Mr Brooke’s nieces had resided with him, so that the talking was done in duos and trios more or less inharmonious. There was the newly elected mayor of Middlemarch, who happened to be a manufacturer; the philanthropic banker his brother-in-law, who predominated so much in the town that some called him a Methodist, others a hypocrite, according to the resources of their vocabulary; and there were various professional men. In fact, Mrs Cadwallader said that Brooke was beginning to treat the Middlemarchers, and that she preferred the farmers at the tithe-dinner, who drank her health unpretentiously, and were not ashamed of their grandfathers’ furniture. For in that part of the country, before reform had done its notable part in developing the political consciousness, there was a clearer distinction of ranks and a dimmer distinction of parties; so that Mr Brooke’s miscellaneous invitations seemed to belong to that general laxity which came from his inordinate travel and habit of taking too much in the form of ideas.
Already, as Miss Brooke passed out of the dining-room, opportunity was found for some interjectional “asides”
“A fine woman, Miss Brooke! an uncommonly fine woman, by God!” said Mr Standish, the old lawyer, who had been so long concerned with the landed gentry that he had become landed himself, and used that oath in a deep-mouthed manner as a sort of armorial bearings, stamping the speech of a man who held a good position.
Mr Bulstrode, the banker, seemed to be addressed, but that gentleman disliked coarseness and profanity, and merely bowed. The remark was taken up by Mr Chichely, a middle-aged bachelor and coursing celebrity, who had a complexion something like an Easter egg, a few hairs carefully arranged, and a carriage implying the consciousness of a distinguished appearance.
“Yes, but not my style of woman: I like a woman who lays herself out a little more to please us. There should be a little filigree about a woman—something of the coquette. A man likes a sort of challenge. The more of a dead set she makes at you the better.”
“There’s some truth in that,” said Mr Standish, disposed to be genial. “And, by God, it’s usually the way with them. I suppose it answers some wise ends: Providence made them so, eh, Bulstrode?”
“I should be disposed to refer coquetry to another source,” said Mr Bulstrode. “I should rather refer it to the devil.”
“Ay, to be sure, there should be a little devil in a woman,” said Mr Chichely, whose study of the fair sex seemed to have been detrimental to his theology. “And I like them blond, with a certain gait, and a swan neck. Between ourselves, the mayor’s daughter is more to my taste than Miss Brooke or Miss Celia either. If I were a marrying man I should choose Miss Vincy before either of them.”
“Well, make up, make up,” said Mr Standish, jocosely; “you see the middle-aged fellows carry the day.”
Mr Chichely shook his head with much meaning: he was not going to incur the certainty of being accepted by the woman he would choose.
The Miss Vincy who had the honor of being Mr Chichely’s ideal was of course not present; for Mr Brooke, always objecting to go too far, would not have chosen that his nieces should meet the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer, unless it were on a public occasion. The feminine part of the company included none whom Lady Chettam or Mrs Cadwallader could object to; for Mrs Renfrew, the colonel’s widow, was not only unexceptionable in point of breeding, but also interesting on the ground of her complaint, which puzzled the doctors, and seemed clearly a case wherein the fulness of professional knowledge might need the supplement of quackery. Lady Chettam, who attributed her own remarkable health to home- made bitters united with constant medical attendance, entered with much exercise of the imagination into Mrs Renfrew’s account of symptoms, and into the amazing futility in her case of all strengthening medicines.