The little girls had been dismissed to the schoolroom before Mr Grey
had finally pushed away his tea-cup. Not being wanted by the ladies, he
walked off to his timber-yard, and his wife followed to ask him some
question not intended for the general ear. Sophia was struck with a
sudden panic at being left alone with the strangers, and escaped by
another door into the store-room. As the last traces of the breakfast
things vanished, Hester exclaimed--
"So we may please ourselves, it seems, as to what we are to do with our
morning!"
"I hope so," said Margaret. "Do let us get down to the meadow we see
from our window--the meadow that looks so flat and green! We may very
well take two hours' grace before we need sit down here in form and
order."
Hester was willing, and the bonnets were soon on. As Margaret was
passing down stairs again, she saw Mrs Grey and Sophia whispering in a
room, the door of which stood open. She heard it shut instantly, and
the result of the consultation soon appeared. Just as the sisters were
turning out of the house, Sophia ran after them to say that mamma wished
they would be so good as to defer their walk; mamma was afraid that if
they were seen abroad in the village, it would be supposed that they did
not wish to receive visitors: mamma would rather that they should stay
within this morning. There was nothing for it but to turn back; and
Hester threw down her bonnet with no very good grace, as she observed to
her sister that, to all appearance, a town life was more free than a
country one, after all.
"Let us do our duty fully this first morning," said Margaret. "Look, I
am going to carry down my work-bag; and you shall see me sit on the same
chair from this hour till dinner-time, unless I receive directions to
the contrary."
The restraint did not amount to this. Hester's chair was placed
opposite to Mrs Grey, who seemed to have pleasure in gazing at her, and
in indulging in audible hints and visible winks and nods about her
beauty, to every lady visitor who sat near her. Margaret might place
herself where she pleased. In the intervals of the visits of the
morning, she was treated with a diversity of entertainments by Sophia,
who occasionally summoned her to the window to see how Matilda Rowland
was allowed to run across the road to her grandmamma's, without so much
as a hat upon her head,--to see Jim Bird, the oldest man in the parish
(believed to be near a hundred), who was resting himself on the bank of
the hedge,--to see the peacock which had been sent as a present from Sir
William Hunter to Mr James, the lawyer, and which was a great nuisance
from its screaming,--to say whether the two little Reeves, dropping
their curtseys as they went home from school, were not little
beauties,--and, in short, to witness all the village spectacles which
present themselves before the windows of an acute observer on a fine
spring morning. The young ladies had to return to their seats as often
as wheels were heard, or the approach of parasols was discerned.
Among the earliest visitors were Mrs Enderby and her redoubtable son,
Mr Philip. Mrs Enderby was a bright-eyed, brisk, little old lady, who
was rather apt to talk herself quite out of breath, but who had
evidently a stronger tendency still; and that was, to look on the bright
side of everything and everybody. She smiled smiles full of meaning and
assent in return for Mrs Grey's winks about Hester's beauty; and really
cheered Hester with accounts of how good everybody was at Deerbrook.
She was thankful that her maid Phoebe was better; she knew that Mrs
Grey would not fail to inquire; really Phoebe was very much better; the
influenza had left sad effects, but they were dispersing. It would be a
pity the girl should not quite recover, for she was a most invaluable
servant--such a servant as is very rarely to be met with. The credit of
restoring her belonged to Mr Hope, who indeed had done everything. She
supposed the ladies would soon be seeing Mr Hope. He was extremely
busy, as everybody knew--had very large practice now; but he always
contrived to find time for everything. It was exceedingly difficult to
find time for everything. There was her dear daughter, Priscilla (Mrs
Rowland, whose husband was Mr Grey's partner); Priscilla devoted her
life to her children (and dear children they were); and no one who knew
what she did for her children would expect anything more from her; but,
indeed, those who knew best, she herself, for instance, were fully
satisfied that her dear Priscilla did wonders. The apology for Mrs
Rowland, in case she should not call, was made not without ingenuity.
Hester fully understood it; and Mrs Grey showed by her bridling that it
was not lost upon her either.
