+"The best girl in the world! He will be a happy fellow who gets her!"\r
+was the sentiment of the elderly gentlemen who visited the Vincys; and\r
+the rejected young men thought of trying again, as is the fashion in\r
+country towns where the horizon is not thick with coming rivals. But\r
+Mrs. Plymdale thought that Rosamond had been educated to a ridiculous\r
+pitch, for what was the use of accomplishments which would be all laid\r
+aside as soon as she was married? While her aunt Bulstrode, who had a\r
+sisterly faithfulness towards her brother's family, had two sincere\r
+wishes for Rosamond--that she might show a more serious turn of mind,\r
+and that she might meet with a husband whose wealth corresponded to her\r
+habits.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII.\r
+\r
+ "The clerkly person smiled and said\r
+ Promise was a pretty maid,\r
+ But being poor she died unwed."\r
+\r
+\r
+The Rev. Camden Farebrother, whom Lydgate went to see the next evening,\r
+lived in an old parsonage, built of stone, venerable enough to match\r
+the church which it looked out upon. All the furniture too in the\r
+house was old, but with another grade of age--that of Mr. Farebrother's\r
+father and grandfather. There were painted white chairs, with gilding\r
+and wreaths on them, and some lingering red silk damask with slits in\r
+it. There were engraved portraits of Lord Chancellors and other\r
+celebrated lawyers of the last century; and there were old pier-glasses\r
+to reflect them, as well as the little satin-wood tables and the sofas\r
+resembling a prolongation of uneasy chairs, all standing in relief\r
+against the dark wainscot. This was the physiognomy of the drawing-room\r
+into which Lydgate was shown; and there were three ladies to receive\r
+him, who were also old-fashioned, and of a faded but genuine\r
+respectability: Mrs. Farebrother, the Vicar's white-haired mother,\r
+befrilled and kerchiefed with dainty cleanliness, upright, quick-eyed,\r
+and still under seventy; Miss Noble, her sister, a tiny old lady of\r
+meeker aspect, with frills and kerchief decidedly more worn and mended;\r
+and Miss Winifred Farebrother, the Vicar's elder sister, well-looking\r
+like himself, but nipped and subdued as single women are apt to be who\r
+spend their lives in uninterrupted subjection to their elders. Lydgate\r
+had not expected to see so quaint a group: knowing simply that Mr.\r
+Farebrother was a bachelor, he had thought of being ushered into a\r
+snuggery where the chief furniture would probably be books and\r
+collections of natural objects. The Vicar himself seemed to wear\r
+rather a changed aspect, as most men do when acquaintances made\r
+elsewhere see them for the first time in their own homes; some indeed\r
+showing like an actor of genial parts disadvantageously cast for the\r
+curmudgeon in a new piece. This was not the case with Mr. Farebrother:\r
+he seemed a trifle milder and more silent, the chief talker being his\r
+mother, while he only put in a good-humored moderating remark here and\r
+there. The old lady was evidently accustomed to tell her company what\r
+they ought to think, and to regard no subject as quite safe without her\r
+steering. She was afforded leisure for this function by having all her\r
+little wants attended to by Miss Winifred. Meanwhile tiny Miss Noble\r
+carried on her arm a small basket, into which she diverted a bit of\r
+sugar, which she had first dropped in her saucer as if by mistake;\r
+looking round furtively afterwards, and reverting to her teacup with a\r
+small innocent noise as of a tiny timid quadruped. Pray think no ill\r
+of Miss Noble. That basket held small savings from her more portable\r
+food, destined for the children of her poor friends among whom she\r
+trotted on fine mornings; fostering and petting all needy creatures\r
+being so spontaneous a delight to her, that she regarded it much as if\r
+it had been a pleasant vice that she was addicted to. Perhaps she was\r
+conscious of being tempted to steal from those who had much that she\r
+might give to those who had nothing, and carried in her conscience the\r
+guilt of that repressed desire. One must be poor to know the luxury of\r
+giving!\r
+\r
+Mrs. Farebrother welcomed the guest with a lively formality and\r
+precision. She presently informed him that they were not often in want\r
+of medical aid in that house. She had brought up her children to wear\r
+flannel and not to over-eat themselves, which last habit she considered\r
+the chief reason why people needed doctors. Lydgate pleaded for those\r
+whose fathers and mothers had over-eaten themselves, but Mrs.\r
+Farebrother held that view of things dangerous: Nature was more just\r
+than that; it would be easy for any felon to say that his ancestors\r
+ought to have been hanged instead of him. If those who had bad fathers\r
+and mothers were bad themselves, they were hanged for that. There was\r
+no need to go back on what you couldn't see.\r
+\r
+"My mother is like old George the Third," said the Vicar, "she objects\r
+to metaphysics."\r
+\r
+"I object to what is wrong, Camden. I say, keep hold of a few plain\r
+truths, and make everything square with them. When I was young, Mr.\r
+Lydgate, there never was any question about right and wrong. We knew\r
+our catechism, and that was enough; we learned our creed and our duty.\r
+Every respectable Church person had the same opinions. But now, if you\r
+speak out of the Prayer-book itself, you are liable to be contradicted."\r
+\r
+"That makes rather a pleasant time of it for those who like to maintain\r
+their own point," said Lydgate.\r
+\r
+"But my mother always gives way," said the Vicar, slyly.\r
+\r
+"No, no, Camden, you must not lead Mr. Lydgate into a mistake about\r
+_me_. I shall never show that disrespect to my parents, to give up what\r
+they taught me. Any one may see what comes of turning. If you change\r
+once, why not twenty times?"\r
+\r
+"A man might see good arguments for changing once, and not see them for\r
+changing again," said Lydgate, amused with the decisive old lady.\r
+\r
+"Excuse me there. If you go upon arguments, they are never wanting,\r
+when a man has no constancy of mind. My father never changed, and he\r
+preached plain moral sermons without arguments, and was a good man--few\r
+better. When you get me a good man made out of arguments, I will get\r
+you a good dinner with reading you the cookery-book. That's my opinion,\r
+and I think anybody's stomach will bear me out."\r
+\r
+"About the dinner certainly, mother," said Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"It is the same thing, the dinner or the man. I am nearly seventy, Mr.\r
+Lydgate, and I go upon experience. I am not likely to follow new\r
+lights, though there are plenty of them here as elsewhere. I say, they\r
+came in with the mixed stuffs that will neither wash nor wear. It was\r
+not so in my youth: a Churchman was a Churchman, and a clergyman, you\r
+might be pretty sure, was a gentleman, if nothing else. But now he may\r
+be no better than a Dissenter, and want to push aside my son on\r
+pretence of doctrine. But whoever may wish to push him aside, I am\r
+proud to say, Mr. Lydgate, that he will compare with any preacher in\r
+this kingdom, not to speak of this town, which is but a low standard to\r
+go by; at least, to my thinking, for I was born and bred at Exeter."\r
+\r
+"A mother is never partial," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling. "What do\r
+you think Tyke's mother says about him?"\r
+\r
+"Ah, poor creature! what indeed?" said Mrs. Farebrother, her sharpness\r
+blunted for the moment by her confidence in maternal judgments. "She\r
+says the truth to herself, depend upon it."\r
+\r
+"And what is the truth?" said Lydgate. "I am curious to know."\r
+\r
+"Oh, nothing bad at all," said Mr. Farebrother. "He is a zealous\r
+fellow: not very learned, and not very wise, I think--because I don't\r
+agree with him."\r
+\r
+"Why, Camden!" said Miss Winifred, "Griffin and his wife told me only\r
+to-day, that Mr. Tyke said they should have no more coals if they came\r
+to hear you preach."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Farebrother laid down her knitting, which she had resumed after\r
+her small allowance of tea and toast, and looked at her son as if to\r
+say "You hear that?" Miss Noble said, "Oh poor things! poor things!"\r
+in reference, probably, to the double loss of preaching and coal. But\r
+the Vicar answered quietly--\r
+\r
+"That is because they are not my parishioners. And I don't think my\r
+sermons are worth a load of coals to them."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate," said Mrs. Farebrother, who could not let this pass, "you\r
+don't know my son: he always undervalues himself. I tell him he is\r
+undervaluing the God who made him, and made him a most excellent\r
+preacher."\r
+\r
+"That must be a hint for me to take Mr. Lydgate away to my study,\r
+mother," said the Vicar, laughing. "I promised to show you my\r
+collection," he added, turning to Lydgate; "shall we go?"\r
+\r
+All three ladies remonstrated. Mr. Lydgate ought not to be hurried\r
+away without being allowed to accept another cup of tea: Miss Winifred\r
+had abundance of good tea in the pot. Why was Camden in such haste to\r
+take a visitor to his den? There was nothing but pickled vermin, and\r
+drawers full of blue-bottles and moths, with no carpet on the floor.\r
+Mr. Lydgate must excuse it. A game at cribbage would be far better.\r
+In short, it was plain that a vicar might be adored by his womankind as\r
+the king of men and preachers, and yet be held by them to stand in much\r
+need of their direction. Lydgate, with the usual shallowness of a\r
+young bachelor, wondered that Mr. Farebrother had not taught them\r
+better.\r
+\r
+"My mother is not used to my having visitors who can take any interest\r
+in my hobbies," said the Vicar, as he opened the door of his study,\r
+which was indeed as bare of luxuries for the body as the ladies had\r
+implied, unless a short porcelain pipe and a tobacco-box were to be\r
+excepted.\r
+\r
+"Men of your profession don't generally smoke," he said. Lydgate\r
+smiled and shook his head. "Nor of mine either, properly, I suppose.\r
+You will hear that pipe alleged against me by Bulstrode and Company.\r
+They don't know how pleased the devil would be if I gave it up."\r
+\r
+"I understand. You are of an excitable temper and want a sedative. I\r
+am heavier, and should get idle with it. I should rush into idleness,\r
+and stagnate there with all my might."\r
+\r
+"And you mean to give it all to your work. I am some ten or twelve\r
+years older than you, and have come to a compromise. I feed a weakness\r
+or two lest they should get clamorous. See," continued the Vicar,\r
+opening several small drawers, "I fancy I have made an exhaustive study\r
+of the entomology of this district. I am going on both with the fauna\r
+and flora; but I have at least done my insects well. We are singularly\r
+rich in orthoptera: I don't know whether--Ah! you have got hold of that\r
+glass jar--you are looking into that instead of my drawers. You don't\r
+really care about these things?"\r
+\r
+"Not by the side of this lovely anencephalous monster. I have never\r
+had time to give myself much to natural history. I was early bitten\r
+with an interest in structure, and it is what lies most directly in my\r
+profession. I have no hobby besides. I have the sea to swim in there."\r
+\r
+"Ah! you are a happy fellow," said Mr. Farebrother, turning on his heel\r
+and beginning to fill his pipe. "You don't know what it is to want\r
+spiritual tobacco--bad emendations of old texts, or small items about a\r
+variety of Aphis Brassicae, with the well-known signature of\r
+Philomicron, for the 'Twaddler's Magazine;' or a learned treatise on\r
+the entomology of the Pentateuch, including all the insects not\r
+mentioned, but probably met with by the Israelites in their passage\r
+through the desert; with a monograph on the Ant, as treated by Solomon,\r
+showing the harmony of the Book of Proverbs with the results of modern\r
+research. You don't mind my fumigating you?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate was more surprised at the openness of this talk than at its\r
+implied meaning--that the Vicar felt himself not altogether in the\r
+right vocation. The neat fitting-up of drawers and shelves, and the\r
+bookcase filled with expensive illustrated books on Natural History,\r
+made him think again of the winnings at cards and their destination.\r
+But he was beginning to wish that the very best construction of\r
+everything that Mr. Farebrother did should be the true one. The\r
+Vicar's frankness seemed not of the repulsive sort that comes from an\r
+uneasy consciousness seeking to forestall the judgment of others, but\r
+simply the relief of a desire to do with as little pretence as\r
+possible. Apparently he was not without a sense that his freedom of\r
+speech might seem premature, for he presently said--\r
+\r
+"I have not yet told you that I have the advantage of you, Mr. Lydgate,\r
+and know you better than you know me. You remember Trawley who shared\r
+your apartment at Paris for some time? I was a correspondent of his,\r
+and he told me a good deal about you. I was not quite sure when you\r
+first came that you were the same man. I was very glad when I found\r
+that you were. Only I don't forget that you have not had the like\r
+prologue about me."\r
+\r
+Lydgate divined some delicacy of feeling here, but did not half\r
+understand it. "By the way," he said, "what has become of Trawley? I\r
+have quite lost sight of him. He was hot on the French social systems,\r
+and talked of going to the Backwoods to found a sort of Pythagorean\r
+community. Is he gone?"\r
+\r
+"Not at all. He is practising at a German bath, and has married a rich\r
+patient."\r
+\r
+"Then my notions wear the best, so far," said Lydgate, with a short\r
+scornful laugh. "He would have it, the medical profession was an\r
+inevitable system of humbug. I said, the fault was in the men--men who\r
+truckle to lies and folly. Instead of preaching against humbug outside\r
+the walls, it might be better to set up a disinfecting apparatus\r
+within. In short--I am reporting my own conversation--you may be sure\r
+I had all the good sense on my side."\r
+\r
+"Your scheme is a good deal more difficult to carry out than the\r
+Pythagorean community, though. You have not only got the old Adam in\r
+yourself against you, but you have got all those descendants of the\r
+original Adam who form the society around you. You see, I have paid\r
+twelve or thirteen years more than you for my knowledge of\r
+difficulties. But"--Mr. Farebrother broke off a moment, and then\r
+added, "you are eying that glass vase again. Do you want to make an\r
+exchange? You shall not have it without a fair barter."\r
+\r
+"I have some sea-mice--fine specimens--in spirits. And I will throw in\r
+Robert Brown's new thing--'Microscopic Observations on the Pollen of\r
+Plants'--if you don't happen to have it already."\r
+\r
+"Why, seeing how you long for the monster, I might ask a higher price.\r
+Suppose I ask you to look through my drawers and agree with me about\r
+all my new species?" The Vicar, while he talked in this way,\r
+alternately moved about with his pipe in his mouth, and returned to\r
+hang rather fondly over his drawers. "That would be good discipline,\r
+you know, for a young doctor who has to please his patients in\r
+Middlemarch. You must learn to be bored, remember. However, you shall\r
+have the monster on your own terms."\r
+\r
+"Don't you think men overrate the necessity for humoring everybody's\r
+nonsense, till they get despised by the very fools they humor?" said\r
+Lydgate, moving to Mr. Farebrother's side, and looking rather absently\r
+at the insects ranged in fine gradation, with names subscribed in\r
+exquisite writing. "The shortest way is to make your value felt, so\r
+that people must put up with you whether you flatter them or not."\r
+\r
+"With all my heart. But then you must be sure of having the value, and\r
+you must keep yourself independent. Very few men can do that. Either\r
+you slip out of service altogether, and become good for nothing, or you\r
+wear the harness and draw a good deal where your yoke-fellows pull you.\r
+But do look at these delicate orthoptera!"\r
+\r
+Lydgate had after all to give some scrutiny to each drawer, the Vicar\r
+laughing at himself, and yet persisting in the exhibition.\r
+\r
+"Apropos of what you said about wearing harness," Lydgate began, after\r
+they had sat down, "I made up my mind some time ago to do with as\r
+little of it as possible. That was why I determined not to try anything\r
+in London, for a good many years at least. I didn't like what I saw\r
+when I was studying there--so much empty bigwiggism, and obstructive\r
+trickery. In the country, people have less pretension to knowledge,\r
+and are less of companions, but for that reason they affect one's\r
+amour-propre less: one makes less bad blood, and can follow one's own\r
+course more quietly."\r
+\r
+"Yes--well--you have got a good start; you are in the right profession,\r
+the work you feel yourself most fit for. Some people miss that, and\r
+repent too late. But you must not be too sure of keeping your\r
+independence."\r
+\r
+"You mean of family ties?" said Lydgate, conceiving that these might\r
+press rather tightly on Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"Not altogether. Of course they make many things more difficult. But\r
+a good wife--a good unworldly woman--may really help a man, and keep\r
+him more independent. There's a parishioner of mine--a fine fellow,\r
+but who would hardly have pulled through as he has done without his\r
+wife. Do you know the Garths? I think they were not Peacock's\r
+patients."\r
+\r
+"No; but there is a Miss Garth at old Featherstone's, at Lowick."\r
+\r
+"Their daughter: an excellent girl."\r
+\r
+"She is very quiet--I have hardly noticed her."\r
+\r
+"She has taken notice of you, though, depend upon it."\r
+\r
+"I don't understand," said Lydgate; he could hardly say "Of course."\r
+\r
+"Oh, she gauges everybody. I prepared her for confirmation--she is a\r
+favorite of mine."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother puffed a few moments in silence, Lydgate not caring to\r
+know more about the Garths. At last the Vicar laid down his pipe,\r
+stretched out his legs, and turned his bright eyes with a smile towards\r
+Lydgate, saying--\r
+\r
+"But we Middlemarchers are not so tame as you take us to be. We have\r
+our intrigues and our parties. I am a party man, for example, and\r
+Bulstrode is another. If you vote for me you will offend Bulstrode."\r
+\r
+"What is there against Bulstrode?" said Lydgate, emphatically.\r
+\r
+"I did not say there was anything against him except that. If you vote\r
+against him you will make him your enemy."\r
+\r
+"I don't know that I need mind about that," said Lydgate, rather\r
+proudly; "but he seems to have good ideas about hospitals, and he\r
+spends large sums on useful public objects. He might help me a good\r
+deal in carrying out my ideas. As to his religious notions--why, as\r
+Voltaire said, incantations will destroy a flock of sheep if\r
+administered with a certain quantity of arsenic. I look for the man\r
+who will bring the arsenic, and don't mind about his incantations."\r
+\r
+"Very good. But then you must not offend your arsenic-man. You will\r
+not offend me, you know," said Mr. Farebrother, quite unaffectedly. "I\r
+don't translate my own convenience into other people's duties. I am\r
+opposed to Bulstrode in many ways. I don't like the set he belongs to:\r
+they are a narrow ignorant set, and do more to make their neighbors\r
+uncomfortable than to make them better. Their system is a sort of\r
+worldly-spiritual cliqueism: they really look on the rest of mankind as\r
+a doomed carcass which is to nourish them for heaven. But," he added,\r
+smilingly, "I don't say that Bulstrode's new hospital is a bad thing;\r
+and as to his wanting to oust me from the old one--why, if he thinks me\r
+a mischievous fellow, he is only returning a compliment. And I am not\r
+a model clergyman--only a decent makeshift."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was not at all sure that the Vicar maligned himself. A model\r
+clergyman, like a model doctor, ought to think his own profession the\r
+finest in the world, and take all knowledge as mere nourishment to his\r
+moral pathology and therapeutics. He only said, "What reason does\r
+Bulstrode give for superseding you?"\r
+\r
+"That I don't teach his opinions--which he calls spiritual religion;\r
+and that I have no time to spare. Both statements are true. But then\r
+I could make time, and I should be glad of the forty pounds. That is\r
+the plain fact of the case. But let us dismiss it. I only wanted to\r
+tell you that if you vote for your arsenic-man, you are not to cut me\r
+in consequence. I can't spare you. You are a sort of circumnavigator\r
+come to settle among us, and will keep up my belief in the antipodes.\r
+Now tell me all about them in Paris."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII.\r
+\r
+ "Oh, sir, the loftiest hopes on earth\r
+ Draw lots with meaner hopes: heroic breasts,\r
+ Breathing bad air, ran risk of pestilence;\r
+ Or, lacking lime-juice when they cross the Line,\r
+ May languish with the scurvy."\r
+\r
+\r
+Some weeks passed after this conversation before the question of the\r
+chaplaincy gathered any practical import for Lydgate, and without\r
+telling himself the reason, he deferred the predetermination on which\r
+side he should give his vote. It would really have been a matter of\r
+total indifference to him--that is to say, he would have taken the more\r
+convenient side, and given his vote for the appointment of Tyke without\r
+any hesitation--if he had not cared personally for Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+But his liking for the Vicar of St. Botolph's grew with growing\r
+acquaintanceship. That, entering into Lydgate's position as a\r
+new-comer who had his own professional objects to secure, Mr.\r
+Farebrother should have taken pains rather to warn off than to obtain\r
+his interest, showed an unusual delicacy and generosity, which\r
+Lydgate's nature was keenly alive to. It went along with other points\r
+of conduct in Mr. Farebrother which were exceptionally fine, and made\r
+his character resemble those southern landscapes which seem divided\r
+between natural grandeur and social slovenliness. Very few men could\r
+have been as filial and chivalrous as he was to the mother, aunt, and\r
+sister, whose dependence on him had in many ways shaped his life rather\r
+uneasily for himself; few men who feel the pressure of small needs are\r
+so nobly resolute not to dress up their inevitably self-interested\r
+desires in a pretext of better motives. In these matters he was\r
+conscious that his life would bear the closest scrutiny; and perhaps\r
+the consciousness encouraged a little defiance towards the critical\r
+strictness of persons whose celestial intimacies seemed not to improve\r
+their domestic manners, and whose lofty aims were not needed to account\r
+for their actions. Then, his preaching was ingenious and pithy, like\r
+the preaching of the English Church in its robust age, and his sermons\r
+were delivered without book. People outside his parish went to hear\r
+him; and, since to fill the church was always the most difficult part\r
+of a clergyman's function, here was another ground for a careless sense\r
+of superiority. Besides, he was a likable man: sweet-tempered,\r
+ready-witted, frank, without grins of suppressed bitterness or other\r
+conversational flavors which make half of us an affliction to our\r
+friends. Lydgate liked him heartily, and wished for his friendship.\r
+\r
+With this feeling uppermost, he continued to waive the question of the\r
+chaplaincy, and to persuade himself that it was not only no proper\r
+business of his, but likely enough never to vex him with a demand for\r
+his vote. Lydgate, at Mr. Bulstrode's request, was laying down plans\r
+for the internal arrangements of the new hospital, and the two were\r
+often in consultation. The banker was always presupposing that he\r
+could count in general on Lydgate as a coadjutor, but made no special\r
+recurrence to the coming decision between Tyke and Farebrother. When\r
+the General Board of the Infirmary had met, however, and Lydgate had\r
+notice that the question of the chaplaincy was thrown on a council of\r
+the directors and medical men, to meet on the following Friday, he had\r
+a vexed sense that he must make up his mind on this trivial Middlemarch\r
+business. He could not help hearing within him the distinct\r
+declaration that Bulstrode was prime minister, and that the Tyke affair\r
+was a question of office or no office; and he could not help an equally\r
+pronounced dislike to giving up the prospect of office. For his\r
+observation was constantly confirming Mr. Farebrother's assurance that\r
+the banker would not overlook opposition. "Confound their petty\r
+politics!" was one of his thoughts for three mornings in the meditative\r
+process of shaving, when he had begun to feel that he must really hold\r
+a court of conscience on this matter. Certainly there were valid\r
+things to be said against the election of Mr. Farebrother: he had too\r
+much on his hands already, especially considering how much time he\r
+spent on non-clerical occupations. Then again it was a continually\r
+repeated shock, disturbing Lydgate's esteem, that the Vicar should\r
+obviously play for the sake of money, liking the play indeed, but\r
+evidently liking some end which it served. Mr. Farebrother contended\r
+on theory for the desirability of all games, and said that Englishmen's\r
+wit was stagnant for want of them; but Lydgate felt certain that he\r
+would have played very much less but for the money. There was a\r
+billiard-room at the Green Dragon, which some anxious mothers and wives\r
+regarded as the chief temptation in Middlemarch. The Vicar was a\r
+first-rate billiard-player, and though he did not frequent the Green\r
+Dragon, there were reports that he had sometimes been there in the\r
+daytime and had won money. And as to the chaplaincy, he did not\r
+pretend that he cared for it, except for the sake of the forty pounds.\r
+Lydgate was no Puritan, but he did not care for play, and winning money\r
+at it had always seemed a meanness to him; besides, he had an ideal of\r
+life which made this subservience of conduct to the gaining of small\r
+sums thoroughly hateful to him. Hitherto in his own life his wants had\r
+been supplied without any trouble to himself, and his first impulse was\r
+always to be liberal with half-crowns as matters of no importance to a\r
+gentleman; it had never occurred to him to devise a plan for getting\r
+half-crowns. He had always known in a general way that he was not\r
+rich, but he had never felt poor, and he had no power of imagining the\r
+part which the want of money plays in determining the actions of men.\r
+Money had never been a motive to him. Hence he was not ready to frame\r
+excuses for this deliberate pursuit of small gains. It was altogether\r
+repulsive to him, and he never entered into any calculation of the\r
+ratio between the Vicar's income and his more or less necessary\r
+expenditure. It was possible that he would not have made such a\r
+calculation in his own case.\r
+\r
+And now, when the question of voting had come, this repulsive fact told\r
+more strongly against Mr. Farebrother than it had done before. One\r
+would know much better what to do if men's characters were more\r
+consistent, and especially if one's friends were invariably fit for any\r
+function they desired to undertake! Lydgate was convinced that if\r
+there had been no valid objection to Mr. Farebrother, he would have\r
+voted for him, whatever Bulstrode might have felt on the subject: he\r
+did not intend to be a vassal of Bulstrode's. On the other hand, there\r
+was Tyke, a man entirely given to his clerical office, who was simply\r
+curate at a chapel of ease in St. Peter's parish, and had time for\r
+extra duty. Nobody had anything to say against Mr. Tyke, except that\r
+they could not bear him, and suspected him of cant. Really, from his\r
+point of view, Bulstrode was thoroughly justified.\r
+\r
+But whichever way Lydgate began to incline, there was something to make\r
+him wince; and being a proud man, he was a little exasperated at being\r
+obliged to wince. He did not like frustrating his own best purposes by\r
+getting on bad terms with Bulstrode; he did not like voting against\r
+Farebrother, and helping to deprive him of function and salary; and the\r
+question occurred whether the additional forty pounds might not leave\r
+the Vicar free from that ignoble care about winning at cards.\r
+Moreover, Lydgate did not like the consciousness that in voting for\r
+Tyke he should be voting on the side obviously convenient for himself.\r
+But would the end really be his own convenience? Other people would\r
+say so, and would allege that he was currying favor with Bulstrode for\r
+the sake of making himself important and getting on in the world. What\r
+then? He for his own part knew that if his personal prospects simply\r
+had been concerned, he would not have cared a rotten nut for the\r
+banker's friendship or enmity. What he really cared for was a medium\r
+for his work, a vehicle for his ideas; and after all, was he not bound\r
+to prefer the object of getting a good hospital, where he could\r
+demonstrate the specific distinctions of fever and test therapeutic\r
+results, before anything else connected with this chaplaincy? For the\r
+first time Lydgate was feeling the hampering threadlike pressure of\r
+small social conditions, and their frustrating complexity. At the end\r
+of his inward debate, when he set out for the hospital, his hope was\r
+really in the chance that discussion might somehow give a new aspect to\r
+the question, and make the scale dip so as to exclude the necessity for\r
+voting. I think he trusted a little also to the energy which is\r
+begotten by circumstances--some feeling rushing warmly and making\r
+resolve easy, while debate in cool blood had only made it more\r
+difficult. However it was, he did not distinctly say to himself on\r
+which side he would vote; and all the while he was inwardly resenting\r
+the subjection which had been forced upon him. It would have seemed\r
+beforehand like a ridiculous piece of bad logic that he, with his\r
+unmixed resolutions of independence and his select purposes, would find\r
+himself at the very outset in the grasp of petty alternatives, each of\r
+which was repugnant to him. In his student's chambers, he had\r
+prearranged his social action quite differently.\r
+\r
+Lydgate was late in setting out, but Dr. Sprague, the two other\r
+surgeons, and several of the directors had arrived early; Mr.\r
+Bulstrode, treasurer and chairman, being among those who were still\r
+absent. The conversation seemed to imply that the issue was\r
+problematical, and that a majority for Tyke was not so certain as had\r
+been generally supposed. The two physicians, for a wonder, turned out\r
+to be unanimous, or rather, though of different minds, they concurred\r
+in action. Dr. Sprague, the rugged and weighty, was, as every one had\r
+foreseen, an adherent of Mr. Farebrother. The Doctor was more than\r
+suspected of having no religion, but somehow Middlemarch tolerated this\r
+deficiency in him as if he had been a Lord Chancellor; indeed it is\r
+probable that his professional weight was the more believed in, the\r
+world-old association of cleverness with the evil principle being still\r
+potent in the minds even of lady-patients who had the strictest ideas\r
+of frilling and sentiment. It was perhaps this negation in the Doctor\r
+which made his neighbors call him hard-headed and dry-witted;\r
+conditions of texture which were also held favorable to the storing of\r
+judgments connected with drugs. At all events, it is certain that if\r
+any medical man had come to Middlemarch with the reputation of having\r
+very definite religious views, of being given to prayer, and of\r
+otherwise showing an active piety, there would have been a general\r
+presumption against his medical skill.\r
+\r
+On this ground it was (professionally speaking) fortunate for Dr.\r
+Minchin that his religious sympathies were of a general kind, and such\r
+as gave a distant medical sanction to all serious sentiment, whether of\r
+Church or Dissent, rather than any adhesion to particular tenets. If\r
+Mr. Bulstrode insisted, as he was apt to do, on the Lutheran doctrine\r
+of justification, as that by which a Church must stand or fall, Dr.\r
+Minchin in return was quite sure that man was not a mere machine or a\r
+fortuitous conjunction of atoms; if Mrs. Wimple insisted on a\r
+particular providence in relation to her stomach complaint, Dr. Minchin\r
+for his part liked to keep the mental windows open and objected to\r
+fixed limits; if the Unitarian brewer jested about the Athanasian\r
+Creed, Dr. Minchin quoted Pope's "Essay on Man." He objected to the\r
+rather free style of anecdote in which Dr. Sprague indulged, preferring\r
+well-sanctioned quotations, and liking refinement of all kinds: it was\r
+generally known that he had some kinship to a bishop, and sometimes\r
+spent his holidays at "the palace."\r
+\r
+Dr. Minchin was soft-handed, pale-complexioned, and of rounded outline,\r
+not to be distinguished from a mild clergyman in appearance: whereas\r
+Dr. Sprague was superfluously tall; his trousers got creased at the\r
+knees, and showed an excess of boot at a time when straps seemed\r
+necessary to any dignity of bearing; you heard him go in and out, and\r
+up and down, as if he had come to see after the roofing. In short, he\r
+had weight, and might be expected to grapple with a disease and throw\r
+it; while Dr. Minchin might be better able to detect it lurking and to\r
+circumvent it. They enjoyed about equally the mysterious privilege of\r
+medical reputation, and concealed with much etiquette their contempt\r
+for each other's skill. Regarding themselves as Middlemarch\r
+institutions, they were ready to combine against all innovators, and\r
+against non-professionals given to interference. On this ground they\r
+were both in their hearts equally averse to Mr. Bulstrode, though Dr.\r
+Minchin had never been in open hostility with him, and never differed\r
+from him without elaborate explanation to Mrs. Bulstrode, who had found\r
+that Dr. Minchin alone understood her constitution. A layman who pried\r
+into the professional conduct of medical men, and was always obtruding\r
+his reforms,--though he was less directly embarrassing to the two\r
+physicians than to the surgeon-apothecaries who attended paupers by\r
+contract, was nevertheless offensive to the professional nostril as\r
+such; and Dr. Minchin shared fully in the new pique against Bulstrode,\r
+excited by his apparent determination to patronize Lydgate. The\r
+long-established practitioners, Mr. Wrench and Mr. Toller; were just\r
+now standing apart and having a friendly colloquy, in which they agreed\r
+that Lydgate was a jackanapes, just made to serve Bulstrode's purpose.\r
+To non-medical friends they had already concurred in praising the other\r
+young practitioner, who had come into the town on Mr. Peacock's\r
+retirement without further recommendation than his own merits and such\r
+argument for solid professional acquirement as might be gathered from\r
+his having apparently wasted no time on other branches of knowledge.\r
+It was clear that Lydgate, by not dispensing drugs, intended to cast\r
+imputations on his equals, and also to obscure the limit between his\r
+own rank as a general practitioner and that of the physicians, who, in\r
+the interest of the profession, felt bound to maintain its various\r
+grades,--especially against a man who had not been to either of the\r
+English universities and enjoyed the absence of anatomical and bedside\r
+study there, but came with a libellous pretension to experience in\r
+Edinburgh and Paris, where observation might be abundant indeed, but\r
+hardly sound.\r
+\r
+Thus it happened that on this occasion Bulstrode became identified with\r
+Lydgate, and Lydgate with Tyke; and owing to this variety of\r
+interchangeable names for the chaplaincy question, diverse minds were\r
+enabled to form the same judgment concerning it.\r
+\r
+Dr. Sprague said at once bluntly to the group assembled when he\r
+entered, "I go for Farebrother. A salary, with all my heart. But why\r
+take it from the Vicar? He has none too much--has to insure his life,\r
+besides keeping house, and doing a vicar's charities. Put forty pounds\r
+in his pocket and you'll do no harm. He's a good fellow, is\r
+Farebrother, with as little of the parson about him as will serve to\r
+carry orders."\r
+\r
+"Ho, ho! Doctor," said old Mr. Powderell, a retired iron-monger of\r
+some standing--his interjection being something between a laugh and a\r
+Parliamentary disapproval; "we must let you have your say. But what we\r
+have to consider is not anybody's income--it's the souls of the poor\r
+sick people"--here Mr. Powderell's voice and face had a sincere pathos\r
+in them. "He is a real Gospel preacher, is Mr. Tyke. I should vote\r
+against my conscience if I voted against Mr. Tyke--I should indeed."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Tyke's opponents have not asked any one to vote against his\r
+conscience, I believe," said Mr. Hackbutt, a rich tanner of fluent\r
+speech, whose glittering spectacles and erect hair were turned with\r
+some severity towards innocent Mr. Powderell. "But in my judgment it\r
+behoves us, as Directors, to consider whether we will regard it as our\r
+whole business to carry out propositions emanating from a single\r
+quarter. Will any member of the committee aver that he would have\r
+entertained the idea of displacing the gentleman who has always\r
+discharged the function of chaplain here, if it had not been suggested\r
+to him by parties whose disposition it is to regard every institution\r
+of this town as a machinery for carrying out their own views? I tax no\r
+man's motives: let them lie between himself and a higher Power; but I\r
+do say, that there are influences at work here which are incompatible\r
+with genuine independence, and that a crawling servility is usually\r
+dictated by circumstances which gentlemen so conducting themselves\r
+could not afford either morally or financially to avow. I myself am a\r
+layman, but I have given no inconsiderable attention to the divisions\r
+in the Church and--"\r
+\r
+"Oh, damn the divisions!" burst in Mr. Frank Hawley, lawyer and\r
+town-clerk, who rarely presented himself at the board, but now looked\r
+in hurriedly, whip in hand. "We have nothing to do with them here.\r
+Farebrother has been doing the work--what there was--without pay, and\r
+if pay is to be given, it should be given to him. I call it a\r
+confounded job to take the thing away from Farebrother."\r
+\r
+"I think it would be as well for gentlemen not to give their remarks a\r
+personal bearing," said Mr. Plymdale. "I shall vote for the\r
+appointment of Mr. Tyke, but I should not have known, if Mr. Hackbutt\r
+hadn't hinted it, that I was a Servile Crawler."\r
+\r
+"I disclaim any personalities. I expressly said, if I may be allowed\r
+to repeat, or even to conclude what I was about to say--"\r
+\r
+"Ah, here's Minchin!" said Mr. Frank Hawley; at which everybody turned\r
+away from Mr. Hackbutt, leaving him to feel the uselessness of superior\r
+gifts in Middlemarch. "Come, Doctor, I must have you on the right\r
+side, eh?"\r
+\r
+"I hope so," said Dr. Minchin, nodding and shaking hands here and\r
+there; "at whatever cost to my feelings."\r
+\r
+"If there's any feeling here, it should be feeling for the man who is\r
+turned out, I think," said Mr. Frank Hawley.\r
+\r
+"I confess I have feelings on the other side also. I have a divided\r
+esteem," said Dr. Minchin, rubbing his hands. "I consider Mr. Tyke an\r
+exemplary man--none more so--and I believe him to be proposed from\r
+unimpeachable motives. I, for my part, wish that I could give him my\r
+vote. But I am constrained to take a view of the case which gives the\r
+preponderance to Mr. Farebrother's claims. He is an amiable man, an\r
+able preacher, and has been longer among us."\r
+\r
+Old Mr. Powderell looked on, sad and silent. Mr. Plymdale settled his\r
+cravat, uneasily.\r
+\r
+"You don't set up Farebrother as a pattern of what a clergyman ought to\r
+be, I hope," said Mr. Larcher, the eminent carrier, who had just come\r
+in. "I have no ill-will towards him, but I think we owe something to\r
+the public, not to speak of anything higher, in these appointments. In\r
+my opinion Farebrother is too lax for a clergyman. I don't wish to\r
+bring up particulars against him; but he will make a little attendance\r
+here go as far as he can."\r
+\r
+"And a devilish deal better than too much," said Mr. Hawley, whose bad\r
+language was notorious in that part of the county. "Sick people can't\r
+bear so much praying and preaching. And that methodistical sort of\r
+religion is bad for the spirits--bad for the inside, eh?" he added,\r
+turning quickly round to the four medical men who were assembled.\r
+\r
+But any answer was dispensed with by the entrance of three gentlemen,\r
+with whom there were greetings more or less cordial. These were the\r
+Reverend Edward Thesiger, Rector of St. Peter's, Mr. Bulstrode, and our\r
+friend Mr. Brooke of Tipton, who had lately allowed himself to be put\r
+on the board of directors in his turn, but had never before attended,\r
+his attendance now being due to Mr. Bulstrode's exertions. Lydgate was\r
+the only person still expected.\r
+\r
+Every one now sat down, Mr. Bulstrode presiding, pale and\r
+self-restrained as usual. Mr. Thesiger, a moderate evangelical, wished\r
+for the appointment of his friend Mr. Tyke, a zealous able man, who,\r
+officiating at a chapel of ease, had not a cure of souls too extensive\r
+to leave him ample time for the new duty. It was desirable that\r
+chaplaincies of this kind should be entered on with a fervent\r
+intention: they were peculiar opportunities for spiritual influence;\r
+and while it was good that a salary should be allotted, there was the\r
+more need for scrupulous watching lest the office should be perverted\r
+into a mere question of salary. Mr. Thesiger's manner had so much\r
+quiet propriety that objectors could only simmer in silence.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke believed that everybody meant well in the matter. He had\r
+not himself attended to the affairs of the Infirmary, though he had a\r
+strong interest in whatever was for the benefit of Middlemarch, and was\r
+most happy to meet the gentlemen present on any public question--"any\r
+public question, you know," Mr. Brooke repeated, with his nod of\r
+perfect understanding. "I am a good deal occupied as a magistrate, and\r
+in the collection of documentary evidence, but I regard my time as\r
+being at the disposal of the public--and, in short, my friends have\r
+convinced me that a chaplain with a salary--a salary, you know--is a\r
+very good thing, and I am happy to be able to come here and vote for\r
+the appointment of Mr. Tyke, who, I understand, is an unexceptionable\r
+man, apostolic and eloquent and everything of that kind--and I am the\r
+last man to withhold my vote--under the circumstances, you know."\r
+\r
+"It seems to me that you have been crammed with one side of the\r
+question, Mr. Brooke," said Mr. Frank Hawley, who was afraid of nobody,\r
+and was a Tory suspicious of electioneering intentions. "You don't\r
+seem to know that one of the worthiest men we have has been doing duty\r
+as chaplain here for years without pay, and that Mr. Tyke is proposed\r
+to supersede him."\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, Mr. Hawley," said Mr. Bulstrode. "Mr. Brooke has been\r
+fully informed of Mr. Farebrother's character and position."\r
+\r
+"By his enemies," flashed out Mr. Hawley.\r
+\r
+"I trust there is no personal hostility concerned here," said Mr.\r
+Thesiger.\r
+\r
+"I'll swear there is, though," retorted Mr. Hawley.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen," said Mr. Bulstrode, in a subdued tone, "the merits of the\r
+question may be very briefly stated, and if any one present doubts that\r
+every gentleman who is about to give his vote has not been fully\r
+informed, I can now recapitulate the considerations that should weigh\r
+on either side."\r
+\r
+"I don't see the good of that," said Mr. Hawley. "I suppose we all\r
+know whom we mean to vote for. Any man who wants to do justice does\r
+not wait till the last minute to hear both sides of the question. I\r
+have no time to lose, and I propose that the matter be put to the vote\r
+at once."\r
+\r
+A brief but still hot discussion followed before each person wrote\r
+"Tyke" or "Farebrother" on a piece of paper and slipped it into a glass\r
+tumbler; and in the mean time Mr. Bulstrode saw Lydgate enter.\r
+\r
+"I perceive that the votes are equally divided at present," said Mr.\r
+Bulstrode, in a clear biting voice. Then, looking up at Lydgate--\r
+\r
+"There is a casting-vote still to be given. It is yours, Mr. Lydgate:\r
+will you be good enough to write?"\r
+\r
+"The thing is settled now," said Mr. Wrench, rising. "We all know how\r
+Mr. Lydgate will vote."\r
+\r
+"You seem to speak with some peculiar meaning, sir," said Lydgate,\r
+rather defiantly, and keeping his pencil suspended.\r
+\r
+"I merely mean that you are expected to vote with Mr. Bulstrode. Do\r
+you regard that meaning as offensive?"\r
+\r
+"It may be offensive to others. But I shall not desist from voting\r
+with him on that account." Lydgate immediately wrote down "Tyke."\r
+\r
+So the Rev. Walter Tyke became chaplain to the Infirmary, and Lydgate\r
+continued to work with Mr. Bulstrode. He was really uncertain whether\r
+Tyke were not the more suitable candidate, and yet his consciousness\r
+told him that if he had been quite free from indirect bias he should\r
+have voted for Mr. Farebrother. The affair of the chaplaincy remained\r
+a sore point in his memory as a case in which this petty medium of\r
+Middlemarch had been too strong for him. How could a man be satisfied\r
+with a decision between such alternatives and under such circumstances?\r
+No more than he can be satisfied with his hat, which he has chosen from\r
+among such shapes as the resources of the age offer him, wearing it at\r
+best with a resignation which is chiefly supported by comparison.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Farebrother met him with the same friendliness as before. The\r
+character of the publican and sinner is not always practically\r
+incompatible with that of the modern Pharisee, for the majority of us\r
+scarcely see more distinctly the faultiness of our own conduct than the\r
+faultiness of our own arguments, or the dulness of our own jokes. But\r
+the Vicar of St. Botolph's had certainly escaped the slightest tincture\r
+of the Pharisee, and by dint of admitting to himself that he was too\r
+much as other men were, he had become remarkably unlike them in\r
+this--that he could excuse others for thinking slightly of him, and\r
+could judge impartially of their conduct even when it told against him.\r
+\r
+"The world has been too strong for _me_, I know," he said one day to\r
+Lydgate. "But then I am not a mighty man--I shall never be a man of\r
+renown. The choice of Hercules is a pretty fable; but Prodicus makes\r
+it easy work for the hero, as if the first resolves were enough.\r
+Another story says that he came to hold the distaff, and at last wore\r
+the Nessus shirt. I suppose one good resolve might keep a man right if\r
+everybody else's resolve helped him."\r
+\r
+The Vicar's talk was not always inspiriting: he had escaped being a\r
+Pharisee, but he had not escaped that low estimate of possibilities\r
+which we rather hastily arrive at as an inference from our own failure.\r
+Lydgate thought that there was a pitiable infirmity of will in Mr.\r
+Farebrother.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX.\r
+\r
+ "L' altra vedete ch'ha fatto alla guancia\r
+ Della sua palma, sospirando, letto."\r
+ --Purgatorio, vii.\r
+\r
+\r
+When George the Fourth was still reigning over the privacies of\r
+Windsor, when the Duke of Wellington was Prime Minister, and Mr. Vincy\r
+was mayor of the old corporation in Middlemarch, Mrs. Casaubon, born\r
+Dorothea Brooke, had taken her wedding journey to Rome. In those days\r
+the world in general was more ignorant of good and evil by forty years\r
+than it is at present. Travellers did not often carry full information\r
+on Christian art either in their heads or their pockets; and even the\r
+most brilliant English critic of the day mistook the flower-flushed\r
+tomb of the ascended Virgin for an ornamental vase due to the painter's\r
+fancy. Romanticism, which has helped to fill some dull blanks with\r
+love and knowledge, had not yet penetrated the times with its leaven\r
+and entered into everybody's food; it was fermenting still as a\r
+distinguishable vigorous enthusiasm in certain long-haired German\r
+artists at Rome, and the youth of other nations who worked or idled\r
+near them were sometimes caught in the spreading movement.\r
+\r
+One fine morning a young man whose hair was not immoderately long, but\r
+abundant and curly, and who was otherwise English in his equipment, had\r
+just turned his back on the Belvedere Torso in the Vatican and was\r
+looking out on the magnificent view of the mountains from the adjoining\r
+round vestibule. He was sufficiently absorbed not to notice the\r
+approach of a dark-eyed, animated German who came up to him and placing\r
+a hand on his shoulder, said with a strong accent, "Come here, quick!\r
+else she will have changed her pose."\r
+\r
+Quickness was ready at the call, and the two figures passed lightly\r
+along by the Meleager, towards the hall where the reclining Ariadne,\r
+then called the Cleopatra, lies in the marble voluptuousness of her\r
+beauty, the drapery folding around her with a petal-like ease and\r
+tenderness. They were just in time to see another figure standing\r
+against a pedestal near the reclining marble: a breathing blooming\r
+girl, whose form, not shamed by the Ariadne, was clad in Quakerish gray\r
+drapery; her long cloak, fastened at the neck, was thrown backward from\r
+her arms, and one beautiful ungloved hand pillowed her cheek, pushing\r
+somewhat backward the white beaver bonnet which made a sort of halo to\r
+her face around the simply braided dark-brown hair. She was not\r
+looking at the sculpture, probably not thinking of it: her large eyes\r
+were fixed dreamily on a streak of sunlight which fell across the\r
+floor. But she became conscious of the two strangers who suddenly\r
+paused as if to contemplate the Cleopatra, and, without looking at\r
+them, immediately turned away to join a maid-servant and courier who\r
+were loitering along the hall at a little distance off.\r
+\r
+"What do you think of that for a fine bit of antithesis?" said the\r
+German, searching in his friend's face for responding admiration, but\r
+going on volubly without waiting for any other answer. "There lies\r
+antique beauty, not corpse-like even in death, but arrested in the\r
+complete contentment of its sensuous perfection: and here stands beauty\r
+in its breathing life, with the consciousness of Christian centuries in\r
+its bosom. But she should be dressed as a nun; I think she looks\r
+almost what you call a Quaker; I would dress her as a nun in my\r
+picture. However, she is married; I saw her wedding-ring on that\r
+wonderful left hand, otherwise I should have thought the sallow\r
+Geistlicher was her father. I saw him parting from her a good while\r
+ago, and just now I found her in that magnificent pose. Only think! he\r
+is perhaps rich, and would like to have her portrait taken. Ah! it is\r
+no use looking after her--there she goes! Let us follow her home!"\r
+\r
+"No, no," said his companion, with a little frown.\r
+\r
+"You are singular, Ladislaw. You look struck together. Do you know\r
+her?"\r
+\r
+"I know that she is married to my cousin," said Will Ladislaw,\r
+sauntering down the hall with a preoccupied air, while his German\r
+friend kept at his side and watched him eagerly.\r
+\r
+"What! the Geistlicher? He looks more like an uncle--a more useful sort\r
+of relation."\r
+\r
+"He is not my uncle. I tell you he is my second cousin," said\r
+Ladislaw, with some irritation.\r
+\r
+"Schon, schon. Don't be snappish. You are not angry with me for\r
+thinking Mrs. Second-Cousin the most perfect young Madonna I ever saw?"\r
+\r
+"Angry? nonsense. I have only seen her once before, for a couple of\r
+minutes, when my cousin introduced her to me, just before I left\r
+England. They were not married then. I didn't know they were coming\r
+to Rome."\r
+\r
+"But you will go to see them now--you will find out what they have for\r
+an address--since you know the name. Shall we go to the post? And you\r
+could speak about the portrait."\r
+\r
+"Confound you, Naumann! I don't know what I shall do. I am not so\r
+brazen as you."\r
+\r
+"Bah! that is because you are dilettantish and amateurish. If you were\r
+an artist, you would think of Mistress Second-Cousin as antique form\r
+animated by Christian sentiment--a sort of Christian Antigone--sensuous\r
+force controlled by spiritual passion."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and that your painting her was the chief outcome of her\r
+existence--the divinity passing into higher completeness and all but\r
+exhausted in the act of covering your bit of canvas. I am amateurish\r
+if you like: I do _not_ think that all the universe is straining\r
+towards the obscure significance of your pictures."\r
+\r
+"But it is, my dear!--so far as it is straining through me, Adolf\r
+Naumann: that stands firm," said the good-natured painter, putting a\r
+hand on Ladislaw's shoulder, and not in the least disturbed by the\r
+unaccountable touch of ill-humor in his tone. "See now! My existence\r
+presupposes the existence of the whole universe--does it _not?_ and my\r
+function is to paint--and as a painter I have a conception which is\r
+altogether genialisch, of your great-aunt or second grandmother as a\r
+subject for a picture; therefore, the universe is straining towards\r
+that picture through that particular hook or claw which it puts forth\r
+in the shape of me--not true?"\r
+\r
+"But how if another claw in the shape of me is straining to thwart\r
+it?--the case is a little less simple then."\r
+\r
+"Not at all: the result of the struggle is the same thing--picture or\r
+no picture--logically."\r
+\r
+Will could not resist this imperturbable temper, and the cloud in his\r
+face broke into sunshiny laughter.\r
+\r
+"Come now, my friend--you will help?" said Naumann, in a hopeful tone.\r
+\r
+"No; nonsense, Naumann! English ladies are not at everybody's service\r
+as models. And you want to express too much with your painting. You\r
+would only have made a better or worse portrait with a background which\r
+every connoisseur would give a different reason for or against. And\r
+what is a portrait of a woman? Your painting and Plastik are poor\r
+stuff after all. They perturb and dull conceptions instead of raising\r
+them. Language is a finer medium."\r
+\r
+"Yes, for those who can't paint," said Naumann. "There you have\r
+perfect right. I did not recommend you to paint, my friend."\r
+\r
+The amiable artist carried his sting, but Ladislaw did not choose to\r
+appear stung. He went on as if he had not heard.\r
+\r
+"Language gives a fuller image, which is all the better for beings\r
+vague. After all, the true seeing is within; and painting stares at\r
+you with an insistent imperfection. I feel that especially about\r
+representations of women. As if a woman were a mere colored\r
+superficies! You must wait for movement and tone. There is a\r
+difference in their very breathing: they change from moment to\r
+moment.--This woman whom you have just seen, for example: how would you\r
+paint her voice, pray? But her voice is much diviner than anything you\r
+have seen of her."\r
+\r
+"I see, I see. You are jealous. No man must presume to think that he\r
+can paint your ideal. This is serious, my friend! Your great-aunt!\r
+'Der Neffe als Onkel' in a tragic sense--ungeheuer!"\r
+\r
+"You and I shall quarrel, Naumann, if you call that lady my aunt again."\r
+\r
+"How is she to be called then?"\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+"Good. Suppose I get acquainted with her in spite of you, and find\r
+that she very much wishes to be painted?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, suppose!" said Will Ladislaw, in a contemptuous undertone,\r
+intended to dismiss the subject. He was conscious of being irritated\r
+by ridiculously small causes, which were half of his own creation. Why\r
+was he making any fuss about Mrs. Casaubon? And yet he felt as if\r
+something had happened to him with regard to her. There are characters\r
+which are continually creating collisions and nodes for themselves in\r
+dramas which nobody is prepared to act with them. Their\r
+susceptibilities will clash against objects that remain innocently\r
+quiet.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX.\r
+\r
+ "A child forsaken, waking suddenly,\r
+ Whose gaze afeard on all things round doth rove,\r
+ And seeth only that it cannot see\r
+ The meeting eyes of love."\r
+\r
+\r
+Two hours later, Dorothea was seated in an inner room or boudoir of a\r
+handsome apartment in the Via Sistina.\r
+\r
+I am sorry to add that she was sobbing bitterly, with such abandonment\r
+to this relief of an oppressed heart as a woman habitually controlled\r
+by pride on her own account and thoughtfulness for others will\r
+sometimes allow herself when she feels securely alone. And Mr.\r
+Casaubon was certain to remain away for some time at the Vatican.\r
+\r
+Yet Dorothea had no distinctly shapen grievance that she could state\r
+even to herself; and in the midst of her confused thought and passion,\r
+the mental act that was struggling forth into clearness was a\r
+self-accusing cry that her feeling of desolation was the fault of her\r
+own spiritual poverty. She had married the man of her choice, and with\r
+the advantage over most girls that she had contemplated her marriage\r
+chiefly as the beginning of new duties: from the very first she had\r
+thought of Mr. Casaubon as having a mind so much above her own, that he\r
+must often be claimed by studies which she could not entirely share;\r
+moreover, after the brief narrow experience of her girlhood she was\r
+beholding Rome, the city of visible history, where the past of a whole\r
+hemisphere seems moving in funeral procession with strange ancestral\r
+images and trophies gathered from afar.\r
+\r
+But this stupendous fragmentariness heightened the dreamlike\r
+strangeness of her bridal life. Dorothea had now been five weeks in\r
+Rome, and in the kindly mornings when autumn and winter seemed to go\r
+hand in hand like a happy aged couple one of whom would presently\r
+survive in chiller loneliness, she had driven about at first with Mr.\r
+Casaubon, but of late chiefly with Tantripp and their experienced\r
+courier. She had been led through the best galleries, had been taken\r
+to the chief points of view, had been shown the grandest ruins and the\r
+most glorious churches, and she had ended by oftenest choosing to drive\r
+out to the Campagna where she could feel alone with the earth and sky,\r
+away-from the oppressive masquerade of ages, in which her own life too\r
+seemed to become a masque with enigmatical costumes.\r
+\r
+To those who have looked at Rome with the quickening power of a\r
+knowledge which breathes a growing soul into all historic shapes, and\r
+traces out the suppressed transitions which unite all contrasts, Rome\r
+may still be the spiritual centre and interpreter of the world. But\r
+let them conceive one more historical contrast: the gigantic broken\r
+revelations of that Imperial and Papal city thrust abruptly on the\r
+notions of a girl who had been brought up in English and Swiss\r
+Puritanism, fed on meagre Protestant histories and on art chiefly of\r
+the hand-screen sort; a girl whose ardent nature turned all her small\r
+allowance of knowledge into principles, fusing her actions into their\r
+mould, and whose quick emotions gave the most abstract things the\r
+quality of a pleasure or a pain; a girl who had lately become a wife,\r
+and from the enthusiastic acceptance of untried duty found herself\r
+plunged in tumultuous preoccupation with her personal lot. The weight\r
+of unintelligible Rome might lie easily on bright nymphs to whom it\r
+formed a background for the brilliant picnic of Anglo-foreign society;\r
+but Dorothea had no such defence against deep impressions. Ruins and\r
+basilicas, palaces and colossi, set in the midst of a sordid present,\r
+where all that was living and warm-blooded seemed sunk in the deep\r
+degeneracy of a superstition divorced from reverence; the dimmer but\r
+yet eager Titanic life gazing and struggling on walls and ceilings; the\r
+long vistas of white forms whose marble eyes seemed to hold the\r
+monotonous light of an alien world: all this vast wreck of ambitious\r
+ideals, sensuous and spiritual, mixed confusedly with the signs of\r
+breathing forgetfulness and degradation, at first jarred her as with an\r
+electric shock, and then urged themselves on her with that ache\r
+belonging to a glut of confused ideas which check the flow of emotion.\r
+Forms both pale and glowing took possession of her young sense, and\r
+fixed themselves in her memory even when she was not thinking of them,\r
+preparing strange associations which remained through her after-years.\r
+Our moods are apt to bring with them images which succeed each other\r
+like the magic-lantern pictures of a doze; and in certain states of\r
+dull forlornness Dorothea all her life continued to see the vastness of\r
+St. Peter's, the huge bronze canopy, the excited intention in the\r
+attitudes and garments of the prophets and evangelists in the mosaics\r
+above, and the red drapery which was being hung for Christmas spreading\r
+itself everywhere like a disease of the retina.\r
+\r
+Not that this inward amazement of Dorothea's was anything very\r
+exceptional: many souls in their young nudity are tumbled out among\r
+incongruities and left to "find their feet" among them, while their\r
+elders go about their business. Nor can I suppose that when Mrs.\r
+Casaubon is discovered in a fit of weeping six weeks after her wedding,\r
+the situation will be regarded as tragic. Some discouragement, some\r
+faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary,\r
+is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what\r
+is not unusual. That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of\r
+frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of\r
+mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we\r
+had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be\r
+like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we\r
+should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it\r
+is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.\r
+\r
+However, Dorothea was crying, and if she had been required to state the\r
+cause, she could only have done so in some such general words as I have\r
+already used: to have been driven to be more particular would have been\r
+like trying to give a history of the lights and shadows, for that new\r
+real future which was replacing the imaginary drew its material from\r
+the endless minutiae by which her view of Mr. Casaubon and her wifely\r
+relation, now that she was married to him, was gradually changing with\r
+the secret motion of a watch-hand from what it had been in her maiden\r
+dream. It was too early yet for her fully to recognize or at least\r
+admit the change, still more for her to have readjusted that\r
+devotedness which was so necessary a part of her mental life that she\r
+was almost sure sooner or later to recover it. Permanent rebellion,\r
+the disorder of a life without some loving reverent resolve, was not\r
+possible to her; but she was now in an interval when the very force of\r
+her nature heightened its confusion. In this way, the early months of\r
+marriage often are times of critical tumult--whether that of a\r
+shrimp-pool or of deeper waters--which afterwards subsides into\r
+cheerful peace.\r
+\r
+But was not Mr. Casaubon just as learned as before? Had his forms of\r
+expression changed, or his sentiments become less laudable? Oh\r
+waywardness of womanhood! did his chronology fail him, or his ability\r
+to state not only a theory but the names of those who held it; or his\r
+provision for giving the heads of any subject on demand? And was not\r
+Rome the place in all the world to give free play to such\r
+accomplishments? Besides, had not Dorothea's enthusiasm especially\r
+dwelt on the prospect of relieving the weight and perhaps the sadness\r
+with which great tasks lie on him who has to achieve them?-- And that\r
+such weight pressed on Mr. Casaubon was only plainer than before.\r
+\r
+All these are crushing questions; but whatever else remained the same,\r
+the light had changed, and you cannot find the pearly dawn at noonday.\r
+The fact is unalterable, that a fellow-mortal with whose nature you are\r
+acquainted solely through the brief entrances and exits of a few\r
+imaginative weeks called courtship, may, when seen in the continuity of\r
+married companionship, be disclosed as something better or worse than\r
+what you have preconceived, but will certainly not appear altogether\r
+the same. And it would be astonishing to find how soon the change is\r
+felt if we had no kindred changes to compare with it. To share\r
+lodgings with a brilliant dinner-companion, or to see your favorite\r
+politician in the Ministry, may bring about changes quite as rapid: in\r
+these cases too we begin by knowing little and believing much, and we\r
+sometimes end by inverting the quantities.\r
+\r
+Still, such comparisons might mislead, for no man was more incapable of\r
+flashy make-believe than Mr. Casaubon: he was as genuine a character as\r
+any ruminant animal, and he had not actively assisted in creating any\r
+illusions about himself. How was it that in the weeks since her\r
+marriage, Dorothea had not distinctly observed but felt with a stifling\r
+depression, that the large vistas and wide fresh air which she had\r
+dreamed of finding in her husband's mind were replaced by anterooms and\r
+winding passages which seemed to lead nowhither? I suppose it was that\r
+in courtship everything is regarded as provisional and preliminary, and\r
+the smallest sample of virtue or accomplishment is taken to guarantee\r
+delightful stores which the broad leisure of marriage will reveal. But\r
+the door-sill of marriage once crossed, expectation is concentrated on\r
+the present. Having once embarked on your marital voyage, it is\r
+impossible not to be aware that you make no way and that the sea is not\r
+within sight--that, in fact, you are exploring an enclosed basin.\r
+\r
+In their conversation before marriage, Mr. Casaubon had often dwelt on\r
+some explanation or questionable detail of which Dorothea did not see\r
+the bearing; but such imperfect coherence seemed due to the brokenness\r
+of their intercourse, and, supported by her faith in their future, she\r
+had listened with fervid patience to a recitation of possible arguments\r
+to be brought against Mr. Casaubon's entirely new view of the\r
+Philistine god Dagon and other fish-deities, thinking that hereafter\r
+she should see this subject which touched him so nearly from the same\r
+high ground whence doubtless it had become so important to him. Again,\r
+the matter-of-course statement and tone of dismissal with which he\r
+treated what to her were the most stirring thoughts, was easily\r
+accounted for as belonging to the sense of haste and preoccupation in\r
+which she herself shared during their engagement. But now, since they\r
+had been in Rome, with all the depths of her emotion roused to\r
+tumultuous activity, and with life made a new problem by new elements,\r
+she had been becoming more and more aware, with a certain terror, that\r
+her mind was continually sliding into inward fits of anger and\r
+repulsion, or else into forlorn weariness. How far the judicious\r
+Hooker or any other hero of erudition would have been the same at Mr.\r
+Casaubon's time of life, she had no means of knowing, so that he could\r
+not have the advantage of comparison; but her husband's way of\r
+commenting on the strangely impressive objects around them had begun to\r
+affect her with a sort of mental shiver: he had perhaps the best\r
+intention of acquitting himself worthily, but only of acquitting\r
+himself. What was fresh to her mind was worn out to his; and such\r
+capacity of thought and feeling as had ever been stimulated in him by\r
+the general life of mankind had long shrunk to a sort of dried\r
+preparation, a lifeless embalmment of knowledge.\r
+\r
+When he said, "Does this interest you, Dorothea? Shall we stay a\r
+little longer? I am ready to stay if you wish it,"--it seemed to her\r
+as if going or staying were alike dreary. Or, "Should you like to go\r
+to the Farnesina, Dorothea? It contains celebrated frescos designed or\r
+painted by Raphael, which most persons think it worth while to visit."\r
+\r
+"But do you care about them?" was always Dorothea's question.\r
+\r
+"They are, I believe, highly esteemed. Some of them represent the\r
+fable of Cupid and Psyche, which is probably the romantic invention of\r
+a literary period, and cannot, I think, be reckoned as a genuine\r
+mythical product. But if you like these wall-paintings we can easily\r
+drive thither; and you will then, I think, have seen the chief works of\r
+Raphael, any of which it were a pity to omit in a visit to Rome. He is\r
+the painter who has been held to combine the most complete grace of\r
+form with sublimity of expression. Such at least I have gathered to be\r
+the opinion of cognoscenti."\r
+\r
+This kind of answer given in a measured official tone, as of a\r
+clergyman reading according to the rubric, did not help to justify the\r
+glories of the Eternal City, or to give her the hope that if she knew\r
+more about them the world would be joyously illuminated for her. There\r
+is hardly any contact more depressing to a young ardent creature than\r
+that of a mind in which years full of knowledge seem to have issued in\r
+a blank absence of interest or sympathy.\r
+\r
+On other subjects indeed Mr. Casaubon showed a tenacity of occupation\r
+and an eagerness which are usually regarded as the effect of\r
+enthusiasm, and Dorothea was anxious to follow this spontaneous\r
+direction of his thoughts, instead of being made to feel that she\r
+dragged him away from it. But she was gradually ceasing to expect with\r
+her former delightful confidence that she should see any wide opening\r
+where she followed him. Poor Mr. Casaubon himself was lost among small\r
+closets and winding stairs, and in an agitated dimness about the\r
+Cabeiri, or in an exposure of other mythologists' ill-considered\r
+parallels, easily lost sight of any purpose which had prompted him to\r
+these labors. With his taper stuck before him he forgot the absence of\r
+windows, and in bitter manuscript remarks on other men's notions about\r
+the solar deities, he had become indifferent to the sunlight.\r
+\r
+These characteristics, fixed and unchangeable as bone in Mr. Casaubon,\r
+might have remained longer unfelt by Dorothea if she had been\r
+encouraged to pour forth her girlish and womanly feeling--if he would\r
+have held her hands between his and listened with the delight of\r
+tenderness and understanding to all the little histories which made up\r
+her experience, and would have given her the same sort of intimacy in\r
+return, so that the past life of each could be included in their mutual\r
+knowledge and affection--or if she could have fed her affection with\r
+those childlike caresses which are the bent of every sweet woman, who\r
+has begun by showering kisses on the hard pate of her bald doll,\r
+creating a happy soul within that woodenness from the wealth of her own\r
+love. That was Dorothea's bent. With all her yearning to know what\r
+was afar from her and to be widely benignant, she had ardor enough for\r
+what was near, to have kissed Mr. Casaubon's coat-sleeve, or to have\r
+caressed his shoe-latchet, if he would have made any other sign of\r
+acceptance than pronouncing her, with his unfailing propriety, to be of\r
+a most affectionate and truly feminine nature, indicating at the same\r
+time by politely reaching a chair for her that he regarded these\r
+manifestations as rather crude and startling. Having made his clerical\r
+toilet with due care in the morning, he was prepared only for those\r
+amenities of life which were suited to the well-adjusted stiff cravat\r
+of the period, and to a mind weighted with unpublished matter.\r
+\r
+And by a sad contradiction Dorothea's ideas and resolves seemed like\r
+melting ice floating and lost in the warm flood of which they had been\r
+but another form. She was humiliated to find herself a mere victim of\r
+feeling, as if she could know nothing except through that medium: all\r
+her strength was scattered in fits of agitation, of struggle, of\r
+despondency, and then again in visions of more complete renunciation,\r
+transforming all hard conditions into duty. Poor Dorothea! she was\r
+certainly troublesome--to herself chiefly; but this morning for the\r
+first time she had been troublesome to Mr. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+She had begun, while they were taking coffee, with a determination to\r
+shake off what she inwardly called her selfishness, and turned a face\r
+all cheerful attention to her husband when he said, "My dear Dorothea,\r
+we must now think of all that is yet left undone, as a preliminary to\r
+our departure. I would fain have returned home earlier that we might\r
+have been at Lowick for the Christmas; but my inquiries here have been\r
+protracted beyond their anticipated period. I trust, however, that the\r
+time here has not been passed unpleasantly to you. Among the sights of\r
+Europe, that of Rome has ever been held one of the most striking and in\r
+some respects edifying. I well remember that I considered it an epoch\r
+in my life when I visited it for the first time; after the fall of\r
+Napoleon, an event which opened the Continent to travellers. Indeed I\r
+think it is one among several cities to which an extreme hyperbole has\r
+been applied--'See Rome and die:' but in your case I would propose an\r
+emendation and say, See Rome as a bride, and live henceforth as a happy\r
+wife."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon pronounced this little speech with the most conscientious\r
+intention, blinking a little and swaying his head up and down, and\r
+concluding with a smile. He had not found marriage a rapturous state,\r
+but he had no idea of being anything else than an irreproachable\r
+husband, who would make a charming young woman as happy as she deserved\r
+to be.\r
+\r
+"I hope you are thoroughly satisfied with our stay--I mean, with the\r
+result so far as your studies are concerned," said Dorothea, trying to\r
+keep her mind fixed on what most affected her husband.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mr. Casaubon, with that peculiar pitch of voice which makes\r
+the word half a negative. "I have been led farther than I had\r
+foreseen, and various subjects for annotation have presented themselves\r
+which, though I have no direct need of them, I could not pretermit.\r
+The task, notwithstanding the assistance of my amanuensis, has been a\r
+somewhat laborious one, but your society has happily prevented me from\r
+that too continuous prosecution of thought beyond the hours of study\r
+which has been the snare of my solitary life."\r
+\r
+"I am very glad that my presence has made any difference to you," said\r
+Dorothea, who had a vivid memory of evenings in which she had supposed\r
+that Mr. Casaubon's mind had gone too deep during the day to be able to\r
+get to the surface again. I fear there was a little temper in her\r
+reply. "I hope when we get to Lowick, I shall be more useful to you,\r
+and be able to enter a little more into what interests you."\r
+\r
+"Doubtless, my dear," said Mr. Casaubon, with a slight bow. "The notes\r
+I have here made will want sifting, and you can, if you please, extract\r
+them under my direction."\r
+\r
+"And all your notes," said Dorothea, whose heart had already burned\r
+within her on this subject, so that now she could not help speaking\r
+with her tongue. "All those rows of volumes--will you not now do what\r
+you used to speak of?--will you not make up your mind what part of them\r
+you will use, and begin to write the book which will make your vast\r
+knowledge useful to the world? I will write to your dictation, or I\r
+will copy and extract what you tell me: I can be of no other use."\r
+Dorothea, in a most unaccountable, darkly feminine manner, ended with a\r
+slight sob and eyes full of tears.\r
+\r
+The excessive feeling manifested would alone have been highly\r
+disturbing to Mr. Casaubon, but there were other reasons why Dorothea's\r
+words were among the most cutting and irritating to him that she could\r
+have been impelled to use. She was as blind to his inward troubles as\r
+he to hers: she had not yet learned those hidden conflicts in her\r
+husband which claim our pity. She had not yet listened patiently to\r
+his heartbeats, but only felt that her own was beating violently. In\r
+Mr. Casaubon's ear, Dorothea's voice gave loud emphatic iteration to\r
+those muffled suggestions of consciousness which it was possible to\r
+explain as mere fancy, the illusion of exaggerated sensitiveness:\r
+always when such suggestions are unmistakably repeated from without,\r
+they are resisted as cruel and unjust. We are angered even by the full\r
+acceptance of our humiliating confessions--how much more by hearing in\r
+hard distinct syllables from the lips of a near observer, those\r
+confused murmurs which we try to call morbid, and strive against as if\r
+they were the oncoming of numbness! And this cruel outward accuser was\r
+there in the shape of a wife--nay, of a young bride, who, instead of\r
+observing his abundant pen-scratches and amplitude of paper with the\r
+uncritical awe of an elegant-minded canary-bird, seemed to present\r
+herself as a spy watching everything with a malign power of inference.\r
+Here, towards this particular point of the compass, Mr. Casaubon had a\r
+sensitiveness to match Dorothea's, and an equal quickness to imagine\r
+more than the fact. He had formerly observed with approbation her\r
+capacity for worshipping the right object; he now foresaw with sudden\r
+terror that this capacity might be replaced by presumption, this\r
+worship by the most exasperating of all criticism,--that which sees\r
+vaguely a great many fine ends, and has not the least notion what it\r
+costs to reach them.\r
+\r
+For the first time since Dorothea had known him, Mr. Casaubon's face\r
+had a quick angry flush upon it.\r
+\r
+"My love," he said, with irritation reined in by propriety, "you may\r
+rely upon me for knowing the times and the seasons, adapted to the\r
+different stages of a work which is not to be measured by the facile\r
+conjectures of ignorant onlookers. It had been easy for me to gain a\r
+temporary effect by a mirage of baseless opinion; but it is ever the\r
+trial of the scrupulous explorer to be saluted with the impatient scorn\r
+of chatterers who attempt only the smallest achievements, being indeed\r
+equipped for no other. And it were well if all such could be\r
+admonished to discriminate judgments of which the true subject-matter\r
+lies entirely beyond their reach, from those of which the elements may\r
+be compassed by a narrow and superficial survey."\r
+\r
+This speech was delivered with an energy and readiness quite unusual\r
+with Mr. Casaubon. It was not indeed entirely an improvisation, but\r
+had taken shape in inward colloquy, and rushed out like the round\r
+grains from a fruit when sudden heat cracks it. Dorothea was not only\r
+his wife: she was a personification of that shallow world which\r
+surrounds the appreciated or desponding author.\r
+\r
+Dorothea was indignant in her turn. Had she not been repressing\r
+everything in herself except the desire to enter into some fellowship\r
+with her husband's chief interests?\r
+\r
+"My judgment _was_ a very superficial one--such as I am capable of\r
+forming," she answered, with a prompt resentment, that needed no\r
+rehearsal. "You showed me the rows of notebooks--you have often spoken\r
+of them--you have often said that they wanted digesting. But I never\r
+heard you speak of the writing that is to be published. Those were\r
+very simple facts, and my judgment went no farther. I only begged you\r
+to let me be of some good to you."\r
+\r
+Dorothea rose to leave the table and Mr. Casaubon made no reply, taking\r
+up a letter which lay beside him as if to reperuse it. Both were\r
+shocked at their mutual situation--that each should have betrayed anger\r
+towards the other. If they had been at home, settled at Lowick in\r
+ordinary life among their neighbors, the clash would have been less\r
+embarrassing: but on a wedding journey, the express object of which is\r
+to isolate two people on the ground that they are all the world to each\r
+other, the sense of disagreement is, to say the least, confounding and\r
+stultifying. To have changed your longitude extensively and placed\r
+yourselves in a moral solitude in order to have small explosions, to\r
+find conversation difficult and to hand a glass of water without\r
+looking, can hardly be regarded as satisfactory fulfilment even to the\r
+toughest minds. To Dorothea's inexperienced sensitiveness, it seemed\r
+like a catastrophe, changing all prospects; and to Mr. Casaubon it was\r
+a new pain, he never having been on a wedding journey before, or found\r
+himself in that close union which was more of a subjection than he had\r
+been able to imagine, since this charming young bride not only obliged\r
+him to much consideration on her behalf (which he had sedulously\r
+given), but turned out to be capable of agitating him cruelly just\r
+where he most needed soothing. Instead of getting a soft fence against\r
+the cold, shadowy, unapplausive audience of his life, had he only given\r
+it a more substantial presence?\r
+\r
+Neither of them felt it possible to speak again at present. To have\r
+reversed a previous arrangement and declined to go out would have been\r
+a show of persistent anger which Dorothea's conscience shrank from,\r
+seeing that she already began to feel herself guilty. However just her\r
+indignation might be, her ideal was not to claim justice, but to give\r
+tenderness. So when the carriage came to the door, she drove with Mr.\r
+Casaubon to the Vatican, walked with him through the stony avenue of\r
+inscriptions, and when she parted with him at the entrance to the\r
+Library, went on through the Museum out of mere listlessness as to what\r
+was around her. She had not spirit to turn round and say that she\r
+would drive anywhere. It was when Mr. Casaubon was quitting her that\r
+Naumann had first seen her, and he had entered the long gallery of\r
+sculpture at the same time with her; but here Naumann had to await\r
+Ladislaw with whom he was to settle a bet of champagne about an\r
+enigmatical mediaeval-looking figure there. After they had examined\r
+the figure, and had walked on finishing their dispute, they had parted,\r
+Ladislaw lingering behind while Naumann had gone into the Hall of\r
+Statues where he again saw Dorothea, and saw her in that brooding\r
+abstraction which made her pose remarkable. She did not really see the\r
+streak of sunlight on the floor more than she saw the statues: she was\r
+inwardly seeing the light of years to come in her own home and over the\r
+English fields and elms and hedge-bordered highroads; and feeling that\r
+the way in which they might be filled with joyful devotedness was not\r
+so clear to her as it had been. But in Dorothea's mind there was a\r
+current into which all thought and feeling were apt sooner or later to\r
+flow--the reaching forward of the whole consciousness towards the\r
+fullest truth, the least partial good. There was clearly something\r
+better than anger and despondency.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI.\r
+\r
+ "Hire facounde eke full womanly and plain,\r
+ No contrefeted termes had she\r
+ To semen wise."\r
+ --CHAUCER.\r
+\r
+\r
+It was in that way Dorothea came to be sobbing as soon as she was\r
+securely alone. But she was presently roused by a knock at the door,\r
+which made her hastily dry her eyes before saying, "Come in." Tantripp\r
+had brought a card, and said that there was a gentleman waiting in the\r
+lobby. The courier had told him that only Mrs. Casaubon was at home,\r
+but he said he was a relation of Mr. Casaubon's: would she see him?\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Dorothea, without pause; "show him into the salon." Her\r
+chief impressions about young Ladislaw were that when she had seen him\r
+at Lowick she had been made aware of Mr. Casaubon's generosity towards\r
+him, and also that she had been interested in his own hesitation about\r
+his career. She was alive to anything that gave her an opportunity for\r
+active sympathy, and at this moment it seemed as if the visit had come\r
+to shake her out of her self-absorbed discontent--to remind her of her\r
+husband's goodness, and make her feel that she had now the right to be\r
+his helpmate in all kind deeds. She waited a minute or two, but when\r
+she passed into the next room there were just signs enough that she had\r
+been crying to make her open face look more youthful and appealing than\r
+usual. She met Ladislaw with that exquisite smile of good-will which\r
+is unmixed with vanity, and held out her hand to him. He was the elder\r
+by several years, but at that moment he looked much the younger, for\r
+his transparent complexion flushed suddenly, and he spoke with a\r
+shyness extremely unlike the ready indifference of his manner with his\r
+male companion, while Dorothea became all the calmer with a wondering\r
+desire to put him at ease.\r
+\r
+"I was not aware that you and Mr. Casaubon were in Rome, until this\r
+morning, when I saw you in the Vatican Museum," he said. "I knew you\r
+at once--but--I mean, that I concluded Mr. Casaubon's address would be\r
+found at the Poste Restante, and I was anxious to pay my respects to\r
+him and you as early as possible."\r
+\r
+"Pray sit down. He is not here now, but he will be glad to hear of\r
+you, I am sure," said Dorothea, seating herself unthinkingly between\r
+the fire and the light of the tall window, and pointing to a chair\r
+opposite, with the quietude of a benignant matron. The signs of\r
+girlish sorrow in her face were only the more striking. "Mr. Casaubon\r
+is much engaged; but you will leave your address--will you not?--and\r
+he will write to you."\r
+\r
+"You are very good," said Ladislaw, beginning to lose his diffidence in\r
+the interest with which he was observing the signs of weeping which had\r
+altered her face. "My address is on my card. But if you will allow me\r
+I will call again to-morrow at an hour when Mr. Casaubon is likely to\r
+be at home."\r
+\r
+"He goes to read in the Library of the Vatican every day, and you can\r
+hardly see him except by an appointment. Especially now. We are about\r
+to leave Rome, and he is very busy. He is usually away almost from\r
+breakfast till dinner. But I am sure he will wish you to dine with us."\r
+\r
+Will Ladislaw was struck mute for a few moments. He had never been\r
+fond of Mr. Casaubon, and if it had not been for the sense of\r
+obligation, would have laughed at him as a Bat of erudition. But the\r
+idea of this dried-up pedant, this elaborator of small explanations\r
+about as important as the surplus stock of false antiquities kept in a\r
+vendor's back chamber, having first got this adorable young creature to\r
+marry him, and then passing his honeymoon away from her, groping after\r
+his mouldy futilities (Will was given to hyperbole)--this sudden\r
+picture stirred him with a sort of comic disgust: he was divided\r
+between the impulse to laugh aloud and the equally unseasonable impulse\r
+to burst into scornful invective.\r
+\r
+For an instant he felt that the struggle, was causing a queer\r
+contortion of his mobile features, but with a good effort he resolved\r
+it into nothing more offensive than a merry smile.\r
+\r
+Dorothea wondered; but the smile was irresistible, and shone back from\r
+her face too. Will Ladislaw's smile was delightful, unless you were\r
+angry with him beforehand: it was a gush of inward light illuminating\r
+the transparent skin as well as the eyes, and playing about every curve\r
+and line as if some Ariel were touching them with a new charm, and\r
+banishing forever the traces of moodiness. The reflection of that\r
+smile could not but have a little merriment in it too, even under dark\r
+eyelashes still moist, as Dorothea said inquiringly, "Something amuses\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Will, quick in finding resources. "I am thinking of the\r
+sort of figure I cut the first time I saw you, when you annihilated my\r
+poor sketch with your criticism."\r
+\r
+"My criticism?" said Dorothea, wondering still more. "Surely not. I\r
+always feel particularly ignorant about painting."\r
+\r
+"I suspected you of knowing so much, that you knew how to say just what\r
+was most cutting. You said--I dare say you don't remember it as I\r
+do--that the relation of my sketch to nature was quite hidden from you.\r
+At least, you implied that." Will could laugh now as well as smile.\r
+\r
+"That was really my ignorance," said Dorothea, admiring\r
+Will's good-humor. "I must have said so only because I never could see\r
+any beauty in the pictures which my uncle told me all judges thought\r
+very fine. And I have gone about with just the same ignorance in Rome.\r
+There are comparatively few paintings that I can really enjoy. At\r
+first when I enter a room where the walls are covered with frescos, or\r
+with rare pictures, I feel a kind of awe--like a child present at great\r
+ceremonies where there are grand robes and processions; I feel myself\r
+in the presence of some higher life than my own. But when I begin to\r
+examine the pictures one by one the life goes out of them, or else is\r
+something violent and strange to me. It must be my own dulness. I am\r
+seeing so much all at once, and not understanding half of it. That\r
+always makes one feel stupid. It is painful to be told that anything\r
+is very fine and not be able to feel that it is fine--something like\r
+being blind, while people talk of the sky."\r
+\r
+"Oh, there is a great deal in the feeling for art which must be\r
+acquired," said Will. (It was impossible now to doubt the directness\r
+of Dorothea's confession.) "Art is an old language with a great many\r
+artificial affected styles, and sometimes the chief pleasure one gets\r
+out of knowing them is the mere sense of knowing. I enjoy the art of\r
+all sorts here immensely; but I suppose if I could pick my enjoyment to\r
+pieces I should find it made up of many different threads. There is\r
+something in daubing a little one's self, and having an idea of the\r
+process."\r
+\r
+"You mean perhaps to be a painter?" said Dorothea, with a new direction\r
+of interest. "You mean to make painting your profession? Mr. Casaubon\r
+will like to hear that you have chosen a profession."\r
+\r
+"No, oh no," said Will, with some coldness. "I have quite made up my\r
+mind against it. It is too one-sided a life. I have been seeing a\r
+great deal of the German artists here: I travelled from Frankfort with\r
+one of them. Some are fine, even brilliant fellows--but I should not\r
+like to get into their way of looking at the world entirely from the\r
+studio point of view."\r
+\r
+"That I can understand," said Dorothea, cordially. "And in Rome it\r
+seems as if there were so many things which are more wanted in the\r
+world than pictures. But if you have a genius for painting, would it\r
+not be right to take that as a guide? Perhaps you might do better\r
+things than these--or different, so that there might not be so many\r
+pictures almost all alike in the same place."\r
+\r
+There was no mistaking this simplicity, and Will was won by it into\r
+frankness. "A man must have a very rare genius to make changes of that\r
+sort. I am afraid mine would not carry me even to the pitch of doing\r
+well what has been done already, at least not so well as to make it\r
+worth while. And I should never succeed in anything by dint of\r
+drudgery. If things don't come easily to me I never get them."\r
+\r
+"I have heard Mr. Casaubon say that he regrets your want of patience,"\r
+said Dorothea, gently. She was rather shocked at this mode of taking\r
+all life as a holiday.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I know Mr. Casaubon's opinion. He and I differ."\r
+\r
+The slight streak of contempt in this hasty reply offended Dorothea.\r
+She was all the more susceptible about Mr. Casaubon because of her\r
+morning's trouble.\r
+\r
+"Certainly you differ," she said, rather proudly. "I did not think of\r
+comparing you: such power of persevering devoted labor as Mr.\r
+Casaubon's is not common."\r
+\r
+Will saw that she was offended, but this only gave an additional\r
+impulse to the new irritation of his latent dislike towards Mr.\r
+Casaubon. It was too intolerable that Dorothea should be worshipping\r
+this husband: such weakness in a woman is pleasant to no man but the\r
+husband in question. Mortals are easily tempted to pinch the life out\r
+of their neighbor's buzzing glory, and think that such killing is no\r
+murder.\r
+\r
+"No, indeed," he answered, promptly. "And therefore it is a pity that\r
+it should be thrown away, as so much English scholarship is, for want\r
+of knowing what is being done by the rest of the world. If Mr.\r
+Casaubon read German he would save himself a great deal of trouble."\r
+\r
+"I do not understand you," said Dorothea, startled and anxious.\r
+\r
+"I merely mean," said Will, in an offhand way, "that the Germans have\r
+taken the lead in historical inquiries, and they laugh at results which\r
+are got by groping about in woods with a pocket-compass while they have\r
+made good roads. When I was with Mr. Casaubon I saw that he deafened\r
+himself in that direction: it was almost against his will that he read\r
+a Latin treatise written by a German. I was very sorry."\r
+\r
+Will only thought of giving a good pinch that would annihilate that\r
+vaunted laboriousness, and was unable to imagine the mode in which\r
+Dorothea would be wounded. Young Mr. Ladislaw was not at all deep\r
+himself in German writers; but very little achievement is required in\r
+order to pity another man's shortcomings.\r
+\r
+Poor Dorothea felt a pang at the thought that the labor of her\r
+husband's life might be void, which left her no energy to spare for the\r
+question whether this young relative who was so much obliged to him\r
+ought not to have repressed his observation. She did not even speak,\r
+but sat looking at her hands, absorbed in the piteousness of that\r
+thought.\r
+\r
+Will, however, having given that annihilating pinch, was rather\r
+ashamed, imagining from Dorothea's silence that he had offended her\r
+still more; and having also a conscience about plucking the\r
+tail-feathers from a benefactor.\r
+\r
+"I regretted it especially," he resumed, taking the usual course from\r
+detraction to insincere eulogy, "because of my gratitude and respect\r
+towards my cousin. It would not signify so much in a man whose talents\r
+and character were less distinguished."\r
+\r
+Dorothea raised her eyes, brighter than usual with excited feeling, and\r
+said in her saddest recitative, "How I wish I had learned German when I\r
+was at Lausanne! There were plenty of German teachers. But now I can\r
+be of no use."\r
+\r
+There was a new light, but still a mysterious light, for Will in\r
+Dorothea's last words. The question how she had come to accept Mr.\r
+Casaubon--which he had dismissed when he first saw her by saying that\r
+she must be disagreeable in spite of appearances--was not now to be\r
+answered on any such short and easy method. Whatever else she might\r
+be, she was not disagreeable. She was not coldly clever and indirectly\r
+satirical, but adorably simple and full of feeling. She was an angel\r
+beguiled. It would be a unique delight to wait and watch for the\r
+melodious fragments in which her heart and soul came forth so directly\r
+and ingenuously. The Aeolian harp again came into his mind.\r
+\r
+She must have made some original romance for herself in this marriage.\r
+And if Mr. Casaubon had been a dragon who had carried her off to his\r
+lair with his talons simply and without legal forms, it would have been\r
+an unavoidable feat of heroism to release her and fall at her feet.\r
+But he was something more unmanageable than a dragon: he was a\r
+benefactor with collective society at his back, and he was at that\r
+moment entering the room in all the unimpeachable correctness of his\r
+demeanor, while Dorothea was looking animated with a newly roused alarm\r
+and regret, and Will was looking animated with his admiring speculation\r
+about her feelings.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon felt a surprise which was quite unmixed with pleasure, but\r
+he did not swerve from his usual politeness of greeting, when Will rose\r
+and explained his presence. Mr. Casaubon was less happy than usual,\r
+and this perhaps made him look all the dimmer and more faded; else, the\r
+effect might easily have been produced by the contrast of his young\r
+cousin's appearance. The first impression on seeing Will was one of\r
+sunny brightness, which added to the uncertainty of his changing\r
+expression. Surely, his very features changed their form, his jaw\r
+looked sometimes large and sometimes small; and the little ripple in\r
+his nose was a preparation for metamorphosis. When he turned his head\r
+quickly his hair seemed to shake out light, and some persons thought\r
+they saw decided genius in this coruscation. Mr. Casaubon, on the\r
+contrary, stood rayless.\r
+\r
+As Dorothea's eyes were turned anxiously on her husband she was perhaps\r
+not insensible to the contrast, but it was only mingled with other\r
+causes in making her more conscious of that new alarm on his behalf\r
+which was the first stirring of a pitying tenderness fed by the\r
+realities of his lot and not by her own dreams. Yet it was a source of\r
+greater freedom to her that Will was there; his young equality was\r
+agreeable, and also perhaps his openness to conviction. She felt an\r
+immense need of some one to speak to, and she had never before seen any\r
+one who seemed so quick and pliable, so likely to understand everything.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon gravely hoped that Will was passing his time profitably as\r
+well as pleasantly in Rome--had thought his intention was to remain in\r
+South Germany--but begged him to come and dine to-morrow, when he could\r
+converse more at large: at present he was somewhat weary. Ladislaw\r
+understood, and accepting the invitation immediately took his leave.\r
+\r
+Dorothea's eyes followed her husband anxiously, while he sank down\r
+wearily at the end of a sofa, and resting his elbow supported his head\r
+and looked on the floor. A little flushed, and with bright eyes, she\r
+seated herself beside him, and said--\r
+\r
+"Forgive me for speaking so hastily to you this morning. I was wrong.\r
+I fear I hurt you and made the day more burdensome."\r
+\r
+"I am glad that you feel that, my dear," said Mr. Casaubon. He spoke\r
+quietly and bowed his head a little, but there was still an uneasy\r
+feeling in his eyes as he looked at her.\r
+\r
+"But you do forgive me?" said Dorothea, with a quick sob. In her need\r
+for some manifestation of feeling she was ready to exaggerate her own\r
+fault. Would not love see returning penitence afar off, and fall on\r
+its neck and kiss it?\r
+\r
+"My dear Dorothea--'who with repentance is not satisfied, is not of\r
+heaven nor earth:'--you do not think me worthy to be banished by that\r
+severe sentence," said Mr. Casaubon, exerting himself to make a strong\r
+statement, and also to smile faintly.\r
+\r
+Dorothea was silent, but a tear which had come up with the sob would\r
+insist on falling.\r
+\r
+"You are excited, my dear. And I also am feeling some unpleasant\r
+consequences of too much mental disturbance," said Mr. Casaubon. In\r
+fact, he had it in his thought to tell her that she ought not to have\r
+received young Ladislaw in his absence: but he abstained, partly from\r
+the sense that it would be ungracious to bring a new complaint in the\r
+moment of her penitent acknowledgment, partly because he wanted to\r
+avoid further agitation of himself by speech, and partly because he was\r
+too proud to betray that jealousy of disposition which was not so\r
+exhausted on his scholarly compeers that there was none to spare in\r
+other directions. There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little\r
+fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp\r
+despondency of uneasy egoism.\r
+\r
+"I think it is time for us to dress," he added, looking at his watch.\r
+They both rose, and there was never any further allusion between them\r
+to what had passed on this day.\r
+\r
+But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we\r
+all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies,\r
+or some new motive is born. Today she had begun to see that she had\r
+been under a wild illusion in expecting a response to her feeling from\r
+Mr. Casaubon, and she had felt the waking of a presentiment that there\r
+might be a sad consciousness in his life which made as great a need on\r
+his side as on her own.\r
+\r
+We are all of us born in moral stupidity, taking the world as an udder\r
+to feed our supreme selves: Dorothea had early begun to emerge from\r
+that stupidity, but yet it had been easier to her to imagine how she\r
+would devote herself to Mr. Casaubon, and become wise and strong in his\r
+strength and wisdom, than to conceive with that distinctness which is\r
+no longer reflection but feeling--an idea wrought back to the\r
+directness of sense, like the solidity of objects--that he had an\r
+equivalent centre of self, whence the lights and shadows must always\r
+fall with a certain difference.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXII.\r
+\r
+ "Nous câusames longtemps; elle était simple et bonne.\r
+ Ne sachant pas le mal, elle faisait le bien;\r
+ Des richesses du coeur elle me fit l'aumône,\r
+ Et tout en écoutant comme le coeur se donne,\r
+ Sans oser y penser je lui donnai le mien;\r
+ Elle emporta ma vie, et n'en sut jamais rien."\r
+ --ALFRED DE MUSSET.\r
+\r
+\r
+Will Ladislaw was delightfully agreeable at dinner the next day, and\r
+gave no opportunity for Mr. Casaubon to show disapprobation. On the\r
+contrary it seemed to Dorothea that Will had a happier way of drawing\r
+her husband into conversation and of deferentially listening to him\r
+than she had ever observed in any one before. To be sure, the\r
+listeners about Tipton were not highly gifted! Will talked a good deal\r
+himself, but what he said was thrown in with such rapidity, and with\r
+such an unimportant air of saying something by the way, that it seemed\r
+a gay little chime after the great bell. If Will was not always\r
+perfect, this was certainly one of his good days. He described touches\r
+of incident among the poor people in Rome, only to be seen by one who\r
+could move about freely; he found himself in agreement with Mr.\r
+Casaubon as to the unsound opinions of Middleton concerning the\r
+relations of Judaism and Catholicism; and passed easily to a\r
+half-enthusiastic half-playful picture of the enjoyment he got out of\r
+the very miscellaneousness of Rome, which made the mind flexible with\r
+constant comparison, and saved you from seeing the world's ages as a\r
+set of box-like partitions without vital connection. Mr. Casaubon's\r
+studies, Will observed, had always been of too broad a kind for that,\r
+and he had perhaps never felt any such sudden effect, but for himself\r
+he confessed that Rome had given him quite a new sense of history as a\r
+whole: the fragments stimulated his imagination and made him\r
+constructive. Then occasionally, but not too often, he appealed to\r
+Dorothea, and discussed what she said, as if her sentiment were an item\r
+to be considered in the final judgment even of the Madonna di Foligno\r
+or the Laocoon. A sense of contributing to form the world's opinion\r
+makes conversation particularly cheerful; and Mr. Casaubon too was not\r
+without his pride in his young wife, who spoke better than most women,\r
+as indeed he had perceived in choosing her.\r
+\r
+Since things were going on so pleasantly, Mr. Casaubon's statement that\r
+his labors in the Library would be suspended for a couple of days, and\r
+that after a brief renewal he should have no further reason for staying\r
+in Rome, encouraged Will to urge that Mrs. Casaubon should not go away\r
+without seeing a studio or two. Would not Mr. Casaubon take her? That\r
+sort of thing ought not to be missed: it was quite special: it was a\r
+form of life that grew like a small fresh vegetation with its\r
+population of insects on huge fossils. Will would be happy to conduct\r
+them--not to anything wearisome, only to a few examples.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon, seeing Dorothea look earnestly towards him, could not but\r
+ask her if she would be interested in such visits: he was now at her\r
+service during the whole day; and it was agreed that Will should come\r
+on the morrow and drive with them.\r
+\r
+Will could not omit Thorwaldsen, a living celebrity about whom even Mr.\r
+Casaubon inquired, but before the day was far advanced he led the way\r
+to the studio of his friend Adolf Naumann, whom he mentioned as one of\r
+the chief renovators of Christian art, one of those who had not only\r
+revived but expanded that grand conception of supreme events as\r
+mysteries at which the successive ages were spectators, and in relation\r
+to which the great souls of all periods became as it were\r
+contemporaries. Will added that he had made himself Naumann's pupil\r
+for the nonce.\r
+\r
+"I have been making some oil-sketches under him," said Will. "I hate\r
+copying. I must put something of my own in. Naumann has been painting\r
+the Saints drawing the Car of the Church, and I have been making a\r
+sketch of Marlowe's Tamburlaine Driving the Conquered Kings in his\r
+Chariot. I am not so ecclesiastical as Naumann, and I sometimes twit\r
+him with his excess of meaning. But this time I mean to outdo him in\r
+breadth of intention. I take Tamburlaine in his chariot for the\r
+tremendous course of the world's physical history lashing on the\r
+harnessed dynasties. In my opinion, that is a good mythical\r
+interpretation." Will here looked at Mr. Casaubon, who received this\r
+offhand treatment of symbolism very uneasily, and bowed with a neutral\r
+air.\r
+\r
+"The sketch must be very grand, if it conveys so much," said Dorothea.\r
+"I should need some explanation even of the meaning you give. Do you\r
+intend Tamburlaine to represent earthquakes and volcanoes?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Will, laughing, "and migrations of races and clearings\r
+of forests--and America and the steam-engine. Everything you can\r
+imagine!"\r
+\r
+"What a difficult kind of shorthand!" said Dorothea, smiling towards\r
+her husband. "It would require all your knowledge to be able to read\r
+it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon blinked furtively at Will. He had a suspicion that he was\r
+being laughed at. But it was not possible to include Dorothea in the\r
+suspicion.\r
+\r
+They found Naumann painting industriously, but no model was present;\r
+his pictures were advantageously arranged, and his own plain vivacious\r
+person set off by a dove-colored blouse and a maroon velvet cap, so\r
+that everything was as fortunate as if he had expected the beautiful\r
+young English lady exactly at that time.\r
+\r
+The painter in his confident English gave little dissertations on his\r
+finished and unfinished subjects, seeming to observe Mr. Casaubon as\r
+much as he did Dorothea. Will burst in here and there with ardent\r
+words of praise, marking out particular merits in his friend's work;\r
+and Dorothea felt that she was getting quite new notions as to the\r
+significance of Madonnas seated under inexplicable canopied thrones\r
+with the simple country as a background, and of saints with\r
+architectural models in their hands, or knives accidentally wedged in\r
+their skulls. Some things which had seemed monstrous to her were\r
+gathering intelligibility and even a natural meaning: but all this was\r
+apparently a branch of knowledge in which Mr. Casaubon had not\r
+interested himself.\r
+\r
+"I think I would rather feel that painting is beautiful than have to\r
+read it as an enigma; but I should learn to understand these pictures\r
+sooner than yours with the very wide meaning," said Dorothea, speaking\r
+to Will.\r
+\r
+"Don't speak of my painting before Naumann," said Will. "He will tell\r
+you, it is all pfuscherei, which is his most opprobrious word!"\r
+\r
+"Is that true?" said Dorothea, turning her sincere eyes on Naumann, who\r
+made a slight grimace and said--\r
+\r
+"Oh, he does not mean it seriously with painting. His walk must be\r
+belles-lettres. That is wi-ide."\r
+\r
+Naumann's pronunciation of the vowel seemed to stretch the word\r
+satirically. Will did not half like it, but managed to laugh: and Mr.\r
+Casaubon, while he felt some disgust at the artist's German accent,\r
+began to entertain a little respect for his judicious severity.\r
+\r
+The respect was not diminished when Naumann, after drawing Will aside\r
+for a moment and looking, first at a large canvas, then at Mr.\r
+Casaubon, came forward again and said--\r
+\r
+"My friend Ladislaw thinks you will pardon me, sir, if I say that a\r
+sketch of your head would be invaluable to me for the St. Thomas\r
+Aquinas in my picture there. It is too much to ask; but I so seldom\r
+see just what I want--the idealistic in the real."\r
+\r
+"You astonish me greatly, sir," said Mr. Casaubon, his looks improved\r
+with a glow of delight; "but if my poor physiognomy, which I have been\r
+accustomed to regard as of the commonest order, can be of any use to\r
+you in furnishing some traits for the angelical doctor, I shall feel\r
+honored. That is to say, if the operation will not be a lengthy one;\r
+and if Mrs. Casaubon will not object to the delay."\r
+\r
+As for Dorothea, nothing could have pleased her more, unless it had\r
+been a miraculous voice pronouncing Mr. Casaubon the wisest and\r
+worthiest among the sons of men. In that case her tottering faith\r
+would have become firm again.\r
+\r
+Naumann's apparatus was at hand in wonderful completeness, and the\r
+sketch went on at once as well as the conversation. Dorothea sat down\r
+and subsided into calm silence, feeling happier than she had done for a\r
+long while before. Every one about her seemed good, and she said to\r
+herself that Rome, if she had only been less ignorant, would have been\r
+full of beauty: its sadness would have been winged with hope. No nature\r
+could be less suspicious than hers: when she was a child she believed\r
+in the gratitude of wasps and the honorable susceptibility of sparrows,\r
+and was proportionately indignant when their baseness was made manifest.\r
+\r
+The adroit artist was asking Mr. Casaubon questions about English\r
+polities, which brought long answers, and, Will meanwhile had perched\r
+himself on some steps in the background overlooking all.\r
+\r
+Presently Naumann said--"Now if I could lay this by for half an hour\r
+and take it up again--come and look, Ladislaw--I think it is perfect so\r
+far."\r
+\r
+Will vented those adjuring interjections which imply that admiration is\r
+too strong for syntax; and Naumann said in a tone of piteous regret--\r
+\r
+"Ah--now--if I could but have had more--but you have other\r
+engagements--I could not ask it--or even to come again to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"Oh, let us stay!" said Dorothea. "We have nothing to do to-day except\r
+go about, have we?" she added, looking entreatingly at Mr. Casaubon.\r
+"It would be a pity not to make the head as good as possible."\r
+\r
+"I am at your service, sir, in the matter," said Mr. Casaubon, with\r
+polite condescension. "Having given up the interior of my head to\r
+idleness, it is as well that the exterior should work in this way."\r
+\r
+"You are unspeakably good--now I am happy!" said Naumann, and then went\r
+on in German to Will, pointing here and there to the sketch as if he\r
+were considering that. Putting it aside for a moment, he looked round\r
+vaguely, as if seeking some occupation for his visitors, and afterwards\r
+turning to Mr. Casaubon, said--\r
+\r
+"Perhaps the beautiful bride, the gracious lady, would not be unwilling\r
+to let me fill up the time by trying to make a slight sketch of\r
+her--not, of course, as you see, for that picture--only as a single\r
+study."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon, bowing, doubted not that Mrs. Casaubon would oblige him,\r
+and Dorothea said, at once, "Where shall I put myself?"\r
+\r
+Naumann was all apologies in asking her to stand, and allow him to\r
+adjust her attitude, to which she submitted without any of the affected\r
+airs and laughs frequently thought necessary on such occasions, when\r
+the painter said, "It is as Santa Clara that I want you to\r
+stand--leaning so, with your cheek against your hand--so--looking at\r
+that stool, please, so!"\r
+\r
+Will was divided between the inclination to fall at the Saint's feet\r
+and kiss her robe, and the temptation to knock Naumann down while he\r
+was adjusting her arm. All this was impudence and desecration, and he\r
+repented that he had brought her.\r
+\r
+The artist was diligent, and Will recovering himself moved about and\r
+occupied Mr. Casaubon as ingeniously as he could; but he did not in the\r
+end prevent the time from seeming long to that gentleman, as was clear\r
+from his expressing a fear that Mrs. Casaubon would be tired. Naumann\r
+took the hint and said--\r
+\r
+"Now, sir, if you can oblige me again; I will release the lady-wife."\r
+\r
+So Mr. Casaubon's patience held out further, and when after all it\r
+turned out that the head of Saint Thomas Aquinas would be more perfect\r
+if another sitting could be had, it was granted for the morrow. On the\r
+morrow Santa Clara too was retouched more than once. The result of all\r
+was so far from displeasing to Mr. Casaubon, that he arranged for the\r
+purchase of the picture in which Saint Thomas Aquinas sat among the\r
+doctors of the Church in a disputation too abstract to be represented,\r
+but listened to with more or less attention by an audience above. The\r
+Santa Clara, which was spoken of in the second place, Naumann declared\r
+himself to be dissatisfied with--he could not, in conscience, engage\r
+to make a worthy picture of it; so about the Santa Clara the\r
+arrangement was conditional.\r
+\r
+I will not dwell on Naumann's jokes at the expense of Mr. Casaubon that\r
+evening, or on his dithyrambs about Dorothea's charm, in all which Will\r
+joined, but with a difference. No sooner did Naumann mention any\r
+detail of Dorothea's beauty, than Will got exasperated at his\r
+presumption: there was grossness in his choice of the most ordinary\r
+words, and what business had he to talk of her lips? She was not a\r
+woman to be spoken of as other women were. Will could not say just\r
+what he thought, but he became irritable. And yet, when after some\r
+resistance he had consented to take the Casaubons to his friend's\r
+studio, he had been allured by the gratification of his pride in being\r
+the person who could grant Naumann such an opportunity of studying her\r
+loveliness--or rather her divineness, for the ordinary phrases which\r
+might apply to mere bodily prettiness were not applicable to her.\r
+(Certainly all Tipton and its neighborhood, as well as Dorothea\r
+herself, would have been surprised at her beauty being made so much of.\r
+In that part of the world Miss Brooke had been only a "fine young\r
+woman.")\r
+\r
+"Oblige me by letting the subject drop, Naumann. Mrs. Casaubon is not\r
+to be talked of as if she were a model," said Will. Naumann stared at\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"Schon! I will talk of my Aquinas. The head is not a bad type, after\r
+all. I dare say the great scholastic himself would have been flattered\r
+to have his portrait asked for. Nothing like these starchy doctors for\r
+vanity! It was as I thought: he cared much less for her portrait than\r
+his own."\r
+\r
+"He's a cursed white-blooded pedantic coxcomb," said Will, with\r
+gnashing impetuosity. His obligations to Mr. Casaubon were not known\r
+to his hearer, but Will himself was thinking of them, and wishing that\r
+he could discharge them all by a check.\r
+\r
+Naumann gave a shrug and said, "It is good they go away soon, my dear.\r
+They are spoiling your fine temper."\r
+\r
+All Will's hope and contrivance were now concentrated on seeing\r
+Dorothea when she was alone. He only wanted her to take more emphatic\r
+notice of him; he only wanted to be something more special in her\r
+remembrance than he could yet believe himself likely to be. He was\r
+rather impatient under that open ardent good-will, which he saw was her\r
+usual state of feeling. The remote worship of a woman throned out of\r
+their reach plays a great part in men's lives, but in most cases the\r
+worshipper longs for some queenly recognition, some approving sign by\r
+which his soul's sovereign may cheer him without descending from her\r
+high place. That was precisely what Will wanted. But there were\r
+plenty of contradictions in his imaginative demands. It was beautiful\r
+to see how Dorothea's eyes turned with wifely anxiety and beseeching to\r
+Mr. Casaubon: she would have lost some of her halo if she had been\r
+without that duteous preoccupation; and yet at the next moment the\r
+husband's sandy absorption of such nectar was too intolerable; and\r
+Will's longing to say damaging things about him was perhaps not the\r
+less tormenting because he felt the strongest reasons for restraining\r
+it.\r
+\r
+Will had not been invited to dine the next day. Hence he persuaded\r
+himself that he was bound to call, and that the only eligible time was\r
+the middle of the day, when Mr. Casaubon would not be at home.\r
+\r
+Dorothea, who had not been made aware that her former reception of Will\r
+had displeased her husband, had no hesitation about seeing him,\r
+especially as he might be come to pay a farewell visit. When he\r
+entered she was looking at some cameos which she had been buying for\r
+Celia. She greeted Will as if his visit were quite a matter of course,\r
+and said at once, having a cameo bracelet in her hand--\r
+\r
+"I am so glad you are come. Perhaps you understand all about cameos,\r
+and can tell me if these are really good. I wished to have you with us\r
+in choosing them, but Mr. Casaubon objected: he thought there was not\r
+time. He will finish his work to-morrow, and we shall go away in three\r
+days. I have been uneasy about these cameos. Pray sit down and look\r
+at them."\r
+\r
+"I am not particularly knowing, but there can be no great mistake about\r
+these little Homeric bits: they are exquisitely neat. And the color is\r
+fine: it will just suit you."\r
+\r
+"Oh, they are for my sister, who has quite a different complexion. You\r
+saw her with me at Lowick: she is light-haired and very pretty--at\r
+least I think so. We were never so long away from each other in our\r
+lives before. She is a great pet and never was naughty in her life. I\r
+found out before I came away that she wanted me to buy her some cameos,\r
+and I should be sorry for them not to be good--after their kind."\r
+Dorothea added the last words with a smile.\r
+\r
+"You seem not to care about cameos," said Will, seating himself at some\r
+distance from her, and observing her while she closed the cases.\r
+\r
+"No, frankly, I don't think them a great object in life," said Dorothea\r
+\r
+"I fear you are a heretic about art generally. How is that? I should\r
+have expected you to be very sensitive to the beautiful everywhere."\r
+\r
+"I suppose I am dull about many things," said Dorothea, simply. "I\r
+should like to make life beautiful--I mean everybody's life. And then\r
+all this immense expense of art, that seems somehow to lie outside life\r
+and make it no better for the world, pains one. It spoils my enjoyment\r
+of anything when I am made to think that most people are shut out from\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I call that the fanaticism of sympathy," said Will, impetuously. "You\r
+might say the same of landscape, of poetry, of all refinement. If you\r
+carried it out you ought to be miserable in your own goodness, and turn\r
+evil that you might have no advantage over others. The best piety is\r
+to enjoy--when you can. You are doing the most then to save the\r
+earth's character as an agreeable planet. And enjoyment radiates. It\r
+is of no use to try and take care of all the world; that is being taken\r
+care of when you feel delight--in art or in anything else. Would you\r
+turn all the youth of the world into a tragic chorus, wailing and\r
+moralizing over misery? I suspect that you have some false belief in\r
+the virtues of misery, and want to make your life a martyrdom." Will\r
+had gone further than he intended, and checked himself. But Dorothea's\r
+thought was not taking just the same direction as his own, and she\r
+answered without any special emotion--\r
+\r
+"Indeed you mistake me. I am not a sad, melancholy creature. I am\r
+never unhappy long together. I am angry and naughty--not like Celia: I\r
+have a great outburst, and then all seems glorious again. I cannot\r
+help believing in glorious things in a blind sort of way. I should be\r
+quite willing to enjoy the art here, but there is so much that I don't\r
+know the reason of--so much that seems to me a consecration of ugliness\r
+rather than beauty. The painting and sculpture may be wonderful, but\r
+the feeling is often low and brutal, and sometimes even ridiculous.\r
+Here and there I see what takes me at once as noble--something that I\r
+might compare with the Alban Mountains or the sunset from the Pincian\r
+Hill; but that makes it the greater pity that there is so little of the\r
+best kind among all that mass of things over which men have toiled so."\r
+\r
+"Of course there is always a great deal of poor work: the rarer things\r
+want that soil to grow in."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear," said Dorothea, taking up that thought into the chief current\r
+of her anxiety; "I see it must be very difficult to do anything good.\r
+I have often felt since I have been in Rome that most of our lives\r
+would look much uglier and more bungling than the pictures, if they\r
+could be put on the wall."\r
+\r
+Dorothea parted her lips again as if she were going to say more, but\r
+changed her mind and paused.\r
+\r
+"You are too young--it is an anachronism for you to have such\r
+thoughts," said Will, energetically, with a quick shake of the head\r
+habitual to him. "You talk as if you had never known any youth. It is\r
+monstrous--as if you had had a vision of Hades in your childhood, like\r
+the boy in the legend. You have been brought up in some of those\r
+horrible notions that choose the sweetest women to devour--like\r
+Minotaurs. And now you will go and be shut up in that stone prison at\r
+Lowick: you will be buried alive. It makes me savage to think of it!\r
+I would rather never have seen you than think of you with such a\r
+prospect."\r
+\r
+Will again feared that he had gone too far; but the meaning we attach\r
+to words depends on our feeling, and his tone of angry regret had so\r
+much kindness in it for Dorothea's heart, which had always been giving\r
+out ardor and had never been fed with much from the living beings\r
+around her, that she felt a new sense of gratitude and answered with a\r
+gentle smile--\r
+\r
+"It is very good of you to be anxious about me. It is because you did\r
+not like Lowick yourself: you had set your heart on another kind of\r
+life. But Lowick is my chosen home."\r
+\r
+The last sentence was spoken with an almost solemn cadence, and Will\r
+did not know what to say, since it would not be useful for him to\r
+embrace her slippers, and tell her that he would die for her: it was\r
+clear that she required nothing of the sort; and they were both silent\r
+for a moment or two, when Dorothea began again with an air of saying at\r
+last what had been in her mind beforehand.\r
+\r
+"I wanted to ask you again about something you said the other day.\r
+Perhaps it was half of it your lively way of speaking: I notice that\r
+you like to put things strongly; I myself often exaggerate when I speak\r
+hastily."\r
+\r
+"What was it?" said Will, observing that she spoke with a timidity\r
+quite new in her. "I have a hyperbolical tongue: it catches fire as it\r
+goes. I dare say I shall have to retract."\r
+\r
+"I mean what you said about the necessity of knowing German--I mean,\r
+for the subjects that Mr. Casaubon is engaged in. I have been thinking\r
+about it; and it seems to me that with Mr. Casaubon's learning he must\r
+have before him the same materials as German scholars--has he not?"\r
+Dorothea's timidity was due to an indistinct consciousness that she was\r
+in the strange situation of consulting a third person about the\r
+adequacy of Mr. Casaubon's learning.\r
+\r
+"Not exactly the same materials," said Will, thinking that he would be\r
+duly reserved. "He is not an Orientalist, you know. He does not\r
+profess to have more than second-hand knowledge there."\r
+\r
+"But there are very valuable books about antiquities which were written\r
+a long while ago by scholars who knew nothing about these modern\r
+things; and they are still used. Why should Mr. Casaubon's not be\r
+valuable, like theirs?" said Dorothea, with more remonstrant energy.\r
+She was impelled to have the argument aloud, which she had been having\r
+in her own mind.\r
+\r
+"That depends on the line of study taken," said Will, also getting a\r
+tone of rejoinder. "The subject Mr. Casaubon has chosen is as changing\r
+as chemistry: new discoveries are constantly making new points of view.\r
+Who wants a system on the basis of the four elements, or a book to\r
+refute Paracelsus? Do you not see that it is no use now to be crawling\r
+a little way after men of the last century--men like Bryant--and\r
+correcting their mistakes?--living in a lumber-room and furbishing up\r
+broken-legged theories about Chus and Mizraim?"\r
+\r
+"How can you bear to speak so lightly?" said Dorothea, with a look\r
+between sorrow and anger. "If it were as you say, what could be sadder\r
+than so much ardent labor all in vain? I wonder it does not affect you\r
+more painfully, if you really think that a man like Mr. Casaubon, of so\r
+much goodness, power, and learning, should in any way fail in what has\r
+been the labor of his best years." She was beginning to be shocked that\r
+she had got to such a point of supposition, and indignant with Will for\r
+having led her to it.\r
+\r
+"You questioned me about the matter of fact, not of feeling," said\r
+Will. "But if you wish to punish me for the fact, I submit. I am not\r
+in a position to express my feeling toward Mr. Casaubon: it would be at\r
+best a pensioner's eulogy."\r
+\r
+"Pray excuse me," said Dorothea, coloring deeply. "I am aware, as you\r
+say, that I am in fault in having introduced the subject. Indeed, I am\r
+wrong altogether. Failure after long perseverance is much grander than\r
+never to have a striving good enough to be called a failure."\r
+\r
+"I quite agree with you," said Will, determined to change the\r
+situation--"so much so that I have made up my mind not to run that\r
+risk of never attaining a failure. Mr. Casaubon's generosity has\r
+perhaps been dangerous to me, and I mean to renounce the liberty it has\r
+given me. I mean to go back to England shortly and work my own\r
+way--depend on nobody else than myself."\r
+\r
+"That is fine--I respect that feeling," said Dorothea, with returning\r
+kindness. "But Mr. Casaubon, I am sure, has never thought of anything\r
+in the matter except what was most for your welfare."\r
+\r
+"She has obstinacy and pride enough to serve instead of love, now she\r
+has married him," said Will to himself. Aloud he said, rising--\r
+\r
+"I shall not see you again."\r
+\r
+"Oh, stay till Mr. Casaubon comes," said Dorothea, earnestly. "I am so\r
+glad we met in Rome. I wanted to know you."\r
+\r
+"And I have made you angry," said Will. "I have made you think ill of\r
+me."\r
+\r
+"Oh no. My sister tells me I am always angry with people who do not\r
+say just what I like. But I hope I am not given to think ill of them.\r
+In the end I am usually obliged to think ill of myself for being so\r
+impatient."\r
+\r
+"Still, you don't like me; I have made myself an unpleasant thought to\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Dorothea, with the most open kindness. "I like you\r
+very much."\r
+\r
+Will was not quite contented, thinking that he would apparently have\r
+been of more importance if he had been disliked. He said nothing, but\r
+looked dull, not to say sulky.\r
+\r
+"And I am quite interested to see what you will do," Dorothea went on\r
+cheerfully. "I believe devoutly in a natural difference of vocation.\r
+If it were not for that belief, I suppose I should be very narrow--there\r
+are so many things, besides painting, that I am quite ignorant\r
+of. You would hardly believe how little I have taken in of music and\r
+literature, which you know so much of. I wonder what your vocation\r
+will turn out to be: perhaps you will be a poet?"\r
+\r
+"That depends. To be a poet is to have a soul so quick to discern that\r
+no shade of quality escapes it, and so quick to feel, that discernment\r
+is but a hand playing with finely ordered variety on the chords of\r
+emotion--a soul in which knowledge passes instantaneously into feeling,\r
+and feeling flashes back as a new organ of knowledge. One may have\r
+that condition by fits only."\r
+\r
+"But you leave out the poems," said Dorothea. "I think they are wanted\r
+to complete the poet. I understand what you mean about knowledge\r
+passing into feeling, for that seems to be just what I experience. But\r
+I am sure I could never produce a poem."\r
+\r
+"You _are_ a poem--and that is to be the best part of a poet--what\r
+makes up the poet's consciousness in his best moods," said Will,\r
+showing such originality as we all share with the morning and the\r
+spring-time and other endless renewals.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad to hear it," said Dorothea, laughing out her words in a\r
+bird-like modulation, and looking at Will with playful gratitude in her\r
+eyes. "What very kind things you say to me!"\r
+\r
+"I wish I could ever do anything that would be what you call kind--that\r
+I could ever be of the slightest service to you. I fear I shall never\r
+have the opportunity." Will spoke with fervor.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Dorothea, cordially. "It will come; and I shall\r
+remember how well you wish me. I quite hoped that we should be friends\r
+when I first saw you--because of your relationship to Mr. Casaubon."\r
+There was a certain liquid brightness in her eyes, and Will was\r
+conscious that his own were obeying a law of nature and filling too.\r
+The allusion to Mr. Casaubon would have spoiled all if anything at that\r
+moment could have spoiled the subduing power, the sweet dignity, of her\r
+noble unsuspicious inexperience.\r
+\r
+"And there is one thing even now that you can do," said Dorothea,\r
+rising and walking a little way under the strength of a recurring\r
+impulse. "Promise me that you will not again, to any one, speak of\r
+that subject--I mean about Mr. Casaubon's writings--I mean in that\r
+kind of way. It was I who led to it. It was my fault. But promise\r
+me."\r
+\r
+She had returned from her brief pacing and stood opposite Will, looking\r
+gravely at him.\r
+\r
+"Certainly, I will promise you," said Will, reddening however. If he\r
+never said a cutting word about Mr. Casaubon again and left off\r
+receiving favors from him, it would clearly be permissible to hate him\r
+the more. The poet must know how to hate, says Goethe; and Will was at\r
+least ready with that accomplishment. He said that he must go now\r
+without waiting for Mr. Casaubon, whom he would come to take leave of\r
+at the last moment. Dorothea gave him her hand, and they exchanged a\r
+simple "Good-by."\r
+\r
+But going out of the porte cochere he met Mr. Casaubon, and that\r
+gentleman, expressing the best wishes for his cousin, politely waived\r
+the pleasure of any further leave-taking on the morrow, which would be\r
+sufficiently crowded with the preparations for departure.\r
+\r
+"I have something to tell you about our cousin Mr. Ladislaw, which I\r
+think will heighten your opinion of him," said Dorothea to her husband\r
+in the coarse of the evening. She had mentioned immediately on his\r
+entering that Will had just gone away, and would come again, but Mr.\r
+Casaubon had said, "I met him outside, and we made our final adieux, I\r
+believe," saying this with the air and tone by which we imply that any\r
+subject, whether private or public, does not interest us enough to wish\r
+for a further remark upon it. So Dorothea had waited.\r
+\r
+"What is that, my love?" said Mr Casaubon (he always said "my love"\r
+when his manner was the coldest).\r
+\r
+"He has made up his mind to leave off wandering at once, and to give up\r
+his dependence on your generosity. He means soon to go back to\r
+England, and work his own way. I thought you would consider that a\r
+good sign," said Dorothea, with an appealing look into her husband's\r
+neutral face.\r
+\r
+"Did he mention the precise order of occupation to which he would\r
+addict himself?"\r
+\r
+"No. But he said that he felt the danger which lay for him in your\r
+generosity. Of course he will write to you about it. Do you not think\r
+better of him for his resolve?"\r
+\r
+"I shall await his communication on the subject," said Mr. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+"I told him I was sure that the thing you considered in all you did for\r
+him was his own welfare. I remembered your goodness in what you said\r
+about him when I first saw him at Lowick," said Dorothea, putting her\r
+hand on her husband's.\r
+\r
+"I had a duty towards him," said Mr. Casaubon, laying his other hand on\r
+Dorothea's in conscientious acceptance of her caress, but with a glance\r
+which he could not hinder from being uneasy. "The young man, I\r
+confess, is not otherwise an object of interest to me, nor need we, I\r
+think, discuss his future course, which it is not ours to determine\r
+beyond the limits which I have sufficiently indicated." Dorothea did\r
+not mention Will again.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK III.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+WAITING FOR DEATH.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIII.\r
+\r
+ "Your horses of the Sun," he said,\r
+ "And first-rate whip Apollo!\r
+ Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head,\r
+ But I will beat them hollow."\r
+\r
+\r
+Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no such\r
+immaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentleman\r
+for many hours together, there were circumstances connected with this\r
+debt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. The creditor\r
+was Mr. Bambridge a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whose company was\r
+much sought in Middlemarch by young men understood to be "addicted to\r
+pleasure." During the vacations Fred had naturally required more\r
+amusements than he had ready money for, and Mr. Bambridge had been\r
+accommodating enough not only to trust him for the hire of horses and\r
+the accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, but also to make a\r
+small advance by which he might be able to meet some losses at\r
+billiards. The total debt was a hundred and sixty pounds. Bambridge\r
+was in no alarm about his money, being sure that young Vincy had\r
+backers; but he had required something to show for it, and Fred had at\r
+first given a bill with his own signature. Three months later he had\r
+renewed this bill with the signature of Caleb Garth. On both occasions\r
+Fred had felt confident that he should meet the bill himself, having\r
+ample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness. You will hardly demand\r
+that his confidence should have a basis in external facts; such\r
+confidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it is\r
+a comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom of\r
+providence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or the\r
+still greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe,\r
+will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our good\r
+taste in costume, and our general preference for the best style of\r
+thing. Fred felt sure that he should have a present from his uncle,\r
+that he should have a run of luck, that by dint of "swapping" he should\r
+gradually metamorphose a horse worth forty pounds into a horse that\r
+would fetch a hundred at any moment--"judgment" being always equivalent\r
+to an unspecified sum in hard cash. And in any case, even supposing\r
+negations which only a morbid distrust could imagine, Fred had always\r
+(at that time) his father's pocket as a last resource, so that his\r
+assets of hopefulness had a sort of gorgeous superfluity about them.\r
+Of what might be the capacity of his father's pocket, Fred had only a\r
+vague notion: was not trade elastic? And would not the deficiencies of\r
+one year be made up for by the surplus of another? The Vincys lived in\r
+an easy profuse way, not with any new ostentation, but according to the\r
+family habits and traditions, so that the children had no standard of\r
+economy, and the elder ones retained some of their infantine notion\r
+that their father might pay for anything if he would. Mr. Vincy\r
+himself had expensive Middlemarch habits--spent money on coursing, on\r
+his cellar, and on dinner-giving, while mamma had those running\r
+accounts with tradespeople, which give a cheerful sense of getting\r
+everything one wants without any question of payment. But it was in\r
+the nature of fathers, Fred knew, to bully one about expenses: there\r
+was always a little storm over his extravagance if he had to disclose a\r
+debt, and Fred disliked bad weather within doors. He was too filial to\r
+be disrespectful to his father, and he bore the thunder with the\r
+certainty that it was transient; but in the mean time it was\r
+disagreeable to see his mother cry, and also to be obliged to look\r
+sulky instead of having fun; for Fred was so good-tempered that if he\r
+looked glum under scolding, it was chiefly for propriety's sake. The\r
+easier course plainly, was to renew the bill with a friend's signature.\r
+Why not? With the superfluous securities of hope at his command, there\r
+was no reason why he should not have increased other people's\r
+liabilities to any extent, but for the fact that men whose names were\r
+good for anything were usually pessimists, indisposed to believe that\r
+the universal order of things would necessarily be agreeable to an\r
+agreeable young gentleman.\r
+\r
+With a favor to ask we review our list of friends, do justice to their\r
+more amiable qualities, forgive their little offenses, and concerning\r
+each in turn, try to arrive at the conclusion that he will be eager to\r
+oblige us, our own eagerness to be obliged being as communicable as\r
+other warmth. Still there is always a certain number who are dismissed\r
+as but moderately eager until the others have refused; and it happened\r
+that Fred checked off all his friends but one, on the ground that\r
+applying to them would be disagreeable; being implicitly convinced that\r
+he at least (whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) had\r
+a right to be free from anything disagreeable. That he should ever\r
+fall into a thoroughly unpleasant position--wear trousers shrunk with\r
+washing, eat cold mutton, have to walk for want of a horse, or to "duck\r
+under" in any sort of way--was an absurdity irreconcilable with those\r
+cheerful intuitions implanted in him by nature. And Fred winced under\r
+the idea of being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts.\r
+Thus it came to pass that the friend whom he chose to apply to was at\r
+once the poorest and the kindest--namely, Caleb Garth.\r
+\r
+The Garths were very fond of Fred, as he was of them; for when he and\r
+Rosamond were little ones, and the Garths were better off, the slight\r
+connection between the two families through Mr. Featherstone's double\r
+marriage (the first to Mr. Garth's sister, and the second to Mrs.\r
+Vincy's) had led to an acquaintance which was carried on between the\r
+children rather than the parents: the children drank tea together out\r
+of their toy teacups, and spent whole days together in play. Mary was\r
+a little hoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl\r
+in the world, making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut\r
+from an umbrella. Through all the stages of his education he had kept\r
+his affection for the Garths, and his habit of going to their house as\r
+a second home, though any intercourse between them and the elders of\r
+his family had long ceased. Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the\r
+Vincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there\r
+were nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old\r
+manufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none but\r
+equals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which was\r
+defined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressible\r
+theoretically. Since then Mr. Garth had failed in the building\r
+business, which he had unfortunately added to his other avocations of\r
+surveyor, valuer, and agent, had conducted that business for a time\r
+entirely for the benefit of his assignees, and had been living\r
+narrowly, exerting himself to the utmost that he might after all pay\r
+twenty shillings in the pound. He had now achieved this, and from all\r
+who did not think it a bad precedent, his honorable exertions had won\r
+him due esteem; but in no part of the world is genteel visiting founded\r
+on esteem, in the absence of suitable furniture and complete\r
+dinner-service. Mrs. Vincy had never been at her ease with Mrs. Garth,\r
+and frequently spoke of her as a woman who had had to work for her\r
+bread--meaning that Mrs. Garth had been a teacher before her marriage;\r
+in which case an intimacy with Lindley Murray and Mangnall's Questions\r
+was something like a draper's discrimination of calico trademarks, or a\r
+courier's acquaintance with foreign countries: no woman who was better\r
+off needed that sort of thing. And since Mary had been keeping Mr.\r
+Featherstone's house, Mrs. Vincy's want of liking for the Garths had\r
+been converted into something more positive, by alarm lest Fred should\r
+engage himself to this plain girl, whose parents "lived in such a small\r
+way." Fred, being aware of this, never spoke at home of his visits to\r
+Mrs. Garth, which had of late become more frequent, the increasing\r
+ardor of his affection for Mary inclining him the more towards those\r
+who belonged to her.\r
+\r
+Mr. Garth had a small office in the town, and to this Fred went with\r
+his request. He obtained it without much difficulty, for a large\r
+amount of painful experience had not sufficed to make Caleb Garth\r
+cautious about his own affairs, or distrustful of his fellow-men when\r
+they had not proved themselves untrustworthy; and he had the highest\r
+opinion of Fred, was "sure the lad would turn out well--an open\r
+affectionate fellow, with a good bottom to his character--you might\r
+trust him for anything." Such was Caleb's psychological argument. He\r
+was one of those rare men who are rigid to themselves and indulgent to\r
+others. He had a certain shame about his neighbors' errors, and never\r
+spoke of them willingly; hence he was not likely to divert his mind\r
+from the best mode of hardening timber and other ingenious devices in\r
+order to preconceive those errors. If he had to blame any one, it was\r
+necessary for him to move all the papers within his reach, or describe\r
+various diagrams with his stick, or make calculations with the odd\r
+money in his pocket, before he could begin; and he would rather do\r
+other men's work than find fault with their doing. I fear he was a bad\r
+disciplinarian.\r
+\r
+When Fred stated the circumstances of his debt, his wish to meet it\r
+without troubling his father, and the certainty that the money would be\r
+forthcoming so as to cause no one any inconvenience, Caleb pushed his\r
+spectacles upward, listened, looked into his favorite's clear young\r
+eyes, and believed him, not distinguishing confidence about the future\r
+from veracity about the past; but he felt that it was an occasion for a\r
+friendly hint as to conduct, and that before giving his signature he\r
+must give a rather strong admonition. Accordingly, he took the paper\r
+and lowered his spectacles, measured the space at his command, reached\r
+his pen and examined it, dipped it in the ink and examined it again,\r
+then pushed the paper a little way from him, lifted up his spectacles\r
+again, showed a deepened depression in the outer angle of his bushy\r
+eyebrows, which gave his face a peculiar mildness (pardon these details\r
+for once--you would have learned to love them if you had known Caleb\r
+Garth), and said in a comfortable tone--\r
+\r
+"It was a misfortune, eh, that breaking the horse's knees? And then,\r
+these exchanges, they don't answer when you have 'cute jockeys to deal\r
+with. You'll be wiser another time, my boy."\r
+\r
+Whereupon Caleb drew down his spectacles, and proceeded to write his\r
+signature with the care which he always gave to that performance; for\r
+whatever he did in the way of business he did well. He contemplated\r
+the large well-proportioned letters and final flourish, with his head a\r
+trifle on one side for an instant, then handed it to Fred, said\r
+"Good-by," and returned forthwith to his absorption in a plan for Sir\r
+James Chettam's new farm-buildings.\r
+\r
+Either because his interest in this work thrust the incident of the\r
+signature from his memory, or for some reason of which Caleb was more\r
+conscious, Mrs. Garth remained ignorant of the affair.\r
+\r
+Since it occurred, a change had come over Fred's sky, which altered his\r
+view of the distance, and was the reason why his uncle Featherstone's\r
+present of money was of importance enough to make his color come and\r
+go, first with a too definite expectation, and afterwards with a\r
+proportionate disappointment. His failure in passing his examination,\r
+had made his accumulation of college debts the more unpardonable by his\r
+father, and there had been an unprecedented storm at home. Mr. Vincy\r
+had sworn that if he had anything more of that sort to put up with,\r
+Fred should turn out and get his living how he could; and he had never\r
+yet quite recovered his good-humored tone to his son, who had\r
+especially enraged him by saying at this stage of things that he did\r
+not want to be a clergyman, and would rather not "go on with that."\r
+Fred was conscious that he would have been yet more severely dealt with\r
+if his family as well as himself had not secretly regarded him as Mr.\r
+Featherstone's heir; that old gentleman's pride in him, and apparent\r
+fondness for him, serving in the stead of more exemplary conduct--just\r
+as when a youthful nobleman steals jewellery we call the act\r
+kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of\r
+his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy\r
+who had stolen turnips. In fact, tacit expectations of what would be\r
+done for him by uncle Featherstone determined the angle at which most\r
+people viewed Fred Vincy in Middlemarch; and in his own consciousness,\r
+what uncle Featherstone would do for him in an emergency, or what he\r
+would do simply as an incorporated luck, formed always an immeasurable\r
+depth of aerial perspective. But that present of bank-notes, once\r
+made, was measurable, and being applied to the amount of the debt,\r
+showed a deficit which had still to be filled up either by Fred's\r
+"judgment" or by luck in some other shape. For that little episode of\r
+the alleged borrowing, in which he had made his father the agent in\r
+getting the Bulstrode certificate, was a new reason against going to\r
+his father for money towards meeting his actual debt. Fred was keen\r
+enough to foresee that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his\r
+denial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's will\r
+would be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him\r
+one vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the\r
+complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous\r
+duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even\r
+fibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace at\r
+what he called Rosamond's fibs (it is only brothers who can associate\r
+such ideas with a lovely girl); and rather than incur the accusation of\r
+falsehood he would even incur some trouble and self-restraint. It was\r
+under strong inward pressure of this kind that Fred had taken the wise\r
+step of depositing the eighty pounds with his mother. It was a pity\r
+that he had not at once given them to Mr. Garth; but he meant to make\r
+the sum complete with another sixty, and with a view to this, he had\r
+kept twenty pounds in his own pocket as a sort of seed-corn, which,\r
+planted by judgment, and watered by luck, might yield more than\r
+threefold--a very poor rate of multiplication when the field is a young\r
+gentleman's infinite soul, with all the numerals at command.\r
+\r
+Fred was not a gambler: he had not that specific disease in which the\r
+suspension of the whole nervous energy on a chance or risk becomes as\r
+necessary as the dram to the drunkard; he had only the tendency to that\r
+diffusive form of gambling which has no alcoholic intensity, but is\r
+carried on with the healthiest chyle-fed blood, keeping up a joyous\r
+imaginative activity which fashions events according to desire, and\r
+having no fears about its own weather, only sees the advantage there\r
+must be to others in going aboard with it. Hopefulness has a pleasure\r
+in making a throw of any kind, because the prospect of success is\r
+certain; and only a more generous pleasure in offering as many as\r
+possible a share in the stake. Fred liked play, especially billiards,\r
+as he liked hunting or riding a steeple-chase; and he only liked it the\r
+better because he wanted money and hoped to win. But the twenty\r
+pounds' worth of seed-corn had been planted in vain in the seductive\r
+green plot--all of it at least which had not been dispersed by the\r
+roadside--and Fred found himself close upon the term of payment with no\r
+money at command beyond the eighty pounds which he had deposited with\r
+his mother. The broken-winded horse which he rode represented a\r
+present which had been made to him a long while ago by his uncle\r
+Featherstone: his father always allowed him to keep a horse, Mr.\r
+Vincy's own habits making him regard this as a reasonable demand even\r
+for a son who was rather exasperating. This horse, then, was Fred's\r
+property, and in his anxiety to meet the imminent bill he determined to\r
+sacrifice a possession without which life would certainly be worth\r
+little. He made the resolution with a sense of heroism--heroism forced\r
+on him by the dread of breaking his word to Mr. Garth, by his love for\r
+Mary and awe of her opinion. He would start for Houndsley horse-fair\r
+which was to be held the next morning, and--simply sell his horse,\r
+bringing back the money by coach?--Well, the horse would hardly fetch\r
+more than thirty pounds, and there was no knowing what might happen; it\r
+would be folly to balk himself of luck beforehand. It was a hundred to\r
+one that some good chance would fall in his way; the longer he thought\r
+of it, the less possible it seemed that he should not have a good\r
+chance, and the less reasonable that he should not equip himself with\r
+the powder and shot for bringing it down. He would ride to Houndsley\r
+with Bambridge and with Horrock "the vet," and without asking them\r
+anything expressly, he should virtually get the benefit of their\r
+opinion. Before he set out, Fred got the eighty pounds from his mother.\r
+\r
+Most of those who saw Fred riding out of Middlemarch in company with\r
+Bambridge and Horrock, on his way of course to Houndsley horse-fair,\r
+thought that young Vincy was pleasure-seeking as usual; and but for an\r
+unwonted consciousness of grave matters on hand, he himself would have\r
+had a sense of dissipation, and of doing what might be expected of a\r
+gay young fellow. Considering that Fred was not at all coarse, that he\r
+rather looked down on the manners and speech of young men who had not\r
+been to the university, and that he had written stanzas as pastoral and\r
+unvoluptuous as his flute-playing, his attraction towards Bambridge and\r
+Horrock was an interesting fact which even the love of horse-flesh\r
+would not wholly account for without that mysterious influence of\r
+Naming which determinates so much of mortal choice. Under any other\r
+name than "pleasure" the society of Messieurs Bambridge and Horrock\r
+must certainly have been regarded as monotonous; and to arrive with\r
+them at Houndsley on a drizzling afternoon, to get down at the Red Lion\r
+in a street shaded with coal-dust, and dine in a room furnished with a\r
+dirt-enamelled map of the county, a bad portrait of an anonymous horse\r
+in a stable, His Majesty George the Fourth with legs and cravat, and\r
+various leaden spittoons, might have seemed a hard business, but for\r
+the sustaining power of nomenclature which determined that the pursuit\r
+of these things was "gay."\r
+\r
+In Mr. Horrock there was certainly an apparent unfathomableness which\r
+offered play to the imagination. Costume, at a glance, gave him a\r
+thrilling association with horses (enough to specify the hat-brim which\r
+took the slightest upward angle just to escape the suspicion of bending\r
+downwards), and nature had given him a face which by dint of Mongolian\r
+eyes, and a nose, mouth, and chin seeming to follow his hat-brim in a\r
+moderate inclination upwards, gave the effect of a subdued unchangeable\r
+sceptical smile, of all expressions the most tyrannous over a\r
+susceptible mind, and, when accompanied by adequate silence, likely to\r
+create the reputation of an invincible understanding, an infinite fund\r
+of humor--too dry to flow, and probably in a state of immovable\r
+crust,--and a critical judgment which, if you could ever be fortunate\r
+enough to know it, would be _the_ thing and no other. It is a\r
+physiognomy seen in all vocations, but perhaps it has never been more\r
+powerful over the youth of England than in a judge of horses.\r
+\r
+Mr. Horrock, at a question from Fred about his horse's fetlock, turned\r
+sideways in his saddle, and watched the horse's action for the space of\r
+three minutes, then turned forward, twitched his own bridle, and\r
+remained silent with a profile neither more nor less sceptical than it\r
+had been.\r
+\r
+The part thus played in dialogue by Mr. Horrock was terribly effective.\r
+A mixture of passions was excited in Fred--a mad desire to thrash\r
+Horrock's opinion into utterance, restrained by anxiety to retain the\r
+advantage of his friendship. There was always the chance that Horrock\r
+might say something quite invaluable at the right moment.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bambridge had more open manners, and appeared to give forth his\r
+ideas without economy. He was loud, robust, and was sometimes spoken\r
+of as being "given to indulgence"--chiefly in swearing, drinking, and\r
+beating his wife. Some people who had lost by him called him a vicious\r
+man; but he regarded horse-dealing as the finest of the arts, and might\r
+have argued plausibly that it had nothing to do with morality. He was\r
+undeniably a prosperous man, bore his drinking better than others bore\r
+their moderation, and, on the whole, flourished like the green\r
+bay-tree. But his range of conversation was limited, and like the fine\r
+old tune, "Drops of brandy," gave you after a while a sense of\r
+returning upon itself in a way that might make weak heads dizzy. But a\r
+slight infusion of Mr. Bambridge was felt to give tone and character to\r
+several circles in Middlemarch; and he was a distinguished figure in\r
+the bar and billiard-room at the Green Dragon. He knew some anecdotes\r
+about the heroes of the turf, and various clever tricks of Marquesses\r
+and Viscounts which seemed to prove that blood asserted its\r
+pre-eminence even among black-legs; but the minute retentiveness of his\r
+memory was chiefly shown about the horses he had himself bought and\r
+sold; the number of miles they would trot you in no time without\r
+turning a hair being, after the lapse of years, still a subject of\r
+passionate asseveration, in which he would assist the imagination of\r
+his hearers by solemnly swearing that they never saw anything like it.\r
+In short, Mr. Bambridge was a man of pleasure and a gay companion.\r
+\r
+Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going to\r
+Houndsley bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly at\r
+their genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a genuine\r
+opinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from such eminent\r
+critics. It was not Mr. Bambridge's weakness to be a gratuitous\r
+flatterer. He had never before been so much struck with the fact that\r
+this unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree which required the\r
+roundest word for perdition to give you any idea of it.\r
+\r
+"You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody but me,\r
+Vincy! Why, you never threw your leg across a finer horse than that\r
+chestnut, and you gave him for this brute. If you set him cantering,\r
+he goes on like twenty sawyers. I never heard but one worse roarer in\r
+my life, and that was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor;\r
+he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me to\r
+take him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal in\r
+wind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of the\r
+country, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a penny\r
+trumpet to that roarer of yours."\r
+\r
+"Why, you said just now his was worse than mine," said Fred, more\r
+irritable than usual.\r
+\r
+"I said a lie, then," said Mr. Bambridge, emphatically. "There wasn't\r
+a penny to choose between 'em."\r
+\r
+Fred spurred his horse, and they trotted on a little way. When they\r
+slackened again, Mr. Bambridge said--\r
+\r
+"Not but what the roan was a better trotter than yours."\r
+\r
+"I'm quite satisfied with his paces, I know," said Fred, who required\r
+all the consciousness of being in gay company to support him; "I say\r
+his trot is an uncommonly clean one, eh, Horrock?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Horrock looked before him with as complete a neutrality as if he\r
+had been a portrait by a great master.\r
+\r
+Fred gave up the fallacious hope of getting a genuine opinion; but on\r
+reflection he saw that Bambridge's depreciation and Horrock's silence\r
+were both virtually encouraging, and indicated that they thought better\r
+of the horse than they chose to say.\r
+\r
+That very evening, indeed, before the fair had set in, Fred thought he\r
+saw a favorable opening for disposing advantageously of his horse, but\r
+an opening which made him congratulate himself on his foresight in\r
+bringing with him his eighty pounds. A young farmer, acquainted with\r
+Mr. Bambridge, came into the Red Lion, and entered into conversation\r
+about parting with a hunter, which he introduced at once as Diamond,\r
+implying that it was a public character. For himself he only wanted a\r
+useful hack, which would draw upon occasion; being about to marry and\r
+to give up hunting. The hunter was in a friend's stable at some little\r
+distance; there was still time for gentlemen to see it before dark.\r
+The friend's stable had to be reached through a back street where you\r
+might as easily have been poisoned without expense of drugs as in any\r
+grim street of that unsanitary period. Fred was not fortified against\r
+disgust by brandy, as his companions were, but the hope of having at\r
+last seen the horse that would enable him to make money was\r
+exhilarating enough to lead him over the same ground again the first\r
+thing in the morning. He felt sure that if he did not come to a\r
+bargain with the farmer, Bambridge would; for the stress of\r
+circumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing him\r
+with all the constructive power of suspicion. Bambridge had run down\r
+Diamond in a way that he never would have done (the horse being a\r
+friend's) if he had not thought of buying it; every one who looked at\r
+the animal--even Horrock--was evidently impressed with its merit. To\r
+get all the advantage of being with men of this sort, you must know how\r
+to draw your inferences, and not be a spoon who takes things literally.\r
+The color of the horse was a dappled gray, and Fred happened to know\r
+that Lord Medlicote's man was on the look-out for just such a horse.\r
+After all his running down, Bambridge let it out in the course of the\r
+evening, when the farmer was absent, that he had seen worse horses go\r
+for eighty pounds. Of course he contradicted himself twenty times\r
+over, but when you know what is likely to be true you can test a man's\r
+admissions. And Fred could not but reckon his own judgment of a horse\r
+as worth something. The farmer had paused over Fred's respectable\r
+though broken-winded steed long enough to show that he thought it worth\r
+consideration, and it seemed probable that he would take it, with\r
+five-and-twenty pounds in addition, as the equivalent of Diamond. In\r
+that case Fred, when he had parted with his new horse for at least\r
+eighty pounds, would be fifty-five pounds in pocket by the transaction,\r
+and would have a hundred and thirty-five pounds towards meeting the\r
+bill; so that the deficit temporarily thrown on Mr. Garth would at the\r
+utmost be twenty-five pounds. By the time he was hurrying on his\r
+clothes in the morning, he saw so clearly the importance of not losing\r
+this rare chance, that if Bambridge and Horrock had both dissuaded him,\r
+he would not have been deluded into a direct interpretation of their\r
+purpose: he would have been aware that those deep hands held something\r
+else than a young fellow's interest. With regard to horses, distrust\r
+was your only clew. But scepticism, as we know, can never be\r
+thoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill: something we\r
+must believe in and do, and whatever that something may be called, it\r
+is virtually our own judgment, even when it seems like the most slavish\r
+reliance on another. Fred believed in the excellence of his bargain,\r
+and even before the fair had well set in, had got possession of the\r
+dappled gray, at the price of his old horse and thirty pounds in\r
+addition--only five pounds more than he had expected to give.\r
+\r
+But he felt a little worried and wearied, perhaps with mental debate,\r
+and without waiting for the further gayeties of the horse-fair, he set\r
+out alone on his fourteen miles' journey, meaning to take it very\r
+quietly and keep his horse fresh.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIV.\r
+\r
+ "The offender's sorrow brings but small relief\r
+ To him who wears the strong offence's cross."\r
+ --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.\r
+\r
+\r
+I am sorry to say that only the third day after the propitious events\r
+at Houndsley Fred Vincy had fallen into worse spirits than he had known\r
+in his life before. Not that he had been disappointed as to the\r
+possible market for his horse, but that before the bargain could be\r
+concluded with Lord Medlicote's man, this Diamond, in which hope to the\r
+amount of eighty pounds had been invested, had without the slightest\r
+warning exhibited in the stable a most vicious energy in kicking, had\r
+just missed killing the groom, and had ended in laming himself severely\r
+by catching his leg in a rope that overhung the stable-board. There was\r
+no more redress for this than for the discovery of bad temper after\r
+marriage--which of course old companions were aware of before the\r
+ceremony. For some reason or other, Fred had none of his usual\r
+elasticity under this stroke of ill-fortune: he was simply aware that\r
+he had only fifty pounds, that there was no chance of his getting any\r
+more at present, and that the bill for a hundred and sixty would be\r
+presented in five days. Even if he had applied to his father on the\r
+plea that Mr. Garth should be saved from loss, Fred felt smartingly\r
+that his father would angrily refuse to rescue Mr. Garth from the\r
+consequence of what he would call encouraging extravagance and deceit.\r
+He was so utterly downcast that he could frame no other project than to\r
+go straight to Mr. Garth and tell him the sad truth, carrying with him\r
+the fifty pounds, and getting that sum at least safely out of his own\r
+hands. His father, being at the warehouse, did not yet know of the\r
+accident: when he did, he would storm about the vicious brute being\r
+brought into his stable; and before meeting that lesser annoyance Fred\r
+wanted to get away with all his courage to face the greater. He took\r
+his father's nag, for he had made up his mind that when he had told Mr.\r
+Garth, he would ride to Stone Court and confess all to Mary. In fact,\r
+it is probable that but for Mary's existence and Fred's love for her,\r
+his conscience would have been much less active both in previously\r
+urging the debt on his thought and impelling him not to spare himself\r
+after his usual fashion by deferring an unpleasant task, but to act as\r
+directly and simply as he could. Even much stronger mortals than Fred\r
+Vincy hold half their rectitude in the mind of the being they love\r
+best. "The theatre of all my actions is fallen," said an antique\r
+personage when his chief friend was dead; and they are fortunate who\r
+get a theatre where the audience demands their best. Certainly it\r
+would have made a considerable difference to Fred at that time if Mary\r
+Garth had had no decided notions as to what was admirable in character.\r
+\r
+Mr. Garth was not at the office, and Fred rode on to his house, which\r
+was a little way outside the town--a homely place with an orchard in\r
+front of it, a rambling, old-fashioned, half-timbered building, which\r
+before the town had spread had been a farm-house, but was now\r
+surrounded with the private gardens of the townsmen. We get the fonder\r
+of our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friends\r
+have. The Garth family, which was rather a large one, for Mary had\r
+four brothers and one sister, were very fond of their old house, from\r
+which all the best furniture had long been sold. Fred liked it too,\r
+knowing it by heart even to the attic which smelt deliciously of apples\r
+and quinces, and until to-day he had never come to it without pleasant\r
+expectations; but his heart beat uneasily now with the sense that he\r
+should probably have to make his confession before Mrs. Garth, of whom\r
+he was rather more in awe than of her husband. Not that she was\r
+inclined to sarcasm and to impulsive sallies, as Mary was. In her\r
+present matronly age at least, Mrs. Garth never committed herself by\r
+over-hasty speech; having, as she said, borne the yoke in her youth,\r
+and learned self-control. She had that rare sense which discerns what\r
+is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring. Adoring her\r
+husband's virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his\r
+incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences\r
+cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in\r
+teapots or children's frilling, and had never poured any pathetic\r
+confidences into the ears of her feminine neighbors concerning Mr.\r
+Garth's want of prudence and the sums he might have had if he had been\r
+like other men. Hence these fair neighbors thought her either proud or\r
+eccentric, and sometimes spoke of her to their husbands as "your fine\r
+Mrs. Garth." She was not without her criticism of them in return, being\r
+more accurately instructed than most matrons in Middlemarch, and--where\r
+is the blameless woman?--apt to be a little severe towards her own sex,\r
+which in her opinion was framed to be entirely subordinate. On the\r
+other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failings\r
+of men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. Also, it\r
+must be admitted that Mrs. Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her\r
+resistance to what she held to be follies: the passage from governess\r
+into housewife had wrought itself a little too strongly into her\r
+consciousness, and she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent\r
+were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family\r
+dinner, and darned all the stockings. She had sometimes taken pupils\r
+in a peripatetic fashion, making them follow her about in the kitchen\r
+with their book or slate. She thought it good for them to see that she\r
+could make an excellent lather while she corrected their blunders\r
+"without looking,"--that a woman with her sleeves tucked up above her\r
+elbows might know all about the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid\r
+Zone--that, in short, she might possess "education" and other good\r
+things ending in "tion," and worthy to be pronounced emphatically,\r
+without being a useless doll. When she made remarks to this edifying\r
+effect, she had a firm little frown on her brow, which yet did not\r
+hinder her face from looking benevolent, and her words which came forth\r
+like a procession were uttered in a fervid agreeable contralto.\r
+Certainly, the exemplary Mrs. Garth had her droll aspects, but her\r
+character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavor\r
+of skin.\r
+\r
+Towards Fred Vincy she had a motherly feeling, and had always been\r
+disposed to excuse his errors, though she would probably not have\r
+excused Mary for engaging herself to him, her daughter being included\r
+in that more rigorous judgment which she applied to her own sex. But\r
+this very fact of her exceptional indulgence towards him made it the\r
+harder to Fred that he must now inevitably sink in her opinion. And\r
+the circumstances of his visit turned out to be still more unpleasant\r
+than he had expected; for Caleb Garth had gone out early to look at\r
+some repairs not far off. Mrs. Garth at certain hours was always in\r
+the kitchen, and this morning she was carrying on several occupations\r
+at once there--making her pies at the well-scoured deal table on one\r
+side of that airy room, observing Sally's movements at the oven and\r
+dough-tub through an open door, and giving lessons to her youngest boy\r
+and girl, who were standing opposite to her at the table with their\r
+books and slates before them. A tub and a clothes-horse at the other\r
+end of the kitchen indicated an intermittent wash of small things also\r
+going on.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth, with her sleeves turned above her elbows, deftly handling\r
+her pastry--applying her rolling-pin and giving ornamental pinches,\r
+while she expounded with grammatical fervor what were the right views\r
+about the concord of verbs and pronouns with "nouns of multitude or\r
+signifying many," was a sight agreeably amusing. She was of the same\r
+curly-haired, square-faced type as Mary, but handsomer, with more\r
+delicacy of feature, a pale skin, a solid matronly figure, and a\r
+remarkable firmness of glance. In her snowy-frilled cap she reminded\r
+one of that delightful Frenchwoman whom we have all seen marketing,\r
+basket on arm. Looking at the mother, you might hope that the daughter\r
+would become like her, which is a prospective advantage equal to a\r
+dowry--the mother too often standing behind the daughter like a\r
+malignant prophecy--"Such as I am, she will shortly be."\r
+\r
+"Now let us go through that once more," said Mrs. Garth, pinching an\r
+apple-puff which seemed to distract Ben, an energetic young male with a\r
+heavy brow, from due attention to the lesson. "'Not without regard to\r
+the import of the word as conveying unity or plurality of idea'--tell\r
+me again what that means, Ben."\r
+\r
+(Mrs. Garth, like more celebrated educators, had her favorite ancient\r
+paths, and in a general wreck of society would have tried to hold her\r
+"Lindley Murray" above the waves.)\r
+\r
+"Oh--it means--you must think what you mean," said Ben, rather\r
+peevishly. "I hate grammar. What's the use of it?"\r
+\r
+"To teach you to speak and write correctly, so that you can be\r
+understood," said Mrs. Garth, with severe precision. "Should you like\r
+to speak as old Job does?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Ben, stoutly; "it's funnier. He says, 'Yo goo'--that's\r
+just as good as 'You go.'"\r
+\r
+"But he says, 'A ship's in the garden,' instead of 'a sheep,'" said\r
+Letty, with an air of superiority. "You might think he meant a ship\r
+off the sea."\r
+\r
+"No, you mightn't, if you weren't silly," said Ben. "How could a ship\r
+off the sea come there?"\r
+\r
+"These things belong only to pronunciation, which is the least part of\r
+grammar," said Mrs. Garth. "That apple-peel is to be eaten by the\r
+pigs, Ben; if you eat it, I must give them your piece of pasty. Job\r
+has only to speak about very plain things. How do you think you would\r
+write or speak about anything more difficult, if you knew no more of\r
+grammar than he does? You would use wrong words, and put words in the\r
+wrong places, and instead of making people understand you, they would\r
+turn away from you as a tiresome person. What would you do then?"\r
+\r
+"I shouldn't care, I should leave off," said Ben, with a sense that\r
+this was an agreeable issue where grammar was concerned.\r
+\r
+"I see you are getting tired and stupid, Ben," said Mrs. Garth,\r
+accustomed to these obstructive arguments from her male offspring.\r
+Having finished her pies, she moved towards the clothes-horse, and\r
+said, "Come here and tell me the story I told you on Wednesday, about\r
+Cincinnatus."\r
+\r
+"I know! he was a farmer," said Ben.\r
+\r
+"Now, Ben, he was a Roman--let _me_ tell," said Letty, using her elbow\r
+contentiously.\r
+\r
+"You silly thing, he was a Roman farmer, and he was ploughing."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but before that--that didn't come first--people wanted him," said\r
+Letty.\r
+\r
+"Well, but you must say what sort of a man he was first," insisted Ben.\r
+"He was a wise man, like my father, and that made the people want his\r
+advice. And he was a brave man, and could fight. And so could my\r
+father--couldn't he, mother?"\r
+\r
+"Now, Ben, let me tell the story straight on, as mother told it us,"\r
+said Letty, frowning. "Please, mother, tell Ben not to speak."\r
+\r
+"Letty, I am ashamed of you," said her mother, wringing out the caps\r
+from the tub. "When your brother began, you ought to have waited to\r
+see if he could not tell the story. How rude you look, pushing and\r
+frowning, as if you wanted to conquer with your elbows! Cincinnatus, I\r
+am sure, would have been sorry to see his daughter behave so." (Mrs.\r
+Garth delivered this awful sentence with much majesty of enunciation,\r
+and Letty felt that between repressed volubility and general disesteem,\r
+that of the Romans inclusive, life was already a painful affair.) "Now,\r
+Ben."\r
+\r
+"Well--oh--well--why, there was a great deal of fighting, and they were\r
+all blockheads, and--I can't tell it just how you told it--but they\r
+wanted a man to be captain and king and everything--"\r
+\r
+"Dictator, now," said Letty, with injured looks, and not without a wish\r
+to make her mother repent.\r
+\r
+"Very well, dictator!" said Ben, contemptuously. "But that isn't a\r
+good word: he didn't tell them to write on slates."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, Ben, you are not so ignorant as that," said Mrs. Garth,\r
+carefully serious. "Hark, there is a knock at the door! Run, Letty,\r
+and open it."\r
+\r
+The knock was Fred's; and when Letty said that her father was not in\r
+yet, but that her mother was in the kitchen, Fred had no alternative.\r
+He could not depart from his usual practice of going to see Mrs. Garth\r
+in the kitchen if she happened to be at work there. He put his arm\r
+round Letty's neck silently, and led her into the kitchen without his\r
+usual jokes and caresses.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth was surprised to see Fred at this hour, but surprise was not\r
+a feeling that she was given to express, and she only said, quietly\r
+continuing her work--\r
+\r
+"You, Fred, so early in the day? You look quite pale. Has anything\r
+happened?"\r
+\r
+"I want to speak to Mr. Garth," said Fred, not yet ready to say\r
+more--"and to you also," he added, after a little pause, for he had no\r
+doubt that Mrs. Garth knew everything about the bill, and he must in the\r
+end speak of it before her, if not to her solely.\r
+\r
+"Caleb will be in again in a few minutes," said Mrs. Garth, who\r
+imagined some trouble between Fred and his father. "He is sure not to\r
+be long, because he has some work at his desk that must be done this\r
+morning. Do you mind staying with me, while I finish my matters here?"\r
+\r
+"But we needn't go on about Cincinnatus, need we?" said Ben, who had\r
+taken Fred's whip out of his hand, and was trying its efficiency on the\r
+cat.\r
+\r
+"No, go out now. But put that whip down. How very mean of you to whip\r
+poor old Tortoise! Pray take the whip from him, Fred."\r
+\r
+"Come, old boy, give it me," said Fred, putting out his hand.\r
+\r
+"Will you let me ride on your horse to-day?" said Ben, rendering up the\r
+whip, with an air of not being obliged to do it.\r
+\r
+"Not to-day--another time. I am not riding my own horse."\r
+\r
+"Shall you see Mary to-day?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so," said Fred, with an unpleasant twinge.\r
+\r
+"Tell her to come home soon, and play at forfeits, and make fun."\r
+\r
+"Enough, enough, Ben! run away," said Mrs. Garth, seeing that Fred was\r
+teased. . .\r
+\r
+"Are Letty and Ben your only pupils now, Mrs. Garth?" said Fred, when\r
+the children were gone and it was needful to say something that would\r
+pass the time. He was not yet sure whether he should wait for Mr.\r
+Garth, or use any good opportunity in conversation to confess to Mrs.\r
+Garth herself, give her the money and ride away.\r
+\r
+"One--only one. Fanny Hackbutt comes at half past eleven. I am not\r
+getting a great income now," said Mrs. Garth, smiling. "I am at a low\r
+ebb with pupils. But I have saved my little purse for Alfred's\r
+premium: I have ninety-two pounds. He can go to Mr. Hanmer's now; he\r
+is just at the right age."\r
+\r
+This did not lead well towards the news that Mr. Garth was on the brink\r
+of losing ninety-two pounds and more. Fred was silent. "Young\r
+gentlemen who go to college are rather more costly than that," Mrs.\r
+Garth innocently continued, pulling out the edging on a cap-border.\r
+"And Caleb thinks that Alfred will turn out a distinguished engineer:\r
+he wants to give the boy a good chance. There he is! I hear him\r
+coming in. We will go to him in the parlor, shall we?"\r
+\r
+When they entered the parlor Caleb had thrown down his hat and was\r
+seated at his desk.\r
+\r
+"What! Fred, my boy!" he said, in a tone of mild surprise, holding his\r
+pen still undipped; "you are here betimes." But missing the usual\r
+expression of cheerful greeting in Fred's face, he immediately added,\r
+"Is there anything up at home?--anything the matter?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mr. Garth, I am come to tell something that I am afraid will give\r
+you a bad opinion of me. I am come to tell you and Mrs. Garth that I\r
+can't keep my word. I can't find the money to meet the bill after all.\r
+I have been unfortunate; I have only got these fifty pounds towards the\r
+hundred and sixty."\r
+\r
+While Fred was speaking, he had taken out the notes and laid them on\r
+the desk before Mr. Garth. He had burst forth at once with the plain\r
+fact, feeling boyishly miserable and without verbal resources. Mrs.\r
+Garth was mutely astonished, and looked at her husband for an\r
+explanation. Caleb blushed, and after a little pause said--\r
+\r
+"Oh, I didn't tell you, Susan: I put my name to a bill for Fred; it was\r
+for a hundred and sixty pounds. He made sure he could meet it himself."\r
+\r
+There was an evident change in Mrs. Garth's face, but it was like a\r
+change below the surface of water which remains smooth. She fixed her\r
+eyes on Fred, saying--\r
+\r
+"I suppose you have asked your father for the rest of the money and he\r
+has refused you."\r
+\r
+"No," said Fred, biting his lip, and speaking with more difficulty;\r
+"but I know it will be of no use to ask him; and unless it were of use,\r
+I should not like to mention Mr. Garth's name in the matter."\r
+\r
+"It has come at an unfortunate time," said Caleb, in his hesitating\r
+way, looking down at the notes and nervously fingering the paper,\r
+"Christmas upon us--I'm rather hard up just now. You see, I have to\r
+cut out everything like a tailor with short measure. What can we do,\r
+Susan? I shall want every farthing we have in the bank. It's a\r
+hundred and ten pounds, the deuce take it!"\r
+\r
+"I must give you the ninety-two pounds that I have put by for Alfred's\r
+premium," said Mrs. Garth, gravely and decisively, though a nice ear\r
+might have discerned a slight tremor in some of the words. "And I have\r
+no doubt that Mary has twenty pounds saved from her salary by this\r
+time. She will advance it."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth had not again looked at Fred, and was not in the least\r
+calculating what words she should use to cut him the most effectively.\r
+Like the eccentric woman she was, she was at present absorbed in\r
+considering what was to be done, and did not fancy that the end could\r
+be better achieved by bitter remarks or explosions. But she had made\r
+Fred feel for the first time something like the tooth of remorse.\r
+Curiously enough, his pain in the affair beforehand had consisted\r
+almost entirely in the sense that he must seem dishonorable, and sink\r
+in the opinion of the Garths: he had not occupied himself with the\r
+inconvenience and possible injury that his breach might occasion them,\r
+for this exercise of the imagination on other people's needs is not\r
+common with hopeful young gentlemen. Indeed we are most of us brought\r
+up in the notion that the highest motive for not doing a wrong is\r
+something irrespective of the beings who would suffer the wrong. But\r
+at this moment he suddenly saw himself as a pitiful rascal who was\r
+robbing two women of their savings.\r
+\r
+"I shall certainly pay it all, Mrs. Garth--ultimately," he stammered\r
+out.\r
+\r
+"Yes, ultimately," said Mrs. Garth, who having a special dislike to\r
+fine words on ugly occasions, could not now repress an epigram. "But\r
+boys cannot well be apprenticed ultimately: they should be apprenticed\r
+at fifteen." She had never been so little inclined to make excuses for\r
+Fred.\r
+\r
+"I was the most in the wrong, Susan," said Caleb. "Fred made sure of\r
+finding the money. But I'd no business to be fingering bills. I\r
+suppose you have looked all round and tried all honest means?" he\r
+added, fixing his merciful gray eyes on Fred. Caleb was too delicate,\r
+to specify Mr. Featherstone.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I have tried everything--I really have. I should have had a\r
+hundred and thirty pounds ready but for a misfortune with a horse which\r
+I was about to sell. My uncle had given me eighty pounds, and I paid\r
+away thirty with my old horse in order to get another which I was going\r
+to sell for eighty or more--I meant to go without a horse--but now it\r
+has turned out vicious and lamed itself. I wish I and the horses too\r
+had been at the devil, before I had brought this on you. There's no\r
+one else I care so much for: you and Mrs. Garth have always been so\r
+kind to me. However, it's no use saying that. You will always think\r
+me a rascal now."\r
+\r
+Fred turned round and hurried out of the room, conscious that he was\r
+getting rather womanish, and feeling confusedly that his being sorry\r
+was not of much use to the Garths. They could see him mount, and\r
+quickly pass through the gate.\r
+\r
+"I am disappointed in Fred Vincy," said Mrs. Garth. "I would not have\r
+believed beforehand that he would have drawn you into his debts. I\r
+knew he was extravagant, but I did not think that he would be so mean\r
+as to hang his risks on his oldest friend, who could the least afford\r
+to lose."\r
+\r
+"I was a fool, Susan:"\r
+\r
+"That you were," said the wife, nodding and smiling. "But I should not\r
+have gone to publish it in the market-place. Why should you keep such\r
+things from me? It is just so with your buttons: you let them burst\r
+off without telling me, and go out with your wristband hanging. If I\r
+had only known I might have been ready with some better plan."\r
+\r
+"You are sadly cut up, I know, Susan," said Caleb, looking feelingly at\r
+her. "I can't abide your losing the money you've scraped together for\r
+Alfred."\r
+\r
+"It is very well that I _had_ scraped it together; and it is you who\r
+will have to suffer, for you must teach the boy yourself. You must\r
+give up your bad habits. Some men take to drinking, and you have taken\r
+to working without pay. You must indulge yourself a little less in\r
+that. And you must ride over to Mary, and ask the child what money she\r
+has."\r
+\r
+Caleb had pushed his chair back, and was leaning forward, shaking his\r
+head slowly, and fitting his finger-tips together with much nicety.\r
+\r
+"Poor Mary!" he said. "Susan," he went on in a lowered tone, "I'm\r
+afraid she may be fond of Fred."\r
+\r
+"Oh no! She always laughs at him; and he is not likely to think of her\r
+in any other than a brotherly way."\r
+\r
+Caleb made no rejoinder, but presently lowered his spectacles, drew up\r
+his chair to the desk, and said, "Deuce take the bill--I wish it was\r
+at Hanover! These things are a sad interruption to business!"\r
+\r
+The first part of this speech comprised his whole store of maledictory\r
+expression, and was uttered with a slight snarl easy to imagine. But\r
+it would be difficult to convey to those who never heard him utter the\r
+word "business," the peculiar tone of fervid veneration, of religious\r
+regard, in which he wrapped it, as a consecrated symbol is wrapped in\r
+its gold-fringed linen.\r
+\r
+Caleb Garth often shook his head in meditation on the value, the\r
+indispensable might of that myriad-headed, myriad-handed labor by which\r
+the social body is fed, clothed, and housed. It had laid hold of his\r
+imagination in boyhood. The echoes of the great hammer where roof or\r
+keel were a-making, the signal-shouts of the workmen, the roar of the\r
+furnace, the thunder and plash of the engine, were a sublime music to\r
+him; the felling and lading of timber, and the huge trunk vibrating\r
+star-like in the distance along the highway, the crane at work on the\r
+wharf, the piled-up produce in warehouses, the precision and variety of\r
+muscular effort wherever exact work had to be turned out,--all these\r
+sights of his youth had acted on him as poetry without the aid of the\r
+poets, had made a philosophy for him without the aid of philosophers,\r
+a religion without the aid of theology. His early ambition had been to\r
+have as effective a share as possible in this sublime labor, which was\r
+peculiarly dignified by him with the name of "business;" and though he\r
+had only been a short time under a surveyor, and had been chiefly his\r
+own teacher, he knew more of land, building, and mining than most of\r
+the special men in the county.\r
+\r
+His classification of human employments was rather crude, and, like the\r
+categories of more celebrated men, would not be acceptable in these\r
+advanced times. He divided them into "business, politics, preaching,\r
+learning, and amusement." He had nothing to say against the last four;\r
+but he regarded them as a reverential pagan regarded other gods than\r
+his own. In the same way, he thought very well of all ranks, but he\r
+would not himself have liked to be of any rank in which he had not such\r
+close contact with "business" as to get often honorably decorated with\r
+marks of dust and mortar, the damp of the engine, or the sweet soil of\r
+the woods and fields. Though he had never regarded himself as other\r
+than an orthodox Christian, and would argue on prevenient grace if the\r
+subject were proposed to him, I think his virtual divinities were good\r
+practical schemes, accurate work, and the faithful completion of\r
+undertakings: his prince of darkness was a slack workman. But there\r
+was no spirit of denial in Caleb, and the world seemed so wondrous to\r
+him that he was ready to accept any number of systems, like any number\r
+of firmaments, if they did not obviously interfere with the best\r
+land-drainage, solid building, correct measuring, and judicious boring\r
+(for coal). In fact, he had a reverential soul with a strong practical\r
+intelligence. But he could not manage finance: he knew values well,\r
+but he had no keenness of imagination for monetary results in the shape\r
+of profit and loss: and having ascertained this to his cost, he\r
+determined to give up all forms of his beloved "business" which\r
+required that talent. He gave himself up entirely to the many kinds of\r
+work which he could do without handling capital, and was one of those\r
+precious men within his own district whom everybody would choose to\r
+work for them, because he did his work well, charged very little, and\r
+often declined to charge at all. It is no wonder, then, that the\r
+Garths were poor, and "lived in a small way." However, they did not\r
+mind it.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXV.\r
+\r
+ "Love seeketh not itself to please,\r
+ Nor for itself hath any care\r
+ But for another gives its ease\r
+ And builds a heaven in hell's despair.\r
+ . . . . . . .\r
+ Love seeketh only self to please,\r
+ To bind another to its delight,\r
+ Joys in another's loss of ease,\r
+ And builds a hell in heaven's despite."\r
+ --W. BLAKE: Songs of Experience\r
+\r
+\r
+Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect\r
+him, and when his uncle was not down-stairs in that case she might be\r
+sitting alone in the wainscoted parlor. He left his horse in the yard\r
+to avoid making a noise on the gravel in front, and entered the parlor\r
+without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her\r
+usual corner, laughing over Mrs. Piozzi's recollections of Johnson, and\r
+looked up with the fun still in her face. It gradually faded as she\r
+saw Fred approach her without speaking, and stand before her with his\r
+elbow on the mantel-piece, looking ill. She too was silent, only\r
+raising her eyes to him inquiringly.\r
+\r
+"Mary," he began, "I am a good-for-nothing blackguard."\r
+\r
+"I should think one of those epithets would do at a time," said Mary,\r
+trying to smile, but feeling alarmed.\r
+\r
+"I know you will never think well of me any more. You will think me a\r
+liar. You will think me dishonest. You will think I didn't care for\r
+you, or your father and mother. You always do make the worst of me, I\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"I cannot deny that I shall think all that of you, Fred, if you give me\r
+good reasons. But please to tell me at once what you have done. I\r
+would rather know the painful truth than imagine it."\r
+\r
+"I owed money--a hundred and sixty pounds. I asked your father to put\r
+his name to a bill. I thought it would not signify to him. I made\r
+sure of paying the money myself, and I have tried as hard as I could.\r
+And now, I have been so unlucky--a horse has turned out badly--I can\r
+only pay fifty pounds. And I can't ask my father for the money: he\r
+would not give me a farthing. And my uncle gave me a hundred a little\r
+while ago. So what can I do? And now your father has no ready money\r
+to spare, and your mother will have to pay away her ninety-two pounds\r
+that she has saved, and she says your savings must go too. You see\r
+what a--"\r
+\r
+"Oh, poor mother, poor father!" said Mary, her eyes filling with tears,\r
+and a little sob rising which she tried to repress. She looked\r
+straight before her and took no notice of Fred, all the consequences at\r
+home becoming present to her. He too remained silent for some moments,\r
+feeling more miserable than ever. "I wouldn't have hurt you for the\r
+world, Mary," he said at last. "You can never forgive me."\r
+\r
+"What does it matter whether I forgive you?" said Mary, passionately.\r
+"Would that make it any better for my mother to lose the money she has\r
+been earning by lessons for four years, that she might send Alfred to\r
+Mr. Hanmer's? Should you think all that pleasant enough if I forgave\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Say what you like, Mary. I deserve it all."\r
+\r
+"I don't want to say anything," said Mary, more quietly, "and my anger\r
+is of no use." She dried her eyes, threw aside her book, rose and\r
+fetched her sewing.\r
+\r
+Fred followed her with his eyes, hoping that they would meet hers, and\r
+in that way find access for his imploring penitence. But no! Mary\r
+could easily avoid looking upward.\r
+\r
+"I do care about your mother's money going," he said, when she was\r
+seated again and sewing quickly. "I wanted to ask you, Mary--don't\r
+you think that Mr. Featherstone--if you were to tell him--tell him, I\r
+mean, about apprenticing Alfred--would advance the money?"\r
+\r
+"My family is not fond of begging, Fred. We would rather work for our\r
+money. Besides, you say that Mr. Featherstone has lately given you a\r
+hundred pounds. He rarely makes presents; he has never made presents\r
+to us. I am sure my father will not ask him for anything; and even if\r
+I chose to beg of him, it would be of no use."\r
+\r
+"I am so miserable, Mary--if you knew how miserable I am, you would be\r
+sorry for me."\r
+\r
+"There are other things to be more sorry for than that. But selfish\r
+people always think their own discomfort of more importance than\r
+anything else in the world. I see enough of that every day."\r
+\r
+"It is hardly fair to call me selfish. If you knew what things other\r
+young men do, you would think me a good way off the worst."\r
+\r
+"I know that people who spend a great deal of money on themselves\r
+without knowing how they shall pay, must be selfish. They are always\r
+thinking of what they can get for themselves, and not of what other\r
+people may lose."\r
+\r
+"Any man may be unfortunate, Mary, and find himself unable to pay when\r
+he meant it. There is not a better man in the world than your father,\r
+and yet he got into trouble."\r
+\r
+"How dare you make any comparison between my father and you, Fred?"\r
+said Mary, in a deep tone of indignation. "He never got into trouble\r
+by thinking of his own idle pleasures, but because he was always\r
+thinking of the work he was doing for other people. And he has fared\r
+hard, and worked hard to make good everybody's loss."\r
+\r
+"And you think that I shall never try to make good anything, Mary. It\r
+is not generous to believe the worst of a man. When you have got any\r
+power over him, I think you might try and use it to make him better;\r
+but that is what you never do. However, I'm going," Fred ended,\r
+languidly. "I shall never speak to you about anything again. I'm very\r
+sorry for all the trouble I've caused--that's all."\r
+\r
+Mary had dropped her work out of her hand and looked up. There is\r
+often something maternal even in a girlish love, and Mary's hard\r
+experience had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different\r
+from that hard slight thing which we call girlishness. At Fred's last\r
+words she felt an instantaneous pang, something like what a mother\r
+feels at the imagined sobs or cries of her naughty truant child, which\r
+may lose itself and get harm. And when, looking up, her eyes met his\r
+dull despairing glance, her pity for him surmounted her anger and all\r
+her other anxieties.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Fred, how ill you look! Sit down a moment. Don't go yet. Let me\r
+tell uncle that you are here. He has been wondering that he has not\r
+seen you for a whole week." Mary spoke hurriedly, saying the words\r
+that came first without knowing very well what they were, but saying\r
+them in a half-soothing half-beseeching tone, and rising as if to go\r
+away to Mr. Featherstone. Of course Fred felt as if the clouds had\r
+parted and a gleam had come: he moved and stood in her way.\r
+\r
+"Say one word, Mary, and I will do anything. Say you will not think\r
+the worst of me--will not give me up altogether."\r
+\r
+"As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you," said Mary, in a\r
+mournful tone. "As if it were not very painful to me to see you an\r
+idle frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible, when\r
+others are working and striving, and there are so many things to be\r
+done--how can you bear to be fit for nothing in the world that is\r
+useful? And with so much good in your disposition, Fred,--you might\r
+be worth a great deal."\r
+\r
+"I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you\r
+love me."\r
+\r
+"I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be\r
+hanging on others, and reckoning on what they would do for him. What\r
+will you be when you are forty? Like Mr. Bowyer, I suppose--just as\r
+idle, living in Mrs. Beck's front parlor--fat and shabby, hoping\r
+somebody will invite you to dinner--spending your morning in learning a\r
+comic song--oh no! learning a tune on the flute."\r
+\r
+Mary's lips had begun to curl with a smile as soon as she had asked\r
+that question about Fred's future (young souls are mobile), and before\r
+she ended, her face had its full illumination of fun. To him it was\r
+like the cessation of an ache that Mary could laugh at him, and with a\r
+passive sort of smile he tried to reach her hand; but she slipped away\r
+quickly towards the door and said, "I shall tell uncle. You _must_ see\r
+him for a moment or two."\r
+\r
+Fred secretly felt that his future was guaranteed against the\r
+fulfilment of Mary's sarcastic prophecies, apart from that "anything"\r
+which he was ready to do if she would define it. He never dared in\r
+Mary's presence to approach the subject of his expectations from Mr.\r
+Featherstone, and she always ignored them, as if everything depended on\r
+himself. But if ever he actually came into the property, she must\r
+recognize the change in his position. All this passed through his mind\r
+somewhat languidly, before he went up to see his uncle. He stayed but\r
+a little while, excusing himself on the ground that he had a cold; and\r
+Mary did not reappear before he left the house. But as he rode home,\r
+he began to be more conscious of being ill, than of being melancholy.\r
+\r
+When Caleb Garth arrived at Stone Court soon after dusk, Mary was not\r
+surprised, although he seldom had leisure for paying her a visit, and\r
+was not at all fond of having to talk with Mr. Featherstone. The old\r
+man, on the other hand, felt himself ill at ease with a brother-in-law\r
+whom he could not annoy, who did not mind about being considered poor,\r
+had nothing to ask of him, and understood all kinds of farming and\r
+mining business better than he did. But Mary had felt sure that her\r
+parents would want to see her, and if her father had not come, she\r
+would have obtained leave to go home for an hour or two the next day.\r
+After discussing prices during tea with Mr. Featherstone Caleb rose to\r
+bid him good-by, and said, "I want to speak to you, Mary."\r
+\r
+She took a candle into another large parlor, where there was no fire,\r
+and setting down the feeble light on the dark mahogany table, turned\r
+round to her father, and putting her arms round his neck kissed him\r
+with childish kisses which he delighted in,--the expression of his\r
+large brows softening as the expression of a great beautiful dog\r
+softens when it is caressed. Mary was his favorite child, and whatever\r
+Susan might say, and right as she was on all other subjects, Caleb\r
+thought it natural that Fred or any one else should think Mary more\r
+lovable than other girls.\r
+\r
+"I've got something to tell you, my dear," said Caleb in his hesitating\r
+way. "No very good news; but then it might be worse."\r
+\r
+"About money, father? I think I know what it is."\r
+\r
+"Ay? how can that be? You see, I've been a bit of a fool again, and\r
+put my name to a bill, and now it comes to paying; and your mother has\r
+got to part with her savings, that's the worst of it, and even they\r
+won't quite make things even. We wanted a hundred and ten pounds: your\r
+mother has ninety-two, and I have none to spare in the bank; and she\r
+thinks that you have some savings."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes; I have more than four-and-twenty pounds. I thought you would\r
+come, father, so I put it in my bag. See! beautiful white notes and\r
+gold."\r
+\r
+Mary took out the folded money from her reticule and put it into her\r
+father's hand.\r
+\r
+"Well, but how--we only want eighteen--here, put the rest back,\r
+child,--but how did you know about it?" said Caleb, who, in his\r
+unconquerable indifference to money, was beginning to be chiefly\r
+concerned about the relation the affair might have to Mary's affections.\r
+\r
+"Fred told me this morning."\r
+\r
+"Ah! Did he come on purpose?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so. He was a good deal distressed."\r
+\r
+"I'm afraid Fred is not to be trusted, Mary," said the father, with\r
+hesitating tenderness. "He means better than he acts, perhaps. But I\r
+should think it a pity for any body's happiness to be wrapped up in\r
+him, and so would your mother."\r
+\r
+"And so should I, father," said Mary, not looking up, but putting the\r
+back of her father's hand against her cheek.\r
+\r
+"I don't want to pry, my dear. But I was afraid there might be\r
+something between you and Fred, and I wanted to caution you. You see,\r
+Mary"--here Caleb's voice became more tender; he had been pushing his\r
+hat about on the table and looking at it, but finally he turned his\r
+eyes on his daughter--"a woman, let her be as good as she may, has got\r
+to put up with the life her husband makes for her. Your mother has had\r
+to put up with a good deal because of me."\r
+\r
+Mary turned the back of her father's hand to her lips and smiled at him.\r
+\r
+"Well, well, nobody's perfect, but"--here Mr. Garth shook his head to\r
+help out the inadequacy of words--"what I am thinking of is--what it\r
+must be for a wife when she's never sure of her husband, when he hasn't\r
+got a principle in him to make him more afraid of doing the wrong thing\r
+by others than of getting his own toes pinched. That's the long and\r
+the short of it, Mary. Young folks may get fond of each other before\r
+they know what life is, and they may think it all holiday if they can\r
+only get together; but it soon turns into working day, my dear.\r
+However, you have more sense than most, and you haven't been kept in\r
+cotton-wool: there may be no occasion for me to say this, but a father\r
+trembles for his daughter, and you are all by yourself here."\r
+\r
+"Don't fear for me, father," said Mary, gravely meeting her father's\r
+eyes; "Fred has always been very good to me; he is kind-hearted and\r
+affectionate, and not false, I think, with all his self-indulgence. But\r
+I will never engage myself to one who has no manly independence, and\r
+who goes on loitering away his time on the chance that others will\r
+provide for him. You and my mother have taught me too much pride for\r
+that."\r
+\r
+"That's right--that's right. Then I am easy," said Mr. Garth, taking\r
+up his hat. "But it's hard to run away with your earnings, eh child."\r
+\r
+"Father!" said Mary, in her deepest tone of remonstrance. "Take\r
+pocketfuls of love besides to them all at home," was her last word\r
+before he closed the outer door on himself.\r
+\r
+"I suppose your father wanted your earnings," said old Mr.\r
+Featherstone, with his usual power of unpleasant surmise, when Mary\r
+returned to him. "He makes but a tight fit, I reckon. You're of age\r
+now; you ought to be saving for yourself."\r
+\r
+"I consider my father and mother the best part of myself, sir," said\r
+Mary, coldly.\r
+\r
+Mr. Featherstone grunted: he could not deny that an ordinary sort of\r
+girl like her might be expected to be useful, so he thought of another\r
+rejoinder, disagreeable enough to be always apropos. "If Fred Vincy\r
+comes to-morrow, now, don't you keep him chattering: let him come up to\r
+me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVI.\r
+\r
+ "He beats me and I rail at him: O worthy satisfaction!\r
+ would it were otherwise--that I could beat him while\r
+ he railed at me.--"\r
+ --Troilus and Cressida.\r
+\r
+\r
+But Fred did not go to Stone Court the next day, for reasons that were\r
+quite peremptory. From those visits to unsanitary Houndsley streets in\r
+search of Diamond, he had brought back not only a bad bargain in\r
+horse-flesh, but the further misfortune of some ailment which for a day\r
+or two had deemed mere depression and headache, but which got so much\r
+worse when he returned from his visit to Stone Court that, going into\r
+the dining-room, he threw himself on the sofa, and in answer to his\r
+mother's anxious question, said, "I feel very ill: I think you must\r
+send for Wrench."\r
+\r
+Wrench came, but did not apprehend anything serious, spoke of a "slight\r
+derangement," and did not speak of coming again on the morrow. He had\r
+a due value for the Vincys' house, but the wariest men are apt to be\r
+dulled by routine, and on worried mornings will sometimes go through\r
+their business with the zest of the daily bell-ringer. Mr. Wrench was\r
+a small, neat, bilious man, with a well-dressed wig: he had a laborious\r
+practice, an irascible temper, a lymphatic wife and seven children; and\r
+he was already rather late before setting out on a four-miles drive to\r
+meet Dr. Minchin on the other side of Tipton, the decease of Hicks, a\r
+rural practitioner, having increased Middlemarch practice in that\r
+direction. Great statesmen err, and why not small medical men? Mr.\r
+Wrench did not neglect sending the usual white parcels, which this time\r
+had black and drastic contents. Their effect was not alleviating to\r
+poor Fred, who, however, unwilling as he said to believe that he was\r
+"in for an illness," rose at his usual easy hour the next morning and\r
+went down-stairs meaning to breakfast, but succeeded in nothing but in\r
+sitting and shivering by the fire. Mr. Wrench was again sent for, but\r
+was gone on his rounds, and Mrs. Vincy seeing her darling's changed\r
+looks and general misery, began to cry and said she would send for Dr.\r
+Sprague.\r
+\r
+"Oh, nonsense, mother! It's nothing," said Fred, putting out his hot\r
+dry hand to her, "I shall soon be all right. I must have taken cold in\r
+that nasty damp ride."\r
+\r
+"Mamma!" said Rosamond, who was seated near the window (the dining-room\r
+windows looked on that highly respectable street called Lowick Gate),\r
+"there is Mr. Lydgate, stopping to speak to some one. If I were you I\r
+would call him in. He has cured Ellen Bulstrode. They say he cures\r
+every one."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Vincy sprang to the window and opened it in an instant, thinking\r
+only of Fred and not of medical etiquette. Lydgate was only two yards\r
+off on the other side of some iron palisading, and turned round at the\r
+sudden sound of the sash, before she called to him. In two minutes he\r
+was in the room, and Rosamond went out, after waiting just long enough\r
+to show a pretty anxiety conflicting with her sense of what was\r
+becoming.\r
+\r
+Lydgate had to hear a narrative in which Mrs. Vincy's mind insisted\r
+with remarkable instinct on every point of minor importance, especially\r
+on what Mr. Wrench had said and had not said about coming again. That\r
+there might be an awkward affair with Wrench, Lydgate saw at once; but\r
+the case was serious enough to make him dismiss that consideration: he\r
+was convinced that Fred was in the pink-skinned stage of typhoid fever,\r
+and that he had taken just the wrong medicines. He must go to bed\r
+immediately, must have a regular nurse, and various appliances and\r
+precautions must be used, about which Lydgate was particular. Poor\r
+Mrs. Vincy's terror at these indications of danger found vent in such\r
+words as came most easily. She thought it "very ill usage on the part\r
+of Mr. Wrench, who had attended their house so many years in preference\r
+to Mr. Peacock, though Mr. Peacock was equally a friend. Why Mr.\r
+Wrench should neglect her children more than others, she could not for\r
+the life of her understand. He had not neglected Mrs. Larcher's when\r
+they had the measles, nor indeed would Mrs. Vincy have wished that he\r
+should. And if anything should happen--"\r
+\r
+Here poor Mrs. Vincy's spirit quite broke down, and her Niobe throat\r
+and good-humored face were sadly convulsed. This was in the hall out\r
+of Fred's hearing, but Rosamond had opened the drawing-room door, and\r
+now came forward anxiously. Lydgate apologized for Mr. Wrench, said\r
+that the symptoms yesterday might have been disguising, and that this\r
+form of fever was very equivocal in its beginnings: he would go\r
+immediately to the druggist's and have a prescription made up in order\r
+to lose no time, but he would write to Mr. Wrench and tell him what had\r
+been done.\r
+\r
+"But you must come again--you must go on attending Fred. I can't have\r
+my boy left to anybody who may come or not. I bear nobody ill-will,\r
+thank God, and Mr. Wrench saved me in the pleurisy, but he'd better\r
+have let me die--if--if--"\r
+\r
+"I will meet Mr. Wrench here, then, shall I?" said Lydgate, really\r
+believing that Wrench was not well prepared to deal wisely with a case\r
+of this kind.\r
+\r
+"Pray make that arrangement, Mr. Lydgate," said Rosamond, coming to her\r
+mother's aid, and supporting her arm to lead her away.\r
+\r
+When Mr. Vincy came home he was very angry with Wrench, and did not\r
+care if he never came into his house again. Lydgate should go on now,\r
+whether Wrench liked it or not. It was no joke to have fever in the\r
+house. Everybody must be sent to now, not to come to dinner on\r
+Thursday. And Pritchard needn't get up any wine: brandy was the best\r
+thing against infection. "I shall drink brandy," added Mr. Vincy,\r
+emphatically--as much as to say, this was not an occasion for firing\r
+with blank-cartridges. "He's an uncommonly unfortunate lad, is Fred.\r
+He'd need have--some luck by-and-by to make up for all this--else I\r
+don't know who'd have an eldest son."\r
+\r
+"Don't say so, Vincy," said the mother, with a quivering lip, "if you\r
+don't want him to be taken from me."\r
+\r
+"It will worret you to death, Lucy; _that_ I can see," said Mr. Vincy,\r
+more mildly. "However, Wrench shall know what I think of the matter."\r
+(What Mr. Vincy thought confusedly was, that the fever might somehow\r
+have been hindered if Wrench had shown the proper solicitude about\r
+his--the Mayor's--family.) "I'm the last man to give in to the cry\r
+about new doctors, or new parsons either--whether they're Bulstrode's\r
+men or not. But Wrench shall know what I think, take it as he will."\r
+\r
+Wrench did not take it at all well. Lydgate was as polite as he could\r
+be in his offhand way, but politeness in a man who has placed you at a\r
+disadvantage is only an additional exasperation, especially if he\r
+happens to have been an object of dislike beforehand. Country\r
+practitioners used to be an irritable species, susceptible on the point\r
+of honor; and Mr. Wrench was one of the most irritable among them. He\r
+did not refuse to meet Lydgate in the evening, but his temper was\r
+somewhat tried on the occasion. He had to hear Mrs. Vincy say--\r
+\r
+"Oh, Mr. Wrench, what have I ever done that you should use me so?-- To\r
+go away, and never to come again! And my boy might have been stretched\r
+a corpse!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy, who had been keeping up a sharp fire on the enemy Infection,\r
+and was a good deal heated in consequence, started up when he heard\r
+Wrench come in, and went into the hall to let him know what he thought.\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you what, Wrench, this is beyond a joke," said the Mayor,\r
+who of late had had to rebuke offenders with an official air, and how\r
+broadened himself by putting his thumbs in his armholes.-- "To let\r
+fever get unawares into a house like this. There are some things that\r
+ought to be actionable, and are not so-- that's my opinion."\r
+\r
+But irrational reproaches were easier to bear than the sense of being\r
+instructed, or rather the sense that a younger man, like Lydgate,\r
+inwardly considered him in need of instruction, for "in point of fact,"\r
+Mr. Wrench afterwards said, Lydgate paraded flighty, foreign notions,\r
+which would not wear. He swallowed his ire for the moment, but he\r
+afterwards wrote to decline further attendance in the case. The house\r
+might be a good one, but Mr. Wrench was not going to truckle to anybody\r
+on a professional matter. He reflected, with much probability on his\r
+side, that Lydgate would by-and-by be caught tripping too, and that his\r
+ungentlemanly attempts to discredit the sale of drugs by his\r
+professional brethren, would by-and-by recoil on himself. He threw out\r
+biting remarks on Lydgate's tricks, worthy only of a quack, to get\r
+himself a factitious reputation with credulous people. That cant about\r
+cures was never got up by sound practitioners.\r
+\r
+This was a point on which Lydgate smarted as much as Wrench could\r
+desire. To be puffed by ignorance was not only humiliating, but\r
+perilous, and not more enviable than the reputation of the\r
+weather-prophet. He was impatient of the foolish expectations amidst\r
+which all work must be carried on, and likely enough to damage himself\r
+as much as Mr. Wrench could wish, by an unprofessional openness.\r
+\r
+However, Lydgate was installed as medical attendant on the Vincys, and\r
+the event was a subject of general conversation in Middlemarch. Some\r
+said, that the Vincys had behaved scandalously, that Mr. Vincy had\r
+threatened Wrench, and that Mrs. Vincy had accused him of poisoning her\r
+son. Others were of opinion that Mr. Lydgate's passing by was\r
+providential, that he was wonderfully clever in fevers, and that\r
+Bulstrode was in the right to bring him forward. Many people believed\r
+that Lydgate's coming to the town at all was really due to Bulstrode;\r
+and Mrs. Taft, who was always counting stitches and gathered her\r
+information in misleading fragments caught between the rows of her\r
+knitting, had got it into her head that Mr. Lydgate was a natural son\r
+of Bulstrode's, a fact which seemed to justify her suspicions of\r
+evangelical laymen.\r
+\r
+She one day communicated this piece of knowledge to Mrs. Farebrother,\r
+who did not fail to tell her son of it, observing--\r
+\r
+"I should not be surprised at anything in Bulstrode, but I should be\r
+sorry to think it of Mr. Lydgate."\r
+\r
+"Why, mother," said Mr. Farebrother, after an explosive laugh, "you\r
+know very well that Lydgate is of a good family in the North. He never\r
+heard of Bulstrode before he came here."\r
+\r
+"That is satisfactory so far as Mr. Lydgate is concerned, Camden," said\r
+the old lady, with an air of precision.--"But as to Bulstrode--the\r
+report may be true of some other son."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVII.\r
+\r
+ Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian:\r
+ We are but mortals, and must sing of man.\r
+\r
+\r
+An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify even your ugly\r
+furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me\r
+this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of\r
+polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and\r
+multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a\r
+lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will\r
+seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round\r
+that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going\r
+everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the\r
+flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with\r
+an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The\r
+scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now\r
+absent--of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her\r
+own who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who\r
+seemed to have arranged Fred's illness and Mr. Wrench's mistake in\r
+order to bring her and Lydgate within effective proximity. It would\r
+have been to contravene these arrangements if Rosamond had consented to\r
+go away to Stone Court or elsewhere, as her parents wished her to do,\r
+especially since Mr. Lydgate thought the precaution needless.\r
+Therefore, while Miss Morgan and the children were sent away to a\r
+farmhouse the morning after Fred's illness had declared itself,\r
+Rosamond refused to leave papa and mamma.\r
+\r
+Poor mamma indeed was an object to touch any creature born of woman;\r
+and Mr. Vincy, who doted on his wife, was more alarmed on her account\r
+than on Fred's. But for his insistence she would have taken no rest:\r
+her brightness was all bedimmed; unconscious of her costume which had\r
+always been so fresh and gay, she was like a sick bird with languid eye\r
+and plumage ruffled, her senses dulled to the sights and sounds that\r
+used most to interest her. Fred's delirium, in which he seemed to be\r
+wandering out of her reach, tore her heart. After her first outburst\r
+against Mr. Wrench she went about very quietly: her one low cry was to\r
+Lydgate. She would follow him out of the room and put her hand on his\r
+arm moaning out, "Save my boy." Once she pleaded, "He has always been\r
+good to me, Mr. Lydgate: he never had a hard word for his mother,"--as\r
+if poor Fred's suffering were an accusation against him. All the\r
+deepest fibres of the mother's memory were stirred, and the young man\r
+whose voice took a gentler tone when he spoke to her, was one with the\r
+babe whom she had loved, with a love new to her, before he was born.\r
+\r
+"I have good hope, Mrs. Vincy," Lydgate would say. "Come down with me\r
+and let us talk about the food." In that way he led her to the parlor\r
+where Rosamond was, and made a change for her, surprising her into\r
+taking some tea or broth which had been prepared for her. There was a\r
+constant understanding between him and Rosamond on these matters. He\r
+almost always saw her before going to the sickroom, and she appealed to\r
+him as to what she could do for mamma. Her presence of mind and\r
+adroitness in carrying out his hints were admirable, and it is not\r
+wonderful that the idea of seeing Rosamond began to mingle itself with\r
+his interest in the case. Especially when the critical stage was\r
+passed, and he began to feel confident of Fred's recovery. In the more\r
+doubtful time, he had advised calling in Dr. Sprague (who, if he could,\r
+would rather have remained neutral on Wrench's account); but after two\r
+consultations, the conduct of the case was left to Lydgate, and there\r
+was every reason to make him assiduous. Morning and evening he was at\r
+Mr. Vincy's, and gradually the visits became cheerful as Fred became\r
+simply feeble, and lay not only in need of the utmost petting but\r
+conscious of it, so that Mrs. Vincy felt as if, after all, the illness\r
+had made a festival for her tenderness.\r
+\r
+Both father and mother held it an added reason for good spirits, when\r
+old Mr. Featherstone sent messages by Lydgate, saying that Fred must\r
+make haste and get well, as he, Peter Featherstone, could not do\r
+without him, and missed his visits sadly. The old man himself was\r
+getting bedridden. Mrs. Vincy told these messages to Fred when he\r
+could listen, and he turned towards her his delicate, pinched face,\r
+from which all the thick blond hair had been cut away, and in which the\r
+eyes seemed to have got larger, yearning for some word about\r
+Mary--wondering what she felt about his illness. No word passed his\r
+lips; but "to hear with eyes belongs to love's rare wit," and the\r
+mother in the fulness of her heart not only divined Fred's longing, but\r
+felt ready for any sacrifice in order to satisfy him.\r
+\r
+"If I can only see my boy strong again," she said, in her loving folly;\r
+"and who knows?--perhaps master of Stone Court! and he can marry\r
+anybody he likes then."\r
+\r
+"Not if they won't have me, mother," said Fred. The illness had made\r
+him childish, and tears came as he spoke.\r
+\r
+"Oh, take a bit of jelly, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, secretly\r
+incredulous of any such refusal.\r
+\r
+She never left Fred's side when her husband was not in the house, and\r
+thus Rosamond was in the unusual position of being much alone.\r
+Lydgate, naturally, never thought of staying long with her, yet it\r
+seemed that the brief impersonal conversations they had together were\r
+creating that peculiar intimacy which consists in shyness. They were\r
+obliged to look at each other in speaking, and somehow the looking\r
+could not be carried through as the matter of course which it really\r
+was. Lydgate began to feel this sort of consciousness unpleasant and\r
+one day looked down, or anywhere, like an ill-worked puppet. But this\r
+turned out badly: the next day, Rosamond looked down, and the\r
+consequence was that when their eyes met again, both were more\r
+conscious than before. There was no help for this in science, and as\r
+Lydgate did not want to flirt, there seemed to be no help for it in\r
+folly. It was therefore a relief when neighbors no longer considered\r
+the house in quarantine, and when the chances of seeing Rosamond alone\r
+were very much reduced.\r
+\r
+But that intimacy of mutual embarrassment, in which each feels that the\r
+other is feeling something, having once existed, its effect is not to\r
+be done away with. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics\r
+is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy\r
+unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination--which of course need\r
+not mean anything deep or serious. This was the way in which Rosamond\r
+and Lydgate slid gracefully into ease, and made their intercourse\r
+lively again. Visitors came and went as usual, there was once more\r
+music in the drawing-room, and all the extra hospitality of Mr. Vincy's\r
+mayoralty returned. Lydgate, whenever he could, took his seat by\r
+Rosamond's side, and lingered to hear her music, calling himself her\r
+captive--meaning, all the while, not to be her captive. The\r
+preposterousness of the notion that he could at once set up a\r
+satisfactory establishment as a married man was a sufficient guarantee\r
+against danger. This play at being a little in love was agreeable, and\r
+did not interfere with graver pursuits. Flirtation, after all, was not\r
+necessarily a singeing process. Rosamond, for her part, had never\r
+enjoyed the days so much in her life before: she was sure of being\r
+admired by some one worth captivating, and she did not distinguish\r
+flirtation from love, either in herself or in another. She seemed to\r
+be sailing with a fair wind just whither she would go, and her thoughts\r
+were much occupied with a handsome house in Lowick Gate which she hoped\r
+would by-and-by be vacant. She was quite determined, when she was\r
+married, to rid herself adroitly of all the visitors who were not\r
+agreeable to her at her father's; and she imagined the drawing-room in\r
+her favorite house with various styles of furniture.\r
+\r
+Certainly her thoughts were much occupied with Lydgate himself; he\r
+seemed to her almost perfect: if he had known his notes so that his\r
+enchantment under her music had been less like an emotional elephant's,\r
+and if he had been able to discriminate better the refinements of her\r
+taste in dress, she could hardly have mentioned a deficiency in him.\r
+How different he was from young Plymdale or Mr. Caius Larcher! Those\r
+young men had not a notion of French, and could speak on no subject\r
+with striking knowledge, except perhaps the dyeing and carrying trades,\r
+which of course they were ashamed to mention; they were Middlemarch\r
+gentry, elated with their silver-headed whips and satin stocks, but\r
+embarrassed in their manners, and timidly jocose: even Fred was above\r
+them, having at least the accent and manner of a university man.\r
+Whereas Lydgate was always listened to, bore himself with the careless\r
+politeness of conscious superiority, and seemed to have the right\r
+clothes on by a certain natural affinity, without ever having to think\r
+about them. Rosamond was proud when he entered the room, and when he\r
+approached her with a distinguishing smile, she had a delicious sense\r
+that she was the object of enviable homage. If Lydgate had been aware\r
+of all the pride he excited in that delicate bosom, he might have been\r
+just as well pleased as any other man, even the most densely ignorant\r
+of humoral pathology or fibrous tissue: he held it one of the prettiest\r
+attitudes of the feminine mind to adore a man's pre-eminence without\r
+too precise a knowledge of what it consisted in. But Rosamond was not\r
+one of those helpless girls who betray themselves unawares, and whose\r
+behavior is awkwardly driven by their impulses, instead of being\r
+steered by wary grace and propriety. Do you imagine that her rapid\r
+forecast and rumination concerning house-furniture and society were\r
+ever discernible in her conversation, even with her mamma? On the\r
+contrary, she would have expressed the prettiest surprise and\r
+disapprobation if she had heard that another young lady had been\r
+detected in that immodest prematureness--indeed, would probably have\r
+disbelieved in its possibility. For Rosamond never showed any\r
+unbecoming knowledge, and was always that combination of correct\r
+sentiments, music, dancing, drawing, elegant note-writing, private\r
+album for extracted verse, and perfect blond loveliness, which made the\r
+irresistible woman for the doomed man of that date. Think no unfair\r
+evil of her, pray: she had no wicked plots, nothing sordid or\r
+mercenary; in fact, she never thought of money except as something\r
+necessary which other people would always provide. She was not in the\r
+habit of devising falsehoods, and if her statements were no direct clew\r
+to fact, why, they were not intended in that light--they were among\r
+her elegant accomplishments, intended to please. Nature had inspired\r
+many arts in finishing Mrs. Lemon's favorite pupil, who by general\r
+consent (Fred's excepted) was a rare compound of beauty, cleverness,\r
+and amiability.\r
+\r
+Lydgate found it more and more agreeable to be with her, and there was\r
+no constraint now, there was a delightful interchange of influence in\r
+their eyes, and what they said had that superfluity of meaning for\r
+them, which is observable with some sense of flatness by a third\r
+person; still they had no interviews or asides from which a third\r
+person need have been excluded. In fact, they flirted; and Lydgate was\r
+secure in the belief that they did nothing else. If a man could not\r
+love and be wise, surely he could flirt and be wise at the same time?\r
+Really, the men in Middlemarch, except Mr. Farebrother, were great\r
+bores, and Lydgate did not care about commercial politics or cards:\r
+what was he to do for relaxation? He was often invited to the\r
+Bulstrodes'; but the girls there were hardly out of the schoolroom; and\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode's _naive_ way of conciliating piety and worldliness, the\r
+nothingness of this life and the desirability of cut glass, the\r
+consciousness at once of filthy rags and the best damask, was not a\r
+sufficient relief from the weight of her husband's invariable\r
+seriousness. The Vincys' house, with all its faults, was the\r
+pleasanter by contrast; besides, it nourished Rosamond--sweet to look\r
+at as a half-opened blush-rose, and adorned with accomplishments for\r
+the refined amusement of man.\r
+\r
+But he made some enemies, other than medical, by his success with Miss\r
+Vincy. One evening he came into the drawing-room rather late, when\r
+several other visitors were there. The card-table had drawn off the\r
+elders, and Mr. Ned Plymdale (one of the good matches in Middlemarch,\r
+though not one of its leading minds) was in tete-a-tete with Rosamond.\r
+He had brought the last "Keepsake," the gorgeous watered-silk\r
+publication which marked modern progress at that time; and he\r
+considered himself very fortunate that he could be the first to look\r
+over it with her, dwelling on the ladies and gentlemen with shiny\r
+copper-plate cheeks and copper-plate smiles, and pointing to comic\r
+verses as capital and sentimental stories as interesting. Rosamond was\r
+gracious, and Mr. Ned was satisfied that he had the very best thing in\r
+art and literature as a medium for "paying addresses"--the very thing\r
+to please a nice girl. He had also reasons, deep rather than\r
+ostensible, for being satisfied with his own appearance. To\r
+superficial observers his chin had too vanishing an aspect, looking as\r
+if it were being gradually reabsorbed. And it did indeed cause him\r
+some difficulty about the fit of his satin stocks, for which chins were\r
+at that time useful.\r
+\r
+"I think the Honorable Mrs. S. is something like you," said Mr. Ned.\r
+He kept the book open at the bewitching portrait, and looked at it\r
+rather languishingly.\r
+\r
+"Her back is very large; she seems to have sat for that," said\r
+Rosamond, not meaning any satire, but thinking how red young Plymdale's\r
+hands were, and wondering why Lydgate did not come. She went on with\r
+her tatting all the while.\r
+\r
+"I did not say she was as beautiful as you are," said Mr. Ned,\r
+venturing to look from the portrait to its rival.\r
+\r
+"I suspect you of being an adroit flatterer," said Rosamond, feeling\r
+sure that she should have to reject this young gentleman a second time.\r
+\r
+But now Lydgate came in; the book was closed before he reached\r
+Rosamond's corner, and as he took his seat with easy confidence on the\r
+other side of her, young Plymdale's jaw fell like a barometer towards\r
+the cheerless side of change. Rosamond enjoyed not only Lydgate's\r
+presence but its effect: she liked to excite jealousy.\r
+\r
+"What a late comer you are!" she said, as they shook hands. "Mamma had\r
+given you up a little while ago. How do you find Fred?"\r
+\r
+"As usual; going on well, but slowly. I want him to go away--to Stone\r
+Court, for example. But your mamma seems to have some objection."\r
+\r
+"Poor fellow!" said Rosamond, prettily. "You will see Fred so\r
+changed," she added, turning to the other suitor; "we have looked to\r
+Mr. Lydgate as our guardian angel during this illness."\r
+\r
+Mr. Ned smiled nervously, while Lydgate, drawing the "Keepsake" towards\r
+him and opening it, gave a short scornful laugh and tossed up his\r
+chin, as if in wonderment at human folly.\r
+\r
+"What are you laughing at so profanely?" said Rosamond, with bland\r
+neutrality.\r
+\r
+"I wonder which would turn out to be the silliest--the engravings or\r
+the writing here," said Lydgate, in his most convinced tone, while he\r
+turned over the pages quickly, seeming to see all through the book in\r
+no time, and showing his large white hands to much advantage, as\r
+Rosamond thought. "Do look at this bridegroom coming out of church:\r
+did you ever see such a 'sugared invention'--as the Elizabethans used\r
+to say? Did any haberdasher ever look so smirking? Yet I will answer\r
+for it the story makes him one of the first gentlemen in the land."\r
+\r
+"You are so severe, I am frightened at you," said Rosamond, keeping her\r
+amusement duly moderate. Poor young Plymdale had lingered with\r
+admiration over this very engraving, and his spirit was stirred.\r
+\r
+"There are a great many celebrated people writing in the 'Keepsake,' at\r
+all events," he said, in a tone at once piqued and timid. "This is the\r
+first time I have heard it called silly."\r
+\r
+"I think I shall turn round on you and accuse you of being a Goth,"\r
+said Rosamond, looking at Lydgate with a smile. "I suspect you know\r
+nothing about Lady Blessington and L. E. L." Rosamond herself was not\r
+without relish for these writers, but she did not readily commit\r
+herself by admiration, and was alive to the slightest hint that\r
+anything was not, according to Lydgate, in the very highest taste.\r
+\r
+"But Sir Walter Scott--I suppose Mr. Lydgate knows him," said young\r
+Plymdale, a little cheered by this advantage.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I read no literature now," said Lydgate, shutting the book, and\r
+pushing it away. "I read so much when I was a lad, that I suppose it\r
+will last me all my life. I used to know Scott's poems by heart."\r
+\r
+"I should like to know when you left off," said Rosamond, "because then\r
+I might be sure that I knew something which you did not know."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate would say that was not worth knowing," said Mr. Ned,\r
+purposely caustic.\r
+\r
+"On the contrary," said Lydgate, showing no smart; but smiling with\r
+exasperating confidence at Rosamond. "It would be worth knowing by the\r
+fact that Miss Vincy could tell it me."\r
+\r
+Young Plymdale soon went to look at the whist-playing, thinking that\r
+Lydgate was one of the most conceited, unpleasant fellows it had ever\r
+been his ill-fortune to meet.\r
+\r
+"How rash you are!" said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. "Do you see\r
+that you have given offence?"\r
+\r
+"What! is it Mr. Plymdale's book? I am sorry. I didn't think about\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"I shall begin to admit what you said of yourself when you first came\r
+here--that you are a bear, and want teaching by the birds."\r
+\r
+"Well, there is a bird who can teach me what she will. Don't I listen\r
+to her willingly?"\r
+\r
+To Rosamond it seemed as if she and Lydgate were as good as engaged.\r
+That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her\r
+mind; and ideas, we know, tend to a more solid kind of existence, the\r
+necessary materials being at hand. It is true, Lydgate had the\r
+counter-idea of remaining unengaged; but this was a mere negative, a\r
+shadow cast by other resolves which themselves were capable of\r
+shrinking. Circumstance was almost sure to be on the side of\r
+Rosamond's idea, which had a shaping activity and looked through\r
+watchful blue eyes, whereas Lydgate's lay blind and unconcerned as a\r
+jelly-fish which gets melted without knowing it.\r
+\r
+That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a\r
+process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest; and he\r
+wrote out his daily notes with as much precision as usual. The\r
+reveries from which it was difficult for him to detach himself were\r
+ideal constructions of something else than Rosamond's virtues, and the\r
+primitive tissue was still his fair unknown. Moreover, he was\r
+beginning to feel some zest for the growing though half-suppressed feud\r
+between him and the other medical men, which was likely to become more\r
+manifest, now that Bulstrode's method of managing the new hospital was\r
+about to be declared; and there were various inspiriting signs that his\r
+non-acceptance by some of Peacock's patients might be counterbalanced\r
+by the impression he had produced in other quarters. Only a few days\r
+later, when he had happened to overtake Rosamond on the Lowick road and\r
+had got down from his horse to walk by her side until he had quite\r
+protected her from a passing drove, he had been stopped by a servant on\r
+horseback with a message calling him in to a house of some importance\r
+where Peacock had never attended; and it was the second instance of\r
+this kind. The servant was Sir James Chettam's, and the house was\r
+Lowick Manor.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXVIII.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. All times are good to seek your wedded home\r
+ Bringing a mutual delight.\r
+\r
+ 2d Gent. Why, true.\r
+ The calendar hath not an evil day\r
+ For souls made one by love, and even death\r
+ Were sweetness, if it came like rolling waves\r
+ While they two clasped each other, and foresaw\r
+ No life apart.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Casaubon, returning from their wedding journey, arrived at\r
+Lowick Manor in the middle of January. A light snow was falling as\r
+they descended at the door, and in the morning, when Dorothea passed\r
+from her dressing-room avenue the blue-green boudoir that we know of,\r
+she saw the long avenue of limes lifting their trunks from a white\r
+earth, and spreading white branches against the dun and motionless sky.\r
+The distant flat shrank in uniform whiteness and low-hanging uniformity\r
+of cloud. The very furniture in the room seemed to have shrunk since\r
+she saw it before: the stag in the tapestry looked more like a ghost in\r
+his ghostly blue-green world; the volumes of polite literature in the\r
+bookcase looked more like immovable imitations of books. The bright\r
+fire of dry oak-boughs burning on the logs seemed an incongruous\r
+renewal of life and glow--like the figure of Dorothea herself as she\r
+entered carrying the red-leather cases containing the cameos for Celia.\r
+\r
+She was glowing from her morning toilet as only healthful youth can\r
+glow: there was gem-like brightness on her coiled hair and in her hazel\r
+eyes; there was warm red life in her lips; her throat had a breathing\r
