米德尔马契 英文版 Middlemarch
乔治.艾略特 George Eliot
CHAPTER VI.
My lady's tongue is like the meadow blades,That cut you stroking them with idle hand.Nice cutting is her function: she dividesWith spiritual edge the millet-seed,And makes intangible savings.
As Mr. Casaubon's carriage was passing out of the gateway,it arrested the entrance of a pony phaeton driven by a lady witha servant seated behind. It was doubtful whether the recognitionhad been mutual, for Mr. Casaubon was looking absently before him;but the lady was quick-eyed, and threw a nod and a "How do you do?"in the nick of time. In spite of her shabby bonnet and very oldIndian shawl, it was plain that the lodge-keeper regarded heras an important personage, from the low curtsy which was droppedon the entrance of the small phaeton.
"Well, Mrs. Fitchett, how are your fowls laying now?" said thehigh-colored, dark-eyed lady, with the clearest chiselled utterance.
"Pretty well for laying, madam, but they've ta'en to eating theireggs: I've no peace o' mind with 'em at all."
"Oh, the cannibals! Better sell them cheap at once. What willyou sell them a couple? One can't eat fowls of a bad characterat a high price."
"Well, madam, half-a-crown: I couldn't let 'em go, not under."
"Half-a-crown, these times! Come now--for the Rector's chicken-brothon a Sunday. He has consumed all ours that I can spare.You are half paid with the sermon, Mrs. Fitchett, remember that.Take a pair of tumbler-pigeons for them--little beauties. You mustcome and see them. You have no tumblers among your pigeons."
"Well, madam, Master Fitchett shall go and see 'em after work.He's very hot on new sorts; to oblige you."
"Oblige me! It will be the best bargain he ever made. A pairof church pigeons for a couple of wicked Spanish fowls that eattheir own eggs! Don't you and Fitchett boast too much, that is all!"
The phaeton was driven onwards with the last words, leaving Mrs.Fitchett laughing and shaking her head slowly, with an interjectional"Sure_ly_, sure_ly_!"--from which it might be inferred that she wouldhave found the country-side somewhat duller if the Rector's ladyhad been less free-spoken and less of a skinflint. Indeed, both thefarmers and laborers in the parishes of Freshitt and Tiptonwould have felt a sad lack of conversation but for the storiesabout what Mrs. Cadwallader said and did: a lady of immeasurablyhigh birth, descended, as it were, from unknown earls, dim as thecrowd of heroic shades--who pleaded poverty, pared down prices,and cut jokes in the most companionable manner, though with a turnof tongue that let you know who she was. Such a lady gave aneighborliness to both rank and religion, and mitigated the bitternessof uncommuted tithe. A much more exemplary character with an infusionof sour dignity would not have furthered their comprehensionof the Thirty-nine Articles, and would have been less socially uniting.
Mr. Brooke, seeing Mrs. Cadwallader's merits from a different pointof view, winced a little when her name was announced in the library,where he was sitting alone.
"I see you have had our Lowick Cicero here," she said, seatingherself comfortably, throwing back her wraps, and showing a thinbut well-built figure. "I suspect you and he are brewing somebad polities, else you would not be seeing so much of the lively man.I shall inform against you: remember you are both suspicious characterssince you took Peel's side about the Catholic Bill. I shall telleverybody that you are going to put up for Middlemarch on the Whigside when old Pinkerton resigns, and that Casaubon is going to helpyou in an underhand manner: going to bribe the voters with pamphlets,and throw open the public-houses to distribute them. Come, confess!"
"Nothing of the sort," said Mr. Brooke, smiling and rubbing hiseye-glasses, but really blushing a little at the impeachment."Casaubon and I don't talk politics much. He doesn't care much aboutthe philanthropic side of things; punishments, and that kind of thing.He only cares about Church questions. That is not my line of action,you know."
