Delphi Complete Works of George Eliot (Illustrated) (281 page)

‘O, I assure you I have abjured all admiration for it,’ she said, smiling up at him in return.

She was remembering the schooling Felix had given her about her Byronic heroes, and was inwardly adding a third sort of human nature to those varieties which Harold had mentioned. He naturally supposed that he might take the abjuration to be entirely in his own favour. And his face did look very pleasant; she could not help liking him, although he was certainly too particular about sauces, gravies, and wines, and had a way of virtually measuring the value of everything by the contribution it made to his own pleasure. His very good-nature was unsympathetic: it never came from any thorough understanding or deep respect for what was in the mind of the person he obliged or indulged; it was like his kindness to his mother - an arrangement of his for the happiness of others, which, if they were sensible, ought to succeed. And an inevitable comparison which haunted her, showed her the same quality in his political views: the utmost enjoyment of his own advantages was the solvent that blended pride in his family and position, with the adhesion to changes that were to obliterate tradition and melt down enchased gold heirlooms into plating for the egg-spoons of ‘the people.’ It is terrible - the keen bright eye of a woman when it has once been turned with admiration on what is severely true; but then, the severely true rarely comes within its range of vision. Esther had had an unusuaI illumination; Harold did not know how, but he discerned enough of the effect to make him more cautious than he had ever been in his life before. That caution would have prevented him just then from following up the question as to the style of person Esther would think pleasant to live with, even if Uncle Lingon had not joined them, as he did, to talk about soughing tiles; saying presently that he should turn across the grass and get on to the Home Farm, to have a look at the improvements that Harold was making with such racing speed.

‘But you know, lad,’ said the rector, as they paused at the expected parting, ‘you can’t do everything in a hurry. The wheat must have time to grow, even when you’ve reformed all us old Tories off the face of the ground. Dash it! now the election’s over: I’m an old Tory again. You see, Harold, a Radical won’t do for the county. At another election, you must be on the look-out for a borough where they want a bit of blood. I should have liked you uncommonly to stand for the county; and a Radical of good family squares well enough with a new-fashioned Tory like young Debarry; but you see, these riots - it’s been a nasty business. I shall have my hair combed at the sessions for a year to come. But hey-day ! What dame is this, with a small boy? - not one of my parishioners?’

Harold and Esther turned, and saw an elderly woman advancing with a tiny red-haired boy, scantily attired as to his jacket, which merged into a small sparrow-tail a little higher than his waist, but muffled as to his throat with a blue woollen comforter. Esther recognised the pair too well, and felt very uncomfortable. We are so pitiably in subjection to all sorts of vanity - even the very vanities we are practically renouncing! And in spite of the almost solemn memories connected with Mrs Holt, Esther’s first shudder was raised by the idea of what things this woman would say, and by the mortification of having Felix in any way represented by his mother.

As Mrs Holt advanced into closer observation, it became more evident that she was attired with a view not to charm the eye, but rather to afflict it with all that expression of woe which belongs to very rusty bombazine and the limpest state of false hair. Still, she was not a woman to lose the sense of her own value, or become abject in her manners under any circumstances of depression; and she had a peculiar sense on the present occasion that she was justly relying on the force of her own character and judgment, in independence of anything that Mr Lyon or the masterful Felix would have said, if she had thought them worthy to know of her undertaking. She curtsied once, as if to the entire group, now including even the dogs, who showed various degrees of curiosity, especially as to what kind of game the smaller animal Job might prove to be after due investigation; and then she proceeded at once towards Esther, who, in spite of her annoyance, took her arm from Harold’s, said, ‘How do you do, Mrs Holt?’ very kindly, and stooped to pat little Job.

‘Yes - you know him, Miss Lyon,’ said Mrs Holt, in that tone which implies that the conversation is intended for the edification of the company generally; ‘you know the orphin child, as Felix brought home for me that am his mother to take care of. And it’s what I’ve done - nobody more so - though it’s trouble is my reward.’

