by George Eliot
had no patience with Mrs Lowme, living, as she did, on tea and broth, and
looking as yellow as any crow-flower, and yet letting Pilgrim bleed and blister
her and give her lowering medicine till her clothes hung on her like a
scarecrow's. On the whole, perhaps, Mr Pilgrim's reputation was at the higher
pitch, and when any lady under Mr Pratt's care was doing ill, she was half
disposed to think that a little more "active treatment" might suit her better.
But without very definite provocation no one would take so serious a step as to
part with the family doctor, for in those remote days there were few varieties
of human hatred more formidable than the medical. The doctor's estimate, even of
a confiding patient, was apt to rise and fall with the entries in the day-book;
and I have known. Mr Pilgrim discover the most unexpected virtues in a patient
seized with a promising illness. At such times you might have been glad to
perceive that there were some of Mr Pilgrim's fellowcreatures of whom he
entertained a high opinion, and that he was liable to the amiable weakness of a
too admiring estimate. A good inflammation fired his enthusiasm, and a lingering
dropsy dissolved him into charity. Doubtless this crescendo of benevolence was
partly due to feelings not at all represented by the entries in the day-book;
for in Mr Pilgrim's heart, too, there was a latent store of tenderness and pity
which flowed forth at the sight of suffering. Gradually, however, as his
patients became convalescent, his view of their characters became more
dispassionate; when they could relish mutton-chops, he began to admit that they
had foibles, and by the time they had swallowed their last dose of tonic, he was
alive to their most inexcusable faults. After this, the thermometer of his
regard rested at the moderate point of friendly backbiting, which sufficed to
make him agreeable in his morning visits to the amiable and worthy persons who
were yet far from convalescent.
Pratt's patients were profoundly uninteresting to Pilgrim: their very diseases
were despicable, and he would hardly have thought their bodies worth dissecting.
But of all Pratt's patients, Mr Jerome was the one on whom Mr Pilgrim heaped the
most unmitigated contempt. In spite of the surgeon's wise tolerance, Dissent
became odious to him in the person of Mr Jerome. Perhaps it was because that old
gentleman, being rich, and having very large yearly bills for medical attendance
on himself and his wife, nevertheless employed Pratt �neglected all the
advantages of "active treatment," and paid away his money without getting his
system lowered. On any other ground it is hard to explain a feeling of hostility
to Mr Jerome, who was an excellent old gentleman, expressing a great deal of
goodwill towards his neighbours, not only in imperfect English, but in loans of
money to the ostensibly rich, and in sacks of potatoes to the obviously poor.
Assuredly Milby had that salt of goodness which keeps the world together, in
greater abundance than was visible on the surface: innocent babes were born
there, sweetening their parents' hearts with simple joys; men and women
withering in disappointed worldliness, or bloated with sensual ease, had better
moments in which they pressed the hand of suffering with sympathy, and were
moved to deeds of neighbourly kindness. In church and in chapel there were
honest-hearted worshippers who strove to keep a conscience void of offence; and
even up the dimmest alleys you might have found here and there a Wesleyan to
whom Methodism was the vehicle of peace on earth, and goodwill to men. To a
superficial glance, Milby was nothing but dreary prose: a dingy town, surrounded
by flat fields, lopped elms, and sprawling manufacturing villages, which crept
on and on with their weaving-shops, till they threatened to graft themselves on
the town. But the sweet spring came to Milby notwithstanding: the elm-tops were
red with buds; the churchyard was starred with daisies; the lark showered his
love-music on the flat fields; the rainbows hung over the dingy town, clothing
the very roofs and chimneys in a strange transfiguring beauty. And so it was
with the human life there, which at first seemed a dismal mixture of griping
worldliness, vanity, ostrich feathers, and the fumes of brandy: looking closer,
you found some purity, gentleness, and unselfishness, as you may have observed a
scented geranium giving forth its wholesome odours amidst blasphemy and gin in a
noisy pothouse. Little deaf Mrs Crewe would often carry half her own spare
dinner to the sick and hungry; Miss Phipps, with her cockade of red feathers,
had a filial heart, and lighted her father's pipe with a pleasant smile; and
there were grey-haired men in drab gaiters, not at all noticeable as you passed
them in the street, whose integrity had been the basis of their rich neighbour's
wealth.
