THE FAMILY PARTY.
On the day of the family party Aunt Glegg was the first to arrive, and
she was followed not long afterwards by Aunt Pullet and her husband.
Maggie and Tom, on their part, thought their Aunt Pullet tolerable,
because she was not their Aunt Glegg. Tom always declined to go more
than once during his holidays to see either of them. Both his uncles
tipped him that once, of course; but at his Aunt Pullet's there were a
great many toads to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred the
visit to her. Maggie disliked the toads, and dreamed of them horribly;
but she liked her Uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box.
When Maggie and Tom came in from the garden with their father and their
Uncle Glegg, they found that Aunt Deane and Cousin Lucy had also
arrived. Maggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming
in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy,
who was standing by her mother's knee.
Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed. Everything
about her was neat--her little round neck with the row of coral beads;
her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows,
rather darker than her curls to match her hazel eyes, which looked up
with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a year
older.
"O Lucy," burst out Maggie, after kissing her, "you'll stay with Tom
and me, won't you?--Oh, kiss her, Tom."
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her--no; he
came up to her with Maggie because it seemed easier, on the whole, than
saying, "How do you do?" to all those aunts and uncles.
"Heyday!" said Aunt Glegg loudly. "Do little boys and gells come into
a room without taking notice o' their uncles and aunts? That wasn't
the way when _I_ was a little gell."
"Go and speak to your aunts and uncles, my dears," said Mrs. Tulliver.
She wanted also to whisper to Maggie a command to go and have her hair
brushed.
"Well, and how do you do? And I hope you're good children--are you?"
said Aunt Glegg, in the same loud way, as she took their hands, hurting
them with her large rings, and kissing their cheeks, much against their
desire. "Look up, Tom, look up. Boys as go to boarding-schools should
hold their heads up. Look at me now." Tom would not do so, and tried
to draw his hand away. "Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and
keep your frock on your shoulder."
Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud way, as if she thought
them quite deaf, or perhaps rather silly.
"Well, my dears," said Aunt Pullet sadly, "you grow wonderful fast.--I
doubt they'll outgrow their strength," she added, looking over their
heads at their mother. "I think the gell has too much hair. I'd have
it thinned and cut shorter, sister, if I was you. It isn't good for
her health. It's that as makes her skin so brown, I shouldn't
wonder.--Don't you think so, Sister Deane?"
"I can't say, I'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane.
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, "the child's healthy enough--there's
nothing ails her. There's red wheat as well as white, for that matter,
and some like the dark grain best. But it 'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud
have the child's hair cut, so as it 'ud lie smooth."
Maggie now wished to learn from her Aunt Deane whether she would leave
Lucy behind to stay at the mill. Aunt Deane would hardly ever let Lucy
come to see them, to Maggie's great regret.
"You wouldn't like to stay behind without mother, should you, Lucy?"
she said to her little daughter.
"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy timidly, blushing very pink all over
her little neck.
"Well done, Lucy!--Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let her stay," said Mr.
Deane, a large man, who held a silver snuff-box very tightly in his
hand, and now and then exchanged a pinch with Mr. Tulliver.
"Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering
in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy's staying was settled, "go
and get your hair brushed--do, for shame. I told you not to come in
without going to Martha first; you know I did."
"Tom, come out with me," whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she
passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.
"Come upstairs with me, Tom," she whispered, when they were outside the
door. "There's something I want to do before dinner."
"There's no time to play at anything before dinner," said Tom.
"Oh yes, there is time for this. Do come, Tom."
Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother's room, and saw her go at
once to a drawer, from which she took a large pair of scissors.
"What are they for, Maggie?" said Tom.
Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight
across the middle of her forehead.
"Oh, my buttons, Maggie, you'll catch it!" exclaimed Tom; "you'd better
not cut any more off."
Snip went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking; and he
couldn't help feeling it was rather good fun--Maggie would look so
queer.
"Here, Tom, cut it behind for me," said Maggie, much excited.
"You'll catch it, you know," said Tom as he took the scissors.
"Never mind; make haste!" said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her
foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.
One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another. The hinder
locks fell heavily on the floor, and soon Maggie stood cropped in a
jagged, uneven manner.