Mr Enderby, meanwhile, was behaving civilly to Margaret and Sophia;
that is to say, he was somewhat more than merely civil to Margaret, and
somewhat less to Sophia. It was obviously not without reason that
Sophia had complained of his hauteur. He could not, as Sydney had
pleaded, help being tall; but he might have helped the excessive
frigidity with which he stood upright till invited to sit down. The
fact was, that he had reason to believe that the ladies of Mr Grey's
family made very free with his sister's name and affairs; and though he
would have been sorry to have been obliged to defend all she said and
did, he felt some very natural emotions of dislike towards those who
were always putting the worst construction upon the whole of her
conduct. He believed that Mr Grey's influence was exerted on behalf of
peace and good understanding, and he thought he perceived that Sydney,
with the shrewdness which some boys show very early, was more or less
sensible of the absurdity of the feud between the partners' wives and
daughters; and towards these members of the Grey family, Mr Enderby
felt nothing but good-will; he talked politics with Mr Grey in the
shrubbery after church on Sunday, executed commissions for him in
London, and sent him game: and Sydney was under obligations to him for
many a morning of sport, and many a service such as gentlemen who are
not above five-and-twenty and its freaks can render to boys entering
their teens. Whatever might be his opinion of women generally, from the
particular specimens which had come in his way, he had too much sense
and gentlemanly feeling to include Mrs Grey's guests in the dislike he
felt towards herself, or to suppose that they must necessarily share her
disposition towards his relations. Perhaps he felt, unknown to himself
some inclination to prepossess them in favour of his connections; to
stretch his complaisance a little, as a precaution against the
prejudices with which he knew Mrs Grey would attempt to occupy their
minds. However this might be, he was as amicable with Margaret as his
mother was with her sister.
He soon found out that the strangers were more interested about the
natural features of Deerbrook than about its gossip. He was amused at
the earnestness of Margaret's inquiries about the scenery of the
neighbourhood, and he laughingly promised that she should see every nook
within twenty miles.
"People always care least about what they have just at hand," said he.
"I dare say, if I were to ask you, you have never seen a glass-bottle
blown, or a tea-tray painted?"
"If I have," said Margaret, "I know many ladies in Birmingham who have
not."
"You will not be surprised, then, if you find some ladies in Deerbrook
who do not ride, and who can tell you no more of the pretty places near
than if they had been brought up in Whitechapel. They keep their best
sights for strangers, and not for common use. I am, in reality, only a
visitor at Deerbrook. I do not live here, and never did; yet I am
better able to be your guide than almost any resident. The ladies,
especially, are extremely domestic: they are far too busy to have ever
looked about them. But I will speak to Mr Grey, and--"
"Oh, pray, do not trouble Mr Grey! He has too much business on his
hands already; and he is so kind, he will be putting himself out of his
way for us; and all we want is to be in the open air in the fields."
"`All you want!' very like starlings in a cage;" and he looked as if he
was smiling at the well-known speech of the starling; but he did not
quote it. "My mother is now saying that Mr Hope finds time for
everything: and she is right. He will help us. You must see Hope, and
you must like him. He is the great boast of the place, next to the new
sign."
"Is the sign remarkable, or only new?"
"Very remarkable for ingenuity, if not for beauty. It is `The Bonnet so
Blue:'--a lady's bonnet of blue satin, with brown bows, or whatever you
may call the trimming when you see it; and we are favoured besides with
a portrait of the milliner, holding the bonnet so blue. We talk nearly
as much of this sign as of Mr Hope; but you must see them both, and
tell us which you like best."
"We have seen Mr Hope. He was here yesterday evening."
"Well, then, you must see him again; and you must not think the worse of
him for his being praised by everybody you meet. It is no ordinary case
of a village apothecary."
Margaret laughed; so little did Mr Hope look like the village
apothecary of her imagination.
"Ah, I see you know something of the predilection of villagers for their
apothecary,--how the young people wonder that he always cures everybody;
and how the old people could not live without him; and how the poor
folks take him for a sort of magician; and how he obtains more knowledge
of human affairs than any other kind of man. But Hope is, though a very
happy man, not this sort of privileged person. His friends are so
attached to him that they confide to him all their own affairs; but they
respect him too much to gossip at large to him of other people's. I see
you do not know how to credit this; but I assure you, though the
inhabitants of Deerbrook are as accomplished in the arts of gossip as
any villagers in England, Hope knows little more than you do at this
moment about who are upon terms and who are not."
"My sister and I must learn his art of ignorance," said Margaret. "If
it be really true that the place is full of quarrels, we shall be afraid
to stay, unless we can contrive to know nothing about them."
"Oh, do not suppose we are worse than others who live in villages.
Since our present rector came, we have risen somewhat above the rural
average of peace and quiet."
"And the country has always been identical with the idea of peace and
quiet to us town-bred people!" said Margaret.
"And very properly, in one sense. But if you leave behind the din of
streets for the sake of stepping forth from your work-table upon a soft
lawn, or of looking out upon the old church steeple among the trees,
while you hear nothing but bleating and chirping, you must expect some
set-off against such advantages: and that set-off is the being among a
small number of people, who are always busy looking into one another's
small concerns."
"But this is not a necessary evil," said Margaret. "From what you were
saying just now, it appears that it may be avoided."
