Brownlows. Mrs. Oliphant
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“It must be much better to be poor than to be rich, then,” said Sara, “but I don’t believe that—your husband, for instance, is not half so strong as—but I beg your pardon—I forgot he was ill,” she cried, with a compunction which covered her face with crimson, “I did not mean to say that; when one speaks without thinking, one says things one doesn’t mean.”
“It’s a pity to speak without thinking,” said Mrs. Swayne; “If I did, I’d say a deal of unpleasant things; but, to be sure, you’re but a bit of a girl. My man is independent, and it don’t matter to nobody whether he is weakly or whether he is strong.”
“I beg your pardon,” said Sara, meekly; “I am very sorry he is not strong.”
“My man,” continued Mrs. Swayne, “is well-to-do and comfortable, and don’t want no pity: there’s a plenty in the village to be sorry for—not them as the ladies visit and get imposed upon. Poor folks understands poor folks—not as I mean to say we’re poor.”
“Then, if you are not poor you can’t understand them any better than I do,” said Sara, with returning courage. “I don’t think they like well-to-do people like you; you are always the most hard upon them. If we were never to get any thing we did not deserve, I wonder what would become of us; and besides, I am sure they don’t impose upon me.”
“They’d impose upon the Apostle Paul,” said Mrs. Swayne; “and as for the rector—not as he is much like one of the apostles; he is one as thinks his troubles worse than other folks. It ain’t no good complaining to him. You may come through every thing as a woman can come through; but the parson’ll find as he’s come through more. That’s just Mr. Hardcastle. If a poor man is left with a young family, it’s the rector as has lost two wives; and as for children and money—though I don’t believe for one as he ever had any money—your parsons ’as come through so much never has—”
“You are a Dissenter, Mrs. Swayne,” said Sara, with calm superiority.
“Bred and born and brought up in the church, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, indignantly, “but druve to the chapel along of Swayne, and the parson being so aggravatin’. I’m one as likes a bit of sympathy, for my part; but it ain’t general in this world,” said the large woman, with a sigh.
Sara looked at her curiously, with her head a little on one side. She was old enough to know that one liked a little sympathy, and to feel too that it was not general in this world; but it seemed mighty strange to her that such an ethereal want should exist in the bosom of Mrs. Swayne. “Sympathy?” she said, with a curious tone of wonder and inquiry. She was candid enough, notwithstanding a certain comic aspect which the conversation began to take to her, to want to know what it meant.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Swayne, “just sympathy, miss. I’m one as has had my troubles, and as don’t like to be told that they ain’t troubles at all. The minister at the chapel is ’most as bad, for he says they’re blessins in disguise—as if Swayne being weakly and awful worritin’ when his rheumatism’s bad, could ever be a blessin’. And as for speaking to the rector, you might as well speak to the Mere, and better too, for that’s got no answer ready. When a poor body sees a clergyman, it’s their comfort to talk a bit and to tell all as they’re going through. You can tell Mr. Hardcastle I said it, if you please. Lord bless us! I don’t need to go so far if it’s only to hear as other folks is worse off. There’s old Betty at the lodge, and there’s them poor creatures next door, and most all in the village, I’m thankful to say, is worse off nor we are; but I would like to know what’s the good of a clergyman if he won’t listen to you rational, and show a bit of sympathy for what you’ve com’d through.”
Perhaps Sara’s attention had wandered during this speech, or perhaps she was tired of the subject; at all events, looking round her with a little impatience as she listened, her eye was caught by the little card with “Lodgings” printed thereon which hung in Mrs. Swayne’s parlor window. It recalled her standing grievance, and she took action accordingly at once, as was her wont.
“What is the good of that?” she said, pointing to it suddenly. “I think you ought to keep your parlor to sit in, you who are so well off; but, at least, it can’t do you any good to hang it up there—nobody can see it but people who come to us at Brownlows; and you don’t expect them to take lodgings here.”
“Begging your pardon, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, solemnly, “It’s been that good to me that the lodgings is took.”
“Then why do you keep it up to aggravate people?” said Sara; “It makes me wild always when I pass the door. Why do you keep it there?”
“Lodgers is but men,” said Mrs. Swayne, “or women, to be more particular. I can’t never be sure as I’ll like ’em; and they’re folks as never sees their own advantages. It might be as we didn’t suit, or they wasn’t satisfied, or objected to Swayne a-smoking when he’s bad with the rheumatism, which is a thing I wouldn’t put a stop to not for forty lodgers; for it’s the only thing as keeps him from worritin’. So I always keeps it up; it’s the safest way in the end.”
“I think it is a wretched sort of way,” cried Sara, impetuously. “I wonder how you can confess that you have so little faith in people; instead of trying to like them and getting friends, to be always ready to see them go off. I couldn’t have servants in the house like that: they might just as well go to lodge in a cotton-mill or the work-house. There can’t be any human relations between you.”
“Relations!” said Mrs. Swayne, with a rising color. “If you think my relations are folks as go and live in lodgings, you’re far mistaken, miss. It’s well known as we come of comfortable families, both me and Swayne—folks as keeps a good house over their heads. That’s our sort. As for taking ’em in, it’s mostly for charity as I lets my lodgings—for the sake of poor folks as wants a little fresh air. You was a different looking-creature when you come out of that stuffy bit of a town. I’ve a real good memory, and I don’t forget. I remember when your papa come and bought the place off the old family; and vexed we all was—but I don’t make no doubt as it was all for the best.”
“I don’t think the old family, as you call them, were much use to anybody in Dewsbury,” said Sara, injudiciously, with a thrill of indignation and offended pride.
“Maybe not, miss,” said Mrs. Swayne, meekly; “they was the old Squires, and come natural. I don’t say no more, not to give offense; but you was a pale little thing then, and not much wonder neither, coming out of a house in a close street as is most fit for a mill, as you was saying. It made a fine difference in you.”
“Our house in Masterton is the nicest house I know,” said Sara, who was privately furious. “I always want papa to take me back in the winter. Brownlows is very nice, but it is not so much of a house after all.”
“It was a different name then,” said Mrs. Swayne, significantly; “some on us never can think of the new name; and I don’t think as you’d like living in a bit of a poky town after this, if your papa was to let you try.”
“On the contrary, I should like it excessively,” said Sara, with much haughtiness; and then she gave Mrs. Swayne a condescending little nod, and drew up a corner of her dress, which had drooped upon the snow. “I hope your lodgers will be nice, and that you will take down your ticket,” she said; “but I must go now to see my poor people.” Mrs. Swayne was so startled by the sudden but affable majesty with which the young lady turned away, that she almost dropped her a courtesy in her surprise. But in fact she only dropped her handkerchief, which was as large as a towel, and which she had a way of holding rolled up like a ball in her hand. It was quite true that the old family had been of little use to any body at Dewsbury; and that they were almost squalid in their poverty and pretensions and unrespected misfortune before they went away; and that all the little jobs in carpentry which kept Mr. Swayne in employment had been wanting during the old régime; in short, it was on Brownlows, so to speak—on the shelfs and stands, and pegs and bits of cupboard, and countless repairs which were always wanting in