by George Eliot
the Miss Linnets were to Miss Pratt what the apple-scented September is to the
bare, nipping days of late November. The Miss Linnets were in that temperate
zone of oldmaidism, when a woman will not say but that if a man of suitable
years and character were to offer himself, she might be induced to tread the
remainder of life's vale in company with him; Miss Pratt was in that arctic
region where a woman is confident that at no time of life would she have
consented to give up her liberty, and that she has never seen the man whom she
would engage to honour and obey. If the Miss Linnets were old maids, they were
old maids with natural ringlets and embonpoint, not to say obesity; Miss Pratt
was an old maid with a cap, a braided "front," a backbone and appendages. Miss
Pratt was the one blue-stocking of Milby, possessing, she said, no less than
five hundred volumes, competent, as her brother the doctor often observed, to
conduct a conversation on any topic whatever, and occasionally dabbling a little
in authorship, though it was understood that she had never put forth the full
powers of her mind in print. Her Letters to a Young Man on his Entrance into
Life, and De Courcy, or the Rash Promise, a Tale for Youth, were mere trifles
which she had been induced to publish because they were calculated for popular
utility, but they were nothing to what she had for years had by her in
manuscript. Her latest production had been Six Stanzas, addressed to the Rev.
Edgar Tryan, printed on glazed paper with a neat border, and beginning,
"Forward, young wrestler for the truth!"
Miss Pratt having kept her brother's house during his long widowhood, his
daughter, Miss Eliza, had had the advantage of being educated by her aunt, and
thus of imbibing a very strong antipathy to all that remarkable woman's tastes
and opinions. The silent handsome girl of two-and-twenty, who is covering the
Memoirs of Felix Neff, is Miss Eliza Pratt; and the small elderly lady in dowdy
clothing, who is also working diligently, is Mrs Pettifer, a superior-minded
widow, much valued in Milby, being such a very respectable person to have in the
house in case of illness, and of quite too good a family to receive any
money-payment �you could always send her garden-stuff that would make her ample
amends. Miss Pratt has enough to do in commenting on the heap of volumes before
her, feeling it a responsibility entailed on her by her great powers of mind to
leave nothing without the advantage of her opinion. Whatever was good must be
sprinkled with the chrism of her approval; whatever was evil must be blighted by
her condemnation.
"Upon my word," she said, in a deliberate high voice, as if she were dictating
to an amanuensis, "it is a most admirable selection of works for popular
reading, this that our excellent Mr Tryan has made. I do not know whether, if
the task had been confided to me, I could have made a selection, combining in a
higher degree religious instruction and edification, with a due admixture of the
purer species of amusement. This story of Father Clement is a library in itself
on the errors of Romanism. I have ever considered fiction a suitable form for
conveying moral and religious instruction, as I have shown in my little work De
Courcy, which, as a very clever writer in the Crompton Argus said at the time of
its appearance, is the light vehicle of a weighty moral."
"One 'ud think," said Mrs Linnet, who also had her spectacles on, but chiefly
for the purpose of seeing what the others were doing, "there didn't want much to
drive people away from a religion as makes 'em walk barefoot over stone floors,
like that girl in Father Clement�sending the blood up to the head frightful.
Anybody might see that was an unnat'ral creed."
"Yes," said Miss Pratt, "but asceticism is not the root of the error, as Mr
Tryan was telling us the other evening�it is the denial of the great doctrine of
justification by faith. Much as I had reflected on all subjects in the course of
my life, I am indebted to Mr Tryan for opening my eyes to the full importance of
that cardinal doctrine of the Reformation. From a child I had a deep sense of
religion, but in my early day the Gospel light was obscured in the English
Church, notwithstanding the possession of our incomparable Liturgy, than which I
know no human composition more faultless and sublime. As I tell Eliza, I was not
blest as she is at the age of two-and-twenty, in knowing a clergyman who unites
all that is great and admirable in intellect with the highest spirtual gifts. I
am no contemptible judge of a man's acquirements, and I assure you I have tested
Mr Tryan's by questions which are a pretty severe touchstone. It is ture, I
sometimes carry him a little beyond the depth of the other listeners. Profound
learning," continued Miss Pratt, shutting her spectacles, and tapping them on
the book before her, "has not many to estimate it in Milby."