Esther had raised herself again, to stand in helpless endurance of whatever might be coming. But by this time young Harry, struck even more than the dogs by the appearance of Job Tudge, had come round dragging his chariot, and placed himself close to the pale child, whom he exceeded in height and breadth, as well as in depth of colouring. He looked into Job’s eyes, peeped round at the tail of his jacket and pulled it a little, and then, taking off the tiny cloth-cap, observed with much interest the tight red curls which had been hidden underneath it. Job looked at his inspector with the round blue eyes of astonishment, until Harry, purely by way of experiment, took a bon-bon from a fantastic wallet which hung over his shoulder, and applied the test to Job’s lips. The result was satisfactory to both. Every one had been watching this small comedy, and when Job crunched the bon-bon while Harry looked down at him inquiringly and patted his back, there was general laughter except on the part of Mrs Holt, who was shaking her head slowly, and slapping the back of her left hand with the painful patience of a tragedian whose part is in abeyance to an ill-timed introduction of the humorous.

‘I hope Job’s cough has been better lately,’ said Esther, in mere uncertainty as to what it would be desirable to say or do.

‘I daresay you hope so, Miss Lyon,’ said Mrs Holt, looking at the distant landscape. ‘I’ve no reason to disbelieve but what you wish well to the child, and to Felix, and to me. I’m sure nobody has any occasion to wish me otherways. My character will bear inquiry, and what you, as are young, don’t know, others can tell you. That was what I said to myself when I made up my mind to come here and see you, and ask you to get me the freedom to speak to Mr Transome. I said, whatever Miss Lyon may be now, in the way of being lifted up among great people, she’s our minister’s daughter, and was not above coming to my house and walking with my son Felix - though I’ll not deny he made that figure on the Lord’s Day, that’ll perhaps go against him with the judge, if anybody thinks well to tell him.’

Here Mrs Holt paused a moment, as with a mind arrested by the painful image it had called up.

Esther’s face was glowing, when Harold glanced at her; and seeing this, he was considerate enough to address Mrs Holt instead of her.

‘You are then the mother of the unfortunate young man who is in prison?’

‘Indeed, I am, sir,’ said Mrs Holt, feeling that she was now in deep water. ‘It’s not likely I should claim him if he wasn’t my own; though it’s not by my will, nor my advice, sir, that he ever walked; for I gave him none but good. But if everybody’s son was guided by their mothers, the world ‘ud be different; my son is not worse than many another woman’s son, and that in Treby, whatever they may say as haven’t got their sons in prison. And as to his giving up the doctoring, and then stopping his father’s medicines, I know it’s bad - that I know - but it’s me as has had to suffer, and it’s me a king and parliament ‘ud consider, if they meant to do the right thing, and had anybody to make it known to ‘em. And as for the rioting and killing the constable - my son said most plain to me he never meant it, and there was his bit of potato-pie for his dinner getting dry by the fire, the whole blessed time as I sat and never knew what was coming on me. And it’s my opinion as if great people make elections to get themselves into parliament, and there’s riot and murder to do it, they ought to see as the widow and the widow’s son doesn’t suffer for it. I well know my duty: and I read my Bible; and I know in Jude where it’s been stained with the dried tulip-leaves this many a year, as you’re told not to rail at your betters if they was the devil himself; nor will I; but this I do say, if it’s three Mr Transomes instead of one as is listening to me, as there’s them ought to go to the king and get him to let off my son Felix.’

This speech, in its chief points, had been deliberately prepared. Mrs Holt had set her face like a flint, to make the gentry know their duty as she knew hers: her defiant, defensive tone was due to the consciousness, not only that she was braving a powerful audience, but that she was daring to stand on the strong basis of her own judgment in opposition to her son’s. Her proposals had been waived off by Mr Lyon and Felix; but she had long had the feminine conviction that if she could ‘get to speak’ in the right quarter, things might be different. The daring bit of impromptu about the three Mr Transomes was immediately suggested by a movement of old Mr Transome to the foreground in a line with Mr Lingon and Harold; his furred and unusual costume appearing to indicate a mysterious dignity which she must hasten to include in her appeal.

