by George Eliot
Chapter VII
The Dairy
THE dairy was certainly worth looking at: it was a scene to sicken forwith a sort of calenture in hot and dusty streets--such coolness, suchpurity, such fresh fragrance of new-pressed cheese, of firm butter, ofwooden vessels perpetually bathed in pure water; such soft colouring ofred earthenware and creamy surfaces, brown wood and polished tin, greylimestone and rich orange-red rust on the iron weights and hooks andhinges. But one gets only a confused notion of these details when theysurround a distractingly pretty girl of seventeen, standing on littlepattens and rounding her dimpled arm to lift a pound of butter out ofthe scale.
Hetty blushed a deep rose-colour when Captain Donnithorne entered thedairy and spoke to her; but it was not at all a distressed blush, forit was inwreathed with smiles and dimples, and with sparkles from underlong, curled, dark eyelashes; and while her aunt was discoursing to himabout the limited amount of milk that was to be spared for butter andcheese so long as the calves were not all weaned, and a large quantitybut inferior quality of milk yielded by the shorthorn, which hadbeen bought on experiment, together with other matters which must beinteresting to a young gentleman who would one day be a landlord, Hettytossed and patted her pound of butter with quite a self-possessed,coquettish air, slyly conscious that no turn of her head was lost.
There are various orders of beauty, causing men to make fools ofthemselves in various styles, from the desperate to the sheepish; butthere is one order of beauty which seems made to turn the heads not onlyof men, but of all intelligent mammals, even of women. It is a beautylike that of kittens, or very small downy ducks making gentle ripplingnoises with their soft bills, or babies just beginning to toddle andto engage in conscious mischief--a beauty with which you can never beangry, but that you feel ready to crush for inability to comprehend thestate of mind into which it throws you. Hetty Sorrel's was that sortof beauty. Her aunt, Mrs. Poyser, who professed to despise all personalattractions and intended to be the severest of mentors, continuallygazed at Hetty's charms by the sly, fascinated in spite of herself; andafter administering such a scolding as naturally flowed from her anxietyto do well by her husband's niece--who had no mother of her own to scoldher, poor thing!--she would often confess to her husband, when they weresafe out of hearing, that she firmly believed, "the naughtier the littlehuzzy behaved, the prettier she looked."
It is of little use for me to tell you that Hetty's cheek was like arose-petal, that dimples played about her pouting lips, that her largedark eyes hid a soft roguishness under their long lashes, and that hercurly hair, though all pushed back under her round cap while she was atwork, stole back in dark delicate rings on her forehead, and about herwhite shell-like ears; it is of little use for me to say how lovelywas the contour of her pink-and-white neckerchief, tucked into her lowplum-coloured stuff bodice, or how the linen butter-making apron, withits bib, seemed a thing to be imitated in silk by duchesses, since itfell in such charming lines, or how her brown stockings and thick-soledbuckled shoes lost all that clumsiness which they must certainly havehad when empty of her foot and ankle--of little use, unless you haveseen a woman who affected you as Hetty affected her beholders, forotherwise, though you might conjure up the image of a lovely woman, shewould not in the least resemble that distracting kittenlike maiden. Imight mention all the divine charms of a bright spring day, but if youhad never in your life utterly forgotten yourself in straining your eyesafter the mounting lark, or in wandering through the still lanes whenthe fresh-opened blossoms fill them with a sacred silent beauty likethat of fretted aisles, where would be the use of my descriptivecatalogue? I could never make you know what I meant by a bright springday. Hetty's was a spring-tide beauty; it was the beauty of youngfrisking things, round-limbed, gambolling, circumventing you by afalse air of innocence--the innocence of a young star-browed calf, forexample, that, being inclined for a promenade out of bounds, leads youa severe steeplechase over hedge and ditch, and only comes to a stand inthe middle of a bog.
And they are the prettiest attitudes and movements into which a prettygirl is thrown in making up butter--tossing movements that give acharming curve to the arm, and a sideward inclination of the round whiteneck; little patting and rolling movements with the palm of the hand,and nice adaptations and finishings which cannot at all be effectedwithout a great play of the pouting mouth and the dark eyes. And thenthe butter itself seems to communicate a fresh charm--it is so pure,so sweet-scented; it is turned off the mould with such a beautifulfirm surface, like marble in a pale yellow light! Moreover, Hetty wasparticularly clever at making up the butter; it was the one performanceof hers that her aunt allowed to pass without severe criticism; so shehandled it with all the grace that belongs to mastery.
"I hope you will be ready for a great holiday on the thirtieth of July,Mrs. Poyser," said Captain Donnithorne, when he had sufficiently admiredthe dairy and given several improvised opinions on Swede turnips andshorthorns. "You know what is to happen then, and I shall expect youto be one of the guests who come earliest and leave latest. Will youpromise me your hand for two dances, Miss Hetty? If I don't get yourpromise now, I know I shall hardly have a chance, for all the smartyoung farmers will take care to secure you."