+whiteness above the differing white of the fur which itself seemed to\r
+wind about her neck and cling down her blue-gray pelisse with a\r
+tenderness gathered from her own, a sentient commingled innocence which\r
+kept its loveliness against the crystalline purity of the outdoor snow.\r
+As she laid the cameo-cases on the table in the bow-window, she\r
+unconsciously kept her hands on them, immediately absorbed in looking\r
+out on the still, white enclosure which made her visible world.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon, who had risen early complaining of palpitation, was in\r
+the library giving audience to his curate Mr. Tucker. By-and-by Celia\r
+would come in her quality of bridesmaid as well as sister, and through\r
+the next weeks there would be wedding visits received and given; all in\r
+continuance of that transitional life understood to correspond with the\r
+excitement of bridal felicity, and keeping up the sense of busy\r
+ineffectiveness, as of a dream which the dreamer begins to suspect.\r
+The duties of her married life, contemplated as so great beforehand,\r
+seemed to be shrinking with the furniture and the white vapor-walled\r
+landscape. The clear heights where she expected to walk in full\r
+communion had become difficult to see even in her imagination; the\r
+delicious repose of the soul on a complete superior had been shaken\r
+into uneasy effort and alarmed with dim presentiment. When would the\r
+days begin of that active wifely devotion which was to strengthen her\r
+husband's life and exalt her own? Never perhaps, as she had\r
+preconceived them; but somehow--still somehow. In this solemnly\r
+pledged union of her life, duty would present itself in some new form\r
+of inspiration and give a new meaning to wifely love.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile there was the snow and the low arch of dun vapor--there was\r
+the stifling oppression of that gentlewoman's world, where everything\r
+was done for her and none asked for her aid--where the sense of\r
+connection with a manifold pregnant existence had to be kept up\r
+painfully as an inward vision, instead of coming from without in claims\r
+that would have shaped her energies.-- "What shall I do?" "Whatever you\r
+please, my dear:" that had been her brief history since she had left\r
+off learning morning lessons and practising silly rhythms on the hated\r
+piano. Marriage, which was to bring guidance into worthy and\r
+imperative occupation, had not yet freed her from the gentlewoman's\r
+oppressive liberty: it had not even filled her leisure with the\r
+ruminant joy of unchecked tenderness. Her blooming full-pulsed youth\r
+stood there in a moral imprisonment which made itself one with the\r
+chill, colorless, narrowed landscape, with the shrunken furniture, the\r
+never-read books, and the ghostly stag in a pale fantastic world that\r
+seemed to be vanishing from the daylight.\r
+\r
+In the first minutes when Dorothea looked out she felt nothing but the\r
+dreary oppression; then came a keen remembrance, and turning away from\r
+the window she walked round the room. The ideas and hopes which were\r
+living in her mind when she first saw this room nearly three months\r
+before were present now only as memories: she judged them as we judge\r
+transient and departed things. All existence seemed to beat with a\r
+lower pulse than her own, and her religious faith was a solitary cry,\r
+the struggle out of a nightmare in which every object was withering and\r
+shrinking away from her. Each remembered thing in the room was\r
+disenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency, till her wandering\r
+gaze came to the group of miniatures, and there at last she saw\r
+something which had gathered new breath and meaning: it was the\r
+miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt Julia, who had made the unfortunate\r
+marriage--of Will Ladislaw's grandmother. Dorothea could fancy that\r
+it was alive now--the delicate woman's face which yet had a headstrong\r
+look, a peculiarity difficult to interpret. Was it only her friends\r
+who thought her marriage unfortunate? or did she herself find it out to\r
+be a mistake, and taste the salt bitterness of her tears in the\r
+merciful silence of the night? What breadths of experience Dorothea\r
+seemed to have passed over since she first looked at this miniature!\r
+She felt a new companionship with it, as if it had an ear for her and\r
+could see how she was looking at it. Here was a woman who had known\r
+some difficulty about marriage. Nay, the colors deepened, the lips and\r
+chin seemed to get larger, the hair and eyes seemed to be sending out\r
+light, the face was masculine and beamed on her with that full gaze\r
+which tells her on whom it falls that she is too interesting for the\r
+slightest movement of her eyelid to pass unnoticed and uninterpreted.\r
+The vivid presentation came like a pleasant glow to Dorothea: she felt\r
+herself smiling, and turning from the miniature sat down and looked up\r
+as if she were again talking to a figure in front of her. But the\r
+smile disappeared as she went on meditating, and at last she said\r
+aloud--\r
+\r
+"Oh, it was cruel to speak so! How sad--how dreadful!"\r
+\r
+She rose quickly and went out of the room, hurrying along the corridor,\r
+with the irresistible impulse to go and see her husband and inquire if\r
+she could do anything for him. Perhaps Mr. Tucker was gone and Mr.\r
+Casaubon was alone in the library. She felt as if all her morning's\r
+gloom would vanish if she could see her husband glad because of her\r
+presence.\r
+\r
+But when she reached the head of the dark oak there was Celia coming\r
+up, and below there was Mr. Brooke, exchanging welcomes and\r
+congratulations with Mr. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+"Dodo!" said Celia, in her quiet staccato; then kissed her sister,\r
+whose arms encircled her, and said no more. I think they both cried a\r
+little in a furtive manner, while Dorothea ran down-stairs to greet her\r
+uncle.\r
+\r
+"I need not ask how you are, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, after kissing\r
+her forehead. "Rome has agreed with you, I see--happiness, frescos,\r
+the antique--that sort of thing. Well, it's very pleasant to have you\r
+back again, and you understand all about art now, eh? But Casaubon is\r
+a little pale, I tell him--a little pale, you know. Studying hard in\r
+his holidays is carrying it rather too far. I overdid it at one\r
+time"--Mr. Brooke still held Dorothea's hand, but had turned his face\r
+to Mr. Casaubon--"about topography, ruins, temples--I thought I had a\r
+clew, but I saw it would carry me too far, and nothing might come of\r
+it. You may go any length in that sort of thing, and nothing may come\r
+of it, you know."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's eyes also were turned up to her husband's face with some\r
+anxiety at the idea that those who saw him afresh after absence might\r
+be aware of signs which she had not noticed.\r
+\r
+"Nothing to alarm you, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, observing her\r
+expression. "A little English beef and mutton will soon make a\r
+difference. It was all very well to look pale, sitting for the\r
+portrait of Aquinas, you know--we got your letter just in time. But\r
+Aquinas, now--he was a little too subtle, wasn't he? Does anybody read\r
+Aquinas?"\r
+\r
+"He is not indeed an author adapted to superficial minds," said Mr.\r
+Casaubon, meeting these timely questions with dignified patience.\r
+\r
+"You would like coffee in your own room, uncle?" said Dorothea, coming\r
+to the rescue.\r
+\r
+"Yes; and you must go to Celia: she has great news to tell you, you\r
+know. I leave it all to her."\r
+\r
+The blue-green boudoir looked much more cheerful when Celia was seated\r
+there in a pelisse exactly like her sister's, surveying the cameos with\r
+a placid satisfaction, while the conversation passed on to other topics.\r
+\r
+"Do you think it nice to go to Rome on a wedding journey?" said Celia,\r
+with her ready delicate blush which Dorothea was used to on the\r
+smallest occasions.\r
+\r
+"It would not suit all--not you, dear, for example," said Dorothea,\r
+quietly. No one would ever know what she thought of a wedding journey\r
+to Rome.\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Cadwallader says it is nonsense, people going a long journey when\r
+they are married. She says they get tired to death of each other, and\r
+can't quarrel comfortably, as they would at home. And Lady Chettam\r
+says she went to Bath." Celia's color changed again and again--seemed\r
+\r
+ "To come and go with tidings from the heart,\r
+ As it a running messenger had been."\r
+\r
+It must mean more than Celia's blushing usually did.\r
+\r
+"Celia! has something happened?" said Dorothea, in a tone full of\r
+sisterly feeling. "Have you really any great news to tell me?"\r
+\r
+"It was because you went away, Dodo. Then there was nobody but me for\r
+Sir James to talk to," said Celia, with a certain roguishness in her\r
+eyes.\r
+\r
+"I understand. It is as I used to hope and believe," said Dorothea,\r
+taking her sister's face between her hands, and looking at her half\r
+anxiously. Celia's marriage seemed more serious than it used to do.\r
+\r
+"It was only three days ago," said Celia. "And Lady Chettam is very\r
+kind."\r
+\r
+"And you are very happy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. We are not going to be married yet. Because every thing is to\r
+be got ready. And I don't want to be married so very soon, because I\r
+think it is nice to be engaged. And we shall be married all our lives\r
+after."\r
+\r
+"I do believe you could not marry better, Kitty. Sir James is a good,\r
+honorable man," said Dorothea, warmly.\r
+\r
+"He has gone on with the cottages, Dodo. He will tell you about them\r
+when he comes. Shall you be glad to see him?"\r
+\r
+"Of course I shall. How can you ask me?"\r
+\r
+"Only I was afraid you would be getting so learned," said Celia,\r
+regarding Mr. Casaubon's learning as a kind of damp which might in due\r
+time saturate a neighboring body.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXIX.\r
+\r
+ "I found that no genius in another could please me. My\r
+ unfortunate paradoxes had entirely dried up that source of\r
+ comfort."--GOLDSMITH.\r
+\r
+\r
+One morning, some weeks after her arrival at Lowick, Dorothea--but why\r
+always Dorothea? Was her point of view the only possible one with\r
+regard to this marriage? I protest against all our interest, all our\r
+effort at understanding being given to the young skins that look\r
+blooming in spite of trouble; for these too will get faded, and will\r
+know the older and more eating griefs which we are helping to neglect.\r
+In spite of the blinking eyes and white moles objectionable to Celia,\r
+and the want of muscular curve which was morally painful to Sir James,\r
+Mr. Casaubon had an intense consciousness within him, and was\r
+spiritually a-hungered like the rest of us. He had done nothing\r
+exceptional in marrying--nothing but what society sanctions, and\r
+considers an occasion for wreaths and bouquets. It had occurred to him\r
+that he must not any longer defer his intention of matrimony, and he\r
+had reflected that in taking a wife, a man of good position should\r
+expect and carefully choose a blooming young lady--the younger the\r
+better, because more educable and submissive--of a rank equal to his\r
+own, of religious principles, virtuous disposition, and good\r
+understanding. On such a young lady he would make handsome\r
+settlements, and he would neglect no arrangement for her happiness: in\r
+return, he should receive family pleasures and leave behind him that\r
+copy of himself which seemed so urgently required of a man--to the\r
+sonneteers of the sixteenth century. Times had altered since then, and\r
+no sonneteer had insisted on Mr. Casaubon's leaving a copy of himself;\r
+moreover, he had not yet succeeded in issuing copies of his\r
+mythological key; but he had always intended to acquit himself by\r
+marriage, and the sense that he was fast leaving the years behind him,\r
+that the world was getting dimmer and that he felt lonely, was a reason\r
+to him for losing no more time in overtaking domestic delights before\r
+they too were left behind by the years.\r
+\r
+And when he had seen Dorothea he believed that he had found even more\r
+than he demanded: she might really be such a helpmate to him as would\r
+enable him to dispense with a hired secretary, an aid which Mr.\r
+Casaubon had never yet employed and had a suspicious dread of. (Mr.\r
+Casaubon was nervously conscious that he was expected to manifest a\r
+powerful mind.) Providence, in its kindness, had supplied him with the\r
+wife he needed. A wife, a modest young lady, with the purely\r
+appreciative, unambitious abilities of her sex, is sure to think her\r
+husband's mind powerful. Whether Providence had taken equal care of\r
+Miss Brooke in presenting her with Mr. Casaubon was an idea which could\r
+hardly occur to him. Society never made the preposterous demand that a\r
+man should think as much about his own qualifications for making a\r
+charming girl happy as he thinks of hers for making himself happy. As\r
+if a man could choose not only his wife but his wife's husband! Or as\r
+if he were bound to provide charms for his posterity in his own\r
+person!-- When Dorothea accepted him with effusion, that was only\r
+natural; and Mr. Casaubon believed that his happiness was going to\r
+begin.\r
+\r
+He had not had much foretaste of happiness in his previous life. To\r
+know intense joy without a strong bodily frame, one must have an\r
+enthusiastic soul. Mr. Casaubon had never had a strong bodily frame,\r
+and his soul was sensitive without being enthusiastic: it was too\r
+languid to thrill out of self-consciousness into passionate delight; it\r
+went on fluttering in the swampy ground where it was hatched, thinking\r
+of its wings and never flying. His experience was of that pitiable\r
+kind which shrinks from pity, and fears most of all that it should be\r
+known: it was that proud narrow sensitiveness which has not mass enough\r
+to spare for transformation into sympathy, and quivers thread-like in\r
+small currents of self-preoccupation or at best of an egoistic\r
+scrupulosity. And Mr. Casaubon had many scruples: he was capable of a\r
+severe self-restraint; he was resolute in being a man of honor\r
+according to the code; he would be unimpeachable by any recognized\r
+opinion. In conduct these ends had been attained; but the difficulty\r
+of making his Key to all Mythologies unimpeachable weighed like lead\r
+upon his mind; and the pamphlets--or "Parerga" as he called them--by\r
+which he tested his public and deposited small monumental records of\r
+his march, were far from having been seen in all their significance.\r
+He suspected the Archdeacon of not having read them; he was in painful\r
+doubt as to what was really thought of them by the leading minds of\r
+Brasenose, and bitterly convinced that his old acquaintance Carp had\r
+been the writer of that depreciatory recension which was kept locked in\r
+a small drawer of Mr. Casaubon's desk, and also in a dark closet of his\r
+verbal memory. These were heavy impressions to struggle against, and\r
+brought that melancholy embitterment which is the consequence of all\r
+excessive claim: even his religious faith wavered with his wavering\r
+trust in his own authorship, and the consolations of the Christian hope\r
+in immortality seemed to lean on the immortality of the still unwritten\r
+Key to all Mythologies. For my part I am very sorry for him. It is an\r
+uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to\r
+enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be\r
+liberated from a small hungry shivering self--never to be fully\r
+possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness\r
+rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardor of a\r
+passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and\r
+uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dim-sighted. Becoming a\r
+dean or even a bishop would make little difference, I fear, to Mr.\r
+Casaubon's uneasiness. Doubtless some ancient Greek has observed that\r
+behind the big mask and the speaking-trumpet, there must always be our\r
+poor little eyes peeping as usual and our timorous lips more or less\r
+under anxious control.\r
+\r
+To this mental estate mapped out a quarter of a century before, to\r
+sensibilities thus fenced in, Mr. Casaubon had thought of annexing\r
+happiness with a lovely young bride; but even before marriage, as we\r
+have seen, he found himself under a new depression in the consciousness\r
+that the new bliss was not blissful to him. Inclination yearned back\r
+to its old, easier custom. And the deeper he went in domesticity the\r
+more did the sense of acquitting himself and acting with propriety\r
+predominate over any other satisfaction. Marriage, like religion and\r
+erudition, nay, like authorship itself, was fated to become an outward\r
+requirement, and Edward Casaubon was bent on fulfilling unimpeachably\r
+all requirements. Even drawing Dorothea into use in his study,\r
+according to his own intention before marriage, was an effort which he\r
+was always tempted to defer, and but for her pleading insistence it\r
+might never have begun. But she had succeeded in making it a matter of\r
+course that she should take her place at an early hour in the library\r
+and have work either of reading aloud or copying assigned her. The\r
+work had been easier to define because Mr. Casaubon had adopted an\r
+immediate intention: there was to be a new Parergon, a small monograph\r
+on some lately traced indications concerning the Egyptian mysteries\r
+whereby certain assertions of Warburton's could be corrected.\r
+References were extensive even here, but not altogether shoreless; and\r
+sentences were actually to be written in the shape wherein they would\r
+be scanned by Brasenose and a less formidable posterity. These minor\r
+monumental productions were always exciting to Mr. Casaubon; digestion\r
+was made difficult by the interference of citations, or by the rivalry\r
+of dialectical phrases ringing against each other in his brain. And\r
+from the first there was to be a Latin dedication about which\r
+everything was uncertain except that it was not to be addressed to\r
+Carp: it was a poisonous regret to Mr. Casaubon that he had once\r
+addressed a dedication to Carp in which he had numbered that member of\r
+the animal kingdom among the viros nullo aevo perituros, a mistake\r
+which would infallibly lay the dedicator open to ridicule in the next\r
+age, and might even be chuckled over by Pike and Tench in the present.\r
+\r
+Thus Mr. Casaubon was in one of his busiest epochs, and as I began to\r
+say a little while ago, Dorothea joined him early in the library where\r
+he had breakfasted alone. Celia at this time was on a second visit to\r
+Lowick, probably the last before her marriage, and was in the\r
+drawing-room expecting Sir James.\r
+\r
+Dorothea had learned to read the signs of her husband's mood, and she\r
+saw that the morning had become more foggy there during the last hour.\r
+She was going silently to her desk when he said, in that distant tone\r
+which implied that he was discharging a disagreeable duty--\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, here is a letter for you, which was enclosed in one\r
+addressed to me."\r
+\r
+It was a letter of two pages, and she immediately looked at the\r
+signature.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ladislaw! What can he have to say to me?" she exclaimed, in a\r
+tone of pleased surprise. "But," she added, looking at Mr. Casaubon,\r
+"I can imagine what he has written to you about."\r
+\r
+"You can, if you please, read the letter," said Mr. Casaubon, severely\r
+pointing to it with his pen, and not looking at her. "But I may as\r
+well say beforehand, that I must decline the proposal it contains to\r
+pay a visit here. I trust I may be excused for desiring an interval of\r
+complete freedom from such distractions as have been hitherto\r
+inevitable, and especially from guests whose desultory vivacity makes\r
+their presence a fatigue."\r
+\r
+There had been no clashing of temper between Dorothea and her husband\r
+since that little explosion in Rome, which had left such strong traces\r
+in her mind that it had been easier ever since to quell emotion than to\r
+incur the consequence of venting it. But this ill-tempered\r
+anticipation that she could desire visits which might be disagreeable\r
+to her husband, this gratuitous defence of himself against selfish\r
+complaint on her part, was too sharp a sting to be meditated on until\r
+after it had been resented. Dorothea had thought that she could have\r
+been patient with John Milton, but she had never imagined him behaving\r
+in this way; and for a moment Mr. Casaubon seemed to be stupidly\r
+undiscerning and odiously unjust. Pity, that "new-born babe" which was\r
+by-and-by to rule many a storm within her, did not "stride the blast"\r
+on this occasion. With her first words, uttered in a tone that shook\r
+him, she startled Mr. Casaubon into looking at her, and meeting the\r
+flash of her eyes.\r
+\r
+"Why do you attribute to me a wish for anything that would annoy you?\r
+You speak to me as if I were something you had to contend against.\r
+Wait at least till I appear to consult my own pleasure apart from\r
+yours."\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, you are hasty," answered Mr. Casaubon, nervously.\r
+\r
+Decidedly, this woman was too young to be on the formidable level of\r
+wifehood--unless she had been pale and featureless and taken\r
+everything for granted.\r
+\r
+"I think it was you who were first hasty in your false suppositions\r
+about my feeling," said Dorothea, in the same tone. The fire was not\r
+dissipated yet, and she thought it was ignoble in her husband not to\r
+apologize to her.\r
+\r
+"We will, if you please, say no more on this subject, Dorothea. I have\r
+neither leisure nor energy for this kind of debate."\r
+\r
+Here Mr. Casaubon dipped his pen and made as if he would return to his\r
+writing, though his hand trembled so much that the words seemed to be\r
+written in an unknown character. There are answers which, in turning\r
+away wrath, only send it to the other end of the room, and to have a\r
+discussion coolly waived when you feel that justice is all on your own\r
+side is even more exasperating in marriage than in philosophy.\r
+\r
+Dorothea left Ladislaw's two letters unread on her husband's\r
+writing-table and went to her own place, the scorn and indignation\r
+within her rejecting the reading of these letters, just as we hurl away\r
+any trash towards which we seem to have been suspected of mean\r
+cupidity. She did not in the least divine the subtle sources of her\r
+husband's bad temper about these letters: she only knew that they had\r
+caused him to offend her. She began to work at once, and her hand did\r
+not tremble; on the contrary, in writing out the quotations which had\r
+been given to her the day before, she felt that she was forming her\r
+letters beautifully, and it seemed to her that she saw the construction\r
+of the Latin she was copying, and which she was beginning to\r
+understand, more clearly than usual. In her indignation there was a\r
+sense of superiority, but it went out for the present in firmness of\r
+stroke, and did not compress itself into an inward articulate voice\r
+pronouncing the once "affable archangel" a poor creature.\r
+\r
+There had been this apparent quiet for half an hour, and Dorothea had\r
+not looked away from her own table, when she heard the loud bang of a\r
+book on the floor, and turning quickly saw Mr. Casaubon on the library\r
+steps clinging forward as if he were in some bodily distress. She\r
+started up and bounded towards him in an instant: he was evidently in\r
+great straits for breath. Jumping on a stool she got close to his\r
+elbow and said with her whole soul melted into tender alarm--\r
+\r
+"Can you lean on me, dear?"\r
+\r
+He was still for two or three minutes, which seemed endless to her,\r
+unable to speak or move, gasping for breath. When at last he descended\r
+the three steps and fell backward in the large chair which Dorothea had\r
+drawn close to the foot of the ladder, he no longer gasped but seemed\r
+helpless and about to faint. Dorothea rang the bell violently, and\r
+presently Mr. Casaubon was helped to the couch: he did not faint, and\r
+was gradually reviving, when Sir James Chettam came in, having been met\r
+in the hall with the news that Mr. Casaubon had "had a fit in the\r
+library."\r
+\r
+"Good God! this is just what might have been expected," was his\r
+immediate thought. If his prophetic soul had been urged to\r
+particularize, it seemed to him that "fits" would have been the\r
+definite expression alighted upon. He asked his informant, the butler,\r
+whether the doctor had been sent for. The butler never knew his master\r
+to want the doctor before; but would it not be right to send for a\r
+physician?\r
+\r
+When Sir James entered the library, however, Mr. Casaubon could make\r
+some signs of his usual politeness, and Dorothea, who in the reaction\r
+from her first terror had been kneeling and sobbing by his side now\r
+rose and herself proposed that some one should ride off for a medical\r
+man.\r
+\r
+"I recommend you to send for Lydgate," said Sir James. "My mother has\r
+called him in, and she has found him uncommonly clever. She has had a\r
+poor opinion of the physicians since my father's death."\r
+\r
+Dorothea appealed to her husband, and he made a silent sign of\r
+approval. So Mr. Lydgate was sent for and he came wonderfully soon,\r
+for the messenger, who was Sir James Chettam's man and knew Mr.\r
+Lydgate, met him leading his horse along the Lowick road and giving his\r
+arm to Miss Vincy.\r
+\r
+Celia, in the drawing-room, had known nothing of the trouble till Sir\r
+James told her of it. After Dorothea's account, he no longer\r
+considered the illness a fit, but still something "of that nature."\r
+\r
+"Poor dear Dodo--how dreadful!" said Celia, feeling as much grieved as\r
+her own perfect happiness would allow. Her little hands were clasped,\r
+and enclosed by Sir James's as a bud is enfolded by a liberal calyx.\r
+"It is very shocking that Mr. Casaubon should be ill; but I never did\r
+like him. And I think he is not half fond enough of Dorothea; and he\r
+ought to be, for I am sure no one else would have had him--do you\r
+think they would?"\r
+\r
+"I always thought it a horrible sacrifice of your sister," said Sir\r
+James.\r
+\r
+"Yes. But poor Dodo never did do what other people do, and I think she\r
+never will."\r
+\r
+"She is a noble creature," said the loyal-hearted Sir James. He had\r
+just had a fresh impression of this kind, as he had seen Dorothea\r
+stretching her tender arm under her husband's neck and looking at him\r
+with unspeakable sorrow. He did not know how much penitence there was\r
+in the sorrow.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Celia, thinking it was very well for Sir James to say so,\r
+but _he_ would not have been comfortable with Dodo. "Shall I go to\r
+her? Could I help her, do you think?"\r
+\r
+"I think it would be well for you just to go and see her before Lydgate\r
+comes," said Sir James, magnanimously. "Only don't stay long."\r
+\r
+While Celia was gone he walked up and down remembering what he had\r
+originally felt about Dorothea's engagement, and feeling a revival of\r
+his disgust at Mr. Brooke's indifference. If Cadwallader--if every\r
+one else had regarded the affair as he, Sir James, had done, the\r
+marriage might have been hindered. It was wicked to let a young girl\r
+blindly decide her fate in that way, without any effort to save her.\r
+Sir James had long ceased to have any regrets on his own account: his\r
+heart was satisfied with his engagement to Celia. But he had a\r
+chivalrous nature (was not the disinterested service of woman among the\r
+ideal glories of old chivalry?): his disregarded love had not turned to\r
+bitterness; its death had made sweet odors--floating memories that\r
+clung with a consecrating effect to Dorothea. He could remain her\r
+brotherly friend, interpreting her actions with generous trustfulness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXX.\r
+\r
+ "Qui veut delasser hors de propos, lasse."--PASCAL.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon had no second attack of equal severity with the first, and\r
+in a few days began to recover his usual condition. But Lydgate seemed\r
+to think the case worth a great deal of attention. He not only used\r
+his stethoscope (which had not become a matter of course in practice at\r
+that time), but sat quietly by his patient and watched him. To Mr.\r
+Casaubon's questions about himself, he replied that the source of the\r
+illness was the common error of intellectual men--a too eager and\r
+monotonous application: the remedy was, to be satisfied with moderate\r
+work, and to seek variety of relaxation. Mr. Brooke, who sat by on one\r
+occasion, suggested that Mr. Casaubon should go fishing, as Cadwallader\r
+did, and have a turning-room, make toys, table-legs, and that kind of\r
+thing.\r
+\r
+"In short, you recommend me to anticipate the arrival of my second\r
+childhood," said poor Mr. Casaubon, with some bitterness. "These\r
+things," he added, looking at Lydgate, "would be to me such relaxation\r
+as tow-picking is to prisoners in a house of correction."\r
+\r
+"I confess," said Lydgate, smiling, "amusement is rather an\r
+unsatisfactory prescription. It is something like telling people to\r
+keep up their spirits. Perhaps I had better say, that you must submit\r
+to be mildly bored rather than to go on working."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes," said Mr. Brooke. "Get Dorothea to play backgammon with you\r
+in the evenings. And shuttlecock, now--I don't know a finer game than\r
+shuttlecock for the daytime. I remember it all the fashion. To be\r
+sure, your eyes might not stand that, Casaubon. But you must unbend,\r
+you know. Why, you might take to some light study: conchology, now: I\r
+always think that must be a light study. Or get Dorothea to read you\r
+light things, Smollett--'Roderick Random,' 'Humphrey Clinker:' they\r
+are a little broad, but she may read anything now she's married, you\r
+know. I remember they made me laugh uncommonly--there's a droll bit\r
+about a postilion's breeches. We have no such humor now. I have gone\r
+through all these things, but they might be rather new to you."\r
+\r
+"As new as eating thistles," would have been an answer to represent Mr.\r
+Casaubon's feelings. But he only bowed resignedly, with due respect to\r
+his wife's uncle, and observed that doubtless the works he mentioned\r
+had "served as a resource to a certain order of minds."\r
+\r
+"You see," said the able magistrate to Lydgate, when they were outside\r
+the door, "Casaubon has been a little narrow: it leaves him rather at a\r
+loss when you forbid him his particular work, which I believe is\r
+something very deep indeed--in the line of research, you know. I would\r
+never give way to that; I was always versatile. But a clergyman is\r
+tied a little tight. If they would make him a bishop, now!--he did a\r
+very good pamphlet for Peel. He would have more movement then, more\r
+show; he might get a little flesh. But I recommend you to talk to Mrs.\r
+Casaubon. She is clever enough for anything, is my niece. Tell her,\r
+her husband wants liveliness, diversion: put her on amusing tactics."\r
+\r
+Without Mr. Brooke's advice, Lydgate had determined on speaking to\r
+Dorothea. She had not been present while her uncle was throwing out\r
+his pleasant suggestions as to the mode in which life at Lowick might\r
+be enlivened, but she was usually by her husband's side, and the\r
+unaffected signs of intense anxiety in her face and voice about\r
+whatever touched his mind or health, made a drama which Lydgate was\r
+inclined to watch. He said to himself that he was only doing right in\r
+telling her the truth about her husband's probable future, but he\r
+certainly thought also that it would be interesting to talk\r
+confidentially with her. A medical man likes to make psychological\r
+observations, and sometimes in the pursuit of such studies is too\r
+easily tempted into momentous prophecy which life and death easily set\r
+at nought. Lydgate had often been satirical on this gratuitous\r
+prediction, and he meant now to be guarded.\r
+\r
+He asked for Mrs. Casaubon, but being told that she was out walking, he\r
+was going away, when Dorothea and Celia appeared, both glowing from\r
+their struggle with the March wind. When Lydgate begged to speak with\r
+her alone, Dorothea opened the library door which happened to be the\r
+nearest, thinking of nothing at the moment but what he might have to\r
+say about Mr. Casaubon. It was the first time she had entered this\r
+room since her husband had been taken ill, and the servant had chosen\r
+not to open the shutters. But there was light enough to read by from\r
+the narrow upper panes of the windows.\r
+\r
+"You will not mind this sombre light," said Dorothea, standing in the\r
+middle of the room. "Since you forbade books, the library has been out\r
+of the question. But Mr. Casaubon will soon be here again, I hope. Is\r
+he not making progress?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, much more rapid progress than I at first expected. Indeed, he is\r
+already nearly in his usual state of health."\r
+\r
+"You do not fear that the illness will return?" said Dorothea, whose\r
+quick ear had detected some significance in Lydgate's tone.\r
+\r
+"Such cases are peculiarly difficult to pronounce upon," said Lydgate.\r
+"The only point on which I can be confident is that it will be\r
+desirable to be very watchful on Mr. Casaubon's account, lest he should\r
+in any way strain his nervous power."\r
+\r
+"I beseech you to speak quite plainly," said Dorothea, in an imploring\r
+tone. "I cannot bear to think that there might be something which I\r
+did not know, and which, if I had known it, would have made me act\r
+differently." The words came out like a cry: it was evident that they\r
+were the voice of some mental experience which lay not very far off.\r
+\r
+"Sit down," she added, placing herself on the nearest chair, and\r
+throwing off her bonnet and gloves, with an instinctive discarding of\r
+formality where a great question of destiny was concerned.\r
+\r
+"What you say now justifies my own view," said Lydgate. "I think it is\r
+one's function as a medical man to hinder regrets of that sort as far\r
+as possible. But I beg you to observe that Mr. Casaubon's case is\r
+precisely of the kind in which the issue is most difficult to pronounce\r
+upon. He may possibly live for fifteen years or more, without much\r
+worse health than he has had hitherto."\r
+\r
+Dorothea had turned very pale, and when Lydgate paused she said in a\r
+low voice, "You mean if we are very careful."\r
+\r
+"Yes--careful against mental agitation of all kinds, and against\r
+excessive application."\r
+\r
+"He would be miserable, if he had to give up his work," said Dorothea,\r
+with a quick prevision of that wretchedness.\r
+\r
+"I am aware of that. The only course is to try by all means, direct\r
+and indirect, to moderate and vary his occupations. With a happy\r
+concurrence of circumstances, there is, as I said, no immediate danger\r
+from that affection of the heart, which I believe to have been the\r
+cause of his late attack. On the other hand, it is possible that the\r
+disease may develop itself more rapidly: it is one of those cases in\r
+which death is sometimes sudden. Nothing should be neglected which\r
+might be affected by such an issue."\r
+\r
+There was silence for a few moments, while Dorothea sat as if she had\r
+been turned to marble, though the life within her was so intense that\r
+her mind had never before swept in brief time over an equal range of\r
+scenes and motives.\r
+\r
+"Help me, pray," she said, at last, in the same low voice as before.\r
+"Tell me what I can do."\r
+\r
+"What do you think of foreign travel? You have been lately in Rome, I\r
+think."\r
+\r
+The memories which made this resource utterly hopeless were a new\r
+current that shook Dorothea out of her pallid immobility.\r
+\r
+"Oh, that would not do--that would be worse than anything," she said\r
+with a more childlike despondency, while the tears rolled down.\r
+"Nothing will be of any use that he does not enjoy."\r
+\r
+"I wish that I could have spared you this pain," said Lydgate, deeply\r
+touched, yet wondering about her marriage. Women just like Dorothea\r
+had not entered into his traditions.\r
+\r
+"It was right of you to tell me. I thank you for telling me the truth."\r
+\r
+"I wish you to understand that I shall not say anything to enlighten\r
+Mr. Casaubon himself. I think it desirable for him to know nothing\r
+more than that he must not overwork himself, and must observe certain\r
+rules. Anxiety of any kind would be precisely the most unfavorable\r
+condition for him."\r
+\r
+Lydgate rose, and Dorothea mechanically rose at the same time,\r
+unclasping her cloak and throwing it off as if it stifled her. He was\r
+bowing and quitting her, when an impulse which if she had been alone\r
+would have turned into a prayer, made her say with a sob in her voice--\r
+\r
+"Oh, you are a wise man, are you not? You know all about life and\r
+death. Advise me. Think what I can do. He has been laboring all his\r
+life and looking forward. He minds about nothing else.-- And I mind\r
+about nothing else--"\r
+\r
+For years after Lydgate remembered the impression produced in him by\r
+this involuntary appeal--this cry from soul to soul, without other\r
+consciousness than their moving with kindred natures in the same\r
+embroiled medium, the same troublous fitfully illuminated life. But\r
+what could he say now except that he should see Mr. Casaubon again\r
+to-morrow?\r
+\r
+When he was gone, Dorothea's tears gushed forth, and relieved her\r
+stifling oppression. Then she dried her eyes, reminded that her\r
+distress must not be betrayed to her husband; and looked round the room\r
+thinking that she must order the servant to attend to it as usual,\r
+since Mr. Casaubon might now at any moment wish to enter. On his\r
+writing-table there were letters which had lain untouched since the\r
+morning when he was taken ill, and among them, as Dorothea well\r
+remembered, there were young Ladislaw's letters, the one addressed to\r
+her still unopened. The associations of these letters had been made\r
+the more painful by that sudden attack of illness which she felt that\r
+the agitation caused by her anger might have helped to bring on: it\r
+would be time enough to read them when they were again thrust upon her,\r
+and she had had no inclination to fetch them from the library. But now\r
+it occurred to her that they should be put out of her husband's sight:\r
+whatever might have been the sources of his annoyance about them, he\r
+must, if possible, not be annoyed again; and she ran her eyes first\r
+over the letter addressed to him to assure herself whether or not it\r
+would be necessary to write in order to hinder the offensive visit.\r
+\r
+Will wrote from Rome, and began by saying that his obligations to Mr.\r
+Casaubon were too deep for all thanks not to seem impertinent. It was\r
+plain that if he were not grateful, he must be the poorest-spirited\r
+rascal who had ever found a generous friend. To expand in wordy thanks\r
+would be like saying, "I am honest." But Will had come to perceive that\r
+his defects--defects which Mr. Casaubon had himself often pointed\r
+to--needed for their correction that more strenuous position which his\r
+relative's generosity had hitherto prevented from being inevitable. He\r
+trusted that he should make the best return, if return were possible,\r
+by showing the effectiveness of the education for which he was\r
+indebted, and by ceasing in future to need any diversion towards\r
+himself of funds on which others might have a better claim. He was\r
+coming to England, to try his fortune, as many other young men were\r
+obliged to do whose only capital was in their brains. His friend\r
+Naumann had desired him to take charge of the "Dispute"--the picture\r
+painted for Mr. Casaubon, with whose permission, and Mrs. Casaubon's,\r
+Will would convey it to Lowick in person. A letter addressed to the\r
+Poste Restante in Paris within the fortnight would hinder him, if\r
+necessary, from arriving at an inconvenient moment. He enclosed a\r
+letter to Mrs. Casaubon in which he continued a discussion about art,\r
+begun with her in Rome.\r
+\r
+Opening her own letter Dorothea saw that it was a lively continuation\r
+of his remonstrance with her fanatical sympathy and her want of sturdy\r
+neutral delight in things as they were--an outpouring of his young\r
+vivacity which it was impossible to read just now. She had immediately\r
+to consider what was to be done about the other letter: there was still\r
+time perhaps to prevent Will from coming to Lowick. Dorothea ended by\r
+giving the letter to her uncle, who was still in the house, and begging\r
+him to let Will know that Mr. Casaubon had been ill, and that his\r
+health would not allow the reception of any visitors.\r
+\r
+No one more ready than Mr. Brooke to write a letter: his only\r
+difficulty was to write a short one, and his ideas in this case\r
+expanded over the three large pages and the inward foldings. He had\r
+simply said to Dorothea--\r
+\r
+"To be sure, I will write, my dear. He's a very clever young\r
+fellow--this young Ladislaw--I dare say will be a rising young man.\r
+It's a good letter--marks his sense of things, you know. However, I\r
+will tell him about Casaubon."\r
+\r
+But the end of Mr. Brooke's pen was a thinking organ, evolving\r
+sentences, especially of a benevolent kind, before the rest of his mind\r
+could well overtake them. It expressed regrets and proposed remedies,\r
+which, when Mr. Brooke read them, seemed felicitously\r
+worded--surprisingly the right thing, and determined a sequel which he\r
+had never before thought of. In this case, his pen found it such a pity\r
+young Ladislaw should not have come into the neighborhood just at\r
+that time, in order that Mr. Brooke might make his acquaintance more\r
+fully, and that they might go over the long-neglected Italian drawings\r
+together--it also felt such an interest in a young man who was starting\r
+in life with a stock of ideas--that by the end of the second page it\r
+had persuaded Mr. Brooke to invite young Ladislaw, since he could not\r
+be received at Lowick, to come to Tipton Grange. Why not? They could\r
+find a great many things to do together, and this was a period of\r
+peculiar growth--the political horizon was expanding, and--in short,\r
+Mr. Brooke's pen went off into a little speech which it had lately\r
+reported for that imperfectly edited organ the "Middlemarch Pioneer."\r
+While Mr. Brooke was sealing this letter, he felt elated with an influx\r
+of dim projects:--a young man capable of putting ideas into form, the\r
+"Pioneer" purchased to clear the pathway for a new candidate, documents\r
+utilized--who knew what might come of it all? Since Celia was going to\r
+marry immediately, it would be very pleasant to have a young fellow at\r
+table with him, at least for a time.\r
+\r
+But he went away without telling Dorothea what he had put into the\r
+letter, for she was engaged with her husband, and--in fact, these\r
+things were of no importance to her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXI.\r
+\r
+ How will you know the pitch of that great bell\r
+ Too large for you to stir? Let but a flute\r
+ Play 'neath the fine-mixed metal listen close\r
+ Till the right note flows forth, a silvery rill.\r
+ Then shall the huge bell tremble--then the mass\r
+ With myriad waves concurrent shall respond\r
+ In low soft unison.\r
+\r
+\r
+Lydgate that evening spoke to Miss Vincy of Mrs. Casaubon, and laid\r
+some emphasis on the strong feeling she appeared to have for that\r
+formal studious man thirty years older than herself.\r
+\r
+"Of course she is devoted to her husband," said Rosamond, implying a\r
+notion of necessary sequence which the scientific man regarded as the\r
+prettiest possible for a woman; but she was thinking at the same time\r
+that it was not so very melancholy to be mistress of Lowick Manor with\r
+a husband likely to die soon. "Do you think her very handsome?"\r
+\r
+"She certainly is handsome, but I have not thought about it," said\r
+Lydgate.\r
+\r
+"I suppose it would be unprofessional," said Rosamond, dimpling. "But\r
+how your practice is spreading! You were called in before to the\r
+Chettams, I think; and now, the Casaubons."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lydgate, in a tone of compulsory admission. "But I don't\r
+really like attending such people so well as the poor. The cases are\r
+more monotonous, and one has to go through more fuss and listen more\r
+deferentially to nonsense."\r
+\r
+"Not more than in Middlemarch," said Rosamond. "And at least you go\r
+through wide corridors and have the scent of rose-leaves everywhere."\r
+\r
+"That is true, Mademoiselle de Montmorenci," said Lydgate, just bending\r
+his head to the table and lifting with his fourth finger her delicate\r
+handkerchief which lay at the mouth of her reticule, as if to enjoy its\r
+scent, while he looked at her with a smile.\r
+\r
+But this agreeable holiday freedom with which Lydgate hovered about the\r
+flower of Middlemarch, could not continue indefinitely. It was not\r
+more possible to find social isolation in that town than elsewhere, and\r
+two people persistently flirting could by no means escape from "the\r
+various entanglements, weights, blows, clashings, motions, by which\r
+things severally go on." Whatever Miss Vincy did must be remarked, and\r
+she was perhaps the more conspicuous to admirers and critics because\r
+just now Mrs. Vincy, after some struggle, had gone with Fred to stay a\r
+little while at Stone Court, there being no other way of at once\r
+gratifying old Featherstone and keeping watch against Mary Garth, who\r
+appeared a less tolerable daughter-in-law in proportion as Fred's\r
+illness disappeared.\r
+\r
+Aunt Bulstrode, for example, came a little oftener into Lowick Gate to\r
+see Rosamond, now she was alone. For Mrs. Bulstrode had a true\r
+sisterly feeling for her brother; always thinking that he might have\r
+married better, but wishing well to the children. Now Mrs. Bulstrode\r
+had a long-standing intimacy with Mrs. Plymdale. They had nearly the\r
+same preferences in silks, patterns for underclothing, china-ware, and\r
+clergymen; they confided their little troubles of health and household\r
+management to each other, and various little points of superiority on\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode's side, namely, more decided seriousness, more\r
+admiration for mind, and a house outside the town, sometimes served to\r
+give color to their conversation without dividing them--well-meaning\r
+women both, knowing very little of their own motives.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode, paying a morning visit to Mrs. Plymdale, happened to\r
+say that she could not stay longer, because she was going to see poor\r
+Rosamond.\r
+\r
+"Why do you say 'poor Rosamond'?" said Mrs. Plymdale, a round-eyed\r
+sharp little woman, like a tamed falcon.\r
+\r
+"She is so pretty, and has been brought up in such thoughtlessness.\r
+The mother, you know, had always that levity about her, which makes me\r
+anxious for the children."\r
+\r
+"Well, Harriet, if I am to speak my mind," said Mrs. Plymdale, with\r
+emphasis, "I must say, anybody would suppose you and Mr. Bulstrode\r
+would be delighted with what has happened, for you have done everything\r
+to put Mr. Lydgate forward."\r
+\r
+"Selina, what do you mean?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, in genuine surprise.\r
+\r
+"Not but what I am truly thankful for Ned's sake," said Mrs. Plymdale.\r
+"He could certainly better afford to keep such a wife than some people\r
+can; but I should wish him to look elsewhere. Still a mother has\r
+anxieties, and some young men would take to a bad life in consequence.\r
+Besides, if I was obliged to speak, I should say I was not fond of\r
+strangers coming into a town."\r
+\r
+"I don't know, Selina," said Mrs. Bulstrode, with a little emphasis in\r
+her turn. "Mr. Bulstrode was a stranger here at one time. Abraham and\r
+Moses were strangers in the land, and we are told to entertain\r
+strangers. And especially," she added, after a slight pause, "when\r
+they are unexceptionable."\r
+\r
+"I was not speaking in a religious sense, Harriet. I spoke as a\r
+mother."\r
+\r
+"Selina, I am sure you have never heard me say anything against a niece\r
+of mine marrying your son."\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is pride in Miss Vincy--I am sure it is nothing else," said\r
+Mrs. Plymdale, who had never before given all her confidence to\r
+"Harriet" on this subject. "No young man in Middlemarch was good\r
+enough for her: I have heard her mother say as much. That is not a\r
+Christian spirit, I think. But now, from all I hear, she has found a\r
+man as proud as herself."\r
+\r
+"You don't mean that there is anything between Rosamond and Mr.\r
+Lydgate?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, rather mortified at finding out her own\r
+ignorance.\r
+\r
+"Is it possible you don't know, Harriet?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I go about so little; and I am not fond of gossip; I really never\r
+hear any. You see so many people that I don't see. Your circle is\r
+rather different from ours."\r
+\r
+"Well, but your own niece and Mr. Bulstrode's great favorite--and\r
+yours too, I am sure, Harriet! I thought, at one time, you meant him\r
+for Kate, when she is a little older."\r
+\r
+"I don't believe there can be anything serious at present," said Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode. "My brother would certainly have told me."\r
+\r
+"Well, people have different ways, but I understand that nobody can see\r
+Miss Vincy and Mr. Lydgate together without taking them to be engaged.\r
+However, it is not my business. Shall I put up the pattern of mittens?"\r
+\r
+After this Mrs. Bulstrode drove to her niece with a mind newly\r
+weighted. She was herself handsomely dressed, but she noticed with a\r
+little more regret than usual that Rosamond, who was just come in and\r
+met her in walking-dress, was almost as expensively equipped. Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode was a feminine smaller edition of her brother, and had none\r
+of her husband's low-toned pallor. She had a good honest glance and\r
+used no circumlocution.\r
+\r
+"You are alone, I see, my dear," she said, as they entered the\r
+drawing-room together, looking round gravely. Rosamond felt sure that\r
+her aunt had something particular to say, and they sat down near each\r
+other. Nevertheless, the quilling inside Rosamond's bonnet was so\r
+charming that it was impossible not to desire the same kind of thing\r
+for Kate, and Mrs. Bulstrode's eyes, which were rather fine, rolled\r
+round that ample quilled circuit, while she spoke.\r
+\r
+"I have just heard something about you that has surprised me very much,\r
+Rosamond."\r
+\r
+"What is that, aunt?" Rosamond's eyes also were roaming over her\r
+aunt's large embroidered collar.\r
+\r
+"I can hardly believe it--that you should be engaged without my knowing\r
+it--without your father's telling me." Here Mrs. Bulstrode's eyes\r
+finally rested on Rosamond's, who blushed deeply, and said--\r
+\r
+"I am not engaged, aunt."\r
+\r
+"How is it that every one says so, then--that it is the town's talk?"\r
+\r
+"The town's talk is of very little consequence, I think," said\r
+Rosamond, inwardly gratified.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, be more thoughtful; don't despise your neighbors so.\r
+Remember you are turned twenty-two now, and you will have no fortune:\r
+your father, I am sure, will not be able to spare you anything. Mr.\r
+Lydgate is very intellectual and clever; I know there is an attraction\r
+in that. I like talking to such men myself; and your uncle finds him\r
+very useful. But the profession is a poor one here. To be sure, this\r
+life is not everything; but it is seldom a medical man has true\r
+religious views--there is too much pride of intellect. And you are not\r
+fit to marry a poor man.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate is not a poor man, aunt. He has very high connections."\r
+\r
+"He told me himself he was poor."\r
+\r
+"That is because he is used to people who have a high style of living."\r
+\r
+"My dear Rosamond, _you_ must not think of living in high style."\r
+\r
+Rosamond looked down and played with her reticule. She was not a fiery\r
+young lady and had no sharp answers, but she meant to live as she\r
+pleased.\r
+\r
+"Then it is really true?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, looking very earnestly\r
+at her niece. "You are thinking of Mr. Lydgate--there is some\r
+understanding between you, though your father doesn't know. Be open,\r
+my dear Rosamond: Mr. Lydgate has really made you an offer?"\r
+\r
+Poor Rosamond's feelings were very unpleasant. She had been quite easy\r
+as to Lydgate's feeling and intention, but now when her aunt put this\r
+question she did not like being unable to say Yes. Her pride was hurt,\r
+but her habitual control of manner helped her.\r
+\r
+"Pray excuse me, aunt. I would rather not speak on the subject."\r
+\r
+"You would not give your heart to a man without a decided prospect, I\r
+trust, my dear. And think of the two excellent offers I know of that\r
+you have refused!--and one still within your reach, if you will not\r
+throw it away. I knew a very great beauty who married badly at last,\r
+by doing so. Mr. Ned Plymdale is a nice young man--some might think\r
+good-looking; and an only son; and a large business of that kind is\r
+better than a profession. Not that marrying is everything. I would\r
+have you seek first the kingdom of God. But a girl should keep her\r
+heart within her own power."\r
+\r
+"I should never give it to Mr. Ned Plymdale, if it were. I have\r
+already refused him. If I loved, I should love at once and without\r
+change," said Rosamond, with a great sense of being a romantic heroine,\r
+and playing the part prettily.\r
+\r
+"I see how it is, my dear," said Mrs. Bulstrode, in a melancholy voice,\r
+rising to go. "You have allowed your affections to be engaged without\r
+return."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, aunt," said Rosamond, with emphasis.\r
+\r
+"Then you are quite confident that Mr. Lydgate has a serious attachment\r
+to you?"\r
+\r
+Rosamond's cheeks by this time were persistently burning, and she felt\r
+much mortification. She chose to be silent, and her aunt went away all\r
+the more convinced.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode in things worldly and indifferent was disposed to do what\r
+his wife bade him, and she now, without telling her reasons, desired\r
+him on the next opportunity to find out in conversation with Mr.\r
+Lydgate whether he had any intention of marrying soon. The result was\r
+a decided negative. Mr. Bulstrode, on being cross-questioned, showed\r
+that Lydgate had spoken as no man would who had any attachment that\r
+could issue in matrimony. Mrs. Bulstrode now felt that she had a\r
+serious duty before her, and she soon managed to arrange a tete-a-tete\r
+with Lydgate, in which she passed from inquiries about Fred Vincy's\r
+health, and expressions of her sincere anxiety for her brother's large\r
+family, to general remarks on the dangers which lay before young people\r
+with regard to their settlement in life. Young men were often wild and\r
+disappointing, making little return for the money spent on them, and a\r
+girl was exposed to many circumstances which might interfere with her\r
+prospects.\r
+\r
+"Especially when she has great attractions, and her parents see much\r
+company," said Mrs. Bulstrode "Gentlemen pay her attention, and engross\r
+her all to themselves, for the mere pleasure of the moment, and that\r
+drives off others. I think it is a heavy responsibility, Mr. Lydgate,\r
+to interfere with the prospects of any girl." Here Mrs. Bulstrode fixed\r
+her eyes on him, with an unmistakable purpose of warning, if not of\r
+rebuke.\r
+\r
+"Clearly," said Lydgate, looking at her--perhaps even staring a little\r
+in return. "On the other hand, a man must be a great coxcomb to go\r
+about with a notion that he must not pay attention to a young lady lest\r
+she should fall in love with him, or lest others should think she must."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Mr. Lydgate, you know well what your advantages are. You know\r
+that our young men here cannot cope with you. Where you frequent a\r
+house it may militate very much against a girl's making a desirable\r
+settlement in life, and prevent her from accepting offers even if they\r
+are made."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was less flattered by his advantage over the Middlemarch\r
+Orlandos than he was annoyed by the perception of Mrs. Bulstrode's\r
+meaning. She felt that she had spoken as impressively as it was\r
+necessary to do, and that in using the superior word "militate" she had\r
+thrown a noble drapery over a mass of particulars which were still\r
+evident enough.\r
+\r
+Lydgate was fuming a little, pushed his hair back with one hand, felt\r
+curiously in his waistcoat-pocket with the other, and then stooped to\r
+beckon the tiny black spaniel, which had the insight to decline his\r
+hollow caresses. It would not have been decent to go away, because he\r
+had been dining with other guests, and had just taken tea. But Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode, having no doubt that she had been understood, turned the\r
+conversation.\r
+\r
+Solomon's Proverbs, I think, have omitted to say, that as the sore\r
+palate findeth grit, so an uneasy consciousness heareth innuendoes.\r
+The next day Mr. Farebrother, parting from Lydgate in the street,\r
+supposed that they should meet at Vincy's in the evening. Lydgate\r
+answered curtly, no--he had work to do--he must give up going out in\r
+the evening.\r
+\r
+"What! you are going to get lashed to the mast, eh, and are stopping\r
+your ears?" said the Vicar. "Well, if you don't mean to be won by the\r
+sirens, you are right to take precautions in time."\r
+\r
+A few days before, Lydgate would have taken no notice of these words as\r
+anything more than the Vicar's usual way of putting things. They\r
+seemed now to convey an innuendo which confirmed the impression that he\r
+had been making a fool of himself and behaving so as to be\r
+misunderstood: not, he believed, by Rosamond herself; she, he felt\r
+sure, took everything as lightly as he intended it. She had an\r
+exquisite tact and insight in relation to all points of manners; but\r
+the people she lived among were blunderers and busybodies. However,\r
+the mistake should go no farther. He resolved--and kept his\r
+resolution--that he would not go to Mr. Vincy's except on business.\r
+\r
+Rosamond became very unhappy. The uneasiness first stirred by her\r
+aunt's questions grew and grew till at the end of ten days that she had\r
+not seen Lydgate, it grew into terror at the blank that might possibly\r
+come--into foreboding of that ready, fatal sponge which so cheaply\r
+wipes out the hopes of mortals. The world would have a new dreariness\r
+for her, as a wilderness that a magician's spells had turned for a\r
+little while into a garden. She felt that she was beginning to know\r
+the pang of disappointed love, and that no other man could be the\r
+occasion of such delightful aerial building as she had been enjoying\r
+for the last six months. Poor Rosamond lost her appetite and felt as\r
+forlorn as Ariadne--as a charming stage Ariadne left behind with all\r
+her boxes full of costumes and no hope of a coach.\r
+\r
+There are many wonderful mixtures in the world which are all alike\r
+called love, and claim the privileges of a sublime rage which is an\r
+apology for everything (in literature and the drama). Happily Rosamond\r
+did not think of committing any desperate act: she plaited her fair\r
+hair as beautifully as usual, and kept herself proudly calm. Her most\r
+cheerful supposition was that her aunt Bulstrode had interfered in some\r
+way to hinder Lydgate's visits: everything was better than a\r
+spontaneous indifference in him. Any one who imagines ten days too\r
+short a time--not for falling into leanness, lightness, or other\r
+measurable effects of passion, but--for the whole spiritual circuit of\r
+alarmed conjecture and disappointment, is ignorant of what can go on in\r
+the elegant leisure of a young lady's mind.\r
+\r
+On the eleventh day, however, Lydgate when leaving Stone Court was\r
+requested by Mrs. Vincy to let her husband know that there was a marked\r
+change in Mr. Featherstone's health, and that she wished him to come to\r
+Stone Court on that day. Now Lydgate might have called at the\r
+warehouse, or might have written a message on a leaf of his pocket-book\r
+and left it at the door. Yet these simple devices apparently did not\r
+occur to him, from which we may conclude that he had no strong\r
+objection to calling at the house at an hour when Mr. Vincy was not at\r
+home, and leaving the message with Miss Vincy. A man may, from various\r
+motives, decline to give his company, but perhaps not even a sage would\r
+be gratified that nobody missed him. It would be a graceful, easy way\r
+of piecing on the new habits to the old, to have a few playful words\r
+with Rosamond about his resistance to dissipation, and his firm resolve\r
+to take long fasts even from sweet sounds. It must be confessed, also,\r
+that momentary speculations as to all the possible grounds for Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode's hints had managed to get woven like slight clinging hairs\r
+into the more substantial web of his thoughts.\r
+\r
+Miss Vincy was alone, and blushed so deeply when Lydgate came in that\r
+he felt a corresponding embarrassment, and instead of any playfulness,\r
+he began at once to speak of his reason for calling, and to beg her,\r
+almost formally, to deliver the message to her father. Rosamond, who\r
+at the first moment felt as if her happiness were returning, was keenly\r
+hurt by Lydgate's manner; her blush had departed, and she assented\r
+coldly, without adding an unnecessary word, some trivial chain-work\r
+which she had in her hands enabling her to avoid looking at Lydgate\r
+higher than his chin. In all failures, the beginning is certainly the\r
+half of the whole. After sitting two long moments while he moved his\r
+whip and could say nothing, Lydgate rose to go, and Rosamond, made\r
+nervous by her struggle between mortification and the wish not to\r
+betray it, dropped her chain as if startled, and rose too,\r
+mechanically. Lydgate instantaneously stooped to pick up the chain.\r
+When he rose he was very near to a lovely little face set on a fair\r
+long neck which he had been used to see turning about under the most\r
+perfect management of self-contented grace. But as he raised his eyes\r
+now he saw a certain helpless quivering which touched him quite newly,\r
+and made him look at Rosamond with a questioning flash. At this moment\r
+she was as natural as she had ever been when she was five years old:\r
+she felt that her tears had risen, and it was no use to try to do\r
+anything else than let them stay like water on a blue flower or let\r
+them fall over her cheeks, even as they would.\r
+\r
+That moment of naturalness was the crystallizing feather-touch: it\r
+shook flirtation into love. Remember that the ambitious man who was\r
+looking at those Forget-me-nots under the water was very warm-hearted\r
+and rash. He did not know where the chain went; an idea had thrilled\r
+through the recesses within him which had a miraculous effect in\r
+raising the power of passionate love lying buried there in no sealed\r
+sepulchre, but under the lightest, easily pierced mould. His words\r
+were quite abrupt and awkward; but the tone made them sound like an\r
+ardent, appealing avowal.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter? you are distressed. Tell me, pray."\r
+\r
+Rosamond had never been spoken to in such tones before. I am not sure\r
+that she knew what the words were: but she looked at Lydgate and the\r
+tears fell over her cheeks. There could have been no more complete\r
+answer than that silence, and Lydgate, forgetting everything else,\r
+completely mastered by the outrush of tenderness at the sudden belief\r
+that this sweet young creature depended on him for her joy, actually\r
+put his arms round her, folding her gently and protectingly--he was\r
+used to being gentle with the weak and suffering--and kissed each of\r
+the two large tears. This was a strange way of arriving at an\r
+understanding, but it was a short way. Rosamond was not angry, but she\r
+moved backward a little in timid happiness, and Lydgate could now sit\r
+near her and speak less incompletely. Rosamond had to make her little\r
+confession, and he poured out words of gratitude and tenderness with\r
+impulsive lavishment. In half an hour he left the house an engaged\r
+man, whose soul was not his own, but the woman's to whom he had bound\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+He came again in the evening to speak with Mr. Vincy, who, just\r
+returned from Stone Court, was feeling sure that it would not be long\r
+before he heard of Mr. Featherstone's demise. The felicitous word\r
+"demise," which had seasonably occurred to him, had raised his spirits\r
+even above their usual evening pitch. The right word is always a\r
+power, and communicates its definiteness to our action. Considered as\r
+a demise, old Featherstone's death assumed a merely legal aspect, so\r
+that Mr. Vincy could tap his snuff-box over it and be jovial, without\r
+even an intermittent affectation of solemnity; and Mr. Vincy hated both\r
+solemnity and affectation. Who was ever awe struck about a testator,\r
+or sang a hymn on the title to real property? Mr. Vincy was inclined\r
+to take a jovial view of all things that evening: he even observed to\r
+Lydgate that Fred had got the family constitution after all, and would\r
+soon be as fine a fellow as ever again; and when his approbation of\r
+Rosamond's engagement was asked for, he gave it with astonishing\r
+facility, passing at once to general remarks on the desirableness of\r
+matrimony for young men and maidens, and apparently deducing from the\r
+whole the appropriateness of a little more punch.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXII.\r
+\r
+ "They'll take suggestion as a cat laps milk."\r
+ --SHAKESPEARE: Tempest.\r
+\r
+\r
+The triumphant confidence of the Mayor founded on Mr. Featherstone's\r
+insistent demand that Fred and his mother should not leave him, was a\r
+feeble emotion compared with all that was agitating the breasts of the\r
+old man's blood-relations, who naturally manifested more their sense of\r
+the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had become\r
+bedridden. Naturally: for when "poor Peter" had occupied his arm-chair\r
+in the wainscoted parlor, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook\r
+prepares boiling water could have been less welcome on a hearth which\r
+they had reasons for preferring, than those persons whose Featherstone\r
+blood was ill-nourished, not from penuriousness on their part, but from\r
+poverty. Brother Solomon and Sister Jane were rich, and the family\r
+candor and total abstinence from false politeness with which they were\r
+always received seemed to them no argument that their brother in the\r
+solemn act of making his will would overlook the superior claims of\r
+wealth. Themselves at least he had never been unnatural enough to\r
+banish from his house, and it seemed hardly eccentric that he should\r
+have kept away Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and the rest, who had no\r
+shadow of such claims. They knew Peter's maxim, that money was a good\r
+egg, and should be laid in a warm nest.\r
+\r
+But Brother Jonah, Sister Martha, and all the needy exiles, held a\r
+different point of view. Probabilities are as various as the faces to\r
+be seen at will in fretwork or paper-hangings: every form is there,\r
+from Jupiter to Judy, if you only look with creative inclination. To\r
+the poorer and least favored it seemed likely that since Peter had done\r
+nothing for them in his life, he would remember them at the last.\r
+Jonah argued that men liked to make a surprise of their wills, while\r
+Martha said that nobody need be surprised if he left the best part of\r
+his money to those who least expected it. Also it was not to be\r
+thought but that an own brother "lying there" with dropsy in his legs\r
+must come to feel that blood was thicker than water, and if he didn't\r
+alter his will, he might have money by him. At any rate some\r
+blood-relations should be on the premises and on the watch against\r
+those who were hardly relations at all. Such things had been known as\r
+forged wills and disputed wills, which seemed to have the golden-hazy\r
+advantage of somehow enabling non-legatees to live out of them. Again,\r
+those who were no blood-relations might be caught making away with\r
+things--and poor Peter "lying there" helpless! Somebody should be on\r
+the watch. But in this conclusion they were at one with Solomon and\r
+Jane; also, some nephews, nieces, and cousins, arguing with still\r
+greater subtilty as to what might be done by a man able to "will away"\r
+his property and give himself large treats of oddity, felt in a\r
+handsome sort of way that there was a family interest to be attended\r
+to, and thought of Stone Court as a place which it would be nothing but\r
+right for them to visit. Sister Martha, otherwise Mrs. Cranch, living\r
+with some wheeziness in the Chalky Flats, could not undertake the\r
+journey; but her son, as being poor Peter's own nephew, could represent\r
+her advantageously, and watch lest his uncle Jonah should make an\r
+unfair use of the improbable things which seemed likely to happen. In\r
+fact there was a general sense running in the Featherstone blood that\r
+everybody must watch everybody else, and that it would be well for\r
+everybody else to reflect that the Almighty was watching him.\r
+\r
+Thus Stone Court continually saw one or other blood-relation alighting\r
+or departing, and Mary Garth had the unpleasant task of carrying their\r
+messages to Mr. Featherstone, who would see none of them, and sent her\r
+down with the still more unpleasant task of telling them so. As\r
+manager of the household she felt bound to ask them in good provincial\r
+fashion to stay and eat; but she chose to consult Mrs. Vincy on the\r
+point of extra down-stairs consumption now that Mr. Featherstone was\r
+laid up.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, you must do things handsomely where there's last illness\r
+and a property. God knows, I don't grudge them every ham in the\r
+house--only, save the best for the funeral. Have some stuffed veal\r
+always, and a fine cheese in cut. You must expect to keep open house\r
+in these last illnesses," said liberal Mrs. Vincy, once more of\r
+cheerful note and bright plumage.\r
+\r
+But some of the visitors alighted and did not depart after the handsome\r
+treating to veal and ham. Brother Jonah, for example (there are such\r
+unpleasant people in most families; perhaps even in the highest\r
+aristocracy there are Brobdingnag specimens, gigantically in debt and\r
+bloated at greater expense)--Brother Jonah, I say, having come down in\r
+the world, was mainly supported by a calling which he was modest enough\r
+not to boast of, though it was much better than swindling either on\r
+exchange or turf, but which did not require his presence at Brassing so\r
+long as he had a good corner to sit in and a supply of food. He chose\r
+the kitchen-corner, partly because he liked it best, and partly because\r
+he did not want to sit with Solomon, concerning whom he had a strong\r
+brotherly opinion. Seated in a famous arm-chair and in his best suit,\r
+constantly within sight of good cheer, he had a comfortable\r
+consciousness of being on the premises, mingled with fleeting\r
+suggestions of Sunday and the bar at the Green Man; and he informed\r
+Mary Garth that he should not go out of reach of his brother Peter\r
+while that poor fellow was above ground. The troublesome ones in a\r
+family are usually either the wits or the idiots. Jonah was the wit\r
+among the Featherstones, and joked with the maid-servants when they\r
+came about the hearth, but seemed to consider Miss Garth a suspicious\r
+character, and followed her with cold eyes.\r
+\r
+Mary would have borne this one pair of eyes with comparative ease, but\r
+unfortunately there was young Cranch, who, having come all the way from\r
+the Chalky Flats to represent his mother and watch his uncle Jonah,\r
+also felt it his duty to stay and to sit chiefly in the kitchen to give\r
+his uncle company. Young Cranch was not exactly the balancing point\r
+between the wit and the idiot,--verging slightly towards the latter\r
+type, and squinting so as to leave everything in doubt about his\r
+sentiments except that they were not of a forcible character. When\r
+Mary Garth entered the kitchen and Mr. Jonah Featherstone began to\r
+follow her with his cold detective eyes, young Cranch turning his head\r
+in the same direction seemed to insist on it that she should remark how\r
+he was squinting, as if he did it with design, like the gypsies when\r
+Borrow read the New Testament to them. This was rather too much for\r
+poor Mary; sometimes it made her bilious, sometimes it upset her\r
+gravity. One day that she had an opportunity she could not resist\r
+describing the kitchen scene to Fred, who would not be hindered from\r
+immediately going to see it, affecting simply to pass through. But no\r
+sooner did he face the four eyes than he had to rush through the\r
+nearest door which happened to lead to the dairy, and there under the\r
+high roof and among the pans he gave way to laughter which made a\r
+hollow resonance perfectly audible in the kitchen. He fled by another\r
+doorway, but Mr. Jonah, who had not before seen Fred's white\r
+complexion, long legs, and pinched delicacy of face, prepared many\r
+sarcasms in which these points of appearance were wittily combined with\r
+the lowest moral attributes.\r
+\r
+"Why, Tom, _you_ don't wear such gentlemanly trousers--you haven't got\r
+half such fine long legs," said Jonah to his nephew, winking at the\r
+same time, to imply that there was something more in these statements\r
+than their undeniableness. Tom looked at his legs, but left it\r
+uncertain whether he preferred his moral advantages to a more vicious\r
+length of limb and reprehensible gentility of trouser.\r
+\r
+In the large wainscoted parlor too there were constantly pairs of eyes\r
+on the watch, and own relatives eager to be "sitters-up." Many came,\r
+lunched, and departed, but Brother Solomon and the lady who had been\r
+Jane Featherstone for twenty-five years before she was Mrs. Waule found\r
+it good to be there every day for hours, without other calculable\r
+occupation than that of observing the cunning Mary Garth (who was so\r
+deep that she could be found out in nothing) and giving occasional dry\r
+wrinkly indications of crying--as if capable of torrents in a wetter\r
+season--at the thought that they were not allowed to go into Mr.\r
+Featherstone's room. For the old man's dislike of his own family\r
+seemed to get stronger as he got less able to amuse himself by saying\r
+biting things to them. Too languid to sting, he had the more venom\r
+refluent in his blood.\r
+\r
+Not fully believing the message sent through Mary Garth, they had\r
+presented themselves together within the door of the bedroom, both in\r
+black--Mrs. Waule having a white handkerchief partially unfolded in her\r
+hand--and both with faces in a sort of half-mourning purple; while Mrs.\r
+Vincy with her pink cheeks and pink ribbons flying was actually\r
+administering a cordial to their own brother, and the\r
+light-complexioned Fred, his short hair curling as might be expected in\r
+a gambler's, was lolling at his ease in a large chair.\r
+\r
+Old Featherstone no sooner caught sight of these funereal figures\r
+appearing in spite of his orders than rage came to strengthen him more\r
+successfully than the cordial. He was propped up on a bed-rest, and\r
+always had his gold-headed stick lying by him. He seized it now and\r
+swept it backwards and forwards in as large an area as he could,\r
+apparently to ban these ugly spectres, crying in a hoarse sort of\r
+screech--\r
+\r
+"Back, back, Mrs. Waule! Back, Solomon!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, Brother. Peter," Mrs. Waule began--but Solomon put his hand\r
+before her repressingly. He was a large-cheeked man, nearly seventy,\r
+with small furtive eyes, and was not only of much blander temper but\r
+thought himself much deeper than his brother Peter; indeed not likely\r
+to be deceived in any of his fellow-men, inasmuch as they could not\r
+well be more greedy and deceitful than he suspected them of being.\r
+Even the invisible powers, he thought, were likely to be soothed by a\r
+bland parenthesis here and there--coming from a man of property, who\r
+might have been as impious as others.\r
+\r
+"Brother Peter," he said, in a wheedling yet gravely official tone,\r
+"It's nothing but right I should speak to you about the Three Crofts\r
+and the Manganese. The Almighty knows what I've got on my mind--"\r
+\r
+"Then he knows more than I want to know," said Peter, laying down his\r
+stick with a show of truce which had a threat in it too, for he\r
+reversed the stick so as to make the gold handle a club in case of\r
+closer fighting, and looked hard at Solomon's bald head.\r
+\r
+"There's things you might repent of, Brother, for want of speaking to\r
+me," said Solomon, not advancing, however. "I could sit up with you\r
+to-night, and Jane with me, willingly, and you might take your own time\r
+to speak, or let me speak."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I shall take my own time--you needn't offer me yours," said Peter.\r
+\r
+"But you can't take your own time to die in, Brother," began Mrs.\r
+Waule, with her usual woolly tone. "And when you lie speechless you\r
+may be tired of having strangers about you, and you may think of me and\r
+my children"--but here her voice broke under the touching thought which\r
+she was attributing to her speechless brother; the mention of ourselves\r
+being naturally affecting.\r
+\r
+"No, I shan't," said old Featherstone, contradictiously. "I shan't\r
+think of any of you. I've made my will, I tell you, I've made my\r
+will." Here he turned his head towards Mrs. Vincy, and swallowed some\r
+more of his cordial.\r
+\r
+"Some people would be ashamed to fill up a place belonging by rights to\r
+others," said Mrs. Waule, turning her narrow eyes in the same direction.\r
+\r
+"Oh, sister," said Solomon, with ironical softness, "you and me are not\r
+fine, and handsome, and clever enough: we must be humble and let smart\r
+people push themselves before us."\r
+\r
+Fred's spirit could not bear this: rising and looking at Mr.\r
+Featherstone, he said, "Shall my mother and I leave the room, sir, that\r
+you may be alone with your friends?"\r
+\r
+"Sit down, I tell you," said old Featherstone, snappishly. "Stop where\r
+you are. Good-by, Solomon," he added, trying to wield his stick again,\r
+but failing now that he had reversed the handle. "Good-by, Mrs. Waule.\r
+Don't you come again."\r
+\r
+"I shall be down-stairs, Brother, whether or no," said Solomon. "I\r
+shall do my duty, and it remains to be seen what the Almighty will\r
+allow."\r
+\r
+"Yes, in property going out of families," said Mrs. Waule, in\r
+continuation,--"and where there's steady young men to carry on. But I\r
+pity them who are not such, and I pity their mothers. Good-by, Brother\r
+Peter."\r
+\r
+"Remember, I'm the eldest after you, Brother, and prospered from the\r
+first, just as you did, and have got land already by the name of\r
+Featherstone," said Solomon, relying much on that reflection, as one\r
+which might be suggested in the watches of the night. "But I bid you\r
+good-by for the present."\r
+\r
+Their exit was hastened by their seeing old Mr. Featherstone pull his\r
+wig on each side and shut his eyes with his mouth-widening grimace, as\r
+if he were determined to be deaf and blind.\r
+\r
+None the less they came to Stone Court daily and sat below at the post\r
+of duty, sometimes carrying on a slow dialogue in an undertone in which\r
+the observation and response were so far apart, that any one hearing\r
+them might have imagined himself listening to speaking automata, in\r
+some doubt whether the ingenious mechanism would really work, or wind\r
+itself up for a long time in order to stick and be silent. Solomon and\r
+Jane would have been sorry to be quick: what that led to might be seen\r
+on the other side of the wall in the person of Brother Jonah.\r
+\r
+But their watch in the wainscoted parlor was sometimes varied by the\r
+presence of other guests from far or near. Now that Peter Featherstone\r
+was up-stairs, his property could be discussed with all that local\r
+enlightenment to be found on the spot: some rural and Middlemarch\r
+neighbors expressed much agreement with the family and sympathy with\r
+their interest against the Vincys, and feminine visitors were even\r
+moved to tears, in conversation with Mrs. Waule, when they recalled the\r
+fact that they themselves had been disappointed in times past by\r
+codicils and marriages for spite on the part of ungrateful elderly\r
+gentlemen, who, it might have been supposed, had been spared for\r
+something better. Such conversation paused suddenly, like an organ\r
+when the bellows are let drop, if Mary Garth came into the room; and\r
+all eyes were turned on her as a possible legatee, or one who might get\r
+access to iron chests.\r
+\r
+But the younger men who were relatives or connections of the family,\r
+were disposed to admire her in this problematic light, as a girl who\r
+showed much conduct, and who among all the chances that were flying\r
+might turn out to be at least a moderate prize. Hence she had her\r
+share of compliments and polite attentions.\r
+\r
+Especially from Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, a distinguished bachelor and\r
+auctioneer of those parts, much concerned in the sale of land and\r
+cattle: a public character, indeed, whose name was seen on widely\r
+distributed placards, and who might reasonably be sorry for those who\r
+did not know of him. He was second cousin to Peter Featherstone, and\r
+had been treated by him with more amenity than any other relative,\r
+being useful in matters of business; and in that programme of his\r
+funeral which the old man had himself dictated, he had been named as a\r
+Bearer. There was no odious cupidity in Mr. Borthrop Trumbull--nothing\r
+more than a sincere sense of his own merit, which, he was aware, in\r
+case of rivalry might tell against competitors; so that if Peter\r
+Featherstone, who so far as he, Trumbull, was concerned, had\r
+behaved like as good a soul as ever breathed, should have done anything\r
+handsome by him, all he could say was, that he had never fished and\r
+fawned, but had advised him to the best of his experience, which now\r
+extended over twenty years from the time of his apprenticeship at\r
+fifteen, and was likely to yield a knowledge of no surreptitious kind.\r
+His admiration was far from being confined to himself, but was\r
+accustomed professionally as well as privately to delight in estimating\r
+things at a high rate. He was an amateur of superior phrases, and\r
+never used poor language without immediately correcting himself--which\r
+was fortunate, as he was rather loud, and given to predominate,\r
+standing or walking about frequently, pulling down his waistcoat with\r
+the air of a man who is very much of his own opinion, trimming himself\r
+rapidly with his fore-finger, and marking each new series in these\r
+movements by a busy play with his large seals. There was occasionally\r
+a little fierceness in his demeanor, but it was directed chiefly\r
+against false opinion, of which there is so much to correct in the\r
+world that a man of some reading and experience necessarily has his\r
+patience tried. He felt that the Featherstone family generally was of\r
+limited understanding, but being a man of the world and a public\r
+character, took everything as a matter of course, and even went to\r
+converse with Mr. Jonah and young Cranch in the kitchen, not doubting\r
+that he had impressed the latter greatly by his leading questions\r
+concerning the Chalky Flats. If anybody had observed that Mr. Borthrop\r
+Trumbull, being an auctioneer, was bound to know the nature of\r
+everything, he would have smiled and trimmed himself silently with the\r
+sense that he came pretty near that. On the whole, in an auctioneering\r
+way, he was an honorable man, not ashamed of his business, and feeling\r
+that "the celebrated Peel, now Sir Robert," if introduced to him, would\r
+not fail to recognize his importance.\r
+\r
+"I don't mind if I have a slice of that ham, and a glass of that ale,\r
+Miss Garth, if you will allow me," he said, coming into the parlor at\r
+half-past eleven, after having had the exceptional privilege of seeing\r
+old Featherstone, and standing with his back to the fire between Mrs.\r
+Waule and Solomon.\r
+\r
+"It's not necessary for you to go out;--let me ring the bell."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Mary, "I have an errand."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Trumbull, you're highly favored," said Mrs. Waule.\r
+\r
+"What! seeing the old man?" said the auctioneer, playing with his seals\r
+dispassionately. "Ah, you see he has relied on me considerably." Here\r
+he pressed his lips together, and frowned meditatively.\r
+\r
+"Might anybody ask what their brother has been saying?" said Solomon,\r
+in a soft tone of humility, in which he had a sense of luxurious\r
+cunning, he being a rich man and not in need of it.\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, anybody may ask," said Mr. Trumbull, with loud and\r
+good-humored though cutting sarcasm. "Anybody may interrogate. Any\r
+one may give their remarks an interrogative turn," he continued, his\r
+sonorousness rising with his style. "This is constantly done by good\r
+speakers, even when they anticipate no answer. It is what we call a\r
+figure of speech--speech at a high figure, as one may say." The\r
+eloquent auctioneer smiled at his own ingenuity.\r
+\r
+"I shouldn't be sorry to hear he'd remembered you, Mr. Trumbull," said\r
+Solomon. "I never was against the deserving. It's the undeserving I'm\r
+against."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there it is, you see, there it is," said Mr. Trumbull,\r
+significantly. "It can't be denied that undeserving people have been\r
+legatees, and even residuary legatees. It is so, with testamentary\r
+dispositions." Again he pursed up his lips and frowned a little.\r
+\r
+"Do you mean to say for certain, Mr. Trumbull, that my brother has left\r
+his land away from our family?" said Mrs. Waule, on whom, as an\r
+unhopeful woman, those long words had a depressing effect.\r
+\r
+"A man might as well turn his land into charity land at once as leave\r
+it to some people," observed Solomon, his sister's question having\r
+drawn no answer.\r
+\r
+"What, Blue-Coat land?" said Mrs. Waule, again. "Oh, Mr. Trumbull, you\r
+never can mean to say that. It would be flying in the face of the\r
+Almighty that's prospered him."\r
+\r
+While Mrs. Waule was speaking, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull walked away from\r
+the fireplace towards the window, patrolling with his fore-finger round\r
+the inside of his stock, then along his whiskers and the curves of his\r
+hair. He now walked to Miss Garth's work-table, opened a book which\r
+lay there and read the title aloud with pompous emphasis as if he were\r
+offering it for sale:\r
+\r
+"'Anne of Geierstein' (pronounced Jeersteen) or the 'Maiden of the\r
+Mist, by the author of Waverley.'" Then turning the page, he began\r
+sonorously--"The course of four centuries has well-nigh elapsed since\r
+the series of events which are related in the following chapters took\r
+place on the Continent." He pronounced the last truly admirable word\r
+with the accent on the last syllable, not as unaware of vulgar usage,\r
+but feeling that this novel delivery enhanced the sonorous beauty which\r
+his reading had given to the whole.\r
+\r
+And now the servant came in with the tray, so that the moments for\r
+answering Mrs. Waule's question had gone by safely, while she and\r
+Solomon, watching Mr. Trumbull's movements, were thinking that high\r
+learning interfered sadly with serious affairs. Mr. Borthrop Trumbull\r
+really knew nothing about old Featherstone's will; but he could hardly\r
+have been brought to declare any ignorance unless he had been arrested\r
+for misprision of treason.\r
+\r
+"I shall take a mere mouthful of ham and a glass of ale," he said,\r
+reassuringly. "As a man with public business, I take a snack when I\r
+can. I will back this ham," he added, after swallowing some morsels\r
+with alarming haste, "against any ham in the three kingdoms. In my\r
+opinion it is better than the hams at Freshitt Hall--and I think I am\r
+a tolerable judge."\r
+\r
+"Some don't like so much sugar in their hams," said Mrs. Waule. "But\r
+my poor brother would always have sugar."\r
+\r
+"If any person demands better, he is at liberty to do so; but, God\r
+bless me, what an aroma! I should be glad to buy in that quality, I\r
+know. There is some gratification to a gentleman"--here Mr.\r
+Trumbull's voice conveyed an emotional remonstrance--"in having this\r
+kind of ham set on his table."\r
+\r
+He pushed aside his plate, poured out his glass of ale and drew his\r
+chair a little forward, profiting by the occasion to look at the inner\r
+side of his legs, which he stroked approvingly--Mr. Trumbull having\r
+all those less frivolous airs and gestures which distinguish the\r
+predominant races of the north.\r
+\r
+"You have an interesting work there, I see, Miss Garth," he observed,\r
+when Mary re-entered. "It is by the author of 'Waverley': that is Sir\r
+Walter Scott. I have bought one of his works myself--a very nice\r
+thing, a very superior publication, entitled 'Ivanhoe.' You will not\r
+get any writer to beat him in a hurry, I think--he will not, in my\r
+opinion, be speedily surpassed. I have just been reading a portion at\r
+the commencement of 'Anne of Jeersteen.' It commences well." (Things\r
+never began with Mr. Borthrop Trumbull: they always commenced, both in\r
+private life and on his handbills.) "You are a reader, I see. Do you\r
+subscribe to our Middlemarch library?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Mary. "Mr. Fred Vincy brought this book."\r
+\r
+"I am a great bookman myself," returned Mr. Trumbull. "I have no less\r
+than two hundred volumes in calf, and I flatter myself they are well\r
+selected. Also pictures by Murillo, Rubens, Teniers, Titian, Vandyck,\r
+and others. I shall be happy to lend you any work you like to mention,\r
+Miss Garth."\r
+\r
+"I am much obliged," said Mary, hastening away again, "but I have\r
+little time for reading."\r
+\r
+"I should say my brother has done something for _her_ in his will,"\r
+said Mr. Solomon, in a very low undertone, when she had shut the door\r
+behind her, pointing with his head towards the absent Mary.\r
+\r
+"His first wife was a poor match for him, though," said Mrs. Waule.\r
+"She brought him nothing: and this young woman is only her niece,--and\r
+very proud. And my brother has always paid her wage."\r
+\r
+"A sensible girl though, in my opinion," said Mr. Trumbull, finishing\r
+his ale and starting up with an emphatic adjustment of his waistcoat.\r
+"I have observed her when she has been mixing medicine in drops. She\r
+minds what she is doing, sir. That is a great point in a woman, and a\r
+great point for our friend up-stairs, poor dear old soul. A man whose\r
+life is of any value should think of his wife as a nurse: that is what\r
+I should do, if I married; and I believe I have lived single long\r
+enough not to make a mistake in that line. Some men must marry to\r
+elevate themselves a little, but when I am in need of that, I hope some\r
+one will tell me so--I hope some individual will apprise me of the\r
+fact. I wish you good morning, Mrs. Waule. Good morning, Mr. Solomon.\r
+I trust we shall meet under less melancholy auspices."\r
+\r
+When Mr. Trumbull had departed with a fine bow, Solomon, leaning\r
+forward, observed to his sister, "You may depend, Jane, my brother has\r
+left that girl a lumping sum."\r
+\r
+"Anybody would think so, from the way Mr. Trumbull talks," said Jane.\r
+Then, after a pause, "He talks as if my daughters wasn't to be trusted\r
+to give drops."\r
+\r
+"Auctioneers talk wild," said Solomon. "Not but what Trumbull has made\r
+money."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIII.\r
+\r
+ "Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close;\r
+ And let us all to meditation."\r
+ --2 Henry VI.\r
+\r
+\r
+That night after twelve o'clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in Mr.\r
+Featherstone's room, and sat there alone through the small hours. She\r
+often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure,\r
+notwithstanding the old man's testiness whenever he demanded her\r
+attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly\r
+still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red\r
+fire with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence\r
+calmly independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the\r
+straining after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her\r
+contempt. Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself\r
+well sitting in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early\r
+had strong reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged\r
+for her peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and\r
+annoyance at that fact. And she had already come to take life very\r
+much as a comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution\r
+not to act the mean or treacherous part. Mary might have become\r
+cynical if she had not had parents whom she honored, and a well of\r
+affectionate gratitude within her, which was all the fuller because she\r
+had learned to make no unreasonable claims.\r
+\r
+She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her\r
+lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy\r
+added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions,\r
+carrying their fool's caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque\r
+while everybody else's were transparent, making themselves exceptions\r
+to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they\r
+alone were rosy. Yet there were some illusions under Mary's eyes which\r
+were not quite comic to her. She was secretly convinced, though she\r
+had no other grounds than her close observation of old Featherstone's\r
+nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Vincys about him,\r
+they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he\r
+kept at a distance. She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy's\r
+evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did\r
+not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would\r
+be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor\r
+as ever. She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she\r
+did not enjoy his follies when he was absent.\r
+\r
+Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by\r
+passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its\r
+own powers with interest. Mary had plenty of merriment within.\r
+\r
+Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man\r
+on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an\r
+aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of\r
+vices. She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr.\r
+Featherstone: he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him.\r
+To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left\r
+to the saints of the earth; and Mary was not one of them. She had\r
+never returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that\r
+was her utmost. Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious\r
+about his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.\r
+\r
+To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay\r
+remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of\r
+keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.\r
+About three o'clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, "Missy, come\r
+here!"\r
+\r
+Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under\r
+the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he\r
+had selected the key. He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it\r
+another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have\r
+recovered all their sharpness and said, "How many of 'em are in the\r
+house?"\r
+\r
+"You mean of your own relations, sir," said Mary, well used to the old\r
+man's way of speech. He nodded slightly and she went on.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here."\r
+\r
+"Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest--they come every day, I'll\r
+warrant--Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns? They come peeping,\r
+and counting and casting up?"\r
+\r
+"Not all of them every day. Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every\r
+day, and the others come often."\r
+\r
+The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said,\r
+relaxing his face, "The more fools they. You hearken, missy. It's\r
+three o'clock in the morning, and I've got all my faculties as well as\r
+ever I had in my life. I know all my property, and where the money's\r
+put out, and everything. And I've made everything ready to change my\r
+mind, and do as I like at the last. Do you hear, missy? I've got my\r
+faculties."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir?" said Mary, quietly.\r
+\r
+He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning. "I've made two\r
+wills, and I'm going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you. This is\r
+the key of my iron chest, in the closet there. You push well at the\r
+side of the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt: then you\r
+can put the key in the front lock and turn it. See and do that; and\r
+take out the topmost paper--Last Will and Testament--big printed."\r
+\r
+"No, sir," said Mary, in a firm voice, "I cannot do that."\r
+\r
+"Not do it? I tell you, you must," said the old man, his voice\r
+beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.\r
+\r
+"I cannot touch your iron chest or your will. I must refuse to do\r
+anything that might lay me open to suspicion."\r
+\r
+"I tell you, I'm in my right mind. Shan't I do as I like at the last?\r
+I made two wills on purpose. Take the key, I say."\r
+\r
+"No, sir, I will not," said Mary, more resolutely still. Her repulsion\r
+was getting stronger.\r
+\r
+"I tell you, there's no time to lose."\r
+\r
+"I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life soil\r
+the beginning of mine. I will not touch your iron chest or your will."\r
+She moved to a little distance from the bedside.\r
+\r
+The old man paused with a blank stare for a little while, holding the\r
+one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began to work\r
+with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box before him.\r
+\r
+"Missy," he began to say, hurriedly, "look here! take the money--the\r
+notes and gold--look here--take it--you shall have it all--do as I\r
+tell you."\r
+\r
+He made an effort to stretch out the key towards her as far as\r
+possible, and Mary again retreated.\r
+\r
+"I will not touch your key or your money, sir. Pray don't ask me to do\r
+it again. If you do, I must go and call your brother."\r
+\r
+He let his hand fall, and for the first time in her life Mary saw old\r
+Peter Featherstone begin to cry childishly. She said, in as gentle a\r
+tone as she could command, "Pray put up your money, sir;" and then went\r
+away to her seat by the fire, hoping this would help to convince him\r
+that it was useless to say more. Presently he rallied and said\r
+eagerly--\r
+\r
+"Look here, then. Call the young chap. Call Fred Vincy."\r
+\r
+Mary's heart began to beat more quickly. Various ideas rushed through\r
+her mind as to what the burning of a second will might imply. She had\r
+to make a difficult decision in a hurry.\r
+\r
+"I will call him, if you will let me call Mr. Jonah and others with\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Nobody else, I say. The young chap. I shall do as I like."\r
+\r
+"Wait till broad daylight, sir, when every one is stirring. Or let me\r
+call Simmons now, to go and fetch the lawyer? He can be here in less\r
+than two hours."\r
+\r
+"Lawyer? What do I want with the lawyer? Nobody shall know--I say,\r
+nobody shall know. I shall do as I like."\r
+\r
+"Let me call some one else, sir," said Mary, persuasively. She did not\r
+like her position--alone with the old man, who seemed to show a strange\r
+flaring of nervous energy which enabled him to speak again and again\r
+without falling into his usual cough; yet she desired not to push\r
+unnecessarily the contradiction which agitated him. "Let me, pray,\r
+call some one else."\r
+\r
+"You let me alone, I say. Look here, missy. Take the money. You'll\r
+never have the chance again. It's pretty nigh two hundred--there's\r
+more in the box, and nobody knows how much there was. Take it and do\r
+as I tell you."\r
+\r
+Mary, standing by the fire, saw its red light falling on the old man,\r
+propped up on his pillows and bed-rest, with his bony hand holding out\r
+the key, and the money lying on the quilt before him. She never forgot\r
+that vision of a man wanting to do as he liked at the last. But the\r
+way in which he had put the offer of the money urged her to speak with\r
+harder resolution than ever.\r
+\r
+"It is of no use, sir. I will not do it. Put up your money. I will\r
+not touch your money. I will do anything else I can to comfort you;\r
+but I will not touch your keys or your money."\r
+\r
+"Anything else anything else!" said old Featherstone, with hoarse rage,\r
+which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was only just\r
+audible. "I want nothing else. You come here--you come here."\r
+\r
+Mary approached him cautiously, knowing him too well. She saw him\r
+dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked at her\r
+like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted with the\r
+effort of his hand. She paused at a safe distance.\r
+\r
+"Let me give you some cordial," she said, quietly, "and try to compose\r
+yourself. You will perhaps go to sleep. And to-morrow by daylight you\r
+can do as you like."\r
+\r
+He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach, and threw\r
+it with a hard effort which was but impotence. It fell, slipping over\r
+the foot of the bed. Mary let it lie, and retreated to her chair by\r
+the fire. By-and-by she would go to him with the cordial. Fatigue\r
+would make him passive. It was getting towards the chillest moment of\r
+the morning, the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink\r
+between the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind.\r
+Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her, she sat\r
+down, hoping that Mr. Featherstone might now fall asleep. If she went\r
+near him the irritation might be kept up. He had said nothing after\r
+throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking his keys again and\r
+laying his right hand on the money. He did not put it up, however, and\r
+she thought that he was dropping off to sleep.\r
+\r
+But Mary herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance of what\r
+she had gone through, than she had been by the reality--questioning\r
+those acts of hers which had come imperatively and excluded all\r
+question in the critical moment.\r
+\r
+Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every\r
+crevice, and Mary saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head\r
+turned a little on one side. She went towards him with inaudible\r
+steps, and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the\r
+next moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all\r
+objects made her uncertain. The violent beating of her heart rendered\r
+her perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and listened\r
+for his breathing, she could not trust her conclusions. She went to\r
+the window and gently propped aside the curtain and blind, so that the\r
+still light of the sky fell on the bed.\r
+\r
+The next moment she ran to the bell and rang it energetically. In a\r
+very little while there was no longer any doubt that Peter Featherstone\r
+was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand\r
+lying on the heap of notes and gold.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK IV.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+THREE LOVE PROBLEMS.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIV.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws.\r
+ Carry no weight, no force.\r
+ 2d Gent. But levity\r
+ Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight.\r
+ For power finds its place in lack of power;\r
+ Advance is cession, and the driven ship\r
+ May run aground because the helmsman's thought\r
+ Lacked force to balance opposites."\r
+\r
+\r
+It was on a morning of May that Peter Featherstone was buried. In the\r
+prosaic neighborhood of Middlemarch, May was not always warm and sunny,\r
+and on this particular morning a chill wind was blowing the blossoms\r
+from the surrounding gardens on to the green mounds of Lowick\r
+churchyard. Swiftly moving clouds only now and then allowed a gleam to\r
+light up any object, whether ugly or beautiful, that happened to stand\r
+within its golden shower. In the churchyard the objects were\r
+remarkably various, for there was a little country crowd waiting to see\r
+the funeral. The news had spread that it was to be a "big burying;"\r
+the old gentleman had left written directions about everything and\r
+meant to have a funeral "beyond his betters." This was true; for old\r
+Featherstone had not been a Harpagon whose passions had all been\r
+devoured by the ever-lean and ever-hungry passion of saving, and who\r
+would drive a bargain with his undertaker beforehand. He loved money,\r
+but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, and\r
+perhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel his\r
+power more or less uncomfortably. If any one will here contend that\r
+there must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will not\r
+presume to deny this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modest\r
+nature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed in early\r
+life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that\r
+it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old\r
+gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments\r
+based on his personal acquaintance. In any case, he had been bent on\r
+having a handsome funeral, and on having persons "bid" to it who would\r
+rather have stayed at home. He had even desired that female relatives\r
+should follow him to the grave, and poor sister Martha had taken a\r
+difficult journey for this purpose from the Chalky Flats. She and Jane\r
+would have been altogether cheered (in a tearful manner) by this sign\r
+that a brother who disliked seeing them while he was living had been\r
+prospectively fond of their presence when he should have become a\r
+testator, if the sign had not been made equivocal by being extended to\r
+Mrs. Vincy, whose expense in handsome crape seemed to imply the most\r
+presumptuous hopes, aggravated by a bloom of complexion which told\r
+pretty plainly that she was not a blood-relation, but of that generally\r
+objectionable class called wife's kin.\r
+\r
+We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are the\r
+brood of desire; and poor old Featherstone, who laughed much at the way\r
+in which others cajoled themselves, did not escape the fellowship of\r
+illusion. In writing the programme for his burial he certainly did not\r
+make clear to himself that his pleasure in the little drama of which it\r
+formed a part was confined to anticipation. In chuckling over the\r
+vexations he could inflict by the rigid clutch of his dead hand, he\r
+inevitably mingled his consciousness with that livid stagnant presence,\r
+and so far as he was preoccupied with a future life, it was with one of\r
+gratification inside his coffin. Thus old Featherstone was\r
+imaginative, after his fashion.\r
+\r
+However, the three mourning-coaches were filled according to the\r
+written orders of the deceased. There were pall-bearers on horseback,\r
+with the richest scarfs and hatbands, and even the under-bearers had\r
+trappings of woe which were of a good well-priced quality. The black\r
+procession, when dismounted, looked the larger for the smallness of the\r
+churchyard; the heavy human faces and the black draperies shivering in\r
+the wind seemed to tell of a world strangely incongruous with the\r
+lightly dropping blossoms and the gleams of sunshine on the daisies.\r
+The clergyman who met the procession was Mr. Cadwallader--also\r
+according to the request of Peter Featherstone, prompted as usual by\r
+peculiar reasons. Having a contempt for curates, whom he always called\r
+understrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.\r
+Mr. Casaubon was out of the question, not merely because he declined\r
+duty of this sort, but because Featherstone had an especial dislike to\r
+him as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the land in the\r
+shape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning sermons, which the old\r
+man, being in his pew and not at all sleepy, had been obliged to sit\r
+through with an inward snarl. He had an objection to a parson stuck up\r
+above his head preaching to him. But his relations with Mr.\r
+Cadwallader had been of a different kind: the trout-stream which ran\r
+through Mr. Casaubon's land took its course through Featherstone's\r
+also, so that Mr. Cadwallader was a parson who had had to ask a favor\r
+instead of preaching. Moreover, he was one of the high gentry living\r
+four miles away from Lowick, and was thus exalted to an equal sky with\r
+the sheriff of the county and other dignities vaguely regarded as\r
+necessary to the system of things. There would be a satisfaction in\r
+being buried by Mr. Cadwallader, whose very name offered a fine\r
+opportunity for pronouncing wrongly if you liked.\r
+\r
+This distinction conferred on the Rector of Tipton and Freshitt was the\r
+reason why Mrs. Cadwallader made one of the group that watched old\r
+Featherstone's funeral from an upper window of the manor. She was not\r
+fond of visiting that house, but she liked, as she said, to see\r
+collections of strange animals such as there would be at this funeral;\r
+and she had persuaded Sir James and the young Lady Chettam to drive the\r
+Rector and herself to Lowick in order that the visit might be\r
+altogether pleasant.\r
+\r
+"I will go anywhere with you, Mrs. Cadwallader," Celia had said; "but I\r
+don't like funerals."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you must\r
+accommodate your tastes: I did that very early. When I married\r
+Humphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking the\r
+end very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning,\r
+because I couldn't have the end without them."\r
+\r
+"No, to be sure not," said the Dowager Lady Chettam, with stately\r
+emphasis.\r
+\r
+The upper window from which the funeral could be well seen was in the\r
+room occupied by Mr. Casaubon when he had been forbidden to work; but\r
+he had resumed nearly his habitual style of life now in spite of\r
+warnings and prescriptions, and after politely welcoming Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader had slipped again into the library to chew a cud of erudite\r
+mistake about Cush and Mizraim.\r
+\r
+But for her visitors Dorothea too might have been shut up in the\r
+library, and would not have witnessed this scene of old Featherstone's\r
+funeral, which, aloof as it seemed to be from the tenor of her life,\r
+always afterwards came back to her at the touch of certain sensitive\r
+points in memory, just as the vision of St. Peter's at Rome was inwoven\r
+with moods of despondency. Scenes which make vital changes in our\r
+neighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like a\r
+particular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated for\r
+us with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unity\r
+which lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.\r
+\r
+The dream-like association of something alien and ill-understood with\r
+the deepest secrets of her experience seemed to mirror that sense of\r
+loneliness which was due to the very ardor of Dorothea's nature. The\r
+country gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted apart\r
+on their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfect\r
+discrimination on the belts of thicker life below. And Dorothea was\r
+not at ease in the perspective and chilliness of that height.\r
+\r
+"I shall not look any more," said Celia, after the train had entered\r
+the church, placing herself a little behind her husband's elbow so that\r
+she could slyly touch his coat with her cheek. "I dare say Dodo likes\r
+it: she is fond of melancholy things and ugly people."\r
+\r
+"I am fond of knowing something about the people I live among," said\r
+Dorothea, who had been watching everything with the interest of a monk\r
+on his holiday tour. "It seems to me we know nothing of our neighbors,\r
+unless they are cottagers. One is constantly wondering what sort of\r
+lives other people lead, and how they take things. I am quite obliged\r
+to Mrs. Cadwallader for coming and calling me out of the library."\r
+\r
+"Quite right to feel obliged to me," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Your rich\r
+Lowick farmers are as curious as any buffaloes or bisons, and I dare\r
+say you don't half see them at church. They are quite different from\r
+your uncle's tenants or Sir James's--monsters--farmers without\r
+landlords--one can't tell how to class them."\r
+\r
+"Most of these followers are not Lowick people," said Sir James; "I\r
+suppose they are legatees from a distance, or from Middlemarch.\r
+Lovegood tells me the old fellow has left a good deal of money as well\r
+as land."\r
+\r
+"Think of that now! when so many younger sons can't dine at their own\r
+expense," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Ah," turning round at the sound of\r
+the opening door, "here is Mr. Brooke. I felt that we were incomplete\r
+before, and here is the explanation. You are come to see this odd\r
+funeral, of course?"\r
+\r
+"No, I came to look after Casaubon--to see how he goes on, you know.\r
+And to bring a little news--a little news, my dear," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+nodding at Dorothea as she came towards him. "I looked into the\r
+library, and I saw Casaubon over his books. I told him it wouldn't do:\r
+I said, 'This will never do, you know: think of your wife, Casaubon.'\r
+And he promised me to come up. I didn't tell him my news: I said, he\r
+must come up."\r
+\r
+"Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs. Cadwallader exclaimed.\r
+"Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed set! Mr. Lydgate as doctor, I\r
+suppose. But that is really a good looking woman, and the fair young\r
+man must be her son. Who are they, Sir James, do you know?"\r
+\r
+"I see Vincy, the Mayor of Middlemarch; they are probably his wife and\r
+son," said Sir James, looking interrogatively at Mr. Brooke, who nodded\r
+and said--\r
+\r
+"Yes, a very decent family--a very good fellow is Vincy; a credit to\r
+the manufacturing interest. You have seen him at my house, you know."\r
+\r
+"Ah, yes: one of your secret committee," said Mrs. Cadwallader,\r
+provokingly.\r
+\r
+"A coursing fellow, though," said Sir James, with a fox-hunter's\r
+disgust.\r
+\r
+"And one of those who suck the life out of the wretched handloom\r
+weavers in Tipton and Freshitt. That is how his family look so fair\r
+and sleek," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Those dark, purple-faced people\r
+are an excellent foil. Dear me, they are like a set of jugs! Do look\r
+at Humphrey: one might fancy him an ugly archangel towering above them\r
+in his white surplice."\r
+\r
+"It's a solemn thing, though, a funeral," said Mr. Brooke, "if you take\r
+it in that light, you know."\r
+\r
+"But I am not taking it in that light. I can't wear my solemnity too\r
+often, else it will go to rags. It was time the old man died, and none\r
+of these people are sorry."\r
+\r
+"How piteous!" said Dorothea. "This funeral seems to me the most\r
+dismal thing I ever saw. It is a blot on the morning I cannot bear to\r
+think that any one should die and leave no love behind."\r
+\r
+She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter and seat\r
+himself a little in the background. The difference his presence made\r
+to her was not always a happy one: she felt that he often inwardly\r
+objected to her speech.\r
+\r
+"Positively," exclaimed Mrs. Cadwallader, "there is a new face come out\r
+from behind that broad man queerer than any of them: a little round\r
+head with bulging eyes--a sort of frog-face--do look. He must be of\r
+another blood, I think."\r
+\r
+"Let me see!" said Celia, with awakened curiosity, standing behind Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader and leaning forward over her head. "Oh, what an odd face!"\r
+Then with a quick change to another sort of surprised expression, she\r
+added, "Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Ladislaw was come again!"\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt a shock of alarm: every one noticed her sudden paleness\r
+as she looked up immediately at her uncle, while Mr. Casaubon looked at\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"He came with me, you know; he is my guest--puts up with me at the\r
+Grange," said Mr. Brooke, in his easiest tone, nodding at Dorothea, as\r
+if the announcement were just what she might have expected. "And we\r
+have brought the picture at the top of the carriage. I knew you would\r
+be pleased with the surprise, Casaubon. There you are to the very\r
+life--as Aquinas, you know. Quite the right sort of thing. And you\r
+will hear young Ladislaw talk about it. He talks uncommonly\r
+well--points out this, that, and the other--knows art and everything of\r
+that kind--companionable, you know--is up with you in any track--what\r
+I've been wanting a long while."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon bowed with cold politeness, mastering his irritation, but\r
+only so far as to be silent. He remembered Will's letter quite as well\r
+as Dorothea did; he had noticed that it was not among the letters which\r
+had been reserved for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding that\r
+Dorothea had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had shrunk\r
+with proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the subject. He now\r
+inferred that she had asked her uncle to invite Will to the Grange; and\r
+she felt it impossible at that moment to enter into any explanation.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader's eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good deal\r
+of dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could have\r
+desired, and could not repress the question, "Who is Mr. Ladislaw?"\r
+\r
+"A young relative of Mr. Casaubon's," said Sir James, promptly. His\r
+good-nature often made him quick and clear-seeing in personal matters,\r
+and he had divined from Dorothea's glance at her husband that there was\r
+some alarm in her mind.\r
+\r
+"A very nice young fellow--Casaubon has done everything for him,"\r
+explained Mr. Brooke. "He repays your expense in him, Casaubon," he\r
+went on, nodding encouragingly. "I hope he will stay with me a long\r
+while and we shall make something of my documents. I have plenty of\r
+ideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the man to put them\r
+into shape--remembers what the right quotations are, omne tulit\r
+punctum, and that sort of thing--gives subjects a kind of turn. I\r
+invited him some time ago when you were ill, Casaubon; Dorothea said\r
+you couldn't have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked me to\r
+write."\r
+\r
+Poor Dorothea felt that every word of her uncle's was about as pleasant\r
+as a grain of sand in the eye to Mr. Casaubon. It would be altogether\r
+unfitting now to explain that she had not wished her uncle to invite\r
+Will Ladislaw. She could not in the least make clear to herself the\r
+reasons for her husband's dislike to his presence--a dislike painfully\r
+impressed on her by the scene in the library; but she felt the\r
+unbecomingness of saying anything that might convey a notion of it to\r
+others. Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented those\r
+mixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all of\r
+us, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But he\r
+wished to repress outward signs, and only Dorothea could discern the\r
+changes in her husband's face before he observed with more of dignified\r
+bending and sing-song than usual--\r
+\r
+"You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe you\r
+acknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards a relative of\r
+mine."\r
+\r
+The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being cleared.\r
+\r
+"Now you can see him, Mrs. Cadwallader," said Celia. "He is just like\r
+a miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt that hangs in Dorothea's\r
+boudoir--quite nice-looking."\r
+\r
+"A very pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, dryly. "What is your\r
+nephew to be, Mr. Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+"Pardon me, he is not my nephew. He is my cousin."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know," interposed Mr. Brooke, "he is trying his wings. He\r
+is just the sort of young fellow to rise. I should be glad to give him\r
+an opportunity. He would make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes,\r
+Milton, Swift--that sort of man."\r
+\r
+"I understand," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "One who can write speeches."\r
+\r
+"I'll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?" said Mr. Brooke. "He wouldn't\r
+come in till I had announced him, you know. And we'll go down and look\r
+at the picture. There you are to the life: a deep subtle sort of\r
+thinker with his fore-finger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure or\r
+somebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity.\r
+Everything is symbolical, you know--the higher style of art: I like\r
+that up to a certain point, but not too far--it's rather straining to\r
+keep up with, you know. But you are at home in that, Casaubon. And\r
+your painter's flesh is good--solidity, transparency, everything of\r
+that sort. I went into that a great deal at one time. However, I'll\r
+go and fetch Ladislaw."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXV.\r
+\r
+ "Non, je ne comprends pas de plus charmant plaisir\r
+ Que de voir d'heritiers une troupe affligee\r
+ Le maintien interdit, et la mine allongee,\r
+ Lire un long testament ou pales, etonnes\r
+ On leur laisse un bonsoir avec un pied de nez.\r
+ Pour voir au naturel leur tristesse profonde\r
+ Je reviendrais, je crois, expres de l'autre monde."\r
+ --REGNARD: Le Legataire Universel.\r
+\r
+\r
+When the animals entered the Ark in pairs, one may imagine that allied\r
+species made much private remark on each other, and were tempted to\r
+think that so many forms feeding on the same store of fodder were\r
+eminently superfluous, as tending to diminish the rations. (I fear the\r
+part played by the vultures on that occasion would be too painful for\r
+art to represent, those birds being disadvantageously naked about the\r
+gullet, and apparently without rites and ceremonies.)\r
+\r
+The same sort of temptation befell the Christian Carnivora who formed\r
+Peter Featherstone's funeral procession; most of them having their\r
+minds bent on a limited store which each would have liked to get the\r
+most of. The long-recognized blood-relations and connections by\r
+marriage made already a goodly number, which, multiplied by\r
+possibilities, presented a fine range for jealous conjecture and\r
+pathetic hopefulness. Jealousy of the Vincys had created a fellowship\r
+in hostility among all persons of the Featherstone blood, so that in\r
+the absence of any decided indication that one of themselves was to\r
+have more than the rest, the dread lest that long-legged Fred Vincy\r
+should have the land was necessarily dominant, though it left abundant\r
+feeling and leisure for vaguer jealousies, such as were entertained\r
+towards Mary Garth. Solomon found time to reflect that Jonah was\r
+undeserving, and Jonah to abuse Solomon as greedy; Jane, the elder\r
+sister, held that Martha's children ought not to expect so much as the\r
+young Waules; and Martha, more lax on the subject of primogeniture, was\r
+sorry to think that Jane was so "having." These nearest of kin were\r
+naturally impressed with the unreasonableness of expectations in\r
+cousins and second cousins, and used their arithmetic in reckoning the\r
+large sums that small legacies might mount to, if there were too many\r
+of them. Two cousins were present to hear the will, and a second\r
+cousin besides Mr. Trumbull. This second cousin was a Middlemarch\r
+mercer of polite manners and superfluous aspirates. The two cousins\r
+were elderly men from Brassing, one of them conscious of claims on the\r
+score of inconvenient expense sustained by him in presents of oysters\r
+and other eatables to his rich cousin Peter; the other entirely\r
+saturnine, leaning his hands and chin on a stick, and conscious of\r
+claims based on no narrow performance but on merit generally: both\r
+blameless citizens of Brassing, who wished that Jonah Featherstone did\r
+not live there. The wit of a family is usually best received among\r
+strangers.\r
+\r
+"Why, Trumbull himself is pretty sure of five hundred--_that_ you may\r
+depend,--I shouldn't wonder if my brother promised him," said Solomon,\r
+musing aloud with his sisters, the evening before the funeral.\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear!" said poor sister Martha, whose imagination of hundreds\r
+had been habitually narrowed to the amount of her unpaid rent.\r
+\r
+But in the morning all the ordinary currents of conjecture were\r
+disturbed by the presence of a strange mourner who had plashed among\r
+them as if from the moon. This was the stranger described by Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader as frog-faced: a man perhaps about two or three and thirty,\r
+whose prominent eyes, thin-lipped, downward-curved mouth, and hair\r
+sleekly brushed away from a forehead that sank suddenly above the ridge\r
+of the eyebrows, certainly gave his face a batrachian unchangeableness\r
+of expression. Here, clearly, was a new legatee; else why was he\r
+bidden as a mourner? Here were new possibilities, raising a new\r
+uncertainty, which almost checked remark in the mourning-coaches. We\r
+are all humiliated by the sudden discovery of a fact which has existed\r
+very comfortably and perhaps been staring at us in private while we\r
+have been making up our world entirely without it. No one had seen\r
+this questionable stranger before except Mary Garth, and she knew\r
+nothing more of him than that he had twice been to Stone Court when Mr.\r
+Featherstone was down-stairs, and had sat alone with him for several\r
+hours. She had found an opportunity of mentioning this to her father,\r
+and perhaps Caleb's were the only eyes, except the lawyer's, which\r
+examined the stranger with more of inquiry than of disgust or\r
+suspicion. Caleb Garth, having little expectation and less cupidity,\r
+was interested in the verification of his own guesses, and the calmness\r
+with which he half smilingly rubbed his chin and shot intelligent\r
+glances much as if he were valuing a tree, made a fine contrast with\r
+the alarm or scorn visible in other faces when the unknown mourner,\r
+whose name was understood to be Rigg, entered the wainscoted parlor and\r
+took his seat near the door to make part of the audience when the will\r
+should be read. Just then Mr. Solomon and Mr. Jonah were gone\r
+up-stairs with the lawyer to search for the will; and Mrs. Waule,\r
+seeing two vacant seats between herself and Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, had\r
+the spirit to move next to that great authority, who was handling his\r
+watch-seals and trimming his outlines with a determination not to show\r
+anything so compromising to a man of ability as wonder or surprise.\r
+\r
+"I suppose you know everything about what my poor brother's done, Mr.\r
+Trumbull," said Mrs. Waule, in the lowest of her woolly tones, while\r
+she turned her crape-shadowed bonnet towards Mr. Trumbull's ear.\r
+\r
+"My good lady, whatever was told me was told in confidence," said the\r
+auctioneer, putting his hand up to screen that secret.\r
+\r
+"Them who've made sure of their good-luck may be disappointed yet,"\r
+Mrs. Waule continued, finding some relief in this communication.\r
+\r
+"Hopes are often delusive," said Mr. Trumbull, still in confidence.\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Mrs. Waule, looking across at the Vincys, and then moving\r
+back to the side of her sister Martha.\r
+\r
+"It's wonderful how close poor Peter was," she said, in the same\r
+undertones. "We none of us know what he might have had on his mind. I\r
+only hope and trust he wasn't a worse liver than we think of, Martha."\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Cranch was bulky, and, breathing asthmatically, had the\r
+additional motive for making her remarks unexceptionable and giving\r
+them a general bearing, that even her whispers were loud and liable to\r
+sudden bursts like those of a deranged barrel-organ.\r
+\r
+"I never _was_ covetous, Jane," she replied; "but I have six children\r
+and have buried three, and I didn't marry into money. The eldest, that\r
+sits there, is but nineteen--so I leave you to guess. And stock always\r
+short, and land most awkward. But if ever I've begged and prayed; it's\r
+been to God above; though where there's one brother a bachelor and the\r
+other childless after twice marrying--anybody might think!"\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, Mr. Vincy had glanced at the passive face of Mr. Rigg, and\r
+had taken out his snuff-box and tapped it, but had put it again\r
+unopened as an indulgence which, however clarifying to the judgment,\r
+was unsuited to the occasion. "I shouldn't wonder if Featherstone had\r
+better feelings than any of us gave him credit for," he observed, in\r
+the ear of his wife. "This funeral shows a thought about everybody: it\r
+looks well when a man wants to be followed by his friends, and if they\r
+are humble, not to be ashamed of them. I should be all the better\r
+pleased if he'd left lots of small legacies. They may be uncommonly\r
+useful to fellows in a small way."\r
+\r
+"Everything is as handsome as could be, crape and silk and everything,"\r
+said Mrs. Vincy, contentedly.\r
+\r
+But I am sorry to say that Fred was under some difficulty in repressing\r
+a laugh, which would have been more unsuitable than his father's\r
+snuff-box. Fred had overheard Mr. Jonah suggesting something about a\r
+"love-child," and with this thought in his mind, the stranger's face,\r
+which happened to be opposite him, affected him too ludicrously. Mary\r
+Garth, discerning his distress in the twitchings of his mouth, and his\r
+recourse to a cough, came cleverly to his rescue by asking him to\r
+change seats with her, so that he got into a shadowy corner. Fred was\r
+feeling as good-naturedly as possible towards everybody, including\r
+Rigg; and having some relenting towards all these people who were less\r
+lucky than he was aware of being himself, he would not for the world\r
+have behaved amiss; still, it was particularly easy to laugh.\r
+\r
+But the entrance of the lawyer and the two brothers drew every one's\r
+attention. The lawyer was Mr. Standish, and he had come to Stone Court\r
+this morning believing that he knew thoroughly well who would be\r
+pleased and who disappointed before the day was over. The will he\r
+expected to read was the last of three which he had drawn up for Mr.\r
+Featherstone. Mr. Standish was not a man who varied his manners: he\r
+behaved with the same deep-voiced, off-hand civility to everybody, as\r
+if he saw no difference in them, and talked chiefly of the hay-crop,\r
+which would be "very fine, by God!" of the last bulletins concerning\r
+the King, and of the Duke of Clarence, who was a sailor every inch of\r
+him, and just the man to rule over an island like Britain.\r
+\r
+Old Featherstone had often reflected as he sat looking at the fire that\r
+Standish would be surprised some day: it is true that if he had done as\r
+he liked at the last, and burnt the will drawn up by another lawyer, he\r
+would not have secured that minor end; still he had had his pleasure in\r
+ruminating on it. And certainly Mr. Standish was surprised, but not at\r
+all sorry; on the contrary, he rather enjoyed the zest of a little\r
+curiosity in his own mind, which the discovery of a second will added\r
+to the prospective amazement on the part of the Featherstone family.\r
+\r
+As to the sentiments of Solomon and Jonah, they were held in utter\r
+suspense: it seemed to them that the old will would have a certain\r
+validity, and that there might be such an interlacement of poor Peter's\r
+former and latter intentions as to create endless "lawing" before\r
+anybody came by their own--an inconvenience which would have at least\r
+the advantage of going all round. Hence the brothers showed a\r
+thoroughly neutral gravity as they re-entered with Mr. Standish; but\r
+Solomon took out his white handkerchief again with a sense that in any\r
+case there would be affecting passages, and crying at funerals, however\r
+dry, was customarily served up in lawn.\r
+\r
+Perhaps the person who felt the most throbbing excitement at this\r
+moment was Mary Garth, in the consciousness that it was she who had\r
+virtually determined the production of this second will, which might\r
+have momentous effects on the lot of some persons present. No soul\r
+except herself knew what had passed on that final night.\r
+\r
+"The will I hold in my hand," said Mr. Standish, who, seated at the\r
+table in the middle of the room, took his time about everything,\r
+including the coughs with which he showed a disposition to clear his\r
+voice, "was drawn up by myself and executed by our deceased friend on\r
+the 9th of August, 1825. But I find that there is a subsequent\r
+instrument hitherto unknown to me, bearing date the 20th of July, 1826,\r
+hardly a year later than the previous one. And there is farther, I\r
+see"--Mr. Standish was cautiously travelling over the document with his\r
+spectacles--"a codicil to this latter will, bearing date March 1, 1828."\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear!" said sister Martha, not meaning to be audible, but driven\r
+to some articulation under this pressure of dates.\r
+\r
+"I shall begin by reading the earlier will," continued Mr. Standish,\r
+"since such, as appears by his not having destroyed the document, was\r
+the intention of deceased."\r
+\r
+The preamble was felt to be rather long, and several besides Solomon\r
+shook their heads pathetically, looking on the ground: all eyes avoided\r
+meeting other eyes, and were chiefly fixed either on the spots in the\r
+table-cloth or on Mr. Standish's bald head; excepting Mary Garth's.\r
+When all the rest were trying to look nowhere in particular, it was\r
+safe for her to look at them. And at the sound of the first "give and\r
+bequeath" she could see all complexions changing subtly, as if some\r
+faint vibration were passing through them, save that of Mr. Rigg. He\r
+sat in unaltered calm, and, in fact, the company, preoccupied with more\r
+important problems, and with the complication of listening to bequests\r
+which might or might not be revoked, had ceased to think of him. Fred\r
+blushed, and Mr. Vincy found it impossible to do without his snuff-box\r
+in his hand, though he kept it closed.\r
+\r
+The small bequests came first, and even the recollection that there was\r
+another will and that poor Peter might have thought better of it, could\r
+not quell the rising disgust and indignation. One likes to be done\r
+well by in every tense, past, present, and future. And here was Peter\r
+capable five years ago of leaving only two hundred apiece to his own\r
+brothers and sisters, and only a hundred apiece to his own nephews and\r
+nieces: the Garths were not mentioned, but Mrs. Vincy and Rosamond were\r
+each to have a hundred. Mr. Trumbull was to have the gold-headed cane\r
+and fifty pounds; the other second cousins and the cousins present were\r
+each to have the like handsome sum, which, as the saturnine cousin\r
+observed, was a sort of legacy that left a man nowhere; and there was\r
+much more of such offensive dribbling in favor of persons not\r
+present--problematical, and, it was to be feared, low connections.\r
+Altogether, reckoning hastily, here were about three thousand disposed of.\r
+Where then had Peter meant the rest of the money to go--and where the\r
+land? and what was revoked and what not revoked--and was the revocation\r
+for better or for worse? All emotion must be conditional, and might turn\r
+out to be the wrong thing. The men were strong enough to bear up and\r
+keep quiet under this confused suspense; some letting their lower lip\r
+fall, others pursing it up, according to the habit of their muscles.\r
+But Jane and Martha sank under the rush of questions, and began to cry;\r
+poor Mrs. Cranch being half moved with the consolation of getting any\r
+hundreds at all without working for them, and half aware that her share\r
+was scanty; whereas Mrs. Waule's mind was entirely flooded with the\r
+sense of being an own sister and getting little, while somebody else\r
+was to have much. The general expectation now was that the "much"\r
+would fall to Fred Vincy, but the Vincys themselves were surprised when\r
+ten thousand pounds in specified investments were declared to be\r
+bequeathed to him:--was the land coming too? Fred bit his lips: it was\r
+difficult to help smiling, and Mrs. Vincy felt herself the happiest of\r
+women--possible revocation shrinking out of sight in this dazzling\r
+vision.\r
+\r
+There was still a residue of personal property as well as the land, but\r
+the whole was left to one person, and that person was--O\r
+possibilities! O expectations founded on the favor of "close" old\r
+gentlemen! O endless vocatives that would still leave expression\r
+slipping helpless from the measurement of mortal folly!--that\r
+residuary legatee was Joshua Rigg, who was also sole executor, and who\r
+was to take thenceforth the name of Featherstone.\r
+\r
+There was a rustling which seemed like a shudder running round the\r
+room. Every one stared afresh at Mr. Rigg, who apparently experienced\r
+no surprise.\r
+\r
+"A most singular testamentary disposition!" exclaimed Mr. Trumbull,\r
+preferring for once that he should be considered ignorant in the past.\r
+"But there is a second will--there is a further document. We have not\r
+yet heard the final wishes of the deceased."\r
+\r
+Mary Garth was feeling that what they had yet to hear were not the\r
+final wishes. The second will revoked everything except the legacies\r
+to the low persons before mentioned (some alterations in these being\r
+the occasion of the codicil), and the bequest of all the land lying in\r
+Lowick parish with all the stock and household furniture, to Joshua\r
+Rigg. The residue of the property was to be devoted to the erection\r
+and endowment of almshouses for old men, to be called Featherstone's\r
+Alms-Houses, and to be built on a piece of land near Middlemarch\r
+already bought for the purpose by the testator, he wishing--so the\r
+document declared--to please God Almighty. Nobody present had a\r
+farthing; but Mr. Trumbull had the gold-headed cane. It took some time\r
+for the company to recover the power of expression. Mary dared not\r
+look at Fred.\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy was the first to speak--after using his snuff-box\r
+energetically--and he spoke with loud indignation. "The most\r
+unaccountable will I ever heard! I should say he was not in his right\r
+mind when he made it. I should say this last will was void," added Mr.\r
+Vincy, feeling that this expression put the thing in the true light.\r
+"Eh Standish?"\r
+\r
+"Our deceased friend always knew what he was about, I think," said Mr.\r
+Standish. "Everything is quite regular. Here is a letter from\r
+Clemmens of Brassing tied with the will. He drew it up. A very\r
+respectable solicitor."\r
+\r
+"I never noticed any alienation of mind--any aberration of intellect in\r
+the late Mr. Featherstone," said Borthrop Trumbull, "but I call this\r
+will eccentric. I was always willingly of service to the old soul; and\r
+he intimated pretty plainly a sense of obligation which would show\r
+itself in his will. The gold-headed cane is farcical considered as an\r
+acknowledgment to me; but happily I am above mercenary considerations."\r
+\r
+"There's nothing very surprising in the matter that I can see," said\r
+Caleb Garth. "Anybody might have had more reason for wondering if the\r
+will had been what you might expect from an open-minded straightforward\r
+man. For my part, I wish there was no such thing as a will."\r
+\r
+"That's a strange sentiment to come from a Christian man, by God!" said\r
+the lawyer. "I should like to know how you will back that up, Garth!"\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Caleb, leaning forward, adjusting his finger-tips with\r
+nicety and looking meditatively on the ground. It always seemed to him\r
+that words were the hardest part of "business."\r
+\r
+But here Mr. Jonah Featherstone made himself heard. "Well, he always\r
+was a fine hypocrite, was my brother Peter. But this will cuts out\r
+everything. If I'd known, a wagon and six horses shouldn't have drawn\r
+me from Brassing. I'll put a white hat and drab coat on to-morrow."\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear," wept Mrs. Cranch, "and we've been at the expense of\r
+travelling, and that poor lad sitting idle here so long! It's the\r
+first time I ever heard my brother Peter was so wishful to please God\r
+Almighty; but if I was to be struck helpless I must say it's hard--I\r
+can think no other."\r
+\r
+"It'll do him no good where he's gone, that's my belief," said Solomon,\r
+with a bitterness which was remarkably genuine, though his tone could\r
+not help being sly. "Peter was a bad liver, and almshouses won't cover\r
+it, when he's had the impudence to show it at the last."\r
+\r
+"And all the while had got his own lawful family--brothers and sisters\r
+and nephews and nieces--and has sat in church with 'em whenever he\r
+thought well to come," said Mrs. Waule. "And might have left his\r
+property so respectable, to them that's never been used to extravagance\r
+or unsteadiness in no manner of way--and not so poor but what they\r
+could have saved every penny and made more of it. And me--the trouble\r
+I've been at, times and times, to come here and be sisterly--and him\r
+with things on his mind all the while that might make anybody's flesh\r
+creep. But if the Almighty's allowed it, he means to punish him for\r
+it. Brother Solomon, I shall be going, if you'll drive me."\r
+\r
+"I've no desire to put my foot on the premises again," said Solomon.\r
+"I've got land of my own and property of my own to will away."\r
+\r
+"It's a poor tale how luck goes in the world," said Jonah. "It never\r
+answers to have a bit of spirit in you. You'd better be a dog in the\r
+manger. But those above ground might learn a lesson. One fool's will\r
+is enough in a family."\r
+\r
+"There's more ways than one of being a fool," said Solomon. "I shan't\r
+leave my money to be poured down the sink, and I shan't leave it to\r
+foundlings from Africay. I like Featherstones that were brewed such,\r
+and not turned Featherstones with sticking the name on 'em."\r
+\r
+Solomon addressed these remarks in a loud aside to Mrs. Waule as he\r
+rose to accompany her. Brother Jonah felt himself capable of much more\r
+stinging wit than this, but he reflected that there was no use in\r
+offending the new proprietor of Stone Court, until you were certain\r
+that he was quite without intentions of hospitality towards witty men\r
+whose name he was about to bear.\r
+\r
+Mr. Joshua Rigg, in fact, appeared to trouble himself little about any\r
+innuendoes, but showed a notable change of manner, walking coolly up to\r
+Mr. Standish and putting business questions with much coolness. He had\r
+a high chirping voice and a vile accent. Fred, whom he no longer moved\r
+to laughter, thought him the lowest monster he had ever seen. But Fred\r
+was feeling rather sick. The Middlemarch mercer waited for an\r
+opportunity of engaging Mr. Rigg in conversation: there was no knowing\r
+how many pairs of legs the new proprietor might require hose for, and\r
+profits were more to be relied on than legacies. Also, the mercer, as\r
+a second cousin, was dispassionate enough to feel curiosity.\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy, after his one outburst, had remained proudly silent, though\r
+too much preoccupied with unpleasant feelings to think of moving, till\r
+he observed that his wife had gone to Fred's side and was crying\r
+silently while she held her darling's hand. He rose immediately, and\r
+turning his back on the company while he said to her in an\r
+undertone,--"Don't give way, Lucy; don't make a fool of yourself, my\r
+dear, before these people," he added in his usual loud voice--"Go and\r
+order the phaeton, Fred; I have no time to waste."\r
+\r
+Mary Garth had before this been getting ready to go home with her\r
+father. She met Fred in the hall, and now for the first time had the\r
+courage to look at him. He had that withered sort of paleness which\r
+will sometimes come on young faces, and his hand was very cold when she\r
+shook it. Mary too was agitated; she was conscious that fatally,\r
+without will of her own, she had perhaps made a great difference to\r
+Fred's lot.\r
+\r
+"Good-by," she said, with affectionate sadness. "Be brave, Fred. I do\r
+believe you are better without the money. What was the good of it to\r
+Mr. Featherstone?"\r
+\r
+"That's all very fine," said Fred, pettishly. "What is a fellow to do?\r
+I must go into the Church now." (He knew that this would vex Mary:\r
+very well; then she must tell him what else he could do.) "And I\r
+thought I should be able to pay your father at once and make everything\r
+right. And you have not even a hundred pounds left you. What shall\r
+you do now, Mary?"\r
+\r
+"Take another situation, of course, as soon as I can get one. My\r
+father has enough to do to keep the rest, without me. Good-by."\r
+\r
+In a very short time Stone Court was cleared of well-brewed\r
+Featherstones and other long-accustomed visitors. Another stranger had\r
+been brought to settle in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, but in the\r
+case of Mr. Rigg Featherstone there was more discontent with immediate\r
+visible consequences than speculation as to the effect which his\r
+presence might have in the future. No soul was prophetic enough to\r
+have any foreboding as to what might appear on the trial of Joshua Rigg.\r
+\r
+And here I am naturally led to reflect on the means of elevating a low\r
+subject. Historical parallels are remarkably efficient in this way.\r
+The chief objection to them is, that the diligent narrator may lack\r
+space, or (what is often the same thing) may not be able to think of\r
+them with any degree of particularity, though he may have a\r
+philosophical confidence that if known they would be illustrative. It\r
+seems an easier and shorter way to dignity, to observe that--since\r
+there never was a true story which could not be told in parables, where\r
+you might put a monkey for a margrave, and vice versa--whatever has\r
+been or is to be narrated by me about low people, may be ennobled by\r
+being considered a parable; so that if any bad habits and ugly\r
+consequences are brought into view, the reader may have the relief of\r
+regarding them as not more than figuratively ungenteel, and may feel\r
+himself virtually in company with persons of some style. Thus while I\r
+tell the truth about loobies, my reader's imagination need not be\r
+entirely excluded from an occupation with lords; and the petty sums\r
+which any bankrupt of high standing would be sorry to retire upon, may\r
+be lifted to the level of high commercial transactions by the\r
+inexpensive addition of proportional ciphers.\r
+\r
+As to any provincial history in which the agents are all of high moral\r
+rank, that must be of a date long posterior to the first Reform Bill,\r
+and Peter Featherstone, you perceive, was dead and buried some months\r
+before Lord Grey came into office.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVI.\r
+\r
+ "'Tis strange to see the humors of these men,\r
+ These great aspiring spirits, that should be wise:\r
+ . . . . . . . .\r
+ For being the nature of great spirits to love\r
+ To be where they may be most eminent;\r
+ They, rating of themselves so farre above\r
+ Us in conceit, with whom they do frequent,\r
+ Imagine how we wonder and esteeme\r
+ All that they do or say; which makes them strive\r
+ To make our admiration more extreme,\r
+ Which they suppose they cannot, 'less they give\r
+ Notice of their extreme and highest thoughts.\r
+ --DANIEL: Tragedy of Philotas.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy went home from the reading of the will with his point of view\r
+considerably changed in relation to many subjects. He was an\r
+open-minded man, but given to indirect modes of expressing himself:\r
+when he was disappointed in a market for his silk braids, he swore at\r
+the groom; when his brother-in-law Bulstrode had vexed him, he made\r
+cutting remarks on Methodism; and it was now apparent that he regarded\r
+Fred's idleness with a sudden increase of severity, by his throwing an\r
+embroidered cap out of the smoking-room on to the hall-floor.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir," he observed, when that young gentleman was moving off to\r
+bed, "I hope you've made up your mind now to go up next term and pass\r
+your examination. I've taken my resolution, so I advise you to lose no\r
+time in taking yours."\r
+\r
+Fred made no answer: he was too utterly depressed. Twenty-four hours\r
+ago he had thought that instead of needing to know what he should do,\r
+he should by this time know that he needed to do nothing: that he\r
+should hunt in pink, have a first-rate hunter, ride to cover on a fine\r
+hack, and be generally respected for doing so; moreover, that he should\r
+be able at once to pay Mr. Garth, and that Mary could no longer have\r
+any reason for not marrying him. And all this was to have come without\r
+study or other inconvenience, purely by the favor of providence in the\r
+shape of an old gentleman's caprice. But now, at the end of the\r
+twenty-four hours, all those firm expectations were upset. It was\r
+"rather hard lines" that while he was smarting under this\r
+disappointment he should be treated as if he could have helped it. But\r
+he went away silently and his mother pleaded for him.\r
+\r
+"Don't be hard on the poor boy, Vincy. He'll turn out well yet, though\r
+that wicked man has deceived him. I feel as sure as I sit here, Fred\r
+will turn out well--else why was he brought back from the brink of the\r
+grave? And I call it a robbery: it was like giving him the land, to\r
+promise it; and what is promising, if making everybody believe is not\r
+promising? And you see he did leave him ten thousand pounds, and then\r
+took it away again."\r
+\r
+"Took it away again!" said Mr. Vincy, pettishly. "I tell you the lad's\r
+an unlucky lad, Lucy. And you've always spoiled him."\r
+\r
+"Well, Vincy, he was my first, and you made a fine fuss with him when\r
+he came. You were as proud as proud," said Mrs. Vincy, easily\r
+recovering her cheerful smile.\r
+\r
+"Who knows what babies will turn to? I was fool enough, I dare say,"\r
+said the husband--more mildly, however.\r
+\r
+"But who has handsomer, better children than ours? Fred is far beyond\r
+other people's sons: you may hear it in his speech, that he has kept\r
+college company. And Rosamond--where is there a girl like her? She\r
+might stand beside any lady in the land, and only look the better for\r
+it. You see--Mr. Lydgate has kept the highest company and been\r
+everywhere, and he fell in love with her at once. Not but what I could\r
+have wished Rosamond had not engaged herself. She might have met\r
+somebody on a visit who would have been a far better match; I mean at\r
+her schoolfellow Miss Willoughby's. There are relations in that family\r
+quite as high as Mr. Lydgate's."\r
+\r
+"Damn relations!" said Mr. Vincy; "I've had enough of them. I don't\r
+want a son-in-law who has got nothing but his relations to recommend\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy, "you seemed as pleased as could be\r
+about it. It's true, I wasn't at home; but Rosamond told me you hadn't\r
+a word to say against the engagement. And she has begun to buy in the\r
+best linen and cambric for her underclothing."\r
+\r
+"Not by my will," said Mr. Vincy. "I shall have enough to do this\r
+year, with an idle scamp of a son, without paying for wedding-clothes.\r
+The times are as tight as can be; everybody is being ruined; and I\r
+don't believe Lydgate has got a farthing. I shan't give my consent to\r
+their marrying. Let 'em wait, as their elders have done before 'em."\r
+\r
+"Rosamond will take it hard, Vincy, and you know you never could bear\r
+to cross her."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I could. The sooner the engagement's off, the better. I don't\r
+believe he'll ever make an income, the way he goes on. He makes\r
+enemies; that's all I hear of his making."\r
+\r
+"But he stands very high with Mr. Bulstrode, my dear. The marriage\r
+would please _him_, I should think."\r
+\r
+"Please the deuce!" said Mr. Vincy. "Bulstrode won't pay for their\r
+keep. And if Lydgate thinks I'm going to give money for them to set up\r
+housekeeping, he's mistaken, that's all. I expect I shall have to put\r
+down my horses soon. You'd better tell Rosy what I say."\r
+\r
+This was a not infrequent procedure with Mr. Vincy--to be rash in\r
+jovial assent, and on becoming subsequently conscious that he had been\r
+rash, to employ others in making the offensive retractation. However,\r
+Mrs. Vincy, who never willingly opposed her husband, lost no time the\r
+next morning in letting Rosamond know what he had said. Rosamond,\r
+examining some muslin-work, listened in silence, and at the end gave a\r
+certain turn of her graceful neck, of which only long experience could\r
+teach you that it meant perfect obstinacy.\r
+\r
+"What do you say, my dear?" said her mother, with affectionate\r
+deference.\r
+\r
+"Papa does not mean anything of the kind," said Rosamond, quite calmly.\r
+"He has always said that he wished me to marry the man I loved. And I\r
+shall marry Mr. Lydgate. It is seven weeks now since papa gave his\r
+consent. And I hope we shall have Mrs. Bretton's house."\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, I shall leave you to manage your papa. You always do\r
+manage everybody. But if we ever do go and get damask, Sadler's is the\r
+place--far better than Hopkins's. Mrs. Bretton's is very large, though:\r
+I should love you to have such a house; but it will take a great deal\r
+of furniture--carpeting and everything, besides plate and glass. And\r
+you hear, your papa says he will give no money. Do you think Mr.\r
+Lydgate expects it?"\r
+\r
+"You cannot imagine that I should ask him, mamma. Of course he\r
+understands his own affairs."\r
+\r
+"But he may have been looking for money, my dear, and we all thought of\r
+your having a pretty legacy as well as Fred;--and now everything is so\r
+dreadful--there's no pleasure in thinking of anything, with that poor\r
+boy disappointed as he is."\r
+\r
+"That has nothing to do with my marriage, mamma. Fred must leave off\r
+being idle. I am going up-stairs to take this work to Miss Morgan: she\r
+does the open hemming very well. Mary Garth might do some work for me\r
+now, I should think. Her sewing is exquisite; it is the nicest thing I\r
+know about Mary. I should so like to have all my cambric frilling\r
+double-hemmed. And it takes a long time."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Vincy's belief that Rosamond could manage her papa was well\r
+founded. Apart from his dinners and his coursing, Mr. Vincy,\r
+blustering as he was, had as little of his own way as if he had been a\r
+prime minister: the force of circumstances was easily too much for him,\r
+as it is for most pleasure-loving florid men; and the circumstance\r
+called Rosamond was particularly forcible by means of that mild\r
+persistence which, as we know, enables a white soft living substance to\r
+make its way in spite of opposing rock. Papa was not a rock: he had no\r
+other fixity than that fixity of alternating impulses sometimes called\r
+habit, and this was altogether unfavorable to his taking the only\r
+decisive line of conduct in relation to his daughter's\r
+engagement--namely, to inquire thoroughly into Lydgate's circumstances,\r
+declare his own inability to furnish money, and forbid alike either a\r
+speedy marriage or an engagement which must be too lengthy. That seems\r
+very simple and easy in the statement; but a disagreeable resolve\r
+formed in the chill hours of the morning had as many conditions against\r
+it as the early frost, and rarely persisted under the warming\r
+influences of the day. The indirect though emphatic expression of\r
+opinion to which Mr. Vincy was prone suffered much restraint in this\r
+case: Lydgate was a proud man towards whom innuendoes were obviously\r
+unsafe, and throwing his hat on the floor was out of the question. Mr.\r
+Vincy was a little in awe of him, a little vain that he wanted to marry\r
+Rosamond, a little indisposed to raise a question of money in which his\r
+own position was not advantageous, a little afraid of being worsted in\r
+dialogue with a man better educated and more highly bred than himself,\r
+and a little afraid of doing what his daughter would not like. The\r
+part Mr. Vincy preferred playing was that of the generous host whom\r
+nobody criticises. In the earlier half of the day there was business\r
+to hinder any formal communication of an adverse resolve; in the later\r
+there was dinner, wine, whist, and general satisfaction. And in the\r
+mean while the hours were each leaving their little deposit and\r
+gradually forming the final reason for inaction, namely, that action\r
+was too late. The accepted lover spent most of his evenings in Lowick\r
+Gate, and a love-making not at all dependent on money-advances from\r
+fathers-in-law, or prospective income from a profession, went on\r
+flourishingly under Mr. Vincy's own eyes. Young love-making--that\r
+gossamer web! Even the points it clings to--the things whence its\r
+subtle interlacings are swung--are scarcely perceptible: momentary\r
+touches of fingertips, meetings of rays from blue and dark orbs,\r
+unfinished phrases, lightest changes of cheek and lip, faintest\r
+tremors. The web itself is made of spontaneous beliefs and indefinable\r
+joys, yearnings of one life towards another, visions of completeness,\r
+indefinite trust. And Lydgate fell to spinning that web from his\r
+inward self with wonderful rapidity, in spite of experience supposed to\r
+be finished off with the drama of Laure--in spite too of medicine and\r
+biology; for the inspection of macerated muscle or of eyes presented in\r
+a dish (like Santa Lucia's), and other incidents of scientific inquiry,\r
+are observed to be less incompatible with poetic love than a native\r
+dulness or a lively addiction to the lowest prose. As for Rosamond,\r
+she was in the water-lily's expanding wonderment at its own fuller\r
+life, and she too was spinning industriously at the mutual web. All\r
+this went on in the corner of the drawing-room where the piano stood,\r
+and subtle as it was, the light made it a sort of rainbow visible to\r
+many observers besides Mr. Farebrother. The certainty that Miss Vincy\r
+and Mr. Lydgate were engaged became general in Middlemarch without the\r
+aid of formal announcement.\r
+\r
+Aunt Bulstrode was again stirred to anxiety; but this time she\r
+addressed herself to her brother, going to the warehouse expressly to\r
+avoid Mrs. Vincy's volatility. His replies were not satisfactory.\r
+\r
+"Walter, you never mean to tell me that you have allowed all this to go\r
+on without inquiry into Mr. Lydgate's prospects?" said Mrs. Bulstrode,\r
+opening her eyes with wider gravity at her brother, who was in his\r
+peevish warehouse humor. "Think of this girl brought up in luxury--in\r
+too worldly a way, I am sorry to say--what will she do on a small\r
+income?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, confound it, Harriet! What can I do when men come into the town\r
+without any asking of mine? Did you shut your house up against\r
+Lydgate? Bulstrode has pushed him forward more than anybody. I never\r
+made any fuss about the young fellow. You should go and talk to your\r
+husband about it, not me."\r
+\r
+"Well, really, Walter, how can Mr. Bulstrode be to blame? I am sure he\r
+did not wish for the engagement."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if Bulstrode had not taken him by the hand, I should never have\r
+invited him."\r
+\r
+"But you called him in to attend on Fred, and I am sure that was a\r
+mercy," said Mrs. Bulstrode, losing her clew in the intricacies of the\r
+subject.\r
+\r
+"I don't know about mercy," said Mr. Vincy, testily. "I know I am\r
+worried more than I like with my family. I was a good brother to you,\r
+Harriet, before you married Bulstrode, and I must say he doesn't always\r
+show that friendly spirit towards your family that might have been\r
+expected of him." Mr. Vincy was very little like a Jesuit, but no\r
+accomplished Jesuit could have turned a question more adroitly.\r
+Harriet had to defend her husband instead of blaming her brother, and\r
+the conversation ended at a point as far from the beginning as some\r
+recent sparring between the brothers-in-law at a vestry meeting.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode did not repeat her brother's complaints to her husband,\r
+but in the evening she spoke to him of Lydgate and Rosamond. He did\r
+not share her warm interest, however; and only spoke with resignation\r
+of the risks attendant on the beginning of medical practice and the\r
+desirability of prudence.\r
+\r
+"I am sure we are bound to pray for that thoughtless girl--brought up\r
+as she has been," said Mrs. Bulstrode, wishing to rouse her husband's\r
+feelings.\r
+\r
+"Truly, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, assentingly. "Those who are not\r
+of this world can do little else to arrest the errors of the\r
+obstinately worldly. That is what we must accustom ourselves to\r
+recognize with regard to your brother's family. I could have wished\r
+that Mr. Lydgate had not entered into such a union; but my relations\r
+with him are limited to that use of his gifts for God's purposes which\r
+is taught us by the divine government under each dispensation."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode said no more, attributing some dissatisfaction which she\r
+felt to her own want of spirituality. She believed that her husband\r
+was one of those men whose memoirs should be written when they died.\r
+\r
+As to Lydgate himself, having been accepted, he was prepared to accept\r
+all the consequences which he believed himself to foresee with perfect\r
+clearness. Of course he must be married in a year--perhaps even in\r
+half a year. This was not what he had intended; but other schemes\r
+would not be hindered: they would simply adjust themselves anew.\r
+Marriage, of course, must be prepared for in the usual way. A house\r
+must be taken instead of the rooms he at present occupied; and Lydgate,\r
+having heard Rosamond speak with admiration of old Mrs. Bretton's house\r
+(situated in Lowick Gate), took notice when it fell vacant after the\r
+old lady's death, and immediately entered into treaty for it.\r
+\r
+He did this in an episodic way, very much as he gave orders to his\r
+tailor for every requisite of perfect dress, without any notion of\r
+being extravagant. On the contrary, he would have despised any\r
+ostentation of expense; his profession had familiarized him with all\r
+grades of poverty, and he cared much for those who suffered hardships.\r
+He would have behaved perfectly at a table where the sauce was served\r
+in a jug with the handle off, and he would have remembered nothing\r
+about a grand dinner except that a man was there who talked well. But\r
+it had never occurred to him that he should live in any other than what\r
+he would have called an ordinary way, with green glasses for hock, and\r
+excellent waiting at table. In warming himself at French social\r
+theories he had brought away no smell of scorching. We may handle even\r
+extreme opinions with impunity while our furniture, our dinner-giving,\r
+and preference for armorial bearings in our own case, link us\r
+indissolubly with the established order. And Lydgate's tendency was\r
+not towards extreme opinions: he would have liked no barefooted\r
+doctrines, being particular about his boots: he was no radical in\r
+relation to anything but medical reform and the prosecution of\r
+discovery. In the rest of practical life he walked by hereditary\r
+habit; half from that personal pride and unreflecting egoism which I\r
+have already called commonness, and half from that naivete which\r
+belonged to preoccupation with favorite ideas.\r
+\r
+Any inward debate Lydgate had as to the consequences of this engagement\r
+which had stolen upon him, turned on the paucity of time rather than of\r
+money. Certainly, being in love and being expected continually by some\r
+one who always turned out to be prettier than memory could represent\r
+her to be, did interfere with the diligent use of spare hours which\r
+might serve some "plodding fellow of a German" to make the great,\r
+imminent discovery. This was really an argument for not deferring the\r
+marriage too long, as he implied to Mr. Farebrother, one day that the\r
+Vicar came to his room with some pond-products which he wanted to\r
+examine under a better microscope than his own, and, finding Lydgate's\r
+tableful of apparatus and specimens in confusion, said sarcastically--\r
+\r
+"Eros has degenerated; he began by introducing order and harmony, and\r
+now he brings back chaos."\r
+\r
+"Yes, at some stages," said Lydgate, lifting his brows and smiling,\r
+while he began to arrange his microscope. "But a better order will\r
+begin after."\r
+\r
+"Soon?" said the Vicar.\r
+\r
+"I hope so, really. This unsettled state of affairs uses up the time,\r
+and when one has notions in science, every moment is an opportunity. I\r
+feel sure that marriage must be the best thing for a man who wants to\r
+work steadily. He has everything at home then--no teasing with\r
+personal speculations--he can get calmness and freedom."\r
+\r
+"You are an enviable dog," said the Vicar, "to have such a\r
+prospect--Rosamond, calmness and freedom, all to your share. Here am\r
+I with nothing but my pipe and pond-animalcules. Now, are you ready?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not mention to the Vicar another reason he had for wishing\r
+to shorten the period of courtship. It was rather irritating to him,\r
+even with the wine of love in his veins, to be obliged to mingle so\r
+often with the family party at the Vincys', and to enter so much into\r
+Middlemarch gossip, protracted good cheer, whist-playing, and general\r
+futility. He had to be deferential when Mr. Vincy decided questions\r
+with trenchant ignorance, especially as to those liquors which were the\r
+best inward pickle, preserving you from the effects of bad air. Mrs.\r
+Vincy's openness and simplicity were quite unstreaked with suspicion as\r
+to the subtle offence she might give to the taste of her intended\r
+son-in-law; and altogether Lydgate had to confess to himself that he\r
+was descending a little in relation to Rosamond's family. But that\r
+exquisite creature herself suffered in the same sort of way:--it was\r
+at least one delightful thought that in marrying her, he could give her\r
+a much-needed transplantation.\r
+\r
+"Dear!" he said to her one evening, in his gentlest tone, as he sat\r
+down by her and looked closely at her face--\r
+\r
+But I must first say that he had found her alone in the drawing-room,\r
+where the great old-fashioned window, almost as large as the side of\r
+the room, was opened to the summer scents of the garden at the back of\r
+the house. Her father and mother were gone to a party, and the rest\r
+were all out with the butterflies.\r
+\r
+"Dear! your eyelids are red."\r
+\r
+"Are they?" said Rosamond. "I wonder why." It was not in her nature\r
+to pour forth wishes or grievances. They only came forth gracefully on\r
+solicitation.\r
+\r
+"As if you could hide it from me!" said Lydgate, laying his hand\r
+tenderly on both of hers. "Don't I see a tiny drop on one of the\r
+lashes? Things trouble you, and you don't tell me. That is unloving."\r
+\r
+"Why should I tell you what you cannot alter? They are every-day\r
+things:--perhaps they have been a little worse lately."\r
+\r
+"Family annoyances. Don't fear speaking. I guess them."\r
+\r
+"Papa has been more irritable lately. Fred makes him angry, and this\r
+morning there was a fresh quarrel because Fred threatens to throw his\r
+whole education away, and do something quite beneath him. And\r
+besides--"\r
+\r
+Rosamond hesitated, and her cheeks were gathering a slight flush.\r
+Lydgate had never seen her in trouble since the morning of their\r
+engagement, and he had never felt so passionately towards her as at\r
+this moment. He kissed the hesitating lips gently, as if to encourage\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"I feel that papa is not quite pleased about our engagement," Rosamond\r
+continued, almost in a whisper; "and he said last night that he should\r
+certainly speak to you and say it must be given up."\r
+\r
+"Will you give it up?" said Lydgate, with quick energy--almost angrily.\r
+\r
+"I never give up anything that I choose to do," said Rosamond,\r
+recovering her calmness at the touching of this chord.\r
+\r
+"God bless you!" said Lydgate, kissing her again. This constancy of\r
+purpose in the right place was adorable. He went on:--\r
+\r
+"It is too late now for your father to say that our engagement must be\r
+given up. You are of age, and I claim you as mine. If anything is\r
+done to make you unhappy,--that is a reason for hastening our marriage."\r
+\r
+An unmistakable delight shone forth from the blue eyes that met his,\r
+and the radiance seemed to light up all his future with mild sunshine.\r
+Ideal happiness (of the kind known in the Arabian Nights, in which you\r
+are invited to step from the labor and discord of the street into a\r
+paradise where everything is given to you and nothing claimed) seemed\r
+to be an affair of a few weeks' waiting, more or less.\r
+\r
+"Why should we defer it?" he said, with ardent insistence. "I have\r
+taken the house now: everything else can soon be got ready--can it\r
+not? You will not mind about new clothes. Those can be bought\r
+afterwards."\r
+\r
+"What original notions you clever men have!" said Rosamond, dimpling\r
+with more thorough laughter than usual at this humorous incongruity.\r
+"This is the first time I ever heard of wedding-clothes being bought\r
+after marriage."\r
+\r
+"But you don't mean to say you would insist on my waiting months for\r
+the sake of clothes?" said Lydgate, half thinking that Rosamond was\r
+tormenting him prettily, and half fearing that she really shrank from\r
+speedy marriage. "Remember, we are looking forward to a better sort of\r
+happiness even than this--being continually together, independent of\r
+others, and ordering our lives as we will. Come, dear, tell me how\r
+soon you can be altogether mine."\r
+\r
+There was a serious pleading in Lydgate's tone, as if he felt that she\r
+would be injuring him by any fantastic delays. Rosamond became serious\r
+too, and slightly meditative; in fact, she was going through many\r
+intricacies of lace-edging and hosiery and petticoat-tucking, in order\r
+to give an answer that would at least be approximative.\r
+\r
+"Six weeks would be ample--say so, Rosamond," insisted Lydgate,\r
+releasing her hands to put his arm gently round her.\r
+\r
+One little hand immediately went to pat her hair, while she gave her\r
+neck a meditative turn, and then said seriously--\r
+\r
+"There would be the house-linen and the furniture to be prepared.\r
+Still, mamma could see to those while we were away."\r
+\r
+"Yes, to be sure. We must be away a week or so."\r
+\r
+"Oh, more than that!" said Rosamond, earnestly. She was thinking of\r
+her evening dresses for the visit to Sir Godwin Lydgate's, which she\r
+had long been secretly hoping for as a delightful employment of at\r
+least one quarter of the honeymoon, even if she deferred her\r
+introduction to the uncle who was a doctor of divinity (also a pleasing\r
+though sober kind of rank, when sustained by blood). She looked at her\r
+lover with some wondering remonstrance as she spoke, and he readily\r
+understood that she might wish to lengthen the sweet time of double\r
+solitude.\r
+\r
+"Whatever you wish, my darling, when the day is fixed. But let us take\r
+a decided course, and put an end to any discomfort you may be\r
+suffering. Six weeks!--I am sure they would be ample."\r
+\r
+"I could certainly hasten the work," said Rosamond. "Will you, then,\r
+mention it to papa?--I think it would be better to write to him." She\r
+blushed and looked at him as the garden flowers look at us when we walk\r
+forth happily among them in the transcendent evening light: is there\r
+not a soul beyond utterance, half nymph, half child, in those delicate\r
+petals which glow and breathe about the centres of deep color?\r
+\r
+He touched her ear and a little bit of neck under it with his lips, and\r
+they sat quite still for many minutes which flowed by them like a small\r
+gurgling brook with the kisses of the sun upon it. Rosamond thought\r
+that no one could be more in love than she was; and Lydgate thought\r
+that after all his wild mistakes and absurd credulity, he had found\r
+perfect womanhood--felt as if already breathed upon by exquisite wedded\r
+affection such as would be bestowed by an accomplished creature who\r
+venerated his high musings and momentous labors and would never\r
+interfere with them; who would create order in the home and accounts\r
+with still magic, yet keep her fingers ready to touch the lute and\r
+transform life into romance at any moment; who was instructed to the\r
+true womanly limit and not a hair's-breadth beyond--docile, therefore,\r
+and ready to carry out behests which came from that limit. It was\r
+plainer now than ever that his notion of remaining much longer a\r
+bachelor had been a mistake: marriage would not be an obstruction but a\r
+furtherance. And happening the next day to accompany a patient to\r
+Brassing, he saw a dinner-service there which struck him as so exactly\r
+the right thing that he bought it at once. It saved time to do these\r
+things just when you thought of them, and Lydgate hated ugly crockery.\r
+The dinner-service in question was expensive, but that might be in the\r
+nature of dinner-services. Furnishing was necessarily expensive; but\r
+then it had to be done only once.\r
+\r
+"It must be lovely," said Mrs. Vincy, when Lydgate mentioned his\r
+purchase with some descriptive touches. "Just what Rosy ought to have.\r
+I trust in heaven it won't be broken!"\r
+\r
+"One must hire servants who will not break things," said Lydgate.\r
+(Certainly, this was reasoning with an imperfect vision of sequences.\r
+But at that period there was no sort of reasoning which was not more or\r
+less sanctioned by men of science.)\r
+\r
+Of course it was unnecessary to defer the mention of anything to mamma,\r
+who did not readily take views that were not cheerful, and being a\r
+happy wife herself, had hardly any feeling but pride in her daughter's\r
+marriage. But Rosamond had good reasons for suggesting to Lydgate that\r
+papa should be appealed to in writing. She prepared for the arrival of\r
+the letter by walking with her papa to the warehouse the next morning,\r
+and telling him on the way that Mr. Lydgate wished to be married soon.\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, my dear!" said Mr. Vincy. "What has he got to marry on?\r
+You'd much better give up the engagement. I've told you so pretty\r
+plainly before this. What have you had such an education for, if you\r
+are to go and marry a poor man? It's a cruel thing for a father to\r
+see."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate is not poor, papa. He bought Mr. Peacock's practice,\r
+which, they say, is worth eight or nine hundred a-year."\r
+\r
+"Stuff and nonsense! What's buying a practice? He might as well buy\r
+next year's swallows. It'll all slip through his fingers."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, papa, he will increase the practice. See how he has\r
+been called in by the Chettams and Casaubons."\r
+\r
+"I hope he knows I shan't give anything--with this disappointment about\r
+Fred, and Parliament going to be dissolved, and machine-breaking\r
+everywhere, and an election coming on--"\r
+\r
+"Dear papa! what can that have to do with my marriage?"\r
+\r
+"A pretty deal to do with it! We may all be ruined for what I know--the\r
+country's in that state! Some say it's the end of the world, and\r
+be hanged if I don't think it looks like it! Anyhow, it's not a time\r
+for me to be drawing money out of my business, and I should wish\r
+Lydgate to know that."\r
+\r
+"I am sure he expects nothing, papa. And he has such very high\r
+connections: he is sure to rise in one way or another. He is engaged\r
+in making scientific discoveries."\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy was silent.\r
+\r
+"I cannot give up my only prospect of happiness, papa. Mr. Lydgate is a\r
+gentleman. I could never love any one who was not a perfect gentleman.\r
+You would not like me to go into a consumption, as Arabella Hawley did.\r
+And you know that I never change my mind."\r
+\r
+Again papa was silent.\r
+\r
+"Promise me, papa, that you will consent to what we wish. We shall\r
+never give each other up; and you know that you have always objected to\r
+long courtships and late marriages."\r
+\r
+There was a little more urgency of this kind, till Mr. Vincy said,\r
+"Well, well, child, he must write to me first before I can answer\r
+him,"--and Rosamond was certain that she had gained her point.\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy's answer consisted chiefly in a demand that Lydgate should\r
+insure his life--a demand immediately conceded. This was a\r
+delightfully reassuring idea supposing that Lydgate died, but in the\r
+mean time not a self-supporting idea. However, it seemed to make\r
+everything comfortable about Rosamond's marriage; and the necessary\r
+purchases went on with much spirit. Not without prudential\r
+considerations, however. A bride (who is going to visit at a\r
+baronet's) must have a few first-rate pocket-handkerchiefs; but beyond\r
+the absolutely necessary half-dozen, Rosamond contented herself without\r
+the very highest style of embroidery and Valenciennes. Lydgate also,\r
+finding that his sum of eight hundred pounds had been considerably\r
+reduced since he had come to Middlemarch, restrained his inclination\r
+for some plate of an old pattern which was shown to him when he went\r
+into Kibble's establishment at Brassing to buy forks and spoons. He\r
+was too proud to act as if he presupposed that Mr. Vincy would advance\r
+money to provide furniture; and though, since it would not be\r
+necessary to pay for everything at once, some bills would be left\r
+standing over, he did not waste time in conjecturing how much his\r
+father-in-law would give in the form of dowry, to make payment easy.\r
+He was not going to do anything extravagant, but the requisite things\r
+must be bought, and it would be bad economy to buy them of a poor\r
+quality. All these matters were by the bye. Lydgate foresaw that\r
+science and his profession were the objects he should alone pursue\r
+enthusiastically; but he could not imagine himself pursuing them in\r
+such a home as Wrench had--the doors all open, the oil-cloth worn, the\r
+children in soiled pinafores, and lunch lingering in the form of bones,\r
+black-handled knives, and willow-pattern. But Wrench had a wretched\r
+lymphatic wife who made a mummy of herself indoors in a large shawl;\r
+and he must have altogether begun with an ill-chosen domestic apparatus.\r
+\r
+Rosamond, however, was on her side much occupied with conjectures,\r
+though her quick imitative perception warned her against betraying them\r
+too crudely.\r
+\r
+"I shall like so much to know your family," she said one day, when the\r
+wedding journey was being discussed. "We might perhaps take a\r
+direction that would allow us to see them as we returned. Which of\r
+your uncles do you like best?"\r
+\r
+"Oh,--my uncle Godwin, I think. He is a good-natured old fellow."\r
+\r
+"You were constantly at his house at Quallingham, when you were a boy,\r
+were you not? I should so like to see the old spot and everything you\r
+were used to. Does he know you are going to be married?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Lydgate, carelessly, turning in his chair and rubbing his\r
+hair up.\r
+\r
+"Do send him word of it, you naughty undutiful nephew. He will perhaps\r
+ask you to take me to Quallingham; and then you could show me about the\r
+grounds, and I could imagine you there when you were a boy. Remember,\r
+you see me in my home, just as it has been since I was a child. It is\r
+not fair that I should be so ignorant of yours. But perhaps you would\r
+be a little ashamed of me. I forgot that."\r
+\r
+Lydgate smiled at her tenderly, and really accepted the suggestion that\r
+the proud pleasure of showing so charming a bride was worth some\r
+trouble. And now he came to think of it, he would like to see the old\r
+spots with Rosamond.\r
+\r
+"I will write to him, then. But my cousins are bores."\r
+\r
+It seemed magnificent to Rosamond to be able to speak so slightingly of\r
+a baronet's family, and she felt much contentment in the prospect of\r
+being able to estimate them contemptuously on her own account.\r
+\r
+But mamma was near spoiling all, a day or two later, by saying--\r
+\r
+"I hope your uncle Sir Godwin will not look down on Rosy, Mr. Lydgate.\r
+I should think he would do something handsome. A thousand or two can\r
+be nothing to a baronet."\r
+\r
+"Mamma!" said Rosamond, blushing deeply; and Lydgate pitied her so much\r
+that he remained silent and went to the other end of the room to\r
+examine a print curiously, as if he had been absent-minded. Mamma had a\r
+little filial lecture afterwards, and was docile as usual. But\r
+Rosamond reflected that if any of those high-bred cousins who were\r
+bores, should be induced to visit Middlemarch, they would see many\r
+things in her own family which might shock them. Hence it seemed\r
+desirable that Lydgate should by-and-by get some first-rate position\r
+elsewhere than in Middlemarch; and this could hardly be difficult in\r
+the case of a man who had a titled uncle and could make discoveries.\r
+Lydgate, you perceive, had talked fervidly to Rosamond of his hopes as\r
+to the highest uses of his life, and had found it delightful to be\r
+listened to by a creature who would bring him the sweet furtherance of\r
+satisfying affection--beauty--repose--such help as our thoughts get\r
+from the summer sky and the flower-fringed meadows.\r
+\r
+Lydgate relied much on the psychological difference between what for\r
+the sake of variety I will call goose and gander: especially on the\r
+innate submissiveness of the goose as beautifully corresponding to the\r
+strength of the gander.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVII.\r
+\r
+ "Thrice happy she that is so well assured\r
+ Unto herself and settled so in heart\r
+ That neither will for better be allured\r
+ Ne fears to worse with any chance to start,\r
+ But like a steddy ship doth strongly part\r
+ The raging waves and keeps her course aright;\r
+ Ne aught for tempest doth from it depart,\r
+ Ne aught for fairer weather's false delight.\r
+ Such self-assurance need not fear the spight\r
+ Of grudging foes; ne favour seek of friends;\r
+ But in the stay of her own stedfast might\r
+ Neither to one herself nor other bends.\r
+ Most happy she that most assured doth rest,\r
+ But he most happy who such one loves best."\r
+ --SPENSER.\r
+\r
+\r
+The doubt hinted by Mr. Vincy whether it were only the general election\r
+or the end of the world that was coming on, now that George the Fourth\r
+was dead, Parliament dissolved, Wellington and Peel generally\r
+depreciated and the new King apologetic, was a feeble type of the\r
+uncertainties in provincial opinion at that time. With the glow-worm\r
+lights of country places, how could men see which were their own\r
+thoughts in the confusion of a Tory Ministry passing Liberal measures,\r
+of Tory nobles and electors being anxious to return Liberals rather\r
+than friends of the recreant Ministers, and of outcries for remedies\r
+which seemed to have a mysteriously remote bearing on private interest,\r
+and were made suspicious by the advocacy of disagreeable neighbors?\r
+Buyers of the Middlemarch newspapers found themselves in an anomalous\r
+position: during the agitation on the Catholic Question many had given\r
+up the "Pioneer"--which had a motto from Charles James Fox and was in\r
+the van of progress--because it had taken Peel's side about the\r
+Papists, and had thus blotted its Liberalism with a toleration of\r
+Jesuitry and Baal; but they were ill-satisfied with the "Trumpet,"\r
+which--since its blasts against Rome, and in the general flaccidity of\r
+the public mind (nobody knowing who would support whom)--had become\r
+feeble in its blowing.\r
+\r
+It was a time, according to a noticeable article in the "Pioneer," when\r
+the crying needs of the country might well counteract a reluctance to\r
+public action on the part of men whose minds had from long experience\r
+acquired breadth as well as concentration, decision of judgment as well\r
+as tolerance, dispassionateness as well as energy--in fact, all those\r
+qualities which in the melancholy experience of mankind have been the\r
+least disposed to share lodgings.\r
+\r
+Mr. Hackbutt, whose fluent speech was at that time floating more widely\r
+than usual, and leaving much uncertainty as to its ultimate channel,\r
+was heard to say in Mr. Hawley's office that the article in question\r
+"emanated" from Brooke of Tipton, and that Brooke had secretly bought\r
+the "Pioneer" some months ago.\r
+\r
+"That means mischief, eh?" said Mr. Hawley. "He's got the freak of\r
+being a popular man now, after dangling about like a stray tortoise.\r
+So much the worse for him. I've had my eye on him for some time. He\r
+shall be prettily pumped upon. He's a damned bad landlord. What\r
+business has an old county man to come currying favor with a low set of\r
+dark-blue freemen? As to his paper, I only hope he may do the writing\r
+himself. It would be worth our paying for."\r
+\r
+"I understand he has got a very brilliant young fellow to edit it, who\r
+can write the highest style of leading article, quite equal to anything\r
+in the London papers. And he means to take very high ground on Reform."\r
+\r
+"Let Brooke reform his rent-roll. He's a cursed old screw, and the\r
+buildings all over his estate are going to rack. I suppose this young\r
+fellow is some loose fish from London."\r
+\r
+"His name is Ladislaw. He is said to be of foreign extraction."\r
+\r
+"I know the sort," said Mr. Hawley; "some emissary. He'll begin with\r
+flourishing about the Rights of Man and end with murdering a wench.\r
+That's the style."\r
+\r
+"You must concede that there are abuses, Hawley," said Mr. Hackbutt,\r
+foreseeing some political disagreement with his family lawyer. "I\r
+myself should never favor immoderate views--in fact I take my stand\r
+with Huskisson--but I cannot blind myself to the consideration that the\r
+non-representation of large towns--"\r
+\r
+"Large towns be damned!" said Mr. Hawley, impatient of exposition. "I\r
+know a little too much about Middlemarch elections. Let 'em quash\r
+every pocket borough to-morrow, and bring in every mushroom town in the\r
+kingdom--they'll only increase the expense of getting into Parliament.\r
+I go upon facts."\r
+\r
+Mr. Hawley's disgust at the notion of the "Pioneer" being edited by an\r
+emissary, and of Brooke becoming actively political--as if a tortoise\r
+of desultory pursuits should protrude its small head ambitiously and\r
+become rampant--was hardly equal to the annoyance felt by some members\r
+of Mr. Brooke's own family. The result had oozed forth gradually, like\r
+the discovery that your neighbor has set up an unpleasant kind of\r
+manufacture which will be permanently under your nostrils without legal\r
+remedy. The "Pioneer" had been secretly bought even before Will\r
+Ladislaw's arrival, the expected opportunity having offered itself in\r
+the readiness of the proprietor to part with a valuable property which\r
+did not pay; and in the interval since Mr. Brooke had written his\r
+invitation, those germinal ideas of making his mind tell upon the world\r
+at large which had been present in him from his younger years, but had\r
+hitherto lain in some obstruction, had been sprouting under cover.\r
+\r
+The development was much furthered by a delight in his guest which\r
+proved greater even than he had anticipated. For it seemed that Will\r
+was not only at home in all those artistic and literary subjects which\r
+Mr. Brooke had gone into at one time, but that he was strikingly ready\r
+at seizing the points of the political situation, and dealing with them\r
+in that large spirit which, aided by adequate memory, lends itself to\r
+quotation and general effectiveness of treatment.\r
+\r
+"He seems to me a kind of Shelley, you know," Mr. Brooke took an\r
+opportunity of saying, for the gratification of Mr. Casaubon. "I don't\r
+mean as to anything objectionable--laxities or atheism, or anything of\r
+that kind, you know--Ladislaw's sentiments in every way I am sure are\r
+good--indeed, we were talking a great deal together last night. But he\r
+has the same sort of enthusiasm for liberty, freedom, emancipation--a\r
+fine thing under guidance--under guidance, you know. I think I shall\r
+be able to put him on the right tack; and I am the more pleased because\r
+he is a relation of yours, Casaubon."\r
+\r
+If the right tack implied anything more precise than the rest of Mr.\r
+Brooke's speech, Mr. Casaubon silently hoped that it referred to some\r
+occupation at a great distance from Lowick. He had disliked Will while\r
+he helped him, but he had begun to dislike him still more now that Will\r
+had declined his help. That is the way with us when we have any uneasy\r
+jealousy in our disposition: if our talents are chiefly of the\r
+burrowing kind, our honey-sipping cousin (whom we have grave reasons\r
+for objecting to) is likely to have a secret contempt for us, and any\r
+one who admires him passes an oblique criticism on ourselves. Having\r
+the scruples of rectitude in our souls, we are above the meanness of\r
+injuring him--rather we meet all his claims on us by active benefits;\r
+and the drawing of cheques for him, being a superiority which he must\r
+recognize, gives our bitterness a milder infusion. Now Mr. Casaubon\r
+had been deprived of that superiority (as anything more than a\r
+remembrance) in a sudden, capricious manner. His antipathy to Will did\r
+not spring from the common jealousy of a winter-worn husband: it was\r
+something deeper, bred by his lifelong claims and discontents; but\r
+Dorothea, now that she was present--Dorothea, as a young wife who\r
+herself had shown an offensive capability of criticism, necessarily\r
+gave concentration to the uneasiness which had before been vague.\r
+\r
+Will Ladislaw on his side felt that his dislike was flourishing at the\r
+expense of his gratitude, and spent much inward discourse in justifying\r
+the dislike. Casaubon hated him--he knew that very well; on his first\r
+entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the\r
+glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past\r
+benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the\r
+act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation. It was\r
+a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's\r
+self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against\r
+another. And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her. A\r
+man was bound to know himself better than that, and if he chose to grow\r
+gray crunching bones in a cavern, he had no business to be luring a\r
+girl into his companionship. "It is the most horrible of\r
+virgin-sacrifices," said Will; and he painted to himself what were\r
+Dorothea's inward sorrows as if he had been writing a choric wail. But\r
+he would never lose sight of her: he would watch over her--if he gave\r
+up everything else in life he would watch over her, and she should know\r
+that she had one slave in the world, Will had--to use Sir Thomas\r
+Browne's phrase--a "passionate prodigality" of statement both to\r
+himself and others. The simple truth was that nothing then invited him\r
+so strongly as the presence of Dorothea.\r
+\r
+Invitations of the formal kind had been wanting, however, for Will had\r
+never been asked to go to Lowick. Mr. Brooke, indeed, confident of\r
+doing everything agreeable which Casaubon, poor fellow, was too much\r
+absorbed to think of, had arranged to bring Ladislaw to Lowick several\r
+times (not neglecting meanwhile to introduce him elsewhere on every\r
+opportunity as "a young relative of Casaubon's"). And though Will had\r
+not seen Dorothea alone, their interviews had been enough to restore\r
+her former sense of young companionship with one who was cleverer than\r
+herself, yet seemed ready to be swayed by her. Poor Dorothea before\r
+her marriage had never found much room in other minds for what she\r
+cared most to say; and she had not, as we know, enjoyed her husband's\r
+superior instruction so much as she had expected. If she spoke with\r
+any keenness of interest to Mr. Casaubon, he heard her with an air of\r
+patience as if she had given a quotation from the Delectus familiar to\r
+him from his tender years, and sometimes mentioned curtly what ancient\r
+sects or personages had held similar ideas, as if there were too much\r
+of that sort in stock already; at other times he would inform her that\r
+she was mistaken, and reassert what her remark had questioned.\r
+\r
+But Will Ladislaw always seemed to see more in what she said than she\r
+herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent\r
+woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul.\r
+Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette\r
+opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny\r
+air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original alarm at what her\r
+husband might think about the introduction of Will as her uncle's\r
+guest. On this subject Mr. Casaubon had remained dumb.\r
+\r
+But Will wanted to talk with Dorothea alone, and was impatient of slow\r
+circumstance. However slight the terrestrial intercourse between Dante\r
+and Beatrice or Petrarch and Laura, time changes the proportion of\r
+things, and in later days it is preferable to have fewer sonnets and\r
+more conversation. Necessity excused stratagem, but stratagem was\r
+limited by the dread of offending Dorothea. He found out at last that\r
+he wanted to take a particular sketch at Lowick; and one morning when\r
+Mr. Brooke had to drive along the Lowick road on his way to the county\r
+town, Will asked to be set down with his sketch-book and camp-stool at\r
+Lowick, and without announcing himself at the Manor settled himself to\r
+sketch in a position where he must see Dorothea if she came out to\r
+walk--and he knew that she usually walked an hour in the morning.\r
+\r
+But the stratagem was defeated by the weather. Clouds gathered with\r
+treacherous quickness, the rain came down, and Will was obliged to take\r
+shelter in the house. He intended, on the strength of relationship, to\r
+go into the drawing-room and wait there without being announced; and\r
+seeing his old acquaintance the butler in the hall, he said, "Don't\r
+mention that I am here, Pratt; I will wait till luncheon; I know Mr.\r
+Casaubon does not like to be disturbed when he is in the library."\r
+\r
+"Master is out, sir; there's only Mrs. Casaubon in the library. I'd\r
+better tell her you're here, sir," said Pratt, a red-cheeked man given\r
+to lively converse with Tantripp, and often agreeing with her that it\r
+must be dull for Madam.\r
+\r
+"Oh, very well; this confounded rain has hindered me from sketching,"\r
+said Will, feeling so happy that he affected indifference with\r
+delightful ease.\r
+\r
+In another minute he was in the library, and Dorothea was meeting him\r
+with her sweet unconstrained smile.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Casaubon has gone to the Archdeacon's," she said, at once. "I\r
+don't know whether he will be at home again long before dinner. He was\r
+uncertain how long he should be. Did you want to say anything\r
+particular to him?"\r
+\r
+"No; I came to sketch, but the rain drove me in. Else I would not have\r
+disturbed you yet. I supposed that Mr. Casaubon was here, and I know\r
+he dislikes interruption at this hour."\r
+\r
+"I am indebted to the rain, then. I am so glad to see you." Dorothea\r
+uttered these common words with the simple sincerity of an unhappy\r
+child, visited at school.\r
+\r
+"I really came for the chance of seeing you alone," said Will,\r
+mysteriously forced to be just as simple as she was. He could not stay\r
+to ask himself, why not? "I wanted to talk about things, as we did in\r
+Rome. It always makes a difference when other people are present."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Dorothea, in her clear full tone of assent. "Sit down."\r
+She seated herself on a dark ottoman with the brown books behind her,\r
+looking in her plain dress of some thin woollen-white material, without\r
+a single ornament on her besides her wedding-ring, as if she were under\r
+a vow to be different from all other women; and Will sat down opposite\r
+her at two yards' distance, the light falling on his bright curls and\r
+delicate but rather petulant profile, with its defiant curves of lip\r
+and chin. Each looked at the other as if they had been two flowers\r
+which had opened then and there. Dorothea for the moment forgot her\r
+husband's mysterious irritation against Will: it seemed fresh water at\r
+her thirsty lips to speak without fear to the one person whom she had\r
+found receptive; for in looking backward through sadness she\r
+exaggerated a past solace.\r
+\r
+"I have often thought that I should like to talk to you again," she\r
+said, immediately. "It seems strange to me how many things I said to\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"I remember them all," said Will, with the unspeakable content in his\r
+soul of feeling that he was in the presence of a creature worthy to be\r
+perfectly loved. I think his own feelings at that moment were perfect,\r
+for we mortals have our divine moments, when love is satisfied in the\r
+completeness of the beloved object.\r
+\r
+"I have tried to learn a great deal since we were in Rome," said\r
+Dorothea. "I can read Latin a little, and I am beginning to understand\r
+just a little Greek. I can help Mr. Casaubon better now. I can find\r
+out references for him and save his eyes in many ways. But it is very\r
+difficult to be learned; it seems as if people were worn out on the way\r
+to great thoughts, and can never enjoy them because they are too tired."\r
+\r
+"If a man has a capacity for great thoughts, he is likely to overtake\r
+them before he is decrepit," said Will, with irrepressible quickness.\r
+But through certain sensibilities Dorothea was as quick as he, and\r
+seeing her face change, he added, immediately, "But it is quite true\r
+that the best minds have been sometimes overstrained in working out\r
+their ideas."\r
+\r
+"You correct me," said Dorothea. "I expressed myself ill. I should\r
+have said that those who have great thoughts get too much worn in\r
+working them out. I used to feel about that, even when I was a little\r
+girl; and it always seemed to me that the use I should like to make of\r
+my life would be to help some one who did great works, so that his\r
+burthen might be lighter."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was led on to this bit of autobiography without any sense of\r
+making a revelation. But she had never before said anything to Will\r
+which threw so strong a light on her marriage. He did not shrug his\r
+shoulders; and for want of that muscular outlet he thought the more\r
+irritably of beautiful lips kissing holy skulls and other emptinesses\r
+ecclesiastically enshrined. Also he had to take care that his speech\r
+should not betray that thought.\r
+\r
+"But you may easily carry the help too far," he said, "and get\r
+over-wrought yourself. Are you not too much shut up? You already look\r
+paler. It would be better for Mr. Casaubon to have a secretary; he\r
+could easily get a man who would do half his work for him. It would\r
+save him more effectually, and you need only help him in lighter ways."\r
+\r
+"How can you think of that?" said Dorothea, in a tone of earnest\r
+remonstrance. "I should have no happiness if I did not help him in his\r
+work. What could I do? There is no good to be done in Lowick. The\r
+only thing I desire is to help him more. And he objects to a\r
+secretary: please not to mention that again."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not, now I know your feeling. But I have heard both Mr.\r
+Brooke and Sir James Chettam express the same wish."\r
+\r
+"Yes?" said Dorothea, "but they don't understand--they want me to be a\r
+great deal on horseback, and have the garden altered and new\r
+conservatories, to fill up my days. I thought you could understand\r
+that one's mind has other wants," she added, rather\r
+impatiently--"besides, Mr. Casaubon cannot bear to hear of a secretary."\r
+\r
+"My mistake is excusable," said Will. "In old days I used to hear Mr.\r
+Casaubon speak as if he looked forward to having a secretary. Indeed\r
+he held out the prospect of that office to me. But I turned out to\r
+be--not good enough for it."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was trying to extract out of this an excuse for her husband's\r
+evident repulsion, as she said, with a playful smile, "You were not a\r
+steady worker enough."\r
+\r
+"No," said Will, shaking his head backward somewhat after the manner of\r
+a spirited horse. And then, the old irritable demon prompting him to\r
+give another good pinch at the moth-wings of poor Mr. Casaubon's glory,\r
+he went on, "And I have seen since that Mr. Casaubon does not like any\r
+one to overlook his work and know thoroughly what he is doing. He is\r
+too doubtful--too uncertain of himself. I may not be good for much,\r
+but he dislikes me because I disagree with him."\r
+\r
+Will was not without his intentions to be always generous, but our\r
+tongues are little triggers which have usually been pulled before\r
+general intentions can be brought to bear. And it was too intolerable\r
+that Casaubon's dislike of him should not be fairly accounted for to\r
+Dorothea. Yet when he had spoken he was rather uneasy as to the effect\r
+on her.\r
+\r
+But Dorothea was strangely quiet--not immediately indignant, as she had\r
+been on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep. She was no\r
+longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting\r
+herself to their clearest perception; and now when she looked steadily\r
+at her husband's failure, still more at his possible consciousness of\r
+failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became\r
+tenderness. Will's want of reticence might have been met with more\r
+severity, if he had not already been recommended to her mercy by her\r
+husband's dislike, which must seem hard to her till she saw better\r
+reason for it.\r
+\r
+She did not answer at once, but after looking down ruminatingly she\r
+said, with some earnestness, "Mr. Casaubon must have overcome his\r
+dislike of you so far as his actions were concerned: and that is\r
+admirable."\r
+\r
+"Yes; he has shown a sense of justice in family matters. It was an\r
+abominable thing that my grandmother should have been disinherited\r
+because she made what they called a mesalliance, though there was\r
+nothing to be said against her husband except that he was a Polish\r
+refugee who gave lessons for his bread."\r
+\r
+"I wish I knew all about her!" said Dorothea. "I wonder how she bore\r
+the change from wealth to poverty: I wonder whether she was happy with\r
+her husband! Do you know much about them?"\r
+\r
+"No; only that my grandfather was a patriot--a bright fellow--could\r
+speak many languages--musical--got his bread by teaching all sorts of\r
+things. They both died rather early. And I never knew much of my\r
+father, beyond what my mother told me; but he inherited the musical\r
+talents. I remember his slow walk and his long thin hands; and one day\r
+remains with me when he was lying ill, and I was very hungry, and had\r
+only a little bit of bread."\r
+\r
+"Ah, what a different life from mine!" said Dorothea, with keen\r
+interest, clasping her hands on her lap. "I have always had too much\r
+of everything. But tell me how it was--Mr. Casaubon could not have\r
+known about you then."\r
+\r
+"No; but my father had made himself known to Mr. Casaubon, and that was\r
+my last hungry day. My father died soon after, and my mother and I\r
+were well taken care of. Mr. Casaubon always expressly recognized it\r
+as his duty to take care of us because of the harsh injustice which had\r
+been shown to his mother's sister. But now I am telling you what is\r
+not new to you."\r
+\r
+In his inmost soul Will was conscious of wishing to tell Dorothea what\r
+was rather new even in his own construction of things--namely, that\r
+Mr. Casaubon had never done more than pay a debt towards him. Will was\r
+much too good a fellow to be easy under the sense of being ungrateful.\r
+And when gratitude has become a matter of reasoning there are many ways\r
+of escaping from its bonds.\r
+\r
+"No," answered Dorothea; "Mr. Casaubon has always avoided dwelling on\r
+his own honorable actions." She did not feel that her husband's\r
+conduct was depreciated; but this notion of what justice had required\r
+in his relations with Will Ladislaw took strong hold on her mind.\r
+After a moment's pause, she added, "He had never told me that he\r
+supported your mother. Is she still living?"\r
+\r
+"No; she died by an accident--a fall--four years ago. It is curious\r
+that my mother, too, ran away from her family, but not for the sake of\r
+her husband. She never would tell me anything about her family, except\r
+that she forsook them to get her own living--went on the stage, in\r
+fact. She was a dark-eyed creature, with crisp ringlets, and never\r
+seemed to be getting old. You see I come of rebellious blood on both\r
+sides," Will ended, smiling brightly at Dorothea, while she was still\r
+looking with serious intentness before her, like a child seeing a drama\r
+for the first time.\r
+\r
+But her face, too, broke into a smile as she said, "That is your\r
+apology, I suppose, for having yourself been rather rebellious; I mean,\r
+to Mr. Casaubon's wishes. You must remember that you have not done\r
+what he thought best for you. And if he dislikes you--you were\r
+speaking of dislike a little while ago--but I should rather say, if he\r
+has shown any painful feelings towards you, you must consider how\r
+sensitive he has become from the wearing effect of study. Perhaps,"\r
+she continued, getting into a pleading tone, "my uncle has not told you\r
+how serious Mr. Casaubon's illness was. It would be very petty of us\r
+who are well and can bear things, to think much of small offences from\r
+those who carry a weight of trial."\r
+\r
+"You teach me better," said Will. "I will never grumble on that\r
+subject again." There was a gentleness in his tone which came from the\r
+unutterable contentment of perceiving--what Dorothea was hardly\r
+conscious of--that she was travelling into the remoteness of pure pity\r
+and loyalty towards her husband. Will was ready to adore her pity and\r
+loyalty, if she would associate himself with her in manifesting them.\r
+"I have really sometimes been a perverse fellow," he went on, "but I\r
+will never again, if I can help it, do or say what you would\r
+disapprove."\r
+\r
+"That is very good of you," said Dorothea, with another open smile. "I\r
+shall have a little kingdom then, where I shall give laws. But you\r
+will soon go away, out of my rule, I imagine. You will soon be tired\r
+of staying at the Grange."\r
+\r
+"That is a point I wanted to mention to you--one of the reasons why I\r
+wished to speak to you alone. Mr. Brooke proposes that I should stay\r
+in this neighborhood. He has bought one of the Middlemarch newspapers,\r
+and he wishes me to conduct that, and also to help him in other ways."\r
+\r
+"Would not that be a sacrifice of higher prospects for you?" said\r
+Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"Perhaps; but I have always been blamed for thinking of prospects, and\r
+not settling to anything. And here is something offered to me. If you\r
+would not like me to accept it, I will give it up. Otherwise I would\r
+rather stay in this part of the country than go away. I belong to\r
+nobody anywhere else."\r
+\r
+"I should like you to stay very much," said Dorothea, at once, as\r
+simply and readily as she had spoken at Rome. There was not the shadow\r
+of a reason in her mind at the moment why she should not say so.\r
+\r
+"Then I _will_ stay," said Ladislaw, shaking his head backward, rising\r
+and going towards the window, as if to see whether the rain had ceased.\r
+\r
+But the next moment, Dorothea, according to a habit which was getting\r
+continually stronger, began to reflect that her husband felt\r
+differently from herself, and she colored deeply under the double\r
+embarrassment of having expressed what might be in opposition to her\r
+husband's feeling, and of having to suggest this opposition to Will.\r
+His face was not turned towards her, and this made it easier to say--\r
+\r
+"But my opinion is of little consequence on such a subject. I think\r
+you should be guided by Mr. Casaubon. I spoke without thinking of\r
+anything else than my own feeling, which has nothing to do with the\r
+real question. But it now occurs to me--perhaps Mr. Casaubon might\r
+see that the proposal was not wise. Can you not wait now and mention\r
+it to him?"\r
+\r
+"I can't wait to-day," said Will, inwardly seared by the possibility\r
+that Mr. Casaubon would enter. "The rain is quite over now. I told\r
+Mr. Brooke not to call for me: I would rather walk the five miles. I\r
+shall strike across Halsell Common, and see the gleams on the wet\r
+grass. I like that."\r
+\r
+He approached her to shake hands quite hurriedly, longing but not\r
+daring to say, "Don't mention the subject to Mr. Casaubon." No, he\r
+dared not, could not say it. To ask her to be less simple and direct\r
+would be like breathing on the crystal that you want to see the light\r
+through. And there was always the other great dread--of himself\r
+becoming dimmed and forever ray-shorn in her eyes.\r
+\r
+"I wish you could have stayed," said Dorothea, with a touch of\r
+mournfulness, as she rose and put out her hand. She also had her\r
+thought which she did not like to express:--Will certainly ought to\r
+lose no time in consulting Mr. Casaubon's wishes, but for her to urge\r
+this might seem an undue dictation.\r
+\r
+So they only said "Good-by," and Will quitted the house, striking\r
+across the fields so as not to run any risk of encountering Mr.\r
+Casaubon's carriage, which, however, did not appear at the gate until\r
+four o'clock. That was an unpropitious hour for coming home: it was too\r
+early to gain the moral support under ennui of dressing his person for\r
+dinner, and too late to undress his mind of the day's frivolous\r
+ceremony and affairs, so as to be prepared for a good plunge into the\r
+serious business of study. On such occasions he usually threw into an\r
+easy-chair in the library, and allowed Dorothea to read the London\r
+papers to him, closing his eyes the while. To-day, however, he\r
+declined that relief, observing that he had already had too many public\r
+details urged upon him; but he spoke more cheerfully than usual, when\r
+Dorothea asked about his fatigue, and added with that air of formal\r
+effort which never forsook him even when he spoke without his waistcoat\r
+and cravat--\r
+\r
+"I have had the gratification of meeting my former acquaintance, Dr.\r
+Spanning, to-day, and of being praised by one who is himself a worthy\r
+recipient of praise. He spoke very handsomely of my late tractate on\r
+the Egyptian Mysteries,--using, in fact, terms which it would not\r
+become me to repeat." In uttering the last clause, Mr. Casaubon leaned\r
+over the elbow of his chair, and swayed his head up and down,\r
+apparently as a muscular outlet instead of that recapitulation which\r
+would not have been becoming.\r
+\r
+"I am very glad you have had that pleasure," said Dorothea, delighted\r
+to see her husband less weary than usual at this hour. "Before you\r
+came I had been regretting that you happened to be out to-day."\r
+\r
+"Why so, my dear?" said Mr. Casaubon, throwing himself backward again.\r
+\r
+"Because Mr. Ladislaw has been here; and he has mentioned a proposal of\r
+my uncle's which I should like to know your opinion of." Her husband\r
+she felt was really concerned in this question. Even with her\r
+ignorance of the world she had a vague impression that the position\r
+offered to Will was out of keeping with his family connections, and\r
+certainly Mr. Casaubon had a claim to be consulted. He did not speak,\r
+but merely bowed.\r
+\r
+"Dear uncle, you know, has many projects. It appears that he has\r
+bought one of the Middlemarch newspapers, and he has asked Mr. Ladislaw\r
+to stay in this neighborhood and conduct the paper for him, besides\r
+helping him in other ways."\r
+\r
+Dorothea looked at her husband while she spoke, but he had at first\r
+blinked and finally closed his eyes, as if to save them; while his lips\r
+became more tense. "What is your opinion?" she added, rather timidly,\r
+after a slight pause.\r
+\r
+"Did Mr. Ladislaw come on purpose to ask my opinion?" said Mr.\r
+Casaubon, opening his eyes narrowly with a knife-edged look at\r
+Dorothea. She was really uncomfortable on the point he inquired about,\r
+but she only became a little more serious, and her eyes did not swerve.\r
+\r
+"No," she answered immediately, "he did not say that he came to ask\r
+your opinion. But when he mentioned the proposal, he of course\r
+expected me to tell you of it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon was silent.\r
+\r
+"I feared that you might feel some objection. But certainly a young\r
+man with so much talent might be very useful to my uncle--might help\r
+him to do good in a better way. And Mr. Ladislaw wishes to have some\r
+fixed occupation. He has been blamed, he says, for not seeking\r
+something of that kind, and he would like to stay in this neighborhood\r
+because no one cares for him elsewhere."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt that this was a consideration to soften her husband.\r
+However, he did not speak, and she presently recurred to Dr. Spanning\r
+and the Archdeacon's breakfast. But there was no longer sunshine on\r
+these subjects.\r
+\r
+The next morning, without Dorothea's knowledge, Mr. Casaubon despatched\r
+the following letter, beginning "Dear Mr. Ladislaw" (he had always\r
+before addressed him as "Will"):--\r
+\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Casaubon informs me that a proposal has been made to you, and\r
+(according to an inference by no means stretched) has on your part been\r
+in some degree entertained, which involves your residence in this\r
+neighborhood in a capacity which I am justified in saying touches my\r
+own position in such a way as renders it not only natural and\r
+warrantable in me when that effect is viewed under the influence of\r
+legitimate feeling, but incumbent on me when the same effect is\r
+considered in the light of my responsibilities, to state at once that\r
+your acceptance of the proposal above indicated would be highly\r
+offensive to me. That I have some claim to the exercise of a veto\r
+here, would not, I believe, be denied by any reasonable person\r
+cognizant of the relations between us: relations which, though thrown\r
+into the past by your recent procedure, are not thereby annulled in\r
+their character of determining antecedents. I will not here make\r
+reflections on any person's judgment. It is enough for me to point out\r
+to yourself that there are certain social fitnesses and proprieties\r
+which should hinder a somewhat near relative of mine from becoming any\r
+wise conspicuous in this vicinity in a status not only much beneath my\r
+own, but associated at best with the sciolism of literary or political\r
+adventurers. At any rate, the contrary issue must exclude you from\r
+further reception at my house.\r
+\r
+ Yours faithfully,\r
+ "EDWARD CASAUBON."\r
+\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Dorothea's mind was innocently at work towards the further\r
+embitterment of her husband; dwelling, with a sympathy that grew to\r
+agitation, on what Will had told her about his parents and\r
+grandparents. Any private hours in her day were usually spent in her\r
+blue-green boudoir, and she had come to be very fond of its pallid\r
+quaintness. Nothing had been outwardly altered there; but while the\r
+summer had gradually advanced over the western fields beyond the avenue\r
+of elms, the bare room had gathered within it those memories of an\r
+inward life which fill the air as with a cloud of good or bad angels,\r
+the invisible yet active forms of our spiritual triumphs or our\r
+spiritual falls. She had been so used to struggle for and to find\r
+resolve in looking along the avenue towards the arch of western light\r
+that the vision itself had gained a communicating power. Even the pale\r
+stag seemed to have reminding glances and to mean mutely, "Yes, we\r
+know." And the group of delicately touched miniatures had made an\r
+audience as of beings no longer disturbed about their own earthly lot,\r
+but still humanly interested. Especially the mysterious "Aunt Julia"\r
+about whom Dorothea had never found it easy to question her husband.\r
+\r
+And now, since her conversation with Will, many fresh images had\r
+gathered round that Aunt Julia who was Will's grandmother; the presence\r
+of that delicate miniature, so like a living face that she knew,\r
+helping to concentrate her feelings. What a wrong, to cut off the girl\r
+from the family protection and inheritance only because she had chosen\r
+a man who was poor! Dorothea, early troubling her elders with\r
+questions about the facts around her, had wrought herself into some\r
+independent clearness as to the historical, political reasons why\r
+eldest sons had superior rights, and why land should be entailed: those\r
+reasons, impressing her with a certain awe, might be weightier than she\r
+knew, but here was a question of ties which left them uninfringed.\r
+Here was a daughter whose child--even according to the ordinary aping\r
+of aristocratic institutions by people who are no more aristocratic\r
+than retired grocers, and who have no more land to "keep together" than\r
+a lawn and a paddock--would have a prior claim. Was inheritance a\r
+question of liking or of responsibility? All the energy of Dorothea's\r
+nature went on the side of responsibility--the fulfilment of claims\r
+founded on our own deeds, such as marriage and parentage.\r
+\r
+It was true, she said to herself, that Mr. Casaubon had a debt to the\r
+Ladislaws--that he had to pay back what the Ladislaws had been wronged\r
+of. And now she began to think of her husband's will, which had been\r
+made at the time of their marriage, leaving the bulk of his property to\r
+her, with proviso in case of her having children. That ought to be\r
+altered; and no time ought to be lost. This very question which had\r
+just arisen about Will Ladislaw's occupation, was the occasion for\r
+placing things on a new, right footing. Her husband, she felt sure,\r
+according to all his previous conduct, would be ready to take the just\r
+view, if she proposed it--she, in whose interest an unfair\r
+concentration of the property had been urged. His sense of right had\r
+surmounted and would continue to surmount anything that might be called\r
+antipathy. She suspected that her uncle's scheme was disapproved by\r
+Mr. Casaubon, and this made it seem all the more opportune that a fresh\r
+understanding should be begun, so that instead of Will's starting\r
+penniless and accepting the first function that offered itself, he\r
+should find himself in possession of a rightful income which should be\r
+paid by her husband during his life, and, by an immediate alteration of\r
+the will, should be secured at his death. The vision of all this as\r
+what ought to be done seemed to Dorothea like a sudden letting in of\r
+daylight, waking her from her previous stupidity and incurious\r
+self-absorbed ignorance about her husband's relation to others. Will\r
+Ladislaw had refused Mr. Casaubon's future aid on a ground that no\r
+longer appeared right to her; and Mr. Casaubon had never himself seen\r
+fully what was the claim upon him. "But he will!" said Dorothea. "The\r
+great strength of his character lies here. And what are we doing with\r
+our money? We make no use of half of our income. My own money buys me\r
+nothing but an uneasy conscience."\r
+\r
+There was a peculiar fascination for Dorothea in this division of\r
+property intended for herself, and always regarded by her as excessive.\r
+She was blind, you see, to many things obvious to others--likely to\r
+tread in the wrong places, as Celia had warned her; yet her blindness\r
+to whatever did not lie in her own pure purpose carried her safely by\r
+the side of precipices where vision would have been perilous with fear.\r
+\r
+The thoughts which had gathered vividness in the solitude of her\r
+boudoir occupied her incessantly through the day on which Mr. Casaubon\r
+had sent his letter to Will. Everything seemed hindrance to her till\r
+she could find an opportunity of opening her heart to her husband. To\r
+his preoccupied mind all subjects were to be approached gently, and she\r
+had never since his illness lost from her consciousness the dread of\r
+agitating him. But when young ardor is set brooding over the\r
+conception of a prompt deed, the deed itself seems to start forth with\r
+independent life, mastering ideal obstacles. The day passed in a\r
+sombre fashion, not unusual, though Mr. Casaubon was perhaps unusually\r
+silent; but there were hours of the night which might be counted on as\r
+opportunities of conversation; for Dorothea, when aware of her\r
+husband's sleeplessness, had established a habit of rising, lighting a\r
+candle, and reading him to sleep again. And this night she was from\r
+the beginning sleepless, excited by resolves. He slept as usual for a\r
+few hours, but she had risen softly and had sat in the darkness for\r
+nearly an hour before he said--\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, since you are up, will you light a candle?"\r
+\r
+"Do you feel ill, dear?" was her first question, as she obeyed him.\r
+\r
+"No, not at all; but I shall be obliged, since you are up, if you will\r
+read me a few pages of Lowth."\r
+\r
+"May I talk to you a little instead?" said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"Certainly."\r
+\r
+"I have been thinking about money all day--that I have always had too\r
+much, and especially the prospect of too much."\r
+\r
+"These, my dear Dorothea, are providential arrangements."\r
+\r
+"But if one has too much in consequence of others being wronged, it\r
+seems to me that the divine voice which tells us to set that wrong\r
+right must be obeyed."\r
+\r
+"What, my love, is the bearing of your remark?"\r
+\r
+"That you have been too liberal in arrangements for me--I mean, with\r
+regard to property; and that makes me unhappy."\r
+\r
+"How so? I have none but comparatively distant connections."\r
+\r
+"I have been led to think about your aunt Julia, and how she was left\r
+in poverty only because she married a poor man, an act which was not\r
+disgraceful, since he was not unworthy. It was on that ground, I know,\r
+that you educated Mr. Ladislaw and provided for his mother."\r
+\r
+Dorothea waited a few moments for some answer that would help her\r
+onward. None came, and her next words seemed the more forcible to her,\r
+falling clear upon the dark silence.\r
+\r
+"But surely we should regard his claim as a much greater one, even to\r
+the half of that property which I know that you have destined for me.\r
+And I think he ought at once to be provided for on that understanding.\r
+It is not right that he should be in the dependence of poverty while we\r
+are rich. And if there is any objection to the proposal he mentioned,\r
+the giving him his true place and his true share would set aside any\r
+motive for his accepting it."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ladislaw has probably been speaking to you on this subject?" said\r
+Mr. Casaubon, with a certain biting quickness not habitual to him.\r
+\r
+"Indeed, no!" said Dorothea, earnestly. "How can you imagine it, since\r
+he has so lately declined everything from you? I fear you think too\r
+hardly of him, dear. He only told me a little about his parents and\r
+grandparents, and almost all in answer to my questions. You are so\r
+good, so just--you have done everything you thought to be right. But\r
+it seems to me clear that more than that is right; and I must speak\r
+about it, since I am the person who would get what is called benefit by\r
+that 'more' not being done."\r
+\r
+There was a perceptible pause before Mr. Casaubon replied, not quickly\r
+as before, but with a still more biting emphasis.\r
+\r
+"Dorothea, my love, this is not the first occasion, but it were well\r
+that it should be the last, on which you have assumed a judgment on\r
+subjects beyond your scope. Into the question how far conduct,\r
+especially in the matter of alliances, constitutes a forfeiture of\r
+family claims, I do not now enter. Suffice it, that you are not here\r
+qualified to discriminate. What I now wish you to understand is, that\r
+I accept no revision, still less dictation within that range of affairs\r
+which I have deliberated upon as distinctly and properly mine. It is\r
+not for you to interfere between me and Mr. Ladislaw, and still less to\r
+encourage communications from him to you which constitute a criticism\r
+on my procedure."\r
+\r
+Poor Dorothea, shrouded in the darkness, was in a tumult of conflicting\r
+emotions. Alarm at the possible effect on himself of her husband's\r
+strongly manifested anger, would have checked any expression of her own\r
+resentment, even if she had been quite free from doubt and compunction\r
+under the consciousness that there might be some justice in his last\r
+insinuation. Hearing him breathe quickly after he had spoken, she sat\r
+listening, frightened, wretched--with a dumb inward cry for help to\r
+bear this nightmare of a life in which every energy was arrested by\r
+dread. But nothing else happened, except that they both remained a\r
+long while sleepless, without speaking again.\r
+\r
+The next day, Mr. Casaubon received the following answer from Will\r
+Ladislaw:--\r
+\r
+\r
+"DEAR MR. CASAUBON,--I have given all due consideration to your letter\r
+of yesterday, but I am unable to take precisely your view of our mutual\r
+position. With the fullest acknowledgment of your generous conduct to\r
+me in the past, I must still maintain that an obligation of this kind\r
+cannot fairly fetter me as you appear to expect that it should.\r
+Granted that a benefactor's wishes may constitute a claim; there must\r
+always be a reservation as to the quality of those wishes. They may\r
+possibly clash with more imperative considerations. Or a benefactor's\r
+veto might impose such a negation on a man's life that the consequent\r
+blank might be more cruel than the benefaction was generous. I am\r
+merely using strong illustrations. In the present case I am unable to\r
+take your view of the bearing which my acceptance of occupation--not\r
+enriching certainly, but not dishonorable--will have on your own\r
+position which seems to me too substantial to be affected in that\r
+shadowy manner. And though I do not believe that any change in our\r
+relations will occur (certainly none has yet occurred) which can\r
+nullify the obligations imposed on me by the past, pardon me for not\r
+seeing that those obligations should restrain me from using the\r
+ordinary freedom of living where I choose, and maintaining myself by\r
+any lawful occupation I may choose. Regretting that there exists this\r
+difference between us as to a relation in which the conferring of\r
+benefits has been entirely on your side--\r
+\r
+ I remain, yours with persistent obligation,\r
+ WILL LADISLAW."\r
+\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Casaubon felt (and must not we, being impartial, feel with him\r
+a little?) that no man had juster cause for disgust and suspicion than\r
+he. Young Ladislaw, he was sure, meant to defy and annoy him, meant to\r
+win Dorothea's confidence and sow her mind with disrespect, and perhaps\r
+aversion, towards her husband. Some motive beneath the surface had\r
+been needed to account for Will's sudden change of course in rejecting Mr.\r
+Casaubon's aid and quitting his travels; and this defiant determination\r
+to fix himself in the neighborhood by taking up something so much at\r
+variance with his former choice as Mr. Brooke's Middlemarch projects,\r
+revealed clearly enough that the undeclared motive had relation to\r
+Dorothea. Not for one moment did Mr. Casaubon suspect Dorothea of any\r
+doubleness: he had no suspicions of her, but he had (what was little\r
+less uncomfortable) the positive knowledge that her tendency to form\r
+opinions about her husband's conduct was accompanied with a disposition\r
+to regard Will Ladislaw favorably and be influenced by what he said.\r
+His own proud reticence had prevented him from ever being undeceived in\r
+the supposition that Dorothea had originally asked her uncle to invite\r
+Will to his house.\r
+\r
+And now, on receiving Will's letter, Mr. Casaubon had to consider his\r
+duty. He would never have been easy to call his action anything else\r
+than duty; but in this case, contending motives thrust him back into\r
+negations.\r
+\r
+Should he apply directly to Mr. Brooke, and demand of that troublesome\r
+gentleman to revoke his proposal? Or should he consult Sir James\r
+Chettam, and get him to concur in remonstrance against a step which\r
+touched the whole family? In either case Mr. Casaubon was aware that\r
+failure was just as probable as success. It was impossible for him to\r
+mention Dorothea's name in the matter, and without some alarming\r
+urgency Mr. Brooke was as likely as not, after meeting all\r
+representations with apparent assent, to wind up by saying, "Never\r
+fear, Casaubon! Depend upon it, young Ladislaw will do you credit.\r
+Depend upon it, I have put my finger on the right thing." And Mr.\r
+Casaubon shrank nervously from communicating on the subject with Sir\r
+James Chettam, between whom and himself there had never been any\r
+cordiality, and who would immediately think of Dorothea without any\r
+mention of her.\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Casaubon was distrustful of everybody's feeling towards him,\r
+especially as a husband. To let any one suppose that he was jealous\r
+would be to admit their (suspected) view of his disadvantages: to let\r
+them know that he did not find marriage particularly blissful would\r
+imply his conversion to their (probably) earlier disapproval. It would\r
+be as bad as letting Carp, and Brasenose generally, know how backward\r
+he was in organizing the matter for his "Key to all Mythologies." All\r
+through his life Mr. Casaubon had been trying not to admit even to\r
+himself the inward sores of self-doubt and jealousy. And on the most\r
+delicate of all personal subjects, the habit of proud suspicious\r
+reticence told doubly.\r
+\r
+Thus Mr. Casaubon remained proudly, bitterly silent. But he had\r
+forbidden Will to come to Lowick Manor, and he was mentally preparing\r
+other measures of frustration.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.\r
+\r
+ "C'est beaucoup que le jugement des hommes sur les actions\r
+ humaines; tôt ou tard il devient efficace."--GUIZOT.\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir James Chettam could not look with any satisfaction on Mr. Brooke's\r
+new courses; but it was easier to object than to hinder. Sir James\r
+accounted for his having come in alone one day to lunch with the\r
+Cadwalladers by saying--\r
+\r
+"I can't talk to you as I want, before Celia: it might hurt her.\r
+Indeed, it would not be right."\r
+\r
+"I know what you mean--the 'Pioneer' at the Grange!" darted in Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, almost before the last word was off her friend's tongue.\r
+"It is frightful--this taking to buying whistles and blowing them in\r
+everybody's hearing. Lying in bed all day and playing at dominoes,\r
+like poor Lord Plessy, would be more private and bearable."\r
+\r
+"I see they are beginning to attack our friend Brooke in the\r
+'Trumpet,'" said the Rector, lounging back and smiling easily, as he\r
+would have done if he had been attacked himself. "There are tremendous\r
+sarcasms against a landlord not a hundred miles from Middlemarch, who\r
+receives his own rents, and makes no returns."\r
+\r
+"I do wish Brooke would leave that off," said Sir James, with his\r
+little frown of annoyance.\r
+\r
+"Is he really going to be put in nomination, though?" said Mr.\r
+Cadwallader. "I saw Farebrother yesterday--he's Whiggish himself,\r
+hoists Brougham and Useful Knowledge; that's the worst I know of\r
+him;--and he says that Brooke is getting up a pretty strong party.\r
+Bulstrode, the banker, is his foremost man. But he thinks Brooke would\r
+come off badly at a nomination."\r
+\r
+"Exactly," said Sir James, with earnestness. "I have been inquiring\r
+into the thing, for I've never known anything about Middlemarch\r
+politics before--the county being my business. What Brooke trusts to,\r
+is that they are going to turn out Oliver because he is a Peelite. But\r
+Hawley tells me that if they send up a Whig at all it is sure to be\r
+Bagster, one of those candidates who come from heaven knows where, but\r
+dead against Ministers, and an experienced Parliamentary man. Hawley's\r
+rather rough: he forgot that he was speaking to me. He said if Brooke\r
+wanted a pelting, he could get it cheaper than by going to the\r
+hustings."\r
+\r
+"I warned you all of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her hands\r
+outward. "I said to Humphrey long ago, Mr. Brooke is going to make a\r
+splash in the mud. And now he has done it."\r
+\r
+"Well, he might have taken it into his head to marry," said the Rector.\r
+"That would have been a graver mess than a little flirtation with\r
+politics."\r
+\r
+"He may do that afterwards," said Mrs. Cadwallader--"when he has come\r
+out on the other side of the mud with an ague."\r
+\r
+"What I care for most is his own dignity," said Sir James. "Of course\r
+I care the more because of the family. But he's getting on in life\r
+now, and I don't like to think of his exposing himself. They will be\r
+raking up everything against him."\r
+\r
+"I suppose it's no use trying any persuasion," said the Rector.\r
+"There's such an odd mixture of obstinacy and changeableness in Brooke.\r
+Have you tried him on the subject?"\r
+\r
+"Well, no," said Sir James; "I feel a delicacy in appearing to dictate.\r
+But I have been talking to this young Ladislaw that Brooke is making a\r
+factotum of. Ladislaw seems clever enough for anything. I thought it\r
+as well to hear what he had to say; and he is against Brooke's standing\r
+this time. I think he'll turn him round: I think the nomination may be\r
+staved off."\r
+\r
+"I know," said Mrs. Cadwallader, nodding. "The independent member\r
+hasn't got his speeches well enough by heart."\r
+\r
+"But this Ladislaw--there again is a vexatious business," said Sir\r
+James. "We have had him two or three times to dine at the Hall (you\r
+have met him, by the bye) as Brooke's guest and a relation of\r
+Casaubon's, thinking he was only on a flying visit. And now I find\r
+he's in everybody's mouth in Middlemarch as the editor of the\r
+'Pioneer.' There are stories going about him as a quill-driving alien,\r
+a foreign emissary, and what not."\r
+\r
+"Casaubon won't like that," said the Rector.\r
+\r
+"There _is_ some foreign blood in Ladislaw," returned Sir James. "I\r
+hope he won't go into extreme opinions and carry Brooke on."\r
+\r
+"Oh, he's a dangerous young sprig, that Mr. Ladislaw," said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, "with his opera songs and his ready tongue. A sort of\r
+Byronic hero--an amorous conspirator, it strikes me. And Thomas\r
+Aquinas is not fond of him. I could see that, the day the picture was\r
+brought."\r
+\r
+"I don't like to begin on the subject with Casaubon," said Sir James.\r
+"He has more right to interfere than I. But it's a disagreeable affair\r
