Deerbrook

“ Hope imagined that there was a looking forward to somebody else, who was to cure all maladies as soon as they appeared, and keep death at a distance from Deerbrook. It seemed to be among the poor people chiefly that such an expectation prevailed. Philip was sure that Mr Rowland knew nothing of it, nor Mrs Enderby. Mr Grey, when spoken to, did not believe it, but would quietly and discreetly inquire. Mrs Grey was sure that the Deerbrook people would not venture to discountenance altogether any one who had married into their connection so decidedly. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ The peace of society in Deerbrook is not likely to be permanently secured by such deference to ignorant prejudice as would be expressed by the act of my departure; nor would my wrongs be repaired by my merely leaving them behind me. I cannot take money from your hands as the price of your tranquillity, and as a commutation for my good name, and the just rewards of my professional labours. My wife and I will not remove from Deerbrook. We shall stay, and endeavour to discharge our duty, and to bear our wrongs, till our neighbours learn to understand us better than they do. ”

“ We must hope that they will disperse from Deerbrook, and find their way into a more genial society than they can ever know here. I must keep the confidence of my children sacred even from you, Margaret: but you may believe me when I tell you, that if you knew all that we have to say to one another, you would find some of these children animated with really noble thoughts, and capable of really generous acts. ”

“ It was only the boy with the post-bags, trotting slowly to Mrs Plumstead’s, amusing himself by the way with observations on the unusual animation of Deerbrook.
“It is too soon yet, by half an hour,” said Margaret. “He cannot possibly be here for this half-hour, I think. Do not wear yourself out with standing in the hall so long. I must just say one thing, love, I fear all kinds of danger less for Edward than for almost any one else in the world: he does always what is most simple and right; and I think he could melt anybody’s heart if he tried.”
“Thank you,” said Hester, gratefully. ”

“ In the milliner’s workroom there was a spirited conversation between Miss Nares and her assistant, on the past wedding dresses of Deerbrook, arising out of the topic of the day,—the Miss Ibbotsons. Mrs Howell, who, with her shopwoman, Miss Miskin, dispensed the haberdashery of the place, smiled winningly at every customer who entered her shop, and talked of delightful acquisitions, and what must be felt about Mr Hope, in the midst of such charming society, and what it must be hoped would be felt ”

“ 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.” ”

“ As often as Hester looked eminently beautiful, he wished his sisters could see her. As often as he felt his spirit moved and animated by his conversations with Margaret, he thought of Frank, and wished that the poor fellow could for a day exchange the heats and fatigues, and vapid society, of which he complained as accompaniments of service in India, for some one of the wood and meadow rambles, or garden frolics, which were the summer pleasures of Deerbrook, now unspeakably enhanced by the addition lately made to its society. ”

“ If it had been possible, he might, like other men as wise as himself, have invested some one of the young ladies of Deerbrook with imaginary attributes, and have fallen in love with a creature of his own fancy. ”

“ Sophia had intended to be quite distant and silent, but his long-winded praises of all the Rowlands were too much for her. She observed that it was generally considered that there was nobody in Deerbrook to compare with the family in the corner-house—the Hopes and Miss Ibbotson. From this moment, the tête-à-tête became animated; the speakers alternated rapidly and regularly; for every virtue in a Rowland there was a noble quality in a Hope; for every accomplishment in Matilda and Anna, there was a grace in “our dear Mr Hope” or “our sweet Hester.” ”

“ When that crowd of new graves in the churchyard shall be waving with grass, and those old woods looking more ancient still, and the grown people of Deerbrook telling their little ones all about the pestilence that swept the place at the end of the great scarcity, when they were children, you and yours, and perhaps I, may sit, a knot of grey-headed friends, and hear over again about those good old days of ours, as we shall then call them. ”

“ You will remember this, Mr Walcot.”
“Oh, certainly. I am sure I shall expect nothing from anybody; for nobody here knows me. It is only through Mrs Rowland’s kindness that I have any prospect here at all.”
“I will just give you one more warning, as you seem a very young man. The Deerbrook people are apt to be extremely angry when they are angry at all. ”

“ Every one is praising them; every one is following them: but to whom but you can I speak of them? Even to you, I filled my first sheet with mere surface matter. I now wonder how I could. As for the ‘general opinion’ of Deerbrook on the engrossing subject of the summer, you will anticipate it in your own mind,—concluding that Hester is most worshipped, on account of her beauty, and that Margaret’s influence must be too subtle and refined to operate on more than a few. ”

“ Mr Rowland doubted, at his own table, all the news he heard on the subject, and said everywhere that he did not see why a man should not vote as he pleased. Mr Grey was very sorry about the whole affair; he was sorry that there had been any contest at all for the county, as it disturbed the peace of Deerbrook; he was sorry that the candidate he preferred had won, as the fact exasperated the temper of Deerbrook ”

“ Oh, yes, Mrs Rowland was thankful to say; that fuss was at an end at last. One would think nobody had ever been married before, by the noise that had been made in Deerbrook about this young couple.
“Mr Hope is such a favourite!” observed Mrs Enderby.
“He has been so; but it won’t last. I never saw a young man so gone off as he is. He has not been like the same man since he connected himself with the Greys so decidedly. Surely, ma’am, you must perceive that.”
“It had not occurred to me, my dear. He comes very often, and he is always extremely kind and very entertaining. ”

