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