+all round. What a character for anybody with decent connections to\r
+show himself in!--one of those newspaper fellows! You have only to\r
+look at Keck, who manages the 'Trumpet.' I saw him the other day with\r
+Hawley. His writing is sound enough, I believe, but he's such a low\r
+fellow, that I wished he had been on the wrong side."\r
+\r
+"What can you expect with these peddling Middlemarch papers?" said the\r
+Rector. "I don't suppose you could get a high style of man anywhere to\r
+be writing up interests he doesn't really care about, and for pay that\r
+hardly keeps him in at elbows."\r
+\r
+"Exactly: that makes it so annoying that Brooke should have put a man\r
+who has a sort of connection with the family in a position of that\r
+kind. For my part, I think Ladislaw is rather a fool for accepting."\r
+\r
+"It is Aquinas's fault," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Why didn't he use his\r
+interest to get Ladislaw made an attache or sent to India? That is how\r
+families get rid of troublesome sprigs."\r
+\r
+"There is no knowing to what lengths the mischief may go," said Sir\r
+James, anxiously. "But if Casaubon says nothing, what can I do?"\r
+\r
+"Oh my dear Sir James," said the Rector, "don't let us make too much of\r
+all this. It is likely enough to end in mere smoke. After a month or\r
+two Brooke and this Master Ladislaw will get tired of each other;\r
+Ladislaw will take wing; Brooke will sell the 'Pioneer,' and everything\r
+will settle down again as usual."\r
+\r
+"There is one good chance--that he will not like to feel his money\r
+oozing away," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "If I knew the items of election\r
+expenses I could scare him. It's no use plying him with wide words\r
+like Expenditure: I wouldn't talk of phlebotomy, I would empty a pot of\r
+leeches upon him. What we good stingy people don't like, is having our\r
+sixpences sucked away from us."\r
+\r
+"And he will not like having things raked up against him," said Sir\r
+James. "There is the management of his estate. They have begun upon\r
+that already. And it really is painful for me to see. It is a\r
+nuisance under one's very nose. I do think one is bound to do the best\r
+for one's land and tenants, especially in these hard times."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps the 'Trumpet' may rouse him to make a change, and some good\r
+may come of it all," said the Rector. "I know I should be glad. I\r
+should hear less grumbling when my tithe is paid. I don't know what I\r
+should do if there were not a modus in Tipton."\r
+\r
+"I want him to have a proper man to look after things--I want him to\r
+take on Garth again," said Sir James. "He got rid of Garth twelve\r
+years ago, and everything has been going wrong since. I think of\r
+getting Garth to manage for me--he has made such a capital plan for my\r
+buildings; and Lovegood is hardly up to the mark. But Garth would not\r
+undertake the Tipton estate again unless Brooke left it entirely to\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"In the right of it too," said the Rector. "Garth is an independent\r
+fellow: an original, simple-minded fellow. One day, when he was doing\r
+some valuation for me, he told me point-blank that clergymen seldom\r
+understood anything about business, and did mischief when they meddled;\r
+but he said it as quietly and respectfully as if he had been talking to\r
+me about sailors. He would make a different parish of Tipton, if\r
+Brooke would let him manage. I wish, by the help of the 'Trumpet,' you\r
+could bring that round."\r
+\r
+"If Dorothea had kept near her uncle, there would have been some\r
+chance," said Sir James. "She might have got some power over him in\r
+time, and she was always uneasy about the estate. She had wonderfully\r
+good notions about such things. But now Casaubon takes her up\r
+entirely. Celia complains a good deal. We can hardly get her to dine\r
+with us, since he had that fit." Sir James ended with a look of pitying\r
+disgust, and Mrs. Cadwallader shrugged her shoulders as much as to say\r
+that _she_ was not likely to see anything new in that direction.\r
+\r
+"Poor Casaubon!" the Rector said. "That was a nasty attack. I thought\r
+he looked shattered the other day at the Archdeacon's."\r
+\r
+"In point of fact," resumed Sir James, not choosing to dwell on "fits,"\r
+"Brooke doesn't mean badly by his tenants or any one else, but he has\r
+got that way of paring and clipping at expenses."\r
+\r
+"Come, that's a blessing," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "That helps him to\r
+find himself in a morning. He may not know his own opinions, but he\r
+does know his own pocket."\r
+\r
+"I don't believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his land," said\r
+Sir James.\r
+\r
+"Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it will not do to\r
+keep one's own pigs lean," said Mrs. Cadwallader, who had risen to look\r
+out of the window. "But talk of an independent politician and he will\r
+appear."\r
+\r
+"What! Brooke?" said her husband.\r
+\r
+"Yes. Now, you ply him with the 'Trumpet,' Humphrey; and I will put\r
+the leeches on him. What will you do, Sir James?"\r
+\r
+"The fact is, I don't like to begin about it with Brooke, in our mutual\r
+position; the whole thing is so unpleasant. I do wish people would\r
+behave like gentlemen," said the good baronet, feeling that this was a\r
+simple and comprehensive programme for social well-being.\r
+\r
+"Here you all are, eh?" said Mr. Brooke, shuffling round and shaking\r
+hands. "I was going up to the Hall by-and-by, Chettam. But it's\r
+pleasant to find everybody, you know. Well, what do you think of\r
+things?--going on a little fast! It was true enough, what Lafitte\r
+said--'Since yesterday, a century has passed away:'--they're in the\r
+next century, you know, on the other side of the water. Going on\r
+faster than we are."\r
+\r
+"Why, yes," said the Rector, taking up the newspaper. "Here is the\r
+'Trumpet' accusing you of lagging behind--did you see?"\r
+\r
+"Eh? no," said Mr. Brooke, dropping his gloves into his hat and hastily\r
+adjusting his eye-glass. But Mr. Cadwallader kept the paper in his\r
+hand, saying, with a smile in his eyes--\r
+\r
+"Look here! all this is about a landlord not a hundred miles from\r
+Middlemarch, who receives his own rents. They say he is the most\r
+retrogressive man in the county. I think you must have taught them\r
+that word in the 'Pioneer.'"\r
+\r
+"Oh, that is Keck--an illiterate fellow, you know. Retrogressive, now!\r
+Come, that's capital. He thinks it means destructive: they want to\r
+make me out a destructive, you know," said Mr. Brooke, with that\r
+cheerfulness which is usually sustained by an adversary's ignorance.\r
+\r
+"I think he knows the meaning of the word. Here is a sharp stroke or\r
+two. If we had to describe a man who is retrogressive in the most evil\r
+sense of the word--we should say, he is one who would dub himself a\r
+reformer of our constitution, while every interest for which he is\r
+immediately responsible is going to decay: a philanthropist who cannot\r
+bear one rogue to be hanged, but does not mind five honest tenants\r
+being half-starved: a man who shrieks at corruption, and keeps his\r
+farms at rack-rent: who roars himself red at rotten boroughs, and does\r
+not mind if every field on his farms has a rotten gate: a man very\r
+open-hearted to Leeds and Manchester, no doubt; he would give any\r
+number of representatives who will pay for their seats out of their own\r
+pockets: what he objects to giving, is a little return on rent-days to\r
+help a tenant to buy stock, or an outlay on repairs to keep the weather\r
+out at a tenant's barn-door or make his house look a little less like\r
+an Irish cottier's. But we all know the wag's definition of a\r
+philanthropist: a man whose charity increases directly as the square of\r
+the distance. And so on. All the rest is to show what sort of\r
+legislator a philanthropist is likely to make," ended the Rector,\r
+throwing down the paper, and clasping his hands at the back of his\r
+head, while he looked at Mr. Brooke with an air of amused neutrality.\r
+\r
+"Come, that's rather good, you know," said Mr. Brooke, taking up the\r
+paper and trying to bear the attack as easily as his neighbor did, but\r
+coloring and smiling rather nervously; "that about roaring himself red\r
+at rotten boroughs--I never made a speech about rotten boroughs in my\r
+life. And as to roaring myself red and that kind of thing--these men\r
+never understand what is good satire. Satire, you know, should be true\r
+up to a certain point. I recollect they said that in 'The Edinburgh'\r
+somewhere--it must be true up to a certain point."\r
+\r
+"Well, that is really a hit about the gates," said Sir James, anxious\r
+to tread carefully. "Dagley complained to me the other day that he\r
+hadn't got a decent gate on his farm. Garth has invented a new pattern\r
+of gate--I wish you would try it. One ought to use some of one's\r
+timber in that way."\r
+\r
+"You go in for fancy farming, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+appearing to glance over the columns of the "Trumpet." "That's your\r
+hobby, and you don't mind the expense."\r
+\r
+"I thought the most expensive hobby in the world was standing for\r
+Parliament," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "They said the last unsuccessful\r
+candidate at Middlemarch--Giles, wasn't his name?--spent ten thousand\r
+pounds and failed because he did not bribe enough. What a bitter\r
+reflection for a man!"\r
+\r
+"Somebody was saying," said the Rector, laughingly, "that East Retford\r
+was nothing to Middlemarch, for bribery."\r
+\r
+"Nothing of the kind," said Mr. Brooke. "The Tories bribe, you know:\r
+Hawley and his set bribe with treating, hot codlings, and that sort of\r
+thing; and they bring the voters drunk to the poll. But they are not\r
+going to have it their own way in future--not in future, you know.\r
+Middlemarch is a little backward, I admit--the freemen are a little\r
+backward. But we shall educate them--we shall bring them on, you\r
+know. The best people there are on our side."\r
+\r
+"Hawley says you have men on your side who will do you harm," remarked\r
+Sir James. "He says Bulstrode the banker will do you harm."\r
+\r
+"And that if you got pelted," interposed Mrs. Cadwallader, "half the\r
+rotten eggs would mean hatred of your committee-man. Good heavens!\r
+Think what it must be to be pelted for wrong opinions. And I seem to\r
+remember a story of a man they pretended to chair and let him fall into\r
+a dust-heap on purpose!"\r
+\r
+"Pelting is nothing to their finding holes in one's coat," said the\r
+Rector. "I confess that's what I should be afraid of, if we parsons\r
+had to stand at the hustings for preferment. I should be afraid of\r
+their reckoning up all my fishing days. Upon my word, I think the\r
+truth is the hardest missile one can be pelted with."\r
+\r
+"The fact is," said Sir James, "if a man goes into public life he must\r
+be prepared for the consequences. He must make himself proof against\r
+calumny."\r
+\r
+"My dear Chettam, that is all very fine, you know," said Mr. Brooke.\r
+"But how will you make yourself proof against calumny? You should read\r
+history--look at ostracism, persecution, martyrdom, and that kind of\r
+thing. They always happen to the best men, you know. But what is that\r
+in Horace?--'fiat justitia, ruat . . . something or other."\r
+\r
+"Exactly," said Sir James, with a little more heat than usual. "What I\r
+mean by being proof against calumny is being able to point to the fact\r
+as a contradiction."\r
+\r
+"And it is not martyrdom to pay bills that one has run into one's\r
+self," said Mrs. Cadwallader.\r
+\r
+But it was Sir James's evident annoyance that most stirred Mr. Brooke.\r
+"Well, you know, Chettam," he said, rising, taking up his hat and\r
+leaning on his stick, "you and I have a different system. You are all\r
+for outlay with your farms. I don't want to make out that my system is\r
+good under all circumstances--under all circumstances, you know."\r
+\r
+"There ought to be a new valuation made from time to time," said Sir\r
+James. "Returns are very well occasionally, but I like a fair\r
+valuation. What do you say, Cadwallader?"\r
+\r
+"I agree with you. If I were Brooke, I would choke the 'Trumpet' at\r
+once by getting Garth to make a new valuation of the farms, and giving\r
+him carte blanche about gates and repairs: that's my view of the\r
+political situation," said the Rector, broadening himself by sticking\r
+his thumbs in his armholes, and laughing towards Mr. Brooke.\r
+\r
+"That's a showy sort of thing to do, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "But\r
+I should like you to tell me of another landlord who has distressed his\r
+tenants for arrears as little as I have. I let the old tenants stay\r
+on. I'm uncommonly easy, let me tell you, uncommonly easy. I have my\r
+own ideas, and I take my stand on them, you know. A man who does that\r
+is always charged with eccentricity, inconsistency, and that kind of\r
+thing. When I change my line of action, I shall follow my own ideas."\r
+\r
+After that, Mr. Brooke remembered that there was a packet which he had\r
+omitted to send off from the Grange, and he bade everybody hurriedly\r
+good-by.\r
+\r
+"I didn't want to take a liberty with Brooke," said Sir James; "I see\r
+he is nettled. But as to what he says about old tenants, in point of\r
+fact no new tenant would take the farms on the present terms."\r
+\r
+"I have a notion that he will be brought round in time," said the\r
+Rector. "But you were pulling one way, Elinor, and we were pulling\r
+another. You wanted to frighten him away from expense, and we want to\r
+frighten him into it. Better let him try to be popular and see that\r
+his character as a landlord stands in his way. I don't think it\r
+signifies two straws about the 'Pioneer,' or Ladislaw, or Brooke's\r
+speechifying to the Middlemarchers. But it does signify about the\r
+parishioners in Tipton being comfortable."\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, it is you two who are on the wrong tack," said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader. "You should have proved to him that he loses money by bad\r
+management, and then we should all have pulled together. If you put\r
+him a-horseback on politics, I warn you of the consequences. It was\r
+all very well to ride on sticks at home and call them ideas."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXXIX.\r
+\r
+ "If, as I have, you also doe,\r
+ Vertue attired in woman see,\r
+ And dare love that, and say so too,\r
+ And forget the He and She;\r
+\r
+ And if this love, though placed so,\r
+ From prophane men you hide,\r
+ Which will no faith on this bestow,\r
+ Or, if they doe, deride:\r
+\r
+ Then you have done a braver thing\r
+ Than all the Worthies did,\r
+ And a braver thence will spring,\r
+ Which is, to keep that hid."\r
+ --DR. DONNE.\r
+\r
+\r
+Sir James Chettam's mind was not fruitful in devices, but his growing\r
+anxiety to "act on Brooke," once brought close to his constant belief\r
+in Dorothea's capacity for influence, became formative, and issued in a\r
+little plan; namely, to plead Celia's indisposition as a reason for\r
+fetching Dorothea by herself to the Hall, and to leave her at the\r
+Grange with the carriage on the way, after making her fully aware of\r
+the situation concerning the management of the estate.\r
+\r
+In this way it happened that one day near four o'clock, when Mr. Brooke\r
+and Ladislaw were seated in the library, the door opened and Mrs.\r
+Casaubon was announced.\r
+\r
+Will, the moment before, had been low in the depths of boredom, and,\r
+obliged to help Mr. Brooke in arranging "documents" about hanging\r
+sheep-stealers, was exemplifying the power our minds have of riding\r
+several horses at once by inwardly arranging measures towards getting a\r
+lodging for himself in Middlemarch and cutting short his constant\r
+residence at the Grange; while there flitted through all these steadier\r
+images a tickling vision of a sheep-stealing epic written with Homeric\r
+particularity. When Mrs. Casaubon was announced he started up as from\r
+an electric shock, and felt a tingling at his finger-ends. Any one\r
+observing him would have seen a change in his complexion, in the\r
+adjustment of his facial muscles, in the vividness of his glance, which\r
+might have made them imagine that every molecule in his body had passed\r
+the message of a magic touch. And so it had. For effective magic is\r
+transcendent nature; and who shall measure the subtlety of those\r
+touches which convey the quality of soul as well as body, and make a\r
+man's passion for one woman differ from his passion for another as joy\r
+in the morning light over valley and river and white mountain-top\r
+differs from joy among Chinese lanterns and glass panels? Will, too,\r
+was made of very impressible stuff. The bow of a violin drawn near him\r
+cleverly, would at one stroke change the aspect of the world for him,\r
+and his point of view shifted--as easily as his mood. Dorothea's\r
+entrance was the freshness of morning.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear, this is pleasant, now," said Mr. Brooke, meeting and\r
+kissing her. "You have left Casaubon with his books, I suppose.\r
+That's right. We must not have you getting too learned for a woman,\r
+you know."\r
+\r
+"There is no fear of that, uncle," said Dorothea, turning to Will and\r
+shaking hands with open cheerfulness, while she made no other form of\r
+greeting, but went on answering her uncle. "I am very slow. When I\r
+want to be busy with books, I am often playing truant among my\r
+thoughts. I find it is not so easy to be learned as to plan cottages."\r
+\r
+She seated herself beside her uncle opposite to Will, and was evidently\r
+preoccupied with something that made her almost unmindful of him. He\r
+was ridiculously disappointed, as if he had imagined that her coming\r
+had anything to do with him.\r
+\r
+"Why, yes, my dear, it was quite your hobby to draw plans. But it was\r
+good to break that off a little. Hobbies are apt to ran away with us,\r
+you know; it doesn't do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.\r
+I have never let myself be run away with; I always pulled up. That is\r
+what I tell Ladislaw. He and I are alike, you know: he likes to go\r
+into everything. We are working at capital punishment. We shall do a\r
+great deal together, Ladislaw and I."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Dorothea, with characteristic directness, "Sir James has\r
+been telling me that he is in hope of seeing a great change made soon\r
+in your management of the estate--that you are thinking of having the\r
+farms valued, and repairs made, and the cottages improved, so that\r
+Tipton may look quite another place. Oh, how happy!"--she went on,\r
+clasping her hands, with a return to that more childlike impetuous\r
+manner, which had been subdued since her marriage. "If I were at home\r
+still, I should take to riding again, that I might go about with you\r
+and see all that! And you are going to engage Mr. Garth, who praised\r
+my cottages, Sir James says."\r
+\r
+"Chettam is a little hasty, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, coloring\r
+slightly; "a little hasty, you know. I never said I should do anything\r
+of the kind. I never said I should _not_ do it, you know."\r
+\r
+"He only feels confident that you will do it," said Dorothea, in a\r
+voice as clear and unhesitating as that of a young chorister chanting a\r
+credo, "because you mean to enter Parliament as a member who cares for\r
+the improvement of the people, and one of the first things to be made\r
+better is the state of the land and the laborers. Think of Kit Downes,\r
+uncle, who lives with his wife and seven children in a house with one\r
+sitting room and one bedroom hardly larger than this table!--and those\r
+poor Dagleys, in their tumble-down farmhouse, where they live in the\r
+back kitchen and leave the other rooms to the rats! That is one reason\r
+why I did not like the pictures here, dear uncle--which you think me\r
+stupid about. I used to come from the village with all that dirt and\r
+coarse ugliness like a pain within me, and the simpering pictures in\r
+the drawing-room seemed to me like a wicked attempt to find delight in\r
+what is false, while we don't mind how hard the truth is for the\r
+neighbors outside our walls. I think we have no right to come forward\r
+and urge wider changes for good, until we have tried to alter the evils\r
+which lie under our own hands."\r
+\r
+Dorothea had gathered emotion as she went on, and had forgotten\r
+everything except the relief of pouring forth her feelings, unchecked:\r
+an experience once habitual with her, but hardly ever present since her\r
+marriage, which had been a perpetual struggle of energy with fear. For\r
+the moment, Will's admiration was accompanied with a chilling sense of\r
+remoteness. A man is seldom ashamed of feeling that he cannot love a\r
+woman so well when he sees a certain greatness in her: nature having\r
+intended greatness for men. But nature has sometimes made sad\r
+oversights in carrying out her intention; as in the case of good Mr.\r
+Brooke, whose masculine consciousness was at this moment in rather a\r
+stammering condition under the eloquence of his niece. He could not\r
+immediately find any other mode of expressing himself than that of\r
+rising, fixing his eye-glass, and fingering the papers before him. At\r
+last he said--\r
+\r
+"There is something in what you say, my dear, something in what you\r
+say--but not everything--eh, Ladislaw? You and I don't like our\r
+pictures and statues being found fault with. Young ladies are a little\r
+ardent, you know--a little one-sided, my dear. Fine art, poetry, that\r
+kind of thing, elevates a nation--emollit mores--you understand a\r
+little Latin now. But--eh? what?"\r
+\r
+These interrogatives were addressed to the footman who had come in to\r
+say that the keeper had found one of Dagley's boys with a leveret in\r
+his hand just killed.\r
+\r
+"I'll come, I'll come. I shall let him off easily, you know," said Mr.\r
+Brooke aside to Dorothea, shuffling away very cheerfully.\r
+\r
+"I hope you feel how right this change is that I--that Sir James wishes\r
+for," said Dorothea to Will, as soon as her uncle was gone.\r
+\r
+"I do, now I have heard you speak about it. I shall not forget what\r
+you have said. But can you think of something else at this moment? I\r
+may not have another opportunity of speaking to you about what has\r
+occurred," said Will, rising with a movement of impatience, and holding\r
+the back of his chair with both hands.\r
+\r
+"Pray tell me what it is," said Dorothea, anxiously, also rising and\r
+going to the open window, where Monk was looking in, panting and\r
+wagging his tail. She leaned her back against the window-frame, and\r
+laid her hand on the dog's head; for though, as we know, she was not\r
+fond of pets that must be held in the hands or trodden on, she was\r
+always attentive to the feelings of dogs, and very polite if she had to\r
+decline their advances.\r
+\r
+Will followed her only with his eyes and said, "I presume you know that\r
+Mr. Casaubon has forbidden me to go to his house."\r
+\r
+"No, I did not," said Dorothea, after a moment's pause. She was\r
+evidently much moved. "I am very, very sorry," she added, mournfully.\r
+She was thinking of what Will had no knowledge of--the conversation\r
+between her and her husband in the darkness; and she was anew smitten\r
+with hopelessness that she could influence Mr. Casaubon's action. But\r
+the marked expression of her sorrow convinced Will that it was not all\r
+given to him personally, and that Dorothea had not been visited by the\r
+idea that Mr. Casaubon's dislike and jealousy of him turned upon\r
+herself. He felt an odd mixture of delight and vexation: of delight\r
+that he could dwell and be cherished in her thought as in a pure home,\r
+without suspicion and without stint--of vexation because he was of too\r
+little account with her, was not formidable enough, was treated with an\r
+unhesitating benevolence which did not flatter him. But his dread of\r
+any change in Dorothea was stronger than his discontent, and he began\r
+to speak again in a tone of mere explanation.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Casaubon's reason is, his displeasure at my taking a position here\r
+which he considers unsuited to my rank as his cousin. I have told him\r
+that I cannot give way on this point. It is a little too hard on me to\r
+expect that my course in life is to be hampered by prejudices which I\r
+think ridiculous. Obligation may be stretched till it is no better\r
+than a brand of slavery stamped on us when we were too young to know\r
+its meaning. I would not have accepted the position if I had not meant\r
+to make it useful and honorable. I am not bound to regard family\r
+dignity in any other light."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt wretched. She thought her husband altogether in the\r
+wrong, on more grounds than Will had mentioned.\r
+\r
+"It is better for us not to speak on the subject," she said, with a\r
+tremulousness not common in her voice, "since you and Mr. Casaubon\r
+disagree. You intend to remain?" She was looking out on the lawn,\r
+with melancholy meditation.\r
+\r
+"Yes; but I shall hardly ever see you now," said Will, in a tone of\r
+almost boyish complaint.\r
+\r
+"No," said Dorothea, turning her eyes full upon him, "hardly ever. But\r
+I shall hear of you. I shall know what you are doing for my uncle."\r
+\r
+"I shall know hardly anything about you," said Will. "No one will tell\r
+me anything."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my life is very simple," said Dorothea, her lips curling with an\r
+exquisite smile, which irradiated her melancholy. "I am always at\r
+Lowick."\r
+\r
+"That is a dreadful imprisonment," said Will, impetuously.\r
+\r
+"No, don't think that," said Dorothea. "I have no longings."\r
+\r
+He did not speak, but she replied to some change in his expression. "I\r
+mean, for myself. Except that I should like not to have so much more\r
+than my share without doing anything for others. But I have a belief\r
+of my own, and it comforts me."\r
+\r
+"What is that?" said Will, rather jealous of the belief.\r
+\r
+"That by desiring what is perfectly good, even when we don't quite know\r
+what it is and cannot do what we would, we are part of the divine power\r
+against evil--widening the skirts of light and making the struggle with\r
+darkness narrower."\r
+\r
+"That is a beautiful mysticism--it is a--"\r
+\r
+"Please not to call it by any name," said Dorothea, putting out her\r
+hands entreatingly. "You will say it is Persian, or something else\r
+geographical. It is my life. I have found it out, and cannot part\r
+with it. I have always been finding out my religion since I was a\r
+little girl. I used to pray so much--now I hardly ever pray. I try\r
+not to have desires merely for myself, because they may not be good for\r
+others, and I have too much already. I only told you, that you might\r
+know quite well how my days go at Lowick."\r
+\r
+"God bless you for telling me!" said Will, ardently, and rather\r
+wondering at himself. They were looking at each other like two fond\r
+children who were talking confidentially of birds.\r
+\r
+"What is _your_ religion?" said Dorothea. "I mean--not what you know\r
+about religion, but the belief that helps you most?"\r
+\r
+"To love what is good and beautiful when I see it," said Will. "But I\r
+am a rebel: I don't feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I don't\r
+like."\r
+\r
+"But if you like what is good, that comes to the same thing," said\r
+Dorothea, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Now you are subtle," said Will.\r
+\r
+"Yes; Mr. Casaubon often says I am too subtle. I don't feel as if I\r
+were subtle," said Dorothea, playfully. "But how long my uncle is! I\r
+must go and look for him. I must really go on to the Hall. Celia is\r
+expecting me."\r
+\r
+Will offered to tell Mr. Brooke, who presently came and said that he\r
+would step into the carriage and go with Dorothea as far as Dagley's,\r
+to speak about the small delinquent who had been caught with the\r
+leveret. Dorothea renewed the subject of the estate as they drove\r
+along, but Mr. Brooke, not being taken unawares, got the talk under his\r
+own control.\r
+\r
+"Chettam, now," he replied; "he finds fault with me, my dear; but I\r
+should not preserve my game if it were not for Chettam, and he can't\r
+say that that expense is for the sake of the tenants, you know. It's a\r
+little against my feeling:--poaching, now, if you come to look into\r
+it--I have often thought of getting up the subject. Not long ago,\r
+Flavell, the Methodist preacher, was brought up for knocking down a\r
+hare that came across his path when he and his wife were walking out\r
+together. He was pretty quick, and knocked it on the neck."\r
+\r
+"That was very brutal, I think," said Dorothea\r
+\r
+"Well, now, it seemed rather black to me, I confess, in a Methodist\r
+preacher, you know. And Johnson said, 'You may judge what a\r
+_hypocrite_ he is.' And upon my word, I thought Flavell looked very\r
+little like 'the highest style of man'--as somebody calls the\r
+Christian--Young, the poet Young, I think--you know Young? Well, now,\r
+Flavell in his shabby black gaiters, pleading that he thought the Lord\r
+had sent him and his wife a good dinner, and he had a right to knock it\r
+down, though not a mighty hunter before the Lord, as Nimrod was--I\r
+assure you it was rather comic: Fielding would have made something of\r
+it--or Scott, now--Scott might have worked it up. But really, when I\r
+came to think of it, I couldn't help liking that the fellow should have\r
+a bit of hare to say grace over. It's all a matter of\r
+prejudice--prejudice with the law on its side, you know--about the\r
+stick and the gaiters, and so on. However, it doesn't do to reason\r
+about things; and law is law. But I got Johnson to be quiet, and I\r
+hushed the matter up. I doubt whether Chettam would not have been more\r
+severe, and yet he comes down on me as if I were the hardest man in the\r
+county. But here we are at Dagley's."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke got down at a farmyard-gate, and Dorothea drove on. It is\r
+wonderful how much uglier things will look when we only suspect that we\r
+are blamed for them. Even our own persons in the glass are apt to\r
+change their aspect for us after we have heard some frank remark on\r
+their less admirable points; and on the other hand it is astonishing\r
+how pleasantly conscience takes our encroachments on those who never\r
+complain or have nobody to complain for them. Dagley's homestead never\r
+before looked so dismal to Mr. Brooke as it did today, with his mind\r
+thus sore about the fault-finding of the "Trumpet," echoed by Sir James.\r
+\r
+It is true that an observer, under that softening influence of the fine\r
+arts which makes other people's hardships picturesque, might have been\r
+delighted with this homestead called Freeman's End: the old house had\r
+dormer-windows in the dark red roof, two of the chimneys were choked\r
+with ivy, the large porch was blocked up with bundles of sticks, and\r
+half the windows were closed with gray worm-eaten shutters about which\r
+the jasmine-boughs grew in wild luxuriance; the mouldering garden wall\r
+with hollyhocks peeping over it was a perfect study of highly mingled\r
+subdued color, and there was an aged goat (kept doubtless on\r
+interesting superstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen\r
+door. The mossy thatch of the cow-shed, the broken gray barn-doors,\r
+the pauper laborers in ragged breeches who had nearly finished\r
+unloading a wagon of corn into the barn ready for early thrashing; the\r
+scanty dairy of cows being tethered for milking and leaving one half of\r
+the shed in brown emptiness; the very pigs and white ducks seeming to\r
+wander about the uneven neglected yard as if in low spirits from\r
+feeding on a too meagre quality of rinsings,--all these objects under\r
+the quiet light of a sky marbled with high clouds would have made a\r
+sort of picture which we have all paused over as a "charming bit,"\r
+touching other sensibilities than those which are stirred by the\r
+depression of the agricultural interest, with the sad lack of farming\r
+capital, as seen constantly in the newspapers of that time. But these\r
+troublesome associations were just now strongly present to Mr. Brooke,\r
+and spoiled the scene for him. Mr. Dagley himself made a figure in the\r
+landscape, carrying a pitchfork and wearing his milking-hat--a very old\r
+beaver flattened in front. His coat and breeches were the best he had,\r
+and he would not have been wearing them on this weekday occasion if he\r
+had not been to market and returned later than usual, having given\r
+himself the rare treat of dining at the public table of the Blue Bull.\r
+How he came to fall into this extravagance would perhaps be matter of\r
+wonderment to himself on the morrow; but before dinner something in the\r
+state of the country, a slight pause in the harvest before the Far Dips\r
+were cut, the stories about the new King and the numerous handbills on\r
+the walls, had seemed to warrant a little recklessness. It was a maxim\r
+about Middlemarch, and regarded as self-evident, that good meat should\r
+have good drink, which last Dagley interpreted as plenty of table ale\r
+well followed up by rum-and-water. These liquors have so far truth in\r
+them that they were not false enough to make poor Dagley seem merry:\r
+they only made his discontent less tongue-tied than usual. He had also\r
+taken too much in the shape of muddy political talk, a stimulant\r
+dangerously disturbing to his farming conservatism, which consisted in\r
+holding that whatever is, is bad, and any change is likely to be worse.\r
+He was flushed, and his eyes had a decidedly quarrelsome stare as he\r
+stood still grasping his pitchfork, while the landlord approached with\r
+his easy shuffling walk, one hand in his trouser-pocket and the other\r
+swinging round a thin walking-stick.\r
+\r
+"Dagley, my good fellow," began Mr. Brooke, conscious that he was going\r
+to be very friendly about the boy.\r
+\r
+"Oh, ay, I'm a good feller, am I? Thank ye, sir, thank ye," said\r
+Dagley, with a loud snarling irony which made Fag the sheep-dog stir\r
+from his seat and prick his ears; but seeing Monk enter the yard after\r
+some outside loitering, Fag seated himself again in an attitude of\r
+observation. "I'm glad to hear I'm a good feller."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke reflected that it was market-day, and that his worthy tenant\r
+had probably been dining, but saw no reason why he should not go on,\r
+since he could take the precaution of repeating what he had to say to\r
+Mrs. Dagley.\r
+\r
+"Your little lad Jacob has been caught killing a leveret, Dagley: I\r
+have told Johnson to lock him up in the empty stable an hour or two,\r
+just to frighten him, you know. But he will be brought home by-and-by,\r
+before night: and you'll just look after him, will you, and give him a\r
+reprimand, you know?"\r
+\r
+"No, I woon't: I'll be dee'd if I'll leather my boy to please you or\r
+anybody else, not if you was twenty landlords istid o' one, and that a\r
+bad un."\r
+\r
+Dagley's words were loud enough to summon his wife to the back-kitchen\r
+door--the only entrance ever used, and one always open except in bad\r
+weather--and Mr. Brooke, saying soothingly, "Well, well, I'll speak to\r
+your wife--I didn't mean beating, you know," turned to walk to the\r
+house. But Dagley, only the more inclined to "have his say" with a\r
+gentleman who walked away from him, followed at once, with Fag\r
+slouching at his heels and sullenly evading some small and probably\r
+charitable advances on the part of Monk.\r
+\r
+"How do you do, Mrs. Dagley?" said Mr. Brooke, making some haste. "I\r
+came to tell you about your boy: I don't want you to give him the\r
+stick, you know." He was careful to speak quite plainly this time.\r
+\r
+Overworked Mrs. Dagley--a thin, worn woman, from whose life pleasure\r
+had so entirely vanished that she had not even any Sunday clothes which\r
+could give her satisfaction in preparing for church--had already had a\r
+misunderstanding with her husband since he had come home, and was in\r
+low spirits, expecting the worst. But her husband was beforehand in\r
+answering.\r
+\r
+"No, nor he woon't hev the stick, whether you want it or no," pursued\r
+Dagley, throwing out his voice, as if he wanted it to hit hard.\r
+"You've got no call to come an' talk about sticks o' these primises, as\r
+you woon't give a stick tow'rt mending. Go to Middlemarch to ax for\r
+_your_ charrickter."\r
+\r
+"You'd far better hold your tongue, Dagley," said the wife, "and not\r
+kick your own trough over. When a man as is father of a family has\r
+been an' spent money at market and made himself the worse for liquor,\r
+he's done enough mischief for one day. But I should like to know what\r
+my boy's done, sir."\r
+\r
+"Niver do you mind what he's done," said Dagley, more fiercely, "it's\r
+my business to speak, an' not yourn. An' I wull speak, too. I'll hev\r
+my say--supper or no. An' what I say is, as I've lived upo' your\r
+ground from my father and grandfather afore me, an' hev dropped our\r
+money into't, an' me an' my children might lie an' rot on the ground\r
+for top-dressin' as we can't find the money to buy, if the King wasn't\r
+to put a stop."\r
+\r
+"My good fellow, you're drunk, you know," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+confidentially but not judiciously. "Another day, another day," he\r
+added, turning as if to go.\r
+\r
+But Dagley immediately fronted him, and Fag at his heels growled low,\r
+as his master's voice grew louder and more insulting, while Monk also\r
+drew close in silent dignified watch. The laborers on the wagon were\r
+pausing to listen, and it seemed wiser to be quite passive than to\r
+attempt a ridiculous flight pursued by a bawling man.\r
+\r
+"I'm no more drunk nor you are, nor so much," said Dagley. "I can\r
+carry my liquor, an' I know what I meean. An' I meean as the King 'ull\r
+put a stop to 't, for them say it as knows it, as there's to be a\r
+Rinform, and them landlords as never done the right thing by their\r
+tenants 'ull be treated i' that way as they'll hev to scuttle off. An'\r
+there's them i' Middlemarch knows what the Rinform is--an' as knows\r
+who'll hev to scuttle. Says they, 'I know who _your_ landlord is.'\r
+An' says I, 'I hope you're the better for knowin' him, I arn't.' Says\r
+they, 'He's a close-fisted un.' 'Ay ay,' says I. 'He's a man for the\r
+Rinform,' says they. That's what they says. An' I made out what the\r
+Rinform were--an' it were to send you an' your likes a-scuttlin' an'\r
+wi' pretty strong-smellin' things too. An' you may do as you like now,\r
+for I'm none afeard on you. An' you'd better let my boy aloan, an'\r
+look to yoursen, afore the Rinform has got upo' your back. That's what\r
+I'n got to say," concluded Mr. Dagley, striking his fork into the\r
+ground with a firmness which proved inconvenient as he tried to draw it\r
+up again.\r
+\r
+At this last action Monk began to bark loudly, and it was a moment for\r
+Mr. Brooke to escape. He walked out of the yard as quickly as he\r
+could, in some amazement at the novelty of his situation. He had never\r
+been insulted on his own land before, and had been inclined to regard\r
+himself as a general favorite (we are all apt to do so, when we think\r
+of our own amiability more than of what other people are likely to want\r
+of us). When he had quarrelled with Caleb Garth twelve years before he\r
+had thought that the tenants would be pleased at the landlord's taking\r
+everything into his own hands.\r
+\r
+Some who follow the narrative of his experience may wonder at the\r
+midnight darkness of Mr. Dagley; but nothing was easier in those times\r
+than for an hereditary farmer of his grade to be ignorant, in spite\r
+somehow of having a rector in the twin parish who was a gentleman to\r
+the backbone, a curate nearer at hand who preached more learnedly than\r
+the rector, a landlord who had gone into everything, especially fine\r
+art and social improvement, and all the lights of Middlemarch only\r
+three miles off. As to the facility with which mortals escape\r
+knowledge, try an average acquaintance in the intellectual blaze of\r
+London, and consider what that eligible person for a dinner-party would\r
+have been if he had learned scant skill in "summing" from the\r
+parish-clerk of Tipton, and read a chapter in the Bible with immense\r
+difficulty, because such names as Isaiah or Apollos remained\r
+unmanageable after twice spelling. Poor Dagley read a few verses\r
+sometimes on a Sunday evening, and the world was at least not darker to\r
+him than it had been before. Some things he knew thoroughly, namely,\r
+the slovenly habits of farming, and the awkwardness of weather, stock\r
+and crops, at Freeman's End--so called apparently by way of sarcasm,\r
+to imply that a man was free to quit it if he chose, but that there was\r
+no earthly "beyond" open to him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XL.\r
+\r
+ Wise in his daily work was he:\r
+ To fruits of diligence,\r
+ And not to faiths or polity,\r
+ He plied his utmost sense.\r
+ These perfect in their little parts,\r
+ Whose work is all their prize--\r
+ Without them how could laws, or arts,\r
+ Or towered cities rise?\r
+\r
+\r
+In watching effects, if only of an electric battery, it is often\r
+necessary to change our place and examine a particular mixture or group\r
+at some distance from the point where the movement we are interested in\r
+was set up. The group I am moving towards is at Caleb Garth's\r
+breakfast-table in the large parlor where the maps and desk were:\r
+father, mother, and five of the children. Mary was just now at home\r
+waiting for a situation, while Christy, the boy next to her, was\r
+getting cheap learning and cheap fare in Scotland, having to his\r
+father's disappointment taken to books instead of that sacred calling\r
+"business."\r
+\r
+The letters had come--nine costly letters, for which the postman had\r
+been paid three and twopence, and Mr. Garth was forgetting his tea and\r
+toast while he read his letters and laid them open one above the other,\r
+sometimes swaying his head slowly, sometimes screwing up his mouth in\r
+inward debate, but not forgetting to cut off a large red seal unbroken,\r
+which Letty snatched up like an eager terrier.\r
+\r
+The talk among the rest went on unrestrainedly, for nothing disturbed\r
+Caleb's absorption except shaking the table when he was writing.\r
+\r
+Two letters of the nine had been for Mary. After reading them, she had\r
+passed them to her mother, and sat playing with her tea-spoon absently,\r
+till with a sudden recollection she returned to her sewing, which she\r
+had kept on her lap during breakfast.\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't sew, Mary!" said Ben, pulling her arm down. "Make me a\r
+peacock with this bread-crumb." He had been kneading a small mass for\r
+the purpose.\r
+\r
+"No, no, Mischief!" said Mary, good-humoredly, while she pricked his\r
+hand lightly with her needle. "Try and mould it yourself: you have\r
+seen me do it often enough. I must get this sewing done. It is for\r
+Rosamond Vincy: she is to be married next week, and she can't be\r
+married without this handkerchief." Mary ended merrily, amused with\r
+the last notion.\r
+\r
+"Why can't she, Mary?" said Letty, seriously interested in this\r
+mystery, and pushing her head so close to her sister that Mary now\r
+turned the threatening needle towards Letty's nose.\r
+\r
+"Because this is one of a dozen, and without it there would only be\r
+eleven," said Mary, with a grave air of explanation, so that Letty sank\r
+back with a sense of knowledge.\r
+\r
+"Have you made up your mind, my dear?" said Mrs. Garth, laying the\r
+letters down.\r
+\r
+"I shall go to the school at York," said Mary. "I am less unfit to\r
+teach in a school than in a family. I like to teach classes best.\r
+And, you see, I must teach: there is nothing else to be done."\r
+\r
+"Teaching seems to me the most delightful work in the world," said Mrs.\r
+Garth, with a touch of rebuke in her tone. "I could understand your\r
+objection to it if you had not knowledge enough, Mary, or if you\r
+disliked children."\r
+\r
+"I suppose we never quite understand why another dislikes what we like,\r
+mother," said Mary, rather curtly. "I am not fond of a schoolroom: I\r
+like the outside world better. It is a very inconvenient fault of\r
+mine."\r
+\r
+"It must be very stupid to be always in a girls' school," said Alfred.\r
+"Such a set of nincompoops, like Mrs. Ballard's pupils walking two and\r
+two."\r
+\r
+"And they have no games worth playing at," said Jim. "They can neither\r
+throw nor leap. I don't wonder at Mary's not liking it."\r
+\r
+"What is that Mary doesn't like, eh?" said the father, looking over his\r
+spectacles and pausing before he opened his next letter.\r
+\r
+"Being among a lot of nincompoop girls," said Alfred.\r
+\r
+"Is it the situation you had heard of, Mary?" said Caleb, gently,\r
+looking at his daughter.\r
+\r
+"Yes, father: the school at York. I have determined to take it. It is\r
+quite the best. Thirty-five pounds a-year, and extra pay for teaching\r
+the smallest strummers at the piano."\r
+\r
+"Poor child! I wish she could stay at home with us, Susan," said\r
+Caleb, looking plaintively at his wife.\r
+\r
+"Mary would not be happy without doing her duty," said Mrs. Garth,\r
+magisterially, conscious of having done her own.\r
+\r
+"It wouldn't make me happy to do such a nasty duty as that," said\r
+Alfred--at which Mary and her father laughed silently, but Mrs. Garth\r
+said, gravely--\r
+\r
+"Do find a fitter word than nasty, my dear Alfred, for everything that\r
+you think disagreeable. And suppose that Mary could help you to go to\r
+Mr. Hanmer's with the money she gets?"\r
+\r
+"That seems to me a great shame. But she's an old brick," said Alfred,\r
+rising from his chair, and pulling Mary's head backward to kiss her.\r
+\r
+Mary colored and laughed, but could not conceal that the tears were\r
+coming. Caleb, looking on over his spectacles, with the angles of his\r
+eyebrows falling, had an expression of mingled delight and sorrow as he\r
+returned to the opening of his letter; and even Mrs. Garth, her lips\r
+curling with a calm contentment, allowed that inappropriate language to\r
+pass without correction, although Ben immediately took it up, and sang,\r
+"She's an old brick, old brick, old brick!" to a cantering measure,\r
+which he beat out with his fist on Mary's arm.\r
+\r
+But Mrs. Garth's eyes were now drawn towards her husband, who was\r
+already deep in the letter he was reading. His face had an expression\r
+of grave surprise, which alarmed her a little, but he did not like to\r
+be questioned while he was reading, and she remained anxiously watching\r
+till she saw him suddenly shaken by a little joyous laugh as he turned\r
+back to the beginning of the letter, and looking at her above his\r
+spectacles, said, in a low tone, "What do you think, Susan?"\r
+\r
+She went and stood behind him, putting her hand on his shoulder, while\r
+they read the letter together. It was from Sir James Chettam, offering\r
+to Mr. Garth the management of the family estates at Freshitt and\r
+elsewhere, and adding that Sir James had been requested by Mr. Brooke\r
+of Tipton to ascertain whether Mr. Garth would be disposed at the same\r
+time to resume the agency of the Tipton property. The Baronet added in\r
+very obliging words that he himself was particularly desirous of seeing\r
+the Freshitt and Tipton estates under the same management, and he hoped\r
+to be able to show that the double agency might be held on terms\r
+agreeable to Mr. Garth, whom he would be glad to see at the Hall at\r
+twelve o'clock on the following day.\r
+\r
+"He writes handsomely, doesn't he, Susan?" said Caleb, turning his eyes\r
+upward to his wife, who raised her hand from his shoulder to his ear,\r
+while she rested her chin on his head. "Brooke didn't like to ask me\r
+himself, I can see," he continued, laughing silently.\r
+\r
+"Here is an honor to your father, children," said Mrs. Garth, looking\r
+round at the five pair of eyes, all fixed on the parents. "He is asked\r
+to take a post again by those who dismissed him long ago. That shows\r
+that he did his work well, so that they feel the want of him."\r
+\r
+"Like Cincinnatus--hooray!" said Ben, riding on his chair, with a\r
+pleasant confidence that discipline was relaxed.\r
+\r
+"Will they come to fetch him, mother?" said Letty, thinking of the\r
+Mayor and Corporation in their robes.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth patted Letty's head and smiled, but seeing that her husband\r
+was gathering up his letters and likely soon to be out of reach in that\r
+sanctuary "business," she pressed his shoulder and said emphatically--\r
+\r
+"Now, mind you ask fair pay, Caleb."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Caleb, in a deep voice of assent, as if it would be\r
+unreasonable to suppose anything else of him. "It'll come to between\r
+four and five hundred, the two together." Then with a little start of\r
+remembrance he said, "Mary, write and give up that school. Stay and\r
+help your mother. I'm as pleased as Punch, now I've thought of that."\r
+\r
+No manner could have been less like that of Punch triumphant than\r
+Caleb's, but his talents did not lie in finding phrases, though he was\r
+very particular about his letter-writing, and regarded his wife as a\r
+treasury of correct language.\r
+\r
+There was almost an uproar among the children now, and Mary held up the\r
+cambric embroidery towards her mother entreatingly, that it might be\r
+put out of reach while the boys dragged her into a dance. Mrs. Garth,\r
+in placid joy, began to put the cups and plates together, while Caleb\r
+pushing his chair from the table, as if he were going to move to the\r
+desk, still sat holding his letters in his hand and looking on the\r
+ground meditatively, stretching out the fingers of his left hand,\r
+according to a mute language of his own. At last he said--\r
+\r
+"It's a thousand pities Christy didn't take to business, Susan. I\r
+shall want help by-and-by. And Alfred must go off to the\r
+engineering--I've made up my mind to that." He fell into meditation and\r
+finger-rhetoric again for a little while, and then continued: "I shall\r
+make Brooke have new agreements with the tenants, and I shall draw up a\r
+rotation of crops. And I'll lay a wager we can get fine bricks out of\r
+the clay at Bott's corner. I must look into that: it would cheapen the\r
+repairs. It's a fine bit of work, Susan! A man without a family would\r
+be glad to do it for nothing."\r
+\r
+"Mind you don't, though," said his wife, lifting up her finger.\r
+\r
+"No, no; but it's a fine thing to come to a man when he's seen into the\r
+nature of business: to have the chance of getting a bit of the country\r
+into good fettle, as they say, and putting men into the right way with\r
+their farming, and getting a bit of good contriving and solid building\r
+done--that those who are living and those who come after will be the\r
+better for. I'd sooner have it than a fortune. I hold it the most\r
+honorable work that is." Here Caleb laid down his letters, thrust his\r
+fingers between the buttons of his waistcoat, and sat upright, but\r
+presently proceeded with some awe in his voice and moving his head\r
+slowly aside--"It's a great gift of God, Susan."\r
+\r
+"That it is, Caleb," said his wife, with answering fervor. "And it\r
+will be a blessing to your children to have had a father who did such\r
+work: a father whose good work remains though his name may be\r
+forgotten." She could not say any more to him then about the pay.\r
+\r
+In the evening, when Caleb, rather tired with his day's work, was\r
+seated in silence with his pocket-book open on his knee, while Mrs.\r
+Garth and Mary were at their sewing, and Letty in a corner was\r
+whispering a dialogue with her doll, Mr. Farebrother came up the\r
+orchard walk, dividing the bright August lights and shadows with the\r
+tufted grass and the apple-tree boughs. We know that he was fond of\r
+his parishioners the Garths, and had thought Mary worth mentioning to\r
+Lydgate. He used to the full the clergyman's privilege of disregarding\r
+the Middlemarch discrimination of ranks, and always told his mother\r
+that Mrs. Garth was more of a lady than any matron in the town. Still,\r
+you see, he spent his evenings at the Vincys', where the matron, though\r
+less of a lady, presided over a well-lit drawing-room and whist. In\r
+those days human intercourse was not determined solely by respect. But\r
+the Vicar did heartily respect the Garths, and a visit from him was no\r
+surprise to that family. Nevertheless he accounted for it even while\r
+he was shaking hands, by saying, "I come as an envoy, Mrs. Garth: I\r
+have something to say to you and Garth on behalf of Fred Vincy. The\r
+fact is, poor fellow," he continued, as he seated himself and looked\r
+round with his bright glance at the three who were listening to him,\r
+"he has taken me into his confidence."\r
+\r
+Mary's heart beat rather quickly: she wondered how far Fred's\r
+confidence had gone.\r
+\r
+"We haven't seen the lad for months," said Caleb. "I couldn't think\r
+what was become of him."\r
+\r
+"He has been away on a visit," said the Vicar, "because home was a\r
+little too hot for him, and Lydgate told his mother that the poor\r
+fellow must not begin to study yet. But yesterday he came and poured\r
+himself out to me. I am very glad he did, because I have seen him grow\r
+up from a youngster of fourteen, and I am so much at home in the house\r
+that the children are like nephews and nieces to me. But it is a\r
+difficult case to advise upon. However, he has asked me to come and\r
+tell you that he is going away, and that he is so miserable about his\r
+debt to you, and his inability to pay, that he can't bear to come\r
+himself even to bid you good by."\r
+\r
+"Tell him it doesn't signify a farthing," said Caleb, waving his hand.\r
+"We've had the pinch and have got over it. And now I'm going to be as\r
+rich as a Jew."\r
+\r
+"Which means," said Mrs. Garth, smiling at the Vicar, "that we are\r
+going to have enough to bring up the boys well and to keep Mary at\r
+home."\r
+\r
+"What is the treasure-trove?" said Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"I'm going to be agent for two estates, Freshitt and Tipton; and\r
+perhaps for a pretty little bit of land in Lowick besides: it's all the\r
+same family connection, and employment spreads like water if it's once\r
+set going. It makes me very happy, Mr. Farebrother"--here Caleb threw\r
+back his head a little, and spread his arms on the elbows of his\r
+chair--"that I've got an opportunity again with the letting of the\r
+land, and carrying out a notion or two with improvements. It's a most\r
+uncommonly cramping thing, as I've often told Susan, to sit on\r
+horseback and look over the hedges at the wrong thing, and not be able\r
+to put your hand to it to make it right. What people do who go into\r
+politics I can't think: it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement\r
+over only a few hundred acres."\r
+\r
+It was seldom that Caleb volunteered so long a speech, but his\r
+happiness had the effect of mountain air: his eyes were bright, and the\r
+words came without effort.\r
+\r
+"I congratulate you heartily, Garth," said the Vicar. "This is the\r
+best sort of news I could have had to carry to Fred Vincy, for he dwelt\r
+a good deal on the injury he had done you in causing you to part with\r
+money--robbing you of it, he said--which you wanted for other purposes.\r
+I wish Fred were not such an idle dog; he has some very good points,\r
+and his father is a little hard upon him."\r
+\r
+"Where is he going?" said Mrs. Garth, rather coldly.\r
+\r
+"He means to try again for his degree, and he is going up to study\r
+before term. I have advised him to do that. I don't urge him to enter\r
+the Church--on the contrary. But if he will go and work so as to pass,\r
+that will be some guarantee that he has energy and a will; and he is\r
+quite at sea; he doesn't know what else to do. So far he will please\r
+his father, and I have promised in the mean time to try and reconcile\r
+Vincy to his son's adopting some other line of life. Fred says frankly\r
+he is not fit for a clergyman, and I would do anything I could to\r
+hinder a man from the fatal step of choosing the wrong profession. He\r
+quoted to me what you said, Miss Garth--do you remember it?" (Mr.\r
+Farebrother used to say "Mary" instead of "Miss Garth," but it was part\r
+of his delicacy to treat her with the more deference because, according\r
+to Mrs. Vincy's phrase, she worked for her bread.)\r
+\r
+Mary felt uncomfortable, but, determined to take the matter lightly,\r
+answered at once, "I have said so many impertinent things to Fred--we\r
+are such old playfellows."\r
+\r
+"You said, according to him, that he would be one of those ridiculous\r
+clergymen who help to make the whole clergy ridiculous. Really, that\r
+was so cutting that I felt a little cut myself."\r
+\r
+Caleb laughed. "She gets her tongue from you, Susan," he said, with\r
+some enjoyment.\r
+\r
+"Not its flippancy, father," said Mary, quickly, fearing that her\r
+mother would be displeased. "It is rather too bad of Fred to repeat my\r
+flippant speeches to Mr. Farebrother."\r
+\r
+"It was certainly a hasty speech, my dear," said Mrs. Garth, with whom\r
+speaking evil of dignities was a high misdemeanor. "We should not\r
+value our Vicar the less because there was a ridiculous curate in the\r
+next parish."\r
+\r
+"There's something in what she says, though," said Caleb, not disposed\r
+to have Mary's sharpness undervalued. "A bad workman of any sort makes\r
+his fellows mistrusted. Things hang together," he added, looking on\r
+the floor and moving his feet uneasily with a sense that words were\r
+scantier than thoughts.\r
+\r
+"Clearly," said the Vicar, amused. "By being contemptible we set men's\r
+minds, to the tune of contempt. I certainly agree with Miss Garth's\r
+view of the matter, whether I am condemned by it or not. But as to\r
+Fred Vincy, it is only fair he should be excused a little: old\r
+Featherstone's delusive behavior did help to spoil him. There was\r
+something quite diabolical in not leaving him a farthing after all.\r
+But Fred has the good taste not to dwell on that. And what he cares\r
+most about is having offended you, Mrs. Garth; he supposes you will\r
+never think well of him again."\r
+\r
+"I have been disappointed in Fred," said Mrs. Garth, with decision.\r
+"But I shall be ready to think well of him again when he gives me good\r
+reason to do so."\r
+\r
+At this point Mary went out of the room, taking Letty with her.\r
+\r
+"Oh, we must forgive young people when they're sorry," said Caleb,\r
+watching Mary close the door. "And as you say, Mr. Farebrother, there\r
+was the very devil in that old man. Now Mary's gone out, I must tell you\r
+a thing--it's only known to Susan and me, and you'll not tell it again.\r
+The old scoundrel wanted Mary to burn one of the wills the very night\r
+he died, when she was sitting up with him by herself, and he offered her\r
+a sum of money that he had in the box by him if she would do it. But Mary,\r
+you understand, could do no such thing--would not be handling his iron\r
+chest, and so on. Now, you see, the will he wanted burnt was this last,\r
+so that if Mary had done what he wanted, Fred Vincy would have had ten\r
+thousand pounds. The old man did turn to him at the last. That touches\r
+poor Mary close; she couldn't help it--she was in the right to do what\r
+she did, but she feels, as she says, much as if she had knocked down\r
+somebody's property and broken it against her will, when she was\r
+rightfully defending herself. I feel with her, somehow, and if I could\r
+make any amends to the poor lad, instead of bearing him a grudge for\r
+the harm he did us, I should be glad to do it. Now, what is your opinion,\r
+sir? Susan doesn't agree with me. She says--tell what you say, Susan."\r
+\r
+"Mary could not have acted otherwise, even if she had known what would\r
+be the effect on Fred," said Mrs. Garth, pausing from her work, and\r
+looking at Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"And she was quite ignorant of it. It seems to me, a loss which falls\r
+on another because we have done right is not to lie upon our\r
+conscience."\r
+\r
+The Vicar did not answer immediately, and Caleb said, "It's the\r
+feeling. The child feels in that way, and I feel with her. You don't\r
+mean your horse to tread on a dog when you're backing out of the way;\r
+but it goes through you, when it's done."\r
+\r
+"I am sure Mrs. Garth would agree with you there," said Mr.\r
+Farebrother, who for some reason seemed more inclined to ruminate than\r
+to speak. "One could hardly say that the feeling you mention about\r
+Fred is wrong--or rather, mistaken--though no man ought to make a claim\r
+on such feeling."\r
+\r
+"Well, well," said Caleb, "it's a secret. You will not tell Fred."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not. But I shall carry the other good news--that you can\r
+afford the loss he caused you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother left the house soon after, and seeing Mary in the\r
+orchard with Letty, went to say good-by to her. They made a pretty\r
+picture in the western light which brought out the brightness of the\r
+apples on the old scant-leaved boughs--Mary in her lavender gingham and\r
+black ribbons holding a basket, while Letty in her well-worn nankin\r
+picked up the fallen apples. If you want to know more particularly how\r
+Mary looked, ten to one you will see a face like hers in the crowded\r
+street to-morrow, if you are there on the watch: she will not be among\r
+those daughters of Zion who are haughty, and walk with stretched-out\r
+necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go: let all those pass, and fix\r
+your eyes on some small plump brownish person of firm but quiet\r
+carriage, who looks about her, but does not suppose that anybody is\r
+looking at her. If she has a broad face and square brow, well-marked\r
+eyebrows and curly dark hair, a certain expression of amusement in her\r
+glance which her mouth keeps the secret of, and for the rest features\r
+entirely insignificant--take that ordinary but not disagreeable person\r
+for a portrait of Mary Garth. If you made her smile, she would show\r
+you perfect little teeth; if you made her angry, she would not raise\r
+her voice, but would probably say one of the bitterest things you have\r
+ever tasted the flavor of; if you did her a kindness, she would never\r
+forget it. Mary admired the keen-faced handsome little Vicar in his\r
+well-brushed threadbare clothes more than any man she had had the\r
+opportunity of knowing. She had never heard him say a foolish thing,\r
+though she knew that he did unwise ones; and perhaps foolish sayings\r
+were more objectionable to her than any of Mr. Farebrother's unwise\r
+doings. At least, it was remarkable that the actual imperfections of\r
+the Vicar's clerical character never seemed to call forth the same\r
+scorn and dislike which she showed beforehand for the predicted\r
+imperfections of the clerical character sustained by Fred Vincy. These\r
+irregularities of judgment, I imagine, are found even in riper minds\r
+than Mary Garth's: our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and\r
+demerit, which none of us ever saw. Will any one guess towards which\r
+of those widely different men Mary had the peculiar woman's\r
+tenderness?--the one she was most inclined to be severe on, or the\r
+contrary?\r
+\r
+"Have you any message for your old playfellow, Miss Garth?" said the\r
+Vicar, as he took a fragrant apple from the basket which she held\r
+towards him, and put it in his pocket. "Something to soften down that\r
+harsh judgment? I am going straight to see him."\r
+\r
+"No," said Mary, shaking her head, and smiling. "If I were to say that\r
+he would not be ridiculous as a clergyman, I must say that he would be\r
+something worse than ridiculous. But I am very glad to hear that he is\r
+going away to work."\r
+\r
+"On the other hand, I am very glad to hear that _you_ are not going\r
+away to work. My mother, I am sure, will be all the happier if you\r
+will come to see her at the vicarage: you know she is fond of having\r
+young people to talk to, and she has a great deal to tell about old\r
+times. You will really be doing a kindness."\r
+\r
+"I should like it very much, if I may," said Mary. "Everything seems\r
+too happy for me all at once. I thought it would always be part of my\r
+life to long for home, and losing that grievance makes me feel rather\r
+empty: I suppose it served instead of sense to fill up my mind?"\r
+\r
+"May I go with you, Mary?" whispered Letty--a most inconvenient child,\r
+who listened to everything. But she was made exultant by having her\r
+chin pinched and her cheek kissed by Mr. Farebrother--an incident\r
+which she narrated to her mother and father.\r
+\r
+As the Vicar walked to Lowick, any one watching him closely might have\r
+seen him twice shrug his shoulders. I think that the rare Englishmen\r
+who have this gesture are never of the heavy type--for fear of any\r
+lumbering instance to the contrary, I will say, hardly ever; they have\r
+usually a fine temperament and much tolerance towards the smaller\r
+errors of men (themselves inclusive). The Vicar was holding an inward\r
+dialogue in which he told himself that there was probably something\r
+more between Fred and Mary Garth than the regard of old playfellows,\r
+and replied with a question whether that bit of womanhood were not a\r
+great deal too choice for that crude young gentleman. The rejoinder to\r
+this was the first shrug. Then he laughed at himself for being likely\r
+to have felt jealous, as if he had been a man able to marry, which,\r
+added he, it is as clear as any balance-sheet that I am not. Whereupon\r
+followed the second shrug.\r
+\r
+What could two men, so different from each other, see in this "brown\r
+patch," as Mary called herself? It was certainly not her plainness\r
+that attracted them (and let all plain young ladies be warned against\r
+the dangerous encouragement given them by Society to confide in their\r
+want of beauty). A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very\r
+wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences:\r
+and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one\r
+loved.\r
+\r
+When Mr. and Mrs. Garth were sitting alone, Caleb said, "Susan, guess\r
+what I'm thinking of."\r
+\r
+"The rotation of crops," said Mrs. Garth, smiling at him, above her\r
+knitting, "or else the back-doors of the Tipton cottages."\r
+\r
+"No," said Caleb, gravely; "I am thinking that I could do a great turn\r
+for Fred Vincy. Christy's gone, Alfred will be gone soon, and it will\r
+be five years before Jim is ready to take to business. I shall want\r
+help, and Fred might come in and learn the nature of things and act\r
+under me, and it might be the making of him into a useful man, if he\r
+gives up being a parson. What do you think?"\r
+\r
+"I think, there is hardly anything honest that his family would object\r
+to more," said Mrs. Garth, decidedly.\r
+\r
+"What care I about their objecting?" said Caleb, with a sturdiness\r
+which he was apt to show when he had an opinion. "The lad is of age\r
+and must get his bread. He has sense enough and quickness enough; he\r
+likes being on the land, and it's my belief that he could learn\r
+business well if he gave his mind to it."\r
+\r
+"But would he? His father and mother wanted him to be a fine\r
+gentleman, and I think he has the same sort of feeling himself. They\r
+all think us beneath them. And if the proposal came from you, I am\r
+sure Mrs. Vincy would say that we wanted Fred for Mary."\r
+\r
+"Life is a poor tale, if it is to be settled by nonsense of that sort,"\r
+said Caleb, with disgust.\r
+\r
+"Yes, but there is a certain pride which is proper, Caleb."\r
+\r
+"I call it improper pride to let fools' notions hinder you from doing a\r
+good action. There's no sort of work," said Caleb, with fervor,\r
+putting out his hand and moving it up and down to mark his emphasis,\r
+"that could ever be done well, if you minded what fools say. You must\r
+have it inside you that your plan is right, and that plan you must\r
+follow."\r
+\r
+"I will not oppose any plan you have set your mind on, Caleb," said\r
+Mrs. Garth, who was a firm woman, but knew that there were some points\r
+on which her mild husband was yet firmer. "Still, it seems to be fixed\r
+that Fred is to go back to college: will it not be better to wait and\r
+see what he will choose to do after that? It is not easy to keep\r
+people against their will. And you are not yet quite sure enough of\r
+your own position, or what you will want."\r
+\r
+"Well, it may be better to wait a bit. But as to my getting plenty of\r
+work for two, I'm pretty sure of that. I've always had my hands full\r
+with scattered things, and there's always something fresh turning up.\r
+Why, only yesterday--bless me, I don't think I told you!--it was rather\r
+odd that two men should have been at me on different sides to do the\r
+same bit of valuing. And who do you think they were?" said Caleb,\r
+taking a pinch of snuff and holding it up between his fingers, as if it\r
+were a part of his exposition. He was fond of a pinch when it occurred\r
+to him, but he usually forgot that this indulgence was at his command.\r
+\r
+His wife held down her knitting and looked attentive.\r
+\r
+"Why, that Rigg, or Rigg Featherstone, was one. But Bulstrode was\r
+before him, so I'm going to do it for Bulstrode. Whether it's mortgage\r
+or purchase they're going for, I can't tell yet."\r
+\r
+"Can that man be going to sell the land just left him--which he has\r
+taken the name for?" said Mrs. Garth.\r
+\r
+"Deuce knows," said Caleb, who never referred the knowledge of\r
+discreditable doings to any higher power than the deuce. "But\r
+Bulstrode has long been wanting to get a handsome bit of land under his\r
+fingers--that I know. And it's a difficult matter to get, in this part\r
+of the country."\r
+\r
+Caleb scattered his snuff carefully instead of taking it, and then\r
+added, "The ins and outs of things are curious. Here is the land\r
+they've been all along expecting for Fred, which it seems the old man\r
+never meant to leave him a foot of, but left it to this side-slip of a\r
+son that he kept in the dark, and thought of his sticking there and\r
+vexing everybody as well as he could have vexed 'em himself if he could\r
+have kept alive. I say, it would be curious if it got into Bulstrode's\r
+hands after all. The old man hated him, and never would bank with him."\r
+\r
+"What reason could the miserable creature have for hating a man whom he\r
+had nothing to do with?" said Mrs. Garth.\r
+\r
+"Pooh! where's the use of asking for such fellows' reasons? The soul\r
+of man," said Caleb, with the deep tone and grave shake of the head\r
+which always came when he used this phrase--"The soul of man, when it\r
+gets fairly rotten, will bear you all sorts of poisonous toad-stools,\r
+and no eye can see whence came the seed thereof."\r
+\r
+It was one of Caleb's quaintnesses, that in his difficulty of finding\r
+speech for his thought, he caught, as it were, snatches of diction\r
+which he associated with various points of view or states of mind; and\r
+whenever he had a feeling of awe, he was haunted by a sense of Biblical\r
+phraseology, though he could hardly have given a strict quotation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLI.\r
+\r
+ "By swaggering could I never thrive,\r
+ For the rain it raineth every day.\r
+ --Twelfth Night\r
+\r
+\r
+The transactions referred to by Caleb Garth as having gone forward\r
+between Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Joshua Rigg Featherstone concerning the\r
+land attached to Stone Court, had occasioned the interchange of a\r
+letter or two between these personages.\r
+\r
+Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? If it happens to\r
+have been cut in stone, though it lie face down-most for ages on a\r
+forsaken beach, or "rest quietly under the drums and tramplings of many\r
+conquests," it may end by letting us into the secret of usurpations and\r
+other scandals gossiped about long empires ago:--this world being\r
+apparently a huge whispering-gallery. Such conditions are often\r
+minutely represented in our petty lifetimes. As the stone which has\r
+been kicked by generations of clowns may come by curious little links\r
+of effect under the eyes of a scholar, through whose labors it may at\r
+last fix the date of invasions and unlock religions, so a bit of ink\r
+and paper which has long been an innocent wrapping or stop-gap may at\r
+last be laid open under the one pair of eyes which have knowledge\r
+enough to turn it into the opening of a catastrophe. To Uriel watching\r
+the progress of planetary history from the sun, the one result would be\r
+just as much of a coincidence as the other.\r
+\r
+Having made this rather lofty comparison I am less uneasy in calling\r
+attention to the existence of low people by whose interference, however\r
+little we may like it, the course of the world is very much determined.\r
+It would be well, certainly, if we could help to reduce their number,\r
+and something might perhaps be done by not lightly giving occasion to\r
+their existence. Socially speaking, Joshua Rigg would have been\r
+generally pronounced a superfluity. But those who like Peter\r
+Featherstone never had a copy of themselves demanded, are the very last\r
+to wait for such a request either in prose or verse. The copy in this\r
+case bore more of outside resemblance to the mother, in whose sex\r
+frog-features, accompanied with fresh-colored cheeks and a well-rounded\r
+figure, are compatible with much charm for a certain order of admirers.\r
+The result is sometimes a frog-faced male, desirable, surely, to no\r
+order of intelligent beings. Especially when he is suddenly brought\r
+into evidence to frustrate other people's expectations--the very\r
+lowest aspect in which a social superfluity can present himself.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Rigg Featherstone's low characteristics were all of the sober,\r
+water-drinking kind. From the earliest to the latest hour of the day\r
+he was always as sleek, neat, and cool as the frog he resembled, and\r
+old Peter had secretly chuckled over an offshoot almost more\r
+calculating, and far more imperturbable, than himself. I will add that\r
+his finger-nails were scrupulously attended to, and that he meant to\r
+marry a well-educated young lady (as yet unspecified) whose person was\r
+good, and whose connections, in a solid middle-class way, were\r
+undeniable. Thus his nails and modesty were comparable to those of\r
+most gentlemen; though his ambition had been educated only by the\r
+opportunities of a clerk and accountant in the smaller commercial\r
+houses of a seaport. He thought the rural Featherstones very simple\r
+absurd people, and they in their turn regarded his "bringing up" in a\r
+seaport town as an exaggeration of the monstrosity that their brother\r
+Peter, and still more Peter's property, should have had such belongings.\r
+\r
+The garden and gravel approach, as seen from the two windows of the\r
+wainscoted parlor at Stone Court, were never in better trim than now,\r
+when Mr. Rigg Featherstone stood, with his hands behind him, looking\r
+out on these grounds as their master. But it seemed doubtful whether\r
+he looked out for the sake of contemplation or of turning his back to a\r
+person who stood in the middle of the room, with his legs considerably\r
+apart and his hands in his trouser-pockets: a person in all respects a\r
+contrast to the sleek and cool Rigg. He was a man obviously on the way\r
+towards sixty, very florid and hairy, with much gray in his bushy\r
+whiskers and thick curly hair, a stoutish body which showed to\r
+disadvantage the somewhat worn joinings of his clothes, and the air of\r
+a swaggerer, who would aim at being noticeable even at a show of\r
+fireworks, regarding his own remarks on any other person's performance\r
+as likely to be more interesting than the performance itself.\r
+\r
+His name was John Raffles, and he sometimes wrote jocosely W.A.G.\r
+after his signature, observing when he did so, that he was once taught\r
+by Leonard Lamb of Finsbury who wrote B.A. after his name, and that he,\r
+Raffles, originated the witticism of calling that celebrated principal\r
+Ba-Lamb. Such were the appearance and mental flavor of Mr. Raffles,\r
+both of which seemed to have a stale odor of travellers' rooms in the\r
+commercial hotels of that period.\r
+\r
+"Come, now, Josh," he was saying, in a full rumbling tone, "look at it\r
+in this light: here is your poor mother going into the vale of years,\r
+and you could afford something handsome now to make her comfortable."\r
+\r
+"Not while you live. Nothing would make her comfortable while you\r
+live," returned Rigg, in his cool high voice. "What I give her, you'll\r
+take."\r
+\r
+"You bear me a grudge, Josh, that I know. But come, now--as between\r
+man and man--without humbug--a little capital might enable me to make a\r
+first-rate thing of the shop. The tobacco trade is growing. I should\r
+cut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it. I should\r
+stick to it like a flea to a fleece for my own sake. I should always\r
+be on the spot. And nothing would make your poor mother so happy.\r
+I've pretty well done with my wild oats--turned fifty-five. I want to\r
+settle down in my chimney-corner. And if I once buckled to the tobacco\r
+trade, I could bring an amount of brains and experience to bear on it\r
+that would not be found elsewhere in a hurry. I don't want to be\r
+bothering you one time after another, but to get things once for all\r
+into the right channel. Consider that, Josh--as between man and\r
+man--and with your poor mother to be made easy for her life. I was\r
+always fond of the old woman, by Jove!"\r
+\r
+"Have you done?" said Mr. Rigg, quietly, without looking away from the\r
+window.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I've done," said Raffles, taking hold of his hat which stood\r
+before him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push.\r
+\r
+"Then just listen to me. The more you say anything, the less I shall\r
+believe it. The more you want me to do a thing, the more reason I\r
+shall have for never doing it. Do you think I mean to forget your\r
+kicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away from\r
+me and my mother? Do you think I forget your always coming home to\r
+sell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us in the\r
+lurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail. My\r
+mother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law,\r
+and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowance\r
+paid and no more: and that shall be stopped if you dare to come on to\r
+these premises again, or to come into this country after me again. The\r
+next time you show yourself inside the gates here, you shall be driven\r
+off with the dogs and the wagoner's whip."\r
+\r
+As Rigg pronounced the last words he turned round and looked at Raffles\r
+with his prominent frozen eyes. The contrast was as striking as it\r
+could have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengaging\r
+kickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-rooms\r
+and back-parlors. But the advantage now was on the side of Rigg, and\r
+auditors of this conversation might probably have expected that Raffles\r
+would retire with the air of a defeated dog. Not at all. He made a\r
+grimace which was habitual with him whenever he was "out" in a game;\r
+then subsided into a laugh, and drew a brandy-flask from his pocket.\r
+\r
+"Come, Josh," he said, in a cajoling tone, "give us a spoonful of\r
+brandy, and a sovereign to pay the way back, and I'll go. Honor\r
+bright! I'll go like a bullet, _by_ Jove!"\r
+\r
+"Mind," said Rigg, drawing out a bunch of keys, "if I ever see you\r
+again, I shan't speak to you. I don't own you any more than if I saw a\r
+crow; and if you want to own me you'll get nothing by it but a\r
+character for being what you are--a spiteful, brassy, bullying rogue."\r
+\r
+"That's a pity, now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his head\r
+and wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fond\r
+of you; _by_ Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguing\r
+you--you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But the\r
+brandy and the sovereign's a bargain."\r
+\r
+He jerked forward the flask and Rigg went to a fine old oaken bureau\r
+with his keys. But Raffles had reminded himself by his movement with\r
+the flask that it had become dangerously loose from its leather\r
+covering, and catching sight of a folded paper which had fallen within\r
+the fender, he took it up and shoved it under the leather so as to make\r
+the glass firm.\r
+\r
+By that time Rigg came forward with a brandy-bottle, filled the flask,\r
+and handed Raffles a sovereign, neither looking at him nor speaking to\r
+him. After locking up the bureau again, he walked to the window and\r
+gazed out as impassibly as he had done at the beginning of the\r
+interview, while Raffles took a small allowance from the flask, screwed\r
+it up, and deposited it in his side-pocket, with provoking slowness,\r
+making a grimace at his stepson's back.\r
+\r
+"Farewell, Josh--and if forever!" said Raffles, turning back his head\r
+as he opened the door.\r
+\r
+Rigg saw him leave the grounds and enter the lane. The gray day had\r
+turned to a light drizzling rain, which freshened the hedgerows and the\r
+grassy borders of the by-roads, and hastened the laborers who were\r
+loading the last shocks of corn. Raffles, walking with the uneasy gait\r
+of a town loiterer obliged to do a bit of country journeying on foot,\r
+looked as incongruous amid this moist rural quiet and industry as if he\r
+had been a baboon escaped from a menagerie. But there were none to\r
+stare at him except the long-weaned calves, and none to show dislike of\r
+his appearance except the little water-rats which rustled away at his\r
+approach.\r
+\r
+He was fortunate enough when he got on to the highroad to be overtaken\r
+by the stage-coach, which carried him to Brassing; and there he took\r
+the new-made railway, observing to his fellow-passengers that he\r
+considered it pretty well seasoned now it had done for Huskisson. Mr.\r
+Raffles on most occasions kept up the sense of having been educated at\r
+an academy, and being able, if he chose, to pass well everywhere;\r
+indeed, there was not one of his fellow-men whom he did not feel\r
+himself in a position to ridicule and torment, confident of the\r
+entertainment which he thus gave to all the rest of the company.\r
+\r
+He played this part now with as much spirit as if his journey had been\r
+entirely successful, resorting at frequent intervals to his flask. The\r
+paper with which he had wedged it was a letter signed Nicholas\r
+Bulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it from its present\r
+useful position.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLII.\r
+\r
+ "How much, methinks, I could despise this man\r
+ Were I not bound in charity against it!\r
+ --SHAKESPEARE: Henry VIII.\r
+\r
+\r
+One of the professional calls made by Lydgate soon after his return\r
+from his wedding-journey was to Lowick Manor, in consequence of a\r
+letter which had requested him to fix a time for his visit.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon had never put any question concerning the nature of his\r
+illness to Lydgate, nor had he even to Dorothea betrayed any anxiety as\r
+to how far it might be likely to cut short his labors or his life. On\r
+this point, as on all others, he shrank from pity; and if the suspicion\r
+of being pitied for anything in his lot surmised or known in spite of\r
+himself was embittering, the idea of calling forth a show of compassion\r
+by frankly admitting an alarm or a sorrow was necessarily intolerable\r
+to him. Every proud mind knows something of this experience, and\r
+perhaps it is only to be overcome by a sense of fellowship deep enough\r
+to make all efforts at isolation seem mean and petty instead of\r
+exalting.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Casaubon was now brooding over something through which the\r
+question of his health and life haunted his silence with a more\r
+harassing importunity even than through the autumnal unripeness of his\r
+authorship. It is true that this last might be called his central\r
+ambition; but there are some kinds of authorship in which by far the\r
+largest result is the uneasy susceptibility accumulated in the\r
+consciousness of the author--one knows of the river by a few streaks\r
+amid a long-gathered deposit of uncomfortable mud. That was the way\r
+with Mr. Casaubon's hard intellectual labors. Their most\r
+characteristic result was not the "Key to all Mythologies," but a\r
+morbid consciousness that others did not give him the place which he\r
+had not demonstrably merited--a perpetual suspicious conjecture that\r
+the views entertained of him were not to his advantage--a melancholy\r
+absence of passion in his efforts at achievement, and a passionate\r
+resistance to the confession that he had achieved nothing.\r
+\r
+Thus his intellectual ambition which seemed to others to have absorbed\r
+and dried him, was really no security against wounds, least of all\r
+against those which came from Dorothea. And he had begun now to frame\r
+possibilities for the future which were somehow more embittering to him\r
+than anything his mind had dwelt on before.\r
+\r
+Against certain facts he was helpless: against Will Ladislaw's\r
+existence, his defiant stay in the neighborhood of Lowick, and his\r
+flippant state of mind with regard to the possessors of authentic,\r
+well-stamped erudition: against Dorothea's nature, always taking on\r
+some new shape of ardent activity, and even in submission and silence\r
+covering fervid reasons which it was an irritation to think of: against\r
+certain notions and likings which had taken possession of her mind in\r
+relation to subjects that he could not possibly discuss with her.\r
+There was no denying that Dorothea was as virtuous and lovely a young\r
+lady as he could have obtained for a wife; but a young lady turned out\r
+to be something more troublesome than he had conceived. She nursed\r
+him, she read to him, she anticipated his wants, and was solicitous\r
+about his feelings; but there had entered into the husband's mind the\r
+certainty that she judged him, and that her wifely devotedness was like\r
+a penitential expiation of unbelieving thoughts--was accompanied with a\r
+power of comparison by which himself and his doings were seen too\r
+luminously as a part of things in general. His discontent passed\r
+vapor-like through all her gentle loving manifestations, and clung to\r
+that inappreciative world which she had only brought nearer to him.\r
+\r
+Poor Mr. Casaubon! This suffering was the harder to bear because it\r
+seemed like a betrayal: the young creature who had worshipped him with\r
+perfect trust had quickly turned into the critical wife; and early\r
+instances of criticism and resentment had made an impression which no\r
+tenderness and submission afterwards could remove. To his suspicious\r
+interpretation Dorothea's silence now was a suppressed rebellion; a\r
+remark from her which he had not in any way anticipated was an\r
+assertion of conscious superiority; her gentle answers had an\r
+irritating cautiousness in them; and when she acquiesced it was a\r
+self-approved effort of forbearance. The tenacity with which he strove\r
+to hide this inward drama made it the more vivid for him; as we hear\r
+with the more keenness what we wish others not to hear.\r
+\r
+Instead of wondering at this result of misery in Mr. Casaubon, I think\r
+it quite ordinary. Will not a tiny speck very close to our vision blot\r
+out the glory of the world, and leave only a margin by which we see the\r
+blot? I know no speck so troublesome as self. And who, if Mr.\r
+Casaubon had chosen to expound his discontents--his suspicions that he\r
+was not any longer adored without criticism--could have denied that\r
+they were founded on good reasons? On the contrary, there was a strong\r
+reason to be added, which he had not himself taken explicitly into\r
+account--namely, that he was not unmixedly adorable. He suspected\r
+this, however, as he suspected other things, without confessing it, and\r
+like the rest of us, felt how soothing it would have been to have a\r
+companion who would never find it out.\r
+\r
+This sore susceptibility in relation to Dorothea was thoroughly\r
+prepared before Will Ladislaw had returned to Lowick, and what had\r
+occurred since then had brought Mr. Casaubon's power of suspicious\r
+construction into exasperated activity. To all the facts which he\r
+knew, he added imaginary facts both present and future which became\r
+more real to him than those because they called up a stronger dislike,\r
+a more predominating bitterness. Suspicion and jealousy of Will\r
+Ladislaw's intentions, suspicion and jealousy of Dorothea's\r
+impressions, were constantly at their weaving work. It would be quite\r
+unjust to him to suppose that he could have entered into any coarse\r
+misinterpretation of Dorothea: his own habits of mind and conduct,\r
+quite as much as the open elevation of her nature, saved him from any\r
+such mistake. What he was jealous of was her opinion, the sway that\r
+might be given to her ardent mind in its judgments, and the future\r
+possibilities to which these might lead her. As to Will, though until\r
+his last defiant letter he had nothing definite which he would choose\r
+formally to allege against him, he felt himself warranted in believing\r
+that he was capable of any design which could fascinate a rebellious\r
+temper and an undisciplined impulsiveness. He was quite sure that\r
+Dorothea was the cause of Will's return from Rome, and his\r
+determination to settle in the neighborhood; and he was penetrating\r
+enough to imagine that Dorothea had innocently encouraged this course.\r
+It was as clear as possible that she was ready to be attached to Will\r
+and to be pliant to his suggestions: they had never had a tete-a-tete\r
+without her bringing away from it some new troublesome impression, and\r
+the last interview that Mr. Casaubon was aware of (Dorothea, on\r
+returning from Freshitt Hall, had for the first time been silent about\r
+having seen Will) had led to a scene which roused an angrier feeling\r
+against them both than he had ever known before. Dorothea's outpouring\r
+of her notions about money, in the darkness of the night, had done\r
+nothing but bring a mixture of more odious foreboding into her\r
+husband's mind.\r
+\r
+And there was the shock lately given to his health always sadly present\r
+with him. He was certainly much revived; he had recovered all his\r
+usual power of work: the illness might have been mere fatigue, and\r
+there might still be twenty years of achievement before him, which\r
+would justify the thirty years of preparation. That prospect was made\r
+the sweeter by a flavor of vengeance against the hasty sneers of Carp &\r
+Company; for even when Mr. Casaubon was carrying his taper among the\r
+tombs of the past, those modern figures came athwart the dim light, and\r
+interrupted his diligent exploration. To convince Carp of his mistake,\r
+so that he would have to eat his own words with a good deal of\r
+indigestion, would be an agreeable accident of triumphant authorship,\r
+which the prospect of living to future ages on earth and to all\r
+eternity in heaven could not exclude from contemplation. Since, thus,\r
+the prevision of his own unending bliss could not nullify the bitter\r
+savors of irritated jealousy and vindictiveness, it is the less\r
+surprising that the probability of a transient earthly bliss for other\r
+persons, when he himself should have entered into glory, had not a\r
+potently sweetening effect. If the truth should be that some\r
+undermining disease was at work within him, there might be large\r
+opportunity for some people to be the happier when he was gone; and if\r
+one of those people should be Will Ladislaw, Mr. Casaubon objected so\r
+strongly that it seemed as if the annoyance would make part of his\r
+disembodied existence.\r
+\r
+This is a very bare and therefore a very incomplete way of putting the\r
+case. The human soul moves in many channels, and Mr. Casaubon, we\r
+know, had a sense of rectitude and an honorable pride in satisfying the\r
+requirements of honor, which compelled him to find other reasons for\r
+his conduct than those of jealousy and vindictiveness. The way in\r
+which Mr. Casaubon put the case was this:--"In marrying Dorothea Brooke\r
+I had to care for her well-being in case of my death. But well-being\r
+is not to be secured by ample, independent possession of property; on\r
+the contrary, occasions might arise in which such possession might\r
+expose her to the more danger. She is ready prey to any man who knows\r
+how to play adroitly either on her affectionate ardor or her Quixotic\r
+enthusiasm; and a man stands by with that very intention in his mind--a\r
+man with no other principle than transient caprice, and who has a\r
+personal animosity towards me--I am sure of it--an animosity which is\r
+fed by the consciousness of his ingratitude, and which he has\r
+constantly vented in ridicule of which I am as well assured as if I had\r
+heard it. Even if I live I shall not be without uneasiness as to what\r
+he may attempt through indirect influence. This man has gained\r
+Dorothea's ear: he has fascinated her attention; he has evidently tried\r
+to impress her mind with the notion that he has claims beyond anything\r
+I have done for him. If I die--and he is waiting here on the watch for\r
+that--he will persuade her to marry him. That would be calamity for\r
+her and success for him. _She_ would not think it calamity: he would\r
+make her believe anything; she has a tendency to immoderate attachment\r
+which she inwardly reproaches me for not responding to, and already her\r
+mind is occupied with his fortunes. He thinks of an easy conquest and\r
+of entering into my nest. That I will hinder! Such a marriage would be\r
+fatal to Dorothea. Has he ever persisted in anything except from\r
+contradiction? In knowledge he has always tried to be showy at small\r
+cost. In religion he could be, as long as it suited him, the facile\r
+echo of Dorothea's vagaries. When was sciolism ever dissociated from\r
+laxity? I utterly distrust his morals, and it is my duty to hinder to\r
+the utmost the fulfilment of his designs."\r
+\r
+The arrangements made by Mr. Casaubon on his marriage left strong\r
+measures open to him, but in ruminating on them his mind inevitably\r
+dwelt so much on the probabilities of his own life that the longing to\r
+get the nearest possible calculation had at last overcome his proud\r
+reticence, and had determined him to ask Lydgate's opinion as to the\r
+nature of his illness.\r
+\r
+He had mentioned to Dorothea that Lydgate was coming by appointment at\r
+half-past three, and in answer to her anxious question, whether he had\r
+felt ill, replied,--"No, I merely wish to have his opinion concerning\r
+some habitual symptoms. You need not see him, my dear. I shall give\r
+orders that he may be sent to me in the Yew-tree Walk, where I shall be\r
+taking my usual exercise."\r
+\r
+When Lydgate entered the Yew-tree Walk he saw Mr. Casaubon slowly\r
+receding with his hands behind him according to his habit, and his head\r
+bent forward. It was a lovely afternoon; the leaves from the lofty\r
+limes were falling silently across the sombre evergreens, while the\r
+lights and shadows slept side by side: there was no sound but the\r
+cawing of the rooks, which to the accustomed ear is a lullaby, or that\r
+last solemn lullaby, a dirge. Lydgate, conscious of an energetic frame\r
+in its prime, felt some compassion when the figure which he was likely\r
+soon to overtake turned round, and in advancing towards him showed more\r
+markedly than ever the signs of premature age--the student's bent\r
+shoulders, the emaciated limbs, and the melancholy lines of the mouth.\r
+"Poor fellow," he thought, "some men with his years are like lions; one\r
+can tell nothing of their age except that they are full grown."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, with his invariably polite air, "I am\r
+exceedingly obliged to you for your punctuality. We will, if you\r
+please, carry on our conversation in walking to and fro."\r
+\r
+"I hope your wish to see me is not due to the return of unpleasant\r
+symptoms," said Lydgate, filling up a pause.\r
+\r
+"Not immediately--no. In order to account for that wish I must\r
+mention--what it were otherwise needless to refer to--that my life, on\r
+all collateral accounts insignificant, derives a possible importance\r
+from the incompleteness of labors which have extended through all its\r
+best years. In short, I have long had on hand a work which I would\r
+fain leave behind me in such a state, at least, that it might be\r
+committed to the press by--others. Were I assured that this is the\r
+utmost I can reasonably expect, that assurance would be a useful\r
+circumscription of my attempts, and a guide in both the positive and\r
+negative determination of my course."\r
+\r
+Here Mr. Casaubon paused, removed one hand from his back and thrust it\r
+between the buttons of his single-breasted coat. To a mind largely\r
+instructed in the human destiny hardly anything could be more\r
+interesting than the inward conflict implied in his formal measured\r
+address, delivered with the usual sing-song and motion of the head.\r
+Nay, are there many situations more sublimely tragic than the struggle\r
+of the soul with the demand to renounce a work which has been all the\r
+significance of its life--a significance which is to vanish as the\r
+waters which come and go where no man has need of them? But there was\r
+nothing to strike others as sublime about Mr. Casaubon, and Lydgate,\r
+who had some contempt at hand for futile scholarship, felt a little\r
+amusement mingling with his pity. He was at present too ill acquainted\r
+with disaster to enter into the pathos of a lot where everything is\r
+below the level of tragedy except the passionate egoism of the sufferer.\r
+\r
+"You refer to the possible hindrances from want of health?" he said,\r
+wishing to help forward Mr. Casaubon's purpose, which seemed to be\r
+clogged by some hesitation.\r
+\r
+"I do. You have not implied to me that the symptoms which--I am bound\r
+to testify--you watched with scrupulous care, were those of a fatal\r
+disease. But were it so, Mr. Lydgate, I should desire to know the\r
+truth without reservation, and I appeal to you for an exact statement\r
+of your conclusions: I request it as a friendly service. If you can\r
+tell me that my life is not threatened by anything else than ordinary\r
+casualties, I shall rejoice, on grounds which I have already indicated.\r
+If not, knowledge of the truth is even more important to me."\r
+\r
+"Then I can no longer hesitate as to my course," said Lydgate; "but the\r
+first thing I must impress on you is that my conclusions are doubly\r
+uncertain--uncertain not only because of my fallibility, but because\r
+diseases of the heart are eminently difficult to found predictions on.\r
+In any case, one can hardly increase appreciably the tremendous\r
+uncertainty of life."\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon winced perceptibly, but bowed.\r
+\r
+"I believe that you are suffering from what is called fatty\r
+degeneration of the heart, a disease which was first divined and\r
+explored by Laennec, the man who gave us the stethoscope, not so very\r
+many years ago. A good deal of experience--a more lengthened\r
+observation--is wanting on the subject. But after what you have said,\r
+it is my duty to tell you that death from this disease is often sudden.\r
+At the same time, no such result can be predicted. Your condition may\r
+be consistent with a tolerably comfortable life for another fifteen\r
+years, or even more. I could add no information to this beyond\r
+anatomical or medical details, which would leave expectation at\r
+precisely the same point." Lydgate's instinct was fine enough to tell\r
+him that plain speech, quite free from ostentatious caution, would be\r
+felt by Mr. Casaubon as a tribute of respect.\r
+\r
+"I thank you, Mr. Lydgate," said Mr. Casaubon, after a moment's pause.\r
+"One thing more I have still to ask: did you communicate what you have\r
+now told me to Mrs. Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+"Partly--I mean, as to the possible issues." Lydgate was going to\r
+explain why he had told Dorothea, but Mr. Casaubon, with an\r
+unmistakable desire to end the conversation, waved his hand slightly,\r
+and said again, "I thank you," proceeding to remark on the rare beauty\r
+of the day.\r
+\r
+Lydgate, certain that his patient wished to be alone, soon left him;\r
+and the black figure with hands behind and head bent forward continued\r
+to pace the walk where the dark yew-trees gave him a mute companionship\r
+in melancholy, and the little shadows of bird or leaf that fleeted\r
+across the isles of sunlight, stole along in silence as in the presence\r
+of a sorrow. Here was a man who now for the first time found himself\r
+looking into the eyes of death--who was passing through one of those\r
+rare moments of experience when we feel the truth of a commonplace,\r
+which is as different from what we call knowing it, as the vision of\r
+waters upon the earth is different from the delirious vision of the\r
+water which cannot be had to cool the burning tongue. When the\r
+commonplace "We must all die" transforms itself suddenly into the acute\r
+consciousness "I must die--and soon," then death grapples us, and his\r
+fingers are cruel; afterwards, he may come to fold us in his arms as\r
+our mother did, and our last moment of dim earthly discerning may be\r
+like the first. To Mr. Casaubon now, it was as if he suddenly found\r
+himself on the dark river-brink and heard the plash of the oncoming\r
+oar, not discerning the forms, but expecting the summons. In such an\r
+hour the mind does not change its lifelong bias, but carries it onward\r
+in imagination to the other side of death, gazing backward--perhaps\r
+with the divine calm of beneficence, perhaps with the petty anxieties\r
+of self-assertion. What was Mr. Casaubon's bias his acts will give us a\r
+clew to. He held himself to be, with some private scholarly\r
+reservations, a believing Christian, as to estimates of the present and\r
+hopes of the future. But what we strive to gratify, though we may call\r
+it a distant hope, is an immediate desire: the future estate for which\r
+men drudge up city alleys exists already in their imagination and love.\r
+And Mr. Casaubon's immediate desire was not for divine communion and\r
+light divested of earthly conditions; his passionate longings, poor\r
+man, clung low and mist-like in very shady places.\r
+\r
+Dorothea had been aware when Lydgate had ridden away, and she had\r
+stepped into the garden, with the impulse to go at once to her husband.\r
+But she hesitated, fearing to offend him by obtruding herself; for her\r
+ardor, continually repulsed, served, with her intense memory, to\r
+heighten her dread, as thwarted energy subsides into a shudder; and she\r
+wandered slowly round the nearer clumps of trees until she saw him\r
+advancing. Then she went towards him, and might have represented a\r
+heaven-sent angel coming with a promise that the short hours remaining\r
+should yet be filled with that faithful love which clings the closer to\r
+a comprehended grief. His glance in reply to hers was so chill that\r
+she felt her timidity increased; yet she turned and passed her hand\r
+through his arm.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon kept his hands behind him and allowed her pliant arm to\r
+cling with difficulty against his rigid arm.\r
+\r
+There was something horrible to Dorothea in the sensation which this\r
+unresponsive hardness inflicted on her. That is a strong word, but not\r
+too strong: it is in these acts called trivialities that the seeds of\r
+joy are forever wasted, until men and women look round with haggard\r
+faces at the devastation their own waste has made, and say, the earth\r
+bears no harvest of sweetness--calling their denial knowledge. You may\r
+ask why, in the name of manliness, Mr. Casaubon should have behaved in\r
+that way. Consider that his was a mind which shrank from pity: have\r
+you ever watched in such a mind the effect of a suspicion that what is\r
+pressing it as a grief may be really a source of contentment, either\r
+actual or future, to the being who already offends by pitying?\r
+Besides, he knew little of Dorothea's sensations, and had not reflected\r
+that on such an occasion as the present they were comparable in\r
+strength to his own sensibilities about Carp's criticisms.\r
+\r
+Dorothea did not withdraw her arm, but she could not venture to speak.\r
+Mr. Casaubon did not say, "I wish to be alone," but he directed his\r
+steps in silence towards the house, and as they entered by the glass\r
+door on this eastern side, Dorothea withdrew her arm and lingered on\r
+the matting, that she might leave her husband quite free. He entered\r
+the library and shut himself in, alone with his sorrow.\r
+\r
+She went up to her boudoir. The open bow-window let in the serene\r
+glory of the afternoon lying in the avenue, where the lime-trees cast\r
+long shadows. But Dorothea knew nothing of the scene. She threw\r
+herself on a chair, not heeding that she was in the dazzling sun-rays:\r
+if there were discomfort in that, how could she tell that it was not\r
+part of her inward misery?\r
+\r
+She was in the reaction of a rebellious anger stronger than any she had\r
+felt since her marriage. Instead of tears there came words:--\r
+\r
+"What have I done--what am I--that he should treat me so? He never\r
+knows what is in my mind--he never cares. What is the use of anything\r
+I do? He wishes he had never married me."\r
+\r
+She began to hear herself, and was checked into stillness. Like one\r
+who has lost his way and is weary, she sat and saw as in one glance all\r
+the paths of her young hope which she should never find again. And\r
+just as clearly in the miserable light she saw her own and her\r
+husband's solitude--how they walked apart so that she was obliged to\r
+survey him. If he had drawn her towards him, she would never have\r
+surveyed him--never have said, "Is he worth living for?" but would have\r
+felt him simply a part of her own life. Now she said bitterly, "It is\r
+his fault, not mine." In the jar of her whole being, Pity was\r
+overthrown. Was it her fault that she had believed in him--had\r
+believed in his worthiness?--And what, exactly, was he?-- She was able\r
+enough to estimate him--she who waited on his glances with trembling,\r
+and shut her best soul in prison, paying it only hidden visits, that\r
+she might be petty enough to please him. In such a crisis as this,\r
+some women begin to hate.\r
+\r
+The sun was low when Dorothea was thinking that she would not go down\r
+again, but would send a message to her husband saying that she was not\r
+well and preferred remaining up-stairs. She had never deliberately\r
+allowed her resentment to govern her in this way before, but she\r
+believed now that she could not see him again without telling him the\r
+truth about her feeling, and she must wait till she could do it without\r
+interruption. He might wonder and be hurt at her message. It was good\r
+that he should wonder and be hurt. Her anger said, as anger is apt to\r
+say, that God was with her--that all heaven, though it were crowded\r
+with spirits watching them, must be on her side. She had determined to\r
+ring her bell, when there came a rap at the door.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon had sent to say that he would have his dinner in the\r
+library. He wished to be quite alone this evening, being much occupied.\r
+\r
+"I shall not dine, then, Tantripp."\r
+\r
+"Oh, madam, let me bring you a little something?"\r
+\r
+"No; I am not well. Get everything ready in my dressing room, but pray\r
+do not disturb me again."\r
+\r
+Dorothea sat almost motionless in her meditative struggle, while the\r
+evening slowly deepened into night. But the struggle changed\r
+continually, as that of a man who begins with a movement towards\r
+striking and ends with conquering his desire to strike. The energy\r
+that would animate a crime is not more than is wanted to inspire a\r
+resolved submission, when the noble habit of the soul reasserts itself.\r
+That thought with which Dorothea had gone out to meet her husband--her\r
+conviction that he had been asking about the possible arrest of all his\r
+work, and that the answer must have wrung his heart, could not be long\r
+without rising beside the image of him, like a shadowy monitor looking\r
+at her anger with sad remonstrance. It cost her a litany of pictured\r
+sorrows and of silent cries that she might be the mercy for those\r
+sorrows--but the resolved submission did come; and when the house was\r
+still, and she knew that it was near the time when Mr. Casaubon\r
+habitually went to rest, she opened her door gently and stood outside\r
+in the darkness waiting for his coming up-stairs with a light in his\r
+hand. If he did not come soon she thought that she would go down and\r
+even risk incurring another pang. She would never again expect\r
+anything else. But she did hear the library door open, and slowly the\r
+light advanced up the staircase without noise from the footsteps on the\r
+carpet. When her husband stood opposite to her, she saw that his face\r
+was more haggard. He started slightly on seeing her, and she looked up\r
+at him beseechingly, without speaking.\r
+\r
+"Dorothea!" he said, with a gentle surprise in his tone. "Were you\r
+waiting for me?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I did not like to disturb you."\r
+\r
+"Come, my dear, come. You are young, and need not to extend your life\r
+by watching."\r
+\r
+When the kind quiet melancholy of that speech fell on Dorothea's ears,\r
+she felt something like the thankfulness that might well up in us if we\r
+had narrowly escaped hurting a lamed creature. She put her hand into\r
+her husband's, and they went along the broad corridor together.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK V.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+THE DEAD HAND.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIII.\r
+\r
+ This figure hath high price: 't was wrought with love\r
+ Ages ago in finest ivory;\r
+ Nought modish in it, pure and noble lines\r
+ Of generous womanhood that fits all time\r
+ That too is costly ware; majolica\r
+ Of deft design, to please a lordly eye:\r
+ The smile, you see, is perfect--wonderful\r
+ As mere Faience! a table ornament\r
+ To suit the richest mounting."\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea seldom left home without her husband, but she did occasionally\r
+drive into Middlemarch alone, on little errands of shopping or charity\r
+such as occur to every lady of any wealth when she lives within three\r
+miles of a town. Two days after that scene in the Yew-tree Walk, she\r
+determined to use such an opportunity in order if possible to see\r
+Lydgate, and learn from him whether her husband had really felt any\r
+depressing change of symptoms which he was concealing from her, and\r
+whether he had insisted on knowing the utmost about himself. She felt\r
+almost guilty in asking for knowledge about him from another, but the\r
+dread of being without it--the dread of that ignorance which would make\r
+her unjust or hard--overcame every scruple. That there had been some\r
+crisis in her husband's mind she was certain: he had the very next day\r
+begun a new method of arranging his notes, and had associated her quite\r
+newly in carrying out his plan. Poor Dorothea needed to lay up stores\r
+of patience.\r
+\r
+It was about four o'clock when she drove to Lydgate's house in Lowick\r
+Gate, wishing, in her immediate doubt of finding him at home, that she\r
+had written beforehand. And he was not at home.\r
+\r
+"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea, who had never, that she knew\r
+of, seen Rosamond, but now remembered the fact of the marriage. Yes,\r
+Mrs. Lydgate was at home.\r
+\r
+"I will go in and speak to her, if she will allow me. Will you ask her\r
+if she can see me--see Mrs. Casaubon, for a few minutes?"\r
+\r
+When the servant had gone to deliver that message, Dorothea could hear\r
+sounds of music through an open window--a few notes from a man's voice\r
+and then a piano bursting into roulades. But the roulades broke off\r
+suddenly, and then the servant came back saying that Mrs. Lydgate would\r
+be happy to see Mrs. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+When the drawing-room door opened and Dorothea entered, there was a\r
+sort of contrast not infrequent in country life when the habits of the\r
+different ranks were less blent than now. Let those who know, tell us\r
+exactly what stuff it was that Dorothea wore in those days of mild\r
+autumn--that thin white woollen stuff soft to the touch and soft to the\r
+eye. It always seemed to have been lately washed, and to smell of the\r
+sweet hedges--was always in the shape of a pelisse with sleeves hanging\r
+all out of the fashion. Yet if she had entered before a still audience\r
+as Imogene or Cato's daughter, the dress might have seemed right\r
+enough: the grace and dignity were in her limbs and neck; and about her\r
+simply parted hair and candid eyes the large round poke which was then\r
+in the fate of women, seemed no more odd as a head-dress than the gold\r
+trencher we call a halo. By the present audience of two persons, no\r
+dramatic heroine could have been expected with more interest than Mrs.\r
+Casaubon. To Rosamond she was one of those county divinities not\r
+mixing with Middlemarch mortality, whose slightest marks of manner or\r
+appearance were worthy of her study; moreover, Rosamond was not without\r
+satisfaction that Mrs. Casaubon should have an opportunity of studying\r
+_her_. What is the use of being exquisite if you are not seen by the\r
+best judges? and since Rosamond had received the highest compliments at\r
+Sir Godwin Lydgate's, she felt quite confident of the impression she\r
+must make on people of good birth. Dorothea put out her hand with her\r
+usual simple kindness, and looked admiringly at Lydgate's lovely\r
+bride--aware that there was a gentleman standing at a distance, but\r
+seeing him merely as a coated figure at a wide angle. The gentleman\r
+was too much occupied with the presence of the one woman to reflect on\r
+the contrast between the two--a contrast that would certainly have been\r
+striking to a calm observer. They were both tall, and their eyes were\r
+on a level; but imagine Rosamond's infantine blondness and wondrous\r
+crown of hair-plaits, with her pale-blue dress of a fit and fashion so\r
+perfect that no dressmaker could look at it without emotion, a large\r
+embroidered collar which it was to be hoped all beholders would know\r
+the price of, her small hands duly set off with rings, and that\r
+controlled self-consciousness of manner which is the expensive\r
+substitute for simplicity.\r
+\r
+"Thank you very much for allowing me to interrupt you," said Dorothea,\r
+immediately. "I am anxious to see Mr. Lydgate, if possible, before I\r
+go home, and I hoped that you might possibly tell me where I could find\r
+him, or even allow me to wait for him, if you expect him soon."\r
+\r
+"He is at the New Hospital," said Rosamond; "I am not sure how soon he\r
+will come home. But I can send for him."\r
+\r
+"Will you let me go and fetch him?" said Will Ladislaw, coming forward.\r
+He had already taken up his hat before Dorothea entered. She colored\r
+with surprise, but put out her hand with a smile of unmistakable\r
+pleasure, saying--\r
+\r
+"I did not know it was you: I had no thought of seeing you here."\r
+\r
+"May I go to the Hospital and tell Mr. Lydgate that you wish to see\r
+him?" said Will.\r
+\r
+"It would be quicker to send the carriage for him," said Dorothea, "if\r
+you will be kind enough to give the message to the coachman."\r
+\r
+Will was moving to the door when Dorothea, whose mind had flashed in an\r
+instant over many connected memories, turned quickly and said, "I will\r
+go myself, thank you. I wish to lose no time before getting home\r
+again. I will drive to the Hospital and see Mr. Lydgate there. Pray\r
+excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate. I am very much obliged to you."\r
+\r
+Her mind was evidently arrested by some sudden thought, and she left\r
+the room hardly conscious of what was immediately around her--hardly\r
+conscious that Will opened the door for her and offered her his arm to\r
+lead her to the carriage. She took the arm but said nothing. Will was\r
+feeling rather vexed and miserable, and found nothing to say on his\r
+side. He handed her into the carriage in silence, they said good-by,\r
+and Dorothea drove away.\r
+\r
+In the five minutes' drive to the Hospital she had time for some\r
+reflections that were quite new to her. Her decision to go, and her\r
+preoccupation in leaving the room, had come from the sudden sense that\r
+there would be a sort of deception in her voluntarily allowing any\r
+further intercourse between herself and Will which she was unable to\r
+mention to her husband, and already her errand in seeking Lydgate was a\r
+matter of concealment. That was all that had been explicitly in her\r
+mind; but she had been urged also by a vague discomfort. Now that she\r
+was alone in her drive, she heard the notes of the man's voice and the\r
+accompanying piano, which she had not noted much at the time, returning\r
+on her inward sense; and she found herself thinking with some wonder\r
+that Will Ladislaw was passing his time with Mrs. Lydgate in her\r
+husband's absence. And then she could not help remembering that he had\r
+passed some time with her under like circumstances, so why should there\r
+be any unfitness in the fact? But Will was Mr. Casaubon's relative,\r
+and one towards whom she was bound to show kindness. Still there had\r
+been signs which perhaps she ought to have understood as implying that\r
+Mr. Casaubon did not like his cousin's visits during his own absence.\r
+"Perhaps I have been mistaken in many things," said poor Dorothea to\r
+herself, while the tears came rolling and she had to dry them quickly.\r
+She felt confusedly unhappy, and the image of Will which had been so\r
+clear to her before was mysteriously spoiled. But the carriage stopped\r
+at the gate of the Hospital. She was soon walking round the grass\r
+plots with Lydgate, and her feelings recovered the strong bent which\r
+had made her seek for this interview.\r
+\r
+Will Ladislaw, meanwhile, was mortified, and knew the reason of it\r
+clearly enough. His chances of meeting Dorothea were rare; and here\r
+for the first time there had come a chance which had set him at a\r
+disadvantage. It was not only, as it had been hitherto, that she was\r
+not supremely occupied with him, but that she had seen him under\r
+circumstances in which he might appear not to be supremely occupied\r
+with her. He felt thrust to a new distance from her, amongst the\r
+circles of Middlemarchers who made no part of her life. But that was\r
+not his fault: of course, since he had taken his lodgings in the town,\r
+he had been making as many acquaintances as he could, his position\r
+requiring that he should know everybody and everything. Lydgate was\r
+really better worth knowing than any one else in the neighborhood, and\r
+he happened to have a wife who was musical and altogether worth calling\r
+upon. Here was the whole history of the situation in which Diana had\r
+descended too unexpectedly on her worshipper. It was mortifying. Will\r
+was conscious that he should not have been at Middlemarch but for\r
+Dorothea; and yet his position there was threatening to divide him from\r
+her with those barriers of habitual sentiment which are more fatal to\r
+the persistence of mutual interest than all the distance between Rome\r
+and Britain. Prejudices about rank and status were easy enough to defy\r
+in the form of a tyrannical letter from Mr. Casaubon; but prejudices,\r
+like odorous bodies, have a double existence both solid and subtle--solid\r
+as the pyramids, subtle as the twentieth echo of an echo, or as\r
+the memory of hyacinths which once scented the darkness. And Will was\r
+of a temperament to feel keenly the presence of subtleties: a man of\r
+clumsier perceptions would not have felt, as he did, that for the first\r
+time some sense of unfitness in perfect freedom with him had sprung up\r
+in Dorothea's mind, and that their silence, as he conducted her to the\r
+carriage, had had a chill in it. Perhaps Casaubon, in his hatred and\r
+jealousy, had been insisting to Dorothea that Will had slid below her\r
+socially. Confound Casaubon!\r
+\r
+Will re-entered the drawing-room, took up his hat, and looking\r
+irritated as he advanced towards Mrs. Lydgate, who had seated herself\r
+at her work-table, said--\r
+\r
+"It is always fatal to have music or poetry interrupted. May I come\r
+another day and just finish about the rendering of 'Lungi dal caro\r
+bene'?"\r
+\r
+"I shall be happy to be taught," said Rosamond. "But I am sure you\r
+admit that the interruption was a very beautiful one. I quite envy\r
+your acquaintance with Mrs. Casaubon. Is she very clever? She looks\r
+as if she were."\r
+\r
+"Really, I never thought about it," said Will, sulkily.\r
+\r
+"That is just the answer Tertius gave me, when I first asked him if she\r
+were handsome. What is it that you gentlemen are thinking of when you\r
+are with Mrs. Casaubon?"\r
+\r
+"Herself," said Will, not indisposed to provoke the charming Mrs.\r
+Lydgate. "When one sees a perfect woman, one never thinks of her\r
+attributes--one is conscious of her presence."\r
+\r
+"I shall be jealous when Tertius goes to Lowick," said Rosamond,\r
+dimpling, and speaking with aery lightness. "He will come back and\r
+think nothing of me."\r
+\r
+"That does not seem to have been the effect on Lydgate hitherto. Mrs.\r
+Casaubon is too unlike other women for them to be compared with her."\r
+\r
+"You are a devout worshipper, I perceive. You often see her, I\r
+suppose."\r
+\r
+"No," said Will, almost pettishly. "Worship is usually a matter of\r
+theory rather than of practice. But I am practising it to excess just\r
+at this moment--I must really tear myself away."\r
+\r
+"Pray come again some evening: Mr. Lydgate will like to hear the music,\r
+and I cannot enjoy it so well without him."\r
+\r
+When her husband was at home again, Rosamond said, standing in front of\r
+him and holding his coat-collar with both her hands, "Mr. Ladislaw was\r
+here singing with me when Mrs. Casaubon came in. He seemed vexed. Do\r
+you think he disliked her seeing him at our house? Surely your\r
+position is more than equal to his--whatever may be his relation to the\r
+Casaubons."\r
+\r
+"No, no; it must be something else if he were really vexed, Ladislaw is\r
+a sort of gypsy; he thinks nothing of leather and prunella."\r
+\r
+"Music apart, he is not always very agreeable. Do you like him?"\r
+\r
+"Yes: I think he is a good fellow: rather miscellaneous and\r
+bric-a-brac, but likable."\r
+\r
+"Do you know, I think he adores Mrs. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+"Poor devil!" said Lydgate, smiling and pinching his wife's ears.\r
+\r
+Rosamond felt herself beginning to know a great deal of the world,\r
+especially in discovering what when she was in her unmarried girlhood\r
+had been inconceivable to her except as a dim tragedy in by-gone\r
+costumes--that women, even after marriage, might make conquests and\r
+enslave men. At that time young ladies in the country, even when\r
+educated at Mrs. Lemon's, read little French literature later than\r
+Racine, and public prints had not cast their present magnificent\r
+illumination over the scandals of life. Still, vanity, with a woman's\r
+whole mind and day to work in, can construct abundantly on slight\r
+hints, especially on such a hint as the possibility of indefinite\r
+conquests. How delightful to make captives from the throne of marriage\r
+with a husband as crown-prince by your side--himself in fact a\r
+subject--while the captives look up forever hopeless, losing their\r
+rest probably, and if their appetite too, so much the better! But\r
+Rosamond's romance turned at present chiefly on her crown-prince, and\r
+it was enough to enjoy his assured subjection. When he said, "Poor\r
+devil!" she asked, with playful curiosity--\r
+\r
+"Why so?"\r
+\r
+"Why, what can a man do when he takes to adoring one of you mermaids?\r
+He only neglects his work and runs up bills."\r
+\r
+"I am sure you do not neglect your work. You are always at the\r
+Hospital, or seeing poor patients, or thinking about some doctor's\r
+quarrel; and then at home you always want to pore over your microscope\r
+and phials. Confess you like those things better than me."\r
+\r
+"Haven't you ambition enough to wish that your husband should be\r
+something better than a Middlemarch doctor?" said Lydgate, letting his\r
+hands fall on to his wife's shoulders, and looking at her with\r
+affectionate gravity. "I shall make you learn my favorite bit from an\r
+old poet--\r
+\r
+ 'Why should our pride make such a stir to be\r
+ And be forgot? What good is like to this,\r
+ To do worthy the writing, and to write\r
+ Worthy the reading and the worlds delight?'\r
+\r
+What I want, Rosy, is to do worthy the writing,--and to write out\r
+myself what I have done. A man must work, to do that, my pet."\r
+\r
+"Of course, I wish you to make discoveries: no one could more wish you\r
+to attain a high position in some better place than Middlemarch. You\r
+cannot say that I have ever tried to hinder you from working. But we\r
+cannot live like hermits. You are not discontented with me, Tertius?"\r
+\r
+"No, dear, no. I am too entirely contented."\r
+\r
+"But what did Mrs. Casaubon want to say to you?"\r
+\r
+"Merely to ask about her husband's health. But I think she is going to\r
+be splendid to our New Hospital: I think she will give us two hundred\r
+a-year."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIV.\r
+\r
+ I would not creep along the coast but steer\r
+ Out in mid-sea, by guidance of the stars.\r
+\r
+\r
+When Dorothea, walking round the laurel-planted plots of the New\r
+Hospital with Lydgate, had learned from him that there were no signs of\r
+change in Mr. Casaubon's bodily condition beyond the mental sign of\r
+anxiety to know the truth about his illness, she was silent for a few\r
+moments, wondering whether she had said or done anything to rouse this\r
+new anxiety. Lydgate, not willing to let slip an opportunity of\r
+furthering a favorite purpose, ventured to say--\r
+\r
+"I don't know whether your or Mr.--Casaubon's attention has been drawn\r
+to the needs of our New Hospital. Circumstances have made it seem\r
+rather egotistic in me to urge the subject; but that is not my fault:\r
+it is because there is a fight being made against it by the other\r
+medical men. I think you are generally interested in such things, for\r
+I remember that when I first had the pleasure of seeing you at Tipton\r
+Grange before your marriage, you were asking me some questions about\r
+the way in which the health of the poor was affected by their miserable\r
+housing."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed," said Dorothea, brightening. "I shall be quite grateful\r
+to you if you will tell me how I can help to make things a little\r
+better. Everything of that sort has slipped away from me since I have\r
+been married. I mean," she said, after a moment's hesitation, "that\r
+the people in our village are tolerably comfortable, and my mind has\r
+been too much taken up for me to inquire further. But here--in such a\r
+place as Middlemarch--there must be a great deal to be done."\r
+\r
+"There is everything to be done," said Lydgate, with abrupt energy.\r
+"And this Hospital is a capital piece of work, due entirely to Mr.\r
+Bulstrode's exertions, and in a great degree to his money. But one man\r
+can't do everything in a scheme of this sort. Of course he looked\r
+forward to help. And now there's a mean, petty feud set up against the\r
+thing in the town, by certain persons who want to make it a failure."\r
+\r
+"What can be their reasons?" said Dorothea, with naive surprise.\r
+\r
+"Chiefly Mr. Bulstrode's unpopularity, to begin with. Half the town\r
+would almost take trouble for the sake of thwarting him. In this\r
+stupid world most people never consider that a thing is good to be done\r
+unless it is done by their own set. I had no connection with Bulstrode\r
+before I came here. I look at him quite impartially, and I see that he\r
+has some notions--that he has set things on foot--which I can turn to\r
+good public purpose. If a fair number of the better educated men went\r
+to work with the belief that their observations might contribute to the\r
+reform of medical doctrine and practice, we should soon see a change\r
+for the better. That's my point of view. I hold that by refusing to\r
+work with Mr. Bulstrode I should be turning my back on an opportunity\r
+of making my profession more generally serviceable."\r
+\r
+"I quite agree with you," said Dorothea, at once fascinated by the\r
+situation sketched in Lydgate's words. "But what is there against Mr.\r
+Bulstrode? I know that my uncle is friendly with him."\r
+\r
+"People don't like his religious tone," said Lydgate, breaking off\r
+there.\r
+\r
+"That is all the stronger reason for despising such an opposition,"\r
+said Dorothea, looking at the affairs of Middlemarch by the light of\r
+the great persecutions.\r
+\r
+"To put the matter quite fairly, they have other objections to him:--he\r
+is masterful and rather unsociable, and he is concerned with trade,\r
+which has complaints of its own that I know nothing about. But what\r
+has that to do with the question whether it would not be a fine thing\r
+to establish here a more valuable hospital than any they have in the\r
+county? The immediate motive to the opposition, however, is the fact\r
+that Bulstrode has put the medical direction into my hands. Of course\r
+I am glad of that. It gives me an opportunity of doing some good\r
+work,--and I am aware that I have to justify his choice of me. But the\r
+consequence is, that the whole profession in Middlemarch have set\r
+themselves tooth and nail against the Hospital, and not only refuse to\r
+cooperate themselves, but try to blacken the whole affair and hinder\r
+subscriptions."\r
+\r
+"How very petty!" exclaimed Dorothea, indignantly.\r
+\r
+"I suppose one must expect to fight one's way: there is hardly anything\r
+to be done without it. And the ignorance of people about here is\r
+stupendous. I don't lay claim to anything else than having used some\r
+opportunities which have not come within everybody's reach; but there\r
+is no stifling the offence of being young, and a new-comer, and\r
+happening to know something more than the old inhabitants. Still, if I\r
+believe that I can set going a better method of treatment--if I\r
+believe that I can pursue certain observations and inquiries which may\r
+be a lasting benefit to medical practice, I should be a base truckler\r
+if I allowed any consideration of personal comfort to hinder me. And\r
+the course is all the clearer from there being no salary in question to\r
+put my persistence in an equivocal light."\r
+\r
+"I am glad you have told me this, Mr. Lydgate," said Dorothea,\r
+cordially. "I feel sure I can help a little. I have some money, and\r
+don't know what to do with it--that is often an uncomfortable thought\r
+to me. I am sure I can spare two hundred a-year for a grand purpose\r
+like this. How happy you must be, to know things that you feel sure\r
+will do great good! I wish I could awake with that knowledge every\r
+morning. There seems to be so much trouble taken that one can hardly\r
+see the good of!"\r
+\r
+There was a melancholy cadence in Dorothea's voice as she spoke these\r
+last words. But she presently added, more cheerfully, "Pray come to\r
+Lowick and tell us more of this. I will mention the subject to Mr.\r
+Casaubon. I must hasten home now."\r
+\r
+She did mention it that evening, and said that she should like to\r
+subscribe two hundred a-year--she had seven hundred a-year as the\r
+equivalent of her own fortune, settled on her at her marriage. Mr.\r
+Casaubon made no objection beyond a passing remark that the sum might\r
+be disproportionate in relation to other good objects, but when\r
+Dorothea in her ignorance resisted that suggestion, he acquiesced. He\r
+did not care himself about spending money, and was not reluctant to\r
+give it. If he ever felt keenly any question of money it was through\r
+the medium of another passion than the love of material property.\r
+\r
+Dorothea told him that she had seen Lydgate, and recited the gist of\r
+her conversation with him about the Hospital. Mr. Casaubon did not\r
+question her further, but he felt sure that she had wished to know what\r
+had passed between Lydgate and himself. "She knows that I know," said\r
+the ever-restless voice within; but that increase of tacit knowledge\r
+only thrust further off any confidence between them. He distrusted her\r
+affection; and what loneliness is more lonely than distrust?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLV.\r
+\r
+ It is the humor of many heads to extol the days of their\r
+ forefathers, and declaim against the wickedness of times\r
+ present. Which notwithstanding they cannot handsomely do,\r
+ without the borrowed help and satire of times past;\r
+ condemning the vices of their own times, by the expressions\r
+ of vices in times which they commend, which cannot but argue\r
+ the community of vice in both. Horace, therefore, Juvenal,\r
+ and Persius, were no prophets, although their lines did seem\r
+ to indigitate and point at our times.--SIR THOMAS BROWNE:\r
+ Pseudodoxia Epidemica.\r
+\r
+\r
+That opposition to the New Fever Hospital which Lydgate had sketched to\r
+Dorothea was, like other oppositions, to be viewed in many different\r
+lights. He regarded it as a mixture of jealousy and dunderheaded\r
+prejudice. Mr. Bulstrode saw in it not only medical jealousy but a\r
+determination to thwart himself, prompted mainly by a hatred of that\r
+vital religion of which he had striven to be an effectual lay\r
+representative--a hatred which certainly found pretexts apart from\r
+religion such as were only too easy to find in the entanglements of\r
+human action. These might be called the ministerial views. But\r
+oppositions have the illimitable range of objections at command, which\r
+need never stop short at the boundary of knowledge, but can draw\r
+forever on the vasts of ignorance. What the opposition in Middlemarch\r
+said about the New Hospital and its administration had certainly a\r
+great deal of echo in it, for heaven has taken care that everybody\r
+shall not be an originator; but there were differences which\r
+represented every social shade between the polished moderation of Dr.\r
+Minchin and the trenchant assertion of Mrs. Dollop, the landlady of the\r
+Tankard in Slaughter Lane.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dollop became more and more convinced by her own asseveration,\r
+that Dr. Lydgate meant to let the people die in the Hospital, if not to\r
+poison them, for the sake of cutting them up without saying by your\r
+leave or with your leave; for it was a known "fac" that he had wanted\r
+to cut up Mrs. Goby, as respectable a woman as any in Parley Street,\r
+who had money in trust before her marriage--a poor tale for a doctor,\r
+who if he was good for anything should know what was the matter with\r
+you before you died, and not want to pry into your inside after you\r
+were gone. If that was not reason, Mrs. Dollop wished to know what\r
+was; but there was a prevalent feeling in her audience that her opinion\r
+was a bulwark, and that if it were overthrown there would be no limits\r
+to the cutting-up of bodies, as had been well seen in Burke and Hare\r
+with their pitch-plaisters--such a hanging business as that was not\r
+wanted in Middlemarch!\r
+\r
+And let it not be supposed that opinion at the Tankard in Slaughter\r
+Lane was unimportant to the medical profession: that old authentic\r
+public-house--the original Tankard, known by the name of Dollop's--was\r
+the resort of a great Benefit Club, which had some months before put to\r
+the vote whether its long-standing medical man, "Doctor Gambit," should\r
+not be cashiered in favor of "this Doctor Lydgate," who was capable of\r
+performing the most astonishing cures, and rescuing people altogether\r
+given up by other practitioners. But the balance had been turned\r
+against Lydgate by two members, who for some private reasons held that\r
+this power of resuscitating persons as good as dead was an equivocal\r
+recommendation, and might interfere with providential favors. In the\r
+course of the year, however, there had been a change in the public\r
+sentiment, of which the unanimity at Dollop's was an index.\r
+\r
+A good deal more than a year ago, before anything was known of\r
+Lydgate's skill, the judgments on it had naturally been divided,\r
+depending on a sense of likelihood, situated perhaps in the pit of the\r
+stomach or in the pineal gland, and differing in its verdicts, but not\r
+the less valuable as a guide in the total deficit of evidence.\r
+Patients who had chronic diseases or whose lives had long been worn\r
+threadbare, like old Featherstone's, had been at once inclined to try\r
+him; also, many who did not like paying their doctor's bills, thought\r
+agreeably of opening an account with a new doctor and sending for him\r
+without stint if the children's temper wanted a dose, occasions when\r
+the old practitioners were often crusty; and all persons thus inclined\r
+to employ Lydgate held it likely that he was clever. Some considered\r
+that he might do more than others "where there was liver;"--at least\r
+there would be no harm in getting a few bottles of "stuff" from him,\r
+since if these proved useless it would still be possible to return to\r
+the Purifying Pills, which kept you alive if they did not remove the\r
+yellowness. But these were people of minor importance. Good\r
+Middlemarch families were of course not going to change their doctor\r
+without reason shown; and everybody who had employed Mr. Peacock did\r
+not feel obliged to accept a new man merely in the character of his\r
+successor, objecting that he was "not likely to be equal to Peacock."\r
+\r
+But Lydgate had not been long in the town before there were particulars\r
+enough reported of him to breed much more specific expectations and to\r
+intensify differences into partisanship; some of the particulars being\r
+of that impressive order of which the significance is entirely hidden,\r
+like a statistical amount without a standard of comparison, but with a\r
+note of exclamation at the end. The cubic feet of oxygen yearly\r
+swallowed by a full-grown man--what a shudder they might have created\r
+in some Middlemarch circles! "Oxygen! nobody knows what that may\r
+be--is it any wonder the cholera has got to Dantzic? And yet there are\r
+people who say quarantine is no good!"\r
+\r
+One of the facts quickly rumored was that Lydgate did not dispense\r
+drugs. This was offensive both to the physicians whose exclusive\r
+distinction seemed infringed on, and to the surgeon-apothecaries with\r
+whom he ranged himself; and only a little while before, they might have\r
+counted on having the law on their side against a man who without\r
+calling himself a London-made M.D. dared to ask for pay except as a\r
+charge on drugs. But Lydgate had not been experienced enough to\r
+foresee that his new course would be even more offensive to the laity;\r
+and to Mr. Mawmsey, an important grocer in the Top Market, who, though\r
+not one of his patients, questioned him in an affable manner on the\r
+subject, he was injudicious enough to give a hasty popular explanation\r
+of his reasons, pointing out to Mr. Mawmsey that it must lower the\r
+character of practitioners, and be a constant injury to the public, if\r
+their only mode of getting paid for their work was by their making out\r
+long bills for draughts, boluses, and mixtures.\r
+\r
+"It is in that way that hard-working medical men may come to be almost\r
+as mischievous as quacks," said Lydgate, rather thoughtlessly. "To get\r
+their own bread they must overdose the king's lieges; and that's a bad\r
+sort of treason, Mr. Mawmsey--undermines the constitution in a fatal\r
+way."\r
+\r
+Mr. Mawmsey was not only an overseer (it was about a question of\r
+outdoor pay that he was having an interview with Lydgate), he was also\r
+asthmatic and had an increasing family: thus, from a medical point of\r
+view, as well as from his own, he was an important man; indeed, an\r
+exceptional grocer, whose hair was arranged in a flame-like pyramid,\r
+and whose retail deference was of the cordial, encouraging\r
+kind--jocosely complimentary, and with a certain considerate abstinence\r
+from letting out the full force of his mind. It was Mr. Mawmsey's\r
+friendly jocoseness in questioning him which had set the tone of\r
+Lydgate's reply. But let the wise be warned against too great\r
+readiness at explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake,\r
+lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.\r
+\r
+Lydgate smiled as he ended his speech, putting his foot into the\r
+stirrup, and Mr. Mawmsey laughed more than he would have done if he had\r
+known who the king's lieges were, giving his "Good morning, sir,\r
+good-morning, sir," with the air of one who saw everything clearly\r
+enough. But in truth his views were perturbed. For years he had been\r
+paying bills with strictly made items, so that for every half-crown and\r
+eighteen-pence he was certain something measurable had been delivered.\r
+He had done this with satisfaction, including it among his\r
+responsibilities as a husband and father, and regarding a longer bill\r
+than usual as a dignity worth mentioning. Moreover, in addition to the\r
+massive benefit of the drugs to "self and family," he had enjoyed the\r
+pleasure of forming an acute judgment as to their immediate effects, so\r
+as to give an intelligent statement for the guidance of Mr. Gambit--a\r
+practitioner just a little lower in status than Wrench or Toller, and\r
+especially esteemed as an accoucheur, of whose ability Mr. Mawmsey had\r
+the poorest opinion on all other points, but in doctoring, he was wont\r
+to say in an undertone, he placed Gambit above any of them.\r
+\r
+Here were deeper reasons than the superficial talk of a new man, which\r
+appeared still flimsier in the drawing-room over the shop, when they\r
+were recited to Mrs. Mawmsey, a woman accustomed to be made much of as\r
+a fertile mother,--generally under attendance more or less frequent\r
+from Mr. Gambit, and occasionally having attacks which required Dr.\r
+Minchin.\r
+\r
+"Does this Mr. Lydgate mean to say there is no use in taking medicine?"\r
+said Mrs. Mawmsey, who was slightly given to drawling. "I should like\r
+him to tell me how I could bear up at Fair time, if I didn't take\r
+strengthening medicine for a month beforehand. Think of what I have to\r
+provide for calling customers, my dear!"--here Mrs. Mawmsey turned to\r
+an intimate female friend who sat by--"a large veal pie--a stuffed\r
+fillet--a round of beef--ham, tongue, et cetera, et cetera! But what\r
+keeps me up best is the pink mixture, not the brown. I wonder, Mr.\r
+Mawmsey, with _your_ experience, you could have patience to listen. I\r
+should have told him at once that I knew a little better than that."\r
+\r
+"No, no, no," said Mr. Mawmsey; "I was not going to tell him my\r
+opinion. Hear everything and judge for yourself is my motto. But he\r
+didn't know who he was talking to. I was not to be turned on _his_\r
+finger. People often pretend to tell me things, when they might as\r
+well say, 'Mawmsey, you're a fool.' But I smile at it: I humor\r
+everybody's weak place. If physic had done harm to self and family, I\r
+should have found it out by this time."\r
+\r
+The next day Mr. Gambit was told that Lydgate went about saying physic\r
+was of no use.\r
+\r
+"Indeed!" said he, lifting his eyebrows with cautious surprise. (He\r
+was a stout husky man with a large ring on his fourth finger.) "How\r
+will he cure his patients, then?"\r
+\r
+"That is what I say," returned Mrs. Mawmsey, who habitually gave weight\r
+to her speech by loading her pronouns. "Does _he_ suppose that people\r
+will pay him only to come and sit with them and go away again?"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Mawmsey had had a great deal of sitting from Mr. Gambit, including\r
+very full accounts of his own habits of body and other affairs; but of\r
+course he knew there was no innuendo in her remark, since his spare\r
+time and personal narrative had never been charged for. So he replied,\r
+humorously--\r
+\r
+"Well, Lydgate is a good-looking young fellow, you know."\r
+\r
+"Not one that I would employ," said Mrs. Mawmsey. "_Others_ may do as\r
+they please."\r
+\r
+Hence Mr. Gambit could go away from the chief grocer's without fear of\r
+rivalry, but not without a sense that Lydgate was one of those\r
+hypocrites who try to discredit others by advertising their own\r
+honesty, and that it might be worth some people's while to show him up.\r
+Mr. Gambit, however, had a satisfactory practice, much pervaded by the\r
+smells of retail trading which suggested the reduction of cash payments\r
+to a balance. And he did not think it worth his while to show Lydgate\r
+up until he knew how. He had not indeed great resources of education,\r
+and had had to work his own way against a good deal of professional\r
+contempt; but he made none the worse accoucheur for calling the\r
+breathing apparatus "longs."\r
+\r
+Other medical men felt themselves more capable. Mr. Toller shared the\r
+highest practice in the town and belonged to an old Middlemarch family:\r
+there were Tollers in the law and everything else above the line of\r
+retail trade. Unlike our irascible friend Wrench, he had the easiest\r
+way in the world of taking things which might be supposed to annoy him,\r
+being a well-bred, quietly facetious man, who kept a good house, was\r
+very fond of a little sporting when he could get it, very friendly with\r
+Mr. Hawley, and hostile to Mr. Bulstrode. It may seem odd that with\r
+such pleasant habits he should have been given to the heroic treatment,\r
+bleeding and blistering and starving his patients, with a dispassionate\r
+disregard to his personal example; but the incongruity favored the\r
+opinion of his ability among his patients, who commonly observed that\r
+Mr. Toller had lazy manners, but his treatment was as active as you\r
+could desire: no man, said they, carried more seriousness into his\r
+profession: he was a little slow in coming, but when he came, he _did_\r
+something. He was a great favorite in his own circle, and whatever he\r
+implied to any one's disadvantage told doubly from his careless\r
+ironical tone.\r
+\r
+He naturally got tired of smiling and saying, "Ah!" when he was told\r
+that Mr. Peacock's successor did not mean to dispense medicines; and\r
+Mr. Hackbutt one day mentioning it over the wine at a dinner-party, Mr.\r
+Toller said, laughingly, "Dibbitts will get rid of his stale drugs,\r
+then. I'm fond of little Dibbitts--I'm glad he's in luck."\r
+\r
+"I see your meaning, Toller," said Mr. Hackbutt, "and I am entirely of\r
+your opinion. I shall take an opportunity of expressing myself to that\r
+effect. A medical man should be responsible for the quality of the\r
+drugs consumed by his patients. That is the rationale of the system of\r
+charging which has hitherto obtained; and nothing is more offensive\r
+than this ostentation of reform, where there is no real amelioration."\r
+\r
+"Ostentation, Hackbutt?" said Mr. Toller, ironically. "I don't see\r
+that. A man can't very well be ostentatious of what nobody believes\r
+in. There's no reform in the matter: the question is, whether the\r
+profit on the drugs is paid to the medical man by the druggist or by\r
+the patient, and whether there shall be extra pay under the name of\r
+attendance."\r
+\r
+"Ah, to be sure; one of your damned new versions of old humbug," said\r
+Mr. Hawley, passing the decanter to Mr. Wrench.\r
+\r
+Mr. Wrench, generally abstemious, often drank wine rather freely at a\r
+party, getting the more irritable in consequence.\r
+\r
+"As to humbug, Hawley," he said, "that's a word easy to fling about.\r
+But what I contend against is the way medical men are fouling their own\r
+nest, and setting up a cry about the country as if a general\r
+practitioner who dispenses drugs couldn't be a gentleman. I throw back\r
+the imputation with scorn. I say, the most ungentlemanly trick a man\r
+can be guilty of is to come among the members of his profession with\r
+innovations which are a libel on their time-honored procedure. That is\r
+my opinion, and I am ready to maintain it against any one who\r
+contradicts me." Mr. Wrench's voice had become exceedingly sharp.\r
+\r
+"I can't oblige you there, Wrench," said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his\r
+hands into his trouser-pockets.\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow," said Mr. Toller, striking in pacifically, and looking\r
+at Mr. Wrench, "the physicians have their toes trodden on more than we\r
+have. If you come to dignity it is a question for Minchin and Sprague."\r
+\r
+"Does medical jurisprudence provide nothing against these\r
+infringements?" said Mr. Hackbutt, with a disinterested desire to offer\r
+his lights. "How does the law stand, eh, Hawley?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing to be done there," said Mr. Hawley. "I looked into it for\r
+Sprague. You'd only break your nose against a damned judge's decision."\r
+\r
+"Pooh! no need of law," said Mr. Toller. "So far as practice is\r
+concerned the attempt is an absurdity. No patient will like\r
+it--certainly not Peacock's, who have been used to depletion. Pass the\r
+wine."\r
+\r
+Mr. Toller's prediction was partly verified. If Mr. and Mrs. Mawmsey,\r
+who had no idea of employing Lydgate, were made uneasy by his supposed\r
+declaration against drugs, it was inevitable that those who called him\r
+in should watch a little anxiously to see whether he did "use all the\r
+means he might use" in the case. Even good Mr. Powderell, who in his\r
+constant charity of interpretation was inclined to esteem Lydgate the\r
+more for what seemed a conscientious pursuit of a better plan, had his\r
+mind disturbed with doubts during his wife's attack of erysipelas, and\r
+could not abstain from mentioning to Lydgate that Mr. Peacock on a\r
+similar occasion had administered a series of boluses which were not\r
+otherwise definable than by their remarkable effect in bringing Mrs.\r
+Powderell round before Michaelmas from an illness which had begun in a\r
+remarkably hot August. At last, indeed, in the conflict between his\r
+desire not to hurt Lydgate and his anxiety that no "means" should be\r
+lacking, he induced his wife privately to take Widgeon's Purifying\r
+Pills, an esteemed Middlemarch medicine, which arrested every disease\r
+at the fountain by setting to work at once upon the blood. This\r
+co-operative measure was not to be mentioned to Lydgate, and Mr.\r
+Powderell himself had no certain reliance on it, only hoping that it\r
+might be attended with a blessing.\r
+\r
+But in this doubtful stage of Lydgate's introduction he was helped by\r
+what we mortals rashly call good fortune. I suppose no doctor ever\r
+came newly to a place without making cures that surprised somebody--cures\r
+which may be called fortune's testimonials, and deserve as much\r
+credit as the written or printed kind. Various patients got well while\r
+Lydgate was attending them, some even of dangerous illnesses; and it\r
+was remarked that the new doctor with his new ways had at least the\r
+merit of bringing people back from the brink of death. The trash\r
+talked on such occasions was the more vexatious to Lydgate, because it\r
+gave precisely the sort of prestige which an incompetent and\r
+unscrupulous man would desire, and was sure to be imputed to him by the\r
+simmering dislike of the other medical men as an encouragement on his\r
+own part of ignorant puffing. But even his proud outspokenness was\r
+checked by the discernment that it was as useless to fight against the\r
+interpretations of ignorance as to whip the fog; and "good fortune"\r
+insisted on using those interpretations.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Larcher having just become charitably concerned about alarming\r
+symptoms in her charwoman, when Dr. Minchin called, asked him to see\r
+her then and there, and to give her a certificate for the Infirmary;\r
+whereupon after examination he wrote a statement of the case as one of\r
+tumor, and recommended the bearer Nancy Nash as an out-patient. Nancy,\r
+calling at home on her way to the Infirmary, allowed the stay maker and\r
+his wife, in whose attic she lodged, to read Dr. Minchin's paper, and\r
+by this means became a subject of compassionate conversation in the\r
+neighboring shops of Churchyard Lane as being afflicted with a tumor at\r
+first declared to be as large and hard as a duck's egg, but later in\r
+the day to be about the size of "your fist." Most hearers agreed that\r
+it would have to be cut out, but one had known of oil and another of\r
+"squitchineal" as adequate to soften and reduce any lump in the body\r
+when taken enough of into the inside--the oil by gradually "soopling,"\r
+the squitchineal by eating away.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile when Nancy presented herself at the Infirmary, it happened to\r
+be one of Lydgate's days there. After questioning and examining her,\r
+Lydgate said to the house-surgeon in an undertone, "It's not tumor:\r
+it's cramp." He ordered her a blister and some steel mixture, and told\r
+her to go home and rest, giving her at the same time a note to Mrs.\r
+Larcher, who, she said, was her best employer, to testify that she was\r
+in need of good food.\r
+\r
+But by-and-by Nancy, in her attic, became portentously worse, the\r
+supposed tumor having indeed given way to the blister, but only\r
+wandered to another region with angrier pain. The staymaker's wife\r
+went to fetch Lydgate, and he continued for a fortnight to attend Nancy\r
+in her own home, until under his treatment she got quite well and went\r
+to work again. But the case continued to be described as one of tumor\r
+in Churchyard Lane and other streets--nay, by Mrs. Larcher also; for\r
+when Lydgate's remarkable cure was mentioned to Dr. Minchin, he\r
+naturally did not like to say, "The case was not one of tumor, and I\r
+was mistaken in describing it as such," but answered, "Indeed! ah! I\r
+saw it was a surgical case, not of a fatal kind." He had been inwardly\r
+annoyed, however, when he had asked at the Infirmary about the woman he\r
+had recommended two days before, to hear from the house-surgeon, a\r
+youngster who was not sorry to vex Minchin with impunity, exactly what\r
+had occurred: he privately pronounced that it was indecent in a general\r
+practitioner to contradict a physician's diagnosis in that open manner,\r
+and afterwards agreed with Wrench that Lydgate was disagreeably\r
+inattentive to etiquette. Lydgate did not make the affair a ground for\r
+valuing himself or (very particularly) despising Minchin, such\r
+rectification of misjudgments often happening among men of equal\r
+qualifications. But report took up this amazing case of tumor, not\r
+clearly distinguished from cancer, and considered the more awful for\r
+being of the wandering sort; till much prejudice against Lydgate's\r
+method as to drugs was overcome by the proof of his marvellous skill in\r
+the speedy restoration of Nancy Nash after she had been rolling and\r
+rolling in agonies from the presence of a tumor both hard and\r
+obstinate, but nevertheless compelled to yield.\r
+\r
+How could Lydgate help himself? It is offensive to tell a lady when\r
+she is expressing her amazement at your skill, that she is altogether\r
+mistaken and rather foolish in her amazement. And to have entered into\r
+the nature of diseases would only have added to his breaches of medical\r
+propriety. Thus he had to wince under a promise of success given by\r
+that ignorant praise which misses every valid quality.\r
+\r
+In the case of a more conspicuous patient, Mr. Borthrop Trumbull,\r
+Lydgate was conscious of having shown himself something better than an\r
+every-day doctor, though here too it was an equivocal advantage that he\r
+won. The eloquent auctioneer was seized with pneumonia, and having\r
+been a patient of Mr. Peacock's, sent for Lydgate, whom he had\r
+expressed his intention to patronize. Mr Trumbull was a robust man, a\r
+good subject for trying the expectant theory upon--watching the course\r
+of an interesting disease when left as much as possible to itself, so\r
+that the stages might be noted for future guidance; and from the air\r
+with which he described his sensations Lydgate surmised that he would\r
+like to be taken into his medical man's confidence, and be represented\r
+as a partner in his own cure. The auctioneer heard, without much\r
+surprise, that his was a constitution which (always with due watching)\r
+might be left to itself, so as to offer a beautiful example of a\r
+disease with all its phases seen in clear delineation, and that he\r
+probably had the rare strength of mind voluntarily to become the test\r
+of a rational procedure, and thus make the disorder of his pulmonary\r
+functions a general benefit to society.\r
+\r
+Mr. Trumbull acquiesced at once, and entered strongly into the view\r
+that an illness of his was no ordinary occasion for medical science.\r
+\r
+"Never fear, sir; you are not speaking to one who is altogether\r
+ignorant of the vis medicatrix," said he, with his usual superiority of\r
+expression, made rather pathetic by difficulty of breathing. And he\r
+went without shrinking through his abstinence from drugs, much\r
+sustained by application of the thermometer which implied the\r
+importance of his temperature, by the sense that he furnished objects\r
+for the microscope, and by learning many new words which seemed suited\r
+to the dignity of his secretions. For Lydgate was acute enough to\r
+indulge him with a little technical talk.\r
+\r
+It may be imagined that Mr. Trumbull rose from his couch with a\r
+disposition to speak of an illness in which he had manifested the\r
+strength of his mind as well as constitution; and he was not backward\r
+in awarding credit to the medical man who had discerned the quality of\r
+patient he had to deal with. The auctioneer was not an ungenerous man,\r
+and liked to give others their due, feeling that he could afford it.\r
+He had caught the words "expectant method," and rang chimes on this and\r
+other learned phrases to accompany the assurance that Lydgate "knew a\r
+thing or two more than the rest of the doctors--was far better versed\r
+in the secrets of his profession than the majority of his compeers."\r
+\r
+This had happened before the affair of Fred Vincy's illness had given\r
+to Mr. Wrench's enmity towards Lydgate more definite personal ground.\r
+The new-comer already threatened to be a nuisance in the shape of\r
+rivalry, and was certainly a nuisance in the shape of practical\r
+criticism or reflections on his hard-driven elders, who had had\r
+something else to do than to busy themselves with untried notions. His\r
+practice had spread in one or two quarters, and from the first the\r
+report of his high family had led to his being pretty generally\r
+invited, so that the other medical men had to meet him at dinner in the\r
+best houses; and having to meet a man whom you dislike is not observed\r
+always to end in a mutual attachment. There was hardly ever so much\r
+unanimity among them as in the opinion that Lydgate was an arrogant\r
+young fellow, and yet ready for the sake of ultimately predominating to\r
+show a crawling subservience to Bulstrode. That Mr. Farebrother, whose\r
+name was a chief flag of the anti-Bulstrode party, always defended\r
+Lydgate and made a friend of him, was referred to Farebrother's\r
+unaccountable way of fighting on both sides.\r
+\r
+Here was plenty of preparation for the outburst of professional disgust\r
+at the announcement of the laws Mr. Bulstrode was laying down for the\r
+direction of the New Hospital, which were the more exasperating because\r
+there was no present possibility of interfering with his will and\r
+pleasure, everybody except Lord Medlicote having refused help towards\r
+the building, on the ground that they preferred giving to the Old\r
+Infirmary. Mr. Bulstrode met all the expenses, and had ceased to be\r
+sorry that he was purchasing the right to carry out his notions of\r
+improvement without hindrance from prejudiced coadjutors; but he had\r
+had to spend large sums, and the building had lingered. Caleb Garth\r
+had undertaken it, had failed during its progress, and before the\r
+interior fittings were begun had retired from the management of the\r
+business; and when referring to the Hospital he often said that however\r
+Bulstrode might ring if you tried him, he liked good solid carpentry\r
+and masonry, and had a notion both of drains and chimneys. In fact,\r
+the Hospital had become an object of intense interest to Bulstrode, and\r
+he would willingly have continued to spare a large yearly sum that he\r
+might rule it dictatorially without any Board; but he had another\r
+favorite object which also required money for its accomplishment: he\r
+wished to buy some land in the neighborhood of Middlemarch, and\r
+therefore he wished to get considerable contributions towards\r
+maintaining the Hospital. Meanwhile he framed his plan of management.\r
+The Hospital was to be reserved for fever in all its forms; Lydgate was\r
+to be chief medical superintendent, that he might have free authority\r
+to pursue all comparative investigations which his studies,\r
+particularly in Paris, had shown him the importance of, the other\r
+medical visitors having a consultative influence, but no power to\r
+contravene Lydgate's ultimate decisions; and the general management was\r
+to be lodged exclusively in the hands of five directors associated with\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, who were to have votes in the ratio of their\r
+contributions, the Board itself filling up any vacancy in its numbers,\r
+and no mob of small contributors being admitted to a share of\r
+government.\r
+\r
+There was an immediate refusal on the part of every medical man in the\r
+town to become a visitor at the Fever Hospital.\r
+\r
+"Very well," said Lydgate to Mr. Bulstrode, "we have a capital\r
+house-surgeon and dispenser, a clear-headed, neat-handed fellow; we'll\r
+get Webbe from Crabsley, as good a country practitioner as any of them,\r
+to come over twice a-week, and in case of any exceptional operation,\r
+Protheroe will come from Brassing. I must work the harder, that's all,\r
+and I have given up my post at the Infirmary. The plan will flourish\r
+in spite of them, and then they'll be glad to come in. Things can't\r
+last as they are: there must be all sorts of reform soon, and then\r
+young fellows may be glad to come and study here." Lydgate was in high\r
+spirits.\r
+\r
+"I shall not flinch, you may depend upon it, Mr. Lydgate," said Mr.\r
+Bulstrode. "While I see you carrying out high intentions with vigor,\r
+you shall have my unfailing support. And I have humble confidence that\r
+the blessing which has hitherto attended my efforts against the spirit\r
+of evil in this town will not be withdrawn. Suitable directors to\r
+assist me I have no doubt of securing. Mr. Brooke of Tipton has\r
+already given me his concurrence, and a pledge to contribute yearly: he\r
+has not specified the sum--probably not a great one. But he will be a\r
+useful member of the board."\r
+\r
+A useful member was perhaps to be defined as one who would originate\r
+nothing, and always vote with Mr. Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+The medical aversion to Lydgate was hardly disguised now. Neither Dr.\r
+Sprague nor Dr. Minchin said that he disliked Lydgate's knowledge, or\r
+his disposition to improve treatment: what they disliked was his\r
+arrogance, which nobody felt to be altogether deniable. They implied\r
+that he was insolent, pretentious, and given to that reckless\r
+innovation for the sake of noise and show which was the essence of the\r
+charlatan.\r
+\r
+The word charlatan once thrown on the air could not be let drop. In\r
+those days the world was agitated about the wondrous doings of Mr. St.\r
+John Long, "noblemen and gentlemen" attesting his extraction of a fluid\r
+like mercury from the temples of a patient.\r
+\r
+Mr. Toller remarked one day, smilingly, to Mrs. Taft, that "Bulstrode\r
+had found a man to suit him in Lydgate; a charlatan in religion is sure\r
+to like other sorts of charlatans."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, I can imagine," said Mrs. Taft, keeping the number of\r
+thirty stitches carefully in her mind all the while; "there are so many\r
+of that sort. I remember Mr. Cheshire, with his irons, trying to make\r
+people straight when the Almighty had made them crooked."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Mr. Toller, "Cheshire was all right--all fair and above\r
+board. But there's St. John Long--that's the kind of fellow we call a\r
+charlatan, advertising cures in ways nobody knows anything about: a\r
+fellow who wants to make a noise by pretending to go deeper than other\r
+people. The other day he was pretending to tap a man's brain and get\r
+quicksilver out of it."\r
+\r
+"Good gracious! what dreadful trifling with people's constitutions!"\r
+said Mrs. Taft.\r
+\r
+After this, it came to be held in various quarters that Lydgate played\r
+even with respectable constitutions for his own purposes, and how much\r
+more likely that in his flighty experimenting he should make sixes and\r
+sevens of hospital patients. Especially it was to be expected, as the\r
+landlady of the Tankard had said, that he would recklessly cut up their\r
+dead bodies. For Lydgate having attended Mrs. Goby, who died\r
+apparently of a heart-disease not very clearly expressed in the\r
+symptoms, too daringly asked leave of her relatives to open the body,\r
+and thus gave an offence quickly spreading beyond Parley Street, where\r
+that lady had long resided on an income such as made this association\r
+of her body with the victims of Burke and Hare a flagrant insult to her\r
+memory.\r
+\r
+Affairs were in this stage when Lydgate opened the subject of the\r
+Hospital to Dorothea. We see that he was bearing enmity and silly\r
+misconception with much spirit, aware that they were partly created by\r
+his good share of success.\r
+\r
+"They will not drive me away," he said, talking confidentially in Mr.\r
+Farebrother's study. "I have got a good opportunity here, for the ends\r
+I care most about; and I am pretty sure to get income enough for our\r
+wants. By-and-by I shall go on as quietly as possible: I have no\r
+seductions now away from home and work. And I am more and more\r
+convinced that it will be possible to demonstrate the homogeneous\r
+origin of all the tissues. Raspail and others are on the same track,\r
+and I have been losing time."\r
+\r
+"I have no power of prophecy there," said Mr. Farebrother, who had been\r
+puffing at his pipe thoughtfully while Lydgate talked; "but as to the\r
+hostility in the town, you'll weather it if you are prudent."\r
+\r
+"How am I to be prudent?" said Lydgate, "I just do what comes before me\r
+to do. I can't help people's ignorance and spite, any more than\r
+Vesalius could. It isn't possible to square one's conduct to silly\r
+conclusions which nobody can foresee."\r
+\r
+"Quite true; I didn't mean that. I meant only two things. One is,\r
+keep yourself as separable from Bulstrode as you can: of course, you\r
+can go on doing good work of your own by his help; but don't get tied.\r
+Perhaps it seems like personal feeling in me to say so--and there's a\r
+good deal of that, I own--but personal feeling is not always in the\r
+wrong if you boil it down to the impressions which make it simply an\r
+opinion."\r
+\r
+"Bulstrode is nothing to me," said Lydgate, carelessly, "except on\r
+public grounds. As to getting very closely united to him, I am not\r
+fond enough of him for that. But what was the other thing you meant?"\r
+said Lydgate, who was nursing his leg as comfortably as possible, and\r
+feeling in no great need of advice.\r
+\r
+"Why, this. Take care--experto crede--take care not to get hampered\r
+about money matters. I know, by a word you let fall one day, that you\r
+don't like my playing at cards so much for money. You are right enough\r
+there. But try and keep clear of wanting small sums that you haven't\r
+got. I am perhaps talking rather superfluously; but a man likes to\r
+assume superiority over himself, by holding up his bad example and\r
+sermonizing on it."\r
+\r
+Lydgate took Mr. Farebrother's hints very cordially, though he would\r
+hardly have borne them from another man. He could not help remembering\r
+that he had lately made some debts, but these had seemed inevitable,\r
+and he had no intention now to do more than keep house in a simple way.\r
+The furniture for which he owed would not want renewing; nor even the\r
+stock of wine for a long while.\r
+\r
+Many thoughts cheered him at that time--and justly. A man conscious of\r
+enthusiasm for worthy aims is sustained under petty hostilities by the\r
+memory of great workers who had to fight their way not without wounds,\r
+and who hover in his mind as patron saints, invisibly helping. At\r
+home, that same evening when he had been chatting with Mr. Farebrother,\r
+he had his long legs stretched on the sofa, his head thrown back, and\r
+his hands clasped behind it according to his favorite ruminating\r
+attitude, while Rosamond sat at the piano, and played one tune after\r
+another, of which her husband only knew (like the emotional elephant he\r
+was!) that they fell in with his mood as if they had been melodious\r
+sea-breezes.\r
+\r
+There was something very fine in Lydgate's look just then, and any one\r
+might have been encouraged to bet on his achievement. In his dark eyes\r
+and on his mouth and brow there was that placidity which comes from the\r
+fulness of contemplative thought--the mind not searching, but\r
+beholding, and the glance seeming to be filled with what is behind it.\r
+\r
+Presently Rosamond left the piano and seated herself on a chair close\r
+to the sofa and opposite her husband's face.\r
+\r
+"Is that enough music for you, my lord?" she said, folding her hands\r
+before her and putting on a little air of meekness.\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear, if you are tired," said Lydgate, gently, turning his eyes\r
+and resting them on her, but not otherwise moving. Rosamond's presence\r
+at that moment was perhaps no more than a spoonful brought to the lake,\r
+and her woman's instinct in this matter was not dull.\r
+\r
+\r
+"What is absorbing you?" she said, leaning forward and bringing her\r
+face nearer to his.\r
+\r
+He moved his hands and placed them gently behind her shoulders.\r
+\r
+"I am thinking of a great fellow, who was about as old as I am three\r
+hundred years ago, and had already begun a new era in anatomy."\r
+\r
+"I can't guess," said Rosamond, shaking her head. "We used to play at\r
+guessing historical characters at Mrs. Lemon's, but not anatomists."\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you. His name was Vesalius. And the only way he could get\r
+to know anatomy as he did, was by going to snatch bodies at night, from\r
+graveyards and places of execution."\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Rosamond, with a look of disgust on her pretty face, "I am\r
+very glad you are not Vesalius. I should have thought he might find\r
+some less horrible way than that."\r
+\r
+"No, he couldn't," said Lydgate, going on too earnestly to take much\r
+notice of her answer. "He could only get a complete skeleton by\r
+snatching the whitened bones of a criminal from the gallows, and\r
+burying them, and fetching them away by bits secretly, in the dead of\r
+night."\r
+\r
+"I hope he is not one of your great heroes," said Rosamond, half\r
+playfully, half anxiously, "else I shall have you getting up in the\r
+night to go to St. Peter's churchyard. You know how angry you told me\r
+the people were about Mrs. Goby. You have enemies enough already."\r
+\r
+"So had Vesalius, Rosy. No wonder the medical fogies in Middlemarch\r
+are jealous, when some of the greatest doctors living were fierce upon\r
+Vesalius because they had believed in Galen, and he showed that Galen\r
+was wrong. They called him a liar and a poisonous monster. But the\r
+facts of the human frame were on his side; and so he got the better of\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"And what happened to him afterwards?" said Rosamond, with some\r
+interest.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he had a good deal of fighting to the last. And they did\r
+exasperate him enough at one time to make him burn a good deal of his\r
+work. Then he got shipwrecked just as he was coming from Jerusalem to\r
+take a great chair at Padua. He died rather miserably."\r
+\r
+There was a moment's pause before Rosamond said, "Do you know, Tertius,\r
+I often wish you had not been a medical man."\r
+\r
+"Nay, Rosy, don't say that," said Lydgate, drawing her closer to him.\r
+"That is like saying you wish you had married another man."\r
+\r
+"Not at all; you are clever enough for anything: you might easily have\r
+been something else. And your cousins at Quallingham all think that\r
+you have sunk below them in your choice of a profession."\r
+\r
+"The cousins at Quallingham may go to the devil!" said Lydgate, with\r
+scorn. "It was like their impudence if they said anything of the sort\r
+to you."\r
+\r
+"Still," said Rosamond, "I do _not_ think it is a nice profession,\r
+dear." We know that she had much quiet perseverance in her opinion.\r
+\r
+"It is the grandest profession in the world, Rosamond," said Lydgate,\r
+gravely. "And to say that you love me without loving the medical man\r
+in me, is the same sort of thing as to say that you like eating a peach\r
+but don't like its flavor. Don't say that again, dear, it pains me."\r
+\r
+"Very well, Doctor Grave-face," said Rosy, dimpling, "I will declare in\r
+future that I dote on skeletons, and body-snatchers, and bits of things\r
+in phials, and quarrels with everybody, that end in your dying\r
+miserably."\r
+\r
+"No, no, not so bad as that," said Lydgate, giving up remonstrance and\r
+petting her resignedly.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVI.\r
+\r
+ Pues no podemos haber aquello que queremos, queramos\r
+ aquello que podremos.\r
+\r
+ Since we cannot get what we like, let us like\r
+ what we can get.\r
+ --Spanish Proverb.\r
+\r
+\r
+While Lydgate, safely married and with the Hospital under his command,\r
+felt himself struggling for Medical Reform against Middlemarch,\r
+Middlemarch was becoming more and more conscious of the national\r
+struggle for another kind of Reform.\r
+\r
+By the time that Lord John Russell's measure was being debated in the\r
+House of Commons, there was a new political animation in Middlemarch,\r
+and a new definition of parties which might show a decided change of\r
+balance if a new election came. And there were some who already\r
+predicted this event, declaring that a Reform Bill would never be\r
+carried by the actual Parliament. This was what Will Ladislaw dwelt on\r
+to Mr. Brooke as a reason for congratulation that he had not yet tried\r
+his strength at the hustings.\r
+\r
+"Things will grow and ripen as if it were a comet year," said Will.\r
+"The public temper will soon get to a cometary heat, now the question\r
+of Reform has set in. There is likely to be another election before\r
+long, and by that time Middlemarch will have got more ideas into its\r
+head. What we have to work at now is the 'Pioneer' and political\r
+meetings."\r
+\r
+"Quite right, Ladislaw; we shall make a new thing of opinion here,"\r
+said Mr. Brooke. "Only I want to keep myself independent about Reform,\r
+you know; I don't want to go too far. I want to take up\r
+Wilberforce's and Romilly's line, you know, and work at Negro\r
+Emancipation, Criminal Law--that kind of thing. But of course I should\r
+support Grey."\r
+\r
+"If you go in for the principle of Reform, you must be prepared to take\r
+what the situation offers," said Will. "If everybody pulled for his\r
+own bit against everybody else, the whole question would go to tatters."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, I agree with you--I quite take that point of view. I should\r
+put it in that light. I should support Grey, you know. But I don't\r
+want to change the balance of the constitution, and I don't think Grey\r
+would."\r
+\r
+"But that is what the country wants," said Will. "Else there would be\r
+no meaning in political unions or any other movement that knows what\r
+it's about. It wants to have a House of Commons which is not weighted\r
+with nominees of the landed class, but with representatives of the\r
+other interests. And as to contending for a reform short of that, it\r
+is like asking for a bit of an avalanche which has already begun to\r
+thunder."\r
+\r
+"That is fine, Ladislaw: that is the way to put it. Write that down,\r
+now. We must begin to get documents about the feeling of the country,\r
+as well as the machine-breaking and general distress."\r
+\r
+"As to documents," said Will, "a two-inch card will hold plenty. A few\r
+rows of figures are enough to deduce misery from, and a few more will\r
+show the rate at which the political determination of the people is\r
+growing."\r
+\r
+"Good: draw that out a little more at length, Ladislaw. That is an\r
+idea, now: write it out in the 'Pioneer.' Put the figures and deduce\r
+the misery, you know; and put the other figures and deduce--and so on.\r
+You have a way of putting things. Burke, now:--when I think of Burke,\r
+I can't help wishing somebody had a pocket-borough to give you,\r
+Ladislaw. You'd never get elected, you know. And we shall always want\r
+talent in the House: reform as we will, we shall always want talent.\r
+That avalanche and the thunder, now, was really a little like Burke. I\r
+want that sort of thing--not ideas, you know, but a way of putting\r
+them."\r
+\r
+"Pocket-boroughs would be a fine thing," said Ladislaw, "if they were\r
+always in the right pocket, and there were always a Burke at hand."\r
+\r
+Will was not displeased with that complimentary comparison, even from\r
+Mr. Brooke; for it is a little too trying to human flesh to be\r
+conscious of expressing one's self better than others and never to have\r
+it noticed, and in the general dearth of admiration for the right\r
+thing, even a chance bray of applause falling exactly in time is rather\r
+fortifying. Will felt that his literary refinements were usually\r
+beyond the limits of Middlemarch perception; nevertheless, he was\r
+beginning thoroughly to like the work of which when he began he had\r
+said to himself rather languidly, "Why not?"--and he studied the\r
+political situation with as ardent an interest as he had ever given to\r
+poetic metres or mediaevalism. It is undeniable that but for the\r
+desire to be where Dorothea was, and perhaps the want of knowing what\r
+else to do, Will would not at this time have been meditating on the\r
+needs of the English people or criticising English statesmanship: he\r
+would probably have been rambling in Italy sketching plans for several\r
+dramas, trying prose and finding it too jejune, trying verse and\r
+finding it too artificial, beginning to copy "bits" from old pictures,\r
+leaving off because they were "no good," and observing that, after all,\r
+self-culture was the principal point; while in politics he would have\r
+been sympathizing warmly with liberty and progress in general. Our\r
+sense of duty must often wait for some work which shall take the place\r
+of dilettanteism and make us feel that the quality of our action is not\r
+a matter of indifference.\r
+\r
+Ladislaw had now accepted his bit of work, though it was not that\r
+indeterminate loftiest thing which he had once dreamed of as alone\r
+worthy of continuous effort. His nature warmed easily in the presence\r
+of subjects which were visibly mixed with life and action, and the\r
+easily stirred rebellion in him helped the glow of public spirit. In\r
+spite of Mr. Casaubon and the banishment from Lowick, he was rather\r
+happy; getting a great deal of fresh knowledge in a vivid way and for\r
+practical purposes, and making the "Pioneer" celebrated as far as\r
+Brassing (never mind the smallness of the area; the writing was not\r
+worse than much that reaches the four corners of the earth).\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke was occasionally irritating; but Will's impatience was\r
+relieved by the division of his time between visits to the Grange and\r
+retreats to his Middlemarch lodgings, which gave variety to his life.\r
+\r
+"Shift the pegs a little," he said to himself, "and Mr. Brooke might be\r
+in the Cabinet, while I was Under-Secretary. That is the common order\r
+of things: the little waves make the large ones and are of the same\r
+pattern. I am better here than in the sort of life Mr. Casaubon would\r
+have trained me for, where the doing would be all laid down by a\r
+precedent too rigid for me to react upon. I don't care for prestige or\r
+high pay."\r
+\r
+As Lydgate had said of him, he was a sort of gypsy, rather enjoying the\r
+sense of belonging to no class; he had a feeling of romance in his\r
+position, and a pleasant consciousness of creating a little surprise\r
+wherever he went. That sort of enjoyment had been disturbed when he\r
+had felt some new distance between himself and Dorothea in their\r
+accidental meeting at Lydgate's, and his irritation had gone out\r
+towards Mr. Casaubon, who had declared beforehand that Will would lose\r
+caste. "I never had any caste," he would have said, if that prophecy\r
+had been uttered to him, and the quick blood would have come and gone\r
+like breath in his transparent skin. But it is one thing to like\r
+defiance, and another thing to like its consequences.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, the town opinion about the new editor of the "Pioneer" was\r
+tending to confirm Mr. Casaubon's view. Will's relationship in that\r
+distinguished quarter did not, like Lydgate's high connections, serve\r
+as an advantageous introduction: if it was rumored that young Ladislaw\r
+was Mr. Casaubon's nephew or cousin, it was also rumored that "Mr.\r
+Casaubon would have nothing to do with him."\r
+\r
+"Brooke has taken him up," said Mr. Hawley, "because that is what no\r
+man in his senses could have expected. Casaubon has devilish good\r
+reasons, you may be sure, for turning the cold shoulder on a young\r
+fellow whose bringing-up he paid for. Just like Brooke--one of those\r
+fellows who would praise a cat to sell a horse."\r
+\r
+And some oddities of Will's, more or less poetical, appeared to support\r
+Mr. Keck, the editor of the "Trumpet," in asserting that Ladislaw, if\r
+the truth were known, was not only a Polish emissary but crack-brained,\r
+which accounted for the preternatural quickness and glibness of his\r
+speech when he got on to a platform--as he did whenever he had an\r
+opportunity, speaking with a facility which cast reflections on solid\r
+Englishmen generally. It was disgusting to Keck to see a strip of a\r
+fellow, with light curls round his head, get up and speechify by the\r
+hour against institutions "which had existed when he was in his\r
+cradle." And in a leading article of the "Trumpet," Keck characterized\r
+Ladislaw's speech at a Reform meeting as "the violence of an\r
+energumen--a miserable effort to shroud in the brilliancy of fireworks\r
+the daring of irresponsible statements and the poverty of a knowledge\r
+which was of the cheapest and most recent description."\r
+\r
+"That was a rattling article yesterday, Keck," said Dr. Sprague, with\r
+sarcastic intentions. "But what is an energumen?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, a term that came up in the French Revolution," said Keck.\r
+\r
+This dangerous aspect of Ladislaw was strangely contrasted with other\r
+habits which became matter of remark. He had a fondness, half\r
+artistic, half affectionate, for little children--the smaller they were\r
+on tolerably active legs, and the funnier their clothing, the better\r
+Will liked to surprise and please them. We know that in Rome he was\r
+given to ramble about among the poor people, and the taste did not quit\r
+him in Middlemarch.\r
+\r
+He had somehow picked up a troop of droll children, little hatless boys\r
+with their galligaskins much worn and scant shirting to hang out,\r
+little girls who tossed their hair out of their eyes to look at him,\r
+and guardian brothers at the mature age of seven. This troop he had\r
+led out on gypsy excursions to Halsell Wood at nutting-time, and since\r
+the cold weather had set in he had taken them on a clear day to gather\r
+sticks for a bonfire in the hollow of a hillside, where he drew out a\r
+small feast of gingerbread for them, and improvised a Punch-and-Judy\r
+drama with some private home-made puppets. Here was one oddity.\r
+Another was, that in houses where he got friendly, he was given to\r
+stretch himself at full length on the rug while he talked, and was apt\r
+to be discovered in this attitude by occasional callers for whom such\r
+an irregularity was likely to confirm the notions of his dangerously\r
+mixed blood and general laxity.\r
+\r
+But Will's articles and speeches naturally recommended him in families\r
+which the new strictness of party division had marked off on the side\r
+of Reform. He was invited to Mr. Bulstrode's; but here he could not\r
+lie down on the rug, and Mrs. Bulstrode felt that his mode of talking\r
+about Catholic countries, as if there were any truce with Antichrist,\r
+illustrated the usual tendency to unsoundness in intellectual men.\r
+\r
+At Mr. Farebrother's, however, whom the irony of events had brought on\r
+the same side with Bulstrode in the national movement, Will became a\r
+favorite with the ladies; especially with little Miss Noble, whom it\r
+was one of his oddities to escort when he met her in the street with\r
+her little basket, giving her his arm in the eyes of the town, and\r
+insisting on going with her to pay some call where she distributed her\r
+small filchings from her own share of sweet things.\r
+\r
+But the house where he visited oftenest and lay most on the rug was\r
+Lydgate's. The two men were not at all alike, but they agreed none the\r
+worse. Lydgate was abrupt but not irritable, taking little notice of\r
+megrims in healthy people; and Ladislaw did not usually throw away his\r
+susceptibilities on those who took no notice of them. With Rosamond,\r
+on the other hand, he pouted and was wayward--nay, often\r
+uncomplimentary, much to her inward surprise; nevertheless he was\r
+gradually becoming necessary to her entertainment by his companionship\r
+in her music, his varied talk, and his freedom from the grave\r
+preoccupation which, with all her husband's tenderness and indulgence,\r
+often made his manners unsatisfactory to her, and confirmed her dislike\r
+of the medical profession.\r
+\r
+Lydgate, inclined to be sarcastic on the superstitious faith of the\r
+people in the efficacy of "the bill," while nobody cared about the low\r
+state of pathology, sometimes assailed Will with troublesome questions.\r
+One evening in March, Rosamond in her cherry-colored dress with\r
+swansdown trimming about the throat sat at the tea-table; Lydgate,\r
+lately come in tired from his outdoor work, was seated sideways on an\r
+easy-chair by the fire with one leg over the elbow, his brow looking a\r
+little troubled as his eyes rambled over the columns of the "Pioneer,"\r
+while Rosamond, having noticed that he was perturbed, avoided looking\r
+at him, and inwardly thanked heaven that she herself had not a moody\r
+disposition. Will Ladislaw was stretched on the rug contemplating the\r
+curtain-pole abstractedly, and humming very low the notes of "When\r
+first I saw thy face;" while the house spaniel, also stretched out with\r
+small choice of room, looked from between his paws at the usurper of\r
+the rug with silent but strong objection.\r
+\r
+Rosamond bringing Lydgate his cup of tea, he threw down the paper, and\r
+said to Will, who had started up and gone to the table--\r
+\r
+"It's no use your puffing Brooke as a reforming landlord, Ladislaw:\r
+they only pick the more holes in his coat in the 'Trumpet.'"\r
+\r
+"No matter; those who read the 'Pioneer' don't read the 'Trumpet,'"\r
+said Will, swallowing his tea and walking about. "Do you suppose the\r
+public reads with a view to its own conversion? We should have a\r
+witches' brewing with a vengeance then--'Mingle, mingle, mingle,\r
+mingle, You that mingle may'--and nobody would know which side he was\r
+going to take."\r
+\r
+"Farebrother says, he doesn't believe Brooke would get elected if the\r
+opportunity came: the very men who profess to be for him would bring\r
+another member out of the bag at the right moment."\r
+\r
+"There's no harm in trying. It's good to have resident members."\r
+\r
+"Why?" said Lydgate, who was much given to use that inconvenient word\r
+in a curt tone.\r
+\r
+"They represent the local stupidity better," said Will, laughing, and\r
+shaking his curls; "and they are kept on their best behavior in the\r
+neighborhood. Brooke is not a bad fellow, but he has done some good\r
+things on his estate that he never would have done but for this\r
+Parliamentary bite."\r
+\r
+"He's not fitted to be a public man," said Lydgate, with contemptuous\r
+decision. "He would disappoint everybody who counted on him: I can see\r
+that at the Hospital. Only, there Bulstrode holds the reins and drives\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"That depends on how you fix your standard of public men," said Will.\r
+"He's good enough for the occasion: when the people have made up their\r
+mind as they are making it up now, they don't want a man--they only\r
+want a vote."\r
+\r
+"That is the way with you political writers, Ladislaw--crying up a\r
+measure as if it were a universal cure, and crying up men who are a\r
+part of the very disease that wants curing."\r
+\r
+"Why not? Men may help to cure themselves off the face of the land\r
+without knowing it," said Will, who could find reasons impromptu, when\r
+he had not thought of a question beforehand.\r
+\r
+"That is no excuse for encouraging the superstitious exaggeration of\r
+hopes about this particular measure, helping the cry to swallow it\r
+whole and to send up voting popinjays who are good for nothing but to\r
+carry it. You go against rottenness, and there is nothing more\r
+thoroughly rotten than making people believe that society can be cured\r
+by a political hocus-pocus."\r
+\r
+"That's very fine, my dear fellow. But your cure must begin somewhere,\r
+and put it that a thousand things which debase a population can never\r
+be reformed without this particular reform to begin with. Look what\r
+Stanley said the other day--that the House had been tinkering long\r
+enough at small questions of bribery, inquiring whether this or that\r
+voter has had a guinea when everybody knows that the seats have been\r
+sold wholesale. Wait for wisdom and conscience in public\r
+agents--fiddlestick! The only conscience we can trust to is the\r
+massive sense of wrong in a class, and the best wisdom that will work\r
+is the wisdom of balancing claims. That's my text--which side is\r
+injured? I support the man who supports their claims; not the virtuous\r
+upholder of the wrong."\r
+\r
+"That general talk about a particular case is mere question begging,\r
+Ladislaw. When I say, I go in for the dose that cures, it doesn't\r
+follow that I go in for opium in a given case of gout."\r
+\r
+"I am not begging the question we are upon--whether we are to try for\r
+nothing till we find immaculate men to work with. Should you go on\r
+that plan? If there were one man who would carry you a medical reform\r
+and another who would oppose it, should you inquire which had the\r
+better motives or even the better brains?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, of course," said Lydgate, seeing himself checkmated by a move\r
+which he had often used himself, "if one did not work with such men as\r
+are at hand, things must come to a dead-lock. Suppose the worst opinion\r
+in the town about Bulstrode were a true one, that would not make it\r
+less true that he has the sense and the resolution to do what I think\r
+ought to be done in the matters I know and care most about; but that is\r
+the only ground on which I go with him," Lydgate added rather proudly,\r
+bearing in mind Mr. Farebrother's remarks. "He is nothing to me\r
+otherwise; I would not cry him up on any personal ground--I would keep\r
+clear of that."\r
+\r
+"Do you mean that I cry up Brooke on any personal ground?" said Will\r
+Ladislaw, nettled, and turning sharp round. For the first time he felt\r
+offended with Lydgate; not the less so, perhaps, because he would have\r
+declined any close inquiry into the growth of his relation to Mr.\r
+Brooke.\r
+\r
+"Not at all," said Lydgate, "I was simply explaining my own action. I\r
+meant that a man may work for a special end with others whose motives\r
+and general course are equivocal, if he is quite sure of his personal\r
+independence, and that he is not working for his private\r
+interest--either place or money."\r
+\r
+"Then, why don't you extend your liberality to others?" said Will,\r
+still nettled. "My personal independence is as important to me as\r
+yours is to you. You have no more reason to imagine that I have\r
+personal expectations from Brooke, than I have to imagine that you have\r
+personal expectations from Bulstrode. Motives are points of honor, I\r
+suppose--nobody can prove them. But as to money and place in the\r
+world." Will ended, tossing back his head, "I think it is pretty clear\r
+that I am not determined by considerations of that sort."\r
+\r
+"You quite mistake me, Ladislaw," said Lydgate, surprised. He had been\r
+preoccupied with his own vindication, and had been blind to what\r
+Ladislaw might infer on his own account. "I beg your pardon for\r
+unintentionally annoying you. In fact, I should rather attribute to\r
+you a romantic disregard of your own worldly interests. On the\r
+political question, I referred simply to intellectual bias."\r
+\r
+"How very unpleasant you both are this evening!" said Rosamond. "I\r
+cannot conceive why money should have been referred to. Polities and\r
+Medicine are sufficiently disagreeable to quarrel upon. You can both\r
+of you go on quarrelling with all the world and with each other on\r
+those two topics."\r
+\r
+Rosamond looked mildly neutral as she said this, rising to ring the\r
+bell, and then crossing to her work-table.\r
+\r
+"Poor Rosy!" said Lydgate, putting out his hand to her as she was\r
+passing him. "Disputation is not amusing to cherubs. Have some music.\r
+Ask Ladislaw to sing with you."\r
+\r
+When Will was gone Rosamond said to her husband, "What put you out of\r
+temper this evening, Tertius?"\r
+\r
+"Me? It was Ladislaw who was out of temper. He is like a bit of\r
+tinder."\r
+\r
+"But I mean, before that. Something had vexed you before you came in,\r
+you looked cross. And that made you begin to dispute with Mr.\r
+Ladislaw. You hurt me very much when you look so, Tertius."\r
+\r
+"Do I? Then I am a brute," said Lydgate, caressing her penitently.\r
+\r
+"What vexed you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, outdoor things--business." It was really a letter insisting on\r
+the payment of a bill for furniture. But Rosamond was expecting to\r
+have a baby, and Lydgate wished to save her from any perturbation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVII.\r
+\r
+ Was never true love loved in vain,\r
+ For truest love is highest gain.\r
+ No art can make it: it must spring\r
+ Where elements are fostering.\r
+ So in heaven's spot and hour\r
+ Springs the little native flower,\r
+ Downward root and upward eye,\r
+ Shapen by the earth and sky.\r
+\r
+\r
+It happened to be on a Saturday evening that Will Ladislaw had that\r
+little discussion with Lydgate. Its effect when he went to his own\r
+rooms was to make him sit up half the night, thinking over again, under\r
+a new irritation, all that he had before thought of his having settled\r
+in Middlemarch and harnessed himself with Mr. Brooke. Hesitations\r
+before he had taken the step had since turned into susceptibility to\r
+every hint that he would have been wiser not to take it; and hence came\r
+his heat towards Lydgate--a heat which still kept him restless. Was he\r
+not making a fool of himself?--and at a time when he was more than\r
+ever conscious of being something better than a fool? And for what end?\r
+\r
+Well, for no definite end. True, he had dreamy visions of\r
+possibilities: there is no human being who having both passions and\r
+thoughts does not think in consequence of his passions--does not find\r
+images rising in his mind which soothe the passion with hope or sting\r
+it with dread. But this, which happens to us all, happens to some with\r
+a wide difference; and Will was not one of those whose wit "keeps the\r
+roadway:" he had his bypaths where there were little joys of his own\r
+choosing, such as gentlemen cantering on the highroad might have\r
+thought rather idiotic. The way in which he made a sort of happiness\r
+for himself out of his feeling for Dorothea was an example of this. It\r
+may seem strange, but it is the fact, that the ordinary vulgar vision\r
+of which Mr. Casaubon suspected him--namely, that Dorothea might become\r
+a widow, and that the interest he had established in her mind might\r
+turn into acceptance of him as a husband--had no tempting, arresting\r
+power over him; he did not live in the scenery of such an event, and\r
+follow it out, as we all do with that imagined "otherwise" which is our\r
+practical heaven. It was not only that he was unwilling to entertain\r
+thoughts which could be accused of baseness, and was already uneasy in\r
+the sense that he had to justify himself from the charge of\r
+ingratitude--the latent consciousness of many other barriers between\r
+himself and Dorothea besides the existence of her husband, had helped\r
+to turn away his imagination from speculating on what might befall Mr.\r
+Casaubon. And there were yet other reasons. Will, we know, could not\r
+bear the thought of any flaw appearing in his crystal: he was at once\r
+exasperated and delighted by the calm freedom with which Dorothea\r
+looked at him and spoke to him, and there was something so exquisite in\r
+thinking of her just as she was, that he could not long for a change\r
+which must somehow change her. Do we not shun the street version of a\r
+fine melody?--or shrink from the news that the rarity--some bit of\r
+chiselling or engraving perhaps--which we have dwelt on even with\r
+exultation in the trouble it has cost us to snatch glimpses of it, is\r
+really not an uncommon thing, and may be obtained as an every-day\r
+possession? Our good depends on the quality and breadth of our\r
+emotion; and to Will, a creature who cared little for what are called\r
+the solid things of life and greatly for its subtler influences, to\r
+have within him such a feeling as he had towards Dorothea, was like the\r
+inheritance of a fortune. What others might have called the futility\r
+of his passion, made an additional delight for his imagination: he was\r
+conscious of a generous movement, and of verifying in his own\r
+experience that higher love-poetry which had charmed his fancy.\r
+Dorothea, he said to himself, was forever enthroned in his soul: no\r
+other woman could sit higher than her footstool; and if he could have\r
+written out in immortal syllables the effect she wrought within him, he\r
+might have boasted after the example of old Drayton, that,--\r
+\r
+ "Queens hereafter might be glad to live\r
+ Upon the alms of her superfluous praise."\r
+\r
+But this result was questionable. And what else could he do for\r
+Dorothea? What was his devotion worth to her? It was impossible to\r
+tell. He would not go out of her reach. He saw no creature among her\r
+friends to whom he could believe that she spoke with the same simple\r
+confidence as to him. She had once said that she would like him to\r
+stay; and stay he would, whatever fire-breathing dragons might hiss\r
+around her.\r
+\r
+This had always been the conclusion of Will's hesitations. But he was\r
+not without contradictoriness and rebellion even towards his own\r
+resolve. He had often got irritated, as he was on this particular\r
+night, by some outside demonstration that his public exertions with Mr.\r
+Brooke as a chief could not seem as heroic as he would like them to be,\r
+and this was always associated with the other ground of\r
+irritation--that notwithstanding his sacrifice of dignity for\r
+Dorothea's sake, he could hardly ever see her. Whereupon, not being\r
+able to contradict these unpleasant facts, he contradicted his own\r
+strongest bias and said, "I am a fool."\r
+\r
+Nevertheless, since the inward debate necessarily turned on Dorothea,\r
+he ended, as he had done before, only by getting a livelier sense of\r
+what her presence would be to him; and suddenly reflecting that the\r
+morrow would be Sunday, he determined to go to Lowick Church and see\r
+her. He slept upon that idea, but when he was dressing in the rational\r
+morning light, Objection said--\r
+\r
+"That will be a virtual defiance of Mr. Casaubon's prohibition to visit\r
+Lowick, and Dorothea will be displeased."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense!" argued Inclination, "it would be too monstrous for him to\r
+hinder me from going out to a pretty country church on a spring\r
+morning. And Dorothea will be glad."\r
+\r
+"It will be clear to Mr. Casaubon that you have come either to annoy\r
+him or to see Dorothea."\r
+\r
+"It is not true that I go to annoy him, and why should I not go to see\r
+Dorothea? Is he to have everything to himself and be always\r
+comfortable? Let him smart a little, as other people are obliged to\r
+do. I have always liked the quaintness of the church and congregation;\r
+besides, I know the Tuckers: I shall go into their pew."\r
+\r
+Having silenced Objection by force of unreason, Will walked to Lowick\r
+as if he had been on the way to Paradise, crossing Halsell Common and\r
+skirting the wood, where the sunlight fell broadly under the budding\r
+boughs, bringing out the beauties of moss and lichen, and fresh green\r
+growths piercing the brown. Everything seemed to know that it was\r
+Sunday, and to approve of his going to Lowick Church. Will easily felt\r
+happy when nothing crossed his humor, and by this time the thought of\r
+vexing Mr. Casaubon had become rather amusing to him, making his face\r
+break into its merry smile, pleasant to see as the breaking of sunshine\r
+on the water--though the occasion was not exemplary. But most of us\r
+are apt to settle within ourselves that the man who blocks our way is\r
+odious, and not to mind causing him a little of the disgust which his\r
+personality excites in ourselves. Will went along with a small book\r
+under his arm and a hand in each side-pocket, never reading, but\r
+chanting a little, as he made scenes of what would happen in church and\r
+coming out. He was experimenting in tunes to suit some words of his\r
+own, sometimes trying a ready-made melody, sometimes improvising. The\r
+words were not exactly a hymn, but they certainly fitted his Sunday\r
+experience:--\r
+\r
+ "O me, O me, what frugal cheer\r
+ My love doth feed upon!\r
+ A touch, a ray, that is not here,\r
+ A shadow that is gone:\r
+\r
+ "A dream of breath that might be near,\r
+ An inly-echoed tone,\r
+ The thought that one may think me dear,\r
+ The place where one was known,\r
+\r
+ "The tremor of a banished fear,\r
+ An ill that was not done--\r
+ O me, O me, what frugal cheer\r
+ My love doth feed upon!"\r
+\r
+Sometimes, when he took off his hat, shaking his head backward, and\r
+showing his delicate throat as he sang, he looked like an incarnation\r
+of the spring whose spirit filled the air--a bright creature, abundant\r
+in uncertain promises.\r
+\r
+The bells were still ringing when he got to Lowick, and he went into\r
+the curate's pew before any one else arrived there. But he was still\r
+left alone in it when the congregation had assembled. The curate's pew\r
+was opposite the rector's at the entrance of the small chancel, and\r
+Will had time to fear that Dorothea might not come while he looked\r
+round at the group of rural faces which made the congregation from year\r
+to year within the white-washed walls and dark old pews, hardly with\r
+more change than we see in the boughs of a tree which breaks here and\r
+there with age, but yet has young shoots. Mr. Rigg's frog-face was\r
+something alien and unaccountable, but notwithstanding this shock to\r
+the order of things, there were still the Waules and the rural stock of\r
+the Powderells in their pews side by side; brother Samuel's cheek had\r
+the same purple round as ever, and the three generations of decent\r
+cottagers came as of old with a sense of duty to their betters\r
+generally--the smaller children regarding Mr. Casaubon, who wore the\r
+black gown and mounted to the highest box, as probably the chief of all\r
+betters, and the one most awful if offended. Even in 1831 Lowick was\r
+at peace, not more agitated by Reform than by the solemn tenor of the\r
+Sunday sermon. The congregation had been used to seeing Will at church\r
+in former days, and no one took much note of him except the choir, who\r
+expected him to make a figure in the singing.\r
+\r
+Dorothea did at last appear on this quaint background, walking up the\r
+short aisle in her white beaver bonnet and gray cloak--the same she had\r
+worn in the Vatican. Her face being, from her entrance, towards the\r
+chancel, even her shortsighted eyes soon discerned Will, but there was\r
+no outward show of her feeling except a slight paleness and a grave bow\r
+as she passed him. To his own surprise Will felt suddenly\r
+uncomfortable, and dared not look at her after they had bowed to each\r
+other. Two minutes later, when Mr. Casaubon came out of the vestry,\r
+and, entering the pew, seated himself in face of Dorothea, Will felt\r
+his paralysis more complete. He could look nowhere except at the choir\r
+in the little gallery over the vestry-door: Dorothea was perhaps\r
+pained, and he had made a wretched blunder. It was no longer amusing\r
+to vex Mr. Casaubon, who had the advantage probably of watching him and\r
+seeing that he dared not turn his head. Why had he not imagined this\r
+beforehand?--but he could not expect that he should sit in that square\r
+pew alone, unrelieved by any Tuckers, who had apparently departed from\r
+Lowick altogether, for a new clergyman was in the desk. Still he\r
+called himself stupid now for not foreseeing that it would be\r
+impossible for him to look towards Dorothea--nay, that she might feel\r
+his coming an impertinence. There was no delivering himself from his\r
+cage, however; and Will found his places and looked at his book as if\r
+he had been a school-mistress, feeling that the morning service had\r
+never been so immeasurably long before, that he was utterly ridiculous,\r
+out of temper, and miserable. This was what a man got by worshipping\r
+the sight of a woman! The clerk observed with surprise that Mr.\r
+Ladislaw did not join in the tune of Hanover, and reflected that he\r
+might have a cold.\r
+\r
+Mr. Casaubon did not preach that morning, and there was no change in\r
+Will's situation until the blessing had been pronounced and every one\r
+rose. It was the fashion at Lowick for "the betters" to go out first.\r
+With a sudden determination to break the spell that was upon him, Will\r
+looked straight at Mr. Casaubon. But that gentleman's eyes were on the\r
+button of the pew-door, which he opened, allowing Dorothea to pass, and\r
+following her immediately without raising his eyelids. Will's glance\r
+had caught Dorothea's as she turned out of the pew, and again she\r
+bowed, but this time with a look of agitation, as if she were\r
+repressing tears. Will walked out after them, but they went on towards\r
+the little gate leading out of the churchyard into the shrubbery, never\r
+looking round.\r
+\r
+It was impossible for him to follow them, and he could only walk back\r
+sadly at mid-day along the same road which he had trodden hopefully in\r
+the morning. The lights were all changed for him both without and\r
+within.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLVIII\r
+\r
+ Surely the golden hours are turning gray\r
+ And dance no more, and vainly strive to run:\r
+ I see their white locks streaming in the wind--\r
+ Each face is haggard as it looks at me,\r
+ Slow turning in the constant clasping round\r
+ Storm-driven.\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea's distress when she was leaving the church came chiefly from\r
+the perception that Mr. Casaubon was determined not to speak to his\r
+cousin, and that Will's presence at church had served to mark more\r
+strongly the alienation between them. Will's coming seemed to her\r
+quite excusable, nay, she thought it an amiable movement in him towards\r
+a reconciliation which she herself had been constantly wishing for. He\r
+had probably imagined, as she had, that if Mr. Casaubon and he could\r
+meet easily, they would shake hands and friendly intercourse might\r
+return. But now Dorothea felt quite robbed of that hope. Will was\r
+banished further than ever, for Mr. Casaubon must have been newly\r
+embittered by this thrusting upon him of a presence which he refused to\r
+recognize.\r
+\r
+He had not been very well that morning, suffering from some difficulty\r
+in breathing, and had not preached in consequence; she was not\r
+surprised, therefore, that he was nearly silent at luncheon, still less\r
+that he made no allusion to Will Ladislaw. For her own part she felt\r
+that she could never again introduce that subject. They usually spent\r
+apart the hours between luncheon and dinner on a Sunday; Mr. Casaubon\r
+in the library dozing chiefly, and Dorothea in her boudoir, where she\r
+was wont to occupy herself with some of her favorite books. There was\r
+a little heap of them on the table in the bow-window--of various sorts,\r
+from Herodotus, which she was learning to read with Mr. Casaubon, to\r
+her old companion Pascal, and Keble's "Christian Year." But to-day\r
+opened one after another, and could read none of them. Everything\r
+seemed dreary: the portents before the birth of Cyrus--Jewish\r
+antiquities--oh dear!--devout epigrams--the sacred chime of favorite\r
+hymns--all alike were as flat as tunes beaten on wood: even the spring\r
+flowers and the grass had a dull shiver in them under the afternoon\r
+clouds that hid the sun fitfully; even the sustaining thoughts which\r
+had become habits seemed to have in them the weariness of long future\r
+days in which she would still live with them for her sole companions.\r
+It was another or rather a fuller sort of companionship that poor\r
+Dorothea was hungering for, and the hunger had grown from the perpetual\r
+effort demanded by her married life. She was always trying to be what\r
+her husband wished, and never able to repose on his delight in what she\r
+was. The thing that she liked, that she spontaneously cared to have,\r
+seemed to be always excluded from her life; for if it was only granted\r
+and not shared by her husband it might as well have been denied. About\r
+Will Ladislaw there had been a difference between them from the first,\r
+and it had ended, since Mr. Casaubon had so severely repulsed\r
+Dorothea's strong feeling about his claims on the family property, by\r
+her being convinced that she was in the right and her husband in the\r
+wrong, but that she was helpless. This afternoon the helplessness was\r
+more wretchedly benumbing than ever: she longed for objects who could\r
+be dear to her, and to whom she could be dear. She longed for work\r
+which would be directly beneficent like the sunshine and the rain, and\r
+now it appeared that she was to live more and more in a virtual tomb,\r
+where there was the apparatus of a ghastly labor producing what would\r
+never see the light. Today she had stood at the door of the tomb and\r
+seen Will Ladislaw receding into the distant world of warm activity and\r
+fellowship--turning his face towards her as he went.\r
+\r
+Books were of no use. Thinking was of no use. It was Sunday, and she\r
+could not have the carriage to go to Celia, who had lately had a baby.\r
+There was no refuge now from spiritual emptiness and discontent, and\r
+Dorothea had to bear her bad mood, as she would have borne a headache.\r
+\r
+After dinner, at the hour when she usually began to read aloud, Mr.\r
+Casaubon proposed that they should go into the library, where, he said,\r
+he had ordered a fire and lights. He seemed to have revived, and to be\r
+thinking intently.\r
+\r
+In the library Dorothea observed that he had newly arranged a row of\r
+his note-books on a table, and now he took up and put into her hand a\r
+well-known volume, which was a table of contents to all the others.\r
+\r
+"You will oblige me, my dear," he said, seating himself, "if instead of\r
+other reading this evening, you will go through this aloud, pencil in\r
+hand, and at each point where I say 'mark,' will make a cross with your\r
+pencil. This is the first step in a sifting process which I have long\r
+had in view, and as we go on I shall be able to indicate to you certain\r
+principles of selection whereby you will, I trust, have an intelligent\r
+participation in my purpose."\r
+\r
+This proposal was only one more sign added to many since his memorable\r
+interview with Lydgate, that Mr. Casaubon's original reluctance to let\r
+Dorothea work with him had given place to the contrary disposition,\r
+namely, to demand much interest and labor from her.\r
+\r
+After she had read and marked for two hours, he said, "We will take the\r
+volume up-stairs--and the pencil, if you please--and in case of\r
+reading in the night, we can pursue this task. It is not wearisome to\r
+you, I trust, Dorothea?"\r
+\r
+"I prefer always reading what you like best to hear," said Dorothea,\r
+who told the simple truth; for what she dreaded was to exert herself in\r
+reading or anything else which left him as joyless as ever.\r
+\r
+It was a proof of the force with which certain characteristics in\r
+Dorothea impressed those around her, that her husband, with all his\r
+jealousy and suspicion, had gathered implicit trust in the integrity of\r
+her promises, and her power of devoting herself to her idea of the\r
+right and best. Of late he had begun to feel that these qualities were\r
+a peculiar possession for himself, and he wanted to engross them.\r
+\r
+The reading in the night did come. Dorothea in her young weariness had\r
+slept soon and fast: she was awakened by a sense of light, which seemed\r
+to her at first like a sudden vision of sunset after she had climbed a\r
+steep hill: she opened her eyes and saw her husband wrapped in his warm\r
+gown seating himself in the arm-chair near the fire-place where the\r
+embers were still glowing. He had lit two candles, expecting that\r
+Dorothea would awake, but not liking to rouse her by more direct means.\r
+\r
+"Are you ill, Edward?" she said, rising immediately.\r
+\r
+"I felt some uneasiness in a reclining posture. I will sit here for a\r
+time." She threw wood on the fire, wrapped herself up, and said, "You\r
+would like me to read to you?"\r
+\r
+"You would oblige me greatly by doing so, Dorothea," said Mr. Casaubon,\r
+with a shade more meekness than usual in his polite manner. "I am\r
+wakeful: my mind is remarkably lucid."\r
+\r
+"I fear that the excitement may be too great for you," said Dorothea,\r
+remembering Lydgate's cautions.\r
+\r
+"No, I am not conscious of undue excitement. Thought is easy."\r
+Dorothea dared not insist, and she read for an hour or more on the same\r
+plan as she had done in the evening, but getting over the pages with\r
+more quickness. Mr. Casaubon's mind was more alert, and he seemed to\r
+anticipate what was coming after a very slight verbal indication,\r
+saying, "That will do--mark that"--or "Pass on to the next head--I omit\r
+the second excursus on Crete." Dorothea was amazed to think of the\r
+bird-like speed with which his mind was surveying the ground where it\r
+had been creeping for years. At last he said--\r
+\r
+"Close the book now, my dear. We will resume our work to-morrow. I\r
+have deferred it too long, and would gladly see it completed. But you\r
+observe that the principle on which my selection is made, is to give\r
+adequate, and not disproportionate illustration to each of the theses\r
+enumerated in my introduction, as at present sketched. You have\r
+perceived that distinctly, Dorothea?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Dorothea, rather tremulously. She felt sick at heart.\r
+\r
+"And now I think that I can take some repose," said Mr. Casaubon. He\r
+laid down again and begged her to put out the lights. When she had\r
+lain down too, and there was a darkness only broken by a dull glow on\r
+the hearth, he said--\r
+\r
+"Before I sleep, I have a request to make, Dorothea."\r
+\r
+"What is it?" said Dorothea, with dread in her mind.\r
+\r
+"It is that you will let me know, deliberately, whether, in case of my\r
+death, you will carry out my wishes: whether you will avoid doing what\r
+I should deprecate, and apply yourself to do what I should desire."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was not taken by surprise: many incidents had been leading her\r
+to the conjecture of some intention on her husband's part which might\r
+make a new yoke for her. She did not answer immediately.\r
+\r
+"You refuse?" said Mr. Casaubon, with more edge in his tone.\r
+\r
+"No, I do not yet refuse," said Dorothea, in a clear voice, the need of\r
+freedom asserting itself within her; "but it is too solemn--I think it\r
+is not right--to make a promise when I am ignorant what it will bind me\r
+to. Whatever affection prompted I would do without promising."\r
+\r
+"But you would use your own judgment: I ask you to obey mine; you\r
+refuse."\r
+\r
+"No, dear, no!" said Dorothea, beseechingly, crushed by opposing fears.\r
+"But may I wait and reflect a little while? I desire with my whole\r
+soul to do what will comfort you; but I cannot give any pledge\r
+suddenly--still less a pledge to do I know not what."\r
+\r
+"You cannot then confide in the nature of my wishes?"\r
+\r
+"Grant me till to-morrow," said Dorothea, beseechingly.\r
+\r
+"Till to-morrow then," said Mr. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+Soon she could hear that he was sleeping, but there was no more sleep\r
+for her. While she constrained herself to lie still lest she should\r
+disturb him, her mind was carrying on a conflict in which imagination\r
+ranged its forces first on one side and then on the other. She had no\r
+presentiment that the power which her husband wished to establish over\r
+her future action had relation to anything else than his work. But it\r
+was clear enough to her that he would expect her to devote herself to\r
+sifting those mixed heaps of material, which were to be the doubtful\r
+illustration of principles still more doubtful. The poor child had\r
+become altogether unbelieving as to the trustworthiness of that Key\r
+which had made the ambition and the labor of her husband's life. It\r
+was not wonderful that, in spite of her small instruction, her judgment\r
+in this matter was truer than his: for she looked with unbiassed\r
+comparison and healthy sense at probabilities on which he had risked\r
+all his egoism. And now she pictured to herself the days, and months,\r
+and years which she must spend in sorting what might be called\r
+shattered mummies, and fragments of a tradition which was itself a\r
+mosaic wrought from crushed ruins--sorting them as food for a theory\r
+which was already withered in the birth like an elfin child. Doubtless\r
+a vigorous error vigorously pursued has kept the embryos of truth\r
+a-breathing: the quest of gold being at the same time a questioning of\r
+substances, the body of chemistry is prepared for its soul, and\r
+Lavoisier is born. But Mr. Casaubon's theory of the elements which\r
+made the seed of all tradition was not likely to bruise itself unawares\r
+against discoveries: it floated among flexible conjectures no more\r
+solid than those etymologies which seemed strong because of likeness in\r
+sound until it was shown that likeness in sound made them impossible:\r
+it was a method of interpretation which was not tested by the necessity\r
+of forming anything which had sharper collisions than an elaborate\r
+notion of Gog and Magog: it was as free from interruption as a plan for\r
+threading the stars together. And Dorothea had so often had to check\r
+her weariness and impatience over this questionable riddle-guessing, as\r
+it revealed itself to her instead of the fellowship in high knowledge\r
+which was to make life worthier! She could understand well enough now\r
+why her husband had come to cling to her, as possibly the only hope\r
+left that his labors would ever take a shape in which they could be\r
+given to the world. At first it had seemed that he wished to keep even\r
+her aloof from any close knowledge of what he was doing; but gradually\r
+the terrible stringency of human need--the prospect of a too speedy\r
+death--\r
+\r
+And here Dorothea's pity turned from her own future to her husband's\r
+past--nay, to his present hard struggle with a lot which had grown out\r
+of that past: the lonely labor, the ambition breathing hardly under the\r
+pressure of self-distrust; the goal receding, and the heavier limbs;\r
+and now at last the sword visibly trembling above him! And had she not\r
+wished to marry him that she might help him in his life's labor?--But\r
+she had thought the work was to be something greater, which she could\r
+serve in devoutly for its own sake. Was it right, even to soothe his\r
+grief--would it be possible, even if she promised--to work as in a\r
+treadmill fruitlessly?\r
+\r
+And yet, could she deny him? Could she say, "I refuse to content this\r
+pining hunger?" It would be refusing to do for him dead, what she was\r
+almost sure to do for him living. If he lived as Lydgate had said he\r
+might, for fifteen years or more, her life would certainly be spent in\r
+helping him and obeying him.\r
+\r
+Still, there was a deep difference between that devotion to the living\r
+and that indefinite promise of devotion to the dead. While he lived,\r
+he could claim nothing that she would not still be free to remonstrate\r
+against, and even to refuse. But--the thought passed through her mind\r
+more than once, though she could not believe in it--might he not mean\r
+to demand something more from her than she had been able to imagine,\r
+since he wanted her pledge to carry out his wishes without telling her\r
+exactly what they were? No; his heart was bound up in his work only:\r
+that was the end for which his failing life was to be eked out by hers.\r
+\r
+And now, if she were to say, "No! if you die, I will put no finger to\r
+your work"--it seemed as if she would be crushing that bruised heart.\r
+\r
+For four hours Dorothea lay in this conflict, till she felt ill and\r
+bewildered, unable to resolve, praying mutely. Helpless as a child\r
+which has sobbed and sought too long, she fell into a late morning\r
+sleep, and when she waked Mr. Casaubon was already up. Tantripp told\r
+her that he had read prayers, breakfasted, and was in the library.\r
+\r
+"I never saw you look so pale, madam," said Tantripp, a solid-figured\r
+woman who had been with the sisters at Lausanne.\r
+\r
+"Was I ever high-colored, Tantripp?" said Dorothea, smiling faintly.\r
+\r
+"Well, not to say high-colored, but with a bloom like a Chiny rose.\r
+But always smelling those leather books, what can be expected? Do rest\r
+a little this morning, madam. Let me say you are ill and not able to\r
+go into that close library."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, no! let me make haste," said Dorothea. "Mr. Casaubon wants me\r
+particularly."\r
+\r
+When she went down she felt sure that she should promise to fulfil his\r
+wishes; but that would be later in the day--not yet.\r
+\r
+As Dorothea entered the library, Mr. Casaubon turned round from the\r
+table where he had been placing some books, and said--\r
+\r
+"I was waiting for your appearance, my dear. I had hoped to set to\r
+work at once this morning, but I find myself under some indisposition,\r
+probably from too much excitement yesterday. I am going now to take a\r
+turn in the shrubbery, since the air is milder."\r
+\r
+"I am glad to hear that," said Dorothea. "Your mind, I feared, was too\r
+active last night."\r
+\r
+"I would fain have it set at rest on the point I last spoke of,\r
+Dorothea. You can now, I hope, give me an answer."\r
+\r
+"May I come out to you in the garden presently?" said Dorothea, winning\r
+a little breathing space in that way.\r
+\r
+"I shall be in the Yew-tree Walk for the next half-hour," said Mr.\r
+Casaubon, and then he left her.\r
+\r
+Dorothea, feeling very weary, rang and asked Tantripp to bring her some\r
+wraps. She had been sitting still for a few minutes, but not in any\r
+renewal of the former conflict: she simply felt that she was going to\r
+say "Yes" to her own doom: she was too weak, too full of dread at the\r
+thought of inflicting a keen-edged blow on her husband, to do anything\r
+but submit completely. She sat still and let Tantripp put on her\r
+bonnet and shawl, a passivity which was unusual with her, for she liked\r
+to wait on herself.\r
+\r
+"God bless you, madam!" said Tantripp, with an irrepressible movement\r
+of love towards the beautiful, gentle creature for whom she felt unable\r
+to do anything more, now that she had finished tying the bonnet.\r
+\r
+This was too much for Dorothea's highly-strung feeling, and she burst\r
+into tears, sobbing against Tantripp's arm. But soon she checked\r
+herself, dried her eyes, and went out at the glass door into the\r
+shrubbery.\r
+\r
+"I wish every book in that library was built into a caticom for your\r
+master," said Tantripp to Pratt, the butler, finding him in the\r
+breakfast-room. She had been at Rome, and visited the antiquities, as\r
+we know; and she always declined to call Mr. Casaubon anything but\r
+"your master," when speaking to the other servants.\r
+\r
+Pratt laughed. He liked his master very well, but he liked Tantripp\r
+better.\r
+\r
+When Dorothea was out on the gravel walks, she lingered among the\r
+nearer clumps of trees, hesitating, as she had done once before, though\r
+from a different cause. Then she had feared lest her effort at\r
+fellowship should be unwelcome; now she dreaded going to the spot where\r
+she foresaw that she must bind herself to a fellowship from which she\r
+shrank. Neither law nor the world's opinion compelled her to\r
+this--only her husband's nature and her own compassion, only the ideal\r
+and not the real yoke of marriage. She saw clearly enough the whole\r
+situation, yet she was fettered: she could not smite the stricken soul\r
+that entreated hers. If that were weakness, Dorothea was weak. But\r
+the half-hour was passing, and she must not delay longer. When she\r
+entered the Yew-tree Walk she could not see her husband; but the walk\r
+had bends, and she went, expecting to catch sight of his figure wrapped\r
+in a blue cloak, which, with a warm velvet cap, was his outer garment\r
+on chill days for the garden. It occurred to her that he might be\r
+resting in the summer-house, towards which the path diverged a little.\r
+Turning the angle, she could see him seated on the bench, close to a\r
+stone table. His arms were resting on the table, and his brow was\r
+bowed down on them, the blue cloak being dragged forward and screening\r
+his face on each side.\r
+\r
+"He exhausted himself last night," Dorothea said to herself, thinking\r
+at first that he was asleep, and that the summer-house was too damp a\r
+place to rest in. But then she remembered that of late she had seen\r
+him take that attitude when she was reading to him, as if he found it\r
+easier than any other; and that he would sometimes speak, as well as\r
+listen, with his face down in that way. She went into the summerhouse\r
+and said, "I am come, Edward; I am ready."\r
+\r
+He took no notice, and she thought that he must be fast asleep. She\r
+laid her hand on his shoulder, and repeated, "I am ready!" Still he was\r
+motionless; and with a sudden confused fear, she leaned down to him,\r
+took off his velvet cap, and leaned her cheek close to his head, crying\r
+in a distressed tone--\r
+\r
+"Wake, dear, wake! Listen to me. I am come to answer." But Dorothea\r
+never gave her answer.\r
+\r
+Later in the day, Lydgate was seated by her bedside, and she was\r
+talking deliriously, thinking aloud, and recalling what had gone\r
+through her mind the night before. She knew him, and called him by his\r
+name, but appeared to think it right that she should explain everything\r
+to him; and again, and again, begged him to explain everything to her\r
+husband.\r
+\r
+"Tell him I shall go to him soon: I am ready to promise. Only,\r
+thinking about it was so dreadful--it has made me ill. Not very ill.\r
+I shall soon be better. Go and tell him."\r
+\r
+But the silence in her husband's ear was never more to be broken.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XLIX.\r
+\r
+ A task too strong for wizard spells\r
+ This squire had brought about;\r
+ 'T is easy dropping stones in wells,\r
+ But who shall get them out?"\r
+\r
+\r
+"I wish to God we could hinder Dorothea from knowing this," said Sir\r
+James Chettam, with a little frown on his brow, and an expression of\r
+intense disgust about his mouth.\r
+\r
+He was standing on the hearth-rug in the library at Lowick Grange, and\r
+speaking to Mr. Brooke. It was the day after Mr. Casaubon had been\r
+buried, and Dorothea was not yet able to leave her room.\r
+\r
+"That would be difficult, you know, Chettam, as she is an executrix,\r
+and she likes to go into these things--property, land, that kind of\r
+thing. She has her notions, you know," said Mr. Brooke, sticking his\r
+eye-glasses on nervously, and exploring the edges of a folded paper\r
+which he held in his hand; "and she would like to act--depend upon it,\r
+as an executrix Dorothea would want to act. And she was twenty-one\r
+last December, you know. I can hinder nothing."\r
+\r
+Sir James looked at the carpet for a minute in silence, and then\r
+lifting his eyes suddenly fixed them on Mr. Brooke, saying, "I will\r
+tell you what we can do. Until Dorothea is well, all business must be\r
+kept from her, and as soon as she is able to be moved she must come to\r
+us. Being with Celia and the baby will be the best thing in the world\r
+for her, and will pass away the time. And meanwhile you must get rid\r
+of Ladislaw: you must send him out of the country." Here Sir James's\r
+look of disgust returned in all its intensity.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke put his hands behind him, walked to the window and\r
+straightened his back with a little shake before he replied.\r
+\r
+"That is easily said, Chettam, easily said, you know."\r
+\r
+"My dear sir," persisted Sir James, restraining his indignation within\r
+respectful forms, "it was you who brought him here, and you who keep\r
+him here--I mean by the occupation you give him."\r
+\r
+"Yes, but I can't dismiss him in an instant without assigning reasons,\r
+my dear Chettam. Ladislaw has been invaluable, most satisfactory. I\r
+consider that I have done this part of the country a service by\r
+bringing him--by bringing him, you know." Mr. Brooke ended with a nod,\r
+turning round to give it.\r
+\r
+"It's a pity this part of the country didn't do without him, that's all\r
+I have to say about it. At any rate, as Dorothea's brother-in-law, I\r
+feel warranted in objecting strongly to his being kept here by any\r
+action on the part of her friends. You admit, I hope, that I have a\r
+right to speak about what concerns the dignity of my wife's sister?"\r
+\r
+Sir James was getting warm.\r
+\r
+"Of course, my dear Chettam, of course. But you and I have different\r
+ideas--different--"\r
+\r
+"Not about this action of Casaubon's, I should hope," interrupted Sir\r
+James. "I say that he has most unfairly compromised Dorothea. I say\r
+that there never was a meaner, more ungentlemanly action than this--a\r
+codicil of this sort to a will which he made at the time of his\r
+marriage with the knowledge and reliance of her family--a positive\r
+insult to Dorothea!"\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Casaubon was a little twisted about Ladislaw.\r
+Ladislaw has told me the reason--dislike of the bent he took, you\r
+know--Ladislaw didn't think much of Casaubon's notions, Thoth and\r
+Dagon--that sort of thing: and I fancy that Casaubon didn't like the\r
+independent position Ladislaw had taken up. I saw the letters between\r
+them, you know. Poor Casaubon was a little buried in books--he didn't\r
+know the world."\r
+\r
+"It's all very well for Ladislaw to put that color on it," said Sir\r
+James. "But I believe Casaubon was only jealous of him on Dorothea's\r
+account, and the world will suppose that she gave him some reason; and\r
+that is what makes it so abominable--coupling her name with this young\r
+fellow's."\r
+\r
+"My dear Chettam, it won't lead to anything, you know," said Mr.\r
+Brooke, seating himself and sticking on his eye-glass again. "It's all\r
+of a piece with Casaubon's oddity. This paper, now, 'Synoptical\r
+Tabulation' and so on, 'for the use of Mrs. Casaubon,' it was locked up\r
+in the desk with the will. I suppose he meant Dorothea to publish his\r
+researches, eh? and she'll do it, you know; she has gone into his\r
+studies uncommonly."\r
+\r
+"My dear sir," said Sir James, impatiently, "that is neither here nor\r
+there. The question is, whether you don't see with me the propriety of\r
+sending young Ladislaw away?"\r
+\r
+"Well, no, not the urgency of the thing. By-and-by, perhaps, it may\r
+come round. As to gossip, you know, sending him away won't hinder\r
+gossip. People say what they like to say, not what they have chapter\r
+and verse for," said Mr Brooke, becoming acute about the truths that\r
+lay on the side of his own wishes. "I might get rid of Ladislaw up to\r
+a certain point--take away the 'Pioneer' from him, and that sort of\r
+thing; but I couldn't send him out of the country if he didn't choose\r
+to go--didn't choose, you know."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke, persisting as quietly as if he were only discussing the\r
+nature of last year's weather, and nodding at the end with his usual\r
+amenity, was an exasperating form of obstinacy.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" said Sir James, with as much passion as he ever showed,\r
+"let us get him a post; let us spend money on him. If he could go in\r
+the suite of some Colonial Governor! Grampus might take him--and I\r
+could write to Fulke about it."\r
+\r
+"But Ladislaw won't be shipped off like a head of cattle, my dear\r
+fellow; Ladislaw has his ideas. It's my opinion that if he were to\r
+part from me to-morrow, you'd only hear the more of him in the country.\r
+With his talent for speaking and drawing up documents, there are few\r
+men who could come up to him as an agitator--an agitator, you know."\r
+\r
+"Agitator!" said Sir James, with bitter emphasis, feeling that the\r
+syllables of this word properly repeated were a sufficient exposure of\r
+its hatefulness.\r
+\r
+"But be reasonable, Chettam. Dorothea, now. As you say, she had\r
+better go to Celia as soon as possible. She can stay under your roof,\r
+and in the mean time things may come round quietly. Don't let us be\r
+firing off our guns in a hurry, you know. Standish will keep our\r
+counsel, and the news will be old before it's known. Twenty things may\r
+happen to carry off Ladislaw--without my doing anything, you know."\r
+\r
+"Then I am to conclude that you decline to do anything?"\r
+\r
+"Decline, Chettam?--no--I didn't say decline. But I really don't see\r
+what I could do. Ladislaw is a gentleman."\r
+\r
+"I am glad to hear it!" said Sir James, his irritation making him\r
+forget himself a little. "I am sure Casaubon was not."\r
+\r
+"Well, it would have been worse if he had made the codicil to hinder\r
+her from marrying again at all, you know."\r
+\r
+"I don't know that," said Sir James. "It would have been less\r
+indelicate."\r
+\r
+"One of poor Casaubon's freaks! That attack upset his brain a little.\r
+It all goes for nothing. She doesn't _want_ to marry Ladislaw."\r
+\r
+"But this codicil is framed so as to make everybody believe that she\r
+did. I don't believe anything of the sort about Dorothea," said Sir\r
+James--then frowningly, "but I suspect Ladislaw. I tell you frankly,\r
+I suspect Ladislaw."\r
+\r
+"I couldn't take any immediate action on that ground, Chettam. In\r
+fact, if it were possible to pack him off--send him to Norfolk\r
+Island--that sort of thing--it would look all the worse for Dorothea\r
+to those who knew about it. It would seem as if we distrusted\r
+her--distrusted her, you know."\r
+\r
+That Mr. Brooke had hit on an undeniable argument, did not tend to\r
+soothe Sir James. He put out his hand to reach his hat, implying that\r
+he did not mean to contend further, and said, still with some heat--\r
+\r
+"Well, I can only say that I think Dorothea was sacrificed once,\r
+because her friends were too careless. I shall do what I can, as her\r
+brother, to protect her now."\r
+\r
+"You can't do better than get her to Freshitt as soon as possible,\r
+Chettam. I approve that plan altogether," said Mr. Brooke, well\r
+pleased that he had won the argument. It would have been highly\r
+inconvenient to him to part with Ladislaw at that time, when a\r
+dissolution might happen any day, and electors were to be convinced of\r
+the course by which the interests of the country would be best served.\r
+Mr. Brooke sincerely believed that this end could be secured by his own\r
+return to Parliament: he offered the forces of his mind honestly to the\r
