Mr. Garth was not at the office, and Fred rode on to his house, which
was a little way outside the town--a homely place with an orchard in
front of it, a rambling, old-fashioned, half-timbered building, which
before the town had spread had been a farm-house, but was now
surrounded with the private gardens of the townsmen. We get the fonder
of our houses if they have a physiognomy of their own, as our friends
have. The Garth family, which was rather a large one, for Mary had
four brothers and one sister, were very fond of their old house, from
which all the best furniture had long been sold. Fred liked it too,
knowing it by heart even to the attic which smelt deliciously of apples
and quinces, and until to-day he had never come to it without pleasant
expectations; but his heart beat uneasily now with the sense that he
should probably have to make his confession before Mrs. Garth, of whom
he was rather more in awe than of her husband. Not that she was
inclined to sarcasm and to impulsive sallies, as Mary was. In her
present matronly age at least, Mrs. Garth never committed herself by
over-hasty speech; having, as she said, borne the yoke in her youth,
and learned self-control. She had that rare sense which discerns what
is unalterable, and submits to it without murmuring. Adoring her
husband's virtues, she had very early made up her mind to his
incapacity of minding his own interests, and had met the consequences
cheerfully. She had been magnanimous enough to renounce all pride in
teapots or children's frilling, and had never poured any pathetic
confidences into the ears of her feminine neighbors concerning Mr.
Garth's want of prudence and the sums he might have had if he had been
like other men. Hence these fair neighbors thought her either proud or
eccentric, and sometimes spoke of her to their husbands as "your fine
Mrs. Garth." She was not without her criticism of them in return, being
more accurately instructed than most matrons in Middlemarch, and--where
is the blameless woman?--apt to be a little severe towards her own sex,
which in her opinion was framed to be entirely subordinate. On the
other hand, she was disproportionately indulgent towards the failings
of men, and was often heard to say that these were natural. Also, it
must be admitted that Mrs. Garth was a trifle too emphatic in her
resistance to what she held to be follies: the passage from governess
into housewife had wrought itself a little too strongly into her
consciousness, and she rarely forgot that while her grammar and accent
were above the town standard, she wore a plain cap, cooked the family
dinner, and darned all the stockings. She had sometimes taken pupils
in a peripatetic fashion, making them follow her about in the kitchen
with their book or slate. She thought it good for them to see that she
could make an excellent lather while she corrected their blunders
"without looking,"--that a woman with her sleeves tucked up above her
elbows might know all about the Subjunctive Mood or the Torrid
Zone--that, in short, she might possess "education" and other good
things ending in "tion," and worthy to be pronounced emphatically,
without being a useless doll. When she made remarks to this edifying
effect, she had a firm little frown on her brow, which yet did not
hinder her face from looking benevolent, and her words which came forth
like a procession were uttered in a fervid agreeable contralto.
Certainly, the exemplary Mrs. Garth had her droll aspects, but her
character sustained her oddities, as a very fine wine sustains a flavor
of skin.