“ Hester relieved her torment of mind with reproaches of Margaret.
“You do not trust me,” she cried; “it is you who make me miserable. You go to others for the comfort you ought to seek in me. You place that confidence in others which ought to be mine alone. You are cheered when you learn that the commonest gossips in Deerbrook care about you, and you set no value on your own sister’s feelings for you. You have faith and charity for people out of doors, and mistrust and misconstruction for those at home. I am the injured one, Margaret, not you.” ”

“ Is not this reasonable, Margaret?”
“For very sufficient cause!” said Hester, eagerly.
“Yes, indeed; for very sufficient cause. It must be a painful thing to you to find my neighbours beginning to dislike me; to have the tradespeople impertinent to you on my account; to see my patients leave me, and call in somebody from a distance, in the face of all Deerbrook. It must make you anxious to think what is to become of us, if the discontent continues and spreads: and it must be a bitter disappointment to you to find that to be my wife is not to be so happy as we expected. ”

“ No wedding was ever kept a secret in Deerbrook; and Mr Hope’s was the one in which concealment was least of all possible. The church was half full, and the path to the church-door was lined with gazers. Those who were obliged to remain at home looked abroad from their doors; so that all were gratified more or less. Every one on Mr Grey’s premises had a holiday—including Miss Young, though Mrs Rowland did not see why her children should lose a day’s instruction, because a distant cousin of Mr Grey’s was married. The marriage was made far too much a fuss of for her taste ”

“ No such thing as highway robbery had ever before been heard of at Deerbrook, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant; the oldest of the inhabitants being Jim Bird, the man of a hundred years. But there was reason now for the caution. Mr Jones’s meat-cart had been stopped on the high-road, by two men who came out of the hedge, and helped themselves to what the cart contained. An ill-looking fellow had crossed the path of Mrs James and her young sister in the Verdon woods, evidently with the intention of stopping the ladies ”

“ Walcot had complained that his skill and knowledge could have no fair play among a set of people so ignorant as the families of his Deerbrook patients. They put more faith in charms than in medicines or care; and were running out in the cold and damp to have their fortunes told by night, or in the grey of the morning. If a fortune-teller promised long life, all the warnings of the doctor went for nothing. ”

“ In 1839, appeared her first novel, Deerbrook, in the orthodox three-volume form; a production which, perhaps, hardly sustained the reputation which her political tales had gained her as a writer of fiction—certainly not as a teacher of social economy. To her next novel, which exhibits a marked improvement in dramatic interest and constructive skill, may be applied the remarks which I have already made on the propriety of employing fiction to enforce or illustrate fact. ”

“ Deerbrook appeared in the spring. It is generally considered her weakest work.
At this time Mrs. Martineau, who was becoming blind, Harriet’s brother, Henry, and an invalid aunt, were all dependent upon Harriet for support. Her anxiety and over-work led to a serious illness. She started for a tour of the Continent after publishing Deerbrook, but on reaching Venice, became so ill that she was obliged to return to England. She was taken, in the autumn of 1839, to Tynemouth, where she remained [Pg 15] for the next five years under the care of her brother-in-law, a physician named Greenhow. ”

“ I shall establish them in this very house, sooner than that they shall be obliged to leave Deerbrook against their will; and then, my dear, you will have to be off to Cheltenham again.”
“What nonsense you talk, Mr Rowland! Who should disturb them, if you won’t be open to reason, so as to do it yourself? I thought you knew enough of what it is to be ridden by poor tenants, to wish to avoid the plague, if warned in time. But some people can never take warning.” ”

“ Charles had brought in word that people—angry people—were gathering at the other end of the street, and her master could quite disappoint them by coming home on foot the back way.—How many angry people were there!—and what sort of people?—They were mostly countrymen out of the places round—more of those than of Deerbrook folks. There were a good many of them—so many as nearly to block up the street at one part. If the ladies would step up into the boy’s attic, they would see something of what was going on, from the little window there, without being seen. ”

“ Time must show what Enderby is—or rather, what he has the power of becoming. Meanwhile, the thing is settled. They love and have promised, and are happy. Let us shun all comparison of the one with the other of them, and hope everything from him.”
“There will be some amusement,” said Hester, after a smiling reverie, “in having this secret to ourselves for a time, while all the rest of Deerbrook is so busy with a different idea and expectation. How will Mrs Rowland bear it?”
“Mrs Grey might have said that,” said Hope, laughing. ”

“ At all events, she should be a great person, and see and hear a great deal: so she would go. Orders were given that she should be driven quickly up to the milestone beyond the toll-bar, and then very slowly through Deerbrook to Mrs Howell’s. Her servants were prompt, for they, too, longed to see what was going forward; and thus they arrived, finding a nice little mob ready-made to their expectations, and no cause of regret but that they arrived too late to see Mr Hope get home. There were no ladies in terror within sight: but then there was the affecting spectacle of Sir William’s popularity. ”

“ Oh, Margaret, you do not know what encouragement I have about some of those children! Their lot is and will be a hard one, in many respects. It will be difficult for them to grow kindly, and liberal, and truthful, with such examples as they have before their eyes. They advance like the snail on the wall, creeping three inches on in the day, and falling back two at night. They get out of a pretty mood of mind in the morning, and expand and grow interested in things out of Deerbrook ”

“ He is quite obstinate about voting for Mr Lowry, though there is not a soul in Deerbrook to keep him in countenance; and everybody knows how strongly Sir William Hunter has expressed himself in favour of Mr Ballinger. It is thought the consequences will be very serious to Mr Hope. There is his almshouse practice at stake, at all events; and I fancy a good many families will have no more to do with him if he defies the Hunters, and goes against the opinions of all his neighbours. His wife must see that he has nobody with him. I do pity the poor young thing! ”