"Miss Pratt," said Rebecca, "will you please give me Scott's Force of Truth?
There�that small book lying against the Life of Legh Richmond."
"That's a book I'm very fond of�the Life of Legh Richmond," said Mrs Linnet. "He
found out all about that woman at Tutbury as pretended to live without eating.
Stuff and nonsense!"
Mrs Linnet had become a reader of religious books since Mr Tryan's advent, and
as she was in the habit of confining her perusal to the purely secular portions,
which bore a very small proportion to the whole, she could make rapid progress
through a large number of volumes. On taking up the biography of a celebrated
preacher, she immediately turned to the end to see what disease he died of; and
if his legs swelled, as her own occasionally did, she felt a stronger interest
in ascertaining any earlier facts in the history of the dropsical divine�whether
he had ever fallen off a stage coach, whether he had married more than one wife,
and, in general, any adventures or repartees recorded of him previous to the
epoch of his conversion. She then glanced over the letters and diary, and
wherever there was a predominance of Zion, the River of Life, and notes of
exclamation, she turned over to the next page; but any passage in which she saw
such promising nouns as "small-pox," "pony," or "boots and shoes," at once
arrested her.
"It is half-past six now," said Miss Linnet, looking at her watch as the servant
appeared with the tea-tray. "I suppose the delegates are come back by this time.
If Mr Tryan had not so kindly promised to call and let us know, I should hardly
rest without walking to Milby myself to know what answer they have brought back.
It is a great privilege for us, Mr Tryan living at Mrs Wagstaffs, for he is
often able to take us on his way backwards and forward into the town."
"I wonder if there's another man in the world who has been brought up as Mr
Tryan has, that would choose to live in those small close rooms on the common,
among heaps of dirty cottages, for the sake of being near the poor people," said
Mrs Pettifer. "I'm afraid he hurts his health by it; he looks to me far from
strong."
"Ah," said Miss Pratt, "I understand he i
s of a highly respectable family
indeed, in Huntingdonshire. I heard him myself speak of his father's
carriage�quite incidentally you know�and Eliza tells me what very fine cambric
handkerchiefs he uses. My eyes are not good enough to see such things, but I
know what breeding is as well as most people, and it is easy to see that Mr
Tryan is quite comme il faw, to use a French expression."
"I should like to tell him better nor use fine cambric i' this place, where
there's such washing, it's a shame to be seen," said Mrs Linnet; "he'll get 'em
tore to pieces. Good lawn 'ud be far better. I saw what a colour his linen
looked at the sacrament last Sunday. Mary's making him a black silk case to hold
his bands, but I told her she'd more need wash 'em for him."
"O mother!" said Rebecca, with solemn severity, "pray don't think of
pocket-handkerchiefs and linen, when we are talking of such a man. And at this
moment, too, when he is perhaps having to bear a heavy blow. We have more need
to help him by prayer, as Aaron and Hur held up the hands of Moses. We don't
know but wickedness may have triumphed, and Mr Prendergast may have consented to
forbid the lecture. There have been dispensations quite as mysterious, and Satan
is evidently putting forth all his strength to resist the entrance of the Gospel
into Milby Church."
"You niver spoke a truer word than that, my dear," said Mrs Linnet, who accepted
all religious phrases, but was extremely rationalistic in her interpretation;
"for if iver Old Harry appeared in a human form, it's that Dempster. It was all
through him as we got cheated out o' Pye's Croft, making out as the title wasn't
good. Such lawyers's villany! As if paying good money wasn't title enough to
anything. If your father as is dead and gone had been worthy to know it! But
he'll have a fall some day, Dempster will. Mark my words."
