Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (145 page)

“Well, niece, you’ll follow us.
 
The Miss Gunns will like to go down.”

“Sister,” said Nancy, when they were alone, “you’ve offended the Miss Gunns, I’m sure.”

“What have I done, child?”
 
said Priscilla, in some alarm.

“Why, you asked them if they minded about being ugly--you’re so very blunt.”

“Law, did I?
 
Well, it popped out: it’s a mercy I said no more, for I’m a bad un to live with folks when they don’t like the truth.
 
But as for being ugly, look at me, child, in this silver-coloured silk-- I told you how it ‘ud be--I look as yallow as a daffadil. Anybody ‘ud say you wanted to make a mawkin of me.”

“No, Priscy, don’t say so.
 
I begged and prayed of you not to let us have this silk if you’d like another better.
 
I was willing to have
your
choice, you know I was,” said Nancy, in anxious self-vindication.

“Nonsense, child!
 
you know you’d set your heart on this; and reason good, for you’re the colour o’ cream.
 
It ‘ud be fine doings for you to dress yourself to suit
my
skin.
 
What I find fault with, is that notion o’ yours as I must dress myself just like you. But you do as you like with me--you always did, from when first you begun to walk.
 
If you wanted to go the field’s length, the field’s length you’d go; and there was no whipping you, for you looked as prim and innicent as a daisy all the while.”

“Priscy,” said Nancy, gently, as she fastened a coral necklace, exactly like her own, round Priscilla’s neck, which was very far from being like her own, “I’m sure I’m willing to give way as far as is right, but who shouldn’t dress alike if it isn’t sisters? Would you have us go about looking as if we were no kin to one another--us that have got no mother and not another sister in the world?
 
I’d do what was right, if I dressed in a gown dyed with cheese-colouring; and I’d rather you’d choose, and let me wear what pleases you.”

“There you go again!
 
You’d come round to the same thing if one talked to you from Saturday night till Saturday morning.
 
It’ll be fine fun to see how you’ll master your husband and never raise your voice above the singing o’ the kettle all the while.
 
I like to see the men mastered!”

“Don’t talk
so
, Priscy,” said Nancy, blushing.
 
“You know I don’t mean ever to be married.”

“Oh, you never mean a fiddlestick’s end!”
 
said Priscilla, as she arranged her discarded dress, and closed her bandbox.
 
“Who shall
I
have to work for when father’s gone, if you are to go and take notions in your head and be an old maid, because some folks are no better than they should be?
 
I haven’t a bit o’ patience with you-- sitting on an addled egg for ever, as if there was never a fresh un in the world.
 
One old maid’s enough out o’ two sisters; and I shall do credit to a single life, for God A’mighty meant me for it.
 
Come, we can go down now.
 
I’m as ready as a mawkin
can
be--there’s nothing awanting to frighten the crows, now I’ve got my ear-droppers in.”

As the two Miss Lammeters walked into the large parlour together, any one who did not know the character of both might certainly have supposed that the reason why the square-shouldered, clumsy, high-featured Priscilla wore a dress the facsimile of her pretty sister’s, was either the mistaken vanity of the one, or the malicious contrivance of the other in order to set off her own rare beauty.
 
But the good-natured self-forgetful cheeriness and common-sense of Priscilla would soon have dissipated the one suspicion; and the modest calm of Nancy’s speech and manners told clearly of a mind free from all disavowed devices.

Places of honour had been kept for the Miss Lammeters near the head of the principal tea-table in the wainscoted parlour, now looking fresh and pleasant with handsome branches of holly, yew, and laurel, from the abundant growths of the old garden; and Nancy felt an inward flutter, that no firmness of purpose could prevent, when she saw Mr. Godfrey Cass advancing to lead her to a seat between himself and Mr. Crackenthorp, while Priscilla was called to the opposite side between her father and the Squire.
 
It certainly did make some difference to Nancy that the lover she had given up was the young man of quite the highest consequence in the parish--at home in a venerable and unique parlour, which was the extremity of grandeur in her experience, a parlour where
she
might one day have been mistress, with the consciousness that she was spoken of as “Madam Cass”, the Squire’s wife.
 
These circumstances exalted her inward drama in her own eyes, and deepened the emphasis with which she declared to herself that not the most dazzling rank should induce her to marry a man whose conduct showed him careless of his character, but that, “love once, love always”, was the motto of a true and pure woman, and no man should ever have any right over her which would be a call on her to destroy the dried flowers that she treasured, and always would treasure, for Godfrey Cass’s sake.
 
And Nancy was capable of keeping her word to herself under very trying conditions.
 
Nothing but a becoming blush betrayed the moving thoughts that urged themselves upon her as she accepted the seat next to Mr. Crackenthorp; for she was so instinctively neat and adroit in all her actions, and her pretty lips met each other with such quiet firmness, that it would have been difficult for her to appear agitated.

It was not the rector’s practice to let a charming blush pass without an appropriate compliment.
 
He was not in the least lofty or aristocratic, but simply a merry-eyed, small-featured, grey-haired man, with his chin propped by an ample, many-creased white neckcloth which seemed to predominate over every other point in his person, and somehow to impress its peculiar character on his remarks; so that to have considered his amenities apart from his cravat would have been a severe, and perhaps a dangerous, effort of abstraction.

“Ha, Miss Nancy,” he said, turning his head within his cravat and smiling down pleasantly upon her, “when anybody pretends this has been a severe winter, I shall tell them I saw the roses blooming on New Year’s Eve--eh, Godfrey, what do
you
say?”

