What Will He Do with It? — Complete

by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton

Involuntarily they arrested their steps, to gaze on the cheerful landscape and inhale the balmy air. Meanwhile the Mayor came out from the cottage porch, his wife leaning on his arm, and two of his younger children bounding on before, with joyous faces, giving chase to a gaudy butterfly which they had started from the woodbine.

Mrs. Hartopp had conceived a lively curiosity to see and judge for herself of the objects of her liege lord’s benevolent interest. She shared, of course, the anxiety which formed the standing excitement of all those who lived but for one godlike purpose, that of preserving Josiah Hartopp from being taken in. But whenever the Mayor specially wished to secure his wife’s countenance to any pet project of his own, and convince her either that he was not taken in, or that to be discreetly taken in is in this world a very popular and sure mode of getting up, he never failed to attain his end. That man was the cunningest creature! As full of wiles and stratagems in order to get his own way—in benevolent objects—as men who set up to be clever are for selfish ones. Mrs. Hartopp was certainly a good woman, but a made good woman. Married to another man, I suspect that she would have been a shrew. Petruchio would never have tamed her, I’ll swear. But she, poor lady, had been gradually, but completely, subdued, subjugated, absolutely cowed beneath the weight of her spouse’s despotic mildness; for in Hartopp there was a weight of soft quietude, of placid oppression, wholly irresistible. It would have buried a Titaness under a Pelion of moral feather-beds. Mass upon mass of downy influence descended upon you, seemingly yielding as it fell, enveloping, overbearing, stifling you; not presenting a single hard point of contact; giving in as you pushed against it; supplying itself seductively round you, softer and softer, heavier and heavier,—till, I assure you, ma’am, no matter how high your natural wifely spirit, you would have had it smothered out of you, your last rebellious murmur dying languidly away under the descending fleeces.

“So kind in you to come with me, Mary,” said Hartopp. “I could not have been happy without your approval: look at the child; something about her like Mary Anne, and Mary Anne is the picture of you!”

Waife advanced, uncovering; the two children, having lost trace of the butterfly, had run up towards Sophy. But her shy look made themselves shy,—shyness is so contagious, and they stood a little aloof, gazing at her. Sir Isaac stalked direct to the Mayor, sniffed at him, and wagged his tail.

Mrs. Hartopp now bent over Sophy, and acknowledging that the face was singularly pretty, glanced graciously towards the husband, and said, “I see the likeness!” then to Sophy, “I fear you are tired, my dear: you must not overfatigue yourself; and you must take milk fresh from the cow every morning.” And now the bailiff’s wife came briskly out, a tidy, fresh-coloured, kind-faced woman, fond of children; the more so because she had none of her own.

So they entered the farm-yard, Mrs. Hartopp being the chief talker; and she, having pointed out to Sophy the cows and the turkeys, the hen-coops, and the great China gander, led her by the one hand—while Sophy’s other hand clung firmly to Waife’s’—across the little garden, with its patent bee-hives, into the house, took off her bonnet, and kissed her. “Very like Mary Anne!—Mary Anne, dear.” One of the two children owning that name approached,—snub-nosed, black-eyed, with cheeks like peonies. “This little girl, my Mary Anne, was as pale as you,—over-study; and now, my dear child, you must try and steal a little of her colour. Don’t you think my Mary Anne is like her papa, Mr. Chapman?”

“Like me!” exclaimed the Mayor, whispering Waife, “image of her mother! the same intellectual look!”

Said the artful actor, “Indeed, ma’am, the young lady has her father’s mouth and eyebrows, but that acute, sensible expression is yours,—quite yours. Sir Isaac, make a bow to the young lady, and then, sir, go through the sword exercise!”

The dog, put upon his tricks, delighted the children; and the poor actor, though his heart lay in his breast like lead, did his best to repay benevolence by mirth. Finally, much pleased, Mrs. Hartopp took her husband’s arm to depart. The children, on being separated from Sir Isaac, began to cry. The Mayor interrupted his wife,—who, if left to herself, would have scolded them into worse crying,—told Mary Anne that he relied on her strong intellect to console her brother Tom; observed to Tom that it was not like his manly nature to set an example of weeping to his sister; and contrived thus to flatter their tears away in a trice, and sent them forward in a race to the turnstile.

Waife and Sophy were alone in the cottage parlour, Mrs. Gooch, the bailiff’s wife, walking part of the way back with the good couple, in order to show the Mayor a heifer who had lost appetite and taken to moping. “Let us steal out into the back garden, my darling,” said Waife. “I see an arbour there, where I will compose myself with a pipe,—a liberty I should not like to take indoors.” They stepped across the threshold, and gained the arbour, which stood at the extreme end of the small kitchen-garden, and commanded a pleasant view of pastures and cornfields, backed by the blue outline of distant hills. Afar were faintly heard the laugh of the Mayor’s happy children, now and then a tinkling sheep-bell, or the tap of the woodpecker, unrepressed by the hush of the Midmost summer, which stills the more tuneful choristers amidst their coverts. Waife lighted his pipe, and smoked silently; Sophy, resting her head on his bosom, silent also. She was exquisitely sensitive to nature: the quiet beauty of all round her was soothing a spirit lately troubled, and health came stealing gently back through frame and through heart. At length she said softly, “We could be so happy here, Grandfather! It cannot last, can it?”