that her husband was very much in the wrong to bring her into this trouble, she was inclined to think that his opinion of Wakem was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had “put the bailies in the house, and sold them up”; but she supposed he did that to please the man that lent Mr. Tulliver the money, for a lawyer had more folks to please than one, and he wasn’t likely to put Mr. Tulliver, who had gone to law with him, above everybody else in the world. The attorney might be a very reasonable man; why not? He had married a Miss Clint, and at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that marriage, the summer when she wore her blue satin spencer, and had not yet any thoughts of Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm of Wakem. And certainly toward herself, whom he knew to have been a Miss Dodson, it was out of all possibility that he could entertain anything but good-will, when it was once brought home to his observation that she, for her part, had never wanted to go to law, and indeed was at present disposed to take Mr. Wakem’s view of all subjects rather than her husband’s. In fact, if that attorney saw a respectable matron like herself disposed “to give him good words,” why shouldn’t he listen to her representations? For she would put the matter clearly before him, which had never been done yet. And he would never go and bid for the mill on purpose to spite her, an innocent woman, who thought it likely enough that she had danced with him in their youth at Squire Darleigh’s, for at those big dances she had often and often danced with young men whose names she had forgotten.
Mrs. Tulliver hid these reasonings in her own bosom; for when she had thrown out a hint to Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg that she wouldn’t mind going to speak to Wakem herself, they had said, “No, no, no,” and “Pooh, pooh,” and “Let Wakem alone,” in the tone of men who were not likely to give a candid attention to a more definite exposition of her project; still less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for “the children were always so against everything their mother said”; and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against Wakem as his father was. But this unusual concentration of thought naturally gave Mrs. Tulliver an unusual power of device and determination: and a day or two before the sale, to be held at the Golden Lion, when there was no longer any time to be lost, she carried out her plan by a stratagem. There were pickles in question, a large stock of pickles and ketchup which Mrs. Tulliver possessed, and which Mr. Hyndmarsh, the grocer, would certainly purchase if she could transact the business in a personal interview, so she would walk with Tom to St. Ogg’s that morning; and when Tom urged that she might let the pickles be at present,—he didn’t like her to go about just yet,—she appeared so hurt at this conduct in her son, contradicting her about pickles which she had made after the family receipts inherited from his own grandmother, who had died when his mother was a little girl, that he gave way, and they walked together until she turned toward Danish Street, where Mr. Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far from the offices of Mr. Wakem.
That gentleman was not yet come to his office; would Mrs. Tulliver sit down by the fire in his private room and wait for him? She had not long to wait before the punctual attorney entered, knitting his brow with an examining glance at the stout blond woman who rose, curtsying deferentially,—a tallish man, with an aquiline nose and abundant iron-gray hair. You have never seen Mr. Wakem before, and are possibly wondering whether he was really as eminent a rascal, and as crafty, bitter an enemy of honest humanity in general, and of Mr. Tulliver in particular, as he is represented to be in that eidolon or portrait of him which we have seen to exist in the miller’s mind.
It is clear that the irascible miller was a man to interpret any chance-shot that grazed him as an attempt on his own life, and was liable to entanglements in this puzzling world, which, due consideration had to his own infallibility, required the hypothesis of a very active diabolical agency to explain them. It is still possible to believe that the attorney was not more guilty toward him than an ingenious machine, which performs its work with much regularity, is guilty toward the rash man who, venturing too near it, is caught up by some fly-wheel or other, and suddenly converted into unexpected mince-meat.
But it is really impossible to decide this question by a glance at his person; the lines and lights of the human countenance are like other symbols,—not always easy to read without a key. On an a priori view of Wakem’s aquiline nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not more rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this too along with his nose, might have become fraught with damnatory meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.
“Mrs. Tulliver, I think?” said Mr. Wakem.
“Yes, sir; Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was.”
“Pray be seated. You have some business with me?”
“Well, sir, yes,” said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed at her own courage, now she was really in presence of the formidable man, and reflecting that she had not settled with herself how she should begin. Mr. Wakem felt in his waistcoat pockets, and looked at her in silence.
“I hope, sir,” she began at last,—“I hope, sir, you’re not a-thinking as I bear you any ill-will because o’ my husband’s losing his lawsuit, and the bailies being put in, and the linen being sold,—oh dear!—for I wasn’t brought up in that way. I’m sure you remember my father, sir, for he was close friends with Squire Darleigh, and we allays went to the dances there, the Miss Dodsons,—nobody could be more looked on,—and justly, for there was four of us, and you’re quite aware as Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane are my sisters. And as for going to law and losing money, and having sales before you’re dead, I never saw anything o’ that before I was married, nor for a long while after. And I’m not to be answerable for my bad luck i’ marrying out o’ my own family into one where the goings-on was different. And as for being drawn in t’ abuse you as other folks abuse you, sir, that I niver was, and nobody can say it of me.”
Mrs. Tulliver shook her head a little, and looked at the hem of her pocket-handkerchief.
“I’ve no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver,” said Mr. Wakem, with cold politeness. “But you have some question to ask me?”
“Well, sir, yes. But that’s what I’ve said to myself,—I’ve said you’d had some nat’ral feeling; and as for my husband, as hasn’t been himself for this two months, I’m not a-defending him, in no way, for being so hot about th’ erigation,—not but what there’s worse men, for he never wronged nobody of a shilling nor a penny, not willingly; and as for his fieriness and lawing, what could I do? And him struck as if it was with death when he got the letter as said you’d the hold upo’ the land. But I can’t believe but what you’ll behave as a gentleman.”
“What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver?” said Mr. Wakem rather sharply. “What do you want to ask me?”
“Why, sir, if you’ll be so good,” said Mrs. Tulliver, starting a little, and speaking more hurriedly,—“if you’ll be so good not to buy the mill an’ the land,—the land wouldn’t so much matter, only my husband ull’ be like mad at your having it.”
Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem’s face as he said, “Who told you I meant to buy it?”
“Why, sir, it’s none o’ my inventing, and I should never ha’ thought of it; for my husband, as ought to know about the law, he allays used to say as lawyers had never no call to buy anything,—either lands or houses,—for they allays got ’em into their hands other ways. An’ I should think that ’ud be the way with you, sir; and I niver said as you’d be the man to do contrairy to that.”
“Ah, well, who was it that did say so?” said Wakem, opening his desk, and moving things about, with the accompaniment of an almost inaudible whistle.
“Why, sir, it was Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, as have all the management; and Mr. Deane thinks as Guest &Co. ’ud buy the mill and let Mr. Tulliver work it for ’em, if you didn’t bid for it and raise the price. And it ’ud be such a thing for my husband to stay where he is, if he could get his living: for it was his father’s before him, the mill was, and his grandfather built it, though I wasn’t fond o’ the noise of it, when first I was married, for there was no mills in our family,—not the Dodson’s,—and if I’d known as the mills had so much to do with the law, it wouldn’t have been me as ’ud have