Godfrey made no reply, and avoided looking at Nancy very markedly; for though these complimentary personalities were held to be in excellent taste in old-fashioned Raveloe society, reverent love has a politeness of its own which it teaches to men otherwise of small schooling.
 
But the Squire was rather impatient at Godfrey’s showing himself a dull spark in this way.
 
By this advanced hour of the day, the Squire was always in higher spirits than we have seen him in at the breakfast-table, and felt it quite pleasant to fulfil the hereditary duty of being noisily jovial and patronizing: the large silver snuff-box was in active service and was offered without fail to all neighbours from time to time, however often they might have declined the favour.
 
At present, the Squire had only given an express welcome to the heads of families as they appeared; but always as the evening deepened, his hospitality rayed out more widely, till he had tapped the youngest guests on the back and shown a peculiar fondness for their presence, in the full belief that they must feel their lives made happy by their belonging to a parish where there was such a hearty man as Squire Cass to invite them and wish them well.
 
Even in this early stage of the jovial mood, it was natural that he should wish to supply his son’s deficiencies by looking and speaking for him.

“Aye, aye,” he began, offering his snuff-box to Mr. Lammeter, who for the second time bowed his head and waved his hand in stiff rejection of the offer, “us old fellows may wish ourselves young to-night, when we see the mistletoe-bough in the White Parlour. It’s true, most things are gone back’ard in these last thirty years-- the country’s going down since the old king fell ill.
 
But when I look at Miss Nancy here, I begin to think the lasses keep up their quality;--ding me if I remember a sample to match her, not when I was a fine young fellow, and thought a deal about my pigtail.
 
No offence to you, madam,” he added, bending to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who sat by him, “I didn’t know
you
when you were as young as Miss Nancy here.”

Mrs. Crackenthorp--a small blinking woman, who fidgeted incessantly with her lace, ribbons, and gold chain, turning her head about and making subdued noises, very much like a guinea-pig that twitches its nose and soliloquizes in all company indiscriminately-- now blinked and fidgeted towards the Squire, and said, “Oh, no--no offence.”

This emphatic compliment of the Squire’s to Nancy was felt by others besides Godfrey to have a diplomatic significance; and her father gave a slight additional erectness to his back, as he looked across the table at her with complacent gravity.
 
That grave and orderly senior was not going to bate a jot of his dignity by seeming elated at the notion of a match between his family and the Squire’s: he was gratified by any honour paid to his daughter; but he must see an alteration in several ways before his consent would be vouchsafed. His spare but healthy person, and high-featured firm face, that looked as if it had never been flushed by excess, was in strong contrast, not only with the Squire’s, but with the appearance of the Raveloe farmers generally--in accordance with a favourite saying of his own, that “breed was stronger than pasture”.

“Miss Nancy’s wonderful like what her mother was, though; isn’t she, Kimble?”
 
said the stout lady of that name, looking round for her husband.

But Doctor Kimble (country apothecaries in old days enjoyed that title without authority of diploma), being a thin and agile man, was flitting about the room with his hands in his pockets, making himself agreeable to his feminine patients, with medical impartiality, and being welcomed everywhere as a doctor by hereditary right--not one of those miserable apothecaries who canvass for practice in strange neighbourhoods, and spend all their income in starving their one horse, but a man of substance, able to keep an extravagant table like the best of his patients.
 
Time out of mind the Raveloe doctor had been a Kimble; Kimble was inherently a doctor’s name; and it was difficult to contemplate firmly the melancholy fact that the actual Kimble had no son, so that his practice might one day be handed over to a successor with the incongruous name of Taylor or Johnson.
 
But in that case the wiser people in Raveloe would employ Dr. Blick of Flitton--as less unnatural.

“Did you speak to me, my dear?”
 
said the authentic doctor, coming quickly to his wife’s side; but, as if foreseeing that she would be too much out of breath to repeat her remark, he went on immediately-- “Ha, Miss Priscilla, the sight of you revives the taste of that super-excellent pork-pie.
 
I hope the batch isn’t near an end.”

“Yes, indeed, it is, doctor,” said Priscilla; “but I’ll answer for it the next shall be as good.
 
My pork-pies don’t turn out well by chance.”

“Not as your doctoring does, eh, Kimble?--because folks forget to take your physic, eh?”
 
said the Squire, who regarded physic and doctors as many loyal churchmen regard the church and the clergy-- tasting a joke against them when he was in health, but impatiently eager for their aid when anything was the matter with him.
 
He tapped his box, and looked round with a triumphant laugh.

“Ah, she has a quick wit, my friend Priscilla has,” said the doctor, choosing to attribute the epigram to a lady rather than allow a brother-in-law that advantage over him.
 
“She saves a little pepper to sprinkle over her talk--that’s the reason why she never puts too much into her pies.
 
There’s my wife now, she never has an answer at her tongue’s end; but if I offend her, she’s sure to scarify my throat with black pepper the next day, or else give me the colic with watery greens.
 
That’s an awful tit-for-tat.”
 
Here the vivacious doctor made a pathetic grimace.

“Did you ever hear the like?”
 
said Mrs. Kimble, laughing above her double chin with much good-humour, aside to Mrs. Crackenthorp, who blinked and nodded, and seemed to intend a smile, which, by the correlation of forces, went off in small twitchings and noises.

“I suppose that’s the sort of tit-for-tat adopted in your profession, Kimble, if you’ve a grudge against a patient,” said the rector.

“Never do have a grudge against our patients,” said Mr. Kimble, “except when they leave us: and then, you see, we haven’t the chance of prescribing for ‘em.
 
Ha, Miss Nancy,” he continued, suddenly skipping to Nancy’s side, “you won’t forget your promise? You’re to save a dance for me, you know.”