+nation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER L.\r
+\r
+ "'This Loller here wol precilen us somewhat.'\r
+ 'Nay by my father's soule! that schal he nat,'\r
+ Sayde the Schipman, 'here schal he not preche,\r
+ We schal no gospel glosen here ne teche.\r
+ We leven all in the gret God,' quod he.\r
+ He wolden sowen some diffcultee."\r
+ Canterbury Tales.\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea had been safe at Freshitt Hall nearly a week before she had\r
+asked any dangerous questions. Every morning now she sat with Celia in\r
+the prettiest of up-stairs sitting-rooms, opening into a small\r
+conservatory--Celia all in white and lavender like a bunch of mixed\r
+violets, watching the remarkable acts of the baby, which were so\r
+dubious to her inexperienced mind that all conversation was interrupted\r
+by appeals for their interpretation made to the oracular nurse.\r
+Dorothea sat by in her widow's dress, with an expression which rather\r
+provoked Celia, as being much too sad; for not only was baby quite\r
+well, but really when a husband had been so dull and troublesome while\r
+he lived, and besides that had--well, well! Sir James, of course, had\r
+told Celia everything, with a strong representation how important it\r
+was that Dorothea should not know it sooner than was inevitable.\r
+\r
+But Mr. Brooke had been right in predicting that Dorothea would not\r
+long remain passive where action had been assigned to her; she knew the\r
+purport of her husband's will made at the time of their marriage, and\r
+her mind, as soon as she was clearly conscious of her position, was\r
+silently occupied with what she ought to do as the owner of Lowick\r
+Manor with the patronage of the living attached to it.\r
+\r
+One morning when her uncle paid his usual visit, though with an unusual\r
+alacrity in his manner which he accounted for by saying that it was now\r
+pretty certain Parliament would be dissolved forthwith, Dorothea said--\r
+\r
+"Uncle, it is right now that I should consider who is to have the\r
+living at Lowick. After Mr. Tucker had been provided for, I never\r
+heard my husband say that he had any clergyman in his mind as a\r
+successor to himself. I think I ought to have the keys now and go to\r
+Lowick to examine all my husband's papers. There may be something that\r
+would throw light on his wishes."\r
+\r
+"No hurry, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, quietly. "By-and-by, you know,\r
+you can go, if you like. But I cast my eyes over things in the desks\r
+and drawers--there was nothing--nothing but deep subjects, you\r
+know--besides the will. Everything can be done by-and-by. As to the\r
+living, I have had an application for interest already--I should say\r
+rather good. Mr. Tyke has been strongly recommended to me--I had\r
+something to do with getting him an appointment before. An apostolic\r
+man, I believe--the sort of thing that would suit you, my dear."\r
+\r
+"I should like to have fuller knowledge about him, uncle, and judge for\r
+myself, if Mr. Casaubon has not left any expression of his wishes. He\r
+has perhaps made some addition to his will--there may be some\r
+instructions for me," said Dorothea, who had all the while had this\r
+conjecture in her mind with relation to her husband's work.\r
+\r
+"Nothing about the rectory, my dear--nothing," said Mr. Brooke, rising\r
+to go away, and putting out his hand to his nieces: "nor about his\r
+researches, you know. Nothing in the will."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's lip quivered.\r
+\r
+"Come, you must not think of these things yet, my dear. By-and-by, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+"I am quite well now, uncle; I wish to exert myself."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, we shall see. But I must run away now--I have no end of\r
+work now--it's a crisis--a political crisis, you know. And here is\r
+Celia and her little man--you are an aunt, you know, now, and I am a\r
+sort of grandfather," said Mr. Brooke, with placid hurry, anxious to\r
+get away and tell Chettam that it would not be his (Mr. Brooke's) fault\r
+if Dorothea insisted on looking into everything.\r
+\r
+Dorothea sank back in her chair when her uncle had left the room, and\r
+cast her eyes down meditatively on her crossed hands.\r
+\r
+"Look, Dodo! look at him! Did you ever see anything like that?" said\r
+Celia, in her comfortable staccato.\r
+\r
+"What, Kitty?" said Dorothea, lifting her eyes rather absently.\r
+\r
+"What? why, his upper lip; see how he is drawing it down, as if he\r
+meant to make a face. Isn't it wonderful! He may have his little\r
+thoughts. I wish nurse were here. Do look at him."\r
+\r
+A large tear which had been for some time gathering, rolled down\r
+Dorothea's cheek as she looked up and tried to smile.\r
+\r
+"Don't be sad, Dodo; kiss baby. What are you brooding over so? I am\r
+sure you did everything, and a great deal too much. You should be\r
+happy now."\r
+\r
+"I wonder if Sir James would drive me to Lowick. I want to look over\r
+everything--to see if there were any words written for me."\r
+\r
+"You are not to go till Mr. Lydgate says you may go. And he has not\r
+said so yet (here you are, nurse; take baby and walk up and down the\r
+gallery). Besides, you have got a wrong notion in your head as usual,\r
+Dodo--I can see that: it vexes me."\r
+\r
+"Where am I wrong, Kitty?" said Dorothea, quite meekly. She was almost\r
+ready now to think Celia wiser than herself, and was really wondering\r
+with some fear what her wrong notion was. Celia felt her advantage,\r
+and was determined to use it. None of them knew Dodo as well as she\r
+did, or knew how to manage her. Since Celia's baby was born, she had\r
+had a new sense of her mental solidity and calm wisdom. It seemed\r
+clear that where there was a baby, things were right enough, and that\r
+error, in general, was a mere lack of that central poising force.\r
+\r
+"I can see what you are thinking of as well as can be, Dodo," said\r
+Celia. "You are wanting to find out if there is anything uncomfortable\r
+for you to do now, only because Mr. Casaubon wished it. As if you had\r
+not been uncomfortable enough before. And he doesn't deserve it, and\r
+you will find that out. He has behaved very badly. James is as angry\r
+with him as can be. And I had better tell you, to prepare you."\r
+\r
+"Celia," said Dorothea, entreatingly, "you distress me. Tell me at\r
+once what you mean." It glanced through her mind that Mr. Casaubon\r
+had left the property away from her--which would not be so very\r
+distressing.\r
+\r
+"Why, he has made a codicil to his will, to say the property was all to\r
+go away from you if you married--I mean--"\r
+\r
+"That is of no consequence," said Dorothea, breaking in impetuously.\r
+\r
+"But if you married Mr. Ladislaw, not anybody else," Celia went on with\r
+persevering quietude. "Of course that is of no consequence in one\r
+way--you never _would_ marry Mr. Ladislaw; but that only makes it worse\r
+of Mr. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Dorothea's face and neck painfully. But Celia was\r
+administering what she thought a sobering dose of fact. It was taking\r
+up notions that had done Dodo's health so much harm. So she went on in\r
+her neutral tone, as if she had been remarking on baby's robes.\r
+\r
+"James says so. He says it is abominable, and not like a gentleman.\r
+And there never was a better judge than James. It is as if Mr.\r
+Casaubon wanted to make people believe that you would wish to marry Mr.\r
+Ladislaw--which is ridiculous. Only James says it was to hinder Mr.\r
+Ladislaw from wanting to marry you for your money--just as if he ever\r
+would think of making you an offer. Mrs. Cadwallader said you might as\r
+well marry an Italian with white mice! But I must just go and look at\r
+baby," Celia added, without the least change of tone, throwing a light\r
+shawl over her, and tripping away.\r
+\r
+Dorothea by this time had turned cold again, and now threw herself back\r
+helplessly in her chair. She might have compared her experience at\r
+that moment to the vague, alarmed consciousness that her life was\r
+taking on a new form, that she was undergoing a metamorphosis in which\r
+memory would not adjust itself to the stirring of new organs.\r
+Everything was changing its aspect: her husband's conduct, her own\r
+duteous feeling towards him, every struggle between them--and yet\r
+more, her whole relation to Will Ladislaw. Her world was in a state of\r
+convulsive change; the only thing she could say distinctly to herself\r
+was, that she must wait and think anew. One change terrified her as if\r
+it had been a sin; it was a violent shock of repulsion from her\r
+departed husband, who had had hidden thoughts, perhaps perverting\r
+everything she said and did. Then again she was conscious of another\r
+change which also made her tremulous; it was a sudden strange yearning\r
+of heart towards Will Ladislaw. It had never before entered her mind\r
+that he could, under any circumstances, be her lover: conceive the\r
+effect of the sudden revelation that another had thought of him in that\r
+light--that perhaps he himself had been conscious of such a\r
+possibility,--and this with the hurrying, crowding vision of unfitting\r
+conditions, and questions not soon to be solved.\r
+\r
+It seemed a long while--she did not know how long--before she heard\r
+Celia saying, "That will do, nurse; he will be quiet on my lap now.\r
+You can go to lunch, and let Garratt stay in the next room." "What I\r
+think, Dodo," Celia went on, observing nothing more than that Dorothea\r
+was leaning back in her chair, and likely to be passive, "is that Mr.\r
+Casaubon was spiteful. I never did like him, and James never did. I\r
+think the corners of his mouth were dreadfully spiteful. And now he\r
+has behaved in this way, I am sure religion does not require you to\r
+make yourself uncomfortable about him. If he has been taken away, that\r
+is a mercy, and you ought to be grateful. We should not grieve, should\r
+we, baby?" said Celia confidentially to that unconscious centre and\r
+poise of the world, who had the most remarkable fists all complete even\r
+to the nails, and hair enough, really, when you took his cap off, to\r
+make--you didn't know what:--in short, he was Bouddha in a Western\r
+form.\r
+\r
+At this crisis Lydgate was announced, and one of the first things he\r
+said was, "I fear you are not so well as you were, Mrs. Casaubon; have\r
+you been agitated? allow me to feel your pulse." Dorothea's hand was\r
+of a marble coldness.\r
+\r
+"She wants to go to Lowick, to look over papers," said Celia. "She\r
+ought not, ought she?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not speak for a few moments. Then he said, looking at\r
+Dorothea. "I hardly know. In my opinion Mrs. Casaubon should do what\r
+would give her the most repose of mind. That repose will not always\r
+come from being forbidden to act."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Dorothea, exerting herself, "I am sure that is wise.\r
+There are so many things which I ought to attend to. Why should I sit\r
+here idle?" Then, with an effort to recall subjects not connected with\r
+her agitation, she added, abruptly, "You know every one in Middlemarch,\r
+I think, Mr. Lydgate. I shall ask you to tell me a great deal. I have\r
+serious things to do now. I have a living to give away. You know Mr.\r
+Tyke and all the--" But Dorothea's effort was too much for her; she\r
+broke off and burst into sobs. Lydgate made her drink a dose of sal\r
+volatile.\r
+\r
+"Let Mrs. Casaubon do as she likes," he said to Sir James, whom he\r
+asked to see before quitting the house. "She wants perfect freedom, I\r
+think, more than any other prescription."\r
+\r
+His attendance on Dorothea while her brain was excited, had enabled him\r
+to form some true conclusions concerning the trials of her life. He\r
+felt sure that she had been suffering from the strain and conflict of\r
+self-repression; and that she was likely now to feel herself only in\r
+another sort of pinfold than that from which she had been released.\r
+\r
+Lydgate's advice was all the easier for Sir James to follow when he\r
+found that Celia had already told Dorothea the unpleasant fact about\r
+the will. There was no help for it now--no reason for any further\r
+delay in the execution of necessary business. And the next day Sir\r
+James complied at once with her request that he would drive her to\r
+Lowick.\r
+\r
+"I have no wish to stay there at present," said Dorothea; "I could\r
+hardly bear it. I am much happier at Freshitt with Celia. I shall be\r
+able to think better about what should be done at Lowick by looking at\r
+it from a distance. And I should like to be at the Grange a little\r
+while with my uncle, and go about in all the old walks and among the\r
+people in the village."\r
+\r
+"Not yet, I think. Your uncle is having political company, and you are\r
+better out of the way of such doings," said Sir James, who at that\r
+moment thought of the Grange chiefly as a haunt of young Ladislaw's.\r
+But no word passed between him and Dorothea about the objectionable\r
+part of the will; indeed, both of them felt that the mention of it\r
+between them would be impossible. Sir James was shy, even with men,\r
+about disagreeable subjects; and the one thing that Dorothea would have\r
+chosen to say, if she had spoken on the matter at all, was forbidden to\r
+her at present because it seemed to be a further exposure of her\r
+husband's injustice. Yet she did wish that Sir James could know what\r
+had passed between her and her husband about Will Ladislaw's moral\r
+claim on the property: it would then, she thought, be apparent to him\r
+as it was to her, that her husband's strange indelicate proviso had\r
+been chiefly urged by his bitter resistance to that idea of claim, and\r
+not merely by personal feelings more difficult to talk about. Also, it\r
+must be admitted, Dorothea wished that this could be known for Will's\r
+sake, since her friends seemed to think of him as simply an object of\r
+Mr. Casaubon's charity. Why should he be compared with an Italian\r
+carrying white mice? That word quoted from Mrs. Cadwallader seemed\r
+like a mocking travesty wrought in the dark by an impish finger.\r
+\r
+At Lowick Dorothea searched desk and drawer--searched all her husband's\r
+places of deposit for private writing, but found no paper addressed\r
+especially to her, except that "Synoptical Tabulation," which was\r
+probably only the beginning of many intended directions for her\r
+guidance. In carrying out this bequest of labor to Dorothea, as in all\r
+else, Mr. Casaubon had been slow and hesitating, oppressed in the plan\r
+of transmitting his work, as he had been in executing it, by the sense\r
+of moving heavily in a dim and clogging medium: distrust of Dorothea's\r
+competence to arrange what he had prepared was subdued only by distrust\r
+of any other redactor. But he had come at last to create a trust for\r
+himself out of Dorothea's nature: she could do what she resolved to do:\r
+and he willingly imagined her toiling under the fetters of a promise to\r
+erect a tomb with his name upon it. (Not that Mr. Casaubon called the\r
+future volumes a tomb; he called them the Key to all Mythologies.) But\r
+the months gained on him and left his plans belated: he had only had\r
+time to ask for that promise by which he sought to keep his cold grasp\r
+on Dorothea's life.\r
+\r
+The grasp had slipped away. Bound by a pledge given from the depths of\r
+her pity, she would have been capable of undertaking a toil which her\r
+judgment whispered was vain for all uses except that consecration of\r
+faithfulness which is a supreme use. But now her judgment, instead of\r
+being controlled by duteous devotion, was made active by the\r
+imbittering discovery that in her past union there had lurked the\r
+hidden alienation of secrecy and suspicion. The living, suffering man\r
+was no longer before her to awaken her pity: there remained only the\r
+retrospect of painful subjection to a husband whose thoughts had been\r
+lower than she had believed, whose exorbitant claims for himself had\r
+even blinded his scrupulous care for his own character, and made him\r
+defeat his own pride by shocking men of ordinary honor. As for the\r
+property which was the sign of that broken tie, she would have been\r
+glad to be free from it and have nothing more than her original fortune\r
+which had been settled on her, if there had not been duties attached to\r
+ownership, which she ought not to flinch from. About this property\r
+many troublous questions insisted on rising: had she not been right in\r
+thinking that the half of it ought to go to Will Ladislaw?--but was it\r
+not impossible now for her to do that act of justice? Mr. Casaubon had\r
+taken a cruelly effective means of hindering her: even with indignation\r
+against him in her heart, any act that seemed a triumphant eluding of\r
+his purpose revolted her.\r
+\r
+After collecting papers of business which she wished to examine, she\r
+locked up again the desks and drawers--all empty of personal words for\r
+her--empty of any sign that in her husband's lonely brooding his heart\r
+had gone out to her in excuse or explanation; and she went back to\r
+Freshitt with the sense that around his last hard demand and his last\r
+injurious assertion of his power, the silence was unbroken.\r
+\r
+Dorothea tried now to turn her thoughts towards immediate duties, and\r
+one of these was of a kind which others were determined to remind her\r
+of. Lydgate's ear had caught eagerly her mention of the living, and as\r
+soon as he could, he reopened the subject, seeing here a possibility of\r
+making amends for the casting-vote he had once given with an\r
+ill-satisfied conscience. "Instead of telling you anything about Mr.\r
+Tyke," he said, "I should like to speak of another man--Mr.\r
+Farebrother, the Vicar of St. Botolph's. His living is a poor one, and\r
+gives him a stinted provision for himself and his family. His mother,\r
+aunt, and sister all live with him, and depend upon him. I believe he\r
+has never married because of them. I never heard such good preaching\r
+as his--such plain, easy eloquence. He would have done to preach at\r
+St. Paul's Cross after old Latimer. His talk is just as good about all\r
+subjects: original, simple, clear. I think him a remarkable fellow: he\r
+ought to have done more than he has done."\r
+\r
+"Why has he not done more?" said Dorothea, interested now in all who\r
+had slipped below their own intention.\r
+\r
+"That's a hard question," said Lydgate. "I find myself that it's\r
+uncommonly difficult to make the right thing work: there are so many\r
+strings pulling at once. Farebrother often hints that he has got into\r
+the wrong profession; he wants a wider range than that of a poor\r
+clergyman, and I suppose he has no interest to help him on. He is very\r
+fond of Natural History and various scientific matters, and he is\r
+hampered in reconciling these tastes with his position. He has no\r
+money to spare--hardly enough to use; and that has led him into\r
+card-playing--Middlemarch is a great place for whist. He does play for\r
+money, and he wins a good deal. Of course that takes him into company\r
+a little beneath him, and makes him slack about some things; and yet,\r
+with all that, looking at him as a whole, I think he is one of the most\r
+blameless men I ever knew. He has neither venom nor doubleness in him,\r
+and those often go with a more correct outside."\r
+\r
+"I wonder whether he suffers in his conscience because of that habit,"\r
+said Dorothea; "I wonder whether he wishes he could leave it off."\r
+\r
+"I have no doubt he would leave it off, if he were transplanted into\r
+plenty: he would be glad of the time for other things."\r
+\r
+"My uncle says that Mr. Tyke is spoken of as an apostolic man," said\r
+Dorothea, meditatively. She was wishing it were possible to restore\r
+the times of primitive zeal, and yet thinking of Mr. Farebrother with a\r
+strong desire to rescue him from his chance-gotten money.\r
+\r
+"I don't pretend to say that Farebrother is apostolic," said Lydgate.\r
+"His position is not quite like that of the Apostles: he is only a\r
+parson among parishioners whose lives he has to try and make better.\r
+Practically I find that what is called being apostolic now, is an\r
+impatience of everything in which the parson doesn't cut the principal\r
+figure. I see something of that in Mr. Tyke at the Hospital: a good\r
+deal of his doctrine is a sort of pinching hard to make people\r
+uncomfortably aware of him. Besides, an apostolic man at Lowick!--he\r
+ought to think, as St. Francis did, that it is needful to preach to the\r
+birds."\r
+\r
+"True," said Dorothea. "It is hard to imagine what sort of notions our\r
+farmers and laborers get from their teaching. I have been looking into\r
+a volume of sermons by Mr. Tyke: such sermons would be of no use at\r
+Lowick--I mean, about imputed righteousness and the prophecies in the\r
+Apocalypse. I have always been thinking of the different ways in which\r
+Christianity is taught, and whenever I find one way that makes it a\r
+wider blessing than any other, I cling to that as the truest--I mean\r
+that which takes in the most good of all kinds, and brings in the most\r
+people as sharers in it. It is surely better to pardon too much, than\r
+to condemn too much. But I should like to see Mr. Farebrother and hear\r
+him preach."\r
+\r
+"Do," said Lydgate; "I trust to the effect of that. He is very much\r
+beloved, but he has his enemies too: there are always people who can't\r
+forgive an able man for differing from them. And that money-winning\r
+business is really a blot. You don't, of course, see many Middlemarch\r
+people: but Mr. Ladislaw, who is constantly seeing Mr. Brooke, is a\r
+great friend of Mr. Farebrother's old ladies, and would be glad to sing\r
+the Vicar's praises. One of the old ladies--Miss Noble, the aunt--is a\r
+wonderfully quaint picture of self-forgetful goodness, and Ladislaw\r
+gallants her about sometimes. I met them one day in a back street: you\r
+know Ladislaw's look--a sort of Daphnis in coat and waistcoat; and this\r
+little old maid reaching up to his arm--they looked like a couple\r
+dropped out of a romantic comedy. But the best evidence about\r
+Farebrother is to see him and hear him."\r
+\r
+Happily Dorothea was in her private sitting-room when this conversation\r
+occurred, and there was no one present to make Lydgate's innocent\r
+introduction of Ladislaw painful to her. As was usual with him in\r
+matters of personal gossip, Lydgate had quite forgotten Rosamond's\r
+remark that she thought Will adored Mrs. Casaubon. At that moment he\r
+was only caring for what would recommend the Farebrother family; and he\r
+had purposely given emphasis to the worst that could be said about the\r
+Vicar, in order to forestall objections. In the weeks since Mr.\r
+Casaubon's death he had hardly seen Ladislaw, and he had heard no rumor\r
+to warn him that Mr. Brooke's confidential secretary was a dangerous\r
+subject with Mrs. Casaubon. When he was gone, his picture of Ladislaw\r
+lingered in her mind and disputed the ground with that question of the\r
+Lowick living. What was Will Ladislaw thinking about her? Would he\r
+hear of that fact which made her cheeks burn as they never used to do?\r
+And how would he feel when he heard it?--But she could see as well as\r
+possible how he smiled down at the little old maid. An Italian with\r
+white mice!--on the contrary, he was a creature who entered into every\r
+one's feelings, and could take the pressure of their thought instead of\r
+urging his own with iron resistance.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LI.\r
+\r
+ Party is Nature too, and you shall see\r
+ By force of Logic how they both agree:\r
+ The Many in the One, the One in Many;\r
+ All is not Some, nor Some the same as Any:\r
+ Genus holds species, both are great or small;\r
+ One genus highest, one not high at all;\r
+ Each species has its differentia too,\r
+ This is not That, and He was never You,\r
+ Though this and that are AYES, and you and he\r
+ Are like as one to one, or three to three.\r
+\r
+\r
+No gossip about Mr. Casaubon's will had yet reached Ladislaw: the air\r
+seemed to be filled with the dissolution of Parliament and the coming\r
+election, as the old wakes and fairs were filled with the rival clatter\r
+of itinerant shows; and more private noises were taken little notice\r
+of. The famous "dry election" was at hand, in which the depths of\r
+public feeling might be measured by the low flood-mark of drink. Will\r
+Ladislaw was one of the busiest at this time; and though Dorothea's\r
+widowhood was continually in his thought, he was so far from wishing to\r
+be spoken to on the subject, that when Lydgate sought him out to tell\r
+him what had passed about the Lowick living, he answered rather\r
+waspishly--\r
+\r
+"Why should you bring me into the matter? I never see Mrs. Casaubon,\r
+and am not likely to see her, since she is at Freshitt. I never go\r
+there. It is Tory ground, where I and the 'Pioneer' are no more\r
+welcome than a poacher and his gun."\r
+\r
+The fact was that Will had been made the more susceptible by observing\r
+that Mr. Brooke, instead of wishing him, as before, to come to the\r
+Grange oftener than was quite agreeable to himself, seemed now to\r
+contrive that he should go there as little as possible. This was a\r
+shuffling concession of Mr. Brooke's to Sir James Chettam's indignant\r
+remonstrance; and Will, awake to the slightest hint in this direction,\r
+concluded that he was to be kept away from the Grange on Dorothea's\r
+account. Her friends, then, regarded him with some suspicion? Their\r
+fears were quite superfluous: they were very much mistaken if they\r
+imagined that he would put himself forward as a needy adventurer trying\r
+to win the favor of a rich woman.\r
+\r
+Until now Will had never fully seen the chasm between himself and\r
+Dorothea--until now that he was come to the brink of it, and saw her on\r
+the other side. He began, not without some inward rage, to think of\r
+going away from the neighborhood: it would be impossible for him to\r
+show any further interest in Dorothea without subjecting himself to\r
+disagreeable imputations--perhaps even in her mind, which others might\r
+try to poison.\r
+\r
+"We are forever divided," said Will. "I might as well be at Rome; she\r
+would be no farther from me." But what we call our despair is often\r
+only the painful eagerness of unfed hope. There were plenty of reasons\r
+why he should not go--public reasons why he should not quit his post at\r
+this crisis, leaving Mr. Brooke in the lurch when he needed "coaching"\r
+for the election, and when there was so much canvassing, direct and\r
+indirect, to be carried on. Will could not like to leave his own\r
+chessmen in the heat of a game; and any candidate on the right side,\r
+even if his brain and marrow had been as soft as was consistent with a\r
+gentlemanly bearing, might help to turn a majority. To coach Mr.\r
+Brooke and keep him steadily to the idea that he must pledge himself to\r
+vote for the actual Reform Bill, instead of insisting on his\r
+independence and power of pulling up in time, was not an easy task.\r
+Mr. Farebrother's prophecy of a fourth candidate "in the bag" had not\r
+yet been fulfilled, neither the Parliamentary Candidate Society nor any\r
+other power on the watch to secure a reforming majority seeing a worthy\r
+nodus for interference while there was a second reforming candidate\r
+like Mr. Brooke, who might be returned at his own expense; and the\r
+fight lay entirely between Pinkerton the old Tory member, Bagster the\r
+new Whig member returned at the last election, and Brooke the future\r
+independent member, who was to fetter himself for this occasion only.\r
+Mr. Hawley and his party would bend all their forces to the return of\r
+Pinkerton, and Mr. Brooke's success must depend either on plumpers\r
+which would leave Bagster in the rear, or on the new minting of Tory\r
+votes into reforming votes. The latter means, of course, would be\r
+preferable.\r
+\r
+This prospect of converting votes was a dangerous distraction to Mr.\r
+Brooke: his impression that waverers were likely to be allured by\r
+wavering statements, and also the liability of his mind to stick afresh\r
+at opposing arguments as they turned up in his memory, gave Will\r
+Ladislaw much trouble.\r
+\r
+"You know there are tactics in these things," said Mr. Brooke; "meeting\r
+people half-way--tempering your ideas--saying, 'Well now, there's\r
+something in that,' and so on. I agree with you that this is a\r
+peculiar occasion--the country with a will of its own--political\r
+unions--that sort of thing--but we sometimes cut with rather too sharp\r
+a knife, Ladislaw. These ten-pound householders, now: why ten? Draw\r
+the line somewhere--yes: but why just at ten? That's a difficult\r
+question, now, if you go into it."\r
+\r
+"Of course it is," said Will, impatiently. "But if you are to wait\r
+till we get a logical Bill, you must put yourself forward as a\r
+revolutionist, and then Middlemarch would not elect you, I fancy. As\r
+for trimming, this is not a time for trimming."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke always ended by agreeing with Ladislaw, who still appeared\r
+to him a sort of Burke with a leaven of Shelley; but after an interval\r
+the wisdom of his own methods reasserted itself, and he was again drawn\r
+into using them with much hopefulness. At this stage of affairs he was\r
+in excellent spirits, which even supported him under large advances of\r
+money; for his powers of convincing and persuading had not yet been\r
+tested by anything more difficult than a chairman's speech introducing\r
+other orators, or a dialogue with a Middlemarch voter, from which he\r
+came away with a sense that he was a tactician by nature, and that it\r
+was a pity he had not gone earlier into this kind of thing. He was a\r
+little conscious of defeat, however, with Mr. Mawmsey, a chief\r
+representative in Middlemarch of that great social power, the retail\r
+trader, and naturally one of the most doubtful voters in the\r
+borough--willing for his own part to supply an equal quality of teas\r
+and sugars to reformer and anti-reformer, as well as to agree\r
+impartially with both, and feeling like the burgesses of old that this\r
+necessity of electing members was a great burthen to a town; for even\r
+if there were no danger in holding out hopes to all parties beforehand,\r
+there would be the painful necessity at last of disappointing\r
+respectable people whose names were on his books. He was accustomed to\r
+receive large orders from Mr. Brooke of Tipton; but then, there were\r
+many of Pinkerton's committee whose opinions had a great weight of\r
+grocery on their side. Mr. Mawmsey thinking that Mr. Brooke, as not\r
+too "clever in his intellects," was the more likely to forgive a grocer\r
+who gave a hostile vote under pressure, had become confidential in his\r
+back parlor.\r
+\r
+"As to Reform, sir, put it in a family light," he said, rattling the\r
+small silver in his pocket, and smiling affably. "Will it support Mrs.\r
+Mawmsey, and enable her to bring up six children when I am no more? I\r
+put the question _fictiously_, knowing what must be the answer. Very\r
+well, sir. I ask you what, as a husband and a father, I am to do when\r
+gentlemen come to me and say, 'Do as you like, Mawmsey; but if you vote\r
+against us, I shall get my groceries elsewhere: when I sugar my liquor\r
+I like to feel that I am benefiting the country by maintaining\r
+tradesmen of the right color.' Those very words have been spoken to\r
+me, sir, in the very chair where you are now sitting. I don't mean by\r
+your honorable self, Mr. Brooke."\r
+\r
+"No, no, no--that's narrow, you know. Until my butler complains to me\r
+of your goods, Mr. Mawmsey," said Mr. Brooke, soothingly, "until I hear\r
+that you send bad sugars, spices--that sort of thing--I shall never\r
+order him to go elsewhere."\r
+\r
+"Sir, I am your humble servant, and greatly obliged," said Mr. Mawmsey,\r
+feeling that politics were clearing up a little. "There would be some\r
+pleasure in voting for a gentleman who speaks in that honorable manner."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Mr. Mawmsey, you would find it the right thing to put\r
+yourself on our side. This Reform will touch everybody by-and-by--a\r
+thoroughly popular measure--a sort of A, B, C, you know, that must come\r
+first before the rest can follow. I quite agree with you that you've\r
+got to look at the thing in a family light: but public spirit, now.\r
+We're all one family, you know--it's all one cupboard. Such a thing\r
+as a vote, now: why, it may help to make men's fortunes at the\r
+Cape--there's no knowing what may be the effect of a vote," Mr. Brooke\r
+ended, with a sense of being a little out at sea, though finding it\r
+still enjoyable. But Mr. Mawmsey answered in a tone of decisive check.\r
+\r
+"I beg your pardon, sir, but I can't afford that. When I give a vote I\r
+must know what I am doing; I must look to what will be the effects on\r
+my till and ledger, speaking respectfully. Prices, I'll admit, are\r
+what nobody can know the merits of; and the sudden falls after you've\r
+bought in currants, which are a goods that will not keep--I've never;\r
+myself seen into the ins and outs there; which is a rebuke to human\r
+pride. But as to one family, there's debtor and creditor, I hope;\r
+they're not going to reform that away; else I should vote for things\r
+staying as they are. Few men have less need to cry for change than I\r
+have, personally speaking--that is, for self and family. I am not one\r
+of those who have nothing to lose: I mean as to respectability both in\r
+parish and private business, and noways in respect of your honorable\r
+self and custom, which you was good enough to say you would not\r
+withdraw from me, vote or no vote, while the article sent in was\r
+satisfactory."\r
+\r
+After this conversation Mr. Mawmsey went up and boasted to his wife\r
+that he had been rather too many for Brooke of Tipton, and that he\r
+didn't mind so much now about going to the poll.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke on this occasion abstained from boasting of his tactics to\r
+Ladislaw, who for his part was glad enough to persuade himself that he\r
+had no concern with any canvassing except the purely argumentative\r
+sort, and that he worked no meaner engine than knowledge. Mr. Brooke,\r
+necessarily, had his agents, who understood the nature of the\r
+Middlemarch voter and the means of enlisting his ignorance on the side\r
+of the Bill--which were remarkably similar to the means of enlisting it\r
+on the side against the Bill. Will stopped his ears. Occasionally\r
+Parliament, like the rest of our lives, even to our eating and apparel,\r
+could hardly go on if our imaginations were too active about processes.\r
+There were plenty of dirty-handed men in the world to do dirty\r
+business; and Will protested to himself that his share in bringing Mr.\r
+Brooke through would be quite innocent.\r
+\r
+But whether he should succeed in that mode of contributing to the\r
+majority on the right side was very doubtful to him. He had written\r
+out various speeches and memoranda for speeches, but he had begun to\r
+perceive that Mr. Brooke's mind, if it had the burthen of remembering\r
+any train of thought, would let it drop, run away in search of it, and\r
+not easily come back again. To collect documents is one mode of\r
+serving your country, and to remember the contents of a document is\r
+another. No! the only way in which Mr. Brooke could be coerced into\r
+thinking of the right arguments at the right time was to be well plied\r
+with them till they took up all the room in his brain. But here there\r
+was the difficulty of finding room, so many things having been taken in\r
+beforehand. Mr. Brooke himself observed that his ideas stood rather in\r
+his way when he was speaking.\r
+\r
+However, Ladislaw's coaching was forthwith to be put to the test, for\r
+before the day of nomination Mr. Brooke was to explain himself to the\r
+worthy electors of Middlemarch from the balcony of the White Hart,\r
+which looked out advantageously at an angle of the market-place,\r
+commanding a large area in front and two converging streets. It was a\r
+fine May morning, and everything seemed hopeful: there was some\r
+prospect of an understanding between Bagster's committee and Brooke's,\r
+to which Mr. Bulstrode, Mr. Standish as a Liberal lawyer, and such\r
+manufacturers as Mr. Plymdale and Mr. Vincy, gave a solidity which\r
+almost counterbalanced Mr. Hawley and his associates who sat for\r
+Pinkerton at the Green Dragon. Mr. Brooke, conscious of having\r
+weakened the blasts of the "Trumpet" against him, by his reforms as a\r
+landlord in the last half year, and hearing himself cheered a little as\r
+he drove into the town, felt his heart tolerably light under his\r
+buff-colored waistcoat. But with regard to critical occasions, it\r
+often happens that all moments seem comfortably remote until the last.\r
+\r
+"This looks well, eh?" said Mr. Brooke as the crowd gathered. "I shall\r
+have a good audience, at any rate. I like this, now--this kind of\r
+public made up of one's own neighbors, you know."\r
+\r
+The weavers and tanners of Middlemarch, unlike Mr. Mawmsey, had never\r
+thought of Mr. Brooke as a neighbor, and were not more attached to him\r
+than if he had been sent in a box from London. But they listened\r
+without much disturbance to the speakers who introduced the candidate,\r
+one of them--a political personage from Brassing, who came to tell\r
+Middlemarch its duty--spoke so fully, that it was alarming to think\r
+what the candidate could find to say after him. Meanwhile the crowd\r
+became denser, and as the political personage neared the end of his\r
+speech, Mr. Brooke felt a remarkable change in his sensations while he\r
+still handled his eye-glass, trifled with documents before him, and\r
+exchanged remarks with his committee, as a man to whom the moment of\r
+summons was indifferent.\r
+\r
+"I'll take another glass of sherry, Ladislaw," he said, with an easy\r
+air, to Will, who was close behind him, and presently handed him the\r
+supposed fortifier. It was ill-chosen; for Mr. Brooke was an\r
+abstemious man, and to drink a second glass of sherry quickly at no\r
+great interval from the first was a surprise to his system which tended\r
+to scatter his energies instead of collecting them. Pray pity him: so\r
+many English gentlemen make themselves miserable by speechifying on\r
+entirely private grounds! whereas Mr. Brooke wished to serve his\r
+country by standing for Parliament--which, indeed, may also be done on\r
+private grounds, but being once undertaken does absolutely demand some\r
+speechifying.\r
+\r
+It was not about the beginning of his speech that Mr. Brooke was at all\r
+anxious; this, he felt sure, would be all right; he should have it\r
+quite pat, cut out as neatly as a set of couplets from Pope. Embarking\r
+would be easy, but the vision of open sea that might come after was\r
+alarming. "And questions, now," hinted the demon just waking up in his\r
+stomach, "somebody may put questions about the schedules.--Ladislaw,"\r
+he continued, aloud, "just hand me the memorandum of the schedules."\r
+\r
+When Mr. Brooke presented himself on the balcony, the cheers were quite\r
+loud enough to counterbalance the yells, groans, brayings, and other\r
+expressions of adverse theory, which were so moderate that Mr. Standish\r
+(decidedly an old bird) observed in the ear next to him, "This looks\r
+dangerous, by God! Hawley has got some deeper plan than this." Still,\r
+the cheers were exhilarating, and no candidate could look more amiable\r
+than Mr. Brooke, with the memorandum in his breast-pocket, his left\r
+hand on the rail of the balcony, and his right trifling with his\r
+eye-glass. The striking points in his appearance were his buff\r
+waistcoat, short-clipped blond hair, and neutral physiognomy. He began\r
+with some confidence.\r
+\r
+"Gentlemen--Electors of Middlemarch!"\r
+\r
+This was so much the right thing that a little pause after it seemed\r
+natural.\r
+\r
+"I'm uncommonly glad to be here--I was never so proud and happy in my\r
+life--never so happy, you know."\r
+\r
+This was a bold figure of speech, but not exactly the right thing; for,\r
+unhappily, the pat opening had slipped away--even couplets from Pope\r
+may be but "fallings from us, vanishings," when fear clutches us, and a\r
+glass of sherry is hurrying like smoke among our ideas. Ladislaw, who\r
+stood at the window behind the speaker, thought, "it's all up now. The\r
+only chance is that, since the best thing won't always do, floundering\r
+may answer for once." Mr. Brooke, meanwhile, having lost other clews,\r
+fell back on himself and his qualifications--always an appropriate\r
+graceful subject for a candidate.\r
+\r
+"I am a close neighbor of yours, my good friends--you've known me on\r
+the bench a good while--I've always gone a good deal into public\r
+questions--machinery, now, and machine-breaking--you're many of you\r
+concerned with machinery, and I've been going into that lately. It\r
+won't do, you know, breaking machines: everything must go on--trade,\r
+manufactures, commerce, interchange of staples--that kind of\r
+thing--since Adam Smith, that must go on. We must look all over the\r
+globe:--'Observation with extensive view,' must look everywhere, 'from\r
+China to Peru,' as somebody says--Johnson, I think, 'The Rambler,' you\r
+know. That is what I have done up to a certain point--not as far as\r
+Peru; but I've not always stayed at home--I saw it wouldn't do. I've\r
+been in the Levant, where some of your Middlemarch goods go--and then,\r
+again, in the Baltic. The Baltic, now."\r
+\r
+Plying among his recollections in this way, Mr. Brooke might have got\r
+along, easily to himself, and would have come back from the remotest\r
+seas without trouble; but a diabolical procedure had been set up by the\r
+enemy. At one and the same moment there had risen above the shoulders\r
+of the crowd, nearly opposite Mr. Brooke, and within ten yards of him,\r
+the effigy of himself: buff-colored waistcoat, eye-glass, and neutral\r
+physiognomy, painted on rag; and there had arisen, apparently in the\r
+air, like the note of the cuckoo, a parrot-like, Punch-voiced echo of\r
+his words. Everybody looked up at the open windows in the houses at\r
+the opposite angles of the converging streets; but they were either\r
+blank, or filled by laughing listeners. The most innocent echo has an\r
+impish mockery in it when it follows a gravely persistent speaker, and\r
+this echo was not at all innocent; if it did not follow with the\r
+precision of a natural echo, it had a wicked choice of the words it\r
+overtook. By the time it said, "The Baltic, now," the laugh which had\r
+been running through the audience became a general shout, and but for\r
+the sobering effects of party and that great public cause which the\r
+entanglement of things had identified with "Brooke of Tipton," the\r
+laugh might have caught his committee. Mr. Bulstrode asked,\r
+reprehensively, what the new police was doing; but a voice could not\r
+well be collared, and an attack on the effigy of the candidate would\r
+have been too equivocal, since Hawley probably meant it to be pelted.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke himself was not in a position to be quickly conscious of\r
+anything except a general slipping away of ideas within himself: he had\r
+even a little singing in the ears, and he was the only person who had\r
+not yet taken distinct account of the echo or discerned the image of\r
+himself. Few things hold the perceptions more thoroughly captive than\r
+anxiety about what we have got to say. Mr. Brooke heard the laughter;\r
+but he had expected some Tory efforts at disturbance, and he was at\r
+this moment additionally excited by the tickling, stinging sense that\r
+his lost exordium was coming back to fetch him from the Baltic.\r
+\r
+"That reminds me," he went on, thrusting a hand into his side-pocket,\r
+with an easy air, "if I wanted a precedent, you know--but we never want\r
+a precedent for the right thing--but there is Chatham, now; I can't say\r
+I should have supported Chatham, or Pitt, the younger Pitt--he was not\r
+a man of ideas, and we want ideas, you know."\r
+\r
+"Blast your ideas! we want the Bill," said a loud rough voice from the\r
+crowd below.\r
+\r
+Immediately the invisible Punch, who had hitherto followed Mr. Brooke,\r
+repeated, "Blast your ideas! we want the Bill." The laugh was louder\r
+than ever, and for the first time Mr. Brooke being himself silent,\r
+heard distinctly the mocking echo. But it seemed to ridicule his\r
+interrupter, and in that light was encouraging; so he replied with\r
+amenity--\r
+\r
+"There is something in what you say, my good friend, and what do we\r
+meet for but to speak our minds--freedom of opinion, freedom of the\r
+press, liberty--that kind of thing? The Bill, now--you shall have the\r
+Bill"--here Mr. Brooke paused a moment to fix on his eye-glass and take\r
+the paper from his breast-pocket, with a sense of being practical and\r
+coming to particulars. The invisible Punch followed:--\r
+\r
+"You shall have the Bill, Mr. Brooke, per electioneering contest, and a\r
+seat outside Parliament as delivered, five thousand pounds, seven\r
+shillings, and fourpence."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke, amid the roars of laughter, turned red, let his eye-glass\r
+fall, and looking about him confusedly, saw the image of himself, which\r
+had come nearer. The next moment he saw it dolorously bespattered with\r
+eggs. His spirit rose a little, and his voice too.\r
+\r
+"Buffoonery, tricks, ridicule the test of truth--all that is very\r
+well"--here an unpleasant egg broke on Mr. Brooke's shoulder, as the\r
+echo said, "All that is very well;" then came a hail of eggs, chiefly\r
+aimed at the image, but occasionally hitting the original, as if by\r
+chance. There was a stream of new men pushing among the crowd;\r
+whistles, yells, bellowings, and fifes made all the greater hubbub\r
+because there was shouting and struggling to put them down. No voice\r
+would have had wing enough to rise above the uproar, and Mr. Brooke,\r
+disagreeably anointed, stood his ground no longer. The frustration\r
+would have been less exasperating if it had been less gamesome and\r
+boyish: a serious assault of which the newspaper reporter "can aver\r
+that it endangered the learned gentleman's ribs," or can respectfully\r
+bear witness to "the soles of that gentleman's boots having been\r
+visible above the railing," has perhaps more consolations attached to\r
+it.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke re-entered the committee-room, saying, as carelessly as he\r
+could, "This is a little too bad, you know. I should have got the ear\r
+of the people by-and-by--but they didn't give me time. I should have\r
+gone into the Bill by-and-by, you know," he added, glancing at\r
+Ladislaw. "However, things will come all right at the nomination."\r
+\r
+But it was not resolved unanimously that things would come right; on\r
+the contrary, the committee looked rather grim, and the political\r
+personage from Brassing was writing busily, as if he were brewing new\r
+devices.\r
+\r
+"It was Bowyer who did it," said Mr. Standish, evasively. "I know it\r
+as well as if he had been advertised. He's uncommonly good at\r
+ventriloquism, and he did it uncommonly well, by God! Hawley has been\r
+having him to dinner lately: there's a fund of talent in Bowyer."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, you never mentioned him to me, Standish, else I would\r
+have invited him to dine," said poor Mr. Brooke, who had gone through a\r
+great deal of inviting for the good of his country.\r
+\r
+"There's not a more paltry fellow in Middlemarch than Bowyer," said\r
+Ladislaw, indignantly, "but it seems as if the paltry fellows were\r
+always to turn the scale."\r
+\r
+Will was thoroughly out of temper with himself as well as with his\r
+"principal," and he went to shut himself in his rooms with a\r
+half-formed resolve to throw up the "Pioneer" and Mr. Brooke together.\r
+Why should he stay? If the impassable gulf between himself and\r
+Dorothea were ever to be filled up, it must rather be by his going away\r
+and getting into a thoroughly different position than by staying here\r
+and slipping into deserved contempt as an understrapper of Brooke's.\r
+Then came the young dream of wonders that he might do--in five years,\r
+for example: political writing, political speaking, would get a higher\r
+value now public life was going to be wider and more national, and they\r
+might give him such distinction that he would not seem to be asking\r
+Dorothea to step down to him. Five years:--if he could only be sure\r
+that she cared for him more than for others; if he could only make her\r
+aware that he stood aloof until he could tell his love without lowering\r
+himself--then he could go away easily, and begin a career which at\r
+five-and-twenty seemed probable enough in the inward order of things,\r
+where talent brings fame, and fame everything else which is delightful.\r
+He could speak and he could write; he could master any subject if he\r
+chose, and he meant always to take the side of reason and justice, on\r
+which he would carry all his ardor. Why should he not one day be\r
+lifted above the shoulders of the crowd, and feel that he had won that\r
+eminence well? Without doubt he would leave Middlemarch, go to town,\r
+and make himself fit for celebrity by "eating his dinners."\r
+\r
+But not immediately: not until some kind of sign had passed between him\r
+and Dorothea. He could not be satisfied until she knew why, even if he\r
+were the man she would choose to marry, he would not marry her. Hence\r
+he must keep his post and bear with Mr. Brooke a little longer.\r
+\r
+But he soon had reason to suspect that Mr. Brooke had anticipated him\r
+in the wish to break up their connection. Deputations without and\r
+voices within had concurred in inducing that philanthropist to take a\r
+stronger measure than usual for the good of mankind; namely, to\r
+withdraw in favor of another candidate, to whom he left the advantages\r
+of his canvassing machinery. He himself called this a strong measure,\r
+but observed that his health was less capable of sustaining excitement\r
+than he had imagined.\r
+\r
+"I have felt uneasy about the chest--it won't do to carry that too\r
+far," he said to Ladislaw in explaining the affair. "I must pull up.\r
+Poor Casaubon was a warning, you know. I've made some heavy advances,\r
+but I've dug a channel. It's rather coarse work--this electioneering,\r
+eh, Ladislaw? dare say you are tired of it. However, we have dug a\r
+channel with the 'Pioneer'--put things in a track, and so on. A more\r
+ordinary man than you might carry it on now--more ordinary, you know."\r
+\r
+"Do you wish me to give it up?" said Will, the quick color coming in\r
+his face, as he rose from the writing-table, and took a turn of three\r
+steps with his hands in his pockets. "I am ready to do so whenever you\r
+wish it."\r
+\r
+"As to wishing, my dear Ladislaw, I have the highest opinion of your\r
+powers, you know. But about the 'Pioneer,' I have been consulting a\r
+little with some of the men on our side, and they are inclined to take\r
+it into their hands--indemnify me to a certain extent--carry it on, in\r
+fact. And under the circumstances, you might like to give up--might\r
+find a better field. These people might not take that high view of you\r
+which I have always taken, as an alter ego, a right hand--though I\r
+always looked forward to your doing something else. I think of having\r
+a run into France. But I'll write you any letters, you know--to\r
+Althorpe and people of that kind. I've met Althorpe."\r
+\r
+"I am exceedingly obliged to you," said Ladislaw, proudly. "Since you\r
+are going to part with the 'Pioneer,' I need not trouble you about the\r
+steps I shall take. I may choose to continue here for the present."\r
+\r
+After Mr. Brooke had left him Will said to himself, "The rest of the\r
+family have been urging him to get rid of me, and he doesn't care now\r
+about my going. I shall stay as long as I like. I shall go of my own\r
+movements and not because they are afraid of me."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LII.\r
+\r
+ "His heart\r
+ The lowliest duties on itself did lay."\r
+ --WORDSWORTH.\r
+\r
+\r
+On that June evening when Mr. Farebrother knew that he was to have the\r
+Lowick living, there was joy in the old fashioned parlor, and even the\r
+portraits of the great lawyers seemed to look on with satisfaction.\r
+His mother left her tea and toast untouched, but sat with her usual\r
+pretty primness, only showing her emotion by that flush in the cheeks\r
+and brightness in the eyes which give an old woman a touching momentary\r
+identity with her far-off youthful self, and saying decisively--\r
+\r
+"The greatest comfort, Camden, is that you have deserved it."\r
+\r
+"When a man gets a good berth, mother, half the deserving must come\r
+after," said the son, brimful of pleasure, and not trying to conceal\r
+it. The gladness in his face was of that active kind which seems to\r
+have energy enough not only to flash outwardly, but to light up busy\r
+vision within: one seemed to see thoughts, as well as delight, in his\r
+glances.\r
+\r
+"Now, aunt," he went on, rubbing his hands and looking at Miss Noble,\r
+who was making tender little beaver-like noises, "There shall be\r
+sugar-candy always on the table for you to steal and give to the\r
+children, and you shall have a great many new stockings to make\r
+presents of, and you shall darn your own more than ever!"\r
+\r
+Miss Noble nodded at her nephew with a subdued half-frightened laugh,\r
+conscious of having already dropped an additional lump of sugar into\r
+her basket on the strength of the new preferment.\r
+\r
+"As for you, Winny"--the Vicar went on--"I shall make no difficulty\r
+about your marrying any Lowick bachelor--Mr. Solomon Featherstone, for\r
+example, as soon as I find you are in love with him."\r
+\r
+Miss Winifred, who had been looking at her brother all the while and\r
+crying heartily, which was her way of rejoicing, smiled through her\r
+tears and said, "You must set me the example, Cam: _you_ must marry\r
+now."\r
+\r
+"With all my heart. But who is in love with me? I am a seedy old\r
+fellow," said the Vicar, rising, pushing his chair away and looking\r
+down at himself. "What do you say, mother?"\r
+\r
+"You are a handsome man, Camden: though not so fine a figure of a man\r
+as your father," said the old lady.\r
+\r
+"I wish you would marry Miss Garth, brother," said Miss Winifred. "She\r
+would make us so lively at Lowick."\r
+\r
+"Very fine! You talk as if young women were tied up to be chosen, like\r
+poultry at market; as if I had only to ask and everybody would have\r
+me," said the Vicar, not caring to specify.\r
+\r
+"We don't want everybody," said Miss Winifred. "But _you_ would like\r
+Miss Garth, mother, shouldn't you?"\r
+\r
+"My son's choice shall be mine," said Mrs. Farebrother, with majestic\r
+discretion, "and a wife would be most welcome, Camden. You will want\r
+your whist at home when we go to Lowick, and Henrietta Noble never was\r
+a whist-player." (Mrs. Farebrother always called her tiny old sister by\r
+that magnificent name.)\r
+\r
+"I shall do without whist now, mother."\r
+\r
+"Why so, Camden? In my time whist was thought an undeniable amusement\r
+for a good churchman," said Mrs. Farebrother, innocent of the meaning\r
+that whist had for her son, and speaking rather sharply, as at some\r
+dangerous countenancing of new doctrine.\r
+\r
+"I shall be too busy for whist; I shall have two parishes," said the\r
+Vicar, preferring not to discuss the virtues of that game.\r
+\r
+He had already said to Dorothea, "I don't feel bound to give up St.\r
+Botolph's. It is protest enough against the pluralism they want to\r
+reform if I give somebody else most of the money. The stronger thing\r
+is not to give up power, but to use it well."\r
+\r
+"I have thought of that," said Dorothea. "So far as self is concerned,\r
+I think it would be easier to give up power and money than to keep\r
+them. It seems very unfitting that I should have this patronage, yet I\r
+felt that I ought not to let it be used by some one else instead of me."\r
+\r
+"It is I who am bound to act so that you will not regret your power,"\r
+said Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+His was one of the natures in which conscience gets the more active\r
+when the yoke of life ceases to gall them. He made no display of\r
+humility on the subject, but in his heart he felt rather ashamed that\r
+his conduct had shown laches which others who did not get benefices\r
+were free from.\r
+\r
+"I used often to wish I had been something else than a clergyman," he\r
+said to Lydgate, "but perhaps it will be better to try and make as good\r
+a clergyman out of myself as I can. That is the well-beneficed point\r
+of view, you perceive, from which difficulties are much simplified," he\r
+ended, smiling.\r
+\r
+The Vicar did feel then as if his share of duties would be easy. But\r
+Duty has a trick of behaving unexpectedly--something like a heavy\r
+friend whom we have amiably asked to visit us, and who breaks his leg\r
+within our gates.\r
+\r
+Hardly a week later, Duty presented itself in his study under the\r
+disguise of Fred Vincy, now returned from Omnibus College with his\r
+bachelor's degree.\r
+\r
+"I am ashamed to trouble you, Mr. Farebrother," said Fred, whose fair\r
+open face was propitiating, "but you are the only friend I can consult.\r
+I told you everything once before, and you were so good that I can't\r
+help coming to you again."\r
+\r
+"Sit down, Fred, I'm ready to hear and do anything I can," said the\r
+Vicar, who was busy packing some small objects for removal, and went on\r
+with his work.\r
+\r
+"I wanted to tell you--" Fred hesitated an instant and then went on\r
+plungingly, "I might go into the Church now; and really, look where I\r
+may, I can't see anything else to do. I don't like it, but I know it's\r
+uncommonly hard on my father to say so, after he has spent a good deal\r
+of money in educating me for it." Fred paused again an instant, and\r
+then repeated, "and I can't see anything else to do."\r
+\r
+"I did talk to your father about it, Fred, but I made little way with\r
+him. He said it was too late. But you have got over one bridge now:\r
+what are your other difficulties?"\r
+\r
+"Merely that I don't like it. I don't like divinity, and preaching,\r
+and feeling obliged to look serious. I like riding across country, and\r
+doing as other men do. I don't mean that I want to be a bad fellow in\r
+any way; but I've no taste for the sort of thing people expect of a\r
+clergyman. And yet what else am I to do? My father can't spare me any\r
+capital, else I might go into farming. And he has no room for me in\r
+his trade. And of course I can't begin to study for law or physic now,\r
+when my father wants me to earn something. It's all very well to say\r
+I'm wrong to go into the Church; but those who say so might as well\r
+tell me to go into the backwoods."\r
+\r
+Fred's voice had taken a tone of grumbling remonstrance, and Mr.\r
+Farebrother might have been inclined to smile if his mind had not been\r
+too busy in imagining more than Fred told him.\r
+\r
+"Have you any difficulties about doctrines--about the Articles?" he\r
+said, trying hard to think of the question simply for Fred's sake.\r
+\r
+"No; I suppose the Articles are right. I am not prepared with any\r
+arguments to disprove them, and much better, cleverer fellows than I am\r
+go in for them entirely. I think it would be rather ridiculous in me\r
+to urge scruples of that sort, as if I were a judge," said Fred, quite\r
+simply.\r
+\r
+"I suppose, then, it has occurred to you that you might be a fair\r
+parish priest without being much of a divine?"\r
+\r
+"Of course, if I am obliged to be a clergyman, I shall try and do my\r
+duty, though I mayn't like it. Do you think any body ought to blame\r
+me?"\r
+\r
+"For going into the Church under the circumstances? That depends on\r
+your conscience, Fred--how far you have counted the cost, and seen what\r
+your position will require of you. I can only tell you about myself,\r
+that I have always been too lax, and have been uneasy in consequence."\r
+\r
+"But there is another hindrance," said Fred, coloring. "I did not tell\r
+you before, though perhaps I may have said things that made you guess\r
+it. There is somebody I am very fond of: I have loved her ever since\r
+we were children."\r
+\r
+"Miss Garth, I suppose?" said the Vicar, examining some labels very\r
+closely.\r
+\r
+"Yes. I shouldn't mind anything if she would have me. And I know I\r
+could be a good fellow then."\r
+\r
+"And you think she returns the feeling?"\r
+\r
+"She never will say so; and a good while ago she made me promise not to\r
+speak to her about it again. And she has set her mind especially\r
+against my being a clergyman; I know that. But I can't give her up. I\r
+do think she cares about me. I saw Mrs. Garth last night, and she said\r
+that Mary was staying at Lowick Rectory with Miss Farebrother."\r
+\r
+"Yes, she is very kindly helping my sister. Do you wish to go there?"\r
+\r
+"No, I want to ask a great favor of you. I am ashamed to bother you in\r
+this way; but Mary might listen to what you said, if you mentioned the\r
+subject to her--I mean about my going into the Church."\r
+\r
+"That is rather a delicate task, my dear Fred. I shall have to\r
+presuppose your attachment to her; and to enter on the subject as you\r
+wish me to do, will be asking her to tell me whether she returns it."\r
+\r
+"That is what I want her to tell you," said Fred, bluntly. "I don't\r
+know what to do, unless I can get at her feeling."\r
+\r
+"You mean that you would be guided by that as to your going into the\r
+Church?"\r
+\r
+"If Mary said she would never have me I might as well go wrong in one\r
+way as another."\r
+\r
+"That is nonsense, Fred. Men outlive their love, but they don't\r
+outlive the consequences of their recklessness."\r
+\r
+"Not my sort of love: I have never been without loving Mary. If I had\r
+to give her up, it would be like beginning to live on wooden legs."\r
+\r
+"Will she not be hurt at my intrusion?"\r
+\r
+"No, I feel sure she will not. She respects you more than any one, and\r
+she would not put you off with fun as she does me. Of course I could\r
+not have told any one else, or asked any one else to speak to her, but\r
+you. There is no one else who could be such a friend to both of us."\r
+Fred paused a moment, and then said, rather complainingly, "And she\r
+ought to acknowledge that I have worked in order to pass. She ought to\r
+believe that I would exert myself for her sake."\r
+\r
+There was a moment's silence before Mr. Farebrother laid down his work,\r
+and putting out his hand to Fred said--\r
+\r
+"Very well, my boy. I will do what you wish."\r
+\r
+That very day Mr. Farebrother went to Lowick parsonage on the nag which\r
+he had just set up. "Decidedly I am an old stalk," he thought, "the\r
+young growths are pushing me aside."\r
+\r
+He found Mary in the garden gathering roses and sprinkling the petals\r
+on a sheet. The sun was low, and tall trees sent their shadows across\r
+the grassy walks where Mary was moving without bonnet or parasol. She\r
+did not observe Mr. Farebrother's approach along the grass, and had\r
+just stooped down to lecture a small black-and-tan terrier, which would\r
+persist in walking on the sheet and smelling at the rose-leaves as Mary\r
+sprinkled them. She took his fore-paws in one hand, and lifted up the\r
+forefinger of the other, while the dog wrinkled his brows and looked\r
+embarrassed. "Fly, Fly, I am ashamed of you," Mary was saying in a\r
+grave contralto. "This is not becoming in a sensible dog; anybody\r
+would think you were a silly young gentleman."\r
+\r
+"You are unmerciful to young gentlemen, Miss Garth," said the Vicar,\r
+within two yards of her.\r
+\r
+Mary started up and blushed. "It always answers to reason with Fly,"\r
+she said, laughingly.\r
+\r
+"But not with young gentlemen?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, with some, I suppose; since some of them turn into excellent men."\r
+\r
+"I am glad of that admission, because I want at this very moment to\r
+interest you in a young gentleman."\r
+\r
+"Not a silly one, I hope," said Mary, beginning to pluck the roses\r
+again, and feeling her heart beat uncomfortably.\r
+\r
+"No; though perhaps wisdom is not his strong point, but rather\r
+affection and sincerity. However, wisdom lies more in those two\r
+qualities than people are apt to imagine. I hope you know by those\r
+marks what young gentleman I mean."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think I do," said Mary, bravely, her face getting more serious,\r
+and her hands cold; "it must be Fred Vincy."\r
+\r
+"He has asked me to consult you about his going into the Church. I\r
+hope you will not think that I consented to take a liberty in promising\r
+to do so."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, giving up the roses, and\r
+folding her arms, but unable to look up, "whenever you have anything to\r
+say to me I feel honored."\r
+\r
+"But before I enter on that question, let me just touch a point on\r
+which your father took me into confidence; by the way, it was that very\r
+evening on which I once before fulfilled a mission from Fred, just\r
+after he had gone to college. Mr. Garth told me what happened on the\r
+night of Featherstone's death--how you refused to burn the will; and he\r
+said that you had some heart-prickings on that subject, because you had\r
+been the innocent means of hindering Fred from getting his ten thousand\r
+pounds. I have kept that in mind, and I have heard something that may\r
+relieve you on that score--may show you that no sin-offering is\r
+demanded from you there."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother paused a moment and looked at Mary. He meant to give\r
+Fred his full advantage, but it would be well, he thought, to clear her\r
+mind of any superstitions, such as women sometimes follow when they do\r
+a man the wrong of marrying him as an act of atonement. Mary's cheeks\r
+had begun to burn a little, and she was mute.\r
+\r
+"I mean, that your action made no real difference to Fred's lot. I\r
+find that the first will would not have been legally good after the\r
+burning of the last; it would not have stood if it had been disputed,\r
+and you may be sure it would have been disputed. So, on that score,\r
+you may feel your mind free."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, Mr. Farebrother," said Mary, earnestly. "I am grateful to\r
+you for remembering my feelings."\r
+\r
+"Well, now I may go on. Fred, you know, has taken his degree. He has\r
+worked his way so far, and now the question is, what is he to do? That\r
+question is so difficult that he is inclined to follow his father's\r
+wishes and enter the Church, though you know better than I do that he\r
+was quite set against that formerly. I have questioned him on the\r
+subject, and I confess I see no insuperable objection to his being a\r
+clergyman, as things go. He says that he could turn his mind to doing\r
+his best in that vocation, on one condition. If that condition were\r
+fulfilled I would do my utmost in helping Fred on. After a time--not,\r
+of course, at first--he might be with me as my curate, and he would\r
+have so much to do that his stipend would be nearly what I used to get\r
+as vicar. But I repeat that there is a condition without which all\r
+this good cannot come to pass. He has opened his heart to me, Miss\r
+Garth, and asked me to plead for him. The condition lies entirely in\r
+your feeling."\r
+\r
+Mary looked so much moved, that he said after a moment, "Let us walk a\r
+little;" and when they were walking he added, "To speak quite plainly,\r
+Fred will not take any course which would lessen the chance that you\r
+would consent to be his wife; but with that prospect, he will try his\r
+best at anything you approve."\r
+\r
+"I cannot possibly say that I will ever be his wife, Mr. Farebrother:\r
+but I certainly never will be his wife if he becomes a clergyman. What\r
+you say is most generous and kind; I don't mean for a moment to correct\r
+your judgment. It is only that I have my girlish, mocking way of\r
+looking at things," said Mary, with a returning sparkle of playfulness\r
+in her answer which only made its modesty more charming.\r
+\r
+"He wishes me to report exactly what you think," said Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"I could not love a man who is ridiculous," said Mary, not choosing to\r
+go deeper. "Fred has sense and knowledge enough to make him\r
+respectable, if he likes, in some good worldly business, but I can\r
+never imagine him preaching and exhorting, and pronouncing blessings,\r
+and praying by the sick, without feeling as if I were looking at a\r
+caricature. His being a clergyman would be only for gentility's sake,\r
+and I think there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile\r
+gentility. I used to think that of Mr. Crowse, with his empty face and\r
+neat umbrella, and mincing little speeches. What right have such men\r
+to represent Christianity--as if it were an institution for getting up\r
+idiots genteelly--as if--" Mary checked herself. She had been carried\r
+along as if she had been speaking to Fred instead of Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"Young women are severe: they don't feel the stress of action as men\r
+do, though perhaps I ought to make you an exception there. But you\r
+don't put Fred Vincy on so low a level as that?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, he has plenty of sense, but I think he would not show it\r
+as a clergyman. He would be a piece of professional affectation."\r
+\r
+"Then the answer is quite decided. As a clergyman he could have no\r
+hope?"\r
+\r
+Mary shook her head.\r
+\r
+"But if he braved all the difficulties of getting his bread in some\r
+other way--will you give him the support of hope? May he count on\r
+winning you?"\r
+\r
+"I think Fred ought not to need telling again what I have already said\r
+to him," Mary answered, with a slight resentment in her manner. "I\r
+mean that he ought not to put such questions until he has done\r
+something worthy, instead of saying that he could do it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother was silent for a minute or more, and then, as they\r
+turned and paused under the shadow of a maple at the end of a grassy\r
+walk, said, "I understand that you resist any attempt to fetter you,\r
+but either your feeling for Fred Vincy excludes your entertaining\r
+another attachment, or it does not: either he may count on your\r
+remaining single until he shall have earned your hand, or he may in any\r
+case be disappointed. Pardon me, Mary--you know I used to catechise\r
+you under that name--but when the state of a woman's affections touches\r
+the happiness of another life--of more lives than one--I think it would\r
+be the nobler course for her to be perfectly direct and open."\r
+\r
+Mary in her turn was silent, wondering not at Mr. Farebrother's manner\r
+but at his tone, which had a grave restrained emotion in it. When the\r
+strange idea flashed across her that his words had reference to\r
+himself, she was incredulous, and ashamed of entertaining it. She had\r
+never thought that any man could love her except Fred, who had espoused\r
+her with the umbrella ring, when she wore socks and little strapped\r
+shoes; still less that she could be of any importance to Mr.\r
+Farebrother, the cleverest man in her narrow circle. She had only time\r
+to feel that all this was hazy and perhaps illusory; but one thing was\r
+clear and determined--her answer.\r
+\r
+"Since you think it my duty, Mr. Farebrother, I will tell you that I\r
+have too strong a feeling for Fred to give him up for any one else. I\r
+should never be quite happy if I thought he was unhappy for the loss of\r
+me. It has taken such deep root in me--my gratitude to him for always\r
+loving me best, and minding so much if I hurt myself, from the time\r
+when we were very little. I cannot imagine any new feeling coming to\r
+make that weaker. I should like better than anything to see him worthy\r
+of every one's respect. But please tell him I will not promise to\r
+marry him till then: I should shame and grieve my father and mother.\r
+He is free to choose some one else."\r
+\r
+"Then I have fulfilled my commission thoroughly," said Mr. Farebrother,\r
+putting out his hand to Mary, "and I shall ride back to Middlemarch\r
+forthwith. With this prospect before him, we shall get Fred into the\r
+right niche somehow, and I hope I shall live to join your hands. God\r
+bless you!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, please stay, and let me give you some tea," said Mary. Her eyes\r
+filled with tears, for something indefinable, something like the\r
+resolute suppression of a pain in Mr. Farebrother's manner, made her\r
+feel suddenly miserable, as she had once felt when she saw her father's\r
+hands trembling in a moment of trouble.\r
+\r
+"No, my dear, no. I must get back."\r
+\r
+In three minutes the Vicar was on horseback again, having gone\r
+magnanimously through a duty much harder than the renunciation of\r
+whist, or even than the writing of penitential meditations.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LIII.\r
+\r
+ It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity from\r
+ what outsiders call inconsistency--putting a dead mechanism\r
+ of "ifs" and "therefores" for the living myriad of hidden\r
+ suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are wrought into\r
+ mutual sustainment.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new interest in Lowick,\r
+had naturally had an especial wish that the new clergyman should be one\r
+whom he thoroughly approved; and he believed it to be a chastisement\r
+and admonition directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation\r
+at large, that just about the time when he came in possession of the\r
+deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court, Mr. Farebrother\r
+"read himself" into the quaint little church and preached his first\r
+sermon to the congregation of farmers, laborers, and village artisans.\r
+It was not that Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church or to\r
+reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had bought the\r
+excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a retreat which he might\r
+gradually enlarge as to the land and beautify as to the dwelling, until\r
+it should be conducive to the divine glory that he should enter on it\r
+as a residence, partially withdrawing from his present exertions in the\r
+administration of business, and throwing more conspicuously on the side\r
+of Gospel truth the weight of local landed proprietorship, which\r
+Providence might increase by unforeseen occasions of purchase. A\r
+strong leading in this direction seemed to have been given in the\r
+surprising facility of getting Stone Court, when every one had expected\r
+that Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have clung to it as the Garden of\r
+Eden. That was what poor old Peter himself had expected; having often,\r
+in imagination, looked up through the sods above him, and, unobstructed\r
+by perspective, seen his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine old\r
+place to the perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors.\r
+\r
+But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors! We\r
+judge from our own desires, and our neighbors themselves are not always\r
+open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs. The cool and judicious\r
+Joshua Rigg had not allowed his parent to perceive that Stone Court was\r
+anything less than the chief good in his estimation, and he had\r
+certainly wished to call it his own. But as Warren Hastings looked at\r
+gold and thought of buying Daylesford, so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone\r
+Court and thought of buying gold. He had a very distinct and intense\r
+vision of his chief good, the vigorous greed which he had inherited\r
+having taken a special form by dint of circumstance: and his chief good\r
+was to be a moneychanger. From his earliest employment as an\r
+errand-boy in a seaport, he had looked through the windows of the\r
+moneychangers as other boys look through the windows of the\r
+pastry-cooks; the fascination had wrought itself gradually into a deep\r
+special passion; he meant, when he had property, to do many things, one\r
+of them being to marry a genteel young person; but these were all\r
+accidents and joys that imagination could dispense with. The one joy\r
+after which his soul thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop on a\r
+much-frequented quay, to have locks all round him of which he held the\r
+keys, and to look sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of\r
+all nations, while helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the\r
+other side of an iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a\r
+power enabling him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it.\r
+And when others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for\r
+life, Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off\r
+when he should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in\r
+safes and locks.\r
+\r
+Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's sale of his\r
+land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he interpreted it as a\r
+cheering dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose which\r
+he had for some time entertained without external encouragement; he\r
+interpreted it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his\r
+thanksgiving in guarded phraseology. His doubts did not arise from the\r
+possible relations of the event to Joshua Rigg's destiny, which\r
+belonged to the unmapped regions not taken under the providential\r
+government, except perhaps in an imperfect colonial way; but they arose\r
+from reflecting that this dispensation too might be a chastisement for\r
+himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living clearly was.\r
+\r
+This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of\r
+deceiving him: it was what he said to himself--it was as genuinely his\r
+mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be, if you happen\r
+to disagree with him. For the egoism which enters into our theories\r
+does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is\r
+satisfied, the more robust is our belief.\r
+\r
+However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode,\r
+hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone, had become\r
+the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would say "if he were\r
+worthy to know," had become an inexhaustible and consolatory subject of\r
+conversation to his disappointed relatives. The tables were now turned\r
+on that dear brother departed, and to contemplate the frustration of\r
+his cunning by the superior cunning of things in general was a cud of\r
+delight to Solomon. Mrs. Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof\r
+that it did not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the\r
+genuine; and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said,\r
+"Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased with the\r
+almshouses after all."\r
+\r
+Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage\r
+which her husband's health was likely to get from the purchase of Stone\r
+Court. Few days passed without his riding thither and looking over\r
+some part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were delicious\r
+in that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending\r
+forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden. One\r
+evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning in\r
+golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was pausing\r
+on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth, who had\r
+met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question of stable\r
+drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more\r
+than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation.\r
+He was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in\r
+himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when\r
+the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and\r
+revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may be\r
+held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a\r
+measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching proof that we are\r
+peculiar instruments of the divine intention. The memory has as many\r
+moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama. At this\r
+moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the sunshine were all one with that of\r
+far-off evenings when he was a very young man and used to go out\r
+preaching beyond Highbury. And he would willingly have had that\r
+service of exhortation in prospect now. The texts were there still,\r
+and so was his own facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was\r
+interrupted by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback,\r
+and was just shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed--\r
+\r
+"Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming along the lane?\r
+He's like one of those men one sees about after the races."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made no\r
+reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles, whose\r
+appearance presented no other change than such as was due to a suit of\r
+black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards of the horseman\r
+now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face as he\r
+whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr. Bulstrode, and\r
+at last exclaiming:--\r
+\r
+"By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though the\r
+five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you,\r
+eh? you didn't expect to see _me_ here. Come, shake us by the hand."\r
+To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would be only one\r
+mode of saying that it was evening. Caleb Garth could see that there\r
+was a moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode, but it ended\r
+in his putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying--\r
+\r
+"I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place."\r
+\r
+"Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles, adjusting\r
+himself in a swaggering attitude. "I came to see him here before. I'm\r
+not so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a\r
+letter--what you may call a providential thing. It's uncommonly\r
+fortunate I met you, though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson:\r
+he's not affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now. To tell the\r
+truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your address,\r
+for--look here!" Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.\r
+\r
+Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger\r
+on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose\r
+acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker's\r
+life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they\r
+must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity. But Caleb was\r
+peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were\r
+almost absent from his mind; and one of these was curiosity about\r
+personal affairs. Especially if there was anything discreditable to be\r
+found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and\r
+if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil doings were\r
+discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit. He now spurred\r
+his horse, and saying, "I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode; I must\r
+be getting home," set off at a trot.\r
+\r
+"You didn't put your full address to this letter," Raffles continued.\r
+"That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be. 'The\r
+Shrubs,'--they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?--have cut\r
+the London concern altogether--perhaps turned country squire--have a\r
+rural mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is ago! The\r
+old lady must have been dead a pretty long while--gone to glory without\r
+the pain of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove!\r
+you're very pale and pasty, Nick. Come, if you're going home, I'll\r
+walk by your side."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.\r
+Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its\r
+evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning: sin\r
+seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation\r
+an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of private\r
+vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the\r
+divine purposes. And now, as if by some hideous magic, this loud red\r
+figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity--an incorporate\r
+past which had not entered into his imagination of chastisements. But\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or speak\r
+rashly.\r
+\r
+"I was going home," he said, "but I can defer my ride a little. And\r
+you can, if you please, rest here."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Raffles, making a grimace. "I don't care now about\r
+seeing my stepson. I'd rather go home with you."\r
+\r
+"Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here no longer. I\r
+am master here now."\r
+\r
+Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of surprise, before\r
+he said, "Well then, I've no objection. I've had enough walking from\r
+the coach-road. I never was much of a walker, or rider either. What I\r
+like is a smart vehicle and a spirited cob. I was always a little\r
+heavy in the saddle. What a pleasant surprise it must be to you to see\r
+me, old fellow!" he continued, as they turned towards the house. "You\r
+don't say so; but you never took your luck heartily--you were always\r
+thinking of improving the occasion--you'd such a gift for improving\r
+your luck."\r
+\r
+Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and swung his leg in a\r
+swaggering manner which was rather too much for his companion's\r
+judicious patience.\r
+\r
+"If I remember rightly," Mr. Bulstrode observed, with chill anger, "our\r
+acquaintance many years ago had not the sort of intimacy which you are\r
+now assuming, Mr. Raffles. Any services you desire of me will be the\r
+more readily rendered if you will avoid a tone of familiarity which did\r
+not lie in our former intercourse, and can hardly be warranted by more\r
+than twenty years of separation."\r
+\r
+"You don't like being called Nick? Why, I always called you Nick in my\r
+heart, and though lost to sight, to memory dear. By Jove! my feelings\r
+have ripened for you like fine old cognac. I hope you've got some in\r
+the house now. Josh filled my flask well the last time."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the desire for cognac\r
+was not stronger in Raffles than the desire to torment, and that a hint\r
+of annoyance always served him as a fresh cue. But it was at least\r
+clear that further objection was useless, and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving\r
+orders to the housekeeper for the accommodation of the guest, had a\r
+resolute air of quietude.\r
+\r
+There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper had been in the\r
+service of Rigg also, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode\r
+entertained Raffles merely as a friend of her former master.\r
+\r
+When there was food and drink spread before his visitor in the\r
+wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr. Bulstrode said--\r
+\r
+"Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles, that we can hardly\r
+enjoy each other's society. The wisest plan for both of us will\r
+therefore be to part as soon as possible. Since you say that you\r
+wished to meet me, you probably considered that you had some business\r
+to transact with me. But under the circumstances I will invite you to\r
+remain here for the night, and I will myself ride over here early\r
+to-morrow morning--before breakfast, in fact, when I can receive any\r
+Communication you have to make to me."\r
+\r
+"With all my heart," said Raffles; "this is a comfortable place--a\r
+little dull for a continuance; but I can put up with it for a night,\r
+with this good liquor and the prospect of seeing you again in the\r
+morning. You're a much better host than my stepson was; but Josh owed\r
+me a bit of a grudge for marrying his mother; and between you and me\r
+there was never anything but kindness."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of joviality and\r
+sneering in Raffles' manner was a good deal the effect of drink, had\r
+determined to wait till he was quite sober before he spent more words\r
+upon him. But he rode home with a terribly lucid vision of the\r
+difficulty there would be in arranging any result that could be\r
+permanently counted on with this man. It was inevitable that he should\r
+wish to get rid of John Raffles, though his reappearance could not be\r
+regarded as lying outside the divine plan. The spirit of evil might\r
+have sent him to threaten Mr. Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument\r
+of good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a\r
+chastisement of a new kind. It was an hour of anguish for him very\r
+different from the hours in which his struggle had been securely\r
+private, and which had ended with a sense that his secret misdeeds were\r
+pardoned and his services accepted. Those misdeeds even when\r
+committed--had they not been half sanctified by the singleness of his\r
+desire to devote himself and all he possessed to the furtherance of the\r
+divine scheme? And was he after all to become a mere stone of\r
+stumbling and a rock of offence? For who would understand the work\r
+within him? Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting\r
+disgrace upon him, confound his whole life and the truths he had\r
+espoused, in one heap of obloquy?\r
+\r
+In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr. Bulstrode's mind\r
+clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman\r
+ends. But even while we are talking and meditating about the earth's\r
+orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is\r
+the stable earth and the changing day. And now within all the\r
+automatic succession of theoretic phrases--distinct and inmost as the\r
+shiver and the ache of oncoming fever when we are discussing abstract\r
+pain, was the forecast of disgrace in the presence of his neighbors and\r
+of his own wife. For the pain, as well as the public estimate of\r
+disgrace, depends on the amount of previous profession. To men who\r
+only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's dock is\r
+disgrace. But Mr. Bulstrode had aimed at being an eminent Christian.\r
+\r
+It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when he again\r
+reached Stone Court. The fine old place never looked more like a\r
+delightful home than at that moment; the great white lilies were in\r
+flower, the nasturtiums, their pretty leaves all silvered with dew,\r
+were running away over the low stone wall; the very noises all around\r
+had a heart of peace within them. But everything was spoiled for the\r
+owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited the descent of\r
+Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to breakfast.\r
+\r
+It was not long before they were seated together in the wainscoted\r
+parlor over their tea and toast, which was as much as Raffles cared to\r
+take at that early hour. The difference between his morning and\r
+evening self was not so great as his companion had imagined that it\r
+might be; the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the stronger\r
+because his spirits were rather less highly pitched. Certainly his\r
+manners seemed more disagreeable by the morning light.\r
+\r
+"As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles," said the banker, who\r
+could hardly do more than sip his tea and break his toast without\r
+eating it, "I shall be obliged if you will mention at once the ground\r
+on which you wished to meet with me. I presume that you have a home\r
+elsewhere and will be glad to return to it."\r
+\r
+"Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see an old friend,\r
+Nick?--I must call you Nick--we always did call you young Nick when we\r
+knew you meant to marry the old widow. Some said you had a handsome\r
+family likeness to old Nick, but that was your mother's fault, calling\r
+you Nicholas. Aren't you glad to see me again? I expected an invite\r
+to stay with you at some pretty place. My own establishment is broken\r
+up now my wife's dead. I've no particular attachment to any spot; I\r
+would as soon settle hereabout as anywhere."\r
+\r
+"May I ask why you returned from America? I considered that the strong\r
+wish you expressed to go there, when an adequate sum was furnished, was\r
+tantamount to an engagement that you would remain there for life."\r
+\r
+"Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same thing as a wish\r
+to stay. But I did stay a matter of ten years; it didn't suit me to\r
+stay any longer. And I'm not going again, Nick." Here Mr. Raffles\r
+winked slowly as he looked at Mr. Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+"Do you wish to be settled in any business? What is your calling now?"\r
+\r
+"Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I can. I don't\r
+care about working any more. If I did anything it would be a little\r
+travelling in the tobacco line--or something of that sort, which takes\r
+a man into agreeable company. But not without an independence to fall\r
+back upon. That's what I want: I'm not so strong as I was, Nick,\r
+though I've got more color than you. I want an independence."\r
+\r
+"That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep at a\r
+distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too much eagerness\r
+in his undertone.\r
+\r
+"That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles coolly. "I see\r
+no reason why I shouldn't make a few acquaintances hereabout. I'm not\r
+ashamed of myself as company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau at\r
+the turnpike when I got down--change of linen--genuine--honor bright--more\r
+than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning, straps\r
+and everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here." Mr.\r
+Raffles had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself,\r
+particularly at his straps. His chief intention was to annoy\r
+Bulstrode, but he really thought that his appearance now would produce\r
+a good effect, and that he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in\r
+a mourning style which implied solid connections.\r
+\r
+"If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles," said Bulstrode,\r
+after a moment's pause, "you will expect to meet my wishes."\r
+\r
+"Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality. "Didn't I\r
+always do it? Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me, and I got but\r
+little. I've often thought since, I might have done better by telling\r
+the old woman that I'd found her daughter and her grandchild: it would\r
+have suited my feelings better; I've got a soft place in my heart. But\r
+you've buried the old lady by this time, I suppose--it's all one to her\r
+now. And you've got your fortune out of that profitable business which\r
+had such a blessing on it. You've taken to being a nob, buying land,\r
+being a country bashaw. Still in the Dissenting line, eh? Still\r
+godly? Or taken to the Church as more genteel?"\r
+\r
+This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion of his tongue\r
+was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitude that it was\r
+not a nightmare, but a waking misery. Mr. Bulstrode felt a shuddering\r
+nausea, and did not speak, but was considering diligently whether he\r
+should not leave Raffles to do as he would, and simply defy him as a\r
+slanderer. The man would soon show himself disreputable enough to make\r
+people disbelieve him. "But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth\r
+about _you_," said discerning consciousness. And again: it seemed no\r
+wrong to keep Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the\r
+direct falsehood of denying true statements. It was one thing to look\r
+back on forgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax\r
+customs, and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of\r
+falsehood.\r
+\r
+But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of using time\r
+to the utmost.\r
+\r
+"I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things went confoundedly\r
+with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of\r
+gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I married when I came\r
+back--a nice woman in the tobacco trade--very fond of me--but the\r
+trade was restricted, as we say. She had been settled there a good\r
+many years by a friend; but there was a son too much in the case. Josh\r
+and I never hit it off. However, I made the most of the position, and\r
+I've always taken my glass in good company. It's been all on the\r
+square with me; I'm as open as the day. You won't take it ill of me\r
+that I didn't look you up before. I've got a complaint that makes me a\r
+little dilatory. I thought you were trading and praying away in London\r
+still, and didn't find you there. But you see I was sent to you,\r
+Nick--perhaps for a blessing to both of us."\r
+\r
+Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect more\r
+superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculates on the\r
+meanest feelings in men could be called intellect, he had his share,\r
+for under the blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Bulstrode,\r
+there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had been so\r
+many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode had determined on his move,\r
+and he said, with gathered resolution--\r
+\r
+"You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a\r
+man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.\r
+Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you\r
+with a regular annuity--in quarterly payments--so long as you fulfil a\r
+promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood. It is in your\r
+power to choose. If you insist on remaining here, even for a short\r
+time, you will get nothing from me. I shall decline to know you."\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion, "that reminds me of\r
+a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable."\r
+\r
+"Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode, with white heat;\r
+"the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other."\r
+\r
+"You can't understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meant that I\r
+should never decline to know you. But let us be serious. Your\r
+quarterly payment won't quite suit me. I like my freedom."\r
+\r
+Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room,\r
+swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation. At last\r
+he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, "I'll tell you what! Give us\r
+a couple of hundreds--come, that's modest--and I'll go away--honor\r
+bright!--pick up my portmanteau and go away. But I shall not give up\r
+my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall come and go where I like.\r
+Perhaps it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend;\r
+perhaps not. Have you the money with you?"\r
+\r
+"No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate\r
+riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future\r
+uncertainties. "I will forward you the other if you will mention an\r
+address."\r
+\r
+"No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles. "I'll take a\r
+stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by that time."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone\r
+through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of\r
+this loud invulnerable man. At that moment he snatched at a temporary\r
+repose to be won on any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles\r
+suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a\r
+sudden recollection--\r
+\r
+"I did have another look after Sarah again, though I didn't tell you;\r
+I'd a tender conscience about that pretty young woman. I didn't find\r
+her, but I found out her husband's name, and I made a note of it. But\r
+hang it, I lost my pocketbook. However, if I heard it, I should know\r
+it again. I've got my faculties as if I was in my prime, but names\r
+wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I'm no better than a confounded tax-paper\r
+before the names are filled in. However, if I hear of her and her\r
+family, you shall know, Nick. You'd like to do something for her, now\r
+she's your step-daughter."\r
+\r
+"Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady look of his\r
+light-gray eyes; "though that might reduce my power of assisting you."\r
+\r
+As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at his back, and\r
+then turned towards the window to watch the banker riding away--virtually\r
+at his command. His lips first curled with a smile and then opened\r
+with a short triumphant laugh.\r
+\r
+"But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said, half aloud,\r
+scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows horizontally. He had not\r
+really cared or thought about this point of forgetfulness until it\r
+occurred to him in his invention of annoyances for Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+"It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he went on, with a\r
+sense that he was getting hold of the slippery name. But the hold was\r
+too slight, and he soon got tired of this mental chase; for few men\r
+were more impatient of private occupation or more in need of making\r
+themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles. He preferred using his\r
+time in pleasant conversation with the bailiff and the housekeeper,\r
+from whom he gathered as much as he wanted to know about Mr.\r
+Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch.\r
+\r
+After all, however, there was a dull space of time which needed\r
+relieving with bread and cheese and ale, and when he was seated alone\r
+with these resources in the wainscoted parlor, he suddenly slapped his\r
+knee, and exclaimed, "Ladislaw!" That action of memory which he had\r
+tried to set going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly\r
+completed itself without conscious effort--a common experience,\r
+agreeable as a completed sneeze, even if the name remembered is of no\r
+value. Raffles immediately took out his pocket-book, and wrote down\r
+the name, not because he expected to use it, but merely for the sake of\r
+not being at a loss if he ever did happen to want it. He was not going\r
+to tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and to a mind\r
+like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable good in a secret.\r
+\r
+He was satisfied with his present success, and by three o'clock that\r
+day he had taken up his portmanteau at the turnpike and mounted the\r
+coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's eyes of an ugly black spot on the\r
+landscape at Stone Court, but not relieving him of the dread that the\r
+black spot might reappear and become inseparable even from the vision\r
+of his hearth.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VI.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+THE WIDOW AND THE WIFE.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LIV.\r
+\r
+ "Negli occhi porta la mia donna Amore;\r
+ Per che si fa gentil ciò ch'ella mira:\r
+ Ov'ella passa, ogni uom ver lei si gira,\r
+ E cui saluta fa tremar lo core.\r
+\r
+ Sicchè, bassando il viso, tutto smore,\r
+ E d'ogni suo difetto allor sospira:\r
+ Fuggon dinanzi a lei Superbia ed Ira:\r
+ Aiutatemi, donne, a farle onore.\r
+\r
+ Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile\r
+ Nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente;\r
+ Ond'è beato chi prima la vide.\r
+ Quel ch'ella par quand' un poco sorride,\r
+ Non si può dicer, nè tener a mente,\r
+ Si è nuovo miracolo gentile."\r
+ --DANTE: la Vita Nuova.\r
+\r
+\r
+By that delightful morning when the hay-ricks at Stone Court were\r
+scenting the air quite impartially, as if Mr. Raffles had been a guest\r
+worthy of finest incense, Dorothea had again taken up her abode at\r
+Lowick Manor. After three months Freshitt had become rather\r
+oppressive: to sit like a model for Saint Catherine looking rapturously\r
+at Celia's baby would not do for many hours in the day, and to remain\r
+in that momentous babe's presence with persistent disregard was a\r
+course that could not have been tolerated in a childless sister.\r
+Dorothea would have been capable of carrying baby joyfully for a mile\r
+if there had been need, and of loving it the more tenderly for that\r
+labor; but to an aunt who does not recognize her infant nephew as\r
+Bouddha, and has nothing to do for him but to admire, his behavior is\r
+apt to appear monotonous, and the interest of watching him exhaustible.\r
+This possibility was quite hidden from Celia, who felt that Dorothea's\r
+childless widowhood fell in quite prettily with the birth of little\r
+Arthur (baby was named after Mr. Brooke).\r
+\r
+"Dodo is just the creature not to mind about having anything of her\r
+own--children or anything!" said Celia to her husband. "And if she\r
+had had a baby, it never could have been such a dear as Arthur. Could\r
+it, James?\r
+\r
+"Not if it had been like Casaubon," said Sir James, conscious of some\r
+indirectness in his answer, and of holding a strictly private opinion\r
+as to the perfections of his first-born.\r
+\r
+"No! just imagine! Really it was a mercy," said Celia; "and I think it\r
+is very nice for Dodo to be a widow. She can be just as fond of our\r
+baby as if it were her own, and she can have as many notions of her own\r
+as she likes."\r
+\r
+"It is a pity she was not a queen," said the devout Sir James.\r
+\r
+"But what should we have been then? We must have been something else,"\r
+said Celia, objecting to so laborious a flight of imagination. "I like\r
+her better as she is."\r
+\r
+Hence, when she found that Dorothea was making arrangements for her\r
+final departure to Lowick, Celia raised her eyebrows with\r
+disappointment, and in her quiet unemphatic way shot a needle-arrow of\r
+sarcasm.\r
+\r
+"What will you do at Lowick, Dodo? You say yourself there is nothing\r
+to be done there: everybody is so clean and well off, it makes you\r
+quite melancholy. And here you have been so happy going all about\r
+Tipton with Mr. Garth into the worst backyards. And now uncle is\r
+abroad, you and Mr. Garth can have it all your own way; and I am sure\r
+James does everything you tell him."\r
+\r
+"I shall often come here, and I shall see how baby grows all the\r
+better," said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"But you will never see him washed," said Celia; "and that is quite the\r
+best part of the day." She was almost pouting: it did seem to her very\r
+hard in Dodo to go away from the baby when she might stay.\r
+\r
+"Dear Kitty, I will come and stay all night on purpose," said Dorothea;\r
+"but I want to be alone now, and in my own home. I wish to know the\r
+Farebrothers better, and to talk to Mr. Farebrother about what there is\r
+to be done in Middlemarch."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's native strength of will was no longer all converted into\r
+resolute submission. She had a great yearning to be at Lowick, and was\r
+simply determined to go, not feeling bound to tell all her reasons.\r
+But every one around her disapproved. Sir James was much pained, and\r
+offered that they should all migrate to Cheltenham for a few months\r
+with the sacred ark, otherwise called a cradle: at that period a man\r
+could hardly know what to propose if Cheltenham were rejected.\r
+\r
+The Dowager Lady Chettam, just returned from a visit to her daughter in\r
+town, wished, at least, that Mrs. Vigo should be written to, and\r
+invited to accept the office of companion to Mrs. Casaubon: it was not\r
+credible that Dorothea as a young widow would think of living alone in\r
+the house at Lowick. Mrs. Vigo had been reader and secretary to royal\r
+personages, and in point of knowledge and sentiments even Dorothea\r
+could have nothing to object to her.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader said, privately, "You will certainly go mad in that\r
+house alone, my dear. You will see visions. We have all got to exert\r
+ourselves a little to keep sane, and call things by the same names as\r
+other people call them by. To be sure, for younger sons and women who\r
+have no money, it is a sort of provision to go mad: they are taken care\r
+of then. But you must not run into that. I dare say you are a little\r
+bored here with our good dowager; but think what a bore you might\r
+become yourself to your fellow-creatures if you were always playing\r
+tragedy queen and taking things sublimely. Sitting alone in that\r
+library at Lowick you may fancy yourself ruling the weather; you must\r
+get a few people round you who wouldn't believe you if you told them.\r
+That is a good lowering medicine."\r
+\r
+"I never called everything by the same name that all the people about\r
+me did," said Dorothea, stoutly.\r
+\r
+"But I suppose you have found out your mistake, my dear," said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, "and that is a proof of sanity."\r
+\r
+Dorothea was aware of the sting, but it did not hurt her. "No," she\r
+said, "I still think that the greater part of the world is mistaken\r
+about many things. Surely one may be sane and yet think so, since the\r
+greater part of the world has often had to come round from its opinion."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader said no more on that point to Dorothea, but to her\r
+husband she remarked, "It will be well for her to marry again as soon\r
+as it is proper, if one could get her among the right people. Of\r
+course the Chettams would not wish it. But I see clearly a husband is\r
+the best thing to keep her in order. If we were not so poor I would\r
+invite Lord Triton. He will be marquis some day, and there is no\r
+denying that she would make a good marchioness: she looks handsomer\r
+than ever in her mourning."\r
+\r
+"My dear Elinor, do let the poor woman alone. Such contrivances are of\r
+no use," said the easy Rector.\r
+\r
+"No use? How are matches made, except by bringing men and women\r
+together? And it is a shame that her uncle should have run away and\r
+shut up the Grange just now. There ought to be plenty of eligible\r
+matches invited to Freshitt and the Grange. Lord Triton is precisely\r
+the man: full of plans for making the people happy in a soft-headed\r
+sort of way. That would just suit Mrs. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+"Let Mrs. Casaubon choose for herself, Elinor."\r
+\r
+"That is the nonsense you wise men talk! How can she choose if she has\r
+no variety to choose from? A woman's choice usually means taking the\r
+only man she can get. Mark my words, Humphrey. If her friends don't\r
+exert themselves, there will be a worse business than the Casaubon\r
+business yet."\r
+\r
+"For heaven's sake don't touch on that topic, Elinor! It is a very sore\r
+point with Sir James. He would be deeply offended if you entered on it\r
+to him unnecessarily."\r
+\r
+"I have never entered on it," said Mrs Cadwallader, opening her hands.\r
+"Celia told me all about the will at the beginning, without any asking\r
+of mine."\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes; but they want the thing hushed up, and I understand that the\r
+young fellow is going out of the neighborhood."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cadwallader said nothing, but gave her husband three significant\r
+nods, with a very sarcastic expression in her dark eyes.\r
+\r
+Dorothea quietly persisted in spite of remonstrance and persuasion. So\r
+by the end of June the shutters were all opened at Lowick Manor, and\r
+the morning gazed calmly into the library, shining on the rows of\r
+note-books as it shines on the weary waste planted with huge stones,\r
+the mute memorial of a forgotten faith; and the evening laden with\r
+roses entered silently into the blue-green boudoir where Dorothea chose\r
+oftenest to sit. At first she walked into every room, questioning the\r
+eighteen months of her married life, and carrying on her thoughts as if\r
+they were a speech to be heard by her husband. Then, she lingered in\r
+the library and could not be at rest till she had carefully ranged all\r
+the note-books as she imagined that he would wish to see them, in\r
+orderly sequence. The pity which had been the restraining compelling\r
+motive in her life with him still clung about his image, even while she\r
+remonstrated with him in indignant thought and told him that he was\r
+unjust. One little act of hers may perhaps be smiled at as\r
+superstitious. The Synoptical Tabulation for the use of Mrs. Casaubon,\r
+she carefully enclosed and sealed, writing within the envelope, "I\r
+could not use it. Do you not see now that I could not submit my soul\r
+to yours, by working hopelessly at what I have no belief in--Dorothea?"\r
+Then she deposited the paper in her own desk.\r
+\r
+That silent colloquy was perhaps only the more earnest because\r
+underneath and through it all there was always the deep longing which\r
+had really determined her to come to Lowick. The longing was to see\r
+Will Ladislaw. She did not know any good that could come of their\r
+meeting: she was helpless; her hands had been tied from making up to\r
+him for any unfairness in his lot. But her soul thirsted to see him.\r
+How could it be otherwise? If a princess in the days of enchantment\r
+had seen a four-footed creature from among those which live in herds\r
+come to her once and again with a human gaze which rested upon her with\r
+choice and beseeching, what would she think of in her journeying, what\r
+would she look for when the herds passed her? Surely for the gaze\r
+which had found her, and which she would know again. Life would be no\r
+better than candle-light tinsel and daylight rubbish if our spirits\r
+were not touched by what has been, to issues of longing and constancy.\r
+It was true that Dorothea wanted to know the Farebrothers better, and\r
+especially to talk to the new rector, but also true that remembering\r
+what Lydgate had told her about Will Ladislaw and little Miss Noble,\r
+she counted on Will's coming to Lowick to see the Farebrother family.\r
+The very first Sunday, _before_ she entered the church, she saw him as\r
+she had seen him the last time she was there, alone in the clergyman's\r
+pew; but _when_ she entered his figure was gone.\r
+\r
+In the week-days when she went to see the ladies at the Rectory, she\r
+listened in vain for some word that they might let fall about Will; but\r
+it seemed to her that Mrs. Farebrother talked of every one else in the\r
+neighborhood and out of it.\r
+\r
+"Probably some of Mr. Farebrother's Middlemarch hearers may follow him\r
+to Lowick sometimes. Do you not think so?" said Dorothea, rather\r
+despising herself for having a secret motive in asking the question.\r
+\r
+"If they are wise they will, Mrs. Casaubon," said the old lady. "I see\r
+that you set a right value on my son's preaching. His grandfather on\r
+my side was an excellent clergyman, but his father was in the law:--most\r
+exemplary and honest nevertheless, which is a reason for our never\r
+being rich. They say Fortune is a woman and capricious. But sometimes\r
+she is a good woman and gives to those who merit, which has been the\r
+case with you, Mrs. Casaubon, who have given a living to my son."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Farebrother recurred to her knitting with a dignified satisfaction\r
+in her neat little effort at oratory, but this was not what Dorothea\r
+wanted to hear. Poor thing! she did not even know whether Will\r
+Ladislaw was still at Middlemarch, and there was no one whom she dared\r
+to ask, unless it were Lydgate. But just now she could not see Lydgate\r
+without sending for him or going to seek him. Perhaps Will Ladislaw,\r
+having heard of that strange ban against him left by Mr. Casaubon, had\r
+felt it better that he and she should not meet again, and perhaps she\r
+was wrong to wish for a meeting that others might find many good\r
+reasons against. Still "I do wish it" came at the end of those wise\r
+reflections as naturally as a sob after holding the breath. And the\r
+meeting did happen, but in a formal way quite unexpected by her.\r
+\r
+One morning, about eleven, Dorothea was seated in her boudoir with a\r
+map of the land attached to the manor and other papers before her,\r
+which were to help her in making an exact statement for herself of her\r
+income and affairs. She had not yet applied herself to her work, but\r
+was seated with her hands folded on her lap, looking out along the\r
+avenue of limes to the distant fields. Every leaf was at rest in the\r
+sunshine, the familiar scene was changeless, and seemed to represent\r
+the prospect of her life, full of motiveless ease--motiveless, if her\r
+own energy could not seek out reasons for ardent action. The widow's\r
+cap of those times made an oval frame for the face, and had a crown\r
+standing up; the dress was an experiment in the utmost laying on of\r
+crape; but this heavy solemnity of clothing made her face look all the\r
+younger, with its recovered bloom, and the sweet, inquiring candor of\r
+her eyes.\r
+\r
+Her reverie was broken by Tantripp, who came to say that Mr. Ladislaw\r
+was below, and begged permission to see Madam if it were not too early.\r
+\r
+"I will see him," said Dorothea, rising immediately. "Let him be shown\r
+into the drawing-room."\r
+\r
+The drawing-room was the most neutral room in the house to her--the\r
+one least associated with the trials of her married life: the damask\r
+matched the wood-work, which was all white and gold; there were two\r
+tall mirrors and tables with nothing on them--in brief, it was a room\r
+where you had no reason for sitting in one place rather than in\r
+another. It was below the boudoir, and had also a bow-window looking\r
+out on the avenue. But when Pratt showed Will Ladislaw into it the\r
+window was open; and a winged visitor, buzzing in and out now and then\r
+without minding the furniture, made the room look less formal and\r
+uninhabited.\r
+\r
+"Glad to see you here again, sir," said Pratt, lingering to adjust a\r
+blind.\r
+\r
+"I am only come to say good-by, Pratt," said Will, who wished even the\r
+butler to know that he was too proud to hang about Mrs. Casaubon now\r
+she was a rich widow.\r
+\r
+"Very sorry to hear it, sir," said Pratt, retiring. Of course, as a\r
+servant who was to be told nothing, he knew the fact of which Ladislaw\r
+was still ignorant, and had drawn his inferences; indeed, had not\r
+differed from his betrothed Tantripp when she said, "Your master was as\r
+jealous as a fiend--and no reason. Madam would look higher than Mr.\r
+Ladislaw, else I don't know her. Mrs. Cadwallader's maid says there's\r
+a lord coming who is to marry her when the mourning's over."\r
+\r
+There were not many moments for Will to walk about with his hat in his\r
+hand before Dorothea entered. The meeting was very different from that\r
+first meeting in Rome when Will had been embarrassed and Dorothea calm.\r
+This time he felt miserable but determined, while she was in a state of\r
+agitation which could not be hidden. Just outside the door she had\r
+felt that this longed-for meeting was after all too difficult, and when\r
+she saw Will advancing towards her, the deep blush which was rare in\r
+her came with painful suddenness. Neither of them knew how it was, but\r
+neither of them spoke. She gave her hand for a moment, and then they\r
+went to sit down near the window, she on one settee and he on another\r
+opposite. Will was peculiarly uneasy: it seemed to him not like\r
+Dorothea that the mere fact of her being a widow should cause such a\r
+change in her manner of receiving him; and he knew of no other\r
+condition which could have affected their previous relation to each\r
+other--except that, as his imagination at once told him, her friends\r
+might have been poisoning her mind with their suspicions of him.\r
+\r
+"I hope I have not presumed too much in calling," said Will; "I could\r
+not bear to leave the neighborhood and begin a new life without seeing\r
+you to say good-by."\r
+\r
+"Presumed? Surely not. I should have thought it unkind if you had not\r
+wished to see me," said Dorothea, her habit of speaking with perfect\r
+genuineness asserting itself through all her uncertainty and agitation.\r
+"Are you going away immediately?"\r
+\r
+"Very soon, I think. I intend to go to town and eat my dinners as a\r
+barrister, since, they say, that is the preparation for all public\r
+business. There will be a great deal of political work to be done\r
+by-and-by, and I mean to try and do some of it. Other men have managed\r
+to win an honorable position for themselves without family or money."\r
+\r
+"And that will make it all the more honorable," said Dorothea,\r
+ardently. "Besides, you have so many talents. I have heard from my\r
+uncle how well you speak in public, so that every one is sorry when you\r
+leave off, and how clearly you can explain things. And you care that\r
+justice should be done to every one. I am so glad. When we were in\r
+Rome, I thought you only cared for poetry and art, and the things that\r
+adorn life for us who are well off. But now I know you think about the\r
+rest of the world."\r
+\r
+While she was speaking Dorothea had lost her personal embarrassment,\r
+and had become like her former self. She looked at Will with a direct\r
+glance, full of delighted confidence.\r
+\r
+"You approve of my going away for years, then, and never coming here\r
+again till I have made myself of some mark in the world?" said Will,\r
+trying hard to reconcile the utmost pride with the utmost effort to get\r
+an expression of strong feeling from Dorothea.\r
+\r
+She was not aware how long it was before she answered. She had turned\r
+her head and was looking out of the window on the rose-bushes, which\r
+seemed to have in them the summers of all the years when Will would be\r
+away. This was not judicious behavior. But Dorothea never thought of\r
+studying her manners: she thought only of bowing to a sad necessity\r
+which divided her from Will. Those first words of his about his\r
+intentions had seemed to make everything clear to her: he knew, she\r
+supposed, all about Mr. Casaubon's final conduct in relation to him,\r
+and it had come to him with the same sort of shock as to herself. He\r
+had never felt more than friendship for her--had never had anything in\r
+his mind to justify what she felt to be her husband's outrage on the\r
+feelings of both: and that friendship he still felt. Something which\r
+may be called an inward silent sob had gone on in Dorothea before she\r
+said with a pure voice, just trembling in the last words as if only\r
+from its liquid flexibility--\r
+\r
+"Yes, it must be right for you to do as you say. I shall be very happy\r
+when I hear that you have made your value felt. But you must have\r
+patience. It will perhaps be a long while."\r
+\r
+Will never quite knew how it was that he saved himself from falling\r
+down at her feet, when the "long while" came forth with its gentle\r
+tremor. He used to say that the horrible hue and surface of her crape\r
+dress was most likely the sufficient controlling force. He sat still,\r
+however, and only said--\r
+\r
+"I shall never hear from you. And you will forget all about me."\r
+\r
+"No," said Dorothea, "I shall never forget you. I have never forgotten\r
+any one whom I once knew. My life has never been crowded, and seems\r
+not likely to be so. And I have a great deal of space for memory at\r
+Lowick, haven't I?" She smiled.\r
+\r
+"Good God!" Will burst out passionately, rising, with his hat still in\r
+his hand, and walking away to a marble table, where he suddenly turned\r
+and leaned his back against it. The blood had mounted to his face and\r
+neck, and he looked almost angry. It had seemed to him as if they were\r
+like two creatures slowly turning to marble in each other's presence,\r
+while their hearts were conscious and their eyes were yearning. But\r
+there was no help for it. It should never be true of him that in this\r
+meeting to which he had come with bitter resolution he had ended by a\r
+confession which might be interpreted into asking for her fortune.\r
+Moreover, it was actually true that he was fearful of the effect which\r
+such confessions might have on Dorothea herself.\r
+\r
+She looked at him from that distance in some trouble, imagining that\r
+there might have been an offence in her words. But all the while there\r
+was a current of thought in her about his probable want of money, and\r
+the impossibility of her helping him. If her uncle had been at home,\r
+something might have been done through him! It was this preoccupation\r
+with the hardship of Will's wanting money, while she had what ought to\r
+have been his share, which led her to say, seeing that he remained\r
+silent and looked away from her--\r
+\r
+"I wonder whether you would like to have that miniature which hangs\r
+up-stairs--I mean that beautiful miniature of your grandmother. I\r
+think it is not right for me to keep it, if you would wish to have it.\r
+It is wonderfully like you."\r
+\r
+"You are very good," said Will, irritably. "No; I don't mind about it.\r
+It is not very consoling to have one's own likeness. It would be more\r
+consoling if others wanted to have it."\r
+\r
+"I thought you would like to cherish her memory--I thought--" Dorothea\r
+broke off an instant, her imagination suddenly warning her away from\r
+Aunt Julia's history--"you would surely like to have the miniature as a\r
+family memorial."\r
+\r
+"Why should I have that, when I have nothing else! A man with only a\r
+portmanteau for his stowage must keep his memorials in his head."\r
+\r
+Will spoke at random: he was merely venting his petulance; it was a\r
+little too exasperating to have his grandmother's portrait offered him\r
+at that moment. But to Dorothea's feeling his words had a peculiar\r
+sting. She rose and said with a touch of indignation as well as\r
+hauteur--\r
+\r
+"You are much the happier of us two, Mr. Ladislaw, to have nothing."\r
+\r
+Will was startled. Whatever the words might be, the tone seemed like a\r
+dismissal; and quitting his leaning posture, he walked a little way\r
+towards her. Their eyes met, but with a strange questioning gravity.\r
+Something was keeping their minds aloof, and each was left to\r
+conjecture what was in the other. Will had really never thought of\r
+himself as having a claim of inheritance on the property which was held\r
+by Dorothea, and would have required a narrative to make him understand\r
+her present feeling.\r
+\r
+"I never felt it a misfortune to have nothing till now," he said. "But\r
+poverty may be as bad as leprosy, if it divides us from what we most\r
+care for."\r
+\r
+The words cut Dorothea to the heart, and made her relent. She answered\r
+in a tone of sad fellowship.\r
+\r
+"Sorrow comes in so many ways. Two years ago I had no notion of\r
+that--I mean of the unexpected way in which trouble comes, and ties our\r
+hands, and makes us silent when we long to speak. I used to despise\r
+women a little for not shaping their lives more, and doing better\r
+things. I was very fond of doing as I liked, but I have almost given\r
+it up," she ended, smiling playfully.\r
+\r
+"I have not given up doing as I like, but I can very seldom do it,"\r
+said Will. He was standing two yards from her with his mind full of\r
+contradictory desires and resolves--desiring some unmistakable proof\r
+that she loved him, and yet dreading the position into which such a\r
+proof might bring him. "The thing one most longs for may be surrounded\r
+with conditions that would be intolerable."\r
+\r
+At this moment Pratt entered and said, "Sir James Chettam is in the\r
+library, madam."\r
+\r
+"Ask Sir James to come in here," said Dorothea, immediately. It was as\r
+if the same electric shock had passed through her and Will. Each of\r
+them felt proudly resistant, and neither looked at the other, while\r
+they awaited Sir James's entrance.\r
+\r
+After shaking hands with Dorothea, he bowed as slightly as possible to\r
+Ladislaw, who repaid the slightness exactly, and then going towards\r
+Dorothea, said--\r
+\r
+"I must say good-by, Mrs. Casaubon; and probably for a long while."\r
+\r
+Dorothea put out her hand and said her good-by cordially. The sense\r
+that Sir James was depreciating Will, and behaving rudely to him,\r
+roused her resolution and dignity: there was no touch of confusion in\r
+her manner. And when Will had left the room, she looked with such calm\r
+self-possession at Sir James, saying, "How is Celia?" that he was\r
+obliged to behave as if nothing had annoyed him. And what would be the\r
+use of behaving otherwise? Indeed, Sir James shrank with so much\r
+dislike from the association even in thought of Dorothea with Ladislaw\r
+as her possible lover, that he would himself have wished to avoid an\r
+outward show of displeasure which would have recognized the\r
+disagreeable possibility. If any one had asked him why he shrank in\r
+that way, I am not sure that he would at first have said anything\r
+fuller or more precise than "_That_ Ladislaw!"--though on reflection\r
+he might have urged that Mr. Casaubon's codicil, barring Dorothea's\r
+marriage with Will, except under a penalty, was enough to cast\r
+unfitness over any relation at all between them. His aversion was all\r
+the stronger because he felt himself unable to interfere.\r
+\r
+But Sir James was a power in a way unguessed by himself. Entering at\r
+that moment, he was an incorporation of the strongest reasons through\r
+which Will's pride became a repellent force, keeping him asunder from\r
+Dorothea.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LV.\r
+\r
+ Hath she her faults? I would you had them too.\r
+ They are the fruity must of soundest wine;\r
+ Or say, they are regenerating fire\r
+ Such as hath turned the dense black element\r
+ Into a crystal pathway for the sun.\r
+\r
+\r
+If youth is the season of hope, it is often so only in the sense that\r
+our elders are hopeful about us; for no age is so apt as youth to think\r
+its emotions, partings, and resolves are the last of their kind. Each\r
+crisis seems final, simply because it is new. We are told that the\r
+oldest inhabitants in Peru do not cease to be agitated by the\r
+earthquakes, but they probably see beyond each shock, and reflect that\r
+there are plenty more to come.\r
+\r
+To Dorothea, still in that time of youth when the eyes with their long\r
+full lashes look out after their rain of tears unsoiled and unwearied\r
+as a freshly opened passion-flower, that morning's parting with Will\r
+Ladislaw seemed to be the close of their personal relations. He was\r
+going away into the distance of unknown years, and if ever he came back\r
+he would be another man. The actual state of his mind--his proud\r
+resolve to give the lie beforehand to any suspicion that he would play\r
+the needy adventurer seeking a rich woman--lay quite out of her\r
+imagination, and she had interpreted all his behavior easily enough by\r
+her supposition that Mr. Casaubon's codicil seemed to him, as it did to\r
+her, a gross and cruel interdict on any active friendship between them.\r
+Their young delight in speaking to each other, and saying what no one\r
+else would care to hear, was forever ended, and become a treasure of\r
+the past. For this very reason she dwelt on it without inward check.\r
+That unique happiness too was dead, and in its shadowed silent chamber\r
+she might vent the passionate grief which she herself wondered at. For\r
+the first time she took down the miniature from the wall and kept it\r
+before her, liking to blend the woman who had been too hardly judged\r
+with the grandson whom her own heart and judgment defended. Can any\r
+one who has rejoiced in woman's tenderness think it a reproach to her\r
+that she took the little oval picture in her palm and made a bed for it\r
+there, and leaned her cheek upon it, as if that would soothe the\r
+creatures who had suffered unjust condemnation? She did not know then\r
+that it was Love who had come to her briefly, as in a dream before\r
+awaking, with the hues of morning on his wings--that it was Love to\r
+whom she was sobbing her farewell as his image was banished by the\r
+blameless rigor of irresistible day. She only felt that there was\r
+something irrevocably amiss and lost in her lot, and her thoughts about\r
+the future were the more readily shapen into resolve. Ardent souls,\r
+ready to construct their coming lives, are apt to commit themselves to\r
+the fulfilment of their own visions.\r
+\r
+One day that she went to Freshitt to fulfil her promise of staying all\r
+night and seeing baby washed, Mrs. Cadwallader came to dine, the Rector\r
+being gone on a fishing excursion. It was a warm evening, and even in\r
+the delightful drawing-room, where the fine old turf sloped from the\r
+open window towards a lilied pool and well-planted mounds, the heat was\r
+enough to make Celia in her white muslin and light curls reflect with\r
+pity on what Dodo must feel in her black dress and close cap. But this\r
+was not until some episodes with baby were over, and had left her mind\r
+at leisure. She had seated herself and taken up a fan for some time\r
+before she said, in her quiet guttural--\r
+\r
+"Dear Dodo, do throw off that cap. I am sure your dress must make you\r
+feel ill."\r
+\r
+"I am so used to the cap--it has become a sort of shell," said\r
+Dorothea, smiling. "I feel rather bare and exposed when it is off."\r
+\r
+"I must see you without it; it makes us all warm," said Celia, throwing\r
+down her fan, and going to Dorothea. It was a pretty picture to see\r
+this little lady in white muslin unfastening the widow's cap from her\r
+more majestic sister, and tossing it on to a chair. Just as the coils\r
+and braids of dark-brown hair had been set free, Sir James entered the\r
+room. He looked at the released head, and said, "Ah!" in a tone of\r
+satisfaction.\r
+\r
+"It was I who did it, James," said Celia. "Dodo need not make such a\r
+slavery of her mourning; she need not wear that cap any more among her\r
+friends."\r
+\r
+"My dear Celia," said Lady Chettam, "a widow must wear her mourning at\r
+least a year."\r
+\r
+"Not if she marries again before the end of it," said Mrs. Cadwallader,\r
+who had some pleasure in startling her good friend the Dowager. Sir\r
+James was annoyed, and leaned forward to play with Celia's Maltese dog.\r
+\r
+"That is very rare, I hope," said Lady Chettam, in a tone intended to\r
+guard against such events. "No friend of ours ever committed herself\r
+in that way except Mrs. Beevor, and it was very painful to Lord\r
+Grinsell when she did so. Her first husband was objectionable, which\r
+made it the greater wonder. And severely she was punished for it.\r
+They said Captain Beevor dragged her about by the hair, and held up\r
+loaded pistols at her."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if she took the wrong man!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, who was in a\r
+decidedly wicked mood. "Marriage is always bad then, first or second.\r
+Priority is a poor recommendation in a husband if he has got no other.\r
+I would rather have a good second husband than an indifferent first."\r
+\r
+"My dear, your clever tongue runs away with you," said Lady Chettam.\r
+"I am sure you would be the last woman to marry again prematurely, if\r
+our dear Rector were taken away."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I make no vows; it might be a necessary economy. It is lawful to\r
+marry again, I suppose; else we might as well be Hindoos instead of\r
+Christians. Of course if a woman accepts the wrong man, she must take\r
+the consequences, and one who does it twice over deserves her fate.\r
+But if she can marry blood, beauty, and bravery--the sooner the\r
+better."\r
+\r
+"I think the subject of our conversation is very ill-chosen," said Sir\r
+James, with a look of disgust. "Suppose we change it."\r
+\r
+"Not on my account, Sir James," said Dorothea, determined not to lose\r
+the opportunity of freeing herself from certain oblique references to\r
+excellent matches. "If you are speaking on my behalf, I can assure you\r
+that no question can be more indifferent and impersonal to me than\r
+second marriage. It is no more to me than if you talked of women going\r
+fox-hunting: whether it is admirable in them or not, I shall not follow\r
+them. Pray let Mrs. Cadwallader amuse herself on that subject as much\r
+as on any other."\r
+\r
+"My dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Lady Chettam, in her stateliest way, "you\r
+do not, I hope, think there was any allusion to you in my mentioning\r
+Mrs. Beevor. It was only an instance that occurred to me. She was\r
+step-daughter to Lord Grinsell: he married Mrs. Teveroy for his second\r
+wife. There could be no possible allusion to you."\r
+\r
+"Oh no," said Celia. "Nobody chose the subject; it all came out of\r
+Dodo's cap. Mrs. Cadwallader only said what was quite true. A woman\r
+could not be married in a widow's cap, James."\r
+\r
+"Hush, my dear!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "I will not offend again. I\r
+will not even refer to Dido or Zenobia. Only what are we to talk\r
+about? I, for my part, object to the discussion of Human Nature,\r
+because that is the nature of rectors' wives."\r
+\r
+Later in the evening, after Mrs. Cadwallader was gone, Celia said\r
+privately to Dorothea, "Really, Dodo, taking your cap off made you like\r
+yourself again in more ways than one. You spoke up just as you used to\r
+do, when anything was said to displease you. But I could hardly make\r
+out whether it was James that you thought wrong, or Mrs. Cadwallader."\r
+\r
+"Neither," said Dorothea. "James spoke out of delicacy to me, but he\r
+was mistaken in supposing that I minded what Mrs. Cadwallader said. I\r
+should only mind if there were a law obliging me to take any piece of\r
+blood and beauty that she or anybody else recommended."\r
+\r
+"But you know, Dodo, if you ever did marry, it would be all the better\r
+to have blood and beauty," said Celia, reflecting that Mr. Casaubon had\r
+not been richly endowed with those gifts, and that it would be well to\r
+caution Dorothea in time.\r
+\r
+"Don't be anxious, Kitty; I have quite other thoughts about my life. I\r
+shall never marry again," said Dorothea, touching her sister's chin,\r
+and looking at her with indulgent affection. Celia was nursing her\r
+baby, and Dorothea had come to say good-night to her.\r
+\r
+"Really--quite?" said Celia. "Not anybody at all--if he were very\r
+wonderful indeed?"\r
+\r
+Dorothea shook her head slowly. "Not anybody at all. I have\r
+delightful plans. I should like to take a great deal of land, and\r
+drain it, and make a little colony, where everybody should work, and\r
+all the work should be done well. I should know every one of the\r
+people and be their friend. I am going to have great consultations\r
+with Mr. Garth: he can tell me almost everything I want to know."\r
+\r
+"Then you _will_ be happy, if you have a plan, Dodo?" said Celia.\r
+"Perhaps little Arthur will like plans when he grows up, and then he\r
+can help you."\r
+\r
+Sir James was informed that same night that Dorothea was really quite\r
+set against marrying anybody at all, and was going to take to "all\r
+sorts of plans," just like what she used to have. Sir James made no\r
+remark. To his secret feeling there was something repulsive in a\r
+woman's second marriage, and no match would prevent him from feeling it\r
+a sort of desecration for Dorothea. He was aware that the world would\r
+regard such a sentiment as preposterous, especially in relation to a\r
+woman of one-and-twenty; the practice of "the world" being to treat of\r
+a young widow's second marriage as certain and probably near, and to\r
+smile with meaning if the widow acts accordingly. But if Dorothea did\r
+choose to espouse her solitude, he felt that the resolution would well\r
+become her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LVI.\r
+\r
+ "How happy is he born and taught\r
+ That serveth not another's will;\r
+ Whose armor is his honest thought,\r
+ And simple truth his only skill!\r
+ . . . . . . .\r
+ This man is freed from servile bands\r
+ Of hope to rise or fear to fall;\r
+ Lord of himself though not of lands;\r
+ And having nothing yet hath all."\r
+ --SIR HENRY WOTTON.\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea's confidence in Caleb Garth's knowledge, which had begun on\r
+her hearing that he approved of her cottages, had grown fast during her\r
+stay at Freshitt, Sir James having induced her to take rides over the\r
+two estates in company with himself and Caleb, who quite returned her\r
+admiration, and told his wife that Mrs. Casaubon had a head for\r
+business most uncommon in a woman. It must be remembered that by\r
+"business" Caleb never meant money transactions, but the skilful\r
+application of labor.\r
+\r
+"Most uncommon!" repeated Caleb. "She said a thing I often used to\r
+think myself when I was a lad:--'Mr. Garth, I should like to feel, if I\r
+lived to be old, that I had improved a great piece of land and built a\r
+great many good cottages, because the work is of a healthy kind while\r
+it is being done, and after it is done, men are the better for it.'\r
+Those were the very words: she sees into things in that way."\r
+\r
+"But womanly, I hope," said Mrs. Garth, half suspecting that Mrs.\r
+Casaubon might not hold the true principle of subordination.\r
+\r
+"Oh, you can't think!" said Caleb, shaking his head. "You would like\r
+to hear her speak, Susan. She speaks in such plain words, and a voice\r
+like music. Bless me! it reminds me of bits in the 'Messiah'--'and\r
+straightway there appeared a multitude of the heavenly host, praising\r
+God and saying;' it has a tone with it that satisfies your ear."\r
+\r
+Caleb was very fond of music, and when he could afford it went to hear\r
+an oratorio that came within his reach, returning from it with a\r
+profound reverence for this mighty structure of tones, which made him\r
+sit meditatively, looking on the floor and throwing much unutterable\r
+language into his outstretched hands.\r
+\r
+With this good understanding between them, it was natural that Dorothea\r
+asked Mr. Garth to undertake any business connected with the three\r
+farms and the numerous tenements attached to Lowick Manor; indeed, his\r
+expectation of getting work for two was being fast fulfilled. As he\r
+said, "Business breeds." And one form of business which was beginning\r
+to breed just then was the construction of railways. A projected line\r
+was to run through Lowick parish where the cattle had hitherto grazed\r
+in a peace unbroken by astonishment; and thus it happened that the\r
+infant struggles of the railway system entered into the affairs of\r
+Caleb Garth, and determined the course of this history with regard to\r
+two persons who were dear to him. The submarine railway may have its\r
+difficulties; but the bed of the sea is not divided among various\r
+landed proprietors with claims for damages not only measurable but\r
+sentimental. In the hundred to which Middlemarch belonged railways\r
+were as exciting a topic as the Reform Bill or the imminent horrors of\r
+Cholera, and those who held the most decided views on the subject were\r
+women and landholders. Women both old and young regarded travelling by\r
+steam as presumptuous and dangerous, and argued against it by saying\r
+that nothing should induce them to get into a railway carriage; while\r
+proprietors, differing from each other in their arguments as much as\r
+Mr. Solomon Featherstone differed from Lord Medlicote, were yet\r
+unanimous in the opinion that in selling land, whether to the Enemy of\r
+mankind or to a company obliged to purchase, these pernicious agencies\r
+must be made to pay a very high price to landowners for permission to\r
+injure mankind.\r
+\r
+But the slower wits, such as Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule, who both\r
+occupied land of their own, took a long time to arrive at this\r
+conclusion, their minds halting at the vivid conception of what it\r
+would be to cut the Big Pasture in two, and turn it into three-cornered\r
+bits, which would be "nohow;" while accommodation-bridges and high\r
+payments were remote and incredible.\r
+\r
+"The cows will all cast their calves, brother," said Mrs. Waule, in a\r
+tone of deep melancholy, "if the railway comes across the Near Close;\r
+and I shouldn't wonder at the mare too, if she was in foal. It's a\r
+poor tale if a widow's property is to be spaded away, and the law say\r
+nothing to it. What's to hinder 'em from cutting right and left if\r
+they begin? It's well known, _I_ can't fight."\r
+\r
+"The best way would be to say nothing, and set somebody on to send 'em\r
+away with a flea in their ear, when they came spying and measuring,"\r
+said Solomon. "Folks did that about Brassing, by what I can\r
+understand. It's all a pretence, if the truth was known, about their\r
+being forced to take one way. Let 'em go cutting in another parish.\r
+And I don't believe in any pay to make amends for bringing a lot of\r
+ruffians to trample your crops. Where's a company's pocket?"\r
+\r
+"Brother Peter, God forgive him, got money out of a company," said Mrs.\r
+Waule. "But that was for the manganese. That wasn't for railways to\r
+blow you to pieces right and left."\r
+\r
+"Well, there's this to be said, Jane," Mr. Solomon concluded, lowering\r
+his voice in a cautious manner--"the more spokes we put in their wheel,\r
+the more they'll pay us to let 'em go on, if they must come whether or\r
+not."\r
+\r
+This reasoning of Mr. Solomon's was perhaps less thorough than he\r
+imagined, his cunning bearing about the same relation to the course of\r
+railways as the cunning of a diplomatist bears to the general chill or\r
+catarrh of the solar system. But he set about acting on his views in a\r
+thoroughly diplomatic manner, by stimulating suspicion. His side of\r
+Lowick was the most remote from the village, and the houses of the\r
+laboring people were either lone cottages or were collected in a hamlet\r
+called Frick, where a water-mill and some stone-pits made a little\r
+centre of slow, heavy-shouldered industry.\r
+\r
+In the absence of any precise idea as to what railways were, public\r
+opinion in Frick was against them; for the human mind in that grassy\r
+corner had not the proverbial tendency to admire the unknown, holding\r
+rather that it was likely to be against the poor man, and that\r
+suspicion was the only wise attitude with regard to it. Even the rumor\r
+of Reform had not yet excited any millennial expectations in Frick,\r
+there being no definite promise in it, as of gratuitous grains to\r
+fatten Hiram Ford's pig, or of a publican at the "Weights and Scales"\r
+who would brew beer for nothing, or of an offer on the part of the\r
+three neighboring farmers to raise wages during winter. And without\r
+distinct good of this kind in its promises, Reform seemed on a footing\r
+with the bragging of pedlers, which was a hint for distrust to every\r
+knowing person. The men of Frick were not ill-fed, and were less given\r
+to fanaticism than to a strong muscular suspicion; less inclined to\r
+believe that they were peculiarly cared for by heaven, than to regard\r
+heaven itself as rather disposed to take them in--a disposition\r
+observable in the weather.\r
+\r
+Thus the mind of Frick was exactly of the sort for Mr. Solomon\r
+Featherstone to work upon, he having more plenteous ideas of the same\r
+order, with a suspicion of heaven and earth which was better fed and\r
+more entirely at leisure. Solomon was overseer of the roads at that\r
+time, and on his slow-paced cob often took his rounds by Frick to look\r
+at the workmen getting the stones there, pausing with a mysterious\r
+deliberation, which might have misled you into supposing that he had\r
+some other reason for staying than the mere want of impulse to move.\r
+After looking for a long while at any work that was going on, he would\r
+raise his eyes a little and look at the horizon; finally he would shake\r
+his bridle, touch his horse with the whip, and get it to move slowly\r
+onward. The hour-hand of a clock was quick by comparison with Mr.\r
+Solomon, who had an agreeable sense that he could afford to be slow.\r
+He was in the habit of pausing for a cautious, vaguely designing chat\r
+with every hedger or ditcher on his way, and was especially willing to\r
+listen even to news which he had heard before, feeling himself at an\r
+advantage over all narrators in partially disbelieving them. One day,\r
+however, he got into a dialogue with Hiram Ford, a wagoner, in which he\r
+himself contributed information. He wished to know whether Hiram had\r
+seen fellows with staves and instruments spying about: they called\r
+themselves railroad people, but there was no telling what they were or\r
+what they meant to do. The least they pretended was that they were\r
+going to cut Lowick Parish into sixes and sevens.\r
+\r
+"Why, there'll be no stirrin' from one pla-ace to another," said Hiram,\r
+thinking of his wagon and horses.\r
+\r
+"Not a bit," said Mr. Solomon. "And cutting up fine land such as this\r
+parish! Let 'em go into Tipton, say I. But there's no knowing what\r
+there is at the bottom of it. Traffic is what they put for'ard; but\r
+it's to do harm to the land and the poor man in the long-run."\r
+\r
+"Why, they're Lunnon chaps, I reckon," said Hiram, who had a dim notion\r
+of London as a centre of hostility to the country.\r
+\r
+"Ay, to be sure. And in some parts against Brassing, by what I've\r
+heard say, the folks fell on 'em when they were spying, and broke their\r
+peep-holes as they carry, and drove 'em away, so as they knew better\r
+than come again."\r
+\r
+"It war good foon, I'd be bound," said Hiram, whose fun was much\r
+restricted by circumstances.\r
+\r
+"Well, I wouldn't meddle with 'em myself," said Solomon. "But some say\r
+this country's seen its best days, and the sign is, as it's being\r
+overrun with these fellows trampling right and left, and wanting to cut\r
+it up into railways; and all for the big traffic to swallow up the\r
+little, so as there shan't be a team left on the land, nor a whip to\r
+crack."\r
+\r
+"I'll crack _my_ whip about their ear'n, afore they bring it to that,\r
+though," said Hiram, while Mr. Solomon, shaking his bridle, moved\r
+onward.\r
+\r
+Nettle-seed needs no digging. The ruin of this countryside by\r
+railroads was discussed, not only at the "Weights and Scales," but in\r
+the hay-field, where the muster of working hands gave opportunities for\r
+talk such as were rarely had through the rural year.\r
+\r
+One morning, not long after that interview between Mr. Farebrother and\r
+Mary Garth, in which she confessed to him her feeling for Fred Vincy,\r
+it happened that her father had some business which took him to\r
+Yoddrell's farm in the direction of Frick: it was to measure and value\r
+an outlying piece of land belonging to Lowick Manor, which Caleb\r
+expected to dispose of advantageously for Dorothea (it must be\r
+confessed that his bias was towards getting the best possible terms\r
+from railroad companies). He put up his gig at Yoddrell's, and in\r
+walking with his assistant and measuring-chain to the scene of his\r
+work, he encountered the party of the company's agents, who were\r
+adjusting their spirit-level. After a little chat he left them,\r
+observing that by-and-by they would reach him again where he was going\r
+to measure. It was one of those gray mornings after light rains, which\r
+become delicious about twelve o'clock, when the clouds part a little,\r
+and the scent of the earth is sweet along the lanes and by the\r
+hedgerows.\r
+\r
+The scent would have been sweeter to Fred Vincy, who was coming along\r
+the lanes on horseback, if his mind had not been worried by\r
+unsuccessful efforts to imagine what he was to do, with his father on\r
+one side expecting him straightway to enter the Church, with Mary on\r
+the other threatening to forsake him if he did enter it, and with the\r
+working-day world showing no eager need whatever of a young gentleman\r
+without capital and generally unskilled. It was the harder to Fred's\r
+disposition because his father, satisfied that he was no longer\r
+rebellious, was in good humor with him, and had sent him on this\r
+pleasant ride to see after some greyhounds. Even when he had fixed on\r
+what he should do, there would be the task of telling his father. But\r
+it must be admitted that the fixing, which had to come first, was the\r
+more difficult task:--what secular avocation on earth was there for a\r
+young man (whose friends could not get him an "appointment") which was\r
+at once gentlemanly, lucrative, and to be followed without special\r
+knowledge? Riding along the lanes by Frick in this mood, and\r
+slackening his pace while he reflected whether he should venture to go\r
+round by Lowick Parsonage to call on Mary, he could see over the hedges\r
+from one field to another. Suddenly a noise roused his attention, and\r
+on the far side of a field on his left hand he could see six or seven\r
+men in smock-frocks with hay-forks in their hands making an offensive\r
+approach towards the four railway agents who were facing them, while\r
+Caleb Garth and his assistant were hastening across the field to join\r
+the threatened group. Fred, delayed a few moments by having to find\r
+the gate, could not gallop up to the spot before the party in\r
+smock-frocks, whose work of turning the hay had not been too pressing\r
+after swallowing their mid-day beer, were driving the men in coats\r
+before them with their hay-forks; while Caleb Garth's assistant, a lad\r
+of seventeen, who had snatched up the spirit-level at Caleb's order,\r
+had been knocked down and seemed to be lying helpless. The coated men\r
+had the advantage as runners, and Fred covered their retreat by getting\r
+in front of the smock-frocks and charging them suddenly enough to throw\r
+their chase into confusion. "What do you confounded fools mean?"\r
+shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting right\r
+and left with his whip. "I'll swear to every one of you before the\r
+magistrate. You've knocked the lad down and killed him, for what I\r
+know. You'll every one of you be hanged at the next assizes, if you\r
+don't mind," said Fred, who afterwards laughed heartily as he\r
+remembered his own phrases.\r
+\r
+The laborers had been driven through the gate-way into their hay-field,\r
+and Fred had checked his horse, when Hiram Ford, observing himself at a\r
+safe challenging distance, turned back and shouted a defiance which he\r
+did not know to be Homeric.\r
+\r
+"Yo're a coward, yo are. Yo git off your horse, young measter, and\r
+I'll have a round wi' ye, I wull. Yo daredn't come on wi'out your hoss\r
+an' whip. I'd soon knock the breath out on ye, I would."\r
+\r
+"Wait a minute, and I'll come back presently, and have a round with you\r
+all in turn, if you like," said Fred, who felt confidence in his power\r
+of boxing with his dearly beloved brethren. But just now he wanted to\r
+hasten back to Caleb and the prostrate youth.\r
+\r
+The lad's ankle was strained, and he was in much pain from it, but he\r
+was no further hurt, and Fred placed him on the horse that he might\r
+ride to Yoddrell's and be taken care of there.\r
+\r
+"Let them put the horse in the stable, and tell the surveyors they can\r
+come back for their traps," said Fred. "The ground is clear now."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Caleb, "here's a breakage. They'll have to give up for\r
+to-day, and it will be as well. Here, take the things before you on\r
+the horse, Tom. They'll see you coming, and they'll turn back."\r
+\r
+"I'm glad I happened to be here at the right moment, Mr. Garth," said\r
+Fred, as Tom rode away. "No knowing what might have happened if the\r
+cavalry had not come up in time."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, it was lucky," said Caleb, speaking rather absently, and\r
+looking towards the spot where he had been at work at the moment of\r
+interruption. "But--deuce take it--this is what comes of men being\r
+fools--I'm hindered of my day's work. I can't get along without\r
+somebody to help me with the measuring-chain. However!" He was\r
+beginning to move towards the spot with a look of vexation, as if he\r
+had forgotten Fred's presence, but suddenly he turned round and said\r
+quickly, "What have you got to do to-day, young fellow?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing, Mr. Garth. I'll help you with pleasure--can I?" said Fred,\r
+with a sense that he should be courting Mary when he was helping her\r
+father.\r
+\r
+"Well, you mustn't mind stooping and getting hot."\r
+\r
+"I don't mind anything. Only I want to go first and have a round with\r
+that hulky fellow who turned to challenge me. It would be a good\r
+lesson for him. I shall not be five minutes."\r
+\r
+"Nonsense!" said Caleb, with his most peremptory intonation. "I shall\r
+go and speak to the men myself. It's all ignorance. Somebody has been\r
+telling them lies. The poor fools don't know any better."\r
+\r
+"I shall go with you, then," said Fred.\r
+\r
+"No, no; stay where you are. I don't want your young blood. I can\r
+take care of myself."\r
+\r
+Caleb was a powerful man and knew little of any fear except the fear of\r
+hurting others and the fear of having to speechify. But he felt it his\r
+duty at this moment to try and give a little harangue. There was a\r
+striking mixture in him--which came from his having always been a\r
+hard-working man himself--of rigorous notions about workmen and\r
+practical indulgence towards them. To do a good day's work and to do\r
+it well, he held to be part of their welfare, as it was the chief part\r
+of his own happiness; but he had a strong sense of fellowship with\r
+them. When he advanced towards the laborers they had not gone to work\r
+again, but were standing in that form of rural grouping which consists\r
+in each turning a shoulder towards the other, at a distance of two or\r
+three yards. They looked rather sulkily at Caleb, who walked quickly\r
+with one hand in his pocket and the other thrust between the buttons of\r
+his waistcoat, and had his every-day mild air when he paused among them.\r
+\r
+"Why, my lads, how's this?" he began, taking as usual to brief phrases,\r
+which seemed pregnant to himself, because he had many thoughts lying\r
+under them, like the abundant roots of a plant that just manages to\r
+peep above the water. "How came you to make such a mistake as this?\r
+Somebody has been telling you lies. You thought those men up there\r
+wanted to do mischief."\r
+\r
+"Aw!" was the answer, dropped at intervals by each according to his\r
+degree of unreadiness.\r
+\r
+"Nonsense! No such thing! They're looking out to see which way the\r
+railroad is to take. Now, my lads, you can't hinder the railroad: it\r
+will be made whether you like it or not. And if you go fighting\r
+against it, you'll get yourselves into trouble. The law gives those\r
+men leave to come here on the land. The owner has nothing to say\r
+against it, and if you meddle with them you'll have to do with the\r
+constable and Justice Blakesley, and with the handcuffs and Middlemarch\r
+jail. And you might be in for it now, if anybody informed against you."\r
+\r
+Caleb paused here, and perhaps the greatest orator could not have\r
+chosen either his pause or his images better for the occasion.\r
+\r
+"But come, you didn't mean any harm. Somebody told you the railroad\r
+was a bad thing. That was a lie. It may do a bit of harm here and\r
+there, to this and to that; and so does the sun in heaven. But the\r
+railway's a good thing."\r
+\r
+"Aw! good for the big folks to make money out on," said old Timothy\r
+Cooper, who had stayed behind turning his hay while the others had been\r
+gone on their spree;--"I'n seen lots o' things turn up sin' I war a\r
+young un--the war an' the peace, and the canells, an' the oald King\r
+George, an' the Regen', an' the new King George, an' the new un as has\r
+got a new ne-ame--an' it's been all aloike to the poor mon. What's the\r
+canells been t' him? They'n brought him neyther me-at nor be-acon, nor\r
+wage to lay by, if he didn't save it wi' clemmin' his own inside.\r
+Times ha' got wusser for him sin' I war a young un. An' so it'll be\r
+wi' the railroads. They'll on'y leave the poor mon furder behind. But\r
+them are fools as meddle, and so I told the chaps here. This is the\r
+big folks's world, this is. But yo're for the big folks, Muster Garth,\r
+yo are."\r
+\r
+Timothy was a wiry old laborer, of a type lingering in those times--who\r
+had his savings in a stocking-foot, lived in a lone cottage, and was\r
+not to be wrought on by any oratory, having as little of the feudal\r
+spirit, and believing as little, as if he had not been totally\r
+unacquainted with the Age of Reason and the Rights of Man. Caleb was\r
+in a difficulty known to any person attempting in dark times and\r
+unassisted by miracle to reason with rustics who are in possession of\r
+an undeniable truth which they know through a hard process of feeling,\r
+and can let it fall like a giant's club on your neatly carved argument\r
+for a social benefit which they do not feel. Caleb had no cant at\r
+command, even if he could have chosen to use it; and he had been\r
+accustomed to meet all such difficulties in no other way than by doing\r
+his "business" faithfully. He answered--\r
+\r
+"If you don't think well of me, Tim, never mind; that's neither here\r
+nor there now. Things may be bad for the poor man--bad they are; but I\r
+want the lads here not to do what will make things worse for\r
+themselves. The cattle may have a heavy load, but it won't help 'em to\r
+throw it over into the roadside pit, when it's partly their own fodder."\r
+\r
+"We war on'y for a bit o' foon," said Hiram, who was beginning to see\r
+consequences. "That war all we war arter."\r
+\r
+"Well, promise me not to meddle again, and I'll see that nobody informs\r
+against you."\r
+\r
+"I'n ne'er meddled, an' I'n no call to promise," said Timothy.\r
+\r
+"No, but the rest. Come, I'm as hard at work as any of you to-day, and\r
+I can't spare much time. Say you'll be quiet without the constable."\r
+\r
+"Aw, we wooant meddle--they may do as they loike for oos"--were the\r
+forms in which Caleb got his pledges; and then he hastened back to\r
+Fred, who had followed him, and watched him in the gateway.\r
+\r
+They went to work, and Fred helped vigorously. His spirits had risen,\r
+and he heartily enjoyed a good slip in the moist earth under the\r
+hedgerow, which soiled his perfect summer trousers. Was it his\r
+successful onset which had elated him, or the satisfaction of helping\r
+Mary's father? Something more. The accidents of the morning had\r
+helped his frustrated imagination to shape an employment for himself\r
+which had several attractions. I am not sure that certain fibres in\r
+Mr. Garth's mind had not resumed their old vibration towards the very\r
+end which now revealed itself to Fred. For the effective accident is\r
+but the touch of fire where there is oil and tow; and it always\r
+appeared to Fred that the railway brought the needed touch. But they\r
+went on in silence except when their business demanded speech. At\r
+last, when they had finished and were walking away, Mr. Garth said--\r
+\r
+"A young fellow needn't be a B. A. to do this sort of work, eh, Fred?"\r
+\r
+"I wish I had taken to it before I had thought of being a B. A.," said\r
+Fred. He paused a moment, and then added, more hesitatingly, "Do you\r
+think I am too old to learn your business, Mr. Garth?"\r
+\r
+"My business is of many sorts, my boy," said Mr. Garth, smiling. "A\r
+good deal of what I know can only come from experience: you can't learn\r
+it off as you learn things out of a book. But you are young enough to\r
+lay a foundation yet." Caleb pronounced the last sentence\r
+emphatically, but paused in some uncertainty. He had been under the\r
+impression lately that Fred had made up his mind to enter the Church.\r
+\r
+"You do think I could do some good at it, if I were to try?" said Fred,\r
+more eagerly.\r
+\r
+"That depends," said Caleb, turning his head on one side and lowering\r
+his voice, with the air of a man who felt himself to be saying\r
+something deeply religious. "You must be sure of two things: you must\r
+love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting\r
+your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your\r
+work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something\r
+else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it\r
+well, and not be always saying, There's this and there's that--if I had\r
+this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man\r
+is--I wouldn't give twopence for him"--here Caleb's mouth looked\r
+bitter, and he snapped his fingers--"whether he was the prime minister\r
+or the rick-thatcher, if he didn't do well what he undertook to do."\r
+\r
+"I can never feel that I should do that in being a clergyman," said\r
+Fred, meaning to take a step in argument.\r
+\r
+"Then let it alone, my boy," said Caleb, abruptly, "else you'll never\r
+be easy. Or, if you _are_ easy, you'll be a poor stick."\r
+\r
+"That is very nearly what Mary thinks about it," said Fred, coloring.\r
+"I think you must know what I feel for Mary, Mr. Garth: I hope it does\r
+not displease you that I have always loved her better than any one\r
+else, and that I shall never love any one as I love her."\r
+\r
+The expression of Caleb's face was visibly softening while Fred spoke.\r
+But he swung his head with a solemn slowness, and said--\r
+\r
+"That makes things more serious, Fred, if you want to take Mary's\r
+happiness into your keeping."\r
+\r
+"I know that, Mr. Garth," said Fred, eagerly, "and I would do anything\r
+for _her_. She says she will never have me if I go into the Church;\r
+and I shall be the most miserable devil in the world if I lose all hope\r
+of Mary. Really, if I could get some other profession,\r
+business--anything that I am at all fit for, I would work hard, I would\r
+deserve your good opinion. I should like to have to do with outdoor\r
+things. I know a good deal about land and cattle already. I used to\r
+believe, you know--though you will think me rather foolish for it--that\r
+I should have land of my own. I am sure knowledge of that sort would\r
+come easily to me, especially if I could be under you in any way."\r
+\r
+"Softly, my boy," said Caleb, having the image of "Susan" before his\r
+eyes. "What have you said to your father about all this?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing, yet; but I must tell him. I am only waiting to know what I\r
+can do instead of entering the Church. I am very sorry to disappoint\r
+him, but a man ought to be allowed to judge for himself when he is\r
+four-and-twenty. How could I know when I was fifteen, what it would be\r
+right for me to do now? My education was a mistake."\r
+\r
+"But hearken to this, Fred," said Caleb. "Are you sure Mary is fond of\r
+you, or would ever have you?"\r
+\r
+"I asked Mr. Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden\r
+me--I didn't know what else to do," said Fred, apologetically. "And he\r
+says that I have every reason to hope, if I can put myself in an\r
+honorable position--I mean, out of the Church. I dare say you think it\r
+unwarrantable in me, Mr. Garth, to be troubling you and obtruding my\r
+own wishes about Mary, before I have done anything at all for myself.\r
+Of course I have not the least claim--indeed, I have already a debt to\r
+you which will never be discharged, even when I have been, able to pay\r
+it in the shape of money."\r
+\r
+"Yes, my boy, you have a claim," said Caleb, with much feeling in his\r
+voice. "The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them\r
+forward. I was young myself once and had to do without much help; but\r
+help would have been welcome to me, if it had been only for the\r
+fellow-feeling's sake. But I must consider. Come to me to-morrow at\r
+the office, at nine o'clock. At the office, mind."\r
+\r
+Mr. Garth would take no important step without consulting Susan, but it\r
+must be confessed that before he reached home he had taken his\r
+resolution. With regard to a large number of matters about which other\r
+men are decided or obstinate, he was the most easily manageable man in\r
+the world. He never knew what meat he would choose, and if Susan had\r
+said that they ought to live in a four-roomed cottage, in order to\r
+save, he would have said, "Let us go," without inquiring into details.\r
+But where Caleb's feeling and judgment strongly pronounced, he was a\r
+ruler; and in spite of his mildness and timidity in reproving, every\r
+one about him knew that on the exceptional occasions when he chose, he\r
+was absolute. He never, indeed, chose to be absolute except on some\r
+one else's behalf. On ninety-nine points Mrs. Garth decided, but on\r
+the hundredth she was often aware that she would have to perform the\r
+singularly difficult task of carrying out her own principle, and to\r
+make herself subordinate.\r
+\r
+"It is come round as I thought, Susan," said Caleb, when they were\r
+seated alone in the evening. He had already narrated the adventure\r
+which had brought about Fred's sharing in his work, but had kept back\r
+the further result. "The children _are_ fond of each other--I mean,\r
+Fred and Mary."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth laid her work on her knee, and fixed her penetrating eyes\r
+anxiously on her husband.\r
+\r
+"After we'd done our work, Fred poured it all out to me. He can't bear\r
+to be a clergyman, and Mary says she won't have him if he is one; and\r
+the lad would like to be under me and give his mind to business. And\r
+I've determined to take him and make a man of him."\r
+\r
+"Caleb!" said Mrs. Garth, in a deep contralto, expressive of resigned\r
+astonishment.\r
+\r
+"It's a fine thing to do," said Mr. Garth, settling himself firmly\r
+against the back of his chair, and grasping the elbows. "I shall have\r
+trouble with him, but I think I shall carry it through. The lad loves\r
+Mary, and a true love for a good woman is a great thing, Susan. It\r
+shapes many a rough fellow."\r
+\r
+"Has Mary spoken to you on the subject?" said Mrs Garth, secretly a\r
+little hurt that she had to be informed on it herself.\r
+\r
+"Not a word. I asked her about Fred once; I gave her a bit of a\r
+warning. But she assured me she would never marry an idle\r
+self-indulgent man--nothing since. But it seems Fred set on Mr.\r
+Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden him to speak\r
+himself, and Mr. Farebrother has found out that she is fond of Fred,\r
+but says he must not be a clergyman. Fred's heart is fixed on Mary,\r
+that I can see: it gives me a good opinion of the lad--and we always\r
+liked him, Susan."\r
+\r
+"It is a pity for Mary, I think," said Mrs. Garth.\r
+\r
+"Why--a pity?"\r
+\r
+"Because, Caleb, she might have had a man who is worth twenty Fred\r
+Vincy's."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" said Caleb, with surprise.\r
+\r
+"I firmly believe that Mr. Farebrother is attached to her, and meant to\r
+make her an offer; but of course, now that Fred has used him as an\r
+envoy, there is an end to that better prospect." There was a severe\r
+precision in Mrs. Garth's utterance. She was vexed and disappointed,\r
+but she was bent on abstaining from useless words.\r
+\r
+Caleb was silent a few moments under a conflict of feelings. He looked\r
+at the floor and moved his head and hands in accompaniment to some\r
+inward argumentation. At last he said--\r
+\r
+"That would have made me very proud and happy, Susan, and I should have\r
+been glad for your sake. I've always felt that your belongings have\r
+never been on a level with you. But you took me, though I was a plain\r
+man."\r
+\r
+"I took the best and cleverest man I had ever known," said Mrs. Garth,\r
+convinced that _she_ would never have loved any one who came short of\r
+that mark.\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps others thought you might have done better. But it would\r
+have been worse for me. And that is what touches me close about Fred.\r
+The lad is good at bottom, and clever enough to do, if he's put in the\r
+right way; and he loves and honors my daughter beyond anything, and she\r
+has given him a sort of promise according to what he turns out. I say,\r
+that young man's soul is in my hand; and I'll do the best I can for\r
+him, so help me God! It's my duty, Susan."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth was not given to tears, but there was a large one rolling\r
+down her face before her husband had finished. It came from the\r
+pressure of various feelings, in which there was much affection and\r
+some vexation. She wiped it away quickly, saying--\r
+\r
+"Few men besides you would think it a duty to add to their anxieties in\r
+that way, Caleb."\r
+\r
+"That signifies nothing--what other men would think. I've got a clear\r
+feeling inside me, and that I shall follow; and I hope your heart will\r
+go with me, Susan, in making everything as light as can be to Mary,\r
+poor child."\r
+\r
+Caleb, leaning back in his chair, looked with anxious appeal towards\r
+his wife. She rose and kissed him, saying, "God bless you, Caleb! Our\r
+children have a good father."\r
+\r
+But she went out and had a hearty cry to make up for the suppression of\r
+her words. She felt sure that her husband's conduct would be\r
+misunderstood, and about Fred she was rational and unhopeful. Which\r
+would turn out to have the more foresight in it--her rationality or\r
+Caleb's ardent generosity?\r
+\r
+When Fred went to the office the next morning, there was a test to be\r
+gone through which he was not prepared for.\r
+\r
+"Now Fred," said Caleb, "you will have some desk-work. I have always\r
+done a good deal of writing myself, but I can't do without help, and as\r
+I want you to understand the accounts and get the values into your\r
+head, I mean to do without another clerk. So you must buckle to. How\r
+are you at writing and arithmetic?"\r
+\r
+Fred felt an awkward movement of the heart; he had not thought of\r
+desk-work; but he was in a resolute mood, and not going to shrink.\r
+"I'm not afraid of arithmetic, Mr. Garth: it always came easily to me.\r
+I think you know my writing."\r
+\r
+"Let us see," said Caleb, taking up a pen, examining it carefully and\r
+handing it, well dipped, to Fred with a sheet of ruled paper. "Copy me\r
+a line or two of that valuation, with the figures at the end."\r
+\r
+At that time the opinion existed that it was beneath a gentleman to\r
+write legibly, or with a hand in the least suitable to a clerk. Fred\r
+wrote the lines demanded in a hand as gentlemanly as that of any\r
+viscount or bishop of the day: the vowels were all alike and the\r
+consonants only distinguishable as turning up or down, the strokes had\r
+a blotted solidity and the letters disdained to keep the line--in\r
+short, it was a manuscript of that venerable kind easy to interpret\r
+when you know beforehand what the writer means.\r
+\r
+As Caleb looked on, his visage showed a growing depression, but when\r
+Fred handed him the paper he gave something like a snarl, and rapped\r
+the paper passionately with the back of his hand. Bad work like this\r
+dispelled all Caleb's mildness.\r
+\r
+"The deuce!" he exclaimed, snarlingly. "To think that this is a\r
+country where a man's education may cost hundreds and hundreds, and it\r
+turns you out this!" Then in a more pathetic tone, pushing up his\r
+spectacles and looking at the unfortunate scribe, "The Lord have mercy\r
+on us, Fred, I can't put up with this!"\r
+\r
+"What can I do, Mr. Garth?" said Fred, whose spirits had sunk very low,\r
+not only at the estimate of his handwriting, but at the vision of\r
+himself as liable to be ranked with office clerks.\r
+\r
+"Do? Why, you must learn to form your letters and keep the line.\r
+What's the use of writing at all if nobody can understand it?" asked\r
+Caleb, energetically, quite preoccupied with the bad quality of the\r
+work. "Is there so little business in the world that you must be\r
+sending puzzles over the country? But that's the way people are\r
+brought up. I should lose no end of time with the letters some people\r
+send me, if Susan did not make them out for me. It's disgusting." Here\r
+Caleb tossed the paper from him.\r
+\r
+Any stranger peeping into the office at that moment might have wondered\r
+what was the drama between the indignant man of business, and the\r
+fine-looking young fellow whose blond complexion was getting rather\r
+patchy as he bit his lip with mortification. Fred was struggling with\r
+many thoughts. Mr. Garth had been so kind and encouraging at the\r
+beginning of their interview, that gratitude and hopefulness had been\r
+at a high pitch, and the downfall was proportionate. He had not\r
+thought of desk-work--in fact, like the majority of young gentlemen, he\r
+wanted an occupation which should be free from disagreeables. I cannot\r
+tell what might have been the consequences if he had not distinctly\r
+promised himself that he would go to Lowick to see Mary and tell her\r
+that he was engaged to work under her father. He did not like to\r
+disappoint himself there.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry," were all the words that he could muster. But Mr.\r
+Garth was already relenting.\r
+\r
+"We must make the best of it, Fred," he began, with a return to his\r
+usual quiet tone. "Every man can learn to write. I taught myself. Go\r
+at it with a will, and sit up at night if the day-time isn't enough.\r
+We'll be patient, my boy. Callum shall go on with the books for a bit,\r
+while you are learning. But now I must be off," said Caleb, rising.\r
+"You must let your father know our agreement. You'll save me Callum's\r
+salary, you know, when you can write; and I can afford to give you\r
+eighty pounds for the first year, and more after."\r
+\r
+When Fred made the necessary disclosure to his parents, the relative\r
+effect on the two was a surprise which entered very deeply into his\r
+memory. He went straight from Mr. Garth's office to the warehouse,\r
+rightly feeling that the most respectful way in which he could behave\r
+to his father was to make the painful communication as gravely and\r
+formally as possible. Moreover, the decision would be more certainly\r
+understood to be final, if the interview took place in his father's\r
+gravest hours, which were always those spent in his private room at the\r
+warehouse.\r
+\r
+Fred entered on the subject directly, and declared briefly what he had\r
+done and was resolved to do, expressing at the end his regret that he\r
+should be the cause of disappointment to his father, and taking the\r
+blame on his own deficiencies. The regret was genuine, and inspired\r
+Fred with strong, simple words.\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy listened in profound surprise without uttering even an\r
+exclamation, a silence which in his impatient temperament was a sign of\r
+unusual emotion. He had not been in good spirits about trade that\r
+morning, and the slight bitterness in his lips grew intense as he\r
+listened. When Fred had ended, there was a pause of nearly a minute,\r
+during which Mr. Vincy replaced a book in his desk and turned the key\r
+emphatically. Then he looked at his son steadily, and said--\r
+\r
+"So you've made up your mind at last, sir?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, father."\r
+\r
+"Very well; stick to it. I've no more to say. You've thrown away your\r
+education, and gone down a step in life, when I had given you the means\r
+of rising, that's all."\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry that we differ, father. I think I can be quite as\r
+much of a gentleman at the work I have undertaken, as if I had been a\r
+curate. But I am grateful to you for wishing to do the best for me."\r
+\r
+"Very well; I have no more to say. I wash my hands of you. I only\r
+hope, when you have a son of your own he will make a better return for\r
+the pains you spend on him."\r
+\r
+This was very cutting to Fred. His father was using that unfair\r
+advantage possessed by us all when we are in a pathetic situation and\r
+see our own past as if it were simply part of the pathos. In reality,\r
+Mr. Vincy's wishes about his son had had a great deal of pride,\r
+inconsiderateness, and egoistic folly in them. But still the\r
+disappointed father held a strong lever; and Fred felt as if he were\r
+being banished with a malediction.\r
+\r
+"I hope you will not object to my remaining at home, sir?" he said,\r
+after rising to go; "I shall have a sufficient salary to pay for my\r
+board, as of course I should wish to do."\r
+\r
+"Board be hanged!" said Mr. Vincy, recovering himself in his disgust at\r
+the notion that Fred's keep would be missed at his table. "Of course\r
+your mother will want you to stay. But I shall keep no horse for you,\r
+you understand; and you will pay your own tailor. You will do with a\r
+suit or two less, I fancy, when you have to pay for 'em."\r
+\r
+Fred lingered; there was still something to be said. At last it came.\r
+\r
+"I hope you will shake hands with me, father, and forgive me the\r
+vexation I have caused you."\r
+\r
+Mr. Vincy from his chair threw a quick glance upward at his son, who\r
+had advanced near to him, and then gave his hand, saying hurriedly,\r
+"Yes, yes, let us say no more."\r
+\r
+Fred went through much more narrative and explanation with his mother,\r
+but she was inconsolable, having before her eyes what perhaps her\r
+husband had never thought of, the certainty that Fred would marry Mary\r
+Garth, that her life would henceforth be spoiled by a perpetual\r
+infusion of Garths and their ways, and that her darling boy, with his\r
+beautiful face and stylish air "beyond anybody else's son in\r
+Middlemarch," would be sure to get like that family in plainness of\r
+appearance and carelessness about his clothes. To her it seemed that\r
+there was a Garth conspiracy to get possession of the desirable Fred,\r
+but she dared not enlarge on this opinion, because a slight hint of it\r
+had made him "fly out" at her as he had never done before. Her temper\r
+was too sweet for her to show any anger, but she felt that her\r
+happiness had received a bruise, and for several days merely to look at\r
+Fred made her cry a little as if he were the subject of some baleful\r
+prophecy. Perhaps she was the slower to recover her usual cheerfulness\r
+because Fred had warned her that she must not reopen the sore question\r
+with his father, who had accepted his decision and forgiven him. If\r
+her husband had been vehement against Fred, she would have been urged\r
+into defence of her darling. It was the end of the fourth day when Mr.\r
+Vincy said to her--\r
+\r
+"Come, Lucy, my dear, don't be so down-hearted. You always have spoiled\r
+the boy, and you must go on spoiling him."\r
+\r
+"Nothing ever did cut me so before, Vincy," said the wife, her fair\r
+throat and chin beginning to tremble again, "only his illness."\r
+\r
+"Pooh, pooh, never mind! We must expect to have trouble with our\r
+children. Don't make it worse by letting me see you out of spirits."\r
+\r
+"Well, I won't," said Mrs. Vincy, roused by this appeal and adjusting\r
+herself with a little shake as of a bird which lays down its ruffled\r
+plumage.\r
+\r
+"It won't do to begin making a fuss about one," said Mr. Vincy, wishing\r
+to combine a little grumbling with domestic cheerfulness. "There's\r
+Rosamond as well as Fred."\r
+\r
+"Yes, poor thing. I'm sure I felt for her being disappointed of her\r
+baby; but she got over it nicely."\r
+\r
+"Baby, pooh! I can see Lydgate is making a mess of his practice, and\r
+getting into debt too, by what I hear. I shall have Rosamond coming to\r
+me with a pretty tale one of these days. But they'll get no money from\r
+me, I know. Let _his_ family help him. I never did like that\r
+marriage. But it's no use talking. Ring the bell for lemons, and\r
+don't look dull any more, Lucy. I'll drive you and Louisa to Riverston\r
+to-morrow."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LVII.\r
+\r
+ They numbered scarce eight summers when a name\r
+ Rose on their souls and stirred such motions there\r
+ As thrill the buds and shape their hidden frame\r
+ At penetration of the quickening air:\r
+ His name who told of loyal Evan Dhu,\r
+ Of quaint Bradwardine, and Vich Ian Vor,\r
+ Making the little world their childhood knew\r
+ Large with a land of mountain lake and scaur,\r
+ And larger yet with wonder love belief\r
+ Toward Walter Scott who living far away\r
+ Sent them this wealth of joy and noble grief.\r
+ The book and they must part, but day by day,\r
+ In lines that thwart like portly spiders ran\r
+ They wrote the tale, from Tully Veolan.\r
+\r
+\r
+The evening that Fred Vincy walked to Lowick parsonage (he had begun to\r
+see that this was a world in which even a spirited young man must\r
+sometimes walk for want of a horse to carry him) he set out at five\r
+o'clock and called on Mrs. Garth by the way, wishing to assure himself\r
+that she accepted their new relations willingly.\r
+\r
+He found the family group, dogs and cats included, under the great\r
+apple-tree in the orchard. It was a festival with Mrs. Garth, for her\r
+eldest son, Christy, her peculiar joy and pride, had come home for a\r
+short holiday--Christy, who held it the most desirable thing in the\r
+world to be a tutor, to study all literatures and be a regenerate\r
+Porson, and who was an incorporate criticism on poor Fred, a sort of\r
+object-lesson given to him by the educational mother. Christy himself,\r
+a square-browed, broad-shouldered masculine edition of his mother not\r
+much higher than Fred's shoulder--which made it the harder that he\r
+should be held superior--was always as simple as possible, and thought\r
+no more of Fred's disinclination to scholarship than of a giraffe's,\r
+wishing that he himself were more of the same height. He was lying on\r
+the ground now by his mother's chair, with his straw hat laid flat over\r
+his eyes, while Jim on the other side was reading aloud from that\r
+beloved writer who has made a chief part in the happiness of many young\r
+lives. The volume was "Ivanhoe," and Jim was in the great archery\r
+scene at the tournament, but suffered much interruption from Ben, who\r
+had fetched his own old bow and arrows, and was making himself\r
+dreadfully disagreeable, Letty thought, by begging all present to\r
+observe his random shots, which no one wished to do except Brownie, the\r
+active-minded but probably shallow mongrel, while the grizzled\r
+Newfoundland lying in the sun looked on with the dull-eyed neutrality\r
+of extreme old age. Letty herself, showing as to her mouth and\r
+pinafore some slight signs that she had been assisting at the gathering\r
+of the cherries which stood in a coral-heap on the tea-table, was now\r
+seated on the grass, listening open-eyed to the reading.\r
+\r
+But the centre of interest was changed for all by the arrival of Fred\r
+Vincy. When, seating himself on a garden-stool, he said that he was on\r
+his way to Lowick Parsonage, Ben, who had thrown down his bow, and\r
+snatched up a reluctant half-grown kitten instead, strode across Fred's\r
+outstretched leg, and said "Take me!"\r
+\r
+"Oh, and me too," said Letty.\r
+\r
+"You can't keep up with Fred and me," said Ben.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I can. Mother, please say that I am to go," urged Letty, whose\r
+life was much checkered by resistance to her depreciation as a girl.\r
+\r
+"I shall stay with Christy," observed Jim; as much as to say that he\r
+had the advantage of those simpletons; whereupon Letty put her hand up\r
+to her head and looked with jealous indecision from the one to the\r
+other.\r
+\r
+"Let us all go and see Mary," said Christy, opening his arms.\r
+\r
+"No, my dear child, we must not go in a swarm to the parsonage. And\r
+that old Glasgow suit of yours would never do. Besides, your father\r
+will come home. We must let Fred go alone. He can tell Mary that you\r
+are here, and she will come back to-morrow."\r
+\r
+Christy glanced at his own threadbare knees, and then at Fred's\r
+beautiful white trousers. Certainly Fred's tailoring suggested the\r
+advantages of an English university, and he had a graceful way even of\r
+looking warm and of pushing his hair back with his handkerchief.\r
+\r
+"Children, run away," said Mrs. Garth; "it is too warm to hang about\r
+your friends. Take your brother and show him the rabbits."\r
+\r
+The eldest understood, and led off the children immediately. Fred felt\r
+that Mrs. Garth wished to give him an opportunity of saying anything he\r
+had to say, but he could only begin by observing--\r
+\r
+"How glad you must be to have Christy here!"\r
+\r
+"Yes; he has come sooner than I expected. He got down from the coach\r
+at nine o'clock, just after his father went out. I am longing for\r
+Caleb to come and hear what wonderful progress Christy is making. He\r
+has paid his expenses for the last year by giving lessons, carrying on\r
+hard study at the same time. He hopes soon to get a private tutorship\r
+and go abroad."\r
+\r
+"He is a great fellow," said Fred, to whom these cheerful truths had a\r
+medicinal taste, "and no trouble to anybody." After a slight pause, he\r
+added, "But I fear you will think that I am going to be a great deal of\r
+trouble to Mr. Garth."\r
+\r
+"Caleb likes taking trouble: he is one of those men who always do more\r
+than any one would have thought of asking them to do," answered Mrs.\r
+Garth. She was knitting, and could either look at Fred or not, as she\r
+chose--always an advantage when one is bent on loading speech with\r
+salutary meaning; and though Mrs. Garth intended to be duly reserved,\r
+she did wish to say something that Fred might be the better for.\r
+\r
+"I know you think me very undeserving, Mrs. Garth, and with good\r
+reason," said Fred, his spirit rising a little at the perception of\r
+something like a disposition to lecture him. "I happen to have behaved\r
+just the worst to the people I can't help wishing for the most from.\r
+But while two men like Mr. Garth and Mr. Farebrother have not given me\r
+up, I don't see why I should give myself up." Fred thought it might be\r
+well to suggest these masculine examples to Mrs. Garth.\r
+\r
+"Assuredly," said she, with gathering emphasis. "A young man for whom\r
+two such elders had devoted themselves would indeed be culpable if he\r
+threw himself away and made their sacrifices vain."\r
+\r
+Fred wondered a little at this strong language, but only said, "I hope\r
+it will not be so with me, Mrs. Garth, since I have some encouragement\r
+to believe that I may win Mary. Mr. Garth has told you about that?\r
+You were not surprised, I dare say?" Fred ended, innocently referring\r
+only to his own love as probably evident enough.\r
+\r
+"Not surprised that Mary has given you encouragement?" returned Mrs.\r
+Garth, who thought it would be well for Fred to be more alive to the\r
+fact that Mary's friends could not possibly have wished this\r
+beforehand, whatever the Vincys might suppose. "Yes, I confess I was\r
+surprised."\r
+\r
+"She never did give me any--not the least in the world, when I talked\r
+to her myself," said Fred, eager to vindicate Mary. "But when I asked\r
+Mr. Farebrother to speak for me, she allowed him to tell me there was a\r
+hope."\r
+\r
+The power of admonition which had begun to stir in Mrs. Garth had not\r
+yet discharged itself. It was a little too provoking even for _her_\r
+self-control that this blooming youngster should flourish on the\r
+disappointments of sadder and wiser people--making a meal of a\r
+nightingale and never knowing it--and that all the while his family\r
+should suppose that hers was in eager need of this sprig; and her\r
+vexation had fermented the more actively because of its total\r
+repression towards her husband. Exemplary wives will sometimes find\r
+scapegoats in this way. She now said with energetic decision, "You\r
+made a great mistake, Fred, in asking Mr. Farebrother to speak for you."\r
+\r
+"Did I?" said Fred, reddening instantaneously. He was alarmed, but at\r
+a loss to know what Mrs. Garth meant, and added, in an apologetic tone,\r
+"Mr. Farebrother has always been such a friend of ours; and Mary, I\r
+knew, would listen to him gravely; and he took it on himself quite\r
+readily."\r
+\r
+"Yes, young people are usually blind to everything but their own\r
+wishes, and seldom imagine how much those wishes cost others," said\r
+Mrs. Garth. She did not mean to go beyond this salutary general\r
+doctrine, and threw her indignation into a needless unwinding of her\r
+worsted, knitting her brow at it with a grand air.\r
+\r
+"I cannot conceive how it could be any pain to Mr. Farebrother," said\r
+Fred, who nevertheless felt that surprising conceptions were beginning\r
+to form themselves.\r
+\r
+"Precisely; you cannot conceive," said Mrs. Garth, cutting her words as\r
+neatly as possible.\r
+\r
+For a moment Fred looked at the horizon with a dismayed anxiety, and\r
+then turning with a quick movement said almost sharply--\r
+\r
+"Do you mean to say, Mrs. Garth, that Mr. Farebrother is in love with\r
+Mary?"\r
+\r
+"And if it were so, Fred, I think you are the last person who ought to\r
+be surprised," returned Mrs. Garth, laying her knitting down beside her\r
+and folding her arms. It was an unwonted sign of emotion in her that\r
+she should put her work out of her hands. In fact her feelings were\r
+divided between the satisfaction of giving Fred his discipline and the\r
+sense of having gone a little too far. Fred took his hat and stick and\r
+rose quickly.\r
+\r
+"Then you think I am standing in his way, and in Mary's too?" he said,\r
+in a tone which seemed to demand an answer.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth could not speak immediately. She had brought herself into\r
+the unpleasant position of being called on to say what she really felt,\r
+yet what she knew there were strong reasons for concealing. And to her\r
+the consciousness of having exceeded in words was peculiarly\r
+mortifying. Besides, Fred had given out unexpected electricity, and he\r
+now added, "Mr. Garth seemed pleased that Mary should be attached to\r
+me. He could not have known anything of this."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth felt a severe twinge at this mention of her husband, the\r
+fear that Caleb might think her in the wrong not being easily\r
+endurable. She answered, wanting to check unintended consequences--\r
+\r
+"I spoke from inference only. I am not aware that Mary knows anything\r
+of the matter."\r
+\r
+But she hesitated to beg that he would keep entire silence on a subject\r
+which she had herself unnecessarily mentioned, not being used to stoop\r
+in that way; and while she was hesitating there was already a rush of\r
+unintended consequences under the apple-tree where the tea-things\r
+stood. Ben, bouncing across the grass with Brownie at his heels, and\r
+seeing the kitten dragging the knitting by a lengthening line of wool,\r
+shouted and clapped his hands; Brownie barked, the kitten, desperate,\r
+jumped on the tea-table and upset the milk, then jumped down again and\r
+swept half the cherries with it; and Ben, snatching up the half-knitted\r
+sock-top, fitted it over the kitten's head as a new source of madness,\r
+while Letty arriving cried out to her mother against this cruelty--it\r
+was a history as full of sensation as "This is the house that Jack\r
+built." Mrs. Garth was obliged to interfere, the other young ones came\r
+up and the tete-a-tete with Fred was ended. He got away as soon as he\r
+could, and Mrs. Garth could only imply some retractation of her\r
+severity by saying "God bless you" when she shook hands with him.\r
+\r
+She was unpleasantly conscious that she had been on the verge of\r
+speaking as "one of the foolish women speaketh"--telling first and\r
+entreating silence after. But she had not entreated silence, and to\r
+prevent Caleb's blame she determined to blame herself and confess all\r
+to him that very night. It was curious what an awful tribunal the mild\r
+Caleb's was to her, whenever he set it up. But she meant to point out\r
+to him that the revelation might do Fred Vincy a great deal of good.\r
+\r
+No doubt it was having a strong effect on him as he walked to Lowick.\r
+Fred's light hopeful nature had perhaps never had so much of a bruise\r
+as from this suggestion that if he had been out of the way Mary might\r
+have made a thoroughly good match. Also he was piqued that he had been\r
+what he called such a stupid lout as to ask that intervention from Mr.\r
+Farebrother. But it was not in a lover's nature--it was not in\r
+Fred's, that the new anxiety raised about Mary's feeling should not\r
+surmount every other. Notwithstanding his trust in Mr. Farebrother's\r
+generosity, notwithstanding what Mary had said to him, Fred could not\r
+help feeling that he had a rival: it was a new consciousness, and he\r
+objected to it extremely, not being in the least ready to give up Mary\r
+for her good, being ready rather to fight for her with any man\r
+whatsoever. But the fighting with Mr. Farebrother must be of a\r
+metaphorical kind, which was much more difficult to Fred than the\r
+muscular. Certainly this experience was a discipline for Fred hardly\r
+less sharp than his disappointment about his uncle's will. The iron\r
+had not entered into his soul, but he had begun to imagine what the\r
+sharp edge would be. It did not once occur to Fred that Mrs. Garth\r
+might be mistaken about Mr. Farebrother, but he suspected that she\r
+might be wrong about Mary. Mary had been staying at the parsonage\r
+lately, and her mother might know very little of what had been passing\r
+in her mind.\r
+\r
+He did not feel easier when he found her looking cheerful with the\r
+three ladies in the drawing-room. They were in animated discussion on\r
+some subject which was dropped when he entered, and Mary was copying\r
+the labels from a heap of shallow cabinet drawers, in a minute\r
+handwriting which she was skilled in. Mr. Farebrother was somewhere in\r
+the village, and the three ladies knew nothing of Fred's peculiar\r
+relation to Mary: it was impossible for either of them to propose that\r
+they should walk round the garden, and Fred predicted to himself that\r
+he should have to go away without saying a word to her in private. He\r
+told her first of Christy's arrival and then of his own engagement with\r
+her father; and he was comforted by seeing that this latter news\r
+touched her keenly. She said hurriedly, "I am so glad," and then bent\r
+over her writing to hinder any one from noticing her face. But here\r
+was a subject which Mrs. Farebrother could not let pass.\r
+\r
+"You don't mean, my dear Miss Garth, that you are glad to hear of a\r
+young man giving up the Church for which he was educated: you only mean\r
+that things being so, you are glad that he should be under an excellent\r
+man like your father."\r
+\r
+"No, really, Mrs. Farebrother, I am glad of both, I fear," said Mary,\r
+cleverly getting rid of one rebellious tear. "I have a dreadfully\r
+secular mind. I never liked any clergyman except the Vicar of\r
+Wakefield and Mr. Farebrother."\r
+\r
+"Now why, my dear?" said Mrs. Farebrother, pausing on her large wooden\r
+knitting-needles and looking at Mary. "You have always a good reason\r
+for your opinions, but this astonishes me. Of course I put out of the\r
+question those who preach new doctrine. But why should you dislike\r
+clergymen?"\r
+\r
+"Oh dear," said Mary, her face breaking into merriment as she seemed to\r
+consider a moment, "I don't like their neckcloths."\r
+\r
+"Why, you don't like Camden's, then," said Miss Winifred, in some\r
+anxiety.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do," said Mary. "I don't like the other clergymen's\r
+neckcloths, because it is they who wear them."\r
+\r
+"How very puzzling!" said Miss Noble, feeling that her own intellect\r
+was probably deficient.\r
+\r
+"My dear, you are joking. You would have better reasons than these for\r
+slighting so respectable a class of men," said Mrs. Farebrother,\r
+majestically.\r
+\r
+"Miss Garth has such severe notions of what people should be that it is\r
+difficult to satisfy her," said Fred.\r
+\r
+"Well, I am glad at least that she makes an exception in favor of my\r
+son," said the old lady.\r
+\r
+Mary was wondering at Fred's piqued tone, when Mr. Farebrother came in\r
+and had to hear the news about the engagement under Mr. Garth. At the\r
+end he said with quiet satisfaction, "_That_ is right;" and then bent\r
+to look at Mary's labels and praise her handwriting. Fred felt\r
+horribly jealous--was glad, of course, that Mr. Farebrother was so\r
+estimable, but wished that he had been ugly and fat as men at forty\r
+sometimes are. It was clear what the end would be, since Mary openly\r
+placed Farebrother above everybody, and these women were all evidently\r
+encouraging the affair. He was feeling sure that he should have no\r
+chance of speaking to Mary, when Mr. Farebrother said--\r
+\r
+"Fred, help me to carry these drawers back into my study--you have\r
+never seen my fine new study. Pray come too, Miss Garth. I want you\r
+to see a stupendous spider I found this morning."\r
+\r
+Mary at once saw the Vicar's intention. He had never since the\r
+memorable evening deviated from his old pastoral kindness towards her,\r
+and her momentary wonder and doubt had quite gone to sleep. Mary was\r
+accustomed to think rather rigorously of what was probable, and if a\r
+belief flattered her vanity she felt warned to dismiss it as\r
+ridiculous, having early had much exercise in such dismissals. It was\r
+as she had foreseen: when Fred had been asked to admire the fittings of\r
+the study, and she had been asked to admire the spider, Mr. Farebrother\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Wait here a minute or two. I am going to look out an engraving which\r
+Fred is tall enough to hang for me. I shall be back in a few minutes."\r
+And then he went out. Nevertheless, the first word Fred said to Mary\r
+was--\r
+\r
+"It is of no use, whatever I do, Mary. You are sure to marry\r
+Farebrother at last." There was some rage in his tone.\r
+\r
+"What do you mean, Fred?" Mary exclaimed indignantly, blushing deeply,\r
+and surprised out of all her readiness in reply.\r
+\r
+"It is impossible that you should not see it all clearly enough--you\r
+who see everything."\r
+\r
+"I only see that you are behaving very ill, Fred, in speaking so of Mr.\r
+Farebrother after he has pleaded your cause in every way. How can you\r
+have taken up such an idea?"\r
+\r
+Fred was rather deep, in spite of his irritation. If Mary had really\r
+been unsuspicious, there was no good in telling her what Mrs. Garth had\r
+said.\r
+\r
+"It follows as a matter of course," he replied. "When you are\r
+continually seeing a man who beats me in everything, and whom you set\r
+up above everybody, I can have no fair chance."\r
+\r
+"You are very ungrateful, Fred," said Mary. "I wish I had never told\r
+Mr. Farebrother that I cared for you in the least."\r
+\r
+"No, I am not ungrateful; I should be the happiest fellow in the world\r
+if it were not for this. I told your father everything, and he was\r
+very kind; he treated me as if I were his son. I could go at the work\r
+with a will, writing and everything, if it were not for this."\r
+\r
+"For this? for what?" said Mary, imagining now that something specific\r
+must have been said or done.\r
+\r
+"This dreadful certainty that I shall be bowled out by Farebrother."\r
+Mary was appeased by her inclination to laugh.\r
+\r
+"Fred," she said, peeping round to catch his eyes, which were sulkily\r
+turned away from her, "you are too delightfully ridiculous. If you\r
+were not such a charming simpleton, what a temptation this would be to\r
+play the wicked coquette, and let you suppose that somebody besides you\r
+has made love to me."\r
+\r
+"Do you really like me best, Mary?" said Fred, turning eyes full of\r
+affection on her, and trying to take her hand.\r
+\r
+"I don't like you at all at this moment," said Mary, retreating, and\r
+putting her hands behind her. "I only said that no mortal ever made\r
+love to me besides you. And that is no argument that a very wise man\r
+ever will," she ended, merrily.\r
+\r
+"I wish you would tell me that you could not possibly ever think of\r
+him," said Fred.\r
+\r
+"Never dare to mention this any more to me, Fred," said Mary, getting\r
+serious again. "I don't know whether it is more stupid or ungenerous\r
+in you not to see that Mr. Farebrother has left us together on purpose\r
+that we might speak freely. I am disappointed that you should be so\r
+blind to his delicate feeling."\r
+\r
+There was no time to say any more before Mr. Farebrother came back with\r
+the engraving; and Fred had to return to the drawing-room still with a\r
+jealous dread in his heart, but yet with comforting arguments from\r
+Mary's words and manner. The result of the conversation was on the\r
+whole more painful to Mary: inevitably her attention had taken a new\r
+attitude, and she saw the possibility of new interpretations. She was\r
+in a position in which she seemed to herself to be slighting Mr.\r
+Farebrother, and this, in relation to a man who is much honored, is\r
+always dangerous to the firmness of a grateful woman. To have a reason\r
+for going home the next day was a relief, for Mary earnestly desired to\r
+be always clear that she loved Fred best. When a tender affection has\r
+been storing itself in us through many of our years, the idea that we\r
+could accept any exchange for it seems to be a cheapening of our lives.\r
+And we can set a watch over our affections and our constancy as we can\r
+over other treasures.\r
+\r
+"Fred has lost all his other expectations; he must keep this," Mary\r
+said to herself, with a smile curling her lips. It was impossible to\r
+help fleeting visions of another kind--new dignities and an\r
+acknowledged value of which she had often felt the absence. But these\r
+things with Fred outside them, Fred forsaken and looking sad for the\r
+want of her, could never tempt her deliberate thought.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LVIII.\r
+\r
+ "For there can live no hatred in thine eye,\r
+ Therefore in that I cannot know thy change:\r
+ In many's looks the false heart's history\r
+ Is writ in moods and frowns and wrinkles strange:\r
+ But Heaven in thy creation did decree\r
+ That in thy face sweet love should ever dwell:\r
+ Whate'er thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be\r
+ Thy looks should nothing thence but sweetness tell."\r
+ --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.\r
+\r
+\r
+At the time when Mr. Vincy uttered that presentiment about Rosamond,\r
+she herself had never had the idea that she should be driven to make\r
+the sort of appeal which he foresaw. She had not yet had any anxiety\r
+about ways and means, although her domestic life had been expensive as\r
+well as eventful. Her baby had been born prematurely, and all the\r
+embroidered robes and caps had to be laid by in darkness. This\r
+misfortune was attributed entirely to her having persisted in going out\r
+on horseback one day when her husband had desired her not to do so; but\r
+it must not be supposed that she had shown temper on the occasion, or\r
+rudely told him that she would do as she liked.\r
+\r
+What led her particularly to desire horse-exercise was a visit from\r
+Captain Lydgate, the baronet's third son, who, I am sorry to say, was\r
+detested by our Tertius of that name as a vapid fop "parting his hair\r
+from brow to nape in a despicable fashion" (not followed by Tertius\r
+himself), and showing an ignorant security that he knew the proper\r
+thing to say on every topic. Lydgate inwardly cursed his own folly\r
+that he had drawn down this visit by consenting to go to his uncle's on\r
+the wedding-tour, and he made himself rather disagreeable to Rosamond\r
+by saying so in private. For to Rosamond this visit was a source of\r
+unprecedented but gracefully concealed exultation. She was so\r
+intensely conscious of having a cousin who was a baronet's son staying\r
+in the house, that she imagined the knowledge of what was implied by\r
+his presence to be diffused through all other minds; and when she\r
+introduced Captain Lydgate to her guests, she had a placid sense that\r
+his rank penetrated them as if it had been an odor. The satisfaction\r
+was enough for the time to melt away some disappointment in the\r
+conditions of marriage with a medical man even of good birth: it seemed\r
+now that her marriage was visibly as well as ideally floating her above\r
+the Middlemarch level, and the future looked bright with letters and\r
+visits to and from Quallingham, and vague advancement in consequence\r
+for Tertius. Especially as, probably at the Captain's suggestion, his\r
+married sister, Mrs. Mengan, had come with her maid, and stayed two\r
+nights on her way from town. Hence it was clearly worth while for\r
+Rosamond to take pains with her music and the careful selection of her\r
+lace.\r
+\r
+As to Captain Lydgate himself, his low brow, his aquiline nose bent on\r
+one side, and his rather heavy utterance, might have been\r
+disadvantageous in any young gentleman who had not a military bearing\r
+and mustache to give him what is doted on by some flower-like blond\r
+heads as "style." He had, moreover, that sort of high-breeding which\r
+consists in being free from the petty solicitudes of middle-class\r
+gentility, and he was a great critic of feminine charms. Rosamond\r
+delighted in his admiration now even more than she had done at\r
+Quallingham, and he found it easy to spend several hours of the day in\r
+flirting with her. The visit altogether was one of the pleasantest\r
+larks he had ever had, not the less so perhaps because he suspected\r
+that his queer cousin Tertius wished him away: though Lydgate, who\r
+would rather (hyperbolically speaking) have died than have failed in\r
+polite hospitality, suppressed his dislike, and only pretended\r
+generally not to hear what the gallant officer said, consigning the\r
+task of answering him to Rosamond. For he was not at all a jealous\r
+husband, and preferred leaving a feather-headed young gentleman alone\r
+with his wife to bearing him company.\r
+\r
+"I wish you would talk more to the Captain at dinner, Tertius," said\r
+Rosamond, one evening when the important guest was gone to Loamford to\r
+see some brother officers stationed there. "You really look so absent\r
+sometimes--you seem to be seeing through his head into something behind\r
+it, instead of looking at him."\r
+\r
+"My dear Rosy, you don't expect me to talk much to such a conceited ass\r
+as that, I hope," said Lydgate, brusquely. "If he got his head broken,\r
+I might look at it with interest, not before."\r
+\r
+"I cannot conceive why you should speak of your cousin so\r
+contemptuously," said Rosamond, her fingers moving at her work while\r
+she spoke with a mild gravity which had a touch of disdain in it.\r
+\r
+"Ask Ladislaw if he doesn't think your Captain the greatest bore he\r
+ever met with. Ladislaw has almost forsaken the house since he came."\r
+\r
+Rosamond thought she knew perfectly well why Mr. Ladislaw disliked the\r
+Captain: he was jealous, and she liked his being jealous.\r
+\r
+"It is impossible to say what will suit eccentric persons," she\r
+answered, "but in my opinion Captain Lydgate is a thorough gentleman,\r
+and I think you ought not, out of respect to Sir Godwin, to treat him\r
+with neglect."\r
+\r
+"No, dear; but we have had dinners for him. And he comes in and goes\r
+out as he likes. He doesn't want me."\r
+\r
+"Still, when he is in the room, you might show him more attention. He\r
+may not be a phoenix of cleverness in your sense; his profession is\r
+different; but it would be all the better for you to talk a little on\r
+his subjects. _I_ think his conversation is quite agreeable. And he\r
+is anything but an unprincipled man."\r
+\r
+"The fact is, you would wish me to be a little more like him, Rosy,"\r
+said Lydgate, in a sort of resigned murmur, with a smile which was not\r
+exactly tender, and certainly not merry. Rosamond was silent and did\r
+not smile again; but the lovely curves of her face looked good-tempered\r
+enough without smiling.\r
+\r
+Those words of Lydgate's were like a sad milestone marking how far he\r
+had travelled from his old dreamland, in which Rosamond Vincy appeared\r
+to be that perfect piece of womanhood who would reverence her husband's\r
+mind after the fashion of an accomplished mermaid, using her comb and\r
+looking-glass and singing her song for the relaxation of his adored\r
+wisdom alone. He had begun to distinguish between that imagined\r
+adoration and the attraction towards a man's talent because it gives\r
+him prestige, and is like an order in his button-hole or an Honorable\r
+before his name.\r
+\r
+It might have been supposed that Rosamond had travelled too, since she\r
+had found the pointless conversation of Mr. Ned Plymdale perfectly\r
+wearisome; but to most mortals there is a stupidity which is\r
+unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable--else,\r
+indeed, what would become of social bonds? Captain Lydgate's stupidity\r
+was delicately scented, carried itself with "style," talked with a good\r
+accent, and was closely related to Sir Godwin. Rosamond found it quite\r
+agreeable and caught many of its phrases.\r
+\r
+Therefore since Rosamond, as we know, was fond of horseback, there were\r
+plenty of reasons why she should be tempted to resume her riding when\r
+Captain Lydgate, who had ordered his man with two horses to follow him\r
+and put up at the "Green Dragon," begged her to go out on the gray\r
+which he warranted to be gentle and trained to carry a lady--indeed, he\r
+had bought it for his sister, and was taking it to Quallingham.\r
+Rosamond went out the first time without telling her husband, and came\r
+back before his return; but the ride had been so thorough a success,\r
+and she declared herself so much the better in consequence, that he was\r
+informed of it with full reliance on his consent that she should go\r
+riding again.\r
+\r
+On the contrary Lydgate was more than hurt--he was utterly confounded\r
+that she had risked herself on a strange horse without referring the\r
+matter to his wish. After the first almost thundering exclamations of\r
+astonishment, which sufficiently warned Rosamond of what was coming, he\r
+was silent for some moments.\r
+\r
+"However, you have come back safely," he said, at last, in a decisive\r
+tone. "You will not go again, Rosy; that is understood. If it were\r
+the quietest, most familiar horse in the world, there would always be\r
+the chance of accident. And you know very well that I wished you to\r
+give up riding the roan on that account."\r
+\r
+"But there is the chance of accident indoors, Tertius."\r
+\r
+"My darling, don't talk nonsense," said Lydgate, in an imploring tone;\r
+"surely I am the person to judge for you. I think it is enough that I\r
+say you are not to go again."\r
+\r
+Rosamond was arranging her hair before dinner, and the reflection of\r
+her head in the glass showed no change in its loveliness except a\r
+little turning aside of the long neck. Lydgate had been moving about\r
+with his hands in his pockets, and now paused near her, as if he\r
+awaited some assurance.\r
+\r
+"I wish you would fasten up my plaits, dear," said Rosamond, letting\r
+her arms fall with a little sigh, so as to make a husband ashamed of\r
+standing there like a brute. Lydgate had often fastened the plaits\r
+before, being among the deftest of men with his large finely formed\r
+fingers. He swept up the soft festoons of plaits and fastened in the\r
+tall comb (to such uses do men come!); and what could he do then but\r
+kiss the exquisite nape which was shown in all its delicate curves?\r
+But when we do what we have done before, it is often with a difference.\r
+Lydgate was still angry, and had not forgotten his point.\r
+\r
+"I shall tell the Captain that he ought to have known better than offer\r
+you his horse," he said, as he moved away.\r
+\r
+"I beg you will not do anything of the kind, Tertius," said Rosamond,\r
+looking at him with something more marked than usual in her speech.\r
+"It will be treating me as if I were a child. Promise that you will\r
+leave the subject to me."\r
+\r
+There did seem to be some truth in her objection. Lydgate said, "Very\r
+well," with a surly obedience, and thus the discussion ended with his\r
+promising Rosamond, and not with her promising him.\r
+\r
+In fact, she had been determined not to promise. Rosamond had that\r
+victorious obstinacy which never wastes its energy in impetuous\r
+resistance. What she liked to do was to her the right thing, and all\r
+her cleverness was directed to getting the means of doing it. She\r
+meant to go out riding again on the gray, and she did go on the next\r
+opportunity of her husband's absence, not intending that he should know\r
+until it was late enough not to signify to her. The temptation was\r
+certainly great: she was very fond of the exercise, and the\r
+gratification of riding on a fine horse, with Captain Lydgate, Sir\r
+Godwin's son, on another fine horse by her side, and of being met in\r
+this position by any one but her husband, was something as good as her\r
+dreams before marriage: moreover she was riveting the connection with\r
+the family at Quallingham, which must be a wise thing to do.\r
+\r
+But the gentle gray, unprepared for the crash of a tree that was being\r
+felled on the edge of Halsell wood, took fright, and caused a worse\r
+fright to Rosamond, leading finally to the loss of her baby. Lydgate\r
+could not show his anger towards her, but he was rather bearish to the\r
+Captain, whose visit naturally soon came to an end.\r
+\r
+In all future conversations on the subject, Rosamond was mildly certain\r
+that the ride had made no difference, and that if she had stayed at\r
+home the same symptoms would have come on and would have ended in the\r
+same way, because she had felt something like them before.\r
+\r
+Lydgate could only say, "Poor, poor darling!"--but he secretly wondered\r
+over the terrible tenacity of this mild creature. There was gathering\r
+within him an amazed sense of his powerlessness over Rosamond. His\r
+superior knowledge and mental force, instead of being, as he had\r
+imagined, a shrine to consult on all occasions, was simply set aside on\r
+every practical question. He had regarded Rosamond's cleverness as\r
+precisely of the receptive kind which became a woman. He was now\r
+beginning to find out what that cleverness was--what was the shape into\r
+which it had run as into a close network aloof and independent. No one\r
+quicker than Rosamond to see causes and effects which lay within the\r
+track of her own tastes and interests: she had seen clearly Lydgate's\r
+preeminence in Middlemarch society, and could go on imaginatively\r
+tracing still more agreeable social effects when his talent should have\r
+advanced him; but for her, his professional and scientific ambition had\r
+no other relation to these desirable effects than if they had been the\r
+fortunate discovery of an ill-smelling oil. And that oil apart, with\r
+which she had nothing to do, of course she believed in her own opinion\r
+more than she did in his. Lydgate was astounded to find in numberless\r
+trifling matters, as well as in this last serious case of the riding,\r
+that affection did not make her compliant. He had no doubt that the\r
+affection was there, and had no presentiment that he had done anything\r
+to repel it. For his own part he said to himself that he loved her as\r
+tenderly as ever, and could make up his mind to her negations;\r
+but--well! Lydgate was much worried, and conscious of new elements in\r
+his life as noxious to him as an inlet of mud to a creature that has\r
+been used to breathe and bathe and dart after its illuminated prey in\r
+the clearest of waters.\r
+\r
+Rosamond was soon looking lovelier than ever at her worktable, enjoying\r
+drives in her father's phaeton and thinking it likely that she might be\r
+invited to Quallingham. She knew that she was a much more exquisite\r
+ornament to the drawing-room there than any daughter of the family, and\r
+in reflecting that the gentlemen were aware of that, did not perhaps\r
+sufficiently consider whether the ladies would be eager to see\r
+themselves surpassed.\r
+\r
+Lydgate, relieved from anxiety about her, relapsed into what she\r
+inwardly called his moodiness--a name which to her covered his\r
+thoughtful preoccupation with other subjects than herself, as well as\r
+that uneasy look of the brow and distaste for all ordinary things as if\r
+they were mixed with bitter herbs, which really made a sort of\r
+weather-glass to his vexation and foreboding. These latter states of\r
+mind had one cause amongst others, which he had generously but\r
+mistakenly avoided mentioning to Rosamond, lest it should affect her\r
+health and spirits. Between him and her indeed there was that total\r
+missing of each other's mental track, which is too evidently possible\r
+even between persons who are continually thinking of each other. To\r
+Lydgate it seemed that he had been spending month after month in\r
+sacrificing more than half of his best intent and best power to his\r
+tenderness for Rosamond; bearing her little claims and interruptions\r
+without impatience, and, above all, bearing without betrayal of\r
+bitterness to look through less and less of interfering illusion at the\r
+blank unreflecting surface her mind presented to his ardor for the more\r
+impersonal ends of his profession and his scientific study, an ardor\r
+which he had fancied that the ideal wife must somehow worship as\r
+sublime, though not in the least knowing why. But his endurance was\r
+mingled with a self-discontent which, if we know how to be candid, we\r
+shall confess to make more than half our bitterness under grievances,\r
+wife or husband included. It always remains true that if we had been\r
+greater, circumstance would have been less strong against us. Lydgate\r
+was aware that his concessions to Rosamond were often little more than\r
+the lapse of slackening resolution, the creeping paralysis apt to seize\r
+an enthusiasm which is out of adjustment to a constant portion of our\r
+lives. And on Lydgate's enthusiasm there was constantly pressing not a\r
+simple weight of sorrow, but the biting presence of a petty degrading\r
+care, such as casts the blight of irony over all higher effort.\r
+\r
+This was the care which he had hitherto abstained from mentioning to\r
+Rosamond; and he believed, with some wonder, that it had never entered\r
+her mind, though certainly no difficulty could be less mysterious. It\r
+was an inference with a conspicuous handle to it, and had been easily\r
+drawn by indifferent observers, that Lydgate was in debt; and he could\r
+not succeed in keeping out of his mind for long together that he was\r
+every day getting deeper into that swamp, which tempts men towards it\r
+with such a pretty covering of flowers and verdure. It is wonderful\r
+how soon a man gets up to his chin there--in a condition in which,\r
+in spite of himself, he is forced to think chiefly of release, though he\r
+had a scheme of the universe in his soul.\r
+\r
+Eighteen months ago Lydgate was poor, but had never known the eager\r
+want of small sums, and felt rather a burning contempt for any one who\r
+descended a step in order to gain them. He was now experiencing\r
+something worse than a simple deficit: he was assailed by the vulgar\r
+hateful trials of a man who has bought and used a great many things\r
+which might have been done without, and which he is unable to pay for,\r
+though the demand for payment has become pressing.\r
+\r
+How this came about may be easily seen without much arithmetic or\r
+knowledge of prices. When a man in setting up a house and preparing\r
+for marriage finds that his furniture and other initial expenses come\r
+to between four and five hundred pounds more than he has capital to pay\r
+for; when at the end of a year it appears that his household expenses,\r
+horses and et caeteras, amount to nearly a thousand, while the proceeds\r
+of the practice reckoned from the old books to be worth eight hundred\r
+per annum have sunk like a summer pond and make hardly five hundred,\r
+chiefly in unpaid entries, the plain inference is that, whether he\r
+minds it or not, he is in debt. Those were less expensive times than\r
+our own, and provincial life was comparatively modest; but the ease\r
+with which a medical man who had lately bought a practice, who thought\r
+that he was obliged to keep two horses, whose table was supplied\r
+without stint, and who paid an insurance on his life and a high rent\r
+for house and garden, might find his expenses doubling his receipts,\r
+can be conceived by any one who does not think these details beneath\r
+his consideration. Rosamond, accustomed from her childhood to an extravagant\r
+household, thought that good housekeeping consisted simply in ordering\r
+the best of everything--nothing else "answered;" and Lydgate supposed\r
+that "if things were done at all, they must be done properly"--he did\r
+not see how they were to live otherwise. If each head of household\r
+expenditure had been mentioned to him beforehand, he would have\r
+probably observed that "it could hardly come to much," and if any one\r
+had suggested a saving on a particular article--for example, the\r
+substitution of cheap fish for dear--it would have appeared to him\r
+simply a penny-wise, mean notion. Rosamond, even without such an\r
+occasion as Captain Lydgate's visit, was fond of giving invitations,\r
+and Lydgate, though he often thought the guests tiresome, did not\r
+interfere. This sociability seemed a necessary part of professional\r
+prudence, and the entertainment must be suitable. It is true Lydgate\r
+was constantly visiting the homes of the poor and adjusting his\r
+prescriptions of diet to their small means; but, dear me! has it not by\r
+this time ceased to be remarkable--is it not rather that we expect in\r
+men, that they should have numerous strands of experience lying side by\r
+side and never compare them with each other? Expenditure--like\r
+ugliness and errors--becomes a totally new thing when we attach our own\r
+personality to it, and measure it by that wide difference which is\r
+manifest (in our own sensations) between ourselves and others. Lydgate\r
+believed himself to be careless about his dress, and he despised a man\r
+who calculated the effects of his costume; it seemed to him only a\r
+matter of course that he had abundance of fresh garments--such things\r
+were naturally ordered in sheaves. It must be remembered that he had\r
+never hitherto felt the check of importunate debt, and he walked by\r
+habit, not by self-criticism. But the check had come.\r
+\r
+Its novelty made it the more irritating. He was amazed, disgusted that\r
+conditions so foreign to all his purposes, so hatefully disconnected\r
+with the objects he cared to occupy himself with, should have lain in\r
+ambush and clutched him when he was unaware. And there was not only\r
+the actual debt; there was the certainty that in his present position\r
+he must go on deepening it. Two furnishing tradesmen at Brassing,\r
+whose bills had been incurred before his marriage, and whom\r
+uncalculated current expenses had ever since prevented him from paying,\r
+had repeatedly sent him unpleasant letters which had forced themselves\r
+on his attention. This could hardly have been more galling to any\r
+disposition than to Lydgate's, with his intense pride--his dislike of\r
+asking a favor or being under an obligation to any one. He had scorned\r
+even to form conjectures about Mr. Vincy's intentions on money matters,\r
+and nothing but extremity could have induced him to apply to his\r
+father-in-law, even if he had not been made aware in various indirect\r
+ways since his marriage that Mr. Vincy's own affairs were not\r
+flourishing, and that the expectation of help from him would be\r
+resented. Some men easily trust in the readiness of friends; it had\r
+never in the former part of his life occurred to Lydgate that he should\r
+need to do so: he had never thought what borrowing would be to him; but\r
+now that the idea had entered his mind, he felt that he would rather\r
+incur any other hardship. In the mean time he had no money or\r
+prospects of money; and his practice was not getting more lucrative.\r
+\r
+No wonder that Lydgate had been unable to suppress all signs of inward\r
+trouble during the last few months, and now that Rosamond was regaining\r
+brilliant health, he meditated taking her entirely into confidence on\r
+his difficulties. New conversance with tradesmen's bills had forced\r
+his reasoning into a new channel of comparison: he had begun to\r
+consider from a new point of view what was necessary and unnecessary in\r
+goods ordered, and to see that there must be some change of habits.\r
+How could such a change be made without Rosamond's concurrence? The\r
+immediate occasion of opening the disagreeable fact to her was forced\r
+upon him.\r
+\r
+Having no money, and having privately sought advice as to what security\r
+could possibly be given by a man in his position, Lydgate had offered\r
+the one good security in his power to the less peremptory creditor, who\r
+was a silversmith and jeweller, and who consented to take on himself\r
+the upholsterer's credit also, accepting interest for a given term.\r
+The security necessary was a bill of sale on the furniture of his\r
+house, which might make a creditor easy for a reasonable time about a\r
+debt amounting to less than four hundred pounds; and the silversmith,\r
+Mr. Dover, was willing to reduce it by taking back a portion of the\r
+plate and any other article which was as good as new. "Any other\r
+article" was a phrase delicately implying jewellery, and more\r
+particularly some purple amethysts costing thirty pounds, which Lydgate\r
+had bought as a bridal present.\r
+\r
+Opinions may be divided as to his wisdom in making this present: some\r
+may think that it was a graceful attention to be expected from a man\r
+like Lydgate, and that the fault of any troublesome consequences lay in\r
+the pinched narrowness of provincial life at that time, which offered\r
+no conveniences for professional people whose fortune was not\r
+proportioned to their tastes; also, in Lydgate's ridiculous\r
+fastidiousness about asking his friends for money.\r
+\r
+However, it had seemed a question of no moment to him on that fine\r
+morning when he went to give a final order for plate: in the presence\r
+of other jewels enormously expensive, and as an addition to orders of\r
+which the amount had not been exactly calculated, thirty pounds for\r
+ornaments so exquisitely suited to Rosamond's neck and arms could\r
+hardly appear excessive when there was no ready cash for it to exceed.\r
+But at this crisis Lydgate's imagination could not help dwelling on the\r
+possibility of letting the amethysts take their place again among Mr.\r
+Dover's stock, though he shrank from the idea of proposing this to\r
+Rosamond. Having been roused to discern consequences which he had\r
+never been in the habit of tracing, he was preparing to act on this\r
+discernment with some of the rigor (by no means all) that he would have\r
+applied in pursuing experiment. He was nerving himself to this rigor\r
+as he rode from Brassing, and meditated on the representations he must\r
+make to Rosamond.\r
+\r
+It was evening when he got home. He was intensely miserable, this\r
+strong man of nine-and-twenty and of many gifts. He was not saying\r
+angrily within himself that he had made a profound mistake; but the\r
+mistake was at work in him like a recognized chronic disease, mingling\r
+its uneasy importunities with every prospect, and enfeebling every\r
+thought. As he went along the passage to the drawing-room, he heard\r
+the piano and singing. Of course, Ladislaw was there. It was some\r
+weeks since Will had parted from Dorothea, yet he was still at the old\r
+post in Middlemarch. Lydgate had no objection in general to Ladislaw's\r
+coming, but just now he was annoyed that he could not find his hearth\r
+free. When he opened the door the two singers went on towards the\r
+key-note, raising their eyes and looking at him indeed, but not\r
+regarding his entrance as an interruption. To a man galled with his\r
+harness as poor Lydgate was, it is not soothing to see two people\r
+warbling at him, as he comes in with the sense that the painful day has\r
+still pains in store. His face, already paler than usual, took on a\r
+scowl as he walked across the room and flung himself into a chair.\r
+\r
+The singers feeling themselves excused by the fact that they had only\r
+three bars to sing, now turned round.\r
+\r
+"How are you, Lydgate?" said Will, coming forward to shake hands.\r
+\r
+Lydgate took his hand, but did not think it necessary to speak.\r
+\r
+"Have you dined, Tertius? I expected you much earlier," said Rosamond,\r
+who had already seen that her husband was in a "horrible humor." She\r
+seated herself in her usual place as she spoke.\r
+\r
+"I have dined. I should like some tea, please," said Lydgate, curtly,\r
+still scowling and looking markedly at his legs stretched out before\r
+him.\r
+\r
+Will was too quick to need more. "I shall be off," he said, reaching\r
+his hat.\r
+\r
+"Tea is coming," said Rosamond; "pray don't go."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Lydgate is bored," said Will, who had more comprehension of\r
+Lydgate than Rosamond had, and was not offended by his manner, easily\r
+imagining outdoor causes of annoyance.\r
+\r
+"There is the more need for you to stay," said Rosamond, playfully, and\r
+in her lightest accent; "he will not speak to me all the evening."\r
+\r
+"Yes, Rosamond, I shall," said Lydgate, in his strong baritone. "I\r
+have some serious business to speak to you about."\r
+\r
+No introduction of the business could have been less like that which\r
+Lydgate had intended; but her indifferent manner had been too provoking.\r
+\r
+"There! you see," said Will. "I'm going to the meeting about the\r
+Mechanics' Institute. Good-by;" and he went quickly out of the room.\r
+\r
+Rosamond did not look at her husband, but presently rose and took her\r
+place before the tea-tray. She was thinking that she had never seen him\r
+so disagreeable. Lydgate turned his dark eyes on her and watched her\r
+as she delicately handled the tea-service with her taper fingers, and\r
+looked at the objects immediately before her with no curve in her face\r
+disturbed, and yet with an ineffable protest in her air against all\r
+people with unpleasant manners. For the moment he lost the sense of\r
+his wound in a sudden speculation about this new form of feminine\r
+impassibility revealing itself in the sylph-like frame which he had\r
+once interpreted as the sign of a ready intelligent sensitiveness. His\r
+mind glancing back to Laure while he looked at Rosamond, he said\r
+inwardly, "Would _she_ kill me because I wearied her?" and then, "It is\r
+the way with all women." But this power of generalizing which gives men\r
+so much the superiority in mistake over the dumb animals, was\r
+immediately thwarted by Lydgate's memory of wondering impressions from\r
+the behavior of another woman--from Dorothea's looks and tones of\r
+emotion about her husband when Lydgate began to attend him--from her\r
+passionate cry to be taught what would best comfort that man for whose\r
+sake it seemed as if she must quell every impulse in her except the\r
+yearnings of faithfulness and compassion. These revived impressions\r
+succeeded each other quickly and dreamily in Lydgate's mind while the\r
+tea was being brewed. He had shut his eyes in the last instant of\r
+reverie while he heard Dorothea saying, "Advise me--think what I can\r
+do--he has been all his life laboring and looking forward. He minds\r
+about nothing else--and I mind about nothing else."\r
+\r
+That voice of deep-souled womanhood had remained within him as the\r
+enkindling conceptions of dead and sceptred genius had remained within\r
+him (is there not a genius for feeling nobly which also reigns over\r
+human spirits and their conclusions?); the tones were a music from\r
+which he was falling away--he had really fallen into a momentary doze,\r
+when Rosamond said in her silvery neutral way, "Here is your tea,\r
+Tertius," setting it on the small table by his side, and then moved\r
+back to her place without looking at him. Lydgate was too hasty in\r
+attributing insensibility to her; after her own fashion, she was\r
+sensitive enough, and took lasting impressions. Her impression now was\r
+one of offence and repulsion. But then, Rosamond had no scowls and had\r
+never raised her voice: she was quite sure that no one could justly\r
+find fault with her.\r
+\r
+Perhaps Lydgate and she had never felt so far off each other before;\r
+but there were strong reasons for not deferring his revelation, even if\r
+he had not already begun it by that abrupt announcement; indeed some of\r
+the angry desire to rouse her into more sensibility on his account\r
+which had prompted him to speak prematurely, still mingled with his\r
+pain in the prospect of her pain. But he waited till the tray was\r
+gone, the candles were lit, and the evening quiet might be counted on:\r
+the interval had left time for repelled tenderness to return into the\r
+old course. He spoke kindly.\r
+\r
+"Dear Rosy, lay down your work and come to sit by me," he said, gently,\r
+pushing away the table, and stretching out his arm to draw a chair near\r
+his own.\r
+\r
+Rosamond obeyed. As she came towards him in her drapery of transparent\r
+faintly tinted muslin, her slim yet round figure never looked more\r
+graceful; as she sat down by him and laid one hand on the elbow of his\r
+chair, at last looking at him and meeting his eyes, her delicate neck\r
+and cheek and purely cut lips never had more of that untarnished beauty\r
+which touches as in spring-time and infancy and all sweet freshness.\r
+It touched Lydgate now, and mingled the early moments of his love for\r
+her with all the other memories which were stirred in this crisis of\r
+deep trouble. He laid his ample hand softly on hers, saying--\r
+\r
+"Dear!" with the lingering utterance which affection gives to the word.\r
+Rosamond too was still under the power of that same past, and her\r
