Chapter XII
A Family Party
Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week, and went toGarum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet according to agreement. Inthe mean time very unexpected things had happened, and there was to bea family party at Garum to discuss and celebrate a change in thefortunes of the Tullivers, which was likely finally to carry away theshadow of their demerits like the last limb of an eclipse, and causetheir hitherto obscured virtues to shine forth in full-roundedsplendor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come intooffice are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of highappreciation and full-blown eulogy; in many respectable familiesthroughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable meet with asimilar cordiality of recognition, which in its fine freedom from thecoercion of any antecedents, suggests the hopeful possibility that wemay some day without any notice find ourselves in full millennium,with cockatrices who have ceased to bite, and wolves that no longershow their teeth with any but the blandest intentions.
Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for shelonged to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderfulnews. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air ofwisdom, as if everything, even other people's misfortunes (poorcreatures!) were conspiring now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, andcousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately benton the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all theirtroubles. To think that the very day--the _very day_--after Tom hadcome back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr.Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse in adrunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg's in a dangerous state, so thatWakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter onthe premises at once!
It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as ifthe misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, inorder that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of hisexemplary conduct,--papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tullivermust certainly go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that wasrather a loss to Lucy in the matter of household comfort; but then, tothink of poor aunty being in her old place again, and graduallygetting comforts about her there!
On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she andMaggie had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into thehandsome parlor, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner thanelsewhere, she directed her manoeuvres, as any other great tacticianwould have done, against the weaker side of the enemy.
”Aunt Pullet,” she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressinglyadjusting that lady's floating cap-string, ”I want you to make up yourmind what linen and things you will give Tom toward housekeeping;because you are always so generous,--you give such nice things, youknow; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow.”
”That she never can, my dear,” said Mrs. Pullet, with unusual vigor,”for she hasn't got the linen to follow suit wi' mine, I can tell you.She'd niver the taste, not if she'd spend the money. Big checks andlive things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is,--not a spotnor a diamond among 'em. But it's poor work dividing one's linenbefore one dies,--I niver thought to ha' done that, Bessy,” Mrs.Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver,”when you and me chose the double diamont, the first flax iver we'dspun, and the Lord knows where yours is gone.”
”I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister,” said poor Mrs. Tulliver, accustomedto consider herself in the light of an accused person. ”I'm sure itwas no wish o' mine, iver, as I should lie awake o' nights thinking o'my best bleached linen all over the country.”
”Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver,” said uncle Pullet, feeling that hewas offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he wasrecommending by example.
”Oh, but, aunt Pullet,” said Lucy, ”you've so much beautiful linen.And suppose you had had daughters! Then you must have divided it whenthey were married.”
”Well, I don't say as I won't do it,” said Mrs. Pullet, ”for now Tom'sso lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him andhelp him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it wasnothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying inthe chest ever since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' myIndy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again, when shemight stay and keep me company, and do my sewing for me, if she wasn'twanted at her brother's.”
”Going into service” was the expression by which the Dodson mindrepresented to itself the position of teacher or governess; andMaggie's return to that menial condition, now circumstances offeredher more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with allher relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hairdown her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was amost undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at onceornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncleGlegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.
”Hegh, hegh!” said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on theback, ”nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a placeagain, Maggie. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts atthe bazaar; isn't there one of 'em the right sort of article? Come,now?”
”Mr. Glegg,” said his wife, with that shade of increased politeness inher severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, ”you'llexcuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It'srespect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so goodto her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away againwithout consulting us; not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word,though it was never heared in _my_ family.”
”Why, what did they call us, when we went to see 'em, then, eh,neighbor Pullet? They thought us sweet enough then,” said Mr. Glegg,winking pleasantly; while Mr. Pullet, at the suggestion of sweetness,took a little more sugar.
”Mr. Glegg,” said Mrs. G., ”if you're going to be undelicate, let meknow.”
”La, Jane, your husband's only joking,” said Mrs. Pullet; ”let himjoke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got hismouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try.”
