Читать книгу Wenderholme - Philip Gilbert Hamerton - Страница 10

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Mrs. Ogden, at the time when our story commences, was not much above sixty, but had reached an appearance of old age, though a very vigorous old age, which she kept without perceptible alteration for very many years afterward. Her character will develop itself sufficiently in the course of the present narrative to need no description here; but she had some outward peculiarities which it may be well to enumerate.

She is in the kitchen at Milend, making a potato-pie, or at least preparing the paste for one. Whilst she deliberately presses the rolling-pin, and whilst the sheet of paste becomes wider and thinner under the pressure of it as it travels over the soft white surface, we perceive that Mrs. Ogden's arms, which are bare nearly to the elbow, are strong and muscular yet, but not rounded into any form that suggests reminiscences of beauty. There is a squareness and a rigidity in the back and chest, which are evidences rather of strength of body and a resolute character than of grace. The visage, too, can never have been pretty, though it must in earlier life have possessed the attractiveness of health; indeed, although its early bloom is of course by this time altogether lost, there remains a firmness in the fleshy parts of it enough to prove that the possessor is as yet untouched by the insidious advances of decay. The cheeks are prominent, and the jaw is powerful; but although the forehead is high, it suggests no ideas of intellectual development, and seems rather to have grown merely as a fine vegetable-marrow grows, than to have been developed by any exercise of thought. The nose is slightly aquiline in outline, but too large and thick; the lips, on the contrary, are thin and pale, and would be out of harmony with the whole face if the eyes did not so accurately and curiously correspond with them. Those eyes are of an exceedingly light gray, rather inclining to blue, and the mind looks out from them in what, to a superficial observer, might seem a frank and direct way; but a closer analyst of character might not be so readily satisfied with a first impression, and might fancy he detected some shade of possible insincerity or power of dissimulation. The hair seems rather scanty, and is worn close to the face; it is gray, of that peculiar kind which results from a mixture of very fair hairs with perfectly white ones. We can only see a little of it, however, on account of the cap.

Although Mrs. Ogden is hard at work in her kitchen, making a potato-pie, and although it is not yet ten o'clock in the morning, she is dressed in what in any other person would be considered rather an extravagant manner, and in a manner certainly incongruous with her present occupation. It is a theory of hers that she is so exquisitely neat in all she does, that for her there is no danger in wearing any dress she chooses, either in her kitchen or elsewhere; and as she has naturally a love for handsome clothes, and an aversion to changing her dress in the middle of the day, she comes downstairs at five o'clock in the morning as if she had just dressed to receive a small dinner-party. The clothes that she wears just now have in fact done duty at past dinner-parties, and are quite magnificent enough for a lady at the head of her table, cutting potato-pies instead of fabricating them, if only they were a little less shabby, and somewhat more in harmony with the prevailing fashion. Her dress is a fine-flowered satin, which a punster would at once acknowledge in a double sense if he saw the farinaceous scatterings which just now adorn it; and her cap is so splendid in ribbons that no writer of the male sex could aspire to describe it adequately. She wears an enormous cameo brooch, and a long gold chain whose fancy links are interrupted or connected by little glittering octagonal bars, like the bright glass bugles in her head-dress. The pattern of her satin is occasionally obscured by spots of grease, notwithstanding Mrs. Ogden's theory that she is too neat and careful to incur any risk of such accidents. One day her son Isaac had ventured to call his mother's attention to these spots, and to express an opinion that it might perhaps be as well to have two servants instead of one, and resign practical kitchen-work; or else that, if she would be a servant herself, she ought to dress like one, and not expose her fine things to injury; but Mr. Isaac Ogden received such an answer as gave him no encouragement to renew his remonstrances on a subject so delicate. "My dresses," said Mrs. Ogden, "are paid for out of my own money, and I shall wear them when I like and where I like. If ever my son is applied to to pay my bills for me, he may try to teach me economy, but I'm 'appy to say that I'm not dependent upon him either for what I eat or for what I drink, or for any thing that I put on." The other brother, who lived under the same roof with Mrs. Ogden, and saw her every day, had a closer instinctive feeling of what might and might not be said to her, and would as soon have thought of suggesting any abdication, however temporary, of her splendors, as of suggesting to Queen Victoria that she might manage without the luxuries of her station.