+husband was still in part the Lydgate whose approval had stirred\r
+delight. She put his hair lightly away from his forehead, then laid\r
+her other hand on his, and was conscious of forgiving him.\r
+\r
+"I am obliged to tell you what will hurt you, Rosy. But there are\r
+things which husband and wife must think of together. I dare say it\r
+has occurred to you already that I am short of money."\r
+\r
+Lydgate paused; but Rosamond turned her neck and looked at a vase on\r
+the mantel-piece.\r
+\r
+"I was not able to pay for all the things we had to get before we were\r
+married, and there have been expenses since which I have been obliged\r
+to meet. The consequence is, there is a large debt at Brassing--three\r
+hundred and eighty pounds--which has been pressing on me a good while,\r
+and in fact we are getting deeper every day, for people don't pay me\r
+the faster because others want the money. I took pains to keep it from\r
+you while you were not well; but now we must think together about it,\r
+and you must help me."\r
+\r
+"What can--I--do, Tertius?" said Rosamond, turning her eyes on him\r
+again. That little speech of four words, like so many others in all\r
+languages, is capable by varied vocal inflections of expressing all\r
+states of mind from helpless dimness to exhaustive argumentative\r
+perception, from the completest self-devoting fellowship to the most\r
+neutral aloofness. Rosamond's thin utterance threw into the words\r
+"What can--I--do!" as much neutrality as they could hold. They fell\r
+like a mortal chill on Lydgate's roused tenderness. He did not storm\r
+in indignation--he felt too sad a sinking of the heart. And when he\r
+spoke again it was more in the tone of a man who forces himself to\r
+fulfil a task.\r
+\r
+"It is necessary for you to know, because I have to give security for a\r
+time, and a man must come to make an inventory of the furniture."\r
+\r
+Rosamond colored deeply. "Have you not asked papa for money?" she\r
+said, as soon as she could speak.\r
+\r
+"No."\r
+\r
+"Then I must ask him!" she said, releasing her hands from Lydgate's,\r
+and rising to stand at two yards' distance from him.\r
+\r
+"No, Rosy," said Lydgate, decisively. "It is too late to do that. The\r
+inventory will be begun to-morrow. Remember it is a mere security: it\r
+will make no difference: it is a temporary affair. I insist upon it\r
+that your father shall not know, unless I choose to tell him," added\r
+Lydgate, with a more peremptory emphasis.\r
+\r
+This certainly was unkind, but Rosamond had thrown him back on evil\r
+expectation as to what she would do in the way of quiet steady\r
+disobedience. The unkindness seemed unpardonable to her: she was not\r
+given to weeping and disliked it, but now her chin and lips began to\r
+tremble and the tears welled up. Perhaps it was not possible for\r
+Lydgate, under the double stress of outward material difficulty and of\r
+his own proud resistance to humiliating consequences, to imagine fully\r
+what this sudden trial was to a young creature who had known nothing\r
+but indulgence, and whose dreams had all been of new indulgence, more\r
+exactly to her taste. But he did wish to spare her as much as he\r
+could, and her tears cut him to the heart. He could not speak again\r
+immediately; but Rosamond did not go on sobbing: she tried to conquer\r
+her agitation and wiped away her tears, continuing to look before her\r
+at the mantel-piece.\r
+\r
+"Try not to grieve, darling," said Lydgate, turning his eyes up towards\r
+her. That she had chosen to move away from him in this moment of her\r
+trouble made everything harder to say, but he must absolutely go on.\r
+"We must brace ourselves to do what is necessary. It is I who have\r
+been in fault: I ought to have seen that I could not afford to live in\r
+this way. But many things have told against me in my practice, and it\r
+really just now has ebbed to a low point. I may recover it, but in the\r
+mean time we must pull up--we must change our way of living. We shall\r
+weather it. When I have given this security I shall have time to look\r
+about me; and you are so clever that if you turn your mind to managing\r
+you will school me into carefulness. I have been a thoughtless rascal\r
+about squaring prices--but come, dear, sit down and forgive me."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was bowing his neck under the yoke like a creature who had\r
+talons, but who had Reason too, which often reduces us to meekness.\r
+When he had spoken the last words in an imploring tone, Rosamond\r
+returned to the chair by his side. His self-blame gave her some hope\r
+that he would attend to her opinion, and she said--\r
+\r
+"Why can you not put off having the inventory made? You can send the\r
+men away to-morrow when they come."\r
+\r
+"I shall not send them away," said Lydgate, the peremptoriness rising\r
+again. Was it of any use to explain?\r
+\r
+"If we left Middlemarch? there would of course be a sale, and that\r
+would do as well."\r
+\r
+"But we are not going to leave Middlemarch."\r
+\r
+"I am sure, Tertius, it would be much better to do so. Why can we not\r
+go to London? Or near Durham, where your family is known?"\r
+\r
+"We can go nowhere without money, Rosamond."\r
+\r
+"Your friends would not wish you to be without money. And surely these\r
+odious tradesmen might be made to understand that, and to wait, if you\r
+would make proper representations to them."\r
+\r
+"This is idle Rosamond," said Lydgate, angrily. "You must learn to\r
+take my judgment on questions you don't understand. I have made\r
+necessary arrangements, and they must be carried out. As to friends, I\r
+have no expectations whatever from them, and shall not ask them for\r
+anything."\r
+\r
+Rosamond sat perfectly still. The thought in her mind was that if she\r
+had known how Lydgate would behave, she would never have married him.\r
+\r
+"We have no time to waste now on unnecessary words, dear," said\r
+Lydgate, trying to be gentle again. "There are some details that I\r
+want to consider with you. Dover says he will take a good deal of the\r
+plate back again, and any of the jewellery we like. He really behaves\r
+very well."\r
+\r
+"Are we to go without spoons and forks then?" said Rosamond, whose very\r
+lips seemed to get thinner with the thinness of her utterance. She was\r
+determined to make no further resistance or suggestions.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, dear!" said Lydgate. "But look here," he continued, drawing a\r
+paper from his pocket and opening it; "here is Dover's account. See, I\r
+have marked a number of articles, which if we returned them would\r
+reduce the amount by thirty pounds and more. I have not marked any\r
+of the jewellery." Lydgate had really felt this point of the jewellery\r
+very bitter to himself; but he had overcome the feeling by severe\r
+argument. He could not propose to Rosamond that she should return any\r
+particular present of his, but he had told himself that he was bound to\r
+put Dover's offer before her, and her inward prompting might make the\r
+affair easy.\r
+\r
+"It is useless for me to look, Tertius," said Rosamond, calmly; "you\r
+will return what you please." She would not turn her eyes on the\r
+paper, and Lydgate, flushing up to the roots of his hair, drew it back\r
+and let it fall on his knee. Meanwhile Rosamond quietly went out of\r
+the room, leaving Lydgate helpless and wondering. Was she not coming\r
+back? It seemed that she had no more identified herself with him than\r
+if they had been creatures of different species and opposing interests.\r
+He tossed his head and thrust his hands deep into his pockets with a\r
+sort of vengeance. There was still science--there were still good\r
+objects to work for. He must give a tug still--all the stronger\r
+because other satisfactions were going.\r
+\r
+But the door opened and Rosamond re-entered. She carried the leather\r
+box containing the amethysts, and a tiny ornamental basket which\r
+contained other boxes, and laying them on the chair where she had been\r
+sitting, she said, with perfect propriety in her air--\r
+\r
+"This is all the jewellery you ever gave me. You can return what you\r
+like of it, and of the plate also. You will not, of course, expect me\r
+to stay at home to-morrow. I shall go to papa's."\r
+\r
+To many women the look Lydgate cast at her would have been more\r
+terrible than one of anger: it had in it a despairing acceptance of the\r
+distance she was placing between them.\r
+\r
+"And when shall you come back again?" he said, with a bitter edge on\r
+his accent.\r
+\r
+"Oh, in the evening. Of course I shall not mention the subject to\r
+mamma." Rosamond was convinced that no woman could behave more\r
+irreproachably than she was behaving; and she went to sit down at her\r
+work-table. Lydgate sat meditating a minute or two, and the result was\r
+that he said, with some of the old emotion in his tone--\r
+\r
+"Now we have been united, Rosy, you should not leave me to myself in\r
+the first trouble that has come."\r
+\r
+"Certainly not," said Rosamond; "I shall do everything it becomes me to\r
+do."\r
+\r
+"It is not right that the thing should be left to servants, or that I\r
+should have to speak to them about it. And I shall be obliged to go\r
+out--I don't know how early. I understand your shrinking from the\r
+humiliation of these money affairs. But, my dear Rosamond, as a\r
+question of pride, which I feel just as much as you can, it is surely\r
+better to manage the thing ourselves, and let the servants see as\r
+little of it as possible; and since you are my wife, there is no\r
+hindering your share in my disgraces--if there were disgraces."\r
+\r
+Rosamond did not answer immediately, but at last she said, "Very well,\r
+I will stay at home."\r
+\r
+"I shall not touch these jewels, Rosy. Take them away again. But I\r
+will write out a list of plate that we may return, and that can be\r
+packed up and sent at once."\r
+\r
+"The servants will know _that_," said Rosamond, with the slightest\r
+touch of sarcasm.\r
+\r
+"Well, we must meet some disagreeables as necessities. Where is the\r
+ink, I wonder?" said Lydgate, rising, and throwing the account on the\r
+larger table where he meant to write.\r
+\r
+Rosamond went to reach the inkstand, and after setting it on the table\r
+was going to turn away, when Lydgate, who was standing close by, put\r
+his arm round her and drew her towards him, saying--\r
+\r
+"Come, darling, let us make the best of things. It will only be for a\r
+time, I hope, that we shall have to be stingy and particular. Kiss me."\r
+\r
+His native warm-heartedness took a great deal of quenching, and it is a\r
+part of manliness for a husband to feel keenly the fact that an\r
+inexperienced girl has got into trouble by marrying him. She received\r
+his kiss and returned it faintly, and in this way an appearance of\r
+accord was recovered for the time. But Lydgate could not help looking\r
+forward with dread to the inevitable future discussions about\r
+expenditure and the necessity for a complete change in their way of\r
+living.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LIX.\r
+\r
+ They said of old the Soul had human shape,\r
+ But smaller, subtler than the fleshly self,\r
+ So wandered forth for airing when it pleased.\r
+ And see! beside her cherub-face there floats\r
+ A pale-lipped form aerial whispering\r
+ Its promptings in that little shell her ear."\r
+\r
+\r
+News is often dispersed as thoughtlessly and effectively as that pollen\r
+which the bees carry off (having no idea how powdery they are) when\r
+they are buzzing in search of their particular nectar. This fine\r
+comparison has reference to Fred Vincy, who on that evening at Lowick\r
+Parsonage heard a lively discussion among the ladies on the news which\r
+their old servant had got from Tantripp concerning Mr. Casaubon's\r
+strange mention of Mr. Ladislaw in a codicil to his will made not long\r
+before his death. Miss Winifred was astounded to find that her brother\r
+had known the fact before, and observed that Camden was the most\r
+wonderful man for knowing things and not telling them; whereupon Mary\r
+Garth said that the codicil had perhaps got mixed up with the habits of\r
+spiders, which Miss Winifred never would listen to. Mrs. Farebrother\r
+considered that the news had something to do with their having only\r
+once seen Mr. Ladislaw at Lowick, and Miss Noble made many small\r
+compassionate mewings.\r
+\r
+Fred knew little and cared less about Ladislaw and the Casaubons, and\r
+his mind never recurred to that discussion till one day calling on\r
+Rosamond at his mother's request to deliver a message as he passed, he\r
+happened to see Ladislaw going away. Fred and Rosamond had little to\r
+say to each other now that marriage had removed her from collision with\r
+the unpleasantness of brothers, and especially now that he had taken\r
+what she held the stupid and even reprehensible step of giving up the\r
+Church to take to such a business as Mr. Garth's. Hence Fred talked by\r
+preference of what he considered indifferent news, and "a propos of\r
+that young Ladislaw" mentioned what he had heard at Lowick Parsonage.\r
+\r
+Now Lydgate, like Mr. Farebrother, knew a great deal more than he told,\r
+and when he had once been set thinking about the relation between Will\r
+and Dorothea his conjectures had gone beyond the fact. He imagined\r
+that there was a passionate attachment on both sides, and this struck\r
+him as much too serious to gossip about. He remembered Will's\r
+irritability when he had mentioned Mrs. Casaubon, and was the more\r
+circumspect. On the whole his surmises, in addition to what he knew of\r
+the fact, increased his friendliness and tolerance towards Ladislaw,\r
+and made him understand the vacillation which kept him at Middlemarch\r
+after he had said that he should go away. It was significant of the\r
+separateness between Lydgate's mind and Rosamond's that he had no\r
+impulse to speak to her on the subject; indeed, he did not quite trust\r
+her reticence towards Will. And he was right there; though he had no\r
+vision of the way in which her mind would act in urging her to speak.\r
+\r
+When she repeated Fred's news to Lydgate, he said, "Take care you don't\r
+drop the faintest hint to Ladislaw, Rosy. He is likely to fly out as\r
+if you insulted him. Of course it is a painful affair."\r
+\r
+Rosamond turned her neck and patted her hair, looking the image of\r
+placid indifference. But the next time Will came when Lydgate was\r
+away, she spoke archly about his not going to London as he had\r
+threatened.\r
+\r
+"I know all about it. I have a confidential little bird," said she,\r
+showing very pretty airs of her head over the bit of work held high\r
+between her active fingers. "There is a powerful magnet in this\r
+neighborhood."\r
+\r
+"To be sure there is. Nobody knows that better than you," said Will,\r
+with light gallantry, but inwardly prepared to be angry.\r
+\r
+"It is really the most charming romance: Mr. Casaubon jealous, and\r
+foreseeing that there was no one else whom Mrs. Casaubon would so much\r
+like to marry, and no one who would so much like to marry her as a\r
+certain gentleman; and then laying a plan to spoil all by making her\r
+forfeit her property if she did marry that gentleman--and then--and\r
+then--and then--oh, I have no doubt the end will be thoroughly\r
+romantic."\r
+\r
+"Great God! what do you mean?" said Will, flushing over face and ears,\r
+his features seeming to change as if he had had a violent shake.\r
+"Don't joke; tell me what you mean."\r
+\r
+"You don't really know?" said Rosamond, no longer playful, and desiring\r
+nothing better than to tell in order that she might evoke effects.\r
+\r
+"No!" he returned, impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Don't know that Mr. Casaubon has left it in his will that if Mrs.\r
+Casaubon marries you she is to forfeit all her property?"\r
+\r
+"How do you know that it is true?" said Will, eagerly.\r
+\r
+"My brother Fred heard it from the Farebrothers." Will started up from\r
+his chair and reached his hat.\r
+\r
+"I dare say she likes you better than the property," said Rosamond,\r
+looking at him from a distance.\r
+\r
+"Pray don't say any more about it," said Will, in a hoarse undertone\r
+extremely unlike his usual light voice. "It is a foul insult to her\r
+and to me." Then he sat down absently, looking before him, but seeing\r
+nothing.\r
+\r
+"Now you are angry with _me_," said Rosamond. "It is too bad to bear\r
+_me_ malice. You ought to be obliged to me for telling you."\r
+\r
+"So I am," said Will, abruptly, speaking with that kind of double soul\r
+which belongs to dreamers who answer questions.\r
+\r
+"I expect to hear of the marriage," said Rosamond, playfully.\r
+\r
+"Never! You will never hear of the marriage!"\r
+\r
+With those words uttered impetuously, Will rose, put out his hand to\r
+Rosamond, still with the air of a somnambulist, and went away.\r
+\r
+When he was gone, Rosamond left her chair and walked to the other end\r
+of the room, leaning when she got there against a chiffonniere, and\r
+looking out of the window wearily. She was oppressed by ennui, and by\r
+that dissatisfaction which in women's minds is continually turning into\r
+a trivial jealousy, referring to no real claims, springing from no\r
+deeper passion than the vague exactingness of egoism, and yet capable\r
+of impelling action as well as speech. "There really is nothing to\r
+care for much," said poor Rosamond inwardly, thinking of the family at\r
+Quallingham, who did not write to her; and that perhaps Tertius when he\r
+came home would tease her about expenses. She had already secretly\r
+disobeyed him by asking her father to help them, and he had ended\r
+decisively by saying, "I am more likely to want help myself."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LX.\r
+\r
+ Good phrases are surely, and ever were, very commendable.\r
+ --Justice Shallow.\r
+\r
+\r
+A few days afterwards--it was already the end of August--there was an\r
+occasion which caused some excitement in Middlemarch: the public, if it\r
+chose, was to have the advantage of buying, under the distinguished\r
+auspices of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, the furniture, books, and pictures\r
+which anybody might see by the handbills to be the best in every kind,\r
+belonging to Edwin Larcher, Esq. This was not one of the sales\r
+indicating the depression of trade; on the contrary, it was due to Mr.\r
+Larcher's great success in the carrying business, which warranted his\r
+purchase of a mansion near Riverston already furnished in high style by\r
+an illustrious Spa physician--furnished indeed with such large\r
+framefuls of expensive flesh-painting in the dining-room, that Mrs.\r
+Larcher was nervous until reassured by finding the subjects to be\r
+Scriptural. Hence the fine opportunity to purchasers which was well\r
+pointed out in the handbills of Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, whose\r
+acquaintance with the history of art enabled him to state that the hall\r
+furniture, to be sold without reserve, comprised a piece of carving by\r
+a contemporary of Gibbons.\r
+\r
+At Middlemarch in those times a large sale was regarded as a kind of\r
+festival. There was a table spread with the best cold eatables, as at\r
+a superior funeral; and facilities were offered for that\r
+generous-drinking of cheerful glasses which might lead to generous and\r
+cheerful bidding for undesirable articles. Mr. Larcher's sale was the\r
+more attractive in the fine weather because the house stood just at the\r
+end of the town, with a garden and stables attached, in that pleasant\r
+issue from Middlemarch called the London Road, which was also the road\r
+to the New Hospital and to Mr. Bulstrode's retired residence, known as\r
+the Shrubs. In short, the auction was as good as a fair, and drew all\r
+classes with leisure at command: to some, who risked making bids in\r
+order simply to raise prices, it was almost equal to betting at the\r
+races. The second day, when the best furniture was to be sold,\r
+"everybody" was there; even Mr. Thesiger, the rector of St. Peter's,\r
+had looked in for a short time, wishing to buy the carved table, and\r
+had rubbed elbows with Mr. Bambridge and Mr. Horrock. There was a\r
+wreath of Middlemarch ladies accommodated with seats round the large\r
+table in the dining-room, where Mr. Borthrop Trumbull was mounted with\r
+desk and hammer; but the rows chiefly of masculine faces behind were\r
+often varied by incomings and outgoings both from the door and the\r
+large bow-window opening on to the lawn.\r
+\r
+"Everybody" that day did not include Mr. Bulstrode, whose health could\r
+not well endure crowds and draughts. But Mrs. Bulstrode had\r
+particularly wished to have a certain picture--a "Supper at Emmaus,"\r
+attributed in the catalogue to Guido; and at the last moment before the\r
+day of the sale Mr. Bulstrode had called at the office of the\r
+"Pioneer," of which he was now one of the proprietors, to beg of Mr.\r
+Ladislaw as a great favor that he would obligingly use his remarkable\r
+knowledge of pictures on behalf of Mrs. Bulstrode, and judge of the\r
+value of this particular painting--"if," added the scrupulously polite\r
+banker, "attendance at the sale would not interfere with the\r
+arrangements for your departure, which I know is imminent."\r
+\r
+This proviso might have sounded rather satirically in Will's ear if he\r
+had been in a mood to care about such satire. It referred to an\r
+understanding entered into many weeks before with the proprietors of\r
+the paper, that he should be at liberty any day he pleased to hand over\r
+the management to the subeditor whom he had been training; since he\r
+wished finally to quit Middlemarch. But indefinite visions of ambition\r
+are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly\r
+agreeable; and we all know the difficulty of carrying out a resolve\r
+when we secretly long that it may turn out to be unnecessary. In such\r
+states of mind the most incredulous person has a private leaning\r
+towards miracle: impossible to conceive how our wish could be\r
+fulfilled, still--very wonderful things have happened! Will did not\r
+confess this weakness to himself, but he lingered. What was the use of\r
+going to London at that time of the year? The Rugby men who would\r
+remember him were not there; and so far as political writing was\r
+concerned, he would rather for a few weeks go on with the "Pioneer."\r
+At the present moment, however, when Mr. Bulstrode was speaking to him,\r
+he had both a strengthened resolve to go and an equally strong resolve\r
+not to go till he had once more seen Dorothea. Hence he replied that\r
+he had reasons for deferring his departure a little, and would be happy\r
+to go to the sale.\r
+\r
+Will was in a defiant mood, his consciousness being deeply stung with\r
+the thought that the people who looked at him probably knew a fact\r
+tantamount to an accusation against him as a fellow with low designs\r
+which were to be frustrated by a disposal of property. Like most\r
+people who assert their freedom with regard to conventional\r
+distinction, he was prepared to be sudden and quick at quarrel with any\r
+one who might hint that he had personal reasons for that assertion--that\r
+there was anything in his blood, his bearing, or his character to\r
+which he gave the mask of an opinion. When he was under an irritating\r
+impression of this kind he would go about for days with a defiant look,\r
+the color changing in his transparent skin as if he were on the qui\r
+vive, watching for something which he had to dart upon.\r
+\r
+This expression was peculiarly noticeable in him at the sale, and those\r
+who had only seen him in his moods of gentle oddity or of bright\r
+enjoyment would have been struck with a contrast. He was not sorry to\r
+have this occasion for appearing in public before the Middlemarch\r
+tribes of Toller, Hackbutt, and the rest, who looked down on him as an\r
+adventurer, and were in a state of brutal ignorance about Dante--who\r
+sneered at his Polish blood, and were themselves of a breed very much\r
+in need of crossing. He stood in a conspicuous place not far from the\r
+auctioneer, with a fore-finger in each side-pocket and his head thrown\r
+backward, not caring to speak to anybody, though he had been cordially\r
+welcomed as a connoiss_ure_ by Mr. Trumbull, who was enjoying the\r
+utmost activity of his great faculties.\r
+\r
+And surely among all men whose vocation requires them to exhibit their\r
+powers of speech, the happiest is a prosperous provincial auctioneer\r
+keenly alive to his own jokes and sensible of his encyclopedic\r
+knowledge. Some saturnine, sour-blooded persons might object to be\r
+constantly insisting on the merits of all articles from boot-jacks to\r
+"Berghems;" but Mr. Borthrop Trumbull had a kindly liquid in his veins;\r
+he was an admirer by nature, and would have liked to have the universe\r
+under his hammer, feeling that it would go at a higher figure for his\r
+recommendation.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Mrs. Larcher's drawing-room furniture was enough for him.\r
+When Will Ladislaw had come in, a second fender, said to have been\r
+forgotten in its right place, suddenly claimed the auctioneer's\r
+enthusiasm, which he distributed on the equitable principle of praising\r
+those things most which were most in need of praise. The fender was of\r
+polished steel, with much lancet-shaped open-work and a sharp edge.\r
+\r
+"Now, ladies," said he, "I shall appeal to you. Here is a fender which\r
+at any other sale would hardly be offered with out reserve, being, as I\r
+may say, for quality of steel and quaintness of design, a kind of\r
+thing"--here Mr. Trumbull dropped his voice and became slightly nasal,\r
+trimming his outlines with his left finger--"that might not fall in\r
+with ordinary tastes. Allow me to tell you that by-and-by this style\r
+of workmanship will be the only one in vogue--half-a-crown, you said?\r
+thank you--going at half-a-crown, this characteristic fender; and I\r
+have particular information that the antique style is very much sought\r
+after in high quarters. Three shillings--three-and-sixpence--hold it\r
+well up, Joseph! Look, ladies, at the chastity of the design--I have\r
+no doubt myself that it was turned out in the last century! Four\r
+shillings, Mr. Mawmsey?--four shillings."\r
+\r
+"It's not a thing I would put in _my_ drawing-room," said Mrs. Mawmsey,\r
+audibly, for the warning of the rash husband. "I wonder _at_ Mrs.\r
+Larcher. Every blessed child's head that fell against it would be cut\r
+in two. The edge is like a knife."\r
+\r
+"Quite true," rejoined Mr. Trumbull, quickly, "and most uncommonly\r
+useful to have a fender at hand that will cut, if you have a leather\r
+shoe-tie or a bit of string that wants cutting and no knife at hand:\r
+many a man has been left hanging because there was no knife to cut him\r
+down. Gentlemen, here's a fender that if you had the misfortune to\r
+hang yourselves would cut you down in no time--with astonishing\r
+celerity--four-and-sixpence--five--five-and-sixpence--an appropriate\r
+thing for a spare bedroom where there was a four-poster and a guest a\r
+little out of his mind--six shillings--thank you, Mr. Clintup--going\r
+at six shillings--going--gone!" The auctioneer's glance, which had\r
+been searching round him with a preternatural susceptibility to all\r
+signs of bidding, here dropped on the paper before him, and his voice\r
+too dropped into a tone of indifferent despatch as he said, "Mr.\r
+Clintup. Be handy, Joseph."\r
+\r
+"It was worth six shillings to have a fender you could always tell that\r
+joke on," said Mr. Clintup, laughing low and apologetically to his next\r
+neighbor. He was a diffident though distinguished nurseryman, and\r
+feared that the audience might regard his bid as a foolish one.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Joseph had brought a trayful of small articles. "Now,\r
+ladies," said Mr. Trumbull, taking up one of the articles, "this tray\r
+contains a very recherchy lot--a collection of trifles for the\r
+drawing-room table--and trifles make the sum _of_ human things--nothing\r
+more important than trifles--(yes, Mr. Ladislaw, yes, by-and-by)--but\r
+pass the tray round, Joseph--these bijoux must be examined, ladies.\r
+This I have in my hand is an ingenious contrivance--a sort of\r
+practical rebus, I may call it: here, you see, it looks like an elegant\r
+heart-shaped box, portable--for the pocket; there, again, it becomes\r
+like a splendid double flower--an ornament for the table; and now"--Mr.\r
+Trumbull allowed the flower to fall alarmingly into strings of\r
+heart-shaped leaves--"a book of riddles! No less than five hundred\r
+printed in a beautiful red. Gentlemen, if I had less of a conscience,\r
+I should not wish you to bid high for this lot--I have a longing for\r
+it myself. What can promote innocent mirth, and I may say virtue, more\r
+than a good riddle?--it hinders profane language, and attaches a man to\r
+the society of refined females. This ingenious article itself, without\r
+the elegant domino-box, card-basket, &c., ought alone to give a high\r
+price to the lot. Carried in the pocket it might make an individual\r
+welcome in any society. Four shillings, sir?--four shillings for this\r
+remarkable collection of riddles with the et caeteras. Here is a\r
+sample: 'How must you spell honey to make it catch lady-birds?\r
+Answer--money.' You hear?--lady-birds--honey money. This is an\r
+amusement to sharpen the intellect; it has a sting--it has what we call\r
+satire, and wit without indecency. Four-and-sixpence--five shillings."\r
+\r
+The bidding ran on with warming rivalry. Mr. Bowyer was a bidder, and\r
+this was too exasperating. Bowyer couldn't afford it, and only wanted\r
+to hinder every other man from making a figure. The current carried\r
+even Mr. Horrock with it, but this committal of himself to an opinion\r
+fell from him with so little sacrifice of his neutral expression, that\r
+the bid might not have been detected as his but for the friendly oaths\r
+of Mr. Bambridge, who wanted to know what Horrock would do with blasted\r
+stuff only fit for haberdashers given over to that state of perdition\r
+which the horse-dealer so cordially recognized in the majority of\r
+earthly existences. The lot was finally knocked down at a guinea to\r
+Mr. Spilkins, a young Slender of the neighborhood, who was reckless\r
+with his pocket-money and felt his want of memory for riddles.\r
+\r
+"Come, Trumbull, this is too bad--you've been putting some old maid's\r
+rubbish into the sale," murmured Mr. Toller, getting close to the\r
+auctioneer. "I want to see how the prints go, and I must be off soon."\r
+\r
+"_Im_mediately, Mr. Toller. It was only an act of benevolence which\r
+your noble heart would approve. Joseph! quick with the prints--Lot\r
+235. Now, gentlemen, you who are connoiss_ures_, you are going to have\r
+a treat. Here is an engraving of the Duke of Wellington surrounded by\r
+his staff on the Field of Waterloo; and notwithstanding recent events\r
+which have, as it were, enveloped our great Hero in a cloud, I will be\r
+bold to say--for a man in my line must not be blown about by political\r
+winds--that a finer subject--of the modern order, belonging to our own\r
+time and epoch--the understanding of man could hardly conceive: angels\r
+might, perhaps, but not men, sirs, not men."\r
+\r
+"Who painted it?" said Mr. Powderell, much impressed.\r
+\r
+"It is a proof before the letter, Mr. Powderell--the painter is not\r
+known," answered Trumbull, with a certain gaspingness in his last\r
+words, after which he pursed up his lips and stared round him.\r
+\r
+"I'll bid a pound!" said Mr. Powderell, in a tone of resolved emotion,\r
+as of a man ready to put himself in the breach. Whether from awe or\r
+pity, nobody raised the price on him.\r
+\r
+Next came two Dutch prints which Mr. Toller had been eager for, and\r
+after he had secured them he went away. Other prints, and afterwards\r
+some paintings, were sold to leading Middlemarchers who had come with a\r
+special desire for them, and there was a more active movement of the\r
+audience in and out; some, who had bought what they wanted, going away,\r
+others coming in either quite newly or from a temporary visit to the\r
+refreshments which were spread under the marquee on the lawn. It was\r
+this marquee that Mr. Bambridge was bent on buying, and he appeared to\r
+like looking inside it frequently, as a foretaste of its possession.\r
+On the last occasion of his return from it he was observed to bring\r
+with him a new companion, a stranger to Mr. Trumbull and every one\r
+else, whose appearance, however, led to the supposition that he might\r
+be a relative of the horse-dealer's--also "given to indulgence." His\r
+large whiskers, imposing swagger, and swing of the leg, made him a\r
+striking figure; but his suit of black, rather shabby at the edges,\r
+caused the prejudicial inference that he was not able to afford himself\r
+as much indulgence as he liked.\r
+\r
+"Who is it you've picked up, Bam?" said Mr. Horrock, aside.\r
+\r
+"Ask him yourself," returned Mr. Bambridge. "He said he'd just turned\r
+in from the road."\r
+\r
+Mr. Horrock eyed the stranger, who was leaning back against his stick\r
+with one hand, using his toothpick with the other, and looking about\r
+him with a certain restlessness apparently under the silence imposed on\r
+him by circumstances.\r
+\r
+At length the "Supper at Emmaus" was brought forward, to Will's immense\r
+relief, for he was getting so tired of the proceedings that he had\r
+drawn back a little and leaned his shoulder against the wall just\r
+behind the auctioneer. He now came forward again, and his eye caught\r
+the conspicuous stranger, who, rather to his surprise, was staring at\r
+him markedly. But Will was immediately appealed to by Mr. Trumbull.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Mr. Ladislaw, yes; this interests you as a connoiss_ure_, I\r
+think. It is some pleasure," the auctioneer went on with a rising\r
+fervor, "to have a picture like this to show to a company of ladies and\r
+gentlemen--a picture worth any sum to an individual whose means were on\r
+a level with his judgment. It is a painting of the Italian school--by\r
+the celebrated Guydo, the greatest painter in the world, the chief of\r
+the Old Masters, as they are called--I take it, because they were up\r
+to a thing or two beyond most of us--in possession of secrets now lost\r
+to the bulk of mankind. Let me tell you, gentlemen, I have seen a\r
+great many pictures by the Old Masters, and they are not all up to this\r
+mark--some of them are darker than you might like and not family\r
+subjects. But here is a Guydo--the frame alone is worth pounds--which\r
+any lady might be proud to hang up--a suitable thing for what we call a\r
+refectory in a charitable institution, if any gentleman of the\r
+Corporation wished to show his munifi_cence_. Turn it a little, sir?\r
+yes. Joseph, turn it a little towards Mr. Ladislaw--Mr. Ladislaw,\r
+having been abroad, understands the merit of these things, you observe."\r
+\r
+All eyes were for a moment turned towards Will, who said, coolly, "Five\r
+pounds." The auctioneer burst out in deep remonstrance.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Mr. Ladislaw! the frame alone is worth that. Ladies and\r
+gentlemen, for the credit of the town! Suppose it should be discovered\r
+hereafter that a gem of art has been amongst us in this town, and\r
+nobody in Middlemarch awake to it. Five guineas--five seven-six--five\r
+ten. Still, ladies, still! It is a gem, and 'Full many a gem,' as the\r
+poet says, has been allowed to go at a nominal price because the public\r
+knew no better, because it was offered in circles where there was--I\r
+was going to say a low feeling, but no!--Six pounds--six guineas--a\r
+Guydo of the first order going at six guineas--it is an insult to\r
+religion, ladies; it touches us all as Christians, gentlemen, that a\r
+subject like this should go at such a low figure--six pounds\r
+ten--seven--"\r
+\r
+The bidding was brisk, and Will continued to share in it, remembering\r
+that Mrs. Bulstrode had a strong wish for the picture, and thinking\r
+that he might stretch the price to twelve pounds. But it was knocked\r
+down to him at ten guineas, whereupon he pushed his way towards the\r
+bow-window and went out. He chose to go under the marquee to get a\r
+glass of water, being hot and thirsty: it was empty of other visitors,\r
+and he asked the woman in attendance to fetch him some fresh water; but\r
+before she was well gone he was annoyed to see entering the florid\r
+stranger who had stared at him. It struck Will at this moment that the\r
+man might be one of those political parasitic insects of the bloated\r
+kind who had once or twice claimed acquaintance with him as having\r
+heard him speak on the Reform question, and who might think of getting\r
+a shilling by news. In this light his person, already rather heating\r
+to behold on a summer's day, appeared the more disagreeable; and Will,\r
+half-seated on the elbow of a garden-chair, turned his eyes carefully\r
+away from the comer. But this signified little to our acquaintance Mr.\r
+Raffles, who never hesitated to thrust himself on unwilling\r
+observation, if it suited his purpose to do so. He moved a step or two\r
+till he was in front of Will, and said with full-mouthed haste, "Excuse\r
+me, Mr. Ladislaw--was your mother's name Sarah Dunkirk?"\r
+\r
+Will, starting to his feet, moved backward a step, frowning, and saying\r
+with some fierceness, "Yes, sir, it was. And what is that to you?"\r
+\r
+It was in Will's nature that the first spark it threw out was a direct\r
+answer of the question and a challenge of the consequences. To have\r
+said, "What is that to you?" in the first instance, would have seemed\r
+like shuffling--as if he minded who knew anything about his origin!\r
+\r
+Raffles on his side had not the same eagerness for a collision which\r
+was implied in Ladislaw's threatening air. The slim young fellow with\r
+his girl's complexion looked like a tiger-cat ready to spring on him.\r
+Under such circumstances Mr. Raffles's pleasure in annoying his company\r
+was kept in abeyance.\r
+\r
+"No offence, my good sir, no offence! I only remember your mother--knew\r
+her when she was a girl. But it is your father that you feature,\r
+sir. I had the pleasure of seeing your father too. Parents alive, Mr.\r
+Ladislaw?"\r
+\r
+"No!" thundered Will, in the same attitude as before.\r
+\r
+"Should be glad to do you a service, Mr. Ladislaw--by Jove, I should!\r
+Hope to meet again."\r
+\r
+Hereupon Raffles, who had lifted his hat with the last words, turned\r
+himself round with a swing of his leg and walked away. Will looked\r
+after him a moment, and could see that he did not re-enter the\r
+auction-room, but appeared to be walking towards the road. For an\r
+instant he thought that he had been foolish not to let the man go on\r
+talking;--but no! on the whole he preferred doing without knowledge\r
+from that source.\r
+\r
+Later in the evening, however, Raffles overtook him in the street, and\r
+appearing either to have forgotten the roughness of his former\r
+reception or to intend avenging it by a forgiving familiarity, greeted\r
+him jovially and walked by his side, remarking at first on the\r
+pleasantness of the town and neighborhood. Will suspected that the man\r
+had been drinking and was considering how to shake him off when Raffles\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"I've been abroad myself, Mr. Ladislaw--I've seen the world--used to\r
+parley-vous a little. It was at Boulogne I saw your father--a most\r
+uncommon likeness you are of him, by Jove! mouth--nose--eyes--hair\r
+turned off your brow just like his--a little in the foreign style.\r
+John Bull doesn't do much of that. But your father was very ill when I\r
+saw him. Lord, lord! hands you might see through. You were a small\r
+youngster then. Did he get well?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Will, curtly.\r
+\r
+"Ah! Well! I've often wondered what became of your mother. She ran\r
+away from her friends when she was a young lass--a proud-spirited\r
+lass, and pretty, by Jove! I knew the reason why she ran away," said\r
+Raffles, winking slowly as he looked sideways at Will.\r
+\r
+"You know nothing dishonorable of her, sir," said Will, turning on him\r
+rather savagely. But Mr. Raffles just now was not sensitive to shades\r
+of manner.\r
+\r
+"Not a bit!" said he, tossing his head decisively "She was a little too\r
+honorable to like her friends--that was it!" Here Raffles again winked\r
+slowly. "Lord bless you, I knew all about 'em--a little in what you\r
+may call the respectable thieving line--the high style of\r
+receiving-house--none of your holes and corners--first-rate. Slap-up\r
+shop, high profits and no mistake. But Lord! Sarah would have known\r
+nothing about it--a dashing young lady she was--fine\r
+boarding-school--fit for a lord's wife--only Archie Duncan threw it at\r
+her out of spite, because she would have nothing to do with him. And\r
+so she ran away from the whole concern. I travelled for 'em, sir, in a\r
+gentlemanly way--at a high salary. They didn't mind her running away\r
+at first--godly folks, sir, very godly--and she was for the stage. The\r
+son was alive then, and the daughter was at a discount. Hallo! here we\r
+are at the Blue Bull. What do you say, Mr. Ladislaw?--shall we turn in\r
+and have a glass?"\r
+\r
+"No, I must say good evening," said Will, dashing up a passage which\r
+led into Lowick Gate, and almost running to get out of Raffles's reach.\r
+\r
+He walked a long while on the Lowick road away from the town, glad of\r
+the starlit darkness when it came. He felt as if he had had dirt cast\r
+on him amidst shouts of scorn. There was this to confirm the fellow's\r
+statement--that his mother never would tell him the reason why she had\r
+run away from her family.\r
+\r
+Well! what was he, Will Ladislaw, the worse, supposing the truth about\r
+that family to be the ugliest? His mother had braved hardship in order\r
+to separate herself from it. But if Dorothea's friends had known this\r
+story--if the Chettams had known it--they would have had a fine color\r
+to give their suspicions a welcome ground for thinking him unfit to\r
+come near her. However, let them suspect what they pleased, they would\r
+find themselves in the wrong. They would find out that the blood in\r
+his veins was as free from the taint of meanness as theirs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXI.\r
+\r
+ "Inconsistencies," answered Imlac, "cannot both be right,\r
+ but imputed to man they may both be true."--Rasselas.\r
+\r
+\r
+The same night, when Mr. Bulstrode returned from a journey to Brassing\r
+on business, his good wife met him in the entrance-hall and drew him\r
+into his private sitting-room.\r
+\r
+"Nicholas," she said, fixing her honest eyes upon him anxiously, "there\r
+has been such a disagreeable man here asking for you--it has made me\r
+quite uncomfortable."\r
+\r
+"What kind of man, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, dreadfully certain of\r
+the answer.\r
+\r
+"A red-faced man with large whiskers, and most impudent in his manner.\r
+He declared he was an old friend of yours, and said you would be sorry\r
+not to see him. He wanted to wait for you here, but I told him he\r
+could see you at the Bank to-morrow morning. Most impudent he\r
+was!--stared at me, and said his friend Nick had luck in wives. I\r
+don't believe he would have gone away, if Blucher had not happened to\r
+break his chain and come running round on the gravel--for I was in the\r
+garden; so I said, 'You'd better go away--the dog is very fierce, and I\r
+can't hold him.' Do you really know anything of such a man?"\r
+\r
+"I believe I know who he is, my dear," said Mr. Bulstrode, in his usual\r
+subdued voice, "an unfortunate dissolute wretch, whom I helped too much\r
+in days gone by. However, I presume you will not be troubled by him\r
+again. He will probably come to the Bank--to beg, doubtless."\r
+\r
+No more was said on the subject until the next day, when Mr. Bulstrode\r
+had returned from the town and was dressing for dinner. His wife, not\r
+sure that he was come home, looked into his dressing-room and saw him\r
+with his coat and cravat off, leaning one arm on a chest of drawers and\r
+staring absently at the ground. He started nervously and looked up as\r
+she entered.\r
+\r
+"You look very ill, Nicholas. Is there anything the matter?"\r
+\r
+"I have a good deal of pain in my head," said Mr. Bulstrode, who was so\r
+frequently ailing that his wife was always ready to believe in this\r
+cause of depression.\r
+\r
+"Sit down and let me sponge it with vinegar."\r
+\r
+Physically Mr. Bulstrode did not want the vinegar, but morally the\r
+affectionate attention soothed him. Though always polite, it was his\r
+habit to receive such services with marital coolness, as his wife's\r
+duty. But to-day, while she was bending over him, he said, "You are\r
+very good, Harriet," in a tone which had something new in it to her\r
+ear; she did not know exactly what the novelty was, but her woman's\r
+solicitude shaped itself into a darting thought that he might be going\r
+to have an illness.\r
+\r
+"Has anything worried you?" she said. "Did that man come to you at the\r
+Bank?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; it was as I had supposed. He is a man who at one time might have\r
+done better. But he has sunk into a drunken debauched creature."\r
+\r
+"Is he quite gone away?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, anxiously but for certain\r
+reasons she refrained from adding, "It was very disagreeable to hear\r
+him calling himself a friend of yours." At that moment she would not\r
+have liked to say anything which implied her habitual consciousness\r
+that her husband's earlier connections were not quite on a level with\r
+her own. Not that she knew much about them. That her husband had at\r
+first been employed in a bank, that he had afterwards entered into what\r
+he called city business and gained a fortune before he was\r
+three-and-thirty, that he had married a widow who was much older than\r
+himself--a Dissenter, and in other ways probably of that\r
+disadvantageous quality usually perceptible in a first wife if inquired\r
+into with the dispassionate judgment of a second--was almost as much as\r
+she had cared to learn beyond the glimpses which Mr. Bulstrode's\r
+narrative occasionally gave of his early bent towards religion, his\r
+inclination to be a preacher, and his association with missionary and\r
+philanthropic efforts. She believed in him as an excellent man whose\r
+piety carried a peculiar eminence in belonging to a layman, whose\r
+influence had turned her own mind toward seriousness, and whose share\r
+of perishable good had been the means of raising her own position. But\r
+she also liked to think that it was well in every sense for Mr.\r
+Bulstrode to have won the hand of Harriet Vincy; whose family was\r
+undeniable in a Middlemarch light--a better light surely than any\r
+thrown in London thoroughfares or dissenting chapel-yards. The\r
+unreformed provincial mind distrusted London; and while true religion\r
+was everywhere saving, honest Mrs. Bulstrode was convinced that to be\r
+saved in the Church was more respectable. She so much wished to ignore\r
+towards others that her husband had ever been a London Dissenter, that\r
+she liked to keep it out of sight even in talking to him. He was quite\r
+aware of this; indeed in some respects he was rather afraid of this\r
+ingenuous wife, whose imitative piety and native worldliness were\r
+equally sincere, who had nothing to be ashamed of, and whom he had\r
+married out of a thorough inclination still subsisting. But his fears\r
+were such as belong to a man who cares to maintain his recognized\r
+supremacy: the loss of high consideration from his wife, as from every\r
+one else who did not clearly hate him out of enmity to the truth, would\r
+be as the beginning of death to him. When she said--\r
+\r
+"Is he quite gone away?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I trust so," he answered, with an effort to throw as much sober\r
+unconcern into his tone as possible!\r
+\r
+But in truth Mr. Bulstrode was very far from a state of quiet trust.\r
+In the interview at the Bank, Raffles had made it evident that his\r
+eagerness to torment was almost as strong in him as any other greed.\r
+He had frankly said that he had turned out of the way to come to\r
+Middlemarch, just to look about him and see whether the neighborhood\r
+would suit him to live in. He had certainly had a few debts to pay\r
+more than he expected, but the two hundred pounds were not gone yet: a\r
+cool five-and-twenty would suffice him to go away with for the present.\r
+What he had wanted chiefly was to see his friend Nick and family, and\r
+know all about the prosperity of a man to whom he was so much attached.\r
+By-and-by he might come back for a longer stay. This time Raffles\r
+declined to be "seen off the premises," as he expressed it--declined to\r
+quit Middlemarch under Bulstrode's eyes. He meant to go by coach the\r
+next day--if he chose.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode felt himself helpless. Neither threats nor coaxing could\r
+avail: he could not count on any persistent fear nor on any promise.\r
+On the contrary, he felt a cold certainty at his heart that\r
+Raffles--unless providence sent death to hinder him--would come back\r
+to Middlemarch before long. And that certainty was a terror.\r
+\r
+It was not that he was in danger of legal punishment or of beggary: he\r
+was in danger only of seeing disclosed to the judgment of his neighbors\r
+and the mournful perception of his wife certain facts of his past life\r
+which would render him an object of scorn and an opprobrium of the\r
+religion with which he had diligently associated himself. The terror\r
+of being judged sharpens the memory: it sends an inevitable glare over\r
+that long-unvisited past which has been habitually recalled only in\r
+general phrases. Even without memory, the life is bound into one by a\r
+zone of dependence in growth and decay; but intense memory forces a man\r
+to own his blameworthy past. With memory set smarting like a reopened\r
+wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn\r
+preparation of the present: it is not a repented error shaken loose\r
+from the life: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing\r
+shudders and bitter flavors and the tinglings of a merited shame.\r
+\r
+Into this second life Bulstrode's past had now risen, only the\r
+pleasures of it seeming to have lost their quality. Night and day,\r
+without interruption save of brief sleep which only wove retrospect and\r
+fear into a fantastic present, he felt the scenes of his earlier life\r
+coming between him and everything else, as obstinately as when we look\r
+through the window from a lighted room, the objects we turn our backs\r
+on are still before us, instead of the grass and the trees. The\r
+successive events inward and outward were there in one view: though\r
+each might be dwelt on in turn, the rest still kept their hold in the\r
+consciousness.\r
+\r
+Once more he saw himself the young banker's clerk, with an agreeable\r
+person, as clever in figures as he was fluent in speech and fond of\r
+theological definition: an eminent though young member of a Calvinistic\r
+dissenting church at Highbury, having had striking experience in\r
+conviction of sin and sense of pardon. Again he heard himself called\r
+for as Brother Bulstrode in prayer meetings, speaking on religious\r
+platforms, preaching in private houses. Again he felt himself thinking\r
+of the ministry as possibly his vocation, and inclined towards\r
+missionary labor. That was the happiest time of his life: that was the\r
+spot he would have chosen now to awake in and find the rest a dream.\r
+The people among whom Brother Bulstrode was distinguished were very\r
+few, but they were very near to him, and stirred his satisfaction the\r
+more; his power stretched through a narrow space, but he felt its\r
+effect the more intensely. He believed without effort in the peculiar\r
+work of grace within him, and in the signs that God intended him for\r
+special instrumentality.\r
+\r
+Then came the moment of transition; it was with the sense of promotion\r
+he had when he, an orphan educated at a commercial charity-school, was\r
+invited to a fine villa belonging to Mr. Dunkirk, the richest man in\r
+the congregation. Soon he became an intimate there, honored for his\r
+piety by the wife, marked out for his ability by the husband, whose\r
+wealth was due to a flourishing city and west-end trade. That was the\r
+setting-in of a new current for his ambition, directing his prospects\r
+of "instrumentality" towards the uniting of distinguished religious\r
+gifts with successful business.\r
+\r
+By-and-by came a decided external leading: a confidential subordinate\r
+partner died, and nobody seemed to the principal so well fitted to fill\r
+the severely felt vacancy as his young friend Bulstrode, if he would\r
+become confidential accountant. The offer was accepted. The business\r
+was a pawnbroker's, of the most magnificent sort both in extent and\r
+profits; and on a short acquaintance with it Bulstrode became aware\r
+that one source of magnificent profit was the easy reception of any\r
+goods offered, without strict inquiry as to where they came from. But\r
+there was a branch house at the west end, and no pettiness or dinginess\r
+to give suggestions of shame.\r
+\r
+He remembered his first moments of shrinking. They were private, and\r
+were filled with arguments; some of these taking the form of prayer.\r
+The business was established and had old roots; is it not one thing to\r
+set up a new gin-palace and another to accept an investment in an old\r
+one? The profits made out of lost souls--where can the line be drawn\r
+at which they begin in human transactions? Was it not even God's way\r
+of saving His chosen? "Thou knowest,"--the young Bulstrode had said\r
+then, as the older Bulstrode was saying now--"Thou knowest how loose\r
+my soul sits from these things--how I view them all as implements for\r
+tilling Thy garden rescued here and there from the wilderness."\r
+\r
+Metaphors and precedents were not wanting; peculiar spiritual\r
+experiences were not wanting which at last made the retention of his\r
+position seem a service demanded of him: the vista of a fortune had\r
+already opened itself, and Bulstrode's shrinking remained private. Mr.\r
+Dunkirk had never expected that there would be any shrinking at all: he\r
+had never conceived that trade had anything to do with the scheme of\r
+salvation. And it was true that Bulstrode found himself carrying on\r
+two distinct lives; his religious activity could not be incompatible\r
+with his business as soon as he had argued himself into not feeling it\r
+incompatible.\r
+\r
+Mentally surrounded with that past again, Bulstrode had the same\r
+pleas--indeed, the years had been perpetually spinning them into\r
+intricate thickness, like masses of spider-web, padding the moral\r
+sensibility; nay, as age made egoism more eager but less enjoying, his\r
+soul had become more saturated with the belief that he did everything\r
+for God's sake, being indifferent to it for his own. And yet--if he\r
+could be back in that far-off spot with his youthful poverty--why, then\r
+he would choose to be a missionary.\r
+\r
+But the train of causes in which he had locked himself went on. There\r
+was trouble in the fine villa at Highbury. Years before, the only\r
+daughter had run away, defied her parents, and gone on the stage; and\r
+now the only boy died, and after a short time Mr. Dunkirk died also.\r
+The wife, a simple pious woman, left with all the wealth in and out of\r
+the magnificent trade, of which she never knew the precise nature, had\r
+come to believe in Bulstrode, and innocently adore him as women often\r
+adore their priest or "man-made" minister. It was natural that after a\r
+time marriage should have been thought of between them. But Mrs.\r
+Dunkirk had qualms and yearnings about her daughter, who had long been\r
+regarded as lost both to God and her parents. It was known that the\r
+daughter had married, but she was utterly gone out of sight. The\r
+mother, having lost her boy, imagined a grandson, and wished in a\r
+double sense to reclaim her daughter. If she were found, there would\r
+be a channel for property--perhaps a wide one--in the provision for\r
+several grandchildren. Efforts to find her must be made before Mrs.\r
+Dunkirk would marry again. Bulstrode concurred; but after\r
+advertisement as well as other modes of inquiry had been tried, the\r
+mother believed that her daughter was not to be found, and consented to\r
+marry without reservation of property.\r
+\r
+The daughter had been found; but only one man besides Bulstrode knew\r
+it, and he was paid for keeping silence and carrying himself away.\r
+\r
+That was the bare fact which Bulstrode was now forced to see in the\r
+rigid outline with which acts present themselves onlookers. But for\r
+himself at that distant time, and even now in burning memory, the fact\r
+was broken into little sequences, each justified as it came by\r
+reasonings which seemed to prove it righteous. Bulstrode's course up\r
+to that time had, he thought, been sanctioned by remarkable\r
+providences, appearing to point the way for him to be the agent in\r
+making the best use of a large property and withdrawing it from\r
+perversion. Death and other striking dispositions, such as feminine\r
+trustfulness, had come; and Bulstrode would have adopted Cromwell's\r
+words--"Do you call these bare events? The Lord pity you!" The\r
+events were comparatively small, but the essential condition was\r
+there--namely, that they were in favor of his own ends. It was easy\r
+for him to settle what was due from him to others by inquiring what\r
+were God's intentions with regard to himself. Could it be for God's\r
+service that this fortune should in any considerable proportion go to a\r
+young woman and her husband who were given up to the lightest pursuits,\r
+and might scatter it abroad in triviality--people who seemed to lie\r
+outside the path of remarkable providences? Bulstrode had never said\r
+to himself beforehand, "The daughter shall not be found"--nevertheless\r
+when the moment came he kept her existence hidden; and when other\r
+moments followed, he soothed the mother with consolation in the\r
+probability that the unhappy young woman might be no more.\r
+\r
+There were hours in which Bulstrode felt that his action was\r
+unrighteous; but how could he go back? He had mental exercises, called\r
+himself nought, laid hold on redemption, and went on in his course of\r
+instrumentality. And after five years Death again came to widen his\r
+path, by taking away his wife. He did gradually withdraw his capital,\r
+but he did not make the sacrifices requisite to put an end to the\r
+business, which was carried on for thirteen years afterwards before it\r
+finally collapsed. Meanwhile Nicholas Bulstrode had used his hundred\r
+thousand discreetly, and was become provincially, solidly important--a\r
+banker, a Churchman, a public benefactor; also a sleeping partner in\r
+trading concerns, in which his ability was directed to economy in the\r
+raw material, as in the case of the dyes which rotted Mr. Vincy's silk.\r
+And now, when this respectability had lasted undisturbed for nearly\r
+thirty years--when all that preceded it had long lain benumbed in the\r
+consciousness--that past had risen and immersed his thought as if with\r
+the terrible irruption of a new sense overburthening the feeble being.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, in his conversation with Raffles, he had learned something\r
+momentous, something which entered actively into the struggle of his\r
+longings and terrors. There, he thought, lay an opening towards\r
+spiritual, perhaps towards material rescue.\r
+\r
+The spiritual kind of rescue was a genuine need with him. There may be\r
+coarse hypocrites, who consciously affect beliefs and emotions for the\r
+sake of gulling the world, but Bulstrode was not one of them. He was\r
+simply a man whose desires had been stronger than his theoretic\r
+beliefs, and who had gradually explained the gratification of his\r
+desires into satisfactory agreement with those beliefs. If this be\r
+hypocrisy, it is a process which shows itself occasionally in us all,\r
+to whatever confession we belong, and whether we believe in the future\r
+perfection of our race or in the nearest date fixed for the end of the\r
+world; whether we regard the earth as a putrefying nidus for a saved\r
+remnant, including ourselves, or have a passionate belief in the\r
+solidarity of mankind.\r
+\r
+The service he could do to the cause of religion had been through life\r
+the ground he alleged to himself for his choice of action: it had been\r
+the motive which he had poured out in his prayers. Who would use money\r
+and position better than he meant to use them? Who could surpass him\r
+in self-abhorrence and exaltation of God's cause? And to Mr. Bulstrode\r
+God's cause was something distinct from his own rectitude of conduct:\r
+it enforced a discrimination of God's enemies, who were to be used\r
+merely as instruments, and whom it would be as well if possible to keep\r
+out of money and consequent influence. Also, profitable investments in\r
+trades where the power of the prince of this world showed its most\r
+active devices, became sanctified by a right application of the profits\r
+in the hands of God's servant.\r
+\r
+This implicit reasoning is essentially no more peculiar to evangelical\r
+belief than the use of wide phrases for narrow motives is peculiar to\r
+Englishmen. There is no general doctrine which is not capable of\r
+eating out our morality if unchecked by the deep-seated habit of direct\r
+fellow-feeling with individual fellow-men.\r
+\r
+But a man who believes in something else than his own greed, has\r
+necessarily a conscience or standard to which he more or less adapts\r
+himself. Bulstrode's standard had been his serviceableness to God's\r
+cause: "I am sinful and nought--a vessel to be consecrated by use--but\r
+use me!"--had been the mould into which he had constrained his immense\r
+need of being something important and predominating. And now had come\r
+a moment in which that mould seemed in danger of being broken and\r
+utterly cast away.\r
+\r
+What if the acts he had reconciled himself to because they made him a\r
+stronger instrument of the divine glory, were to become the pretext of\r
+the scoffer, and a darkening of that glory? If this were to be the\r
+ruling of Providence, he was cast out from the temple as one who had\r
+brought unclean offerings.\r
+\r
+He had long poured out utterances of repentance. But today a\r
+repentance had come which was of a bitterer flavor, and a threatening\r
+Providence urged him to a kind of propitiation which was not simply a\r
+doctrinal transaction. The divine tribunal had changed its aspect for\r
+him; self-prostration was no longer enough, and he must bring\r
+restitution in his hand. It was really before his God that Bulstrode\r
+was about to attempt such restitution as seemed possible: a great dread\r
+had seized his susceptible frame, and the scorching approach of shame\r
+wrought in him a new spiritual need. Night and day, while the\r
+resurgent threatening past was making a conscience within him, he was\r
+thinking by what means he could recover peace and trust--by what\r
+sacrifice he could stay the rod. His belief in these moments of dread\r
+was, that if he spontaneously did something right, God would save him\r
+from the consequences of wrong-doing. For religion can only change when\r
+the emotions which fill it are changed; and the religion of personal\r
+fear remains nearly at the level of the savage.\r
+\r
+He had seen Raffles actually going away on the Brassing coach, and this\r
+was a temporary relief; it removed the pressure of an immediate dread,\r
+but did not put an end to the spiritual conflict and the need to win\r
+protection. At last he came to a difficult resolve, and wrote a letter\r
+to Will Ladislaw, begging him to be at the Shrubs that evening for a\r
+private interview at nine o'clock. Will had felt no particular surprise\r
+at the request, and connected it with some new notions about the\r
+"Pioneer;" but when he was shown into Mr. Bulstrode's private room, he\r
+was struck with the painfully worn look on the banker's face, and was\r
+going to say, "Are you ill?" when, checking himself in that abruptness,\r
+he only inquired after Mrs. Bulstrode, and her satisfaction with the\r
+picture bought for her.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, she is quite satisfied; she has gone out with her daughters\r
+this evening. I begged you to come, Mr. Ladislaw, because I have a\r
+communication of a very private--indeed, I will say, of a sacredly\r
+confidential nature, which I desire to make to you. Nothing, I dare\r
+say, has been farther from your thoughts than that there had been\r
+important ties in the past which could connect your history with mine."\r
+\r
+Will felt something like an electric shock. He was already in a state\r
+of keen sensitiveness and hardly allayed agitation on the subject of\r
+ties in the past, and his presentiments were not agreeable. It seemed\r
+like the fluctuations of a dream--as if the action begun by that loud\r
+bloated stranger were being carried on by this pale-eyed sickly looking\r
+piece of respectability, whose subdued tone and glib formality of\r
+speech were at this moment almost as repulsive to him as their\r
+remembered contrast. He answered, with a marked change of color--\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, nothing."\r
+\r
+"You see before you, Mr. Ladislaw, a man who is deeply stricken. But\r
+for the urgency of conscience and the knowledge that I am before the\r
+bar of One who seeth not as man seeth, I should be under no compulsion\r
+to make the disclosure which has been my object in asking you to come\r
+here to-night. So far as human laws go, you have no claim on me\r
+whatever."\r
+\r
+Will was even more uncomfortable than wondering. Mr. Bulstrode had\r
+paused, leaning his head on his hand, and looking at the floor. But he\r
+now fixed his examining glance on Will and said--\r
+\r
+"I am told that your mother's name was Sarah Dunkirk, and that she ran\r
+away from her friends to go on the stage. Also, that your father was\r
+at one time much emaciated by illness. May I ask if you can confirm\r
+these statements?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, they are all true," said Will, struck with the order in which an\r
+inquiry had come, that might have been expected to be preliminary to\r
+the banker's previous hints. But Mr. Bulstrode had to-night followed\r
+the order of his emotions; he entertained no doubt that the opportunity\r
+for restitution had come, and he had an overpowering impulse towards\r
+the penitential expression by which he was deprecating chastisement.\r
+\r
+"Do you know any particulars of your mother's family?" he continued.\r
+\r
+"No; she never liked to speak of them. She was a very generous,\r
+honorable woman," said Will, almost angrily.\r
+\r
+"I do not wish to allege anything against her. Did she never mention\r
+her mother to you at all?"\r
+\r
+"I have heard her say that she thought her mother did not know the\r
+reason of her running away. She said 'poor mother' in a pitying tone."\r
+\r
+"That mother became my wife," said Bulstrode, and then paused a moment\r
+before he added, "you have a claim on me, Mr. Ladislaw: as I said\r
+before, not a legal claim, but one which my conscience recognizes. I\r
+was enriched by that marriage--a result which would probably not have\r
+taken place--certainly not to the same extent--if your grandmother\r
+could have discovered her daughter. That daughter, I gather, is no\r
+longer living!"\r
+\r
+"No," said Will, feeling suspicion and repugnance rising so strongly\r
+within him, that without quite knowing what he did, he took his hat\r
+from the floor and stood up. The impulse within him was to reject the\r
+disclosed connection.\r
+\r
+"Pray be seated, Mr. Ladislaw," said Bulstrode, anxiously. "Doubtless\r
+you are startled by the suddenness of this discovery. But I entreat\r
+your patience with one who is already bowed down by inward trial."\r
+\r
+Will reseated himself, feeling some pity which was half contempt for\r
+this voluntary self-abasement of an elderly man.\r
+\r
+"It is my wish, Mr. Ladislaw, to make amends for the deprivation which\r
+befell your mother. I know that you are without fortune, and I wish to\r
+supply you adequately from a store which would have probably already\r
+been yours had your grandmother been certain of your mother's existence\r
+and been able to find her."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode paused. He felt that he was performing a striking piece\r
+of scrupulosity in the judgment of his auditor, and a penitential act\r
+in the eyes of God. He had no clew to the state of Will Ladislaw's\r
+mind, smarting as it was from the clear hints of Raffles, and with its\r
+natural quickness in construction stimulated by the expectation of\r
+discoveries which he would have been glad to conjure back into\r
+darkness. Will made no answer for several moments, till Mr. Bulstrode,\r
+who at the end of his speech had cast his eyes on the floor, now raised\r
+them with an examining glance, which Will met fully, saying--\r
+\r
+"I suppose you did know of my mother's existence, and knew where she\r
+might have been found."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode shrank--there was a visible quivering in his face and hands.\r
+He was totally unprepared to have his advances met in this way, or to\r
+find himself urged into more revelation than he had beforehand set down\r
+as needful. But at that moment he dared not tell a lie, and he felt\r
+suddenly uncertain of his ground which he had trodden with some\r
+confidence before.\r
+\r
+"I will not deny that you conjecture rightly," he answered, with a\r
+faltering in his tone. "And I wish to make atonement to you as the one\r
+still remaining who has suffered a loss through me. You enter, I\r
+trust, into my purpose, Mr. Ladislaw, which has a reference to higher\r
+than merely human claims, and as I have already said, is entirely\r
+independent of any legal compulsion. I am ready to narrow my own\r
+resources and the prospects of my family by binding myself to allow you\r
+five hundred pounds yearly during my life, and to leave you a\r
+proportional capital at my death--nay, to do still more, if more should\r
+be definitely necessary to any laudable project on your part." Mr.\r
+Bulstrode had gone on to particulars in the expectation that these\r
+would work strongly on Ladislaw, and merge other feelings in grateful\r
+acceptance.\r
+\r
+But Will was looking as stubborn as possible, with his lip pouting and\r
+his fingers in his side-pockets. He was not in the least touched, and\r
+said firmly,--\r
+\r
+"Before I make any reply to your proposition, Mr. Bulstrode, I must beg\r
+you to answer a question or two. Were you connected with the business\r
+by which that fortune you speak of was originally made?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's thought was, "Raffles has told him." How could he\r
+refuse to answer when he had volunteered what drew forth the question?\r
+He answered, "Yes."\r
+\r
+"And was that business--or was it not--a thoroughly dishonorable\r
+one--nay, one that, if its nature had been made public, might have\r
+ranked those concerned in it with thieves and convicts?"\r
+\r
+Will's tone had a cutting bitterness: he was moved to put his question\r
+as nakedly as he could.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode reddened with irrepressible anger. He had been prepared for\r
+a scene of self-abasement, but his intense pride and his habit of\r
+supremacy overpowered penitence, and even dread, when this young man,\r
+whom he had meant to benefit, turned on him with the air of a judge.\r
+\r
+"The business was established before I became connected with it, sir;\r
+nor is it for you to institute an inquiry of that kind," he answered,\r
+not raising his voice, but speaking with quick defiantness.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is," said Will, starting up again with his hat in his hand.\r
+"It is eminently mine to ask such questions, when I have to decide\r
+whether I will have transactions with you and accept your money. My\r
+unblemished honor is important to me. It is important to me to have no\r
+stain on my birth and connections. And now I find there is a stain\r
+which I can't help. My mother felt it, and tried to keep as clear of\r
+it as she could, and so will I. You shall keep your ill-gotten money.\r
+If I had any fortune of my own, I would willingly pay it to any one who\r
+could disprove what you have told me. What I have to thank you for is\r
+that you kept the money till now, when I can refuse it. It ought to\r
+lie with a man's self that he is a gentleman. Good-night, sir."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode was going to speak, but Will, with determined quickness, was\r
+out of the room in an instant, and in another the hall-door had closed\r
+behind him. He was too strongly possessed with passionate rebellion\r
+against this inherited blot which had been thrust on his knowledge to\r
+reflect at present whether he had not been too hard on Bulstrode--too\r
+arrogantly merciless towards a man of sixty, who was making efforts at\r
+retrieval when time had rendered them vain.\r
+\r
+No third person listening could have thoroughly understood the\r
+impetuosity of Will's repulse or the bitterness of his words. No one\r
+but himself then knew how everything connected with the sentiment of\r
+his own dignity had an immediate bearing for him on his relation to\r
+Dorothea and to Mr. Casaubon's treatment of him. And in the rush of\r
+impulses by which he flung back that offer of Bulstrode's there was\r
+mingled the sense that it would have been impossible for him ever to\r
+tell Dorothea that he had accepted it.\r
+\r
+As for Bulstrode--when Will was gone he suffered a violent reaction,\r
+and wept like a woman. It was the first time he had encountered an\r
+open expression of scorn from any man higher than Raffles; and with\r
+that scorn hurrying like venom through his system, there was no\r
+sensibility left to consolations. But the relief of weeping had to be\r
+checked. His wife and daughters soon came home from hearing the\r
+address of an Oriental missionary, and were full of regret that papa\r
+had not heard, in the first instance, the interesting things which they\r
+tried to repeat to him.\r
+\r
+Perhaps, through all other hidden thoughts, the one that breathed most\r
+comfort was, that Will Ladislaw at least was not likely to publish what\r
+had taken place that evening.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXII.\r
+\r
+ "He was a squyer of lowe degre,\r
+ That loved the king's daughter of Hungrie.\r
+ --Old Romance.\r
+\r
+\r
+Will Ladislaw's mind was now wholly bent on seeing Dorothea again, and\r
+forthwith quitting Middlemarch. The morning after his agitating scene\r
+with Bulstrode he wrote a brief letter to her, saying that various\r
+causes had detained him in the neighborhood longer than he had\r
+expected, and asking her permission to call again at Lowick at some\r
+hour which she would mention on the earliest possible day, he being\r
+anxious to depart, but unwilling to do so until she had granted him an\r
+interview. He left the letter at the office, ordering the messenger to\r
+carry it to Lowick Manor, and wait for an answer.\r
+\r
+Ladislaw felt the awkwardness of asking for more last words. His\r
+former farewell had been made in the hearing of Sir James Chettam, and\r
+had been announced as final even to the butler. It is certainly trying\r
+to a man's dignity to reappear when he is not expected to do so: a\r
+first farewell has pathos in it, but to come back for a second lends an\r
+opening to comedy, and it was possible even that there might be bitter\r
+sneers afloat about Will's motives for lingering. Still it was on the\r
+whole more satisfactory to his feeling to take the directest means of\r
+seeing Dorothea, than to use any device which might give an air of\r
+chance to a meeting of which he wished her to understand that it was\r
+what he earnestly sought. When he had parted from her before, he had\r
+been in ignorance of facts which gave a new aspect to the relation\r
+between them, and made a more absolute severance than he had then\r
+believed in. He knew nothing of Dorothea's private fortune, and being\r
+little used to reflect on such matters, took it for granted that\r
+according to Mr. Casaubon's arrangement marriage to him, Will Ladislaw,\r
+would mean that she consented to be penniless. That was not what he\r
+could wish for even in his secret heart, or even if she had been ready\r
+to meet such hard contrast for his sake. And then, too, there was the\r
+fresh smart of that disclosure about his mother's family, which if\r
+known would be an added reason why Dorothea's friends should look down\r
+upon him as utterly below her. The secret hope that after some years\r
+he might come back with the sense that he had at least a personal value\r
+equal to her wealth, seemed now the dreamy continuation of a dream.\r
+This change would surely justify him in asking Dorothea to receive him\r
+once more.\r
+\r
+But Dorothea on that morning was not at home to receive Will's note.\r
+In consequence of a letter from her uncle announcing his intention to\r
+be at home in a week, she had driven first to Freshitt to carry the\r
+news, meaning to go on to the Grange to deliver some orders with which\r
+her uncle had intrusted her--thinking, as he said, "a little mental\r
+occupation of this sort good for a widow."\r
+\r
+If Will Ladislaw could have overheard some of the talk at Freshitt that\r
+morning, he would have felt all his suppositions confirmed as to the\r
+readiness of certain people to sneer at his lingering in the\r
+neighborhood. Sir James, indeed, though much relieved concerning\r
+Dorothea, had been on the watch to learn Ladislaw's movements, and had\r
+an instructed informant in Mr. Standish, who was necessarily in his\r
+confidence on this matter. That Ladislaw had stayed in Middlemarch\r
+nearly two months after he had declared that he was going immediately,\r
+was a fact to embitter Sir James's suspicions, or at least to justify\r
+his aversion to a "young fellow" whom he represented to himself as\r
+slight, volatile, and likely enough to show such recklessness as\r
+naturally went along with a position unriveted by family ties or a\r
+strict profession. But he had just heard something from Standish\r
+which, while it justified these surmises about Will, offered a means of\r
+nullifying all danger with regard to Dorothea.\r
+\r
+Unwonted circumstances may make us all rather unlike ourselves: there\r
+are conditions under which the most majestic person is obliged to\r
+sneeze, and our emotions are liable to be acted on in the same\r
+incongruous manner. Good Sir James was this morning so far unlike\r
+himself that he was irritably anxious to say something to Dorothea on a\r
+subject which he usually avoided as if it had been a matter of shame to\r
+them both. He could not use Celia as a medium, because he did not\r
+choose that she should know the kind of gossip he had in his mind; and\r
+before Dorothea happened to arrive he had been trying to imagine how,\r
+with his shyness and unready tongue, he could ever manage to introduce\r
+his communication. Her unexpected presence brought him to utter\r
+hopelessness in his own power of saying anything unpleasant; but\r
+desperation suggested a resource; he sent the groom on an unsaddled\r
+horse across the park with a pencilled note to Mrs. Cadwallader, who\r
+already knew the gossip, and would think it no compromise of herself to\r
+repeat it as often as required.\r
+\r
+Dorothea was detained on the good pretext that Mr. Garth, whom she\r
+wanted to see, was expected at the hall within the hour, and she was\r
+still talking to Caleb on the gravel when Sir James, on the watch for\r
+the rector's wife, saw her coming and met her with the needful hints.\r
+\r
+"Enough! I understand,"--said Mrs. Cadwallader. "You shall be\r
+innocent. I am such a blackamoor that I cannot smirch myself."\r
+\r
+"I don't mean that it's of any consequence," said Sir James, disliking\r
+that Mrs. Cadwallader should understand too much. "Only it is\r
+desirable that Dorothea should know there are reasons why she should\r
+not receive him again; and I really can't say so to her. It will come\r
+lightly from you."\r
+\r
+It came very lightly indeed. When Dorothea quitted Caleb and turned to\r
+meet them, it appeared that Mrs. Cadwallader had stepped across the\r
+park by the merest chance in the world, just to chat with Celia in a\r
+matronly way about the baby. And so Mr. Brooke was coming back?\r
+Delightful!--coming back, it was to be hoped, quite cured of\r
+Parliamentary fever and pioneering. Apropos of the "Pioneer"--somebody\r
+had prophesied that it would soon be like a dying dolphin, and turn all\r
+colors for want of knowing how to help itself, because Mr. Brooke's\r
+protege, the brilliant young Ladislaw, was gone or going. Had Sir\r
+James heard that?\r
+\r
+The three were walking along the gravel slowly, and Sir James, turning\r
+aside to whip a shrub, said he had heard something of that sort.\r
+\r
+"All false!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "He is not gone, or going,\r
+apparently; the 'Pioneer' keeps its color, and Mr. Orlando Ladislaw is\r
+making a sad dark-blue scandal by warbling continually with your Mr.\r
+Lydgate's wife, who they tell me is as pretty as pretty can be. It\r
+seems nobody ever goes into the house without finding this young\r
+gentleman lying on the rug or warbling at the piano. But the people in\r
+manufacturing towns are always disreputable."\r
+\r
+"You began by saying that one report was false, Mrs. Cadwallader, and I\r
+believe this is false too," said Dorothea, with indignant energy; "at\r
+least, I feel sure it is a misrepresentation. I will not hear any evil\r
+spoken of Mr. Ladislaw; he has already suffered too much injustice."\r
+\r
+Dorothea when thoroughly moved cared little what any one thought of her\r
+feelings; and even if she had been able to reflect, she would have held\r
+it petty to keep silence at injurious words about Will from fear of\r
+being herself misunderstood. Her face was flushed and her lip trembled.\r
+\r
+Sir James, glancing at her, repented of his stratagem; but Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, equal to all occasions, spread the palms of her hands\r
+outward and said--"Heaven grant it, my dear!--I mean that all bad tales\r
+about anybody may be false. But it is a pity that young Lydgate should\r
+have married one of these Middlemarch girls. Considering he's a son of\r
+somebody, he might have got a woman with good blood in her veins, and\r
+not too young, who would have put up with his profession. There's\r
+Clara Harfager, for instance, whose friends don't know what to do with\r
+her; and she has a portion. Then we might have had her among us.\r
+However!--it's no use being wise for other people. Where is Celia?\r
+Pray let us go in."\r
+\r
+"I am going on immediately to Tipton," said Dorothea, rather haughtily.\r
+"Good-by."\r
+\r
+Sir James could say nothing as he accompanied her to the carriage. He\r
+was altogether discontented with the result of a contrivance which had\r
+cost him some secret humiliation beforehand.\r
+\r
+Dorothea drove along between the berried hedgerows and the shorn\r
+corn-fields, not seeing or hearing anything around. The tears came and\r
+rolled down her cheeks, but she did not know it. The world, it seemed,\r
+was turning ugly and hateful, and there was no place for her\r
+trustfulness. "It is not true--it is not true!" was the voice within\r
+her that she listened to; but all the while a remembrance to which\r
+there had always clung a vague uneasiness would thrust itself on her\r
+attention--the remembrance of that day when she had found Will Ladislaw\r
+with Mrs. Lydgate, and had heard his voice accompanied by the piano.\r
+\r
+"He said he would never do anything that I disapproved--I wish I could\r
+have told him that I disapproved of that," said poor Dorothea,\r
+inwardly, feeling a strange alternation between anger with Will and the\r
+passionate defence of him. "They all try to blacken him before me; but\r
+I will care for no pain, if he is not to blame. I always believed he\r
+was good."--These were her last thoughts before she felt that the\r
+carriage was passing under the archway of the lodge-gate at the Grange,\r
+when she hurriedly pressed her handkerchief to her face and began to\r
+think of her errands. The coachman begged leave to take out the horses\r
+for half an hour as there was something wrong with a shoe; and\r
+Dorothea, having the sense that she was going to rest, took off her\r
+gloves and bonnet, while she was leaning against a statue in the\r
+entrance-hall, and talking to the housekeeper. At last she said--\r
+\r
+"I must stay here a little, Mrs. Kell. I will go into the library and\r
+write you some memoranda from my uncle's letter, if you will open the\r
+shutters for me."\r
+\r
+"The shutters are open, madam," said Mrs. Kell, following Dorothea, who\r
+had walked along as she spoke. "Mr. Ladislaw is there, looking for\r
+something."\r
+\r
+(Will had come to fetch a portfolio of his own sketches which he had\r
+missed in the act of packing his movables, and did not choose to leave\r
+behind.)\r
+\r
+Dorothea's heart seemed to turn over as if it had had a blow, but she\r
+was not perceptibly checked: in truth, the sense that Will was there\r
+was for the moment all-satisfying to her, like the sight of something\r
+precious that one has lost. When she reached the door she said to Mrs.\r
+Kell--\r
+\r
+"Go in first, and tell him that I am here."\r
+\r
+Will had found his portfolio, and had laid it on the table at the far\r
+end of the room, to turn over the sketches and please himself by\r
+looking at the memorable piece of art which had a relation to nature\r
+too mysterious for Dorothea. He was smiling at it still, and shaking\r
+the sketches into order with the thought that he might find a letter\r
+from her awaiting him at Middlemarch, when Mrs. Kell close to his elbow\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"Mrs. Casaubon is coming in, sir."\r
+\r
+Will turned round quickly, and the next moment Dorothea was entering.\r
+As Mrs. Kell closed the door behind her they met: each was looking at\r
+the other, and consciousness was overflowed by something that\r
+suppressed utterance. It was not confusion that kept them silent, for\r
+they both felt that parting was near, and there is no shamefacedness in\r
+a sad parting.\r
+\r
+She moved automatically towards her uncle's chair against the\r
+writing-table, and Will, after drawing it out a little for her, went a\r
+few paces off and stood opposite to her.\r
+\r
+"Pray sit down," said Dorothea, crossing her hands on her lap; "I am\r
+very glad you were here." Will thought that her face looked just as it\r
+did when she first shook hands with him in Rome; for her widow's cap,\r
+fixed in her bonnet, had gone off with it, and he could see that she\r
+had lately been shedding tears. But the mixture of anger in her\r
+agitation had vanished at the sight of him; she had been used, when\r
+they were face to face, always to feel confidence and the happy freedom\r
+which comes with mutual understanding, and how could other people's\r
+words hinder that effect on a sudden? Let the music which can take\r
+possession of our frame and fill the air with joy for us, sound once\r
+more--what does it signify that we heard it found fault with in its\r
+absence?\r
+\r
+"I have sent a letter to Lowick Manor to-day, asking leave to see you,"\r
+said Will, seating himself opposite to her. "I am going away\r
+immediately, and I could not go without speaking to you again."\r
+\r
+"I thought we had parted when you came to Lowick many weeks ago--you\r
+thought you were going then," said Dorothea, her voice trembling a\r
+little.\r
+\r
+"Yes; but I was in ignorance then of things which I know now--things\r
+which have altered my feelings about the future. When I saw you\r
+before, I was dreaming that I might come back some day. I don't think\r
+I ever shall--now." Will paused here.\r
+\r
+"You wished me to know the reasons?" said Dorothea, timidly.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Will, impetuously, shaking his head backward, and looking\r
+away from her with irritation in his face. "Of course I must wish it.\r
+I have been grossly insulted in your eyes and in the eyes of others.\r
+There has been a mean implication against my character. I wish you to\r
+know that under no circumstances would I have lowered myself by--under\r
+no circumstances would I have given men the chance of saying that I\r
+sought money under the pretext of seeking--something else. There was\r
+no need of other safeguard against me--the safeguard of wealth was\r
+enough."\r
+\r
+Will rose from his chair with the last word and went--he hardly knew\r
+where; but it was to the projecting window nearest him, which had been\r
+open as now about the same season a year ago, when he and Dorothea had\r
+stood within it and talked together. Her whole heart was going out at\r
+this moment in sympathy with Will's indignation: she only wanted to\r
+convince him that she had never done him injustice, and he seemed to\r
+have turned away from her as if she too had been part of the unfriendly\r
+world.\r
+\r
+"It would be very unkind of you to suppose that I ever attributed any\r
+meanness to you," she began. Then in her ardent way, wanting to plead\r
+with him, she moved from her chair and went in front of him to her old\r
+place in the window, saying, "Do you suppose that I ever disbelieved in\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+When Will saw her there, he gave a start and moved backward out of the\r
+window, without meeting her glance. Dorothea was hurt by this movement\r
+following up the previous anger of his tone. She was ready to say that\r
+it was as hard on her as on him, and that she was helpless; but those\r
+strange particulars of their relation which neither of them could\r
+explicitly mention kept her always in dread of saying too much. At\r
+this moment she had no belief that Will would in any case have wanted\r
+to marry her, and she feared using words which might imply such a\r
+belief. She only said earnestly, recurring to his last word--\r
+\r
+"I am sure no safeguard was ever needed against you."\r
+\r
+Will did not answer. In the stormy fluctuation of his feelings these\r
+words of hers seemed to him cruelly neutral, and he looked pale and\r
+miserable after his angry outburst. He went to the table and fastened\r
+up his portfolio, while Dorothea looked at him from the distance. They\r
+were wasting these last moments together in wretched silence. What\r
+could he say, since what had got obstinately uppermost in his mind was\r
+the passionate love for her which he forbade himself to utter? What\r
+could she say, since she might offer him no help--since she was forced\r
+to keep the money that ought to have been his?--since to-day he seemed\r
+not to respond as he used to do to her thorough trust and liking?\r
+\r
+But Will at last turned away from his portfolio and approached the\r
+window again.\r
+\r
+"I must go," he said, with that peculiar look of the eyes which\r
+sometimes accompanies bitter feeling, as if they had been tired and\r
+burned with gazing too close at a light.\r
+\r
+"What shall you do in life?" said Dorothea, timidly. "Have your\r
+intentions remained just the same as when we said good-by before?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Will, in a tone that seemed to waive the subject as\r
+uninteresting. "I shall work away at the first thing that offers. I\r
+suppose one gets a habit of doing without happiness or hope."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what sad words!" said Dorothea, with a dangerous tendency to sob.\r
+Then trying to smile, she added, "We used to agree that we were alike\r
+in speaking too strongly."\r
+\r
+"I have not spoken too strongly now," said Will, leaning back against\r
+the angle of the wall. "There are certain things which a man can only\r
+go through once in his life; and he must know some time or other that\r
+the best is over with him. This experience has happened to me while I\r
+am very young--that is all. What I care more for than I can ever care\r
+for anything else is absolutely forbidden to me--I don't mean merely\r
+by being out of my reach, but forbidden me, even if it were within my\r
+reach, by my own pride and honor--by everything I respect myself for.\r
+Of course I shall go on living as a man might do who had seen heaven in\r
+a trance."\r
+\r
+Will paused, imagining that it would be impossible for Dorothea to\r
+misunderstand this; indeed he felt that he was contradicting himself\r
+and offending against his self-approval in speaking to her so plainly;\r
+but still--it could not be fairly called wooing a woman to tell her\r
+that he would never woo her. It must be admitted to be a ghostly kind\r
+of wooing.\r
+\r
+But Dorothea's mind was rapidly going over the past with quite another\r
+vision than his. The thought that she herself might be what Will most\r
+cared for did throb through her an instant, but then came doubt: the\r
+memory of the little they had lived through together turned pale and\r
+shrank before the memory which suggested how much fuller might have\r
+been the intercourse between Will and some one else with whom he had\r
+had constant companionship. Everything he had said might refer to that\r
+other relation, and whatever had passed between him and herself was\r
+thoroughly explained by what she had always regarded as their simple\r
+friendship and the cruel obstruction thrust upon it by her husband's\r
+injurious act. Dorothea stood silent, with her eyes cast down\r
+dreamily, while images crowded upon her which left the sickening\r
+certainty that Will was referring to Mrs. Lydgate. But why sickening?\r
+He wanted her to know that here too his conduct should be above\r
+suspicion.\r
+\r
+Will was not surprised at her silence. His mind also was tumultuously\r
+busy while he watched her, and he was feeling rather wildly that\r
+something must happen to hinder their parting--some miracle, clearly\r
+nothing in their own deliberate speech. Yet, after all, had she any\r
+love for him?--he could not pretend to himself that he would rather\r
+believe her to be without that pain. He could not deny that a secret\r
+longing for the assurance that she loved him was at the root of all his\r
+words.\r
+\r
+Neither of them knew how long they stood in that way. Dorothea was\r
+raising her eyes, and was about to speak, when the door opened and her\r
+footman came to say--\r
+\r
+"The horses are ready, madam, whenever you like to start."\r
+\r
+"Presently," said Dorothea. Then turning to Will, she said, "I have\r
+some memoranda to write for the housekeeper."\r
+\r
+"I must go," said Will, when the door had closed again--advancing\r
+towards her. "The day after to-morrow I shall leave Middlemarch."\r
+\r
+"You have acted in every way rightly," said Dorothea, in a low tone,\r
+feeling a pressure at her heart which made it difficult to speak.\r
+\r
+She put out her hand, and Will took it for an instant without speaking,\r
+for her words had seemed to him cruelly cold and unlike herself. Their\r
+eyes met, but there was discontent in his, and in hers there was only\r
+sadness. He turned away and took his portfolio under his arm.\r
+\r
+"I have never done you injustice. Please remember me," said Dorothea,\r
+repressing a rising sob.\r
+\r
+"Why should you say that?" said Will, with irritation. "As if I were\r
+not in danger of forgetting everything else."\r
+\r
+He had really a movement of anger against her at that moment, and it\r
+impelled him to go away without pause. It was all one flash to\r
+Dorothea--his last words--his distant bow to her as he reached the\r
+door--the sense that he was no longer there. She sank into the chair,\r
+and for a few moments sat like a statue, while images and emotions were\r
+hurrying upon her. Joy came first, in spite of the threatening train\r
+behind it--joy in the impression that it was really herself whom Will\r
+loved and was renouncing, that there was really no other love less\r
+permissible, more blameworthy, which honor was hurrying him away from.\r
+They were parted all the same, but--Dorothea drew a deep breath and\r
+felt her strength return--she could think of him unrestrainedly. At\r
+that moment the parting was easy to bear: the first sense of loving and\r
+being loved excluded sorrow. It was as if some hard icy pressure had\r
+melted, and her consciousness had room to expand: her past was come\r
+back to her with larger interpretation. The joy was not the\r
+less--perhaps it was the more complete just then--because of the\r
+irrevocable parting; for there was no reproach, no contemptuous wonder\r
+to imagine in any eye or from any lips. He had acted so as to defy\r
+reproach, and make wonder respectful.\r
+\r
+Any one watching her might have seen that there was a fortifying\r
+thought within her. Just as when inventive power is working with glad\r
+ease some small claim on the attention is fully met as if it were only\r
+a cranny opened to the sunlight, it was easy now for Dorothea to write\r
+her memoranda. She spoke her last words to the housekeeper in cheerful\r
+tones, and when she seated herself in the carriage her eyes were bright\r
+and her cheeks blooming under the dismal bonnet. She threw back the\r
+heavy "weepers," and looked before her, wondering which road Will had\r
+taken. It was in her nature to be proud that he was blameless, and\r
+through all her feelings there ran this vein--"I was right to defend\r
+him."\r
+\r
+The coachman was used to drive his grays at a good pace, Mr. Casaubon\r
+being unenjoying and impatient in everything away from his desk, and\r
+wanting to get to the end of all journeys; and Dorothea was now bowled\r
+along quickly. Driving was pleasant, for rain in the night had laid\r
+the dust, and the blue sky looked far off, away from the region of the\r
+great clouds that sailed in masses. The earth looked like a happy\r
+place under the vast heavens, and Dorothea was wishing that she might\r
+overtake Will and see him once more.\r
+\r
+After a turn of the road, there he was with the portfolio under his\r
+arm; but the next moment she was passing him while he raised his hat,\r
+and she felt a pang at being seated there in a sort of exaltation,\r
+leaving him behind. She could not look back at him. It was as if a\r
+crowd of indifferent objects had thrust them asunder, and forced them\r
+along different paths, taking them farther and farther away from each\r
+other, and making it useless to look back. She could no more make any\r
+sign that would seem to say, "Need we part?" than she could stop the\r
+carriage to wait for him. Nay, what a world of reasons crowded upon\r
+her against any movement of her thought towards a future that might\r
+reverse the decision of this day!\r
+\r
+"I only wish I had known before--I wish he knew--then we could be quite\r
+happy in thinking of each other, though we are forever parted. And if\r
+I could but have given him the money, and made things easier for\r
+him!"--were the longings that came back the most persistently. And\r
+yet, so heavily did the world weigh on her in spite of her independent\r
+energy, that with this idea of Will as in need of such help and at a\r
+disadvantage with the world, there came always the vision of that\r
+unfittingness of any closer relation between them which lay in the\r
+opinion of every one connected with her. She felt to the full all the\r
+imperativeness of the motives which urged Will's conduct. How could he\r
+dream of her defying the barrier that her husband had placed between\r
+them?--how could she ever say to herself that she would defy it?\r
+\r
+Will's certainty as the carriage grew smaller in the distance, had much\r
+more bitterness in it. Very slight matters were enough to gall him in\r
+his sensitive mood, and the sight of Dorothea driving past him while he\r
+felt himself plodding along as a poor devil seeking a position in a\r
+world which in his present temper offered him little that he coveted,\r
+made his conduct seem a mere matter of necessity, and took away the\r
+sustainment of resolve. After all, he had no assurance that she loved\r
+him: could any man pretend that he was simply glad in such a case to\r
+have the suffering all on his own side?\r
+\r
+That evening Will spent with the Lydgates; the next evening he was gone.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VII.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+TWO TEMPTATIONS.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXIII.\r
+\r
+ These little things are great to little man.--GOLDSMITH.\r
+\r
+\r
+"Have you seen much of your scientific phoenix, Lydgate, lately?" said\r
+Mr. Toller at one of his Christmas dinner-parties, speaking to Mr.\r
+Farebrother on his right hand.\r
+\r
+"Not much, I am sorry to say," answered the Vicar, accustomed to parry\r
+Mr. Toller's banter about his belief in the new medical light. "I am\r
+out of the way and he is too busy."\r
+\r
+"Is he? I am glad to hear it," said Dr. Minchin, with mingled suavity\r
+and surprise.\r
+\r
+"He gives a great deal of time to the New Hospital," said Mr.\r
+Farebrother, who had his reasons for continuing the subject: "I hear of\r
+that from my neighbor, Mrs. Casaubon, who goes there often. She says\r
+Lydgate is indefatigable, and is making a fine thing of Bulstrode's\r
+institution. He is preparing a new ward in case of the cholera coming\r
+to us."\r
+\r
+"And preparing theories of treatment to try on the patients, I\r
+suppose," said Mr. Toller.\r
+\r
+"Come, Toller, be candid," said Mr. Farebrother. "You are too clever\r
+not to see the good of a bold fresh mind in medicine, as well as in\r
+everything else; and as to cholera, I fancy, none of you are very sure\r
+what you ought to do. If a man goes a little too far along a new road,\r
+it is usually himself that he harms more than any one else."\r
+\r
+"I am sure you and Wrench ought to be obliged to him," said Dr.\r
+Minchin, looking towards Toller, "for he has sent you the cream of\r
+Peacock's patients."\r
+\r
+"Lydgate has been living at a great rate for a young beginner," said\r
+Mr. Harry Toller, the brewer. "I suppose his relations in the North\r
+back him up."\r
+\r
+"I hope so," said Mr. Chichely, "else he ought not to have married that\r
+nice girl we were all so fond of. Hang it, one has a grudge against a\r
+man who carries off the prettiest girl in the town."\r
+\r
+"Ay, by God! and the best too," said Mr. Standish.\r
+\r
+"My friend Vincy didn't half like the marriage, I know that," said Mr.\r
+Chichely. "_He_ wouldn't do much. How the relations on the other side\r
+may have come down I can't say." There was an emphatic kind of\r
+reticence in Mr. Chichely's manner of speaking.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I shouldn't think Lydgate ever looked to practice for a living,"\r
+said Mr. Toller, with a slight touch of sarcasm, and there the subject\r
+was dropped.\r
+\r
+This was not the first time that Mr. Farebrother had heard hints of\r
+Lydgate's expenses being obviously too great to be met by his practice,\r
+but he thought it not unlikely that there were resources or\r
+expectations which excused the large outlay at the time of Lydgate's\r
+marriage, and which might hinder any bad consequences from the\r
+disappointment in his practice. One evening, when he took the pains to\r
+go to Middlemarch on purpose to have a chat with Lydgate as of old, he\r
+noticed in him an air of excited effort quite unlike his usual easy way\r
+of keeping silence or breaking it with abrupt energy whenever he had\r
+anything to say. Lydgate talked persistently when they were in his\r
+work-room, putting arguments for and against the probability of certain\r
+biological views; but he had none of those definite things to say or to\r
+show which give the waymarks of a patient uninterrupted pursuit, such\r
+as he used himself to insist on, saying that "there must be a systole\r
+and diastole in all inquiry," and that "a man's mind must be\r
+continually expanding and shrinking between the whole human horizon and\r
+the horizon of an object-glass." That evening he seemed to be talking\r
+widely for the sake of resisting any personal bearing; and before long\r
+they went into the drawing room, where Lydgate, having asked Rosamond\r
+to give them music, sank back in his chair in silence, but with a\r
+strange light in his eyes. "He may have been taking an opiate," was a\r
+thought that crossed Mr. Farebrother's mind--"tic-douloureux\r
+perhaps--or medical worries."\r
+\r
+It did not occur to him that Lydgate's marriage was not delightful: he\r
+believed, as the rest did, that Rosamond was an amiable, docile\r
+creature, though he had always thought her rather uninteresting--a\r
+little too much the pattern-card of the finishing-school; and his\r
+mother could not forgive Rosamond because she never seemed to see that\r
+Henrietta Noble was in the room. "However, Lydgate fell in love with\r
+her," said the Vicar to himself, "and she must be to his taste."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother was aware that Lydgate was a proud man, but having very\r
+little corresponding fibre in himself, and perhaps too little care\r
+about personal dignity, except the dignity of not being mean or\r
+foolish, he could hardly allow enough for the way in which Lydgate\r
+shrank, as from a burn, from the utterance of any word about his\r
+private affairs. And soon after that conversation at Mr. Toller's, the\r
+Vicar learned something which made him watch the more eagerly for an\r
+opportunity of indirectly letting Lydgate know that if he wanted to\r
+open himself about any difficulty there was a friendly ear ready.\r
+\r
+The opportunity came at Mr. Vincy's, where, on New Year's Day, there\r
+was a party, to which Mr. Farebrother was irresistibly invited, on the\r
+plea that he must not forsake his old friends on the first new year of\r
+his being a greater man, and Rector as well as Vicar. And this party\r
+was thoroughly friendly: all the ladies of the Farebrother family were\r
+present; the Vincy children all dined at the table, and Fred had\r
+persuaded his mother that if she did not invite Mary Garth, the\r
+Farebrothers would regard it as a slight to themselves, Mary being\r
+their particular friend. Mary came, and Fred was in high spirits,\r
+though his enjoyment was of a checkered kind--triumph that his mother\r
+should see Mary's importance with the chief personages in the party\r
+being much streaked with jealousy when Mr. Farebrother sat down by her.\r
+Fred used to be much more easy about his own accomplishments in the\r
+days when he had not begun to dread being "bowled out by Farebrother,"\r
+and this terror was still before him. Mrs. Vincy, in her fullest\r
+matronly bloom, looked at Mary's little figure, rough wavy hair, and\r
+visage quite without lilies and roses, and wondered; trying\r
+unsuccessfully to fancy herself caring about Mary's appearance in\r
+wedding clothes, or feeling complacency in grandchildren who would\r
+"feature" the Garths. However, the party was a merry one, and Mary was\r
+particularly bright; being glad, for Fred's sake, that his friends were\r
+getting kinder to her, and being also quite willing that they should\r
+see how much she was valued by others whom they must admit to be judges.\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother noticed that Lydgate seemed bored, and that Mr. Vincy\r
+spoke as little as possible to his son-in-law. Rosamond was perfectly\r
+graceful and calm, and only a subtle observation such as the Vicar had\r
+not been roused to bestow on her would have perceived the total absence\r
+of that interest in her husband's presence which a loving wife is sure\r
+to betray, even if etiquette keeps her aloof from him. When Lydgate\r
+was taking part in the conversation, she never looked towards him any\r
+more than if she had been a sculptured Psyche modelled to look another\r
+way: and when, after being called out for an hour or two, he re-entered\r
+the room, she seemed unconscious of the fact, which eighteen months\r
+before would have had the effect of a numeral before ciphers. In\r
+reality, however, she was intensely aware of Lydgate's voice and\r
+movements; and her pretty good-tempered air of unconsciousness was a\r
+studied negation by which she satisfied her inward opposition to him\r
+without compromise of propriety. When the ladies were in the\r
+drawing-room after Lydgate had been called away from the dessert, Mrs.\r
+Farebrother, when Rosamond happened to be near her, said--"You have to\r
+give up a great deal of your husband's society, Mrs. Lydgate."\r
+\r
+"Yes, the life of a medical man is very arduous: especially when he is\r
+so devoted to his profession as Mr. Lydgate is," said Rosamond, who was\r
+standing, and moved easily away at the end of this correct little\r
+speech.\r
+\r
+"It is dreadfully dull for her when there is no company," said Mrs.\r
+Vincy, who was seated at the old lady's side. "I am sure I thought so\r
+when Rosamond was ill, and I was staying with her. You know, Mrs.\r
+Farebrother, ours is a cheerful house. I am of a cheerful disposition\r
+myself, and Mr. Vincy always likes something to be going on. That is\r
+what Rosamond has been used to. Very different from a husband out at\r
+odd hours, and never knowing when he will come home, and of a close,\r
+proud disposition, _I_ think"--indiscreet Mrs. Vincy did lower her tone\r
+slightly with this parenthesis. "But Rosamond always had an angel of a\r
+temper; her brothers used very often not to please her, but she was\r
+never the girl to show temper; from a baby she was always as good as\r
+good, and with a complexion beyond anything. But my children are all\r
+good-tempered, thank God."\r
+\r
+This was easily credible to any one looking at Mrs. Vincy as she threw\r
+back her broad cap-strings, and smiled towards her three little girls,\r
+aged from seven to eleven. But in that smiling glance she was obliged\r
+to include Mary Garth, whom the three girls had got into a corner to\r
+make her tell them stories. Mary was just finishing the delicious tale\r
+of Rumpelstiltskin, which she had well by heart, because Letty was\r
+never tired of communicating it to her ignorant elders from a favorite\r
+red volume. Louisa, Mrs. Vincy's darling, now ran to her with\r
+wide-eyed serious excitement, crying, "Oh mamma, mamma, the little man\r
+stamped so hard on the floor he couldn't get his leg out again!"\r
+\r
+"Bless you, my cherub!" said mamma; "you shall tell me all about it\r
+to-morrow. Go and listen!" and then, as her eyes followed Louisa back\r
+towards the attractive corner, she thought that if Fred wished her to\r
+invite Mary again she would make no objection, the children being so\r
+pleased with her.\r
+\r
+But presently the corner became still more animated, for Mr.\r
+Farebrother came in, and seating himself behind Louisa, took her on his\r
+lap; whereupon the girls all insisted that he must hear\r
+Rumpelstiltskin, and Mary must tell it over again. He insisted too,\r
+and Mary, without fuss, began again in her neat fashion, with precisely\r
+the same words as before. Fred, who had also seated himself near,\r
+would have felt unmixed triumph in Mary's effectiveness if Mr.\r
+Farebrother had not been looking at her with evident admiration, while\r
+he dramatized an intense interest in the tale to please the children.\r
+\r
+"You will never care any more about my one-eyed giant, Loo," said Fred\r
+at the end.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I shall. Tell about him now," said Louisa.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I dare say; I am quite cut out. Ask Mr. Farebrother."\r
+\r
+"Yes," added Mary; "ask Mr. Farebrother to tell you about the ants\r
+whose beautiful house was knocked down by a giant named Tom, and he\r
+thought they didn't mind because he couldn't hear them cry, or see them\r
+use their pocket-handkerchiefs."\r
+\r
+"Please," said Louisa, looking up at the Vicar.\r
+\r
+"No, no, I am a grave old parson. If I try to draw a story out of my\r
+bag a sermon comes instead. Shall I preach you a sermon?" said he,\r
+putting on his short-sighted glasses, and pursing up his lips.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Louisa, falteringly.\r
+\r
+"Let me see, then. Against cakes: how cakes are bad things, especially\r
+if they are sweet and have plums in them."\r
+\r
+Louisa took the affair rather seriously, and got down from the Vicar's\r
+knee to go to Fred.\r
+\r
+"Ah, I see it will not do to preach on New Year's Day," said Mr.\r
+Farebrother, rising and walking away. He had discovered of late that\r
+Fred had become jealous of him, and also that he himself was not losing\r
+his preference for Mary above all other women.\r
+\r
+"A delightful young person is Miss Garth," said Mrs. Farebrother, who\r
+had been watching her son's movements.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Mrs. Vincy, obliged to reply, as the old lady turned to her\r
+expectantly. "It is a pity she is not better-looking."\r
+\r
+"I cannot say that," said Mrs. Farebrother, decisively. "I like her\r
+countenance. We must not always ask for beauty, when a good God has\r
+seen fit to make an excellent young woman without it. I put good\r
+manners first, and Miss Garth will know how to conduct herself in any\r
+station."\r
+\r
+The old lady was a little sharp in her tone, having a prospective\r
+reference to Mary's becoming her daughter-in-law; for there was this\r
+inconvenience in Mary's position with regard to Fred, that it was not\r
+suitable to be made public, and hence the three ladies at Lowick\r
+Parsonage were still hoping that Camden would choose Miss Garth.\r
+\r
+New visitors entered, and the drawing-room was given up to music and\r
+games, while whist-tables were prepared in the quiet room on the other\r
+side of the hall. Mr. Farebrother played a rubber to satisfy his\r
+mother, who regarded her occasional whist as a protest against scandal\r
+and novelty of opinion, in which light even a revoke had its dignity.\r
+But at the end he got Mr. Chichely to take his place, and left the\r
+room. As he crossed the hall, Lydgate had just come in and was taking\r
+off his great-coat.\r
+\r
+"You are the man I was going to look for," said the Vicar; and instead\r
+of entering the drawing-room, they walked along the hall and stood\r
+against the fireplace, where the frosty air helped to make a glowing\r
+bank. "You see, I can leave the whist-table easily enough," he went\r
+on, smiling at Lydgate, "now I don't play for money. I owe that to\r
+you, Mrs. Casaubon says."\r
+\r
+"How?" said Lydgate, coldly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you didn't mean me to know it; I call that ungenerous reticence.\r
+You should let a man have the pleasure of feeling that you have done\r
+him a good turn. I don't enter into some people's dislike of being\r
+under an obligation: upon my word, I prefer being under an obligation\r
+to everybody for behaving well to me."\r
+\r
+"I can't tell what you mean," said Lydgate, "unless it is that I once\r
+spoke of you to Mrs. Casaubon. But I did not think that she would\r
+break her promise not to mention that I had done so," said Lydgate,\r
+leaning his back against the corner of the mantel-piece, and showing no\r
+radiance in his face.\r
+\r
+"It was Brooke who let it out, only the other day. He paid me the\r
+compliment of saying that he was very glad I had the living though you\r
+had come across his tactics, and had praised me up as a lien and a\r
+Tillotson, and that sort of thing, till Mrs. Casaubon would hear of no\r
+one else."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Brooke is such a leaky-minded fool," said Lydgate, contemptuously.\r
+\r
+"Well, I was glad of the leakiness then. I don't see why you shouldn't\r
+like me to know that you wished to do me a service, my dear fellow.\r
+And you certainly have done me one. It's rather a strong check to\r
+one's self-complacency to find how much of one's right doing depends on\r
+not being in want of money. A man will not be tempted to say the\r
+Lord's Prayer backward to please the devil, if he doesn't want the\r
+devil's services. I have no need to hang on the smiles of chance now."\r
+\r
+"I don't see that there's any money-getting without chance," said\r
+Lydgate; "if a man gets it in a profession, it's pretty sure to come by\r
+chance."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother thought he could account for this speech, in striking\r
+contrast with Lydgate's former way of talking, as the perversity which\r
+will often spring from the moodiness of a man ill at ease in his\r
+affairs. He answered in a tone of good-humored admission--\r
+\r
+"Ah, there's enormous patience wanted with the way of the world. But\r
+it is the easier for a man to wait patiently when he has friends who\r
+love him, and ask for nothing better than to help him through, so far\r
+as it lies in their power."\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Lydgate, in a careless tone, changing his attitude and\r
+looking at his watch. "People make much more of their difficulties\r
+than they need to do."\r
+\r
+He knew as distinctly as possible that this was an offer of help to\r
+himself from Mr. Farebrother, and he could not bear it. So strangely\r
+determined are we mortals, that, after having been long gratified with\r
+the sense that he had privately done the Vicar a service, the\r
+suggestion that the Vicar discerned his need of a service in return\r
+made him shrink into unconquerable reticence. Besides, behind all\r
+making of such offers what else must come?--that he should "mention his\r
+case," imply that he wanted specific things. At that moment, suicide\r
+seemed easier.\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother was too keen a man not to know the meaning of that\r
+reply, and there was a certain massiveness in Lydgate's manner and\r
+tone, corresponding with his physique, which if he repelled your\r
+advances in the first instance seemed to put persuasive devices out of\r
+question.\r
+\r
+"What time are you?" said the Vicar, devouring his wounded feeling.\r
+\r
+"After eleven," said Lydgate. And they went into the drawing-room.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXIV.\r
+\r
+ 1st Gent. Where lies the power, there let the blame lie too.\r
+ 2d Gent. Nay, power is relative; you cannot fright\r
+ The coming pest with border fortresses,\r
+ Or catch your carp with subtle argument.\r
+ All force is twain in one: cause is not cause\r
+ Unless effect be there; and action's self\r
+ Must needs contain a passive. So command\r
+ Exists but with obedience."\r
+\r
+\r
+Even if Lydgate had been inclined to be quite open about his affairs,\r
+he knew that it would have hardly been in Mr. Farebrother's power to\r
+give him the help he immediately wanted. With the year's bills coming\r
+in from his tradesmen, with Dover's threatening hold on his furniture,\r
+and with nothing to depend on but slow dribbling payments from patients\r
+who must not be offended--for the handsome fees he had had from\r
+Freshitt Hall and Lowick Manor had been easily absorbed--nothing less\r
+than a thousand pounds would have freed him from actual embarrassment,\r
+and left a residue which, according to the favorite phrase of\r
+hopefulness in such circumstances, would have given him "time to look\r
+about him."\r
+\r
+Naturally, the merry Christmas bringing the happy New Year, when\r
+fellow-citizens expect to be paid for the trouble and goods they have\r
+smilingly bestowed on their neighbors, had so tightened the pressure of\r
+sordid cares on Lydgate's mind that it was hardly possible for him to\r
+think unbrokenly of any other subject, even the most habitual and\r
+soliciting. He was not an ill-tempered man; his intellectual activity,\r
+the ardent kindness of his heart, as well as his strong frame, would\r
+always, under tolerably easy conditions, have kept him above the petty\r
+uncontrolled susceptibilities which make bad temper. But he was now a\r
+prey to that worst irritation which arises not simply from annoyances,\r
+but from the second consciousness underlying those annoyances, of\r
+wasted energy and a degrading preoccupation, which was the reverse of\r
+all his former purposes. "_This_ is what I am thinking of; and _that_\r
+is what I might have been thinking of," was the bitter incessant murmur\r
+within him, making every difficulty a double goad to impatience.\r
+\r
+Some gentlemen have made an amazing figure in literature by general\r
+discontent with the universe as a trap of dulness into which their\r
+great souls have fallen by mistake; but the sense of a stupendous self\r
+and an insignificant world may have its consolations. Lydgate's\r
+discontent was much harder to bear: it was the sense that there was a\r
+grand existence in thought and effective action lying around him, while\r
+his self was being narrowed into the miserable isolation of egoistic\r
+fears, and vulgar anxieties for events that might allay such fears.\r
+His troubles will perhaps appear miserably sordid, and beneath the\r
+attention of lofty persons who can know nothing of debt except on a\r
+magnificent scale. Doubtless they were sordid; and for the majority,\r
+who are not lofty, there is no escape from sordidness but by being free\r
+from money-craving, with all its base hopes and temptations, its\r
+watching for death, its hinted requests, its horse-dealer's desire to\r
+make bad work pass for good, its seeking for function which ought to be\r
+another's, its compulsion often to long for Luck in the shape of a wide\r
+calamity.\r
+\r
+It was because Lydgate writhed under the idea of getting his neck\r
+beneath this vile yoke that he had fallen into a bitter moody state\r
+which was continually widening Rosamond's alienation from him. After\r
+the first disclosure about the bill of sale, he had made many efforts\r
+to draw her into sympathy with him about possible measures for\r
+narrowing their expenses, and with the threatening approach of\r
+Christmas his propositions grew more and more definite. "We two can do\r
+with only one servant, and live on very little," he said, "and I shall\r
+manage with one horse." For Lydgate, as we have seen, had begun to\r
+reason, with a more distinct vision, about the expenses of living, and\r
+any share of pride he had given to appearances of that sort was meagre\r
+compared with the pride which made him revolt from exposure as a\r
+debtor, or from asking men to help him with their money.\r
+\r
+"Of course you can dismiss the other two servants, if you like," said\r
+Rosamond; "but I should have thought it would be very injurious to your\r
+position for us to live in a poor way. You must expect your practice\r
+to be lowered."\r
+\r
+"My dear Rosamond, it is not a question of choice. We have begun too\r
+expensively. Peacock, you know, lived in a much smaller house than\r
+this. It is my fault: I ought to have known better, and I deserve a\r
+thrashing--if there were anybody who had a right to give it me--for\r
+bringing you into the necessity of living in a poorer way than you have\r
+been used to. But we married because we loved each other, I suppose.\r
+And that may help us to pull along till things get better. Come, dear,\r
+put down that work and come to me."\r
+\r
+He was really in chill gloom about her at that moment, but he dreaded a\r
+future without affection, and was determined to resist the oncoming of\r
+division between them. Rosamond obeyed him, and he took her on his\r
+knee, but in her secret soul she was utterly aloof from him. The poor\r
+thing saw only that the world was not ordered to her liking, and\r
+Lydgate was part of that world. But he held her waist with one hand\r
+and laid the other gently on both of hers; for this rather abrupt man\r
+had much tenderness in his manners towards women, seeming to have\r
+always present in his imagination the weakness of their frames and the\r
+delicate poise of their health both in body and mind. And he began\r
+again to speak persuasively.\r
+\r
+"I find, now I look into things a little, Rosy, that it is wonderful\r
+what an amount of money slips away in our housekeeping. I suppose the\r
+servants are careless, and we have had a great many people coming. But\r
+there must be many in our rank who manage with much less: they must do\r
+with commoner things, I suppose, and look after the scraps. It seems,\r
+money goes but a little way in these matters, for Wrench has everything\r
+as plain as possible, and he has a very large practice."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if you think of living as the Wrenches do!" said Rosamond, with a\r
+little turn of her neck. "But I have heard you express your disgust at\r
+that way of living."\r
+\r
+"Yes, they have bad taste in everything--they make economy look ugly.\r
+We needn't do that. I only meant that they avoid expenses, although\r
+Wrench has a capital practice."\r
+\r
+"Why should not you have a good practice, Tertius? Mr. Peacock had.\r
+You should be more careful not to offend people, and you should send\r
+out medicines as the others do. I am sure you began well, and you got\r
+several good houses. It cannot answer to be eccentric; you should\r
+think what will be generally liked," said Rosamond, in a decided little\r
+tone of admonition.\r
+\r
+Lydgate's anger rose: he was prepared to be indulgent towards feminine\r
+weakness, but not towards feminine dictation. The shallowness of a\r
+waternixie's soul may have a charm until she becomes didactic. But he\r
+controlled himself, and only said, with a touch of despotic firmness--\r
+\r
+"What I am to do in my practice, Rosy, it is for me to judge. That is\r
+not the question between us. It is enough for you to know that our\r
+income is likely to be a very narrow one--hardly four hundred, perhaps\r
+less, for a long time to come, and we must try to re-arrange our lives\r
+in accordance with that fact."\r
+\r
+Rosamond was silent for a moment or two, looking before her, and then\r
+said, "My uncle Bulstrode ought to allow you a salary for the time you\r
+give to the Hospital: it is not right that you should work for nothing."\r
+\r
+"It was understood from the beginning that my services would be\r
+gratuitous. That, again, need not enter into our discussion. I have\r
+pointed out what is the only probability," said Lydgate, impatiently.\r
+Then checking himself, he went on more quietly--\r
+\r
+"I think I see one resource which would free us from a good deal of the\r
+present difficulty. I hear that young Ned Plymdale is going to be\r
+married to Miss Sophy Toller. They are rich, and it is not often that\r
+a good house is vacant in Middlemarch. I feel sure that they would be\r
+glad to take this house from us with most of our furniture, and they\r
+would be willing to pay handsomely for the lease. I can employ\r
+Trumbull to speak to Plymdale about it."\r
+\r
+Rosamond left her husband's knee and walked slowly to the other end of\r
+the room; when she turned round and walked towards him it was evident\r
+that the tears had come, and that she was biting her under-lip and\r
+clasping her hands to keep herself from crying. Lydgate was\r
+wretched--shaken with anger and yet feeling that it would be unmanly to\r
+vent the anger just now.\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry, Rosamond; I know this is painful."\r
+\r
+"I thought, at least, when I had borne to send the plate back and have\r
+that man taking an inventory of the furniture--I should have thought\r
+_that_ would suffice."\r
+\r
+"I explained it to you at the time, dear. That was only a security and\r
+behind that security there is a debt. And that debt must be paid\r
+within the next few months, else we shall have our furniture sold. If\r
+young Plymdale will take our house and most of our furniture, we shall\r
+be able to pay that debt, and some others too, and we shall be quit of\r
+a place too expensive for us. We might take a smaller house: Trumbull,\r
+I know, has a very decent one to let at thirty pounds a-year, and this\r
+is ninety." Lydgate uttered this speech in the curt hammering way with\r
+which we usually try to nail down a vague mind to imperative facts.\r
+Tears rolled silently down Rosamond's cheeks; she just pressed her\r
+handkerchief against them, and stood looking at the large vase on the\r
+mantel-piece. It was a moment of more intense bitterness than she had\r
+ever felt before. At last she said, without hurry and with careful\r
+emphasis--\r
+\r
+"I never could have believed that you would like to act in that way."\r
+\r
+"Like it?" burst out Lydgate, rising from his chair, thrusting his\r
+hands in his pockets and stalking away from the hearth; "it's not a\r
+question of liking. Of course, I don't like it; it's the only thing I\r
+can do." He wheeled round there, and turned towards her.\r
+\r
+"I should have thought there were many other means than that," said\r
+Rosamond. "Let us have a sale and leave Middlemarch altogether."\r
+\r
+"To do what? What is the use of my leaving my work in Middlemarch to\r
+go where I have none? We should be just as penniless elsewhere as we\r
+are here," said Lydgate still more angrily.\r
+\r
+"If we are to be in that position it will be entirely your own doing,\r
+Tertius," said Rosamond, turning round to speak with the fullest\r
+conviction. "You will not behave as you ought to do to your own\r
+family. You offended Captain Lydgate. Sir Godwin was very kind to me\r
+when we were at Quallingham, and I am sure if you showed proper regard\r
+to him and told him your affairs, he would do anything for you. But\r
+rather than that, you like giving up our house and furniture to Mr. Ned\r
+Plymdale."\r
+\r
+There was something like fierceness in Lydgate's eyes, as he answered\r
+with new violence, "Well, then, if you will have it so, I do like it.\r
+I admit that I like it better than making a fool of myself by going to\r
+beg where it's of no use. Understand then, that it is what I _like to\r
+do._"\r
+\r
+There was a tone in the last sentence which was equivalent to the\r
+clutch of his strong hand on Rosamond's delicate arm. But for all\r
+that, his will was not a whit stronger than hers. She immediately\r
+walked out of the room in silence, but with an intense determination to\r
+hinder what Lydgate liked to do.\r
+\r
+He went out of the house, but as his blood cooled he felt that the\r
+chief result of the discussion was a deposit of dread within him at the\r
+idea of opening with his wife in future subjects which might again urge\r
+him to violent speech. It was as if a fracture in delicate crystal had\r
+begun, and he was afraid of any movement that might make it fatal. His\r
+marriage would be a mere piece of bitter irony if they could not go on\r
+loving each other. He had long ago made up his mind to what he thought\r
+was her negative character--her want of sensibility, which showed\r
+itself in disregard both of his specific wishes and of his general\r
+aims. The first great disappointment had been borne: the tender\r
+devotedness and docile adoration of the ideal wife must be renounced,\r
+and life must be taken up on a lower stage of expectation, as it is by\r
+men who have lost their limbs. But the real wife had not only her\r
+claims, she had still a hold on his heart, and it was his intense\r
+desire that the hold should remain strong. In marriage, the certainty,\r
+"She will never love me much," is easier to bear than the fear, "I\r
+shall love her no more." Hence, after that outburst, his inward effort\r
+was entirely to excuse her, and to blame the hard circumstances which\r
+were partly his fault. He tried that evening, by petting her, to heal\r
+the wound he had made in the morning, and it was not in Rosamond's\r
+nature to be repellent or sulky; indeed, she welcomed the signs that\r
+her husband loved her and was under control. But this was something\r
+quite distinct from loving _him_. Lydgate would not have chosen soon to\r
+recur to the plan of parting with the house; he was resolved to carry\r
+it out, and say as little more about it as possible. But Rosamond\r
+herself touched on it at breakfast by saying, mildly--\r
+\r
+"Have you spoken to Trumbull yet?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Lydgate, "but I shall call on him as I go by this morning.\r
+No time must be lost." He took Rosamond's question as a sign that she\r
+withdrew her inward opposition, and kissed her head caressingly when he\r
+got up to go away.\r
+\r
+As soon as it was late enough to make a call, Rosamond went to Mrs.\r
+Plymdale, Mr. Ned's mother, and entered with pretty congratulations\r
+into the subject of the coming marriage. Mrs. Plymdale's maternal view\r
+was, that Rosamond might possibly now have retrospective glimpses of\r
+her own folly; and feeling the advantages to be at present all on the\r
+side of her son, was too kind a woman not to behave graciously.\r
+\r
+"Yes, Ned is most happy, I must say. And Sophy Toller is all I could\r
+desire in a daughter-in-law. Of course her father is able to do\r
+something handsome for her--that is only what would be expected with a\r
+brewery like his. And the connection is everything we should desire.\r
+But that is not what I look at. She is such a very nice girl--no airs,\r
+no pretensions, though on a level with the first. I don't mean with\r
+the titled aristocracy. I see very little good in people aiming out of\r
+their own sphere. I mean that Sophy is equal to the best in the town,\r
+and she is contented with that."\r
+\r
+"I have always thought her very agreeable," said Rosamond.\r
+\r
+"I look upon it as a reward for Ned, who never held his head too high,\r
+that he should have got into the very best connection," continued Mrs.\r
+Plymdale, her native sharpness softened by a fervid sense that she was\r
+taking a correct view. "And such particular people as the Tollers are,\r
+they might have objected because some of our friends are not theirs.\r
+It is well known that your aunt Bulstrode and I have been intimate from\r
+our youth, and Mr. Plymdale has been always on Mr. Bulstrode's side.\r
+And I myself prefer serious opinions. But the Tollers have welcomed\r
+Ned all the same."\r
+\r
+"I am sure he is a very deserving, well-principled young man," said\r
+Rosamond, with a neat air of patronage in return for Mrs. Plymdale's\r
+wholesome corrections.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he has not the style of a captain in the army, or that sort of\r
+carriage as if everybody was beneath him, or that showy kind of\r
+talking, and singing, and intellectual talent. But I am thankful he\r
+has not. It is a poor preparation both for here and Hereafter."\r
+\r
+"Oh dear, yes; appearances have very little to do with happiness," said\r
+Rosamond. "I think there is every prospect of their being a happy\r
+couple. What house will they take?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, as for that, they must put up with what they can get. They have\r
+been looking at the house in St. Peter's Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt's;\r
+it belongs to him, and he is putting it nicely in repair. I suppose\r
+they are not likely to hear of a better. Indeed, I think Ned will\r
+decide the matter to-day."\r
+\r
+"I should think it is a nice house; I like St. Peter's Place."\r
+\r
+"Well, it is near the Church, and a genteel situation. But the windows\r
+are narrow, and it is all ups and downs. You don't happen to know of\r
+any other that would be at liberty?" said Mrs. Plymdale, fixing her\r
+round black eyes on Rosamond with the animation of a sudden thought in\r
+them.\r
+\r
+"Oh no; I hear so little of those things."\r
+\r
+Rosamond had not foreseen that question and answer in setting out to\r
+pay her visit; she had simply meant to gather any information which\r
+would help her to avert the parting with her own house under\r
+circumstances thoroughly disagreeable to her. As to the untruth in her\r
+reply, she no more reflected on it than she did on the untruth there\r
+was in her saying that appearances had very little to do with\r
+happiness. Her object, she was convinced, was thoroughly justifiable:\r
+it was Lydgate whose intention was inexcusable; and there was a plan in\r
+her mind which, when she had carried it out fully, would prove how very\r
+false a step it would have been for him to have descended from his\r
+position.\r
+\r
+She returned home by Mr. Borthrop Trumbull's office, meaning to call\r
+there. It was the first time in her life that Rosamond had thought of\r
+doing anything in the form of business, but she felt equal to the\r
+occasion. That she should be obliged to do what she intensely\r
+disliked, was an idea which turned her quiet tenacity into active\r
+invention. Here was a case in which it could not be enough simply to\r
+disobey and be serenely, placidly obstinate: she must act according to\r
+her judgment, and she said to herself that her judgment was\r
+right--"indeed, if it had not been, she would not have wished to act on\r
+it."\r
+\r
+Mr. Trumbull was in the back-room of his office, and received Rosamond\r
+with his finest manners, not only because he had much sensibility to\r
+her charms, but because the good-natured fibre in him was stirred by\r
+his certainty that Lydgate was in difficulties, and that this\r
+uncommonly pretty woman--this young lady with the highest personal\r
+attractions--was likely to feel the pinch of trouble--to find herself\r
+involved in circumstances beyond her control. He begged her to do him\r
+the honor to take a seat, and stood before her trimming and comporting\r
+himself with an eager solicitude, which was chiefly benevolent.\r
+Rosamond's first question was, whether her husband had called on Mr.\r
+Trumbull that morning, to speak about disposing of their house.\r
+\r
+"Yes, ma'am, yes, he did; he did so," said the good auctioneer, trying\r
+to throw something soothing into his iteration. "I was about to fulfil\r
+his order, if possible, this afternoon. He wished me not to\r
+procrastinate."\r
+\r
+"I called to tell you not to go any further, Mr. Trumbull; and I beg of\r
+you not to mention what has been said on the subject. Will you oblige\r
+me?"\r
+\r
+"Certainly I will, Mrs. Lydgate, certainly. Confidence is sacred with\r
+me on business or any other topic. I am then to consider the\r
+commission withdrawn?" said Mr. Trumbull, adjusting the long ends of\r
+his blue cravat with both hands, and looking at Rosamond deferentially.\r
+\r
+"Yes, if you please. I find that Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house--the\r
+one in St. Peter's Place next to Mr. Hackbutt's. Mr. Lydgate would be\r
+annoyed that his orders should be fulfilled uselessly. And besides\r
+that, there are other circumstances which render the proposal\r
+unnecessary."\r
+\r
+"Very good, Mrs. Lydgate, very good. I am at your commands, whenever\r
+you require any service of me," said Mr. Trumbull, who felt pleasure in\r
+conjecturing that some new resources had been opened. "Rely on me, I\r
+beg. The affair shall go no further."\r
+\r
+That evening Lydgate was a little comforted by observing that Rosamond\r
+was more lively than she had usually been of late, and even seemed\r
+interested in doing what would please him without being asked. He\r
+thought, "If she will be happy and I can rub through, what does it all\r
+signify? It is only a narrow swamp that we have to pass in a long\r
+journey. If I can get my mind clear again, I shall do."\r
+\r
+He was so much cheered that he began to search for an account of\r
+experiments which he had long ago meant to look up, and had neglected\r
+out of that creeping self-despair which comes in the train of petty\r
+anxieties. He felt again some of the old delightful absorption in a\r
+far-reaching inquiry, while Rosamond played the quiet music which was\r
+as helpful to his meditation as the plash of an oar on the evening\r
+lake. It was rather late; he had pushed away all the books, and was\r
+looking at the fire with his hands clasped behind his head in\r
+forgetfulness of everything except the construction of a new\r
+controlling experiment, when Rosamond, who had left the piano and was\r
+leaning back in her chair watching him, said--\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ned Plymdale has taken a house already."\r
+\r
+Lydgate, startled and jarred, looked up in silence for a moment, like a\r
+man who has been disturbed in his sleep. Then flushing with an\r
+unpleasant consciousness, he asked--\r
+\r
+"How do you know?"\r
+\r
+"I called at Mrs. Plymdale's this morning, and she told me that he had\r
+taken the house in St. Peter's Place, next to Mr. Hackbutt's."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was silent. He drew his hands from behind his head and pressed\r
+them against the hair which was hanging, as it was apt to do, in a mass\r
+on his forehead, while he rested his elbows on his knees. He was\r
+feeling bitter disappointment, as if he had opened a door out of a\r
+suffocating place and had found it walled up; but he also felt sure\r
+that Rosamond was pleased with the cause of his disappointment. He\r
+preferred not looking at her and not speaking, until he had got over\r
+the first spasm of vexation. After all, he said in his bitterness,\r
+what can a woman care about so much as house and furniture? a husband\r
+without them is an absurdity. When he looked up and pushed his hair\r
+aside, his dark eyes had a miserable blank non-expectance of sympathy\r
+in them, but he only said, coolly--\r
+\r
+"Perhaps some one else may turn up. I told Trumbull to be on the\r
+look-out if he failed with Plymdale."\r
+\r
+Rosamond made no remark. She trusted to the chance that nothing more\r
+would pass between her husband and the auctioneer until some issue\r
+should have justified her interference; at any rate, she had hindered\r
+the event which she immediately dreaded. After a pause, she said--\r
+\r
+"How much money is it that those disagreeable people want?"\r
+\r
+"What disagreeable people?"\r
+\r
+"Those who took the list--and the others. I mean, how much money would\r
+satisfy them so that you need not be troubled any more?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate surveyed her for a moment, as if he were looking for symptoms,\r
+and then said, "Oh, if I could have got six hundred from Plymdale for\r
+furniture and as premium, I might have managed. I could have paid off\r
+Dover, and given enough on account to the others to make them wait\r
+patiently, if we contracted our expenses."\r
+\r
+"But I mean how much should you want if we stayed in this house?"\r
+\r
+"More than I am likely to get anywhere," said Lydgate, with rather a\r
+grating sarcasm in his tone. It angered him to perceive that\r
+Rosamond's mind was wandering over impracticable wishes instead of\r
+facing possible efforts.\r
+\r
+"Why should you not mention the sum?" said Rosamond, with a mild\r
+indication that she did not like his manners.\r
+\r
+"Well," said Lydgate in a guessing tone, "it would take at least a\r
+thousand to set me at ease. But," he added, incisively, "I have to\r
+consider what I shall do without it, not with it."\r
+\r
+Rosamond said no more.\r
+\r
+But the next day she carried out her plan of writing to Sir Godwin\r
+Lydgate. Since the Captain's visit, she had received a letter from\r
+him, and also one from Mrs. Mengan, his married sister, condoling with\r
+her on the loss of her baby, and expressing vaguely the hope that they\r
+should see her again at Quallingham. Lydgate had told her that this\r
+politeness meant nothing; but she was secretly convinced that any\r
+backwardness in Lydgate's family towards him was due to his cold and\r
+contemptuous behavior, and she had answered the letters in her most\r
+charming manner, feeling some confidence that a specific invitation\r
+would follow. But there had been total silence. The Captain evidently\r
+was not a great penman, and Rosamond reflected that the sisters might\r
+have been abroad. However, the season was come for thinking of friends\r
+at home, and at any rate Sir Godwin, who had chucked her under the\r
+chin, and pronounced her to be like the celebrated beauty, Mrs. Croly,\r
+who had made a conquest of him in 1790, would be touched by any appeal\r
+from her, and would find it pleasant for her sake to behave as he ought\r
+to do towards his nephew. Rosamond was naively convinced of what an\r
+old gentleman ought to do to prevent her from suffering annoyance. And\r
+she wrote what she considered the most judicious letter possible--one\r
+which would strike Sir Godwin as a proof of her excellent sense--pointing\r
+out how desirable it was that Tertius should quit such a place\r
+as Middlemarch for one more fitted to his talents, how the unpleasant\r
+character of the inhabitants had hindered his professional success, and\r
+how in consequence he was in money difficulties, from which it would\r
+require a thousand pounds thoroughly to extricate him. She did not say\r
+that Tertius was unaware of her intention to write; for she had the\r
+idea that his supposed sanction of her letter would be in accordance\r
+with what she did say of his great regard for his uncle Godwin as the\r
+relative who had always been his best friend. Such was the force of\r
+Poor Rosamond's tactics now she applied them to affairs.\r
+\r
+This had happened before the party on New Year's Day, and no answer had\r
+yet come from Sir Godwin. But on the morning of that day Lydgate had\r
+to learn that Rosamond had revoked his order to Borthrop Trumbull.\r
+Feeling it necessary that she should be gradually accustomed to the\r
+idea of their quitting the house in Lowick Gate, he overcame his\r
+reluctance to speak to her again on the subject, and when they were\r
+breakfasting said--\r
+\r
+"I shall try to see Trumbull this morning, and tell him to advertise\r
+the house in the 'Pioneer' and the 'Trumpet.' If the thing were\r
+advertised, some one might be inclined to take it who would not\r
+otherwise have thought of a change. In these country places many\r
+people go on in their old houses when their families are too large for\r
+them, for want of knowing where they can find another. And Trumbull\r
+seems to have got no bite at all."\r
+\r
+Rosamond knew that the inevitable moment was come. "I ordered Trumbull\r
+not to inquire further," she said, with a careful calmness which was\r
+evidently defensive.\r
+\r
+Lydgate stared at her in mute amazement. Only half an hour before he\r
+had been fastening up her plaits for her, and talking the "little\r
+language" of affection, which Rosamond, though not returning it,\r
+accepted as if she had been a serene and lovely image, now and then\r
+miraculously dimpling towards her votary. With such fibres still astir\r
+in him, the shock he received could not at once be distinctly anger; it\r
+was confused pain. He laid down the knife and fork with which he was\r
+carving, and throwing himself back in his chair, said at last, with a\r
+cool irony in his tone--\r
+\r
+"May I ask when and why you did so?"\r
+\r
+"When I knew that the Plymdales had taken a house, I called to tell him\r
+not to mention ours to them; and at the same time I told him not to let\r
+the affair go on any further. I knew that it would be very injurious\r
+to you if it were known that you wished to part with your house and\r
+furniture, and I had a very strong objection to it. I think that was\r
+reason enough."\r
+\r
+"It was of no consequence then that I had told you imperative reasons\r
+of another kind; of no consequence that I had come to a different\r
+conclusion, and given an order accordingly?" said Lydgate, bitingly,\r
+the thunder and lightning gathering about his brow and eyes.\r
+\r
+The effect of any one's anger on Rosamond had always been to make her\r
+shrink in cold dislike, and to become all the more calmly correct, in\r
+the conviction that she was not the person to misbehave whatever others\r
+might do. She replied--\r
+\r
+"I think I had a perfect right to speak on a subject which concerns me\r
+at least as much as you."\r
+\r
+"Clearly--you had a right to speak, but only to me. You had no right\r
+to contradict my orders secretly, and treat me as if I were a fool,"\r
+said Lydgate, in the same tone as before. Then with some added scorn,\r
+"Is it possible to make you understand what the consequences will be?\r
+Is it of any use for me to tell you again why we must try to part with\r
+the house?"\r
+\r
+"It is not necessary for you to tell me again," said Rosamond, in a\r
+voice that fell and trickled like cold water-drops. "I remembered what\r
+you said. You spoke just as violently as you do now. But that does\r
+not alter my opinion that you ought to try every other means rather\r
+than take a step which is so painful to me. And as to advertising the\r
+house, I think it would be perfectly degrading to you."\r
+\r
+"And suppose I disregard your opinion as you disregard mine?"\r
+\r
+"You can do so, of course. But I think you ought to have told me\r
+before we were married that you would place me in the worst position,\r
+rather than give up your own will."\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not speak, but tossed his head on one side, and twitched\r
+the corners of his mouth in despair. Rosamond, seeing that he was not\r
+looking at her, rose and set his cup of coffee before him; but he took\r
+no notice of it, and went on with an inward drama and argument,\r
+occasionally moving in his seat, resting one arm on the table, and\r
+rubbing his hand against his hair. There was a conflux of emotions and\r
+thoughts in him that would not let him either give thorough way to his\r
+anger or persevere with simple rigidity of resolve. Rosamond took\r
+advantage of his silence.\r
+\r
+"When we were married everyone felt that your position was very high.\r
+I could not have imagined then that you would want to sell our\r
+furniture, and take a house in Bride Street, where the rooms are like\r
+cages. If we are to live in that way let us at least leave\r
+Middlemarch."\r
+\r
+"These would be very strong considerations," said Lydgate, half\r
+ironically--still there was a withered paleness about his lips as he\r
+looked at his coffee, and did not drink--"these would be very strong\r
+considerations if I did not happen to be in debt."\r
+\r
+"Many persons must have been in debt in the same way, but if they are\r
+respectable, people trust them. I am sure I have heard papa say that\r
+the Torbits were in debt, and they went on very well. It cannot be\r
+good to act rashly," said Rosamond, with serene wisdom.\r
+\r
+Lydgate sat paralyzed by opposing impulses: since no reasoning he could\r
+apply to Rosamond seemed likely to conquer her assent, he wanted to\r
+smash and grind some object on which he could at least produce an\r
+impression, or else to tell her brutally that he was master, and she\r
+must obey. But he not only dreaded the effect of such extremities on\r
+their mutual life--he had a growing dread of Rosamond's quiet elusive\r
+obstinacy, which would not allow any assertion of power to be final;\r
+and again, she had touched him in a spot of keenest feeling by implying\r
+that she had been deluded with a false vision of happiness in marrying\r
+him. As to saying that he was master, it was not the fact. The very\r
+resolution to which he had wrought himself by dint of logic and\r
+honorable pride was beginning to relax under her torpedo contact. He\r
+swallowed half his cup of coffee, and then rose to go.\r
+\r
+"I may at least request that you will not go to Trumbull at\r
+present--until it has been seen that there are no other means," said\r
+Rosamond. Although she was not subject to much fear, she felt it safer\r
+not to betray that she had written to Sir Godwin. "Promise me that you\r
+will not go to him for a few weeks, or without telling me."\r
+\r
+Lydgate gave a short laugh. "I think it is I who should exact a\r
+promise that you will do nothing without telling me," he said, turning\r
+his eyes sharply upon her, and then moving to the door.\r
+\r
+"You remember that we are going to dine at papa's," said Rosamond,\r
+wishing that he should turn and make a more thorough concession to her.\r
+But he only said "Oh yes," impatiently, and went away. She held it to\r
+be very odious in him that he did not think the painful propositions he\r
+had had to make to her were enough, without showing so unpleasant a\r
+temper. And when she put the moderate request that he would defer\r
+going to Trumbull again, it was cruel in him not to assure her of what\r
+he meant to do. She was convinced of her having acted in every way for\r
+the best; and each grating or angry speech of Lydgate's served only as\r
+an addition to the register of offences in her mind. Poor Rosamond for\r
+months had begun to associate her husband with feelings of\r
+disappointment, and the terribly inflexible relation of marriage had\r
+lost its charm of encouraging delightful dreams. It had freed her from\r
+the disagreeables of her father's house, but it had not given her\r
+everything that she had wished and hoped. The Lydgate with whom she\r
+had been in love had been a group of airy conditions for her, most of\r
+which had disappeared, while their place had been taken by every-day\r
+details which must be lived through slowly from hour to hour, not\r
+floated through with a rapid selection of favorable aspects. The\r
+habits of Lydgate's profession, his home preoccupation with scientific\r
+subjects, which seemed to her almost like a morbid vampire's taste, his\r
+peculiar views of things which had never entered into the dialogue of\r
+courtship--all these continually alienating influences, even without\r
+the fact of his having placed himself at a disadvantage in the town,\r
+and without that first shock of revelation about Dover's debt, would\r
+have made his presence dull to her. There was another presence which\r
+ever since the early days of her marriage, until four months ago, had\r
+been an agreeable excitement, but that was gone: Rosamond would not\r
+confess to herself how much the consequent blank had to do with her\r
+utter ennui; and it seemed to her (perhaps she was right) that an\r
+invitation to Quallingham, and an opening for Lydgate to settle\r
+elsewhere than in Middlemarch--in London, or somewhere likely to be\r
+free from unpleasantness--would satisfy her quite well, and make her\r
+indifferent to the absence of Will Ladislaw, towards whom she felt some\r
+resentment for his exaltation of Mrs. Casaubon.\r
+\r
+That was the state of things with Lydgate and Rosamond on the New\r
+Year's Day when they dined at her father's, she looking mildly neutral\r
+towards him in remembrance of his ill-tempered behavior at breakfast,\r
+and he carrying a much deeper effect from the inward conflict in which\r
+that morning scene was only one of many epochs. His flushed effort\r
+while talking to Mr. Farebrother--his effort after the cynical pretence\r
+that all ways of getting money are essentially the same, and that\r
+chance has an empire which reduces choice to a fool's illusion--was but\r
+the symptom of a wavering resolve, a benumbed response to the old\r
+stimuli of enthusiasm.\r
+\r
+What was he to do? He saw even more keenly than Rosamond did the\r
+dreariness of taking her into the small house in Bride Street, where\r
+she would have scanty furniture around her and discontent within: a\r
+life of privation and life with Rosamond were two images which had\r
+become more and more irreconcilable ever since the threat of privation\r
+had disclosed itself. But even if his resolves had forced the two\r
+images into combination, the useful preliminaries to that hard change\r
+were not visibly within reach. And though he had not given the promise\r
+which his wife had asked for, he did not go again to Trumbull. He even\r
+began to think of taking a rapid journey to the North and seeing Sir\r
+Godwin. He had once believed that nothing would urge him into making\r
+an application for money to his uncle, but he had not then known the\r
+full pressure of alternatives yet more disagreeable. He could not\r
+depend on the effect of a letter; it was only in an interview, however\r
+disagreeable this might be to himself, that he could give a thorough\r
+explanation and could test the effectiveness of kinship. No sooner had\r
+Lydgate begun to represent this step to himself as the easiest than\r
+there was a reaction of anger that he--he who had long ago determined\r
+to live aloof from such abject calculations, such self-interested\r
+anxiety about the inclinations and the pockets of men with whom he had\r
+been proud to have no aims in common--should have fallen not simply to\r
+their level, but to the level of soliciting them.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXV.\r
+\r
+ "One of us two must bowen douteless,\r
+ And, sith a man is more reasonable\r
+ Than woman is, ye [men] moste be suffrable.\r
+ --CHAUCER: Canterbury Tales.\r
+\r
+\r
+The bias of human nature to be slow in correspondence triumphs even\r
+over the present quickening in the general pace of things: what wonder\r
+then that in 1832 old Sir Godwin Lydgate was slow to write a letter\r
+which was of consequence to others rather than to himself? Nearly\r
+three weeks of the new year were gone, and Rosamond, awaiting an answer\r
+to her winning appeal, was every day disappointed. Lydgate, in total\r
+ignorance of her expectations, was seeing the bills come in, and\r
+feeling that Dover's use of his advantage over other creditors was\r
+imminent. He had never mentioned to Rosamond his brooding purpose of\r
+going to Quallingham: he did not want to admit what would appear to her\r
+a concession to her wishes after indignant refusal, until the last\r
+moment; but he was really expecting to set off soon. A slice of the\r
+railway would enable him to manage the whole journey and back in four\r
+days.\r
+\r
+But one morning after Lydgate had gone out, a letter came addressed to\r
+him, which Rosamond saw clearly to be from Sir Godwin. She was full of\r
+hope. Perhaps there might be a particular note to her enclosed; but\r
+Lydgate was naturally addressed on the question of money or other aid,\r
+and the fact that he was written to, nay, the very delay in writing at\r
+all, seemed to certify that the answer was thoroughly compliant. She\r
+was too much excited by these thoughts to do anything but light\r
+stitching in a warm corner of the dining-room, with the outside of this\r
+momentous letter lying on the table before her. About twelve she heard\r
+her husband's step in the passage, and tripping to open the door, she\r
+said in her lightest tones, "Tertius, come in here--here is a letter\r
+for you."\r
+\r
+"Ah?" he said, not taking off his hat, but just turning her round\r
+within his arm to walk towards the spot where the letter lay. "My\r
+uncle Godwin!" he exclaimed, while Rosamond reseated herself, and\r
+watched him as he opened the letter. She had expected him to be\r
+surprised.\r
+\r
+While Lydgate's eyes glanced rapidly over the brief letter, she saw his\r
+face, usually of a pale brown, taking on a dry whiteness; with nostrils\r
+and lips quivering he tossed down the letter before her, and said\r
+violently--\r
+\r
+"It will be impossible to endure life with you, if you will always be\r
+acting secretly--acting in opposition to me and hiding your actions."\r
+\r
+He checked his speech and turned his back on her--then wheeled round\r
+and walked about, sat down, and got up again restlessly, grasping hard\r
+the objects deep down in his pockets. He was afraid of saying\r
+something irremediably cruel.\r
+\r
+Rosamond too had changed color as she read. The letter ran in this\r
+way:--\r
+\r
+"DEAR TERTIUS,--Don't set your wife to write to me when you have\r
+anything to ask. It is a roundabout wheedling sort of thing which I\r
+should not have credited you with. I never choose to write to a woman\r
+on matters of business. As to my supplying you with a thousand pounds,\r
+or only half that sum, I can do nothing of the sort. My own family\r
+drains me to the last penny. With two younger sons and three\r
+daughters, I am not likely to have cash to spare. You seem to have got\r
+through your own money pretty quickly, and to have made a mess where\r
+you are; the sooner you go somewhere else the better. But I have\r
+nothing to do with men of your profession, and can't help you there. I\r
+did the best I could for you as guardian, and let you have your own way\r
+in taking to medicine. You might have gone into the army or the\r
+Church. Your money would have held out for that, and there would have\r
+been a surer ladder before you. Your uncle Charles has had a grudge\r
+against you for not going into his profession, but not I. I have always\r
+wished you well, but you must consider yourself on your own legs\r
+entirely now.\r
+\r
+ Your affectionate uncle,\r
+ GODWIN LYDGATE."\r
+\r
+When Rosamond had finished reading the letter she sat quite still, with\r
+her hands folded before her, restraining any show of her keen\r
+disappointment, and intrenching herself in quiet passivity under her\r
+husband's wrath. Lydgate paused in his movements, looked at her again,\r
+and said, with biting severity--\r
+\r
+"Will this be enough to convince you of the harm you may do by secret\r
+meddling? Have you sense enough to recognize now your incompetence to\r
+judge and act for me--to interfere with your ignorance in affairs which\r
+it belongs to me to decide on?"\r
+\r
+The words were hard; but this was not the first time that Lydgate had\r
+been frustrated by her. She did not look at him, and made no reply.\r
+\r
+"I had nearly resolved on going to Quallingham. It would have cost me\r
+pain enough to do it, yet it might have been of some use. But it has\r
+been of no use for me to think of anything. You have always been\r
+counteracting me secretly. You delude me with a false assent, and then\r
+I am at the mercy of your devices. If you mean to resist every wish I\r
+express, say so and defy me. I shall at least know what I am doing\r
+then."\r
+\r
+It is a terrible moment in young lives when the closeness of love's\r
+bond has turned to this power of galling. In spite of Rosamond's\r
+self-control a tear fell silently and rolled over her lips. She still\r
+said nothing; but under that quietude was hidden an intense effect: she\r
+was in such entire disgust with her husband that she wished she had\r
+never seen him. Sir Godwin's rudeness towards her and utter want of\r
+feeling ranged him with Dover and all other creditors--disagreeable\r
+people who only thought of themselves, and did not mind how annoying\r
+they were to her. Even her father was unkind, and might have done more\r
+for them. In fact there was but one person in Rosamond's world whom\r
+she did not regard as blameworthy, and that was the graceful creature\r
+with blond plaits and with little hands crossed before her, who had\r
+never expressed herself unbecomingly, and had always acted for the\r
+best--the best naturally being what she best liked.\r
+\r
+Lydgate pausing and looking at her began to feel that half-maddening\r
+sense of helplessness which comes over passionate people when their\r
+passion is met by an innocent-looking silence whose meek victimized air\r
+seems to put them in the wrong, and at last infects even the justest\r
+indignation with a doubt of its justice. He needed to recover the full\r
+sense that he was in the right by moderating his words.\r
+\r
+"Can you not see, Rosamond," he began again, trying to be simply grave\r
+and not bitter, "that nothing can be so fatal as a want of openness and\r
+confidence between us? It has happened again and again that I have\r
+expressed a decided wish, and you have seemed to assent, yet after that\r
+you have secretly disobeyed my wish. In that way I can never know what\r
+I have to trust to. There would be some hope for us if you would admit\r
+this. Am I such an unreasonable, furious brute? Why should you not be\r
+open with me?" Still silence.\r
+\r
+"Will you only say that you have been mistaken, and that I may depend\r
+on your not acting secretly in future?" said Lydgate, urgently, but\r
+with something of request in his tone which Rosamond was quick to\r
+perceive. She spoke with coolness.\r
+\r
+"I cannot possibly make admissions or promises in answer to such words\r
+as you have used towards me. I have not been accustomed to language of\r
+that kind. You have spoken of my 'secret meddling,' and my\r
+'interfering ignorance,' and my 'false assent.' I have never expressed\r
+myself in that way to you, and I think that you ought to apologize.\r
+You spoke of its being impossible to live with me. Certainly you have\r
+not made my life pleasant to me of late. I think it was to be expected\r
+that I should try to avert some of the hardships which our marriage has\r
+brought on me." Another tear fell as Rosamond ceased speaking, and she\r
+pressed it away as quietly as the first.\r
+\r
+Lydgate flung himself into a chair, feeling checkmated. What place was\r
+there in her mind for a remonstrance to lodge in? He laid down his\r
+hat, flung an arm over the back of his chair, and looked down for some\r
+moments without speaking. Rosamond had the double purchase over him of\r
+insensibility to the point of justice in his reproach, and of\r
+sensibility to the undeniable hardships now present in her married\r
+life. Although her duplicity in the affair of the house had exceeded\r
+what he knew, and had really hindered the Plymdales from knowing of it,\r
+she had no consciousness that her action could rightly be called false.\r
+We are not obliged to identify our own acts according to a strict\r
+classification, any more than the materials of our grocery and clothes.\r
+Rosamond felt that she was aggrieved, and that this was what Lydgate\r
+had to recognize.\r
+\r
+As for him, the need of accommodating himself to her nature, which was\r
+inflexible in proportion to its negations, held him as with pincers.\r
+He had begun to have an alarmed foresight of her irrevocable loss of\r
+love for him, and the consequent dreariness of their life. The ready\r
+fulness of his emotions made this dread alternate quickly with the\r
+first violent movements of his anger. It would assuredly have been a\r
+vain boast in him to say that he was her master.\r
+\r
+"You have not made my life pleasant to me of late"--"the hardships\r
+which our marriage has brought on me"--these words were stinging his\r
+imagination as a pain makes an exaggerated dream. If he were not only\r
+to sink from his highest resolve, but to sink into the hideous\r
+fettering of domestic hate?\r
+\r
+"Rosamond," he said, turning his eyes on her with a melancholy look,\r
+"you should allow for a man's words when he is disappointed and\r
+provoked. You and I cannot have opposite interests. I cannot part my\r
+happiness from yours. If I am angry with you, it is that you seem not\r
+to see how any concealment divides us. How could I wish to make\r
+anything hard to you either by my words or conduct? When I hurt you, I\r
+hurt part of my own life. I should never be angry with you if you\r
+would be quite open with me."\r
+\r
+"I have only wished to prevent you from hurrying us into wretchedness\r
+without any necessity," said Rosamond, the tears coming again from a\r
+softened feeling now that her husband had softened. "It is so very\r
+hard to be disgraced here among all the people we know, and to live in\r
+such a miserable way. I wish I had died with the baby."\r
+\r
+She spoke and wept with that gentleness which makes such words and\r
+tears omnipotent over a loving-hearted man. Lydgate drew his chair\r
+near to hers and pressed her delicate head against his cheek with his\r
+powerful tender hand. He only caressed her; he did not say anything;\r
+for what was there to say? He could not promise to shield her from the\r
+dreaded wretchedness, for he could see no sure means of doing so. When\r
+he left her to go out again, he told himself that it was ten times\r
+harder for her than for him: he had a life away from home, and constant\r
+appeals to his activity on behalf of others. He wished to excuse\r
+everything in her if he could--but it was inevitable that in that\r
+excusing mood he should think of her as if she were an animal of\r
+another and feebler species. Nevertheless she had mastered him.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXVI.\r
+\r
+ "'Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,\r
+ Another thing to fall."\r
+ --Measure for Measure.\r
+\r
+\r
+Lydgate certainly had good reason to reflect on the service his\r
+practice did him in counteracting his personal cares. He had no longer\r
+free energy enough for spontaneous research and speculative thinking,\r
+but by the bedside of patients, the direct external calls on his\r
+judgment and sympathies brought the added impulse needed to draw him\r
+out of himself. It was not simply that beneficent harness of routine\r
+which enables silly men to live respectably and unhappy men to live\r
+calmly--it was a perpetual claim on the immediate fresh application of\r
+thought, and on the consideration of another's need and trial. Many of\r
+us looking back through life would say that the kindest man we have\r
+ever known has been a medical man, or perhaps that surgeon whose fine\r
+tact, directed by deeply informed perception, has come to us in our\r
+need with a more sublime beneficence than that of miracle-workers. Some\r
+of that twice-blessed mercy was always with Lydgate in his work at the\r
+Hospital or in private houses, serving better than any opiate to quiet\r
+and sustain him under his anxieties and his sense of mental degeneracy.\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother's suspicion as to the opiate was true, however. Under\r
+the first galling pressure of foreseen difficulties, and the first\r
+perception that his marriage, if it were not to be a yoked loneliness,\r
+must be a state of effort to go on loving without too much care about\r
+being loved, he had once or twice tried a dose of opium. But he had no\r
+hereditary constitutional craving after such transient escapes from the\r
+hauntings of misery. He was strong, could drink a great deal of wine,\r
+but did not care about it; and when the men round him were drinking\r
+spirits, he took sugar and water, having a contemptuous pity even for\r
+the earliest stages of excitement from drink. It was the same with\r
+gambling. He had looked on at a great deal of gambling in Paris,\r
+watching it as if it had been a disease. He was no more tempted by\r
+such winning than he was by drink. He had said to himself that the\r
+only winning he cared for must be attained by a conscious process of\r
+high, difficult combination tending towards a beneficent result. The\r
+power he longed for could not be represented by agitated fingers\r
+clutching a heap of coin, or by the half-barbarous, half-idiotic\r
+triumph in the eyes of a man who sweeps within his arms the ventures of\r
+twenty chapfallen companions.\r
+\r
+But just as he had tried opium, so his thought now began to turn upon\r
+gambling--not with appetite for its excitement, but with a sort of\r
+wistful inward gaze after that easy way of getting money, which implied\r
+no asking and brought no responsibility. If he had been in London or\r
+Paris at that time, it is probable that such thoughts, seconded by\r
+opportunity, would have taken him into a gambling-house, no longer to\r
+watch the gamblers, but to watch with them in kindred eagerness.\r
+Repugnance would have been surmounted by the immense need to win, if\r
+chance would be kind enough to let him. An incident which happened not\r
+very long after that airy notion of getting aid from his uncle had been\r
+excluded, was a strong sign of the effect that might have followed any\r
+extant opportunity of gambling.\r
+\r
+The billiard-room at the Green Dragon was the constant resort of a\r
+certain set, most of whom, like our acquaintance Mr. Bambridge, were\r
+regarded as men of pleasure. It was here that poor Fred Vincy had made\r
+part of his memorable debt, having lost money in betting, and been\r
+obliged to borrow of that gay companion. It was generally known in\r
+Middlemarch that a good deal of money was lost and won in this way; and\r
+the consequent repute of the Green Dragon as a place of dissipation\r
+naturally heightened in some quarters the temptation to go there.\r
+Probably its regular visitants, like the initiates of freemasonry,\r
+wished that there were something a little more tremendous to keep to\r
+themselves concerning it; but they were not a closed community, and\r
+many decent seniors as well as juniors occasionally turned into the\r
+billiard-room to see what was going on. Lydgate, who had the muscular\r
+aptitude for billiards, and was fond of the game, had once or twice in\r
+the early days after his arrival in Middlemarch taken his turn with the\r
+cue at the Green Dragon; but afterwards he had no leisure for the game,\r
+and no inclination for the socialities there. One evening, however, he\r
+had occasion to seek Mr. Bambridge at that resort. The horsedealer had\r
+engaged to get him a customer for his remaining good horse, for which\r
+Lydgate had determined to substitute a cheap hack, hoping by this\r
+reduction of style to get perhaps twenty pounds; and he cared now for\r
+every small sum, as a help towards feeding the patience of his\r
+tradesmen. To run up to the billiard-room, as he was passing, would\r
+save time.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bambridge was not yet come, but would be sure to arrive by-and-by,\r
+said his friend Mr. Horrock; and Lydgate stayed, playing a game for the\r
+sake of passing the time. That evening he had the peculiar light in\r
+the eyes and the unusual vivacity which had been once noticed in him by\r
+Mr. Farebrother. The exceptional fact of his presence was much noticed\r
+in the room, where there was a good deal of Middlemarch company; and\r
+several lookers-on, as well as some of the players, were betting with\r
+animation. Lydgate was playing well, and felt confident; the bets were\r
+dropping round him, and with a swift glancing thought of the probable\r
+gain which might double the sum he was saving from his horse, he began\r
+to bet on his own play, and won again and again. Mr. Bambridge had\r
+come in, but Lydgate did not notice him. He was not only excited with\r
+his play, but visions were gleaming on him of going the next day to\r
+Brassing, where there was gambling on a grander scale to be had, and\r
+where, by one powerful snatch at the devil's bait, he might carry it\r
+off without the hook, and buy his rescue from his daily solicitings.\r
+\r
+He was still winning when two new visitors entered. One of them was a\r
+young Hawley, just come from his law studies in town, and the other was\r
+Fred Vincy, who had spent several evenings of late at this old haunt of\r
+his. Young Hawley, an accomplished billiard-player, brought a cool\r
+fresh hand to the cue. But Fred Vincy, startled at seeing Lydgate, and\r
+astonished to see him betting with an excited air, stood aside, and\r
+kept out of the circle round the table.\r
+\r
+Fred had been rewarding resolution by a little laxity of late. He had\r
+been working heartily for six months at all outdoor occupations under\r
+Mr. Garth, and by dint of severe practice had nearly mastered the\r
+defects of his handwriting, this practice being, perhaps, a little the\r
+less severe that it was often carried on in the evening at Mr. Garth's\r
+under the eyes of Mary. But the last fortnight Mary had been staying\r
+at Lowick Parsonage with the ladies there, during Mr. Farebrother's\r
+residence in Middlemarch, where he was carrying out some parochial\r
+plans; and Fred, not seeing anything more agreeable to do, had turned\r
+into the Green Dragon, partly to play at billiards, partly to taste the\r
+old flavor of discourse about horses, sport, and things in general,\r
+considered from a point of view which was not strenuously correct. He\r
+had not been out hunting once this season, had had no horse of his own\r
+to ride, and had gone from place to place chiefly with Mr. Garth in his\r
+gig, or on the sober cob which Mr. Garth could lend him. It was a\r
+little too bad, Fred began to think, that he should be kept in the\r
+traces with more severity than if he had been a clergyman. "I will\r
+tell you what, Mistress Mary--it will be rather harder work to learn\r
+surveying and drawing plans than it would have been to write sermons,"\r
+he had said, wishing her to appreciate what he went through for her\r
+sake; "and as to Hercules and Theseus, they were nothing to me. They\r
+had sport, and never learned to write a bookkeeping hand." And now,\r
+Mary being out of the way for a little while, Fred, like any other\r
+strong dog who cannot slip his collar, had pulled up the staple of his\r
+chain and made a small escape, not of course meaning to go fast or far.\r
+There could be no reason why he should not play at billiards, but he\r
+was determined not to bet. As to money just now, Fred had in his mind\r
+the heroic project of saving almost all of the eighty pounds that Mr.\r
+Garth offered him, and returning it, which he could easily do by giving\r
+up all futile money-spending, since he had a superfluous stock of\r
+clothes, and no expense in his board. In that way he could, in one\r
+year, go a good way towards repaying the ninety pounds of which he had\r
+deprived Mrs. Garth, unhappily at a time when she needed that sum more\r
+than she did now. Nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that on this\r
+evening, which was the fifth of his recent visits to the billiard-room,\r
+Fred had, not in his pocket, but in his mind, the ten pounds which he\r
+meant to reserve for himself from his half-year's salary (having before\r
+him the pleasure of carrying thirty to Mrs. Garth when Mary was likely\r
+to be come home again)--he had those ten pounds in his mind as a fund\r
+from which he might risk something, if there were a chance of a good\r
+bet. Why? Well, when sovereigns were flying about, why shouldn't he\r
+catch a few? He would never go far along that road again; but a man\r
+likes to assure himself, and men of pleasure generally, what he could\r
+do in the way of mischief if he chose, and that if he abstains from\r
+making himself ill, or beggaring himself, or talking with the utmost\r
+looseness which the narrow limits of human capacity will allow, it is\r
+not because he is a spooney. Fred did not enter into formal reasons,\r
+which are a very artificial, inexact way of representing the tingling\r
+returns of old habit, and the caprices of young blood: but there was\r
+lurking in him a prophetic sense that evening, that when he began to\r
+play he should also begin to bet--that he should enjoy some\r
+punch-drinking, and in general prepare himself for feeling "rather\r
+seedy" in the morning. It is in such indefinable movements that action\r
+often begins.\r
+\r
+But the last thing likely to have entered Fred's expectation was that\r
+he should see his brother-in-law Lydgate--of whom he had never quite\r
+dropped the old opinion that he was a prig, and tremendously conscious\r
+of his superiority--looking excited and betting, just as he himself\r
+might have done. Fred felt a shock greater than he could quite account\r
+for by the vague knowledge that Lydgate was in debt, and that his\r
+father had refused to help him; and his own inclination to enter into\r
+the play was suddenly checked. It was a strange reversal of attitudes:\r
+Fred's blond face and blue eyes, usually bright and careless, ready to\r
+give attention to anything that held out a promise of amusement,\r
+looking involuntarily grave and almost embarrassed as if by the sight\r
+of something unfitting; while Lydgate, who had habitually an air of\r
+self-possessed strength, and a certain meditativeness that seemed to\r
+lie behind his most observant attention, was acting, watching, speaking\r
+with that excited narrow consciousness which reminds one of an animal\r
+with fierce eyes and retractile claws.\r
+\r
+Lydgate, by betting on his own strokes, had won sixteen pounds; but\r
+young Hawley's arrival had changed the poise of things. He made\r
+first-rate strokes himself, and began to bet against Lydgate's strokes,\r
+the strain of whose nerves was thus changed from simple confidence in\r
+his own movements to defying another person's doubt in them. The\r
+defiance was more exciting than the confidence, but it was less sure.\r
+He continued to bet on his own play, but began often to fail. Still he\r
+went on, for his mind was as utterly narrowed into that precipitous\r
+crevice of play as if he had been the most ignorant lounger there.\r
+Fred observed that Lydgate was losing fast, and found himself in the\r
+new situation of puzzling his brains to think of some device by which,\r
+without being offensive, he could withdraw Lydgate's attention, and\r
+perhaps suggest to him a reason for quitting the room. He saw that\r
+others were observing Lydgate's strange unlikeness to himself, and it\r
+occurred to him that merely to touch his elbow and call him aside for a\r
+moment might rouse him from his absorption. He could think of nothing\r
+cleverer than the daring improbability of saying that he wanted to see\r
+Rosy, and wished to know if she were at home this evening; and he was\r
+going desperately to carry out this weak device, when a waiter came up\r
+to him with a message, saying that Mr. Farebrother was below, and\r
+begged to speak with him.\r
+\r
+Fred was surprised, not quite comfortably, but sending word that he\r
+would be down immediately, he went with a new impulse up to Lydgate,\r
+said, "Can I speak to you a moment?" and drew him aside.\r
+\r
+"Farebrother has just sent up a message to say that he wants to speak\r
+to me. He is below. I thought you might like to know he was there, if\r
+you had anything to say to him."\r
+\r
+Fred had simply snatched up this pretext for speaking, because he could\r
+not say, "You are losing confoundedly, and are making everybody stare\r
+at you; you had better come away." But inspiration could hardly have\r
+served him better. Lydgate had not before seen that Fred was present,\r
+and his sudden appearance with an announcement of Mr. Farebrother had\r
+the effect of a sharp concussion.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Lydgate; "I have nothing particular to say to him.\r
+But--the game is up--I must be going--I came in just to see Bambridge."\r
+\r
+"Bambridge is over there, but he is making a row--I don't think he's\r
+ready for business. Come down with me to Farebrother. I expect he is\r
+going to blow me up, and you will shield me," said Fred, with some\r
+adroitness.\r
+\r
+Lydgate felt shame, but could not bear to act as if he felt it, by\r
+refusing to see Mr. Farebrother; and he went down. They merely shook\r
+hands, however, and spoke of the frost; and when all three had turned\r
+into the street, the Vicar seemed quite willing to say good-by to\r
+Lydgate. His present purpose was clearly to talk with Fred alone, and\r
+he said, kindly, "I disturbed you, young gentleman, because I have some\r
+pressing business with you. Walk with me to St. Botolph's, will you?"\r
+\r
+It was a fine night, the sky thick with stars, and Mr. Farebrother\r
+proposed that they should make a circuit to the old church by the\r
+London road. The next thing he said was--\r
+\r
+"I thought Lydgate never went to the Green Dragon?"\r
+\r
+"So did I," said Fred. "But he said that he went to see Bambridge."\r
+\r
+"He was not playing, then?"\r
+\r
+Fred had not meant to tell this, but he was obliged now to say, "Yes,\r
+he was. But I suppose it was an accidental thing. I have never seen\r
+him there before."\r
+\r
+"You have been going often yourself, then, lately?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, about five or six times."\r
+\r
+"I think you had some good reason for giving up the habit of going\r
+there?"\r
+\r
+"Yes. You know all about it," said Fred, not liking to be catechised\r
+in this way. "I made a clean breast to you."\r
+\r
+"I suppose that gives me a warrant to speak about the matter now. It\r
+is understood between us, is it not?--that we are on a footing of open\r
+friendship: I have listened to you, and you will be willing to listen\r
+to me. I may take my turn in talking a little about myself?"\r
+\r
+"I am under the deepest obligation to you, Mr. Farebrother," said Fred,\r
+in a state of uncomfortable surmise.\r
+\r
+"I will not affect to deny that you are under some obligation to me.\r
+But I am going to confess to you, Fred, that I have been tempted to\r
+reverse all that by keeping silence with you just now. When somebody\r
+said to me, 'Young Vincy has taken to being at the billiard-table every\r
+night again--he won't bear the curb long;' I was tempted to do the\r
+opposite of what I am doing--to hold my tongue and wait while you went\r
+down the ladder again, betting first and then--"\r
+\r
+"I have not made any bets," said Fred, hastily.\r
+\r
+"Glad to hear it. But I say, my prompting was to look on and see you\r
+take the wrong turning, wear out Garth's patience, and lose the best\r
+opportunity of your life--the opportunity which you made some rather\r
+difficult effort to secure. You can guess the feeling which raised\r
+that temptation in me--I am sure you know it. I am sure you know that\r
+the satisfaction of your affections stands in the way of mine."\r
+\r
+There was a pause. Mr. Farebrother seemed to wait for a recognition of\r
+the fact; and the emotion perceptible in the tones of his fine voice\r
+gave solemnity to his words. But no feeling could quell Fred's alarm.\r
+\r
+"I could not be expected to give her up," he said, after a moment's\r
+hesitation: it was not a case for any pretence of generosity.\r
+\r
+"Clearly not, when her affection met yours. But relations of this\r
+sort, even when they are of long standing, are always liable to change.\r
+I can easily conceive that you might act in a way to loosen the tie she\r
+feels towards you--it must be remembered that she is only conditionally\r
+bound to you--and that in that case, another man, who may flatter\r
+himself that he has a hold on her regard, might succeed in winning that\r
+firm place in her love as well as respect which you had let slip. I\r
+can easily conceive such a result," repeated Mr. Farebrother,\r
+emphatically. "There is a companionship of ready sympathy, which might\r
+get the advantage even over the longest associations." It seemed to\r
+Fred that if Mr. Farebrother had had a beak and talons instead of his\r
+very capable tongue, his mode of attack could hardly be more cruel. He\r
+had a horrible conviction that behind all this hypothetic statement\r
+there was a knowledge of some actual change in Mary's feeling.\r
+\r
+"Of course I know it might easily be all up with me," he said, in a\r
+troubled voice. "If she is beginning to compare--" He broke off, not\r
+liking to betray all he felt, and then said, by the help of a little\r
+bitterness, "But I thought you were friendly to me."\r
+\r
+"So I am; that is why we are here. But I have had a strong disposition\r
+to be otherwise. I have said to myself, 'If there is a likelihood of\r
+that youngster doing himself harm, why should you interfere? Aren't\r
+you worth as much as he is, and don't your sixteen years over and above\r
+his, in which you have gone rather hungry, give you more right to\r
+satisfaction than he has? If there's a chance of his going to the\r
+dogs, let him--perhaps you could nohow hinder it--and do you take the\r
+benefit.'"\r
+\r
+There was a pause, in which Fred was seized by a most uncomfortable\r
+chill. What was coming next? He dreaded to hear that something had\r
+been said to Mary--he felt as if he were listening to a threat rather\r
+than a warning. When the Vicar began again there was a change in his\r
+tone like the encouraging transition to a major key.\r
+\r
+"But I had once meant better than that, and I am come back to my old\r
+intention. I thought that I could hardly _secure myself_ in it better,\r
+Fred, than by telling you just what had gone on in me. And now, do you\r
+understand me? I want you to make the happiness of her life and your\r
+own, and if there is any chance that a word of warning from me may turn\r
+aside any risk to the contrary--well, I have uttered it."\r
+\r
+There was a drop in the Vicar's voice when he spoke the last words. He\r
+paused--they were standing on a patch of green where the road diverged\r
+towards St. Botolph's, and he put out his hand, as if to imply that the\r
+conversation was closed. Fred was moved quite newly. Some one highly\r
+susceptible to the contemplation of a fine act has said, that it\r
+produces a sort of regenerating shudder through the frame, and makes\r
+one feel ready to begin a new life. A good degree of that effect was\r
+just then present in Fred Vincy.\r
+\r
+"I will try to be worthy," he said, breaking off before he could say\r
+"of you as well as of her." And meanwhile Mr. Farebrother had gathered\r
+the impulse to say something more.\r
+\r
+"You must not imagine that I believe there is at present any decline in\r
+her preference of you, Fred. Set your heart at rest, that if you keep\r
+right, other things will keep right."\r
+\r
+"I shall never forget what you have done," Fred answered. "I can't say\r
+anything that seems worth saying--only I will try that your goodness\r
+shall not be thrown away."\r
+\r
+"That's enough. Good-by, and God bless you."\r
+\r
+In that way they parted. But both of them walked about a long while\r
+before they went out of the starlight. Much of Fred's rumination might\r
+be summed up in the words, "It certainly would have been a fine thing\r
+for her to marry Farebrother--but if she loves me best and I am a good\r
+husband?"\r
+\r
+Perhaps Mr. Farebrother's might be concentrated into a single shrug and\r
+one little speech. "To think of the part one little woman can play in\r
+the life of a man, so that to renounce her may be a very good imitation\r
+of heroism, and to win her may be a discipline!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXVII.\r
+\r
+ Now is there civil war within the soul:\r
+ Resolve is thrust from off the sacred throne\r
+ By clamorous Needs, and Pride the grand-vizier\r
+ Makes humble compact, plays the supple part\r
+ Of envoy and deft-tongued apologist\r
+ For hungry rebels.\r
+\r
+\r
+Happily Lydgate had ended by losing in the billiard-room, and brought\r
+away no encouragement to make a raid on luck. On the contrary, he felt\r
+unmixed disgust with himself the next day when he had to pay four or\r
+five pounds over and above his gains, and he carried about with him a\r
+most unpleasant vision of the figure he had made, not only rubbing\r
+elbows with the men at the Green Dragon but behaving just as they did.\r
+A philosopher fallen to betting is hardly distinguishable from a\r
+Philistine under the same circumstances: the difference will chiefly be\r
+found in his subsequent reflections, and Lydgate chewed a very\r
+disagreeable cud in that way. His reason told him how the affair might\r
+have been magnified into ruin by a slight change of scenery--if it had\r
+been a gambling-house that he had turned into, where chance could be\r
+clutched with both hands instead of being picked up with thumb and\r
+fore-finger. Nevertheless, though reason strangled the desire to\r
+gamble, there remained the feeling that, with an assurance of luck to\r
+the needful amount, he would have liked to gamble, rather than take the\r
+alternative which was beginning to urge itself as inevitable.\r
+\r
+That alternative was to apply to Mr. Bulstrode. Lydgate had so many\r
+times boasted both to himself and others that he was totally\r
+independent of Bulstrode, to whose plans he had lent himself solely\r
+because they enabled him to carry out his own ideas of professional\r
+work and public benefit--he had so constantly in their personal\r
+intercourse had his pride sustained by the sense that he was making a\r
+good social use of this predominating banker, whose opinions he thought\r
+contemptible and whose motives often seemed to him an absurd mixture of\r
+contradictory impressions--that he had been creating for himself\r
+strong ideal obstacles to the proffering of any considerable request to\r
+him on his own account.\r
+\r
+Still, early in March his affairs were at that pass in which men begin\r
+to say that their oaths were delivered in ignorance, and to perceive\r
+that the act which they had called impossible to them is becoming\r
+manifestly possible. With Dover's ugly security soon to be put in\r
+force, with the proceeds of his practice immediately absorbed in paying\r
+back debts, and with the chance, if the worst were known, of daily\r
+supplies being refused on credit, above all with the vision of\r
+Rosamond's hopeless discontent continually haunting him, Lydgate had\r
+begun to see that he should inevitably bend himself to ask help from\r
+somebody or other. At first he had considered whether he should write\r
+to Mr. Vincy; but on questioning Rosamond he found that, as he had\r
+suspected, she had already applied twice to her father, the last time\r
+being since the disappointment from Sir Godwin; and papa had said that\r
+Lydgate must look out for himself. "Papa said he had come, with one\r
+bad year after another, to trade more and more on borrowed capital, and\r
+had had to give up many indulgences; he could not spare a single\r
+hundred from the charges of his family. He said, let Lydgate ask\r
+Bulstrode: they have always been hand and glove."\r
+\r
+Indeed, Lydgate himself had come to the conclusion that if he must end\r
+by asking for a free loan, his relations with Bulstrode, more at least\r
+than with any other man, might take the shape of a claim which was not\r
+purely personal. Bulstrode had indirectly helped to cause the failure\r
+of his practice, and had also been highly gratified by getting a\r
+medical partner in his plans:--but who among us ever reduced himself\r
+to the sort of dependence in which Lydgate now stood, without trying to\r
+believe that he had claims which diminished the humiliation of asking?\r
+It was true that of late there had seemed to be a new languor of\r
+interest in Bulstrode about the Hospital; but his health had got worse,\r
+and showed signs of a deep-seated nervous affection. In other respects\r
+he did not appear to be changed: he had always been highly polite, but\r
+Lydgate had observed in him from the first a marked coldness about his\r
+marriage and other private circumstances, a coldness which he had\r
+hitherto preferred to any warmth of familiarity between them. He\r
+deferred the intention from day to day, his habit of acting on his\r
+conclusions being made infirm by his repugnance to every possible\r
+conclusion and its consequent act. He saw Mr. Bulstrode often, but he\r
+did not try to use any occasion for his private purpose. At one moment\r
+he thought, "I will write a letter: I prefer that to any circuitous\r
+talk;" at another he thought, "No; if I were talking to him, I could\r
+make a retreat before any signs of disinclination."\r
+\r
+Still the days passed and no letter was written, no special interview\r
+sought. In his shrinking from the humiliation of a dependent attitude\r
+towards Bulstrode, he began to familiarize his imagination with another\r
+step even more unlike his remembered self. He began spontaneously to\r
+consider whether it would be possible to carry out that puerile notion\r
+of Rosamond's which had often made him angry, namely, that they should\r
+quit Middlemarch without seeing anything beyond that preface. The\r
+question came--"Would any man buy the practice of me even now, for as\r
+little as it is worth? Then the sale might happen as a necessary\r
+preparation for going away."\r
+\r
+But against his taking this step, which he still felt to be a\r
+contemptible relinquishment of present work, a guilty turning aside\r
+from what was a real and might be a widening channel for worthy\r
+activity, to start again without any justified destination, there was\r
+this obstacle, that the purchaser, if procurable at all, might not be\r
+quickly forthcoming. And afterwards? Rosamond in a poor lodging,\r
+though in the largest city or most distant town, would not find the\r
+life that could save her from gloom, and save him from the reproach of\r
+having plunged her into it. For when a man is at the foot of the hill\r
+in his fortunes, he may stay a long while there in spite of\r
+professional accomplishment. In the British climate there is no\r
+incompatibility between scientific insight and furnished lodgings: the\r
+incompatibility is chiefly between scientific ambition and a wife who\r
+objects to that kind of residence.\r
+\r
+But in the midst of his hesitation, opportunity came to decide him. A\r
+note from Mr. Bulstrode requested Lydgate to call on him at the Bank.\r
+A hypochondriacal tendency had shown itself in the banker's\r
+constitution of late; and a lack of sleep, which was really only a\r
+slight exaggeration of an habitual dyspeptic symptom, had been dwelt on\r
+by him as a sign of threatening insanity. He wanted to consult Lydgate\r
+without delay on that particular morning, although he had nothing to\r
+tell beyond what he had told before. He listened eagerly to what\r
+Lydgate had to say in dissipation of his fears, though this too was\r
+only repetition; and this moment in which Bulstrode was receiving a\r
+medical opinion with a sense of comfort, seemed to make the\r
+communication of a personal need to him easier than it had been in\r
+Lydgate's contemplation beforehand. He had been insisting that it\r
+would be well for Mr. Bulstrode to relax his attention to business.\r
+\r
+"One sees how any mental strain, however slight, may affect a delicate\r
+frame," said Lydgate at that stage of the consultation when the remarks\r
+tend to pass from the personal to the general, "by the deep stamp which\r
+anxiety will make for a time even on the young and vigorous. I am\r
+naturally very strong; yet I have been thoroughly shaken lately by an\r
+accumulation of trouble."\r
+\r
+"I presume that a constitution in the susceptible state in which mine\r
+at present is, would be especially liable to fall a victim to cholera,\r
+if it visited our district. And since its appearance near London, we\r
+may well besiege the Mercy-seat for our protection," said Mr.\r
+Bulstrode, not intending to evade Lydgate's allusion, but really\r
+preoccupied with alarms about himself.\r
+\r
+"You have at all events taken your share in using good practical\r
+precautions for the town, and that is the best mode of asking for\r
+protection," said Lydgate, with a strong distaste for the broken\r
+metaphor and bad logic of the banker's religion, somewhat increased by\r
+the apparent deafness of his sympathy. But his mind had taken up its\r
+long-prepared movement towards getting help, and was not yet arrested.\r
+He added, "The town has done well in the way of cleansing, and finding\r
+appliances; and I think that if the cholera should come, even our\r
+enemies will admit that the arrangements in the Hospital are a public\r
+good."\r
+\r
+"Truly," said Mr. Bulstrode, with some coldness. "With regard to what\r
+you say, Mr. Lydgate, about the relaxation of my mental labor, I have\r
+for some time been entertaining a purpose to that effect--a purpose of\r
+a very decided character. I contemplate at least a temporary\r
+withdrawal from the management of much business, whether benevolent or\r
+commercial. Also I think of changing my residence for a time: probably\r
+I shall close or let 'The Shrubs,' and take some place near the\r
+coast--under advice of course as to salubrity. That would be a measure\r
+which you would recommend?"\r
+\r
+"Oh yes," said Lydgate, falling backward in his chair, with\r
+ill-repressed impatience under the banker's pale earnest eyes and\r
+intense preoccupation with himself.\r
+\r
+"I have for some time felt that I should open this subject with you in\r
+relation to our Hospital," continued Bulstrode. "Under the\r
+circumstances I have indicated, of course I must cease to have any\r
+personal share in the management, and it is contrary to my views of\r
+responsibility to continue a large application of means to an\r
+institution which I cannot watch over and to some extent regulate. I\r
+shall therefore, in case of my ultimate decision to leave Middlemarch,\r
+consider that I withdraw other support to the New Hospital than that\r
+which will subsist in the fact that I chiefly supplied the expenses of\r
+building it, and have contributed further large sums to its successful\r
+working."\r
+\r
+Lydgate's thought, when Bulstrode paused according to his wont, was,\r
+"He has perhaps been losing a good deal of money." This was the most\r
+plausible explanation of a speech which had caused rather a startling\r
+change in his expectations. He said in reply--\r
+\r
+"The loss to the Hospital can hardly be made up, I fear."\r
+\r
+"Hardly," returned Bulstrode, in the same deliberate, silvery tone;\r
+"except by some changes of plan. The only person who may be certainly\r
+counted on as willing to increase her contributions is Mrs. Casaubon.\r
+I have had an interview with her on the subject, and I have pointed out\r
+to her, as I am about to do to you, that it will be desirable to win a\r
+more general support to the New Hospital by a change of system."\r
+Another pause, but Lydgate did not speak.\r
+\r
+"The change I mean is an amalgamation with the Infirmary, so that the\r
+New Hospital shall be regarded as a special addition to the elder\r
+institution, having the same directing board. It will be necessary,\r
+also, that the medical management of the two shall be combined. In\r
+this way any difficulty as to the adequate maintenance of our new\r
+establishment will be removed; the benevolent interests of the town\r
+will cease to be divided."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode had lowered his eyes from Lydgate's face to the buttons\r
+of his coat as he again paused.\r
+\r
+"No doubt that is a good device as to ways and means," said Lydgate,\r
+with an edge of irony in his tone. "But I can't be expected to rejoice\r
+in it at once, since one of the first results will be that the other\r
+medical men will upset or interrupt my methods, if it were only because\r
+they are mine."\r
+\r
+"I myself, as you know, Mr. Lydgate, highly valued the opportunity of\r
+new and independent procedure which you have diligently employed: the\r
+original plan, I confess, was one which I had much at heart, under\r
+submission to the Divine Will. But since providential indications\r
+demand a renunciation from me, I renounce."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode showed a rather exasperating ability in this conversation.\r
+The broken metaphor and bad logic of motive which had stirred his\r
+hearer's contempt were quite consistent with a mode of putting the\r
+facts which made it difficult for Lydgate to vent his own indignation\r
+and disappointment. After some rapid reflection, he only asked--\r
+\r
+"What did Mrs. Casaubon say?"\r
+\r
+"That was the further statement which I wished to make to you," said\r
+Bulstrode, who had thoroughly prepared his ministerial explanation.\r
+"She is, you are aware, a woman of most munificent disposition, and\r
+happily in possession--not I presume of great wealth, but of funds\r
+which she can well spare. She has informed me that though she has\r
+destined the chief part of those funds to another purpose, she is\r
+willing to consider whether she cannot fully take my place in relation\r
+to the Hospital. But she wishes for ample time to mature her thoughts\r
+on the subject, and I have told her that there is no need for\r
+haste--that, in fact, my own plans are not yet absolute."\r
+\r
+Lydgate was ready to say, "If Mrs. Casaubon would take your place,\r
+there would be gain, instead of loss." But there was still a weight on\r
+his mind which arrested this cheerful candor. He replied, "I suppose,\r
+then, that I may enter into the subject with Mrs. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+"Precisely; that is what she expressly desires. Her decision, she\r
+says, will much depend on what you can tell her. But not at present:\r
+she is, I believe, just setting out on a journey. I have her letter\r
+here," said Mr. Bulstrode, drawing it out, and reading from it. "'I am\r
+immediately otherwise engaged,' she says. 'I am going into Yorkshire\r
+with Sir James and Lady Chettam; and the conclusions I come to about\r
+some land which I am to see there may affect my power of contributing\r
+to the Hospital.' Thus, Mr. Lydgate, there is no haste necessary in\r
+this matter; but I wished to apprise you beforehand of what may\r
+possibly occur."\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode returned the letter to his side-pocket, and changed his\r
+attitude as if his business were closed. Lydgate, whose renewed hope\r
+about the Hospital only made him more conscious of the facts which\r
+poisoned his hope, felt that his effort after help, if made at all,\r
+must be made now and vigorously.\r
+\r
+"I am much obliged to you for giving me full notice," he said, with a\r
+firm intention in his tone, yet with an interruptedness in his delivery\r
+which showed that he spoke unwillingly. "The highest object to me is\r
+my profession, and I had identified the Hospital with the best use I\r
+can at present make of my profession. But the best use is not always\r
+the same with monetary success. Everything which has made the Hospital\r
+unpopular has helped with other causes--I think they are all connected\r
+with my professional zeal--to make me unpopular as a practitioner. I\r
+get chiefly patients who can't pay me. I should like them best, if I\r
+had nobody to pay on my own side." Lydgate waited a little, but\r
+Bulstrode only bowed, looking at him fixedly, and he went on with the\r
+same interrupted enunciation--as if he were biting an objectional leek.\r
+\r
+"I have slipped into money difficulties which I can see no way out of,\r
+unless some one who trusts me and my future will advance me a sum\r
+without other security. I had very little fortune left when I came\r
+here. I have no prospects of money from my own family. My expenses,\r
+in consequence of my marriage, have been very much greater than I had\r
+expected. The result at this moment is that it would take a thousand\r
+pounds to clear me. I mean, to free me from the risk of having all my\r
+goods sold in security of my largest debt--as well as to pay my other\r
+debts--and leave anything to keep us a little beforehand with our small\r
+income. I find that it is out of the question that my wife's father\r
+should make such an advance. That is why I mention my position to--to\r
+the only other man who may be held to have some personal connection\r
+with my prosperity or ruin."\r
+\r
+Lydgate hated to hear himself. But he had spoken now, and had spoken\r
+with unmistakable directness. Mr. Bulstrode replied without haste, but\r
+also without hesitation.\r
+\r
+"I am grieved, though, I confess, not surprised by this information,\r
+Mr. Lydgate. For my own part, I regretted your alliance with my\r
+brother-in-law's family, which has always been of prodigal habits, and\r
+which has already been much indebted to me for sustainment in its\r
+present position. My advice to you, Mr. Lydgate, would be, that\r
+instead of involving yourself in further obligations, and continuing a\r
+doubtful struggle, you should simply become a bankrupt."\r
+\r
+"That would not improve my prospect," said Lydgate, rising and speaking\r
+bitterly, "even if it were a more agreeable thing in itself."\r
+\r
+"It is always a trial," said Mr. Bulstrode; "but trial, my dear sir, is\r
+our portion here, and is a needed corrective. I recommend you to weigh\r
+the advice I have given."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Lydgate, not quite knowing what he said. "I have\r
+occupied you too long. Good-day."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXVIII.\r
+\r
+ "What suit of grace hath Virtue to put on\r
+ If Vice shall wear as good, and do as well?\r
+ If Wrong, if Craft, if Indiscretion\r
+ Act as fair parts with ends as laudable?\r
+ Which all this mighty volume of events\r
+ The world, the universal map of deeds,\r
+ Strongly controls, and proves from all descents,\r
+ That the directest course still best succeeds.\r
+ For should not grave and learn'd Experience\r
+ That looks with the eyes of all the world beside,\r
+ And with all ages holds intelligence,\r
+ Go safer than Deceit without a guide!\r
+ --DANIEL: Musophilus.\r
+\r
+\r
+That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or\r
+betrayed in his conversation with Lydgate, had been determined in him\r
+by some severe experience which he had gone through since the epoch of\r
+Mr. Larcher's sale, when Raffles had recognized Will Ladislaw, and when\r
+the banker had in vain attempted an act of restitution which might move\r
+Divine Providence to arrest painful consequences.\r
+\r
+His certainty that Raffles, unless he were dead, would return to\r
+Middlemarch before long, had been justified. On Christmas Eve he had\r
+reappeared at The Shrubs. Bulstrode was at home to receive him, and\r
+hinder his communication with the rest of the family, but he could not\r
+altogether hinder the circumstances of the visit from compromising\r
+himself and alarming his wife. Raffles proved more unmanageable than\r
+he had shown himself to be in his former appearances, his chronic state\r
+of mental restlessness, the growing effect of habitual intemperance,\r
+quickly shaking off every impression from what was said to him. He\r
+insisted on staying in the house, and Bulstrode, weighing two sets of\r
+evils, felt that this was at least not a worse alternative than his\r
+going into the town. He kept him in his own room for the evening and\r
+saw him to bed, Raffles all the while amusing himself with the\r
+annoyance he was causing this decent and highly prosperous\r
+fellow-sinner, an amusement which he facetiously expressed as sympathy\r
+with his friend's pleasure in entertaining a man who had been\r
+serviceable to him, and who had not had all his earnings. There was a\r
+cunning calculation under this noisy joking--a cool resolve to extract\r
+something the handsomer from Bulstrode as payment for release from this\r
+new application of torture. But his cunning had a little overcast its\r
+mark.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode was indeed more tortured than the coarse fibre of Raffles\r
+could enable him to imagine. He had told his wife that he was simply\r
+taking care of this wretched creature, the victim of vice, who might\r
+otherwise injure himself; he implied, without the direct form of\r
+falsehood, that there was a family tie which bound him to this care,\r
+and that there were signs of mental alienation in Raffles which urged\r
+caution. He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the next\r
+morning. In these hints he felt that he was supplying Mrs. Bulstrode\r
+with precautionary information for his daughters and servants, and\r
+accounting for his allowing no one but himself to enter the room even\r
+with food and drink. But he sat in an agony of fear lest Raffles\r
+should be overheard in his loud and plain references to past facts--lest\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode should be even tempted to listen at the door. How\r
+could he hinder her, how betray his terror by opening the door to\r
+detect her? She was a woman of honest direct habits, and little likely\r
+to take so low a course in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but\r
+fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.\r
+\r
+In this way Raffles had pushed the torture too far, and produced an\r
+effect which had not been in his plan. By showing himself hopelessly\r
+unmanageable he had made Bulstrode feel that a strong defiance was the\r
+only resource left. After taking Raffles to bed that night the banker\r
+ordered his closed carriage to be ready at half-past seven the next\r
+morning. At six o'clock he had already been long dressed, and had\r
+spent some of his wretchedness in prayer, pleading his motives for\r
+averting the worst evil if in anything he had used falsity and spoken\r
+what was not true before God. For Bulstrode shrank from a direct lie\r
+with an intensity disproportionate to the number of his more indirect\r
+misdeeds. But many of these misdeeds were like the subtle muscular\r
+movements which are not taken account of in the consciousness, though\r
+they bring about the end that we fix our mind on and desire. And it is\r
+only what we are vividly conscious of that we can vividly imagine to be\r
+seen by Omniscience.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode carried his candle to the bedside of Raffles, who was\r
+apparently in a painful dream. He stood silent, hoping that the\r
+presence of the light would serve to waken the sleeper gradually and\r
+gently, for he feared some noise as the consequence of a too sudden\r
+awakening. He had watched for a couple of minutes or more the\r
+shudderings and pantings which seemed likely to end in waking, when\r
+Raffles, with a long half-stifled moan, started up and stared round him\r
+in terror, trembling and gasping. But he made no further noise, and\r
+Bulstrode, setting down the candle, awaited his recovery.\r
+\r
+It was a quarter of an hour later before Bulstrode, with a cold\r
+peremptoriness of manner which he had not before shown, said, "I came\r
+to call you thus early, Mr. Raffles, because I have ordered the\r
+carriage to be ready at half-past seven, and intend myself to conduct\r
+you as far as Ilsely, where you can either take the railway or await a\r
+coach." Raffles was about to speak, but Bulstrode anticipated him\r
+imperiously with the words, "Be silent, sir, and hear what I have to\r
+say. I shall supply you with money now, and I will furnish you with a\r
+reasonable sum from time to time, on your application to me by letter;\r
+but if you choose to present yourself here again, if you return to\r
+Middlemarch, if you use your tongue in a manner injurious to me, you\r
+will have to live on such fruits as your malice can bring you, without\r
+help from me. Nobody will pay you well for blasting my name: I know\r
+the worst you can do against me, and I shall brave it if you dare to\r
+thrust yourself upon me again. Get up, sir, and do as I order you,\r
+without noise, or I will send for a policeman to take you off my\r
+premises, and you may carry your stories into every pothouse in the\r
+town, but you shall have no sixpence from me to pay your expenses\r
+there."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode had rarely in his life spoken with such nervous energy: he\r
+had been deliberating on this speech and its probable effects through a\r
+large part of the night; and though he did not trust to its ultimately\r
+saving him from any return of Raffles, he had concluded that it was the\r
+best throw he could make. It succeeded in enforcing submission from\r
+the jaded man this morning: his empoisoned system at this moment\r
+quailed before Bulstrode's cold, resolute bearing, and he was taken off\r
+quietly in the carriage before the family breakfast time. The servants\r
+imagined him to be a poor relation, and were not surprised that a\r
+strict man like their master, who held his head high in the world,\r
+should be ashamed of such a cousin and want to get rid of him. The\r
+banker's drive of ten miles with his hated companion was a dreary\r
+beginning of the Christmas day; but at the end of the drive, Raffles\r
+had recovered his spirits, and parted in a contentment for which there\r
+was the good reason that the banker had given him a hundred pounds.\r
+Various motives urged Bulstrode to this open-handedness, but he did not\r
+himself inquire closely into all of them. As he had stood watching\r
+Raffles in his uneasy sleep, it had certainly entered his mind that the\r
+man had been much shattered since the first gift of two hundred pounds.\r
+\r
+He had taken care to repeat the incisive statement of his resolve not\r
+to be played on any more; and had tried to penetrate Raffles with the\r
+fact that he had shown the risks of bribing him to be quite equal to\r
+the risks of defying him. But when, freed from his repulsive presence,\r
+Bulstrode returned to his quiet home, he brought with him no confidence\r
+that he had secured more than a respite. It was as if he had had a\r
+loathsome dream, and could not shake off its images with their hateful\r
+kindred of sensations--as if on all the pleasant surroundings of his\r
+life a dangerous reptile had left his slimy traces.\r
+\r
+Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the\r
+thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric of\r
+opinion is threatened with ruin?\r
+\r
+Bulstrode was only the more conscious that there was a deposit of\r
+uneasy presentiment in his wife's mind, because she carefully avoided\r
+any allusion to it. He had been used every day to taste the flavor of\r
+supremacy and the tribute of complete deference: and the certainty that\r
+he was watched or measured with a hidden suspicion of his having some\r
+discreditable secret, made his voice totter when he was speaking to\r
+edification. Foreseeing, to men of Bulstrode's anxious temperament, is\r
+often worse than seeing; and his imagination continually heightened the\r
+anguish of an imminent disgrace. Yes, imminent; for if his defiance of\r
+Raffles did not keep the man away--and though he prayed for this result\r
+he hardly hoped for it--the disgrace was certain. In vain he said to\r
+himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a\r
+chastisement, a preparation; he recoiled from the imagined burning; and\r
+he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should\r
+escape dishonor. That recoil had at last urged him to make\r
+preparations for quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported\r
+of him, he would then be at a less scorching distance from the contempt\r
+of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have\r
+gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor, if he pursued him,\r
+would be less formidable. To leave the place finally would, he knew,\r
+be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have\r
+preferred to stay where he had struck root. Hence he made his\r
+preparations at first in a conditional way, wishing to leave on all\r
+sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable\r
+intervention of Providence should dissipate his fears. He was\r
+preparing to transfer his management of the Bank, and to give up any\r
+active control of other commercial affairs in the neighborhood, on the\r
+ground of his failing health, but without excluding his future\r
+resumption of such work. The measure would cause him some added\r
+expense and some diminution of income beyond what he had already\r
+undergone from the general depression of trade; and the Hospital\r
+presented itself as a principal object of outlay on which he could\r
+fairly economize.\r
+\r
+This was the experience which had determined his conversation with\r
+Lydgate. But at this time his arrangements had most of them gone no\r
+farther than a stage at which he could recall them if they proved to be\r
+unnecessary. He continually deferred the final steps; in the midst of\r
+his fears, like many a man who is in danger of shipwreck or of being\r
+dashed from his carriage by runaway horses, he had a clinging\r
+impression that something would happen to hinder the worst, and that to\r
+spoil his life by a late transplantation might be over-hasty--especially\r
+since it was difficult to account satisfactorily to his wife for the\r
+project of their indefinite exile from the only place where she would\r
+like to live.\r
+\r
+Among the affairs Bulstrode had to care for, was the management of the\r
+farm at Stone Court in case of his absence; and on this as well as on\r
+all other matters connected with any houses and land he possessed in or\r
+about Middlemarch, he had consulted Caleb Garth. Like every one else\r
+who had business of that sort, he wanted to get the agent who was more\r
+anxious for his employer's interests than his own. With regard to\r
+Stone Court, since Bulstrode wished to retain his hold on the stock,\r
+and to have an arrangement by which he himself could, if he chose,\r
+resume his favorite recreation of superintendence, Caleb had advised\r
+him not to trust to a mere bailiff, but to let the land, stock, and\r
+implements yearly, and take a proportionate share of the proceeds.\r
+\r
+"May I trust to you to find me a tenant on these terms, Mr. Garth?"\r
+said Bulstrode. "And will you mention to me the yearly sum which would\r
+repay you for managing these affairs which we have discussed together?"\r
+\r
+"I'll think about it," said Caleb, in his blunt way. "I'll see how I\r
+can make it out."\r
+\r
+If it had not been that he had to consider Fred Vincy's future, Mr.\r
+Garth would not probably have been glad of any addition to his work, of\r
+which his wife was always fearing an excess for him as he grew older.\r
+But on quitting Bulstrode after that conversation, a very alluring idea\r
+occurred to him about this said letting of Stone Court. What if\r
+Bulstrode would agree to his placing Fred Vincy there on the\r
+understanding that he, Caleb Garth, should be responsible for the\r
+management? It would be an excellent schooling for Fred; he might make\r
+a modest income there, and still have time left to get knowledge by\r
+helping in other business. He mentioned his notion to Mrs. Garth with\r
+such evident delight that she could not bear to chill his pleasure by\r
+expressing her constant fear of his undertaking too much.\r
+\r
+"The lad would be as happy as two," he said, throwing himself back in\r
+his chair, and looking radiant, "if I could tell him it was all\r
+settled. Think; Susan! His mind had been running on that place for\r
+years before old Featherstone died. And it would be as pretty a turn\r
+of things as could be that he should hold the place in a good\r
+industrious way after all--by his taking to business. For it's likely\r
+enough Bulstrode might let him go on, and gradually buy the stock. He\r
+hasn't made up his mind, I can see, whether or not he shall settle\r
+somewhere else as a lasting thing. I never was better pleased with a\r
+notion in my life. And then the children might be married by-and-by,\r
+Susan."\r
+\r
+"You will not give any hint of the plan to Fred, until you are sure\r
+that Bulstrode would agree to the plan?" said Mrs. Garth, in a tone of\r
+gentle caution. "And as to marriage, Caleb, we old people need not\r
+help to hasten it."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I don't know," said Caleb, swinging his head aside. "Marriage is\r
+a taming thing. Fred would want less of my bit and bridle. However, I\r
+shall say nothing till I know the ground I'm treading on. I shall\r
+speak to Bulstrode again."\r
+\r
+He took his earliest opportunity of doing so. Bulstrode had anything\r
+but a warm interest in his nephew Fred Vincy, but he had a strong wish\r
+to secure Mr. Garth's services on many scattered points of business at\r
+which he was sure to be a considerable loser, if they were under less\r
+conscientious management. On that ground he made no objection to Mr.\r
+Garth's proposal; and there was also another reason why he was not\r
+sorry to give a consent which was to benefit one of the Vincy family.\r
+It was that Mrs. Bulstrode, having heard of Lydgate's debts, had been\r
+anxious to know whether her husband could not do something for poor\r
+Rosamond, and had been much troubled on learning from him that\r
+Lydgate's affairs were not easily remediable, and that the wisest plan\r
+was to let them "take their course." Mrs. Bulstrode had then said for\r
+the first time, "I think you are always a little hard towards my\r
+family, Nicholas. And I am sure I have no reason to deny any of my\r
+relatives. Too worldly they may be, but no one ever had to say that\r
+they were not respectable."\r
+\r
+"My dear Harriet," said Mr. Bulstrode, wincing under his wife's eyes,\r
+which were filling with tears, "I have supplied your brother with a\r
+great deal of capital. I cannot be expected to take care of his\r
+married children."\r
+\r
+That seemed to be true, and Mrs. Bulstrode's remonstrance subsided into\r
+pity for poor Rosamond, whose extravagant education she had always\r
+foreseen the fruits of.\r
+\r
+But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode felt that when he had to\r
+talk to his wife fully about his plan of quitting Middlemarch, he\r
+should be glad to tell her that he had made an arrangement which might\r
+be for the good of her nephew Fred. At present he had merely mentioned\r
+to her that he thought of shutting up The Shrubs for a few months, and\r
+taking a house on the Southern Coast.\r
+\r
+Hence Mr. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that in case of\r
+Bulstrode's departure from Middlemarch for an indefinite time, Fred\r
+Vincy should be allowed to have the tenancy of Stone Court on the terms\r
+proposed.\r
+\r
+Caleb was so elated with his hope of this "neat turn" being given to\r
+things, that if his self-control had not been braced by a little\r
+affectionate wifely scolding, he would have betrayed everything to\r
+Mary, wanting "to give the child comfort." However, he restrained\r
+himself, and kept in strict privacy from Fred certain visits which he\r
+was making to Stone Court, in order to look more thoroughly into the\r
+state of the land and stock, and take a preliminary estimate. He was\r
+certainly more eager in these visits than the probable speed of events\r
+required him to be; but he was stimulated by a fatherly delight in\r
+occupying his mind with this bit of probable happiness which he held in\r
+store like a hidden birthday gift for Fred and Mary.\r
+\r
+"But suppose the whole scheme should turn out to be a castle in the\r
+air?" said Mrs. Garth.\r
+\r
+"Well, well," replied Caleb; "the castle will tumble about nobody's\r
+head."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXIX.\r
+\r
+ "If thou hast heard a word, let it die with thee."\r
+ --Ecclesiasticus.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode was still seated in his manager's room at the Bank, about\r
+three o'clock of the same day on which he had received Lydgate there,\r
+when the clerk entered to say that his horse was waiting, and also that\r
+Mr. Garth was outside and begged to speak with him.\r
+\r
+"By all means," said Bulstrode; and Caleb entered. "Pray sit down, Mr.\r
+Garth," continued the banker, in his suavest tone.\r
+\r
+"I am glad that you arrived just in time to find me here. I know you\r
+count your minutes."\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Caleb, gently, with a slow swing of his head on one side, as\r
+he seated himself and laid his hat on the floor.\r
+\r
+He looked at the ground, leaning forward and letting his long fingers\r
+droop between his legs, while each finger moved in succession, as if it\r
+were sharing some thought which filled his large quiet brow.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, like every one else who knew Caleb, was used to his\r
+slowness in beginning to speak on any topic which he felt to be\r
+important, and rather expected that he was about to recur to the buying\r
+of some houses in Blindman's Court, for the sake of pulling them down,\r
+as a sacrifice of property which would be well repaid by the influx of\r
+air and light on that spot. It was by propositions of this kind that\r
+Caleb was sometimes troublesome to his employers; but he had usually\r
+found Bulstrode ready to meet him in projects of improvement, and they\r
+had got on well together. When he spoke again, however, it was to say,\r
+in rather a subdued voice--\r
+\r
+"I have just come away from Stone Court, Mr. Bulstrode."\r
+\r
+"You found nothing wrong there, I hope," said the banker; "I was there\r
+myself yesterday. Abel has done well with the lambs this year."\r
+\r
+"Why, yes," said Caleb, looking up gravely, "there is something wrong--a\r
+stranger, who is very ill, I think. He wants a doctor, and I came to\r
+tell you of that. His name is Raffles."\r
+\r
+He saw the shock of his words passing through Bulstrode's frame. On\r
+this subject the banker had thought that his fears were too constantly\r
+on the watch to be taken by surprise; but he had been mistaken.\r
+\r
+"Poor wretch!" he said in a compassionate tone, though his lips\r
+trembled a little. "Do you know how he came there?"\r
+\r
+"I took him myself," said Caleb, quietly--"took him up in my gig. He\r
+had got down from the coach, and was walking a little beyond the\r
+turning from the toll-house, and I overtook him. He remembered seeing\r
+me with you once before, at Stone Court, and he asked me to take him\r
+on. I saw he was ill: it seemed to me the right thing to do, to carry\r
+him under shelter. And now I think you should lose no time in getting\r
+advice for him." Caleb took up his hat from the floor as he ended, and\r
+rose slowly from his seat.\r
+\r
+"Certainly," said Bulstrode, whose mind was very active at this moment.\r
+"Perhaps you will yourself oblige me, Mr. Garth, by calling at Mr.\r
+Lydgate's as you pass--or stay! he may at this hour probably be at the\r
+Hospital. I will first send my man on the horse there with a note this\r
+instant, and then I will myself ride to Stone Court."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode quickly wrote a note, and went out himself to give the\r
+commission to his man. When he returned, Caleb was standing as before\r
+with one hand on the back of the chair, holding his hat with the other.\r
+In Bulstrode's mind the dominant thought was, "Perhaps Raffles only\r
+spoke to Garth of his illness. Garth may wonder, as he must have done\r
+before, at this disreputable fellow's claiming intimacy with me; but he\r
+will know nothing. And he is friendly to me--I can be of use to him."\r
+\r
+He longed for some confirmation of this hopeful conjecture, but to have\r
+asked any question as to what Raffles had said or done would have been\r
+to betray fear.\r
+\r
+"I am exceedingly obliged to you, Mr. Garth," he said, in his usual\r
+tone of politeness. "My servant will be back in a few minutes, and I\r
+shall then go myself to see what can be done for this unfortunate man.\r
+Perhaps you had some other business with me? If so, pray be seated."\r
+\r
+"Thank you," said Caleb, making a slight gesture with his right hand to\r
+waive the invitation. "I wish to say, Mr. Bulstrode, that I must\r
+request you to put your business into some other hands than mine. I am\r
+obliged to you for your handsome way of meeting me--about the letting\r
+of Stone Court, and all other business. But I must give it up." A\r
+sharp certainty entered like a stab into Bulstrode's soul.\r
+\r
+"This is sudden, Mr. Garth," was all he could say at first.\r
+\r
+"It is," said Caleb; "but it is quite fixed. I must give it up."\r
+\r
+He spoke with a firmness which was very gentle, and yet he could see\r
+that Bulstrode seemed to cower under that gentleness, his face looking\r
+dried and his eyes swerving away from the glance which rested on him.\r
+Caleb felt a deep pity for him, but he could have used no pretexts to\r
+account for his resolve, even if they would have been of any use.\r
+\r
+"You have been led to this, I apprehend, by some slanders concerning me\r
+uttered by that unhappy creature," said Bulstrode, anxious now to know\r
+the utmost.\r
+\r
+"That is true. I can't deny that I act upon what I heard from him."\r
+\r
+"You are a conscientious man, Mr. Garth--a man, I trust, who feels\r
+himself accountable to God. You would not wish to injure me by being\r
+too ready to believe a slander," said Bulstrode, casting about for\r
+pleas that might be adapted to his hearer's mind. "That is a poor\r
+reason for giving up a connection which I think I may say will be\r
+mutually beneficial."\r
+\r
+"I would injure no man if I could help it," said Caleb; "even if I\r
+thought God winked at it. I hope I should have a feeling for my\r
+fellow-creature. But, sir--I am obliged to believe that this Raffles\r
+has told me the truth. And I can't be happy in working with you, or\r
+profiting by you. It hurts my mind. I must beg you to seek another\r
+agent."\r
+\r
+"Very well, Mr. Garth. But I must at least claim to know the worst\r
+that he has told you. I must know what is the foul speech that I am\r
+liable to be the victim of," said Bulstrode, a certain amount of anger\r
+beginning to mingle with his humiliation before this quiet man who\r
+renounced his benefits.\r
+\r
+"That's needless," said Caleb, waving his hand, bowing his head\r
+slightly, and not swerving from the tone which had in it the merciful\r
+intention to spare this pitiable man. "What he has said to me will\r
+never pass from my lips, unless something now unknown forces it from\r
+me. If you led a harmful life for gain, and kept others out of their\r
+rights by deceit, to get the more for yourself, I dare say you\r
+repent--you would like to go back, and can't: that must be a bitter\r
+thing"--Caleb paused a moment and shook his head--"it is not for me to\r
+make your life harder to you."\r
+\r
+"But you do--you do make it harder to me," said Bulstrode constrained\r
+into a genuine, pleading cry. "You make it harder to me by turning\r
+your back on me."\r
+\r
+"That I'm forced to do," said Caleb, still more gently, lifting up his\r
+hand. "I am sorry. I don't judge you and say, he is wicked, and I am\r
+righteous. God forbid. I don't know everything. A man may do wrong,\r
+and his will may rise clear out of it, though he can't get his life\r
+clear. That's a bad punishment. If it is so with you,--well, I'm\r
+very sorry for you. But I have that feeling inside me, that I can't go\r
+on working with you. That's all, Mr. Bulstrode. Everything else is\r
+buried, so far as my will goes. And I wish you good-day."\r
+\r
+"One moment, Mr. Garth!" said Bulstrode, hurriedly. "I may trust then\r
+to your solemn assurance that you will not repeat either to man or\r
+woman what--even if it have any degree of truth in it--is yet a\r
+malicious representation?" Caleb's wrath was stirred, and he said,\r
+indignantly--\r
+\r
+"Why should I have said it if I didn't mean it? I am in no fear of\r
+you. Such tales as that will never tempt my tongue."\r
+\r
+"Excuse me--I am agitated--I am the victim of this abandoned man."\r
+\r
+"Stop a bit! you have got to consider whether you didn't help to make\r
+him worse, when you profited by his vices."\r
+\r
+"You are wronging me by too readily believing him," said Bulstrode,\r
+oppressed, as by a nightmare, with the inability to deny flatly what\r
+Raffles might have said; and yet feeling it an escape that Caleb had\r
+not so stated it to him as to ask for that flat denial.\r
+\r
+"No," said Caleb, lifting his hand deprecatingly; "I am ready to\r
+believe better, when better is proved. I rob you of no good chance.\r
+As to speaking, I hold it a crime to expose a man's sin unless I'm\r
+clear it must be done to save the innocent. That is my way of\r
+thinking, Mr. Bulstrode, and what I say, I've no need to swear. I wish\r
+you good-day."\r
+\r
+Some hours later, when he was at home, Caleb said to his wife,\r
+incidentally, that he had had some little differences with Bulstrode,\r
+and that in consequence, he had given up all notion of taking Stone\r
+Court, and indeed had resigned doing further business for him.\r
+\r
+"He was disposed to interfere too much, was he?" said Mrs. Garth,\r
+imagining that her husband had been touched on his sensitive point, and\r
+not been allowed to do what he thought right as to materials and modes\r
+of work.\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Caleb, bowing his head and waving his hand gravely. And\r
+Mrs. Garth knew that this was a sign of his not intending to speak\r
+further on the subject.\r
+\r
+As for Bulstrode, he had almost immediately mounted his horse and set\r
+off for Stone Court, being anxious to arrive there before Lydgate.\r
+\r
+His mind was crowded with images and conjectures, which were a language\r
+to his hopes and fears, just as we hear tones from the vibrations which\r
+shake our whole system. The deep humiliation with which he had winced\r
+under Caleb Garth's knowledge of his past and rejection of his\r
+patronage, alternated with and almost gave way to the sense of safety\r
+in the fact that Garth, and no other, had been the man to whom Raffles\r
+had spoken. It seemed to him a sort of earnest that Providence\r
+intended his rescue from worse consequences; the way being thus left\r
+open for the hope of secrecy. That Raffles should be afflicted with\r
+illness, that he should have been led to Stone Court rather than\r
+elsewhere--Bulstrode's heart fluttered at the vision of probabilities\r
+which these events conjured up. If it should turn out that he was\r
+freed from all danger of disgrace--if he could breathe in perfect\r
+liberty--his life should be more consecrated than it had ever been\r
+before. He mentally lifted up this vow as if it would urge the result\r
+he longed for--he tried to believe in the potency of that prayerful\r
+resolution--its potency to determine death. He knew that he ought to\r
+say, "Thy will be done;" and he said it often. But the intense desire\r
+remained that the will of God might be the death of that hated man.\r
+\r
+Yet when he arrived at Stone Court he could not see the change in\r
+Raffles without a shock. But for his pallor and feebleness, Bulstrode\r
+would have called the change in him entirely mental. Instead of his\r
+loud tormenting mood, he showed an intense, vague terror, and seemed to\r
+deprecate Bulstrode's anger, because the money was all gone--he had\r
+been robbed--it had half of it been taken from him. He had only come\r
+here because he was ill and somebody was hunting him--somebody was\r
+after him, he had told nobody anything, he had kept his mouth shut.\r
+Bulstrode, not knowing the significance of these symptoms, interpreted\r
+this new nervous susceptibility into a means of alarming Raffles into\r
+true confessions, and taxed him with falsehood in saying that he had\r
+not told anything, since he had just told the man who took him up in\r
+his gig and brought him to Stone Court. Raffles denied this with\r
+solemn adjurations; the fact being that the links of consciousness were\r
+interrupted in him, and that his minute terror-stricken narrative to\r
+Caleb Garth had been delivered under a set of visionary impulses which\r
+had dropped back into darkness.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode's heart sank again at this sign that he could get no grasp\r
+over the wretched man's mind, and that no word of Raffles could be\r
+trusted as to the fact which he most wanted to know, namely, whether or\r
+not he had really kept silence to every one in the neighborhood except\r
+Caleb Garth. The housekeeper had told him without the least constraint\r
+of manner that since Mr. Garth left, Raffles had asked her for beer,\r
+and after that had not spoken, seeming very ill. On that side it might\r
+be concluded that there had been no betrayal. Mrs. Abel thought, like\r
+the servants at The Shrubs, that the strange man belonged to the\r