”I'll trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Glegg,” said Mrs. G.,”if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's otherpeople must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother'seldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in andout on short visits, all the time she's been in the town, and thensettling to go away without my knowledge,--as I'd laid caps out onpurpose for her to make 'em up for me,--and me as have divided mymoney so equal----”
”Sister,” Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, ”I'm sure Maggie neverthought o' going away without staying at your house as well as theothers. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quitecontrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'Mydear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten days or a fortnightMaggie'll have before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your housejust as well, and I'll step in when I can, and so will Lucy.”
”Bessy,” said Mrs. Glegg, ”if you'd exercise a little more thought,you might know I should hardly think it was worth while to unpin abed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, whenour house isn't above a quarter of an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's.She can come the first thing in the morning, and go back the last atnight, and be thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to comeand sit with. I know _I_ should, when I was her age.”
”La, Jane,” said Mrs. Pullet, ”it 'ud do your beds good to havesomebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadfulmouldy, and the glass mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought Ishould be struck with death when you took me in.”
”Oh, there is Tom!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. ”He's come onSindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep hispromise.”
Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, atthis first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill hadbeen opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair byher side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still aperpetual yearning in her, that had its root deeper than all change.He smiled at her very kindly this evening, and said, ”Well, Magsie,how's aunt Moss?”
”Come, come, sir,” said Mr. Glegg putting out his hand. ”Why, you'resuch a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come intoyour luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish youjoy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again someday, I'll be bound. You won't stop half-way up the hill.”
”But I hope he'll bear in mind as it's his mother's family as he owesit to,” said Mrs. Glegg. ”If he hadn't had them to take after, he'dha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, norwastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----”
”No, nor sudden deaths,” said aunt Pullet; ”allays the doctor calledin. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And Idon't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give hima tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. Idon't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I shoulddie to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll beblundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the thirdshelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broadties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in theBlue Room, where the key o' the Blue Closet is. You'll make a mistake,and I shall niver be worthy to know it. You've a memory for my pillsand draughts, wonderful,--I'll allays say that of you,--but you'relost among the keys.” This gloomy prospect of the confusion that wouldensue on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet.
”You carry it too far, Sophy,--that locking in and out,” said Mrs.Glegg, in a tone of some disgust at this folly. ”You go beyond yourown family. There's nobody can say I don't lock up; but I do what'sreasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what'sserviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got cloth as hasnever been whitened, better worth having than other people's fineholland; and I hope he'll lie down in it and think of his aunt.”
Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise to meditate nightly onher virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by askingabout Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.
Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad.It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was toride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy.”You must sit by yourself, aunty,” said that contriving young lady,”because I must sit by Tom; I've a great deal to say to him.”
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy couldnot persuade herself to defer a conversation about her with Tom, who,she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapidfulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant andflexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom's; and she waspuzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on hiscountenance when she gave him the history of the way in which Philiphad used his influence with his father. She had counted on thisrevelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom's hearttoward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakemwas ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of a daughter-in-law.Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had thatpleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completelyround, say the opposite of what he had always said before, and declarethat he, for his part, was delighted that all the old grievancesshould be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitabledespatch; in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualitiesthat create severity,--strength of will, conscious rectitude ofpurpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power ofself-control, and a disposition to exert control over others,--prejudicescome as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenanceout of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge whichwe call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air,adopted by hearsay, caught in through the eye,--however it may come,these minds will give it a habitation it is something to assertstrongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneousideas, something to impose on others with the authority of consciousright; it is at once a staff and a baton. Every prejudice that willanswer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver'smind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father's faultsdid not prevent him from adopting his father's prejudice; it was aprejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was ameeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and personalpride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitterrepugnance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him; andnotwithstanding Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she gotnothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; ”but ofcourse Maggie could do as she liked,--she had declared herdetermination to be independent. For Tom's part, he held himself boundby his duty to his father's memory, and by every manly feeling, neverto consent to any relation with the Wakems.”
Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation was to fillTom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's perverse resolve to gointo a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as herresolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirelydifferent,--a marriage with Philip Wakem.