When the potato-pie stood ready for the oven, with an elegant little chimney in the middle and various ornaments of paste upon the crust, Mrs. Ogden made another quantity of paste, and proceeded to the confection of a roly-poly pudding. She was proud of her roly-polies, and, indeed, of every thing she made or did; but her roly-polies were really good, for, as her pride was here more especially concerned, she economized nothing, and was liberal in preserves. She had friends in a warm and fertile corner of Yorkshire who were rich in apricots, and sent every year to Milend several large pots of the most delicious apricot preserve, and she kept this exclusively for roly-polies, and had won thereby a great fame and reputation in Shayton, where apricot-puddings were by no means of everyday occurrence.

The judicious reader may here criticise Mrs. Ogden, or find fault with the author, because she makes potato-pie and a roly-poly on the same day. Was there not rather too much paste for one dinner—baked paste that roofed over the savory contents of the pie-dish, and boiled paste that enclosed in its ample folds the golden lusciousness of those Yorkshire apricots? Some reflection of this kind may arise in the mind of Jacob Ogden when he comes back from the mill to his dinner. He may possibly think that for to-day the pie might have been advantageously replaced by a beefsteak, but he is too wise not to keep all such reflections within his own breast. No such doubts or perplexities will ever disturb his mother, simply because she is convinced that no man can eat too much of her pastry. Other people's pastry one might easily get too much of, but that is different.

And there is a special reason for the pudding to-day. Little Jacob is expected at dinner-time, and little Jacob loves pudding, especially apricot roly-poly. His grandmother, not a very affectionate woman by nature, is, nevertheless, dotingly fond of the lad, and always makes a little feast to welcome him and celebrate his coming. On ordinary days they never have any dessert at Milend, but, as soon as dinner is over, Uncle Jacob hastily jumps up and goes to the cupboard where the decanters are kept, pours himself two glasses of port, and swallows them one after the other, standing, after which he is off again to the mill. When little Jacob comes, what a difference! There is a splendid dessert of gingerbread, nuts, apples, and fruits glacés; there are stately decanters of port and sherry, with a bottle of sparkling elder-flower wine in the middle, and champagne-glasses to drink it from. There is plenty of real champagne in the cellars, but this home-made vintage is considered better for little Jacob, who feels no other effect from it than an almost irresistible sleepiness. He likes to see the sparkling bubbles rise; and, indeed, few beverages are prettier or pleasanter to the taste than Mrs. Ogden's elder-flower wine. It is as clear as crystal, and sparkles like the most brilliant wit.

But we are anticipating every thing; we have jumped from the very fabrication of the roly-poly to the sparkling of the elder-flower, of that elder-flower which never sparkled at Milend, and should not have done so in this narrative, until the pudding had been fully disposed of. The reader may, however, take that for granted, and feel perfectly satisfied that little Jacob has done his duty to the pudding, as he is now doing it to the nuts and wine. He has a fancy for putting his kernels into the wine-glass, and fishing them out with a spoon, and is so occupied just now, whilst grandmother and Uncle Jacob sit patiently looking on.

"Jerry likes nuts," says little Jacob; "I wonder if he likes wine too."

"It would be a good thing," said Mrs. Ogden, with her slow and distinct pronunciation—"it would be a good thing if young men would take example by their 'orses, and drink nothing but water."

"Nay, nay, mother," said Uncle Jacob, "you wouldn't wish to see our lad a teetotaller."

"I see no 'arm in bein' a teetotaller, and I see a good deal of 'arm that's brought on with drinking spirits. I wish the lad's father was a teetotaller. But come" (to little Jacob), "you'll 'ave another glass of elder-flower. Well, willn't ye now? Then 'ave a glass of port; it'll do you no 'arm."

Mrs. Ogden's admiration for teetotalism was entirely theoretical. She approved of it in the abstract and in the distance, but she could not endure to sit at table with a man who did not take his glass like the rest; the nonconformity to custom irritated her. There was a curate at Shayton who thought it his duty to be a teetotaller in order to give weight to his arguments against the evil habit of the place, and the curate dined occasionally at Milend without relaxing from the rigidity of his rule. Mrs. Ogden was always put out by his empty wine-glass and the pure water in his tumbler, and she let him have no peace; so that for some time past he had declined her invitations, and only dropped in to tea, taking care to escape before spirits and glasses were brought forth from the cupboard, where they lay in wait for him. The reader need therefore be under no apprehensions that little Jacob was likely to be educated in the chilly principles of teetotalism; or at least he may rest assured that, however much its principles might be extolled in his presence, the practice of it would neither be enforced nor even tolerated.