"Ah, out of his carriage, you mean," said Miss Pratt, who, in the movement
occasioned by the clearing of the table, had lost the first part of Mrs Linnet's
speech. "It certainly is alarming to see him driving home from Rotherby,
flogging his galloping horse like a madman. My brother has often said he
expected every Thursday evening to be called in to set some of Dempster's bones;
but I suppose he may drop that expectation now, for we are given to understand
from good authority that he has forbidden his wife to call my brother in again
either to herself or her mother. He swears no Tryanite doctor shall attend his
family. I have reason to believe that Pilgrim was called in to Mrs Dempster's
mother the other day."
"Poor Mrs Raynor! she's glad to do anything for the sake of peace and
quietness," said Mrs Pettifer; "but it's no trifle at her time of life to part
with a doctor as knows her constitution."
"What trouble that poor woman has to bear in her old age!" said Mary Linnet, "to
see her daughter leading such a life!�an only daughter, too, that she doats on."
"Yes, indeed," said Miss Pratt. "We, of course, know more about it than most
people, my brother having attended the family so many years. For my part, I
never thought well of the marriage; and I endeavoured to dissuade my brother
when Mrs Raynor asked him to give Janet away at the wedding. 'If you will take
my advice, Richard,' I said, 'you will have nothing to do with that marriage.'
And he has seen the justice of my opinion since. Mrs Raynor herself was against
the connection at first; but she always spoiled Janet, and I fear, too, she was
won over by a foolish pride in having her daughter marry a professional man. I
fear it was so. No one but myself, I think, foresaw the extent of the evil."
"Well," said Mrs Pettifer, "Janet had nothing to look to but being a governess;
and it was hard for Mrs Raynor to have to work at millinering�a woman well
brought up, and her husband a man who held his head as high as any man in
Thurston. And it isn't everybody that sees everything fifteen years beforehand.
Robert Dempster was the cleverest man in Milby; and there weren't many young men
fit to talk to Janet."
"It is a thousand pities," said Miss Pratt, choosing to ignore Mrs Pettifer's
slight sarcasm, "for I certainly did consider Janet Raynor the most promising
young woman of my acquaintance; �a little too much lifted up, perhaps, by her
superior education, and too much given to satire, but able to express herself
very well indeed about any book I recommended to her perusal. There is no young
woman in Milby now who can be compared with what Janet was when she was married,
either in mind or person. I consider Miss Landor far, far below her. Indeed, I
cannot say much for the mental superiority of the young ladies in our first
families. They are superficial� very superficial."
"She made the handsomest bride that ever came out of Milby church, too," said
Mrs Pettifer. "Such a very fine figure! and it showed off her white poplin so
well. And what a pretty smile Janet always had! Poor thing, she keeps that now
for all her old friends. I never see her but she has something pretty to say to
me�living in the same street, you know, I can't help seeing her often, though
I've never been to the house since Dempster broke out on me in one of his
drunken fits. She comes to me sometimes, poor thing, looking so strange, anybody
passing her in the street may see plain enough what's the matter; but she's
always got some little good-natured plan in her head for all that. Only last
night when I met her, I saw five yards off she wasn't fit to be out; but she had
a basin in her hand, full of something she was carrying to Sally Martin, the
deformed girl that's in a consumption."
"But she is just as bitter against Mr Tryan as her husband is, I understand,"
said Rebecca. "Her heart is very much set against the truth, for I understand
she bought Mr Tryan's sermons on purpose to ridicule them to Mrs Crewe."
"Well, poor thing," said Mrs Pettifer, "you know she stands up for eveything her
husband says and does. She never will admit to anybody that he's not a good
husband."
"That is her pride," said Miss Pratt. "She married him in opposition to the
advice of her best friends, and now she is not willing admit that she was wrong.
Why, even to my brother� and a medical attendant, you know, can hardly fail to
be acquainted with family secrets�she has always pretended to have the highest
respect for her husband's qualities. Poor Mrs Raynor, how-ever, is well aware
that every one knows the real state of things. Latterly, she has not even
avoided the subject with me. The very last time I called on her she said, 'Have
you been to see my poor daughter?' and burst into tears."