"O Maggie!" said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as he
laughed--"oh, my buttons, what a queer thing you look! Look at
yourself in the glass."
Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She didn't want her hair to look
pretty--she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and
not to find fault with her untidy head. But now, when Tom began to
laugh at her, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the
glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his hands, while Maggie's
flushed cheeks began to pale and her lips to tremble a little.
"O Maggie, you'll have to go down to dinner directly," said Tom. "Oh
my!"
"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, with an outburst of angry tears,
stamping, and giving him a push.
"Now, then, spitfire!" said Tom. "What did you cut it off for, then?
I shall go down; I can smell the dinner going in."
He hurried downstairs at once. Maggie could see clearly enough, now
the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and that she should have
to hear and think more about her hair than ever. As she stood crying
before the glass she felt it impossible to go down to dinner and endure
the severe eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom, and Lucy, and
Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her uncles,
would laugh at her--for if Tom had laughed at her, of course every one
else would; and if she had only let her hair alone, she could have sat
with Tom and Lucy, and had the apricot pudding and the custard!
"Miss Maggie, you're to come down this minute," said Kezia, entering
the room after a few moments. "Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I
niver see such a fright."
"Don't, Kezia," said Maggie angrily. "Go away!"
"But I tell you, you're to come down, miss, this minute; your mother
says so," said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to
raise her from the floor, on which she had thrown herself.
"Get away, Kezia; I don't want any dinner," said Maggie, resisting
Kezia's arm. "I shan't come."
"Oh, well, I can't stay. I've got to wait at dinner," said Kezia,
going out again.
"Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room ten minutes
later, "why don't you come and have your dinner? There's lots o'
goodies, and mother says you're to come."
Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard. If _he_ had been crying on the
floor, Maggie would have cried too. And there was the dinner, so nice,
and she was so hungry. It was very bitter.
But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, but he
went and put his head near her and said in a lower, comforting tone,--
"Won't you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o' pudding when
I've had mine, and a custard and things?"
"Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more tolerable.
"Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and
said, "But you'd better come, you know. There's the dessert--nuts, you
know, and cowslip wine."
Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made
her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against
the frame of the dining-parlour door, peeping in as it stood ajar. She
saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the
custards on a side-table. It was too much. She slipped in and went
towards the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she
wished herself back again.
Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a
"turn" that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the
most serious results to the table-cloth.
Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same point as her
own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn, while Uncle Glegg, a
kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,--
"Heyday! What little gell's this? Why, I don't know her. Is it some
little gell you've picked up in the road, Kezia?"
"Why, she's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr. Tulliver in an
undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. "Did you ever
know such a little hussy as it is?"
"Why, little miss, you've made yourself look very funny," said Uncle
Pullet.
"Fie, for shame!" said Aunt Glegg in her loudest tone. "Little gells
as cut their own hair should be whipped, and fed on bread and
water--not come and sit down with their aunts and uncles."
"Ay, ay," said Uncle Glegg playfully "she must be sent to jail, I
think, and they'll cut the rest off there, and make it all even."
"She's more like a gipsy nor ever," said Aunt Pullet in a pitying tone.
"It's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the boy's
fair enough. I doubt it'll stand in her way i' life, to be so brown."
"She's a naughty child, as'll break her mother's heart," said Mrs.
Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.
"Oh my, Maggie," whispered Tom, "I told you you'd catch it."
The child's heart swelled, and getting up from her chair she ran to her
father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.
"Come, come, my wench," said her father soothingly, putting his arm
round her, "never mind; you was i' the right to cut it off if it
plagued you. Give over crying; father'll take your part."
"How your husband does spoil that child, Bessy," said Mrs. Glegg in a
loud "aside" to Mrs. Tulliver. "It'll be the ruin of her if you don't
take care. My father niver brought his children up so, else we should
ha' been a different sort o' family to what we are."
Mrs. Tulliver took no notice of her sister's remark, but threw back her
cap-strings and served the pudding in silence.
When the dessert came the children were told they might have their nuts
and wine in the summer-house, since the day was so mild; and they
scampered out among the budding bushes of the garden like small animals
getting from under a burning-glass.