"I say, I wish my son Isaac was a teetotaller. I hear tell of his coming to Shayton time after time without ever so much as looking at Milend. Wasn't your father in the town on Tuesday? I know he was, I was told so by those that saw him; and if he was in the town, what was to hinder him from coming to Milend to his tea? Did he come down by himself, or did you come with him, Jacob?"

"I came with him, grandmother."

"Well, and why didn't you come here, my lad? You know you're always welcome."

"Father had his tea at the Red Lion. Well, it wasn't exactly tea, for he drank ale to it; but I had tea with him, and we'd a lobster."

"I wish he wouldn't do so."

"Why, mother," said Uncle Jacob, "I see no great 'arm in drinking a pint of ale and eating a lobster; and if he didn't come to Milend, most likely he'd somebody to see; very likely one of his tenants belonging to that row of cottages he bought. I wish he hadn't bought 'em; he'll have more bother with 'em than they're worth."

"But what did he do keeping a young boy like little Jacob at the Red Lion? Why couldn't he send him here? The lad knows the way, I reckon." Then to her grandson—"What time was it when you both went home to Twistle Farm?"

"We didn't go home together, grandmother. Father was in the parlor at the Red Lion, and left me behind the bar, where we had had our tea, till about eight o'clock, when he sent a message that I was to go home by myself. So I went home on Jerry, and father stopped all night at the Red Lion."

"Why, it was after dark, child! and there was no moon!"

"I'm not afraid of being out in the dark, grandmother; I don't believe in ghosts."

"What, hasn't th' child sense enough to be frightened in the dark? If he doesn't believe in ghosts at his age, it's a bad sign; but he's got a father that believes in nothing at all, for he never goes to church; and there's that horrid Dr. Bardly"—

"He isn't horrid, grandmother," replied little Jacob, with much spirit; "he's very jolly, and gives me things, and I love him; he gave me a silver horn."

Now Dr. Bardly's reputation for orthodoxy in Shayton was greatly inferior to his renown as a medical practitioner; but as the inhabitants had both Mr. Prigley and his curate, as well as several Dissenting ministers, to watch over the interests of their souls, they had no objection to allow Mr. Bardly to keep their stomachs in order; at least so far as was compatible with the freest indulgence in good living. His bad name for heterodoxy had been made worse by his favorite studies. He was an anatomist, and therefore was supposed to believe in brains rather than souls; and a geologist, therefore he assigned an unscriptural antiquity to the earth.

"I'm sure it's that Dr. Bardly," said Mrs. Ogden, "that's ruined our Isaac."

"Why, mother, Bardly's one o' th' soberest men in Shayton; and being a doctor beside, he isn't likely to encourage Isaac i' bad 'abits."

"I wish Isaac weren't so fond on him. He sets more store by Dr. Bardly, and by all that he says, than by any one else in the place. He likes him better than Mr. Prigley. I've heard him say so, sittin' at this very table. I wish he liked Mr. Prigley better, and would visit with him a little. He'd get nothing but good at the parsonage; whereas they tell me—and no doubt it's true—that there's many a bad book in Dr. Bardly's library. I think I shall ask Mr. Prigley just to set ceremony on one side, and go and call upon Isaac up at Twistle Farm; no doubt he would be kind enough to do so."

"It would be of no use, mother, except to Prigley's appetite, that might be a bit sharpened with a walk up to Twistle; but supposin' he got there, and found Isaac at 'ome, Isaac 'ud be as civil as civil, and he'd ax Prigley to stop his dinner; and Prigley 'ud no more dare to open his mouth about Isaac's goin's on than our sarvint lass 'ud ventur to tell you as you put too mich salt i' a potato-pie. It's poor folk as parsons talks to; they willn't talk to a chap wi' ten thousand pound till he axes 'em, except in a general way in a pulpit."

"Well, Jacob, if Mr. Prigley were only just to go and renew his acquaintance with our Isaac, it would be so much gained, and it might lead to his amendment."

"Mother, I don't think he needs so much amendment. Isaac's right enough. I believe he's always sober up at Twistle; isn't he, little 'un?"

