Chapter XIII
Mr. Tulliver Further Entangles the Skein of Life
Owing to this new adjustment of Mrs. Glegg's thoughts, Mrs. Pulletfound her task of mediation the next day surprisingly easy. Mrs.Glegg, indeed checked her rather sharply for thinking it would benecessary to tell her elder sister what was the right mode of behaviorin family matters. Mrs. Pullet's argument, that it would look ill inthe neighborhood if people should have it in their power to say thatthere was a quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If thefamily name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pulletmight lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence.
”It's not to be expected, I suppose,” observed Mrs. Glegg, by way ofwinding up the subject, ”as I shall go to the mill again before Bessycomes to see me, or as I shall go and fall down o' my knees to Mr.Tulliver, and ask his pardon for showing him favors; but I shall bearno malice, and when Mr. Tulliver speaks civil to me, I'll speak civilto him. Nobody has any call to tell me what's becoming.”
Finding it unnecessary to plead for the Tullivers, it was natural thataunt Pullet should relax a little in her anxiety for them, and recurto the annoyance she had suffered yesterday from the offspring of thatapparently ill-fated house. Mrs. Glegg heard a circumstantialnarrative, to which Mr. Pullet's remarkable memory furnished someitems; and while aunt Pullet pitied poor Bessy's bad luck with herchildren, and expressed a half-formed project of paying for Maggie'sbeing sent to a distant boarding-school, which would not prevent herbeing so brown, but might tend to subdue some other vices in her, auntGlegg blamed Bessy for her weakness, and appealed to all witnesses whoshould be living when the Tulliver children had turned out ill, thatshe, Mrs. Glegg, had always said how it would be from the very first,observing that it was wonderful to herself how all her words cametrue.
”Then I may call and tell Bessy you'll bear no malice, and everythingbe as it was before?” Mrs. Pullet said, just before parting.
”Yes, you may, Sophy,” said Mrs. Glegg; ”you may tell Mr. Tulliver,and Bessy too, as I'm not going to behave ill because folks behave illto me; I know it's my place, as the eldest, to set an example in everyrespect, and I do it. Nobody can say different of me, if they'll keepto the truth.”
Mrs. Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own loftymagnanimity, I leave you to judge what effect was produced on her bythe reception of a short letter from Mr. Tulliver that very evening,after Mrs. Pullet's departure, informing her that she needn't troubleher mind about her five hundred pounds, for it should be paid back toher in the course of the next month at farthest, together with theinterest due thereon until the time of payment. And furthermore, thatMr. Tulliver had no wish to behave uncivilly to Mrs. Glegg, and shewas welcome to his house whenever she liked to come, but he desired nofavors from her, either for himself or his children.
It was poor Mrs. Tulliver who had hastened this catastrophe, entirelythrough that irrepressible hopefulness of hers which led her to expectthat similar causes may at any time produce different results. It hadvery often occurred in her experience that Mr. Tulliver had donesomething because other people had said he was not able to do it, orhad pitied him for his supposed inability, or in any other way piquedhis pride; still, she thought to-day, if she told him when he came into tea that sister Pullet was gone to try and make everything up withsister Glegg, so that he needn't think about paying in the money, itwould give a cheerful effect to the meal. Mr. Tulliver had neverslackened in his resolve to raise the money, but now he at oncedetermined to write a letter to Mrs. Glegg, which should cut off allpossibility of mistake. Mrs. Pullet gone to beg and pray for _him_indeed! Mr. Tulliver did not willingly write a letter, and found therelation between spoken and written language, briefly known asspelling, one of the most puzzling things in this puzzling world.Nevertheless, like all fervid writing, the task was done in less timethan usual, and if the spelling differed from Mrs. Glegg's,--why, shebelonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling was amatter of private judgment.
Mrs. Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this letter, andcut off the Tulliver children from their sixth and seventh share inher thousand pounds; for she had her principles. No one must be ableto say of her when she was dead that she had not divided her moneywith perfect fairness among her own kin. In the matter of wills,personal qualities were subordinate to the great fundamental fact ofblood; and to be determined in the distribution of your property bycaprice, and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to degrees ofkinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have embittered herlife. This had always been a principle in the Dodson family; it wasone form if that sense of honor and rectitude which was a proudtradition in such families,--a tradition which has been the salt ofour provincial society.
But though the letter could not shake Mrs. Glegg's principles, it madethe family breach much more difficult to mend; and as to the effect itproduced on Mrs. Glegg's opinion of Mr. Tulliver, she begged to beunderstood from that time forth that she had nothing whatever to sayabout him; his state of mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her tocontemplate it for a moment. It was not until the evening before Tomwent to school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs. Glegg paid avisit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all the while, andshowing her displeasure by markedly abstaining from all advice andcriticism; for, as she observed to her sister Deane, ”Bessy must bearthe consequence o' having such a husband, though I'm sorry for her,”and Mrs. Deane agreed that Bessy was pitiable.
That evening Tom observed to Maggie: ”Oh my! Maggie, aunt Glegg'sbeginning to come again; I'm glad I'm going to school. _You'll_ catchit all now!”
Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought of Tom's goingaway from her, that this playful exultation of his seemed very unkind,and she cried herself to sleep that night.
Mr. Tulliver's prompt procedure entailed on him further promptitude infinding the convenient person who was desirous of lending five hundredpounds on bond. ”It must be no client of Wakem's,” he said to himself;and yet at the end of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary; notbecause Mr. Tulliver's will was feeble, but because external fact wasstronger. Wakem's client was the only convenient person to be found.Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as OEdipus, and in this casehe might plead, like OEdipus, that his deed was inflicted on himrather than committed by him.
Book II
_School-Time_