Lucy came so early as to have the start even of aunt Glegg; for she longed to have some undisturbed talk with Maggie about the wonderful news. It seemed, did it not? said Lucy, with her prettiest air of wisdom, as if everything, even other people’s misfortunes (poor creatures!) were conspiring10 now to make poor dear aunt Tulliver, and cousin Tom, and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately11 bent12 on the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all their troubles. To think that the very day — the very day — after Tom had come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young Jetsome, whom Mr. Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been pitched off his horse in a drunken fit, and was lying at St. Ogg’s in a dangerous state, so that Wakem had signified his wish that the new purchasers should enter on the premises13 at once!
It was very dreadful for that unhappy young man, but it did seem as if the misfortune had happened then, rather than at any other time, in order that cousin Tom might all the sooner have the fit reward of his exemplary conduct — papa thought so very highly of him. Aunt Tulliver must certainly go to the Mill now, and keep house for Tom; that was rather a loss to Lucy in the matter of household comfort; but then, to think of poor aunty being in her old place again, and gradually getting comforts about her there!
On this last point Lucy had her cunning projects, and when she and Maggie had made their dangerous way down the bright stairs into the handsome parlor14, where the very sunbeams seemed cleaner than elsewhere, she directed her manoeuvres, as any other great tactician15 would have done, against the weaker side of the enemy.
“Aunt Pullet,” she said, seating herself on the sofa, and caressingly16 adjusting that lady’s floating cap-string, “I want you to make up your mind what linen17 and things you will give Tom toward housekeeping; because you are always so generous — you give such nice things, you know; and if you set the example, aunt Glegg will follow.”
“That she never can, my dear,” said Mrs. Pullet, with unusual vigor18, “for she hasn’t got the linen to follow suit wi’ mine, I can tell you. She’d niver the taste, not if she’d spend the money. Big checks and live things, like stags and foxes, all her table-linen is — not a spot nor a diamond among ’em. But it’s poor work dividing one’s linen before one dies — I niver thought to ha’ done that, Bessy,” Mrs. Pullet continued, shaking her head and looking at her sister Tulliver, “when you and me chose the double diamont, the first flax iver we’d spun20, and the Lord knows where yours is gone.”
“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 bleached21 linen all over the country.”
“Take a peppermint22, Mrs. Tulliver,” said uncle Pullet, feeling that he was offering a cheap and wholesome23 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 tablecloths24 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 circumstances offered her more eligible26 prospects27, 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 dubious29 promise, was a most undesirable30 niece; but now she was capable of being at once ornamental31 and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and uncle Glegg’s presence, over the tea and muffins.
“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 bazaar32; 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 kin19 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, winking33 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. Tilt34 got his mouth drawn35 all o’ one side, and couldn’t laugh if he was to try.”
“I’ll trouble you for the muffineer, 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 eldest36 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 fixed37 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 glass mildewed38 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 prospect28 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 yearning39 in her, that had its root deeper than all change. He smiled at her very kindly40 this evening, and said, “Well, Magsie, how’s aunt Moss41?”
“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 wastefulness42 in our family, nor dying without wills ——”
“No, nor sudden deaths,” said aunt Pullet; “allays43 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 tablecloth25 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 worthy44 to know it. You’ve a memory for my pills and draughts45, 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 folly46. “You go beyond your own family. There’s nobody 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 evaded47 any promise to meditate48 nightly on her virtues; and Mrs. Glegg effected a diversion for him by asking about Mr. Deane’s intentions concerning steam.
Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come on Sindbad. It appeared, when it was time to go home, that the man-servant was to ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to drive home his mother and Lucy. “You must sit by yourself, aunty,” said that contriving49 young lady, “because I must sit by Tom; I’ve a great deal to say to him.”
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie, Lucy could not persuade herself to defer50 a conversation about her with Tom, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy before him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must become pliant51 and flexible. Her nature supplied her with no key to Tom’s; and she was puzzled as well as pained to notice the unpleasant change on his countenance52 when she gave him the history of the way in which Philip had used his influence with his father. She had counted on this revelation as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom’s heart toward Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder Wakem was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of a daughter-in-law. Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear Tom, who always had that pleasant smile when he looked at cousin Lucy, to turn completely round, say the opposite of what he had always said before, and declare that he, for his part, was delighted that all the old grievances53 should be healed, and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable despatch54; in cousin Lucy’s opinion nothing could be easier.