Little Jacob, thus appealed to, assented, but in rather a doubtful and reserved manner, as if something remained behind which he had not courage to say. His grandmother observed this.

"Now, my lad, tell me the whole truth. It can do your father no 'arm—nothing but good—to let us know all about what he does. Your father is my son, and I've a right to know all about him. I'm very anxious, and 'ave been, ever since I knew that he was goin' again to the Red Lion. I 'oped he'd given that up altogether. You must tell me—I insist upon it."

Little Jacob said nothing, but began to cry.

"Nay, nay, lad," said his uncle, "a great felly like thee should never skrike. Thy grandmother means nout. Mother, you're a bit hard upon th' lad; it isn't fair to force a child to be witness again' its own father." With this Uncle Jacob rose and left the room, for it was time for him to go to the mill; and then Mrs. Ogden rose from her chair, and with the stiff stately walk that was habitual to her, and that she never could lay aside even under strong emotion, approached her grandson, and, bending over him, gave him one kiss on the forehead. This kiss, be it observed, was a very exceptional event. Jacob always kissed his grandmother when he came to Milend; but she was invariably passive, though it was plain that the ceremony was agreeable to her, from a certain softness that spread over her features, and which differed from their habitual expression. So when Jacob felt the old lady's lips upon his forehead, a thrill of tenderness ran through his little heart, and he sobbed harder than ever.

Mrs. Ogden drew a chair close to his, and, putting her hand on his brow so as to turn his face a little upwards that she might look well into it, said, "Come now, little un, tell granny all about it."

What the kiss had begun, the word "granny" fully accomplished. Little Jacob dried his eyes and resolved to tell his sorrows.

"Grandmother," he said, "father is so—so"—

"So what, my lad?"

"Well, he beats me, grandmother!"

Now Mrs. Ogden, though she loved Jacob as strongly as her nature permitted, by no means wished to see him entirely exempt from corporal punishment. She knew, on the authority of Scripture, that it was good for children to be beaten, that the rod was a salutary thing; and she at once concluded that little Jacob had been punished for some fault which in her own code would have deserved such punishment, and would have drawn it down upon her own sons when they were of his age. So she was neither astonished nor indignant, and asked, merely by way of continuing the conversation—

"And when did he beat thee, child?"

If Jacob had been an artful advocate of his own cause, he would have cited one of those instances unhappily too numerous during the last few months, when he had been severely punished on the slightest possible pretexts, or even without any pretext whatever; but as recent events occupy the largest space in our recollection, and as all troubles diminish by a sort of perspective according to the length of time that has happened since their occurrence, Jacob, of course, instanced a beating that he had received that very morning, and of which certain portions of his bodily frame, by their uncommon stiffness and soreness, still kept up the most lively remembrance.

"He beat me this morning, grandmother."

"And what for?"

"Because I spilt some ink on my new trowsers that I'd put on to come to Milend."

"Well, then, my lad, all I can say is that you deserved it, and should take better care. Do you think that your father is to buy good trowsers for you to spill ink upon them the very first time you put them on? You'll soon come to ruin at that rate. Little boys should learn to take care of their things; your Uncle Jacob was as kerfle[2] as possible of his things; indeed he was the kerflest boy I ever saw in all my life, and I wish you could take after him. It's a very great thing is kerfleness. There's people as thinks that when they've worn[3] their money upon a thing, it's no use lookin' after it, and mindin' it, because the money's all worn and gone, and so they pay no heed to their things when once they've got them. And what's the consequence? They find that they have to be renewed, that new ones must be bought when the old ones ought to have been quite good yet; and so they spend and spend, when they might spare and have every thing just as decent, if they could only learn a little kerfleness."

After this lecture, Mrs. Ogden slowly rose from her seat and proceeded to put the decanters into a triangular cupboard that occupied a corner of the room. In due course of time the apples, the gingerbread, and the nuts alike disappeared in its capacious recesses, and were hidden from little Jacob's eyes by folding-doors of dark mahogany, polished till they resembled mirrors, and reflected the window with its glimpse of dull gray sky. After this Mrs. Ogden went into the kitchen to look after some household affairs, and her grandson went to the stable to see Jerry, and to make the acquaintance of some puppies which had recently come into the world, but were as yet too blind to have formed any opinion of its beauties.