CHAPTER XII

MORNING CALLS

‘Well—­I suppose we must.’ 
Friends in Council.

Mr. Thornton had had some difficulty in working up his mother to the desired point of civility.  She did not often make calls; and when she did, it was in heavy state that she went through her duties.  Her son had given her a carriage; but she refused to let him keep horses for it; they were hired for the solemn occasions, when she paid morning or evening visits.  She had had horses for three days, not a fortnight before, and had comfortably ’killed off’ all her acquaintances, who might now put themselves to trouble and expense in their turn.  Yet Crampton was too far off for her to walk; and she had repeatedly questioned her son as to whether his wish that she should call on the Hales was strong enough to bear the expense of cab-hire.  She would have been thankful if it had not; for, as she said, ’she saw no use in making up friendships and intimacies with all the teachers and masters in Milton; why, he would be wanting her to call on Fanny’s dancing-master’s wife, the next thing!’

’And so I would, mother, if Mr. Mason and his wife were friend less in a strange place, like the Hales.’

’Oh! you need not speak so hastily.  I am going to-morrow.  I only wanted you exactly to understand about it.’

‘If you are going to-morrow, I shall order horses.’

‘Nonsense, John.  One would think you were made of money.’

’Not quite, yet.  But about the horses I’m determined.  The last time you were out in a cab, you came home with a headache from the jolting.’

‘I never complained of it, I’m sure.’

‘No.  My mother is not given to complaints,’ said he, a little proudly.  ’But so much the more I have to watch over you.  Now as for Fanny there, a little hardship would do her good.’

’She is not made of the same stuff as you are, John.  She could not bear it.’  Mrs. Thornton was silent after this; for her last words bore relation to a subject which mortified her.  She had an unconscious contempt for a weak character; and Fanny was weak in the very points in which her mother and brother were strong.  Mrs. Thornton was not a woman much given to reasoning; her quick judgment and firm resolution served her in good stead of any long arguments and discussions with herself; she felt instinctively that nothing could strengthen Fanny to endure hardships patiently, or face difficulties bravely; and though she winced as she made this acknowledgment to herself about her daughter, it only gave her a kind of pitying tenderness of manner towards her; much of the same description of demeanour with which mothers are wont to treat their weak and sickly children.  A stranger, a careless observer might have considered that Mrs. Thornton’s manner to her children betokened far more love to Fanny than to John.