Of course there was poverty and a good deal of rheumatism among the older inhabitants, but on the whole the periodic outbursts of industrial discontent and unrest that convulsed other parts of England seemed to pass Redmarley by.
Had the Manor stood empty or the vicar been a poor man with a large family, doubtless things would have been uncomfortable enough to stir the villagers out of their habitual philosophic acceptance of the "rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate" as an inevitable and immutable law. But they couldn't actively dislike either squire or parson, and although the agricultural labourer is slow of speech he is not lacking in shrewdness, and those at Redmarley realised that things would be much worse than they were if Squire and Parson were suddenly eliminated.
Hilary Ffolliot liked the rôle of landed proprietor in the abstract. He would not have let the Manor and lived elsewhere for the world. He went regularly to church on Sunday morning, though it bored him extremely, because, like Major Pendennis, he thought that "when a gentleman is sur ses terres he must give an example to the country people." Had he been starving he would not have sold a single rood of Redmarley land to assuage his hunger. Similarly he would himself have done without a great many things rather than let any of his people go hungry. But it was only because they were his people, part of the state and circumstance of Redmarley. He didn't care for them a bit as individuals. Any intercourse with the peasantry was irksome to him. Dialect afflicted him. He had nothing to say to them, and they were stricken dumb in his awe-inspiring presence. He was well content to have few personal dealings with those, who, in his own mind, he thought of as his "retainers." He left everything of that sort to his wife.
It was the same with the children. He looked upon them as a concession to Marjory's liking for that sort of thing: and by "that sort of thing" he meant his wife's enthusiastic interest in her fellow-creatures.
To be sure he was pleased that there should be no question as to a direct heir . . . but . . . six of them was really rather a nuisance. Children were like peasantry, inclined to be awkward and uncouth, crude in thought and word and deed; apt to be sticky unless fresh from the hands of nurse; in summer nearly always hot, frequently dirty, and certainly always noisy, with, moreover, a distinct leaning towards low company and a plainly manifest discomfort in his own.
He was proud of them because they were Ffolliots, and because they were tall and straight and handsome (how wisely he had chosen their mother!), and he supposed that some day, when they became more civilised, he would be able to take some pleasure in their society. Even the two eldest, Grantly and Mary, wearied him. He could never seem to find any topic of mutual interest, except Redmarley itself, and then they always introduced irrelevant matter relating to the inhabitants that he had no desire to hear.
Had Marjory, his wife, grown plain and anxious during her twenty years of married life, it is probable she would have bored him too. But she kept her hold upon him because she was not only the most beautiful woman he knew, but she satisfied his artistic sensibilities all round. She was full of individuality and quick-witted decision. Long ago she had made up her mind that it was quite impossible to alter him, but she was equally assured as to her perfect right to differ from him in every possible way. He quite fell in with this view of the situation; so long as he was allowed unchallenged to be as stiff and stand-off and unapproachable as he pleased, he was well content that she should be extraordinarily sympathetic, gracious, and gay. It pleased him that the "retainers" should adore her and come to her in their troubles and difficulties; that she should be constantly surrounded by her children; that she should be in great request at every social gathering in the county.
Did it happen that his need of her clashed with the children's, and that just then she considered theirs was the stronger claim, he was annoyed; but apart from that he approved of her devotion to them. Somebody must look after the children; and it was not in his line.
So many things were not in his line.
One day, early in their married life, with unusual want of tact,
Marjory had asked him what his line was.