+unpleasant "kin" who are among the troubles of the rich; she had at\r
+first referred the kinship to Mr. Rigg, and where there was property\r
+left, the buzzing presence of such large blue-bottles seemed natural\r
+enough. How he could be "kin" to Bulstrode as well was not so clear,\r
+but Mrs. Abel agreed with her husband that there was "no knowing," a\r
+proposition which had a great deal of mental food for her, so that she\r
+shook her head over it without further speculation.\r
+\r
+In less than an hour Lydgate arrived. Bulstrode met him outside the\r
+wainscoted parlor, where Raffles was, and said--\r
+\r
+"I have called you in, Mr. Lydgate, to an unfortunate man who was once\r
+in my employment, many years ago. Afterwards he went to America, and\r
+returned I fear to an idle dissolute life. Being destitute, he has a\r
+claim on me. He was slightly connected with Rigg, the former owner of\r
+this place, and in consequence found his way here. I believe he is\r
+seriously ill: apparently his mind is affected. I feel bound to do the\r
+utmost for him."\r
+\r
+Lydgate, who had the remembrance of his last conversation with\r
+Bulstrode strongly upon him, was not disposed to say an unnecessary\r
+word to him, and bowed slightly in answer to this account; but just\r
+before entering the room he turned automatically and said, "What is his\r
+name?"--to know names being as much a part of the medical man's\r
+accomplishment as of the practical politician's.\r
+\r
+"Raffles, John Raffles," said Bulstrode, who hoped that whatever became\r
+of Raffles, Lydgate would never know any more of him.\r
+\r
+When he had thoroughly examined and considered the patient, Lydgate\r
+ordered that he should go to bed, and be kept there in as complete\r
+quiet as possible, and then went with Bulstrode into another room.\r
+\r
+"It is a serious case, I apprehend," said the banker, before Lydgate\r
+began to speak.\r
+\r
+"No--and yes," said Lydgate, half dubiously. "It is difficult to\r
+decide as to the possible effect of long-standing complications; but\r
+the man had a robust constitution to begin with. I should not expect\r
+this attack to be fatal, though of course the system is in a ticklish\r
+state. He should be well watched and attended to."\r
+\r
+"I will remain here myself," said Bulstrode. "Mrs. Abel and her\r
+husband are inexperienced. I can easily remain here for the night, if\r
+you will oblige me by taking a note for Mrs. Bulstrode."\r
+\r
+"I should think that is hardly necessary," said Lydgate. "He seems\r
+tame and terrified enough. He might become more unmanageable. But\r
+there is a man here--is there not?"\r
+\r
+"I have more than once stayed here a few nights for the sake of\r
+seclusion," said Bulstrode, indifferently; "I am quite disposed to do\r
+so now. Mrs. Abel and her husband can relieve or aid me, if necessary."\r
+\r
+"Very well. Then I need give my directions only to you," said Lydgate,\r
+not feeling surprised at a little peculiarity in Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+"You think, then, that the case is hopeful?" said Bulstrode, when\r
+Lydgate had ended giving his orders.\r
+\r
+"Unless there turn out to be further complications, such as I have not\r
+at present detected--yes," said Lydgate. "He may pass on to a worse\r
+stage; but I should not wonder if he got better in a few days, by\r
+adhering to the treatment I have prescribed. There must be firmness.\r
+Remember, if he calls for liquors of any sort, not to give them to him.\r
+In my opinion, men in his condition are oftener killed by treatment\r
+than by the disease. Still, new symptoms may arise. I shall come\r
+again to-morrow morning."\r
+\r
+After waiting for the note to be carried to Mrs. Bulstrode, Lydgate\r
+rode away, forming no conjectures, in the first instance, about the\r
+history of Raffles, but rehearsing the whole argument, which had lately\r
+been much stirred by the publication of Dr. Ware's abundant experience\r
+in America, as to the right way of treating cases of alcoholic\r
+poisoning such as this. Lydgate, when abroad, had already been\r
+interested in this question: he was strongly convinced against the\r
+prevalent practice of allowing alcohol and persistently administering\r
+large doses of opium; and he had repeatedly acted on this conviction\r
+with a favorable result.\r
+\r
+"The man is in a diseased state," he thought, "but there's a good deal\r
+of wear in him still. I suppose he is an object of charity to\r
+Bulstrode. It is curious what patches of hardness and tenderness lie\r
+side by side in men's dispositions. Bulstrode seems the most\r
+unsympathetic fellow I ever saw about some people, and yet he has taken\r
+no end of trouble, and spent a great deal of money, on benevolent\r
+objects. I suppose he has some test by which he finds out whom Heaven\r
+cares for--he has made up his mind that it doesn't care for me."\r
+\r
+This streak of bitterness came from a plenteous source, and kept\r
+widening in the current of his thought as he neared Lowick Gate. He\r
+had not been there since his first interview with Bulstrode in the\r
+morning, having been found at the Hospital by the banker's messenger;\r
+and for the first time he was returning to his home without the vision\r
+of any expedient in the background which left him a hope of raising\r
+money enough to deliver him from the coming destitution of everything\r
+which made his married life tolerable--everything which saved him and\r
+Rosamond from that bare isolation in which they would be forced to\r
+recognize how little of a comfort they could be to each other. It was\r
+more bearable to do without tenderness for himself than to see that his\r
+own tenderness could make no amends for the lack of other things to\r
+her. The sufferings of his own pride from humiliations past and to\r
+come were keen enough, yet they were hardly distinguishable to himself\r
+from that more acute pain which dominated them--the pain of foreseeing\r
+that Rosamond would come to regard him chiefly as the cause of\r
+disappointment and unhappiness to her. He had never liked the\r
+makeshifts of poverty, and they had never before entered into his\r
+prospects for himself; but he was beginning now to imagine how two\r
+creatures who loved each other, and had a stock of thoughts in common,\r
+might laugh over their shabby furniture, and their calculations how far\r
+they could afford butter and eggs. But the glimpse of that poetry\r
+seemed as far off from him as the carelessness of the golden age; in\r
+poor Rosamond's mind there was not room enough for luxuries to look\r
+small in. He got down from his horse in a very sad mood, and went into\r
+the house, not expecting to be cheered except by his dinner, and\r
+reflecting that before the evening closed it would be wise to tell\r
+Rosamond of his application to Bulstrode and its failure. It would be\r
+well not to lose time in preparing her for the worst.\r
+\r
+But his dinner waited long for him before he was able to eat it. For\r
+on entering he found that Dover's agent had already put a man in the\r
+house, and when he asked where Mrs. Lydgate was, he was told that she\r
+was in her bedroom. He went up and found her stretched on the bed pale\r
+and silent, without an answer even in her face to any word or look of\r
+his. He sat down by the bed and leaning over her said with almost a\r
+cry of prayer--\r
+\r
+"Forgive me for this misery, my poor Rosamond! Let us only love one\r
+another."\r
+\r
+She looked at him silently, still with the blank despair on her face;\r
+but then the tears began to fill her blue eyes, and her lip trembled.\r
+The strong man had had too much to bear that day. He let his head fall\r
+beside hers and sobbed.\r
+\r
+He did not hinder her from going to her father early in the morning--it\r
+seemed now that he ought not to hinder her from doing as she\r
+pleased. In half an hour she came back, and said that papa and mamma\r
+wished her to go and stay with them while things were in this miserable\r
+state. Papa said he could do nothing about the debt--if he paid this,\r
+there would be half-a-dozen more. She had better come back home again\r
+till Lydgate had got a comfortable home for her. "Do you object,\r
+Tertius?"\r
+\r
+"Do as you like," said Lydgate. "But things are not coming to a crisis\r
+immediately. There is no hurry."\r
+\r
+"I should not go till to-morrow," said Rosamond; "I shall want to pack\r
+my clothes."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I would wait a little longer than to-morrow--there is no knowing\r
+what may happen," said Lydgate, with bitter irony. "I may get my neck\r
+broken, and that may make things easier to you."\r
+\r
+It was Lydgate's misfortune and Rosamond's too, that his tenderness\r
+towards her, which was both an emotional prompting and a\r
+well-considered resolve, was inevitably interrupted by these outbursts\r
+of indignation either ironical or remonstrant. She thought them\r
+totally unwarranted, and the repulsion which this exceptional severity\r
+excited in her was in danger of making the more persistent tenderness\r
+unacceptable.\r
+\r
+"I see you do not wish me to go," she said, with chill mildness; "why\r
+can you not say so, without that kind of violence? I shall stay until\r
+you request me to do otherwise."\r
+\r
+Lydgate said no more, but went out on his rounds. He felt bruised and\r
+shattered, and there was a dark line under his eyes which Rosamond had\r
+not seen before. She could not bear to look at him. Tertius had a way\r
+of taking things which made them a great deal worse for her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXX.\r
+\r
+ Our deeds still travel with us from afar,\r
+ And what we have been makes us what we are."\r
+\r
+\r
+Bulstrode's first object after Lydgate had left Stone Court was to\r
+examine Raffles's pockets, which he imagined were sure to carry signs\r
+in the shape of hotel-bills of the places he had stopped in, if he had\r
+not told the truth in saying that he had come straight from Liverpool\r
+because he was ill and had no money. There were various bills crammed\r
+into his pocketbook, but none of a later date than Christmas at any\r
+other place, except one, which bore date that morning. This was\r
+crumpled up with a hand-bill about a horse-fair in one of his\r
+tail-pockets, and represented the cost of three days' stay at an inn at\r
+Bilkley, where the fair was held--a town at least forty miles from\r
+Middlemarch. The bill was heavy, and since Raffles had no luggage with\r
+him, it seemed probable that he had left his portmanteau behind in\r
+payment, in order to save money for his travelling fare; for his purse\r
+was empty, and he had only a couple of sixpences and some loose pence\r
+in his pockets.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode gathered a sense of safety from these indications that\r
+Raffles had really kept at a distance from Middlemarch since his\r
+memorable visit at Christmas. At a distance and among people who were\r
+strangers to Bulstrode, what satisfaction could there be to Raffles's\r
+tormenting, self-magnifying vein in telling old scandalous stories\r
+about a Middlemarch banker? And what harm if he did talk? The chief\r
+point now was to keep watch over him as long as there was any danger of\r
+that intelligible raving, that unaccountable impulse to tell, which\r
+seemed to have acted towards Caleb Garth; and Bulstrode felt much\r
+anxiety lest some such impulse should come over him at the sight of\r
+Lydgate. He sat up alone with him through the night, only ordering the\r
+housekeeper to lie down in her clothes, so as to be ready when he\r
+called her, alleging his own indisposition to sleep, and his anxiety to\r
+carry out the doctor's orders. He did carry them out faithfully,\r
+although Raffles was incessantly asking for brandy, and declaring that\r
+he was sinking away--that the earth was sinking away from under him.\r
+He was restless and sleepless, but still quailing and manageable. On\r
+the offer of the food ordered by Lydgate, which he refused, and the\r
+denial of other things which he demanded, he seemed to concentrate all\r
+his terror on Bulstrode, imploringly deprecating his anger, his revenge\r
+on him by starvation, and declaring with strong oaths that he had never\r
+told any mortal a word against him. Even this Bulstrode felt that he\r
+would not have liked Lydgate to hear; but a more alarming sign of\r
+fitful alternation in his delirium was, that in-the morning twilight\r
+Raffles suddenly seemed to imagine a doctor present, addressing him and\r
+declaring that Bulstrode wanted to starve him to death out of revenge\r
+for telling, when he never had told.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode's native imperiousness and strength of determination served\r
+him well. This delicate-looking man, himself nervously perturbed,\r
+found the needed stimulus in his strenuous circumstances, and through\r
+that difficult night and morning, while he had the air of an animated\r
+corpse returned to movement without warmth, holding the mastery by its\r
+chill impassibility his mind was intensely at work thinking of what he\r
+had to guard against and what would win him security. Whatever prayers\r
+he might lift up, whatever statements he might inwardly make of this\r
+man's wretched spiritual condition, and the duty he himself was under\r
+to submit to the punishment divinely appointed for him rather than to\r
+wish for evil to another--through all this effort to condense words\r
+into a solid mental state, there pierced and spread with irresistible\r
+vividness the images of the events he desired. And in the train of\r
+those images came their apology. He could not but see the death of\r
+Raffles, and see in it his own deliverance. What was the removal of\r
+this wretched creature? He was impenitent--but were not public\r
+criminals impenitent?--yet the law decided on their fate. Should\r
+Providence in this case award death, there was no sin in contemplating\r
+death as the desirable issue--if he kept his hands from hastening\r
+it--if he scrupulously did what was prescribed. Even here there might\r
+be a mistake: human prescriptions were fallible things: Lydgate had\r
+said that treatment had hastened death,--why not his own method of\r
+treatment? But of course intention was everything in the question of\r
+right and wrong.\r
+\r
+And Bulstrode set himself to keep his intention separate from his\r
+desire. He inwardly declared that he intended to obey orders. Why\r
+should he have got into any argument about the validity of these\r
+orders? It was only the common trick of desire--which avails itself of\r
+any irrelevant scepticism, finding larger room for itself in all\r
+uncertainty about effects, in every obscurity that looks like the\r
+absence of law. Still, he did obey the orders.\r
+\r
+His anxieties continually glanced towards Lydgate, and his remembrance\r
+of what had taken place between them the morning before was accompanied\r
+with sensibilities which had not been roused at all during the actual\r
+scene. He had then cared but little about Lydgate's painful\r
+impressions with regard to the suggested change in the Hospital, or\r
+about the disposition towards himself which what he held to be his\r
+justifiable refusal of a rather exorbitant request might call forth.\r
+He recurred to the scene now with a perception that he had probably\r
+made Lydgate his enemy, and with an awakened desire to propitiate him,\r
+or rather to create in him a strong sense of personal obligation. He\r
+regretted that he had not at once made even an unreasonable\r
+money-sacrifice. For in case of unpleasant suspicions, or even\r
+knowledge gathered from the raving of Raffles, Bulstrode would have\r
+felt that he had a defence in Lydgate's mind by having conferred a\r
+momentous benefit on him. But the regret had perhaps come too late.\r
+\r
+Strange, piteous conflict in the soul of this unhappy man, who had\r
+longed for years to be better than he was--who had taken his selfish\r
+passions into discipline and clad them in severe robes, so that he had\r
+walked with them as a devout choir, till now that a terror had risen\r
+among them, and they could chant no longer, but threw out their common\r
+cries for safety.\r
+\r
+It was nearly the middle of the day before Lydgate arrived: he had\r
+meant to come earlier, but had been detained, he said; and his\r
+shattered looks were noticed by Balstrode. But he immediately threw\r
+himself into the consideration of the patient, and inquired strictly\r
+into all that had occurred. Raffles was worse, would take hardly any\r
+food, was persistently wakeful and restlessly raving; but still not\r
+violent. Contrary to Bulstrode's alarmed expectation, he took little\r
+notice of Lydgate's presence, and continued to talk or murmur\r
+incoherently.\r
+\r
+"What do you think of him?" said Bulstrode, in private.\r
+\r
+"The symptoms are worse."\r
+\r
+"You are less hopeful?"\r
+\r
+"No; I still think he may come round. Are you going to stay here\r
+yourself?" said Lydgate, looking at Bulstrode with an abrupt question,\r
+which made him uneasy, though in reality it was not due to any\r
+suspicious conjecture.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think so," said Bulstrode, governing himself and speaking with\r
+deliberation. "Mrs. Bulstrode is advised of the reasons which detain\r
+me. Mrs. Abel and her husband are not experienced enough to be left\r
+quite alone, and this kind of responsibility is scarcely included in\r
+their service of me. You have some fresh instructions, I presume."\r
+\r
+The chief new instruction that Lydgate had to give was on the\r
+administration of extremely moderate doses of opium, in case of the\r
+sleeplessness continuing after several hours. He had taken the\r
+precaution of bringing opium in his pocket, and he gave minute\r
+directions to Bulstrode as to the doses, and the point at which they\r
+should cease. He insisted on the risk of not ceasing; and repeated his\r
+order that no alcohol should be given.\r
+\r
+"From what I see of the case," he ended, "narcotism is the only thing I\r
+should be much afraid of. He may wear through even without much food.\r
+There's a good deal of strength in him."\r
+\r
+"You look ill yourself, Mr. Lydgate--a most unusual, I may say\r
+unprecedented thing in my knowledge of you," said Bulstrode, showing a\r
+solicitude as unlike his indifference the day before, as his present\r
+recklessness about his own fatigue was unlike his habitual\r
+self-cherishing anxiety. "I fear you are harassed."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I am," said Lydgate, brusquely, holding his hat, and ready to go.\r
+\r
+"Something new, I fear," said Bulstrode, inquiringly. "Pray be seated."\r
+\r
+"No, thank you," said Lydgate, with some hauteur. "I mentioned to you\r
+yesterday what was the state of my affairs. There is nothing to add,\r
+except that the execution has since then been actually put into my\r
+house. One can tell a good deal of trouble in a short sentence. I\r
+will say good morning."\r
+\r
+"Stay, Mr. Lydgate, stay," said Bulstrode; "I have been reconsidering\r
+this subject. I was yesterday taken by surprise, and saw it\r
+superficially. Mrs. Bulstrode is anxious for her niece, and I myself\r
+should grieve at a calamitous change in your position. Claims on me\r
+are numerous, but on reconsideration, I esteem it right that I should\r
+incur a small sacrifice rather than leave you unaided. You said, I\r
+think, that a thousand pounds would suffice entirely to free you from\r
+your burthens, and enable you to recover a firm stand?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lydgate, a great leap of joy within him surmounting every\r
+other feeling; "that would pay all my debts, and leave me a little on\r
+hand. I could set about economizing in our way of living. And\r
+by-and-by my practice might look up."\r
+\r
+"If you will wait a moment, Mr. Lydgate, I will draw a check to that\r
+amount. I am aware that help, to be effectual in these cases, should\r
+be thorough."\r
+\r
+While Bulstrode wrote, Lydgate turned to the window thinking of his\r
+home--thinking of his life with its good start saved from frustration,\r
+its good purposes still unbroken.\r
+\r
+"You can give me a note of hand for this, Mr. Lydgate," said the\r
+banker, advancing towards him with the check. "And by-and-by, I hope,\r
+you may be in circumstances gradually to repay me. Meanwhile, I have\r
+pleasure in thinking that you will be released from further difficulty."\r
+\r
+"I am deeply obliged to you," said Lydgate. "You have restored to me\r
+the prospect of working with some happiness and some chance of good."\r
+\r
+It appeared to him a very natural movement in Bulstrode that he should\r
+have reconsidered his refusal: it corresponded with the more munificent\r
+side of his character. But as he put his hack into a canter, that he\r
+might get the sooner home, and tell the good news to Rosamond, and get\r
+cash at the bank to pay over to Dover's agent, there crossed his mind,\r
+with an unpleasant impression, as from a dark-winged flight of evil\r
+augury across his vision, the thought of that contrast in himself which\r
+a few months had brought--that he should be overjoyed at being under a\r
+strong personal obligation--that he should be overjoyed at getting\r
+money for himself from Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+The banker felt that he had done something to nullify one cause of\r
+uneasiness, and yet he was scarcely the easier. He did not measure the\r
+quantity of diseased motive which had made him wish for Lydgate's\r
+good-will, but the quantity was none the less actively there, like an\r
+irritating agent in his blood. A man vows, and yet will not cast away\r
+the means of breaking his vow. Is it that he distinctly means to break\r
+it? Not at all; but the desires which tend to break it are at work in\r
+him dimly, and make their way into his imagination, and relax his\r
+muscles in the very moments when he is telling himself over again the\r
+reasons for his vow. Raffles, recovering quickly, returning to the\r
+free use of his odious powers--how could Bulstrode wish for that?\r
+Raffles dead was the image that brought release, and indirectly he\r
+prayed for that way of release, beseeching that, if it were possible,\r
+the rest of his days here below might be freed from the threat of an\r
+ignominy which would break him utterly as an instrument of God's\r
+service. Lydgate's opinion was not on the side of promise that this\r
+prayer would be fulfilled; and as the day advanced, Bulstrode felt\r
+himself getting irritated at the persistent life in this man, whom he\r
+would fain have seen sinking into the silence of death: imperious will\r
+stirred murderous impulses towards this brute life, over which will, by\r
+itself, had no power. He said inwardly that he was getting too much\r
+worn; he would not sit up with the patient to-night, but leave him to\r
+Mrs. Abel, who, if necessary, could call her husband.\r
+\r
+At six o'clock, Raffles, having had only fitful perturbed snatches of\r
+sleep, from which he waked with fresh restlessness and perpetual cries\r
+that he was sinking away, Bulstrode began to administer the opium\r
+according to Lydgate's directions. At the end of half an hour or more\r
+he called Mrs. Abel and told her that he found himself unfit for\r
+further watching. He must now consign the patient to her care; and he\r
+proceeded to repeat to her Lydgate's directions as to the quantity of\r
+each dose. Mrs. Abel had not before known anything of Lydgate's\r
+prescriptions; she had simply prepared and brought whatever Bulstrode\r
+ordered, and had done what he pointed out to her. She began now to ask\r
+what else she should do besides administering the opium.\r
+\r
+"Nothing at present, except the offer of the soup or the soda-water:\r
+you can come to me for further directions. Unless there is any\r
+important change, I shall not come into the room again to-night. You\r
+will ask your husband for help if necessary. I must go to bed early."\r
+\r
+"You've much need, sir, I'm sure," said Mrs. Abel, "and to take\r
+something more strengthening than what you've done."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode went away now without anxiety as to what Raffles might say in\r
+his raving, which had taken on a muttering incoherence not likely to\r
+create any dangerous belief. At any rate he must risk this. He went\r
+down into the wainscoted parlor first, and began to consider whether he\r
+would not have his horse saddled and go home by the moonlight, and give\r
+up caring for earthly consequences. Then, he wished that he had begged\r
+Lydgate to come again that evening. Perhaps he might deliver a\r
+different opinion, and think that Raffles was getting into a less\r
+hopeful state. Should he send for Lydgate? If Raffles were really\r
+getting worse, and slowly dying, Bulstrode felt that he could go to bed\r
+and sleep in gratitude to Providence. But was he worse? Lydgate might\r
+come and simply say that he was going on as he expected, and predict\r
+that he would by-and-by fall into a good sleep, and get well. What was\r
+the use of sending for him? Bulstrode shrank from that result. No\r
+ideas or opinions could hinder him from seeing the one probability to\r
+be, that Raffles recovered would be just the same man as before, with\r
+his strength as a tormentor renewed, obliging him to drag away his wife\r
+to spend her years apart from her friends and native place, carrying an\r
+alienating suspicion against him in her heart.\r
+\r
+He had sat an hour and a half in this conflict by the firelight only,\r
+when a sudden thought made him rise and light the bed-candle, which he\r
+had brought down with him. The thought was, that he had not told Mrs.\r
+Abel when the doses of opium must cease.\r
+\r
+He took hold of the candlestick, but stood motionless for a long while.\r
+She might already have given him more than Lydgate had prescribed. But\r
+it was excusable in him, that he should forget part of an order, in his\r
+present wearied condition. He walked up-stairs, candle in hand, not\r
+knowing whether he should straightway enter his own room and go to bed,\r
+or turn to the patient's room and rectify his omission. He paused in\r
+the passage, with his face turned towards Raffles's room, and he could\r
+hear him moaning and murmuring. He was not asleep, then. Who could\r
+know that Lydgate's prescription would not be better disobeyed than\r
+followed, since there was still no sleep?\r
+\r
+He turned into his own room. Before he had quite undressed, Mrs. Abel\r
+rapped at the door; he opened it an inch, so that he could hear her\r
+speak low.\r
+\r
+"If you please, sir, should I have no brandy nor nothing to give the\r
+poor creetur? He feels sinking away, and nothing else will he\r
+swaller--and but little strength in it, if he did--only the opium. And\r
+he says more and more he's sinking down through the earth."\r
+\r
+To her surprise, Mr. Bulstrode did not answer. A struggle was going on\r
+within him.\r
+\r
+"I think he must die for want o' support, if he goes on in that way.\r
+When I nursed my poor master, Mr. Robisson, I had to give him port-wine\r
+and brandy constant, and a big glass at a time," added Mrs. Abel, with\r
+a touch of remonstrance in her tone.\r
+\r
+But again Mr. Bulstrode did not answer immediately, and she continued,\r
+"It's not a time to spare when people are at death's door, nor would\r
+you wish it, sir, I'm sure. Else I should give him our own bottle o'\r
+rum as we keep by us. But a sitter-up so as you've been, and doing\r
+everything as laid in your power--"\r
+\r
+Here a key was thrust through the inch of doorway, and Mr. Bulstrode\r
+said huskily, "That is the key of the wine-cooler. You will find plenty\r
+of brandy there."\r
+\r
+Early in the morning--about six--Mr. Bulstrode rose and spent some time\r
+in prayer. Does any one suppose that private prayer is necessarily\r
+candid--necessarily goes to the roots of action? Private prayer is\r
+inaudible speech, and speech is representative: who can represent\r
+himself just as he is, even in his own reflections? Bulstrode had not\r
+yet unravelled in his thought the confused promptings of the last\r
+four-and-twenty hours.\r
+\r
+He listened in the passage, and could hear hard stertorous breathing.\r
+Then he walked out in the garden, and looked at the early rime on the\r
+grass and fresh spring leaves. When he re-entered the house, he felt\r
+startled at the sight of Mrs. Abel.\r
+\r
+"How is your patient--asleep, I think?" he said, with an attempt at\r
+cheerfulness in his tone.\r
+\r
+"He's gone very deep, sir," said Mrs. Abel. "He went off gradual\r
+between three and four o'clock. Would you please to go and look at\r
+him? I thought it no harm to leave him. My man's gone afield, and the\r
+little girl's seeing to the kettles."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode went up. At a glance he knew that Raffles was not in the\r
+sleep which brings revival, but in the sleep which streams deeper and\r
+deeper into the gulf of death.\r
+\r
+He looked round the room and saw a bottle with some brandy in it, and\r
+the almost empty opium phial. He put the phial out of sight, and\r
+carried the brandy-bottle down-stairs with him, locking it again in the\r
+wine-cooler.\r
+\r
+While breakfasting he considered whether he should ride to Middlemarch\r
+at once, or wait for Lydgate's arrival. He decided to wait, and told\r
+Mrs. Abel that she might go about her work--he could watch in the\r
+bed-chamber.\r
+\r
+As he sat there and beheld the enemy of his peace going irrevocably\r
+into silence, he felt more at rest than he had done for many months.\r
+His conscience was soothed by the enfolding wing of secrecy, which\r
+seemed just then like an angel sent down for his relief. He drew out\r
+his pocket-book to review various memoranda there as to the\r
+arrangements he had projected and partly carried out in the prospect of\r
+quitting Middlemarch, and considered how far he would let them stand or\r
+recall them, now that his absence would be brief. Some economies which\r
+he felt desirable might still find a suitable occasion in his temporary\r
+withdrawal from management, and he hoped still that Mrs. Casaubon would\r
+take a large share in the expenses of the Hospital. In that way the\r
+moments passed, until a change in the stertorous breathing was marked\r
+enough to draw his attention wholly to the bed, and forced him to think\r
+of the departing life, which had once been subservient to his\r
+own--which he had once been glad to find base enough for him to act on\r
+as he would. It was his gladness then which impelled him now to be\r
+glad that the life was at an end.\r
+\r
+And who could say that the death of Raffles had been hastened? Who\r
+knew what would have saved him?\r
+\r
+Lydgate arrived at half-past ten, in time to witness the final pause of\r
+the breath. When he entered the room Bulstrode observed a sudden\r
+expression in his face, which was not so much surprise as a recognition\r
+that he had not judged correctly. He stood by the bed in silence for\r
+some time, with his eyes turned on the dying man, but with that subdued\r
+activity of expression which showed that he was carrying on an inward\r
+debate.\r
+\r
+"When did this change begin?" said he, looking at Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+"I did not watch by him last night," said Bulstrode. "I was over-worn,\r
+and left him under Mrs. Abel's care. She said that he sank into sleep\r
+between three and four o'clock. When I came in before eight he was\r
+nearly in this condition."\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not ask another question, but watched in silence until he\r
+said, "It's all over."\r
+\r
+This morning Lydgate was in a state of recovered hope and freedom. He\r
+had set out on his work with all his old animation, and felt himself\r
+strong enough to bear all the deficiencies of his married life. And he\r
+was conscious that Bulstrode had been a benefactor to him. But he was\r
+uneasy about this case. He had not expected it to terminate as it had\r
+done. Yet he hardly knew how to put a question on the subject to\r
+Bulstrode without appearing to insult him; and if he examined the\r
+housekeeper--why, the man was dead. There seemed to be no use in\r
+implying that somebody's ignorance or imprudence had killed him. And\r
+after all, he himself might be wrong.\r
+\r
+He and Bulstrode rode back to Middlemarch together, talking of many\r
+things--chiefly cholera and the chances of the Reform Bill in the House\r
+of Lords, and the firm resolve of the political Unions. Nothing was\r
+said about Raffles, except that Bulstrode mentioned the necessity of\r
+having a grave for him in Lowick churchyard, and observed that, so far\r
+as he knew, the poor man had no connections, except Rigg, whom he had\r
+stated to be unfriendly towards him.\r
+\r
+On returning home Lydgate had a visit from Mr. Farebrother. The Vicar\r
+had not been in the town the day before, but the news that there was an\r
+execution in Lydgate's house had got to Lowick by the evening, having\r
+been carried by Mr. Spicer, shoemaker and parish-clerk, who had it from\r
+his brother, the respectable bell-hanger in Lowick Gate. Since that\r
+evening when Lydgate had come down from the billiard room with Fred\r
+Vincy, Mr. Farebrother's thoughts about him had been rather gloomy.\r
+Playing at the Green Dragon once or oftener might have been a trifle in\r
+another man; but in Lydgate it was one of several signs that he was\r
+getting unlike his former self. He was beginning to do things for\r
+which he had formerly even an excessive scorn. Whatever certain\r
+dissatisfactions in marriage, which some silly tinklings of gossip had\r
+given him hints of, might have to do with this change, Mr. Farebrother\r
+felt sure that it was chiefly connected with the debts which were being\r
+more and more distinctly reported, and he began to fear that any notion\r
+of Lydgate's having resources or friends in the background must be\r
+quite illusory. The rebuff he had met with in his first attempt to win\r
+Lydgate's confidence, disinclined him to a second; but this news of the\r
+execution being actually in the house, determined the Vicar to overcome\r
+his reluctance.\r
+\r
+Lydgate had just dismissed a poor patient, in whom he was much\r
+interested, and he came forward to put out his hand--with an open\r
+cheerfulness which surprised Mr. Farebrother. Could this too be a\r
+proud rejection of sympathy and help? Never mind; the sympathy and\r
+help should be offered.\r
+\r
+"How are you, Lydgate? I came to see you because I had heard something\r
+which made me anxious about you," said the Vicar, in the tone of a good\r
+brother, only that there was no reproach in it. They were both seated\r
+by this time, and Lydgate answered immediately--\r
+\r
+"I think I know what you mean. You had heard that there was an\r
+execution in the house?"\r
+\r
+"Yes; is it true?"\r
+\r
+"It was true," said Lydgate, with an air of freedom, as if he did not\r
+mind talking about the affair now. "But the danger is over; the debt\r
+is paid. I am out of my difficulties now: I shall be freed from debts,\r
+and able, I hope, to start afresh on a better plan."\r
+\r
+"I am very thankful to hear it," said the Vicar, falling back in his\r
+chair, and speaking with that low-toned quickness which often follows\r
+the removal of a load. "I like that better than all the news in the\r
+'Times.' I confess I came to you with a heavy heart."\r
+\r
+"Thank you for coming," said Lydgate, cordially. "I can enjoy the\r
+kindness all the more because I am happier. I have certainly been a\r
+good deal crushed. I'm afraid I shall find the bruises still painful\r
+by-and by," he added, smiling rather sadly; "but just now I can only\r
+feel that the torture-screw is off."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother was silent for a moment, and then said earnestly, "My\r
+dear fellow, let me ask you one question. Forgive me if I take a\r
+liberty."\r
+\r
+"I don't believe you will ask anything that ought to offend me."\r
+\r
+"Then--this is necessary to set my heart quite at rest--you have\r
+not--have you?--in order to pay your debts, incurred another debt which\r
+may harass you worse hereafter?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Lydgate, coloring slightly. "There is no reason why I\r
+should not tell you--since the fact is so--that the person to whom I am\r
+indebted is Bulstrode. He has made me a very handsome advance--a\r
+thousand pounds--and he can afford to wait for repayment."\r
+\r
+"Well, that is generous," said Mr. Farebrother, compelling himself to\r
+approve of the man whom he disliked. His delicate feeling shrank from\r
+dwelling even in his thought on the fact that he had always urged\r
+Lydgate to avoid any personal entanglement with Bulstrode. He added\r
+immediately, "And Bulstrode must naturally feel an interest in your\r
+welfare, after you have worked with him in a way which has probably\r
+reduced your income instead of adding to it. I am glad to think that\r
+he has acted accordingly."\r
+\r
+Lydgate felt uncomfortable under these kindly suppositions. They made\r
+more distinct within him the uneasy consciousness which had shown its\r
+first dim stirrings only a few hours before, that Bulstrode's motives\r
+for his sudden beneficence following close upon the chillest\r
+indifference might be merely selfish. He let the kindly suppositions\r
+pass. He could not tell the history of the loan, but it was more\r
+vividly present with him than ever, as well as the fact which the Vicar\r
+delicately ignored--that this relation of personal indebtedness to\r
+Bulstrode was what he had once been most resolved to avoid.\r
+\r
+He began, instead of answering, to speak of his projected economies,\r
+and of his having come to look at his life from a different point of\r
+view.\r
+\r
+"I shall set up a surgery," he said. "I really think I made a mistaken\r
+effort in that respect. And if Rosamond will not mind, I shall take an\r
+apprentice. I don't like these things, but if one carries them out\r
+faithfully they are not really lowering. I have had a severe galling\r
+to begin with: that will make the small rubs seem easy."\r
+\r
+Poor Lydgate! the "if Rosamond will not mind," which had fallen from\r
+him involuntarily as part of his thought, was a significant mark of the\r
+yoke he bore. But Mr. Farebrother, whose hopes entered strongly into\r
+the same current with Lydgate's, and who knew nothing about him that\r
+could now raise a melancholy presentiment, left him with affectionate\r
+congratulation.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXI.\r
+\r
+ Clown. . . . 'Twas in the Bunch of Grapes, where, indeed,\r
+ you have a delight to sit, have you not?\r
+ Froth. I have so: because it is an open room, and good for winter.\r
+ Clo. Why, very well then: I hope here be truths.\r
+ --Measure for Measure.\r
+\r
+\r
+Five days after the death of Raffles, Mr. Bambridge was standing at his\r
+leisure under the large archway leading into the yard of the Green\r
+Dragon. He was not fond of solitary contemplation, but he had only\r
+just come out of the house, and any human figure standing at ease under\r
+the archway in the early afternoon was as certain to attract\r
+companionship as a pigeon which has found something worth pecking at.\r
+In this case there was no material object to feed upon, but the eye of\r
+reason saw a probability of mental sustenance in the shape of gossip.\r
+Mr. Hopkins, the meek-mannered draper opposite, was the first to act on\r
+this inward vision, being the more ambitious of a little masculine talk\r
+because his customers were chiefly women. Mr. Bambridge was rather\r
+curt to the draper, feeling that Hopkins was of course glad to talk to\r
+_him_, but that he was not going to waste much of his talk on Hopkins.\r
+Soon, however, there was a small cluster of more important listeners,\r
+who were either deposited from the passers-by, or had sauntered to the\r
+spot expressly to see if there were anything going on at the Green\r
+Dragon; and Mr. Bambridge was finding it worth his while to say many\r
+impressive things about the fine studs he had been seeing and the\r
+purchases he had made on a journey in the north from which he had just\r
+returned. Gentlemen present were assured that when they could show him\r
+anything to cut out a blood mare, a bay, rising four, which was to be\r
+seen at Doncaster if they chose to go and look at it, Mr. Bambridge\r
+would gratify them by being shot "from here to Hereford." Also, a pair\r
+of blacks which he was going to put into the break recalled vividly to\r
+his mind a pair which he had sold to Faulkner in '19, for a hundred\r
+guineas, and which Faulkner had sold for a hundred and sixty two months\r
+later--any gent who could disprove this statement being offered the\r
+privilege of calling Mr. Bambridge by a very ugly name until the\r
+exercise made his throat dry.\r
+\r
+When the discourse was at this point of animation, came up Mr. Frank\r
+Hawley. He was not a man to compromise his dignity by lounging at the\r
+Green Dragon, but happening to pass along the High Street and seeing\r
+Bambridge on the other side, he took some of his long strides across to\r
+ask the horsedealer whether he had found the first-rate gig-horse which\r
+he had engaged to look for. Mr. Hawley was requested to wait until he\r
+had seen a gray selected at Bilkley: if that did not meet his wishes to\r
+a hair, Bambridge did not know a horse when he saw it, which seemed to\r
+be the highest conceivable unlikelihood. Mr. Hawley, standing with his\r
+back to the street, was fixing a time for looking at the gray and\r
+seeing it tried, when a horseman passed slowly by.\r
+\r
+"Bulstrode!" said two or three voices at once in a low tone, one of\r
+them, which was the draper's, respectfully prefixing the "Mr.;" but\r
+nobody having more intention in this interjectural naming than if they\r
+had said "the Riverston coach" when that vehicle appeared in the\r
+distance. Mr. Hawley gave a careless glance round at Bulstrode's back,\r
+but as Bambridge's eyes followed it he made a sarcastic grimace.\r
+\r
+"By jingo! that reminds me," he began, lowering his voice a little, "I\r
+picked up something else at Bilkley besides your gig-horse, Mr. Hawley.\r
+I picked up a fine story about Bulstrode. Do you know how he came by\r
+his fortune? Any gentleman wanting a bit of curious information, I can\r
+give it him free of expense. If everybody got their deserts, Bulstrode\r
+might have had to say his prayers at Botany Bay."\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" said Mr. Hawley, thrusting his hands into his\r
+pockets, and pushing a little forward under the archway. If Bulstrode\r
+should turn out to be a rascal, Frank Hawley had a prophetic soul.\r
+\r
+"I had it from a party who was an old chum of Bulstrode's. I'll tell\r
+you where I first picked him up," said Bambridge, with a sudden gesture\r
+of his fore-finger. "He was at Larcher's sale, but I knew nothing of\r
+him then--he slipped through my fingers--was after Bulstrode, no\r
+doubt. He tells me he can tap Bulstrode to any amount, knows all his\r
+secrets. However, he blabbed to me at Bilkley: he takes a stiff glass.\r
+Damme if I think he meant to turn king's evidence; but he's that sort\r
+of bragging fellow, the bragging runs over hedge and ditch with him,\r
+till he'd brag of a spavin as if it 'ud fetch money. A man should know\r
+when to pull up." Mr. Bambridge made this remark with an air of\r
+disgust, satisfied that his own bragging showed a fine sense of the\r
+marketable.\r
+\r
+"What's the man's name? Where can he be found?" said Mr. Hawley.\r
+\r
+"As to where he is to be found, I left him to it at the Saracen's Head;\r
+but his name is Raffles."\r
+\r
+"Raffles!" exclaimed Mr. Hopkins. "I furnished his funeral yesterday.\r
+He was buried at Lowick. Mr. Bulstrode followed him. A very decent\r
+funeral." There was a strong sensation among the listeners. Mr.\r
+Bambridge gave an ejaculation in which "brimstone" was the mildest\r
+word, and Mr. Hawley, knitting his brows and bending his head forward,\r
+exclaimed, "What?--where did the man die?"\r
+\r
+"At Stone Court," said the draper. "The housekeeper said he was a\r
+relation of the master's. He came there ill on Friday."\r
+\r
+"Why, it was on Wednesday I took a glass with him," interposed\r
+Bambridge.\r
+\r
+"Did any doctor attend him?" said Mr. Hawley\r
+\r
+"Yes. Mr. Lydgate. Mr. Bulstrode sat up with him one night. He died\r
+the third morning."\r
+\r
+"Go on, Bambridge," said Mr. Hawley, insistently. "What did this\r
+fellow say about Bulstrode?"\r
+\r
+The group had already become larger, the town-clerk's presence being a\r
+guarantee that something worth listening to was going on there; and Mr.\r
+Bambridge delivered his narrative in the hearing of seven. It was\r
+mainly what we know, including the fact about Will Ladislaw, with some\r
+local color and circumstance added: it was what Bulstrode had dreaded\r
+the betrayal of--and hoped to have buried forever with the corpse of\r
+Raffles--it was that haunting ghost of his earlier life which as he\r
+rode past the archway of the Green Dragon he was trusting that\r
+Providence had delivered him from. Yes, Providence. He had not\r
+confessed to himself yet that he had done anything in the way of\r
+contrivance to this end; he had accepted what seemed to have been\r
+offered. It was impossible to prove that he had done anything which\r
+hastened the departure of that man's soul.\r
+\r
+But this gossip about Bulstrode spread through Middlemarch like the\r
+smell of fire. Mr. Frank Hawley followed up his information by sending\r
+a clerk whom he could trust to Stone Court on a pretext of inquiring\r
+about hay, but really to gather all that could be learned about Raffles\r
+and his illness from Mrs. Abel. In this way it came to his knowledge\r
+that Mr. Garth had carried the man to Stone Court in his gig; and Mr.\r
+Hawley in consequence took an opportunity of seeing Caleb, calling at\r
+his office to ask whether he had time to undertake an arbitration if it\r
+were required, and then asking him incidentally about Raffles. Caleb\r
+was betrayed into no word injurious to Bulstrode beyond the fact which\r
+he was forced to admit, that he had given up acting for him within the\r
+last week. Mr Hawley drew his inferences, and feeling convinced that\r
+Raffles had told his story to Garth, and that Garth had given up\r
+Bulstrode's affairs in consequence, said so a few hours later to Mr.\r
+Toller. The statement was passed on until it had quite lost the stamp\r
+of an inference, and was taken as information coming straight from\r
+Garth, so that even a diligent historian might have concluded Caleb to\r
+be the chief publisher of Bulstrode's misdemeanors.\r
+\r
+Mr. Hawley was not slow to perceive that there was no handle for the\r
+law either in the revelations made by Raffles or in the circumstances\r
+of his death. He had himself ridden to Lowick village that he might\r
+look at the register and talk over the whole matter with Mr.\r
+Farebrother, who was not more surprised than the lawyer that an ugly\r
+secret should have come to light about Bulstrode, though he had always\r
+had justice enough in him to hinder his antipathy from turning into\r
+conclusions. But while they were talking another combination was\r
+silently going forward in Mr. Farebrother's mind, which foreshadowed\r
+what was soon to be loudly spoken of in Middlemarch as a necessary\r
+"putting of two and two together." With the reasons which kept\r
+Bulstrode in dread of Raffles there flashed the thought that the dread\r
+might have something to do with his munificence towards his medical\r
+man; and though he resisted the suggestion that it had been consciously\r
+accepted in any way as a bribe, he had a foreboding that this\r
+complication of things might be of malignant effect on Lydgate's\r
+reputation. He perceived that Mr. Hawley knew nothing at present of\r
+the sudden relief from debt, and he himself was careful to glide away\r
+from all approaches towards the subject.\r
+\r
+"Well," he said, with a deep breath, wanting to wind up the illimitable\r
+discussion of what might have been, though nothing could be legally\r
+proven, "it is a strange story. So our mercurial Ladislaw has a queer\r
+genealogy! A high-spirited young lady and a musical Polish patriot\r
+made a likely enough stock for him to spring from, but I should never\r
+have suspected a grafting of the Jew pawnbroker. However, there's no\r
+knowing what a mixture will turn out beforehand. Some sorts of dirt\r
+serve to clarify."\r
+\r
+"It's just what I should have expected," said Mr. Hawley, mounting his\r
+horse. "Any cursed alien blood, Jew, Corsican, or Gypsy."\r
+\r
+"I know he's one of your black sheep, Hawley. But he is really a\r
+disinterested, unworldly fellow," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling.\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, that is your Whiggish twist," said Mr. Hawley, who had been in\r
+the habit of saying apologetically that Farebrother was such a damned\r
+pleasant good-hearted fellow you would mistake him for a Tory.\r
+\r
+Mr. Hawley rode home without thinking of Lydgate's attendance on\r
+Raffles in any other light than as a piece of evidence on the side of\r
+Bulstrode. But the news that Lydgate had all at once become able not\r
+only to get rid of the execution in his house but to pay all his debts\r
+in Middlemarch was spreading fast, gathering round it conjectures and\r
+comments which gave it new body and impetus, and soon filling the ears\r
+of other persons besides Mr. Hawley, who were not slow to see a\r
+significant relation between this sudden command of money and\r
+Bulstrode's desire to stifle the scandal of Raffles. That the money\r
+came from Bulstrode would infallibly have been guessed even if there\r
+had been no direct evidence of it; for it had beforehand entered into\r
+the gossip about Lydgate's affairs, that neither his father-in-law nor\r
+his own family would do anything for him, and direct evidence was\r
+furnished not only by a clerk at the Bank, but by innocent Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode herself, who mentioned the loan to Mrs. Plymdale, who\r
+mentioned it to her daughter-in-law of the house of Toller, who\r
+mentioned it generally. The business was felt to be so public and\r
+important that it required dinners to feed it, and many invitations\r
+were just then issued and accepted on the strength of this scandal\r
+concerning Bulstrode and Lydgate; wives, widows, and single ladies took\r
+their work and went out to tea oftener than usual; and all public\r
+conviviality, from the Green Dragon to Dollop's, gathered a zest which\r
+could not be won from the question whether the Lords would throw out\r
+the Reform Bill.\r
+\r
+For hardly anybody doubted that some scandalous reason or other was at\r
+the bottom of Bulstrode's liberality to Lydgate. Mr. Hawley indeed, in\r
+the first instance, invited a select party, including the two\r
+physicians, with Mr Toller and Mr. Wrench, expressly to hold a close\r
+discussion as to the probabilities of Raffles's illness, reciting to\r
+them all the particulars which had been gathered from Mrs. Abel in\r
+connection with Lydgate's certificate, that the death was due to\r
+delirium tremens; and the medical gentlemen, who all stood\r
+undisturbedly on the old paths in relation to this disease, declared\r
+that they could see nothing in these particulars which could be\r
+transformed into a positive ground of suspicion. But the moral grounds\r
+of suspicion remained: the strong motives Bulstrode clearly had for\r
+wishing to be rid of Raffles, and the fact that at this critical moment\r
+he had given Lydgate the help which he must for some time have known\r
+the need for; the disposition, moreover, to believe that Bulstrode\r
+would be unscrupulous, and the absence of any indisposition to believe\r
+that Lydgate might be as easily bribed as other haughty-minded men when\r
+they have found themselves in want of money. Even if the money had\r
+been given merely to make him hold his tongue about the scandal of\r
+Bulstrode's earlier life, the fact threw an odious light on Lydgate,\r
+who had long been sneered at as making himself subservient to the\r
+banker for the sake of working himself into predominance, and\r
+discrediting the elder members of his profession. Hence, in spite of\r
+the negative as to any direct sign of guilt in relation to the death at\r
+Stone Court, Mr. Hawley's select party broke up with the sense that the\r
+affair had "an ugly look."\r
+\r
+But this vague conviction of indeterminable guilt, which was enough to\r
+keep up much head-shaking and biting innuendo even among substantial\r
+professional seniors, had for the general mind all the superior power\r
+of mystery over fact. Everybody liked better to conjecture how the\r
+thing was, than simply to know it; for conjecture soon became more\r
+confident than knowledge, and had a more liberal allowance for the\r
+incompatible. Even the more definite scandal concerning Bulstrode's\r
+earlier life was, for some minds, melted into the mass of mystery, as\r
+so much lively metal to be poured out in dialogue, and to take such\r
+fantastic shapes as heaven pleased.\r
+\r
+This was the tone of thought chiefly sanctioned by Mrs. Dollop, the\r
+spirited landlady of the Tankard in Slaughter Lane, who had often to\r
+resist the shallow pragmatism of customers disposed to think that their\r
+reports from the outer world were of equal force with what had "come\r
+up" in her mind. How it had been brought to her she didn't know, but\r
+it was there before her as if it had been "scored with the chalk on the\r
+chimney-board--" as Bulstrode should say, "his inside was _that black_\r
+as if the hairs of his head knowed the thoughts of his heart, he'd tear\r
+'em up by the roots."\r
+\r
+"That's odd," said Mr. Limp, a meditative shoemaker, with weak eyes and\r
+a piping voice. "Why, I read in the 'Trumpet' that was what the Duke\r
+of Wellington said when he turned his coat and went over to the Romans."\r
+\r
+"Very like," said Mrs. Dollop. "If one raskill said it, it's more\r
+reason why another should. But hypo_crite_ as he's been, and holding\r
+things with that high hand, as there was no parson i' the country good\r
+enough for him, he was forced to take Old Harry into his counsel, and\r
+Old Harry's been too many for him."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay, he's a 'complice you can't send out o' the country," said Mr.\r
+Crabbe, the glazier, who gathered much news and groped among it dimly.\r
+"But by what I can make out, there's them says Bulstrode was for\r
+running away, for fear o' being found out, before now."\r
+\r
+"He'll be drove away, whether or no," said Mr. Dill, the barber, who\r
+had just dropped in. "I shaved Fletcher, Hawley's clerk, this\r
+morning--he's got a bad finger--and he says they're all of one mind to\r
+get rid of Bulstrode. Mr. Thesiger is turned against him, and wants\r
+him out o' the parish. And there's gentlemen in this town says they'd\r
+as soon dine with a fellow from the hulks. 'And a deal sooner I\r
+would,' says Fletcher; 'for what's more against one's stomach than a\r
+man coming and making himself bad company with his religion, and giving\r
+out as the Ten Commandments are not enough for him, and all the while\r
+he's worse than half the men at the tread-mill?' Fletcher said so\r
+himself."\r
+\r
+"It'll be a bad thing for the town though, if Bulstrode's money goes\r
+out of it," said Mr. Limp, quaveringly.\r
+\r
+"Ah, there's better folks spend their money worse," said a firm-voiced\r
+dyer, whose crimson hands looked out of keeping with his good-natured\r
+face.\r
+\r
+"But he won't keep his money, by what I can make out," said the\r
+glazier. "Don't they say as there's somebody can strip it off him? By\r
+what I can understan', they could take every penny off him, if they\r
+went to lawing."\r
+\r
+"No such thing!" said the barber, who felt himself a little above his\r
+company at Dollop's, but liked it none the worse. "Fletcher says it's\r
+no such thing. He says they might prove over and over again whose\r
+child this young Ladislaw was, and they'd do no more than if they\r
+proved I came out of the Fens--he couldn't touch a penny."\r
+\r
+"Look you there now!" said Mrs. Dollop, indignantly. "I thank the Lord\r
+he took my children to Himself, if that's all the law can do for the\r
+motherless. Then by that, it's o' no use who your father and mother\r
+is. But as to listening to what one lawyer says without asking\r
+another--I wonder at a man o' your cleverness, Mr. Dill. It's well\r
+known there's always two sides, if no more; else who'd go to law, I\r
+should like to know? It's a poor tale, with all the law as there is up\r
+and down, if it's no use proving whose child you are. Fletcher may say\r
+that if he likes, but I say, don't Fletcher _me_!"\r
+\r
+Mr. Dill affected to laugh in a complimentary way at Mrs. Dollop, as a\r
+woman who was more than a match for the lawyers; being disposed to\r
+submit to much twitting from a landlady who had a long score against\r
+him.\r
+\r
+"If they come to lawing, and it's all true as folks say, there's more\r
+to be looked to nor money," said the glazier. "There's this poor\r
+creetur as is dead and gone; by what I can make out, he'd seen the day\r
+when he was a deal finer gentleman nor Bulstrode."\r
+\r
+"Finer gentleman! I'll warrant him," said Mrs. Dollop; "and a far\r
+personabler man, by what I can hear. As I said when Mr. Baldwin, the\r
+tax-gatherer, comes in, a-standing where you sit, and says, 'Bulstrode\r
+got all his money as he brought into this town by thieving and\r
+swindling,'--I said, 'You don't make me no wiser, Mr. Baldwin: it's set\r
+my blood a-creeping to look at him ever sin' here he came into\r
+Slaughter Lane a-wanting to buy the house over my head: folks don't\r
+look the color o' the dough-tub and stare at you as if they wanted to\r
+see into your backbone for nothingk.' That was what I said, and Mr.\r
+Baldwin can bear me witness."\r
+\r
+"And in the rights of it too," said Mr. Crabbe. "For by what I can\r
+make out, this Raffles, as they call him, was a lusty, fresh-colored\r
+man as you'd wish to see, and the best o' company--though dead he lies\r
+in Lowick churchyard sure enough; and by what I can understan', there's\r
+them knows more than they _should_ know about how he got there."\r
+\r
+"I'll believe you!" said Mrs. Dallop, with a touch of scorn at Mr.\r
+Crabbe's apparent dimness. "When a man's been 'ticed to a lone house,\r
+and there's them can pay for hospitals and nurses for half the\r
+country-side choose to be sitters-up night and day, and nobody to come\r
+near but a doctor as is known to stick at nothingk, and as poor as he\r
+can hang together, and after that so flush o' money as he can pay off\r
+Mr. Byles the butcher as his bill has been running on for the best o'\r
+joints since last Michaelmas was a twelvemonth--I don't want anybody to\r
+come and tell me as there's been more going on nor the Prayer-book's\r
+got a service for--I don't want to stand winking and blinking and\r
+thinking."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dollop looked round with the air of a landlady accustomed to\r
+dominate her company. There was a chorus of adhesion from the more\r
+courageous; but Mr. Limp, after taking a draught, placed his flat hands\r
+together and pressed them hard between his knees, looking down at them\r
+with blear-eyed contemplation, as if the scorching power of Mrs.\r
+Dollop's speech had quite dried up and nullified his wits until they\r
+could be brought round again by further moisture.\r
+\r
+"Why shouldn't they dig the man up and have the Crowner?" said the\r
+dyer. "It's been done many and many's the time. If there's been foul\r
+play they might find it out."\r
+\r
+"Not they, Mr. Jonas!" said Mrs Dollop, emphatically. "I know what\r
+doctors are. They're a deal too cunning to be found out. And this\r
+Doctor Lydgate that's been for cutting up everybody before the breath\r
+was well out o' their body--it's plain enough what use he wanted to\r
+make o' looking into respectable people's insides. He knows drugs, you\r
+may be sure, as you can neither smell nor see, neither before they're\r
+swallowed nor after. Why, I've seen drops myself ordered by Doctor\r
+Gambit, as is our club doctor and a good charikter, and has brought\r
+more live children into the world nor ever another i' Middlemarch--I\r
+say I've seen drops myself as made no difference whether they was in\r
+the glass or out, and yet have griped you the next day. So I'll leave\r
+your own sense to judge. Don't tell me! All I say is, it's a mercy\r
+they didn't take this Doctor Lydgate on to our club. There's many a\r
+mother's child might ha' rued it."\r
+\r
+The heads of this discussion at "Dollop's" had been the common theme\r
+among all classes in the town, had been carried to Lowick Parsonage on\r
+one side and to Tipton Grange on the other, had come fully to the ears\r
+of the Vincy family, and had been discussed with sad reference to "poor\r
+Harriet" by all Mrs. Bulstrode's friends, before Lydgate knew\r
+distinctly why people were looking strangely at him, and before\r
+Bulstrode himself suspected the betrayal of his secrets. He had not\r
+been accustomed to very cordial relations with his neighbors, and hence\r
+he could not miss the signs of cordiality; moreover, he had been taking\r
+journeys on business of various kinds, having now made up his mind that\r
+he need not quit Middlemarch, and feeling able consequently to\r
+determine on matters which he had before left in suspense.\r
+\r
+"We will make a journey to Cheltenham in the course of a month or two,"\r
+he had said to his wife. "There are great spiritual advantages to be\r
+had in that town along with the air and the waters, and six weeks there\r
+will be eminently refreshing to us."\r
+\r
+He really believed in the spiritual advantages, and meant that his life\r
+henceforth should be the more devoted because of those later sins which\r
+he represented to himself as hypothetic, praying hypothetically for\r
+their pardon:--"if I have herein transgressed."\r
+\r
+As to the Hospital, he avoided saying anything further to Lydgate,\r
+fearing to manifest a too sudden change of plans immediately on the\r
+death of Raffles. In his secret soul he believed that Lydgate\r
+suspected his orders to have been intentionally disobeyed, and\r
+suspecting this he must also suspect a motive. But nothing had been\r
+betrayed to him as to the history of Raffles, and Bulstrode was anxious\r
+not to do anything which would give emphasis to his undefined\r
+suspicions. As to any certainty that a particular method of treatment\r
+would either save or kill, Lydgate himself was constantly arguing\r
+against such dogmatism; he had no right to speak, and he had every\r
+motive for being silent. Hence Bulstrode felt himself providentially\r
+secured. The only incident he had strongly winced under had been an\r
+occasional encounter with Caleb Garth, who, however, had raised his hat\r
+with mild gravity.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, on the part of the principal townsmen a strong determination\r
+was growing against him.\r
+\r
+A meeting was to be held in the Town-Hall on a sanitary question which\r
+had risen into pressing importance by the occurrence of a cholera case\r
+in the town. Since the Act of Parliament, which had been hurriedly\r
+passed, authorizing assessments for sanitary measures, there had been a\r
+Board for the superintendence of such measures appointed in\r
+Middlemarch, and much cleansing and preparation had been concurred in\r
+by Whigs and Tories. The question now was, whether a piece of ground\r
+outside the town should be secured as a burial-ground by means of\r
+assessment or by private subscription. The meeting was to be open, and\r
+almost everybody of importance in the town was expected to be there.\r
+\r
+Mr. Bulstrode was a member of the Board, and just before twelve o'clock\r
+he started from the Bank with the intention of urging the plan of\r
+private subscription. Under the hesitation of his projects, he had for\r
+some time kept himself in the background, and he felt that he should\r
+this morning resume his old position as a man of action and influence\r
+in the public affairs of the town where he expected to end his days.\r
+Among the various persons going in the same direction, he saw Lydgate;\r
+they joined, talked over the object of the meeting, and entered it\r
+together.\r
+\r
+It seemed that everybody of mark had been earlier than they. But there\r
+were still spaces left near the head of the large central table, and\r
+they made their way thither. Mr. Farebrother sat opposite, not far\r
+from Mr. Hawley; all the medical men were there; Mr. Thesiger was in\r
+the chair, and Mr. Brooke of Tipton was on his right hand.\r
+\r
+Lydgate noticed a peculiar interchange of glances when he and Bulstrode\r
+took their seats.\r
+\r
+After the business had been fully opened by the chairman, who pointed\r
+out the advantages of purchasing by subscription a piece of ground\r
+large enough to be ultimately used as a general cemetery, Mr.\r
+Bulstrode, whose rather high-pitched but subdued and fluent voice the\r
+town was used to at meetings of this sort, rose and asked leave to\r
+deliver his opinion. Lydgate could see again the peculiar interchange\r
+of glances before Mr. Hawley started up, and said in his firm resonant\r
+voice, "Mr. Chairman, I request that before any one delivers his\r
+opinion on this point I may be permitted to speak on a question of\r
+public feeling, which not only by myself, but by many gentlemen\r
+present, is regarded as preliminary."\r
+\r
+Mr. Hawley's mode of speech, even when public decorum repressed his\r
+"awful language," was formidable in its curtness and self-possession.\r
+Mr. Thesiger sanctioned the request, Mr. Bulstrode sat down, and Mr.\r
+Hawley continued.\r
+\r
+"In what I have to say, Mr. Chairman, I am not speaking simply on my\r
+own behalf: I am speaking with the concurrence and at the express\r
+request of no fewer than eight of my fellow-townsmen, who are\r
+immediately around us. It is our united sentiment that Mr. Bulstrode\r
+should be called upon--and I do now call upon him--to resign public\r
+positions which he holds not simply as a tax-payer, but as a gentleman\r
+among gentlemen. There are practices and there are acts which, owing\r
+to circumstances, the law cannot visit, though they may be worse than\r
+many things which are legally punishable. Honest men and gentlemen, if\r
+they don't want the company of people who perpetrate such acts, have\r
+got to defend themselves as they best can, and that is what I and the\r
+friends whom I may call my clients in this affair are determined to do.\r
+I don't say that Mr. Bulstrode has been guilty of shameful acts, but I\r
+call upon him either publicly to deny and confute the scandalous\r
+statements made against him by a man now dead, and who died in his\r
+house--the statement that he was for many years engaged in nefarious\r
+practices, and that he won his fortune by dishonest procedures--or else\r
+to withdraw from positions which could only have been allowed him as a\r
+gentleman among gentlemen."\r
+\r
+All eyes in the room were turned on Mr. Bulstrode, who, since the first\r
+mention of his name, had been going through a crisis of feeling almost\r
+too violent for his delicate frame to support. Lydgate, who himself\r
+was undergoing a shock as from the terrible practical interpretation of\r
+some faint augury, felt, nevertheless, that his own movement of\r
+resentful hatred was checked by that instinct of the Healer which\r
+thinks first of bringing rescue or relief to the sufferer, when he\r
+looked at the shrunken misery of Bulstrode's livid face.\r
+\r
+The quick vision that his life was after all a failure, that he was a\r
+dishonored man, and must quail before the glance of those towards whom\r
+he had habitually assumed the attitude of a reprover--that God had\r
+disowned him before men and left him unscreened to the triumphant scorn\r
+of those who were glad to have their hatred justified--the sense of\r
+utter futility in that equivocation with his conscience in dealing with\r
+the life of his accomplice, an equivocation which now turned venomously\r
+upon him with the full-grown fang of a discovered lie:--all this\r
+rushed through him like the agony of terror which fails to kill, and\r
+leaves the ears still open to the returning wave of execration. The\r
+sudden sense of exposure after the re-established sense of safety\r
+came--not to the coarse organization of a criminal but to--the\r
+susceptible nerve of a man whose intensest being lay in such mastery\r
+and predominance as the conditions of his life had shaped for him.\r
+\r
+But in that intense being lay the strength of reaction. Through all\r
+his bodily infirmity there ran a tenacious nerve of ambitious\r
+self-preserving will, which had continually leaped out like a flame,\r
+scattering all doctrinal fears, and which, even while he sat an object\r
+of compassion for the merciful, was beginning to stir and glow under\r
+his ashy paleness. Before the last words were out of Mr. Hawley's\r
+mouth, Bulstrode felt that he should answer, and that his answer would\r
+be a retort. He dared not get up and say, "I am not guilty, the whole\r
+story is false"--even if he had dared this, it would have seemed to\r
+him, under his present keen sense of betrayal, as vain as to pull, for\r
+covering to his nakedness, a frail rag which would rend at every little\r
+strain.\r
+\r
+For a few moments there was total silence, while every man in the room\r
+was looking at Bulstrode. He sat perfectly still, leaning hard against\r
+the back of his chair; he could not venture to rise, and when he began\r
+to speak he pressed his hands upon the seat on each side of him. But\r
+his voice was perfectly audible, though hoarser than usual, and his\r
+words were distinctly pronounced, though he paused between sentence as\r
+if short of breath. He said, turning first toward Mr. Thesiger, and\r
+then looking at Mr. Hawley--\r
+\r
+"I protest before you, sir, as a Christian minister, against the\r
+sanction of proceedings towards me which are dictated by virulent\r
+hatred. Those who are hostile to me are glad to believe any libel\r
+uttered by a loose tongue against me. And their consciences become\r
+strict against me. Say that the evil-speaking of which I am to be made\r
+the victim accuses me of malpractices--" here Bulstrode's voice rose\r
+and took on a more biting accent, till it seemed a low cry--"who shall\r
+be my accuser? Not men whose own lives are unchristian, nay,\r
+scandalous--not men who themselves use low instruments to carry out\r
+their ends--whose profession is a tissue of chicanery--who have been\r
+spending their income on their own sensual enjoyments, while I have\r
+been devoting mine to advance the best objects with regard to this life\r
+and the next."\r
+\r
+After the word chicanery there was a growing noise, half of murmurs and\r
+half of hisses, while four persons started up at once--Mr. Hawley, Mr.\r
+Toller, Mr. Chichely, and Mr. Hackbutt; but Mr. Hawley's outburst was\r
+instantaneous, and left the others behind in silence.\r
+\r
+"If you mean me, sir, I call you and every one else to the inspection\r
+of my professional life. As to Christian or unchristian, I repudiate\r
+your canting palavering Christianity; and as to the way in which I\r
+spend my income, it is not my principle to maintain thieves and cheat\r
+offspring of their due inheritance in order to support religion and set\r
+myself up as a saintly Killjoy. I affect no niceness of conscience--I\r
+have not found any nice standards necessary yet to measure your actions\r
+by, sir. And I again call upon you to enter into satisfactory\r
+explanations concerning the scandals against you, or else to withdraw\r
+from posts in which we at any rate decline you as a colleague. I say,\r
+sir, we decline to co-operate with a man whose character is not cleared\r
+from infamous lights cast upon it, not only by reports but by recent\r
+actions."\r
+\r
+"Allow me, Mr. Hawley," said the chairman; and Mr. Hawley, still\r
+fuming, bowed half impatiently, and sat down with his hands thrust deep\r
+in his pockets.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Bulstrode, it is not desirable, I think, to prolong the present\r
+discussion," said Mr. Thesiger, turning to the pallid trembling man; "I\r
+must so far concur with what has fallen from Mr. Hawley in expression\r
+of a general feeling, as to think it due to your Christian profession\r
+that you should clear yourself, if possible, from unhappy aspersions.\r
+I for my part should be willing to give you full opportunity and\r
+hearing. But I must say that your present attitude is painfully\r
+inconsistent with those principles which you have sought to identify\r
+yourself with, and for the honor of which I am bound to care. I\r
+recommend you at present, as your clergyman, and one who hopes for your\r
+reinstatement in respect, to quit the room, and avoid further hindrance\r
+to business."\r
+\r
+Bulstrode, after a moment's hesitation, took his hat from the floor and\r
+slowly rose, but he grasped the corner of the chair so totteringly that\r
+Lydgate felt sure there was not strength enough in him to walk away\r
+without support. What could he do? He could not see a man sink close\r
+to him for want of help. He rose and gave his arm to Bulstrode, and in\r
+that way led him out of the room; yet this act, which might have been\r
+one of gentle duty and pure compassion, was at this moment unspeakably\r
+bitter to him. It seemed as if he were putting his sign-manual to that\r
+association of himself with Bulstrode, of which he now saw the full\r
+meaning as it must have presented itself to other minds. He now felt\r
+the conviction that this man who was leaning tremblingly on his arm,\r
+had given him the thousand pounds as a bribe, and that somehow the\r
+treatment of Raffles had been tampered with from an evil motive. The\r
+inferences were closely linked enough; the town knew of the loan,\r
+believed it to be a bribe, and believed that he took it as a bribe.\r
+\r
+Poor Lydgate, his mind struggling under the terrible clutch of this\r
+revelation, was all the while morally forced to take Mr. Bulstrode to\r
+the Bank, send a man off for his carriage, and wait to accompany him\r
+home.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile the business of the meeting was despatched, and fringed off\r
+into eager discussion among various groups concerning this affair of\r
+Bulstrode--and Lydgate.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke, who had before heard only imperfect hints of it, and was\r
+very uneasy that he had "gone a little too far" in countenancing\r
+Bulstrode, now got himself fully informed, and felt some benevolent\r
+sadness in talking to Mr. Farebrother about the ugly light in which\r
+Lydgate had come to be regarded. Mr. Farebrother was going to walk\r
+back to Lowick.\r
+\r
+"Step into my carriage," said Mr. Brooke. "I am going round to see\r
+Mrs. Casaubon. She was to come back from Yorkshire last night. She\r
+will like to see me, you know."\r
+\r
+So they drove along, Mr. Brooke chatting with good-natured hope that\r
+there had not really been anything black in Lydgate's behavior--a\r
+young fellow whom he had seen to be quite above the common mark, when\r
+he brought a letter from his uncle Sir Godwin. Mr. Farebrother said\r
+little: he was deeply mournful: with a keen perception of human\r
+weakness, he could not be confident that under the pressure of\r
+humiliating needs Lydgate had not fallen below himself.\r
+\r
+When the carriage drove up to the gate of the Manor, Dorothea was out\r
+on the gravel, and came to greet them.\r
+\r
+"Well, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, "we have just come from a meeting--a\r
+sanitary meeting, you know."\r
+\r
+"Was Mr. Lydgate there?" said Dorothea, who looked full of health and\r
+animation, and stood with her head bare under the gleaming April\r
+lights. "I want to see him and have a great consultation with him\r
+about the Hospital. I have engaged with Mr. Bulstrode to do so."\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, "we have been hearing bad news--bad\r
+news, you know."\r
+\r
+They walked through the garden towards the churchyard gate, Mr.\r
+Farebrother wanting to go on to the parsonage; and Dorothea heard the\r
+whole sad story.\r
+\r
+She listened with deep interest, and begged to hear twice over the\r
+facts and impressions concerning Lydgate. After a short silence,\r
+pausing at the churchyard gate, and addressing Mr. Farebrother, she\r
+said energetically--\r
+\r
+"You don't believe that Mr. Lydgate is guilty of anything base? I will\r
+not believe it. Let us find out the truth and clear him!"\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+BOOK VIII.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+SUNSET AND SUNRISE.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXII.\r
+\r
+ Full souls are double mirrors, making still\r
+ An endless vista of fair things before,\r
+ Repeating things behind.\r
+\r
+\r
+Dorothea's impetuous generosity, which would have leaped at once to the\r
+vindication of Lydgate from the suspicion of having accepted money as a\r
+bribe, underwent a melancholy check when she came to consider all the\r
+circumstances of the case by the light of Mr. Farebrother's experience.\r
+\r
+"It is a delicate matter to touch," he said. "How can we begin to\r
+inquire into it? It must be either publicly by setting the magistrate\r
+and coroner to work, or privately by questioning Lydgate. As to the\r
+first proceeding there is no solid ground to go upon, else Hawley would\r
+have adopted it; and as to opening the subject with Lydgate, I confess\r
+I should shrink from it. He would probably take it as a deadly insult.\r
+I have more than once experienced the difficulty of speaking to him on\r
+personal matters. And--one should know the truth about his conduct\r
+beforehand, to feel very confident of a good result."\r
+\r
+"I feel convinced that his conduct has not been guilty: I believe that\r
+people are almost always better than their neighbors think they are,"\r
+said Dorothea. Some of her intensest experience in the last two years\r
+had set her mind strongly in opposition to any unfavorable construction\r
+of others; and for the first time she felt rather discontented with Mr.\r
+Farebrother. She disliked this cautious weighing of consequences,\r
+instead of an ardent faith in efforts of justice and mercy, which would\r
+conquer by their emotional force. Two days afterwards, he was dining\r
+at the Manor with her uncle and the Chettams, and when the dessert was\r
+standing uneaten, the servants were out of the room, and Mr. Brooke was\r
+nodding in a nap, she returned to the subject with renewed vivacity.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate would understand that if his friends hear a calumny about\r
+him their first wish must be to justify him. What do we live for, if\r
+it is not to make life less difficult to each other? I cannot be\r
+indifferent to the troubles of a man who advised me in _my_ trouble,\r
+and attended me in my illness."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's tone and manner were not more energetic than they had been\r
+when she was at the head of her uncle's table nearly three years\r
+before, and her experience since had given her more right to express a\r
+decided opinion. But Sir James Chettam was no longer the diffident and\r
+acquiescent suitor: he was the anxious brother-in-law, with a devout\r
+admiration for his sister, but with a constant alarm lest she should\r
+fall under some new illusion almost as bad as marrying Casaubon. He\r
+smiled much less; when he said "Exactly" it was more often an\r
+introduction to a dissentient opinion than in those submissive bachelor\r
+days; and Dorothea found to her surprise that she had to resolve not to\r
+be afraid of him--all the more because he was really her best friend.\r
+He disagreed with her now.\r
+\r
+"But, Dorothea," he said, remonstrantly, "you can't undertake to manage\r
+a man's life for him in that way. Lydgate must know--at least he will\r
+soon come to know how he stands. If he can clear himself, he will. He\r
+must act for himself."\r
+\r
+"I think his friends must wait till they find an opportunity," added\r
+Mr. Farebrother. "It is possible--I have often felt so much weakness\r
+in myself that I can conceive even a man of honorable disposition, such\r
+as I have always believed Lydgate to be, succumbing to such a\r
+temptation as that of accepting money which was offered more or less\r
+indirectly as a bribe to insure his silence about scandalous facts long\r
+gone by. I say, I can conceive this, if he were under the pressure of\r
+hard circumstances--if he had been harassed as I feel sure Lydgate has\r
+been. I would not believe anything worse of him except under stringent\r
+proof. But there is the terrible Nemesis following on some errors,\r
+that it is always possible for those who like it to interpret them into\r
+a crime: there is no proof in favor of the man outside his own\r
+consciousness and assertion."\r
+\r
+"Oh, how cruel!" said Dorothea, clasping her hands. "And would you not\r
+like to be the one person who believed in that man's innocence, if the\r
+rest of the world belied him? Besides, there is a man's character\r
+beforehand to speak for him."\r
+\r
+"But, my dear Mrs. Casaubon," said Mr. Farebrother, smiling gently at\r
+her ardor, "character is not cut in marble--it is not something solid\r
+and unalterable. It is something living and changing, and may become\r
+diseased as our bodies do."\r
+\r
+"Then it may be rescued and healed," said Dorothea "I should not be\r
+afraid of asking Mr. Lydgate to tell me the truth, that I might help\r
+him. Why should I be afraid? Now that I am not to have the land,\r
+James, I might do as Mr. Bulstrode proposed, and take his place in\r
+providing for the Hospital; and I have to consult Mr. Lydgate, to know\r
+thoroughly what are the prospects of doing good by keeping up the\r
+present plans. There is the best opportunity in the world for me to\r
+ask for his confidence; and he would be able to tell me things which\r
+might make all the circumstances clear. Then we would all stand by him\r
+and bring him out of his trouble. People glorify all sorts of bravery\r
+except the bravery they might show on behalf of their nearest\r
+neighbors." Dorothea's eyes had a moist brightness in them, and the\r
+changed tones of her voice roused her uncle, who began to listen.\r
+\r
+"It is true that a woman may venture on some efforts of sympathy which\r
+would hardly succeed if we men undertook them," said Mr. Farebrother,\r
+almost converted by Dorothea's ardor.\r
+\r
+"Surely, a woman is bound to be cautious and listen to those who know\r
+the world better than she does." said Sir James, with his little\r
+frown. "Whatever you do in the end, Dorothea, you should really keep\r
+back at present, and not volunteer any meddling with this Bulstrode\r
+business. We don't know yet what may turn up. You must agree with\r
+me?" he ended, looking at Mr. Farebrother.\r
+\r
+"I do think it would be better to wait," said the latter.\r
+\r
+"Yes, yes, my dear," said Mr. Brooke, not quite knowing at what point\r
+the discussion had arrived, but coming up to it with a contribution\r
+which was generally appropriate. "It is easy to go too far, you know.\r
+You must not let your ideas run away with you. And as to being in a\r
+hurry to put money into schemes--it won't do, you know. Garth has\r
+drawn me in uncommonly with repairs, draining, that sort of thing: I'm\r
+uncommonly out of pocket with one thing or another. I must pull up.\r
+As for you, Chettam, you are spending a fortune on those oak fences\r
+round your demesne."\r
+\r
+Dorothea, submitting uneasily to this discouragement, went with Celia\r
+into the library, which was her usual drawing-room.\r
+\r
+"Now, Dodo, do listen to what James says," said Celia, "else you will\r
+be getting into a scrape. You always did, and you always will, when\r
+you set about doing as you please. And I think it is a mercy now after\r
+all that you have got James to think for you. He lets you have your\r
+plans, only he hinders you from being taken in. And that is the good\r
+of having a brother instead of a husband. A husband would not let you\r
+have your plans."\r
+\r
+"As if I wanted a husband!" said Dorothea. "I only want not to have my\r
+feelings checked at every turn." Mrs. Casaubon was still undisciplined\r
+enough to burst into angry tears.\r
+\r
+"Now, really, Dodo," said Celia, with rather a deeper guttural than\r
+usual, "you _are_ contradictory: first one thing and then another. You\r
+used to submit to Mr. Casaubon quite shamefully: I think you would have\r
+given up ever coming to see me if he had asked you."\r
+\r
+"Of course I submitted to him, because it was my duty; it was my\r
+feeling for him," said Dorothea, looking through the prism of her tears.\r
+\r
+"Then why can't you think it your duty to submit a little to what James\r
+wishes?" said Celia, with a sense of stringency in her argument.\r
+"Because he only wishes what is for your own good. And, of course, men\r
+know best about everything, except what women know better." Dorothea\r
+laughed and forgot her tears.\r
+\r
+"Well, I mean about babies and those things," explained Celia. "I\r
+should not give up to James when I knew he was wrong, as you used to do\r
+to Mr. Casaubon."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXIII.\r
+\r
+ Pity the laden one; this wandering woe\r
+ May visit you and me.\r
+\r
+\r
+When Lydgate had allayed Mrs. Bulstrode's anxiety by telling her that\r
+her husband had been seized with faintness at the meeting, but that he\r
+trusted soon to see him better and would call again the next day,\r
+unless she sent for him earlier, he went directly home, got on his\r
+horse, and rode three miles out of the town for the sake of being out\r
+of reach.\r
+\r
+He felt himself becoming violent and unreasonable as if raging under\r
+the pain of stings: he was ready to curse the day on which he had come\r
+to Middlemarch. Everything that bad happened to him there seemed a\r
+mere preparation for this hateful fatality, which had come as a blight\r
+on his honorable ambition, and must make even people who had only\r
+vulgar standards regard his reputation as irrevocably damaged. In such\r
+moments a man can hardly escape being unloving. Lydgate thought of\r
+himself as the sufferer, and of others as the agents who had injured\r
+his lot. He had meant everything to turn out differently; and others\r
+had thrust themselves into his life and thwarted his purposes. His\r
+marriage seemed an unmitigated calamity; and he was afraid of going to\r
+Rosamond before he had vented himself in this solitary rage, lest the\r
+mere sight of her should exasperate him and make him behave\r
+unwarrantably. There are episodes in most men's lives in which their\r
+highest qualities can only cast a deterring shadow over the objects\r
+that fill their inward vision: Lydgate's tenderheartedness was present\r
+just then only as a dread lest he should offend against it, not as an\r
+emotion that swayed him to tenderness. For he was very miserable.\r
+Only those who know the supremacy of the intellectual life--the life\r
+which has a seed of ennobling thought and purpose within it--can\r
+understand the grief of one who falls from that serene activity into\r
+the absorbing soul-wasting struggle with worldly annoyances.\r
+\r
+How was he to live on without vindicating himself among people who\r
+suspected him of baseness? How could he go silently away from\r
+Middlemarch as if he were retreating before a just condemnation? And\r
+yet how was he to set about vindicating himself?\r
+\r
+For that scene at the meeting, which he had just witnessed, although it\r
+had told him no particulars, had been enough to make his own situation\r
+thoroughly clear to him. Bulstrode had been in dread of scandalous\r
+disclosures on the part of Raffles. Lydgate could now construct all\r
+the probabilities of the case. "He was afraid of some betrayal in my\r
+hearing: all he wanted was to bind me to him by a strong obligation:\r
+that was why he passed on a sudden from hardness to liberality. And he\r
+may have tampered with the patient--he may have disobeyed my orders. I\r
+fear he did. But whether he did or not, the world believes that he\r
+somehow or other poisoned the man and that I winked at the crime, if I\r
+didn't help in it. And yet--and yet he may not be guilty of the last\r
+offence; and it is just possible that the change towards me may have\r
+been a genuine relenting--the effect of second thoughts such as he\r
+alleged. What we call the 'just possible' is sometimes true and the\r
+thing we find it easier to believe is grossly false. In his last\r
+dealings with this man Bulstrode may have kept his hands pure, in spite\r
+of my suspicion to the contrary."\r
+\r
+There was a benumbing cruelty in his position. Even if he renounced\r
+every other consideration than that of justifying himself--if he met\r
+shrugs, cold glances, and avoidance as an accusation, and made a public\r
+statement of all the facts as he knew them, who would be convinced? It\r
+would be playing the part of a fool to offer his own testimony on\r
+behalf of himself, and say, "I did not take the money as a bribe." The\r
+circumstances would always be stronger than his assertion. And\r
+besides, to come forward and tell everything about himself must include\r
+declarations about Bulstrode which would darken the suspicions of\r
+others against him. He must tell that he had not known of Raffles's\r
+existence when he first mentioned his pressing need of money to\r
+Bulstrode, and that he took the money innocently as a result of that\r
+communication, not knowing that a new motive for the loan might have\r
+arisen on his being called in to this man. And after all, the\r
+suspicion of Bulstrode's motives might be unjust.\r
+\r
+But then came the question whether he should have acted in precisely\r
+the same way if he had not taken the money? Certainly, if Raffles had\r
+continued alive and susceptible of further treatment when he arrived,\r
+and he had then imagined any disobedience to his orders on the part of\r
+Bulstrode, he would have made a strict inquiry, and if his conjecture\r
+had been verified he would have thrown up the case, in spite of his\r
+recent heavy obligation. But if he had not received any money--if\r
+Bulstrode had never revoked his cold recommendation of bankruptcy--would\r
+he, Lydgate, have abstained from all inquiry even on finding the\r
+man dead?--would the shrinking from an insult to Bulstrode--would the\r
+dubiousness of all medical treatment and the argument that his own\r
+treatment would pass for the wrong with most members of his\r
+profession--have had just the same force or significance with him?\r
+\r
+That was the uneasy corner of Lydgate's consciousness while he was\r
+reviewing the facts and resisting all reproach. If he had been\r
+independent, this matter of a patient's treatment and the distinct rule\r
+that he must do or see done that which he believed best for the life\r
+committed to him, would have been the point on which he would have been\r
+the sturdiest. As it was, he had rested in the consideration that\r
+disobedience to his orders, however it might have arisen, could not be\r
+considered a crime, that in the dominant opinion obedience to his\r
+orders was just as likely to be fatal, and that the affair was simply\r
+one of etiquette. Whereas, again and again, in his time of freedom, he\r
+had denounced the perversion of pathological doubt into moral doubt and\r
+had said--"the purest experiment in treatment may still be\r
+conscientious: my business is to take care of life, and to do the best\r
+I can think of for it. Science is properly more scrupulous than dogma.\r
+Dogma gives a charter to mistake, but the very breath of science is a\r
+contest with mistake, and must keep the conscience alive." Alas! the\r
+scientific conscience had got into the debasing company of money\r
+obligation and selfish respects.\r
+\r
+"Is there a medical man of them all in Middlemarch who would question\r
+himself as I do?" said poor Lydgate, with a renewed outburst of\r
+rebellion against the oppression of his lot. "And yet they will all\r
+feel warranted in making a wide space between me and them, as if I were\r
+a leper! My practice and my reputation are utterly damned--I can see\r
+that. Even if I could be cleared by valid evidence, it would make\r
+little difference to the blessed world here. I have been set down as\r
+tainted and should be cheapened to them all the same."\r
+\r
+Already there had been abundant signs which had hitherto puzzled him,\r
+that just when he had been paying off his debts and getting cheerfully\r
+on his feet, the townsmen were avoiding him or looking strangely at\r
+him, and in two instances it came to his knowledge that patients of his\r
+had called in another practitioner. The reasons were too plain now.\r
+The general black-balling had begun.\r
+\r
+No wonder that in Lydgate's energetic nature the sense of a hopeless\r
+misconstruction easily turned into a dogged resistance. The scowl\r
+which occasionally showed itself on his square brow was not a\r
+meaningless accident. Already when he was re-entering the town after\r
+that ride taken in the first hours of stinging pain, he was setting his\r
+mind on remaining in Middlemarch in spite of the worst that could be\r
+done against him. He would not retreat before calumny, as if he\r
+submitted to it. He would face it to the utmost, and no act of his\r
+should show that he was afraid. It belonged to the generosity as well\r
+as defiant force of his nature that he resolved not to shrink from\r
+showing to the full his sense of obligation to Bulstrode. It was true\r
+that the association with this man had been fatal to him--true that if\r
+he had had the thousand pounds still in his hands with all his debts\r
+unpaid he would have returned the money to Bulstrode, and taken beggary\r
+rather than the rescue which had been sullied with the suspicion of a\r
+bribe (for, remember, he was one of the proudest among the sons of\r
+men)--nevertheless, he would not turn away from this crushed\r
+fellow-mortal whose aid he had used, and make a pitiful effort to get\r
+acquittal for himself by howling against another. "I shall do as I\r
+think right, and explain to nobody. They will try to starve me out,\r
+but--" he was going on with an obstinate resolve, but he was getting\r
+near home, and the thought of Rosamond urged itself again into that\r
+chief place from which it had been thrust by the agonized struggles of\r
+wounded honor and pride.\r
+\r
+How would Rosamond take it all? Here was another weight of chain to\r
+drag, and poor Lydgate was in a bad mood for bearing her dumb mastery.\r
+He had no impulse to tell her the trouble which must soon be common to\r
+them both. He preferred waiting for the incidental disclosure which\r
+events must soon bring about.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXIV.\r
+\r
+ "Mercifully grant that we may grow aged together."\r
+ --BOOK OF TOBIT: Marriage Prayer.\r
+\r
+\r
+In Middlemarch a wife could not long remain ignorant that the town held\r
+a bad opinion of her husband. No feminine intimate might carry her\r
+friendship so far as to make a plain statement to the wife of the\r
+unpleasant fact known or believed about her husband; but when a woman\r
+with her thoughts much at leisure got them suddenly employed on\r
+something grievously disadvantageous to her neighbors, various moral\r
+impulses were called into play which tended to stimulate utterance.\r
+Candor was one. To be candid, in Middlemarch phraseology, meant, to\r
+use an early opportunity of letting your friends know that you did not\r
+take a cheerful view of their capacity, their conduct, or their\r
+position; and a robust candor never waited to be asked for its opinion.\r
+Then, again, there was the love of truth--a wide phrase, but meaning in\r
+this relation, a lively objection to seeing a wife look happier than\r
+her husband's character warranted, or manifest too much satisfaction in\r
+her lot--the poor thing should have some hint given her that if she\r
+knew the truth she would have less complacency in her bonnet, and in\r
+light dishes for a supper-party. Stronger than all, there was the\r
+regard for a friend's moral improvement, sometimes called her soul,\r
+which was likely to be benefited by remarks tending to gloom, uttered\r
+with the accompaniment of pensive staring at the furniture and a manner\r
+implying that the speaker would not tell what was on her mind, from\r
+regard to the feelings of her hearer. On the whole, one might say that\r
+an ardent charity was at work setting the virtuous mind to make a\r
+neighbor unhappy for her good.\r
+\r
+There were hardly any wives in Middlemarch whose matrimonial\r
+misfortunes would in different ways be likely to call forth more of\r
+this moral activity than Rosamond and her aunt Bulstrode. Mrs.\r
+Bulstrode was not an object of dislike, and had never consciously\r
+injured any human being. Men had always thought her a handsome\r
+comfortable woman, and had reckoned it among the signs of Bulstrode's\r
+hypocrisy that he had chosen a red-blooded Vincy, instead of a ghastly\r
+and melancholy person suited to his low esteem for earthly pleasure.\r
+When the scandal about her husband was disclosed they remarked of\r
+her--"Ah, poor woman! She's as honest as the day--_she_ never\r
+suspected anything wrong in him, you may depend on it." Women, who\r
+were intimate with her, talked together much of "poor Harriet,"\r
+imagined what her feelings must be when she came to know everything,\r
+and conjectured how much she had already come to know. There was no\r
+spiteful disposition towards her; rather, there was a busy benevolence\r
+anxious to ascertain what it would be well for her to feel and do under\r
+the circumstances, which of course kept the imagination occupied with\r
+her character and history from the times when she was Harriet Vincy\r
+till now. With the review of Mrs. Bulstrode and her position it was\r
+inevitable to associate Rosamond, whose prospects were under the same\r
+blight with her aunt's. Rosamond was more severely criticised and less\r
+pitied, though she too, as one of the good old Vincy family who had\r
+always been known in Middlemarch, was regarded as a victim to marriage\r
+with an interloper. The Vincys had their weaknesses, but then they lay\r
+on the surface: there was never anything bad to be "found out"\r
+concerning them. Mrs. Bulstrode was vindicated from any resemblance to\r
+her husband. Harriet's faults were her own.\r
+\r
+"She has always been showy," said Mrs. Hackbutt, making tea for a small\r
+party, "though she has got into the way of putting her religion\r
+forward, to conform to her husband; she has tried to hold her head up\r
+above Middlemarch by making it known that she invites clergymen and\r
+heaven-knows-who from Riverston and those places."\r
+\r
+"We can hardly blame her for that," said Mrs. Sprague; "because few of\r
+the best people in the town cared to associate with Bulstrode, and she\r
+must have somebody to sit down at her table."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Thesiger has always countenanced him," said Mrs. Hackbutt. "I\r
+think he must be sorry now."\r
+\r
+"But he was never fond of him in his heart--that every one knows," said\r
+Mrs. Tom Toller. "Mr. Thesiger never goes into extremes. He keeps to\r
+the truth in what is evangelical. It is only clergymen like Mr. Tyke,\r
+who want to use Dissenting hymn-books and that low kind of religion,\r
+who ever found Bulstrode to their taste."\r
+\r
+"I understand, Mr. Tyke is in great distress about him," said Mrs.\r
+Hackbutt. "And well he may be: they say the Bulstrodes have half kept\r
+the Tyke family."\r
+\r
+"And of course it is a discredit to his doctrines," said Mrs. Sprague,\r
+who was elderly, and old-fashioned in her opinions.\r
+\r
+"People will not make a boast of being methodistical in Middlemarch for\r
+a good while to come."\r
+\r
+"I think we must not set down people's bad actions to their religion,"\r
+said falcon-faced Mrs. Plymdale, who had been listening hitherto.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, we are forgetting," said Mrs. Sprague. "We ought not to\r
+be talking of this before you."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I have no reason to be partial," said Mrs. Plymdale,\r
+coloring. "It's true Mr. Plymdale has always been on good terms with\r
+Mr. Bulstrode, and Harriet Vincy was my friend long before she married\r
+him. But I have always kept my own opinions and told her where she was\r
+wrong, poor thing. Still, in point of religion, I must say, Mr.\r
+Bulstrode might have done what he has, and worse, and yet have been a\r
+man of no religion. I don't say that there has not been a little too\r
+much of that--I like moderation myself. But truth is truth. The men\r
+tried at the assizes are not all over-religious, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Mrs. Hackbutt, wheeling adroitly, "all I can say is, that\r
+I think she ought to separate from him."\r
+\r
+"I can't say that," said Mrs. Sprague. "She took him for better or\r
+worse, you know."\r
+\r
+"But 'worse' can never mean finding out that your husband is fit for\r
+Newgate," said Mrs. Hackbutt. "Fancy living with such a man! I should\r
+expect to be poisoned."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I think myself it is an encouragement to crime if such men are to\r
+be taken care of and waited on by good wives," said Mrs. Tom Toller.\r
+\r
+"And a good wife poor Harriet has been," said Mrs. Plymdale. "She\r
+thinks her husband the first of men. It's true he has never denied her\r
+anything."\r
+\r
+"Well, we shall see what she will do," said Mrs. Hackbutt. "I suppose\r
+she knows nothing yet, poor creature. I do hope and trust I shall not\r
+see her, for I should be frightened to death lest I should say anything\r
+about her husband. Do you think any hint has reached her?"\r
+\r
+"I should hardly think so," said Mrs. Tom Toller. "We hear that he is\r
+ill, and has never stirred out of the house since the meeting on\r
+Thursday; but she was with her girls at church yesterday, and they had\r
+new Tuscan bonnets. Her own had a feather in it. I have never seen\r
+that her religion made any difference in her dress."\r
+\r
+"She wears very neat patterns always," said Mrs. Plymdale, a little\r
+stung. "And that feather I know she got dyed a pale lavender on\r
+purpose to be consistent. I must say it of Harriet that she wishes to\r
+do right."\r
+\r
+"As to her knowing what has happened, it can't be kept from her long,"\r
+said Mrs. Hackbutt. "The Vincys know, for Mr. Vincy was at the\r
+meeting. It will be a great blow to him. There is his daughter as\r
+well as his sister."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed," said Mrs. Sprague. "Nobody supposes that Mr. Lydgate\r
+can go on holding up his head in Middlemarch, things look so black\r
+about the thousand pounds he took just at that man's death. It really\r
+makes one shudder."\r
+\r
+"Pride must have a fall," said Mrs. Hackbutt.\r
+\r
+"I am not so sorry for Rosamond Vincy that was as I am for her aunt,"\r
+said Mrs. Plymdale. "She needed a lesson."\r
+\r
+"I suppose the Bulstrodes will go and live abroad somewhere," said Mrs.\r
+Sprague. "That is what is generally done when there is anything\r
+disgraceful in a family."\r
+\r
+"And a most deadly blow it will be to Harriet," said Mrs. Plymdale.\r
+"If ever a woman was crushed, she will be. I pity her from my heart.\r
+And with all her faults, few women are better. From a girl she had the\r
+neatest ways, and was always good-hearted, and as open as the day. You\r
+might look into her drawers when you would--always the same. And so\r
+she has brought up Kate and Ellen. You may think how hard it will be\r
+for her to go among foreigners."\r
+\r
+"The doctor says that is what he should recommend the Lydgates to do,"\r
+said Mrs. Sprague. "He says Lydgate ought to have kept among the\r
+French."\r
+\r
+"That would suit _her_ well enough, I dare say," said Mrs. Plymdale;\r
+"there is that kind of lightness about her. But she got that from her\r
+mother; she never got it from her aunt Bulstrode, who always gave her\r
+good advice, and to my knowledge would rather have had her marry\r
+elsewhere."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Plymdale was in a situation which caused her some complication of\r
+feeling. There had been not only her intimacy with Mrs. Bulstrode, but\r
+also a profitable business relation of the great Plymdale dyeing house\r
+with Mr. Bulstrode, which on the one hand would have inclined her to\r
+desire that the mildest view of his character should be the true one,\r
+but on the other, made her the more afraid of seeming to palliate his\r
+culpability. Again, the late alliance of her family with the Tollers\r
+had brought her in connection with the best circle, which gratified her\r
+in every direction except in the inclination to those serious views\r
+which she believed to be the best in another sense. The sharp little\r
+woman's conscience was somewhat troubled in the adjustment of these\r
+opposing "bests," and of her griefs and satisfactions under late\r
+events, which were likely to humble those who needed humbling, but also\r
+to fall heavily on her old friend whose faults she would have preferred\r
+seeing on a background of prosperity.\r
+\r
+Poor Mrs. Bulstrode, meanwhile, had been no further shaken by the\r
+oncoming tread of calamity than in the busier stirring of that secret\r
+uneasiness which had always been present in her since the last visit of\r
+Raffles to The Shrubs. That the hateful man had come ill to Stone\r
+Court, and that her husband had chosen to remain there and watch over\r
+him, she allowed to be explained by the fact that Raffles had been\r
+employed and aided in earlier-days, and that this made a tie of\r
+benevolence towards him in his degraded helplessness; and she had been\r
+since then innocently cheered by her husband's more hopeful speech\r
+about his own health and ability to continue his attention to business.\r
+The calm was disturbed when Lydgate had brought him home ill from the\r
+meeting, and in spite of comforting assurances during the next few\r
+days, she cried in private from the conviction that her husband was not\r
+suffering from bodily illness merely, but from something that afflicted\r
+his mind. He would not allow her to read to him, and scarcely to sit\r
+with him, alleging nervous susceptibility to sounds and movements; yet\r
+she suspected that in shutting himself up in his private room he wanted\r
+to be busy with his papers. Something, she felt sure, had happened.\r
+Perhaps it was some great loss of money; and she was kept in the dark.\r
+Not daring to question her husband, she said to Lydgate, on the fifth\r
+day after the meeting, when she had not left home except to go to\r
+church--\r
+\r
+"Mr. Lydgate, pray be open with me: I like to know the truth. Has\r
+anything happened to Mr. Bulstrode?"\r
+\r
+"Some little nervous shock," said Lydgate, evasively. He felt that it\r
+was not for him to make the painful revelation.\r
+\r
+"But what brought it on?" said Mrs. Bulstrode, looking directly at him\r
+with her large dark eyes.\r
+\r
+"There is often something poisonous in the air of public rooms," said\r
+Lydgate. "Strong men can stand it, but it tells on people in\r
+proportion to the delicacy of their systems. It is often impossible to\r
+account for the precise moment of an attack--or rather, to say why the\r
+strength gives way at a particular moment."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode was not satisfied with this answer. There remained in\r
+her the belief that some calamity had befallen her husband, of which\r
+she was to be kept in ignorance; and it was in her nature strongly to\r
+object to such concealment. She begged leave for her daughters to sit\r
+with their father, and drove into the town to pay some visits,\r
+conjecturing that if anything were known to have gone wrong in Mr.\r
+Bulstrode's affairs, she should see or hear some sign of it.\r
+\r
+She called on Mrs. Thesiger, who was not at home, and then drove to\r
+Mrs. Hackbutt's on the other side of the churchyard. Mrs. Hackbutt saw\r
+her coming from an up-stairs window, and remembering her former alarm\r
+lest she should meet Mrs. Bulstrode, felt almost bound in consistency\r
+to send word that she was not at home; but against that, there was a\r
+sudden strong desire within her for the excitement of an interview in\r
+which she was quite determined not to make the slightest allusion to\r
+what was in her mind.\r
+\r
+Hence Mrs. Bulstrode was shown into the drawing-room, and Mrs. Hackbutt\r
+went to her, with more tightness of lip and rubbing of her hands than\r
+was usually observable in her, these being precautions adopted against\r
+freedom of speech. She was resolved not to ask how Mr. Bulstrode was.\r
+\r
+"I have not been anywhere except to church for nearly a week," said\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode, after a few introductory remarks. "But Mr. Bulstrode\r
+was taken so ill at the meeting on Thursday that I have not liked to\r
+leave the house."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hackbutt rubbed the back of one hand with the palm of the other\r
+held against her chest, and let her eyes ramble over the pattern on the\r
+rug.\r
+\r
+"Was Mr. Hackbutt at the meeting?" persevered Mrs. Bulstrode.\r
+\r
+"Yes, he was," said Mrs. Hackbutt, with the same attitude. "The land\r
+is to be bought by subscription, I believe."\r
+\r
+"Let us hope that there will be no more cases of cholera to be buried\r
+in it," said Mrs. Bulstrode. "It is an awful visitation. But I always\r
+think Middlemarch a very healthy spot. I suppose it is being used to\r
+it from a child; but I never saw the town I should like to live at\r
+better, and especially our end."\r
+\r
+"I am sure I should be glad that you always should live at Middlemarch,\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode," said Mrs. Hackbutt, with a slight sigh. "Still, we\r
+must learn to resign ourselves, wherever our lot may be cast. Though I\r
+am sure there will always be people in this town who will wish you\r
+well."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Hackbutt longed to say, "if you take my advice you will part from\r
+your husband," but it seemed clear to her that the poor woman knew\r
+nothing of the thunder ready to bolt on her head, and she herself could\r
+do no more than prepare her a little. Mrs. Bulstrode felt suddenly\r
+rather chill and trembling: there was evidently something unusual\r
+behind this speech of Mrs. Hackbutt's; but though she had set out with\r
+the desire to be fully informed, she found herself unable now to pursue\r
+her brave purpose, and turning the conversation by an inquiry about the\r
+young Hackbutts, she soon took her leave saying that she was going to\r
+see Mrs. Plymdale. On her way thither she tried to imagine that there\r
+might have been some unusually warm sparring at the meeting between Mr.\r
+Bulstrode and some of his frequent opponents--perhaps Mr. Hackbutt\r
+might have been one of them. That would account for everything.\r
+\r
+But when she was in conversation with Mrs. Plymdale that comforting\r
+explanation seemed no longer tenable. "Selina" received her with a\r
+pathetic affectionateness and a disposition to give edifying answers on\r
+the commonest topics, which could hardly have reference to an ordinary\r
+quarrel of which the most important consequence was a perturbation of\r
+Mr. Bulstrode's health. Beforehand Mrs. Bulstrode had thought that she\r
+would sooner question Mrs. Plymdale than any one else; but she found to\r
+her surprise that an old friend is not always the person whom it is\r
+easiest to make a confidant of: there was the barrier of remembered\r
+communication under other circumstances--there was the dislike of\r
+being pitied and informed by one who had been long wont to allow her\r
+the superiority. For certain words of mysterious appropriateness that\r
+Mrs. Plymdale let fall about her resolution never to turn her back on\r
+her friends, convinced Mrs. Bulstrode that what had happened must be\r
+some kind of misfortune, and instead of being able to say with her\r
+native directness, "What is it that you have in your mind?" she found\r
+herself anxious to get away before she had heard anything more\r
+explicit. She began to have an agitating certainty that the misfortune\r
+was something more than the mere loss of money, being keenly sensitive\r
+to the fact that Selina now, just as Mrs. Hackbutt had done before,\r
+avoided noticing what she said about her husband, as they would have\r
+avoided noticing a personal blemish.\r
+\r
+She said good-by with nervous haste, and told the coachman to drive to\r
+Mr. Vincy's warehouse. In that short drive her dread gathered so much\r
+force from the sense of darkness, that when she entered the private\r
+counting-house where her brother sat at his desk, her knees trembled\r
+and her usually florid face was deathly pale. Something of the same\r
+effect was produced in him by the sight of her: he rose from his seat\r
+to meet her, took her by the hand, and said, with his impulsive\r
+rashness--\r
+\r
+"God help you, Harriet! you know all."\r
+\r
+That moment was perhaps worse than any which came after. It contained\r
+that concentrated experience which in great crises of emotion reveals\r
+the bias of a nature, and is prophetic of the ultimate act which will\r
+end an intermediate struggle. Without that memory of Raffles she might\r
+still have thought only of monetary ruin, but now along with her\r
+brother's look and words there darted into her mind the idea of some\r
+guilt in her husband--then, under the working of terror came the image\r
+of her husband exposed to disgrace--and then, after an instant of\r
+scorching shame in which she felt only the eyes of the world, with one\r
+leap of her heart she was at his side in mournful but unreproaching\r
+fellowship with shame and isolation. All this went on within her in a\r
+mere flash of time--while she sank into the chair, and raised her eyes\r
+to her brother, who stood over her. "I know nothing, Walter. What is\r
+it?" she said, faintly.\r
+\r
+He told her everything, very inartificially, in slow fragments, making\r
+her aware that the scandal went much beyond proof, especially as to the\r
+end of Raffles.\r
+\r
+"People will talk," he said. "Even if a man has been acquitted by a\r
+jury, they'll talk, and nod and wink--and as far as the world goes, a\r
+man might often as well be guilty as not. It's a breakdown blow, and\r
+it damages Lydgate as much as Bulstrode. I don't pretend to say what\r
+is the truth. I only wish we had never heard the name of either\r
+Bulstrode or Lydgate. You'd better have been a Vincy all your life,\r
+and so had Rosamond." Mrs. Bulstrode made no reply.\r
+\r
+"But you must bear up as well as you can, Harriet. People don't blame\r
+_you_. And I'll stand by you whatever you make up your mind to do,"\r
+said the brother, with rough but well-meaning affectionateness.\r
+\r
+"Give me your arm to the carriage, Walter," said Mrs. Bulstrode. "I\r
+feel very weak."\r
+\r
+And when she got home she was obliged to say to her daughter, "I am not\r
+well, my dear; I must go and lie down. Attend to your papa. Leave me\r
+in quiet. I shall take no dinner."\r
+\r
+She locked herself in her room. She needed time to get used to her\r
+maimed consciousness, her poor lopped life, before she could walk\r
+steadily to the place allotted her. A new searching light had fallen\r
+on her husband's character, and she could not judge him leniently: the\r
+twenty years in which she had believed in him and venerated him by\r
+virtue of his concealments came back with particulars that made them\r
+seem an odious deceit. He had married her with that bad past life\r
+hidden behind him, and she had no faith left to protest his innocence\r
+of the worst that was imputed to him. Her honest ostentatious nature\r
+made the sharing of a merited dishonor as bitter as it could be to any\r
+mortal.\r
+\r
+But this imperfectly taught woman, whose phrases and habits were an odd\r
+patchwork, had a loyal spirit within her. The man whose prosperity she\r
+had shared through nearly half a life, and who had unvaryingly\r
+cherished her--now that punishment had befallen him it was not possible\r
+to her in any sense to forsake him. There is a forsaking which still\r
+sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken\r
+soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. She knew, when she\r
+locked her door, that she should unlock it ready to go down to her\r
+unhappy husband and espouse his sorrow, and say of his guilt, I will\r
+mourn and not reproach. But she needed time to gather up her strength;\r
+she needed to sob out her farewell to all the gladness and pride of her\r
+life. When she had resolved to go down, she prepared herself by some\r
+little acts which might seem mere folly to a hard onlooker; they were\r
+her way of expressing to all spectators visible or invisible that she\r
+had begun a new life in which she embraced humiliation. She took off\r
+all her ornaments and put on a plain black gown, and instead of wearing\r
+her much-adorned cap and large bows of hair, she brushed her hair down\r
+and put on a plain bonnet-cap, which made her look suddenly like an\r
+early Methodist.\r
+\r
+Bulstrode, who knew that his wife had been out and had come in saying\r
+that she was not well, had spent the time in an agitation equal to\r
+hers. He had looked forward to her learning the truth from others, and\r
+had acquiesced in that probability, as something easier to him than any\r
+confession. But now that he imagined the moment of her knowledge come,\r
+he awaited the result in anguish. His daughters had been obliged to\r
+consent to leave him, and though he had allowed some food to be brought\r
+to him, he had not touched it. He felt himself perishing slowly in\r
+unpitied misery. Perhaps he should never see his wife's face with\r
+affection in it again. And if he turned to God there seemed to be no\r
+answer but the pressure of retribution.\r
+\r
+It was eight o'clock in the evening before the door opened and his wife\r
+entered. He dared not look up at her. He sat with his eyes bent down,\r
+and as she went towards him she thought he looked smaller--he seemed\r
+so withered and shrunken. A movement of new compassion and old\r
+tenderness went through her like a great wave, and putting one hand on\r
+his which rested on the arm of the chair, and the other on his\r
+shoulder, she said, solemnly but kindly--\r
+\r
+"Look up, Nicholas."\r
+\r
+He raised his eyes with a little start and looked at her half amazed\r
+for a moment: her pale face, her changed, mourning dress, the trembling\r
+about her mouth, all said, "I know;" and her hands and eyes rested\r
+gently on him. He burst out crying and they cried together, she\r
+sitting at his side. They could not yet speak to each other of the\r
+shame which she was bearing with him, or of the acts which had brought\r
+it down on them. His confession was silent, and her promise of\r
+faithfulness was silent. Open-minded as she was, she nevertheless\r
+shrank from the words which would have expressed their mutual\r
+consciousness, as she would have shrunk from flakes of fire. She could\r
+not say, "How much is only slander and false suspicion?" and he did not\r
+say, "I am innocent."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXV.\r
+\r
+ "Le sentiment de la fausseté des plaisirs présents, et\r
+ l'ignorance de la vanité des plaisirs absents causent\r
+ l'inconstance."--PASCAL.\r
+\r
+\r
+Rosamond had a gleam of returning cheerfulness when the house was freed\r
+from the threatening figure, and when all the disagreeable creditors\r
+were paid. But she was not joyous: her married life had fulfilled none\r
+of her hopes, and had been quite spoiled for her imagination. In this\r
+brief interval of calm, Lydgate, remembering that he had often been\r
+stormy in his hours of perturbation, and mindful of the pain Rosamond\r
+had had to bear, was carefully gentle towards her; but he, too, had\r
+lost some of his old spirit, and he still felt it necessary to refer to\r
+an economical change in their way of living as a matter of course,\r
+trying to reconcile her to it gradually, and repressing his anger when\r
+she answered by wishing that he would go to live in London. When she\r
+did not make this answer, she listened languidly, and wondered what she\r
+had that was worth living for. The hard and contemptuous words which\r
+had fallen from her husband in his anger had deeply offended that\r
+vanity which he had at first called into active enjoyment; and what she\r
+regarded as his perverse way of looking at things, kept up a secret\r
+repulsion, which made her receive all his tenderness as a poor\r
+substitute for the happiness he had failed to give her. They were at a\r
+disadvantage with their neighbors, and there was no longer any outlook\r
+towards Quallingham--there was no outlook anywhere except in an\r
+occasional letter from Will Ladislaw. She had felt stung and\r
+disappointed by Will's resolution to quit Middlemarch, for in spite of\r
+what she knew and guessed about his admiration for Dorothea, she\r
+secretly cherished the belief that he had, or would necessarily come to\r
+have, much more admiration for herself; Rosamond being one of those\r
+women who live much in the idea that each man they meet would have\r
+preferred them if the preference had not been hopeless. Mrs. Casaubon\r
+was all very well; but Will's interest in her dated before he knew Mrs.\r
+Lydgate. Rosamond took his way of talking to herself, which was a\r
+mixture of playful fault-finding and hyperbolical gallantry, as the\r
+disguise of a deeper feeling; and in his presence she felt that\r
+agreeable titillation of vanity and sense of romantic drama which\r
+Lydgate's presence had no longer the magic to create. She even\r
+fancied--what will not men and women fancy in these matters?--that\r
+Will exaggerated his admiration for Mrs. Casaubon in order to pique\r
+herself. In this way poor Rosamond's brain had been busy before Will's\r
+departure. He would have made, she thought, a much more suitable\r
+husband for her than she had found in Lydgate. No notion could have\r
+been falser than this, for Rosamond's discontent in her marriage was\r
+due to the conditions of marriage itself, to its demand for\r
+self-suppression and tolerance, and not to the nature of her husband;\r
+but the easy conception of an unreal Better had a sentimental charm\r
+which diverted her ennui. She constructed a little romance which was\r
+to vary the flatness of her life: Will Ladislaw was always to be a\r
+bachelor and live near her, always to be at her command, and have an\r
+understood though never fully expressed passion for her, which would be\r
+sending out lambent flames every now and then in interesting scenes.\r
+His departure had been a proportionate disappointment, and had sadly\r
+increased her weariness of Middlemarch; but at first she had the\r
+alternative dream of pleasures in store from her intercourse with the\r
+family at Quallingham. Since then the troubles of her married life had\r
+deepened, and the absence of other relief encouraged her regretful\r
+rumination over that thin romance which she had once fed on. Men and\r
+women make sad mistakes about their own symptoms, taking their vague\r
+uneasy longings, sometimes for genius, sometimes for religion, and\r
+oftener still for a mighty love. Will Ladislaw had written chatty\r
+letters, half to her and half to Lydgate, and she had replied: their\r
+separation, she felt, was not likely to be final, and the change she\r
+now most longed for was that Lydgate should go to live in London;\r
+everything would be agreeable in London; and she had set to work with\r
+quiet determination to win this result, when there came a sudden,\r
+delightful promise which inspirited her.\r
+\r
+It came shortly before the memorable meeting at the town-hall, and was\r
+nothing less than a letter from Will Ladislaw to Lydgate, which turned\r
+indeed chiefly on his new interest in plans of colonization, but\r
+mentioned incidentally, that he might find it necessary to pay a visit\r
+to Middlemarch within the next few weeks--a very pleasant necessity, he\r
+said, almost as good as holidays to a schoolboy. He hoped there was\r
+his old place on the rug, and a great deal of music in store for him.\r
+But he was quite uncertain as to the time. While Lydgate was reading\r
+the letter to Rosamond, her face looked like a reviving flower--it grew\r
+prettier and more blooming. There was nothing unendurable now: the\r
+debts were paid, Mr. Ladislaw was coming, and Lydgate would be\r
+persuaded to leave Middlemarch and settle in London, which was "so\r
+different from a provincial town."\r
+\r
+That was a bright bit of morning. But soon the sky became black over\r
+poor Rosamond. The presence of a new gloom in her husband, about which\r
+he was entirely reserved towards her--for he dreaded to expose his\r
+lacerated feeling to her neutrality and misconception--soon received a\r
+painfully strange explanation, alien to all her previous notions of\r
+what could affect her happiness. In the new gayety of her spirits,\r
+thinking that Lydgate had merely a worse fit of moodiness than usual,\r
+causing him to leave her remarks unanswered, and evidently to keep out\r
+of her way as much as possible, she chose, a few days after the\r
+meeting, and without speaking to him on the subject, to send out notes\r
+of invitation for a small evening party, feeling convinced that this\r
+was a judicious step, since people seemed to have been keeping aloof\r
+from them, and wanted restoring to the old habit of intercourse. When\r
+the invitations had been accepted, she would tell Lydgate, and give him\r
+a wise admonition as to how a medical man should behave to his\r
+neighbors; for Rosamond had the gravest little airs possible about\r
+other people's duties. But all the invitations were declined, and the\r
+last answer came into Lydgate's hands.\r
+\r
+"This is Chichely's scratch. What is he writing to you about?" said\r
+Lydgate, wonderingly, as he handed the note to her. She was obliged to\r
+let him see it, and, looking at her severely, he said--\r
+\r
+"Why on earth have you been sending out invitations without telling me,\r
+Rosamond? I beg, I insist that you will not invite any one to this\r
+house. I suppose you have been inviting others, and they have refused\r
+too." She said nothing.\r
+\r
+"Do you hear me?" thundered Lydgate.\r
+\r
+"Yes, certainly I hear you," said Rosamond, turning her head aside with\r
+the movement of a graceful long-necked bird.\r
+\r
+Lydgate tossed his head without any grace and walked out of the room,\r
+feeling himself dangerous. Rosamond's thought was, that he was getting\r
+more and more unbearable--not that there was any new special reason for\r
+this peremptoriness. His indisposition to tell her anything in which\r
+he was sure beforehand that she would not be interested was growing\r
+into an unreflecting habit, and she was in ignorance of everything\r
+connected with the thousand pounds except that the loan had come from\r
+her uncle Bulstrode. Lydgate's odious humors and their neighbors'\r
+apparent avoidance of them had an unaccountable date for her in their\r
+relief from money difficulties. If the invitations had been accepted\r
+she would have gone to invite her mamma and the rest, whom she had seen\r
+nothing of for several days; and she now put on her bonnet to go and\r
+inquire what had become of them all, suddenly feeling as if there were\r
+a conspiracy to leave her in isolation with a husband disposed to\r
+offend everybody. It was after the dinner hour, and she found her\r
+father and mother seated together alone in the drawing-room. They\r
+greeted her with sad looks, saying "Well, my dear!" and no more. She\r
+had never seen her father look so downcast; and seating herself near\r
+him she said--\r
+\r
+"Is there anything the matter, papa?"\r
+\r
+He did not answer, but Mrs. Vincy said, "Oh, my dear, have you heard\r
+nothing? It won't be long before it reaches you."\r
+\r
+"Is it anything about Tertius?" said Rosamond, turning pale. The idea\r
+of trouble immediately connected itself with what had been\r
+unaccountable to her in him.\r
+\r
+"Oh, my dear, yes. To think of your marrying into this trouble. Debt\r
+was bad enough, but this will be worse."\r
+\r
+"Stay, stay, Lucy," said Mr. Vincy. "Have you heard nothing about your\r
+uncle Bulstrode, Rosamond?"\r
+\r
+"No, papa," said the poor thing, feeling as if trouble were not\r
+anything she had before experienced, but some invisible power with an\r
+iron grasp that made her soul faint within her.\r
+\r
+Her father told her everything, saying at the end, "It's better for you\r
+to know, my dear. I think Lydgate must leave the town. Things have\r
+gone against him. I dare say he couldn't help it. I don't accuse him\r
+of any harm," said Mr. Vincy. He had always before been disposed to\r
+find the utmost fault with Lydgate.\r
+\r
+The shock to Rosamond was terrible. It seemed to her that no lot could\r
+be so cruelly hard as hers to have married a man who had become the\r
+centre of infamous suspicions. In many cases it is inevitable that the\r
+shame is felt to be the worst part of crime; and it would have required\r
+a great deal of disentangling reflection, such as had never entered\r
+into Rosamond's life, for her in these moments to feel that her trouble\r
+was less than if her husband had been certainly known to have done\r
+something criminal. All the shame seemed to be there. And she had\r
+innocently married this man with the belief that he and his family were\r
+a glory to her! She showed her usual reticence to her parents, and\r
+only said, that if Lydgate had done as she wished he would have left\r
+Middlemarch long ago.\r
+\r
+"She bears it beyond anything," said her mother when she was gone.\r
+\r
+"Ah, thank God!" said Mr. Vincy, who was much broken down.\r
+\r
+But Rosamond went home with a sense of justified repugnance towards her\r
+husband. What had he really done--how had he really acted? She did\r
+not know. Why had he not told her everything? He did not speak to her\r
+on the subject, and of course she could not speak to him. It came into\r
+her mind once that she would ask her father to let her go home again;\r
+but dwelling on that prospect made it seem utter dreariness to her: a\r
+married woman gone back to live with her parents--life seemed to have\r
+no meaning for her in such a position: she could not contemplate\r
+herself in it.\r
+\r
+The next two days Lydgate observed a change in her, and believed that\r
+she had heard the bad news. Would she speak to him about it, or would\r
+she go on forever in the silence which seemed to imply that she\r
+believed him guilty? We must remember that he was in a morbid state of\r
+mind, in which almost all contact was pain. Certainly Rosamond in this\r
+case had equal reason to complain of reserve and want of confidence on\r
+his part; but in the bitterness of his soul he excused himself;--was\r
+he not justified in shrinking from the task of telling her, since now\r
+she knew the truth she had no impulse to speak to him? But a\r
+deeper-lying consciousness that he was in fault made him restless, and\r
+the silence between them became intolerable to him; it was as if they\r
+were both adrift on one piece of wreck and looked away from each other.\r
+\r
+He thought, "I am a fool. Haven't I given up expecting anything? I\r
+have married care, not help." And that evening he said--\r
+\r
+"Rosamond, have you heard anything that distresses you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," she answered, laying down her work, which she had been carrying\r
+on with a languid semi-consciousness, most unlike her usual self.\r
+\r
+"What have you heard?"\r
+\r
+"Everything, I suppose. Papa told me."\r
+\r
+"That people think me disgraced?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Rosamond, faintly, beginning to sew again automatically.\r
+\r
+There was silence. Lydgate thought, "If she has any trust in me--any\r
+notion of what I am, she ought to speak now and say that she does not\r
+believe I have deserved disgrace."\r
+\r
+But Rosamond on her side went on moving her fingers languidly.\r
+Whatever was to be said on the subject she expected to come from\r
+Tertius. What did she know? And if he were innocent of any wrong, why\r
+did he not do something to clear himself?\r
+\r
+This silence of hers brought a new rush of gall to that bitter mood in\r
+which Lydgate had been saying to himself that nobody believed in\r
+him--even Farebrother had not come forward. He had begun to question\r
+her with the intent that their conversation should disperse the chill\r
+fog which had gathered between them, but he felt his resolution checked\r
+by despairing resentment. Even this trouble, like the rest, she seemed\r
+to regard as if it were hers alone. He was always to her a being\r
+apart, doing what she objected to. He started from his chair with an\r
+angry impulse, and thrusting his hands in his pockets, walked up and\r
+down the room. There was an underlying consciousness all the while\r
+that he should have to master this anger, and tell her everything, and\r
+convince her of the facts. For he had almost learned the lesson that\r
+he must bend himself to her nature, and that because she came short in\r
+her sympathy, he must give the more. Soon he recurred to his intention\r
+of opening himself: the occasion must not be lost. If he could bring\r
+her to feel with some solemnity that here was a slander which must be\r
+met and not run away from, and that the whole trouble had come out of\r
+his desperate want of money, it would be a moment for urging powerfully\r
+on her that they should be one in the resolve to do with as little\r
+money as possible, so that they might weather the bad time and keep\r
+themselves independent. He would mention the definite measures which\r
+he desired to take, and win her to a willing spirit. He was bound to\r
+try this--and what else was there for him to do?\r
+\r
+He did not know how long he had been walking uneasily backwards and\r
+forwards, but Rosamond felt that it was long, and wished that he would\r
+sit down. She too had begun to think this an opportunity for urging on\r
+Tertius what he ought to do. Whatever might be the truth about all\r
+this misery, there was one dread which asserted itself.\r
+\r
+Lydgate at last seated himself, not in his usual chair, but in one\r
+nearer to Rosamond, leaning aside in it towards her, and looking at her\r
+gravely before he reopened the sad subject. He had conquered himself\r
+so far, and was about to speak with a sense of solemnity, as on an\r
+occasion which was not to be repeated. He had even opened his lips,\r
+when Rosamond, letting her hands fall, looked at him and said--\r
+\r
+"Surely, Tertius--"\r
+\r
+"Well?"\r
+\r
+"Surely now at last you have given up the idea of staying in\r
+Middlemarch. I cannot go on living here. Let us go to London. Papa,\r
+and every one else, says you had better go. Whatever misery I have to\r
+put up with, it will be easier away from here."\r
+\r
+Lydgate felt miserably jarred. Instead of that critical outpouring for\r
+which he had prepared himself with effort, here was the old round to be\r
+gone through again. He could not bear it. With a quick change of\r
+countenance he rose and went out of the room.\r
+\r
+Perhaps if he had been strong enough to persist in his determination to\r
+be the more because she was less, that evening might have had a better\r
+issue. If his energy could have borne down that check, he might still\r
+have wrought on Rosamond's vision and will. We cannot be sure that any\r
+natures, however inflexible or peculiar, will resist this effect from a\r
+more massive being than their own. They may be taken by storm and for\r
+the moment converted, becoming part of the soul which enwraps them in\r
+the ardor of its movement. But poor Lydgate had a throbbing pain\r
+within him, and his energy had fallen short of its task.\r
+\r
+The beginning of mutual understanding and resolve seemed as far off as\r
+ever; nay, it seemed blocked out by the sense of unsuccessful effort.\r
+They lived on from day to day with their thoughts still apart, Lydgate\r
+going about what work he had in a mood of despair, and Rosamond\r
+feeling, with some justification, that he was behaving cruelly. It was\r
+of no use to say anything to Tertius; but when Will Ladislaw came, she\r
+was determined to tell him everything. In spite of her general\r
+reticence, she needed some one who would recognize her wrongs.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXVI.\r
+\r
+ "To mercy, pity, peace, and love\r
+ All pray in their distress,\r
+ And to these virtues of delight,\r
+ Return their thankfulness.\r
+ . . . . . .\r
+ For Mercy has a human heart,\r
+ Pity a human face;\r
+ And Love, the human form divine;\r
+ And Peace, the human dress.\r
+ --WILLIAM BLAKE: Songs of Innocence.\r
+\r
+\r
+Some days later, Lydgate was riding to Lowick Manor, in consequence of\r
+a summons from Dorothea. The summons had not been unexpected, since it\r
+had followed a letter from Mr. Bulstrode, in which he stated that he\r
+had resumed his arrangements for quitting Middlemarch, and must remind\r
+Lydgate of his previous communications about the Hospital, to the\r
+purport of which he still adhered. It had been his duty, before taking\r
+further steps, to reopen the subject with Mrs. Casaubon, who now\r
+wished, as before, to discuss the question with Lydgate. "Your views\r
+may possibly have undergone some change," wrote Mr. Bulstrode; "but, in\r
+that case also, it is desirable that you should lay them before her."\r
+\r
+Dorothea awaited his arrival with eager interest. Though, in deference\r
+to her masculine advisers, she had refrained from what Sir James had\r
+called "interfering in this Bulstrode business," the hardship of\r
+Lydgate's position was continually in her mind, and when Bulstrode\r
+applied to her again about the hospital, she felt that the opportunity\r
+was come to her which she had been hindered from hastening. In her\r
+luxurious home, wandering under the boughs of her own great trees, her\r
+thought was going out over the lot of others, and her emotions were\r
+imprisoned. The idea of some active good within her reach, "haunted\r
+her like a passion," and another's need having once come to her as a\r
+distinct image, preoccupied her desire with the yearning to give\r
+relief, and made her own ease tasteless. She was full of confident\r
+hope about this interview with Lydgate, never heeding what was said of\r
+his personal reserve; never heeding that she was a very young woman.\r
+Nothing could have seemed more irrelevant to Dorothea than insistence\r
+on her youth and sex when she was moved to show her human fellowship.\r
+\r
+As she sat waiting in the library, she could do nothing but live\r
+through again all the past scenes which had brought Lydgate into her\r
+memories. They all owed their significance to her marriage and its\r
+troubles--but no; there were two occasions in which the image of\r
+Lydgate had come painfully in connection with his wife and some one\r
+else. The pain had been allayed for Dorothea, but it had left in her\r
+an awakened conjecture as to what Lydgate's marriage might be to him, a\r
+susceptibility to the slightest hint about Mrs. Lydgate. These\r
+thoughts were like a drama to her, and made her eyes bright, and gave\r
+an attitude of suspense to her whole frame, though she was only looking\r
+out from the brown library on to the turf and the bright green buds\r
+which stood in relief against the dark evergreens.\r
+\r
+When Lydgate came in, she was almost shocked at the change in his face,\r
+which was strikingly perceptible to her who had not seen him for two\r
+months. It was not the change of emaciation, but that effect which\r
+even young faces will very soon show from the persistent presence of\r
+resentment and despondency. Her cordial look, when she put out her\r
+hand to him, softened his expression, but only with melancholy.\r
+\r
+"I have wished very much to see you for a long while, Mr. Lydgate,"\r
+said Dorothea when they were seated opposite each other; "but I put off\r
+asking you to come until Mr. Bulstrode applied to me again about the\r
+Hospital. I know that the advantage of keeping the management of it\r
+separate from that of the Infirmary depends on you, or, at least, on\r
+the good which you are encouraged to hope for from having it under your\r
+control. And I am sure you will not refuse to tell me exactly what you\r
+think."\r
+\r
+"You want to decide whether you should give a generous support to the\r
+Hospital," said Lydgate. "I cannot conscientiously advise you to do it\r
+in dependence on any activity of mine. I may be obliged to leave the\r
+town."\r
+\r
+He spoke curtly, feeling the ache of despair as to his being able to\r
+carry out any purpose that Rosamond had set her mind against.\r
+\r
+"Not because there is no one to believe in you?" said Dorothea, pouring\r
+out her words in clearness from a full heart. "I know the unhappy\r
+mistakes about you. I knew them from the first moment to be mistakes.\r
+You have never done anything vile. You would not do anything\r
+dishonorable."\r
+\r
+It was the first assurance of belief in him that had fallen on\r
+Lydgate's ears. He drew a deep breath, and said, "Thank you." He could\r
+say no more: it was something very new and strange in his life that\r
+these few words of trust from a woman should be so much to him.\r
+\r
+"I beseech you to tell me how everything was," said Dorothea,\r
+fearlessly. "I am sure that the truth would clear you."\r
+\r
+Lydgate started up from his chair and went towards the window,\r
+forgetting where he was. He had so often gone over in his mind the\r
+possibility of explaining everything without aggravating appearances\r
+that would tell, perhaps unfairly, against Bulstrode, and had so often\r
+decided against it--he had so often said to himself that his assertions\r
+would not change people's impressions--that Dorothea's words sounded\r
+like a temptation to do something which in his soberness he had\r
+pronounced to be unreasonable.\r
+\r
+"Tell me, pray," said Dorothea, with simple earnestness; "then we can\r
+consult together. It is wicked to let people think evil of any one\r
+falsely, when it can be hindered."\r
+\r
+Lydgate turned, remembering where he was, and saw Dorothea's face\r
+looking up at him with a sweet trustful gravity. The presence of a\r
+noble nature, generous in its wishes, ardent in its charity, changes\r
+the lights for us: we begin to see things again in their larger,\r
+quieter masses, and to believe that we too can be seen and judged in\r
+the wholeness of our character. That influence was beginning to act on\r
+Lydgate, who had for many days been seeing all life as one who is\r
+dragged and struggling amid the throng. He sat down again, and felt\r
+that he was recovering his old self in the consciousness that he was\r
+with one who believed in it.\r
+\r
+"I don't want," he said, "to bear hard on Bulstrode, who has lent me\r
+money of which I was in need--though I would rather have gone without\r
+it now. He is hunted down and miserable, and has only a poor thread of\r
+life in him. But I should like to tell you everything. It will be a\r
+comfort to me to speak where belief has gone beforehand, and where I\r
+shall not seem to be offering assertions of my own honesty. You will\r
+feel what is fair to another, as you feel what is fair to me."\r
+\r
+"Do trust me," said Dorothea; "I will not repeat anything without your\r
+leave. But at the very least, I could say that you have made all the\r
+circumstances clear to me, and that I know you are not in any way\r
+guilty. Mr. Farebrother would believe me, and my uncle, and Sir James\r
+Chettam. Nay, there are persons in Middlemarch to whom I could go;\r
+although they don't know much of me, they would believe me. They would\r
+know that I could have no other motive than truth and justice. I would\r
+take any pains to clear you. I have very little to do. There is\r
+nothing better that I can do in the world."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's voice, as she made this childlike picture of what she would\r
+do, might have been almost taken as a proof that she could do it\r
+effectively. The searching tenderness of her woman's tones seemed made\r
+for a defence against ready accusers. Lydgate did not stay to think\r
+that she was Quixotic: he gave himself up, for the first time in his\r
+life, to the exquisite sense of leaning entirely on a generous\r
+sympathy, without any check of proud reserve. And he told her\r
+everything, from the time when, under the pressure of his difficulties,\r
+he unwillingly made his first application to Bulstrode; gradually, in\r
+the relief of speaking, getting into a more thorough utterance of what\r
+had gone on in his mind--entering fully into the fact that his\r
+treatment of the patient was opposed to the dominant practice, into his\r
+doubts at the last, his ideal of medical duty, and his uneasy\r
+consciousness that the acceptance of the money had made some difference\r
+in his private inclination and professional behavior, though not in his\r
+fulfilment of any publicly recognized obligation.\r
+\r
+"It has come to my knowledge since," he added, "that Hawley sent some\r
+one to examine the housekeeper at Stone Court, and she said that she\r
+gave the patient all the opium in the phial I left, as well as a good\r
+deal of brandy. But that would not have been opposed to ordinary\r
+prescriptions, even of first-rate men. The suspicions against me had\r
+no hold there: they are grounded on the knowledge that I took money,\r
+that Bulstrode had strong motives for wishing the man to die, and that\r
+he gave me the money as a bribe to concur in some malpractices or other\r
+against the patient--that in any case I accepted a bribe to hold my\r
+tongue. They are just the suspicions that cling the most obstinately,\r
+because they lie in people's inclination and can never be disproved.\r
+How my orders came to be disobeyed is a question to which I don't know\r
+the answer. It is still possible that Bulstrode was innocent of any\r
+criminal intention--even possible that he had nothing to do with the\r
+disobedience, and merely abstained from mentioning it. But all that\r
+has nothing to do with the public belief. It is one of those cases on\r
+which a man is condemned on the ground of his character--it is\r
+believed that he has committed a crime in some undefined way, because\r
+he had the motive for doing it; and Bulstrode's character has enveloped\r
+me, because I took his money. I am simply blighted--like a damaged\r
+ear of corn--the business is done and can't be undone."\r
+\r
+"Oh, it is hard!" said Dorothea. "I understand the difficulty there is\r
+in your vindicating yourself. And that all this should have come to\r
+you who had meant to lead a higher life than the common, and to find\r
+out better ways--I cannot bear to rest in this as unchangeable. I know\r
+you meant that. I remember what you said to me when you first spoke to\r
+me about the hospital. There is no sorrow I have thought more about\r
+than that--to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Lydgate, feeling that here he had found room for the full\r
+meaning of his grief. "I had some ambition. I meant everything to be\r
+different with me. I thought I had more strength and mastery. But the\r
+most terrible obstacles are such as nobody can see except oneself."\r
+\r
+"Suppose," said Dorothea, meditatively,--"suppose we kept on the\r
+Hospital according to the present plan, and you stayed here though only\r
+with the friendship and support of a few, the evil feeling towards you\r
+would gradually die out; there would come opportunities in which people\r
+would be forced to acknowledge that they had been unjust to you,\r
+because they would see that your purposes were pure. You may still win\r
+a great fame like the Louis and Laennec I have heard you speak of, and\r
+we shall all be proud of you," she ended, with a smile.\r
+\r
+"That might do if I had my old trust in myself," said Lydgate,\r
+mournfully. "Nothing galls me more than the notion of turning round\r
+and running away before this slander, leaving it unchecked behind me.\r
+Still, I can't ask any one to put a great deal of money into a plan\r
+which depends on me."\r
+\r
+"It would be quite worth my while," said Dorothea, simply. "Only\r
+think. I am very uncomfortable with my money, because they tell me I\r
+have too little for any great scheme of the sort I like best, and yet I\r
+have too much. I don't know what to do. I have seven hundred a-year\r
+of my own fortune, and nineteen hundred a-year that Mr. Casaubon left\r
+me, and between three and four thousand of ready money in the bank. I\r
+wished to raise money and pay it off gradually out of my income which I\r
+don't want, to buy land with and found a village which should be a\r
+school of industry; but Sir James and my uncle have convinced me that\r
+the risk would be too great. So you see that what I should most\r
+rejoice at would be to have something good to do with my money: I\r
+should like it to make other people's lives better to them. It makes\r
+me very uneasy--coming all to me who don't want it."\r
+\r
+A smile broke through the gloom of Lydgate's face. The childlike\r
+grave-eyed earnestness with which Dorothea said all this was\r
+irresistible--blent into an adorable whole with her ready understanding\r
+of high experience. (Of lower experience such as plays a great part in\r
+the world, poor Mrs. Casaubon had a very blurred shortsighted\r
+knowledge, little helped by her imagination.) But she took the smile as\r
+encouragement of her plan.\r
+\r
+"I think you see now that you spoke too scrupulously," she said, in a\r
+tone of persuasion. "The hospital would be one good; and making your\r
+life quite whole and well again would be another."\r
+\r
+Lydgate's smile had died away. "You have the goodness as well as the\r
+money to do all that; if it could be done," he said. "But--"\r
+\r
+He hesitated a little while, looking vaguely towards the window; and\r
+she sat in silent expectation. At last he turned towards her and said\r
+impetuously--\r
+\r
+"Why should I not tell you?--you know what sort of bond marriage is.\r
+You will understand everything."\r
+\r
+Dorothea felt her heart beginning to beat faster. Had he that sorrow\r
+too? But she feared to say any word, and he went on immediately.\r
+\r
+"It is impossible for me now to do anything--to take any step without\r
+considering my wife's happiness. The thing that I might like to do if\r
+I were alone, is become impossible to me. I can't see her miserable.\r
+She married me without knowing what she was going into, and it might\r
+have been better for her if she had not married me."\r
+\r
+"I know, I know--you could not give her pain, if you were not obliged\r
+to do it," said Dorothea, with keen memory of her own life.\r
+\r
+"And she has set her mind against staying. She wishes to go. The\r
+troubles she has had here have wearied her," said Lydgate, breaking off\r
+again, lest he should say too much.\r
+\r
+"But when she saw the good that might come of staying--" said Dorothea,\r
+remonstrantly, looking at Lydgate as if he had forgotten the reasons\r
+which had just been considered. He did not speak immediately.\r
+\r
+"She would not see it," he said at last, curtly, feeling at first that\r
+this statement must do without explanation. "And, indeed, I have lost\r
+all spirit about carrying on my life here." He paused a moment and\r
+then, following the impulse to let Dorothea see deeper into the\r
+difficulty of his life, he said, "The fact is, this trouble has come\r
+upon her confusedly. We have not been able to speak to each other\r
+about it. I am not sure what is in her mind about it: she may fear\r
+that I have really done something base. It is my fault; I ought to be\r
+more open. But I have been suffering cruelly."\r
+\r
+"May I go and see her?" said Dorothea, eagerly. "Would she accept my\r
+sympathy? I would tell her that you have not been blamable before any\r
+one's judgment but your own. I would tell her that you shall be\r
+cleared in every fair mind. I would cheer her heart. Will you ask her\r
+if I may go to see her? I did see her once."\r
+\r
+"I am sure you may," said Lydgate, seizing the proposition with some\r
+hope. "She would feel honored--cheered, I think, by the proof that you\r
+at least have some respect for me. I will not speak to her about your\r
+coming--that she may not connect it with my wishes at all. I know very\r
+well that I ought not to have left anything to be told her by others,\r
+but--"\r
+\r
+He broke off, and there was a moment's silence. Dorothea refrained\r
+from saying what was in her mind--how well she knew that there might be\r
+invisible barriers to speech between husband and wife. This was a\r
+point on which even sympathy might make a wound. She returned to the\r
+more outward aspect of Lydgate's position, saying cheerfully--\r
+\r
+"And if Mrs. Lydgate knew that there were friends who would believe in\r
+you and support you, she might then be glad that you should stay in\r
+your place and recover your hopes--and do what you meant to do.\r
+Perhaps then you would see that it was right to agree with what I\r
+proposed about your continuing at the Hospital. Surely you would, if\r
+you still have faith in it as a means of making your knowledge useful?"\r
+\r
+Lydgate did not answer, and she saw that he was debating with himself.\r
+\r
+"You need not decide immediately," she said, gently. "A few days hence\r
+it will be early enough for me to send my answer to Mr. Bulstrode."\r
+\r
+Lydgate still waited, but at last turned to speak in his most decisive\r
+tones.\r
+\r
+"No; I prefer that there should be no interval left for wavering. I am\r
+no longer sure enough of myself--I mean of what it would be possible\r
+for me to do under the changed circumstances of my life. It would be\r
+dishonorable to let others engage themselves to anything serious in\r
+dependence on me. I might be obliged to go away after all; I see\r
+little chance of anything else. The whole thing is too problematic; I\r
+cannot consent to be the cause of your goodness being wasted. No--let\r
+the new Hospital be joined with the old Infirmary, and everything go on\r
+as it might have done if I had never come. I have kept a valuable\r
+register since I have been there; I shall send it to a man who will\r
+make use of it," he ended bitterly. "I can think of nothing for a long\r
+while but getting an income."\r
+\r
+"It hurts me very much to hear you speak so hopelessly," said Dorothea.\r
+"It would be a happiness to your friends, who believe in your future,\r
+in your power to do great things, if you would let them save you from\r
+that. Think how much money I have; it would be like taking a burthen\r
+from me if you took some of it every year till you got free from this\r
+fettering want of income. Why should not people do these things? It\r
+is so difficult to make shares at all even. This is one way."\r
+\r
+"God bless you, Mrs. Casaubon!" said Lydgate, rising as if with the\r
+same impulse that made his words energetic, and resting his arm on the\r
+back of the great leather chair he had been sitting in. "It is good\r
+that you should have such feelings. But I am not the man who ought to\r
+allow himself to benefit by them. I have not given guarantees enough.\r
+I must not at least sink into the degradation of being pensioned for\r
+work that I never achieved. It is very clear to me that I must not\r
+count on anything else than getting away from Middlemarch as soon as I\r
+can manage it. I should not be able for a long while, at the very\r
+best, to get an income here, and--and it is easier to make necessary\r
+changes in a new place. I must do as other men do, and think what will\r
+please the world and bring in money; look for a little opening in the\r
+London crowd, and push myself; set up in a watering-place, or go to\r
+some southern town where there are plenty of idle English, and get\r
+myself puffed,--that is the sort of shell I must creep into and try to\r
+keep my soul alive in."\r
+\r
+"Now that is not brave," said Dorothea,--"to give up the fight."\r
+\r
+"No, it is not brave," said Lydgate, "but if a man is afraid of\r
+creeping paralysis?" Then, in another tone, "Yet you have made a great\r
+difference in my courage by believing in me. Everything seems more\r
+bearable since I have talked to you; and if you can clear me in a few\r
+other minds, especially in Farebrother's, I shall be deeply grateful.\r
+The point I wish you not to mention is the fact of disobedience to my\r
+orders. That would soon get distorted. After all, there is no\r
+evidence for me but people's opinion of me beforehand. You can only\r
+repeat my own report of myself."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Farebrother will believe--others will believe," said Dorothea. "I\r
+can say of you what will make it stupidity to suppose that you would be\r
+bribed to do a wickedness."\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Lydgate, with something like a groan in his voice.\r
+"I have not taken a bribe yet. But there is a pale shade of bribery\r
+which is sometimes called prosperity. You will do me another great\r
+kindness, then, and come to see my wife?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, I will. I remember how pretty she is," said Dorothea, into whose\r
+mind every impression about Rosamond had cut deep. "I hope she will\r
+like me."\r
+\r
+As Lydgate rode away, he thought, "This young creature has a heart\r
+large enough for the Virgin Mary. She evidently thinks nothing of her\r
+own future, and would pledge away half her income at once, as if she\r
+wanted nothing for herself but a chair to sit in from which she can\r
+look down with those clear eyes at the poor mortals who pray to her.\r
+She seems to have what I never saw in any woman before--a fountain of\r
+friendship towards men--a man can make a friend of her. Casaubon must\r
+have raised some heroic hallucination in her. I wonder if she could\r
+have any other sort of passion for a man? Ladislaw?--there was\r
+certainly an unusual feeling between them. And Casaubon must have had\r
+a notion of it. Well--her love might help a man more than her money."\r
+\r
+Dorothea on her side had immediately formed a plan of relieving Lydgate\r
+from his obligation to Bulstrode, which she felt sure was a part,\r
+though small, of the galling pressure he had to bear. She sat down at\r
+once under the inspiration of their interview, and wrote a brief note,\r
+in which she pleaded that she had more claim than Mr. Bulstrode had to\r
+the satisfaction of providing the money which had been serviceable to\r
+Lydgate--that it would be unkind in Lydgate not to grant her the\r
+position of being his helper in this small matter, the favor being\r
+entirely to her who had so little that was plainly marked out for her\r
+to do with her superfluous money. He might call her a creditor or by\r
+any other name if it did but imply that he granted her request. She\r
+enclosed a check for a thousand pounds, and determined to take the\r
+letter with her the next day when she went to see Rosamond.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXVII.\r
+\r
+ "And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,\r
+ To mark the full-fraught man and best indued\r
+ With some suspicion."\r
+ --Henry V.\r
+\r
+\r
+The next day Lydgate had to go to Brassing, and told Rosamond that he\r
+should be away until the evening. Of late she had never gone beyond\r
+her own house and garden, except to church, and once to see her papa,\r
+to whom she said, "If Tertius goes away, you will help us to move, will\r
+you not, papa? I suppose we shall have very little money. I am sure I\r
+hope some one will help us." And Mr. Vincy had said, "Yes, child, I\r
+don't mind a hundred or two. I can see the end of that." With these\r
+exceptions she had sat at home in languid melancholy and suspense,\r
+fixing her mind on Will Ladislaw's coming as the one point of hope and\r
+interest, and associating this with some new urgency on Lydgate to make\r
+immediate arrangements for leaving Middlemarch and going to London,\r
+till she felt assured that the coming would be a potent cause of the\r
+going, without at all seeing how. This way of establishing sequences\r
+is too common to be fairly regarded as a peculiar folly in Rosamond.\r
+And it is precisely this sort of sequence which causes the greatest\r
+shock when it is sundered: for to see how an effect may be produced is\r
+often to see possible missings and checks; but to see nothing except\r
+the desirable cause, and close upon it the desirable effect, rids us of\r
+doubt and makes our minds strongly intuitive. That was the process\r
+going on in poor Rosamond, while she arranged all objects around her\r
+with the same nicety as ever, only with more slowness--or sat down to\r
+the piano, meaning to play, and then desisting, yet lingering on the\r
+music stool with her white fingers suspended on the wooden front, and\r
+looking before her in dreamy ennui. Her melancholy had become so\r
+marked that Lydgate felt a strange timidity before it, as a perpetual\r
+silent reproach, and the strong man, mastered by his keen sensibilities\r
+towards this fair fragile creature whose life he seemed somehow to have\r
+bruised, shrank from her look, and sometimes started at her approach,\r
+fear of her and fear for her rushing in only the more forcibly after it\r
+had been momentarily expelled by exasperation.\r
+\r
+But this morning Rosamond descended from her room upstairs--where she\r
+sometimes sat the whole day when Lydgate was out--equipped for a walk\r
+in the town. She had a letter to post--a letter addressed to Mr.\r
+Ladislaw and written with charming discretion, but intended to hasten\r
+his arrival by a hint of trouble. The servant-maid, their sole\r
+house-servant now, noticed her coming down-stairs in her walking dress,\r
+and thought "there never did anybody look so pretty in a bonnet poor\r
+thing."\r
+\r
+Meanwhile Dorothea's mind was filled with her project of going to\r
+Rosamond, and with the many thoughts, both of the past and the probable\r
+future, which gathered round the idea of that visit. Until yesterday\r
+when Lydgate had opened to her a glimpse of some trouble in his married\r
+life, the image of Mrs. Lydgate had always been associated for her with\r
+that of Will Ladislaw. Even in her most uneasy moments--even when she\r
+had been agitated by Mrs. Cadwallader's painfully graphic report of\r
+gossip--her effort, nay, her strongest impulsive prompting, had been\r
+towards the vindication of Will from any sullying surmises; and when,\r
+in her meeting with him afterwards, she had at first interpreted his\r
+words as a probable allusion to a feeling towards Mrs. Lydgate which he\r
+was determined to cut himself off from indulging, she had had a quick,\r
+sad, excusing vision of the charm there might be in his constant\r
+opportunities of companionship with that fair creature, who most likely\r
+shared his other tastes as she evidently did his delight in music. But\r
+there had followed his parting words--the few passionate words in\r
+which he had implied that she herself was the object of whom his love\r
+held him in dread, that it was his love for her only which he was\r
+resolved not to declare but to carry away into banishment. From the\r
+time of that parting, Dorothea, believing in Will's love for her,\r
+believing with a proud delight in his delicate sense of honor and his\r
+determination that no one should impeach him justly, felt her heart\r
+quite at rest as to the regard he might have for Mrs. Lydgate. She was\r
+sure that the regard was blameless.\r
+\r
+There are natures in which, if they love us, we are conscious of having\r
+a sort of baptism and consecration: they bind us over to rectitude and\r
+purity by their pure belief about us; and our sins become that worst\r
+kind of sacrilege which tears down the invisible altar of trust. "If\r
+you are not good, none is good"--those little words may give a\r
+terrific meaning to responsibility, may hold a vitriolic intensity for\r
+remorse.\r
+\r
+Dorothea's nature was of that kind: her own passionate faults lay along\r
+the easily counted open channels of her ardent character; and while she\r
+was full of pity for the visible mistakes of others, she had not yet\r
+any material within her experience for subtle constructions and\r
+suspicions of hidden wrong. But that simplicity of hers, holding up an\r
+ideal for others in her believing conception of them, was one of the\r
+great powers of her womanhood. And it had from the first acted\r
+strongly on Will Ladislaw. He felt, when he parted from her, that the\r
+brief words by which he had tried to convey to her his feeling about\r
+herself and the division which her fortune made between them, would\r
+only profit by their brevity when Dorothea had to interpret them: he\r
+felt that in her mind he had found his highest estimate.\r
+\r
+And he was right there. In the months since their parting Dorothea had\r
+felt a delicious though sad repose in their relation to each other, as\r
+one which was inwardly whole and without blemish. She had an active\r
+force of antagonism within her, when the antagonism turned on the\r
+defence either of plans or persons that she believed in; and the wrongs\r
+which she felt that Will had received from her husband, and the\r
+external conditions which to others were grounds for slighting him,\r
+only gave the more tenacity to her affection and admiring judgment.\r
+And now with the disclosures about Bulstrode had come another fact\r
+affecting Will's social position, which roused afresh Dorothea's inward\r
+resistance to what was said about him in that part of her world which\r
+lay within park palings.\r
+\r
+"Young Ladislaw the grandson of a thieving Jew pawnbroker" was a phrase\r
+which had entered emphatically into the dialogues about the Bulstrode\r
+business, at Lowick, Tipton, and Freshitt, and was a worse kind of\r
+placard on poor Will's back than the "Italian with white mice."\r
+Upright Sir James Chettam was convinced that his own satisfaction was\r
+righteous when he thought with some complacency that here was an added\r
+league to that mountainous distance between Ladislaw and Dorothea,\r
+which enabled him to dismiss any anxiety in that direction as too\r
+absurd. And perhaps there had been some pleasure in pointing Mr.\r
+Brooke's attention to this ugly bit of Ladislaw's genealogy, as a fresh\r
+candle for him to see his own folly by. Dorothea had observed the\r
+animus with which Will's part in the painful story had been recalled\r
+more than once; but she had uttered no word, being checked now, as she\r
+had not been formerly in speaking of Will, by the consciousness of a\r
+deeper relation between them which must always remain in consecrated\r
+secrecy. But her silence shrouded her resistant emotion into a more\r
+thorough glow; and this misfortune in Will's lot which, it seemed,\r
+others were wishing to fling at his back as an opprobrium, only gave\r
+something more of enthusiasm to her clinging thought.\r
+\r
+She entertained no visions of their ever coming into nearer union, and\r
+yet she had taken no posture of renunciation. She had accepted her\r
+whole relation to Will very simply as part of her marriage sorrows, and\r
+would have thought it very sinful in her to keep up an inward wail\r
+because she was not completely happy, being rather disposed to dwell on\r
+the superfluities of her lot. She could bear that the chief pleasures\r
+of her tenderness should lie in memory, and the idea of marriage came\r
+to her solely as a repulsive proposition from some suitor of whom she\r
+at present knew nothing, but whose merits, as seen by her friends,\r
+would be a source of torment to her:--"somebody who will manage your\r
+property for you, my dear," was Mr. Brooke's attractive suggestion of\r
+suitable characteristics. "I should like to manage it myself, if I\r
+knew what to do with it," said Dorothea. No--she adhered to her\r
+declaration that she would never be married again, and in the long\r
+valley of her life which looked so flat and empty of waymarks, guidance\r
+would come as she walked along the road, and saw her fellow-passengers\r
+by the way.\r
+\r
+This habitual state of feeling about Will Ladislaw had been strong in\r
+all her waking hours since she had proposed to pay a visit to Mrs.\r
+Lydgate, making a sort of background against which she saw Rosamond's\r
+figure presented to her without hindrances to her interest and\r
+compassion. There was evidently some mental separation, some barrier\r
+to complete confidence which had arisen between this wife and the\r
+husband who had yet made her happiness a law to him. That was a\r
+trouble which no third person must directly touch. But Dorothea\r
+thought with deep pity of the loneliness which must have come upon\r
+Rosamond from the suspicions cast on her husband; and there would\r
+surely be help in the manifestation of respect for Lydgate and sympathy\r
+with her.\r
+\r
+"I shall talk to her about her husband," thought Dorothea, as she was\r
+being driven towards the town. The clear spring morning, the scent of\r
+the moist earth, the fresh leaves just showing their creased-up wealth\r
+of greenery from out their half-opened sheaths, seemed part of the\r
+cheerfulness she was feeling from a long conversation with Mr.\r
+Farebrother, who had joyfully accepted the justifying explanation of\r
+Lydgate's conduct. "I shall take Mrs. Lydgate good news, and perhaps\r
+she will like to talk to me and make a friend of me."\r
+\r
+Dorothea had another errand in Lowick Gate: it was about a new\r
+fine-toned bell for the school-house, and as she had to get out of her\r
+carriage very near to Lydgate's, she walked thither across the street,\r
+having told the coachman to wait for some packages. The street door\r
+was open, and the servant was taking the opportunity of looking out at\r
+the carriage which was pausing within sight when it became apparent to\r
+her that the lady who "belonged to it" was coming towards her.\r
+\r
+"Is Mrs. Lydgate at home?" said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"I'm not sure, my lady; I'll see, if you'll please to walk in," said\r
+Martha, a little confused on the score of her kitchen apron, but\r
+collected enough to be sure that "mum" was not the right title for this\r
+queenly young widow with a carriage and pair. "Will you please to walk\r
+in, and I'll go and see."\r
+\r
+"Say that I am Mrs. Casaubon," said Dorothea, as Martha moved forward\r
+intending to show her into the drawing-room and then to go up-stairs to\r
+see if Rosamond had returned from her walk.\r
+\r
+They crossed the broader part of the entrance-hall, and turned up the\r
+passage which led to the garden. The drawing-room door was unlatched,\r
+and Martha, pushing it without looking into the room, waited for Mrs.\r
+Casaubon to enter and then turned away, the door having swung open and\r
+swung back again without noise.\r
+\r
+Dorothea had less of outward vision than usual this morning, being\r
+filled with images of things as they had been and were going to be.\r
+She found herself on the other side of the door without seeing anything\r
+remarkable, but immediately she heard a voice speaking in low tones\r
+which startled her as with a sense of dreaming in daylight, and\r
+advancing unconsciously a step or two beyond the projecting slab of a\r
+bookcase, she saw, in the terrible illumination of a certainty which\r
+filled up all outlines, something which made her pause, motionless,\r
+without self-possession enough to speak.\r
+\r
+Seated with his back towards her on a sofa which stood against the wall\r
+on a line with the door by which she had entered, she saw Will\r
+Ladislaw: close by him and turned towards him with a flushed\r
+tearfulness which gave a new brilliancy to her face sat Rosamond, her\r
+bonnet hanging back, while Will leaning towards her clasped both her\r
+upraised hands in his and spoke with low-toned fervor.\r
+\r
+Rosamond in her agitated absorption had not noticed the silently\r
+advancing figure; but when Dorothea, after the first immeasurable\r
+instant of this vision, moved confusedly backward and found herself\r
+impeded by some piece of furniture, Rosamond was suddenly aware of her\r
+presence, and with a spasmodic movement snatched away her hands and\r
+rose, looking at Dorothea who was necessarily arrested. Will Ladislaw,\r
+starting up, looked round also, and meeting Dorothea's eyes with a new\r
+lightning in them, seemed changing to marble: But she immediately\r
+turned them away from him to Rosamond and said in a firm voice--\r
+\r
+"Excuse me, Mrs. Lydgate, the servant did not know that you were here.\r
+I called to deliver an important letter for Mr. Lydgate, which I wished\r
+to put into your own hands."\r
+\r
+She laid down the letter on the small table which had checked her\r
+retreat, and then including Rosamond and Will in one distant glance and\r
+bow, she went quickly out of the room, meeting in the passage the\r
+surprised Martha, who said she was sorry the mistress was not at home,\r
+and then showed the strange lady out with an inward reflection that\r
+grand people were probably more impatient than others.\r
+\r
+Dorothea walked across the street with her most elastic step and was\r
+quickly in her carriage again.\r
+\r
+"Drive on to Freshitt Hall," she said to the coachman, and any one\r
+looking at her might have thought that though she was paler than usual\r
+she was never animated by a more self-possessed energy. And that was\r
+really her experience. It was as if she had drunk a great draught of\r
+scorn that stimulated her beyond the susceptibility to other feelings.\r
+She had seen something so far below her belief, that her emotions\r
+rushed back from it and made an excited throng without an object. She\r
+needed something active to turn her excitement out upon. She felt\r
+power to walk and work for a day, without meat or drink. And she would\r
+carry out the purpose with which she had started in the morning, of\r
+going to Freshitt and Tipton to tell Sir James and her uncle all that\r
+she wished them to know about Lydgate, whose married loneliness under\r
+his trial now presented itself to her with new significance, and made\r
+her more ardent in readiness to be his champion. She had never felt\r
+anything like this triumphant power of indignation in the struggle of\r
+her married life, in which there had always been a quickly subduing\r
+pang; and she took it as a sign of new strength.\r
+\r
+"Dodo, how very bright your eyes are!" said Celia, when Sir James was\r
+gone out of the room. "And you don't see anything you look at, Arthur\r
+or anything. You are going to do something uncomfortable, I know. Is\r
+it all about Mr. Lydgate, or has something else happened?" Celia had\r
+been used to watch her sister with expectation.\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear, a great many things have happened," said Dodo, in her full\r
+tones.\r
+\r
+"I wonder what," said Celia, folding her arms cozily and leaning\r
+forward upon them.\r
+\r
+"Oh, all the troubles of all people on the face of the earth," said\r
+Dorothea, lifting her arms to the back of her head.\r
+\r
+"Dear me, Dodo, are you going to have a scheme for them?" said Celia, a\r
+little uneasy at this Hamlet-like raving.\r
+\r
+But Sir James came in again, ready to accompany Dorothea to the Grange,\r
+and she finished her expedition well, not swerving in her resolution\r
+until she descended at her own door.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.\r
+\r
+ "Would it were yesterday and I i' the grave,\r
+ With her sweet faith above for monument"\r
+\r
+\r
+Rosamond and Will stood motionless--they did not know how long--he\r
+looking towards the spot where Dorothea had stood, and she looking\r
+towards him with doubt. It seemed an endless time to Rosamond, in\r
+whose inmost soul there was hardly so much annoyance as gratification\r
+from what had just happened. Shallow natures dream of an easy sway\r
+over the emotions of others, trusting implicitly in their own petty\r
+magic to turn the deepest streams, and confident, by pretty gestures\r
+and remarks, of making the thing that is not as though it were. She\r
+knew that Will had received a severe blow, but she had been little used\r
+to imagining other people's states of mind except as a material cut\r
+into shape by her own wishes; and she believed in her own power to\r
+soothe or subdue. Even Tertius, that most perverse of men, was always\r
+subdued in the long-run: events had been obstinate, but still Rosamond\r
+would have said now, as she did before her marriage, that she never\r
+gave up what she had set her mind on.\r
+\r
+She put out her arm and laid the tips of her fingers on Will's\r
+coat-sleeve.\r
+\r
+"Don't touch me!" he said, with an utterance like the cut of a lash,\r
+darting from her, and changing from pink to white and back again, as if\r
+his whole frame were tingling with the pain of the sting. He wheeled\r
+round to the other side of the room and stood opposite to her, with the\r
+tips of his fingers in his pockets and his head thrown back, looking\r
+fiercely not at Rosamond but at a point a few inches away from her.\r
+\r
+She was keenly offended, but the Signs she made of this were such as\r
+only Lydgate was used to interpret. She became suddenly quiet and\r
+seated herself, untying her hanging bonnet and laying it down with her\r
+shawl. Her little hands which she folded before her were very cold.\r
+\r
+It would have been safer for Will in the first instance to have taken\r
+up his hat and gone away; but he had felt no impulse to do this; on the\r
+contrary, he had a horrible inclination to stay and shatter Rosamond\r
+with his anger. It seemed as impossible to bear the fatality she had\r
+drawn down on him without venting his fury as it would be to a panther\r
+to bear the javelin-wound without springing and biting. And yet--how\r
+could he tell a woman that he was ready to curse her? He was fuming\r
+under a repressive law which he was forced to acknowledge: he was\r
+dangerously poised, and Rosamond's voice now brought the decisive\r
+vibration. In flute-like tones of sarcasm she said--\r
+\r
+"You can easily go after Mrs. Casaubon and explain your preference."\r
+\r
+"Go after her!" he burst out, with a sharp edge in his voice. "Do you\r
+think she would turn to look at me, or value any word I ever uttered to\r
+her again at more than a dirty feather?--Explain! How can a man\r
+explain at the expense of a woman?"\r
+\r
+"You can tell her what you please," said Rosamond with more tremor.\r
+\r
+"Do you suppose she would like me better for sacrificing you? She is\r
+not a woman to be flattered because I made myself despicable--to\r
+believe that I must be true to her because I was a dastard to you."\r
+\r
+He began to move about with the restlessness of a wild animal that sees\r
+prey but cannot reach it. Presently he burst out again--\r
+\r
+"I had no hope before--not much--of anything better to come. But I had\r
+one certainty--that she believed in me. Whatever people had said or\r
+done about me, she believed in me.--That's gone! She'll never again\r
+think me anything but a paltry pretence--too nice to take heaven\r
+except upon flattering conditions, and yet selling myself for any\r
+devil's change by the sly. She'll think of me as an incarnate insult\r
+to her, from the first moment we--"\r
+\r
+Will stopped as if he had found himself grasping something that must\r
+not be thrown and shattered. He found another vent for his rage by\r
+snatching up Rosamond's words again, as if they were reptiles to be\r
+throttled and flung off.\r
+\r
+"Explain! Tell a man to explain how he dropped into hell! Explain my\r
+preference! I never had a _preference_ for her, any more than I have a\r
+preference for breathing. No other woman exists by the side of her. I\r
+would rather touch her hand if it were dead, than I would touch any\r
+other woman's living."\r
+\r
+Rosamond, while these poisoned weapons were being hurled at her, was\r
+almost losing the sense of her identity, and seemed to be waking into\r
+some new terrible existence. She had no sense of chill resolute\r
+repulsion, of reticent self-justification such as she had known under\r
+Lydgate's most stormy displeasure: all her sensibility was turned into\r
+a bewildering novelty of pain; she felt a new terrified recoil under a\r
+lash never experienced before. What another nature felt in opposition\r
+to her own was being burnt and bitten into her consciousness. When\r
+Will had ceased to speak she had become an image of sickened misery:\r
+her lips were pale, and her eyes had a tearless dismay in them. If it\r
+had been Tertius who stood opposite to her, that look of misery would\r
+have been a pang to him, and he would have sunk by her side to comfort\r
+her, with that strong-armed comfort which, she had often held very\r
+cheap.\r
+\r
+Let it be forgiven to Will that he had no such movement of pity. He\r
+had felt no bond beforehand to this woman who had spoiled the ideal\r
+treasure of his life, and he held himself blameless. He knew that he\r
+was cruel, but he had no relenting in him yet.\r
+\r
+After he had done speaking, he still moved about, half in absence of\r
+mind, and Rosamond sat perfectly still. At length Will, seeming to\r
+bethink himself, took up his hat, yet stood some moments irresolute.\r
+He had spoken to her in a way that made a phrase of common politeness\r
+difficult to utter; and yet, now that he had come to the point of going\r
+away from her without further speech, he shrank from it as a brutality;\r
+he felt checked and stultified in his anger. He walked towards the\r
+mantel-piece and leaned his arm on it, and waited in silence for--he\r
+hardly knew what. The vindictive fire was still burning in him, and he\r
+could utter no word of retractation; but it was nevertheless in his\r
+mind that having come back to this hearth where he had enjoyed a\r
+caressing friendship he had found calamity seated there--he had had\r
+suddenly revealed to him a trouble that lay outside the home as well as\r
+within it. And what seemed a foreboding was pressing upon him as with\r
+slow pincers:--that his life might come to be enslaved by this helpless\r
+woman who had thrown herself upon him in the dreary sadness of her\r
+heart. But he was in gloomy rebellion against the fact that his quick\r
+apprehensiveness foreshadowed to him, and when his eyes fell on\r
+Rosamond's blighted face it seemed to him that he was the more pitiable\r
+of the two; for pain must enter into its glorified life of memory\r
+before it can turn into compassion.\r
+\r
+And so they remained for many minutes, opposite each other, far apart,\r
+in silence; Will's face still possessed by a mute rage, and Rosamond's\r
+by a mute misery. The poor thing had no force to fling out any passion\r
+in return; the terrible collapse of the illusion towards which all her\r
+hope had been strained was a stroke which had too thoroughly shaken\r
+her: her little world was in ruins, and she felt herself tottering in\r
+the midst as a lonely bewildered consciousness.\r
+\r
+Will wished that she would speak and bring some mitigating shadow\r
+across his own cruel speech, which seemed to stand staring at them both\r
+in mockery of any attempt at revived fellowship. But she said nothing,\r
+and at last with a desperate effort over himself, he asked, "Shall I\r
+come in and see Lydgate this evening?"\r
+\r
+"If you like," Rosamond answered, just audibly.\r
+\r
+And then Will went out of the house, Martha never knowing that he had\r
+been in.\r
+\r
+After he was gone, Rosamond tried to get up from her seat, but fell\r
+back fainting. When she came to herself again, she felt too ill to\r
+make the exertion of rising to ring the bell, and she remained helpless\r
+until the girl, surprised at her long absence, thought for the first\r
+time of looking for her in all the down-stairs rooms. Rosamond said\r
+that she had felt suddenly sick and faint, and wanted to be helped\r
+up-stairs. When there she threw herself on the bed with her clothes on,\r
+and lay in apparent torpor, as she had done once before on a memorable\r
+day of grief.\r
+\r
+Lydgate came home earlier than he had expected, about half-past five,\r
+and found her there. The perception that she was ill threw every other\r
+thought into the background. When he felt her pulse, her eyes rested\r
+on him with more persistence than they had done for a long while, as if\r
+she felt some content that he was there. He perceived the difference\r
+in a moment, and seating himself by her put his arm gently under her,\r
+and bending over her said, "My poor Rosamond! has something agitated\r
+you?" Clinging to him she fell into hysterical sobbings and cries, and\r
+for the next hour he did nothing but soothe and tend her. He imagined\r
+that Dorothea had been to see her, and that all this effect on her\r
+nervous system, which evidently involved some new turning towards\r
+himself, was due to the excitement of the new impressions which that\r
+visit had raised.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXIX.\r
+\r
+ "Now, I saw in my dream, that just as they had ended their\r
+ talk, they drew nigh to a very miry slough, that was in the\r
+ midst of the plain; and they, being heedless, did both fall\r
+ suddenly into the bog. The name of the slough was\r
+ Despond."--BUNYAN.\r
+\r
+\r
+When Rosamond was quiet, and Lydgate had left her, hoping that she\r
+might soon sleep under the effect of an anodyne, he went into the\r
+drawing-room to fetch a book which he had left there, meaning to spend\r
+the evening in his work-room, and he saw on the table Dorothea's letter\r
+addressed to him. He had not ventured to ask Rosamond if Mrs. Casaubon\r
+had called, but the reading of this letter assured him of the fact, for\r
+Dorothea mentioned that it was to be carried by herself.\r
+\r
+When Will Ladislaw came in a little later Lydgate met him with a\r
+surprise which made it clear that he had not been told of the earlier\r
+visit, and Will could not say, "Did not Mrs. Lydgate tell you that I\r
+came this morning?"\r
+\r
+"Poor Rosamond is ill," Lydgate added immediately on his greeting.\r
+\r
+"Not seriously, I hope," said Will.\r
+\r
+"No--only a slight nervous shock--the effect of some agitation. She\r
+has been overwrought lately. The truth is, Ladislaw, I am an unlucky\r
+devil. We have gone through several rounds of purgatory since you\r
+left, and I have lately got on to a worse ledge of it than ever. I\r
+suppose you are only just come down--you look rather battered--you\r
+have not been long enough in the town to hear anything?"\r
+\r
+"I travelled all night and got to the White Hart at eight o'clock this\r
+morning. I have been shutting myself up and resting," said Will,\r
+feeling himself a sneak, but seeing no alternative to this evasion.\r
+\r
+And then he heard Lydgate's account of the troubles which Rosamond had\r
+already depicted to him in her way. She had not mentioned the fact of\r
+Will's name being connected with the public story--this detail not\r
+immediately affecting her--and he now heard it for the first time.\r
+\r
+"I thought it better to tell you that your name is mixed up with the\r
+disclosures," said Lydgate, who could understand better than most men\r
+how Ladislaw might be stung by the revelation. "You will be sure to\r
+hear it as soon as you turn out into the town. I suppose it is true\r
+that Raffles spoke to you."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Will, sardonically. "I shall be fortunate if gossip does\r
+not make me the most disreputable person in the whole affair. I should\r
+think the latest version must be, that I plotted with Raffles to murder\r
+Bulstrode, and ran away from Middlemarch for the purpose."\r
+\r
+He was thinking "Here is a new ring in the sound of my name to\r
+recommend it in her hearing; however--what does it signify now?"\r
+\r
+But he said nothing of Bulstrode's offer to him. Will was very open\r
+and careless about his personal affairs, but it was among the more\r
+exquisite touches in nature's modelling of him that he had a delicate\r
+generosity which warned him into reticence here. He shrank from saying\r
+that he had rejected Bulstrode's money, in the moment when he was\r
+learning that it was Lydgate's misfortune to have accepted it.\r
+\r
+Lydgate too was reticent in the midst of his confidence. He made no\r
+allusion to Rosamond's feeling under their trouble, and of Dorothea he\r
+only said, "Mrs. Casaubon has been the one person to come forward and\r
+say that she had no belief in any of the suspicions against me."\r
+Observing a change in Will's face, he avoided any further mention of\r
+her, feeling himself too ignorant of their relation to each other not\r
+to fear that his words might have some hidden painful bearing on it.\r
+And it occurred to him that Dorothea was the real cause of the present\r
+visit to Middlemarch.\r
+\r
+The two men were pitying each other, but it was only Will who guessed\r
+the extent of his companion's trouble. When Lydgate spoke with\r
+desperate resignation of going to settle in London, and said with a\r
+faint smile, "We shall have you again, old fellow." Will felt\r
+inexpressibly mournful, and said nothing. Rosamond had that morning\r
+entreated him to urge this step on Lydgate; and it seemed to him as if\r
+he were beholding in a magic panorama a future where he himself was\r
+sliding into that pleasureless yielding to the small solicitations of\r
+circumstance, which is a commoner history of perdition than any single\r
+momentous bargain.\r
+\r
+We are on a perilous margin when we begin to look passively at our\r
+future selves, and see our own figures led with dull consent into\r
+insipid misdoing and shabby achievement. Poor Lydgate was inwardly\r
+groaning on that margin, and Will was arriving at it. It seemed to him\r
+this evening as if the cruelty of his outburst to Rosamond had made an\r
+obligation for him, and he dreaded the obligation: he dreaded Lydgate's\r
+unsuspecting good-will: he dreaded his own distaste for his spoiled\r
+life, which would leave him in motiveless levity.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXX.\r
+\r
+ "Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear\r
+ The Godhead's most benignant grace;\r
+ Nor know we anything so fair\r
+ As is the smile upon thy face;\r
+ Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,\r
+ And fragrance in thy footing treads;\r
+ Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;\r
+ And the most ancient Heavens, through thee, are fresh and strong.\r
+ --WORDSWORTH: Ode to Duty.\r
+\r
+\r
+When Dorothea had seen Mr. Farebrother in the morning, she had promised\r
+to go and dine at the parsonage on her return from Freshitt. There was\r
+a frequent interchange of visits between her and the Farebrother\r
+family, which enabled her to say that she was not at all lonely at the\r
+Manor, and to resist for the present the severe prescription of a lady\r
+companion. When she reached home and remembered her engagement, she\r
+was glad of it; and finding that she had still an hour before she could\r
+dress for dinner, she walked straight to the schoolhouse and entered\r
+into a conversation with the master and mistress about the new bell,\r
+giving eager attention to their small details and repetitions, and\r
+getting up a dramatic sense that her life was very busy. She paused on\r
+her way back to talk to old Master Bunney who was putting in some\r
+garden-seeds, and discoursed wisely with that rural sage about the\r
+crops that would make the most return on a perch of ground, and the\r
+result of sixty years' experience as to soils--namely, that if your\r
+soil was pretty mellow it would do, but if there came wet, wet, wet to\r
+make it all of a mummy, why then--\r
+\r
+Finding that the social spirit had beguiled her into being rather late,\r
+she dressed hastily and went over to the parsonage rather earlier than\r
+was necessary. That house was never dull, Mr. Farebrother, like\r
+another White of Selborne, having continually something new to tell of\r
+his inarticulate guests and proteges, whom he was teaching the boys not\r
+to torment; and he had just set up a pair of beautiful goats to be pets\r
+of the village in general, and to walk at large as sacred animals. The\r
+evening went by cheerfully till after tea, Dorothea talking more than\r
+usual and dilating with Mr. Farebrother on the possible histories of\r
+creatures that converse compendiously with their antennae, and for\r
+aught we know may hold reformed parliaments; when suddenly some\r
+inarticulate little sounds were heard which called everybody's\r
+attention.\r
+\r
+"Henrietta Noble," said Mrs. Farebrother, seeing her small sister\r
+moving about the furniture-legs distressfully, "what is the matter?"\r
+\r
+"I have lost my tortoise-shell lozenge-box. I fear the kitten has\r
+rolled it away," said the tiny old lady, involuntarily continuing her\r
+beaver-like notes.\r
+\r
+"Is it a great treasure, aunt?" said Mr. Farebrother, putting up his\r
+glasses and looking at the carpet.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ladislaw gave it me," said Miss Noble. "A German box--very\r
+pretty, but if it falls it always spins away as far as it can."\r
+\r
+"Oh, if it is Ladislaw's present," said Mr. Farebrother, in a deep tone\r
+of comprehension, getting up and hunting. The box was found at last\r
+under a chiffonier, and Miss Noble grasped it with delight, saying, "it\r
+was under a fender the last time."\r
+\r
+"That is an affair of the heart with my aunt," said Mr. Farebrother,\r
+smiling at Dorothea, as he reseated himself.\r
+\r
+"If Henrietta Noble forms an attachment to any one, Mrs. Casaubon,"\r
+said his mother, emphatically,--"she is like a dog--she would take\r
+their shoes for a pillow and sleep the better."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ladislaw's shoes, I would," said Henrietta Noble.\r
+\r
+Dorothea made an attempt at smiling in return. She was surprised and\r
+annoyed to find that her heart was palpitating violently, and that it\r
+was quite useless to try after a recovery of her former animation.\r
+Alarmed at herself--fearing some further betrayal of a change so marked\r
+in its occasion, she rose and said in a low voice with undisguised\r
+anxiety, "I must go; I have overtired myself."\r
+\r
+Mr. Farebrother, quick in perception, rose and said, "It is true; you\r
+must have half-exhausted yourself in talking about Lydgate. That sort\r
+of work tells upon one after the excitement is over."\r
+\r
+He gave her his arm back to the Manor, but Dorothea did not attempt to\r
+speak, even when he said good-night.\r
+\r
+The limit of resistance was reached, and she had sunk back helpless\r
+within the clutch of inescapable anguish. Dismissing Tantripp with a\r
+few faint words, she locked her door, and turning away from it towards\r
+the vacant room she pressed her hands hard on the top of her head, and\r
+moaned out--\r
+\r
+"Oh, I did love him!"\r
+\r
+Then came the hour in which the waves of suffering shook her too\r
+thoroughly to leave any power of thought. She could only cry in loud\r
+whispers, between her sobs, after her lost belief which she had planted\r
+and kept alive from a very little seed since the days in Rome--after\r
+her lost joy of clinging with silent love and faith to one who,\r
+misprized by others, was worthy in her thought--after her lost woman's\r
+pride of reigning in his memory--after her sweet dim perspective of\r
+hope, that along some pathway they should meet with unchanged\r
+recognition and take up the backward years as a yesterday.\r
+\r
+In that hour she repeated what the merciful eyes of solitude have\r
+looked on for ages in the spiritual struggles of man--she besought\r
+hardness and coldness and aching weariness to bring her relief from the\r
+mysterious incorporeal might of her anguish: she lay on the bare floor\r
+and let the night grow cold around her; while her grand woman's frame\r
+was shaken by sobs as if she had been a despairing child.\r
+\r
+There were two images--two living forms that tore her heart in two, as\r
+if it had been the heart of a mother who seems to see her child divided\r
+by the sword, and presses one bleeding half to her breast while her\r
+gaze goes forth in agony towards the half which is carried away by the\r
+lying woman that has never known the mother's pang.\r
+\r
+Here, with the nearness of an answering smile, here within the\r
+vibrating bond of mutual speech, was the bright creature whom she had\r
+trusted--who had come to her like the spirit of morning visiting the\r
+dim vault where she sat as the bride of a worn-out life; and now, with\r
+a full consciousness which had never awakened before, she stretched out\r
+her arms towards him and cried with bitter cries that their nearness\r
+was a parting vision: she discovered her passion to herself in the\r
+unshrinking utterance of despair.\r
+\r
+And there, aloof, yet persistently with her, moving wherever she moved,\r
+was the Will Ladislaw who was a changed belief exhausted of hope, a\r
+detected illusion--no, a living man towards whom there could not yet\r
+struggle any wail of regretful pity, from the midst of scorn and\r
+indignation and jealous offended pride. The fire of Dorothea's anger\r
+was not easily spent, and it flamed out in fitful returns of spurning\r
+reproach. Why had he come obtruding his life into hers, hers that\r
+might have been whole enough without him? Why had he brought his cheap\r
+regard and his lip-born words to her who had nothing paltry to give in\r
+exchange? He knew that he was deluding her--wished, in the very moment\r
+of farewell, to make her believe that he gave her the whole price of\r
+her heart, and knew that he had spent it half before. Why had he not\r
+stayed among the crowd of whom she asked nothing--but only prayed that\r
+they might be less contemptible?\r
+\r
+But she lost energy at last even for her loud-whispered cries and\r
+moans: she subsided into helpless sobs, and on the cold floor she\r
+sobbed herself to sleep.\r
+\r
+In the chill hours of the morning twilight, when all was dim around\r
+her, she awoke--not with any amazed wondering where she was or what had\r
+happened, but with the clearest consciousness that she was looking into\r
+the eyes of sorrow. She rose, and wrapped warm things around her, and\r
+seated herself in a great chair where she had often watched before.\r
+She was vigorous enough to have borne that hard night without feeling\r
+ill in body, beyond some aching and fatigue; but she had waked to a new\r
+condition: she felt as if her soul had been liberated from its terrible\r
+conflict; she was no longer wrestling with her grief, but could sit\r
+down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her\r
+thoughts. For now the thoughts came thickly. It was not in Dorothea's\r
+nature, for longer than the duration of a paroxysm, to sit in the\r
+narrow cell of her calamity, in the besotted misery of a consciousness\r
+that only sees another's lot as an accident of its own.\r
+\r
+She began now to live through that yesterday morning deliberately\r
+again, forcing herself to dwell on every detail and its possible\r
+meaning. Was she alone in that scene? Was it her event only? She\r
+forced herself to think of it as bound up with another woman's life--a\r
+woman towards whom she had set out with a longing to carry some\r
+clearness and comfort into her beclouded youth. In her first outleap\r
+of jealous indignation and disgust, when quitting the hateful room, she\r
+had flung away all the mercy with which she had undertaken that visit.\r
+She had enveloped both Will and Rosamond in her burning scorn, and it\r
+seemed to her as if Rosamond were burned out of her sight forever. But\r
+that base prompting which makes a women more cruel to a rival than to a\r
+faithless lover, could have no strength of recurrence in Dorothea when\r
+the dominant spirit of justice within her had once overcome the tumult\r
+and had once shown her the truer measure of things. All the active\r
+thought with which she had before been representing to herself the\r
+trials of Lydgate's lot, and this young marriage union which, like her\r
+own, seemed to have its hidden as well as evident troubles--all this\r
+vivid sympathetic experience returned to her now as a power: it\r
+asserted itself as acquired knowledge asserts itself and will not let\r
+us see as we saw in the day of our ignorance. She said to her own\r
+irremediable grief, that it should make her more helpful, instead of\r
+driving her back from effort.\r
+\r
+And what sort of crisis might not this be in three lives whose contact\r
+with hers laid an obligation on her as if they had been suppliants\r
+bearing the sacred branch? The objects of her rescue were not to be\r
+sought out by her fancy: they were chosen for her. She yearned towards\r
+the perfect Right, that it might make a throne within her, and rule her\r
+errant will. "What should I do--how should I act now, this very day,\r
+if I could clutch my own pain, and compel it to silence, and think of\r
+those three?"\r
+\r
+It had taken long for her to come to that question, and there was light\r
+piercing into the room. She opened her curtains, and looked out\r
+towards the bit of road that lay in view, with fields beyond outside\r
+the entrance-gates. On the road there was a man with a bundle on his\r
+back and a woman carrying her baby; in the field she could see figures\r
+moving--perhaps the shepherd with his dog. Far off in the bending sky\r
+was the pearly light; and she felt the largeness of the world and the\r
+manifold wakings of men to labor and endurance. She was a part of that\r
+involuntary, palpitating life, and could neither look out on it from\r
+her luxurious shelter as a mere spectator, nor hide her eyes in selfish\r
+complaining.\r
+\r
+What she would resolve to do that day did not yet seem quite clear, but\r
+something that she could achieve stirred her as with an approaching\r
+murmur which would soon gather distinctness. She took off the clothes\r
+which seemed to have some of the weariness of a hard watching in them,\r
+and began to make her toilet. Presently she rang for Tantripp, who\r
+came in her dressing-gown.\r
+\r
+"Why, madam, you've never been in bed this blessed night," burst out\r
+Tantripp, looking first at the bed and then at Dorothea's face, which\r
+in spite of bathing had the pale cheeks and pink eyelids of a mater\r
+dolorosa. "You'll kill yourself, you _will_. Anybody might think now\r
+you had a right to give yourself a little comfort."\r
+\r
+"Don't be alarmed, Tantripp," said Dorothea, smiling. "I have slept; I\r
+am not ill. I shall be glad of a cup of coffee as soon as possible.\r
+And I want you to bring me my new dress; and most likely I shall want\r
+my new bonnet to-day."\r
+\r
+"They've lain there a month and more ready for you, madam, and most\r
+thankful I shall be to see you with a couple o' pounds' worth less of\r
+crape," said Tantripp, stooping to light the fire. "There's a reason\r
+in mourning, as I've always said; and three folds at the bottom of your\r
+skirt and a plain quilling in your bonnet--and if ever anybody looked\r
+like an angel, it's you in a net quilling--is what's consistent for a\r
+second year. At least, that's _my_ thinking," ended Tantripp, looking\r
+anxiously at the fire; "and if anybody was to marry me flattering\r
+himself I should wear those hijeous weepers two years for him, he'd be\r
+deceived by his own vanity, that's all."\r
+\r
+"The fire will do, my good Tan," said Dorothea, speaking as she used to\r
+do in the old Lausanne days, only with a very low voice; "get me the\r
+coffee."\r
+\r
+She folded herself in the large chair, and leaned her head against it\r
+in fatigued quiescence, while Tantripp went away wondering at this\r
+strange contrariness in her young mistress--that just the morning when\r
+she had more of a widow's face than ever, she should have asked for her\r
+lighter mourning which she had waived before. Tantripp would never\r
+have found the clew to this mystery. Dorothea wished to acknowledge\r
+that she had not the less an active life before her because she had\r
+buried a private joy; and the tradition that fresh garments belonged to\r
+all initiation, haunting her mind, made her grasp after even that\r
+slight outward help towards calm resolve. For the resolve was not easy.\r
+\r
+Nevertheless at eleven o'clock she was walking towards Middlemarch,\r
+having made up her mind that she would make as quietly and unnoticeably\r
+as possible her second attempt to see and save Rosamond.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXI.\r
+\r
+ "Du Erde warst auch diese Nacht bestandig,\r
+ Und athmest neu erquickt zu meinen Fussen,\r
+ Beginnest schon mit Lust mich zu umgeben,\r
+ Zum regst und ruhrst ein kraftiges Reschliessen\r
+ Zum hochsten Dasein immerfort zu streben.\r
+ --Faust: 2r Theil.\r
+\r
+\r
+When Dorothea was again at Lydgate's door speaking to Martha, he was in\r
+the room close by with the door ajar, preparing to go out. He heard\r
+her voice, and immediately came to her.\r
+\r
+"Do you think that Mrs. Lydgate can receive me this morning?" she said,\r
+having reflected that it would be better to leave out all allusion to\r
+her previous visit.\r
+\r
+"I have no doubt she will," said Lydgate, suppressing his thought about\r
+Dorothea's looks, which were as much changed as Rosamond's, "if you\r
+will be kind enough to come in and let me tell her that you are here.\r
+She has not been very well since you were here yesterday, but she is\r
+better this morning, and I think it is very likely that she will be\r
+cheered by seeing you again."\r
+\r
+It was plain that Lydgate, as Dorothea had expected, knew nothing about\r
+the circumstances of her yesterday's visit; nay, he appeared to imagine\r
+that she had carried it out according to her intention. She had\r
+prepared a little note asking Rosamond to see her, which she would have\r
+given to the servant if he had not been in the way, but now she was in\r
+much anxiety as to the result of his announcement.\r
+\r
+After leading her into the drawing-room, he paused to take a letter\r
+from his pocket and put it into her hands, saying, "I wrote this last\r
+night, and was going to carry it to Lowick in my ride. When one is\r
+grateful for something too good for common thanks, writing is less\r
+unsatisfactory than speech--one does not at least _hear_ how inadequate\r
+the words are."\r
+\r
+Dorothea's face brightened. "It is I who have most to thank for, since\r
+you have let me take that place. You _have_ consented?" she said,\r
+suddenly doubting.\r
+\r
+"Yes, the check is going to Bulstrode to-day."\r
+\r
+He said no more, but went up-stairs to Rosamond, who had but lately\r
+finished dressing herself, and sat languidly wondering what she should\r
+do next, her habitual industry in small things, even in the days of her\r
+sadness, prompting her to begin some kind of occupation, which she\r
+dragged through slowly or paused in from lack of interest. She looked\r
+ill, but had recovered her usual quietude of manner, and Lydgate had\r
+feared to disturb her by any questions. He had told her of Dorothea's\r
+letter containing the check, and afterwards he had said, "Ladislaw is\r
+come, Rosy; he sat with me last night; I dare say he will be here again\r
+to-day. I thought he looked rather battered and depressed." And\r
+Rosamond had made no reply.\r
+\r
+Now, when he came up, he said to her very gently, "Rosy, dear, Mrs.\r
+Casaubon is come to see you again; you would like to see her, would you\r
+not?" That she colored and gave rather a startled movement did not\r
+surprise him after the agitation produced by the interview yesterday--a\r
+beneficent agitation, he thought, since it seemed to have made her turn\r
+to him again.\r
+\r
+Rosamond dared not say no. She dared not with a tone of her voice\r
+touch the facts of yesterday. Why had Mrs. Casaubon come again? The\r
+answer was a blank which Rosamond could only fill up with dread, for\r
+Will Ladislaw's lacerating words had made every thought of Dorothea a\r
+fresh smart to her. Nevertheless, in her new humiliating uncertainty\r
+she dared do nothing but comply. She did not say yes, but she rose and\r
+let Lydgate put a light shawl over her shoulders, while he said, "I am\r
+going out immediately." Then something crossed her mind which prompted\r
+her to say, "Pray tell Martha not to bring any one else into the\r
+drawing-room." And Lydgate assented, thinking that he fully understood\r
+this wish. He led her down to the drawing-room door, and then turned\r
+away, observing to himself that he was rather a blundering husband to\r
+be dependent for his wife's trust in him on the influence of another\r
+woman.\r
+\r
+Rosamond, wrapping her soft shawl around her as she walked towards\r
+Dorothea, was inwardly wrapping her soul in cold reserve. Had Mrs.\r
+Casaubon come to say anything to her about Will? If so, it was a\r
+liberty that Rosamond resented; and she prepared herself to meet every\r
+word with polite impassibility. Will had bruised her pride too sorely\r
+for her to feel any compunction towards him and Dorothea: her own\r
+injury seemed much the greater. Dorothea was not only the "preferred"\r
+woman, but had also a formidable advantage in being Lydgate's\r
+benefactor; and to poor Rosamond's pained confused vision it seemed\r
+that this Mrs. Casaubon--this woman who predominated in all things\r
+concerning her--must have come now with the sense of having the\r
+advantage, and with animosity prompting her to use it. Indeed, not\r
+Rosamond only, but any one else, knowing the outer facts of the case,\r
+and not the simple inspiration on which Dorothea acted, might well have\r
+wondered why she came.\r
+\r
+Looking like the lovely ghost of herself, her graceful slimness wrapped\r
+in her soft white shawl, the rounded infantine mouth and cheek\r
+inevitably suggesting mildness and innocence, Rosamond paused at three\r
+yards' distance from her visitor and bowed. But Dorothea, who had\r
+taken off her gloves, from an impulse which she could never resist when\r
+she wanted a sense of freedom, came forward, and with her face full of\r
+a sad yet sweet openness, put out her hand. Rosamond could not avoid\r
+meeting her glance, could not avoid putting her small hand into\r
+Dorothea's, which clasped it with gentle motherliness; and immediately\r
+a doubt of her own prepossessions began to stir within her. Rosamond's\r
+eye was quick for faces; she saw that Mrs. Casaubon's face looked pale\r
+and changed since yesterday, yet gentle, and like the firm softness of\r
+her hand. But Dorothea had counted a little too much on her own\r
+strength: the clearness and intensity of her mental action this morning\r
+were the continuance of a nervous exaltation which made her frame as\r
+dangerously responsive as a bit of finest Venetian crystal; and in\r
+looking at Rosamond, she suddenly found her heart swelling, and was\r
+unable to speak--all her effort was required to keep back tears. She\r
+succeeded in that, and the emotion only passed over her face like the\r
+spirit of a sob; but it added to Rosamond's impression that Mrs.\r
+Casaubon's state of mind must be something quite different from what\r
+she had imagined.\r
+\r
+So they sat down without a word of preface on the two chairs that\r
+happened to be nearest, and happened also to be close together; though\r
+Rosamond's notion when she first bowed was that she should stay a long\r
+way off from Mrs. Casaubon. But she ceased thinking how anything would\r
+turn out--merely wondering what would come. And Dorothea began to\r
+speak quite simply, gathering firmness as she went on.\r
+\r
+"I had an errand yesterday which I did not finish; that is why I am\r
+here again so soon. You will not think me too troublesome when I tell\r
+you that I came to talk to you about the injustice that has been shown\r
+towards Mr. Lydgate. It will cheer you--will it not?--to know a great\r
+deal about him, that he may not like to speak about himself just\r
+because it is in his own vindication and to his own honor. You will\r
+like to know that your husband has warm friends, who have not left off\r
+believing in his high character? You will let me speak of this without\r
+thinking that I take a liberty?"\r
+\r
+The cordial, pleading tones which seemed to flow with generous\r
+heedlessness above all the facts which had filled Rosamond's mind as\r
+grounds of obstruction and hatred between her and this woman, came as\r
+soothingly as a warm stream over her shrinking fears. Of course Mrs.\r
+Casaubon had the facts in her mind, but she was not going to speak of\r
+anything connected with them. That relief was too great for Rosamond\r
+to feel much else at the moment. She answered prettily, in the new\r
+ease of her soul--\r
+\r
+"I know you have been very good. I shall like to hear anything you\r
+will say to me about Tertius."\r
+\r
+"The day before yesterday," said Dorothea, "when I had asked him to\r
+come to Lowick to give me his opinion on the affairs of the Hospital,\r
+he told me everything about his conduct and feelings in this sad event\r
+which has made ignorant people cast suspicions on him. The reason he\r
+told me was because I was very bold and asked him. I believed that he\r
+had never acted dishonorably, and I begged him to tell me the history.\r
+He confessed to me that he had never told it before, not even to you,\r
+because he had a great dislike to say, 'I was not wrong,' as if that\r
+were proof, when there are guilty people who will say so. The truth\r
+is, he knew nothing of this man Raffles, or that there were any bad\r
+secrets about him; and he thought that Mr. Bulstrode offered him the\r
+money because he repented, out of kindness, of having refused it\r
+before. All his anxiety about his patient was to treat him rightly,\r
+and he was a little uncomfortable that the case did not end as he had\r
+expected; but he thought then and still thinks that there may have been\r
+no wrong in it on any one's part. And I have told Mr. Farebrother, and\r
+Mr. Brooke, and Sir James Chettam: they all believe in your husband.\r
+That will cheer you, will it not? That will give you courage?"\r
+\r
+Dorothea's face had become animated, and as it beamed on Rosamond very\r
+close to her, she felt something like bashful timidity before a\r
+superior, in the presence of this self-forgetful ardor. She said, with\r
+blushing embarrassment, "Thank you: you are very kind."\r
+\r
+"And he felt that he had been so wrong not to pour out everything about\r
+this to you. But you will forgive him. It was because he feels so\r
+much more about your happiness than anything else--he feels his life\r
+bound into one with yours, and it hurts him more than anything, that\r
+his misfortunes must hurt you. He could speak to me because I am an\r
+indifferent person. And then I asked him if I might come to see you;\r
+because I felt so much for his trouble and yours. That is why I came\r
+yesterday, and why I am come to-day. Trouble is so hard to bear, is it\r
+not?-- How can we live and think that any one has trouble--piercing\r
+trouble--and we could help them, and never try?"\r
+\r
+Dorothea, completely swayed by the feeling that she was uttering,\r
+forgot everything but that she was speaking from out the heart of her\r
+own trial to Rosamond's. The emotion had wrought itself more and more\r
+into her utterance, till the tones might have gone to one's very\r
+marrow, like a low cry from some suffering creature in the darkness.\r
+And she had unconsciously laid her hand again on the little hand that\r
+she had pressed before.\r
+\r
+Rosamond, with an overmastering pang, as if a wound within her had been\r
+probed, burst into hysterical crying as she had done the day before\r
+when she clung to her husband. Poor Dorothea was feeling a great wave\r
+of her own sorrow returning over her--her thought being drawn to the\r
+possible share that Will Ladislaw might have in Rosamond's mental\r
+tumult. She was beginning to fear that she should not be able to\r
+suppress herself enough to the end of this meeting, and while her hand\r
+was still resting on Rosamond's lap, though the hand underneath it was\r
+withdrawn, she was struggling against her own rising sobs. She tried\r
+to master herself with the thought that this might be a turning-point\r
+in three lives--not in her own; no, there the irrevocable had\r
+happened, but--in those three lives which were touching hers with the\r
+solemn neighborhood of danger and distress. The fragile creature who\r
+was crying close to her--there might still be time to rescue her from\r
+the misery of false incompatible bonds; and this moment was unlike any\r
+other: she and Rosamond could never be together again with the same\r
+thrilling consciousness of yesterday within them both. She felt the\r
+relation between them to be peculiar enough to give her a peculiar\r
+influence, though she had no conception that the way in which her own\r
+feelings were involved was fully known to Mrs. Lydgate.\r
+\r
+It was a newer crisis in Rosamond's experience than even Dorothea could\r
+imagine: she was under the first great shock that had shattered her\r
+dream-world in which she had been easily confident of herself and\r
+critical of others; and this strange unexpected manifestation of\r
+feeling in a woman whom she had approached with a shrinking aversion\r
+and dread, as one who must necessarily have a jealous hatred towards\r
+her, made her soul totter all the more with a sense that she had been\r
+walking in an unknown world which had just broken in upon her.\r
+\r
+When Rosamond's convulsed throat was subsiding into calm, and she\r
+withdrew the handkerchief with which she had been hiding her face, her\r
+eyes met Dorothea's as helplessly as if they had been blue flowers.\r
+What was the use of thinking about behavior after this crying? And\r
+Dorothea looked almost as childish, with the neglected trace of a\r
+silent tear. Pride was broken down between these two.\r
+\r
+"We were talking about your husband," Dorothea said, with some\r
+timidity. "I thought his looks were sadly changed with suffering the\r
+other day. I had not seen him for many weeks before. He said he had\r
+been feeling very lonely in his trial; but I think he would have borne\r
+it all better if he had been able to be quite open with you."\r
+\r
+"Tertius is so angry and impatient if I say anything," said Rosamond,\r
+imagining that he had been complaining of her to Dorothea. "He ought\r
+not to wonder that I object to speak to him on painful subjects."\r
+\r
+"It was himself he blamed for not speaking," said Dorothea. "What he\r
+said of you was, that he could not be happy in doing anything which\r
+made you unhappy--that his marriage was of course a bond which must\r
+affect his choice about everything; and for that reason he refused my\r
+proposal that he should keep his position at the Hospital, because that\r
+would bind him to stay in Middlemarch, and he would not undertake to do\r
+anything which would be painful to you. He could say that to me,\r
+because he knows that I had much trial in my marriage, from my\r
+husband's illness, which hindered his plans and saddened him; and he\r
+knows that I have felt how hard it is to walk always in fear of hurting\r
+another who is tied to us."\r
+\r
+Dorothea waited a little; she had discerned a faint pleasure stealing\r
+over Rosamond's face. But there was no answer, and she went on, with a\r
+gathering tremor, "Marriage is so unlike everything else. There is\r
+something even awful in the nearness it brings. Even if we loved some\r
+one else better than--than those we were married to, it would be no\r
+use"--poor Dorothea, in her palpitating anxiety, could only seize her\r
+language brokenly--"I mean, marriage drinks up all our power of giving\r
+or getting any blessedness in that sort of love. I know it may be very\r
+dear--but it murders our marriage--and then the marriage stays with us\r
+like a murder--and everything else is gone. And then our husband--if\r
+he loved and trusted us, and we have not helped him, but made a curse\r
+in his life--"\r
+\r
+Her voice had sunk very low: there was a dread upon her of presuming\r
+too far, and of speaking as if she herself were perfection addressing\r
+error. She was too much preoccupied with her own anxiety, to be aware\r
+that Rosamond was trembling too; and filled with the need to express\r
+pitying fellowship rather than rebuke, she put her hands on Rosamond's,\r
+and said with more agitated rapidity,--"I know, I know that the feeling\r
+may be very dear--it has taken hold of us unawares--it is so hard, it\r
+may seem like death to part with it--and we are weak--I am weak--"\r
+\r
+The waves of her own sorrow, from out of which she was struggling to\r
+save another, rushed over Dorothea with conquering force. She stopped\r
+in speechless agitation, not crying, but feeling as if she were being\r
+inwardly grappled. Her face had become of a deathlier paleness, her\r
+lips trembled, and she pressed her hands helplessly on the hands that\r
+lay under them.\r
+\r
+Rosamond, taken hold of by an emotion stronger than her own--hurried\r
+along in a new movement which gave all things some new, awful,\r
+undefined aspect--could find no words, but involuntarily she put her\r
+lips to Dorothea's forehead which was very near her, and then for a\r
+minute the two women clasped each other as if they had been in a\r
+shipwreck.\r
+\r
+"You are thinking what is not true," said Rosamond, in an eager\r
+half-whisper, while she was still feeling Dorothea's arms round\r
+her--urged by a mysterious necessity to free herself from something\r
+that oppressed her as if it were blood guiltiness.\r
+\r
+They moved apart, looking at each other.\r
+\r
+"When you came in yesterday--it was not as you thought," said Rosamond\r
+in the same tone.\r
+\r
+There was a movement of surprised attention in Dorothea. She expected\r
+a vindication of Rosamond herself.\r
+\r
+"He was telling me how he loved another woman, that I might know he\r
+could never love me," said Rosamond, getting more and more hurried as\r
+she went on. "And now I think he hates me because--because you\r
+mistook him yesterday. He says it is through me that you will think\r
+ill of him--think that he is a false person. But it shall not be\r
+through me. He has never had any love for me--I know he has not--he\r
+has always thought slightly of me. He said yesterday that no other\r
+woman existed for him beside you. The blame of what happened is\r
+entirely mine. He said he could never explain to you--because of me.\r
+He said you could never think well of him again. But now I have told\r
+you, and he cannot reproach me any more."\r
+\r
+Rosamond had delivered her soul under impulses which she had not known\r
+before. She had begun her confession under the subduing influence of\r
+Dorothea's emotion; and as she went on she had gathered the sense that\r
+she was repelling Will's reproaches, which were still like a\r
+knife-wound within her.\r
+\r
+The revulsion of feeling in Dorothea was too strong to be called joy.\r
+It was a tumult in which the terrible strain of the night and morning\r
+made a resistant pain:--she could only perceive that this would be joy\r
+when she had recovered her power of feeling it. Her immediate\r
+consciousness was one of immense sympathy without check; she cared for\r
+Rosamond without struggle now, and responded earnestly to her last\r
+words--\r
+\r
+"No, he cannot reproach you any more."\r
+\r
+With her usual tendency to over-estimate the good in others, she felt a\r
+great outgoing of her heart towards Rosamond, for the generous effort\r
+which had redeemed her from suffering, not counting that the effort was\r
+a reflex of her own energy. After they had been silent a little, she\r
+said--\r
+\r
+"You are not sorry that I came this morning?"\r
+\r
+"No, you have been very good to me," said Rosamond. "I did not think\r
+that you would be so good. I was very unhappy. I am not happy now.\r
+Everything is so sad."\r
+\r
+"But better days will come. Your husband will be rightly valued. And\r
+he depends on you for comfort. He loves you best. The worst loss\r
+would be to lose that--and you have not lost it," said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+She tried to thrust away the too overpowering thought of her own\r
+relief, lest she should fail to win some sign that Rosamond's affection\r
+was yearning back towards her husband.\r
+\r
+"Tertius did not find fault with me, then?" said Rosamond,\r
+understanding now that Lydgate might have said anything to Mrs.\r
+Casaubon, and that she certainly was different from other women.\r
+Perhaps there was a faint taste of jealousy in the question. A smile\r
+began to play over Dorothea's face as she said--\r
+\r
+"No, indeed! How could you imagine it?" But here the door opened, and\r
+Lydgate entered.\r
+\r
+"I am come back in my quality of doctor," he said. "After I went away,\r
+I was haunted by two pale faces: Mrs. Casaubon looked as much in need\r
+of care as you, Rosy. And I thought that I had not done my duty in\r
+leaving you together; so when I had been to Coleman's I came home\r
+again. I noticed that you were walking, Mrs. Casaubon, and the sky has\r
+changed--I think we may have rain. May I send some one to order your\r
+carriage to come for you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, no! I am strong: I need the walk," said Dorothea, rising with\r
+animation in her face. "Mrs. Lydgate and I have chatted a great deal,\r
+and it is time for me to go. I have always been accused of being\r
+immoderate and saying too much."\r
+\r
+She put out her hand to Rosamond, and they said an earnest, quiet\r
+good-by without kiss or other show of effusion: there had been between\r
+them too much serious emotion for them to use the signs of it\r
+superficially.\r
+\r
+As Lydgate took her to the door she said nothing of Rosamond, but told\r
+him of Mr. Farebrother and the other friends who had listened with\r
+belief to his story.\r
+\r
+When he came back to Rosamond, she had already thrown herself on the\r
+sofa, in resigned fatigue.\r
+\r
+"Well, Rosy," he said, standing over her, and touching her hair, "what\r
+do you think of Mrs. Casaubon now you have seen so much of her?"\r
+\r
+"I think she must be better than any one," said Rosamond, "and she is\r
+very beautiful. If you go to talk to her so often, you will be more\r
+discontented with me than ever!"\r
+\r
+Lydgate laughed at the "so often." "But has she made you any less\r
+discontented with me?"\r
+\r
+"I think she has," said Rosamond, looking up in his face. "How heavy\r
+your eyes are, Tertius--and do push your hair back." He lifted up his\r
+large white hand to obey her, and felt thankful for this little mark of\r
+interest in him. Poor Rosamond's vagrant fancy had come back terribly\r
+scourged--meek enough to nestle under the old despised shelter. And\r
+the shelter was still there: Lydgate had accepted his narrowed lot with\r
+sad resignation. He had chosen this fragile creature, and had taken\r
+the burthen of her life upon his arms. He must walk as he could,\r
+carrying that burthen pitifully.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXII.\r
+\r
+ "My grief lies onward and my joy behind."\r
+ --SHAKESPEARE: Sonnets.\r
+\r
+\r
+Exiles notoriously feed much on hopes, and are unlikely to stay in\r
+banishment unless they are obliged. When Will Ladislaw exiled himself\r
+from Middlemarch he had placed no stronger obstacle to his return than\r
+his own resolve, which was by no means an iron barrier, but simply a\r
+state of mind liable to melt into a minuet with other states of mind,\r
+and to find itself bowing, smiling, and giving place with polite\r
+facility. As the months went on, it had seemed more and more difficult\r
+to him to say why he should not run down to Middlemarch--merely for the\r
+sake of hearing something about Dorothea; and if on such a flying visit\r
+he should chance by some strange coincidence to meet with her, there\r
+was no reason for him to be ashamed of having taken an innocent journey\r
+which he had beforehand supposed that he should not take. Since he was\r
+hopelessly divided from her, he might surely venture into her\r
+neighborhood; and as to the suspicious friends who kept a dragon watch\r
+over her--their opinions seemed less and less important with time and\r
+change of air.\r
+\r
+And there had come a reason quite irrespective of Dorothea, which\r
+seemed to make a journey to Middlemarch a sort of philanthropic duty.\r
+Will had given a disinterested attention to an intended settlement on a\r
+new plan in the Far West, and the need for funds in order to carry out\r
+a good design had set him on debating with himself whether it would not\r
+be a laudable use to make of his claim on Bulstrode, to urge the\r
+application of that money which had been offered to himself as a means\r
+of carrying out a scheme likely to be largely beneficial. The question\r
+seemed a very dubious one to Will, and his repugnance to again entering\r
+into any relation with the banker might have made him dismiss it\r
+quickly, if there had not arisen in his imagination the probability\r
+that his judgment might be more safely determined by a visit to\r
+Middlemarch.\r
+\r
+That was the object which Will stated to himself as a reason for coming\r
+down. He had meant to confide in Lydgate, and discuss the money\r
+question with him, and he had meant to amuse himself for the few\r
+evenings of his stay by having a great deal of music and badinage with\r
+fair Rosamond, without neglecting his friends at Lowick Parsonage:--if\r
+the Parsonage was close to the Manor, that was no fault of his. He had\r
+neglected the Farebrothers before his departure, from a proud\r
+resistance to the possible accusation of indirectly seeking interviews\r
+with Dorothea; but hunger tames us, and Will had become very hungry for\r
+the vision of a certain form and the sound of a certain voice.\r
+Nothing, had done instead--not the opera, or the converse of zealous\r
+politicians, or the flattering reception (in dim corners) of his new\r
+hand in leading articles.\r
+\r
+Thus he had come down, foreseeing with confidence how almost everything\r
+would be in his familiar little world; fearing, indeed, that there\r
+would be no surprises in his visit. But he had found that humdrum\r
+world in a terribly dynamic condition, in which even badinage and\r
+lyrism had turned explosive; and the first day of this visit had become\r
+the most fatal epoch of his life. The next morning he felt so harassed\r
+with the nightmare of consequences--he dreaded so much the immediate\r
+issues before him--that seeing while he breakfasted the arrival of the\r
+Riverston coach, he went out hurriedly and took his place on it, that\r
+he might be relieved, at least for a day, from the necessity of doing\r
+or saying anything in Middlemarch. Will Ladislaw was in one of those\r
+tangled crises which are commoner in experience than one might imagine,\r
+from the shallow absoluteness of men's judgments. He had found\r
+Lydgate, for whom he had the sincerest respect, under circumstances\r
+which claimed his thorough and frankly declared sympathy; and the\r
+reason why, in spite of that claim, it would have been better for Will\r
+to have avoided all further intimacy, or even contact, with Lydgate,\r
+was precisely of the kind to make such a course appear impossible. To\r
+a creature of Will's susceptible temperament--without any neutral\r
+region of indifference in his nature, ready to turn everything that\r
+befell him into the collisions of a passionate drama--the revelation\r
+that Rosamond had made her happiness in any way dependent on him was a\r
+difficulty which his outburst of rage towards her had immeasurably\r
+increased for him. He hated his own cruelty, and yet he dreaded to\r
+show the fulness of his relenting: he must go to her again; the\r
+friendship could not be put to a sudden end; and her unhappiness was a\r
+power which he dreaded. And all the while there was no more foretaste\r
+of enjoyment in the life before him than if his limbs had been lopped\r
+off and he was making his fresh start on crutches. In the night he had\r
+debated whether he should not get on the coach, not for Riverston, but\r
+for London, leaving a note to Lydgate which would give a makeshift\r
+reason for his retreat. But there were strong cords pulling him back\r
+from that abrupt departure: the blight on his happiness in thinking of\r
+Dorothea, the crushing of that chief hope which had remained in spite\r
+of the acknowledged necessity for renunciation, was too fresh a misery\r
+for him to resign himself to it and go straightway into a distance\r
+which was also despair.\r
+\r
+Thus he did nothing more decided than taking the Riverston coach. He\r
+came back again by it while it was still daylight, having made up his\r
+mind that he must go to Lydgate's that evening. The Rubicon, we know,\r
+was a very insignificant stream to look at; its significance lay\r
+entirely in certain invisible conditions. Will felt as if he were\r
+forced to cross his small boundary ditch, and what he saw beyond it was\r
+not empire, but discontented subjection.\r
+\r
+But it is given to us sometimes even in our every-day life to witness\r
+the saving influence of a noble nature, the divine efficacy of rescue\r
+that may lie in a self-subduing act of fellowship. If Dorothea, after\r
+her night's anguish, had not taken that walk to Rosamond--why, she\r
+perhaps would have been a woman who gained a higher character for\r
+discretion, but it would certainly not have been as well for those\r
+three who were on one hearth in Lydgate's house at half-past seven that\r
+evening.\r
+\r
+Rosamond had been prepared for Will's visit, and she received him with\r
+a languid coldness which Lydgate accounted for by her nervous\r
+exhaustion, of which he could not suppose that it had any relation to\r
+Will. And when she sat in silence bending over a bit of work, he\r
+innocently apologized for her in an indirect way by begging her to lean\r
+backward and rest. Will was miserable in the necessity for playing the\r
+part of a friend who was making his first appearance and greeting to\r
+Rosamond, while his thoughts were busy about her feeling since that\r
+scene of yesterday, which seemed still inexorably to enclose them both,\r
+like the painful vision of a double madness. It happened that nothing\r
+called Lydgate out of the room; but when Rosamond poured out the tea,\r
+and Will came near to fetch it, she placed a tiny bit of folded paper\r
+in his saucer. He saw it and secured it quickly, but as he went back\r
+to his inn he had no eagerness to unfold the paper. What Rosamond had\r
+written to him would probably deepen the painful impressions of the\r
+evening. Still, he opened and read it by his bed-candle. There were\r
+only these few words in her neatly flowing hand:--\r
+\r
+"I have told Mrs. Casaubon. She is not under any mistake about you. I\r
+told her because she came to see me and was very kind. You will have\r
+nothing to reproach me with now. I shall not have made any difference\r
+to you."\r
+\r
+The effect of these words was not quite all gladness. As Will dwelt on\r
+them with excited imagination, he felt his cheeks and ears burning at\r
+the thought of what had occurred between Dorothea and Rosamond--at the\r
+uncertainty how far Dorothea might still feel her dignity wounded in\r
+having an explanation of his conduct offered to her. There might still\r
+remain in her mind a changed association with him which made an\r
+irremediable difference--a lasting flaw. With active fancy he wrought\r
+himself into a state of doubt little more easy than that of the man who\r
+has escaped from wreck by night and stands on unknown ground in the\r
+darkness. Until that wretched yesterday--except the moment of\r
+vexation long ago in the very same room and in the very same\r
+presence--all their vision, all their thought of each other, had been\r
+as in a world apart, where the sunshine fell on tall white lilies,\r
+where no evil lurked, and no other soul entered. But now--would\r
+Dorothea meet him in that world again?\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXIII.\r
+\r
+ "And now good-morrow to our waking souls\r
+ Which watch not one another out of fear;\r
+ For love all love of other sights controls,\r
+ And makes one little room, an everywhere."\r
+ --DR. DONNE.\r
+\r
+\r
+On the second morning after Dorothea's visit to Rosamond, she had had\r
+two nights of sound sleep, and had not only lost all traces of fatigue,\r
+but felt as if she had a great deal of superfluous strength--that is\r
+to say, more strength than she could manage to concentrate on any\r
+occupation. The day before, she had taken long walks outside the\r
+grounds, and had paid two visits to the Parsonage; but she never in her\r
+life told any one the reason why she spent her time in that fruitless\r
+manner, and this morning she was rather angry with herself for her\r
+childish restlessness. To-day was to be spent quite differently. What\r
+was there to be done in the village? Oh dear! nothing. Everybody was\r
+well and had flannel; nobody's pig had died; and it was Saturday\r
+morning, when there was a general scrubbing of doors and door-stones,\r
+and when it was useless to go into the school. But there were various\r
+subjects that Dorothea was trying to get clear upon, and she resolved\r
+to throw herself energetically into the gravest of all. She sat down\r
+in the library before her particular little heap of books on political\r
+economy and kindred matters, out of which she was trying to get light\r
+as to the best way of spending money so as not to injure one's\r
+neighbors, or--what comes to the same thing--so as to do them the most\r
+good. Here was a weighty subject which, if she could but lay hold of\r
+it, would certainly keep her mind steady. Unhappily her mind slipped\r
+off it for a whole hour; and at the end she found herself reading\r
+sentences twice over with an intense consciousness of many things, but\r
+not of any one thing contained in the text. This was hopeless. Should\r
+she order the carriage and drive to Tipton? No; for some reason or\r
+other she preferred staying at Lowick. But her vagrant mind must be\r
+reduced to order: there was an art in self-discipline; and she walked\r
+round and round the brown library considering by what sort of manoeuvre\r
+she could arrest her wandering thoughts. Perhaps a mere task was the\r
+best means--something to which she must go doggedly. Was there not the\r
+geography of Asia Minor, in which her slackness had often been rebuked\r
+by Mr. Casaubon? She went to the cabinet of maps and unrolled one:\r
+this morning she might make herself finally sure that Paphlagonia was\r
+not on the Levantine coast, and fix her total darkness about the\r
+Chalybes firmly on the shores of the Euxine. A map was a fine thing to\r
+study when you were disposed to think of something else, being made up\r
+of names that would turn into a chime if you went back upon them.\r
+Dorothea set earnestly to work, bending close to her map, and uttering\r
+the names in an audible, subdued tone, which often got into a chime.\r
+She looked amusingly girlish after all her deep experience--nodding\r
+her head and marking the names off on her fingers, with a little\r
