“In the right of it too,” said the Rector. “Garth is an independent fellow: an original, simple-minded fellow. One day, when he was doing some valuation for me, he told me point-blank that clergymen seldom understood anything about business, and did mischief when they meddled; but he said it as quietly and respectfully as if he had been talking to me about sailors. He would make a different parish of Tipton, if Brooke would let him manage. I wish, by the help of the ‘Trumpet,’ you could bring that round.”
“If Dorothea had kept near her uncle, there would have been some chance,” said Sir James. “She might have got some power over him in time, and she was always uneasy about the estate. She had wonderfully good notions about such things. But now Casaubon takes her up entirely. Celia complains a good deal. We can hardly get her to dine with us, since he had that fit.” Sir James ended with a look of pitying disgust, and Mrs Cadwallader shrugged her shoulders as much as to say that she was not likely to see anything new in that direction.
“Poor Casaubon!” the Rector said. “That was a nasty attack. I thought he looked shattered the other day at the Archdeacon’s.”
“In point of fact,” resumed Sir James, not choosing to dwell on “fits,” “Brooke doesn’t mean badly by his tenants or any one else, but he has got that way of paring and clipping at expenses.”
“Come, that’s a blessing,” said Mrs Cadwallader. “That helps him to find himself in a morning. He may not know his own opinions, but he does know his own pocket.”
“I don’t believe a man is in pocket by stinginess on his land,” said Sir James.
“Oh, stinginess may be abused like other virtues: it will not do to keep one’s own pigs lean,” said Mrs Cadwallader, who had risen to look out of the window. “But talk of an independent politician and he will appear.”
“What, Brooke?” said her husband.
“Yes. Now, you ply him with the ‘Trumpet,’ Humphrey; and I will put the leeches on him. What will you do, Sir James?”
“The fact is, I don’t like to begin about it with Brooke, in our mutual position; the whole thing is so unpleasant. I do wish people would behave like gentlemen,” said the good baronet, feeling that this was a simple and comprehensive programme for social well-being.
“Here you all are, eh?” said Mr Brooke, shuffling round and shaking hands. “I was going up to the hall by-and-by, Chettam. But it’s pleasant to find everybody, you know. Well, what do you think of things?—going on a little fast! It was true enough, what Lafitte said—‘Since yesterday, a century has passed away:’—they’re in the next century, you know, on the other side of the water. Going on faster than we are.”
“Why, yes,” said the Rector, taking up the newspaper. “Here is the ‘Trumpet’ accusing you of lagging behind—did you see?”