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative qualities that create severity — strength of will, conscious rectitude of purpose, narrowness of imagination and intellect, great power of self-control, and a disposition55 to exert control over others — prejudices come as the natural food of tendencies which can get no sustenance56 out of that complex, fragmentary, doubt-provoking knowledge which we call truth. Let a prejudice be bequeathed, carried in the air, adopted by hearsay57, caught in through the eye — however it may come, these minds will give it a habitation; it is something to assert strongly and bravely, something to fill up the void of spontaneous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority of conscious right; it is at once a staff and a baton58. Every prejudice that will answer these purposes is self-evident. Our good, upright Tom Tulliver’s mind was of this class; his inward criticism of his father’s faults did not prevent him from adopting his father’s prejudice; it was a prejudice against a man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a meeting-point for all the disappointed feelings of family and personal pride. Other feelings added their force to produce Tom’s bitter repugnance59 to Philip, and to Maggie’s union with him; and notwithstanding Lucy’s power over her strong-willed cousin, she got nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage; “but of course Maggie could do as she liked — she had declared her determination to be independent. For Tom’s part, he held himself bound by his duty to his father’s memory, and by every manly60 feeling, never to consent to any relation with the Wakems.”
Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous61 mediation62 was to fill Tom’s mind with the expectation that Maggie’s perverse63 resolve to go into a situation again would presently metamorphose itself, as her resolves were apt to do, into something equally perverse, but entirely64 different — a marriage with Philip Wakem.
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1
virtues
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| 美德( virtue的名词复数 )； 德行； 优点； 长处 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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splendor
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| n.光彩；壮丽，华丽；显赫，辉煌 | |
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ministry
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| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
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appreciation
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| n.评价；欣赏；感谢；领会，理解；价格上涨 | |
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eulogy
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| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
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coercion
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| n.强制，高压统治 | |
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millennium
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| n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世 | |
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blandest
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| adj.（食物）淡而无味的( bland的最高级 )；平和的；温和的；无动于衷的 | |
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10
conspiring
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| 密谋( conspire的现在分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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obstinately
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| ad.固执地，顽固地 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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premises
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| n.建筑物，房屋 | |
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parlor
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| n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅 | |
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tactician
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| n. 战术家, 策士 | |
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caressingly
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| 爱抚地，亲切地 | |
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17
linen
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| n.亚麻布，亚麻线，亚麻制品；adj.亚麻布制的，亚麻的 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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kin
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| n.家族，亲属，血缘关系；adj.亲属关系的，同类的 | |
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spun
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| v.纺，杜撰，急转身 | |
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21
bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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peppermint
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| n.薄荷，薄荷油，薄荷糖 | |
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wholesome
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| adj.适合；卫生的；有益健康的；显示身心健康的 | |
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tablecloths
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| n.桌布，台布( tablecloth的名词复数 ) | |
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tablecloth
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| n.桌布，台布 | |
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eligible
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| adj.有条件被选中的；(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
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prospects
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| n.希望，前途(恒为复数) | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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dubious
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| adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的 | |
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30
undesirable
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| adj.不受欢迎的，不良的，不合意的，讨厌的；n.不受欢迎的人，不良分子 | |
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31
ornamental
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| adj.装饰的；作装饰用的；n.装饰品；观赏植物 | |
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bazaar
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| n.集市，商店集中区 | |
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33
winking
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| n.瞬眼，目语v.使眼色( wink的现在分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
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tilt
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| v.(使)倾侧；(使)倾斜；n.倾侧；倾斜 | |
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35
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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38
mildewed
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| adj.发了霉的，陈腐的，长了霉花的v.（使）发霉，（使）长霉( mildew的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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39
yearning
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| a.渴望的；向往的；怀念的 | |
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40
kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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41
moss
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| n.苔，藓，地衣 | |
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42
wastefulness
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| 浪费，挥霍，耗费 | |
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43
allays
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| v.减轻，缓和( allay的第三人称单数 ) | |
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44
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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45
draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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46
folly
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| n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话 | |
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47
evaded
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| 逃避( evade的过去式和过去分词 )； 避开； 回避； 想不出 | |
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48
meditate
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| v.想，考虑，（尤指宗教上的）沉思，冥想 | |
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49
contriving
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| （不顾困难地）促成某事( contrive的现在分词 )； 巧妙地策划，精巧地制造（如机器）； 设法做到 | |
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50
defer
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| vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从 | |
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51
pliant
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| adj.顺从的；可弯曲的 | |
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52
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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53
grievances
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| n.委屈( grievance的名词复数 )；苦衷；不满；牢骚 | |
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54
despatch
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| n./v.(dispatch)派遣；发送；n.急件；新闻报道 | |
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55
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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56
sustenance
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| n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计 | |
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57
hearsay
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| n.谣传，风闻 | |
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58
baton
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| n.乐队用指挥杖 | |
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repugnance
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| n.嫌恶 | |
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60
manly
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| adj.有男子气概的；adv.男子般地，果断地 | |
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61
zealous
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| adj.狂热的，热心的 | |
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62
mediation
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| n.调解 | |
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63
perverse
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| adj.刚愎的；坚持错误的，行为反常的 | |
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64
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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