Such as the place was, the people there were entirely contented with it. They
fancied life must be but a dull affair for that large portion of mankind who
were necessarily shut out from an acquaintance with Milby families, and that it
must be an advantage to London and Liverpool, that Milby gentlemen occasionally
visited those places on business. But the inhabitants became more intensely
conscious of the value they set upon all their advantages, when innovation made
its appearance in the person of the Rev. Mr Tryan, the new curate at the
chapel-of-ease on Paddiford Common. It was soon notorious in Milby that Mr Tryan
held peculiar opinions; that he preached extempore; that he was founding a
religious lending library in his remote corner of the parish; that he expounded
the Scriptures in cottages; and that his preaching was attracting the
Dissenters, and filling the very aisles of his church. The rumour sprang up that
Evangelicalism had invaded Milby parish;�a murrain or blight all the more
terrible, because its nature was but dimly conjectured. Perhaps Milby was one of
the last spots to be reached by the wave of a new movement; and it was only now,
when the tide was just on the turn, that the limpets there got a sprinkling. Mr
Tryan was the first Evangelical clergyman who had risen above the Milby horizon:
hitherto that obnoxious adjective had been unknown to the towns-people of any
gentility; and there were even many Dissenters who considered "evangelical"
simply a sort of baptismal name to the magazine which circulated among the
congregation of Salem Chapel. But now, at length, the disease had been imported,
when the parishioners were expecting it as little as the innocent Red Indians
expected small-pox. As long as Mr Tryan's hearers were confined to Paddiford
Common�which, by the by, was hardly recognisable as a common at all, but was a
dismal district where you heard the rattle of the handloom, and breathed the
smoke of coal-pits�the "canting parson" could be treated as a joke. Not so when
a number of single ladies in the town appeared to be infected, and even one or
two men of substantial property, with old Mr Landor, the banker, at their head,
seemed to be "giving in" to the new movement�when Mr Tryan was known to be well
&nbs
p; received in several good houses, where he was in the habit of finishing the
evening with exhortation and prayer. Evangelicalism was no longer a nuisance
existing merely in by-corners, which any well-clad person could avoid; it was
invading the very drawing-rooms, mingling itself with the comfortable fumes of
port-wine and brandy, threatening to deaden with its murky breath all the
splendour of the ostrich feathers, and to stifle Milby ingenuousness, not
pretending to be better than its neighbours, with a cloud of cant and lugubrious
hypocrisy. The alarm reached its climax when it was reported that Mr Tryan was
endeavouring to obtain authority from Mr Prendergast, the non-resident rector,
to establish a Sunday evening lecture in the parish church, on the ground that
old Mr Crewe did not preach the Gospel.
It now first appeared how surprisingly high a value Milby in general set on the
ministrations of Mr Crewe; how convinced it was that Mr Crewe was the model of a
parish priest, and his sermons the soundest and most edifying that had ever
remained unheard by a church-going population. All allusions to his brown wig
were suppressed, and by a rhetorical figure his name was associated with
venerable grey hairs; the attempted intrusion of Mr Tryan was an insult to a man
deep in years and learning; moreover, it was an insolent effort to thrust
himself forward in a parish where he was clearly distasteful to the superior
portion of its inhabitants. The town was divided into two zealous parties, the
Tryanites and anti-Tryanites; and by the exertions of the eloquent Dempster, the
anti-Tyranite virulence was soon developed into an organised opposition. A
protest against the meditated evening lecture was framed by that orthodox
attorney, and after being numerously signed, was to be carried to Mr Prendergast
by three delegates representing the intellect, morality, and wealth of Milby.