+pursing of her lip, and now and then breaking off to put her hands on\r
+each side of her face and say, "Oh dear! oh dear!"\r
+\r
+There was no reason why this should end any more than a merry-go-round;\r
+but it was at last interrupted by the opening of the door and the\r
+announcement of Miss Noble.\r
+\r
+The little old lady, whose bonnet hardly reached Dorothea's shoulder,\r
+was warmly welcomed, but while her hand was being pressed she made many\r
+of her beaver-like noises, as if she had something difficult to say.\r
+\r
+"Do sit down," said Dorothea, rolling a chair forward. "Am I wanted\r
+for anything? I shall be so glad if I can do anything."\r
+\r
+"I will not stay," said Miss Noble, putting her hand into her small\r
+basket, and holding some article inside it nervously; "I have left a\r
+friend in the churchyard." She lapsed into her inarticulate sounds,\r
+and unconsciously drew forth the article which she was fingering. It\r
+was the tortoise-shell lozenge-box, and Dorothea felt the color\r
+mounting to her cheeks.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Ladislaw," continued the timid little woman. "He fears he has\r
+offended you, and has begged me to ask if you will see him for a few\r
+minutes."\r
+\r
+Dorothea did not answer on the instant: it was crossing her mind that\r
+she could not receive him in this library, where her husband's\r
+prohibition seemed to dwell. She looked towards the window. Could she\r
+go out and meet him in the grounds? The sky was heavy, and the trees\r
+had begun to shiver as at a coming storm. Besides, she shrank from\r
+going out to him.\r
+\r
+"Do see him, Mrs. Casaubon," said Miss Noble, pathetically; "else I\r
+must go back and say No, and that will hurt him."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I will see him," said Dorothea. "Pray tell him to come."\r
+\r
+What else was there to be done? There was nothing that she longed for\r
+at that moment except to see Will: the possibility of seeing him had\r
+thrust itself insistently between her and every other object; and yet\r
+she had a throbbing excitement like an alarm upon her--a sense that\r
+she was doing something daringly defiant for his sake.\r
+\r
+When the little lady had trotted away on her mission, Dorothea stood in\r
+the middle of the library with her hands falling clasped before her,\r
+making no attempt to compose herself in an attitude of dignified\r
+unconsciousness. What she was least conscious of just then was her own\r
+body: she was thinking of what was likely to be in Will's mind, and of\r
+the hard feelings that others had had about him. How could any duty\r
+bind her to hardness? Resistance to unjust dispraise had mingled with\r
+her feeling for him from the very first, and now in the rebound of her\r
+heart after her anguish the resistance was stronger than ever. "If I\r
+love him too much it is because he has been used so ill:"--there was a\r
+voice within her saying this to some imagined audience in the library,\r
+when the door was opened, and she saw Will before her.\r
+\r
+She did not move, and he came towards her with more doubt and timidity\r
+in his face than she had ever seen before. He was in a state of\r
+uncertainty which made him afraid lest some look or word of his should\r
+condemn him to a new distance from her; and Dorothea was afraid of her\r
+_own_ emotion. She looked as if there were a spell upon her, keeping\r
+her motionless and hindering her from unclasping her hands, while some\r
+intense, grave yearning was imprisoned within her eyes. Seeing that\r
+she did not put out her hand as usual, Will paused a yard from her and\r
+said with embarrassment, "I am so grateful to you for seeing me."\r
+\r
+"I wanted to see you," said Dorothea, having no other words at command.\r
+It did not occur to her to sit down, and Will did not give a cheerful\r
+interpretation to this queenly way of receiving him; but he went on to\r
+say what he had made up his mind to say.\r
+\r
+"I fear you think me foolish and perhaps wrong for coming back so soon.\r
+I have been punished for my impatience. You know--every one knows\r
+now--a painful story about my parentage. I knew of it before I went\r
+away, and I always meant to tell you of it if--if we ever met again."\r
+\r
+There was a slight movement in Dorothea, and she unclasped her hands,\r
+but immediately folded them over each other.\r
+\r
+"But the affair is matter of gossip now," Will continued. "I wished\r
+you to know that something connected with it--something which happened\r
+before I went away, helped to bring me down here again. At least I\r
+thought it excused my coming. It was the idea of getting Bulstrode to\r
+apply some money to a public purpose--some money which he had thought\r
+of giving me. Perhaps it is rather to Bulstrode's credit that he\r
+privately offered me compensation for an old injury: he offered to give\r
+me a good income to make amends; but I suppose you know the\r
+disagreeable story?"\r
+\r
+Will looked doubtfully at Dorothea, but his manner was gathering some\r
+of the defiant courage with which he always thought of this fact in his\r
+destiny. He added, "You know that it must be altogether painful to me."\r
+\r
+"Yes--yes--I know," said Dorothea, hastily.\r
+\r
+"I did not choose to accept an income from such a source. I was sure\r
+that you would not think well of me if I did so," said Will. Why\r
+should he mind saying anything of that sort to her now? She knew that\r
+he had avowed his love for her. "I felt that"--he broke off,\r
+nevertheless.\r
+\r
+"You acted as I should have expected you to act," said Dorothea, her\r
+face brightening and her head becoming a little more erect on its\r
+beautiful stem.\r
+\r
+"I did not believe that you would let any circumstance of my birth\r
+create a prejudice in you against me, though it was sure to do so in\r
+others," said Will, shaking his head backward in his old way, and\r
+looking with a grave appeal into her eyes.\r
+\r
+"If it were a new hardship it would be a new reason for me to cling to\r
+you," said Dorothea, fervidly. "Nothing could have changed me but--"\r
+her heart was swelling, and it was difficult to go on; she made a great\r
+effort over herself to say in a low tremulous voice, "but thinking that\r
+you were different--not so good as I had believed you to be."\r
+\r
+"You are sure to believe me better than I am in everything but one,"\r
+said Will, giving way to his own feeling in the evidence of hers. "I\r
+mean, in my truth to you. When I thought you doubted of that, I didn't\r
+care about anything that was left. I thought it was all over with me,\r
+and there was nothing to try for--only things to endure."\r
+\r
+"I don't doubt you any longer," said Dorothea, putting out her hand; a\r
+vague fear for him impelling her unutterable affection.\r
+\r
+He took her hand and raised it to his lips with something like a sob.\r
+But he stood with his hat and gloves in the other hand, and might have\r
+done for the portrait of a Royalist. Still it was difficult to loose\r
+the hand, and Dorothea, withdrawing it in a confusion that distressed\r
+her, looked and moved away.\r
+\r
+"See how dark the clouds have become, and how the trees are tossed,"\r
+she said, walking towards the window, yet speaking and moving with only\r
+a dim sense of what she was doing.\r
+\r
+Will followed her at a little distance, and leaned against the tall\r
+back of a leather chair, on which he ventured now to lay his hat and\r
+gloves, and free himself from the intolerable durance of formality to\r
+which he had been for the first time condemned in Dorothea's presence.\r
+It must be confessed that he felt very happy at that moment leaning on\r
+the chair. He was not much afraid of anything that she might feel now.\r
+\r
+They stood silent, not looking at each other, but looking at the\r
+evergreens which were being tossed, and were showing the pale underside\r
+of their leaves against the blackening sky. Will never enjoyed the\r
+prospect of a storm so much: it delivered him from the necessity of\r
+going away. Leaves and little branches were hurled about, and the\r
+thunder was getting nearer. The light was more and more sombre, but\r
+there came a flash of lightning which made them start and look at each\r
+other, and then smile. Dorothea began to say what she had been\r
+thinking of.\r
+\r
+"That was a wrong thing for you to say, that you would have had nothing\r
+to try for. If we had lost our own chief good, other people's good\r
+would remain, and that is worth trying for. Some can be happy. I\r
+seemed to see that more clearly than ever, when I was the most\r
+wretched. I can hardly think how I could have borne the trouble, if\r
+that feeling had not come to me to make strength."\r
+\r
+"You have never felt the sort of misery I felt," said Will; "the misery\r
+of knowing that you must despise me."\r
+\r
+"But I have felt worse--it was worse to think ill--" Dorothea had begun\r
+impetuously, but broke off.\r
+\r
+Will colored. He had the sense that whatever she said was uttered in\r
+the vision of a fatality that kept them apart. He was silent a moment,\r
+and then said passionately--\r
+\r
+"We may at least have the comfort of speaking to each other without\r
+disguise. Since I must go away--since we must always be divided--you\r
+may think of me as one on the brink of the grave."\r
+\r
+While he was speaking there came a vivid flash of lightning which lit\r
+each of them up for the other--and the light seemed to be the terror of\r
+a hopeless love. Dorothea darted instantaneously from the window; Will\r
+followed her, seizing her hand with a spasmodic movement; and so they\r
+stood, with their hands clasped, like two children, looking out on the\r
+storm, while the thunder gave a tremendous crack and roll above them,\r
+and the rain began to pour down. Then they turned their faces towards\r
+each other, with the memory of his last words in them, and they did not\r
+loose each other's hands.\r
+\r
+"There is no hope for me," said Will. "Even if you loved me as well as\r
+I love you--even if I were everything to you--I shall most likely\r
+always be very poor: on a sober calculation, one can count on nothing\r
+but a creeping lot. It is impossible for us ever to belong to each\r
+other. It is perhaps base of me to have asked for a word from you. I\r
+meant to go away into silence, but I have not been able to do what I\r
+meant."\r
+\r
+"Don't be sorry," said Dorothea, in her clear tender tones. "I would\r
+rather share all the trouble of our parting."\r
+\r
+Her lips trembled, and so did his. It was never known which lips were\r
+the first to move towards the other lips; but they kissed tremblingly,\r
+and then they moved apart.\r
+\r
+The rain was dashing against the window-panes as if an angry spirit\r
+were within it, and behind it was the great swoop of the wind; it was\r
+one of those moments in which both the busy and the idle pause with a\r
+certain awe.\r
+\r
+Dorothea sat down on the seat nearest to her, a long low ottoman in the\r
+middle of the room, and with her hands folded over each other on her\r
+lap, looked at the drear outer world. Will stood still an instant\r
+looking at her, then seated himself beside her, and laid his hand on\r
+hers, which turned itself upward to be clasped. They sat in that way\r
+without looking at each other, until the rain abated and began to fall\r
+in stillness. Each had been full of thoughts which neither of them\r
+could begin to utter.\r
+\r
+But when the rain was quiet, Dorothea turned to look at Will. With\r
+passionate exclamation, as if some torture screw were threatening him,\r
+he started up and said, "It is impossible!"\r
+\r
+He went and leaned on the back of the chair again, and seemed to be\r
+battling with his own anger, while she looked towards him sadly.\r
+\r
+"It is as fatal as a murder or any other horror that divides people,"\r
+he burst out again; "it is more intolerable--to have our life maimed by\r
+petty accidents."\r
+\r
+"No--don't say that--your life need not be maimed," said Dorothea,\r
+gently.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it must," said Will, angrily. "It is cruel of you to speak in\r
+that way--as if there were any comfort. You may see beyond the misery\r
+of it, but I don't. It is unkind--it is throwing back my love for you\r
+as if it were a trifle, to speak in that way in the face of the fact.\r
+We can never be married."\r
+\r
+"Some time--we might," said Dorothea, in a trembling voice.\r
+\r
+"When?" said Will, bitterly. "What is the use of counting on any\r
+success of mine? It is a mere toss up whether I shall ever do more\r
+than keep myself decently, unless I choose to sell myself as a mere pen\r
+and a mouthpiece. I can see that clearly enough. I could not offer\r
+myself to any woman, even if she had no luxuries to renounce."\r
+\r
+There was silence. Dorothea's heart was full of something that she\r
+wanted to say, and yet the words were too difficult. She was wholly\r
+possessed by them: at that moment debate was mute within her. And it\r
+was very hard that she could not say what she wanted to say. Will was\r
+looking out of the window angrily. If he would have looked at her and\r
+not gone away from her side, she thought everything would have been\r
+easier. At last he turned, still resting against the chair, and\r
+stretching his hand automatically towards his hat, said with a sort of\r
+exasperation, "Good-by."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I cannot bear it--my heart will break," said Dorothea, starting\r
+from her seat, the flood of her young passion bearing down all the\r
+obstructions which had kept her silent--the great tears rising and\r
+falling in an instant: "I don't mind about poverty--I hate my wealth."\r
+\r
+In an instant Will was close to her and had his arms round her, but she\r
+drew her head back and held his away gently that she might go on\r
+speaking, her large tear-filled eyes looking at his very simply, while\r
+she said in a sobbing childlike way, "We could live quite well on my\r
+own fortune--it is too much--seven hundred a-year--I want so little--no\r
+new clothes--and I will learn what everything costs."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXIV.\r
+\r
+ "Though it be songe of old and yonge,\r
+ That I sholde be to blame,\r
+ Theyrs be the charge, that spoke so large\r
+ In hurtynge of my name."\r
+ --The Not-Browne Mayde.\r
+\r
+\r
+It was just after the Lords had thrown out the Reform Bill: that\r
+explains how Mr. Cadwallader came to be walking on the slope of the\r
+lawn near the great conservatory at Freshitt Hall, holding the "Times"\r
+in his hands behind him, while he talked with a trout-fisher's\r
+dispassionateness about the prospects of the country to Sir James\r
+Chettam. Mrs. Cadwallader, the Dowager Lady Chettam, and Celia were\r
+sometimes seated on garden-chairs, sometimes walking to meet little\r
+Arthur, who was being drawn in his chariot, and, as became the\r
+infantine Bouddha, was sheltered by his sacred umbrella with handsome\r
+silken fringe.\r
+\r
+The ladies also talked politics, though more fitfully. Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader was strong on the intended creation of peers: she had it\r
+for certain from her cousin that Truberry had gone over to the other\r
+side entirely at the instigation of his wife, who had scented peerages\r
+in the air from the very first introduction of the Reform question, and\r
+would sign her soul away to take precedence of her younger sister, who\r
+had married a baronet. Lady Chettam thought that such conduct was very\r
+reprehensible, and remembered that Mrs. Truberry's mother was a Miss\r
+Walsingham of Melspring. Celia confessed it was nicer to be "Lady"\r
+than "Mrs.," and that Dodo never minded about precedence if she could\r
+have her own way. Mrs. Cadwallader held that it was a poor\r
+satisfaction to take precedence when everybody about you knew that you\r
+had not a drop of good blood in your veins; and Celia again, stopping\r
+to look at Arthur, said, "It would be very nice, though, if he were a\r
+Viscount--and his lordship's little tooth coming through! He might\r
+have been, if James had been an Earl."\r
+\r
+"My dear Celia," said the Dowager, "James's title is worth far more\r
+than any new earldom. I never wished his father to be anything else\r
+than Sir James."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I only meant about Arthur's little tooth," said Celia,\r
+comfortably. "But see, here is my uncle coming."\r
+\r
+She tripped off to meet her uncle, while Sir James and Mr. Cadwallader\r
+came forward to make one group with the ladies. Celia had slipped her\r
+arm through her uncle's, and he patted her hand with a rather\r
+melancholy "Well, my dear!" As they approached, it was evident that\r
+Mr. Brooke was looking dejected, but this was fully accounted for by\r
+the state of politics; and as he was shaking hands all round without\r
+more greeting than a "Well, you're all here, you know," the Rector\r
+said, laughingly--\r
+\r
+"Don't take the throwing out of the Bill so much to heart, Brooke;\r
+you've got all the riff-raff of the country on your side."\r
+\r
+"The Bill, eh? ah!" said Mr. Brooke, with a mild distractedness of\r
+manner. "Thrown out, you know, eh? The Lords are going too far,\r
+though. They'll have to pull up. Sad news, you know. I mean, here at\r
+home--sad news. But you must not blame me, Chettam."\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" said Sir James. "Not another gamekeeper shot, I\r
+hope? It's what I should expect, when a fellow like Trapping Bass is\r
+let off so easily."\r
+\r
+"Gamekeeper? No. Let us go in; I can tell you all in the house, you\r
+know," said Mr. Brooke, nodding at the Cadwalladers, to show that he\r
+included them in his confidence. "As to poachers like Trapping Bass,\r
+you know, Chettam," he continued, as they were entering, "when you are\r
+a magistrate, you'll not find it so easy to commit. Severity is all\r
+very well, but it's a great deal easier when you've got somebody to do\r
+it for you. You have a soft place in your heart yourself, you\r
+know--you're not a Draco, a Jeffreys, that sort of thing."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke was evidently in a state of nervous perturbation. When he\r
+had something painful to tell, it was usually his way to introduce it\r
+among a number of disjointed particulars, as if it were a medicine that\r
+would get a milder flavor by mixing. He continued his chat with Sir\r
+James about the poachers until they were all seated, and Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader, impatient of this drivelling, said--\r
+\r
+"I'm dying to know the sad news. The gamekeeper is not shot: that is\r
+settled. What is it, then?"\r
+\r
+"Well, it's a very trying thing, you know," said Mr. Brooke. "I'm glad\r
+you and the Rector are here; it's a family matter--but you will help\r
+us all to bear it, Cadwallader. I've got to break it to you, my dear."\r
+Here Mr. Brooke looked at Celia--"You've no notion what it is, you\r
+know. And, Chettam, it will annoy you uncommonly--but, you see, you\r
+have not been able to hinder it, any more than I have. There's\r
+something singular in things: they come round, you know."\r
+\r
+"It must be about Dodo," said Celia, who had been used to think of her\r
+sister as the dangerous part of the family machinery. She had seated\r
+herself on a low stool against her husband's knee.\r
+\r
+"For God's sake let us hear what it is!" said Sir James.\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Chettam, I couldn't help Casaubon's will: it was a\r
+sort of will to make things worse."\r
+\r
+"Exactly," said Sir James, hastily. "But _what_ is worse?"\r
+\r
+"Dorothea is going to be married again, you know," said Mr. Brooke,\r
+nodding towards Celia, who immediately looked up at her husband with a\r
+frightened glance, and put her hand on his knee. Sir James was almost\r
+white with anger, but he did not speak.\r
+\r
+"Merciful heaven!" said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Not to _young_ Ladislaw?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke nodded, saying, "Yes; to Ladislaw," and then fell into a\r
+prudential silence.\r
+\r
+"You see, Humphrey!" said Mrs. Cadwallader, waving her arm towards her\r
+husband. "Another time you will admit that I have some foresight; or\r
+rather you will contradict me and be just as blind as ever. _You_\r
+supposed that the young gentleman was gone out of the country."\r
+\r
+"So he might be, and yet come back," said the Rector, quietly\r
+\r
+"When did you learn this?" said Sir James, not liking to hear any one\r
+else speak, though finding it difficult to speak himself.\r
+\r
+"Yesterday," said Mr. Brooke, meekly. "I went to Lowick. Dorothea\r
+sent for me, you know. It had come about quite suddenly--neither of\r
+them had any idea two days ago--not any idea, you know. There's\r
+something singular in things. But Dorothea is quite determined--it is\r
+no use opposing. I put it strongly to her. I did my duty, Chettam.\r
+But she can act as she likes, you know."\r
+\r
+"It would have been better if I had called him out and shot him a year\r
+ago," said Sir James, not from bloody-mindedness, but because he needed\r
+something strong to say.\r
+\r
+"Really, James, that would have been very disagreeable," said Celia.\r
+\r
+"Be reasonable, Chettam. Look at the affair more quietly," said Mr.\r
+Cadwallader, sorry to see his good-natured friend so overmastered by\r
+anger.\r
+\r
+"That is not so very easy for a man of any dignity--with any sense of\r
+right--when the affair happens to be in his own family," said Sir\r
+James, still in his white indignation. "It is perfectly scandalous.\r
+If Ladislaw had had a spark of honor he would have gone out of the\r
+country at once, and never shown his face in it again. However, I am\r
+not surprised. The day after Casaubon's funeral I said what ought to\r
+be done. But I was not listened to."\r
+\r
+"You wanted what was impossible, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke.\r
+"You wanted him shipped off. I told you Ladislaw was not to be done as\r
+we liked with: he had his ideas. He was a remarkable fellow--I always\r
+said he was a remarkable fellow."\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Sir James, unable to repress a retort, "it is rather a pity\r
+you formed that high opinion of him. We are indebted to that for his\r
+being lodged in this neighborhood. We are indebted to that for seeing\r
+a woman like Dorothea degrading herself by marrying him." Sir James\r
+made little stoppages between his clauses, the words not coming easily.\r
+"A man so marked out by her husband's will, that delicacy ought to have\r
+forbidden her from seeing him again--who takes her out of her proper\r
+rank--into poverty--has the meanness to accept such a sacrifice--has\r
+always had an objectionable position--a bad origin--and, I _believe_,\r
+is a man of little principle and light character. That is my opinion."\r
+Sir James ended emphatically, turning aside and crossing his leg.\r
+\r
+"I pointed everything out to her," said Mr. Brooke, apologetically--"I\r
+mean the poverty, and abandoning her position. I said, 'My dear, you\r
+don't know what it is to live on seven hundred a-year, and have no\r
+carriage, and that kind of thing, and go amongst people who don't know\r
+who you are.' I put it strongly to her. But I advise you to talk to\r
+Dorothea herself. The fact is, she has a dislike to Casaubon's\r
+property. You will hear what she says, you know."\r
+\r
+"No--excuse me--I shall not," said Sir James, with more coolness. "I\r
+cannot bear to see her again; it is too painful. It hurts me too much\r
+that a woman like Dorothea should have done what is wrong."\r
+\r
+"Be just, Chettam," said the easy, large-lipped Rector, who objected to\r
+all this unnecessary discomfort. "Mrs. Casaubon may be acting\r
+imprudently: she is giving up a fortune for the sake of a man, and we\r
+men have so poor an opinion of each other that we can hardly call a\r
+woman wise who does that. But I think you should not condemn it as a\r
+wrong action, in the strict sense of the word."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I do," answered Sir James. "I think that Dorothea commits a\r
+wrong action in marrying Ladislaw."\r
+\r
+"My dear fellow, we are rather apt to consider an act wrong because it\r
+is unpleasant to us," said the Rector, quietly. Like many men who take\r
+life easily, he had the knack of saying a home truth occasionally to\r
+those who felt themselves virtuously out of temper. Sir James took out\r
+his handkerchief and began to bite the corner.\r
+\r
+"It is very dreadful of Dodo, though," said Celia, wishing to justify\r
+her husband. "She said she _never would_ marry again--not anybody at\r
+all."\r
+\r
+"I heard her say the same thing myself," said Lady Chettam,\r
+majestically, as if this were royal evidence.\r
+\r
+"Oh, there is usually a silent exception in such cases," said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader. "The only wonder to me is, that any of you are surprised.\r
+You did nothing to hinder it. If you would have had Lord Triton down\r
+here to woo her with his philanthropy, he might have carried her off\r
+before the year was over. There was no safety in anything else. Mr.\r
+Casaubon had prepared all this as beautifully as possible. He made\r
+himself disagreeable--or it pleased God to make him so--and then he\r
+dared her to contradict him. It's the way to make any trumpery\r
+tempting, to ticket it at a high price in that way."\r
+\r
+"I don't know what you mean by wrong, Cadwallader," said Sir James,\r
+still feeling a little stung, and turning round in his chair towards\r
+the Rector. "He's not a man we can take into the family. At least, I\r
+must speak for myself," he continued, carefully keeping his eyes off\r
+Mr. Brooke. "I suppose others will find his society too pleasant to\r
+care about the propriety of the thing."\r
+\r
+"Well, you know, Chettam," said Mr. Brooke, good-humoredly, nursing his\r
+leg, "I can't turn my back on Dorothea. I must be a father to her up\r
+to a certain point. I said, 'My dear, I won't refuse to give you\r
+away.' I had spoken strongly before. But I can cut off the entail,\r
+you know. It will cost money and be troublesome; but I can do it, you\r
+know."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke nodded at Sir James, and felt that he was both showing his\r
+own force of resolution and propitiating what was just in the Baronet's\r
+vexation. He had hit on a more ingenious mode of parrying than he was\r
+aware of. He had touched a motive of which Sir James was ashamed. The\r
+mass of his feeling about Dorothea's marriage to Ladislaw was due\r
+partly to excusable prejudice, or even justifiable opinion, partly to a\r
+jealous repugnance hardly less in Ladislaw's case than in Casaubon's.\r
+He was convinced that the marriage was a fatal one for Dorothea. But\r
+amid that mass ran a vein of which he was too good and honorable a man\r
+to like the avowal even to himself: it was undeniable that the union of\r
+the two estates--Tipton and Freshitt--lying charmingly within a\r
+ring-fence, was a prospect that flattered him for his son and heir.\r
+Hence when Mr. Brooke noddingly appealed to that motive, Sir James felt\r
+a sudden embarrassment; there was a stoppage in his throat; he even\r
+blushed. He had found more words than usual in the first jet of his\r
+anger, but Mr. Brooke's propitiation was more clogging to his tongue\r
+than Mr. Cadwallader's caustic hint.\r
+\r
+But Celia was glad to have room for speech after her uncle's suggestion\r
+of the marriage ceremony, and she said, though with as little eagerness\r
+of manner as if the question had turned on an invitation to dinner, "Do\r
+you mean that Dodo is going to be married directly, uncle?"\r
+\r
+"In three weeks, you know," said Mr. Brooke, helplessly. "I can do\r
+nothing to hinder it, Cadwallader," he added, turning for a little\r
+countenance toward the Rector, who said--\r
+\r
+"--I--should not make any fuss about it. If she likes to be poor, that\r
+is her affair. Nobody would have said anything if she had married the\r
+young fellow because he was rich. Plenty of beneficed clergy are\r
+poorer than they will be. Here is Elinor," continued the provoking\r
+husband; "she vexed her friends by me: I had hardly a thousand\r
+a-year--I was a lout--nobody could see anything in me--my shoes were\r
+not the right cut--all the men wondered how a woman could like me.\r
+Upon my word, I must take Ladislaw's part until I hear more harm of\r
+him."\r
+\r
+"Humphrey, that is all sophistry, and you know it," said his wife.\r
+"Everything is all one--that is the beginning and end with you. As if\r
+you had not been a Cadwallader! Does any one suppose that I would have\r
+taken such a monster as you by any other name?"\r
+\r
+"And a clergyman too," observed Lady Chettam with approbation. "Elinor\r
+cannot be said to have descended below her rank. It is difficult to\r
+say what Mr. Ladislaw is, eh, James?"\r
+\r
+Sir James gave a small grunt, which was less respectful than his usual\r
+mode of answering his mother. Celia looked up at him like a thoughtful\r
+kitten.\r
+\r
+"It must be admitted that his blood is a frightful mixture!" said Mrs.\r
+Cadwallader. "The Casaubon cuttle-fish fluid to begin with, and then a\r
+rebellious Polish fiddler or dancing-master, was it?--and then an old\r
+clo--"\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, Elinor," said the Rector, rising. "It is time for us to go."\r
+\r
+"After all, he is a pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, rising too,\r
+and wishing to make amends. "He is like the fine old Crichley\r
+portraits before the idiots came in."\r
+\r
+"I'll go with you," said Mr. Brooke, starting up with alacrity. "You\r
+must all come and dine with me to-morrow, you know--eh, Celia, my dear?"\r
+\r
+"You will, James--won't you?" said Celia, taking her husband's hand.\r
+\r
+"Oh, of course, if you like," said Sir James, pulling down his\r
+waistcoat, but unable yet to adjust his face good-humoredly. "That is\r
+to say, if it is not to meet anybody else.':\r
+\r
+"No, no, no," said Mr. Brooke, understanding the condition. "Dorothea\r
+would not come, you know, unless you had been to see her."\r
+\r
+When Sir James and Celia were alone, she said, "Do you mind about my\r
+having the carriage to go to Lowick, James?"\r
+\r
+"What, now, directly?" he answered, with some surprise.\r
+\r
+"Yes, it is very important," said Celia.\r
+\r
+"Remember, Celia, I cannot see her," said Sir James.\r
+\r
+"Not if she gave up marrying?"\r
+\r
+"What is the use of saying that?--however, I'm going to the stables.\r
+I'll tell Briggs to bring the carriage round."\r
+\r
+Celia thought it was of great use, if not to say that, at least to take\r
+a journey to Lowick in order to influence Dorothea's mind. All through\r
+their girlhood she had felt that she could act on her sister by a word\r
+judiciously placed--by opening a little window for the daylight of her\r
+own understanding to enter among the strange colored lamps by which\r
+Dodo habitually saw. And Celia the matron naturally felt more able to\r
+advise her childless sister. How could any one understand Dodo so well\r
+as Celia did or love her so tenderly?\r
+\r
+Dorothea, busy in her boudoir, felt a glow of pleasure at the sight of\r
+her sister so soon after the revelation of her intended marriage. She\r
+had prefigured to herself, even with exaggeration, the disgust of her\r
+friends, and she had even feared that Celia might be kept aloof from\r
+her.\r
+\r
+"O Kitty, I am delighted to see you!" said Dorothea, putting her hands\r
+on Celia's shoulders, and beaming on her. "I almost thought you would\r
+not come to me."\r
+\r
+"I have not brought Arthur, because I was in a hurry," said Celia, and\r
+they sat down on two small chairs opposite each other, with their knees\r
+touching.\r
+\r
+"You know, Dodo, it is very bad," said Celia, in her placid guttural,\r
+looking as prettily free from humors as possible. "You have\r
+disappointed us all so. And I can't think that it ever _will_ be--you\r
+never can go and live in that way. And then there are all your plans!\r
+You never can have thought of that. James would have taken any trouble\r
+for you, and you might have gone on all your life doing what you liked."\r
+\r
+"On the contrary, dear," said Dorothea, "I never could do anything that\r
+I liked. I have never carried out any plan yet."\r
+\r
+"Because you always wanted things that wouldn't do. But other plans\r
+would have come. And how can you marry Mr. Ladislaw, that we none of\r
+us ever thought you _could_ marry? It shocks James so dreadfully. And\r
+then it is all so different from what you have always been. You would\r
+have Mr. Casaubon because he had such a great soul, and was so and\r
+dismal and learned; and now, to think of marrying Mr. Ladislaw, who has\r
+got no estate or anything. I suppose it is because you must be making\r
+yourself uncomfortable in some way or other."\r
+\r
+Dorothea laughed.\r
+\r
+"Well, it is very serious, Dodo," said Celia, becoming more impressive.\r
+"How will you live? and you will go away among queer people. And I\r
+shall never see you--and you won't mind about little Arthur--and I\r
+thought you always would--"\r
+\r
+Celia's rare tears had got into her eyes, and the corners of her mouth\r
+were agitated.\r
+\r
+"Dear Celia," said Dorothea, with tender gravity, "if you don't ever\r
+see me, it will not be my fault."\r
+\r
+"Yes, it will," said Celia, with the same touching distortion of her\r
+small features. "How can I come to you or have you with me when James\r
+can't bear it?--that is because he thinks it is not right--he thinks\r
+you are so wrong, Dodo. But you always were wrong: only I can't help\r
+loving you. And nobody can think where you will live: where can you\r
+go?"\r
+\r
+"I am going to London," said Dorothea.\r
+\r
+"How can you always live in a street? And you will be so poor. I\r
+could give you half my things, only how can I, when I never see you?"\r
+\r
+"Bless you, Kitty," said Dorothea, with gentle warmth. "Take comfort:\r
+perhaps James will forgive me some time."\r
+\r
+"But it would be much better if you would not be married," said Celia,\r
+drying her eyes, and returning to her argument; "then there would be\r
+nothing uncomfortable. And you would not do what nobody thought you\r
+could do. James always said you ought to be a queen; but this is not\r
+at all being like a queen. You know what mistakes you have always been\r
+making, Dodo, and this is another. Nobody thinks Mr. Ladislaw a proper\r
+husband for you. And you _said you_ would never be married again."\r
+\r
+"It is quite true that I might be a wiser person, Celia," said\r
+Dorothea, "and that I might have done something better, if I had been\r
+better. But this is what I am going to do. I have promised to marry\r
+Mr. Ladislaw; and I am going to marry him."\r
+\r
+The tone in which Dorothea said this was a note that Celia had long\r
+learned to recognize. She was silent a few moments, and then said, as\r
+if she had dismissed all contest, "Is he very fond of you, Dodo?"\r
+\r
+"I hope so. I am very fond of him."\r
+\r
+"That is nice," said Celia, comfortably. "Only I rather you had such a\r
+sort of husband as James is, with a place very near, that I could drive\r
+to."\r
+\r
+Dorothea smiled, and Celia looked rather meditative. Presently she\r
+said, "I cannot think how it all came about." Celia thought it would be\r
+pleasant to hear the story.\r
+\r
+"I dare say not," said-Dorothea, pinching her sister's chin. "If you\r
+knew how it came about, it would not seem wonderful to you."\r
+\r
+"Can't you tell me?" said Celia, settling her arms cozily.\r
+\r
+"No, dear, you would have to feel with me, else you would never know."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXV.\r
+\r
+ "Then went the jury out whose names were Mr. Blindman, Mr.\r
+ No-good, Mr. Malice, Mr. Love-lust, Mr. Live-loose, Mr.\r
+ Heady, Mr. High-mind, Mr. Enmity, Mr. Liar, Mr. Cruelty, Mr.\r
+ Hate-light, Mr. Implacable, who every one gave in his\r
+ private verdict against him among themselves, and afterwards\r
+ unanimously concluded to bring him in guilty before the\r
+ judge. And first among themselves, Mr. Blindman, the\r
+ foreman, said, I see clearly that this man is a heretic.\r
+ Then said Mr. No-good, Away with such a fellow from the\r
+ earth! Ay, said Mr. Malice, for I hate the very look of him.\r
+ Then said Mr. Love-lust, I could never endure him. Nor I,\r
+ said Mr. Live-loose; for he would be always condemning my\r
+ way. Hang him, hang him, said Mr. Heady. A sorry scrub, said\r
+ Mr. High-mind. My heart riseth against him, said Mr. Enmity.\r
+ He is a rogue, said Mr. Liar. Hanging is too good for him,\r
+ said Mr. Cruelty. Let us despatch him out of the way said\r
+ Mr. Hate-light. Then said Mr. Implacable, Might I have all\r
+ the world given me, I could not be reconciled to him;\r
+ therefore let us forthwith bring him in guilty of death."\r
+ --Pilgrim's Progress.\r
+\r
+\r
+When immortal Bunyan makes his picture of the persecuting passions\r
+bringing in their verdict of guilty, who pities Faithful? That is a\r
+rare and blessed lot which some greatest men have not attained, to know\r
+ourselves guiltless before a condemning crowd--to be sure that what we\r
+are denounced for is solely the good in us. The pitiable lot is that\r
+of the man who could not call himself a martyr even though he were to\r
+persuade himself that the men who stoned him were but ugly passions\r
+incarnate--who knows that he is stoned, not for professing the Right,\r
+but for not being the man he professed to be.\r
+\r
+This was the consciousness that Bulstrode was withering under while he\r
+made his preparations for departing from Middlemarch, and going to end\r
+his stricken life in that sad refuge, the indifference of new faces.\r
+The duteous merciful constancy of his wife had delivered him from one\r
+dread, but it could not hinder her presence from being still a tribunal\r
+before which he shrank from confession and desired advocacy. His\r
+equivocations with himself about the death of Raffles had sustained the\r
+conception of an Omniscience whom he prayed to, yet he had a terror\r
+upon him which would not let him expose them to judgment by a full\r
+confession to his wife: the acts which he had washed and diluted with\r
+inward argument and motive, and for which it seemed comparatively easy\r
+to win invisible pardon--what name would she call them by? That she\r
+should ever silently call his acts Murder was what he could not bear.\r
+He felt shrouded by her doubt: he got strength to face her from the\r
+sense that she could not yet feel warranted in pronouncing that worst\r
+condemnation on him. Some time, perhaps--when he was dying--he would\r
+tell her all: in the deep shadow of that time, when she held his hand\r
+in the gathering darkness, she might listen without recoiling from his\r
+touch. Perhaps: but concealment had been the habit of his life, and\r
+the impulse to confession had no power against the dread of a deeper\r
+humiliation.\r
+\r
+He was full of timid care for his wife, not only because he deprecated\r
+any harshness of judgment from her, but because he felt a deep distress\r
+at the sight of her suffering. She had sent her daughters away to\r
+board at a school on the coast, that this crisis might be hidden from\r
+them as far as possible. Set free by their absence from the\r
+intolerable necessity of accounting for her grief or of beholding their\r
+frightened wonder, she could live unconstrainedly with the sorrow that\r
+was every day streaking her hair with whiteness and making her eyelids\r
+languid.\r
+\r
+"Tell me anything that you would like to have me do, Harriet,"\r
+Bulstrode had said to her; "I mean with regard to arrangements of\r
+property. It is my intention not to sell the land I possess in this\r
+neighborhood, but to leave it to you as a safe provision. If you have\r
+any wish on such subjects, do not conceal it from me."\r
+\r
+A few days afterwards, when she had returned from a visit to her\r
+brother's, she began to speak to her husband on a subject which had for\r
+some time been in her mind.\r
+\r
+"I _should_ like to do something for my brother's family, Nicholas; and\r
+I think we are bound to make some amends to Rosamond and her husband.\r
+Walter says Mr. Lydgate must leave the town, and his practice is almost\r
+good for nothing, and they have very little left to settle anywhere\r
+with. I would rather do without something for ourselves, to make some\r
+amends to my poor brother's family."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Bulstrode did not wish to go nearer to the facts than in the\r
+phrase "make some amends;" knowing that her husband must understand\r
+her. He had a particular reason, which she was not aware of, for\r
+wincing under her suggestion. He hesitated before he said--\r
+\r
+"It is not possible to carry out your wish in the way you propose, my\r
+dear. Mr. Lydgate has virtually rejected any further service from me.\r
+He has returned the thousand pounds which I lent him. Mrs. Casaubon\r
+advanced him the sum for that purpose. Here is his letter."\r
+\r
+The letter seemed to cut Mrs. Bulstrode severely. The mention of Mrs.\r
+Casaubon's loan seemed a reflection of that public feeling which held\r
+it a matter of course that every one would avoid a connection with her\r
+husband. She was silent for some time; and the tears fell one after\r
+the other, her chin trembling as she wiped them away. Bulstrode,\r
+sitting opposite to her, ached at the sight of that grief-worn face,\r
+which two months before had been bright and blooming. It had aged to\r
+keep sad company with his own withered features. Urged into some\r
+effort at comforting her, he said--\r
+\r
+"There is another means, Harriet, by which I might do a service to your\r
+brother's family, if you like to act in it. And it would, I think, be\r
+beneficial to you: it would be an advantageous way of managing the land\r
+which I mean to be yours."\r
+\r
+She looked attentive.\r
+\r
+"Garth once thought of undertaking the management of Stone Court in\r
+order to place your nephew Fred there. The stock was to remain as it\r
+is, and they were to pay a certain share of the profits instead of an\r
+ordinary rent. That would be a desirable beginning for the young man,\r
+in conjunction with his employment under Garth. Would it be a\r
+satisfaction to you?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, it would," said Mrs. Bulstrode, with some return of energy.\r
+"Poor Walter is so cast down; I would try anything in my power to do\r
+him some good before I go away. We have always been brother and\r
+sister."\r
+\r
+"You must make the proposal to Garth yourself, Harriet," said Mr.\r
+Bulstrode, not liking what he had to say, but desiring the end he had\r
+in view, for other reasons besides the consolation of his wife. "You\r
+must state to him that the land is virtually yours, and that he need\r
+have no transactions with me. Communications can be made through\r
+Standish. I mention this, because Garth gave up being my agent. I can\r
+put into your hands a paper which he himself drew up, stating\r
+conditions; and you can propose his renewed acceptance of them. I\r
+think it is not unlikely that he will accept when you propose the thing\r
+for the sake of your nephew."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER LXXXVI.\r
+\r
+ "Le coeur se sature d'amour comme d'un sel divin qui le\r
+ conserve; de la l'incorruptible adherence de ceux qui se\r
+ sont aimes des l'aube de la vie, et la fraicheur des vielles\r
+ amours prolonges. Il existe un embaumement d'amour. C'est de\r
+ Daphnis et Chloe que sont faits Philemon et Baucis. Cette\r
+ vieillesse la, ressemblance du soir avec l'aurore."\r
+ --VICTOR HUGO: L'homme qui rit.\r
+\r
+\r
+Mrs. Garth, hearing Caleb enter the passage about tea-time, opened the\r
+parlor-door and said, "There you are, Caleb. Have you had your\r
+dinner?" (Mr. Garth's meals were much subordinated to "business.")\r
+\r
+"Oh yes, a good dinner--cold mutton and I don't know what. Where is\r
+Mary?"\r
+\r
+"In the garden with Letty, I think."\r
+\r
+"Fred is not come yet?"\r
+\r
+"No. Are you going out again without taking tea, Caleb?" said Mrs.\r
+Garth, seeing that her absent-minded husband was putting on again the\r
+hat which he had just taken off.\r
+\r
+"No, no; I'm only going to Mary a minute."\r
+\r
+Mary was in a grassy corner of the garden, where there was a swing\r
+loftily hung between two pear-trees. She had a pink kerchief tied over\r
+her head, making a little poke to shade her eyes from the level\r
+sunbeams, while she was giving a glorious swing to Letty, who laughed\r
+and screamed wildly.\r
+\r
+Seeing her father, Mary left the swing and went to meet him, pushing\r
+back the pink kerchief and smiling afar off at him with the involuntary\r
+smile of loving pleasure.\r
+\r
+"I came to look for you, Mary," said Mr. Garth. "Let us walk about a\r
+bit."\r
+\r
+Mary knew quite well that her father had something particular to say:\r
+his eyebrows made their pathetic angle, and there was a tender gravity\r
+in his voice: these things had been signs to her when she was Letty's\r
+age. She put her arm within his, and they turned by the row of\r
+nut-trees.\r
+\r
+"It will be a sad while before you can be married, Mary," said her\r
+father, not looking at her, but at the end of the stick which he held\r
+in his other hand.\r
+\r
+"Not a sad while, father--I mean to be merry," said Mary, laughingly.\r
+"I have been single and merry for four-and-twenty years and more: I\r
+suppose it will not be quite as long again as that." Then, after a\r
+little pause, she said, more gravely, bending her face before her\r
+father's, "If you are contented with Fred?"\r
+\r
+Caleb screwed up his mouth and turned his head aside wisely.\r
+\r
+"Now, father, you did praise him last Wednesday. You said he had an\r
+uncommon notion of stock, and a good eye for things."\r
+\r
+"Did I?" said Caleb, rather slyly.\r
+\r
+"Yes, I put it all down, and the date, anno Domini, and everything,"\r
+said Mary. "You like things to be neatly booked. And then his\r
+behavior to you, father, is really good; he has a deep respect for you;\r
+and it is impossible to have a better temper than Fred has."\r
+\r
+"Ay, ay; you want to coax me into thinking him a fine match."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, father. I don't love him because he is a fine match."\r
+\r
+"What for, then?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, because I have always loved him. I should never like\r
+scolding any one else so well; and that is a point to be thought of in\r
+a husband."\r
+\r
+"Your mind is quite settled, then, Mary?" said Caleb, returning to his\r
+first tone. "There's no other wish come into it since things have been\r
+going on as they have been of late?" (Caleb meant a great deal in that\r
+vague phrase;) "because, better late than never. A woman must not\r
+force her heart--she'll do a man no good by that."\r
+\r
+"My feelings have not changed, father," said Mary, calmly. "I shall be\r
+constant to Fred as long as he is constant to me. I don't think either\r
+of us could spare the other, or like any one else better, however much\r
+we might admire them. It would make too great a difference to us--like\r
+seeing all the old places altered, and changing the name for\r
+everything. We must wait for each other a long while; but Fred knows\r
+that."\r
+\r
+Instead of speaking immediately, Caleb stood still and screwed his\r
+stick on the grassy walk. Then he said, with emotion in his voice,\r
+"Well, I've got a bit of news. What do you think of Fred going to live\r
+at Stone Court, and managing the land there?"\r
+\r
+"How can that ever be, father?" said Mary, wonderingly.\r
+\r
+"He would manage it for his aunt Bulstrode. The poor woman has been to\r
+me begging and praying. She wants to do the lad good, and it might be\r
+a fine thing for him. With saving, he might gradually buy the stock,\r
+and he has a turn for farming."\r
+\r
+"Oh, Fred would be so happy! It is too good to believe."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but mind you," said Caleb, turning his head warningly, "I must\r
+take it on _my_ shoulders, and be responsible, and see after\r
+everything; and that will grieve your mother a bit, though she mayn't\r
+say so. Fred had need be careful."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps it is too much, father," said Mary, checked in her joy.\r
+"There would be no happiness in bringing you any fresh trouble."\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay; work is my delight, child, when it doesn't vex your mother.\r
+And then, if you and Fred get married," here Caleb's voice shook just\r
+perceptibly, "he'll be steady and saving; and you've got your mother's\r
+cleverness, and mine too, in a woman's sort of way; and you'll keep him\r
+in order. He'll be coming by-and-by, so I wanted to tell you first,\r
+because I think you'd like to tell _him_ by yourselves. After that, I\r
+could talk it well over with him, and we could go into business and the\r
+nature of things."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you dear good father!" cried Mary, putting her hands round her\r
+father's neck, while he bent his head placidly, willing to be caressed.\r
+"I wonder if any other girl thinks her father the best man in the\r
+world!"\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, child; you'll think your husband better."\r
+\r
+"Impossible," said Mary, relapsing into her usual tone; "husbands are\r
+an inferior class of men, who require keeping in order."\r
+\r
+When they were entering the house with Letty, who had run to join them,\r
+Mary saw Fred at the orchard-gate, and went to meet him.\r
+\r
+"What fine clothes you wear, you extravagant youth!" said Mary, as Fred\r
+stood still and raised his hat to her with playful formality. "You are\r
+not learning economy."\r
+\r
+"Now that is too bad, Mary," said Fred. "Just look at the edges of\r
+these coat-cuffs! It is only by dint of good brushing that I look\r
+respectable. I am saving up three suits--one for a wedding-suit."\r
+\r
+"How very droll you will look!--like a gentleman in an old\r
+fashion-book."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, they will keep two years."\r
+\r
+"Two years! be reasonable, Fred," said Mary, turning to walk. "Don't\r
+encourage flattering expectations."\r
+\r
+"Why not? One lives on them better than on unflattering ones. If we\r
+can't be married in two years, the truth will be quite bad enough when\r
+it comes."\r
+\r
+"I have heard a story of a young gentleman who once encouraged\r
+flattering expectations, and they did him harm."\r
+\r
+"Mary, if you've got something discouraging to tell me, I shall bolt; I\r
+shall go into the house to Mr. Garth. I am out of spirits. My father\r
+is so cut up--home is not like itself. I can't bear any more bad news."\r
+\r
+"Should you call it bad news to be told that you were to live at Stone\r
+Court, and manage the farm, and be remarkably prudent, and save money\r
+every year till all the stock and furniture were your own, and you were\r
+a distinguished agricultural character, as Mr. Borthrop Trumbull\r
+says--rather stout, I fear, and with the Greek and Latin sadly\r
+weather-worn?"\r
+\r
+"You don't mean anything except nonsense, Mary?" said Fred, coloring\r
+slightly nevertheless.\r
+\r
+"That is what my father has just told me of as what may happen, and he\r
+never talks nonsense," said Mary, looking up at Fred now, while he\r
+grasped her hand as they walked, till it rather hurt her; but she would\r
+not complain.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I could be a tremendously good fellow then, Mary, and we could be\r
+married directly."\r
+\r
+"Not so fast, sir; how do you know that I would not rather defer our\r
+marriage for some years? That would leave you time to misbehave, and\r
+then if I liked some one else better, I should have an excuse for\r
+jilting you."\r
+\r
+"Pray don't joke, Mary," said Fred, with strong feeling. "Tell me\r
+seriously that all this is true, and that you are happy because of\r
+it--because you love me best."\r
+\r
+"It is all true, Fred, and I am happy because of it--because I love you\r
+best," said Mary, in a tone of obedient recitation.\r
+\r
+They lingered on the door-step under the steep-roofed porch, and Fred\r
+almost in a whisper said--\r
+\r
+"When we were first engaged, with the umbrella-ring, Mary, you used\r
+to--"\r
+\r
+The spirit of joy began to laugh more decidedly in Mary's eyes, but the\r
+fatal Ben came running to the door with Brownie yapping behind him,\r
+and, bouncing against them, said--\r
+\r
+"Fred and Mary! are you ever coming in?--or may I eat your cake?"\r
+\r
+\r
+FINALE.\r
+\r
+\r
+Every limit is a beginning as well as an ending. Who can quit young\r
+lives after being long in company with them, and not desire to know\r
+what befell them in their after-years? For the fragment of a life,\r
+however typical, is not the sample of an even web: promises may not be\r
+kept, and an ardent outset may be followed by declension; latent powers\r
+may find their long-waited opportunity; a past error may urge a grand\r
+retrieval.\r
+\r
+Marriage, which has been the bourne of so many narratives, is still a\r
+great beginning, as it was to Adam and Eve, who kept their honeymoon in\r
+Eden, but had their first little one among the thorns and thistles of\r
+the wilderness. It is still the beginning of the home epic--the\r
+gradual conquest or irremediable loss of that complete union which\r
+makes the advancing years a climax, and age the harvest of sweet\r
+memories in common.\r
+\r
+Some set out, like Crusaders of old, with a glorious equipment of hope\r
+and enthusiasm and get broken by the way, wanting patience with each\r
+other and the world.\r
+\r
+All who have cared for Fred Vincy and Mary Garth will like to know that\r
+these two made no such failure, but achieved a solid mutual happiness.\r
+Fred surprised his neighbors in various ways. He became rather\r
+distinguished in his side of the county as a theoretic and practical\r
+farmer, and produced a work on the "Cultivation of Green Crops and the\r
+Economy of Cattle-Feeding" which won him high congratulations at\r
+agricultural meetings. In Middlemarch admiration was more reserved:\r
+most persons there were inclined to believe that the merit of Fred's\r
+authorship was due to his wife, since they had never expected Fred\r
+Vincy to write on turnips and mangel-wurzel.\r
+\r
+But when Mary wrote a little book for her boys, called "Stories of\r
+Great Men, taken from Plutarch," and had it printed and published by\r
+Gripp & Co., Middlemarch, every one in the town was willing to give the\r
+credit of this work to Fred, observing that he had been to the\r
+University, "where the ancients were studied," and might have been a\r
+clergyman if he had chosen.\r
+\r
+In this way it was made clear that Middlemarch had never been deceived,\r
+and that there was no need to praise anybody for writing a book, since\r
+it was always done by somebody else.\r
+\r
+Moreover, Fred remained unswervingly steady. Some years after his\r
+marriage he told Mary that his happiness was half owing to Farebrother,\r
+who gave him a strong pull-up at the right moment. I cannot say that\r
+he was never again misled by his hopefulness: the yield of crops or the\r
+profits of a cattle sale usually fell below his estimate; and he was\r
+always prone to believe that he could make money by the purchase of a\r
+horse which turned out badly--though this, Mary observed, was of\r
+course the fault of the horse, not of Fred's judgment. He kept his\r
+love of horsemanship, but he rarely allowed himself a day's hunting;\r
+and when he did so, it was remarkable that he submitted to be laughed\r
+at for cowardliness at the fences, seeming to see Mary and the boys\r
+sitting on the five-barred gate, or showing their curly heads between\r
+hedge and ditch.\r
+\r
+There were three boys: Mary was not discontented that she brought forth\r
+men-children only; and when Fred wished to have a girl like her, she\r
+said, laughingly, "that would be too great a trial to your mother."\r
+Mrs. Vincy in her declining years, and in the diminished lustre of her\r
+housekeeping, was much comforted by her perception that two at least of\r
+Fred's boys were real Vincys, and did not "feature the Garths." But\r
+Mary secretly rejoiced that the youngest of the three was very much\r
+what her father must have been when he wore a round jacket, and showed\r
+a marvellous nicety of aim in playing at marbles, or in throwing stones\r
+to bring down the mellow pears.\r
+\r
+Ben and Letty Garth, who were uncle and aunt before they were well in\r
+their teens, disputed much as to whether nephews or nieces were more\r
+desirable; Ben contending that it was clear girls were good for less\r
+than boys, else they would not be always in petticoats, which showed\r
+how little they were meant for; whereupon Letty, who argued much from\r
+books, got angry in replying that God made coats of skins for both Adam\r
+and Eve alike--also it occurred to her that in the East the men too\r
+wore petticoats. But this latter argument, obscuring the majesty of\r
+the former, was one too many, for Ben answered contemptuously, "The\r
+more spooneys they!" and immediately appealed to his mother whether\r
+boys were not better than girls. Mrs. Garth pronounced that both were\r
+alike naughty, but that boys were undoubtedly stronger, could run\r
+faster, and throw with more precision to a greater distance. With this\r
+oracular sentence Ben was well satisfied, not minding the naughtiness;\r
+but Letty took it ill, her feeling of superiority being stronger than\r
+her muscles.\r
+\r
+Fred never became rich--his hopefulness had not led him to expect that;\r
+but he gradually saved enough to become owner of the stock and\r
+furniture at Stone Court, and the work which Mr. Garth put into his\r
+hands carried him in plenty through those "bad times" which are always\r
+present with farmers. Mary, in her matronly days, became as solid in\r
+figure as her mother; but, unlike her, gave the boys little formal\r
+teaching, so that Mrs. Garth was alarmed lest they should never be well\r
+grounded in grammar and geography. Nevertheless, they were found quite\r
+forward enough when they went to school; perhaps, because they had\r
+liked nothing so well as being with their mother. When Fred was riding\r
+home on winter evenings he had a pleasant vision beforehand of the\r
+bright hearth in the wainscoted parlor, and was sorry for other men who\r
+could not have Mary for their wife; especially for Mr. Farebrother.\r
+"He was ten times worthier of you than I was," Fred could now say to\r
+her, magnanimously. "To be sure he was," Mary answered; "and for that\r
+reason he could do better without me. But you--I shudder to think what\r
+you would have been--a curate in debt for horse-hire and cambric\r
+pocket-handkerchiefs!"\r
+\r
+On inquiry it might possibly be found that Fred and Mary still inhabit\r
+Stone Court--that the creeping plants still cast the foam of their\r
+blossoms over the fine stone-wall into the field where the walnut-trees\r
+stand in stately row--and that on sunny days the two lovers who were\r
+first engaged with the umbrella-ring may be seen in white-haired\r
+placidity at the open window from which Mary Garth, in the days of old\r
+Peter Featherstone, had often been ordered to look out for Mr. Lydgate.\r
+\r
+Lydgate's hair never became white. He died when he was only fifty,\r
+leaving his wife and children provided for by a heavy insurance on his\r
+life. He had gained an excellent practice, alternating, according to\r
+the season, between London and a Continental bathing-place; having\r
+written a treatise on Gout, a disease which has a good deal of wealth\r
+on its side. His skill was relied on by many paying patients, but he\r
+always regarded himself as a failure: he had not done what he once\r
+meant to do. His acquaintances thought him enviable to have so\r
+charming a wife, and nothing happened to shake their opinion. Rosamond\r
+never committed a second compromising indiscretion. She simply\r
+continued to be mild in her temper, inflexible in her judgment,\r
+disposed to admonish her husband, and able to frustrate him by\r
+stratagem. As the years went on he opposed her less and less, whence\r
+Rosamond concluded that he had learned the value of her opinion; on the\r
+other hand, she had a more thorough conviction of his talents now that\r
+he gained a good income, and instead of the threatened cage in Bride\r
+Street provided one all flowers and gilding, fit for the bird of\r
+paradise that she resembled. In brief, Lydgate was what is called a\r
+successful man. But he died prematurely of diphtheria, and Rosamond\r
+afterwards married an elderly and wealthy physician, who took kindly to\r
+her four children. She made a very pretty show with her daughters,\r
+driving out in her carriage, and often spoke of her happiness as "a\r
+reward"--she did not say for what, but probably she meant that it was a\r
+reward for her patience with Tertius, whose temper never became\r
+faultless, and to the last occasionally let slip a bitter speech which\r
+was more memorable than the signs he made of his repentance. He once\r
+called her his basil plant; and when she asked for an explanation, said\r
+that basil was a plant which had flourished wonderfully on a murdered\r
+man's brains. Rosamond had a placid but strong answer to such\r
+speeches. Why then had he chosen her? It was a pity he had not had\r
+Mrs. Ladislaw, whom he was always praising and placing above her. And\r
+thus the conversation ended with the advantage on Rosamond's side. But\r
+it would be unjust not to tell, that she never uttered a word in\r
+depreciation of Dorothea, keeping in religious remembrance the\r
+generosity which had come to her aid in the sharpest crisis of her life.\r
+\r
+Dorothea herself had no dreams of being praised above other women,\r
+feeling that there was always something better which she might have\r
+done, if she had only been better and known better. Still, she never\r
+repented that she had given up position and fortune to marry Will\r
+Ladislaw, and he would have held it the greatest shame as well as\r
+sorrow to him if she had repented. They were bound to each other by a\r
+love stronger than any impulses which could have marred it. No life\r
+would have been possible to Dorothea which was not filled with emotion,\r
+and she had now a life filled also with a beneficent activity which she\r
+had not the doubtful pains of discovering and marking out for herself.\r
+Will became an ardent public man, working well in those times when\r
+reforms were begun with a young hopefulness of immediate good which has\r
+been much checked in our days, and getting at last returned to\r
+Parliament by a constituency who paid his expenses. Dorothea could\r
+have liked nothing better, since wrongs existed, than that her husband\r
+should be in the thick of a struggle against them, and that she should\r
+give him wifely help. Many who knew her, thought it a pity that so\r
+substantive and rare a creature should have been absorbed into the life\r
+of another, and be only known in a certain circle as a wife and mother.\r
+But no one stated exactly what else that was in her power she ought\r
+rather to have done--not even Sir James Chettam, who went no further\r
+than the negative prescription that she ought not to have married Will\r
+Ladislaw.\r
+\r
+But this opinion of his did not cause a lasting alienation; and the way\r
+in which the family was made whole again was characteristic of all\r
+concerned. Mr. Brooke could not resist the pleasure of corresponding\r
+with Will and Dorothea; and one morning when his pen had been\r
+remarkably fluent on the prospects of Municipal Reform, it ran off into\r
+an invitation to the Grange, which, once written, could not be done\r
+away with at less cost than the sacrifice (hardly to be conceived) of\r
+the whole valuable letter. During the months of this correspondence\r
+Mr. Brooke had continually, in his talk with Sir James Chettam, been\r
+presupposing or hinting that the intention of cutting off the entail\r
+was still maintained; and the day on which his pen gave the daring\r
+invitation, he went to Freshitt expressly to intimate that he had a\r
+stronger sense than ever of the reasons for taking that energetic step\r
+as a precaution against any mixture of low blood in the heir of the\r
+Brookes.\r
+\r
+But that morning something exciting had happened at the Hall. A letter\r
+had come to Celia which made her cry silently as she read it; and when\r
+Sir James, unused to see her in tears, asked anxiously what was the\r
+matter, she burst out in a wail such as he had never heard from her\r
+before.\r
+\r
+"Dorothea has a little boy. And you will not let me go and see her.\r
+And I am sure she wants to see me. And she will not know what to do\r
+with the baby--she will do wrong things with it. And they thought she\r
+would die. It is very dreadful! Suppose it had been me and little\r
+Arthur, and Dodo had been hindered from coming to see me! I wish you\r
+would be less unkind, James!"\r
+\r
+"Good heavens, Celia!" said Sir James, much wrought upon, "what do you\r
+wish? I will do anything you like. I will take you to town to-morrow\r
+if you wish it." And Celia did wish it.\r
+\r
+It was after this that Mr. Brooke came, and meeting the Baronet in the\r
+grounds, began to chat with him in ignorance of the news, which Sir\r
+James for some reason did not care to tell him immediately. But when\r
+the entail was touched on in the usual way, he said, "My dear sir, it\r
+is not for me to dictate to you, but for my part I would let that\r
+alone. I would let things remain as they are."\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke felt so much surprised that he did not at once find out how\r
+much he was relieved by the sense that he was not expected to do\r
+anything in particular.\r
+\r
+Such being the bent of Celia's heart, it was inevitable that Sir James\r
+should consent to a reconciliation with Dorothea and her husband.\r
+Where women love each other, men learn to smother their mutual dislike.\r
+Sir James never liked Ladislaw, and Will always preferred to have Sir\r
+James's company mixed with another kind: they were on a footing of\r
+reciprocal tolerance which was made quite easy only when Dorothea and\r
+Celia were present.\r
+\r
+It became an understood thing that Mr. and Mrs. Ladislaw should pay at\r
+least two visits during the year to the Grange, and there came\r
+gradually a small row of cousins at Freshitt who enjoyed playing with\r
+the two cousins visiting Tipton as much as if the blood of these\r
+cousins had been less dubiously mixed.\r
+\r
+Mr. Brooke lived to a good old age, and his estate was inherited by\r
+Dorothea's son, who might have represented Middlemarch, but declined,\r
+thinking that his opinions had less chance of being stifled if he\r
+remained out of doors.\r
+\r
+Sir James never ceased to regard Dorothea's second marriage as a\r
+mistake; and indeed this remained the tradition concerning it in\r
+Middlemarch, where she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine\r
+girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and\r
+in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry\r
+his cousin--young enough to have been his son, with no property, and\r
+not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually\r
+observed that she could not have been "a nice woman," else she would\r
+not have married either the one or the other.\r
+\r
+Certainly those determining acts of her life were not ideally\r
+beautiful. They were the mixed result of young and noble impulse\r
+struggling amidst the conditions of an imperfect social state, in which\r
+great feelings will often take the aspect of error, and great faith the\r
+aspect of illusion. For there is no creature whose inward being is so\r
+strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it. A\r
+new Theresa will hardly have the opportunity of reforming a conventual\r
+life, any more than a new Antigone will spend her heroic piety in\r
+daring all for the sake of a brother's burial: the medium in which\r
+their ardent deeds took shape is forever gone. But we insignificant\r
+people with our daily words and acts are preparing the lives of many\r
+Dorotheas, some of which may present a far sadder sacrifice than that\r
+of the Dorothea whose story we know.\r
+\r
+Her finely touched spirit had still its fine issues, though they were\r
+not widely visible. Her full nature, like that river of which Cyrus\r
+broke the strength, spent itself in channels which had no great name on\r
+the earth. But the effect of her being on those around her was\r
+incalculably diffusive: for the growing good of the world is partly\r
+dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you\r
+and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived\r
+faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.\r
--- /dev/null
+SILAS MARNER\r
+\r
+The Weaver of Raveloe\r
+\r
+\r
+by\r
+\r
+George Eliot\r
+\r
+(Mary Anne Evans)\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+1861\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+ "A child, more than all other gifts\r
+ That earth can offer to declining man,\r
+ Brings hope with it, and forward-looking thoughts."\r
+ --WORDSWORTH.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+PART ONE\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER I\r
+\r
+In the days when the spinning-wheels hummed busily in the\r
+farmhouses--and even great ladies, clothed in silk and thread-lace, had\r
+their toy spinning-wheels of polished oak--there might be seen in\r
+districts far away among the lanes, or deep in the bosom of the hills,\r
+certain pallid undersized men, who, by the side of the brawny\r
+country-folk, looked like the remnants of a disinherited race. The\r
+shepherd's dog barked fiercely when one of these alien-looking men\r
+appeared on the upland, dark against the early winter sunset; for what\r
+dog likes a figure bent under a heavy bag?--and these pale men rarely\r
+stirred abroad without that mysterious burden. The shepherd himself,\r
+though he had good reason to believe that the bag held nothing but\r
+flaxen thread, or else the long rolls of strong linen spun from that\r
+thread, was not quite sure that this trade of weaving, indispensable\r
+though it was, could be carried on entirely without the help of the\r
+Evil One. In that far-off time superstition clung easily round every\r
+person or thing that was at all unwonted, or even intermittent and\r
+occasional merely, like the visits of the pedlar or the knife-grinder.\r
+No one knew where wandering men had their homes or their origin; and\r
+how was a man to be explained unless you at least knew somebody who\r
+knew his father and mother? To the peasants of old times, the world\r
+outside their own direct experience was a region of vagueness and\r
+mystery: to their untravelled thought a state of wandering was a\r
+conception as dim as the winter life of the swallows that came back\r
+with the spring; and even a settler, if he came from distant parts,\r
+hardly ever ceased to be viewed with a remnant of distrust, which would\r
+have prevented any surprise if a long course of inoffensive conduct on\r
+his part had ended in the commission of a crime; especially if he had\r
+any reputation for knowledge, or showed any skill in handicraft. All\r
+cleverness, whether in the rapid use of that difficult instrument the\r
+tongue, or in some other art unfamiliar to villagers, was in itself\r
+suspicious: honest folk, born and bred in a visible manner, were mostly\r
+not overwise or clever--at least, not beyond such a matter as knowing\r
+the signs of the weather; and the process by which rapidity and\r
+dexterity of any kind were acquired was so wholly hidden, that they\r
+partook of the nature of conjuring. In this way it came to pass that\r
+those scattered linen-weavers--emigrants from the town into the\r
+country--were to the last regarded as aliens by their rustic\r
+neighbours, and usually contracted the eccentric habits which belong to\r
+a state of loneliness.\r
+\r
+In the early years of this century, such a linen-weaver, named Silas\r
+Marner, worked at his vocation in a stone cottage that stood among the\r
+nutty hedgerows near the village of Raveloe, and not far from the edge\r
+of a deserted stone-pit. The questionable sound of Silas's loom, so\r
+unlike the natural cheerful trotting of the winnowing-machine, or the\r
+simpler rhythm of the flail, had a half-fearful fascination for the\r
+Raveloe boys, who would often leave off their nutting or birds'-nesting\r
+to peep in at the window of the stone cottage, counterbalancing a\r
+certain awe at the mysterious action of the loom, by a pleasant sense\r
+of scornful superiority, drawn from the mockery of its alternating\r
+noises, along with the bent, tread-mill attitude of the weaver. But\r
+sometimes it happened that Marner, pausing to adjust an irregularity in\r
+his thread, became aware of the small scoundrels, and, though chary of\r
+his time, he liked their intrusion so ill that he would descend from\r
+his loom, and, opening the door, would fix on them a gaze that was\r
+always enough to make them take to their legs in terror. For how was\r
+it possible to believe that those large brown protuberant eyes in Silas\r
+Marner's pale face really saw nothing very distinctly that was not\r
+close to them, and not rather that their dreadful stare could dart\r
+cramp, or rickets, or a wry mouth at any boy who happened to be in the\r
+rear? They had, perhaps, heard their fathers and mothers hint that\r
+Silas Marner could cure folks' rheumatism if he had a mind, and add,\r
+still more darkly, that if you could only speak the devil fair enough,\r
+he might save you the cost of the doctor. Such strange lingering\r
+echoes of the old demon-worship might perhaps even now be caught by the\r
+diligent listener among the grey-haired peasantry; for the rude mind\r
+with difficulty associates the ideas of power and benignity. A shadowy\r
+conception of power that by much persuasion can be induced to refrain\r
+from inflicting harm, is the shape most easily taken by the sense of\r
+the Invisible in the minds of men who have always been pressed close by\r
+primitive wants, and to whom a life of hard toil has never been\r
+illuminated by any enthusiastic religious faith. To them pain and\r
+mishap present a far wider range of possibilities than gladness and\r
+enjoyment: their imagination is almost barren of the images that feed\r
+desire and hope, but is all overgrown by recollections that are a\r
+perpetual pasture to fear. "Is there anything you can fancy that you\r
+would like to eat?" I once said to an old labouring man, who was in\r
+his last illness, and who had refused all the food his wife had offered\r
+him. "No," he answered, "I've never been used to nothing but common\r
+victual, and I can't eat that." Experience had bred no fancies in him\r
+that could raise the phantasm of appetite.\r
+\r
+And Raveloe was a village where many of the old echoes lingered,\r
+undrowned by new voices. Not that it was one of those barren parishes\r
+lying on the outskirts of civilization--inhabited by meagre sheep and\r
+thinly-scattered shepherds: on the contrary, it lay in the rich central\r
+plain of what we are pleased to call Merry England, and held farms\r
+which, speaking from a spiritual point of view, paid highly-desirable\r
+tithes. But it was nestled in a snug well-wooded hollow, quite an\r
+hour's journey on horseback from any turnpike, where it was never\r
+reached by the vibrations of the coach-horn, or of public opinion. It\r
+was an important-looking village, with a fine old church and large\r
+churchyard in the heart of it, and two or three large brick-and-stone\r
+homesteads, with well-walled orchards and ornamental weathercocks,\r
+standing close upon the road, and lifting more imposing fronts than the\r
+rectory, which peeped from among the trees on the other side of the\r
+churchyard:--a village which showed at once the summits of its social\r
+life, and told the practised eye that there was no great park and\r
+manor-house in the vicinity, but that there were several chiefs in\r
+Raveloe who could farm badly quite at their ease, drawing enough money\r
+from their bad farming, in those war times, to live in a rollicking\r
+fashion, and keep a jolly Christmas, Whitsun, and Easter tide.\r
+\r
+It was fifteen years since Silas Marner had first come to Raveloe; he\r
+was then simply a pallid young man, with prominent short-sighted brown\r
+eyes, whose appearance would have had nothing strange for people of\r
+average culture and experience, but for the villagers near whom he had\r
+come to settle it had mysterious peculiarities which corresponded with\r
+the exceptional nature of his occupation, and his advent from an\r
+unknown region called "North'ard". So had his way of life:--he invited\r
+no comer to step across his door-sill, and he never strolled into the\r
+village to drink a pint at the Rainbow, or to gossip at the\r
+wheelwright's: he sought no man or woman, save for the purposes of his\r
+calling, or in order to supply himself with necessaries; and it was\r
+soon clear to the Raveloe lasses that he would never urge one of them\r
+to accept him against her will--quite as if he had heard them declare\r
+that they would never marry a dead man come to life again. This view\r
+of Marner's personality was not without another ground than his pale\r
+face and unexampled eyes; for Jem Rodney, the mole-catcher, averred\r
+that one evening as he was returning homeward, he saw Silas Marner\r
+leaning against a stile with a heavy bag on his back, instead of\r
+resting the bag on the stile as a man in his senses would have done;\r
+and that, on coming up to him, he saw that Marner's eyes were set like\r
+a dead man's, and he spoke to him, and shook him, and his limbs were\r
+stiff, and his hands clutched the bag as if they'd been made of iron;\r
+but just as he had made up his mind that the weaver was dead, he came\r
+all right again, like, as you might say, in the winking of an eye, and\r
+said "Good-night", and walked off. All this Jem swore he had seen,\r
+more by token that it was the very day he had been mole-catching on\r
+Squire Cass's land, down by the old saw-pit. Some said Marner must\r
+have been in a "fit", a word which seemed to explain things otherwise\r
+incredible; but the argumentative Mr. Macey, clerk of the parish, shook\r
+his head, and asked if anybody was ever known to go off in a fit and\r
+not fall down. A fit was a stroke, wasn't it? and it was in the\r
+nature of a stroke to partly take away the use of a man's limbs and\r
+throw him on the parish, if he'd got no children to look to. No, no;\r
+it was no stroke that would let a man stand on his legs, like a horse\r
+between the shafts, and then walk off as soon as you can say "Gee!"\r
+But there might be such a thing as a man's soul being loose from his\r
+body, and going out and in, like a bird out of its nest and back; and\r
+that was how folks got over-wise, for they went to school in this\r
+shell-less state to those who could teach them more than their\r
+neighbours could learn with their five senses and the parson. And\r
+where did Master Marner get his knowledge of herbs from--and charms\r
+too, if he liked to give them away? Jem Rodney's story was no more\r
+than what might have been expected by anybody who had seen how Marner\r
+had cured Sally Oates, and made her sleep like a baby, when her heart\r
+had been beating enough to burst her body, for two months and more,\r
+while she had been under the doctor's care. He might cure more folks\r
+if he would; but he was worth speaking fair, if it was only to keep him\r
+from doing you a mischief.\r
+\r
+It was partly to this vague fear that Marner was indebted for\r
+protecting him from the persecution that his singularities might have\r
+drawn upon him, but still more to the fact that, the old linen-weaver\r
+in the neighbouring parish of Tarley being dead, his handicraft made\r
+him a highly welcome settler to the richer housewives of the district,\r
+and even to the more provident cottagers, who had their little stock of\r
+yarn at the year's end. Their sense of his usefulness would have\r
+counteracted any repugnance or suspicion which was not confirmed by a\r
+deficiency in the quality or the tale of the cloth he wove for them.\r
+And the years had rolled on without producing any change in the\r
+impressions of the neighbours concerning Marner, except the change from\r
+novelty to habit. At the end of fifteen years the Raveloe men said\r
+just the same things about Silas Marner as at the beginning: they did\r
+not say them quite so often, but they believed them much more strongly\r
+when they did say them. There was only one important addition which\r
+the years had brought: it was, that Master Marner had laid by a fine\r
+sight of money somewhere, and that he could buy up "bigger men" than\r
+himself.\r
+\r
+But while opinion concerning him had remained nearly stationary, and\r
+his daily habits had presented scarcely any visible change, Marner's\r
+inward life had been a history and a metamorphosis, as that of every\r
+fervid nature must be when it has fled, or been condemned, to solitude.\r
+His life, before he came to Raveloe, had been filled with the movement,\r
+the mental activity, and the close fellowship, which, in that day as in\r
+this, marked the life of an artisan early incorporated in a narrow\r
+religious sect, where the poorest layman has the chance of\r
+distinguishing himself by gifts of speech, and has, at the very least,\r
+the weight of a silent voter in the government of his community.\r
+Marner was highly thought of in that little hidden world, known to\r
+itself as the church assembling in Lantern Yard; he was believed to be\r
+a young man of exemplary life and ardent faith; and a peculiar interest\r
+had been centred in him ever since he had fallen, at a prayer-meeting,\r
+into a mysterious rigidity and suspension of consciousness, which,\r
+lasting for an hour or more, had been mistaken for death. To have\r
+sought a medical explanation for this phenomenon would have been held\r
+by Silas himself, as well as by his minister and fellow-members, a\r
+wilful self-exclusion from the spiritual significance that might lie\r
+therein. Silas was evidently a brother selected for a peculiar\r
+discipline; and though the effort to interpret this discipline was\r
+discouraged by the absence, on his part, of any spiritual vision during\r
+his outward trance, yet it was believed by himself and others that its\r
+effect was seen in an accession of light and fervour. A less truthful\r
+man than he might have been tempted into the subsequent creation of a\r
+vision in the form of resurgent memory; a less sane man might have\r
+believed in such a creation; but Silas was both sane and honest,\r
+though, as with many honest and fervent men, culture had not defined\r
+any channels for his sense of mystery, and so it spread itself over the\r
+proper pathway of inquiry and knowledge. He had inherited from his\r
+mother some acquaintance with medicinal herbs and their preparation--a\r
+little store of wisdom which she had imparted to him as a solemn\r
+bequest--but of late years he had had doubts about the lawfulness of\r
+applying this knowledge, believing that herbs could have no efficacy\r
+without prayer, and that prayer might suffice without herbs; so that\r
+the inherited delight he had in wandering in the fields in search of\r
+foxglove and dandelion and coltsfoot, began to wear to him the\r
+character of a temptation.\r
+\r
+Among the members of his church there was one young man, a little older\r
+than himself, with whom he had long lived in such close friendship that\r
+it was the custom of their Lantern Yard brethren to call them David and\r
+Jonathan. The real name of the friend was William Dane, and he, too,\r
+was regarded as a shining instance of youthful piety, though somewhat\r
+given to over-severity towards weaker brethren, and to be so dazzled by\r
+his own light as to hold himself wiser than his teachers. But whatever\r
+blemishes others might discern in William, to his friend's mind he was\r
+faultless; for Marner had one of those impressible self-doubting\r
+natures which, at an inexperienced age, admire imperativeness and lean\r
+on contradiction. The expression of trusting simplicity in Marner's\r
+face, heightened by that absence of special observation, that\r
+defenceless, deer-like gaze which belongs to large prominent eyes, was\r
+strongly contrasted by the self-complacent suppression of inward\r
+triumph that lurked in the narrow slanting eyes and compressed lips of\r
+William Dane. One of the most frequent topics of conversation between\r
+the two friends was Assurance of salvation: Silas confessed that he\r
+could never arrive at anything higher than hope mingled with fear, and\r
+listened with longing wonder when William declared that he had\r
+possessed unshaken assurance ever since, in the period of his\r
+conversion, he had dreamed that he saw the words "calling and election\r
+sure" standing by themselves on a white page in the open Bible. Such\r
+colloquies have occupied many a pair of pale-faced weavers, whose\r
+unnurtured souls have been like young winged things, fluttering\r
+forsaken in the twilight.\r
+\r
+It had seemed to the unsuspecting Silas that the friendship had\r
+suffered no chill even from his formation of another attachment of a\r
+closer kind. For some months he had been engaged to a young\r
+servant-woman, waiting only for a little increase to their mutual\r
+savings in order to their marriage; and it was a great delight to him\r
+that Sarah did not object to William's occasional presence in their\r
+Sunday interviews. It was at this point in their history that Silas's\r
+cataleptic fit occurred during the prayer-meeting; and amidst the\r
+various queries and expressions of interest addressed to him by his\r
+fellow-members, William's suggestion alone jarred with the general\r
+sympathy towards a brother thus singled out for special dealings. He\r
+observed that, to him, this trance looked more like a visitation of\r
+Satan than a proof of divine favour, and exhorted his friend to see\r
+that he hid no accursed thing within his soul. Silas, feeling bound to\r
+accept rebuke and admonition as a brotherly office, felt no resentment,\r
+but only pain, at his friend's doubts concerning him; and to this was\r
+soon added some anxiety at the perception that Sarah's manner towards\r
+him began to exhibit a strange fluctuation between an effort at an\r
+increased manifestation of regard and involuntary signs of shrinking\r
+and dislike. He asked her if she wished to break off their engagement;\r
+but she denied this: their engagement was known to the church, and had\r
+been recognized in the prayer-meetings; it could not be broken off\r
+without strict investigation, and Sarah could render no reason that\r
+would be sanctioned by the feeling of the community. At this time the\r
+senior deacon was taken dangerously ill, and, being a childless\r
+widower, he was tended night and day by some of the younger brethren or\r
+sisters. Silas frequently took his turn in the night-watching with\r
+William, the one relieving the other at two in the morning. The old\r
+man, contrary to expectation, seemed to be on the way to recovery, when\r
+one night Silas, sitting up by his bedside, observed that his usual\r
+audible breathing had ceased. The candle was burning low, and he had\r
+to lift it to see the patient's face distinctly. Examination convinced\r
+him that the deacon was dead--had been dead some time, for the limbs\r
+were rigid. Silas asked himself if he had been asleep, and looked at\r
+the clock: it was already four in the morning. How was it that William\r
+had not come? In much anxiety he went to seek for help, and soon there\r
+were several friends assembled in the house, the minister among them,\r
+while Silas went away to his work, wishing he could have met William to\r
+know the reason of his non-appearance. But at six o'clock, as he was\r
+thinking of going to seek his friend, William came, and with him the\r
+minister. They came to summon him to Lantern Yard, to meet the church\r
+members there; and to his inquiry concerning the cause of the summons\r
+the only reply was, "You will hear." Nothing further was said until\r
+Silas was seated in the vestry, in front of the minister, with the eyes\r
+of those who to him represented God's people fixed solemnly upon him.\r
+Then the minister, taking out a pocket-knife, showed it to Silas, and\r
+asked him if he knew where he had left that knife? Silas said, he did\r
+not know that he had left it anywhere out of his own pocket--but he was\r
+trembling at this strange interrogation. He was then exhorted not to\r
+hide his sin, but to confess and repent. The knife had been found in\r
+the bureau by the departed deacon's bedside--found in the place where\r
+the little bag of church money had lain, which the minister himself had\r
+seen the day before. Some hand had removed that bag; and whose hand\r
+could it be, if not that of the man to whom the knife belonged? For\r
+some time Silas was mute with astonishment: then he said, "God will\r
+clear me: I know nothing about the knife being there, or the money\r
+being gone. Search me and my dwelling; you will find nothing but three\r
+pound five of my own savings, which William Dane knows I have had these\r
+six months." At this William groaned, but the minister said, "The\r
+proof is heavy against you, brother Marner. The money was taken in the\r
+night last past, and no man was with our departed brother but you, for\r
+William Dane declares to us that he was hindered by sudden sickness\r
+from going to take his place as usual, and you yourself said that he\r
+had not come; and, moreover, you neglected the dead body."\r
+\r
+"I must have slept," said Silas. Then, after a pause, he added, "Or I\r
+must have had another visitation like that which you have all seen me\r
+under, so that the thief must have come and gone while I was not in the\r
+body, but out of the body. But, I say again, search me and my\r
+dwelling, for I have been nowhere else."\r
+\r
+The search was made, and it ended--in William Dane's finding the\r
+well-known bag, empty, tucked behind the chest of drawers in Silas's\r
+chamber! On this William exhorted his friend to confess, and not to\r
+hide his sin any longer. Silas turned a look of keen reproach on him,\r
+and said, "William, for nine years that we have gone in and out\r
+together, have you ever known me tell a lie? But God will clear me."\r
+\r
+"Brother," said William, "how do I know what you may have done in the\r
+secret chambers of your heart, to give Satan an advantage over you?"\r
+\r
+Silas was still looking at his friend. Suddenly a deep flush came over\r
+his face, and he was about to speak impetuously, when he seemed checked\r
+again by some inward shock, that sent the flush back and made him\r
+tremble. But at last he spoke feebly, looking at William.\r
+\r
+"I remember now--the knife wasn't in my pocket."\r
+\r
+William said, "I know nothing of what you mean." The other persons\r
+present, however, began to inquire where Silas meant to say that the\r
+knife was, but he would give no further explanation: he only said, "I\r
+am sore stricken; I can say nothing. God will clear me."\r
+\r
+On their return to the vestry there was further deliberation. Any\r
+resort to legal measures for ascertaining the culprit was contrary to\r
+the principles of the church in Lantern Yard, according to which\r
+prosecution was forbidden to Christians, even had the case held less\r
+scandal to the community. But the members were bound to take other\r
+measures for finding out the truth, and they resolved on praying and\r
+drawing lots. This resolution can be a ground of surprise only to\r
+those who are unacquainted with that obscure religious life which has\r
+gone on in the alleys of our towns. Silas knelt with his brethren,\r
+relying on his own innocence being certified by immediate divine\r
+interference, but feeling that there was sorrow and mourning behind for\r
+him even then--that his trust in man had been cruelly bruised. _The\r
+lots declared that Silas Marner was guilty._ He was solemnly suspended\r
+from church-membership, and called upon to render up the stolen money:\r
+only on confession, as the sign of repentance, could he be received\r
+once more within the folds of the church. Marner listened in silence.\r
+At last, when everyone rose to depart, he went towards William Dane and\r
+said, in a voice shaken by agitation--\r
+\r
+"The last time I remember using my knife, was when I took it out to cut\r
+a strap for you. I don't remember putting it in my pocket again.\r
+_You_ stole the money, and you have woven a plot to lay the sin at my\r
+door. But you may prosper, for all that: there is no just God that\r
+governs the earth righteously, but a God of lies, that bears witness\r
+against the innocent."\r
+\r
+There was a general shudder at this blasphemy.\r
+\r
+William said meekly, "I leave our brethren to judge whether this is the\r
+voice of Satan or not. I can do nothing but pray for you, Silas."\r
+\r
+Poor Marner went out with that despair in his soul--that shaken trust\r
+in God and man, which is little short of madness to a loving nature.\r
+In the bitterness of his wounded spirit, he said to himself, "_She_\r
+will cast me off too." And he reflected that, if she did not believe\r
+the testimony against him, her whole faith must be upset as his was.\r
+To people accustomed to reason about the forms in which their religious\r
+feeling has incorporated itself, it is difficult to enter into that\r
+simple, untaught state of mind in which the form and the feeling have\r
+never been severed by an act of reflection. We are apt to think it\r
+inevitable that a man in Marner's position should have begun to\r
+question the validity of an appeal to the divine judgment by drawing\r
+lots; but to him this would have been an effort of independent thought\r
+such as he had never known; and he must have made the effort at a\r
+moment when all his energies were turned into the anguish of\r
+disappointed faith. If there is an angel who records the sorrows of\r
+men as well as their sins, he knows how many and deep are the sorrows\r
+that spring from false ideas for which no man is culpable.\r
+\r
+Marner went home, and for a whole day sat alone, stunned by despair,\r
+without any impulse to go to Sarah and attempt to win her belief in his\r
+innocence. The second day he took refuge from benumbing unbelief, by\r
+getting into his loom and working away as usual; and before many hours\r
+were past, the minister and one of the deacons came to him with the\r
+message from Sarah, that she held her engagement to him at an end.\r
+Silas received the message mutely, and then turned away from the\r
+messengers to work at his loom again. In little more than a month from\r
+that time, Sarah was married to William Dane; and not long afterwards\r
+it was known to the brethren in Lantern Yard that Silas Marner had\r
+departed from the town.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER II\r
+\r
+Even people whose lives have been made various by learning, sometimes\r
+find it hard to keep a fast hold on their habitual views of life, on\r
+their faith in the Invisible, nay, on the sense that their past joys\r
+and sorrows are a real experience, when they are suddenly transported\r
+to a new land, where the beings around them know nothing of their\r
+history, and share none of their ideas--where their mother earth shows\r
+another lap, and human life has other forms than those on which their\r
+souls have been nourished. Minds that have been unhinged from their\r
+old faith and love, have perhaps sought this Lethean influence of\r
+exile, in which the past becomes dreamy because its symbols have all\r
+vanished, and the present too is dreamy because it is linked with no\r
+memories. But even _their_ experience may hardly enable them\r
+thoroughly to imagine what was the effect on a simple weaver like Silas\r
+Marner, when he left his own country and people and came to settle in\r
+Raveloe. Nothing could be more unlike his native town, set within\r
+sight of the widespread hillsides, than this low, wooded region, where\r
+he felt hidden even from the heavens by the screening trees and\r
+hedgerows. There was nothing here, when he rose in the deep morning\r
+quiet and looked out on the dewy brambles and rank tufted grass, that\r
+seemed to have any relation with that life centring in Lantern Yard,\r
+which had once been to him the altar-place of high dispensations. The\r
+whitewashed walls; the little pews where well-known figures entered\r
+with a subdued rustling, and where first one well-known voice and then\r
+another, pitched in a peculiar key of petition, uttered phrases at once\r
+occult and familiar, like the amulet worn on the heart; the pulpit\r
+where the minister delivered unquestioned doctrine, and swayed to and\r
+fro, and handled the book in a long accustomed manner; the very pauses\r
+between the couplets of the hymn, as it was given out, and the\r
+recurrent swell of voices in song: these things had been the channel of\r
+divine influences to Marner--they were the fostering home of his\r
+religious emotions--they were Christianity and God's kingdom upon\r
+earth. A weaver who finds hard words in his hymn-book knows nothing of\r
+abstractions; as the little child knows nothing of parental love, but\r
+only knows one face and one lap towards which it stretches its arms for\r
+refuge and nurture.\r
+\r
+And what could be more unlike that Lantern Yard world than the world in\r
+Raveloe?--orchards looking lazy with neglected plenty; the large church\r
+in the wide churchyard, which men gazed at lounging at their own doors\r
+in service-time; the purple-faced farmers jogging along the lanes or\r
+turning in at the Rainbow; homesteads, where men supped heavily and\r
+slept in the light of the evening hearth, and where women seemed to be\r
+laying up a stock of linen for the life to come. There were no lips in\r
+Raveloe from which a word could fall that would stir Silas Marner's\r
+benumbed faith to a sense of pain. In the early ages of the world, we\r
+know, it was believed that each territory was inhabited and ruled by\r
+its own divinities, so that a man could cross the bordering heights and\r
+be out of the reach of his native gods, whose presence was confined to\r
+the streams and the groves and the hills among which he had lived from\r
+his birth. And poor Silas was vaguely conscious of something not\r
+unlike the feeling of primitive men, when they fled thus, in fear or in\r
+sullenness, from the face of an unpropitious deity. It seemed to him\r
+that the Power he had vainly trusted in among the streets and at the\r
+prayer-meetings, was very far away from this land in which he had taken\r
+refuge, where men lived in careless abundance, knowing and needing\r
+nothing of that trust, which, for him, had been turned to bitterness.\r
+The little light he possessed spread its beams so narrowly, that\r
+frustrated belief was a curtain broad enough to create for him the\r
+blackness of night.\r
+\r
+His first movement after the shock had been to work in his loom; and he\r
+went on with this unremittingly, never asking himself why, now he was\r
+come to Raveloe, he worked far on into the night to finish the tale of\r
+Mrs. Osgood's table-linen sooner than she expected--without\r
+contemplating beforehand the money she would put into his hand for the\r
+work. He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without\r
+reflection. Every man's work, pursued steadily, tends in this way to\r
+become an end in itself, and so to bridge over the loveless chasms of\r
+his life. Silas's hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and\r
+his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves\r
+under his effort. Then there were the calls of hunger; and Silas, in\r
+his solitude, had to provide his own breakfast, dinner, and supper, to\r
+fetch his own water from the well, and put his own kettle on the fire;\r
+and all these immediate promptings helped, along with the weaving, to\r
+reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect. He\r
+hated the thought of the past; there was nothing that called out his\r
+love and fellowship toward the strangers he had come amongst; and the\r
+future was all dark, for there was no Unseen Love that cared for him.\r
+Thought was arrested by utter bewilderment, now its old narrow pathway\r
+was closed, and affection seemed to have died under the bruise that had\r
+fallen on its keenest nerves.\r
+\r
+But at last Mrs. Osgood's table-linen was finished, and Silas was paid\r
+in gold. His earnings in his native town, where he worked for a\r
+wholesale dealer, had been after a lower rate; he had been paid weekly,\r
+and of his weekly earnings a large proportion had gone to objects of\r
+piety and charity. Now, for the first time in his life, he had five\r
+bright guineas put into his hand; no man expected a share of them, and\r
+he loved no man that he should offer him a share. But what were the\r
+guineas to him who saw no vista beyond countless days of weaving? It\r
+was needless for him to ask that, for it was pleasant to him to feel\r
+them in his palm, and look at their bright faces, which were all his\r
+own: it was another element of life, like the weaving and the\r
+satisfaction of hunger, subsisting quite aloof from the life of belief\r
+and love from which he had been cut off. The weaver's hand had known\r
+the touch of hard-won money even before the palm had grown to its full\r
+breadth; for twenty years, mysterious money had stood to him as the\r
+symbol of earthly good, and the immediate object of toil. He had\r
+seemed to love it little in the years when every penny had its purpose\r
+for him; for he loved the _purpose_ then. But now, when all purpose\r
+was gone, that habit of looking towards the money and grasping it with\r
+a sense of fulfilled effort made a loam that was deep enough for the\r
+seeds of desire; and as Silas walked homeward across the fields in the\r
+twilight, he drew out the money and thought it was brighter in the\r
+gathering gloom.\r
+\r
+About this time an incident happened which seemed to open a possibility\r
+of some fellowship with his neighbours. One day, taking a pair of\r
+shoes to be mended, he saw the cobbler's wife seated by the fire,\r
+suffering from the terrible symptoms of heart-disease and dropsy, which\r
+he had witnessed as the precursors of his mother's death. He felt a\r
+rush of pity at the mingled sight and remembrance, and, recalling the\r
+relief his mother had found from a simple preparation of foxglove, he\r
+promised Sally Oates to bring her something that would ease her, since\r
+the doctor did her no good. In this office of charity, Silas felt, for\r
+the first time since he had come to Raveloe, a sense of unity between\r
+his past and present life, which might have been the beginning of his\r
+rescue from the insect-like existence into which his nature had shrunk.\r
+But Sally Oates's disease had raised her into a personage of much\r
+interest and importance among the neighbours, and the fact of her\r
+having found relief from drinking Silas Marner's "stuff" became a\r
+matter of general discourse. When Doctor Kimble gave physic, it was\r
+natural that it should have an effect; but when a weaver, who came from\r
+nobody knew where, worked wonders with a bottle of brown waters, the\r
+occult character of the process was evident. Such a sort of thing had\r
+not been known since the Wise Woman at Tarley died; and she had charms\r
+as well as "stuff": everybody went to her when their children had fits.\r
+Silas Marner must be a person of the same sort, for how did he know\r
+what would bring back Sally Oates's breath, if he didn't know a fine\r
+sight more than that? The Wise Woman had words that she muttered to\r
+herself, so that you couldn't hear what they were, and if she tied a\r
+bit of red thread round the child's toe the while, it would keep off\r
+the water in the head. There were women in Raveloe, at that present\r
+time, who had worn one of the Wise Woman's little bags round their\r
+necks, and, in consequence, had never had an idiot child, as Ann\r
+Coulter had. Silas Marner could very likely do as much, and more; and\r
+now it was all clear how he should have come from unknown parts, and be\r
+so "comical-looking". But Sally Oates must mind and not tell the\r
+doctor, for he would be sure to set his face against Marner: he was\r
+always angry about the Wise Woman, and used to threaten those who went\r
+to her that they should have none of his help any more.\r
+\r
+Silas now found himself and his cottage suddenly beset by mothers who\r
+wanted him to charm away the whooping-cough, or bring back the milk,\r
+and by men who wanted stuff against the rheumatics or the knots in the\r
+hands; and, to secure themselves against a refusal, the applicants\r
+brought silver in their palms. Silas might have driven a profitable\r
+trade in charms as well as in his small list of drugs; but money on\r
+this condition was no temptation to him: he had never known an impulse\r
+towards falsity, and he drove one after another away with growing\r
+irritation, for the news of him as a wise man had spread even to\r
+Tarley, and it was long before people ceased to take long walks for the\r
+sake of asking his aid. But the hope in his wisdom was at length\r
+changed into dread, for no one believed him when he said he knew no\r
+charms and could work no cures, and every man and woman who had an\r
+accident or a new attack after applying to him, set the misfortune down\r
+to Master Marner's ill-will and irritated glances. Thus it came to\r
+pass that his movement of pity towards Sally Oates, which had given him\r
+a transient sense of brotherhood, heightened the repulsion between him\r
+and his neighbours, and made his isolation more complete.\r
+\r
+Gradually the guineas, the crowns, and the half-crowns grew to a heap,\r
+and Marner drew less and less for his own wants, trying to solve the\r
+problem of keeping himself strong enough to work sixteen hours a-day on\r
+as small an outlay as possible. Have not men, shut up in solitary\r
+imprisonment, found an interest in marking the moments by straight\r
+strokes of a certain length on the wall, until the growth of the sum of\r
+straight strokes, arranged in triangles, has become a mastering\r
+purpose? Do we not wile away moments of inanity or fatigued waiting by\r
+repeating some trivial movement or sound, until the repetition has bred\r
+a want, which is incipient habit? That will help us to understand how\r
+the love of accumulating money grows an absorbing passion in men whose\r
+imaginations, even in the very beginning of their hoard, showed them no\r
+purpose beyond it. Marner wanted the heaps of ten to grow into a\r
+square, and then into a larger square; and every added guinea, while it\r
+was itself a satisfaction, bred a new desire. In this strange world,\r
+made a hopeless riddle to him, he might, if he had had a less intense\r
+nature, have sat weaving, weaving--looking towards the end of his\r
+pattern, or towards the end of his web, till he forgot the riddle, and\r
+everything else but his immediate sensations; but the money had come to\r
+mark off his weaving into periods, and the money not only grew, but it\r
+remained with him. He began to think it was conscious of him, as his\r
+loom was, and he would on no account have exchanged those coins, which\r
+had become his familiars, for other coins with unknown faces. He\r
+handled them, he counted them, till their form and colour were like the\r
+satisfaction of a thirst to him; but it was only in the night, when his\r
+work was done, that he drew them out to enjoy their companionship. He\r
+had taken up some bricks in his floor underneath his loom, and here he\r
+had made a hole in which he set the iron pot that contained his guineas\r
+and silver coins, covering the bricks with sand whenever he replaced\r
+them. Not that the idea of being robbed presented itself often or\r
+strongly to his mind: hoarding was common in country districts in those\r
+days; there were old labourers in the parish of Raveloe who were known\r
+to have their savings by them, probably inside their flock-beds; but\r
+their rustic neighbours, though not all of them as honest as their\r
+ancestors in the days of King Alfred, had not imaginations bold enough\r
+to lay a plan of burglary. How could they have spent the money in\r
+their own village without betraying themselves? They would be obliged\r
+to "run away"--a course as dark and dubious as a balloon journey.\r
+\r
+So, year after year, Silas Marner had lived in this solitude, his\r
+guineas rising in the iron pot, and his life narrowing and hardening\r
+itself more and more into a mere pulsation of desire and satisfaction\r
+that had no relation to any other being. His life had reduced itself\r
+to the functions of weaving and hoarding, without any contemplation of\r
+an end towards which the functions tended. The same sort of process\r
+has perhaps been undergone by wiser men, when they have been cut off\r
+from faith and love--only, instead of a loom and a heap of guineas,\r
+they have had some erudite research, some ingenious project, or some\r
+well-knit theory. Strangely Marner's face and figure shrank and bent\r
+themselves into a constant mechanical relation to the objects of his\r
+life, so that he produced the same sort of impression as a handle or a\r
+crooked tube, which has no meaning standing apart. The prominent eyes\r
+that used to look trusting and dreamy, now looked as if they had been\r
+made to see only one kind of thing that was very small, like tiny\r
+grain, for which they hunted everywhere: and he was so withered and\r
+yellow, that, though he was not yet forty, the children always called\r
+him "Old Master Marner".\r
+\r
+Yet even in this stage of withering a little incident happened, which\r
+showed that the sap of affection was not all gone. It was one of his\r
+daily tasks to fetch his water from a well a couple of fields off, and\r
+for this purpose, ever since he came to Raveloe, he had had a brown\r
+earthenware pot, which he held as his most precious utensil among the\r
+very few conveniences he had granted himself. It had been his\r
+companion for twelve years, always standing on the same spot, always\r
+lending its handle to him in the early morning, so that its form had an\r
+expression for him of willing helpfulness, and the impress of its\r
+handle on his palm gave a satisfaction mingled with that of having the\r
+fresh clear water. One day as he was returning from the well, he\r
+stumbled against the step of the stile, and his brown pot, falling with\r
+force against the stones that overarched the ditch below him, was\r
+broken in three pieces. Silas picked up the pieces and carried them\r
+home with grief in his heart. The brown pot could never be of use to\r
+him any more, but he stuck the bits together and propped the ruin in\r
+its old place for a memorial.\r
+\r
+This is the history of Silas Marner, until the fifteenth year after he\r
+came to Raveloe. The livelong day he sat in his loom, his ear filled\r
+with its monotony, his eyes bent close down on the slow growth of\r
+sameness in the brownish web, his muscles moving with such even\r
+repetition that their pause seemed almost as much a constraint as the\r
+holding of his breath. But at night came his revelry: at night he\r
+closed his shutters, and made fast his doors, and drew forth his gold.\r
+Long ago the heap of coins had become too large for the iron pot to\r
+hold them, and he had made for them two thick leather bags, which\r
+wasted no room in their resting-place, but lent themselves flexibly to\r
+every corner. How the guineas shone as they came pouring out of the\r
+dark leather mouths! The silver bore no large proportion in amount to\r
+the gold, because the long pieces of linen which formed his chief work\r
+were always partly paid for in gold, and out of the silver he supplied\r
+his own bodily wants, choosing always the shillings and sixpences to\r
+spend in this way. He loved the guineas best, but he would not change\r
+the silver--the crowns and half-crowns that were his own earnings,\r
+begotten by his labour; he loved them all. He spread them out in heaps\r
+and bathed his hands in them; then he counted them and set them up in\r
+regular piles, and felt their rounded outline between his thumb and\r
+fingers, and thought fondly of the guineas that were only half-earned\r
+by the work in his loom, as if they had been unborn children--thought\r
+of the guineas that were coming slowly through the coming years,\r
+through all his life, which spread far away before him, the end quite\r
+hidden by countless days of weaving. No wonder his thoughts were still\r
+with his loom and his money when he made his journeys through the\r
+fields and the lanes to fetch and carry home his work, so that his\r
+steps never wandered to the hedge-banks and the lane-side in search of\r
+the once familiar herbs: these too belonged to the past, from which his\r
+life had shrunk away, like a rivulet that has sunk far down from the\r
+grassy fringe of its old breadth into a little shivering thread, that\r
+cuts a groove for itself in the barren sand.\r
+\r
+But about the Christmas of that fifteenth year, a second great change\r
+came over Marner's life, and his history became blent in a singular\r
+manner with the life of his neighbours.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER III\r
+\r
+The greatest man in Raveloe was Squire Cass, who lived in the large red\r
+house with the handsome flight of stone steps in front and the high\r
+stables behind it, nearly opposite the church. He was only one among\r
+several landed parishioners, but he alone was honoured with the title\r
+of Squire; for though Mr. Osgood's family was also understood to be of\r
+timeless origin--the Raveloe imagination having never ventured back to\r
+that fearful blank when there were no Osgoods--still, he merely owned\r
+the farm he occupied; whereas Squire Cass had a tenant or two, who\r
+complained of the game to him quite as if he had been a lord.\r
+\r
+It was still that glorious war-time which was felt to be a peculiar\r
+favour of Providence towards the landed interest, and the fall of\r
+prices had not yet come to carry the race of small squires and yeomen\r
+down that road to ruin for which extravagant habits and bad husbandry\r
+were plentifully anointing their wheels. I am speaking now in relation\r
+to Raveloe and the parishes that resembled it; for our old-fashioned\r
+country life had many different aspects, as all life must have when it\r
+is spread over a various surface, and breathed on variously by\r
+multitudinous currents, from the winds of heaven to the thoughts of\r
+men, which are for ever moving and crossing each other with\r
+incalculable results. Raveloe lay low among the bushy trees and the\r
+rutted lanes, aloof from the currents of industrial energy and Puritan\r
+earnestness: the rich ate and drank freely, accepting gout and apoplexy\r
+as things that ran mysteriously in respectable families, and the poor\r
+thought that the rich were entirely in the right of it to lead a jolly\r
+life; besides, their feasting caused a multiplication of orts, which\r
+were the heirlooms of the poor. Betty Jay scented the boiling of\r
+Squire Cass's hams, but her longing was arrested by the unctuous liquor\r
+in which they were boiled; and when the seasons brought round the great\r
+merry-makings, they were regarded on all hands as a fine thing for the\r
+poor. For the Raveloe feasts were like the rounds of beef and the\r
+barrels of ale--they were on a large scale, and lasted a good while,\r
+especially in the winter-time. After ladies had packed up their best\r
+gowns and top-knots in bandboxes, and had incurred the risk of fording\r
+streams on pillions with the precious burden in rainy or snowy weather,\r
+when there was no knowing how high the water would rise, it was not to\r
+be supposed that they looked forward to a brief pleasure. On this\r
+ground it was always contrived in the dark seasons, when there was\r
+little work to be done, and the hours were long, that several\r
+neighbours should keep open house in succession. So soon as Squire\r
+Cass's standing dishes diminished in plenty and freshness, his guests\r
+had nothing to do but to walk a little higher up the village to Mr.\r
+Osgood's, at the Orchards, and they found hams and chines uncut,\r
+pork-pies with the scent of the fire in them, spun butter in all its\r
+freshness--everything, in fact, that appetites at leisure could desire,\r
+in perhaps greater perfection, though not in greater abundance, than at\r
+Squire Cass's.\r
+\r
+For the Squire's wife had died long ago, and the Red House was without\r
+that presence of the wife and mother which is the fountain of wholesome\r
+love and fear in parlour and kitchen; and this helped to account not\r
+only for there being more profusion than finished excellence in the\r
+holiday provisions, but also for the frequency with which the proud\r
+Squire condescended to preside in the parlour of the Rainbow rather\r
+than under the shadow of his own dark wainscot; perhaps, also, for the\r
+fact that his sons had turned out rather ill. Raveloe was not a place\r
+where moral censure was severe, but it was thought a weakness in the\r
+Squire that he had kept all his sons at home in idleness; and though\r
+some licence was to be allowed to young men whose fathers could afford\r
+it, people shook their heads at the courses of the second son, Dunstan,\r
+commonly called Dunsey Cass, whose taste for swopping and betting might\r
+turn out to be a sowing of something worse than wild oats. To be sure,\r
+the neighbours said, it was no matter what became of Dunsey--a spiteful\r
+jeering fellow, who seemed to enjoy his drink the more when other\r
+people went dry--always provided that his doings did not bring trouble\r
+on a family like Squire Cass's, with a monument in the church, and\r
+tankards older than King George. But it would be a thousand pities if\r
+Mr. Godfrey, the eldest, a fine open-faced good-natured young man who\r
+was to come into the land some day, should take to going along the same\r
+road with his brother, as he had seemed to do of late. If he went on\r
+in that way, he would lose Miss Nancy Lammeter; for it was well known\r
+that she had looked very shyly on him ever since last Whitsuntide\r
+twelvemonth, when there was so much talk about his being away from home\r
+days and days together. There was something wrong, more than\r
+common--that was quite clear; for Mr. Godfrey didn't look half so\r
+fresh-coloured and open as he used to do. At one time everybody was\r
+saying, What a handsome couple he and Miss Nancy Lammeter would make!\r
+and if she could come to be mistress at the Red House, there would be a\r
+fine change, for the Lammeters had been brought up in that way, that\r
+they never suffered a pinch of salt to be wasted, and yet everybody in\r
+their household had of the best, according to his place. Such a\r
+daughter-in-law would be a saving to the old Squire, if she never\r
+brought a penny to her fortune; for it was to be feared that,\r
+notwithstanding his incomings, there were more holes in his pocket than\r
+the one where he put his own hand in. But if Mr. Godfrey didn't turn\r
+over a new leaf, he might say "Good-bye" to Miss Nancy Lammeter.\r
+\r
+It was the once hopeful Godfrey who was standing, with his hands in his\r
+side-pockets and his back to the fire, in the dark wainscoted parlour,\r
+one late November afternoon in that fifteenth year of Silas Marner's\r
+life at Raveloe. The fading grey light fell dimly on the walls\r
+decorated with guns, whips, and foxes' brushes, on coats and hats flung\r
+on the chairs, on tankards sending forth a scent of flat ale, and on a\r
+half-choked fire, with pipes propped up in the chimney-corners: signs\r
+of a domestic life destitute of any hallowing charm, with which the\r
+look of gloomy vexation on Godfrey's blond face was in sad accordance.\r
+He seemed to be waiting and listening for some one's approach, and\r
+presently the sound of a heavy step, with an accompanying whistle, was\r
+heard across the large empty entrance-hall.\r
+\r
+The door opened, and a thick-set, heavy-looking young man entered, with\r
+the flushed face and the gratuitously elated bearing which mark the\r
+first stage of intoxication. It was Dunsey, and at the sight of him\r
+Godfrey's face parted with some of its gloom to take on the more active\r
+expression of hatred. The handsome brown spaniel that lay on the\r
+hearth retreated under the chair in the chimney-corner.\r
+\r
+"Well, Master Godfrey, what do you want with me?" said Dunsey, in a\r
+mocking tone. "You're my elders and betters, you know; I was obliged\r
+to come when you sent for me."\r
+\r
+"Why, this is what I want--and just shake yourself sober and listen,\r
+will you?" said Godfrey, savagely. He had himself been drinking more\r
+than was good for him, trying to turn his gloom into uncalculating\r
+anger. "I want to tell you, I must hand over that rent of Fowler's to\r
+the Squire, or else tell him I gave it you; for he's threatening to\r
+distrain for it, and it'll all be out soon, whether I tell him or not.\r
+He said, just now, before he went out, he should send word to Cox to\r
+distrain, if Fowler didn't come and pay up his arrears this week. The\r
+Squire's short o' cash, and in no humour to stand any nonsense; and you\r
+know what he threatened, if ever he found you making away with his\r
+money again. So, see and get the money, and pretty quickly, will you?"\r
+\r
+"Oh!" said Dunsey, sneeringly, coming nearer to his brother and\r
+looking in his face. "Suppose, now, you get the money yourself, and\r
+save me the trouble, eh? Since you was so kind as to hand it over to\r
+me, you'll not refuse me the kindness to pay it back for me: it was\r
+your brotherly love made you do it, you know."\r
+\r
+Godfrey bit his lips and clenched his fist. "Don't come near me with\r
+that look, else I'll knock you down."\r
+\r
+"Oh no, you won't," said Dunsey, turning away on his heel, however.\r
+"Because I'm such a good-natured brother, you know. I might get you\r
+turned out of house and home, and cut off with a shilling any day. I\r
+might tell the Squire how his handsome son was married to that nice\r
+young woman, Molly Farren, and was very unhappy because he couldn't\r
+live with his drunken wife, and I should slip into your place as\r
+comfortable as could be. But you see, I don't do it--I'm so easy and\r
+good-natured. You'll take any trouble for me. You'll get the hundred\r
+pounds for me--I know you will."\r
+\r
+"How can I get the money?" said Godfrey, quivering. "I haven't a\r
+shilling to bless myself with. And it's a lie that you'd slip into my\r
+place: you'd get yourself turned out too, that's all. For if you begin\r
+telling tales, I'll follow. Bob's my father's favourite--you know that\r
+very well. He'd only think himself well rid of you."\r
+\r
+"Never mind," said Dunsey, nodding his head sideways as he looked out\r
+of the window. "It 'ud be very pleasant to me to go in your\r
+company--you're such a handsome brother, and we've always been so fond\r
+of quarrelling with one another, I shouldn't know what to do without\r
+you. But you'd like better for us both to stay at home together; I\r
+know you would. So you'll manage to get that little sum o' money, and\r
+I'll bid you good-bye, though I'm sorry to part."\r
+\r
+Dunstan was moving off, but Godfrey rushed after him and seized him by\r
+the arm, saying, with an oath--\r
+\r
+"I tell you, I have no money: I can get no money."\r
+\r
+"Borrow of old Kimble."\r
+\r
+"I tell you, he won't lend me any more, and I shan't ask him."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, sell Wildfire."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's easy talking. I must have the money directly."\r
+\r
+"Well, you've only got to ride him to the hunt to-morrow. There'll be\r
+Bryce and Keating there, for sure. You'll get more bids than one."\r
+\r
+"I daresay, and get back home at eight o'clock, splashed up to the\r
+chin. I'm going to Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance."\r
+\r
+"Oho!" said Dunsey, turning his head on one side, and trying to speak\r
+in a small mincing treble. "And there's sweet Miss Nancy coming; and\r
+we shall dance with her, and promise never to be naughty again, and be\r
+taken into favour, and--"\r
+\r
+"Hold your tongue about Miss Nancy, you fool," said Godfrey, turning\r
+red, "else I'll throttle you."\r
+\r
+"What for?" said Dunsey, still in an artificial tone, but taking a\r
+whip from the table and beating the butt-end of it on his palm. "You've\r
+a very good chance. I'd advise you to creep up her sleeve again: it\r
+'ud be saving time, if Molly should happen to take a drop too much\r
+laudanum some day, and make a widower of you. Miss Nancy wouldn't mind\r
+being a second, if she didn't know it. And you've got a good-natured\r
+brother, who'll keep your secret well, because you'll be so very\r
+obliging to him."\r
+\r
+"I'll tell you what it is," said Godfrey, quivering, and pale again,\r
+"my patience is pretty near at an end. If you'd a little more\r
+sharpness in you, you might know that you may urge a man a bit too far,\r
+and make one leap as easy as another. I don't know but what it is so\r
+now: I may as well tell the Squire everything myself--I should get you\r
+off my back, if I got nothing else. And, after all, he'll know some\r
+time. She's been threatening to come herself and tell him. So, don't\r
+flatter yourself that your secrecy's worth any price you choose to ask.\r
+You drain me of money till I have got nothing to pacify _her_ with, and\r
+she'll do as she threatens some day. It's all one. I'll tell my\r
+father everything myself, and you may go to the devil."\r
+\r
+Dunsey perceived that he had overshot his mark, and that there was a\r
+point at which even the hesitating Godfrey might be driven into\r
+decision. But he said, with an air of unconcern--\r
+\r
+"As you please; but I'll have a draught of ale first." And ringing the\r
+bell, he threw himself across two chairs, and began to rap the\r
+window-seat with the handle of his whip.\r
+\r
+Godfrey stood, still with his back to the fire, uneasily moving his\r
+fingers among the contents of his side-pockets, and looking at the\r
+floor. That big muscular frame of his held plenty of animal courage,\r
+but helped him to no decision when the dangers to be braved were such\r
+as could neither be knocked down nor throttled. His natural\r
+irresolution and moral cowardice were exaggerated by a position in\r
+which dreaded consequences seemed to press equally on all sides, and\r
+his irritation had no sooner provoked him to defy Dunstan and\r
+anticipate all possible betrayals, than the miseries he must bring on\r
+himself by such a step seemed more unendurable to him than the present\r
+evil. The results of confession were not contingent, they were\r
+certain; whereas betrayal was not certain. From the near vision of that\r
+certainty he fell back on suspense and vacillation with a sense of\r
+repose. The disinherited son of a small squire, equally disinclined to\r
+dig and to beg, was almost as helpless as an uprooted tree, which, by\r
+the favour of earth and sky, has grown to a handsome bulk on the spot\r
+where it first shot upward. Perhaps it would have been possible to\r
+think of digging with some cheerfulness if Nancy Lammeter were to be\r
+won on those terms; but, since he must irrevocably lose _her_ as well\r
+as the inheritance, and must break every tie but the one that degraded\r
+him and left him without motive for trying to recover his better self,\r
+he could imagine no future for himself on the other side of confession\r
+but that of "'listing for a soldier"--the most desperate step, short of\r
+suicide, in the eyes of respectable families. No! he would rather\r
+trust to casualties than to his own resolve--rather go on sitting at\r
+the feast, and sipping the wine he loved, though with the sword hanging\r
+over him and terror in his heart, than rush away into the cold darkness\r
+where there was no pleasure left. The utmost concession to Dunstan\r
+about the horse began to seem easy, compared with the fulfilment of his\r
+own threat. But his pride would not let him recommence the\r
+conversation otherwise than by continuing the quarrel. Dunstan was\r
+waiting for this, and took his ale in shorter draughts than usual.\r
+\r
+"It's just like you," Godfrey burst out, in a bitter tone, "to talk\r
+about my selling Wildfire in that cool way--the last thing I've got to\r
+call my own, and the best bit of horse-flesh I ever had in my life.\r
+And if you'd got a spark of pride in you, you'd be ashamed to see the\r
+stables emptied, and everybody sneering about it. But it's my belief\r
+you'd sell yourself, if it was only for the pleasure of making somebody\r
+feel he'd got a bad bargain."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Dunstan, very placably, "you do me justice, I see.\r
+You know I'm a jewel for 'ticing people into bargains. For which\r
+reason I advise you to let _me_ sell Wildfire. I'd ride him to the\r
+hunt to-morrow for you, with pleasure. I shouldn't look so handsome as\r
+you in the saddle, but it's the horse they'll bid for, and not the\r
+rider."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I daresay--trust my horse to you!"\r
+\r
+"As you please," said Dunstan, rapping the window-seat again with an\r
+air of great unconcern. "It's _you_ have got to pay Fowler's money;\r
+it's none of my business. You received the money from him when you\r
+went to Bramcote, and _you_ told the Squire it wasn't paid. I'd nothing\r
+to do with that; you chose to be so obliging as to give it me, that was\r
+all. If you don't want to pay the money, let it alone; it's all one to\r
+me. But I was willing to accommodate you by undertaking to sell the\r
+horse, seeing it's not convenient to you to go so far to-morrow."\r
+\r
+Godfrey was silent for some moments. He would have liked to spring on\r
+Dunstan, wrench the whip from his hand, and flog him to within an inch\r
+of his life; and no bodily fear could have deterred him; but he was\r
+mastered by another sort of fear, which was fed by feelings stronger\r
+even than his resentment. When he spoke again, it was in a\r
+half-conciliatory tone.\r
+\r
+"Well, you mean no nonsense about the horse, eh? You'll sell him all\r
+fair, and hand over the money? If you don't, you know, everything 'ull\r
+go to smash, for I've got nothing else to trust to. And you'll have\r
+less pleasure in pulling the house over my head, when your own skull's\r
+to be broken too."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Dunstan, rising; "all right. I thought you'd come\r
+round. I'm the fellow to bring old Bryce up to the scratch. I'll get\r
+you a hundred and twenty for him, if I get you a penny."\r
+\r
+"But it'll perhaps rain cats and dogs to-morrow, as it did yesterday,\r
+and then you can't go," said Godfrey, hardly knowing whether he wished\r
+for that obstacle or not.\r
+\r
+"Not _it_," said Dunstan. "I'm always lucky in my weather. It might\r
+rain if you wanted to go yourself. You never hold trumps, you know--I\r
+always do. You've got the beauty, you see, and I've got the luck, so\r
+you must keep me by you for your crooked sixpence; you'll _ne_-ver get\r
+along without me."\r
+\r
+"Confound you, hold your tongue!" said Godfrey, impetuously. "And take\r
+care to keep sober to-morrow, else you'll get pitched on your head\r
+coming home, and Wildfire might be the worse for it."\r
+\r
+"Make your tender heart easy," said Dunstan, opening the door. "You\r
+never knew me see double when I'd got a bargain to make; it 'ud spoil\r
+the fun. Besides, whenever I fall, I'm warranted to fall on my legs."\r
+\r
+With that, Dunstan slammed the door behind him, and left Godfrey to\r
+that bitter rumination on his personal circumstances which was now\r
+unbroken from day to day save by the excitement of sporting, drinking,\r
+card-playing, or the rarer and less oblivious pleasure of seeing Miss\r
+Nancy Lammeter. The subtle and varied pains springing from the higher\r
+sensibility that accompanies higher culture, are perhaps less pitiable\r
+than that dreary absence of impersonal enjoyment and consolation which\r
+leaves ruder minds to the perpetual urgent companionship of their own\r
+griefs and discontents. The lives of those rural forefathers, whom we\r
+are apt to think very prosaic figures--men whose only work was to ride\r
+round their land, getting heavier and heavier in their saddles, and who\r
+passed the rest of their days in the half-listless gratification of\r
+senses dulled by monotony--had a certain pathos in them nevertheless.\r
+Calamities came to _them_ too, and their early errors carried hard\r
+consequences: perhaps the love of some sweet maiden, the image of\r
+purity, order, and calm, had opened their eyes to the vision of a life\r
+in which the days would not seem too long, even without rioting; but\r
+the maiden was lost, and the vision passed away, and then what was left\r
+to them, especially when they had become too heavy for the hunt, or for\r
+carrying a gun over the furrows, but to drink and get merry, or to\r
+drink and get angry, so that they might be independent of variety, and\r
+say over again with eager emphasis the things they had said already any\r
+time that twelvemonth? Assuredly, among these flushed and dull-eyed men\r
+there were some whom--thanks to their native human-kindness--even riot\r
+could never drive into brutality; men who, when their cheeks were\r
+fresh, had felt the keen point of sorrow or remorse, had been pierced\r
+by the reeds they leaned on, or had lightly put their limbs in fetters\r
+from which no struggle could loose them; and under these sad\r
+circumstances, common to us all, their thoughts could find no\r
+resting-place outside the ever-trodden round of their own petty history.\r
+\r
+That, at least, was the condition of Godfrey Cass in this\r
+six-and-twentieth year of his life. A movement of compunction, helped\r
+by those small indefinable influences which every personal relation\r
+exerts on a pliant nature, had urged him into a secret marriage, which\r
+was a blight on his life. It was an ugly story of low passion,\r
+delusion, and waking from delusion, which needs not to be dragged from\r
+the privacy of Godfrey's bitter memory. He had long known that the\r
+delusion was partly due to a trap laid for him by Dunstan, who saw in\r
+his brother's degrading marriage the means of gratifying at once his\r
+jealous hate and his cupidity. And if Godfrey could have felt himself\r
+simply a victim, the iron bit that destiny had put into his mouth would\r
+have chafed him less intolerably. If the curses he muttered half aloud\r
+when he was alone had had no other object than Dunstan's diabolical\r
+cunning, he might have shrunk less from the consequences of avowal.\r
+But he had something else to curse--his own vicious folly, which now\r
+seemed as mad and unaccountable to him as almost all our follies and\r
+vices do when their promptings have long passed away. For four years\r
+he had thought of Nancy Lammeter, and wooed her with tacit patient\r
+worship, as the woman who made him think of the future with joy: she\r
+would be his wife, and would make home lovely to him, as his father's\r
+home had never been; and it would be easy, when she was always near, to\r
+shake off those foolish habits that were no pleasures, but only a\r
+feverish way of annulling vacancy. Godfrey's was an essentially\r
+domestic nature, bred up in a home where the hearth had no smiles, and\r
+where the daily habits were not chastised by the presence of household\r
+order. His easy disposition made him fall in unresistingly with the\r
+family courses, but the need of some tender permanent affection, the\r
+longing for some influence that would make the good he preferred easy\r
+to pursue, caused the neatness, purity, and liberal orderliness of the\r
+Lammeter household, sunned by the smile of Nancy, to seem like those\r
+fresh bright hours of the morning when temptations go to sleep and\r
+leave the ear open to the voice of the good angel, inviting to\r
+industry, sobriety, and peace. And yet the hope of this paradise had\r
+not been enough to save him from a course which shut him out of it for\r
+ever. Instead of keeping fast hold of the strong silken rope by which\r
+Nancy would have drawn him safe to the green banks where it was easy to\r
+step firmly, he had let himself be dragged back into mud and slime, in\r
+which it was useless to struggle. He had made ties for himself which\r
+robbed him of all wholesome motive, and were a constant exasperation.\r
+\r
+Still, there was one position worse than the present: it was the\r
+position he would be in when the ugly secret was disclosed; and the\r
+desire that continually triumphed over every other was that of warding\r
+off the evil day, when he would have to bear the consequences of his\r
+father's violent resentment for the wound inflicted on his family\r
+pride--would have, perhaps, to turn his back on that hereditary ease\r
+and dignity which, after all, was a sort of reason for living, and\r
+would carry with him the certainty that he was banished for ever from\r
+the sight and esteem of Nancy Lammeter. The longer the interval, the\r
+more chance there was of deliverance from some, at least, of the\r
+hateful consequences to which he had sold himself; the more\r
+opportunities remained for him to snatch the strange gratification of\r
+seeing Nancy, and gathering some faint indications of her lingering\r
+regard. Towards this gratification he was impelled, fitfully, every\r
+now and then, after having passed weeks in which he had avoided her as\r
+the far-off bright-winged prize that only made him spring forward and\r
+find his chain all the more galling. One of those fits of yearning was\r
+on him now, and it would have been strong enough to have persuaded him\r
+to trust Wildfire to Dunstan rather than disappoint the yearning, even\r
+if he had not had another reason for his disinclination towards the\r
+morrow's hunt. That other reason was the fact that the morning's meet\r
+was near Batherley, the market-town where the unhappy woman lived,\r
+whose image became more odious to him every day; and to his thought the\r
+whole vicinage was haunted by her. The yoke a man creates for himself\r
+by wrong-doing will breed hate in the kindliest nature; and the\r
+good-humoured, affectionate-hearted Godfrey Cass was fast becoming a\r
+bitter man, visited by cruel wishes, that seemed to enter, and depart,\r
+and enter again, like demons who had found in him a ready-garnished\r
+home.\r
+\r
+What was he to do this evening to pass the time? He might as well go\r
+to the Rainbow, and hear the talk about the cock-fighting: everybody\r
+was there, and what else was there to be done? Though, for his own\r
+part, he did not care a button for cock-fighting. Snuff, the brown\r
+spaniel, who had placed herself in front of him, and had been watching\r
+him for some time, now jumped up in impatience for the expected caress.\r
+But Godfrey thrust her away without looking at her, and left the room,\r
+followed humbly by the unresenting Snuff--perhaps because she saw no\r
+other career open to her.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IV\r
+\r
+Dunstan Cass, setting off in the raw morning, at the judiciously quiet\r
+pace of a man who is obliged to ride to cover on his hunter, had to\r
+take his way along the lane which, at its farther extremity, passed by\r
+the piece of unenclosed ground called the Stone-pit, where stood the\r
+cottage, once a stone-cutter's shed, now for fifteen years inhabited by\r
+Silas Marner. The spot looked very dreary at this season, with the\r
+moist trodden clay about it, and the red, muddy water high up in the\r
+deserted quarry. That was Dunstan's first thought as he approached it;\r
+the second was, that the old fool of a weaver, whose loom he heard\r
+rattling already, had a great deal of money hidden somewhere. How was\r
+it that he, Dunstan Cass, who had often heard talk of Marner's\r
+miserliness, had never thought of suggesting to Godfrey that he should\r
+frighten or persuade the old fellow into lending the money on the\r
+excellent security of the young Squire's prospects? The resource\r
+occurred to him now as so easy and agreeable, especially as Marner's\r
+hoard was likely to be large enough to leave Godfrey a handsome surplus\r
+beyond his immediate needs, and enable him to accommodate his faithful\r
+brother, that he had almost turned the horse's head towards home again.\r
+Godfrey would be ready enough to accept the suggestion: he would snatch\r
+eagerly at a plan that might save him from parting with Wildfire. But\r
+when Dunstan's meditation reached this point, the inclination to go on\r
+grew strong and prevailed. He didn't want to give Godfrey that\r
+pleasure: he preferred that Master Godfrey should be vexed. Moreover,\r
+Dunstan enjoyed the self-important consciousness of having a horse to\r
+sell, and the opportunity of driving a bargain, swaggering, and\r
+possibly taking somebody in. He might have all the satisfaction\r
+attendant on selling his brother's horse, and not the less have the\r
+further satisfaction of setting Godfrey to borrow Marner's money. So\r
+he rode on to cover.\r
+\r
+Bryce and Keating were there, as Dunstan was quite sure they would\r
+be--he was such a lucky fellow.\r
+\r
+"Heyday!" said Bryce, who had long had his eye on Wildfire, "you're on\r
+your brother's horse to-day: how's that?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, I've swopped with him," said Dunstan, whose delight in lying,\r
+grandly independent of utility, was not to be diminished by the\r
+likelihood that his hearer would not believe him--"Wildfire's mine now."\r
+\r
+"What! has he swopped with you for that big-boned hack of yours?" said\r
+Bryce, quite aware that he should get another lie in answer.\r
+\r
+"Oh, there was a little account between us," said Dunsey, carelessly,\r
+"and Wildfire made it even. I accommodated him by taking the horse,\r
+though it was against my will, for I'd got an itch for a mare o'\r
+Jortin's--as rare a bit o' blood as ever you threw your leg across.\r
+But I shall keep Wildfire, now I've got him, though I'd a bid of a\r
+hundred and fifty for him the other day, from a man over at\r
+Flitton--he's buying for Lord Cromleck--a fellow with a cast in his\r
+eye, and a green waistcoat. But I mean to stick to Wildfire: I shan't\r
+get a better at a fence in a hurry. The mare's got more blood, but\r
+she's a bit too weak in the hind-quarters."\r
+\r
+Bryce of course divined that Dunstan wanted to sell the horse, and\r
+Dunstan knew that he divined it (horse-dealing is only one of many\r
+human transactions carried on in this ingenious manner); and they both\r
+considered that the bargain was in its first stage, when Bryce replied\r
+ironically--\r
+\r
+"I wonder at that now; I wonder you mean to keep him; for I never heard\r
+of a man who didn't want to sell his horse getting a bid of half as\r
+much again as the horse was worth. You'll be lucky if you get a\r
+hundred."\r
+\r
+Keating rode up now, and the transaction became more complicated. It\r
+ended in the purchase of the horse by Bryce for a hundred and twenty,\r
+to be paid on the delivery of Wildfire, safe and sound, at the\r
+Batherley stables. It did occur to Dunsey that it might be wise for\r
+him to give up the day's hunting, proceed at once to Batherley, and,\r
+having waited for Bryce's return, hire a horse to carry him home with\r
+the money in his pocket. But the inclination for a run, encouraged by\r
+confidence in his luck, and by a draught of brandy from his\r
+pocket-pistol at the conclusion of the bargain, was not easy to\r
+overcome, especially with a horse under him that would take the fences\r
+to the admiration of the field. Dunstan, however, took one fence too\r
+many, and got his horse pierced with a hedge-stake. His own\r
+ill-favoured person, which was quite unmarketable, escaped without\r
+injury; but poor Wildfire, unconscious of his price, turned on his\r
+flank and painfully panted his last. It happened that Dunstan, a short\r
+time before, having had to get down to arrange his stirrup, had\r
+muttered a good many curses at this interruption, which had thrown him\r
+in the rear of the hunt near the moment of glory, and under this\r
+exasperation had taken the fences more blindly. He would soon have\r
+been up with the hounds again, when the fatal accident happened; and\r
+hence he was between eager riders in advance, not troubling themselves\r
+about what happened behind them, and far-off stragglers, who were as\r
+likely as not to pass quite aloof from the line of road in which\r
+Wildfire had fallen. Dunstan, whose nature it was to care more for\r
+immediate annoyances than for remote consequences, no sooner recovered\r
+his legs, and saw that it was all over with Wildfire, than he felt a\r
+satisfaction at the absence of witnesses to a position which no\r
+swaggering could make enviable. Reinforcing himself, after his shake,\r
+with a little brandy and much swearing, he walked as fast as he could\r
+to a coppice on his right hand, through which it occurred to him that\r
+he could make his way to Batherley without danger of encountering any\r
+member of the hunt. His first intention was to hire a horse there and\r
+ride home forthwith, for to walk many miles without a gun in his hand,\r
+and along an ordinary road, was as much out of the question to him as\r
+to other spirited young men of his kind. He did not much mind about\r
+taking the bad news to Godfrey, for he had to offer him at the same\r
+time the resource of Marner's money; and if Godfrey kicked, as he\r
+always did, at the notion of making a fresh debt from which he himself\r
+got the smallest share of advantage, why, he wouldn't kick long:\r
+Dunstan felt sure he could worry Godfrey into anything. The idea of\r
+Marner's money kept growing in vividness, now the want of it had become\r
+immediate; the prospect of having to make his appearance with the muddy\r
+boots of a pedestrian at Batherley, and to encounter the grinning\r
+queries of stablemen, stood unpleasantly in the way of his impatience\r
+to be back at Raveloe and carry out his felicitous plan; and a casual\r
+visitation of his waistcoat-pocket, as he was ruminating, awakened his\r
+memory to the fact that the two or three small coins his forefinger\r
+encountered there were of too pale a colour to cover that small debt,\r
+without payment of which the stable-keeper had declared he would never\r
+do any more business with Dunsey Cass. After all, according to the\r
+direction in which the run had brought him, he was not so very much\r
+farther from home than he was from Batherley; but Dunsey, not being\r
+remarkable for clearness of head, was only led to this conclusion by\r
+the gradual perception that there were other reasons for choosing the\r
+unprecedented course of walking home. It was now nearly four o'clock,\r
+and a mist was gathering: the sooner he got into the road the better.\r
+He remembered having crossed the road and seen the finger-post only a\r
+little while before Wildfire broke down; so, buttoning his coat,\r
+twisting the lash of his hunting-whip compactly round the handle, and\r
+rapping the tops of his boots with a self-possessed air, as if to\r
+assure himself that he was not at all taken by surprise, he set off\r
+with the sense that he was undertaking a remarkable feat of bodily\r
+exertion, which somehow and at some time he should be able to dress up\r
+and magnify to the admiration of a select circle at the Rainbow. When\r
+a young gentleman like Dunsey is reduced to so exceptional a mode of\r
+locomotion as walking, a whip in his hand is a desirable corrective to\r
+a too bewildering dreamy sense of unwontedness in his position; and\r
+Dunstan, as he went along through the gathering mist, was always\r
+rapping his whip somewhere. It was Godfrey's whip, which he had chosen\r
+to take without leave because it had a gold handle; of course no one\r
+could see, when Dunstan held it, that the name _Godfrey Cass_ was cut\r
+in deep letters on that gold handle--they could only see that it was a\r
+very handsome whip. Dunsey was not without fear that he might meet some\r
+acquaintance in whose eyes he would cut a pitiable figure, for mist is\r
+no screen when people get close to each other; but when he at last\r
+found himself in the well-known Raveloe lanes without having met a\r
+soul, he silently remarked that that was part of his usual good luck.\r
+But now the mist, helped by the evening darkness, was more of a screen\r
+than he desired, for it hid the ruts into which his feet were liable to\r
+slip--hid everything, so that he had to guide his steps by dragging his\r
+whip along the low bushes in advance of the hedgerow. He must soon, he\r
+thought, be getting near the opening at the Stone-pits: he should find\r
+it out by the break in the hedgerow. He found it out, however, by\r
+another circumstance which he had not expected--namely, by certain\r
+gleams of light, which he presently guessed to proceed from Silas\r
+Marner's cottage. That cottage and the money hidden within it had been\r
+in his mind continually during his walk, and he had been imagining ways\r
+of cajoling and tempting the weaver to part with the immediate\r
+possession of his money for the sake of receiving interest. Dunstan\r
+felt as if there must be a little frightening added to the cajolery,\r
+for his own arithmetical convictions were not clear enough to afford\r
+him any forcible demonstration as to the advantages of interest; and as\r
+for security, he regarded it vaguely as a means of cheating a man by\r
+making him believe that he would be paid. Altogether, the operation on\r
+the miser's mind was a task that Godfrey would be sure to hand over to\r
+his more daring and cunning brother: Dunstan had made up his mind to\r
+that; and by the time he saw the light gleaming through the chinks of\r
+Marner's shutters, the idea of a dialogue with the weaver had become so\r
+familiar to him, that it occurred to him as quite a natural thing to\r
+make the acquaintance forthwith. There might be several conveniences\r
+attending this course: the weaver had possibly got a lantern, and\r
+Dunstan was tired of feeling his way. He was still nearly\r
+three-quarters of a mile from home, and the lane was becoming\r
+unpleasantly slippery, for the mist was passing into rain. He turned up\r
+the bank, not without some fear lest he might miss the right way, since\r
+he was not certain whether the light were in front or on the side of\r
+the cottage. But he felt the ground before him cautiously with his\r
+whip-handle, and at last arrived safely at the door. He knocked\r
+loudly, rather enjoying the idea that the old fellow would be\r
+frightened at the sudden noise. He heard no movement in reply: all was\r
+silence in the cottage. Was the weaver gone to bed, then? If so, why\r
+had he left a light? That was a strange forgetfulness in a miser.\r
+Dunstan knocked still more loudly, and, without pausing for a reply,\r
+pushed his fingers through the latch-hole, intending to shake the door\r
+and pull the latch-string up and down, not doubting that the door was\r
+fastened. But, to his surprise, at this double motion the door opened,\r
+and he found himself in front of a bright fire which lit up every\r
+corner of the cottage--the bed, the loom, the three chairs, and the\r
+table--and showed him that Marner was not there.\r
+\r
+Nothing at that moment could be much more inviting to Dunsey than the\r
+bright fire on the brick hearth: he walked in and seated himself by it\r
+at once. There was something in front of the fire, too, that would\r
+have been inviting to a hungry man, if it had been in a different stage\r
+of cooking. It was a small bit of pork suspended from the\r
+kettle-hanger by a string passed through a large door-key, in a way\r
+known to primitive housekeepers unpossessed of jacks. But the pork had\r
+been hung at the farthest extremity of the hanger, apparently to\r
+prevent the roasting from proceeding too rapidly during the owner's\r
+absence. The old staring simpleton had hot meat for his supper, then?\r
+thought Dunstan. People had always said he lived on mouldy bread, on\r
+purpose to check his appetite. But where could he be at this time, and\r
+on such an evening, leaving his supper in this stage of preparation,\r
+and his door unfastened? Dunstan's own recent difficulty in making his\r
+way suggested to him that the weaver had perhaps gone outside his\r
+cottage to fetch in fuel, or for some such brief purpose, and had\r
+slipped into the Stone-pit. That was an interesting idea to Dunstan,\r
+carrying consequences of entire novelty. If the weaver was dead, who\r
+had a right to his money? Who would know where his money was hidden?\r
+_Who would know that anybody had come to take it away?_ He went no\r
+farther into the subtleties of evidence: the pressing question, "Where\r
+_is_ the money?" now took such entire possession of him as to make him\r
+quite forget that the weaver's death was not a certainty. A dull mind,\r
+once arriving at an inference that flatters a desire, is rarely able to\r
+retain the impression that the notion from which the inference started\r
+was purely problematic. And Dunstan's mind was as dull as the mind of\r
+a possible felon usually is. There were only three hiding-places where\r
+he had ever heard of cottagers' hoards being found: the thatch, the\r
+bed, and a hole in the floor. Marner's cottage had no thatch; and\r
+Dunstan's first act, after a train of thought made rapid by the\r
+stimulus of cupidity, was to go up to the bed; but while he did so, his\r
+eyes travelled eagerly over the floor, where the bricks, distinct in\r
+the fire-light, were discernible under the sprinkling of sand. But not\r
+everywhere; for there was one spot, and one only, which was quite\r
+covered with sand, and sand showing the marks of fingers, which had\r
+apparently been careful to spread it over a given space. It was near\r
+the treddles of the loom. In an instant Dunstan darted to that spot,\r
+swept away the sand with his whip, and, inserting the thin end of the\r
+hook between the bricks, found that they were loose. In haste he\r
+lifted up two bricks, and saw what he had no doubt was the object of\r
+his search; for what could there be but money in those two leathern\r
+bags? And, from their weight, they must be filled with guineas.\r
+Dunstan felt round the hole, to be certain that it held no more; then\r
+hastily replaced the bricks, and spread the sand over them. Hardly\r
+more than five minutes had passed since he entered the cottage, but it\r
+seemed to Dunstan like a long while; and though he was without any\r
+distinct recognition of the possibility that Marner might be alive, and\r
+might re-enter the cottage at any moment, he felt an undefinable dread\r
+laying hold on him, as he rose to his feet with the bags in his hand.\r
+He would hasten out into the darkness, and then consider what he should\r
+do with the bags. He closed the door behind him immediately, that he\r
+might shut in the stream of light: a few steps would be enough to carry\r
+him beyond betrayal by the gleams from the shutter-chinks and the\r
+latch-hole. The rain and darkness had got thicker, and he was glad of\r
+it; though it was awkward walking with both hands filled, so that it\r
+was as much as he could do to grasp his whip along with one of the\r
+bags. But when he had gone a yard or two, he might take his time. So\r
+he stepped forward into the darkness.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER V\r
+\r
+When Dunstan Cass turned his back on the cottage, Silas Marner was not\r
+more than a hundred yards away from it, plodding along from the village\r
+with a sack thrown round his shoulders as an overcoat, and with a horn\r
+lantern in his hand. His legs were weary, but his mind was at ease,\r
+free from the presentiment of change. The sense of security more\r
+frequently springs from habit than from conviction, and for this reason\r
+it often subsists after such a change in the conditions as might have\r
+been expected to suggest alarm. The lapse of time during which a given\r
+event has not happened, is, in this logic of habit, constantly alleged\r
+as a reason why the event should never happen, even when the lapse of\r
+time is precisely the added condition which makes the event imminent.\r
+A man will tell you that he has worked in a mine for forty years unhurt\r
+by an accident as a reason why he should apprehend no danger, though\r
+the roof is beginning to sink; and it is often observable, that the\r
+older a man gets, the more difficult it is to him to retain a believing\r
+conception of his own death. This influence of habit was necessarily\r
+strong in a man whose life was so monotonous as Marner's--who saw no\r
+new people and heard of no new events to keep alive in him the idea of\r
+the unexpected and the changeful; and it explains simply enough, why\r
+his mind could be at ease, though he had left his house and his\r
+treasure more defenceless than usual. Silas was thinking with double\r
+complacency of his supper: first, because it would be hot and savoury;\r
+and secondly, because it would cost him nothing. For the little bit of\r
+pork was a present from that excellent housewife, Miss Priscilla\r
+Lammeter, to whom he had this day carried home a handsome piece of\r
+linen; and it was only on occasion of a present like this, that Silas\r
+indulged himself with roast-meat. Supper was his favourite meal,\r
+because it came at his time of revelry, when his heart warmed over his\r
+gold; whenever he had roast-meat, he always chose to have it for\r
+supper. But this evening, he had no sooner ingeniously knotted his\r
+string fast round his bit of pork, twisted the string according to rule\r
+over his door-key, passed it through the handle, and made it fast on\r
+the hanger, than he remembered that a piece of very fine twine was\r
+indispensable to his "setting up" a new piece of work in his loom early\r
+in the morning. It had slipped his memory, because, in coming from Mr.\r
+Lammeter's, he had not had to pass through the village; but to lose\r
+time by going on errands in the morning was out of the question. It\r
+was a nasty fog to turn out into, but there were things Silas loved\r
+better than his own comfort; so, drawing his pork to the extremity of\r
+the hanger, and arming himself with his lantern and his old sack, he\r
+set out on what, in ordinary weather, would have been a twenty minutes'\r
+errand. He could not have locked his door without undoing his\r
+well-knotted string and retarding his supper; it was not worth his\r
+while to make that sacrifice. What thief would find his way to the\r
+Stone-pits on such a night as this? and why should he come on this\r
+particular night, when he had never come through all the fifteen years\r
+before? These questions were not distinctly present in Silas's mind;\r
+they merely serve to represent the vaguely-felt foundation of his\r
+freedom from anxiety.\r
+\r
+He reached his door in much satisfaction that his errand was done: he\r
+opened it, and to his short-sighted eyes everything remained as he had\r
+left it, except that the fire sent out a welcome increase of heat. He\r
+trod about the floor while putting by his lantern and throwing aside\r
+his hat and sack, so as to merge the marks of Dunstan's feet on the\r
+sand in the marks of his own nailed boots. Then he moved his pork\r
+nearer to the fire, and sat down to the agreeable business of tending\r
+the meat and warming himself at the same time.\r
+\r
+Any one who had looked at him as the red light shone upon his pale\r
+face, strange straining eyes, and meagre form, would perhaps have\r
+understood the mixture of contemptuous pity, dread, and suspicion with\r
+which he was regarded by his neighbours in Raveloe. Yet few men could\r
+be more harmless than poor Marner. In his truthful simple soul, not\r
+even the growing greed and worship of gold could beget any vice\r
+directly injurious to others. The light of his faith quite put out,\r
+and his affections made desolate, he had clung with all the force of\r
+his nature to his work and his money; and like all objects to which a\r
+man devotes himself, they had fashioned him into correspondence with\r
+themselves. His loom, as he wrought in it without ceasing, had in its\r
+turn wrought on him, and confirmed more and more the monotonous craving\r
+for its monotonous response. His gold, as he hung over it and saw it\r
+grow, gathered his power of loving together into a hard isolation like\r
+its own.\r
+\r
+As soon as he was warm he began to think it would be a long while to\r
+wait till after supper before he drew out his guineas, and it would be\r
+pleasant to see them on the table before him as he ate his unwonted\r
+feast. For joy is the best of wine, and Silas's guineas were a golden\r
+wine of that sort.\r
+\r
+He rose and placed his candle unsuspectingly on the floor near his\r
+loom, swept away the sand without noticing any change, and removed the\r
+bricks. The sight of the empty hole made his heart leap violently, but\r
+the belief that his gold was gone could not come at once--only terror,\r
+and the eager effort to put an end to the terror. He passed his\r
+trembling hand all about the hole, trying to think it possible that his\r
+eyes had deceived him; then he held the candle in the hole and examined\r
+it curiously, trembling more and more. At last he shook so violently\r
+that he let fall the candle, and lifted his hands to his head, trying\r
+to steady himself, that he might think. Had he put his gold somewhere\r
+else, by a sudden resolution last night, and then forgotten it? A man\r
+falling into dark waters seeks a momentary footing even on sliding\r
+stones; and Silas, by acting as if he believed in false hopes, warded\r
+off the moment of despair. He searched in every corner, he turned his\r
+bed over, and shook it, and kneaded it; he looked in his brick oven\r
+where he laid his sticks. When there was no other place to be\r
+searched, he kneeled down again and felt once more all round the hole.\r
+There was no untried refuge left for a moment's shelter from the\r
+terrible truth.\r
+\r
+Yes, there was a sort of refuge which always comes with the prostration\r
+of thought under an overpowering passion: it was that expectation of\r
+impossibilities, that belief in contradictory images, which is still\r
+distinct from madness, because it is capable of being dissipated by the\r
+external fact. Silas got up from his knees trembling, and looked round\r
+at the table: didn't the gold lie there after all? The table was bare.\r
+Then he turned and looked behind him--looked all round his dwelling,\r
+seeming to strain his brown eyes after some possible appearance of the\r
+bags where he had already sought them in vain. He could see every\r
+object in his cottage--and his gold was not there.\r
+\r
+Again he put his trembling hands to his head, and gave a wild ringing\r
+scream, the cry of desolation. For a few moments after, he stood\r
+motionless; but the cry had relieved him from the first maddening\r
+pressure of the truth. He turned, and tottered towards his loom, and\r
+got into the seat where he worked, instinctively seeking this as the\r
+strongest assurance of reality.\r
+\r
+And now that all the false hopes had vanished, and the first shock of\r
+certainty was past, the idea of a thief began to present itself, and he\r
+entertained it eagerly, because a thief might be caught and made to\r
+restore the gold. The thought brought some new strength with it, and\r
+he started from his loom to the door. As he opened it the rain beat in\r
+upon him, for it was falling more and more heavily. There were no\r
+footsteps to be tracked on such a night--footsteps? When had the thief\r
+come? During Silas's absence in the daytime the door had been locked,\r
+and there had been no marks of any inroad on his return by daylight.\r
+And in the evening, too, he said to himself, everything was the same as\r
+when he had left it. The sand and bricks looked as if they had not\r
+been moved. _Was_ it a thief who had taken the bags? or was it a\r
+cruel power that no hands could reach, which had delighted in making\r
+him a second time desolate? He shrank from this vaguer dread, and\r
+fixed his mind with struggling effort on the robber with hands, who\r
+could be reached by hands. His thoughts glanced at all the neighbours\r
+who had made any remarks, or asked any questions which he might now\r
+regard as a ground of suspicion. There was Jem Rodney, a known\r
+poacher, and otherwise disreputable: he had often met Marner in his\r
+journeys across the fields, and had said something jestingly about the\r
+weaver's money; nay, he had once irritated Marner, by lingering at the\r
+fire when he called to light his pipe, instead of going about his\r
+business. Jem Rodney was the man--there was ease in the thought. Jem\r
+could be found and made to restore the money: Marner did not want to\r
+punish him, but only to get back his gold which had gone from him, and\r
+left his soul like a forlorn traveller on an unknown desert. The\r
+robber must be laid hold of. Marner's ideas of legal authority were\r
+confused, but he felt that he must go and proclaim his loss; and the\r
+great people in the village--the clergyman, the constable, and Squire\r
+Cass--would make Jem Rodney, or somebody else, deliver up the stolen\r
+money. He rushed out in the rain, under the stimulus of this hope,\r
+forgetting to cover his head, not caring to fasten his door; for he\r
+felt as if he had nothing left to lose. He ran swiftly, till want of\r
+breath compelled him to slacken his pace as he was entering the village\r
+at the turning close to the Rainbow.\r
+\r
+The Rainbow, in Marner's view, was a place of luxurious resort for rich\r
+and stout husbands, whose wives had superfluous stores of linen; it was\r
+the place where he was likely to find the powers and dignities of\r
+Raveloe, and where he could most speedily make his loss public. He\r
+lifted the latch, and turned into the bright bar or kitchen on the\r
+right hand, where the less lofty customers of the house were in the\r
+habit of assembling, the parlour on the left being reserved for the\r
+more select society in which Squire Cass frequently enjoyed the double\r
+pleasure of conviviality and condescension. But the parlour was dark\r
+to-night, the chief personages who ornamented its circle being all at\r
+Mrs. Osgood's birthday dance, as Godfrey Cass was. And in consequence\r
+of this, the party on the high-screened seats in the kitchen was more\r
+numerous than usual; several personages, who would otherwise have been\r
+admitted into the parlour and enlarged the opportunity of hectoring and\r
+condescension for their betters, being content this evening to vary\r
+their enjoyment by taking their spirits-and-water where they could\r
+themselves hector and condescend in company that called for beer.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VI\r
+\r
+The conversation, which was at a high pitch of animation when Silas\r
+approached the door of the Rainbow, had, as usual, been slow and\r
+intermittent when the company first assembled. The pipes began to be\r
+puffed in a silence which had an air of severity; the more important\r
+customers, who drank spirits and sat nearest the fire, staring at each\r
+other as if a bet were depending on the first man who winked; while the\r
+beer-drinkers, chiefly men in fustian jackets and smock-frocks, kept\r
+their eyelids down and rubbed their hands across their mouths, as if\r
+their draughts of beer were a funereal duty attended with embarrassing\r
+sadness. At last Mr. Snell, the landlord, a man of a neutral\r
+disposition, accustomed to stand aloof from human differences as those\r
+of beings who were all alike in need of liquor, broke silence, by\r
+saying in a doubtful tone to his cousin the butcher--\r
+\r
+"Some folks 'ud say that was a fine beast you druv in yesterday, Bob?"\r
+\r
+The butcher, a jolly, smiling, red-haired man, was not disposed to\r
+answer rashly. He gave a few puffs before he spat and replied, "And\r
+they wouldn't be fur wrong, John."\r
+\r
+After this feeble delusive thaw, the silence set in as severely as\r
+before.\r
+\r
+"Was it a red Durham?" said the farrier, taking up the thread of\r
+discourse after the lapse of a few minutes.\r
+\r
+The farrier looked at the landlord, and the landlord looked at the\r
+butcher, as the person who must take the responsibility of answering.\r
+\r
+"Red it was," said the butcher, in his good-humoured husky treble--"and\r
+a Durham it was."\r
+\r
+"Then you needn't tell _me_ who you bought it of," said the farrier,\r
+looking round with some triumph; "I know who it is has got the red\r
+Durhams o' this country-side. And she'd a white star on her brow, I'll\r
+bet a penny?" The farrier leaned forward with his hands on his knees\r
+as he put this question, and his eyes twinkled knowingly.\r
+\r
+"Well; yes--she might," said the butcher, slowly, considering that he\r
+was giving a decided affirmative. "I don't say contrairy."\r
+\r
+"I knew that very well," said the farrier, throwing himself backward\r
+again, and speaking defiantly; "if _I_ don't know Mr. Lammeter's cows,\r
+I should like to know who does--that's all. And as for the cow you've\r
+bought, bargain or no bargain, I've been at the drenching of\r
+her--contradick me who will."\r
+\r
+The farrier looked fierce, and the mild butcher's conversational spirit\r
+was roused a little.\r
+\r
+"I'm not for contradicking no man," he said; "I'm for peace and\r
+quietness. Some are for cutting long ribs--I'm for cutting 'em short\r
+myself; but _I_ don't quarrel with 'em. All I say is, it's a lovely\r
+carkiss--and anybody as was reasonable, it 'ud bring tears into their\r
+eyes to look at it."\r
+\r
+"Well, it's the cow as I drenched, whatever it is," pursued the\r
+farrier, angrily; "and it was Mr. Lammeter's cow, else you told a lie\r
+when you said it was a red Durham."\r
+\r
+"I tell no lies," said the butcher, with the same mild huskiness as\r
+before, "and I contradick none--not if a man was to swear himself\r
+black: he's no meat o' mine, nor none o' my bargains. All I say is,\r
+it's a lovely carkiss. And what I say, I'll stick to; but I'll quarrel\r
+wi' no man."\r
+\r
+"No," said the farrier, with bitter sarcasm, looking at the company\r
+generally; "and p'rhaps you aren't pig-headed; and p'rhaps you didn't\r
+say the cow was a red Durham; and p'rhaps you didn't say she'd got a\r
+star on her brow--stick to that, now you're at it."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said the landlord; "let the cow alone. The truth lies\r
+atween you: you're both right and both wrong, as I allays say. And as\r
+for the cow's being Mr. Lammeter's, I say nothing to that; but this I\r
+say, as the Rainbow's the Rainbow. And for the matter o' that, if the\r
+talk is to be o' the Lammeters, _you_ know the most upo' that head, eh,\r
+Mr. Macey? You remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into\r
+these parts, and took the Warrens?"\r
+\r
+Mr. Macey, tailor and parish-clerk, the latter of which functions\r
+rheumatism had of late obliged him to share with a small-featured young\r
+man who sat opposite him, held his white head on one side, and twirled\r
+his thumbs with an air of complacency, slightly seasoned with\r
+criticism. He smiled pityingly, in answer to the landlord's appeal,\r
+and said--\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye; I know, I know; but I let other folks talk. I've laid by\r
+now, and gev up to the young uns. Ask them as have been to school at\r
+Tarley: they've learnt pernouncing; that's come up since my day."\r
+\r
+"If you're pointing at me, Mr. Macey," said the deputy clerk, with an\r
+air of anxious propriety, "I'm nowise a man to speak out of my place.\r
+As the psalm says--\r
+\r
+ "I know what's right, nor only so,\r
+ But also practise what I know."\r
+\r
+\r
+"Well, then, I wish you'd keep hold o' the tune, when it's set for you;\r
+if you're for prac_tis_ing, I wish you'd prac_tise_ that," said a large\r
+jocose-looking man, an excellent wheelwright in his week-day capacity,\r
+but on Sundays leader of the choir. He winked, as he spoke, at two of\r
+the company, who were known officially as the "bassoon" and the\r
+"key-bugle", in the confidence that he was expressing the sense of the\r
+musical profession in Raveloe.\r
+\r
+Mr. Tookey, the deputy-clerk, who shared the unpopularity common to\r
+deputies, turned very red, but replied, with careful moderation--"Mr.\r
+Winthrop, if you'll bring me any proof as I'm in the wrong, I'm not the\r
+man to say I won't alter. But there's people set up their own ears for\r
+a standard, and expect the whole choir to follow 'em. There may be two\r
+opinions, I hope."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Mr. Macey, who felt very well satisfied with this\r
+attack on youthful presumption; "you're right there, Tookey: there's\r
+allays two 'pinions; there's the 'pinion a man has of himsen, and\r
+there's the 'pinion other folks have on him. There'd be two 'pinions\r
+about a cracked bell, if the bell could hear itself."\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Macey," said poor Tookey, serious amidst the general\r
+laughter, "I undertook to partially fill up the office of parish-clerk\r
+by Mr. Crackenthorp's desire, whenever your infirmities should make you\r
+unfitting; and it's one of the rights thereof to sing in the\r
+choir--else why have you done the same yourself?"\r
+\r
+"Ah! but the old gentleman and you are two folks," said Ben Winthrop.\r
+"The old gentleman's got a gift. Why, the Squire used to invite him to\r
+take a glass, only to hear him sing the "Red Rovier"; didn't he, Mr.\r
+Macey? It's a nat'ral gift. There's my little lad Aaron, he's got a\r
+gift--he can sing a tune off straight, like a throstle. But as for\r
+you, Master Tookey, you'd better stick to your "Amens": your voice is\r
+well enough when you keep it up in your nose. It's your inside as\r
+isn't right made for music: it's no better nor a hollow stalk."\r
+\r
+This kind of unflinching frankness was the most piquant form of joke to\r
+the company at the Rainbow, and Ben Winthrop's insult was felt by\r
+everybody to have capped Mr. Macey's epigram.\r
+\r
+"I see what it is plain enough," said Mr. Tookey, unable to keep cool\r
+any longer. "There's a consperacy to turn me out o' the choir, as I\r
+shouldn't share the Christmas money--that's where it is. But I shall\r
+speak to Mr. Crackenthorp; I'll not be put upon by no man."\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay, Tookey," said Ben Winthrop. "We'll pay you your share to\r
+keep out of it--that's what we'll do. There's things folks 'ud pay to\r
+be rid on, besides varmin."\r
+\r
+"Come, come," said the landlord, who felt that paying people for their\r
+absence was a principle dangerous to society; "a joke's a joke. We're\r
+all good friends here, I hope. We must give and take. You're both\r
+right and you're both wrong, as I say. I agree wi' Mr. Macey here, as\r
+there's two opinions; and if mine was asked, I should say they're both\r
+right. Tookey's right and Winthrop's right, and they've only got to\r
+split the difference and make themselves even."\r
+\r
+The farrier was puffing his pipe rather fiercely, in some contempt at\r
+this trivial discussion. He had no ear for music himself, and never\r
+went to church, as being of the medical profession, and likely to be in\r
+requisition for delicate cows. But the butcher, having music in his\r
+soul, had listened with a divided desire for Tookey's defeat and for\r
+the preservation of the peace.\r
+\r
+"To be sure," he said, following up the landlord's conciliatory view,\r
+"we're fond of our old clerk; it's nat'ral, and him used to be such a\r
+singer, and got a brother as is known for the first fiddler in this\r
+country-side. Eh, it's a pity but what Solomon lived in our village,\r
+and could give us a tune when we liked; eh, Mr. Macey? I'd keep him in\r
+liver and lights for nothing--that I would."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Mr. Macey, in the height of complacency; "our family's\r
+been known for musicianers as far back as anybody can tell. But them\r
+things are dying out, as I tell Solomon every time he comes round;\r
+there's no voices like what there used to be, and there's nobody\r
+remembers what we remember, if it isn't the old crows."\r
+\r
+"Aye, you remember when first Mr. Lammeter's father come into these\r
+parts, don't you, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.\r
+\r
+"I should think I did," said the old man, who had now gone through that\r
+complimentary process necessary to bring him up to the point of\r
+narration; "and a fine old gentleman he was--as fine, and finer nor the\r
+Mr. Lammeter as now is. He came from a bit north'ard, so far as I\r
+could ever make out. But there's nobody rightly knows about those\r
+parts: only it couldn't be far north'ard, nor much different from this\r
+country, for he brought a fine breed o' sheep with him, so there must\r
+be pastures there, and everything reasonable. We heared tell as he'd\r
+sold his own land to come and take the Warrens, and that seemed odd for\r
+a man as had land of his own, to come and rent a farm in a strange\r
+place. But they said it was along of his wife's dying; though there's\r
+reasons in things as nobody knows on--that's pretty much what I've made\r
+out; yet some folks are so wise, they'll find you fifty reasons\r
+straight off, and all the while the real reason's winking at 'em in the\r
+corner, and they niver see't. Howsomever, it was soon seen as we'd got\r
+a new parish'ner as know'd the rights and customs o' things, and kep a\r
+good house, and was well looked on by everybody. And the young\r
+man--that's the Mr. Lammeter as now is, for he'd niver a sister--soon\r
+begun to court Miss Osgood, that's the sister o' the Mr. Osgood as now\r
+is, and a fine handsome lass she was--eh, you can't think--they pretend\r
+this young lass is like her, but that's the way wi' people as don't\r
+know what come before 'em. _I_ should know, for I helped the old\r
+rector, Mr. Drumlow as was, I helped him marry 'em."\r
+\r
+Here Mr. Macey paused; he always gave his narrative in instalments,\r
+expecting to be questioned according to precedent.\r
+\r
+"Aye, and a partic'lar thing happened, didn't it, Mr. Macey, so as you\r
+were likely to remember that marriage?" said the landlord, in a\r
+congratulatory tone.\r
+\r
+"I should think there did--a _very_ partic'lar thing," said Mr. Macey,\r
+nodding sideways. "For Mr. Drumlow--poor old gentleman, I was fond on\r
+him, though he'd got a bit confused in his head, what wi' age and wi'\r
+taking a drop o' summat warm when the service come of a cold morning.\r
+And young Mr. Lammeter, he'd have no way but he must be married in\r
+Janiwary, which, to be sure, 's a unreasonable time to be married in,\r
+for it isn't like a christening or a burying, as you can't help; and so\r
+Mr. Drumlow--poor old gentleman, I was fond on him--but when he come to\r
+put the questions, he put 'em by the rule o' contrairy, like, and he\r
+says, "Wilt thou have this man to thy wedded wife?" says he, and then\r
+he says, "Wilt thou have this woman to thy wedded husband?" says he.\r
+But the partic'larest thing of all is, as nobody took any notice on it\r
+but me, and they answered straight off "yes", like as if it had been me\r
+saying "Amen" i' the right place, without listening to what went\r
+before."\r
+\r
+"But _you_ knew what was going on well enough, didn't you, Mr. Macey?\r
+You were live enough, eh?" said the butcher.\r
+\r
+"Lor bless you!" said Mr. Macey, pausing, and smiling in pity at the\r
+impotence of his hearer's imagination--"why, I was all of a tremble: it\r
+was as if I'd been a coat pulled by the two tails, like; for I couldn't\r
+stop the parson, I couldn't take upon me to do that; and yet I said to\r
+myself, I says, "Suppose they shouldn't be fast married, 'cause the\r
+words are contrairy?" and my head went working like a mill, for I was\r
+allays uncommon for turning things over and seeing all round 'em; and I\r
+says to myself, "Is't the meanin' or the words as makes folks fast i'\r
+wedlock?" For the parson meant right, and the bride and bridegroom\r
+meant right. But then, when I come to think on it, meanin' goes but a\r
+little way i' most things, for you may mean to stick things together\r
+and your glue may be bad, and then where are you? And so I says to\r
+mysen, "It isn't the meanin', it's the glue." And I was worreted as if\r
+I'd got three bells to pull at once, when we went into the vestry, and\r
+they begun to sign their names. But where's the use o' talking?--you\r
+can't think what goes on in a 'cute man's inside."\r
+\r
+"But you held in for all that, didn't you, Mr. Macey?" said the\r
+landlord.\r
+\r
+"Aye, I held in tight till I was by mysen wi' Mr. Drumlow, and then I\r
+out wi' everything, but respectful, as I allays did. And he made light\r
+on it, and he says, "Pooh, pooh, Macey, make yourself easy," he says;\r
+"it's neither the meaning nor the words--it's the re_ges_ter does\r
+it--that's the glue." So you see he settled it easy; for parsons and\r
+doctors know everything by heart, like, so as they aren't worreted wi'\r
+thinking what's the rights and wrongs o' things, as I'n been many and\r
+many's the time. And sure enough the wedding turned out all right,\r
+on'y poor Mrs. Lammeter--that's Miss Osgood as was--died afore the\r
+lasses was growed up; but for prosperity and everything respectable,\r
+there's no family more looked on."\r
+\r
+Every one of Mr. Macey's audience had heard this story many times, but\r
+it was listened to as if it had been a favourite tune, and at certain\r
+points the puffing of the pipes was momentarily suspended, that the\r
+listeners might give their whole minds to the expected words. But\r
+there was more to come; and Mr. Snell, the landlord, duly put the\r
+leading question.\r
+\r
+"Why, old Mr. Lammeter had a pretty fortin, didn't they say, when he\r
+come into these parts?"\r
+\r
+"Well, yes," said Mr. Macey; "but I daresay it's as much as this Mr.\r
+Lammeter's done to keep it whole. For there was allays a talk as\r
+nobody could get rich on the Warrens: though he holds it cheap, for\r
+it's what they call Charity Land."\r
+\r
+"Aye, and there's few folks know so well as you how it come to be\r
+Charity Land, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the butcher.\r
+\r
+"How should they?" said the old clerk, with some contempt. "Why, my\r
+grandfather made the grooms' livery for that Mr. Cliff as came and\r
+built the big stables at the Warrens. Why, they're stables four times\r
+as big as Squire Cass's, for he thought o' nothing but hosses and\r
+hunting, Cliff didn't--a Lunnon tailor, some folks said, as had gone\r
+mad wi' cheating. For he couldn't ride; lor bless you! they said he'd\r
+got no more grip o' the hoss than if his legs had been cross-sticks: my\r
+grandfather heared old Squire Cass say so many and many a time. But\r
+ride he would, as if Old Harry had been a-driving him; and he'd a son,\r
+a lad o' sixteen; and nothing would his father have him do, but he must\r
+ride and ride--though the lad was frighted, they said. And it was a\r
+common saying as the father wanted to ride the tailor out o' the lad,\r
+and make a gentleman on him--not but what I'm a tailor myself, but in\r
+respect as God made me such, I'm proud on it, for "Macey, tailor", 's\r
+been wrote up over our door since afore the Queen's heads went out on\r
+the shillings. But Cliff, he was ashamed o' being called a tailor, and\r
+he was sore vexed as his riding was laughed at, and nobody o' the\r
+gentlefolks hereabout could abide him. Howsomever, the poor lad got\r
+sickly and died, and the father didn't live long after him, for he got\r
+queerer nor ever, and they said he used to go out i' the dead o' the\r
+night, wi' a lantern in his hand, to the stables, and set a lot o'\r
+lights burning, for he got as he couldn't sleep; and there he'd stand,\r
+cracking his whip and looking at his hosses; and they said it was a\r
+mercy as the stables didn't get burnt down wi' the poor dumb creaturs\r
+in 'em. But at last he died raving, and they found as he'd left all\r
+his property, Warrens and all, to a Lunnon Charity, and that's how the\r
+Warrens come to be Charity Land; though, as for the stables, Mr.\r
+Lammeter never uses 'em--they're out o' all charicter--lor bless you!\r
+if you was to set the doors a-banging in 'em, it 'ud sound like thunder\r
+half o'er the parish."\r
+\r
+"Aye, but there's more going on in the stables than what folks see by\r
+daylight, eh, Mr. Macey?" said the landlord.\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye; go that way of a dark night, that's all," said Mr. Macey,\r
+winking mysteriously, "and then make believe, if you like, as you\r
+didn't see lights i' the stables, nor hear the stamping o' the hosses,\r
+nor the cracking o' the whips, and howling, too, if it's tow'rt\r
+daybreak. "Cliff's Holiday" has been the name of it ever sin' I were a\r
+boy; that's to say, some said as it was the holiday Old Harry gev him\r
+from roasting, like. That's what my father told me, and he was a\r
+reasonable man, though there's folks nowadays know what happened afore\r
+they were born better nor they know their own business."\r
+\r
+"What do you say to that, eh, Dowlas?" said the landlord, turning to\r
+the farrier, who was swelling with impatience for his cue. "There's a\r
+nut for _you_ to crack."\r
+\r
+Mr. Dowlas was the negative spirit in the company, and was proud of his\r
+position.\r
+\r
+"Say? I say what a man _should_ say as doesn't shut his eyes to look\r
+at a finger-post. I say, as I'm ready to wager any man ten pound, if\r
+he'll stand out wi' me any dry night in the pasture before the Warren\r
+stables, as we shall neither see lights nor hear noises, if it isn't\r
+the blowing of our own noses. That's what I say, and I've said it many\r
+a time; but there's nobody 'ull ventur a ten-pun' note on their ghos'es\r
+as they make so sure of."\r
+\r
+"Why, Dowlas, that's easy betting, that is," said Ben Winthrop. "You\r
+might as well bet a man as he wouldn't catch the rheumatise if he stood\r
+up to 's neck in the pool of a frosty night. It 'ud be fine fun for a\r
+man to win his bet as he'd catch the rheumatise. Folks as believe in\r
+Cliff's Holiday aren't agoing to ventur near it for a matter o' ten\r
+pound."\r
+\r
+"If Master Dowlas wants to know the truth on it," said Mr. Macey, with\r
+a sarcastic smile, tapping his thumbs together, "he's no call to lay\r
+any bet--let him go and stan' by himself--there's nobody 'ull hinder\r
+him; and then he can let the parish'ners know if they're wrong."\r
+\r
+"Thank you! I'm obliged to you," said the farrier, with a snort of\r
+scorn. "If folks are fools, it's no business o' mine. _I_ don't want\r
+to make out the truth about ghos'es: I know it a'ready. But I'm not\r
+against a bet--everything fair and open. Let any man bet me ten pound\r
+as I shall see Cliff's Holiday, and I'll go and stand by myself. I\r
+want no company. I'd as lief do it as I'd fill this pipe."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but who's to watch you, Dowlas, and see you do it? That's no fair\r
+bet," said the butcher.\r
+\r
+"No fair bet?" replied Mr. Dowlas, angrily. "I should like to hear\r
+any man stand up and say I want to bet unfair. Come now, Master Lundy,\r
+I should like to hear you say it."\r
+\r
+"Very like you would," said the butcher. "But it's no business o'\r
+mine. You're none o' my bargains, and I aren't a-going to try and\r
+'bate your price. If anybody 'll bid for you at your own vallying, let\r
+him. I'm for peace and quietness, I am."\r
+\r
+"Yes, that's what every yapping cur is, when you hold a stick up at\r
+him," said the farrier. "But I'm afraid o' neither man nor ghost, and\r
+I'm ready to lay a fair bet. _I_ aren't a turn-tail cur."\r
+\r
+"Aye, but there's this in it, Dowlas," said the landlord, speaking in a\r
+tone of much candour and tolerance. "There's folks, i' my opinion,\r
+they can't see ghos'es, not if they stood as plain as a pike-staff\r
+before 'em. And there's reason i' that. For there's my wife, now,\r
+can't smell, not if she'd the strongest o' cheese under her nose. I\r
+never see'd a ghost myself; but then I says to myself, "Very like I\r
+haven't got the smell for 'em." I mean, putting a ghost for a smell,\r
+or else contrairiways. And so, I'm for holding with both sides; for,\r
+as I say, the truth lies between 'em. And if Dowlas was to go and\r
+stand, and say he'd never seen a wink o' Cliff's Holiday all the night\r
+through, I'd back him; and if anybody said as Cliff's Holiday was\r
+certain sure, for all that, I'd back _him_ too. For the smell's what I\r
+go by."\r
+\r
+The landlord's analogical argument was not well received by the\r
+farrier--a man intensely opposed to compromise.\r
+\r
+"Tut, tut," he said, setting down his glass with refreshed irritation;\r
+"what's the smell got to do with it? Did ever a ghost give a man a\r
+black eye? That's what I should like to know. If ghos'es want me to\r
+believe in 'em, let 'em leave off skulking i' the dark and i' lone\r
+places--let 'em come where there's company and candles."\r
+\r
+"As if ghos'es 'ud want to be believed in by anybody so ignirant!" said\r
+Mr. Macey, in deep disgust at the farrier's crass incompetence to\r
+apprehend the conditions of ghostly phenomena.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VII\r
+\r
+Yet the next moment there seemed to be some evidence that ghosts had a\r
+more condescending disposition than Mr. Macey attributed to them; for\r
+the pale thin figure of Silas Marner was suddenly seen standing in the\r
+warm light, uttering no word, but looking round at the company with his\r
+strange unearthly eyes. The long pipes gave a simultaneous movement,\r
+like the antennae of startled insects, and every man present, not\r
+excepting even the sceptical farrier, had an impression that he saw,\r
+not Silas Marner in the flesh, but an apparition; for the door by which\r
+Silas had entered was hidden by the high-screened seats, and no one had\r
+noticed his approach. Mr. Macey, sitting a long way off the ghost,\r
+might be supposed to have felt an argumentative triumph, which would\r
+tend to neutralize his share of the general alarm. Had he not always\r
+said that when Silas Marner was in that strange trance of his, his soul\r
+went loose from his body? Here was the demonstration: nevertheless, on\r
+the whole, he would have been as well contented without it. For a few\r
+moments there was a dead silence, Marner's want of breath and agitation\r
+not allowing him to speak. The landlord, under the habitual sense that\r
+he was bound to keep his house open to all company, and confident in\r
+the protection of his unbroken neutrality, at last took on himself the\r
+task of adjuring the ghost.\r
+\r
+"Master Marner," he said, in a conciliatory tone, "what's lacking to\r
+you? What's your business here?"\r
+\r
+"Robbed!" said Silas, gaspingly. "I've been robbed! I want the\r
+constable--and the Justice--and Squire Cass--and Mr. Crackenthorp."\r
+\r
+"Lay hold on him, Jem Rodney," said the landlord, the idea of a ghost\r
+subsiding; "he's off his head, I doubt. He's wet through."\r
+\r
+Jem Rodney was the outermost man, and sat conveniently near Marner's\r
+standing-place; but he declined to give his services.\r
+\r
+"Come and lay hold on him yourself, Mr. Snell, if you've a mind," said\r
+Jem, rather sullenly. "He's been robbed, and murdered too, for what I\r
+know," he added, in a muttering tone.\r
+\r
+"Jem Rodney!" said Silas, turning and fixing his strange eyes on the\r
+suspected man.\r
+\r
+"Aye, Master Marner, what do you want wi' me?" said Jem, trembling a\r
+little, and seizing his drinking-can as a defensive weapon.\r
+\r
+"If it was you stole my money," said Silas, clasping his hands\r
+entreatingly, and raising his voice to a cry, "give it me back--and I\r
+won't meddle with you. I won't set the constable on you. Give it me\r
+back, and I'll let you--I'll let you have a guinea."\r
+\r
+"Me stole your money!" said Jem, angrily. "I'll pitch this can at\r
+your eye if you talk o' _my_ stealing your money."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, Master Marner," said the landlord, now rising resolutely,\r
+and seizing Marner by the shoulder, "if you've got any information to\r
+lay, speak it out sensible, and show as you're in your right mind, if\r
+you expect anybody to listen to you. You're as wet as a drownded rat.\r
+Sit down and dry yourself, and speak straight forrard."\r
+\r
+"Ah, to be sure, man," said the farrier, who began to feel that he had\r
+not been quite on a par with himself and the occasion. "Let's have no\r
+more staring and screaming, else we'll have you strapped for a madman.\r
+That was why I didn't speak at the first--thinks I, the man's run mad."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, make him sit down," said several voices at once, well\r
+pleased that the reality of ghosts remained still an open question.\r
+\r
+The landlord forced Marner to take off his coat, and then to sit down\r
+on a chair aloof from every one else, in the centre of the circle and\r
+in the direct rays of the fire. The weaver, too feeble to have any\r
+distinct purpose beyond that of getting help to recover his money,\r
+submitted unresistingly. The transient fears of the company were now\r
+forgotten in their strong curiosity, and all faces were turned towards\r
+Silas, when the landlord, having seated himself again, said--\r
+\r
+"Now then, Master Marner, what's this you've got to say--as you've been\r
+robbed? Speak out."\r
+\r
+"He'd better not say again as it was me robbed him," cried Jem Rodney,\r
+hastily. "What could I ha' done with his money? I could as easy steal\r
+the parson's surplice, and wear it."\r
+\r
+"Hold your tongue, Jem, and let's hear what he's got to say," said the\r
+landlord. "Now then, Master Marner."\r
+\r
+Silas now told his story, under frequent questioning as the mysterious\r
+character of the robbery became evident.\r
+\r
+This strangely novel situation of opening his trouble to his Raveloe\r
+neighbours, of sitting in the warmth of a hearth not his own, and\r
+feeling the presence of faces and voices which were his nearest promise\r
+of help, had doubtless its influence on Marner, in spite of his\r
+passionate preoccupation with his loss. Our consciousness rarely\r
+registers the beginning of a growth within us any more than without us:\r
+there have been many circulations of the sap before we detect the\r
+smallest sign of the bud.\r
+\r
+The slight suspicion with which his hearers at first listened to him,\r
+gradually melted away before the convincing simplicity of his distress:\r
+it was impossible for the neighbours to doubt that Marner was telling\r
+the truth, not because they were capable of arguing at once from the\r
+nature of his statements to the absence of any motive for making them\r
+falsely, but because, as Mr. Macey observed, "Folks as had the devil to\r
+back 'em were not likely to be so mushed" as poor Silas was. Rather,\r
+from the strange fact that the robber had left no traces, and had\r
+happened to know the nick of time, utterly incalculable by mortal\r
+agents, when Silas would go away from home without locking his door,\r
+the more probable conclusion seemed to be, that his disreputable\r
+intimacy in that quarter, if it ever existed, had been broken up, and\r
+that, in consequence, this ill turn had been done to Marner by somebody\r
+it was quite in vain to set the constable after. Why this\r
+preternatural felon should be obliged to wait till the door was left\r
+unlocked, was a question which did not present itself.\r
+\r
+"It isn't Jem Rodney as has done this work, Master Marner," said the\r
+landlord. "You mustn't be a-casting your eye at poor Jem. There may be\r
+a bit of a reckoning against Jem for the matter of a hare or so, if\r
+anybody was bound to keep their eyes staring open, and niver to wink;\r
+but Jem's been a-sitting here drinking his can, like the decentest man\r
+i' the parish, since before you left your house, Master Marner, by your\r
+own account."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," said Mr. Macey; "let's have no accusing o' the innicent.\r
+That isn't the law. There must be folks to swear again' a man before\r
+he can be ta'en up. Let's have no accusing o' the innicent, Master\r
+Marner."\r
+\r
+Memory was not so utterly torpid in Silas that it could not be awakened\r
+by these words. With a movement of compunction as new and strange to\r
+him as everything else within the last hour, he started from his chair\r
+and went close up to Jem, looking at him as if he wanted to assure\r
+himself of the expression in his face.\r
+\r
+"I was wrong," he said--"yes, yes--I ought to have thought. There's\r
+nothing to witness against you, Jem. Only you'd been into my house\r
+oftener than anybody else, and so you came into my head. I don't accuse\r
+you--I won't accuse anybody--only," he added, lifting up his hands to\r
+his head, and turning away with bewildered misery, "I try--I try to\r
+think where my guineas can be."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, they're gone where it's hot enough to melt 'em, I doubt,"\r
+said Mr. Macey.\r
+\r
+"Tchuh!" said the farrier. And then he asked, with a cross-examining\r
+air, "How much money might there be in the bags, Master Marner?"\r
+\r
+"Two hundred and seventy-two pounds, twelve and sixpence, last night\r
+when I counted it," said Silas, seating himself again, with a groan.\r
+\r
+"Pooh! why, they'd be none so heavy to carry. Some tramp's been in,\r
+that's all; and as for the no footmarks, and the bricks and the sand\r
+being all right--why, your eyes are pretty much like a insect's, Master\r
+Marner; they're obliged to look so close, you can't see much at a time.\r
+It's my opinion as, if I'd been you, or you'd been me--for it comes to\r
+the same thing--you wouldn't have thought you'd found everything as you\r
+left it. But what I vote is, as two of the sensiblest o' the company\r
+should go with you to Master Kench, the constable's--he's ill i' bed, I\r
+know that much--and get him to appoint one of us his deppity; for\r
+that's the law, and I don't think anybody 'ull take upon him to\r
+contradick me there. It isn't much of a walk to Kench's; and then, if\r
+it's me as is deppity, I'll go back with you, Master Marner, and\r
+examine your premises; and if anybody's got any fault to find with\r
+that, I'll thank him to stand up and say it out like a man."\r
+\r
+By this pregnant speech the farrier had re-established his\r
+self-complacency, and waited with confidence to hear himself named as\r
+one of the superlatively sensible men.\r
+\r
+"Let us see how the night is, though," said the landlord, who also\r
+considered himself personally concerned in this proposition. "Why, it\r
+rains heavy still," he said, returning from the door.\r
+\r
+"Well, I'm not the man to be afraid o' the rain," said the farrier.\r
+"For it'll look bad when Justice Malam hears as respectable men like us\r
+had a information laid before 'em and took no steps."\r
+\r
+The landlord agreed with this view, and after taking the sense of the\r
+company, and duly rehearsing a small ceremony known in high\r
+ecclesiastical life as the _nolo episcopari_, he consented to take on\r
+himself the chill dignity of going to Kench's. But to the farrier's\r
+strong disgust, Mr. Macey now started an objection to his proposing\r
+himself as a deputy-constable; for that oracular old gentleman,\r
+claiming to know the law, stated, as a fact delivered to him by his\r
+father, that no doctor could be a constable.\r
+\r
+"And you're a doctor, I reckon, though you're only a cow-doctor--for a\r
+fly's a fly, though it may be a hoss-fly," concluded Mr. Macey,\r
+wondering a little at his own "'cuteness".\r
+\r
+There was a hot debate upon this, the farrier being of course\r
+indisposed to renounce the quality of doctor, but contending that a\r
+doctor could be a constable if he liked--the law meant, he needn't be\r
+one if he didn't like. Mr. Macey thought this was nonsense, since the\r
+law was not likely to be fonder of doctors than of other folks.\r
+Moreover, if it was in the nature of doctors more than of other men not\r
+to like being constables, how came Mr. Dowlas to be so eager to act in\r
+that capacity?\r
+\r
+"_I_ don't want to act the constable," said the farrier, driven into a\r
+corner by this merciless reasoning; "and there's no man can say it of\r
+me, if he'd tell the truth. But if there's to be any jealousy and\r
+en_vy_ing about going to Kench's in the rain, let them go as like\r
+it--you won't get me to go, I can tell you."\r
+\r
+By the landlord's intervention, however, the dispute was accommodated.\r
+Mr. Dowlas consented to go as a second person disinclined to act\r
+officially; and so poor Silas, furnished with some old coverings,\r
+turned out with his two companions into the rain again, thinking of the\r
+long night-hours before him, not as those do who long to rest, but as\r
+those who expect to "watch for the morning".\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER VIII\r
+\r
+When Godfrey Cass returned from Mrs. Osgood's party at midnight, he was\r
+not much surprised to learn that Dunsey had not come home. Perhaps he\r
+had not sold Wildfire, and was waiting for another chance--perhaps, on\r
+that foggy afternoon, he had preferred housing himself at the Red Lion\r
+at Batherley for the night, if the run had kept him in that\r
+neighbourhood; for he was not likely to feel much concern about leaving\r
+his brother in suspense. Godfrey's mind was too full of Nancy\r
+Lammeter's looks and behaviour, too full of the exasperation against\r
+himself and his lot, which the sight of her always produced in him, for\r
+him to give much thought to Wildfire, or to the probabilities of\r
+Dunstan's conduct.\r
+\r
+The next morning the whole village was excited by the story of the\r
+robbery, and Godfrey, like every one else, was occupied in gathering\r
+and discussing news about it, and in visiting the Stone-pits. The rain\r
+had washed away all possibility of distinguishing foot-marks, but a\r
+close investigation of the spot had disclosed, in the direction\r
+opposite to the village, a tinder-box, with a flint and steel, half\r
+sunk in the mud. It was not Silas's tinder-box, for the only one he\r
+had ever had was still standing on his shelf; and the inference\r
+generally accepted was, that the tinder-box in the ditch was somehow\r
+connected with the robbery. A small minority shook their heads, and\r
+intimated their opinion that it was not a robbery to have much light\r
+thrown on it by tinder-boxes, that Master Marner's tale had a queer\r
+look with it, and that such things had been known as a man's doing\r
+himself a mischief, and then setting the justice to look for the doer.\r
+But when questioned closely as to their grounds for this opinion, and\r
+what Master Marner had to gain by such false pretences, they only shook\r
+their heads as before, and observed that there was no knowing what some\r
+folks counted gain; moreover, that everybody had a right to their own\r
+opinions, grounds or no grounds, and that the weaver, as everybody\r
+knew, was partly crazy. Mr. Macey, though he joined in the defence of\r
+Marner against all suspicions of deceit, also pooh-poohed the\r
+tinder-box; indeed, repudiated it as a rather impious suggestion,\r
+tending to imply that everything must be done by human hands, and that\r
+there was no power which could make away with the guineas without\r
+moving the bricks. Nevertheless, he turned round rather sharply on Mr.\r
+Tookey, when the zealous deputy, feeling that this was a view of the\r
+case peculiarly suited to a parish-clerk, carried it still farther, and\r
+doubted whether it was right to inquire into a robbery at all when the\r
+circumstances were so mysterious.\r
+\r
+"As if," concluded Mr. Tookey--"as if there was nothing but what could\r
+be made out by justices and constables."\r
+\r
+"Now, don't you be for overshooting the mark, Tookey," said Mr. Macey,\r
+nodding his head aside admonishingly. "That's what you're allays at;\r
+if I throw a stone and hit, you think there's summat better than\r
+hitting, and you try to throw a stone beyond. What I said was against\r
+the tinder-box: I said nothing against justices and constables, for\r
+they're o' King George's making, and it 'ud be ill-becoming a man in a\r
+parish office to fly out again' King George."\r
+\r
+While these discussions were going on amongst the group outside the\r
+Rainbow, a higher consultation was being carried on within, under the\r
+presidency of Mr. Crackenthorp, the rector, assisted by Squire Cass and\r
+other substantial parishioners. It had just occurred to Mr. Snell, the\r
+landlord--he being, as he observed, a man accustomed to put two and two\r
+together--to connect with the tinder-box, which, as deputy-constable,\r
+he himself had had the honourable distinction of finding, certain\r
+recollections of a pedlar who had called to drink at the house about a\r
+month before, and had actually stated that he carried a tinder-box\r
+about with him to light his pipe. Here, surely, was a clue to be\r
+followed out. And as memory, when duly impregnated with ascertained\r
+facts, is sometimes surprisingly fertile, Mr. Snell gradually recovered\r
+a vivid impression of the effect produced on him by the pedlar's\r
+countenance and conversation. He had a "look with his eye" which fell\r
+unpleasantly on Mr. Snell's sensitive organism. To be sure, he didn't\r
+say anything particular--no, except that about the tinder-box--but it\r
+isn't what a man says, it's the way he says it. Moreover, he had a\r
+swarthy foreignness of complexion which boded little honesty.\r
+\r
+"Did he wear ear-rings?" Mr. Crackenthorp wished to know, having some\r
+acquaintance with foreign customs.\r
+\r
+"Well--stay--let me see," said Mr. Snell, like a docile clairvoyante,\r
+who would really not make a mistake if she could help it. After\r
+stretching the corners of his mouth and contracting his eyes, as if he\r
+were trying to see the ear-rings, he appeared to give up the effort,\r
+and said, "Well, he'd got ear-rings in his box to sell, so it's nat'ral\r
+to suppose he might wear 'em. But he called at every house, a'most, in\r
+the village; there's somebody else, mayhap, saw 'em in his ears, though\r
+I can't take upon me rightly to say."\r
+\r
+Mr. Snell was correct in his surmise, that somebody else would remember\r
+the pedlar's ear-rings. For on the spread of inquiry among the\r
+villagers it was stated with gathering emphasis, that the parson had\r
+wanted to know whether the pedlar wore ear-rings in his ears, and an\r
+impression was created that a great deal depended on the eliciting of\r
+this fact. Of course, every one who heard the question, not having any\r
+distinct image of the pedlar as _without_ ear-rings, immediately had an\r
+image of him _with_ ear-rings, larger or smaller, as the case might be;\r
+and the image was presently taken for a vivid recollection, so that the\r
+glazier's wife, a well-intentioned woman, not given to lying, and whose\r
+house was among the cleanest in the village, was ready to declare, as\r
+sure as ever she meant to take the sacrament the very next Christmas\r
+that was ever coming, that she had seen big ear-rings, in the shape of\r
+the young moon, in the pedlar's two ears; while Jinny Oates, the\r
+cobbler's daughter, being a more imaginative person, stated not only\r
+that she had seen them too, but that they had made her blood creep, as\r
+it did at that very moment while there she stood.\r
+\r
+Also, by way of throwing further light on this clue of the tinder-box,\r
+a collection was made of all the articles purchased from the pedlar at\r
+various houses, and carried to the Rainbow to be exhibited there. In\r
+fact, there was a general feeling in the village, that for the\r
+clearing-up of this robbery there must be a great deal done at the\r
+Rainbow, and that no man need offer his wife an excuse for going there\r
+while it was the scene of severe public duties.\r
+\r
+Some disappointment was felt, and perhaps a little indignation also,\r
+when it became known that Silas Marner, on being questioned by the\r
+Squire and the parson, had retained no other recollection of the pedlar\r
+than that he had called at his door, but had not entered his house,\r
+having turned away at once when Silas, holding the door ajar, had said\r
+that he wanted nothing. This had been Silas's testimony, though he\r
+clutched strongly at the idea of the pedlar's being the culprit, if\r
+only because it gave him a definite image of a whereabout for his gold\r
+after it had been taken away from its hiding-place: he could see it now\r
+in the pedlar's box. But it was observed with some irritation in the\r
+village, that anybody but a "blind creatur" like Marner would have seen\r
+the man prowling about, for how came he to leave his tinder-box in the\r
+ditch close by, if he hadn't been lingering there? Doubtless, he had\r
+made his observations when he saw Marner at the door. Anybody might\r
+know--and only look at him--that the weaver was a half-crazy miser. It\r
+was a wonder the pedlar hadn't murdered him; men of that sort, with\r
+rings in their ears, had been known for murderers often and often;\r
+there had been one tried at the 'sizes, not so long ago but what there\r
+were people living who remembered it.\r
+\r
+Godfrey Cass, indeed, entering the Rainbow during one of Mr. Snell's\r
+frequently repeated recitals of his testimony, had treated it lightly,\r
+stating that he himself had bought a pen-knife of the pedlar, and\r
+thought him a merry grinning fellow enough; it was all nonsense, he\r
+said, about the man's evil looks. But this was spoken of in the\r
+village as the random talk of youth, "as if it was only Mr. Snell who\r
+had seen something odd about the pedlar!" On the contrary, there were\r
+at least half-a-dozen who were ready to go before Justice Malam, and\r
+give in much more striking testimony than any the landlord could\r
+furnish. It was to be hoped Mr. Godfrey would not go to Tarley and\r
+throw cold water on what Mr. Snell said there, and so prevent the\r
+justice from drawing up a warrant. He was suspected of intending this,\r
+when, after mid-day, he was seen setting off on horseback in the\r
+direction of Tarley.\r
+\r
+But by this time Godfrey's interest in the robbery had faded before his\r
+growing anxiety about Dunstan and Wildfire, and he was going, not to\r
+Tarley, but to Batherley, unable to rest in uncertainty about them any\r
+longer. The possibility that Dunstan had played him the ugly trick of\r
+riding away with Wildfire, to return at the end of a month, when he had\r
+gambled away or otherwise squandered the price of the horse, was a fear\r
+that urged itself upon him more, even, than the thought of an\r
+accidental injury; and now that the dance at Mrs. Osgood's was past, he\r
+was irritated with himself that he had trusted his horse to Dunstan.\r
+Instead of trying to still his fears, he encouraged them, with that\r
+superstitious impression which clings to us all, that if we expect evil\r
+very strongly it is the less likely to come; and when he heard a horse\r
+approaching at a trot, and saw a hat rising above a hedge beyond an\r
+angle of the lane, he felt as if his conjuration had succeeded. But no\r
+sooner did the horse come within sight, than his heart sank again. It\r
+was not Wildfire; and in a few moments more he discerned that the rider\r
+was not Dunstan, but Bryce, who pulled up to speak, with a face that\r
+implied something disagreeable.\r
+\r
+"Well, Mr. Godfrey, that's a lucky brother of yours, that Master\r
+Dunsey, isn't he?"\r
+\r
+"What do you mean?" said Godfrey, hastily.\r
+\r
+"Why, hasn't he been home yet?" said Bryce.\r
+\r
+"Home? no. What has happened? Be quick. What has he done with my\r
+horse?"\r
+\r
+"Ah, I thought it was yours, though he pretended you had parted with it\r
+to him."\r
+\r
+"Has he thrown him down and broken his knees?" said Godfrey, flushed\r
+with exasperation.\r
+\r
+"Worse than that," said Bryce. "You see, I'd made a bargain with him\r
+to buy the horse for a hundred and twenty--a swinging price, but I\r
+always liked the horse. And what does he do but go and stake him--fly\r
+at a hedge with stakes in it, atop of a bank with a ditch before it.\r
+The horse had been dead a pretty good while when he was found. So he\r
+hasn't been home since, has he?"\r
+\r
+"Home? no," said Godfrey, "and he'd better keep away. Confound me for\r
+a fool! I might have known this would be the end of it."\r
+\r
+"Well, to tell you the truth," said Bryce, "after I'd bargained for the\r
+horse, it did come into my head that he might be riding and selling the\r
+horse without your knowledge, for I didn't believe it was his own. I\r
+knew Master Dunsey was up to his tricks sometimes. But where can he be\r
+gone? He's never been seen at Batherley. He couldn't have been hurt,\r
+for he must have walked off."\r
+\r
+"Hurt?" said Godfrey, bitterly. "He'll never be hurt--he's made to\r
+hurt other people."\r
+\r
+"And so you _did_ give him leave to sell the horse, eh?" said Bryce.\r
+\r
+"Yes; I wanted to part with the horse--he was always a little too hard\r
+in the mouth for me," said Godfrey; his pride making him wince under\r
+the idea that Bryce guessed the sale to be a matter of necessity. "I\r
+was going to see after him--I thought some mischief had happened. I'll\r
+go back now," he added, turning the horse's head, and wishing he could\r
+get rid of Bryce; for he felt that the long-dreaded crisis in his life\r
+was close upon him. "You're coming on to Raveloe, aren't you?"\r
+\r
+"Well, no, not now," said Bryce. "I _was_ coming round there, for I\r
+had to go to Flitton, and I thought I might as well take you in my way,\r
+and just let you know all I knew myself about the horse. I suppose\r
+Master Dunsey didn't like to show himself till the ill news had blown\r
+over a bit. He's perhaps gone to pay a visit at the Three Crowns, by\r
+Whitbridge--I know he's fond of the house."\r
+\r
+"Perhaps he is," said Godfrey, rather absently. Then rousing himself,\r
+he said, with an effort at carelessness, "We shall hear of him soon\r
+enough, I'll be bound."\r
+\r
+"Well, here's my turning," said Bryce, not surprised to perceive that\r
+Godfrey was rather "down"; "so I'll bid you good-day, and wish I may\r
+bring you better news another time."\r
+\r
+Godfrey rode along slowly, representing to himself the scene of\r
+confession to his father from which he felt that there was now no\r
+longer any escape. The revelation about the money must be made the\r
+very next morning; and if he withheld the rest, Dunstan would be sure\r
+to come back shortly, and, finding that he must bear the brunt of his\r
+father's anger, would tell the whole story out of spite, even though he\r
+had nothing to gain by it. There was one step, perhaps, by which he\r
+might still win Dunstan's silence and put off the evil day: he might\r
+tell his father that he had himself spent the money paid to him by\r
+Fowler; and as he had never been guilty of such an offence before, the\r
+affair would blow over after a little storming. But Godfrey could not\r
+bend himself to this. He felt that in letting Dunstan have the money,\r
+he had already been guilty of a breach of trust hardly less culpable\r
+than that of spending the money directly for his own behoof; and yet\r
+there was a distinction between the two acts which made him feel that\r
+the one was so much more blackening than the other as to be intolerable\r
+to him.\r
+\r
+"I don't pretend to be a good fellow," he said to himself; "but I'm not\r
+a scoundrel--at least, I'll stop short somewhere. I'll bear the\r
+consequences of what I _have_ done sooner than make believe I've done\r
+what I never would have done. I'd never have spent the money for my\r
+own pleasure--I was tortured into it."\r
+\r
+Through the remainder of this day Godfrey, with only occasional\r
+fluctuations, kept his will bent in the direction of a complete avowal\r
+to his father, and he withheld the story of Wildfire's loss till the\r
+next morning, that it might serve him as an introduction to heavier\r
+matter. The old Squire was accustomed to his son's frequent absence\r
+from home, and thought neither Dunstan's nor Wildfire's non-appearance\r
+a matter calling for remark. Godfrey said to himself again and again,\r
+that if he let slip this one opportunity of confession, he might never\r
+have another; the revelation might be made even in a more odious way\r
+than by Dunstan's malignity: _she_ might come as she had threatened to\r
+do. And then he tried to make the scene easier to himself by\r
+rehearsal: he made up his mind how he would pass from the admission of\r
+his weakness in letting Dunstan have the money to the fact that Dunstan\r
+had a hold on him which he had been unable to shake off, and how he\r
+would work up his father to expect something very bad before he told\r
+him the fact. The old Squire was an implacable man: he made\r
+resolutions in violent anger, and he was not to be moved from them\r
+after his anger had subsided--as fiery volcanic matters cool and harden\r
+into rock. Like many violent and implacable men, he allowed evils to\r
+grow under favour of his own heedlessness, till they pressed upon him\r
+with exasperating force, and then he turned round with fierce severity\r
+and became unrelentingly hard. This was his system with his tenants:\r
+he allowed them to get into arrears, neglect their fences, reduce their\r
+stock, sell their straw, and otherwise go the wrong way,--and then,\r
+when he became short of money in consequence of this indulgence, he\r
+took the hardest measures and would listen to no appeal. Godfrey knew\r
+all this, and felt it with the greater force because he had constantly\r
+suffered annoyance from witnessing his father's sudden fits of\r
+unrelentingness, for which his own habitual irresolution deprived him\r
+of all sympathy. (He was not critical on the faulty indulgence which\r
+preceded these fits; _that_ seemed to him natural enough.) Still there\r
+was just the chance, Godfrey thought, that his father's pride might see\r
+this marriage in a light that would induce him to hush it up, rather\r
+than turn his son out and make the family the talk of the country for\r
+ten miles round.\r
+\r
+This was the view of the case that Godfrey managed to keep before him\r
+pretty closely till midnight, and he went to sleep thinking that he had\r
+done with inward debating. But when he awoke in the still morning\r
+darkness he found it impossible to reawaken his evening thoughts; it\r
+was as if they had been tired out and were not to be roused to further\r
+work. Instead of arguments for confession, he could now feel the\r
+presence of nothing but its evil consequences: the old dread of\r
+disgrace came back--the old shrinking from the thought of raising a\r
+hopeless barrier between himself and Nancy--the old disposition to rely\r
+on chances which might be favourable to him, and save him from\r
+betrayal. Why, after all, should he cut off the hope of them by his\r
+own act? He had seen the matter in a wrong light yesterday. He had\r
+been in a rage with Dunstan, and had thought of nothing but a thorough\r
+break-up of their mutual understanding; but what it would be really\r
+wisest for him to do, was to try and soften his father's anger against\r
+Dunsey, and keep things as nearly as possible in their old condition.\r
+If Dunsey did not come back for a few days (and Godfrey did not know\r
+but that the rascal had enough money in his pocket to enable him to\r
+keep away still longer), everything might blow over.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER IX\r
+\r
+Godfrey rose and took his own breakfast earlier than usual, but\r
+lingered in the wainscoted parlour till his younger brothers had\r
+finished their meal and gone out; awaiting his father, who always took\r
+a walk with his managing-man before breakfast. Every one breakfasted\r
+at a different hour in the Red House, and the Squire was always the\r
+latest, giving a long chance to a rather feeble morning appetite before\r
+he tried it. The table had been spread with substantial eatables\r
+nearly two hours before he presented himself--a tall, stout man of\r
+sixty, with a face in which the knit brow and rather hard glance seemed\r
+contradicted by the slack and feeble mouth. His person showed marks of\r
+habitual neglect, his dress was slovenly; and yet there was something\r
+in the presence of the old Squire distinguishable from that of the\r
+ordinary farmers in the parish, who were perhaps every whit as refined\r
+as he, but, having slouched their way through life with a consciousness\r
+of being in the vicinity of their "betters", wanted that\r
+self-possession and authoritativeness of voice and carriage which\r
+belonged to a man who thought of superiors as remote existences with\r
+whom he had personally little more to do than with America or the\r
+stars. The Squire had been used to parish homage all his life, used to\r
+the presupposition that his family, his tankards, and everything that\r
+was his, were the oldest and best; and as he never associated with any\r
+gentry higher than himself, his opinion was not disturbed by comparison.\r
+\r
+He glanced at his son as he entered the room, and said, "What, sir!\r
+haven't _you_ had your breakfast yet?" but there was no pleasant\r
+morning greeting between them; not because of any unfriendliness, but\r
+because the sweet flower of courtesy is not a growth of such homes as\r
+the Red House.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir," said Godfrey, "I've had my breakfast, but I was waiting to\r
+speak to you."\r
+\r
+"Ah! well," said the Squire, throwing himself indifferently into his\r
+chair, and speaking in a ponderous coughing fashion, which was felt in\r
+Raveloe to be a sort of privilege of his rank, while he cut a piece of\r
+beef, and held it up before the deer-hound that had come in with him.\r
+"Ring the bell for my ale, will you? You youngsters' business is your\r
+own pleasure, mostly. There's no hurry about it for anybody but\r
+yourselves."\r
+\r
+The Squire's life was quite as idle as his sons', but it was a fiction\r
+kept up by himself and his contemporaries in Raveloe that youth was\r
+exclusively the period of folly, and that their aged wisdom was\r
+constantly in a state of endurance mitigated by sarcasm. Godfrey\r
+waited, before he spoke again, until the ale had been brought and the\r
+door closed--an interval during which Fleet, the deer-hound, had\r
+consumed enough bits of beef to make a poor man's holiday dinner.\r
+\r
+"There's been a cursed piece of ill-luck with Wildfire," he began;\r
+"happened the day before yesterday."\r
+\r
+"What! broke his knees?" said the Squire, after taking a draught of\r
+ale. "I thought you knew how to ride better than that, sir. I never\r
+threw a horse down in my life. If I had, I might ha' whistled for\r
+another, for _my_ father wasn't quite so ready to unstring as some\r
+other fathers I know of. But they must turn over a new leaf--_they_\r
+must. What with mortgages and arrears, I'm as short o' cash as a\r
+roadside pauper. And that fool Kimble says the newspaper's talking\r
+about peace. Why, the country wouldn't have a leg to stand on. Prices\r
+'ud run down like a jack, and I should never get my arrears, not if I\r
+sold all the fellows up. And there's that damned Fowler, I won't put\r
+up with him any longer; I've told Winthrop to go to Cox this very day.\r
+The lying scoundrel told me he'd be sure to pay me a hundred last\r
+month. He takes advantage because he's on that outlying farm, and\r
+thinks I shall forget him."\r
+\r
+The Squire had delivered this speech in a coughing and interrupted\r
+manner, but with no pause long enough for Godfrey to make it a pretext\r
+for taking up the word again. He felt that his father meant to ward\r
+off any request for money on the ground of the misfortune with\r
+Wildfire, and that the emphasis he had thus been led to lay on his\r
+shortness of cash and his arrears was likely to produce an attitude of\r
+mind the utmost unfavourable for his own disclosure. But he must go on,\r
+now he had begun.\r
+\r
+"It's worse than breaking the horse's knees--he's been staked and\r
+killed," he said, as soon as his father was silent, and had begun to\r
+cut his meat. "But I wasn't thinking of asking you to buy me another\r
+horse; I was only thinking I'd lost the means of paying you with the\r
+price of Wildfire, as I'd meant to do. Dunsey took him to the hunt to\r
+sell him for me the other day, and after he'd made a bargain for a\r
+hundred and twenty with Bryce, he went after the hounds, and took some\r
+fool's leap or other that did for the horse at once. If it hadn't been\r
+for that, I should have paid you a hundred pounds this morning."\r
+\r
+The Squire had laid down his knife and fork, and was staring at his son\r
+in amazement, not being sufficiently quick of brain to form a probable\r
+guess as to what could have caused so strange an inversion of the\r
+paternal and filial relations as this proposition of his son to pay him\r
+a hundred pounds.\r
+\r
+"The truth is, sir--I'm very sorry--I was quite to blame," said\r
+Godfrey. "Fowler did pay that hundred pounds. He paid it to me, when\r
+I was over there one day last month. And Dunsey bothered me for the\r
+money, and I let him have it, because I hoped I should be able to pay\r
+it you before this."\r
+\r
+The Squire was purple with anger before his son had done speaking, and\r
+found utterance difficult. "You let Dunsey have it, sir? And how long\r
+have you been so thick with Dunsey that you must _collogue_ with him to\r
+embezzle my money? Are you turning out a scamp? I tell you I won't\r
+have it. I'll turn the whole pack of you out of the house together,\r
+and marry again. I'd have you to remember, sir, my property's got no\r
+entail on it;--since my grandfather's time the Casses can do as they\r
+like with their land. Remember that, sir. Let Dunsey have the money!\r
+Why should you let Dunsey have the money? There's some lie at the\r
+bottom of it."\r
+\r
+"There's no lie, sir," said Godfrey. "I wouldn't have spent the money\r
+myself, but Dunsey bothered me, and I was a fool, and let him have it.\r
+But I meant to pay it, whether he did or not. That's the whole story.\r
+I never meant to embezzle money, and I'm not the man to do it. You\r
+never knew me do a dishonest trick, sir."\r
+\r
+"Where's Dunsey, then? What do you stand talking there for? Go and\r
+fetch Dunsey, as I tell you, and let him give account of what he wanted\r
+the money for, and what he's done with it. He shall repent it. I'll\r
+turn him out. I said I would, and I'll do it. He shan't brave me. Go\r
+and fetch him."\r
+\r
+"Dunsey isn't come back, sir."\r
+\r
+"What! did he break his own neck, then?" said the Squire, with some\r
+disgust at the idea that, in that case, he could not fulfil his threat.\r
+\r
+"No, he wasn't hurt, I believe, for the horse was found dead, and\r
+Dunsey must have walked off. I daresay we shall see him again\r
+by-and-by. I don't know where he is."\r
+\r
+"And what must you be letting him have my money for? Answer me that,"\r
+said the Squire, attacking Godfrey again, since Dunsey was not within\r
+reach.\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, I don't know," said Godfrey, hesitatingly. That was a\r
+feeble evasion, but Godfrey was not fond of lying, and, not being\r
+sufficiently aware that no sort of duplicity can long flourish without\r
+the help of vocal falsehoods, he was quite unprepared with invented\r
+motives.\r
+\r
+"You don't know? I tell you what it is, sir. You've been up to some\r
+trick, and you've been bribing him not to tell," said the Squire, with\r
+a sudden acuteness which startled Godfrey, who felt his heart beat\r
+violently at the nearness of his father's guess. The sudden alarm\r
+pushed him on to take the next step--a very slight impulse suffices for\r
+that on a downward road.\r
+\r
+"Why, sir," he said, trying to speak with careless ease, "it was a\r
+little affair between me and Dunsey; it's no matter to anybody else.\r
+It's hardly worth while to pry into young men's fooleries: it wouldn't\r
+have made any difference to you, sir, if I'd not had the bad luck to\r
+lose Wildfire. I should have paid you the money."\r
+\r
+"Fooleries! Pshaw! it's time you'd done with fooleries. And I'd have\r
+you know, sir, you _must_ ha' done with 'em," said the Squire, frowning\r
+and casting an angry glance at his son. "Your goings-on are not what I\r
+shall find money for any longer. There's my grandfather had his\r
+stables full o' horses, and kept a good house, too, and in worse times,\r
+by what I can make out; and so might I, if I hadn't four\r
+good-for-nothing fellows to hang on me like horse-leeches. I've been\r
+too good a father to you all--that's what it is. But I shall pull up,\r
+sir."\r
+\r
+Godfrey was silent. He was not likely to be very penetrating in his\r
+judgments, but he had always had a sense that his father's indulgence\r
+had not been kindness, and had had a vague longing for some discipline\r
+that would have checked his own errant weakness and helped his better\r
+will. The Squire ate his bread and meat hastily, took a deep draught\r
+of ale, then turned his chair from the table, and began to speak again.\r
+\r
+"It'll be all the worse for you, you know--you'd need try and help me\r
+keep things together."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, I've often offered to take the management of things, but\r
+you know you've taken it ill always, and seemed to think I wanted to\r
+push you out of your place."\r
+\r
+"I know nothing o' your offering or o' my taking it ill," said the\r
+Squire, whose memory consisted in certain strong impressions unmodified\r
+by detail; "but I know, one while you seemed to be thinking o'\r
+marrying, and I didn't offer to put any obstacles in your way, as some\r
+fathers would. I'd as lieve you married Lammeter's daughter as\r
+anybody. I suppose, if I'd said you nay, you'd ha' kept on with it;\r
+but, for want o' contradiction, you've changed your mind. You're a\r
+shilly-shally fellow: you take after your poor mother. She never had a\r
+will of her own; a woman has no call for one, if she's got a proper man\r
+for her husband. But _your_ wife had need have one, for you hardly\r
+know your own mind enough to make both your legs walk one way. The\r
+lass hasn't said downright she won't have you, has she?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Godfrey, feeling very hot and uncomfortable; "but I don't\r
+think she will."\r
+\r
+"Think! why haven't you the courage to ask her? Do you stick to it,\r
+you want to have _her_--that's the thing?"\r
+\r
+"There's no other woman I want to marry," said Godfrey, evasively.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, let me make the offer for you, that's all, if you haven't\r
+the pluck to do it yourself. Lammeter isn't likely to be loath for his\r
+daughter to marry into _my_ family, I should think. And as for the\r
+pretty lass, she wouldn't have her cousin--and there's nobody else, as\r
+I see, could ha' stood in your way."\r
+\r
+"I'd rather let it be, please sir, at present," said Godfrey, in alarm.\r
+"I think she's a little offended with me just now, and I should like to\r
+speak for myself. A man must manage these things for himself."\r
+\r
+"Well, speak, then, and manage it, and see if you can't turn over a new\r
+leaf. That's what a man must do when he thinks o' marrying."\r
+\r
+"I don't see how I can think of it at present, sir. You wouldn't like\r
+to settle me on one of the farms, I suppose, and I don't think she'd\r
+come to live in this house with all my brothers. It's a different sort\r
+of life to what she's been used to."\r
+\r
+"Not come to live in this house? Don't tell me. You ask her, that's\r
+all," said the Squire, with a short, scornful laugh.\r
+\r
+"I'd rather let the thing be, at present, sir," said Godfrey. "I hope\r
+you won't try to hurry it on by saying anything."\r
+\r
+"I shall do what I choose," said the Squire, "and I shall let you know\r
+I'm master; else you may turn out and find an estate to drop into\r
+somewhere else. Go out and tell Winthrop not to go to Cox's, but wait\r
+for me. And tell 'em to get my horse saddled. And stop: look out and\r
+get that hack o' Dunsey's sold, and hand me the money, will you? He'll\r
+keep no more hacks at my expense. And if you know where he's\r
+sneaking--I daresay you do--you may tell him to spare himself the\r
+journey o' coming back home. Let him turn ostler, and keep himself.\r
+He shan't hang on me any more."\r
+\r
+"I don't know where he is, sir; and if I did, it isn't my place to tell\r
+him to keep away," said Godfrey, moving towards the door.\r
+\r
+"Confound it, sir, don't stay arguing, but go and order my horse," said\r
+the Squire, taking up a pipe.\r
+\r
+Godfrey left the room, hardly knowing whether he were more relieved by\r
+the sense that the interview was ended without having made any change\r
+in his position, or more uneasy that he had entangled himself still\r
+further in prevarication and deceit. What had passed about his\r
+proposing to Nancy had raised a new alarm, lest by some after-dinner\r
+words of his father's to Mr. Lammeter he should be thrown into the\r
+embarrassment of being obliged absolutely to decline her when she\r
+seemed to be within his reach. He fled to his usual refuge, that of\r
+hoping for some unforeseen turn of fortune, some favourable chance\r
+which would save him from unpleasant consequences--perhaps even justify\r
+his insincerity by manifesting its prudence. And in this point of\r
+trusting to some throw of fortune's dice, Godfrey can hardly be called\r
+specially old-fashioned. Favourable Chance, I fancy, is the god of all\r
+men who follow their own devices instead of obeying a law they believe\r
+in. Let even a polished man of these days get into a position he is\r
+ashamed to avow, and his mind will be bent on all the possible issues\r
+that may deliver him from the calculable results of that position. Let\r
+him live outside his income, or shirk the resolute honest work that\r
+brings wages, and he will presently find himself dreaming of a possible\r
+benefactor, a possible simpleton who may be cajoled into using his\r
+interest, a possible state of mind in some possible person not yet\r
+forthcoming. Let him neglect the responsibilities of his office, and he\r
+will inevitably anchor himself on the chance that the thing left undone\r
+may turn out not to be of the supposed importance. Let him betray his\r
+friend's confidence, and he will adore that same cunning complexity\r
+called Chance, which gives him the hope that his friend will never\r
+know. Let him forsake a decent craft that he may pursue the\r
+gentilities of a profession to which nature never called him, and his\r
+religion will infallibly be the worship of blessed Chance, which he\r
+will believe in as the mighty creator of success. The evil principle\r
+deprecated in that religion is the orderly sequence by which the seed\r
+brings forth a crop after its kind.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER X\r
+\r
+Justice Malam was naturally regarded in Tarley and Raveloe as a man of\r
+capacious mind, seeing that he could draw much wider conclusions\r
+without evidence than could be expected of his neighbours who were not\r
+on the Commission of the Peace. Such a man was not likely to neglect\r
+the clue of the tinder-box, and an inquiry was set on foot concerning a\r
+pedlar, name unknown, with curly black hair and a foreign complexion,\r
+carrying a box of cutlery and jewellery, and wearing large rings in his\r
+ears. But either because inquiry was too slow-footed to overtake him,\r
+or because the description applied to so many pedlars that inquiry did\r
+not know how to choose among them, weeks passed away, and there was no\r
+other result concerning the robbery than a gradual cessation of the\r
+excitement it had caused in Raveloe. Dunstan Cass's absence was hardly\r
+a subject of remark: he had once before had a quarrel with his father,\r
+and had gone off, nobody knew whither, to return at the end of six\r
+weeks, take up his old quarters unforbidden, and swagger as usual. His\r
+own family, who equally expected this issue, with the sole difference\r
+that the Squire was determined this time to forbid him the old\r
+quarters, never mentioned his absence; and when his uncle Kimble or Mr.\r
+Osgood noticed it, the story of his having killed Wildfire, and\r
+committed some offence against his father, was enough to prevent\r
+surprise. To connect the fact of Dunsey's disappearance with that of\r
+the robbery occurring on the same day, lay quite away from the track of\r
+every one's thought--even Godfrey's, who had better reason than any one\r
+else to know what his brother was capable of. He remembered no mention\r
+of the weaver between them since the time, twelve years ago, when it\r
+was their boyish sport to deride him; and, besides, his imagination\r
+constantly created an _alibi_ for Dunstan: he saw him continually in\r
+some congenial haunt, to which he had walked off on leaving\r
+Wildfire--saw him sponging on chance acquaintances, and meditating a\r
+return home to the old amusement of tormenting his elder brother. Even\r
+if any brain in Raveloe had put the said two facts together, I doubt\r
+whether a combination so injurious to the prescriptive respectability\r
+of a family with a mural monument and venerable tankards, would not\r
+have been suppressed as of unsound tendency. But Christmas puddings,\r
+brawn, and abundance of spirituous liquors, throwing the mental\r
+originality into the channel of nightmare, are great preservatives\r
+against a dangerous spontaneity of waking thought.\r
+\r
+When the robbery was talked of at the Rainbow and elsewhere, in good\r
+company, the balance continued to waver between the rational\r
+explanation founded on the tinder-box, and the theory of an\r
+impenetrable mystery that mocked investigation. The advocates of the\r
+tinder-box-and-pedlar view considered the other side a muddle-headed\r
+and credulous set, who, because they themselves were wall-eyed,\r
+supposed everybody else to have the same blank outlook; and the\r
+adherents of the inexplicable more than hinted that their antagonists\r
+were animals inclined to crow before they had found any corn--mere\r
+skimming-dishes in point of depth--whose clear-sightedness consisted in\r
+supposing there was nothing behind a barn-door because they couldn't\r
+see through it; so that, though their controversy did not serve to\r
+elicit the fact concerning the robbery, it elicited some true opinions\r
+of collateral importance.\r
+\r
+But while poor Silas's loss served thus to brush the slow current of\r
+Raveloe conversation, Silas himself was feeling the withering\r
+desolation of that bereavement about which his neighbours were arguing\r
+at their ease. To any one who had observed him before he lost his\r
+gold, it might have seemed that so withered and shrunken a life as his\r
+could hardly be susceptible of a bruise, could hardly endure any\r
+subtraction but such as would put an end to it altogether. But in\r
+reality it had been an eager life, filled with immediate purpose which\r
+fenced him in from the wide, cheerless unknown. It had been a clinging\r
