Part 63 (2/2)
”I'd no choice, I'm sure, sister,” said poor Mrs. Tulliver, accustomed to consider herself in the light of an accused person. ”I'm sure it was 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 he was offering a cheap and wholesome form of comfort, which he was recommending 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 when they were married.”
”Well, I don't say as I won't do it,” said Mrs. Pullet, ”for now Tom's so lucky, it's nothing but right his friends should look on him and help him. There's the tablecloths I bought at your sale, Bessy; it was nothing but good natur' o' me to buy 'em, for they've been lying in the chest ever since. But I'm not going to give Maggie any more o' my Indy muslin and things, if she's to go into service again, when she might stay and keep me company, and do my sewing for me, if she wasn't wanted at her brother's.”
”Going into service” was the expression by which the Dodson mind represented to itself the position of teacher or governess; and Maggie's return to that menial condition, now circ.u.mstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likely to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. Maggie in her crude form, with her hair down her back, and altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a most undesirable niece; but now she was capable of being at once ornamental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle Glegg's presence, over the tea and m.u.f.fins.
”Hegh, hegh!” said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting Maggie on the back, ”nonsense, nonsense! Don't let us hear of you taking a place again, Maggie. Why, you must ha' picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at the 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 in her severity which she always put on with her crisper fronts, ”you'll excuse me, but you're far too light for a man of your years. It's respect and duty to her aunts, and the rest of her kin as are so good to her, should have kept my niece from fixing about going away again without 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 me know.”
”La, Jane, your husband's only joking,” said Mrs. Pullet; ”let him joke while he's got health and strength. There's poor Mr. Tilt got his mouth drawn all o' one side, and couldn't laugh if he was to try.”
”I'll trouble you for the m.u.f.fineer, then, Mr. Glegg,” said Mrs. G., ”if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking. Though it's other people must see the joke in a niece's putting a slight on her mother's eldest sister, as is the head o' the family; and only coming in and out on short visits, all the time she's been in the town, and then settling to go away without my knowledge,--as I'd laid caps out on purpose for her to make 'em up for me,--and me as have divided my money so equal----”
”Sister,” Mrs. Tulliver broke in anxiously, ”I'm sure Maggie never thought o' going away without staying at your house as well as the others. Not as it's my wish she should go away at all, but quite contrairy. I'm sure I'm innocent. I've said over and over again, 'My dear, you've no call to go away.' But there's ten days or a fortnight Maggie'll have before she's fixed to go; she can stay at your house just 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 a bed, and go to all that trouble now, just at the end o' the time, when our 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 at night, and be thankful she's got a good aunt so close to her to come and sit with. I know _I_ should, when I was her age.”
”La, Jane,” said Mrs. Pullet, ”it 'ud do your beds good to have somebody to sleep in 'em. There's that striped room smells dreadful mouldy, and the gla.s.s mildewed like anything. I'm sure I thought I should be struck with death when you took me in.”
”Oh, there is Tom!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands. ”He's come on Sindbad, as I told him. I was afraid he was not going to keep his promise.”
Maggie jumped up to kiss Tom as he entered, with strong feeling, at this first meeting since the prospect of returning to the Mill had been opened to him; and she kept his hand, leading him to the chair by her side. To have no cloud between herself and Tom was still a perpetual 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're such a big man, you carry all before you, it, seems. You're come into your luck a good deal earlier than us old folks did; but I wish you joy, I wish you joy. You'll get the Mill all for your own again some day, 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 owes it to,” said Mrs. Glegg. ”If he hadn't had them to take after, he'd ha' been poorly off. There was never any failures, nor lawing, nor wastefulness in our family, nor dying without wills----”
”No, nor sudden deaths,” said aunt Pullet; ”allays the doctor called in. But Tom had the Dodson skin; I said that from the first. And I don't know what _you_ mean to do, sister Glegg, but I mean to give him a tablecloth of all my three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I don't say what more I shall do; but _that_ I shall do, and if I should die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in mind,--though you'll be blundering with the keys, and never remember as that on the third shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-caps with the broad ties,--not the narrow-frilled uns,--is the key of the drawer in the Blue 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 pills and draughts, wonderful,--I'll allays say that of you,--but you're lost among the keys.” This gloomy prospect of the confusion that would ensue 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 your own family. There's n.o.body can say I don't lock up; but I do what's reasonable, and no more. And as for the linen, I shall look out what's serviceable, to make a present of to my nephey; I've got cloth as has never been whitened, better worth having than other people's fine holland; 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 on her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking about Mr. Deane's intentions concerning steam.
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