And there were reasons that none could have foreseen, which made Mrs Holt’s remonstrance immediately effective. While old Mr Transome stared, very much like a waxen image in which the expression is a failure, and the rector, accustomed to female parishioners and complainants, looked on with a smile in his eyes, Harold said at once, with cordial kindness -

‘I think you are quite right, Mrs Holt. And for my part, I am determined to do my best for your son, both in the witness-box and elsewhere. Take comfort; if it is necessary, the king shall be appealed to. And rely upon it, I shall bear you in mind, as Felix Holt’s mother.’

Rapid thoughts had convinced Harold that in this way he was best commending himself to Esther.

‘Well, sir,’ said Mrs Holt, who was not going to pour forth disproportionate thanks, ‘I’m glad to hear you speak so becoming; and if you had been the king himself, I should have made free to tell you my opinion. For the Bible says, the king’s favour is towards a wise servant; and it’s reasonable to think he’d make all the more account of them as have never been in service, or took wage, which I never did, and never thought of my son doing; and his father left money, meaning otherways, so as he might have been a doctor on horseback at this very minute, instead of being in prison.’

‘What! was he regularly apprenticed to a doctor?’ said Mr Lingon, who had not understood this before.

‘Sir, he was, and most clever, like his father before him, only he turned contrairy. But as for harming anybody, Felix never meant to harm anybody but himself and his mother, which he certainly did in respect of his clothes, and taking to be a low working man, and stopping my living respectable, more particular by the pills, which had a sale, as you may be sure they suited people’s insides. And what folks can never have boxes enough of to swallow, I should think you have a right to sell. And there’s many and many a text for it, as I’ve opened on without ever thinking; for if it’s true, “Ask, and you shall have,” I should think it’s truer when you’re willing to pay for what you have.’

This was a little too much for Mr Lingon’s gravity; he exploded, and Harold could not help following him. Mrs Holt fixed her eyes on the distance, and slapped the back of her left hand again: it might be that this kind of mirth was the peculiar effect produced by forcible truth on high and worldly people who were neither in the Independent nor the General Baptist connection.

‘I’m sure you must be tired with your long walk, and little Job too,’ said Esther, by way of breaking this awkward scene. ‘Aren’t you, Job?’ she added, stooping to caress the child, who was timidly shrinking from Harry’s invitation to him to pull the little chariot - Harry’s view being that Job would make a good horse for him to beat, and would run faster than Gappa.

‘It’s well you can feel for the orphin child, Miss Lyon,’ said Mrs Holt, choosing an indirect answer rather than to humble herself by confessing fatigue before gentlemen who seemed to be taking her too lightly. ‘I didn’t believe but what you’d behave pretty, as you always did to me, though everybody used to say you held yourself high. But I’m sure you never did to Felix, for you let him sit by you at the Free School before all the town, and him with never a bit of stock round his neck. And it shows you saw that in him worth taking notice of; - and it is but right, if you know my words are true, as you should speak for him to the gentleman.’

‘I assure you, Mrs Holt,’ said Harold, coming to the rescue - ‘I assure you that enough has been said to make me use my best efforts for your son. And now, pray, go on to the house with the little boy and take some rcst. Dominic show Mrs Holt the way, and ask Mrs Hickes to make her comfortable, and see that somebody takes her back to Treby in the buggy.’

‘I will go back with Mrs Holt,’ said Esther, making an effort against herself.

‘No, pray,’ said Harold, with that kind of entreaty which is rcally a decision. ‘Let Mrs Holt have time to rest. We shall have returned, and you can see her before she goes. We will say good-bye for the present, Mrs Holt.’