"Ra-a-ther too much, my friend. I have heard of your doings.Who was it that sold his bit of land to the Papists at Middlemarch?I believe you bought it on purpose. You are a perfect Guy Faux.See if you are not burnt in effigy this 5th of November coming.Humphrey would not come to quarrel with you about it, so Iam come."
"Very good. I was prepared to be persecuted for not persecuting--notpersecuting, you know."
"There you go! That is a piece of clap-trap you have got ready forthe hustings. Now, _do not_ let them lure you to the hustings,my dear Mr. Brooke. A man always makes a fool of himself,speechifying: there's no excuse but being on the right side,so that you can ask a blessing on your humming and hawing.You will lose yourself, I forewarn you. You will make a Saturdaypie of all parties' opinions, and be pelted by everybody."
"That is what I expect, you know," said Mr. Brooke, not wishingto betray how little he enjoyed this prophetic sketch--"what Iexpect as an independent man. As to the Whigs, a man who goeswith the thinkers is not likely to be hooked on by any party.He may go with them up to a certain point--up to a certain point,you know. But that is what you ladies never understand."
"Where your certain point is? No. I should like to be told how a mancan have any certain point when he belongs to no party--leadinga roving life, and never letting his friends know his address.`Nobody knows where Brooke will be--there's no counting on Brooke'--thatis what people say of you, to be quite frank. Now, do turn respectable.How will you like going to Sessions with everybody looking shyon you, and you with a bad conscience and an empty pocket?"
"Who? Why, any upstart who has got neither blood nor position.People of standing should consume their independent nonsense at home,not hawk it about. And you! who are going to marry your niece,as good as your daughter, to one of our best men. Sir James wouldbe cruelly annoyed: it will be too hard on him if you turn round nowand make yourself a Whig sign-board."
Mr. Brooke again winced inwardly, for Dorothea's engagement hadno sooner been decided, than he had thought of Mrs. Cadwallader'sprospective taunts. It might have been easy for ignorant observersto say, "Quarrel with Mrs. Cadwallader;" but where is a countrygentleman to go who quarrels with his oldest neighbors? Who could tastethe fine flavor in the name of Brooke if it were delivered casually,like wine without a seal? Certainly a man can only be cosmopolitanup to a certain point.
"I hope Chettam and I shall always be good friends; but I am sorryto say there is no prospect of his marrying my niece," said Mr. Brooke,much relieved to see through the window that Celia was coming in.
"Why not?" said Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharp note of surprise."It is hardly a fortnight since you and I were talking about it."
"My niece has chosen another suitor--has chosen him, you know.I have had nothing to do with it. I should have preferred Chettam;and I should have said Chettam was the man any girl would have chosen.But there is no accounting for these things. Your sex is capricious,you know."
James, much relieved."Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon has a great.
"Why, whom do you mean to say that you are going to let her marry?"Mrs. Cadwallader's mind was rapidly surveying the possibilitiesof choice for Dorothea.
But here Celia entered, blooming from a walk in the garden,and the greeting with her delivered Mr. Brooke from the necessityof answering immediately. He got up hastily, and saying, "By the way,I must speak to Wright about the horses," shuffled quickly outof the room.
"My dear child, what is this?--this about your sister's engagement?"said Mrs. Cadwallader.
"She is engaged to marry Mr. Casaubon," said Celia, resorting, as usual,to the simplest statement of fact, and enjoying this opportunityof speaking to the Rector's wife alone.
"This is frightful. How long has it been going on?"
"I only knew of it yesterday. They are to be married in six weeks."
"Well, my dear, I wish you joy of your brother-in-law."
"I am so sorry for Dorothea."
"Sorry! It is her doing, I suppose."
"Yes; she says Mr. Casaubon has a great soul."
"With all my heart."
"Oh, Mrs. Cadwallader, I don't think it can be nice to marry a manwith a great soul."
"Well, my dear, take warning. You know the look of one now;when the next comes and wants to marry you, don't you accept him."