The intellect, you perceive, was to be personified in Mr Dempster, the morality
in Mr Budd, and the wealth in Mr Tomlinson; and the distinguished triad was to
set out on its great mission, as we have seen, on the third day from that warm
Saturday evening when the conversation recorded in the previous chapter took
place in the bar of the Red Lion.
CHAPTER III.
It was quite as warm on the following Thursday evening, when Mr Dempster and his
colleagues were to return from their mission to Elmstoke Rectory; but it was
much pleasanter in Mrs Linnet's parlour than in the bar of the Red Lion. Through
the open window came the scent of mignonette and honeysuckle; the grass-plot in
front of the house was shaded by a little plantation of Gueldres roses,
syringas, and laburnums; the noise of looms and carts and unmelodious voices
reached the ear simply as an agreeable murmur, for Mrs Linnet's house was
situated quite on the outskirts of Paddiford Common; and the only sound likely
to disturb the serenity of the feminine party assembled there, was the
occasional buzz of intrusive wasps, apparently mistaking each lady's head for a
sugar-basin. No sugar-basin was visible in Mrs Linnet's parlour, for the time of
tea was not yet, and the round table was littered with books which the ladies
were covering with black canvass as a reinforcement of the new Paddiford Lending
Library. Miss Linnet, whose manuscript was the neatest type of zigzag, was
seated at a small table apart, writing on green paper tickets, which were to be
pasted on the covers. Miss Linnet had other accomplishments besides that of a
neat manuscript, and an index to some of them might be found in the ornaments of
the room. She had always combined a love of serious and poetical reading with
her skill in fancy-work, and the neatly-bound copies of Dryden's Virgil, Hannah
More's Sacred Dramas, Falconer's Shipwreck, Mason On Self-Knowledge, Rasselas,
and Burke On the Sublime and Beautiful, which were the chief ornaments of the
book-case, were all inscribed with her name, and had been bought with her
pocket-money when she was in her teens. It must have been at least fifteen years
since the latest of those purchases, but Miss Linnet's skill in fancy-work
appeared to have gone through more numerous phases than her literary taste; for
the japanned boxes, the alum and sealing-wax baskets, the fan-dolls, the
"transferred" landscapes on the fire-screens, and the recent bouquets of
wax-flowers, showed a disparity in freshness which made them referable to widely
different periods. Wax-flowers presuppose delicate fingers and robust patience,
but there are still many points of mind and person which they leave vague and
problematic; so I must tell you that Miss Linnet had dark ringlets, a sallow
complexion, and an amiable disposition. As to her features, there was not much
to criticise in them, for she had little nose, less lip, and no eyebrow; and as
to her intellect, her friend Mrs Pettifer often said: "She didn't know a more
sensible person to talk to than Mary Linnet. There was no one she liked better
to come and take a quiet cup of tea with her, and read a little of Klopstock's
Messiah. Mary Linnet had often told her a great deal of her mind when they were
sitting together: she said there were many things to bear in every condition of
life, and nothing should induce her to marry without a prospect of happiness.
Once, when Mrs Pettifer admired her wax-flowers, she said, 'Ah, Mrs Pettifer,
think of the beauties of nature!' She always spoke very prettily, did Mary
Linnet; very different, indeed, from Rebecca."
Miss Rebecca Linnet, indeed, was not a general favourite. While most people
thought it a pity that a sensible woman like Mary had not found a good
husband�and even her female friends said nothing more ill-natured of her, than
that her face was like a piece of putty with two Scotch pebbles stuck in
it�Rebecca was always spoken of sarcastically, and it was a customary kind of
banter with young ladies to recommend her as a wife to any gentleman they
happened to be flirting with�her fat, her finery, and her thick ankles,
sufficing to give piquancy to the joke, notwithstanding the absence of novelty.