+life; and though the object round which its fibres had clung was a dead\r
+disrupted thing, it satisfied the need for clinging. But now the fence\r
+was broken down--the support was snatched away. Marner's thoughts\r
+could no longer move in their old round, and were baffled by a blank\r
+like that which meets a plodding ant when the earth has broken away on\r
+its homeward path. The loom was there, and the weaving, and the\r
+growing pattern in the cloth; but the bright treasure in the hole under\r
+his feet was gone; the prospect of handling and counting it was gone:\r
+the evening had no phantasm of delight to still the poor soul's\r
+craving. The thought of the money he would get by his actual work\r
+could bring no joy, for its meagre image was only a fresh reminder of\r
+his loss; and hope was too heavily crushed by the sudden blow for his\r
+imagination to dwell on the growth of a new hoard from that small\r
+beginning.\r
+\r
+He filled up the blank with grief. As he sat weaving, he every now and\r
+then moaned low, like one in pain: it was the sign that his thoughts\r
+had come round again to the sudden chasm--to the empty evening-time.\r
+And all the evening, as he sat in his loneliness by his dull fire, he\r
+leaned his elbows on his knees, and clasped his head with his hands,\r
+and moaned very low--not as one who seeks to be heard.\r
+\r
+And yet he was not utterly forsaken in his trouble. The repulsion\r
+Marner had always created in his neighbours was partly dissipated by\r
+the new light in which this misfortune had shown him. Instead of a man\r
+who had more cunning than honest folks could come by, and, what was\r
+worse, had not the inclination to use that cunning in a neighbourly\r
+way, it was now apparent that Silas had not cunning enough to keep his\r
+own. He was generally spoken of as a "poor mushed creatur"; and that\r
+avoidance of his neighbours, which had before been referred to his\r
+ill-will and to a probable addiction to worse company, was now\r
+considered mere craziness.\r
+\r
+This change to a kindlier feeling was shown in various ways. The odour\r
+of Christmas cooking being on the wind, it was the season when\r
+superfluous pork and black puddings are suggestive of charity in\r
+well-to-do families; and Silas's misfortune had brought him uppermost\r
+in the memory of housekeepers like Mrs. Osgood. Mr. Crackenthorp, too,\r
+while he admonished Silas that his money had probably been taken from\r
+him because he thought too much of it and never came to church,\r
+enforced the doctrine by a present of pigs' pettitoes, well calculated\r
+to dissipate unfounded prejudices against the clerical character.\r
+Neighbours who had nothing but verbal consolation to give showed a\r
+disposition not only to greet Silas and discuss his misfortune at some\r
+length when they encountered him in the village, but also to take the\r
+trouble of calling at his cottage and getting him to repeat all the\r
+details on the very spot; and then they would try to cheer him by\r
+saying, "Well, Master Marner, you're no worse off nor other poor folks,\r
+after all; and if you was to be crippled, the parish 'ud give you a\r
+'lowance."\r
+\r
+I suppose one reason why we are seldom able to comfort our neighbours\r
+with our words is that our goodwill gets adulterated, in spite of\r
+ourselves, before it can pass our lips. We can send black puddings and\r
+pettitoes without giving them a flavour of our own egoism; but language\r
+is a stream that is almost sure to smack of a mingled soil. There was\r
+a fair proportion of kindness in Raveloe; but it was often of a beery\r
+and bungling sort, and took the shape least allied to the complimentary\r
+and hypocritical.\r
+\r
+Mr. Macey, for example, coming one evening expressly to let Silas know\r
+that recent events had given him the advantage of standing more\r
+favourably in the opinion of a man whose judgment was not formed\r
+lightly, opened the conversation by saying, as soon as he had seated\r
+himself and adjusted his thumbs--\r
+\r
+"Come, Master Marner, why, you've no call to sit a-moaning. You're a\r
+deal better off to ha' lost your money, nor to ha' kep it by foul\r
+means. I used to think, when you first come into these parts, as you\r
+were no better nor you should be; you were younger a deal than what you\r
+are now; but you were allays a staring, white-faced creatur, partly\r
+like a bald-faced calf, as I may say. But there's no knowing: it isn't\r
+every queer-looksed thing as Old Harry's had the making of--I mean,\r
+speaking o' toads and such; for they're often harmless, like, and\r
+useful against varmin. And it's pretty much the same wi' you, as fur\r
+as I can see. Though as to the yarbs and stuff to cure the breathing,\r
+if you brought that sort o' knowledge from distant parts, you might ha'\r
+been a bit freer of it. And if the knowledge wasn't well come by, why,\r
+you might ha' made up for it by coming to church reg'lar; for, as for\r
+the children as the Wise Woman charmed, I've been at the christening of\r
+'em again and again, and they took the water just as well. And that's\r
+reasonable; for if Old Harry's a mind to do a bit o' kindness for a\r
+holiday, like, who's got anything against it? That's my thinking; and\r
+I've been clerk o' this parish forty year, and I know, when the parson\r
+and me does the cussing of a Ash Wednesday, there's no cussing o' folks\r
+as have a mind to be cured without a doctor, let Kimble say what he\r
+will. And so, Master Marner, as I was saying--for there's windings i'\r
+things as they may carry you to the fur end o' the prayer-book afore\r
+you get back to 'em--my advice is, as you keep up your sperrits; for as\r
+for thinking you're a deep un, and ha' got more inside you nor 'ull\r
+bear daylight, I'm not o' that opinion at all, and so I tell the\r
+neighbours. For, says I, you talk o' Master Marner making out a\r
+tale--why, it's nonsense, that is: it 'ud take a 'cute man to make a\r
+tale like that; and, says I, he looked as scared as a rabbit."\r
+\r
+During this discursive address Silas had continued motionless in his\r
+previous attitude, leaning his elbows on his knees, and pressing his\r
+hands against his head. Mr. Macey, not doubting that he had been\r
+listened to, paused, in the expectation of some appreciatory reply, but\r
+Marner remained silent. He had a sense that the old man meant to be\r
+good-natured and neighbourly; but the kindness fell on him as sunshine\r
+falls on the wretched--he had no heart to taste it, and felt that it\r
+was very far off him.\r
+\r
+"Come, Master Marner, have you got nothing to say to that?" said Mr.\r
+Macey at last, with a slight accent of impatience.\r
+\r
+"Oh," said Marner, slowly, shaking his head between his hands, "I thank\r
+you--thank you--kindly."\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, to be sure: I thought you would," said Mr. Macey; "and my\r
+advice is--have you got a Sunday suit?"\r
+\r
+"No," said Marner.\r
+\r
+"I doubted it was so," said Mr. Macey. "Now, let me advise you to get\r
+a Sunday suit: there's Tookey, he's a poor creatur, but he's got my\r
+tailoring business, and some o' my money in it, and he shall make a\r
+suit at a low price, and give you trust, and then you can come to\r
+church, and be a bit neighbourly. Why, you've never heared me say\r
+"Amen" since you come into these parts, and I recommend you to lose no\r
+time, for it'll be poor work when Tookey has it all to himself, for I\r
+mayn't be equil to stand i' the desk at all, come another winter."\r
+Here Mr. Macey paused, perhaps expecting some sign of emotion in his\r
+hearer; but not observing any, he went on. "And as for the money for\r
+the suit o' clothes, why, you get a matter of a pound a-week at your\r
+weaving, Master Marner, and you're a young man, eh, for all you look so\r
+mushed. Why, you couldn't ha' been five-and-twenty when you come into\r
+these parts, eh?"\r
+\r
+Silas started a little at the change to a questioning tone, and\r
+answered mildly, "I don't know; I can't rightly say--it's a long while\r
+since."\r
+\r
+After receiving such an answer as this, it is not surprising that Mr.\r
+Macey observed, later on in the evening at the Rainbow, that Marner's\r
+head was "all of a muddle", and that it was to be doubted if he ever\r
+knew when Sunday came round, which showed him a worse heathen than many\r
+a dog.\r
+\r
+Another of Silas's comforters, besides Mr. Macey, came to him with a\r
+mind highly charged on the same topic. This was Mrs. Winthrop, the\r
+wheelwright's wife. The inhabitants of Raveloe were not severely\r
+regular in their church-going, and perhaps there was hardly a person in\r
+the parish who would not have held that to go to church every Sunday in\r
+the calendar would have shown a greedy desire to stand well with\r
+Heaven, and get an undue advantage over their neighbours--a wish to be\r
+better than the "common run", that would have implied a reflection on\r
+those who had had godfathers and godmothers as well as themselves, and\r
+had an equal right to the burying-service. At the same time, it was\r
+understood to be requisite for all who were not household servants, or\r
+young men, to take the sacrament at one of the great festivals: Squire\r
+Cass himself took it on Christmas-day; while those who were held to be\r
+"good livers" went to church with greater, though still with moderate,\r
+frequency.\r
+\r
+Mrs. Winthrop was one of these: she was in all respects a woman of\r
+scrupulous conscience, so eager for duties that life seemed to offer\r
+them too scantily unless she rose at half-past four, though this threw\r
+a scarcity of work over the more advanced hours of the morning, which\r
+it was a constant problem with her to remove. Yet she had not the\r
+vixenish temper which is sometimes supposed to be a necessary condition\r
+of such habits: she was a very mild, patient woman, whose nature it was\r
+to seek out all the sadder and more serious elements of life, and\r
+pasture her mind upon them. She was the person always first thought of\r
+in Raveloe when there was illness or death in a family, when leeches\r
+were to be applied, or there was a sudden disappointment in a monthly\r
+nurse. She was a "comfortable woman"--good-looking,\r
+fresh-complexioned, having her lips always slightly screwed, as if she\r
+felt herself in a sick-room with the doctor or the clergyman present.\r
+But she was never whimpering; no one had seen her shed tears; she was\r
+simply grave and inclined to shake her head and sigh, almost\r
+imperceptibly, like a funereal mourner who is not a relation. It\r
+seemed surprising that Ben Winthrop, who loved his quart-pot and his\r
+joke, got along so well with Dolly; but she took her husband's jokes\r
+and joviality as patiently as everything else, considering that "men\r
+_would_ be so", and viewing the stronger sex in the light of animals\r
+whom it had pleased Heaven to make naturally troublesome, like bulls\r
+and turkey-cocks.\r
+\r
+This good wholesome woman could hardly fail to have her mind drawn\r
+strongly towards Silas Marner, now that he appeared in the light of a\r
+sufferer; and one Sunday afternoon she took her little boy Aaron with\r
+her, and went to call on Silas, carrying in her hand some small\r
+lard-cakes, flat paste-like articles much esteemed in Raveloe. Aaron,\r
+an apple-cheeked youngster of seven, with a clean starched frill which\r
+looked like a plate for the apples, needed all his adventurous\r
+curiosity to embolden him against the possibility that the big-eyed\r
+weaver might do him some bodily injury; and his dubiety was much\r
+increased when, on arriving at the Stone-pits, they heard the\r
+mysterious sound of the loom.\r
+\r
+"Ah, it is as I thought," said Mrs. Winthrop, sadly.\r
+\r
+They had to knock loudly before Silas heard them; but when he did come\r
+to the door he showed no impatience, as he would once have done, at a\r
+visit that had been unasked for and unexpected. Formerly, his heart had\r
+been as a locked casket with its treasure inside; but now the casket\r
+was empty, and the lock was broken. Left groping in darkness, with his\r
+prop utterly gone, Silas had inevitably a sense, though a dull and\r
+half-despairing one, that if any help came to him it must come from\r
+without; and there was a slight stirring of expectation at the sight of\r
+his fellow-men, a faint consciousness of dependence on their goodwill.\r
+He opened the door wide to admit Dolly, but without otherwise returning\r
+her greeting than by moving the armchair a few inches as a sign that\r
+she was to sit down in it. Dolly, as soon as she was seated, removed\r
+the white cloth that covered her lard-cakes, and said in her gravest\r
+way--\r
+\r
+"I'd a baking yisterday, Master Marner, and the lard-cakes turned out\r
+better nor common, and I'd ha' asked you to accept some, if you'd\r
+thought well. I don't eat such things myself, for a bit o' bread's\r
+what I like from one year's end to the other; but men's stomichs are\r
+made so comical, they want a change--they do, I know, God help 'em."\r
+\r
+Dolly sighed gently as she held out the cakes to Silas, who thanked her\r
+kindly and looked very close at them, absently, being accustomed to\r
+look so at everything he took into his hand--eyed all the while by the\r
+wondering bright orbs of the small Aaron, who had made an outwork of\r
+his mother's chair, and was peeping round from behind it.\r
+\r
+"There's letters pricked on 'em," said Dolly. "I can't read 'em\r
+myself, and there's nobody, not Mr. Macey himself, rightly knows what\r
+they mean; but they've a good meaning, for they're the same as is on\r
+the pulpit-cloth at church. What are they, Aaron, my dear?"\r
+\r
+Aaron retreated completely behind his outwork.\r
+\r
+"Oh, go, that's naughty," said his mother, mildly. "Well, whativer the\r
+letters are, they've a good meaning; and it's a stamp as has been in\r
+our house, Ben says, ever since he was a little un, and his mother used\r
+to put it on the cakes, and I've allays put it on too; for if there's\r
+any good, we've need of it i' this world."\r
+\r
+"It's I. H. S.," said Silas, at which proof of learning Aaron peeped\r
+round the chair again.\r
+\r
+"Well, to be sure, you can read 'em off," said Dolly. "Ben's read 'em\r
+to me many and many a time, but they slip out o' my mind again; the\r
+more's the pity, for they're good letters, else they wouldn't be in the\r
+church; and so I prick 'em on all the loaves and all the cakes, though\r
+sometimes they won't hold, because o' the rising--for, as I said, if\r
+there's any good to be got we've need of it i' this world--that we\r
+have; and I hope they'll bring good to you, Master Marner, for it's wi'\r
+that will I brought you the cakes; and you see the letters have held\r
+better nor common."\r
+\r
+Silas was as unable to interpret the letters as Dolly, but there was no\r
+possibility of misunderstanding the desire to give comfort that made\r
+itself heard in her quiet tones. He said, with more feeling than\r
+before--"Thank you--thank you kindly." But he laid down the cakes and\r
+seated himself absently--drearily unconscious of any distinct benefit\r
+towards which the cakes and the letters, or even Dolly's kindness,\r
+could tend for him.\r
+\r
+"Ah, if there's good anywhere, we've need of it," repeated Dolly, who\r
+did not lightly forsake a serviceable phrase. She looked at Silas\r
+pityingly as she went on. "But you didn't hear the church-bells this\r
+morning, Master Marner? I doubt you didn't know it was Sunday. Living\r
+so lone here, you lose your count, I daresay; and then, when your loom\r
+makes a noise, you can't hear the bells, more partic'lar now the frost\r
+kills the sound."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I did; I heard 'em," said Silas, to whom Sunday bells were a mere\r
+accident of the day, and not part of its sacredness. There had been no\r
+bells in Lantern Yard.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Dolly, pausing before she spoke again. "But what a\r
+pity it is you should work of a Sunday, and not clean yourself--if you\r
+_didn't_ go to church; for if you'd a roasting bit, it might be as you\r
+couldn't leave it, being a lone man. But there's the bakehus, if you\r
+could make up your mind to spend a twopence on the oven now and\r
+then,--not every week, in course--I shouldn't like to do that\r
+myself,--you might carry your bit o' dinner there, for it's nothing but\r
+right to have a bit o' summat hot of a Sunday, and not to make it as\r
+you can't know your dinner from Saturday. But now, upo' Christmas-day,\r
+this blessed Christmas as is ever coming, if you was to take your\r
+dinner to the bakehus, and go to church, and see the holly and the yew,\r
+and hear the anthim, and then take the sacramen', you'd be a deal the\r
+better, and you'd know which end you stood on, and you could put your\r
+trust i' Them as knows better nor we do, seein' you'd ha' done what it\r
+lies on us all to do."\r
+\r
+Dolly's exhortation, which was an unusually long effort of speech for\r
+her, was uttered in the soothing persuasive tone with which she would\r
+have tried to prevail on a sick man to take his medicine, or a basin of\r
+gruel for which he had no appetite. Silas had never before been\r
+closely urged on the point of his absence from church, which had only\r
+been thought of as a part of his general queerness; and he was too\r
+direct and simple to evade Dolly's appeal.\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay," he said, "I know nothing o' church. I've never been to\r
+church."\r
+\r
+"No!" said Dolly, in a low tone of wonderment. Then bethinking\r
+herself of Silas's advent from an unknown country, she said, "Could it\r
+ha' been as they'd no church where you was born?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes," said Silas, meditatively, sitting in his usual posture of\r
+leaning on his knees, and supporting his head. "There was churches--a\r
+many--it was a big town. But I knew nothing of 'em--I went to chapel."\r
+\r
+Dolly was much puzzled at this new word, but she was rather afraid of\r
+inquiring further, lest "chapel" might mean some haunt of wickedness.\r
+After a little thought, she said--\r
+\r
+"Well, Master Marner, it's niver too late to turn over a new leaf, and\r
+if you've niver had no church, there's no telling the good it'll do\r
+you. For I feel so set up and comfortable as niver was, when I've been\r
+and heard the prayers, and the singing to the praise and glory o' God,\r
+as Mr. Macey gives out--and Mr. Crackenthorp saying good words, and\r
+more partic'lar on Sacramen' Day; and if a bit o' trouble comes, I feel\r
+as I can put up wi' it, for I've looked for help i' the right quarter,\r
+and gev myself up to Them as we must all give ourselves up to at the\r
+last; and if we'n done our part, it isn't to be believed as Them as are\r
+above us 'ull be worse nor we are, and come short o' Their'n."\r
+\r
+Poor Dolly's exposition of her simple Raveloe theology fell rather\r
+unmeaningly on Silas's ears, for there was no word in it that could\r
+rouse a memory of what he had known as religion, and his comprehension\r
+was quite baffled by the plural pronoun, which was no heresy of\r
+Dolly's, but only her way of avoiding a presumptuous familiarity. He\r
+remained silent, not feeling inclined to assent to the part of Dolly's\r
+speech which he fully understood--her recommendation that he should go\r
+to church. Indeed, Silas was so unaccustomed to talk beyond the brief\r
+questions and answers necessary for the transaction of his simple\r
+business, that words did not easily come to him without the urgency of\r
+a distinct purpose.\r
+\r
+But now, little Aaron, having become used to the weaver's awful\r
+presence, had advanced to his mother's side, and Silas, seeming to\r
+notice him for the first time, tried to return Dolly's signs of\r
+good-will by offering the lad a bit of lard-cake. Aaron shrank back a\r
+little, and rubbed his head against his mother's shoulder, but still\r
+thought the piece of cake worth the risk of putting his hand out for it.\r
+\r
+"Oh, for shame, Aaron," said his mother, taking him on her lap,\r
+however; "why, you don't want cake again yet awhile. He's wonderful\r
+hearty," she went on, with a little sigh--"that he is, God knows. He's\r
+my youngest, and we spoil him sadly, for either me or the father must\r
+allays hev him in our sight--that we must."\r
+\r
+She stroked Aaron's brown head, and thought it must do Master Marner\r
+good to see such a "pictur of a child". But Marner, on the other side\r
+of the hearth, saw the neat-featured rosy face as a mere dim round,\r
+with two dark spots in it.\r
+\r
+"And he's got a voice like a bird--you wouldn't think," Dolly went on;\r
+"he can sing a Christmas carril as his father's taught him; and I take\r
+it for a token as he'll come to good, as he can learn the good tunes so\r
+quick. Come, Aaron, stan' up and sing the carril to Master Marner,\r
+come."\r
+\r
+Aaron replied by rubbing his forehead against his mother's shoulder.\r
+\r
+"Oh, that's naughty," said Dolly, gently. "Stan' up, when mother tells\r
+you, and let me hold the cake till you've done."\r
+\r
+Aaron was not indisposed to display his talents, even to an ogre, under\r
+protecting circumstances; and after a few more signs of coyness,\r
+consisting chiefly in rubbing the backs of his hands over his eyes, and\r
+then peeping between them at Master Marner, to see if he looked anxious\r
+for the "carril", he at length allowed his head to be duly adjusted,\r
+and standing behind the table, which let him appear above it only as\r
+far as his broad frill, so that he looked like a cherubic head\r
+untroubled with a body, he began with a clear chirp, and in a melody\r
+that had the rhythm of an industrious hammer\r
+\r
+ "God rest you, merry gentlemen,\r
+ Let nothing you dismay,\r
+ For Jesus Christ our Savior\r
+ Was born on Christmas-day."\r
+\r
+\r
+Dolly listened with a devout look, glancing at Marner in some\r
+confidence that this strain would help to allure him to church.\r
+\r
+"That's Christmas music," she said, when Aaron had ended, and had\r
+secured his piece of cake again. "There's no other music equil to the\r
+Christmas music--"Hark the erol angils sing." And you may judge what\r
+it is at church, Master Marner, with the bassoon and the voices, as you\r
+can't help thinking you've got to a better place a'ready--for I\r
+wouldn't speak ill o' this world, seeing as Them put us in it as knows\r
+best--but what wi' the drink, and the quarrelling, and the bad\r
+illnesses, and the hard dying, as I've seen times and times, one's\r
+thankful to hear of a better. The boy sings pretty, don't he, Master\r
+Marner?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Silas, absently, "very pretty."\r
+\r
+The Christmas carol, with its hammer-like rhythm, had fallen on his\r
+ears as strange music, quite unlike a hymn, and could have none of the\r
+effect Dolly contemplated. But he wanted to show her that he was\r
+grateful, and the only mode that occurred to him was to offer Aaron a\r
+bit more cake.\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, thank you, Master Marner," said Dolly, holding down Aaron's\r
+willing hands. "We must be going home now. And so I wish you\r
+good-bye, Master Marner; and if you ever feel anyways bad in your\r
+inside, as you can't fend for yourself, I'll come and clean up for you,\r
+and get you a bit o' victual, and willing. But I beg and pray of you\r
+to leave off weaving of a Sunday, for it's bad for soul and body--and\r
+the money as comes i' that way 'ull be a bad bed to lie down on at the\r
+last, if it doesn't fly away, nobody knows where, like the white frost.\r
+And you'll excuse me being that free with you, Master Marner, for I\r
+wish you well--I do. Make your bow, Aaron."\r
+\r
+Silas said "Good-bye, and thank you kindly," as he opened the door for\r
+Dolly, but he couldn't help feeling relieved when she was\r
+gone--relieved that he might weave again and moan at his ease. Her\r
+simple view of life and its comforts, by which she had tried to cheer\r
+him, was only like a report of unknown objects, which his imagination\r
+could not fashion. The fountains of human love and of faith in a\r
+divine love had not yet been unlocked, and his soul was still the\r
+shrunken rivulet, with only this difference, that its little groove of\r
+sand was blocked up, and it wandered confusedly against dark\r
+obstruction.\r
+\r
+And so, notwithstanding the honest persuasions of Mr. Macey and Dolly\r
+Winthrop, Silas spent his Christmas-day in loneliness, eating his meat\r
+in sadness of heart, though the meat had come to him as a neighbourly\r
+present. In the morning he looked out on the black frost that seemed\r
+to press cruelly on every blade of grass, while the half-icy red pool\r
+shivered under the bitter wind; but towards evening the snow began to\r
+fall, and curtained from him even that dreary outlook, shutting him\r
+close up with his narrow grief. And he sat in his robbed home through\r
+the livelong evening, not caring to close his shutters or lock his\r
+door, pressing his head between his hands and moaning, till the cold\r
+grasped him and told him that his fire was grey.\r
+\r
+Nobody in this world but himself knew that he was the same Silas Marner\r
+who had once loved his fellow with tender love, and trusted in an\r
+unseen goodness. Even to himself that past experience had become dim.\r
+\r
+But in Raveloe village the bells rang merrily, and the church was\r
+fuller than all through the rest of the year, with red faces among the\r
+abundant dark-green boughs--faces prepared for a longer service than\r
+usual by an odorous breakfast of toast and ale. Those green boughs,\r
+the hymn and anthem never heard but at Christmas--even the Athanasian\r
+Creed, which was discriminated from the others only as being longer and\r
+of exceptional virtue, since it was only read on rare\r
+occasions--brought a vague exulting sense, for which the grown men\r
+could as little have found words as the children, that something great\r
+and mysterious had been done for them in heaven above and in earth\r
+below, which they were appropriating by their presence. And then the\r
+red faces made their way through the black biting frost to their own\r
+homes, feeling themselves free for the rest of the day to eat, drink,\r
+and be merry, and using that Christian freedom without diffidence.\r
+\r
+At Squire Cass's family party that day nobody mentioned Dunstan--nobody\r
+was sorry for his absence, or feared it would be too long. The doctor\r
+and his wife, uncle and aunt Kimble, were there, and the annual\r
+Christmas talk was carried through without any omissions, rising to the\r
+climax of Mr. Kimble's experience when he walked the London hospitals\r
+thirty years back, together with striking professional anecdotes then\r
+gathered. Whereupon cards followed, with aunt Kimble's annual failure\r
+to follow suit, and uncle Kimble's irascibility concerning the odd\r
+trick which was rarely explicable to him, when it was not on his side,\r
+without a general visitation of tricks to see that they were formed on\r
+sound principles: the whole being accompanied by a strong steaming\r
+odour of spirits-and-water.\r
+\r
+But the party on Christmas-day, being a strictly family party, was not\r
+the pre-eminently brilliant celebration of the season at the Red House.\r
+It was the great dance on New Year's Eve that made the glory of Squire\r
+Cass's hospitality, as of his forefathers', time out of mind. This was\r
+the occasion when all the society of Raveloe and Tarley, whether old\r
+acquaintances separated by long rutty distances, or cooled\r
+acquaintances separated by misunderstandings concerning runaway calves,\r
+or acquaintances founded on intermittent condescension, counted on\r
+meeting and on comporting themselves with mutual appropriateness. This\r
+was the occasion on which fair dames who came on pillions sent their\r
+bandboxes before them, supplied with more than their evening costume;\r
+for the feast was not to end with a single evening, like a paltry town\r
+entertainment, where the whole supply of eatables is put on the table\r
+at once, and bedding is scanty. The Red House was provisioned as if\r
+for a siege; and as for the spare feather-beds ready to be laid on\r
+floors, they were as plentiful as might naturally be expected in a\r
+family that had killed its own geese for many generations.\r
+\r
+Godfrey Cass was looking forward to this New Year's Eve with a foolish\r
+reckless longing, that made him half deaf to his importunate companion,\r
+Anxiety.\r
+\r
+"Dunsey will be coming home soon: there will be a great blow-up, and\r
+how will you bribe his spite to silence?" said Anxiety.\r
+\r
+"Oh, he won't come home before New Year's Eve, perhaps," said Godfrey;\r
+"and I shall sit by Nancy then, and dance with her, and get a kind look\r
+from her in spite of herself."\r
+\r
+"But money is wanted in another quarter," said Anxiety, in a louder\r
+voice, "and how will you get it without selling your mother's diamond\r
+pin? And if you don't get it...?"\r
+\r
+"Well, but something may happen to make things easier. At any rate,\r
+there's one pleasure for me close at hand: Nancy is coming."\r
+\r
+"Yes, and suppose your father should bring matters to a pass that will\r
+oblige you to decline marrying her--and to give your reasons?"\r
+\r
+"Hold your tongue, and don't worry me. I can see Nancy's eyes, just as\r
+they will look at me, and feel her hand in mine already."\r
+\r
+But Anxiety went on, though in noisy Christmas company; refusing to be\r
+utterly quieted even by much drinking.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XI\r
+\r
+Some women, I grant, would not appear to advantage seated on a pillion,\r
+and attired in a drab joseph and a drab beaver-bonnet, with a crown\r
+resembling a small stew-pan; for a garment suggesting a coachman's\r
+greatcoat, cut out under an exiguity of cloth that would only allow of\r
+miniature capes, is not well adapted to conceal deficiencies of\r
+contour, nor is drab a colour that will throw sallow cheeks into lively\r
+contrast. It was all the greater triumph to Miss Nancy Lammeter's\r
+beauty that she looked thoroughly bewitching in that costume, as,\r
+seated on the pillion behind her tall, erect father, she held one arm\r
+round him, and looked down, with open-eyed anxiety, at the treacherous\r
+snow-covered pools and puddles, which sent up formidable splashings of\r
+mud under the stamp of Dobbin's foot. A painter would, perhaps, have\r
+preferred her in those moments when she was free from\r
+self-consciousness; but certainly the bloom on her cheeks was at its\r
+highest point of contrast with the surrounding drab when she arrived at\r
+the door of the Red House, and saw Mr. Godfrey Cass ready to lift her\r
+from the pillion. She wished her sister Priscilla had come up at the\r
+same time behind the servant, for then she would have contrived that\r
+Mr. Godfrey should have lifted off Priscilla first, and, in the\r
+meantime, she would have persuaded her father to go round to the\r
+horse-block instead of alighting at the door-steps. It was very\r
+painful, when you had made it quite clear to a young man that you were\r
+determined not to marry him, however much he might wish it, that he\r
+would still continue to pay you marked attentions; besides, why didn't\r
+he always show the same attentions, if he meant them sincerely, instead\r
+of being so strange as Mr. Godfrey Cass was, sometimes behaving as if\r
+he didn't want to speak to her, and taking no notice of her for weeks\r
+and weeks, and then, all on a sudden, almost making love again?\r
+Moreover, it was quite plain he had no real love for her, else he would\r
+not let people have _that_ to say of him which they did say. Did he\r
+suppose that Miss Nancy Lammeter was to be won by any man, squire or no\r
+squire, who led a bad life? That was not what she had been used to see\r
+in her own father, who was the soberest and best man in that\r
+country-side, only a little hot and hasty now and then, if things were\r
+not done to the minute.\r
+\r
+All these thoughts rushed through Miss Nancy's mind, in their habitual\r
+succession, in the moments between her first sight of Mr. Godfrey Cass\r
+standing at the door and her own arrival there. Happily, the Squire\r
+came out too and gave a loud greeting to her father, so that, somehow,\r
+under cover of this noise she seemed to find concealment for her\r
+confusion and neglect of any suitably formal behaviour, while she was\r
+being lifted from the pillion by strong arms which seemed to find her\r
+ridiculously small and light. And there was the best reason for\r
+hastening into the house at once, since the snow was beginning to fall\r
+again, threatening an unpleasant journey for such guests as were still\r
+on the road. These were a small minority; for already the afternoon\r
+was beginning to decline, and there would not be too much time for the\r
+ladies who came from a distance to attire themselves in readiness for\r
+the early tea which was to inspirit them for the dance.\r
+\r
+There was a buzz of voices through the house, as Miss Nancy entered,\r
+mingled with the scrape of a fiddle preluding in the kitchen; but the\r
+Lammeters were guests whose arrival had evidently been thought of so\r
+much that it had been watched for from the windows, for Mrs. Kimble,\r
+who did the honours at the Red House on these great occasions, came\r
+forward to meet Miss Nancy in the hall, and conduct her up-stairs.\r
+Mrs. Kimble was the Squire's sister, as well as the doctor's wife--a\r
+double dignity, with which her diameter was in direct proportion; so\r
+that, a journey up-stairs being rather fatiguing to her, she did not\r
+oppose Miss Nancy's request to be allowed to find her way alone to the\r
+Blue Room, where the Miss Lammeters' bandboxes had been deposited on\r
+their arrival in the morning.\r
+\r
+There was hardly a bedroom in the house where feminine compliments were\r
+not passing and feminine toilettes going forward, in various stages, in\r
+space made scanty by extra beds spread upon the floor; and Miss Nancy,\r
+as she entered the Blue Room, had to make her little formal curtsy to a\r
+group of six. On the one hand, there were ladies no less important\r
+than the two Miss Gunns, the wine merchant's daughters from Lytherly,\r
+dressed in the height of fashion, with the tightest skirts and the\r
+shortest waists, and gazed at by Miss Ladbrook (of the Old Pastures)\r
+with a shyness not unsustained by inward criticism. Partly, Miss\r
+Ladbrook felt that her own skirt must be regarded as unduly lax by the\r
+Miss Gunns, and partly, that it was a pity the Miss Gunns did not show\r
+that judgment which she herself would show if she were in their place,\r
+by stopping a little on this side of the fashion. On the other hand,\r
+Mrs. Ladbrook was standing in skull-cap and front, with her turban in\r
+her hand, curtsying and smiling blandly and saying, "After you, ma'am,"\r
+to another lady in similar circumstances, who had politely offered the\r
+precedence at the looking-glass.\r
+\r
+But Miss Nancy had no sooner made her curtsy than an elderly lady came\r
+forward, whose full white muslin kerchief, and mob-cap round her curls\r
+of smooth grey hair, were in daring contrast with the puffed yellow\r
+satins and top-knotted caps of her neighbours. She approached Miss\r
+Nancy with much primness, and said, with a slow, treble suavity--\r
+\r
+"Niece, I hope I see you well in health." Miss Nancy kissed her aunt's\r
+cheek dutifully, and answered, with the same sort of amiable primness,\r
+"Quite well, I thank you, aunt; and I hope I see you the same."\r
+\r
+"Thank you, niece; I keep my health for the present. And how is my\r
+brother-in-law?"\r
+\r
+These dutiful questions and answers were continued until it was\r
+ascertained in detail that the Lammeters were all as well as usual, and\r
+the Osgoods likewise, also that niece Priscilla must certainly arrive\r
+shortly, and that travelling on pillions in snowy weather was\r
+unpleasant, though a joseph was a great protection. Then Nancy was\r
+formally introduced to her aunt's visitors, the Miss Gunns, as being\r
+the daughters of a mother known to _their_ mother, though now for the\r
+first time induced to make a journey into these parts; and these ladies\r
+were so taken by surprise at finding such a lovely face and figure in\r
+an out-of-the-way country place, that they began to feel some curiosity\r
+about the dress she would put on when she took off her joseph. Miss\r
+Nancy, whose thoughts were always conducted with the propriety and\r
+moderation conspicuous in her manners, remarked to herself that the\r
+Miss Gunns were rather hard-featured than otherwise, and that such very\r
+low dresses as they wore might have been attributed to vanity if their\r
+shoulders had been pretty, but that, being as they were, it was not\r
+reasonable to suppose that they showed their necks from a love of\r
+display, but rather from some obligation not inconsistent with sense\r
+and modesty. She felt convinced, as she opened her box, that this must\r
+be her aunt Osgood's opinion, for Miss Nancy's mind resembled her\r
+aunt's to a degree that everybody said was surprising, considering the\r
+kinship was on Mr. Osgood's side; and though you might not have\r
+supposed it from the formality of their greeting, there was a devoted\r
+attachment and mutual admiration between aunt and niece. Even Miss\r
+Nancy's refusal of her cousin Gilbert Osgood (on the ground solely that\r
+he was her cousin), though it had grieved her aunt greatly, had not in\r
+the least cooled the preference which had determined her to leave Nancy\r
+several of her hereditary ornaments, let Gilbert's future wife be whom\r
+she might.\r
+\r
+Three of the ladies quickly retired, but the Miss Gunns were quite\r
+content that Mrs. Osgood's inclination to remain with her niece gave\r
+them also a reason for staying to see the rustic beauty's toilette. And\r
+it was really a pleasure--from the first opening of the bandbox, where\r
+everything smelt of lavender and rose-leaves, to the clasping of the\r
+small coral necklace that fitted closely round her little white neck.\r
+Everything belonging to Miss Nancy was of delicate purity and\r
+nattiness: not a crease was where it had no business to be, not a bit\r
+of her linen professed whiteness without fulfilling its profession; the\r
+very pins on her pincushion were stuck in after a pattern from which\r
+she was careful to allow no aberration; and as for her own person, it\r
+gave the same idea of perfect unvarying neatness as the body of a\r
+little bird. It is true that her light-brown hair was cropped behind\r
+like a boy's, and was dressed in front in a number of flat rings, that\r
+lay quite away from her face; but there was no sort of coiffure that\r
+could make Miss Nancy's cheek and neck look otherwise than pretty; and\r
+when at last she stood complete in her silvery twilled silk, her lace\r
+tucker, her coral necklace, and coral ear-drops, the Miss Gunns could\r
+see nothing to criticise except her hands, which bore the traces of\r
+butter-making, cheese-crushing, and even still coarser work. But Miss\r
+Nancy was not ashamed of that, for even while she was dressing she\r
+narrated to her aunt how she and Priscilla had packed their boxes\r
+yesterday, because this morning was baking morning, and since they were\r
+leaving home, it was desirable to make a good supply of meat-pies for\r
+the kitchen; and as she concluded this judicious remark, she turned to\r
+the Miss Gunns that she might not commit the rudeness of not including\r
+them in the conversation. The Miss Gunns smiled stiffly, and thought\r
+what a pity it was that these rich country people, who could afford to\r
+buy such good clothes (really Miss Nancy's lace and silk were very\r
+costly), should be brought up in utter ignorance and vulgarity. She\r
+actually said "mate" for "meat", "'appen" for "perhaps", and "oss" for\r
+"horse", which, to young ladies living in good Lytherly society, who\r
+habitually said 'orse, even in domestic privacy, and only said 'appen\r
+on the right occasions, was necessarily shocking. Miss Nancy, indeed,\r
+had never been to any school higher than Dame Tedman's: her\r
+acquaintance with profane literature hardly went beyond the rhymes she\r
+had worked in her large sampler under the lamb and the shepherdess; and\r
+in order to balance an account, she was obliged to effect her\r
+subtraction by removing visible metallic shillings and sixpences from a\r
+visible metallic total. There is hardly a servant-maid in these days\r
+who is not better informed than Miss Nancy; yet she had the essential\r
+attributes of a lady--high veracity, delicate honour in her dealings,\r
+deference to others, and refined personal habits,--and lest these\r
+should not suffice to convince grammatical fair ones that her feelings\r
+can at all resemble theirs, I will add that she was slightly proud and\r
+exacting, and as constant in her affection towards a baseless opinion\r
+as towards an erring lover.\r
+\r
+The anxiety about sister Priscilla, which had grown rather active by\r
+the time the coral necklace was clasped, was happily ended by the\r
+entrance of that cheerful-looking lady herself, with a face made blowsy\r
+by cold and damp. After the first questions and greetings, she turned\r
+to Nancy, and surveyed her from head to foot--then wheeled her round,\r
+to ascertain that the back view was equally faultless.\r
+\r
+"What do you think o' _these_ gowns, aunt Osgood?" said Priscilla,\r
+while Nancy helped her to unrobe.\r
+\r
+"Very handsome indeed, niece," said Mrs. Osgood, with a slight increase\r
+of formality. She always thought niece Priscilla too rough.\r
+\r
+"I'm obliged to have the same as Nancy, you know, for all I'm five\r
+years older, and it makes me look yallow; for she never _will_ have\r
+anything without I have mine just like it, because she wants us to look\r
+like sisters. And I tell her, folks 'ull think it's my weakness makes\r
+me fancy as I shall look pretty in what she looks pretty in. For I\r
+_am_ ugly--there's no denying that: I feature my father's family. But,\r
+law! I don't mind, do you?" Priscilla here turned to the Miss Gunns,\r
+rattling on in too much preoccupation with the delight of talking, to\r
+notice that her candour was not appreciated. "The pretty uns do for\r
+fly-catchers--they keep the men off us. I've no opinion o' the men,\r
+Miss Gunn--I don't know what _you_ have. And as for fretting and\r
+stewing about what _they_'ll think of you from morning till night, and\r
+making your life uneasy about what they're doing when they're out o'\r
+your sight--as I tell Nancy, it's a folly no woman need be guilty of,\r
+if she's got a good father and a good home: let her leave it to them as\r
+have got no fortin, and can't help themselves. As I say, Mr.\r
+Have-your-own-way is the best husband, and the only one I'd ever\r
+promise to obey. I know it isn't pleasant, when you've been used to\r
+living in a big way, and managing hogsheads and all that, to go and put\r
+your nose in by somebody else's fireside, or to sit down by yourself to\r
+a scrag or a knuckle; but, thank God! my father's a sober man and\r
+likely to live; and if you've got a man by the chimney-corner, it\r
+doesn't matter if he's childish--the business needn't be broke up."\r
+\r
+The delicate process of getting her narrow gown over her head without\r
+injury to her smooth curls, obliged Miss Priscilla to pause in this\r
+rapid survey of life, and Mrs. Osgood seized the opportunity of rising\r
+and saying--\r
+\r
+"Well, niece, you'll follow us. The Miss Gunns will like to go down."\r
+\r
+"Sister," said Nancy, when they were alone, "you've offended the Miss\r
+Gunns, I'm sure."\r
+\r
+"What have I done, child?" said Priscilla, in some alarm.\r
+\r
+"Why, you asked them if they minded about being ugly--you're so very\r
+blunt."\r
+\r
+"Law, did I? Well, it popped out: it's a mercy I said no more, for I'm\r
+a bad un to live with folks when they don't like the truth. But as for\r
+being ugly, look at me, child, in this silver-coloured silk--I told you\r
+how it 'ud be--I look as yallow as a daffadil. Anybody 'ud say you\r
+wanted to make a mawkin of me."\r
+\r
+"No, Priscy, don't say so. I begged and prayed of you not to let us\r
+have this silk if you'd like another better. I was willing to have\r
+_your_ choice, you know I was," said Nancy, in anxious self-vindication.\r
+\r
+"Nonsense, child! you know you'd set your heart on this; and reason\r
+good, for you're the colour o' cream. It 'ud be fine doings for you to\r
+dress yourself to suit _my_ skin. What I find fault with, is that\r
+notion o' yours as I must dress myself just like you. But you do as you\r
+like with me--you always did, from when first you begun to walk. If\r
+you wanted to go the field's length, the field's length you'd go; and\r
+there was no whipping you, for you looked as prim and innicent as a\r
+daisy all the while."\r
+\r
+"Priscy," said Nancy, gently, as she fastened a coral necklace, exactly\r
+like her own, round Priscilla's neck, which was very far from being\r
+like her own, "I'm sure I'm willing to give way as far as is right, but\r
+who shouldn't dress alike if it isn't sisters? Would you have us go\r
+about looking as if we were no kin to one another--us that have got no\r
+mother and not another sister in the world? I'd do what was right, if\r
+I dressed in a gown dyed with cheese-colouring; and I'd rather you'd\r
+choose, and let me wear what pleases you."\r
+\r
+"There you go again! You'd come round to the same thing if one talked\r
+to you from Saturday night till Saturday morning. It'll be fine fun to\r
+see how you'll master your husband and never raise your voice above the\r
+singing o' the kettle all the while. I like to see the men mastered!"\r
+\r
+"Don't talk _so_, Priscy," said Nancy, blushing. "You know I don't\r
+mean ever to be married."\r
+\r
+"Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick's end!" said Priscilla, as she\r
+arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox. "Who shall _I_\r
+have to work for when father's gone, if you are to go and take notions\r
+in your head and be an old maid, because some folks are no better than\r
+they should be? I haven't a bit o' patience with you--sitting on an\r
+addled egg for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the world.\r
+One old maid's enough out o' two sisters; and I shall do credit to a\r
+single life, for God A'mighty meant me for it. Come, we can go down\r
+now. I'm as ready as a mawkin _can_ be--there's nothing awanting to\r
+frighten the crows, now I've got my ear-droppers in."\r
+\r
+As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the large parlour together, any\r
+one who did not know the character of both might certainly have\r
+supposed that the reason why the square-shouldered, clumsy,\r
+high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the facsimile of her pretty\r
+sister's, was either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the malicious\r
+contrivance of the other in order to set off her own rare beauty. But\r
+the good-natured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense of\r
+Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one suspicion; and the modest\r
+calm of Nancy's speech and manners told clearly of a mind free from all\r
+disavowed devices.\r
+\r
+Places of honour had been kept for the Miss Lammeters near the head of\r
+the principal tea-table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking fresh\r
+and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, yew, and laurel, from the\r
+abundant growths of the old garden; and Nancy felt an inward flutter,\r
+that no firmness of purpose could prevent, when she saw Mr. Godfrey\r
+Cass advancing to lead her to a seat between himself and Mr.\r
+Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called to the opposite side between\r
+her father and the Squire. It certainly did make some difference to\r
+Nancy that the lover she had given up was the young man of quite the\r
+highest consequence in the parish--at home in a venerable and unique\r
+parlour, which was the extremity of grandeur in her experience, a\r
+parlour where _she_ might one day have been mistress, with the\r
+consciousness that she was spoken of as "Madam Cass", the Squire's\r
+wife. These circumstances exalted her inward drama in her own eyes,\r
+and deepened the emphasis with which she declared to herself that not\r
+the most dazzling rank should induce her to marry a man whose conduct\r
+showed him careless of his character, but that, "love once, love\r
+always", was the motto of a true and pure woman, and no man should ever\r
+have any right over her which would be a call on her to destroy the\r
+dried flowers that she treasured, and always would treasure, for\r
+Godfrey Cass's sake. And Nancy was capable of keeping her word to\r
+herself under very trying conditions. Nothing but a becoming blush\r
+betrayed the moving thoughts that urged themselves upon her as she\r
+accepted the seat next to Mr. Crackenthorp; for she was so\r
+instinctively neat and adroit in all her actions, and her pretty lips\r
+met each other with such quiet firmness, that it would have been\r
+difficult for her to appear agitated.\r
+\r
+It was not the rector's practice to let a charming blush pass without\r
+an appropriate compliment. He was not in the least lofty or\r
+aristocratic, but simply a merry-eyed, small-featured, grey-haired man,\r
+with his chin propped by an ample, many-creased white neckcloth which\r
+seemed to predominate over every other point in his person, and somehow\r
+to impress its peculiar character on his remarks; so that to have\r
+considered his amenities apart from his cravat would have been a\r
+severe, and perhaps a dangerous, effort of abstraction.\r
+\r
+"Ha, Miss Nancy," he said, turning his head within his cravat and\r
+smiling down pleasantly upon her, "when anybody pretends this has been\r
+a severe winter, I shall tell them I saw the roses blooming on New\r
+Year's Eve--eh, Godfrey, what do _you_ say?"\r
+\r
+Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking at Nancy very markedly; for\r
+though these complimentary personalities were held to be in excellent\r
+taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent love has a politeness\r
+of its own which it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling. But\r
+the Squire was rather impatient at Godfrey's showing himself a dull\r
+spark in this way. By this advanced hour of the day, the Squire was\r
+always in higher spirits than we have seen him in at the\r
+breakfast-table, and felt it quite pleasant to fulfil the hereditary\r
+duty of being noisily jovial and patronizing: the large silver\r
+snuff-box was in active service and was offered without fail to all\r
+neighbours from time to time, however often they might have declined\r
+the favour. At present, the Squire had only given an express welcome\r
+to the heads of families as they appeared; but always as the evening\r
+deepened, his hospitality rayed out more widely, till he had tapped the\r
+youngest guests on the back and shown a peculiar fondness for their\r
+presence, in the full belief that they must feel their lives made happy\r
+by their belonging to a parish where there was such a hearty man as\r
+Squire Cass to invite them and wish them well. Even in this early\r
+stage of the jovial mood, it was natural that he should wish to supply\r
+his son's deficiencies by looking and speaking for him.\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye," he began, offering his snuff-box to Mr. Lammeter, who for\r
+the second time bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff rejection of\r
+the offer, "us old fellows may wish ourselves young to-night, when we\r
+see the mistletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It's true, most things\r
+are gone back'ard in these last thirty years--the country's going down\r
+since the old king fell ill. But when I look at Miss Nancy here, I\r
+begin to think the lasses keep up their quality;--ding me if I remember\r
+a sample to match her, not when I was a fine young fellow, and thought\r
+a deal about my pigtail. No offence to you, madam," he added, bending\r
+to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by him, "I didn't know _you_ when you\r
+were as young as Miss Nancy here."\r
+\r
+Mrs. Crackenthorp--a small blinking woman, who fidgeted incessantly\r
+with her lace, ribbons, and gold chain, turning her head about and\r
+making subdued noises, very much like a guinea-pig that twitches its\r
+nose and soliloquizes in all company indiscriminately--now blinked and\r
+fidgeted towards the Squire, and said, "Oh, no--no offence."\r
+\r
+This emphatic compliment of the Squire's to Nancy was felt by others\r
+besides Godfrey to have a diplomatic significance; and her father gave\r
+a slight additional erectness to his back, as he looked across the\r
+table at her with complacent gravity. That grave and orderly senior\r
+was not going to bate a jot of his dignity by seeming elated at the\r
+notion of a match between his family and the Squire's: he was gratified\r
+by any honour paid to his daughter; but he must see an alteration in\r
+several ways before his consent would be vouchsafed. His spare but\r
+healthy person, and high-featured firm face, that looked as if it had\r
+never been flushed by excess, was in strong contrast, not only with the\r
+Squire's, but with the appearance of the Raveloe farmers generally--in\r
+accordance with a favourite saying of his own, that "breed was stronger\r
+than pasture".\r
+\r
+"Miss Nancy's wonderful like what her mother was, though; isn't she,\r
+Kimble?" said the stout lady of that name, looking round for her\r
+husband.\r
+\r
+But Doctor Kimble (country apothecaries in old days enjoyed that title\r
+without authority of diploma), being a thin and agile man, was flitting\r
+about the room with his hands in his pockets, making himself agreeable\r
+to his feminine patients, with medical impartiality, and being welcomed\r
+everywhere as a doctor by hereditary right--not one of those miserable\r
+apothecaries who canvass for practice in strange neighbourhoods, and\r
+spend all their income in starving their one horse, but a man of\r
+substance, able to keep an extravagant table like the best of his\r
+patients. Time out of mind the Raveloe doctor had been a Kimble;\r
+Kimble was inherently a doctor's name; and it was difficult to\r
+contemplate firmly the melancholy fact that the actual Kimble had no\r
+son, so that his practice might one day be handed over to a successor\r
+with the incongruous name of Taylor or Johnson. But in that case the\r
+wiser people in Raveloe would employ Dr. Blick of Flitton--as less\r
+unnatural.\r
+\r
+"Did you speak to me, my dear?" said the authentic doctor, coming\r
+quickly to his wife's side; but, as if foreseeing that she would be too\r
+much out of breath to repeat her remark, he went on immediately--"Ha,\r
+Miss Priscilla, the sight of you revives the taste of that\r
+super-excellent pork-pie. I hope the batch isn't near an end."\r
+\r
+"Yes, indeed, it is, doctor," said Priscilla; "but I'll answer for it\r
+the next shall be as good. My pork-pies don't turn out well by chance."\r
+\r
+"Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble?--because folks forget to take\r
+your physic, eh?" said the Squire, who regarded physic and doctors as\r
+many loyal churchmen regard the church and the clergy--tasting a joke\r
+against them when he was in health, but impatiently eager for their aid\r
+when anything was the matter with him. He tapped his box, and looked\r
+round with a triumphant laugh.\r
+\r
+"Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla has," said the doctor,\r
+choosing to attribute the epigram to a lady rather than allow a\r
+brother-in-law that advantage over him. "She saves a little pepper to\r
+sprinkle over her talk--that's the reason why she never puts too much\r
+into her pies. There's my wife now, she never has an answer at her\r
+tongue's end; but if I offend her, she's sure to scarify my throat with\r
+black pepper the next day, or else give me the colic with watery\r
+greens. That's an awful tit-for-tat." Here the vivacious doctor made\r
+a pathetic grimace.\r
+\r
+"Did you ever hear the like?" said Mrs. Kimble, laughing above her\r
+double chin with much good-humour, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who\r
+blinked and nodded, and seemed to intend a smile, which, by the\r
+correlation of forces, went off in small twitchings and noises.\r
+\r
+"I suppose that's the sort of tit-for-tat adopted in your profession,\r
+Kimble, if you've a grudge against a patient," said the rector.\r
+\r
+"Never do have a grudge against our patients," said Mr. Kimble, "except\r
+when they leave us: and then, you see, we haven't the chance of\r
+prescribing for 'em. Ha, Miss Nancy," he continued, suddenly skipping\r
+to Nancy's side, "you won't forget your promise? You're to save a dance\r
+for me, you know."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, Kimble, don't you be too for'ard," said the Squire. "Give\r
+the young uns fair-play. There's my son Godfrey'll be wanting to have\r
+a round with you if you run off with Miss Nancy. He's bespoke her for\r
+the first dance, I'll be bound. Eh, sir! what do you say?" he\r
+continued, throwing himself backward, and looking at Godfrey. "Haven't\r
+you asked Miss Nancy to open the dance with you?"\r
+\r
+Godfrey, sorely uncomfortable under this significant insistence about\r
+Nancy, and afraid to think where it would end by the time his father\r
+had set his usual hospitable example of drinking before and after\r
+supper, saw no course open but to turn to Nancy and say, with as little\r
+awkwardness as possible--\r
+\r
+"No; I've not asked her yet, but I hope she'll consent--if somebody\r
+else hasn't been before me."\r
+\r
+"No, I've not engaged myself," said Nancy, quietly, though blushingly.\r
+(If Mr. Godfrey founded any hopes on her consenting to dance with him,\r
+he would soon be undeceived; but there was no need for her to be\r
+uncivil.)\r
+\r
+"Then I hope you've no objections to dancing with me," said Godfrey,\r
+beginning to lose the sense that there was anything uncomfortable in\r
+this arrangement.\r
+\r
+"No, no objections," said Nancy, in a cold tone.\r
+\r
+"Ah, well, you're a lucky fellow, Godfrey," said uncle Kimble; "but\r
+you're my godson, so I won't stand in your way. Else I'm not so very\r
+old, eh, my dear?" he went on, skipping to his wife's side again.\r
+"You wouldn't mind my having a second after you were gone--not if I\r
+cried a good deal first?"\r
+\r
+"Come, come, take a cup o' tea and stop your tongue, do," said\r
+good-humoured Mrs. Kimble, feeling some pride in a husband who must be\r
+regarded as so clever and amusing by the company generally. If he had\r
+only not been irritable at cards!\r
+\r
+While safe, well-tested personalities were enlivening the tea in this\r
+way, the sound of the fiddle approaching within a distance at which it\r
+could be heard distinctly, made the young people look at each other\r
+with sympathetic impatience for the end of the meal.\r
+\r
+"Why, there's Solomon in the hall," said the Squire, "and playing my\r
+fav'rite tune, _I_ believe--"The flaxen-headed ploughboy"--he's for\r
+giving us a hint as we aren't enough in a hurry to hear him play.\r
+Bob," he called out to his third long-legged son, who was at the other\r
+end of the room, "open the door, and tell Solomon to come in. He shall\r
+give us a tune here."\r
+\r
+Bob obeyed, and Solomon walked in, fiddling as he walked, for he would\r
+on no account break off in the middle of a tune.\r
+\r
+"Here, Solomon," said the Squire, with loud patronage. "Round here, my\r
+man. Ah, I knew it was "The flaxen-headed ploughboy": there's no finer\r
+tune."\r
+\r
+Solomon Macey, a small hale old man with an abundant crop of long white\r
+hair reaching nearly to his shoulders, advanced to the indicated spot,\r
+bowing reverently while he fiddled, as much as to say that he respected\r
+the company, though he respected the key-note more. As soon as he had\r
+repeated the tune and lowered his fiddle, he bowed again to the Squire\r
+and the rector, and said, "I hope I see your honour and your reverence\r
+well, and wishing you health and long life and a happy New Year. And\r
+wishing the same to you, Mr. Lammeter, sir; and to the other gentlemen,\r
+and the madams, and the young lasses."\r
+\r
+As Solomon uttered the last words, he bowed in all directions\r
+solicitously, lest he should be wanting in due respect. But thereupon\r
+he immediately began to prelude, and fell into the tune which he knew\r
+would be taken as a special compliment by Mr. Lammeter.\r
+\r
+"Thank ye, Solomon, thank ye," said Mr. Lammeter when the fiddle paused\r
+again. "That's "Over the hills and far away", that is. My father used\r
+to say to me, whenever we heard that tune, "Ah, lad, _I_ come from over\r
+the hills and far away." There's a many tunes I don't make head or\r
+tail of; but that speaks to me like the blackbird's whistle. I suppose\r
+it's the name: there's a deal in the name of a tune."\r
+\r
+But Solomon was already impatient to prelude again, and presently broke\r
+with much spirit into "Sir Roger de Coverley", at which there was a\r
+sound of chairs pushed back, and laughing voices.\r
+\r
+"Aye, aye, Solomon, we know what that means," said the Squire, rising.\r
+"It's time to begin the dance, eh? Lead the way, then, and we'll all\r
+follow you."\r
+\r
+So Solomon, holding his white head on one side, and playing vigorously,\r
+marched forward at the head of the gay procession into the White\r
+Parlour, where the mistletoe-bough was hung, and multitudinous tallow\r
+candles made rather a brilliant effect, gleaming from among the berried\r
+holly-boughs, and reflected in the old-fashioned oval mirrors fastened\r
+in the panels of the white wainscot. A quaint procession! Old\r
+Solomon, in his seedy clothes and long white locks, seemed to be luring\r
+that decent company by the magic scream of his fiddle--luring discreet\r
+matrons in turban-shaped caps, nay, Mrs. Crackenthorp herself, the\r
+summit of whose perpendicular feather was on a level with the Squire's\r
+shoulder--luring fair lasses complacently conscious of very short\r
+waists and skirts blameless of front-folds--luring burly fathers in\r
+large variegated waistcoats, and ruddy sons, for the most part shy and\r
+sheepish, in short nether garments and very long coat-tails.\r
+\r
+Already Mr. Macey and a few other privileged villagers, who were\r
+allowed to be spectators on these great occasions, were seated on\r
+benches placed for them near the door; and great was the admiration and\r
+satisfaction in that quarter when the couples had formed themselves for\r
+the dance, and the Squire led off with Mrs. Crackenthorp, joining hands\r
+with the rector and Mrs. Osgood. That was as it should be--that was\r
+what everybody had been used to--and the charter of Raveloe seemed to\r
+be renewed by the ceremony. It was not thought of as an unbecoming\r
+levity for the old and middle-aged people to dance a little before\r
+sitting down to cards, but rather as part of their social duties. For\r
+what were these if not to be merry at appropriate times, interchanging\r
+visits and poultry with due frequency, paying each other\r
+old-established compliments in sound traditional phrases, passing\r
+well-tried personal jokes, urging your guests to eat and drink too much\r
+out of hospitality, and eating and drinking too much in your\r
+neighbour's house to show that you liked your cheer? And the parson\r
+naturally set an example in these social duties. For it would not have\r
+been possible for the Raveloe mind, without a peculiar revelation, to\r
+know that a clergyman should be a pale-faced memento of solemnities,\r
+instead of a reasonably faulty man whose exclusive authority to read\r
+prayers and preach, to christen, marry, and bury you, necessarily\r
+coexisted with the right to sell you the ground to be buried in and to\r
+take tithe in kind; on which last point, of course, there was a little\r
+grumbling, but not to the extent of irreligion--not of deeper\r
+significance than the grumbling at the rain, which was by no means\r
+accompanied with a spirit of impious defiance, but with a desire that\r
+the prayer for fine weather might be read forthwith.\r
+\r
+There was no reason, then, why the rector's dancing should not be\r
+received as part of the fitness of things quite as much as the\r
+Squire's, or why, on the other hand, Mr. Macey's official respect\r
+should restrain him from subjecting the parson's performance to that\r
+criticism with which minds of extraordinary acuteness must necessarily\r
+contemplate the doings of their fallible fellow-men.\r
+\r
+"The Squire's pretty springe, considering his weight," said Mr. Macey,\r
+"and he stamps uncommon well. But Mr. Lammeter beats 'em all for\r
+shapes: you see he holds his head like a sodger, and he isn't so\r
+cushiony as most o' the oldish gentlefolks--they run fat in general;\r
+and he's got a fine leg. The parson's nimble enough, but he hasn't got\r
+much of a leg: it's a bit too thick down'ard, and his knees might be a\r
+bit nearer wi'out damage; but he might do worse, he might do worse.\r
+Though he hasn't that grand way o' waving his hand as the Squire has."\r
+\r
+"Talk o' nimbleness, look at Mrs. Osgood," said Ben Winthrop, who was\r
+holding his son Aaron between his knees. "She trips along with her\r
+little steps, so as nobody can see how she goes--it's like as if she\r
+had little wheels to her feet. She doesn't look a day older nor last\r
+year: she's the finest-made woman as is, let the next be where she\r
+will."\r
+\r
+"I don't heed how the women are made," said Mr. Macey, with some\r
+contempt. "They wear nayther coat nor breeches: you can't make much\r
+out o' their shapes."\r
+\r
+"Fayder," said Aaron, whose feet were busy beating out the tune, "how\r
+does that big cock's-feather stick in Mrs. Crackenthorp's yead? Is\r
+there a little hole for it, like in my shuttle-cock?"\r
+\r
+"Hush, lad, hush; that's the way the ladies dress theirselves, that\r
+is," said the father, adding, however, in an undertone to Mr. Macey,\r
+"It does make her look funny, though--partly like a short-necked bottle\r
+wi' a long quill in it. Hey, by jingo, there's the young Squire\r
+leading off now, wi' Miss Nancy for partners! There's a lass for\r
+you!--like a pink-and-white posy--there's nobody 'ud think as anybody\r
+could be so pritty. I shouldn't wonder if she's Madam Cass some day,\r
+arter all--and nobody more rightfuller, for they'd make a fine match.\r
+You can find nothing against Master Godfrey's shapes, Macey, _I_'ll bet\r
+a penny."\r
+\r
+Mr. Macey screwed up his mouth, leaned his head further on one side,\r
+and twirled his thumbs with a presto movement as his eyes followed\r
+Godfrey up the dance. At last he summed up his opinion.\r
+\r
+"Pretty well down'ard, but a bit too round i' the shoulder-blades. And\r
+as for them coats as he gets from the Flitton tailor, they're a poor\r
+cut to pay double money for."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Mr. Macey, you and me are two folks," said Ben, slightly indignant\r
+at this carping. "When I've got a pot o' good ale, I like to swaller\r
+it, and do my inside good, i'stead o' smelling and staring at it to see\r
+if I can't find faut wi' the brewing. I should like you to pick me out\r
+a finer-limbed young fellow nor Master Godfrey--one as 'ud knock you\r
+down easier, or 's more pleasanter-looksed when he's piert and merry."\r
+\r
+"Tchuh!" said Mr. Macey, provoked to increased severity, "he isn't\r
+come to his right colour yet: he's partly like a slack-baked pie. And\r
+I doubt he's got a soft place in his head, else why should he be turned\r
+round the finger by that offal Dunsey as nobody's seen o' late, and let\r
+him kill that fine hunting hoss as was the talk o' the country? And\r
+one while he was allays after Miss Nancy, and then it all went off\r
+again, like a smell o' hot porridge, as I may say. That wasn't my way\r
+when _I_ went a-coorting."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but mayhap Miss Nancy hung off, like, and your lass didn't," said\r
+Ben.\r
+\r
+"I should say she didn't," said Mr. Macey, significantly. "Before I\r
+said "sniff", I took care to know as she'd say "snaff", and pretty\r
+quick too. I wasn't a-going to open _my_ mouth, like a dog at a fly,\r
+and snap it to again, wi' nothing to swaller."\r
+\r
+"Well, I think Miss Nancy's a-coming round again," said Ben, "for\r
+Master Godfrey doesn't look so down-hearted to-night. And I see he's\r
+for taking her away to sit down, now they're at the end o' the dance:\r
+that looks like sweethearting, that does."\r
+\r
+The reason why Godfrey and Nancy had left the dance was not so tender\r
+as Ben imagined. In the close press of couples a slight accident had\r
+happened to Nancy's dress, which, while it was short enough to show her\r
+neat ankle in front, was long enough behind to be caught under the\r
+stately stamp of the Squire's foot, so as to rend certain stitches at\r
+the waist, and cause much sisterly agitation in Priscilla's mind, as\r
+well as serious concern in Nancy's. One's thoughts may be much\r
+occupied with love-struggles, but hardly so as to be insensible to a\r
+disorder in the general framework of things. Nancy had no sooner\r
+completed her duty in the figure they were dancing than she said to\r
+Godfrey, with a deep blush, that she must go and sit down till\r
+Priscilla could come to her; for the sisters had already exchanged a\r
+short whisper and an open-eyed glance full of meaning. No reason less\r
+urgent than this could have prevailed on Nancy to give Godfrey this\r
+opportunity of sitting apart with her. As for Godfrey, he was feeling\r
+so happy and oblivious under the long charm of the country-dance with\r
+Nancy, that he got rather bold on the strength of her confusion, and\r
+was capable of leading her straight away, without leave asked, into the\r
+adjoining small parlour, where the card-tables were set.\r
+\r
+"Oh no, thank you," said Nancy, coldly, as soon as she perceived where\r
+he was going, "not in there. I'll wait here till Priscilla's ready to\r
+come to me. I'm sorry to bring you out of the dance and make myself\r
+troublesome."\r
+\r
+"Why, you'll be more comfortable here by yourself," said the artful\r
+Godfrey: "I'll leave you here till your sister can come." He spoke in\r
+an indifferent tone.\r
+\r
+That was an agreeable proposition, and just what Nancy desired; why,\r
+then, was she a little hurt that Mr. Godfrey should make it? They\r
+entered, and she seated herself on a chair against one of the\r
+card-tables, as the stiffest and most unapproachable position she could\r
+choose.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, sir," she said immediately. "I needn't give you any more\r
+trouble. I'm sorry you've had such an unlucky partner."\r
+\r
+"That's very ill-natured of you," said Godfrey, standing by her without\r
+any sign of intended departure, "to be sorry you've danced with me."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, sir, I don't mean to say what's ill-natured at all," said\r
+Nancy, looking distractingly prim and pretty. "When gentlemen have so\r
+many pleasures, one dance can matter but very little."\r
+\r
+"You know that isn't true. You know one dance with you matters more to\r
+me than all the other pleasures in the world."\r
+\r
+It was a long, long while since Godfrey had said anything so direct as\r
+that, and Nancy was startled. But her instinctive dignity and\r
+repugnance to any show of emotion made her sit perfectly still, and\r
+only throw a little more decision into her voice, as she said--\r
+\r
+"No, indeed, Mr. Godfrey, that's not known to me, and I have very good\r
+reasons for thinking different. But if it's true, I don't wish to hear\r
+it."\r
+\r
+"Would you never forgive me, then, Nancy--never think well of me, let\r
+what would happen--would you never think the present made amends for\r
+the past? Not if I turned a good fellow, and gave up everything you\r
+didn't like?"\r
+\r
+Godfrey was half conscious that this sudden opportunity of speaking to\r
+Nancy alone had driven him beside himself; but blind feeling had got\r
+the mastery of his tongue. Nancy really felt much agitated by the\r
+possibility Godfrey's words suggested, but this very pressure of\r
+emotion that she was in danger of finding too strong for her roused all\r
+her power of self-command.\r
+\r
+"I should be glad to see a good change in anybody, Mr. Godfrey," she\r
+answered, with the slightest discernible difference of tone, "but it\r
+'ud be better if no change was wanted."\r
+\r
+"You're very hard-hearted, Nancy," said Godfrey, pettishly. "You might\r
+encourage me to be a better fellow. I'm very miserable--but you've no\r
+feeling."\r
+\r
+"I think those have the least feeling that act wrong to begin with,"\r
+said Nancy, sending out a flash in spite of herself. Godfrey was\r
+delighted with that little flash, and would have liked to go on and\r
+make her quarrel with him; Nancy was so exasperatingly quiet and firm.\r
+But she was not indifferent to him _yet_, though--\r
+\r
+The entrance of Priscilla, bustling forward and saying, "Dear heart\r
+alive, child, let us look at this gown," cut off Godfrey's hopes of a\r
+quarrel.\r
+\r
+"I suppose I must go now," he said to Priscilla.\r
+\r
+"It's no matter to me whether you go or stay," said that frank lady,\r
+searching for something in her pocket, with a preoccupied brow.\r
+\r
+"Do _you_ want me to go?" said Godfrey, looking at Nancy, who was now\r
+standing up by Priscilla's order.\r
+\r
+"As you like," said Nancy, trying to recover all her former coldness,\r
+and looking down carefully at the hem of her gown.\r
+\r
+"Then I like to stay," said Godfrey, with a reckless determination to\r
+get as much of this joy as he could to-night, and think nothing of the\r
+morrow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XII\r
+\r
+While Godfrey Cass was taking draughts of forgetfulness from the sweet\r
+presence of Nancy, willingly losing all sense of that hidden bond which\r
+at other moments galled and fretted him so as to mingle irritation with\r
+the very sunshine, Godfrey's wife was walking with slow uncertain steps\r
+through the snow-covered Raveloe lanes, carrying her child in her arms.\r
+\r
+This journey on New Year's Eve was a premeditated act of vengeance\r
+which she had kept in her heart ever since Godfrey, in a fit of\r
+passion, had told her he would sooner die than acknowledge her as his\r
+wife. There would be a great party at the Red House on New Year's Eve,\r
+she knew: her husband would be smiling and smiled upon, hiding _her_\r
+existence in the darkest corner of his heart. But she would mar his\r
+pleasure: she would go in her dingy rags, with her faded face, once as\r
+handsome as the best, with her little child that had its father's hair\r
+and eyes, and disclose herself to the Squire as his eldest son's wife.\r
+It is seldom that the miserable can help regarding their misery as a\r
+wrong inflicted by those who are less miserable. Molly knew that the\r
+cause of her dingy rags was not her husband's neglect, but the demon\r
+Opium to whom she was enslaved, body and soul, except in the lingering\r
+mother's tenderness that refused to give him her hungry child. She\r
+knew this well; and yet, in the moments of wretched unbenumbed\r
+consciousness, the sense of her want and degradation transformed itself\r
+continually into bitterness towards Godfrey. _He_ was well off; and if\r
+she had her rights she would be well off too. The belief that he\r
+repented his marriage, and suffered from it, only aggravated her\r
+vindictiveness. Just and self-reproving thoughts do not come to us too\r
+thickly, even in the purest air, and with the best lessons of heaven\r
+and earth; how should those white-winged delicate messengers make their\r
+way to Molly's poisoned chamber, inhabited by no higher memories than\r
+those of a barmaid's paradise of pink ribbons and gentlemen's jokes?\r
+\r
+She had set out at an early hour, but had lingered on the road,\r
+inclined by her indolence to believe that if she waited under a warm\r
+shed the snow would cease to fall. She had waited longer than she\r
+knew, and now that she found herself belated in the snow-hidden\r
+ruggedness of the long lanes, even the animation of a vindictive\r
+purpose could not keep her spirit from failing. It was seven o'clock,\r
+and by this time she was not very far from Raveloe, but she was not\r
+familiar enough with those monotonous lanes to know how near she was to\r
+her journey's end. She needed comfort, and she knew but one\r
+comforter--the familiar demon in her bosom; but she hesitated a moment,\r
+after drawing out the black remnant, before she raised it to her lips.\r
+In that moment the mother's love pleaded for painful consciousness\r
+rather than oblivion--pleaded to be left in aching weariness, rather\r
+than to have the encircling arms benumbed so that they could not feel\r
+the dear burden. In another moment Molly had flung something away, but\r
+it was not the black remnant--it was an empty phial. And she walked on\r
+again under the breaking cloud, from which there came now and then the\r
+light of a quickly veiled star, for a freezing wind had sprung up since\r
+the snowing had ceased. But she walked always more and more drowsily,\r
+and clutched more and more automatically the sleeping child at her\r
+bosom.\r
+\r
+Slowly the demon was working his will, and cold and weariness were his\r
+helpers. Soon she felt nothing but a supreme immediate longing that\r
+curtained off all futurity--the longing to lie down and sleep. She had\r
+arrived at a spot where her footsteps were no longer checked by a\r
+hedgerow, and she had wandered vaguely, unable to distinguish any\r
+objects, notwithstanding the wide whiteness around her, and the growing\r
+starlight. She sank down against a straggling furze bush, an easy\r
+pillow enough; and the bed of snow, too, was soft. She did not feel\r
+that the bed was cold, and did not heed whether the child would wake\r
+and cry for her. But her arms had not yet relaxed their instinctive\r
+clutch; and the little one slumbered on as gently as if it had been\r
+rocked in a lace-trimmed cradle.\r
+\r
+But the complete torpor came at last: the fingers lost their tension,\r
+the arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the\r
+blue eyes opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a\r
+little peevish cry of "mammy", and an effort to regain the pillowing\r
+arm and bosom; but mammy's ear was deaf, and the pillow seemed to be\r
+slipping away backward. Suddenly, as the child rolled downward on its\r
+mother's knees, all wet with snow, its eyes were caught by a bright\r
+glancing light on the white ground, and, with the ready transition of\r
+infancy, it was immediately absorbed in watching the bright living\r
+thing running towards it, yet never arriving. That bright living thing\r
+must be caught; and in an instant the child had slipped on all-fours,\r
+and held out one little hand to catch the gleam. But the gleam would\r
+not be caught in that way, and now the head was held up to see where\r
+the cunning gleam came from. It came from a very bright place; and the\r
+little one, rising on its legs, toddled through the snow, the old grimy\r
+shawl in which it was wrapped trailing behind it, and the queer little\r
+bonnet dangling at its back--toddled on to the open door of Silas\r
+Marner's cottage, and right up to the warm hearth, where there was a\r
+bright fire of logs and sticks, which had thoroughly warmed the old\r
+sack (Silas's greatcoat) spread out on the bricks to dry. The little\r
+one, accustomed to be left to itself for long hours without notice from\r
+its mother, squatted down on the sack, and spread its tiny hands\r
+towards the blaze, in perfect contentment, gurgling and making many\r
+inarticulate communications to the cheerful fire, like a new-hatched\r
+gosling beginning to find itself comfortable. But presently the warmth\r
+had a lulling effect, and the little golden head sank down on the old\r
+sack, and the blue eyes were veiled by their delicate half-transparent\r
+lids.\r
+\r
+But where was Silas Marner while this strange visitor had come to his\r
+hearth? He was in the cottage, but he did not see the child. During\r
+the last few weeks, since he had lost his money, he had contracted the\r
+habit of opening his door and looking out from time to time, as if he\r
+thought that his money might be somehow coming back to him, or that\r
+some trace, some news of it, might be mysteriously on the road, and be\r
+caught by the listening ear or the straining eye. It was chiefly at\r
+night, when he was not occupied in his loom, that he fell into this\r
+repetition of an act for which he could have assigned no definite\r
+purpose, and which can hardly be understood except by those who have\r
+undergone a bewildering separation from a supremely loved object. In\r
+the evening twilight, and later whenever the night was not dark, Silas\r
+looked out on that narrow prospect round the Stone-pits, listening and\r
+gazing, not with hope, but with mere yearning and unrest.\r
+\r
+This morning he had been told by some of his neighbours that it was New\r
+Year's Eve, and that he must sit up and hear the old year rung out and\r
+the new rung in, because that was good luck, and might bring his money\r
+back again. This was only a friendly Raveloe-way of jesting with the\r
+half-crazy oddities of a miser, but it had perhaps helped to throw\r
+Silas into a more than usually excited state. Since the on-coming of\r
+twilight he had opened his door again and again, though only to shut it\r
+immediately at seeing all distance veiled by the falling snow. But the\r
+last time he opened it the snow had ceased, and the clouds were parting\r
+here and there. He stood and listened, and gazed for a long\r
+while--there was really something on the road coming towards him then,\r
+but he caught no sign of it; and the stillness and the wide trackless\r
+snow seemed to narrow his solitude, and touched his yearning with the\r
+chill of despair. He went in again, and put his right hand on the\r
+latch of the door to close it--but he did not close it: he was\r
+arrested, as he had been already since his loss, by the invisible wand\r
+of catalepsy, and stood like a graven image, with wide but sightless\r
+eyes, holding open his door, powerless to resist either the good or the\r
+evil that might enter there.\r
+\r
+When Marner's sensibility returned, he continued the action which had\r
+been arrested, and closed his door, unaware of the chasm in his\r
+consciousness, unaware of any intermediate change, except that the\r
+light had grown dim, and that he was chilled and faint. He thought he\r
+had been too long standing at the door and looking out. Turning\r
+towards the hearth, where the two logs had fallen apart, and sent forth\r
+only a red uncertain glimmer, he seated himself on his fireside chair,\r
+and was stooping to push his logs together, when, to his blurred\r
+vision, it seemed as if there were gold on the floor in front of the\r
+hearth. Gold!--his own gold--brought back to him as mysteriously as it\r
+had been taken away! He felt his heart begin to beat violently, and\r
+for a few moments he was unable to stretch out his hand and grasp the\r
+restored treasure. The heap of gold seemed to glow and get larger\r
+beneath his agitated gaze. He leaned forward at last, and stretched\r
+forth his hand; but instead of the hard coin with the familiar\r
+resisting outline, his fingers encountered soft warm curls. In utter\r
+amazement, Silas fell on his knees and bent his head low to examine the\r
+marvel: it was a sleeping child--a round, fair thing, with soft yellow\r
+rings all over its head. Could this be his little sister come back to\r
+him in a dream--his little sister whom he had carried about in his arms\r
+for a year before she died, when he was a small boy without shoes or\r
+stockings? That was the first thought that darted across Silas's blank\r
+wonderment. _Was_ it a dream? He rose to his feet again, pushed his\r
+logs together, and, throwing on some dried leaves and sticks, raised a\r
+flame; but the flame did not disperse the vision--it only lit up more\r
+distinctly the little round form of the child, and its shabby clothing.\r
+It was very much like his little sister. Silas sank into his chair\r
+powerless, under the double presence of an inexplicable surprise and a\r
+hurrying influx of memories. How and when had the child come in\r
+without his knowledge? He had never been beyond the door. But along\r
+with that question, and almost thrusting it away, there was a vision of\r
+the old home and the old streets leading to Lantern Yard--and within\r
+that vision another, of the thoughts which had been present with him in\r
+those far-off scenes. The thoughts were strange to him now, like old\r
+friendships impossible to revive; and yet he had a dreamy feeling that\r
+this child was somehow a message come to him from that far-off life: it\r
+stirred fibres that had never been moved in Raveloe--old quiverings of\r
+tenderness--old impressions of awe at the presentiment of some Power\r
+presiding over his life; for his imagination had not yet extricated\r
+itself from the sense of mystery in the child's sudden presence, and\r
+had formed no conjectures of ordinary natural means by which the event\r
+could have been brought about.\r
+\r
+But there was a cry on the hearth: the child had awaked, and Marner\r
+stooped to lift it on his knee. It clung round his neck, and burst\r
+louder and louder into that mingling of inarticulate cries with "mammy"\r
+by which little children express the bewilderment of waking. Silas\r
+pressed it to him, and almost unconsciously uttered sounds of hushing\r
+tenderness, while he bethought himself that some of his porridge, which\r
+had got cool by the dying fire, would do to feed the child with if it\r
+were only warmed up a little.\r
+\r
+He had plenty to do through the next hour. The porridge, sweetened\r
+with some dry brown sugar from an old store which he had refrained from\r
+using for himself, stopped the cries of the little one, and made her\r
+lift her blue eyes with a wide quiet gaze at Silas, as he put the spoon\r
+into her mouth. Presently she slipped from his knee and began to\r
+toddle about, but with a pretty stagger that made Silas jump up and\r
+follow her lest she should fall against anything that would hurt her.\r
+But she only fell in a sitting posture on the ground, and began to pull\r
+at her boots, looking up at him with a crying face as if the boots hurt\r
+her. He took her on his knee again, but it was some time before it\r
+occurred to Silas's dull bachelor mind that the wet boots were the\r
+grievance, pressing on her warm ankles. He got them off with\r
+difficulty, and baby was at once happily occupied with the primary\r
+mystery of her own toes, inviting Silas, with much chuckling, to\r
+consider the mystery too. But the wet boots had at last suggested to\r
+Silas that the child had been walking on the snow, and this roused him\r
+from his entire oblivion of any ordinary means by which it could have\r
+entered or been brought into his house. Under the prompting of this\r
+new idea, and without waiting to form conjectures, he raised the child\r
+in his arms, and went to the door. As soon as he had opened it, there\r
+was the cry of "mammy" again, which Silas had not heard since the\r
+child's first hungry waking. Bending forward, he could just discern\r
+the marks made by the little feet on the virgin snow, and he followed\r
+their track to the furze bushes. "Mammy!" the little one cried again\r
+and again, stretching itself forward so as almost to escape from\r
+Silas's arms, before he himself was aware that there was something more\r
+than the bush before him--that there was a human body, with the head\r
+sunk low in the furze, and half-covered with the shaken snow.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIII\r
+\r
+It was after the early supper-time at the Red House, and the\r
+entertainment was in that stage when bashfulness itself had passed into\r
+easy jollity, when gentlemen, conscious of unusual accomplishments,\r
+could at length be prevailed on to dance a hornpipe, and when the\r
+Squire preferred talking loudly, scattering snuff, and patting his\r
+visitors' backs, to sitting longer at the whist-table--a choice\r
+exasperating to uncle Kimble, who, being always volatile in sober\r
+business hours, became intense and bitter over cards and brandy,\r
+shuffled before his adversary's deal with a glare of suspicion, and\r
+turned up a mean trump-card with an air of inexpressible disgust, as if\r
+in a world where such things could happen one might as well enter on a\r
+course of reckless profligacy. When the evening had advanced to this\r
+pitch of freedom and enjoyment, it was usual for the servants, the\r
+heavy duties of supper being well over, to get their share of amusement\r
+by coming to look on at the dancing; so that the back regions of the\r
+house were left in solitude.\r
+\r
+There were two doors by which the White Parlour was entered from the\r
+hall, and they were both standing open for the sake of air; but the\r
+lower one was crowded with the servants and villagers, and only the\r
+upper doorway was left free. Bob Cass was figuring in a hornpipe, and\r
+his father, very proud of this lithe son, whom he repeatedly declared\r
+to be just like himself in his young days in a tone that implied this\r
+to be the very highest stamp of juvenile merit, was the centre of a\r
+group who had placed themselves opposite the performer, not far from\r
+the upper door. Godfrey was standing a little way off, not to admire\r
+his brother's dancing, but to keep sight of Nancy, who was seated in\r
+the group, near her father. He stood aloof, because he wished to avoid\r
+suggesting himself as a subject for the Squire's fatherly jokes in\r
+connection with matrimony and Miss Nancy Lammeter's beauty, which were\r
+likely to become more and more explicit. But he had the prospect of\r
+dancing with her again when the hornpipe was concluded, and in the\r
+meanwhile it was very pleasant to get long glances at her quite\r
+unobserved.\r
+\r
+But when Godfrey was lifting his eyes from one of those long glances,\r
+they encountered an object as startling to him at that moment as if it\r
+had been an apparition from the dead. It _was_ an apparition from that\r
+hidden life which lies, like a dark by-street, behind the goodly\r
+ornamented facade that meets the sunlight and the gaze of respectable\r
+admirers. It was his own child, carried in Silas Marner's arms. That\r
+was his instantaneous impression, unaccompanied by doubt, though he had\r
+not seen the child for months past; and when the hope was rising that\r
+he might possibly be mistaken, Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Lammeter had\r
+already advanced to Silas, in astonishment at this strange advent.\r
+Godfrey joined them immediately, unable to rest without hearing every\r
+word--trying to control himself, but conscious that if any one noticed\r
+him, they must see that he was white-lipped and trembling.\r
+\r
+But now all eyes at that end of the room were bent on Silas Marner; the\r
+Squire himself had risen, and asked angrily, "How's this?--what's\r
+this?--what do you do coming in here in this way?"\r
+\r
+"I'm come for the doctor--I want the doctor," Silas had said, in the\r
+first moment, to Mr. Crackenthorp.\r
+\r
+"Why, what's the matter, Marner?" said the rector. "The doctor's\r
+here; but say quietly what you want him for."\r
+\r
+"It's a woman," said Silas, speaking low, and half-breathlessly, just\r
+as Godfrey came up. "She's dead, I think--dead in the snow at the\r
+Stone-pits--not far from my door."\r
+\r
+Godfrey felt a great throb: there was one terror in his mind at that\r
+moment: it was, that the woman might _not_ be dead. That was an evil\r
+terror--an ugly inmate to have found a nestling-place in Godfrey's\r
+kindly disposition; but no disposition is a security from evil wishes\r
+to a man whose happiness hangs on duplicity.\r
+\r
+"Hush, hush!" said Mr. Crackenthorp. "Go out into the hall there.\r
+I'll fetch the doctor to you. Found a woman in the snow--and thinks\r
+she's dead," he added, speaking low to the Squire. "Better say as\r
+little about it as possible: it will shock the ladies. Just tell them\r
+a poor woman is ill from cold and hunger. I'll go and fetch Kimble."\r
+\r
+By this time, however, the ladies had pressed forward, curious to know\r
+what could have brought the solitary linen-weaver there under such\r
+strange circumstances, and interested in the pretty child, who, half\r
+alarmed and half attracted by the brightness and the numerous company,\r
+now frowned and hid her face, now lifted up her head again and looked\r
+round placably, until a touch or a coaxing word brought back the frown,\r
+and made her bury her face with new determination.\r
+\r
+"What child is it?" said several ladies at once, and, among the rest,\r
+Nancy Lammeter, addressing Godfrey.\r
+\r
+"I don't know--some poor woman's who has been found in the snow, I\r
+believe," was the answer Godfrey wrung from himself with a terrible\r
+effort. ("After all, _am_ I certain?" he hastened to add, silently,\r
+in anticipation of his own conscience.)\r
+\r
+"Why, you'd better leave the child here, then, Master Marner," said\r
+good-natured Mrs. Kimble, hesitating, however, to take those dingy\r
+clothes into contact with her own ornamented satin bodice. "I'll tell\r
+one o' the girls to fetch it."\r
+\r
+"No--no--I can't part with it, I can't let it go," said Silas,\r
+abruptly. "It's come to me--I've a right to keep it."\r
+\r
+The proposition to take the child from him had come to Silas quite\r
+unexpectedly, and his speech, uttered under a strong sudden impulse,\r
+was almost like a revelation to himself: a minute before, he had no\r
+distinct intention about the child.\r
+\r
+"Did you ever hear the like?" said Mrs. Kimble, in mild surprise, to\r
+her neighbour.\r
+\r
+"Now, ladies, I must trouble you to stand aside," said Mr. Kimble,\r
+coming from the card-room, in some bitterness at the interruption, but\r
+drilled by the long habit of his profession into obedience to\r
+unpleasant calls, even when he was hardly sober.\r
+\r
+"It's a nasty business turning out now, eh, Kimble?" said the Squire.\r
+"He might ha' gone for your young fellow--the 'prentice, there--what's\r
+his name?"\r
+\r
+"Might? aye--what's the use of talking about might?" growled uncle\r
+Kimble, hastening out with Marner, and followed by Mr. Crackenthorp and\r
+Godfrey. "Get me a pair of thick boots, Godfrey, will you? And stay,\r
+let somebody run to Winthrop's and fetch Dolly--she's the best woman to\r
+get. Ben was here himself before supper; is he gone?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, I met him," said Marner; "but I couldn't stop to tell him\r
+anything, only I said I was going for the doctor, and he said the\r
+doctor was at the Squire's. And I made haste and ran, and there was\r
+nobody to be seen at the back o' the house, and so I went in to where\r
+the company was."\r
+\r
+The child, no longer distracted by the bright light and the smiling\r
+women's faces, began to cry and call for "mammy", though always\r
+clinging to Marner, who had apparently won her thorough confidence.\r
+Godfrey had come back with the boots, and felt the cry as if some fibre\r
+were drawn tight within him.\r
+\r
+"I'll go," he said, hastily, eager for some movement; "I'll go and\r
+fetch the woman--Mrs. Winthrop."\r
+\r
+"Oh, pooh--send somebody else," said uncle Kimble, hurrying away with\r
+Marner.\r
+\r
+"You'll let me know if I can be of any use, Kimble," said Mr.\r
+Crackenthorp. But the doctor was out of hearing.\r
+\r
+Godfrey, too, had disappeared: he was gone to snatch his hat and coat,\r
+having just reflection enough to remember that he must not look like a\r
+madman; but he rushed out of the house into the snow without heeding\r
+his thin shoes.\r
+\r
+In a few minutes he was on his rapid way to the Stone-pits by the side\r
+of Dolly, who, though feeling that she was entirely in her place in\r
+encountering cold and snow on an errand of mercy, was much concerned at\r
+a young gentleman's getting his feet wet under a like impulse.\r
+\r
+"You'd a deal better go back, sir," said Dolly, with respectful\r
+compassion. "You've no call to catch cold; and I'd ask you if you'd be\r
+so good as tell my husband to come, on your way back--he's at the\r
+Rainbow, I doubt--if you found him anyway sober enough to be o' use.\r
+Or else, there's Mrs. Snell 'ud happen send the boy up to fetch and\r
+carry, for there may be things wanted from the doctor's."\r
+\r
+"No, I'll stay, now I'm once out--I'll stay outside here," said\r
+Godfrey, when they came opposite Marner's cottage. "You can come and\r
+tell me if I can do anything."\r
+\r
+"Well, sir, you're very good: you've a tender heart," said Dolly, going\r
+to the door.\r
+\r
+Godfrey was too painfully preoccupied to feel a twinge of self-reproach\r
+at this undeserved praise. He walked up and down, unconscious that he\r
+was plunging ankle-deep in snow, unconscious of everything but\r
+trembling suspense about what was going on in the cottage, and the\r
+effect of each alternative on his future lot. No, not quite\r
+unconscious of everything else. Deeper down, and half-smothered by\r
+passionate desire and dread, there was the sense that he ought not to\r
+be waiting on these alternatives; that he ought to accept the\r
+consequences of his deeds, own the miserable wife, and fulfil the\r
+claims of the helpless child. But he had not moral courage enough to\r
+contemplate that active renunciation of Nancy as possible for him: he\r
+had only conscience and heart enough to make him for ever uneasy under\r
+the weakness that forbade the renunciation. And at this moment his\r
+mind leaped away from all restraint toward the sudden prospect of\r
+deliverance from his long bondage.\r
+\r
+"Is she dead?" said the voice that predominated over every other\r
+within him. "If she is, I may marry Nancy; and then I shall be a good\r
+fellow in future, and have no secrets, and the child--shall be taken\r
+care of somehow." But across that vision came the other\r
+possibility--"She may live, and then it's all up with me."\r
+\r
+Godfrey never knew how long it was before the door of the cottage\r
+opened and Mr. Kimble came out. He went forward to meet his uncle,\r
+prepared to suppress the agitation he must feel, whatever news he was\r
+to hear.\r
+\r
+"I waited for you, as I'd come so far," he said, speaking first.\r
+\r
+"Pooh, it was nonsense for you to come out: why didn't you send one of\r
+the men? There's nothing to be done. She's dead--has been dead for\r
+hours, I should say."\r
+\r
+"What sort of woman is she?" said Godfrey, feeling the blood rush to\r
+his face.\r
+\r
+"A young woman, but emaciated, with long black hair. Some\r
+vagrant--quite in rags. She's got a wedding-ring on, however. They\r
+must fetch her away to the workhouse to-morrow. Come, come along."\r
+\r
+"I want to look at her," said Godfrey. "I think I saw such a woman\r
+yesterday. I'll overtake you in a minute or two."\r
+\r
+Mr. Kimble went on, and Godfrey turned back to the cottage. He cast\r
+only one glance at the dead face on the pillow, which Dolly had\r
+smoothed with decent care; but he remembered that last look at his\r
+unhappy hated wife so well, that at the end of sixteen years every line\r
+in the worn face was present to him when he told the full story of this\r
+night.\r
+\r
+He turned immediately towards the hearth, where Silas Marner sat\r
+lulling the child. She was perfectly quiet now, but not asleep--only\r
+soothed by sweet porridge and warmth into that wide-gazing calm which\r
+makes us older human beings, with our inward turmoil, feel a certain\r
+awe in the presence of a little child, such as we feel before some\r
+quiet majesty or beauty in the earth or sky--before a steady glowing\r
+planet, or a full-flowered eglantine, or the bending trees over a\r
+silent pathway. The wide-open blue eyes looked up at Godfrey's without\r
+any uneasiness or sign of recognition: the child could make no visible\r
+audible claim on its father; and the father felt a strange mixture of\r
+feelings, a conflict of regret and joy, that the pulse of that little\r
+heart had no response for the half-jealous yearning in his own, when\r
+the blue eyes turned away from him slowly, and fixed themselves on the\r
+weaver's queer face, which was bent low down to look at them, while the\r
+small hand began to pull Marner's withered cheek with loving\r
+disfiguration.\r
+\r
+"You'll take the child to the parish to-morrow?" asked Godfrey,\r
+speaking as indifferently as he could.\r
+\r
+"Who says so?" said Marner, sharply. "Will they make me take her?"\r
+\r
+"Why, you wouldn't like to keep her, should you--an old bachelor like\r
+you?"\r
+\r
+"Till anybody shows they've a right to take her away from me," said\r
+Marner. "The mother's dead, and I reckon it's got no father: it's a\r
+lone thing--and I'm a lone thing. My money's gone, I don't know\r
+where--and this is come from I don't know where. I know nothing--I'm\r
+partly mazed."\r
+\r
+"Poor little thing!" said Godfrey. "Let me give something towards\r
+finding it clothes."\r
+\r
+He had put his hand in his pocket and found half-a-guinea, and,\r
+thrusting it into Silas's hand, he hurried out of the cottage to\r
+overtake Mr. Kimble.\r
+\r
+"Ah, I see it's not the same woman I saw," he said, as he came up.\r
+"It's a pretty little child: the old fellow seems to want to keep it;\r
+that's strange for a miser like him. But I gave him a trifle to help\r
+him out: the parish isn't likely to quarrel with him for the right to\r
+keep the child."\r
+\r
+"No; but I've seen the time when I might have quarrelled with him for\r
+it myself. It's too late now, though. If the child ran into the fire,\r
+your aunt's too fat to overtake it: she could only sit and grunt like\r
+an alarmed sow. But what a fool you are, Godfrey, to come out in your\r
+dancing shoes and stockings in this way--and you one of the beaux of\r
+the evening, and at your own house! What do you mean by such freaks,\r
+young fellow? Has Miss Nancy been cruel, and do you want to spite her\r
+by spoiling your pumps?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, everything has been disagreeable to-night. I was tired to death\r
+of jigging and gallanting, and that bother about the hornpipes. And\r
+I'd got to dance with the other Miss Gunn," said Godfrey, glad of the\r
+subterfuge his uncle had suggested to him.\r
+\r
+The prevarication and white lies which a mind that keeps itself\r
+ambitiously pure is as uneasy under as a great artist under the false\r
+touches that no eye detects but his own, are worn as lightly as mere\r
+trimmings when once the actions have become a lie.\r
+\r
+Godfrey reappeared in the White Parlour with dry feet, and, since the\r
+truth must be told, with a sense of relief and gladness that was too\r
+strong for painful thoughts to struggle with. For could he not venture\r
+now, whenever opportunity offered, to say the tenderest things to Nancy\r
+Lammeter--to promise her and himself that he would always be just what\r
+she would desire to see him? There was no danger that his dead wife\r
+would be recognized: those were not days of active inquiry and wide\r
+report; and as for the registry of their marriage, that was a long way\r
+off, buried in unturned pages, away from every one's interest but his\r
+own. Dunsey might betray him if he came back; but Dunsey might be won\r
+to silence.\r
+\r
+And when events turn out so much better for a man than he has had\r
+reason to dread, is it not a proof that his conduct has been less\r
+foolish and blameworthy than it might otherwise have appeared? When we\r
+are treated well, we naturally begin to think that we are not\r
+altogether unmeritorious, and that it is only just we should treat\r
+ourselves well, and not mar our own good fortune. Where, after all,\r
+would be the use of his confessing the past to Nancy Lammeter, and\r
+throwing away his happiness?--nay, hers? for he felt some confidence\r
+that she loved him. As for the child, he would see that it was cared\r
+for: he would never forsake it; he would do everything but own it.\r
+Perhaps it would be just as happy in life without being owned by its\r
+father, seeing that nobody could tell how things would turn out, and\r
+that--is there any other reason wanted?--well, then, that the father\r
+would be much happier without owning the child.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIV\r
+\r
+There was a pauper's burial that week in Raveloe, and up Kench Yard at\r
+Batherley it was known that the dark-haired woman with the fair child,\r
+who had lately come to lodge there, was gone away again. That was all\r
+the express note taken that Molly had disappeared from the eyes of men.\r
+But the unwept death which, to the general lot, seemed as trivial as\r
+the summer-shed leaf, was charged with the force of destiny to certain\r
+human lives that we know of, shaping their joys and sorrows even to the\r
+end.\r
+\r
+Silas Marner's determination to keep the "tramp's child" was matter of\r
+hardly less surprise and iterated talk in the village than the robbery\r
+of his money. That softening of feeling towards him which dated from\r
+his misfortune, that merging of suspicion and dislike in a rather\r
+contemptuous pity for him as lone and crazy, was now accompanied with a\r
+more active sympathy, especially amongst the women. Notable mothers,\r
+who knew what it was to keep children "whole and sweet"; lazy mothers,\r
+who knew what it was to be interrupted in folding their arms and\r
+scratching their elbows by the mischievous propensities of children\r
+just firm on their legs, were equally interested in conjecturing how a\r
+lone man would manage with a two-year-old child on his hands, and were\r
+equally ready with their suggestions: the notable chiefly telling him\r
+what he had better do, and the lazy ones being emphatic in telling him\r
+what he would never be able to do.\r
+\r
+Among the notable mothers, Dolly Winthrop was the one whose neighbourly\r
+offices were the most acceptable to Marner, for they were rendered\r
+without any show of bustling instruction. Silas had shown her the\r
+half-guinea given to him by Godfrey, and had asked her what he should\r
+do about getting some clothes for the child.\r
+\r
+"Eh, Master Marner," said Dolly, "there's no call to buy, no more nor a\r
+pair o' shoes; for I've got the little petticoats as Aaron wore five\r
+years ago, and it's ill spending the money on them baby-clothes, for\r
+the child 'ull grow like grass i' May, bless it--that it will."\r
+\r
+And the same day Dolly brought her bundle, and displayed to Marner, one\r
+by one, the tiny garments in their due order of succession, most of\r
+them patched and darned, but clean and neat as fresh-sprung herbs.\r
+This was the introduction to a great ceremony with soap and water, from\r
+which Baby came out in new beauty, and sat on Dolly's knee, handling\r
+her toes and chuckling and patting her palms together with an air of\r
+having made several discoveries about herself, which she communicated\r
+by alternate sounds of "gug-gug-gug", and "mammy". The "mammy" was not\r
+a cry of need or uneasiness: Baby had been used to utter it without\r
+expecting either tender sound or touch to follow.\r
+\r
+"Anybody 'ud think the angils in heaven couldn't be prettier," said\r
+Dolly, rubbing the golden curls and kissing them. "And to think of its\r
+being covered wi' them dirty rags--and the poor mother--froze to death;\r
+but there's Them as took care of it, and brought it to your door,\r
+Master Marner. The door was open, and it walked in over the snow, like\r
+as if it had been a little starved robin. Didn't you say the door was\r
+open?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Silas, meditatively. "Yes--the door was open. The money's\r
+gone I don't know where, and this is come from I don't know where."\r
+\r
+He had not mentioned to any one his unconsciousness of the child's\r
+entrance, shrinking from questions which might lead to the fact he\r
+himself suspected--namely, that he had been in one of his trances.\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Dolly, with soothing gravity, "it's like the night and the\r
+morning, and the sleeping and the waking, and the rain and the\r
+harvest--one goes and the other comes, and we know nothing how nor\r
+where. We may strive and scrat and fend, but it's little we can do\r
+arter all--the big things come and go wi' no striving o' our'n--they\r
+do, that they do; and I think you're in the right on it to keep the\r
+little un, Master Marner, seeing as it's been sent to you, though\r
+there's folks as thinks different. You'll happen be a bit moithered\r
+with it while it's so little; but I'll come, and welcome, and see to it\r
+for you: I've a bit o' time to spare most days, for when one gets up\r
+betimes i' the morning, the clock seems to stan' still tow'rt ten,\r
+afore it's time to go about the victual. So, as I say, I'll come and\r
+see to the child for you, and welcome."\r
+\r
+"Thank you... kindly," said Silas, hesitating a little. "I'll be glad\r
+if you'll tell me things. But," he added, uneasily, leaning forward to\r
+look at Baby with some jealousy, as she was resting her head backward\r
+against Dolly's arm, and eyeing him contentedly from a distance--"But I\r
+want to do things for it myself, else it may get fond o' somebody else,\r
+and not fond o' me. I've been used to fending for myself in the\r
+house--I can learn, I can learn."\r
+\r
+"Eh, to be sure," said Dolly, gently. "I've seen men as are wonderful\r
+handy wi' children. The men are awk'ard and contrairy mostly, God help\r
+'em--but when the drink's out of 'em, they aren't unsensible, though\r
+they're bad for leeching and bandaging--so fiery and unpatient. You\r
+see this goes first, next the skin," proceeded Dolly, taking up the\r
+little shirt, and putting it on.\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Marner, docilely, bringing his eyes very close, that they\r
+might be initiated in the mysteries; whereupon Baby seized his head\r
+with both her small arms, and put her lips against his face with\r
+purring noises.\r
+\r
+"See there," said Dolly, with a woman's tender tact, "she's fondest o'\r
+you. She wants to go o' your lap, I'll be bound. Go, then: take her,\r
+Master Marner; you can put the things on, and then you can say as\r
+you've done for her from the first of her coming to you."\r
+\r
+Marner took her on his lap, trembling with an emotion mysterious to\r
+himself, at something unknown dawning on his life. Thought and feeling\r
+were so confused within him, that if he had tried to give them\r
+utterance, he could only have said that the child was come instead of\r
+the gold--that the gold had turned into the child. He took the\r
+garments from Dolly, and put them on under her teaching; interrupted,\r
+of course, by Baby's gymnastics.\r
+\r
+"There, then! why, you take to it quite easy, Master Marner," said\r
+Dolly; "but what shall you do when you're forced to sit in your loom?\r
+For she'll get busier and mischievouser every day--she will, bless her.\r
+It's lucky as you've got that high hearth i'stead of a grate, for that\r
+keeps the fire more out of her reach: but if you've got anything as can\r
+be spilt or broke, or as is fit to cut her fingers off, she'll be at\r
+it--and it is but right you should know."\r
+\r
+Silas meditated a little while in some perplexity. "I'll tie her to\r
+the leg o' the loom," he said at last--"tie her with a good long strip\r
+o' something."\r
+\r
+"Well, mayhap that'll do, as it's a little gell, for they're easier\r
+persuaded to sit i' one place nor the lads. I know what the lads are;\r
+for I've had four--four I've had, God knows--and if you was to take and\r
+tie 'em up, they'd make a fighting and a crying as if you was ringing\r
+the pigs. But I'll bring you my little chair, and some bits o' red rag\r
+and things for her to play wi'; an' she'll sit and chatter to 'em as if\r
+they was alive. Eh, if it wasn't a sin to the lads to wish 'em made\r
+different, bless 'em, I should ha' been glad for one of 'em to be a\r
+little gell; and to think as I could ha' taught her to scour, and mend,\r
+and the knitting, and everything. But I can teach 'em this little un,\r
+Master Marner, when she gets old enough."\r
+\r
+"But she'll be _my_ little un," said Marner, rather hastily. "She'll be\r
+nobody else's."\r
+\r
+"No, to be sure; you'll have a right to her, if you're a father to her,\r
+and bring her up according. But," added Dolly, coming to a point which\r
+she had determined beforehand to touch upon, "you must bring her up\r
+like christened folks's children, and take her to church, and let her\r
+learn her catechise, as my little Aaron can say off--the "I believe",\r
+and everything, and "hurt nobody by word or deed",--as well as if he\r
+was the clerk. That's what you must do, Master Marner, if you'd do the\r
+right thing by the orphin child."\r
+\r
+Marner's pale face flushed suddenly under a new anxiety. His mind was\r
+too busy trying to give some definite bearing to Dolly's words for him\r
+to think of answering her.\r
+\r
+"And it's my belief," she went on, "as the poor little creatur has\r
+never been christened, and it's nothing but right as the parson should\r
+be spoke to; and if you was noways unwilling, I'd talk to Mr. Macey\r
+about it this very day. For if the child ever went anyways wrong, and\r
+you hadn't done your part by it, Master Marner--'noculation, and\r
+everything to save it from harm--it 'ud be a thorn i' your bed for ever\r
+o' this side the grave; and I can't think as it 'ud be easy lying down\r
+for anybody when they'd got to another world, if they hadn't done their\r
+part by the helpless children as come wi'out their own asking."\r
+\r
+Dolly herself was disposed to be silent for some time now, for she had\r
+spoken from the depths of her own simple belief, and was much concerned\r
+to know whether her words would produce the desired effect on Silas.\r
+He was puzzled and anxious, for Dolly's word "christened" conveyed no\r
+distinct meaning to him. He had only heard of baptism, and had only\r
+seen the baptism of grown-up men and women.\r
+\r
+"What is it as you mean by "christened"?" he said at last, timidly.\r
+"Won't folks be good to her without it?"\r
+\r
+"Dear, dear! Master Marner," said Dolly, with gentle distress and\r
+compassion. "Had you never no father nor mother as taught you to say\r
+your prayers, and as there's good words and good things to keep us from\r
+harm?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Silas, in a low voice; "I know a deal about that--used to,\r
+used to. But your ways are different: my country was a good way off."\r
+He paused a few moments, and then added, more decidedly, "But I want to\r
+do everything as can be done for the child. And whatever's right for\r
+it i' this country, and you think 'ull do it good, I'll act according,\r
+if you'll tell me."\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Master Marner," said Dolly, inwardly rejoiced, "I'll ask\r
+Mr. Macey to speak to the parson about it; and you must fix on a name\r
+for it, because it must have a name giv' it when it's christened."\r
+\r
+"My mother's name was Hephzibah," said Silas, "and my little sister was\r
+named after her."\r
+\r
+"Eh, that's a hard name," said Dolly. "I partly think it isn't a\r
+christened name."\r
+\r
+"It's a Bible name," said Silas, old ideas recurring.\r
+\r
+"Then I've no call to speak again' it," said Dolly, rather startled by\r
+Silas's knowledge on this head; "but you see I'm no scholard, and I'm\r
+slow at catching the words. My husband says I'm allays like as if I\r
+was putting the haft for the handle--that's what he says--for he's very\r
+sharp, God help him. But it was awk'ard calling your little sister by\r
+such a hard name, when you'd got nothing big to say, like--wasn't it,\r
+Master Marner?"\r
+\r
+"We called her Eppie," said Silas.\r
+\r
+"Well, if it was noways wrong to shorten the name, it 'ud be a deal\r
+handier. And so I'll go now, Master Marner, and I'll speak about the\r
+christening afore dark; and I wish you the best o' luck, and it's my\r
+belief as it'll come to you, if you do what's right by the orphin\r
+child;--and there's the 'noculation to be seen to; and as to washing\r
+its bits o' things, you need look to nobody but me, for I can do 'em\r
+wi' one hand when I've got my suds about. Eh, the blessed angil!\r
+You'll let me bring my Aaron one o' these days, and he'll show her his\r
+little cart as his father's made for him, and the black-and-white pup\r
+as he's got a-rearing."\r
+\r
+Baby _was_ christened, the rector deciding that a double baptism was\r
+the lesser risk to incur; and on this occasion Silas, making himself as\r
+clean and tidy as he could, appeared for the first time within the\r
+church, and shared in the observances held sacred by his neighbours.\r
+He was quite unable, by means of anything he heard or saw, to identify\r
+the Raveloe religion with his old faith; if he could at any time in his\r
+previous life have done so, it must have been by the aid of a strong\r
+feeling ready to vibrate with sympathy, rather than by a comparison of\r
+phrases and ideas: and now for long years that feeling had been\r
+dormant. He had no distinct idea about the baptism and the\r
+church-going, except that Dolly had said it was for the good of the\r
+child; and in this way, as the weeks grew to months, the child created\r
+fresh and fresh links between his life and the lives from which he had\r
+hitherto shrunk continually into narrower isolation. Unlike the gold\r
+which needed nothing, and must be worshipped in close-locked\r
+solitude--which was hidden away from the daylight, was deaf to the song\r
+of birds, and started to no human tones--Eppie was a creature of\r
+endless claims and ever-growing desires, seeking and loving sunshine,\r
+and living sounds, and living movements; making trial of everything,\r
+with trust in new joy, and stirring the human kindness in all eyes that\r
+looked on her. The gold had kept his thoughts in an ever-repeated\r
+circle, leading to nothing beyond itself; but Eppie was an object\r
+compacted of changes and hopes that forced his thoughts onward, and\r
+carried them far away from their old eager pacing towards the same\r
+blank limit--carried them away to the new things that would come with\r
+the coming years, when Eppie would have learned to understand how her\r
+father Silas cared for her; and made him look for images of that time\r
+in the ties and charities that bound together the families of his\r
+neighbours. The gold had asked that he should sit weaving longer and\r
+longer, deafened and blinded more and more to all things except the\r
+monotony of his loom and the repetition of his web; but Eppie called\r
+him away from his weaving, and made him think all its pauses a holiday,\r
+reawakening his senses with her fresh life, even to the old\r
+winter-flies that came crawling forth in the early spring sunshine, and\r
+warming him into joy because _she_ had joy.\r
+\r
+And when the sunshine grew strong and lasting, so that the buttercups\r
+were thick in the meadows, Silas might be seen in the sunny midday, or\r
+in the late afternoon when the shadows were lengthening under the\r
+hedgerows, strolling out with uncovered head to carry Eppie beyond the\r
+Stone-pits to where the flowers grew, till they reached some favourite\r
+bank where he could sit down, while Eppie toddled to pluck the flowers,\r
+and make remarks to the winged things that murmured happily above the\r
+bright petals, calling "Dad-dad's" attention continually by bringing\r
+him the flowers. Then she would turn her ear to some sudden bird-note,\r
+and Silas learned to please her by making signs of hushed stillness,\r
+that they might listen for the note to come again: so that when it\r
+came, she set up her small back and laughed with gurgling triumph.\r
+Sitting on the banks in this way, Silas began to look for the once\r
+familiar herbs again; and as the leaves, with their unchanged outline\r
+and markings, lay on his palm, there was a sense of crowding\r
+remembrances from which he turned away timidly, taking refuge in\r
+Eppie's little world, that lay lightly on his enfeebled spirit.\r
+\r
+As the child's mind was growing into knowledge, his mind was growing\r
+into memory: as her life unfolded, his soul, long stupefied in a cold\r
+narrow prison, was unfolding too, and trembling gradually into full\r
+consciousness.\r
+\r
+It was an influence which must gather force with every new year: the\r
+tones that stirred Silas's heart grew articulate, and called for more\r
+distinct answers; shapes and sounds grew clearer for Eppie's eyes and\r
+ears, and there was more that "Dad-dad" was imperatively required to\r
+notice and account for. Also, by the time Eppie was three years old,\r
+she developed a fine capacity for mischief, and for devising ingenious\r
+ways of being troublesome, which found much exercise, not only for\r
+Silas's patience, but for his watchfulness and penetration. Sorely was\r
+poor Silas puzzled on such occasions by the incompatible demands of\r
+love. Dolly Winthrop told him that punishment was good for Eppie, and\r
+that, as for rearing a child without making it tingle a little in soft\r
+and safe places now and then, it was not to be done.\r
+\r
+"To be sure, there's another thing you might do, Master Marner," added\r
+Dolly, meditatively: "you might shut her up once i' the coal-hole.\r
+That was what I did wi' Aaron; for I was that silly wi' the youngest\r
+lad, as I could never bear to smack him. Not as I could find i' my\r
+heart to let him stay i' the coal-hole more nor a minute, but it was\r
+enough to colly him all over, so as he must be new washed and dressed,\r
+and it was as good as a rod to him--that was. But I put it upo' your\r
+conscience, Master Marner, as there's one of 'em you must\r
+choose--ayther smacking or the coal-hole--else she'll get so masterful,\r
+there'll be no holding her."\r
+\r
+Silas was impressed with the melancholy truth of this last remark; but\r
+his force of mind failed before the only two penal methods open to him,\r
+not only because it was painful to him to hurt Eppie, but because he\r
+trembled at a moment's contention with her, lest she should love him\r
+the less for it. Let even an affectionate Goliath get himself tied to\r
+a small tender thing, dreading to hurt it by pulling, and dreading\r
+still more to snap the cord, and which of the two, pray, will be\r
+master? It was clear that Eppie, with her short toddling steps, must\r
+lead father Silas a pretty dance on any fine morning when circumstances\r
+favoured mischief.\r
+\r
+For example. He had wisely chosen a broad strip of linen as a means of\r
+fastening her to his loom when he was busy: it made a broad belt round\r
+her waist, and was long enough to allow of her reaching the truckle-bed\r
+and sitting down on it, but not long enough for her to attempt any\r
+dangerous climbing. One bright summer's morning Silas had been more\r
+engrossed than usual in "setting up" a new piece of work, an occasion\r
+on which his scissors were in requisition. These scissors, owing to an\r
+especial warning of Dolly's, had been kept carefully out of Eppie's\r
+reach; but the click of them had had a peculiar attraction for her ear,\r
+and watching the results of that click, she had derived the philosophic\r
+lesson that the same cause would produce the same effect. Silas had\r
+seated himself in his loom, and the noise of weaving had begun; but he\r
+had left his scissors on a ledge which Eppie's arm was long enough to\r
+reach; and now, like a small mouse, watching her opportunity, she stole\r
+quietly from her corner, secured the scissors, and toddled to the bed\r
+again, setting up her back as a mode of concealing the fact. She had a\r
+distinct intention as to the use of the scissors; and having cut the\r
+linen strip in a jagged but effectual manner, in two moments she had\r
+run out at the open door where the sunshine was inviting her, while\r
+poor Silas believed her to be a better child than usual. It was not\r
+until he happened to need his scissors that the terrible fact burst\r
+upon him: Eppie had run out by herself--had perhaps fallen into the\r
+Stone-pit. Silas, shaken by the worst fear that could have befallen\r
+him, rushed out, calling "Eppie!" and ran eagerly about the unenclosed\r
+space, exploring the dry cavities into which she might have fallen, and\r
+then gazing with questioning dread at the smooth red surface of the\r
+water. The cold drops stood on his brow. How long had she been out?\r
+There was one hope--that she had crept through the stile and got into\r
+the fields, where he habitually took her to stroll. But the grass was\r
+high in the meadow, and there was no descrying her, if she were there,\r
+except by a close search that would be a trespass on Mr. Osgood's crop.\r
+Still, that misdemeanour must be committed; and poor Silas, after\r
+peering all round the hedgerows, traversed the grass, beginning with\r
+perturbed vision to see Eppie behind every group of red sorrel, and to\r
+see her moving always farther off as he approached. The meadow was\r
+searched in vain; and he got over the stile into the next field,\r
+looking with dying hope towards a small pond which was now reduced to\r
+its summer shallowness, so as to leave a wide margin of good adhesive\r
+mud. Here, however, sat Eppie, discoursing cheerfully to her own small\r
+boot, which she was using as a bucket to convey the water into a deep\r
+hoof-mark, while her little naked foot was planted comfortably on a\r
+cushion of olive-green mud. A red-headed calf was observing her with\r
+alarmed doubt through the opposite hedge.\r
+\r
+Here was clearly a case of aberration in a christened child which\r
+demanded severe treatment; but Silas, overcome with convulsive joy at\r
+finding his treasure again, could do nothing but snatch her up, and\r
+cover her with half-sobbing kisses. It was not until he had carried\r
+her home, and had begun to think of the necessary washing, that he\r
+recollected the need that he should punish Eppie, and "make her\r
+remember". The idea that she might run away again and come to harm,\r
+gave him unusual resolution, and for the first time he determined to\r
+try the coal-hole--a small closet near the hearth.\r
+\r
+"Naughty, naughty Eppie," he suddenly began, holding her on his knee,\r
+and pointing to her muddy feet and clothes--"naughty to cut with the\r
+scissors and run away. Eppie must go into the coal-hole for being\r
+naughty. Daddy must put her in the coal-hole."\r
+\r
+He half-expected that this would be shock enough, and that Eppie would\r
+begin to cry. But instead of that, she began to shake herself on his\r
+knee, as if the proposition opened a pleasing novelty. Seeing that he\r
+must proceed to extremities, he put her into the coal-hole, and held\r
+the door closed, with a trembling sense that he was using a strong\r
+measure. For a moment there was silence, but then came a little cry,\r
+"Opy, opy!" and Silas let her out again, saying, "Now Eppie 'ull never\r
+be naughty again, else she must go in the coal-hole--a black naughty\r
+place."\r
+\r
+The weaving must stand still a long while this morning, for now Eppie\r
+must be washed, and have clean clothes on; but it was to be hoped that\r
+this punishment would have a lasting effect, and save time in\r
+future--though, perhaps, it would have been better if Eppie had cried\r
+more.\r
+\r
+In half an hour she was clean again, and Silas having turned his back\r
+to see what he could do with the linen band, threw it down again, with\r
+the reflection that Eppie would be good without fastening for the rest\r
+of the morning. He turned round again, and was going to place her in\r
+her little chair near the loom, when she peeped out at him with black\r
+face and hands again, and said, "Eppie in de toal-hole!"\r
+\r
+This total failure of the coal-hole discipline shook Silas's belief in\r
+the efficacy of punishment. "She'd take it all for fun," he observed\r
+to Dolly, "if I didn't hurt her, and that I can't do, Mrs. Winthrop.\r
+If she makes me a bit o' trouble, I can bear it. And she's got no\r
+tricks but what she'll grow out of."\r
+\r
+"Well, that's partly true, Master Marner," said Dolly, sympathetically;\r
+"and if you can't bring your mind to frighten her off touching things,\r
+you must do what you can to keep 'em out of her way. That's what I do\r
+wi' the pups as the lads are allays a-rearing. They _will_ worry and\r
+gnaw--worry and gnaw they will, if it was one's Sunday cap as hung\r
+anywhere so as they could drag it. They know no difference, God help\r
+'em: it's the pushing o' the teeth as sets 'em on, that's what it is."\r
+\r
+So Eppie was reared without punishment, the burden of her misdeeds\r
+being borne vicariously by father Silas. The stone hut was made a soft\r
+nest for her, lined with downy patience: and also in the world that lay\r
+beyond the stone hut she knew nothing of frowns and denials.\r
+\r
+Notwithstanding the difficulty of carrying her and his yarn or linen at\r
+the same time, Silas took her with him in most of his journeys to the\r
+farmhouses, unwilling to leave her behind at Dolly Winthrop's, who was\r
+always ready to take care of her; and little curly-headed Eppie, the\r
+weaver's child, became an object of interest at several outlying\r
+homesteads, as well as in the village. Hitherto he had been treated\r
+very much as if he had been a useful gnome or brownie--a queer and\r
+unaccountable creature, who must necessarily be looked at with\r
+wondering curiosity and repulsion, and with whom one would be glad to\r
+make all greetings and bargains as brief as possible, but who must be\r
+dealt with in a propitiatory way, and occasionally have a present of\r
+pork or garden stuff to carry home with him, seeing that without him\r
+there was no getting the yarn woven. But now Silas met with open\r
+smiling faces and cheerful questioning, as a person whose satisfactions\r
+and difficulties could be understood. Everywhere he must sit a little\r
+and talk about the child, and words of interest were always ready for\r
+him: "Ah, Master Marner, you'll be lucky if she takes the measles soon\r
+and easy!"--or, "Why, there isn't many lone men 'ud ha' been wishing to\r
+take up with a little un like that: but I reckon the weaving makes you\r
+handier than men as do out-door work--you're partly as handy as a\r
+woman, for weaving comes next to spinning." Elderly masters and\r
+mistresses, seated observantly in large kitchen arm-chairs, shook their\r
+heads over the difficulties attendant on rearing children, felt Eppie's\r
+round arms and legs, and pronounced them remarkably firm, and told\r
+Silas that, if she turned out well (which, however, there was no\r
+telling), it would be a fine thing for him to have a steady lass to do\r
+for him when he got helpless. Servant maidens were fond of carrying\r
+her out to look at the hens and chickens, or to see if any cherries\r
+could be shaken down in the orchard; and the small boys and girls\r
+approached her slowly, with cautious movement and steady gaze, like\r
+little dogs face to face with one of their own kind, till attraction\r
+had reached the point at which the soft lips were put out for a kiss.\r
+No child was afraid of approaching Silas when Eppie was near him: there\r
+was no repulsion around him now, either for young or old; for the\r
+little child had come to link him once more with the whole world.\r
+There was love between him and the child that blent them into one, and\r
+there was love between the child and the world--from men and women with\r
+parental looks and tones, to the red lady-birds and the round pebbles.\r
+\r
+Silas began now to think of Raveloe life entirely in relation to Eppie:\r
+she must have everything that was a good in Raveloe; and he listened\r
+docilely, that he might come to understand better what this life was,\r
+from which, for fifteen years, he had stood aloof as from a strange\r
+thing, with which he could have no communion: as some man who has a\r
+precious plant to which he would give a nurturing home in a new soil,\r
+thinks of the rain, and the sunshine, and all influences, in relation\r
+to his nursling, and asks industriously for all knowledge that will\r
+help him to satisfy the wants of the searching roots, or to guard leaf\r
+and bud from invading harm. The disposition to hoard had been utterly\r
+crushed at the very first by the loss of his long-stored gold: the\r
+coins he earned afterwards seemed as irrelevant as stones brought to\r
+complete a house suddenly buried by an earthquake; the sense of\r
+bereavement was too heavy upon him for the old thrill of satisfaction\r
+to arise again at the touch of the newly-earned coin. And now\r
+something had come to replace his hoard which gave a growing purpose to\r
+the earnings, drawing his hope and joy continually onward beyond the\r
+money.\r
+\r
+In old days there were angels who came and took men by the hand and led\r
+them away from the city of destruction. We see no white-winged angels\r
+now. But yet men are led away from threatening destruction: a hand is\r
+put into theirs, which leads them forth gently towards a calm and\r
+bright land, so that they look no more backward; and the hand may be a\r
+little child's.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XV\r
+\r
+There was one person, as you will believe, who watched with keener\r
+though more hidden interest than any other, the prosperous growth of\r
+Eppie under the weaver's care. He dared not do anything that would\r
+imply a stronger interest in a poor man's adopted child than could be\r
+expected from the kindliness of the young Squire, when a chance meeting\r
+suggested a little present to a simple old fellow whom others noticed\r
+with goodwill; but he told himself that the time would come when he\r
+might do something towards furthering the welfare of his daughter\r
+without incurring suspicion. Was he very uneasy in the meantime at his\r
+inability to give his daughter her birthright? I cannot say that he\r
+was. The child was being taken care of, and would very likely be\r
+happy, as people in humble stations often were--happier, perhaps, than\r
+those brought up in luxury.\r
+\r
+That famous ring that pricked its owner when he forgot duty and\r
+followed desire--I wonder if it pricked very hard when he set out on\r
+the chase, or whether it pricked but lightly then, and only pierced to\r
+the quick when the chase had long been ended, and hope, folding her\r
+wings, looked backward and became regret?\r
+\r
+Godfrey Cass's cheek and eye were brighter than ever now. He was so\r
+undivided in his aims, that he seemed like a man of firmness. No\r
+Dunsey had come back: people had made up their minds that he was gone\r
+for a soldier, or gone "out of the country", and no one cared to be\r
+specific in their inquiries on a subject delicate to a respectable\r
+family. Godfrey had ceased to see the shadow of Dunsey across his\r
+path; and the path now lay straight forward to the accomplishment of\r
+his best, longest-cherished wishes. Everybody said Mr. Godfrey had\r
+taken the right turn; and it was pretty clear what would be the end of\r
+things, for there were not many days in the week that he was not seen\r
+riding to the Warrens. Godfrey himself, when he was asked jocosely if\r
+the day had been fixed, smiled with the pleasant consciousness of a\r
+lover who could say "yes", if he liked. He felt a reformed man,\r
+delivered from temptation; and the vision of his future life seemed to\r
+him as a promised land for which he had no cause to fight. He saw\r
+himself with all his happiness centred on his own hearth, while Nancy\r
+would smile on him as he played with the children.\r
+\r
+And that other child--not on the hearth--he would not forget it; he\r
+would see that it was well provided for. That was a father's duty.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+PART TWO\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVI\r
+\r
+It was a bright autumn Sunday, sixteen years after Silas Marner had\r
+found his new treasure on the hearth. The bells of the old Raveloe\r
+church were ringing the cheerful peal which told that the morning\r
+service was ended; and out of the arched doorway in the tower came\r
+slowly, retarded by friendly greetings and questions, the richer\r
+parishioners who had chosen this bright Sunday morning as eligible for\r
+church-going. It was the rural fashion of that time for the more\r
+important members of the congregation to depart first, while their\r
+humbler neighbours waited and looked on, stroking their bent heads or\r
+dropping their curtsies to any large ratepayer who turned to notice\r
+them.\r
+\r
+Foremost among these advancing groups of well-clad people, there are\r
+some whom we shall recognize, in spite of Time, who has laid his hand\r
+on them all. The tall blond man of forty is not much changed in\r
+feature from the Godfrey Cass of six-and-twenty: he is only fuller in\r
+flesh, and has only lost the indefinable look of youth--a loss which is\r
+marked even when the eye is undulled and the wrinkles are not yet come.\r
+Perhaps the pretty woman, not much younger than he, who is leaning on\r
+his arm, is more changed than her husband: the lovely bloom that used\r
+to be always on her cheek now comes but fitfully, with the fresh\r
+morning air or with some strong surprise; yet to all who love human\r
+faces best for what they tell of human experience, Nancy's beauty has a\r
+heightened interest. Often the soul is ripened into fuller goodness\r
+while age has spread an ugly film, so that mere glances can never\r
+divine the preciousness of the fruit. But the years have not been so\r
+cruel to Nancy. The firm yet placid mouth, the clear veracious glance\r
+of the brown eyes, speak now of a nature that has been tested and has\r
+kept its highest qualities; and even the costume, with its dainty\r
+neatness and purity, has more significance now the coquetries of youth\r
+can have nothing to do with it.\r
+\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass (any higher title has died away from Raveloe\r
+lips since the old Squire was gathered to his fathers and his\r
+inheritance was divided) have turned round to look for the tall aged\r
+man and the plainly dressed woman who are a little behind--Nancy having\r
+observed that they must wait for "father and Priscilla"--and now they\r
+all turn into a narrower path leading across the churchyard to a small\r
+gate opposite the Red House. We will not follow them now; for may\r
+there not be some others in this departing congregation whom we should\r
+like to see again--some of those who are not likely to be handsomely\r
+clad, and whom we may not recognize so easily as the master and\r
+mistress of the Red House?\r
+\r
+But it is impossible to mistake Silas Marner. His large brown eyes\r
+seem to have gathered a longer vision, as is the way with eyes that\r
+have been short-sighted in early life, and they have a less vague, a\r
+more answering gaze; but in everything else one sees signs of a frame\r
+much enfeebled by the lapse of the sixteen years. The weaver's bent\r
+shoulders and white hair give him almost the look of advanced age,\r
+though he is not more than five-and-fifty; but there is the freshest\r
+blossom of youth close by his side--a blonde dimpled girl of eighteen,\r
+who has vainly tried to chastise her curly auburn hair into smoothness\r
+under her brown bonnet: the hair ripples as obstinately as a brooklet\r
+under the March breeze, and the little ringlets burst away from the\r
+restraining comb behind and show themselves below the bonnet-crown.\r
+Eppie cannot help being rather vexed about her hair, for there is no\r
+other girl in Raveloe who has hair at all like it, and she thinks hair\r
+ought to be smooth. She does not like to be blameworthy even in small\r
+things: you see how neatly her prayer-book is folded in her spotted\r
+handkerchief.\r
+\r
+That good-looking young fellow, in a new fustian suit, who walks behind\r
+her, is not quite sure upon the question of hair in the abstract, when\r
+Eppie puts it to him, and thinks that perhaps straight hair is the best\r
+in general, but he doesn't want Eppie's hair to be different. She\r
+surely divines that there is some one behind her who is thinking about\r
+her very particularly, and mustering courage to come to her side as\r
+soon as they are out in the lane, else why should she look rather shy,\r
+and take care not to turn away her head from her father Silas, to whom\r
+she keeps murmuring little sentences as to who was at church and who\r
+was not at church, and how pretty the red mountain-ash is over the\r
+Rectory wall?\r
+\r
+"I wish _we_ had a little garden, father, with double daisies in, like\r
+Mrs. Winthrop's," said Eppie, when they were out in the lane; "only\r
+they say it 'ud take a deal of digging and bringing fresh soil--and you\r
+couldn't do that, could you, father? Anyhow, I shouldn't like you to\r
+do it, for it 'ud be too hard work for you."\r
+\r
+"Yes, I could do it, child, if you want a bit o' garden: these long\r
+evenings, I could work at taking in a little bit o' the waste, just\r
+enough for a root or two o' flowers for you; and again, i' the morning,\r
+I could have a turn wi' the spade before I sat down to the loom. Why\r
+didn't you tell me before as you wanted a bit o' garden?"\r
+\r
+"_I_ can dig it for you, Master Marner," said the young man in fustian,\r
+who was now by Eppie's side, entering into the conversation without the\r
+trouble of formalities. "It'll be play to me after I've done my day's\r
+work, or any odd bits o' time when the work's slack. And I'll bring\r
+you some soil from Mr. Cass's garden--he'll let me, and willing."\r
+\r
+"Eh, Aaron, my lad, are you there?" said Silas; "I wasn't aware of\r
+you; for when Eppie's talking o' things, I see nothing but what she's\r
+a-saying. Well, if you could help me with the digging, we might get\r
+her a bit o' garden all the sooner."\r
+\r
+"Then, if you think well and good," said Aaron, "I'll come to the\r
+Stone-pits this afternoon, and we'll settle what land's to be taken in,\r
+and I'll get up an hour earlier i' the morning, and begin on it."\r
+\r
+"But not if you don't promise me not to work at the hard digging,\r
+father," said Eppie. "For I shouldn't ha' said anything about it," she\r
+added, half-bashfully, half-roguishly, "only Mrs. Winthrop said as\r
+Aaron 'ud be so good, and--"\r
+\r
+"And you might ha' known it without mother telling you," said Aaron.\r
+"And Master Marner knows too, I hope, as I'm able and willing to do a\r
+turn o' work for him, and he won't do me the unkindness to anyways take\r
+it out o' my hands."\r
+\r
+"There, now, father, you won't work in it till it's all easy," said\r
+Eppie, "and you and me can mark out the beds, and make holes and plant\r
+the roots. It'll be a deal livelier at the Stone-pits when we've got\r
+some flowers, for I always think the flowers can see us and know what\r
+we're talking about. And I'll have a bit o' rosemary, and bergamot,\r
+and thyme, because they're so sweet-smelling; but there's no lavender\r
+only in the gentlefolks' gardens, I think."\r
+\r
+"That's no reason why you shouldn't have some," said Aaron, "for I can\r
+bring you slips of anything; I'm forced to cut no end of 'em when I'm\r
+gardening, and throw 'em away mostly. There's a big bed o' lavender at\r
+the Red House: the missis is very fond of it."\r
+\r
+"Well," said Silas, gravely, "so as you don't make free for us, or ask\r
+for anything as is worth much at the Red House: for Mr. Cass's been so\r
+good to us, and built us up the new end o' the cottage, and given us\r
+beds and things, as I couldn't abide to be imposin' for garden-stuff or\r
+anything else."\r
+\r
+"No, no, there's no imposin'," said Aaron; "there's never a garden in\r
+all the parish but what there's endless waste in it for want o'\r
+somebody as could use everything up. It's what I think to myself\r
+sometimes, as there need nobody run short o' victuals if the land was\r
+made the most on, and there was never a morsel but what could find its\r
+way to a mouth. It sets one thinking o' that--gardening does. But I\r
+must go back now, else mother 'ull be in trouble as I aren't there."\r
+\r
+"Bring her with you this afternoon, Aaron," said Eppie; "I shouldn't\r
+like to fix about the garden, and her not know everything from the\r
+first--should _you_, father?"\r
+\r
+"Aye, bring her if you can, Aaron," said Silas; "she's sure to have a\r
+word to say as'll help us to set things on their right end."\r
+\r
+Aaron turned back up the village, while Silas and Eppie went on up the\r
+lonely sheltered lane.\r
+\r
+"O daddy!" she began, when they were in privacy, clasping and\r
+squeezing Silas's arm, and skipping round to give him an energetic\r
+kiss. "My little old daddy! I'm so glad. I don't think I shall want\r
+anything else when we've got a little garden; and I knew Aaron would\r
+dig it for us," she went on with roguish triumph--"I knew that very\r
+well."\r
+\r
+"You're a deep little puss, you are," said Silas, with the mild passive\r
+happiness of love-crowned age in his face; "but you'll make yourself\r
+fine and beholden to Aaron."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, I shan't," said Eppie, laughing and frisking; "he likes it."\r
+\r
+"Come, come, let me carry your prayer-book, else you'll be dropping it,\r
+jumping i' that way."\r
+\r
+Eppie was now aware that her behaviour was under observation, but it\r
+was only the observation of a friendly donkey, browsing with a log\r
+fastened to his foot--a meek donkey, not scornfully critical of human\r
+trivialities, but thankful to share in them, if possible, by getting\r
+his nose scratched; and Eppie did not fail to gratify him with her\r
+usual notice, though it was attended with the inconvenience of his\r
+following them, painfully, up to the very door of their home.\r
+\r
+But the sound of a sharp bark inside, as Eppie put the key in the door,\r
+modified the donkey's views, and he limped away again without bidding.\r
+The sharp bark was the sign of an excited welcome that was awaiting\r
+them from a knowing brown terrier, who, after dancing at their legs in\r
+a hysterical manner, rushed with a worrying noise at a tortoise-shell\r
+kitten under the loom, and then rushed back with a sharp bark again, as\r
+much as to say, "I have done my duty by this feeble creature, you\r
+perceive"; while the lady-mother of the kitten sat sunning her white\r
+bosom in the window, and looked round with a sleepy air of expecting\r
+caresses, though she was not going to take any trouble for them.\r
+\r
+The presence of this happy animal life was not the only change which\r
+had come over the interior of the stone cottage. There was no bed now\r
+in the living-room, and the small space was well filled with decent\r
+furniture, all bright and clean enough to satisfy Dolly Winthrop's eye.\r
+The oaken table and three-cornered oaken chair were hardly what was\r
+likely to be seen in so poor a cottage: they had come, with the beds\r
+and other things, from the Red House; for Mr. Godfrey Cass, as every\r
+one said in the village, did very kindly by the weaver; and it was\r
+nothing but right a man should be looked on and helped by those who\r
+could afford it, when he had brought up an orphan child, and been\r
+father and mother to her--and had lost his money too, so as he had\r
+nothing but what he worked for week by week, and when the weaving was\r
+going down too--for there was less and less flax spun--and Master\r
+Marner was none so young. Nobody was jealous of the weaver, for he was\r
+regarded as an exceptional person, whose claims on neighbourly help\r
+were not to be matched in Raveloe. Any superstition that remained\r
+concerning him had taken an entirely new colour; and Mr. Macey, now a\r
+very feeble old man of fourscore and six, never seen except in his\r
+chimney-corner or sitting in the sunshine at his door-sill, was of\r
+opinion that when a man had done what Silas had done by an orphan\r
+child, it was a sign that his money would come to light again, or\r
+leastwise that the robber would be made to answer for it--for, as Mr.\r
+Macey observed of himself, his faculties were as strong as ever.\r
+\r
+Silas sat down now and watched Eppie with a satisfied gaze as she\r
+spread the clean cloth, and set on it the potato-pie, warmed up slowly\r
+in a safe Sunday fashion, by being put into a dry pot over a\r
+slowly-dying fire, as the best substitute for an oven. For Silas would\r
+not consent to have a grate and oven added to his conveniences: he\r
+loved the old brick hearth as he had loved his brown pot--and was it\r
+not there when he had found Eppie? The gods of the hearth exist for us\r
+still; and let all new faith be tolerant of that fetishism, lest it\r
+bruise its own roots.\r
+\r
+Silas ate his dinner more silently than usual, soon laying down his\r
+knife and fork, and watching half-abstractedly Eppie's play with Snap\r
+and the cat, by which her own dining was made rather a lengthy\r
+business. Yet it was a sight that might well arrest wandering\r
+thoughts: Eppie, with the rippling radiance of her hair and the\r
+whiteness of her rounded chin and throat set off by the dark-blue\r
+cotton gown, laughing merrily as the kitten held on with her four claws\r
+to one shoulder, like a design for a jug-handle, while Snap on the\r
+right hand and Puss on the other put up their paws towards a morsel\r
+which she held out of the reach of both--Snap occasionally desisting in\r
+order to remonstrate with the cat by a cogent worrying growl on the\r
+greediness and futility of her conduct; till Eppie relented, caressed\r
+them both, and divided the morsel between them.\r
+\r
+But at last Eppie, glancing at the clock, checked the play, and said,\r
+"O daddy, you're wanting to go into the sunshine to smoke your pipe.\r
+But I must clear away first, so as the house may be tidy when godmother\r
+comes. I'll make haste--I won't be long."\r
+\r
+Silas had taken to smoking a pipe daily during the last two years,\r
+having been strongly urged to it by the sages of Raveloe, as a practice\r
+"good for the fits"; and this advice was sanctioned by Dr. Kimble, on\r
+the ground that it was as well to try what could do no harm--a\r
+principle which was made to answer for a great deal of work in that\r
+gentleman's medical practice. Silas did not highly enjoy smoking, and\r
+often wondered how his neighbours could be so fond of it; but a humble\r
+sort of acquiescence in what was held to be good, had become a strong\r
+habit of that new self which had been developed in him since he had\r
+found Eppie on his hearth: it had been the only clew his bewildered\r
+mind could hold by in cherishing this young life that had been sent to\r
+him out of the darkness into which his gold had departed. By seeking\r
+what was needful for Eppie, by sharing the effect that everything\r
+produced on her, he had himself come to appropriate the forms of custom\r
+and belief which were the mould of Raveloe life; and as, with\r
+reawakening sensibilities, memory also reawakened, he had begun to\r
+ponder over the elements of his old faith, and blend them with his new\r
+impressions, till he recovered a consciousness of unity between his\r
+past and present. The sense of presiding goodness and the human trust\r
+which come with all pure peace and joy, had given him a dim impression\r
+that there had been some error, some mistake, which had thrown that\r
+dark shadow over the days of his best years; and as it grew more and\r
+more easy to him to open his mind to Dolly Winthrop, he gradually\r
+communicated to her all he could describe of his early life. The\r
+communication was necessarily a slow and difficult process, for Silas's\r
+meagre power of explanation was not aided by any readiness of\r
+interpretation in Dolly, whose narrow outward experience gave her no\r
+key to strange customs, and made every novelty a source of wonder that\r
+arrested them at every step of the narrative. It was only by\r
+fragments, and at intervals which left Dolly time to revolve what she\r
+had heard till it acquired some familiarity for her, that Silas at last\r
+arrived at the climax of the sad story--the drawing of lots, and its\r
+false testimony concerning him; and this had to be repeated in several\r
+interviews, under new questions on her part as to the nature of this\r
+plan for detecting the guilty and clearing the innocent.\r
+\r
+"And yourn's the same Bible, you're sure o' that, Master Marner--the\r
+Bible as you brought wi' you from that country--it's the same as what\r
+they've got at church, and what Eppie's a-learning to read in?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Silas, "every bit the same; and there's drawing o' lots in\r
+the Bible, mind you," he added in a lower tone.\r
+\r
+"Oh, dear, dear," said Dolly in a grieved voice, as if she were hearing\r
+an unfavourable report of a sick man's case. She was silent for some\r
+minutes; at last she said--\r
+\r
+"There's wise folks, happen, as know how it all is; the parson knows,\r
+I'll be bound; but it takes big words to tell them things, and such as\r
+poor folks can't make much out on. I can never rightly know the\r
+meaning o' what I hear at church, only a bit here and there, but I know\r
+it's good words--I do. But what lies upo' your mind--it's this, Master\r
+Marner: as, if Them above had done the right thing by you, They'd never\r
+ha' let you be turned out for a wicked thief when you was innicent."\r
+\r
+"Ah!" said Silas, who had now come to understand Dolly's phraseology,\r
+"that was what fell on me like as if it had been red-hot iron; because,\r
+you see, there was nobody as cared for me or clave to me above nor\r
+below. And him as I'd gone out and in wi' for ten year and more, since\r
+when we was lads and went halves--mine own familiar friend in whom I\r
+trusted, had lifted up his heel again' me, and worked to ruin me."\r
+\r
+"Eh, but he was a bad un--I can't think as there's another such," said\r
+Dolly. "But I'm o'ercome, Master Marner; I'm like as if I'd waked and\r
+didn't know whether it was night or morning. I feel somehow as sure as\r
+I do when I've laid something up though I can't justly put my hand on\r
+it, as there was a rights in what happened to you, if one could but\r
+make it out; and you'd no call to lose heart as you did. But we'll\r
+talk on it again; for sometimes things come into my head when I'm\r
+leeching or poulticing, or such, as I could never think on when I was\r
+sitting still."\r
+\r
+Dolly was too useful a woman not to have many opportunities of\r
+illumination of the kind she alluded to, and she was not long before\r
+she recurred to the subject.\r
+\r
+"Master Marner," she said, one day that she came to bring home Eppie's\r
+washing, "I've been sore puzzled for a good bit wi' that trouble o'\r
+yourn and the drawing o' lots; and it got twisted back'ards and\r
+for'ards, as I didn't know which end to lay hold on. But it come to me\r
+all clear like, that night when I was sitting up wi' poor Bessy Fawkes,\r
+as is dead and left her children behind, God help 'em--it come to me as\r
+clear as daylight; but whether I've got hold on it now, or can anyways\r
+bring it to my tongue's end, that I don't know. For I've often a deal\r
+inside me as'll never come out; and for what you talk o' your folks in\r
+your old country niver saying prayers by heart nor saying 'em out of a\r
+book, they must be wonderful cliver; for if I didn't know "Our Father",\r
+and little bits o' good words as I can carry out o' church wi' me, I\r
+might down o' my knees every night, but nothing could I say."\r
+\r
+"But you can mostly say something as I can make sense on, Mrs.\r
+Winthrop," said Silas.\r
+\r
+"Well, then, Master Marner, it come to me summat like this: I can make\r
+nothing o' the drawing o' lots and the answer coming wrong; it 'ud\r
+mayhap take the parson to tell that, and he could only tell us i' big\r
+words. But what come to me as clear as the daylight, it was when I was\r
+troubling over poor Bessy Fawkes, and it allays comes into my head when\r
+I'm sorry for folks, and feel as I can't do a power to help 'em, not if\r
+I was to get up i' the middle o' the night--it comes into my head as\r
+Them above has got a deal tenderer heart nor what I've got--for I can't\r
+be anyways better nor Them as made me; and if anything looks hard to\r
+me, it's because there's things I don't know on; and for the matter o'\r
+that, there may be plenty o' things I don't know on, for it's little as\r
+I know--that it is. And so, while I was thinking o' that, you come into\r
+my mind, Master Marner, and it all come pouring in:--if _I_ felt i' my\r
+inside what was the right and just thing by you, and them as prayed and\r
+drawed the lots, all but that wicked un, if _they_'d ha' done the right\r
+thing by you if they could, isn't there Them as was at the making on\r
+us, and knows better and has a better will? And that's all as ever I\r
+can be sure on, and everything else is a big puzzle to me when I think\r
+on it. For there was the fever come and took off them as were\r
+full-growed, and left the helpless children; and there's the breaking\r
+o' limbs; and them as 'ud do right and be sober have to suffer by them\r
+as are contrairy--eh, there's trouble i' this world, and there's things\r
+as we can niver make out the rights on. And all as we've got to do is\r
+to trusten, Master Marner--to do the right thing as fur as we know, and\r
+to trusten. For if us as knows so little can see a bit o' good and\r
+rights, we may be sure as there's a good and a rights bigger nor what\r
+we can know--I feel it i' my own inside as it must be so. And if you\r
+could but ha' gone on trustening, Master Marner, you wouldn't ha' run\r
+away from your fellow-creaturs and been so lone."\r
+\r
+"Ah, but that 'ud ha' been hard," said Silas, in an under-tone; "it 'ud\r
+ha' been hard to trusten then."\r
+\r
+"And so it would," said Dolly, almost with compunction; "them things\r
+are easier said nor done; and I'm partly ashamed o' talking."\r
+\r
+"Nay, nay," said Silas, "you're i' the right, Mrs. Winthrop--you're i'\r
+the right. There's good i' this world--I've a feeling o' that now; and\r
+it makes a man feel as there's a good more nor he can see, i' spite o'\r
+the trouble and the wickedness. That drawing o' the lots is dark; but\r
+the child was sent to me: there's dealings with us--there's dealings."\r
+\r
+This dialogue took place in Eppie's earlier years, when Silas had to\r
+part with her for two hours every day, that she might learn to read at\r
+the dame school, after he had vainly tried himself to guide her in that\r
+first step to learning. Now that she was grown up, Silas had often\r
+been led, in those moments of quiet outpouring which come to people who\r
+live together in perfect love, to talk with _her_ too of the past, and\r
+how and why he had lived a lonely man until she had been sent to him.\r
+For it would have been impossible for him to hide from Eppie that she\r
+was not his own child: even if the most delicate reticence on the point\r
+could have been expected from Raveloe gossips in her presence, her own\r
+questions about her mother could not have been parried, as she grew up,\r
+without that complete shrouding of the past which would have made a\r
+painful barrier between their minds. So Eppie had long known how her\r
+mother had died on the snowy ground, and how she herself had been found\r
+on the hearth by father Silas, who had taken her golden curls for his\r
+lost guineas brought back to him. The tender and peculiar love with\r
+which Silas had reared her in almost inseparable companionship with\r
+himself, aided by the seclusion of their dwelling, had preserved her\r
+from the lowering influences of the village talk and habits, and had\r
+kept her mind in that freshness which is sometimes falsely supposed to\r
+be an invariable attribute of rusticity. Perfect love has a breath of\r
+poetry which can exalt the relations of the least-instructed human\r
+beings; and this breath of poetry had surrounded Eppie from the time\r
+when she had followed the bright gleam that beckoned her to Silas's\r
+hearth; so that it is not surprising if, in other things besides her\r
+delicate prettiness, she was not quite a common village maiden, but had\r
+a touch of refinement and fervour which came from no other teaching\r
+than that of tenderly-nurtured unvitiated feeling. She was too\r
+childish and simple for her imagination to rove into questions about\r
+her unknown father; for a long while it did not even occur to her that\r
+she must have had a father; and the first time that the idea of her\r
+mother having had a husband presented itself to her, was when Silas\r
+showed her the wedding-ring which had been taken from the wasted\r
+finger, and had been carefully preserved by him in a little lackered\r
+box shaped like a shoe. He delivered this box into Eppie's charge when\r
+she had grown up, and she often opened it to look at the ring: but\r
+still she thought hardly at all about the father of whom it was the\r
+symbol. Had she not a father very close to her, who loved her better\r
+than any real fathers in the village seemed to love their daughters?\r
+On the contrary, who her mother was, and how she came to die in that\r
+forlornness, were questions that often pressed on Eppie's mind. Her\r
+knowledge of Mrs. Winthrop, who was her nearest friend next to Silas,\r
+made her feel that a mother must be very precious; and she had again\r
+and again asked Silas to tell her how her mother looked, whom she was\r
+like, and how he had found her against the furze bush, led towards it\r
+by the little footsteps and the outstretched arms. The furze bush was\r
+there still; and this afternoon, when Eppie came out with Silas into\r
+the sunshine, it was the first object that arrested her eyes and\r
+thoughts.\r
+\r
+"Father," she said, in a tone of gentle gravity, which sometimes came\r
+like a sadder, slower cadence across her playfulness, "we shall take\r
+the furze bush into the garden; it'll come into the corner, and just\r
+against it I'll put snowdrops and crocuses, 'cause Aaron says they\r
+won't die out, but'll always get more and more."\r
+\r
+"Ah, child," said Silas, always ready to talk when he had his pipe in\r
+his hand, apparently enjoying the pauses more than the puffs, "it\r
+wouldn't do to leave out the furze bush; and there's nothing prettier,\r
+to my thinking, when it's yallow with flowers. But it's just come into\r
+my head what we're to do for a fence--mayhap Aaron can help us to a\r
+thought; but a fence we must have, else the donkeys and things 'ull\r
+come and trample everything down. And fencing's hard to be got at, by\r
+what I can make out."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'll tell you, daddy," said Eppie, clasping her hands suddenly,\r
+after a minute's thought. "There's lots o' loose stones about, some of\r
+'em not big, and we might lay 'em atop of one another, and make a wall.\r
+You and me could carry the smallest, and Aaron 'ud carry the rest--I\r
+know he would."\r
+\r
+"Eh, my precious un," said Silas, "there isn't enough stones to go all\r
+round; and as for you carrying, why, wi' your little arms you couldn't\r
+carry a stone no bigger than a turnip. You're dillicate made, my\r
+dear," he added, with a tender intonation--"that's what Mrs. Winthrop\r
+says."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I'm stronger than you think, daddy," said Eppie; "and if there\r
+wasn't stones enough to go all round, why they'll go part o' the way,\r
+and then it'll be easier to get sticks and things for the rest. See\r
+here, round the big pit, what a many stones!"\r
+\r
+She skipped forward to the pit, meaning to lift one of the stones and\r
+exhibit her strength, but she started back in surprise.\r
+\r
+"Oh, father, just come and look here," she exclaimed--"come and see how\r
+the water's gone down since yesterday. Why, yesterday the pit was ever\r
+so full!"\r
+\r
+"Well, to be sure," said Silas, coming to her side. "Why, that's the\r
+draining they've begun on, since harvest, i' Mr. Osgood's fields, I\r
+reckon. The foreman said to me the other day, when I passed by 'em,\r
+"Master Marner," he said, "I shouldn't wonder if we lay your bit o'\r
+waste as dry as a bone." It was Mr. Godfrey Cass, he said, had gone\r
+into the draining: he'd been taking these fields o' Mr. Osgood."\r
+\r
+"How odd it'll seem to have the old pit dried up!" said Eppie, turning\r
+away, and stooping to lift rather a large stone. "See, daddy, I can\r
+carry this quite well," she said, going along with much energy for a\r
+few steps, but presently letting it fall.\r
+\r
+"Ah, you're fine and strong, aren't you?" said Silas, while Eppie\r
+shook her aching arms and laughed. "Come, come, let us go and sit down\r
+on the bank against the stile there, and have no more lifting. You\r
+might hurt yourself, child. You'd need have somebody to work for\r
+you--and my arm isn't over strong."\r
+\r
+Silas uttered the last sentence slowly, as if it implied more than met\r
+the ear; and Eppie, when they sat down on the bank, nestled close to\r
+his side, and, taking hold caressingly of the arm that was not over\r
+strong, held it on her lap, while Silas puffed again dutifully at the\r
+pipe, which occupied his other arm. An ash in the hedgerow behind made\r
+a fretted screen from the sun, and threw happy playful shadows all\r
+about them.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Eppie, very gently, after they had been sitting in\r
+silence a little while, "if I was to be married, ought I to be married\r
+with my mother's ring?"\r
+\r
+Silas gave an almost imperceptible start, though the question fell in\r
+with the under-current of thought in his own mind, and then said, in a\r
+subdued tone, "Why, Eppie, have you been a-thinking on it?"\r
+\r
+"Only this last week, father," said Eppie, ingenuously, "since Aaron\r
+talked to me about it."\r
+\r
+"And what did he say?" said Silas, still in the same subdued way, as\r
+if he were anxious lest he should fall into the slightest tone that was\r
+not for Eppie's good.\r
+\r
+"He said he should like to be married, because he was a-going in\r
+four-and-twenty, and had got a deal of gardening work, now Mr. Mott's\r
+given up; and he goes twice a-week regular to Mr. Cass's, and once to\r
+Mr. Osgood's, and they're going to take him on at the Rectory."\r
+\r
+"And who is it as he's wanting to marry?" said Silas, with rather a\r
+sad smile.\r
+\r
+"Why, me, to be sure, daddy," said Eppie, with dimpling laughter,\r
+kissing her father's cheek; "as if he'd want to marry anybody else!"\r
+\r
+"And you mean to have him, do you?" said Silas.\r
+\r
+"Yes, some time," said Eppie, "I don't know when. Everybody's married\r
+some time, Aaron says. But I told him that wasn't true: for, I said,\r
+look at father--he's never been married."\r
+\r
+"No, child," said Silas, "your father was a lone man till you was sent\r
+to him."\r
+\r
+"But you'll never be lone again, father," said Eppie, tenderly. "That\r
+was what Aaron said--"I could never think o' taking you away from\r
+Master Marner, Eppie." And I said, "It 'ud be no use if you did,\r
+Aaron." And he wants us all to live together, so as you needn't work a\r
+bit, father, only what's for your own pleasure; and he'd be as good as\r
+a son to you--that was what he said."\r
+\r
+"And should you like that, Eppie?" said Silas, looking at her.\r
+\r
+"I shouldn't mind it, father," said Eppie, quite simply. "And I should\r
+like things to be so as you needn't work much. But if it wasn't for\r
+that, I'd sooner things didn't change. I'm very happy: I like Aaron to\r
+be fond of me, and come and see us often, and behave pretty to you--he\r
+always _does_ behave pretty to you, doesn't he, father?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, child, nobody could behave better," said Silas, emphatically.\r
+"He's his mother's lad."\r
+\r
+"But I don't want any change," said Eppie. "I should like to go on a\r
+long, long while, just as we are. Only Aaron does want a change; and\r
+he made me cry a bit--only a bit--because he said I didn't care for\r
+him, for if I cared for him I should want us to be married, as he did."\r
+\r
+"Eh, my blessed child," said Silas, laying down his pipe as if it were\r
+useless to pretend to smoke any longer, "you're o'er young to be\r
+married. We'll ask Mrs. Winthrop--we'll ask Aaron's mother what _she_\r
+thinks: if there's a right thing to do, she'll come at it. But there's\r
+this to be thought on, Eppie: things _will_ change, whether we like it\r
+or no; things won't go on for a long while just as they are and no\r
+difference. I shall get older and helplesser, and be a burden on you,\r
+belike, if I don't go away from you altogether. Not as I mean you'd\r
+think me a burden--I know you wouldn't--but it 'ud be hard upon you;\r
+and when I look for'ard to that, I like to think as you'd have somebody\r
+else besides me--somebody young and strong, as'll outlast your own\r
+life, and take care on you to the end." Silas paused, and, resting his\r
+wrists on his knees, lifted his hands up and down meditatively as he\r
+looked on the ground.\r
+\r
+"Then, would you like me to be married, father?" said Eppie, with a\r
+little trembling in her voice.\r
+\r
+"I'll not be the man to say no, Eppie," said Silas, emphatically; "but\r
+we'll ask your godmother. She'll wish the right thing by you and her\r
+son too."\r
+\r
+"There they come, then," said Eppie. "Let us go and meet 'em. Oh, the\r
+pipe! won't you have it lit again, father?" said Eppie, lifting that\r
+medicinal appliance from the ground.\r
+\r
+"Nay, child," said Silas, "I've done enough for to-day. I think,\r
+mayhap, a little of it does me more good than so much at once."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVII\r
+\r
+While Silas and Eppie were seated on the bank discoursing in the\r
+fleckered shade of the ash tree, Miss Priscilla Lammeter was resisting\r
+her sister's arguments, that it would be better to take tea at the Red\r
+House, and let her father have a long nap, than drive home to the\r
+Warrens so soon after dinner. The family party (of four only) were\r
+seated round the table in the dark wainscoted parlour, with the Sunday\r
+dessert before them, of fresh filberts, apples, and pears, duly\r
+ornamented with leaves by Nancy's own hand before the bells had rung\r
+for church.\r
+\r
+A great change has come over the dark wainscoted parlour since we saw\r
+it in Godfrey's bachelor days, and under the wifeless reign of the old\r
+Squire. Now all is polish, on which no yesterday's dust is ever\r
+allowed to rest, from the yard's width of oaken boards round the\r
+carpet, to the old Squire's gun and whips and walking-sticks, ranged on\r
+the stag's antlers above the mantelpiece. All other signs of sporting\r
+and outdoor occupation Nancy has removed to another room; but she has\r
+brought into the Red House the habit of filial reverence, and preserves\r
+sacredly in a place of honour these relics of her husband's departed\r
+father. The tankards are on the side-table still, but the bossed\r
+silver is undimmed by handling, and there are no dregs to send forth\r
+unpleasant suggestions: the only prevailing scent is of the lavender\r
+and rose-leaves that fill the vases of Derbyshire spar. All is purity\r
+and order in this once dreary room, for, fifteen years ago, it was\r
+entered by a new presiding spirit.\r
+\r
+"Now, father," said Nancy, "_is_ there any call for you to go home to\r
+tea? Mayn't you just as well stay with us?--such a beautiful evening\r
+as it's likely to be."\r
+\r
+The old gentleman had been talking with Godfrey about the increasing\r
+poor-rate and the ruinous times, and had not heard the dialogue between\r
+his daughters.\r
+\r
+"My dear, you must ask Priscilla," he said, in the once firm voice, now\r
+become rather broken. "She manages me and the farm too."\r
+\r
+"And reason good as I should manage you, father," said Priscilla, "else\r
+you'd be giving yourself your death with rheumatism. And as for the\r
+farm, if anything turns out wrong, as it can't but do in these times,\r
+there's nothing kills a man so soon as having nobody to find fault with\r
+but himself. It's a deal the best way o' being master, to let somebody\r
+else do the ordering, and keep the blaming in your own hands. It 'ud\r
+save many a man a stroke, _I_ believe."\r
+\r
+"Well, well, my dear," said her father, with a quiet laugh, "I didn't\r
+say you don't manage for everybody's good."\r
+\r
+"Then manage so as you may stay tea, Priscilla," said Nancy, putting\r
+her hand on her sister's arm affectionately. "Come now; and we'll go\r
+round the garden while father has his nap."\r
+\r
+"My dear child, he'll have a beautiful nap in the gig, for I shall\r
+drive. And as for staying tea, I can't hear of it; for there's this\r
+dairymaid, now she knows she's to be married, turned Michaelmas, she'd\r
+as lief pour the new milk into the pig-trough as into the pans. That's\r
+the way with 'em all: it's as if they thought the world 'ud be new-made\r
+because they're to be married. So come and let me put my bonnet on,\r
+and there'll be time for us to walk round the garden while the horse is\r
+being put in."\r
+\r
+When the sisters were treading the neatly-swept garden-walks, between\r
+the bright turf that contrasted pleasantly with the dark cones and\r
+arches and wall-like hedges of yew, Priscilla said--\r
+\r
+"I'm as glad as anything at your husband's making that exchange o' land\r
+with cousin Osgood, and beginning the dairying. It's a thousand pities\r
+you didn't do it before; for it'll give you something to fill your\r
+mind. There's nothing like a dairy if folks want a bit o' worrit to\r
+make the days pass. For as for rubbing furniture, when you can once\r
+see your face in a table there's nothing else to look for; but there's\r
+always something fresh with the dairy; for even in the depths o' winter\r
+there's some pleasure in conquering the butter, and making it come\r
+whether or no. My dear," added Priscilla, pressing her sister's hand\r
+affectionately as they walked side by side, "you'll never be low when\r
+you've got a dairy."\r
+\r
+"Ah, Priscilla," said Nancy, returning the pressure with a grateful\r
+glance of her clear eyes, "but it won't make up to Godfrey: a dairy's\r
+not so much to a man. And it's only what he cares for that ever makes\r
+me low. I'm contented with the blessings we have, if he could be\r
+contented."\r
+\r
+"It drives me past patience," said Priscilla, impetuously, "that way o'\r
+the men--always wanting and wanting, and never easy with what they've\r
+got: they can't sit comfortable in their chairs when they've neither\r
+ache nor pain, but either they must stick a pipe in their mouths, to\r
+make 'em better than well, or else they must be swallowing something\r
+strong, though they're forced to make haste before the next meal comes\r
+in. But joyful be it spoken, our father was never that sort o' man.\r
+And if it had pleased God to make you ugly, like me, so as the men\r
+wouldn't ha' run after you, we might have kept to our own family, and\r
+had nothing to do with folks as have got uneasy blood in their veins."\r
+\r
+"Oh, don't say so, Priscilla," said Nancy, repenting that she had\r
+called forth this outburst; "nobody has any occasion to find fault with\r
+Godfrey. It's natural he should be disappointed at not having any\r
+children: every man likes to have somebody to work for and lay by for,\r
+and he always counted so on making a fuss with 'em when they were\r
+little. There's many another man 'ud hanker more than he does. He's\r
+the best of husbands."\r
+\r
+"Oh, I know," said Priscilla, smiling sarcastically, "I know the way o'\r
+wives; they set one on to abuse their husbands, and then they turn\r
+round on one and praise 'em as if they wanted to sell 'em. But\r
+father'll be waiting for me; we must turn now."\r
+\r
+The large gig with the steady old grey was at the front door, and Mr.\r
+Lammeter was already on the stone steps, passing the time in recalling\r
+to Godfrey what very fine points Speckle had when his master used to\r
+ride him.\r
+\r
+"I always _would_ have a good horse, you know," said the old gentleman,\r
+not liking that spirited time to be quite effaced from the memory of\r
+his juniors.\r
+\r
+"Mind you bring Nancy to the Warrens before the week's out, Mr. Cass,"\r
+was Priscilla's parting injunction, as she took the reins, and shook\r
+them gently, by way of friendly incitement to Speckle.\r
+\r
+"I shall just take a turn to the fields against the Stone-pits, Nancy,\r
+and look at the draining," said Godfrey.\r
+\r
+"You'll be in again by tea-time, dear?"\r
+\r
+"Oh, yes, I shall be back in an hour."\r
+\r
+It was Godfrey's custom on a Sunday afternoon to do a little\r
+contemplative farming in a leisurely walk. Nancy seldom accompanied\r
+him; for the women of her generation--unless, like Priscilla, they took\r
+to outdoor management--were not given to much walking beyond their own\r
+house and garden, finding sufficient exercise in domestic duties. So,\r
+when Priscilla was not with her, she usually sat with Mant's Bible\r
+before her, and after following the text with her eyes for a little\r
+while, she would gradually permit them to wander as her thoughts had\r
+already insisted on wandering.\r
+\r
+But Nancy's Sunday thoughts were rarely quite out of keeping with the\r
+devout and reverential intention implied by the book spread open before\r
+her. She was not theologically instructed enough to discern very\r
+clearly the relation between the sacred documents of the past which she\r
+opened without method, and her own obscure, simple life; but the spirit\r
+of rectitude, and the sense of responsibility for the effect of her\r
+conduct on others, which were strong elements in Nancy's character, had\r
+made it a habit with her to scrutinize her past feelings and actions\r
+with self-questioning solicitude. Her mind not being courted by a\r
+great variety of subjects, she filled the vacant moments by living\r
+inwardly, again and again, through all her remembered experience,\r
+especially through the fifteen years of her married time, in which her\r
+life and its significance had been doubled. She recalled the small\r
+details, the words, tones, and looks, in the critical scenes which had\r
+opened a new epoch for her by giving her a deeper insight into the\r
+relations and trials of life, or which had called on her for some\r
+little effort of forbearance, or of painful adherence to an imagined or\r
+real duty--asking herself continually whether she had been in any\r
+respect blamable. This excessive rumination and self-questioning is\r
+perhaps a morbid habit inevitable to a mind of much moral sensibility\r
+when shut out from its due share of outward activity and of practical\r
+claims on its affections--inevitable to a noble-hearted, childless\r
+woman, when her lot is narrow. "I can do so little--have I done it all\r
+well?" is the perpetually recurring thought; and there are no voices\r
+calling her away from that soliloquy, no peremptory demands to divert\r
+energy from vain regret or superfluous scruple.\r
+\r
+There was one main thread of painful experience in Nancy's married\r
+life, and on it hung certain deeply-felt scenes, which were the\r
+oftenest revived in retrospect. The short dialogue with Priscilla in\r
+the garden had determined the current of retrospect in that frequent\r
+direction this particular Sunday afternoon. The first wandering of her\r
+thought from the text, which she still attempted dutifully to follow\r
+with her eyes and silent lips, was into an imaginary enlargement of the\r
+defence she had set up for her husband against Priscilla's implied\r
+blame. The vindication of the loved object is the best balm affection\r
+can find for its wounds:--"A man must have so much on his mind," is the\r
+belief by which a wife often supports a cheerful face under rough\r
+answers and unfeeling words. And Nancy's deepest wounds had all come\r
+from the perception that the absence of children from their hearth was\r
+dwelt on in her husband's mind as a privation to which he could not\r
+reconcile himself.\r
+\r
+Yet sweet Nancy might have been expected to feel still more keenly the\r
+denial of a blessing to which she had looked forward with all the\r
+varied expectations and preparations, solemn and prettily trivial,\r
+which fill the mind of a loving woman when she expects to become a\r
+mother. Was there not a drawer filled with the neat work of her hands,\r
+all unworn and untouched, just as she had arranged it there fourteen\r
+years ago--just, but for one little dress, which had been made the\r
+burial-dress? But under this immediate personal trial Nancy was so\r
+firmly unmurmuring, that years ago she had suddenly renounced the habit\r
+of visiting this drawer, lest she should in this way be cherishing a\r
+longing for what was not given.\r
+\r
+Perhaps it was this very severity towards any indulgence of what she\r
+held to be sinful regret in herself, that made her shrink from applying\r
+her own standard to her husband. "It is very different--it is much\r
+worse for a man to be disappointed in that way: a woman can always be\r
+satisfied with devoting herself to her husband, but a man wants\r
+something that will make him look forward more--and sitting by the fire\r
+is so much duller to him than to a woman." And always, when Nancy\r
+reached this point in her meditations--trying, with predetermined\r
+sympathy, to see everything as Godfrey saw it--there came a renewal of\r
+self-questioning. _Had_ she done everything in her power to lighten\r
+Godfrey's privation? Had she really been right in the resistance which\r
+had cost her so much pain six years ago, and again four years ago--the\r
+resistance to her husband's wish that they should adopt a child?\r
+Adoption was more remote from the ideas and habits of that time than of\r
+our own; still Nancy had her opinion on it. It was as necessary to her\r
+mind to have an opinion on all topics, not exclusively masculine, that\r
+had come under her notice, as for her to have a precisely marked place\r
+for every article of her personal property: and her opinions were\r
+always principles to be unwaveringly acted on. They were firm, not\r
+because of their basis, but because she held them with a tenacity\r
+inseparable from her mental action. On all the duties and proprieties\r
+of life, from filial behaviour to the arrangements of the evening\r
+toilette, pretty Nancy Lammeter, by the time she was three-and-twenty,\r
+had her unalterable little code, and had formed every one of her habits\r
+in strict accordance with that code. She carried these decided\r
+judgments within her in the most unobtrusive way: they rooted\r
+themselves in her mind, and grew there as quietly as grass. Years ago,\r
+we know, she insisted on dressing like Priscilla, because "it was right\r
+for sisters to dress alike", and because "she would do what was right\r
+if she wore a gown dyed with cheese-colouring". That was a trivial but\r
+typical instance of the mode in which Nancy's life was regulated.\r
+\r
+It was one of those rigid principles, and no petty egoistic feeling,\r
+which had been the ground of Nancy's difficult resistance to her\r
+husband's wish. To adopt a child, because children of your own had\r
+been denied you, was to try and choose your lot in spite of Providence:\r
+the adopted child, she was convinced, would never turn out well, and\r
+would be a curse to those who had wilfully and rebelliously sought what\r
+it was clear that, for some high reason, they were better without.\r
+When you saw a thing was not meant to be, said Nancy, it was a bounden\r
+duty to leave off so much as wishing for it. And so far, perhaps, the\r
+wisest of men could scarcely make more than a verbal improvement in her\r
+principle. But the conditions under which she held it apparent that a\r
+thing was not meant to be, depended on a more peculiar mode of\r
+thinking. She would have given up making a purchase at a particular\r
+place if, on three successive times, rain, or some other cause of\r
+Heaven's sending, had formed an obstacle; and she would have\r
+anticipated a broken limb or other heavy misfortune to any one who\r
+persisted in spite of such indications.\r
+\r
+"But why should you think the child would turn out ill?" said Godfrey,\r
+in his remonstrances. "She has thriven as well as child can do with\r
+the weaver; and _he_ adopted her. There isn't such a pretty little\r
+girl anywhere else in the parish, or one fitter for the station we\r
+could give her. Where can be the likelihood of her being a curse to\r
+anybody?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear Godfrey," said Nancy, who was sitting with her hands\r
+tightly clasped together, and with yearning, regretful affection in her\r
+eyes. "The child may not turn out ill with the weaver. But, then, he\r
+didn't go to seek her, as we should be doing. It will be wrong: I feel\r
+sure it will. Don't you remember what that lady we met at the Royston\r
+Baths told us about the child her sister adopted? That was the only\r
+adopting I ever heard of: and the child was transported when it was\r
+twenty-three. Dear Godfrey, don't ask me to do what I know is wrong: I\r
+should never be happy again. I know it's very hard for _you_--it's\r
+easier for me--but it's the will of Providence."\r
+\r
+It might seem singular that Nancy--with her religious theory pieced\r
+together out of narrow social traditions, fragments of church doctrine\r
+imperfectly understood, and girlish reasonings on her small\r
+experience--should have arrived by herself at a way of thinking so\r
+nearly akin to that of many devout people, whose beliefs are held in\r
+the shape of a system quite remote from her knowledge--singular, if we\r
+did not know that human beliefs, like all other natural growths, elude\r
+the barriers of system.\r
+\r
+Godfrey had from the first specified Eppie, then about twelve years\r
+old, as a child suitable for them to adopt. It had never occurred to\r
+him that Silas would rather part with his life than with Eppie. Surely\r
+the weaver would wish the best to the child he had taken so much\r
+trouble with, and would be glad that such good fortune should happen to\r
+her: she would always be very grateful to him, and he would be well\r
+provided for to the end of his life--provided for as the excellent part\r
+he had done by the child deserved. Was it not an appropriate thing for\r
+people in a higher station to take a charge off the hands of a man in a\r
+lower? It seemed an eminently appropriate thing to Godfrey, for\r
+reasons that were known only to himself; and by a common fallacy, he\r
+imagined the measure would be easy because he had private motives for\r
+desiring it. This was rather a coarse mode of estimating Silas's\r
+relation to Eppie; but we must remember that many of the impressions\r
+which Godfrey was likely to gather concerning the labouring people\r
+around him would favour the idea that deep affections can hardly go\r
+along with callous palms and scant means; and he had not had the\r
+opportunity, even if he had had the power, of entering intimately into\r
+all that was exceptional in the weaver's experience. It was only the\r
+want of adequate knowledge that could have made it possible for Godfrey\r
+deliberately to entertain an unfeeling project: his natural kindness\r
+had outlived that blighting time of cruel wishes, and Nancy's praise of\r
+him as a husband was not founded entirely on a wilful illusion.\r
+\r
+"I was right," she said to herself, when she had recalled all their\r
+scenes of discussion--"I feel I was right to say him nay, though it\r
+hurt me more than anything; but how good Godfrey has been about it!\r
+Many men would have been very angry with me for standing out against\r
+their wishes; and they might have thrown out that they'd had ill-luck\r
+in marrying me; but Godfrey has never been the man to say me an unkind\r
+word. It's only what he can't hide: everything seems so blank to him,\r
+I know; and the land--what a difference it 'ud make to him, when he\r
+goes to see after things, if he'd children growing up that he was doing\r
+it all for! But I won't murmur; and perhaps if he'd married a woman\r
+who'd have had children, she'd have vexed him in other ways."\r
+\r
+This possibility was Nancy's chief comfort; and to give it greater\r
+strength, she laboured to make it impossible that any other wife should\r
+have had more perfect tenderness. She had been _forced_ to vex him by\r
+that one denial. Godfrey was not insensible to her loving effort, and\r
+did Nancy no injustice as to the motives of her obstinacy. It was\r
+impossible to have lived with her fifteen years and not be aware that\r
+an unselfish clinging to the right, and a sincerity clear as the\r
+flower-born dew, were her main characteristics; indeed, Godfrey felt\r
+this so strongly, that his own more wavering nature, too averse to\r
+facing difficulty to be unvaryingly simple and truthful, was kept in a\r
+certain awe of this gentle wife who watched his looks with a yearning\r
+to obey them. It seemed to him impossible that he should ever confess\r
+to her the truth about Eppie: she would never recover from the\r
+repulsion the story of his earlier marriage would create, told to her\r
+now, after that long concealment. And the child, too, he thought, must\r
+become an object of repulsion: the very sight of her would be painful.\r
+The shock to Nancy's mingled pride and ignorance of the world's evil\r
+might even be too much for her delicate frame. Since he had married\r
+her with that secret on his heart, he must keep it there to the last.\r
+Whatever else he did, he could not make an irreparable breach between\r
+himself and this long-loved wife.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile, why could he not make up his mind to the absence of children\r
+from a hearth brightened by such a wife? Why did his mind fly uneasily\r
+to that void, as if it were the sole reason why life was not thoroughly\r
+joyous to him? I suppose it is the way with all men and women who\r
+reach middle age without the clear perception that life never _can_ be\r
+thoroughly joyous: under the vague dullness of the grey hours,\r
+dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation\r
+of an untried good. Dissatisfaction seated musingly on a childless\r
+hearth, thinks with envy of the father whose return is greeted by young\r
+voices--seated at the meal where the little heads rise one above\r
+another like nursery plants, it sees a black care hovering behind every\r
+one of them, and thinks the impulses by which men abandon freedom, and\r
+seek for ties, are surely nothing but a brief madness. In Godfrey's\r
+case there were further reasons why his thoughts should be continually\r
+solicited by this one point in his lot: his conscience, never\r
+thoroughly easy about Eppie, now gave his childless home the aspect of\r
+a retribution; and as the time passed on, under Nancy's refusal to\r
+adopt her, any retrieval of his error became more and more difficult.\r
+\r
+On this Sunday afternoon it was already four years since there had been\r
+any allusion to the subject between them, and Nancy supposed that it\r
+was for ever buried.\r
+\r
+"I wonder if he'll mind it less or more as he gets older," she thought;\r
+"I'm afraid more. Aged people feel the miss of children: what would\r
+father do without Priscilla? And if I die, Godfrey will be very\r
+lonely--not holding together with his brothers much. But I won't be\r
+over-anxious, and trying to make things out beforehand: I must do my\r
+best for the present."\r
+\r
+With that last thought Nancy roused herself from her reverie, and\r
+turned her eyes again towards the forsaken page. It had been forsaken\r
+longer than she imagined, for she was presently surprised by the\r
+appearance of the servant with the tea-things. It was, in fact, a\r
+little before the usual time for tea; but Jane had her reasons.\r
+\r
+"Is your master come into the yard, Jane?"\r
+\r
+"No 'm, he isn't," said Jane, with a slight emphasis, of which,\r
+however, her mistress took no notice.\r
+\r
+"I don't know whether you've seen 'em, 'm," continued Jane, after a\r
+pause, "but there's folks making haste all one way, afore the front\r
+window. I doubt something's happened. There's niver a man to be seen\r
+i' the yard, else I'd send and see. I've been up into the top attic,\r
+but there's no seeing anything for trees. I hope nobody's hurt, that's\r
+all."\r
+\r
+"Oh, no, I daresay there's nothing much the matter," said Nancy. "It's\r
+perhaps Mr. Snell's bull got out again, as he did before."\r
+\r
+"I wish he mayn't gore anybody then, that's all," said Jane, not\r
+altogether despising a hypothesis which covered a few imaginary\r
+calamities.\r
+\r
+"That girl is always terrifying me," thought Nancy; "I wish Godfrey\r
+would come in."\r
+\r
+She went to the front window and looked as far as she could see along\r
+the road, with an uneasiness which she felt to be childish, for there\r
+were now no such signs of excitement as Jane had spoken of, and Godfrey\r
+would not be likely to return by the village road, but by the fields.\r
+She continued to stand, however, looking at the placid churchyard with\r
+the long shadows of the gravestones across the bright green hillocks,\r
+and at the glowing autumn colours of the Rectory trees beyond. Before\r
+such calm external beauty the presence of a vague fear is more\r
+distinctly felt--like a raven flapping its slow wing across the sunny\r
+air. Nancy wished more and more that Godfrey would come in.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XVIII\r
+\r
+Some one opened the door at the other end of the room, and Nancy felt\r
+that it was her husband. She turned from the window with gladness in\r
+her eyes, for the wife's chief dread was stilled.\r
+\r
+"Dear, I'm so thankful you're come," she said, going towards him. "I\r
+began to get--"\r
+\r
+She paused abruptly, for Godfrey was laying down his hat with trembling\r
+hands, and turned towards her with a pale face and a strange\r
+unanswering glance, as if he saw her indeed, but saw her as part of a\r
+scene invisible to herself. She laid her hand on his arm, not daring\r
+to speak again; but he left the touch unnoticed, and threw himself into\r
+his chair.\r
+\r
+Jane was already at the door with the hissing urn. "Tell her to keep\r
+away, will you?" said Godfrey; and when the door was closed again he\r
+exerted himself to speak more distinctly.\r
+\r
+"Sit down, Nancy--there," he said, pointing to a chair opposite him.\r
+"I came back as soon as I could, to hinder anybody's telling you but\r
+me. I've had a great shock--but I care most about the shock it'll be\r
+to you."\r
+\r
+"It isn't father and Priscilla?" said Nancy, with quivering lips,\r
+clasping her hands together tightly on her lap.\r
+\r
+"No, it's nobody living," said Godfrey, unequal to the considerate\r
+skill with which he would have wished to make his revelation. "It's\r
+Dunstan--my brother Dunstan, that we lost sight of sixteen years ago.\r
+We've found him--found his body--his skeleton."\r
+\r
+The deep dread Godfrey's look had created in Nancy made her feel these\r
+words a relief. She sat in comparative calmness to hear what else he\r
+had to tell. He went on:\r
+\r
+"The Stone-pit has gone dry suddenly--from the draining, I suppose; and\r
+there he lies--has lain for sixteen years, wedged between two great\r
+stones. There's his watch and seals, and there's my gold-handled\r
+hunting-whip, with my name on: he took it away, without my knowing, the\r
+day he went hunting on Wildfire, the last time he was seen."\r
+\r
+Godfrey paused: it was not so easy to say what came next. "Do you\r
+think he drowned himself?" said Nancy, almost wondering that her\r
+husband should be so deeply shaken by what had happened all those years\r
+ago to an unloved brother, of whom worse things had been augured.\r
+\r
+"No, he fell in," said Godfrey, in a low but distinct voice, as if he\r
+felt some deep meaning in the fact. Presently he added: "Dunstan was\r
+the man that robbed Silas Marner."\r
+\r
+The blood rushed to Nancy's face and neck at this surprise and shame,\r
+for she had been bred up to regard even a distant kinship with crime as\r
+a dishonour.\r
+\r
+"O Godfrey!" she said, with compassion in her tone, for she had\r
+immediately reflected that the dishonour must be felt still more keenly\r
+by her husband.\r
+\r
+"There was the money in the pit," he continued--"all the weaver's\r
+money. Everything's been gathered up, and they're taking the skeleton\r
+to the Rainbow. But I came back to tell you: there was no hindering\r
+it; you must know."\r
+\r
+He was silent, looking on the ground for two long minutes. Nancy would\r
+have said some words of comfort under this disgrace, but she refrained,\r
+from an instinctive sense that there was something behind--that Godfrey\r
+had something else to tell her. Presently he lifted his eyes to her\r
+face, and kept them fixed on her, as he said--\r
+\r
+"Everything comes to light, Nancy, sooner or later. When God Almighty\r
+wills it, our secrets are found out. I've lived with a secret on my\r
+mind, but I'll keep it from you no longer. I wouldn't have you know it\r
+by somebody else, and not by me--I wouldn't have you find it out after\r
+I'm dead. I'll tell you now. It's been "I will" and "I won't" with me\r
+all my life--I'll make sure of myself now."\r
+\r
+Nancy's utmost dread had returned. The eyes of the husband and wife\r
+met with awe in them, as at a crisis which suspended affection.\r
+\r
+"Nancy," said Godfrey, slowly, "when I married you, I hid something\r
+from you--something I ought to have told you. That woman Marner found\r
+dead in the snow--Eppie's mother--that wretched woman--was my wife:\r
+Eppie is my child."\r
+\r
+He paused, dreading the effect of his confession. But Nancy sat quite\r
+still, only that her eyes dropped and ceased to meet his. She was pale\r
+and quiet as a meditative statue, clasping her hands on her lap.\r
+\r
+"You'll never think the same of me again," said Godfrey, after a little\r
+while, with some tremor in his voice.\r
+\r
+She was silent.\r
+\r
+"I oughtn't to have left the child unowned: I oughtn't to have kept it\r
+from you. But I couldn't bear to give you up, Nancy. I was led away\r
+into marrying her--I suffered for it."\r
+\r
+Still Nancy was silent, looking down; and he almost expected that she\r
+would presently get up and say she would go to her father's. How could\r
+she have any mercy for faults that must seem so black to her, with her\r
+simple, severe notions?\r
+\r
+But at last she lifted up her eyes to his again and spoke. There was\r
+no indignation in her voice--only deep regret.\r
+\r
+"Godfrey, if you had but told me this six years ago, we could have done\r
+some of our duty by the child. Do you think I'd have refused to take\r
+her in, if I'd known she was yours?"\r
+\r
+At that moment Godfrey felt all the bitterness of an error that was not\r
+simply futile, but had defeated its own end. He had not measured this\r
+wife with whom he had lived so long. But she spoke again, with more\r
+agitation.\r
+\r
+"And--Oh, Godfrey--if we'd had her from the first, if you'd taken to\r
+her as you ought, she'd have loved me for her mother--and you'd have\r
+been happier with me: I could better have bore my little baby dying,\r
+and our life might have been more like what we used to think it 'ud be."\r
+\r
+The tears fell, and Nancy ceased to speak.\r
+\r
+"But you wouldn't have married me then, Nancy, if I'd told you," said\r
+Godfrey, urged, in the bitterness of his self-reproach, to prove to\r
+himself that his conduct had not been utter folly. "You may think you\r
+would now, but you wouldn't then. With your pride and your father's,\r
+you'd have hated having anything to do with me after the talk there'd\r
+have been."\r
+\r
+"I can't say what I should have done about that, Godfrey. I should\r
+never have married anybody else. But I wasn't worth doing wrong\r
+for--nothing is in this world. Nothing is so good as it seems\r
+beforehand--not even our marrying wasn't, you see." There was a faint\r
+sad smile on Nancy's face as she said the last words.\r
+\r
+"I'm a worse man than you thought I was, Nancy," said Godfrey, rather\r
+tremulously. "Can you forgive me ever?"\r
+\r
+"The wrong to me is but little, Godfrey: you've made it up to\r
+me--you've been good to me for fifteen years. It's another you did the\r
+wrong to; and I doubt it can never be all made up for."\r
+\r
+"But we can take Eppie now," said Godfrey. "I won't mind the world\r
+knowing at last. I'll be plain and open for the rest o' my life."\r
+\r
+"It'll be different coming to us, now she's grown up," said Nancy,\r
+shaking her head sadly. "But it's your duty to acknowledge her and\r
+provide for her; and I'll do my part by her, and pray to God Almighty\r
+to make her love me."\r
+\r
+"Then we'll go together to Silas Marner's this very night, as soon as\r
+everything's quiet at the Stone-pits."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XIX\r
+\r
+Between eight and nine o'clock that evening, Eppie and Silas were\r
+seated alone in the cottage. After the great excitement the weaver had\r
+undergone from the events of the afternoon, he had felt a longing for\r
+this quietude, and had even begged Mrs. Winthrop and Aaron, who had\r
+naturally lingered behind every one else, to leave him alone with his\r
+child. The excitement had not passed away: it had only reached that\r
+stage when the keenness of the susceptibility makes external stimulus\r
+intolerable--when there is no sense of weariness, but rather an\r
+intensity of inward life, under which sleep is an impossibility. Any\r
+one who has watched such moments in other men remembers the brightness\r
+of the eyes and the strange definiteness that comes over coarse\r
+features from that transient influence. It is as if a new fineness of\r
+ear for all spiritual voices had sent wonder-working vibrations through\r
+the heavy mortal frame--as if "beauty born of murmuring sound" had\r
+passed into the face of the listener.\r
+\r
+Silas's face showed that sort of transfiguration, as he sat in his\r
+arm-chair and looked at Eppie. She had drawn her own chair towards his\r
+knees, and leaned forward, holding both his hands, while she looked up\r
+at him. On the table near them, lit by a candle, lay the recovered\r
+gold--the old long-loved gold, ranged in orderly heaps, as Silas used\r
+to range it in the days when it was his only joy. He had been telling\r
+her how he used to count it every night, and how his soul was utterly\r
+desolate till she was sent to him.\r
+\r
+"At first, I'd a sort o' feeling come across me now and then," he was\r
+saying in a subdued tone, "as if you might be changed into the gold\r
+again; for sometimes, turn my head which way I would, I seemed to see\r
+the gold; and I thought I should be glad if I could feel it, and find\r
+it was come back. But that didn't last long. After a bit, I should\r
+have thought it was a curse come again, if it had drove you from me,\r
+for I'd got to feel the need o' your looks and your voice and the touch\r
+o' your little fingers. You didn't know then, Eppie, when you were\r
+such a little un--you didn't know what your old father Silas felt for\r
+you."\r
+\r
+"But I know now, father," said Eppie. "If it hadn't been for you,\r
+they'd have taken me to the workhouse, and there'd have been nobody to\r
+love me."\r
+\r
+"Eh, my precious child, the blessing was mine. If you hadn't been sent\r
+to save me, I should ha' gone to the grave in my misery. The money was\r
+taken away from me in time; and you see it's been kept--kept till it\r
+was wanted for you. It's wonderful--our life is wonderful."\r
+\r
+Silas sat in silence a few minutes, looking at the money. "It takes no\r
+hold of me now," he said, ponderingly--"the money doesn't. I wonder if\r
+it ever could again--I doubt it might, if I lost you, Eppie. I might\r
+come to think I was forsaken again, and lose the feeling that God was\r
+good to me."\r
+\r
+At that moment there was a knocking at the door; and Eppie was obliged\r
+to rise without answering Silas. Beautiful she looked, with the\r
+tenderness of gathering tears in her eyes and a slight flush on her\r
+cheeks, as she stepped to open the door. The flush deepened when she\r
+saw Mr. and Mrs. Godfrey Cass. She made her little rustic curtsy, and\r
+held the door wide for them to enter.\r
+\r
+"We're disturbing you very late, my dear," said Mrs. Cass, taking\r
+Eppie's hand, and looking in her face with an expression of anxious\r
+interest and admiration. Nancy herself was pale and tremulous.\r
+\r
+Eppie, after placing chairs for Mr. and Mrs. Cass, went to stand\r
+against Silas, opposite to them.\r
+\r
+"Well, Marner," said Godfrey, trying to speak with perfect firmness,\r
+"it's a great comfort to me to see you with your money again, that\r
+you've been deprived of so many years. It was one of my family did you\r
+the wrong--the more grief to me--and I feel bound to make up to you for\r
+it in every way. Whatever I can do for you will be nothing but paying\r
+a debt, even if I looked no further than the robbery. But there are\r
+other things I'm beholden--shall be beholden to you for, Marner."\r
+\r
+Godfrey checked himself. It had been agreed between him and his wife\r
+that the subject of his fatherhood should be approached very carefully,\r
+and that, if possible, the disclosure should be reserved for the\r
+future, so that it might be made to Eppie gradually. Nancy had urged\r
+this, because she felt strongly the painful light in which Eppie must\r
+inevitably see the relation between her father and mother.\r
+\r
+Silas, always ill at ease when he was being spoken to by "betters",\r
+such as Mr. Cass--tall, powerful, florid men, seen chiefly on\r
+horseback--answered with some constraint--\r
+\r
+"Sir, I've a deal to thank you for a'ready. As for the robbery, I\r
+count it no loss to me. And if I did, you couldn't help it: you aren't\r
+answerable for it."\r
+\r
+"You may look at it in that way, Marner, but I never can; and I hope\r
+you'll let me act according to my own feeling of what's just. I know\r
+you're easily contented: you've been a hard-working man all your life."\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir, yes," said Marner, meditatively. "I should ha' been bad off\r
+without my work: it was what I held by when everything else was gone\r
+from me."\r
+\r
+"Ah," said Godfrey, applying Marner's words simply to his bodily wants,\r
+"it was a good trade for you in this country, because there's been a\r
+great deal of linen-weaving to be done. But you're getting rather past\r
+such close work, Marner: it's time you laid by and had some rest. You\r
+look a good deal pulled down, though you're not an old man, _are_ you?"\r
+\r
+"Fifty-five, as near as I can say, sir," said Silas.\r
+\r
+"Oh, why, you may live thirty years longer--look at old Macey! And that\r
+money on the table, after all, is but little. It won't go far either\r
+way--whether it's put out to interest, or you were to live on it as\r
+long as it would last: it wouldn't go far if you'd nobody to keep but\r
+yourself, and you've had two to keep for a good many years now."\r
+\r
+"Eh, sir," said Silas, unaffected by anything Godfrey was saying, "I'm\r
+in no fear o' want. We shall do very well--Eppie and me 'ull do well\r
+enough. There's few working-folks have got so much laid by as that. I\r
+don't know what it is to gentlefolks, but I look upon it as a\r
+deal--almost too much. And as for us, it's little we want."\r
+\r
+"Only the garden, father," said Eppie, blushing up to the ears the\r
+moment after.\r
+\r
+"You love a garden, do you, my dear?" said Nancy, thinking that this\r
+turn in the point of view might help her husband. "We should agree in\r
+that: I give a deal of time to the garden."\r
+\r
+"Ah, there's plenty of gardening at the Red House," said Godfrey,\r
+surprised at the difficulty he found in approaching a proposition which\r
+had seemed so easy to him in the distance. "You've done a good part by\r
+Eppie, Marner, for sixteen years. It 'ud be a great comfort to you to\r
+see her well provided for, wouldn't it? She looks blooming and\r
+healthy, but not fit for any hardships: she doesn't look like a\r
+strapping girl come of working parents. You'd like to see her taken\r
+care of by those who can leave her well off, and make a lady of her;\r
+she's more fit for it than for a rough life, such as she might come to\r
+have in a few years' time."\r
+\r
+A slight flush came over Marner's face, and disappeared, like a passing\r
+gleam. Eppie was simply wondering Mr. Cass should talk so about things\r
+that seemed to have nothing to do with reality; but Silas was hurt and\r
+uneasy.\r
+\r
+"I don't take your meaning, sir," he answered, not having words at\r
+command to express the mingled feelings with which he had heard Mr.\r
+Cass's words.\r
+\r
+"Well, my meaning is this, Marner," said Godfrey, determined to come to\r
+the point. "Mrs. Cass and I, you know, have no children--nobody to\r
+benefit by our good home and everything else we have--more than enough\r
+for ourselves. And we should like to have somebody in the place of a\r
+daughter to us--we should like to have Eppie, and treat her in every\r
+way as our own child. It 'ud be a great comfort to you in your old\r
+age, I hope, to see her fortune made in that way, after you've been at\r
+the trouble of bringing her up so well. And it's right you should have\r
+every reward for that. And Eppie, I'm sure, will always love you and\r
+be grateful to you: she'd come and see you very often, and we should\r
+all be on the look-out to do everything we could towards making you\r
+comfortable."\r
+\r
+A plain man like Godfrey Cass, speaking under some embarrassment,\r
+necessarily blunders on words that are coarser than his intentions, and\r
+that are likely to fall gratingly on susceptible feelings. While he had\r
+been speaking, Eppie had quietly passed her arm behind Silas's head,\r
+and let her hand rest against it caressingly: she felt him trembling\r
+violently. He was silent for some moments when Mr. Cass had\r
+ended--powerless under the conflict of emotions, all alike painful.\r
+Eppie's heart was swelling at the sense that her father was in\r
+distress; and she was just going to lean down and speak to him, when\r
+one struggling dread at last gained the mastery over every other in\r
+Silas, and he said, faintly--\r
+\r
+"Eppie, my child, speak. I won't stand in your way. Thank Mr. and\r
+Mrs. Cass."\r
+\r
+Eppie took her hand from her father's head, and came forward a step.\r
+Her cheeks were flushed, but not with shyness this time: the sense that\r
+her father was in doubt and suffering banished that sort of\r
+self-consciousness. She dropped a low curtsy, first to Mrs. Cass and\r
+then to Mr. Cass, and said--\r
+\r
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir. But I can't leave my father, nor\r
+own anybody nearer than him. And I don't want to be a lady--thank you\r
+all the same" (here Eppie dropped another curtsy). "I couldn't give up\r
+the folks I've been used to."\r
+\r
+Eppie's lips began to tremble a little at the last words. She\r
+retreated to her father's chair again, and held him round the neck:\r
+while Silas, with a subdued sob, put up his hand to grasp hers.\r
+\r
+The tears were in Nancy's eyes, but her sympathy with Eppie was,\r
+naturally, divided with distress on her husband's account. She dared\r
+not speak, wondering what was going on in her husband's mind.\r
+\r
+Godfrey felt an irritation inevitable to almost all of us when we\r
+encounter an unexpected obstacle. He had been full of his own\r
+penitence and resolution to retrieve his error as far as the time was\r
+left to him; he was possessed with all-important feelings, that were to\r
+lead to a predetermined course of action which he had fixed on as the\r
+right, and he was not prepared to enter with lively appreciation into\r
+other people's feelings counteracting his virtuous resolves. The\r
+agitation with which he spoke again was not quite unmixed with anger.\r
+\r
+"But I've a claim on you, Eppie--the strongest of all claims. It's my\r
+duty, Marner, to own Eppie as my child, and provide for her. She is my\r
+own child--her mother was my wife. I've a natural claim on her that\r
+must stand before every other."\r
+\r
+Eppie had given a violent start, and turned quite pale. Silas, on the\r
+contrary, who had been relieved, by Eppie's answer, from the dread lest\r
+his mind should be in opposition to hers, felt the spirit of resistance\r
+in him set free, not without a touch of parental fierceness. "Then,\r
+sir," he answered, with an accent of bitterness that had been silent in\r
+him since the memorable day when his youthful hope had perished--"then,\r
+sir, why didn't you say so sixteen year ago, and claim her before I'd\r
+come to love her, i'stead o' coming to take her from me now, when you\r
+might as well take the heart out o' my body? God gave her to me\r
+because you turned your back upon her, and He looks upon her as mine:\r
+you've no right to her! When a man turns a blessing from his door, it\r
+falls to them as take it in."\r
+\r
+"I know that, Marner. I was wrong. I've repented of my conduct in\r
+that matter," said Godfrey, who could not help feeling the edge of\r
+Silas's words.\r
+\r
+"I'm glad to hear it, sir," said Marner, with gathering excitement;\r
+"but repentance doesn't alter what's been going on for sixteen year.\r
+Your coming now and saying "I'm her father" doesn't alter the feelings\r
+inside us. It's me she's been calling her father ever since she could\r
+say the word."\r
+\r
+"But I think you might look at the thing more reasonably, Marner," said\r
+Godfrey, unexpectedly awed by the weaver's direct truth-speaking. "It\r
+isn't as if she was to be taken quite away from you, so that you'd\r
+never see her again. She'll be very near you, and come to see you very\r
+often. She'll feel just the same towards you."\r
+\r
+"Just the same?" said Marner, more bitterly than ever. "How'll she\r
+feel just the same for me as she does now, when we eat o' the same bit,\r
+and drink o' the same cup, and think o' the same things from one day's\r
+end to another? Just the same? that's idle talk. You'd cut us i' two."\r
+\r
+Godfrey, unqualified by experience to discern the pregnancy of Marner's\r
+simple words, felt rather angry again. It seemed to him that the\r
+weaver was very selfish (a judgment readily passed by those who have\r
+never tested their own power of sacrifice) to oppose what was\r
+undoubtedly for Eppie's welfare; and he felt himself called upon, for\r
+her sake, to assert his authority.\r
+\r
+"I should have thought, Marner," he said, severely--"I should have\r
+thought your affection for Eppie would make you rejoice in what was for\r
+her good, even if it did call upon you to give up something. You ought\r
+to remember your own life's uncertain, and she's at an age now when her\r
+lot may soon be fixed in a way very different from what it would be in\r
+her father's home: she may marry some low working-man, and then,\r
+whatever I might do for her, I couldn't make her well-off. You're\r
+putting yourself in the way of her welfare; and though I'm sorry to\r
+hurt you after what you've done, and what I've left undone, I feel now\r
+it's my duty to insist on taking care of my own daughter. I want to do\r
+my duty."\r
+\r
+It would be difficult to say whether it were Silas or Eppie that was\r
+more deeply stirred by this last speech of Godfrey's. Thought had been\r
+very busy in Eppie as she listened to the contest between her old\r
+long-loved father and this new unfamiliar father who had suddenly come\r
+to fill the place of that black featureless shadow which had held the\r
+ring and placed it on her mother's finger. Her imagination had darted\r
+backward in conjectures, and forward in previsions, of what this\r
+revealed fatherhood implied; and there were words in Godfrey's last\r
+speech which helped to make the previsions especially definite. Not\r
+that these thoughts, either of past or future, determined her\r
+resolution--_that_ was determined by the feelings which vibrated to\r
+every word Silas had uttered; but they raised, even apart from these\r
+feelings, a repulsion towards the offered lot and the newly-revealed\r
+father.\r
+\r
+Silas, on the other hand, was again stricken in conscience, and alarmed\r
+lest Godfrey's accusation should be true--lest he should be raising his\r
+own will as an obstacle to Eppie's good. For many moments he was mute,\r
+struggling for the self-conquest necessary to the uttering of the\r
+difficult words. They came out tremulously.\r
+\r
+"I'll say no more. Let it be as you will. Speak to the child. I'll\r
+hinder nothing."\r
+\r
+Even Nancy, with all the acute sensibility of her own affections,\r
+shared her husband's view, that Marner was not justifiable in his wish\r
+to retain Eppie, after her real father had avowed himself. She felt\r
+that it was a very hard trial for the poor weaver, but her code allowed\r
+no question that a father by blood must have a claim above that of any\r
+foster-father. Besides, Nancy, used all her life to plenteous\r
+circumstances and the privileges of "respectability", could not enter\r
+into the pleasures which early nurture and habit connect with all the\r
+little aims and efforts of the poor who are born poor: to her mind,\r
+Eppie, in being restored to her birthright, was entering on a too long\r
+withheld but unquestionable good. Hence she heard Silas's last words\r
+with relief, and thought, as Godfrey did, that their wish was achieved.\r
+\r
+"Eppie, my dear," said Godfrey, looking at his daughter, not without\r
+some embarrassment, under the sense that she was old enough to judge\r
+him, "it'll always be our wish that you should show your love and\r
+gratitude to one who's been a father to you so many years, and we shall\r
+want to help you to make him comfortable in every way. But we hope\r
+you'll come to love us as well; and though I haven't been what a father\r
+should ha' been to you all these years, I wish to do the utmost in my\r
+power for you for the rest of my life, and provide for you as my only\r
+child. And you'll have the best of mothers in my wife--that'll be a\r
+blessing you haven't known since you were old enough to know it."\r
+\r
+"My dear, you'll be a treasure to me," said Nancy, in her gentle voice.\r
+"We shall want for nothing when we have our daughter."\r
+\r
+Eppie did not come forward and curtsy, as she had done before. She\r
+held Silas's hand in hers, and grasped it firmly--it was a weaver's\r
+hand, with a palm and finger-tips that were sensitive to such\r
+pressure--while she spoke with colder decision than before.\r
+\r
+"Thank you, ma'am--thank you, sir, for your offers--they're very great,\r
+and far above my wish. For I should have no delight i' life any more\r
+if I was forced to go away from my father, and knew he was sitting at\r
+home, a-thinking of me and feeling lone. We've been used to be happy\r
+together every day, and I can't think o' no happiness without him. And\r
+he says he'd nobody i' the world till I was sent to him, and he'd have\r
+nothing when I was gone. And he's took care of me and loved me from\r
+the first, and I'll cleave to him as long as he lives, and nobody shall\r
+ever come between him and me."\r
+\r
+"But you must make sure, Eppie," said Silas, in a low voice--"you must\r
+make sure as you won't ever be sorry, because you've made your choice\r
+to stay among poor folks, and with poor clothes and things, when you\r
+might ha' had everything o' the best."\r
+\r
+His sensitiveness on this point had increased as he listened to Eppie's\r
+words of faithful affection.\r
+\r
+"I can never be sorry, father," said Eppie. "I shouldn't know what to\r
+think on or to wish for with fine things about me, as I haven't been\r
+used to. And it 'ud be poor work for me to put on things, and ride in\r
+a gig, and sit in a place at church, as 'ud make them as I'm fond of\r
+think me unfitting company for 'em. What could _I_ care for then?"\r
+\r
+Nancy looked at Godfrey with a pained questioning glance. But his eyes\r
+were fixed on the floor, where he was moving the end of his stick, as\r
+if he were pondering on something absently. She thought there was a\r
+word which might perhaps come better from her lips than from his.\r
+\r
+"What you say is natural, my dear child--it's natural you should cling\r
+to those who've brought you up," she said, mildly; "but there's a duty\r
+you owe to your lawful father. There's perhaps something to be given\r
+up on more sides than one. When your father opens his home to you, I\r
+think it's right you shouldn't turn your back on it."\r
+\r
+"I can't feel as I've got any father but one," said Eppie, impetuously,\r
+while the tears gathered. "I've always thought of a little home where\r
+he'd sit i' the corner, and I should fend and do everything for him: I\r
+can't think o' no other home. I wasn't brought up to be a lady, and I\r
+can't turn my mind to it. I like the working-folks, and their\r
+victuals, and their ways. And," she ended passionately, while the\r
+tears fell, "I'm promised to marry a working-man, as'll live with\r
+father, and help me to take care of him."\r
+\r
+Godfrey looked up at Nancy with a flushed face and smarting dilated\r
+eyes. This frustration of a purpose towards which he had set out under\r
+the exalted consciousness that he was about to compensate in some\r
+degree for the greatest demerit of his life, made him feel the air of\r
+the room stifling.\r
+\r
+"Let us go," he said, in an under-tone.\r
+\r
+"We won't talk of this any longer now," said Nancy, rising. "We're your\r
+well-wishers, my dear--and yours too, Marner. We shall come and see\r
+you again. It's getting late now."\r
+\r
+In this way she covered her husband's abrupt departure, for Godfrey had\r
+gone straight to the door, unable to say more.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XX\r
+\r
+Nancy and Godfrey walked home under the starlight in silence. When\r
+they entered the oaken parlour, Godfrey threw himself into his chair,\r
+while Nancy laid down her bonnet and shawl, and stood on the hearth\r
+near her husband, unwilling to leave him even for a few minutes, and\r
+yet fearing to utter any word lest it might jar on his feeling. At\r
+last Godfrey turned his head towards her, and their eyes met, dwelling\r
+in that meeting without any movement on either side. That quiet mutual\r
+gaze of a trusting husband and wife is like the first moment of rest or\r
+refuge from a great weariness or a great danger--not to be interfered\r
+with by speech or action which would distract the sensations from the\r
+fresh enjoyment of repose.\r
+\r
+But presently he put out his hand, and as Nancy placed hers within it,\r
+he drew her towards him, and said--\r
+\r
+"That's ended!"\r
+\r
+She bent to kiss him, and then said, as she stood by his side, "Yes,\r
+I'm afraid we must give up the hope of having her for a daughter. It\r
+wouldn't be right to want to force her to come to us against her will.\r
+We can't alter her bringing up and what's come of it."\r
+\r
+"No," said Godfrey, with a keen decisiveness of tone, in contrast with\r
+his usually careless and unemphatic speech--"there's debts we can't pay\r
+like money debts, by paying extra for the years that have slipped by.\r
+While I've been putting off and putting off, the trees have been\r
+growing--it's too late now. Marner was in the right in what he said\r
+about a man's turning away a blessing from his door: it falls to\r
+somebody else. I wanted to pass for childless once, Nancy--I shall\r
+pass for childless now against my wish."\r
+\r
+Nancy did not speak immediately, but after a little while she\r
+asked--"You won't make it known, then, about Eppie's being your\r
+daughter?"\r
+\r
+"No: where would be the good to anybody?--only harm. I must do what I\r
+can for her in the state of life she chooses. I must see who it is\r
+she's thinking of marrying."\r
+\r
+"If it won't do any good to make the thing known," said Nancy, who\r
+thought she might now allow herself the relief of entertaining a\r
+feeling which she had tried to silence before, "I should be very\r
+thankful for father and Priscilla never to be troubled with knowing\r
+what was done in the past, more than about Dunsey: it can't be helped,\r
+their knowing that."\r
+\r
+"I shall put it in my will--I think I shall put it in my will. I\r
+shouldn't like to leave anything to be found out, like this of Dunsey,"\r
+said Godfrey, meditatively. "But I can't see anything but difficulties\r
+that 'ud come from telling it now. I must do what I can to make her\r
+happy in her own way. I've a notion," he added, after a moment's\r
+pause, "it's Aaron Winthrop she meant she was engaged to. I remember\r
+seeing him with her and Marner going away from church."\r
+\r
+"Well, he's very sober and industrious," said Nancy, trying to view the\r
+matter as cheerfully as possible.\r
+\r
+Godfrey fell into thoughtfulness again. Presently he looked up at\r
+Nancy sorrowfully, and said--\r
+\r
+"She's a very pretty, nice girl, isn't she, Nancy?"\r
+\r
+"Yes, dear; and with just your hair and eyes: I wondered it had never\r
+struck me before."\r
+\r
+"I think she took a dislike to me at the thought of my being her\r
+father: I could see a change in her manner after that."\r
+\r
+"She couldn't bear to think of not looking on Marner as her father,"\r
+said Nancy, not wishing to confirm her husband's painful impression.\r
+\r
+"She thinks I did wrong by her mother as well as by her. She thinks me\r
+worse than I am. But she _must_ think it: she can never know all.\r
+It's part of my punishment, Nancy, for my daughter to dislike me. I\r
+should never have got into that trouble if I'd been true to you--if I\r
+hadn't been a fool. I'd no right to expect anything but evil could\r
+come of that marriage--and when I shirked doing a father's part too."\r
+\r
+Nancy was silent: her spirit of rectitude would not let her try to\r
+soften the edge of what she felt to be a just compunction. He spoke\r
+again after a little while, but the tone was rather changed: there was\r
+tenderness mingled with the previous self-reproach.\r
+\r
+"And I got _you_, Nancy, in spite of all; and yet I've been grumbling\r
+and uneasy because I hadn't something else--as if I deserved it."\r
+\r
+"You've never been wanting to me, Godfrey," said Nancy, with quiet\r
+sincerity. "My only trouble would be gone if you resigned yourself to\r
+the lot that's been given us."\r
+\r
+"Well, perhaps it isn't too late to mend a bit there. Though it _is_\r
+too late to mend some things, say what they will."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CHAPTER XXI\r
+\r
+The next morning, when Silas and Eppie were seated at their breakfast,\r
+he said to her--\r
+\r
+"Eppie, there's a thing I've had on my mind to do this two year, and\r
+now the money's been brought back to us, we can do it. I've been\r
+turning it over and over in the night, and I think we'll set out\r
+to-morrow, while the fine days last. We'll leave the house and\r
+everything for your godmother to take care on, and we'll make a little\r
+bundle o' things and set out."\r
+\r
+"Where to go, daddy?" said Eppie, in much surprise.\r
+\r
+"To my old country--to the town where I was born--up Lantern Yard. I\r
+want to see Mr. Paston, the minister: something may ha' come out to\r
+make 'em know I was innicent o' the robbery. And Mr. Paston was a man\r
+with a deal o' light--I want to speak to him about the drawing o' the\r
+lots. And I should like to talk to him about the religion o' this\r
+country-side, for I partly think he doesn't know on it."\r
+\r
+Eppie was very joyful, for there was the prospect not only of wonder\r
+and delight at seeing a strange country, but also of coming back to\r
+tell Aaron all about it. Aaron was so much wiser than she was about\r
+most things--it would be rather pleasant to have this little advantage\r
+over him. Mrs. Winthrop, though possessed with a dim fear of dangers\r
+attendant on so long a journey, and requiring many assurances that it\r
+would not take them out of the region of carriers' carts and slow\r
+waggons, was nevertheless well pleased that Silas should revisit his\r
+own country, and find out if he had been cleared from that false\r
+accusation.\r
+\r
+"You'd be easier in your mind for the rest o' your life, Master\r
+Marner," said Dolly--"that you would. And if there's any light to be\r
+got up the yard as you talk on, we've need of it i' this world, and I'd\r
+be glad on it myself, if you could bring it back."\r
+\r
+So on the fourth day from that time, Silas and Eppie, in their Sunday\r
+clothes, with a small bundle tied in a blue linen handkerchief, were\r
+making their way through the streets of a great manufacturing town.\r
+Silas, bewildered by the changes thirty years had brought over his\r
+native place, had stopped several persons in succession to ask them the\r
+name of this town, that he might be sure he was not under a mistake\r
+about it.\r
+\r
+"Ask for Lantern Yard, father--ask this gentleman with the tassels on\r
+his shoulders a-standing at the shop door; he isn't in a hurry like the\r
+rest," said Eppie, in some distress at her father's bewilderment, and\r
+ill at ease, besides, amidst the noise, the movement, and the multitude\r
+of strange indifferent faces.\r
+\r
+"Eh, my child, he won't know anything about it," said Silas;\r
+"gentlefolks didn't ever go up the Yard. But happen somebody can tell\r
+me which is the way to Prison Street, where the jail is. I know the way\r
+out o' that as if I'd seen it yesterday."\r
+\r
+With some difficulty, after many turnings and new inquiries, they\r
+reached Prison Street; and the grim walls of the jail, the first object\r
+that answered to any image in Silas's memory, cheered him with the\r
+certitude, which no assurance of the town's name had hitherto given\r
+him, that he was in his native place.\r
+\r
+"Ah," he said, drawing a long breath, "there's the jail, Eppie; that's\r
+just the same: I aren't afraid now. It's the third turning on the left\r
+hand from the jail doors--that's the way we must go."\r
+\r
+"Oh, what a dark ugly place!" said Eppie. "How it hides the sky!\r
+It's worse than the Workhouse. I'm glad you don't live in this town\r
+now, father. Is Lantern Yard like this street?"\r
+\r
+"My precious child," said Silas, smiling, "it isn't a big street like\r
+this. I never was easy i' this street myself, but I was fond o'\r
+Lantern Yard. The shops here are all altered, I think--I can't make\r
+'em out; but I shall know the turning, because it's the third."\r
+\r
+"Here it is," he said, in a tone of satisfaction, as they came to a\r
+narrow alley. "And then we must go to the left again, and then\r
+straight for'ard for a bit, up Shoe Lane: and then we shall be at the\r
+entry next to the o'erhanging window, where there's the nick in the\r
+road for the water to run. Eh, I can see it all."\r
+\r
+"O father, I'm like as if I was stifled," said Eppie. "I couldn't ha'\r
+thought as any folks lived i' this way, so close together. How pretty\r
+the Stone-pits 'ull look when we get back!"\r
+\r
+"It looks comical to _me_, child, now--and smells bad. I can't think\r
+as it usened to smell so."\r
+\r
+Here and there a sallow, begrimed face looked out from a gloomy doorway\r
+at the strangers, and increased Eppie's uneasiness, so that it was a\r
+longed-for relief when they issued from the alleys into Shoe Lane,\r
+where there was a broader strip of sky.\r
+\r
+"Dear heart!" said Silas, "why, there's people coming out o' the Yard\r
+as if they'd been to chapel at this time o' day--a weekday noon!"\r
+\r
+Suddenly he started and stood still with a look of distressed\r
+amazement, that alarmed Eppie. They were before an opening in front of\r
+a large factory, from which men and women were streaming for their\r
+midday meal.\r
+\r
+"Father," said Eppie, clasping his arm, "what's the matter?"\r
+\r
+But she had to speak again and again before Silas could answer her.\r
+\r
+"It's gone, child," he said, at last, in strong agitation--"Lantern\r
+Yard's gone. It must ha' been here, because here's the house with the\r
+o'erhanging window--I know that--it's just the same; but they've made\r
+this new opening; and see that big factory! It's all gone--chapel and\r
+all."\r
+\r
+"Come into that little brush-shop and sit down, father--they'll let you\r
+sit down," said Eppie, always on the watch lest one of her father's\r
+strange attacks should come on. "Perhaps the people can tell you all\r
+about it."\r
+\r
+But neither from the brush-maker, who had come to Shoe Lane only ten\r
+years ago, when the factory was already built, nor from any other\r
+source within his reach, could Silas learn anything of the old Lantern\r
+Yard friends, or of Mr. Paston the minister.\r
+\r
+"The old place is all swep' away," Silas said to Dolly Winthrop on the\r
+night of his return--"the little graveyard and everything. The old\r
+home's gone; I've no home but this now. I shall never know whether\r
+they got at the truth o' the robbery, nor whether Mr. Paston could ha'\r
+given me any light about the drawing o' the lots. It's dark to me,\r
+Mrs. Winthrop, that is; I doubt it'll be dark to the last."\r
+\r
+"Well, yes, Master Marner," said Dolly, who sat with a placid listening\r
+face, now bordered by grey hairs; "I doubt it may. It's the will o'\r
+Them above as a many things should be dark to us; but there's some\r
+things as I've never felt i' the dark about, and they're mostly what\r
+comes i' the day's work. You were hard done by that once, Master\r
+Marner, and it seems as you'll never know the rights of it; but that\r
+doesn't hinder there _being_ a rights, Master Marner, for all it's dark\r
+to you and me."\r
+\r
+"No," said Silas, "no; that doesn't hinder. Since the time the child\r
+was sent to me and I've come to love her as myself, I've had light\r
+enough to trusten by; and now she says she'll never leave me, I think I\r
+shall trusten till I die."\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CONCLUSION.\r
+\r
+There was one time of the year which was held in Raveloe to be\r
+especially suitable for a wedding. It was when the great lilacs and\r
+laburnums in the old-fashioned gardens showed their golden and purple\r
+wealth above the lichen-tinted walls, and when there were calves still\r
+young enough to want bucketfuls of fragrant milk. People were not so\r
+busy then as they must become when the full cheese-making and the\r
+mowing had set in; and besides, it was a time when a light bridal dress\r
+could be worn with comfort and seen to advantage.\r
+\r
+Happily the sunshine fell more warmly than usual on the lilac tufts the\r
+morning that Eppie was married, for her dress was a very light one.\r
+She had often thought, though with a feeling of renunciation, that the\r
+perfection of a wedding-dress would be a white cotton, with the tiniest\r
+pink sprig at wide intervals; so that when Mrs. Godfrey Cass begged to\r
+provide one, and asked Eppie to choose what it should be, previous\r
+meditation had enabled her to give a decided answer at once.\r
+\r
+Seen at a little distance as she walked across the churchyard and down\r
+the village, she seemed to be attired in pure white, and her hair\r
+looked like the dash of gold on a lily. One hand was on her husband's\r
+arm, and with the other she clasped the hand of her father Silas.\r
+\r
+"You won't be giving me away, father," she had said before they went to\r
+church; "you'll only be taking Aaron to be a son to you."\r
+\r
+Dolly Winthrop walked behind with her husband; and there ended the\r
+little bridal procession.\r
+\r
+There were many eyes to look at it, and Miss Priscilla Lammeter was\r
+glad that she and her father had happened to drive up to the door of\r
+the Red House just in time to see this pretty sight. They had come to\r
+keep Nancy company to-day, because Mr. Cass had had to go away to\r
+Lytherley, for special reasons. That seemed to be a pity, for\r
+otherwise he might have gone, as Mr. Crackenthorp and Mr. Osgood\r
+certainly would, to look on at the wedding-feast which he had ordered\r
+at the Rainbow, naturally feeling a great interest in the weaver who\r
+had been wronged by one of his own family.\r
+\r
+"I could ha' wished Nancy had had the luck to find a child like that\r
+and bring her up," said Priscilla to her father, as they sat in the\r
+gig; "I should ha' had something young to think of then, besides the\r
+lambs and the calves."\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear, yes," said Mr. Lammeter; "one feels that as one gets\r
+older. Things look dim to old folks: they'd need have some young eyes\r
+about 'em, to let 'em know the world's the same as it used to be."\r
+\r
+Nancy came out now to welcome her father and sister; and the wedding\r
+group had passed on beyond the Red House to the humbler part of the\r
+village.\r
+\r
+Dolly Winthrop was the first to divine that old Mr. Macey, who had been\r
+set in his arm-chair outside his own door, would expect some special\r
+notice as they passed, since he was too old to be at the wedding-feast.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Macey's looking for a word from us," said Dolly; "he'll be hurt if\r
+we pass him and say nothing--and him so racked with rheumatiz."\r
+\r
+So they turned aside to shake hands with the old man. He had looked\r
+forward to the occasion, and had his premeditated speech.\r
+\r
+"Well, Master Marner," he said, in a voice that quavered a good deal,\r
+"I've lived to see my words come true. I was the first to say there\r
+was no harm in you, though your looks might be again' you; and I was\r
+the first to say you'd get your money back. And it's nothing but\r
+rightful as you should. And I'd ha' said the "Amens", and willing, at\r
+the holy matrimony; but Tookey's done it a good while now, and I hope\r
+you'll have none the worse luck."\r
+\r
+In the open yard before the Rainbow the party of guests were already\r
+assembled, though it was still nearly an hour before the appointed\r
+feast time. But by this means they could not only enjoy the slow\r
+advent of their pleasure; they had also ample leisure to talk of Silas\r
+Marner's strange history, and arrive by due degrees at the conclusion\r
+that he had brought a blessing on himself by acting like a father to a\r
+lone motherless child. Even the farrier did not negative this\r
+sentiment: on the contrary, he took it up as peculiarly his own, and\r
+invited any hardy person present to contradict him. But he met with no\r
+contradiction; and all differences among the company were merged in a\r
+general agreement with Mr. Snell's sentiment, that when a man had\r
+deserved his good luck, it was the part of his neighbours to wish him\r
+joy.\r
+\r
+As the bridal group approached, a hearty cheer was raised in the\r
+Rainbow yard; and Ben Winthrop, whose jokes had retained their\r
+acceptable flavour, found it agreeable to turn in there and receive\r
+congratulations; not requiring the proposed interval of quiet at the\r
+Stone-pits before joining the company.\r
+\r
+Eppie had a larger garden than she had ever expected there now; and in\r
+other ways there had been alterations at the expense of Mr. Cass, the\r
+landlord, to suit Silas's larger family. For he and Eppie had declared\r
+that they would rather stay at the Stone-pits than go to any new home.\r
+The garden was fenced with stones on two sides, but in front there was\r
+an open fence, through which the flowers shone with answering gladness,\r
+as the four united people came within sight of them.\r
+\r
+"O father," said Eppie, "what a pretty home ours is! I think nobody\r
+could be happier than we are."\r
projects / gender-roles-text-analysis.git / commitdiff