"I'm sure I never should."
"No; one such in a family is enough. So your sister never caredabout Sir James Chettam? What would you have said to _him_for a brother-in-law?"
"I should have liked that very much. I am sure he would havebeen a good husband. Only," Celia added, with a slight blush(she sometimes seemed to blush as she breathed), "I don't thinkhe would have suited Dorothea."
"Not high-flown enough?"
"Dodo is very strict. She thinks so much about everything,and is so particular about what one says. Sir James never seemedto please her."
"She must have encouraged him, I am sure. That is not very creditable."
"Please don't be angry with Dodo; she does not see things.She thought so much about the cottages, and she was rude to SirJames sometimes; but he is so kind, he never noticed it."
In less than an hour, Mrs. Cadwallader had circumvented Mrs. Carterand driven to Freshitt Hall, which was not far from her own parsonage,her husband being resident in Freshitt and keeping a curate in Tipton.
Sir James Chettam had returned from the short journey which hadkept him absent for a couple of days, and had changed his dress,intending to ride over to Tipton Grange. His horse was standing atthe door when Mrs. Cadwallader drove up, and he immediately appearedthere himself, whip in hand. Lady Chettam had not yet returned,but Mrs. Cadwallader's errand could not be despatched in the presenceof grooms, so she asked to be taken into the conservatory close by,to look at the new plants; and on coming to a contemplative stand,she said--
"I have a great shock for you; I hope you are not so far gonein love as you pretended to be."
"I do believe Brooke is going to expose himself after all. I accusedhim of meaning to stand for Middlemarch on the Liberal side, and helooked silly and never denied it--talked about the independent line,and the usual nonsense."
"Is that all?" said Sir James, much relieved.
"Why," rejoined Mrs. Cadwallader, with a sharper note, "you don'tmean to say that you would like him to turn public man in thatway--making a sort of political Cheap Jack of himself?"
"He might be dissuaded, I should think. He would not like the expense."
"That is what I told him. He is vulnerable to reason there--alwaysa few grains of common-sense in an ounce of miserliness.Miserliness is a capital quality to run in families; it's the safeside for madness to dip on. And there must be a little crackin the Brooke family, else we should not see what we are to see."
"What? Brooke standing for Middlemarch?"
"Worse than that. I really feel a little responsible. I always toldyou Miss Brooke would be such a fine match. I knew there was a greatdeal of nonsense in her--a flighty sort of Methodistical stuff.But these things wear out of girls. However, I am taken by surprisefor once."
"What do you mean, Mrs. Cadwallader?" said Sir James. His fear lestMiss Brooke should have run away to join the Moravian Brethren,or some preposterous sect unknown to good society, was a littleallayed by the knowledge that Mrs. Cadwallader always made the worstof things. "What has happened to Miss Brooke? Pray speak out."
"Very well. She is engaged to be married." Mrs. Cadwalladerpaused a few moments, observing the deeply hurt expression in herfriend's face, which he was trying to conceal by a nervous smile,while he whipped his boot; but she soon added, "Engaged to Casaubon."
Sir James let his whip fall and stooped to pick it up.Perhaps his face had never before gathered so much concentrateddisgust as when he turned to Mrs. Cadwallader and repeated, "Casaubon?"
"Even so. You know my errand now."
"Good God! It is horrible! He is no better than a mummy!"(The point of view has to be allowed for, as that of a bloomingand disappointed rival.)
"She says, he is a great soul.--A great bladder for dried peasto rattle in!" said Mrs. Cadwallader.
"What business has an old bachelor like that to marry?" said Sir James."He has one foot in the grave."
"He means to draw it out again, I suppose."
Casaubon?"sold his bit of land to the.
"Brooke ought not to allow it: he should insist on its being putoff till she is of age. She would think better of it then.What is a guardian for?"
"As if you could ever squeeze a resolution out of Brooke!"
"Cadwallader might talk to him."
