The heresy about foolish women is always punished, I have said, and Lord Hermiston began to pay the penalty at once.His house in George Square was wretchedly ill-guided; nothing answerable to the expense of maintenance but the cellar, which was his own private care.When things went wrong at dinner, as they continually did, my lord would look up the table at his wife: "I think these broth would be better to sweem in than to sup." Or else to the butler: "Here, M'Killop, awa' wi' this Raadical gigot - tak' it to the French, man, and bring me some puddocks! It seems rather a sore kind of a business that I should be all day in Court haanging Raadicals, and get nawthing to my denner." Of course this was but a manner of speaking, and he had never hanged a man for being a Radical in his life; the law, of which he was the faithful minister, directing otherwise.And of course these growls were in the nature of pleasantry, but it was of a recondite sort; and uttered as they were in his resounding voice, and commented on by that expression which they called in the Parliament House "Hermiston's hanging face" - they struck mere dismay into the wife.She sat before him speechless and fluttering; at each dish, as at a fresh ordeal, her eye hovered toward my lord's countenance and fell again; if he but ate in silence, unspeakable relief was her portion; if there were complaint, the world was darkened.She would seek out the cook, who was always her SISTER INTHE LORD."O, my dear, this is the most dreidful thing that my lord can never be contented in his own house!" she would begin; and weep and pray with the cook; and then the cook would pray with Mrs.Weir; and the next day's meal would never be a penny the better - and the next cook (when she came) would be worse, if anything, but just as pious.It was often wondered that Lord Hermiston bore it as he did; indeed, he was a stoical old voluptuary, contented with sound wine and plenty of it.But there were moments when he overflowed.Perhaps half a dozen times in the history of his married life - "Here! tak' it awa', and bring me a piece bread and kebbuck!" he had exclaimed, with an appalling explosion of his voice and rare gestures.None thought to dispute or to make excuses;the service was arrested; Mrs.Weir sat at the head of the table whimpering without disguise; and his lordship opposite munched his bread and cheese in ostentatious disregard.Once only, Mrs.Weir had ventured to appeal.He was passing her chair on his way into the study.
"O, Edom!" she wailed, in a voice tragic with tears, and reaching out to him both hands, in one of which she held a sopping pocket-handkerchief.
He paused and looked upon her with a face of wrath, into which there stole, as he looked, a twinkle of humour.
"Noansense!" he said."You and your noansense! What do I want with a Christian faim'ly? I want Christian broth! Get me a lass that can plain-boil a potato, if she was a whure off the streets." And with these words, which echoed in her tender ears like blasphemy, he had passed on to his study and shut the door behind him.
Such was the housewifery in George Square.It was better at Hermiston, where Kirstie Elliott, the sister of a neighbouring bonnet-laird, and an eighteenth cousin of the lady's, bore the charge of all, and kept a trim house and a good country table.Kirstie was a woman in a thousand, clean, capable, notable; once a moorland Helen, and still comely as a blood horse and healthy as the hill wind.High in flesh and voice and colour, she ran the house with her whole intemperate soul, in a bustle, not without buffets.Scarce more pious than decency in those days required, she was the cause of many an anxious thought and many a tearful prayer to Mrs.Weir.Housekeeper and mistress renewed the parts of Martha and Mary; and though with a pricking conscience, Mary reposed on Martha's strength as on a rock.Even Lord Hermiston held Kirstie in a particular regard.There were few with whom he unbent so gladly, few whom he favoured with so many pleasantries."Kirstie and me maun have our joke," he would declare in high good-humour, as he buttered Kirstie's scones, and she waited at table.A man who had no need either of love or of popularity, a keen reader of men and of events, there was perhaps only one truth for which he was quite unprepared: he would have been quite unprepared to learn that Kirstie hated him.He thought maid and master were well matched; hard, bandy, healthy, broad Scots folk, without a hair of nonsense to the pair of them.And the fact was that she made a goddess and an only child of the effete and tearful lady; and even as she waited at table her hands would sometimes itch for my lord's ears.
Thus, at least, when the family were at Hermiston, not only my lord, but Mrs.Weir too, enjoyed a holiday.Free from the dreadful looking-for of the miscarried dinner, she would mind her seam, read her piety books, and take her walk (which was my lord's orders), sometimes by herself, sometimes with Archie, the only child of that scarce natural union.The child was her next bond to life.Her frosted sentiment bloomed again, she breathed deep of life, she let loose her heart, in that society.