Miss Rebecca, however, possessed the accomplishment of music, and her singing of
"Oh no, we never mention her," and "The Solider's Tear," was so desirable an
accession to the pleasures of a tea-party, that no one cared to offend her,
especially as Rebecca had a high spirit of her own, and in spite of her
expansively rounded contour, had a particularly sharp tongue. Her reading had
been more extensive than her sister's, embracing most of the fiction in Mr
Procter's circulating library, and nothing but an acquaintance with the course
of her studies could afford a clue to the rapid transitions in her dress, which
were suggested by the style of beauty, whether sentimental, sprightly, or
severe, possessed by the heroine of the three volumes actually in perusal. A
piece of lace, which drooped round the edge of her white bonnet one week, had
been rejected by the next; and her cheeks, which, on Whitsunday, loomed through
a Turnerian haze of net-work, were, on Trinity Sunday, seen reposing in distinct
&nbs
p; red outline on her shelving bust, like the sum on a fog-bank. The black velvet,
meeting with a crystal clasp, which one evening encircled her head, had on
another descended to her neck, and on a third to her wrist, suggesting to an
active imagination, either a magical contraction of the ornament, or a fearful
ratio of expansion in Miss Rebecca's person. With this constant application of
art to dress, she could have had little time for fancy-work, even if she had not
been destitute of her sister's taste for that delightful and truly feminine
occupation. And here, at least, you perceive the justice of the Milby opinion as
to the relative suitability of the two Miss Linnets for matrimony. When a man is
happy enough to win the affections of a sweet girl, who can soothe his cares
with crochet, and respond to all his most cherished ideas with beaded urn-rugs
and chair-covers in German wool, he has, at least, a guarantee of domestic
comfort, whatever trials may await him out of doors. What a resource it is under
fatigue and irritation to have your drawing-room well supplied with small mats,
which would always be ready if you ever wanted to set anything on them! And what
styptic for a bleeding heart can equal copious squares of crochet, which are
useful for slipping down the moment you touch them? How our fathers managed
without crochet is the wonder; but I believe some small and feeble substitute
existed in their time under the name of "tatting." Rebecca Linnet, however, had
neglected tatting as well as other forms of fancy-work. At school, to be sure,
she had spent a great deal of time in acquiring flower-painting, according to
the ingenious method then fashionable, of applying the shapes of leaves and
flowers cut out in cardboard, and scrubbing a brush over the surface thus
conveniently marked out; but even the spill-cases and hand-screens which were
her last half-year's performances in that way, were not considered eminently
successful, and had long been consigned to the retirement of the best bedroom.
Thus, there was a good deal of family unlikeness between Rebecca and her sister,
and I am afraid there was also a little family dislike; but Mary's disapproval
had usually been kept imprisoned behind her thin lips, for Rebecca was not only
of a headstrong disposition, but was her mother's pet; the old lady being
herself stout, and preferring a more showy style of cap than she could prevail
on her daughter Mary to make up for her.
But I have been describing Miss Rebecca as she was in former days only, for her
appearance this evening, as she sits pasting on the green tickets, is in
striking contrast with what it was three or four months ago. Her plain grey
gingham dress and plain white collar could never have belonged to her wardrobe
before that date; and though she is not reduced in size, and her brown hair will
do nothing but hang in crisp ringlets down her large cheeks, there is a change
in her air and expression which seems to shed a softened light over her person,
and make her look like a peony in the shade, instead of the same flower
flaunting in a parterre in the hot sunlight.
No one could deny that Evangelicalism had wrought a change for the better in
Rebecca Linnet's person�not even Miss Pratt, the thin, stiff lady in spectacles,
seated opposite to her, who always had a peculiar repulsion for "females with a
gross habit of body." Miss Pratt was an old maid; but that is a no more definite
description than if I had said she was in the autumn of life. Was it autumn when
the orchards are fragrant with apples, or autumn when the oaks are brown, or
autumn when the last yellow leaves are fluttering in the chill breeze? The young
ladies in Milby would have told you that the Miss Linnets were old maids; but