Cadwallader might talk to him."felt.
"Not he! Humphrey finds everybody charming. I never can get himto abuse Casaubon. He will even speak well of the bishop, though Itell him it is unnatural in a beneficed clergyman; what can one dowith a husband who attends so little to the decencies? I hide itas well as I can by abusing everybody myself. Come, come, cheer up!you are well rid of Miss Brooke, a girl who would have been requiringyou to see the stars by daylight. Between ourselves, little Celiais worth two of her, and likely after all to be the better match.For this marriage to Casaubon is as good as going to a nunnery."
"Oh, on my own account--it is for Miss Brooke's sake I think herfriends should try to use their influence."
"Well, Humphrey doesn't know yet. But when I tell him, you maydepend on it he will say, `Why not? Casaubon is a good fellow--andyoung--young enough.' These charitable people never know vinegar fromwine till they have swallowed it and got the colic. However, if Iwere a man I should prefer Celia, especially when Dorothea was gone.The truth is, you have been courting one and have won the other.I can see that she admires you almost as much as a man expects tobe admired. If it were any one but me who said so, you might thinkit exaggeration. Good-by!"
Sir James handed Mrs. Cadwallader to the phaeton, and then jumped on hishorse. He was not going to renounce his ride because of his friend'sunpleasant news--only to ride the faster in some other direction thanthat of Tipton Grange.
Now, why on earth should Mrs. Cadwallader have been at all busyabout Miss Brooke's marriage; and why, when one match that sheliked to think she had a hand in was frustrated, should she havestraightway contrived the preliminaries of another? Was thereany ingenious plot, any hide-and-seek course of action, whichmight be detected by a careful telescopic watch? Not at all:a telescope might have swept the parishes of Tipton and Freshitt,the whole area visited by Mrs. Cadwallader in her phaeton,without witnessing any interview that could excite suspicion,or any scene from which she did not return with the same unperturbedkeenness of eye and the same high natural color. In fact, if thatconvenient vehicle had existed in the days of the Seven Sages,one of them would doubtless have remarked, that you can know littleof women by following them about in their pony-phaetons. Evenwith a microscope directed on a water-drop we find ourselves makinginterpretations which turn out to be rather coarse; for whereasunder a weak lens you may seem to see a creature exhibiting an activevoracity into which other smaller creatures actively play as if theywere so many animated tax-pennies, a stronger lens reveals to youcertain tiniest hairlets which make vortices for these victimswhile the swallower waits passively at his receipt of custom.In this way, metaphorically speaking, a strong lens applied toMrs. Cadwallader's match-making will show a play of minute causesproducing what may be called thought and speech vortices to bringher the sort of food she needed. Her life was rurally simple,quite free from secrets either foul, dangerous, or otherwise important,and not consciously affected by the great affairs of the world.All the more did the affairs of the great world interest her,when communicated in the letters of high-born relations: the wayin which fascinating younger sons had gone to the dogs by marryingtheir mistresses; the fine old-blooded idiocy of young Lord Tapir,and the furious gouty humors of old Lord Megatherium; the exactcrossing of genealogies which had brought a coronet into a new branchand widened the relations of scandal,--these were topics of which sheretained details with the utmost accuracy, and reproduced them inan excellent pickle of epigrams, which she herself enjoyed the morebecause she believed as unquestionably in birth and no-birth as shedid in game and vermin. She would never have disowned any one on theground of poverty: a De Bracy reduced to take his dinner in a basinwould have seemed to her an example of pathos worth exaggerating,and I fear his aristocratic vices would not have horrified her.But her feeling towards the vulgar rich was a sort of religious hatred:they had probably made all their money out of high retail prices,and Mrs. Cadwallader detested high prices for everything that was notpaid in kind at the Rectory: such people were no part of God's designin making the world; and their accent was an affliction to the ears.A town where such monsters abounded was hardly more than a sortof low comedy, which could not be taken account of in a well-bredscheme of the universe. Let any lady who is inclined to be hardon Mrs. Cadwallader inquire into the comprehensiveness of her ownbeautiful views, and be quite sure that they afford accommodationfor all the lives which have the honor to coexist with hers.