Hetty smiled and blushed, but before she could answer, Mrs. Poyserinterposed, scandalized at the mere suggestion that the young squirecould be excluded by any meaner partners.
"Indeed, sir, you are very kind to take that notice of her. And I'msure, whenever you're pleased to dance with her, she'll be proud andthankful, if she stood still all the rest o' th' evening."
"Oh no, no, that would be too cruel to all the other young fellows whocan dance. But you will promise me two dances, won't you?" the captaincontinued, determined to make Hetty look at him and speak to him.
Hetty dropped the prettiest little curtsy, and stole a half-shy,half-coquettish glance at him as she said, "Yes, thank you, sir."
"And you must bring all your children, you know, Mrs. Poyser; yourlittle Totty, as well as the boys. I want all the youngest children onthe estate to be there--all those who will be fine young men and womenwhen I'm a bald old fellow."
"Oh dear, sir, that 'ull be a long time first," said Mrs. Poyser, quiteovercome at the young squire's speaking so lightly of himself, andthinking how her husband would be interested in hearing her recount thisremarkable specimen of high-born humour. The captain was thought tobe "very full of his jokes," and was a great favourite throughout theestate on account of his free manners. Every tenant was quite surethings would be different when the reins got into his hands--therewas to be a millennial abundance of new gates, allowances of lime, andreturns of ten per cent.
"But where is Totty to-day?" he said. "I want to see her."
"Where IS the little un, Hetty?" said Mrs. Poyser. "She came in here notlong ago."
"I don't know. She went into the brewhouse to Nancy, I think."
The proud mother, unable to resist the temptation to show her Totty,passed at once into the back kitchen, in search of her, not, however,without misgivings lest something should have happened to render herperson and attire unfit for presentation.
"And do you carry the butter to market when you've made it?" said theCaptain to Hetty, meanwhile.
"Oh no, sir; not when it's so heavy. I'm not strong enough to carry it.Alick takes it on horseback."
"No, I'm sure your pretty arms were never meant for such heavy weights.But you go out a walk sometimes these pleasant evenings, don't you?Why don't you have a walk in the Chase sometimes, now it's so green andpleasant? I hardly ever see you anywhere except at home and at church."
"Aunt doesn't like me to go a-walking only when I'm going somewhere,"said Hetty. "But I go through the Chase sometimes."
"And don't you ever go to see Mrs. Best, the housekeeper? I think I sawyou once in the housekeeper's room."
"It isn't Mrs. Best, it's Mrs. Pomfret, the lady's maid, as I go to see.She's teaching me tent-stitch and the lace-mending. I'm going to teawit
h her to-morrow afternoon."
The reason why there had been space for this tete-a-tete can only beknown by looking into the back kitchen, where Totty had been discoveredrubbing a stray blue-bag against her nose, and in the same momentallowing some liberal indigo drops to fall on her afternoon pinafore.But now she appeared holding her mother's hand--the end of her roundnose rather shiny from a recent and hurried application of soap andwater.
"Here she is!" said the captain, lifting her up and setting her on thelow stone shelf. "Here's Totty! By the by, what's her other name? Shewasn't christened Totty."
"Oh, sir, we call her sadly out of her name. Charlotte's her christenedname. It's a name i' Mr. Poyser's family: his grandmother was namedCharlotte. But we began with calling her Lotty, and now it's got toTotty. To be sure it's more like a name for a dog than a Christianchild."
"Totty's a capital name. Why, she looks like a Totty. Has she got apocket on?" said the captain, feeling in his own waistcoat pockets.
Totty immediately with great gravity lifted up her frock, and showed atiny pink pocket at present in a state of collapse.
"It dot notin' in it," she said, as she looked down at it veryearnestly.
"No! What a pity! Such a pretty pocket. Well, I think I've got somethings in mine that will make a pretty jingle in it. Yes! I declare I'vegot five little round silver things, and hear what a pretty noise theymake in Totty's pink pocket." Here he shook the pocket with the fivesixpences in it, and Totty showed her teeth and wrinkled her nose ingreat glee; but, divining that there was nothing more to be got bystaying, she jumped off the shelf and ran away to jingle her pocket inthe hearing of Nancy, while her mother called after her, "Oh for shame,you naughty gell! Not to thank the captain for what he's given you I'msure, sir, it's very kind of you; but she's spoiled shameful; her fatherwon't have her said nay in anything, and there's no managing her. It'sbeing the youngest, and th' only gell."
"Oh, she's a funny little fatty; I wouldn't have her different. But Imust be going now, for I suppose the rector is waiting for me."
With a "good-bye," a bright glance, and a bow to Hetty Arthur left thedairy. But he was mistaken in imagining himself waited for. The rectorhad been so much interested in his conversation with Dinah that he wouldnot have chosen to close it earlier; and you shall hear now what theyhad been saying to each other.