"Pride or no pride," said Mrs Pettifer, "I shall always stand up for Janet
Dempster. She sat up with me night after night when I had that attack of
rheumatic fever six years ago. There's great excuses for her. When a woman can't
think of her husband coming home without trembling, it's enough to make her
drink something to blunt her feelings�and no children either, to keep her from
it. You and me might do the same, if we were in her place."
&nb
sp; "Speak for yourself, Mrs Pettifer," said Miss Pratt. "Under no circumstances can
I imagine myself resorting to a practice so degrading. A woman should find
support in her own strength of mind."
"I think," said Rebecca, who considered Miss Pratt still very blind in spiritual
things, notwithstanding her assumption of enlightenment, "she will find poor
support if she trusts only to her own strength. She must seek aid elsewhere than
in herself."
Happily the removal of the tea-things just then created a little confusion,
which aided Miss Pratt to repress her resentment at Rebecca's presumption in
correcting her�a person like Rebecca Linnet! who six months ago was as flighty
and vain a woman as Miss Pratt had ever known�so very unconscious of her
unfortunate person!
The ladies had scarcely been seated at their work another hour, when the sun was
sinking, and the clouds that flecked the sky to the very zenith were every
moment taking on a brighter gold. The gate of the little garden opened, and Miss
Linnet, seated at her small table near the window, saw Mr Tryan enter.
"There is Mr Tryan," she said, and her pale cheek was lighted up with a little
blush that would have made her look more attractive to almost any one except
Miss Eliza Pratt, whose fine grey eyes allowed few things to escape her silent
observation. "Mary Linnet gets more and more in love with Mr Tryan," thought
Miss Eliza; "it is really pitiable to see such feelings in a woman of her age,
with those old-maidish little ringlets. I dare say she flatters herself Mr Tryan
may fall in love with her, because he makes her useful among the poor." At the
same time, Miss Eliza, as she bent her handsome head and large cannon curls with
apparent calmness over her work, felt a considerable internal flutter when she
heard her knock at the door. Rebecca had less self-command. She felt too much
agitated to go on with her pasting, and clutched the leg of the table to
counteract the trembling in her hands.
Poor women's hearts! Heaven forbid that I should laugh at you, and make cheap
jests on your susceptibility towards the clerical sex, as if it had nothing
deeper or more lovely in it than the mere vulgar angling for a husband. Even in
these enlightened days, many a curate who, considered abstractedly, is nothing
more than a sleek bimanous animal in a white neckcloth, with views more or less
Anglican, and furtively addicted to the flute, is adored by a girl who has
coarse brothers, or by a solitary woman who would like to be a helpmate in good
works beyond her own means, simply because he seems to them the model of
refinement and of public usefulness. What wonder, then, that in Milby society,
such as I have told you it was a very long while ago, a zealous evangelical
clergyman, aged thirty-three, called forth all the little agitations that belong
to the divine necessity of loving, implanted in the Miss Linnets, with their
seven or eight lustrums and their unfashionable ringlets, no less than in Miss
Eliza Pratt, with her youthful bloom and her ample cannon curls.
But Mr Tryan has entered the room, and the strange light from the golden sky
falling on his light brown hair, which is brushed high up round his head, makes
it look almost like an aur�ole. His grey eyes, too, shine with unwonted
brilliancy this evening. They were not remarkable eyes, but they accorded
completely in their changing light with the changing expression of his person,
which indicated the paradoxical character often observable in a large-limbed
sanguine blond; at once mild and irritable, gentle and overbearing, indolent and
resolute, self-conscious and dreamy. Except that the well-filled lips had
something of the artificially compressed look which is often the sign of a
struggle to keep the dragon undermost, and that the complexion was rather
pallid, giving the idea of imperfect health, Mr Tryan's face in repose was that