With such a mind, active as phosphorus, biting everything that camenear into the form that suited it, how could Mrs. Cadwallader feelthat the Miss Brookes and their matrimonial prospects were aliento her? especially as it had been the habit of years for her toscold Mr. Brooke with the friendliest frankness, and let him knowin confidence that she thought him a poor creature. From the firstarrival of the young ladies in Tipton she had prearranged Dorothea'smarriage with Sir James, and if it had taken place would have beenquite sure that it was her doing: that it should not take placeafter she had preconceived it, caused her an irritation which everythinker will sympathize with. She was the diplomatist of Tiptonand Freshitt, and for anything to happen in spite of her was anoffensive irregularity. As to freaks like this of Miss Brooke's,Mrs. Cadwallader had no patience with them, and now saw that heropinion of this girl had been infected with some of her husband'sweak charitableness: those Methodistical whims, that air of beingmore religious than the rector and curate together, came froma deeper and more constitutional disease than she had been willingto believe.
"However," said Mrs. Cadwallader, first to herself and afterwardsto her husband, "I throw her over: there was a chance, if she hadmarried Sir James, of her becoming a sane, sensible woman. He wouldnever have contradicted her, and when a woman is not contradicted,she has no motive for obstinacy in her absurdities. But now I wishher joy of her hair shirt."
It followed that Mrs. Cadwallader must decide on another match forSir James, and having made up her mind that it was to be the youngerMiss Brooke, there could not have been a more skilful move towardsthe success of her plan than her hint to the baronet that he had madean impression on Celia's heart. For he was not one of those gentlemenwho languish after the unattainable Sappho's apple that laughsfrom the topmost bough--the charms which
"Smile like the knot of cowslips on the cliff,Not to be come at by the willing hand."
He had no sonnets to write, and it could not strike him agreeablythat he was not an object of preference to the woman whom hehad preferred. Already the knowledge that Dorothea had chosenMr. Casaubon had bruised his attachment and relaxed its hold.Although Sir James was a sportsman, he had some other feelingstowards women than towards grouse and foxes, and did not regardhis future wife in the light of prey, valuable chiefly for theexcitements of the chase. Neither was he so well acquaintedwith the habits of primitive races as to feel that an idealcombat for her, tomahawk in hand, so to speak, was necessaryto the historical continuity of the marriage-tie. On the contrary,having the amiable vanity which knits us to those who are fond of us,and disinclines us to those who are indifferent, and also a goodgrateful nature, the mere idea that a woman had a kindness towardshim spun little threads of tenderness from out his heart towards hers.
Thus it happened, that after Sir James had ridden rather fast forhalf an hour in a direction away from Tipton Grange, he slackenedhis pace, and at last turned into a road which would lead him backby a shorter cut. Various feelings wrought in him the determinationafter all to go to the Grange to-day as if nothing new had happened.He could not help rejoicing that he had never made the offerand been rejected; mere friendly politeness required that heshould call to see Dorothea about the cottages, and now happilyMrs. Cadwallader had prepared him to offer his congratulations,if necessary, without showing too much awkwardness. He reallydid not like it: giving up Dorothea was very painful to him;but there was something in the resolve to make this visit forthwithand conquer all show of feeling, which was a sort of file-biting andcounter-irritant. And without his distinctly recognizing the impulse,there certainly was present in him the sense that Celia would be there,and that he should pay her more attention than he had done before.
We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment betweenbreakfast and dinner-time; keep back the tears and look a littlepale about the lips, and in answer to inquiries say, "Oh, nothing!"Pride helps us; and pride is not a bad thing when it only urges usto hide our own hurts--not to hurt others.