said aunt Pullet, “there’s no accounting for what Jane ’ull do. I wouldn’t speak of it out o’ the family, if it wasn’t to Dr. Turnbull; but it’s my belief Jane lives too low. I’ve said so to Pullet often and often, and he knows it.”
“Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from drinking tea with ’em,” said Mr. Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee and shelter it with his pocket handkerchief, as was his way when the conversation took an interesting turn.
“Very like I did,” said Mrs. Pullet, “for you remember when I said things, better than I can remember myself. He’s got a wonderful memory, Pullet has,” she continued, looking pathetically at her sister. “I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he always remembers when I’ve got to take my doctor’s stuff; and I’m taking three sorts now.”
“There’s the ‘pills as before’ every other night, and the new drops at eleven and four, and the ’fervescing mixture ‘when agreeable,’ ” rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on his tongue.
“Ah, perhaps it ’ud be better for sister Glegg if she’d go to the doctor sometimes, instead o’ chewing Turkey rhubarb whenever there’s anything the matter with her,” said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.
“It’s dreadful to think on,” said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and letting them fall again, “people playing with their own insides in that way! And it’s flying i’ the face o’ Providence; for what are the doctors for, if we aren’t to call ’em in? And when folks have got the money to pay for a doctor, it isn’t respectable, as I’ve told Jane many a time. I’m ashamed of acquaintance knowing it.”
“Well, we’ve no call to be ashamed,” said Mr. Pullet, “for Doctor Turnbull hasn’t got such another patient as you i’ this parish, now old Mrs. Sutton’s gone.”
“Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?” said Mrs. Pullet. “He won’t have one sold. He says it’s nothing but right folks should see ’em when I’m gone. They fill two o’ the long store-room shelves a’ready; but,” she added, beginning to cry a little, “it’s well if they ever fill three. I may go before I’ve made up the dozen o’ these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my room—you’ll remember that, sister—but there’s nothing to show for the boluses, if it isn’t the bills.”
“Don’t talk o’ your going, sister,” said Mrs. Tulliver; “I should have nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And there’s nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver, for sister Deane’s never o’ my side, and if she was, it’s not to be looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent fortin.”
“Well, your husband is awk’ard, you know, Bessy,” said Mrs. Pullet, good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister’s account as well as her own. “He’s never behaved quite so pretty to our family as he should do, and the children take after him—the boy’s very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the gell’s rude and brown. It’s your bad luck, and I’m sorry for you, Bessy; for you was allays my favourite sister, and we allays liked the same patterns.”
“I know Tulliver’s hasty, and says odd things,” said Mrs. Tulliver, wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; “but I’m sure he’s never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making the friends o’ my side o’ the family welcome to the house.”
“I don’t want to make the worst of you, Bessy,” said Mrs. Pullet, compassionately, “for I doubt you’ll have trouble enough without that; and your husband’s got that poor sister and her children hanging on him—and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he’ll leave you poorly off when he dies. Not as I’d have it said out o’ the family.”
This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs. Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that other people thought it hard.
“I’m sure, sister, I can’t help myself,” she said, urged by the fear lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take comprehensive review of her past conduct. “There’s no woman strives more for her children; and I’m sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as I’ve had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells put together; and there’s the last elder-flower wine I’ve made—beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though sister Glegg will have it I’m so extravagant; and as for liking to have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there’s nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o’ backbiting and making mischief, for I don’t wish anybody any harm; and nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with the best o’ my neighbours’; and the linen’s so in order as if I was to die to-morrow I shouldn’t be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she can.”
“But it’s all o’ no use, you know, Bessy,” said Mrs. Pullet, holding her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister, “if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it’s a comfort to think as you’ve kept it well rubbed. And there’s the linen, with your maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It ’ud be a sad pity for our family.” Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly.
“But what can I do, sister?” said Mrs. Tulliver. “Mr. Tulliver’s not a man to be dictated to—not if I was to go to the parson and get by heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I’m sure I don’t pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could never see into men’s business as sister Glegg does.”
“Well, you’re like me in that, Bessy,” said Mrs. Pullet; “and I think it ’ud be a deal more becoming o’ Jane if she’d have that pier-glass rubbed oftener—there was ever so many spots on it last week—instead o’ dictating to folks as have more comings in than she ever had, and telling ’em what they’re to do with their money. But Jane and me were allays contrairy; she would have striped things, and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together i’ that.”
“Yes, Sophy,” said Mrs. Tulliver, “I remember our having a blue ground with a white spot both alike—I’ve got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a good sister to me.”
“But the right thing ’ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he’s borrowed money of her, he shouldn’t be above that,” said Mrs. Pullet, whose partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what was due to people of independent fortune.
“It’s no use talking o’ that,” said poor Mrs. Tulliver, almost peevishly. “If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to Tulliver, he’d never humble himself.”
“Well, you can’t expect me to persuade Jane to beg pardon,” said Mrs. Pullet. “Her temper’s beyond everything; it’s well if it doesn’t carry her off her mind, though there never was any of our family went to a madhouse.”
“I’m not thinking of her begging pardon,” said Mrs. Tulliver. “But if she’d just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it’s not so much for one sister to ask of another; time ’ud mend things, and Tulliver ’ud forget all about it, and they’d be friends again.”
Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband’s irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.
“Well, Bessy,” said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, “I don’t want to help you on to ruin. I won’t be behindhand i’ doing you a good turn, if it is to be done. And I don’t like it said among acquaintance as we’ve got quarrels in the family. I shall