The Complete Works. George Eliot

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СКАЧАТЬ while Sir Christopher made his way to the library, solemnly followed by Rupert, his pet bloodhound, who, in his habitual place at the Baronet’s right hand, behaved with great urbanity during dinner; but when the cloth was drawn, invariably disappeared under the table, apparently regarding the claret-jug as a mere human weakness, which he winked at, but refused to sanction.

      The library lay but three steps from the dining-room, on the other side of a cloistered and matted passage. The oriel window was overshadowed by the great beech, and this, with the flat heavily-carved ceiling and the dark hue of the old books that lined the walls, made the room look sombre, especially on entering it from the dining-room, with its ærial curves and cream-coloured fretwork touched with gold. As Sir Christopher opened the door, a jet of brighter light fell on a woman in a widow’s dress, who stood in the middle of the room, and made the deepest of curtsies as he entered. She was a buxom woman approaching forty, her eyes red with the tears which had evidently been absorbed by the handkerchief gathered into a damp ball in her right hand.

      ‘Now. Mrs. Hartopp,’ said Sir Christopher, taking out his gold snuff-box and tapping the lid, ‘what have you to say to me? Markham has delivered you a notice to quit, I suppose?’

      ‘O yis, your honour, an’ that’s the reason why I’ve come. I hope your honour ’ll think better on it, an’ not turn me an’ my poor children out o’ the farm, where my husband al’ys paid his rent as reglar as the day come.’

      ‘Nonsense! I should like to know what good it will do you and your children to stay on a farm and lose every farthing your husband has left you, instead of selling your stock and going into some little place where you can keep your money together. It is very well known to every tenant of mine that I never allow widows to stay on their husbands’ farms.’

      ‘O, Sir Christifer, if you would consider—when I’ve sold the hay, an’ corn, an’ all the live things, an’ paid the debts, an’ put the money out to use, I shall have hardly enough to keep our souls an’ bodies together. An’ how can I rear my boys and put ’em ’prentice? They must go for dey-labourers, an’ their father a man wi’ as good belongings as any on your honour’s estate, an’ niver threshed his wheat afore it was well i’ the rick, nor sold the straw off his farm, nor nothin’. Ask all the farmers round if there was a stiddier, soberer man than my husband as attended Ripstone market. An’ he says, “Bessie,” says he—them was his last words—“you’ll mek a shift to manage the farm, if Sir Christifer ’ull let you stay on.”’

      ‘Pooh, pooh!’ said Sir Christopher, Mrs. Hartopp’s sobs having interrupted her pleadings, ‘now listen to me, and try to understand a little common sense. You are about as able to manage the farm as your best milch cow. You’ll be obliged to have some managing man, who will either cheat you out of your money or wheedle you into marrying him.’

      ‘O, your honour, I was never that sort o’ woman, an’ nobody has known it on me.’

      ‘Very likely not, because you were never a widow before. A woman’s always silly enough, but she’s never quite as great a fool as she can be until she puts on a widow’s cap. Now, just ask yourself how much the better you will be for staying on your farm at the end of four years, when you’ve got through your money, and let your farm run down, and are in arrears for half your rent; or, perhaps, have got some great hulky fellow for a husband, who swears at you and kicks your children.’

      ‘Indeed, Sir Christifer, I know a deal o’ farmin,’ an’ was brought up i’ the thick on it, as you may say. An’ there was my husband’s great-aunt managed a farm for twenty year, an’ left legacies to all her nephys an’ nieces, an’ even to my husband, as was then a babe unborn.’

      ‘Psha! a woman six feet high, with a squint and sharp elbows, I daresay—a man in petticoats. Not a rosy-cheeked widow like you, Mrs. Hartopp.’

      ‘Indeed, your honour, I never heard of her squintin’, an’ they said as she might ha’ been married o’er and o’er again, to people as had no call to hanker after her money.’

      ‘Ay, ay, that’s what you all think. Every man that looks at you wants to marry you, and would like you the better the more children you have and the less money. But it is useless to talk and cry. I have good reasons for my plans, and never alter them. What you have to do is to take the best of your stock, and to look out for some little place to go to, when you leave The Hollows. Now, go back to Mrs. Bellamy’s room, and ask her to give you a dish of tea.’

      Mrs. Hartopp, understanding from Sir Christopher’s tone that he was not to be shaken, curtsied low and left the library, while the Baronet, seating himself at his desk in the oriel window, wrote the following letter:

      Mr. Markham,—Take no steps about letting Crowsfoot Cottage, as I intend to put in the widow Hartopp when she leaves her farm; and if you will be here at eleven on Saturday morning, I will ride round with you, and settle about making some repairs, and see about adding a bit of land to the take, as she will want to keep a cow and some pigs.—Yours faithfully,

       Christopher Cheverel

      After ringing the bell and ordering this letter to be sent, Sir Christopher walked out to join the party on the lawn. But finding the cushions deserted, he walked on to the eastern front of the building, where, by the side of the grand entrance, was the large bow-window of the saloon, opening on to the gravel-sweep, and looking towards a long vista of undulating turf, bordered by tall trees, which, seeming to unite itself with the green of the meadows and a grassy road through a plantation, only terminated with the Gothic arch of a gateway in the far distance. The bow-window was open, and Sir Christopher, stepping in, found the group he sought, examining the progress of the unfinished ceiling. It was in the same style of florid pointed Gothic as the dining-room, but more elaborate in its tracery, which was like petrified lace-work picked out with delicate and varied colouring. About a fourth of its still remained uncoloured, and under this part were scaffolding, ladders, and tools; otherwise the spacious saloon was empty of furniture, and seemed to be a grand Gothic canopy for the group of five human figures standing in the centre.

      ‘Francesco has been getting on a little better the last day or two,’ said Sir Christopher, as he joined the party: ‘he’s a sad lazy dog, and I fancy he has a knack of sleeping as he stands, with his brushes in his hands. But I must spur him on, or we may not have the scaffolding cleared away before the bride comes, if you show dexterous generalship in your wooing, eh, Anthony? and take your Magdeburg quickly.’

      ‘Ah, sir, a siege is known to be one of the most tedious operations in war,’ said Captain Wybrow, with an easy smile.

      ‘Not when there’s a traitor within the walls in the shape of a soft heart. And that there will be, if Beatrice has her mother’s tenderness as well as her mother’s beauty.’

      ‘What do you think, Sir Christopher,’ said Lady Cheverel, who seemed to wince a little under her husband’s reminiscences, ‘of hanging Guercino’s “Sibyl” over that door when we put up the pictures? It is rather lost in my sitting-room.’

      ‘Very good, my love,’ answered Sir Christopher, in a tone of punctiliously polite affection; ‘if you like to part with the ornament from your own room, it will show admirably here. Our portraits, by Sir Joshua, will hang opposite the window, and the “Transfiguration” at that end. You see, Anthony, I am leaving no good places on the walls for you and your wife. We shall turn you with your faces to the wall in the gallery, and you may take your revenge on us by-and-by.’

      While this conversation was going on, Mr. Gilfil turned to Caterina and said,—‘I like the view from this window better than any other in the house.’

      She СКАЧАТЬ