Pringle did not kill the cat at once; hence his position.
The old campaigner sold out at Laburnum Cottage in another week or two,
and came with the young imp Mortimer, her Persian cats, and green
parrot, and all her multitudinous belongings, settling down like a swarm
of locusts on the devoted parsonage. Gone thenceforth were all its
tranquil joys.
After a time the Lucca-oil-like-suavity which had formerly distinguished
Lady Inskip in Pringle's mind, disappeared. She appeared now as the
concentrated essence of verjuice or tartaric acid, and ruled the whole
house with a rod of iron, becoming in truth the master of all. Poor
Lizzie's life was made a burden to her; and she was treated as if she
were a presumptuous intruder in her brother's house. The old campaigner
wrung her little heart with continual allusions to the "Young Squire,"
and said how glad she "would have been to get him, miss!" making bitter
comments on the way she said Lizzie had angled for Tom, and how he had
gone off now and left her. "Served her right, too," she ought not to be
"pining and whining and breaking her heart after a man who never cared
for her!" When, you may be sure, our little friend answered and stuck
up for her rights, whereupon the campaigner would go and complain to the
supposed head of the family, and declare that she could not stop in the
house with "that virago of a girl," and Pringle had to timidly urge that
he would not keep Lady Inskip against her will for the world. Then the
campaigner would commence with a stern philippic on ingratitude, and
wind up by bursting into tears and wishing she had never been born to
observe that particular day. Here Laura would interfere, Herbert
Pringle beg the pardon of his mamma-in-law, and all would be soothed
over for a time, and the campaigner would establish a fresh gap in the
trenches she was engineering for universal sovereignty.
Pringle suffered in more ways than one. He had to walk now through the
parish in discharging his parochial duties, for he could no more "prance
about," as Mrs Hartshorne called it, on his dapple grey pony. The
campaigner had impounded that valuable little animal, and no more was it
bestridden by the well shaped, albeit diminutive legs of the incumbent.
The Macchiaevelli in petticoats said that "her daughter" must have a
carriage to go about in, considering she could no longer afford to keep
one of her own, which otherwise she would have been happy for Laura to
have made free use of. The campaigner had sold her equipage when she
cleared out from Laburnum Cottage along with other sundry theatrical
"effects" which she had kept up for the sales of entrapping suitors for
her daughters' hands, and now they were both off her hands she melted
down her appurtenances into the handier form of a banker's balance. "No
one knew what might come," as she said to herself, sagely reflective.
She accordingly made Pringle buy a neat basket carriage, and build an
enlargement to the parsonage stable for its accommodation. To this
vehicle, dapple grey was thenceforth attached, and the campaigner used
to drive out in it every afternoon, occasionally but seldom, accompanied
by her daughter, and the small boy with the eruption of buttons on him,
whom she had retained in her own service when she migrated to the house
of her son-in-law. "It was so respectable to have a page," as she said.
Lizzie she never invited to drive with her, not that she would for a
moment have consented to the penance of a _tete-a-tete_ with the
campaigner, whom she disliked as much almost as the other did her,
although she tried to bear with her for her brother's sake, whom she
pitied. Lizzie in fact saw clearly that poor Herbert was sadly
hen-pecked, not by his wife, for she was two apathetic, but by his
mother-in-law.
Instead of the paradise of bliss which he had hoped to enter, by allying
himself with Lady Inskip's eldest daughter, the young incumbent found
himself in a very miserable position; and I am inclined to think that he
somewhat regretted his hasty step. He loved Laura as much as it was in
his nature to do so, and so did she him; but both were very young--he
just a boy from College, one might say; and they had yet much to learn
of that mutual forbearance principle, and earnest trust and love,
without which too many find marriage the "lottery" they declare it.
What chance of happiness they had depended upon their being to
themselves, without the odious presence of the campaigner; but she had
established herself as a fixture, and was not going to stir herself in a
hurry; and as Laura as yet took her part, principally because Herbert
Pringle had his sister on his side, the pecktive state continued,
unhappily for all parties.
No more did the ritualistic young divine devote much attention to his
sermons; and the Ciceronian phraseology, which purely distinguished
those works of composition, disappeared. He had no heart in his work--
for the campaigner was always "nagging" at him at home, and no longer
praised his eloquence as she had done at first.
No more did he chant in melodious strains the Psalms to his elaborately
embroidered and besmocked congregation of farmers, but read them over
hurriedly, in order to get rid of them. Even his ritualistic tendencies
began to be toned down: the lectern was seldom made use of, and the
white surplices were dispensed with for the boys of the choir.
Pringle was pecked with a vengeance, and its effect was shown, not only
in his outward ways, but in his adornment--he became careless about his
dress, and not half so particular as he had been for appearances before
he became a Benedict. Bottom was very much translated, indeed. Pringle
was pecked!
Lizzie saw all that was going on, and sympathised with her brother. The
old campaigner she detested, and only the desire not to increase her
brother's miseries by having home broils, made her keep her hostility
subdued; she even tried to coax the artful Macchiaevelli for him, all to
no effect, as also her endeavours to awaken the languid Laura to a sense
of the responsibility owing to her husband.
The campaigner ruled the roast in spite of all; and showed not the
slightest desire to conceal her dislike for Lizzie. She tormented her
constantly with spiteful allusions to the past, and Lizzie would not
have minded so much what she said about herself, but she would abuse
Tom, and that she could not stand. Besides, she encouraged the horrid
imp Mortimer to spoil all poor Lizzie's garden, and disarrange her pet
conservatory, and even to break up a little artful contrivance for
holding plants, which Tom had specially given her. It is true Pringle
made up a row on that subject, and threatening to chastise the boy,
somewhat checking his horticultural tendencies to the detriment of
Lizzie in future. Still, the place was made very unhappy to her, and
Lizzie would have been miserable and wished herself dead and out of the
way if some consolation had not turned up suddenly for her in a most
unexpected manner.
Thenceforth she bore the campaigner's taunts with stolid and aggravating
silence, making that lady wish time and again that Lizzie were "her
child," and she "would soon teach her manners." Notwithstanding that
poor Pringle was so sadly pecked, and the parsonage lost its Eden-like
character since the invasion of the serpent, there was balm yet in
Gilead for Lizzie.
What had happened? Whence came Lizzie's consolation?
You would never suspect.
Volume 3, Chapter X.