In the meantime Jack had succeeded in obtaining a few minutes’ talk with Polly, or rather the success had been on Polly’s side, for she had managed the business. On coming out from the brewery Jack had met her in the street, and had been taken home by her. “You might as well come in, Jack,” she had said, “and have a few words with me. You have been talking to father about it, I suppose.”
“Well, I have. He says I am not sufficiently educated. I suppose he wants to get some young man from the colleges.”
“Don’t you be stupid, Jack. You want to have your own way, I suppose.”
“I don’t want him to tell me I’m uneducated. Other men that I’ve heard of ain’t any better off than I am.”
“You mean himself—which isn’t respectful.”
“I’m educated up to doing what I’ve got to do. If you don’t want more, I don’t see what he’s got to do with it.”
“As the times go of course a man should learn more and more. You are not to compare him to yourself; and it isn’t respectful. If you want to say sharp things against him, Jack, you had better give it all up;—for I won’t bear it.”
“I don’t want to say anything sharp.”
“Why can’t you put up with him? He’s not going to have his own way. And he is older than you. And it is he that has got the money. If you care about it—”
“You know I care.”
“Very well. Suppose I do know, and suppose I don’t. I hear you say you do, and that’s all I’ve got to act upon. Do you bide your time if you’ve got the patience, and all will come right. I shan’t at all think so much of you if you can’t bear a few sharp words from him.”
“He may say whatever he pleases.”
“You ain’t educated—not like Dr. Freeborn, and men of that class.”
“What do I want with it?” said he.
“I don’t know that you do want it. At any rate I don’t want it; and that’s what you’ve got to think about at present. You just go on, and let things be as they are. You don’t want to be married in a week’s time.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“At any rate I don’t; and I don’t mean to. This time five years will do very well.”
“Five years! You’ll be an old woman.”
“The fitter for you, who’ll still be three years older. If you’ve patience to wait leave it to me.”
“I haven’t over much patience.”
“Then go your own way and suit yourself elsewhere.”
“Polly, you’re enough to break a man’s heart. You know that I can’t go and suit myself elsewhere. You are all the world to me, Polly.”
“Not half so much as a quarter of malt if you could get your own price for it. A young woman is all very well just as a plaything; but business is business;—isn’t it, Jack?”
“Five years! Fancy telling a fellow that he must wait five years.”
“That’ll do for the present, Jack. I’m not going to keep you here idle all the day. Father will be angry when I tell him that you’ve been here at all.”
“It was you that brought me.”
“Yes, I did. But you’re not to take advantage of that. Now I say, Jack, hands off. I tell you I won’t. I’m not going to be kissed once a week for five years. Well. Mark my words, this is the last time I ever ask you in here. No; I won’t have it. Go away.” Then she succeeded in turning him out of the room and closing the house door behind his back. “I think he’s the best young man I see about anywhere. Father twits him about his education. It’s my belief there’s nothing he can’t do that he’s wanted for. That’s the kind of education a man ought to have. Father says it’s because he’s handsome I like him. It does go a long way, and he is handsome. Father has got ideas of fashion into his head which will send him crazy before he has done with them.” Such was the soliloquy in which Miss Peppercorn indulged as soon as she had been left by her lover.
“Educated! Of course I’m not educated. I can’t talk Latin and Greek as some of those fellows pretend to—though for the matter of that I never heard it. But two and two make four, and ten and ten make twenty. And if a fellow says that it don’t he is trying on some dishonest game. If a fellow understands that, and sticks to it, he has education enough for my business—or for Peppercorn’s either.” Then he walked back to the inn yard where he had left his horse and trap.
As he drove back to Barchester he made up his mind that Polly Peppercorn would be worth waiting for. There was the memory of that kiss upon his lips which had not been made less sweet by the severity of the words which had accompanied it. The words indeed had been severe; but there had been an intention and a purpose about the kiss which had altogether redeemed the words. “She is just one in a thousand, that’s about the truth. And as for waiting for her;—I’ll wait like grim death, only I hope it won’t be necessary!” It was thus he spoke of the lady of his love as he drove himself into the town under Barchester Towers.
V
Dr. Freeborn and Philip Hughes
Things went on at Plumplington without any change for a fortnight—that is without any change
