Jonas had not the slightest intention of doing anything of the sort, and this he conveyed to Sarah in the most bald and offensive manner possible. For twenty years, ever since the father's death, these miserable bickerings had gone on. Sally had not the sense to desist, where the pursuit of the topic could avail nothing, nor Jonas the kindliness to make her a present which might moderate her sense of having been unjustly treated.
He had been obliged to employ his sister, and yet he suspected, not without cause, that she took away from his house such scraps of food and pots and pipkins as were not likely to be missed. The woman justified her conduct to herself by the argument that she was inadequately paid in coin, and that she was forced to pilfer in order to recoup herself for the outlay of time and muscle in her brother's habitation. Thomas Rocliffe was a quiet, harmless old man, crushed not only by the derision which had clung to him like a robe of Nessus ever since his escapade with the Countess Charlotte, but also by the weight of his wife's tongue. He had sought peace by non-resistance, and this had encouraged her to violence, and had removed the only possible check to her temper. He was not a clever man. Most people thought him soft. His son Samuel was stupid and sullen, rendered both by his mother's treatment from infancy. Thomas had not sufficient intelligence and spontaneity to make a struggle to overcome his embarrassments, and force himself a way out of his difficulties. Instead of the debt that hampered him being gradually reduced, as it might have been by a man with energy, it had increased. Nothing had been spent on the house since the debt had been first contracted, and it was not water-tight. Nothing had been done to the land to dress it, to increase the stock, to open up another spring of revenue. When a bad year came the family fell into actual distress. When a good year ensued no margin was left to serve as a provision for one less favorable.
Mehetabel, pleased that her husband had put no hindrance in the way of a christening feast, had begrudged none of the necessary expense, was active and skilful in the preparation of cakes and pies.
To the church she had to go, so as to be churched immediately before the baptism, and Jonas remained at home, as he said, to see that no one broke in and carried off the good things. Never, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant of the Punch-Bowl; never, it may safely be asserted, since the Punch-Bowl had been formed, had there been seen a table so spread as that in the Kink's farmhouse on the day of the christening, and whilst the party was at the church. In the first place the table had on it a clean linen cover, not riddled with holes nor spotted with iron mould. It was exceptional for any table in the Punch-Bowl to be spread with linen. There stood on it plated and red earthenware dishes, and on the latter many good things. At one end was a cold rabbit pie. Rabbits were, indeed, a glut in Thursley, but such a pie was a phenomenon.
Bideabout's mind was exercised over it. He was curious to know whether the interior corresponded to the promise without. He inserted a knife and lifted the crust just sufficiently to allow him to project his nose to the edge of the dish and inhale the savor of the contents. "My word!" said he, "there's stuffin'. Rabbit and stuffin'. Wot next—and egg. I can see the glimmer of the white and yaller."
He rose from his stooping posture and saw Samuel Rocliffe at the window.
He beckoned to him to enter, and then showed him the table. "Did you ever see the likes?" he asked. "You ain't invited, Sam, but you can look over it all. There's a posy of flowers in the middle of the table, genteel like, as if it were a public house dinner to a club, and look at this pie. Do you see how crinkled it is all round, like the frill of your mother's nightcap? That was done with the scissors, and there's a gloss over the top. That were effected with white o' egg. Just think of that! using white o' egg when eggs is eighteen a shilling, for making the pie shine like your face o' Sundays after you've yaller-soaped it. There's stuffin' inside."
"I wish there were in my inside," said Samuel, surlily.
"You ain't invited. Do you see that thing all of a trimble over there, a sort of pale ornamental cooriosity? That's called a blue-mange. It's made of isinglass and milk and rice flour. It's not for ornament, but to be eaten, by such as is invited. There they come! You cut away. If you was a few years older, we might have invited you. But there ain't room for boys."
The unfortunate Samuel sulkily retired, casting envious eyes at the more favored denizens of the Punch-Bowl who were arriving to partake of the viands only shown to him.