"From what I was saying about Hope. Yes; such an one as Hope may get
all the good out of every situation, without its evils; but--"
"But nobody else," said Margaret, smiling. "Well, Hester and I must try
whether we cannot have to do with lawns and sheep for a few months,
without quarrelling or having to do with quarrels."
"And what if you are made the subject of quarrels?" asked Mr Enderby.
"How are you to help yourselves, in that case?"
"How does Mr Hope help himself in that case?"
"It remains to be seen. As far as I know, the whole place is agreed
about him at present. Every one will tell you that never was society so
blessed in a medical man before;--from the rector and my mother, who
never quarrel with anybody, down to the village scold. I am not going
to prepossess you against even our village scold, by telling her name.
You will know it in time, though your first acquaintance will probably
be with her voice."
"So we are to hear something besides bleating and chirping?"
A tremendous knock at the door occurred, as if in answer to this. All
the conversation in the room suddenly stopped, and Mr and Mrs Rowland
walked in.
"This is my sister, Mrs Rowland," observed Mr Enderby to Margaret.
"This is my daughter Priscilla, Mrs Rowland," said Mrs Enderby to
Hester.
Both sisters were annoyed at feeling timid and nervous on being
introduced to the lady. There is something imposing in hearing a mere
name very often, in the proof that the person it belongs to fills a
large space in people's minds: and when the person is thus frequently
named with fear and dislike, an idea is originated of a command over
powers of evil which makes the actual presence absolutely awful. This
seemed now to be felt by all. Sophia had nothing to say: Mrs Grey's
head twitched nervously, while she turned from one to another with
slight remarks: Mrs Enderby ran on about their having all happened to
call at once, and its being quite a family party in Mrs Grey's parlour;
and Mr Philip's flow of conversation had stopped. Margaret thought he
was trying to help laughing.
The call could not be an agreeable one. The partners' ladies quoted
their own children's sayings about school and Miss Young, and Miss
Young's praise of the children; and each vied with the other in eulogium
on Miss Young, evidently on the ground of her hopes of Fanny and Mary on
the one hand, and of Matilda, George, and Anna, on the other. Mrs
Enderby interposed praises of all the children, while Mr Rowland
engaged Hester's attention, calling off her observation and his own from
the sparring of the rival mothers. Philip informed Margaret at length,
that George was a fine little fellow, who would make a good sportsman.
There was some pleasure in taking such a boy out fishing. But Mr
Philip had lighted on a dangerous topic, as he soon found. His sister
heard what he was saying, and began an earnest protest against little
boys fishing, on account of the danger, and against any idea that she
would allow her George to run any such risks. Of course, this made Mrs
Grey fire up, as at an imputation upon her care of her son Sydney; and
before the rest of the company could talk down the dispute, it bore too
much of the appearance of a recrimination about the discharge of
maternal duties. Margaret thought that, but for the relationship, Mrs
Rowland might fairly be concluded to be the village scold alluded to by
Mr Enderby. It was impossible that he could have been speaking of his
sister; but Deerbrook was an unfortunate place if it contained a more
unamiable person than she appeared at this moment. The faces of the two
ladies were still flushed with excitement when Mr Hope came in. The
sisters thought he appeared like a good genius, so amiable did the party
grow on his entrance. It seemed as if he was as great a favourite with
the Rowlands as with the other family; so friendly was the gentleman,
and so gracious the lady; while Mr Hope was, to all appearance,
unconscious of the existence of any unpleasant feelings among his
neighbours. The talk flowed on about the concerns of personages of the
village, about the aspect of public affairs, about the poets of the age,
and what kind of poetry was most read in Deerbrook, and how the Book
Society went on, till all had grown cordial, and some began to propose
to be hospitable. Mrs Rowland hoped for the honour of seeing the Miss
Ibbotsons one day the next week, when Mr Rowland should have returned
from a little excursion of business. Mrs Enderby wondered whether she
could prevail on all her young friends to spend an evening with her
before her son left Deerbrook; and Mrs Grey gave notice that she should
shortly issue her invitations to those with whom she wished her young
cousins to become better acquainted.
All went right for the rest of the morning. When the Enderbys and
Rowlands went away, the Levitts came. When Dr Levitt inquired about
the schools of Birmingham, it could not but come out that Hester and
Margaret were dissenters. Yet, as they were desired to observe, he did
not seem in the least shocked, and his manner was just as kind to them
after this disclosure as before. He was pronounced a very liberal man.
Mr Hope was asked to stay to dinner, and Mrs Grey complacently related
the events of the morning to her husband as he took his place at table.
Deerbrook had done its duty to Hester and Margaret pretty well for the
first day. Everybody of consequence had called but the Andersons, and
they would no doubt come on Sunday.