MIDDLEMARCH
PART 7
BOOK
II.
OLD AND
YOUNG.
CHAPTER
XIII.
1st Gent. How class your man?—as
better than the most,
Or, seeming better,
worse beneath that cloak?
As saint or knave,
pilgrim or hypocrite?
2d Gent. Nay, tell me how you class your wealth of
books
The drifted relics
of all time.
As well sort them at
once by size and livery:
Vellum, tall copies,
and the common calf
Will hardly cover
more diversity
Than all your labels
cunningly devised
To class your unread
authors.
In
consequence of what he had heard from Fred, Mr. Vincy determined to speak with
Mr. Bulstrode in his private room at the Bank at half-past one, when he was
usually free from other callers. But a visitor had come in at one o'clock, and
Mr. Bulstrode had so much to say to him, that there was little chance of the
interview being over in half an hour. The banker's speech was fluent, but it
was also copious, and he used up an appreciable amount of time in brief
meditative pauses. Do not imagine his sickly aspect to have been of the yellow,
black-haired sort: he had a pale blond skin, thin gray-besprinkled brown hair,
light-gray eyes, and a large forehead. Loud men called his subdued tone an
undertone, and sometimes implied that it was inconsistent with openness; though
there seems to be no reason why a loud man should not be given to concealment
of anything except his own voice, unless it can be shown that Holy Writ has
placed the seat of candour in the lungs. Mr. Bulstrode had also a deferential
bending attitude in listening, and an apparently fixed attentiveness in his
eyes which made those persons who thought themselves worth hearing infer that
he was seeking the utmost improvement from their discourse. Others, who
expected to make no great figure, disliked this kind of moral lantern turned on
them. If you are not proud of your cellar, there is no thrill of satisfaction
in seeing your guest hold up his wine-glass to the light and look judicial.
Such joys are reserved for conscious merit. Hence Mr. Bulstrode's close
attention was not agreeable to the publicans and sinners in Middlemarch; it was
attributed by some to his being a Pharisee, and by others to his being
Evangelical. Less superficial reasoners among them wished to know who his
father and grandfather were, observing that five-and-twenty years ago nobody
had ever heard of a Bulstrode in Middlemarch. To his present visitor, Lydgate,
the scrutinizing look was a matter of indifference: he simply formed an
unfavorable opinion of the banker's constitution, and concluded that he had an
eager inward life with little enjoyment of tangible things.
"I
shall be exceedingly obliged if you will look in on me here occasionally, Mr.
Lydgate," the banker observed, after a brief pause. "If, as I dare to
hope, I have the privilege of finding you a valuable coadjutor in the
interesting matter of hospital management, there will be many questions which
we shall need to discuss in private. As to the new hospital, which is nearly
finished, I shall consider what you have said about the advantages of the
special destination for fevers. The decision will rest with me, for though Lord
Medlicote has given the land and timber for the building, he is not disposed to
give his personal attention to the object."
"There
are few things better worth the pains in a provincial town like this,"
said Lydgate. "A fine fever hospital in addition to the old infirmary
might be the nucleus of a medical school here, when once we get our medical
reforms; and what would do more for medical education than the spread of such
schools over the country? A born provincial man who has a grain of public
spirit as well as a few ideas, should do what he can to resist the rush of
everything that is a little better than common towards London. Any valid
professional aims may often find a freer, if not a richer field, in the
provinces."
One of
Lydgate's gifts was a voice habitually deep and sonorous, yet capable of
becoming very low and gentle at the right moment. About his ordinary bearing
there was a certain fling, a fearless expectation of success, a confidence in
his own powers and integrity much fortified by contempt for petty obstacles or
seductions of which he had had no experience. But this proud openness was made
lovable by an expression of unaffected good-will. Mr. Bulstrode perhaps liked
him the better for the difference between them in pitch and manners; he
certainly liked him the better, as Rosamond did, for being a stranger in
Middlemarch. One can begin so many things with a new person!—even begin to be a
better man.
"I
shall rejoice to furnish your zeal with fuller opportunities," Mr.
Bulstrode answered; "I mean, by confiding to you the superintendence of my
new hospital, should a maturer knowledge favour that issue, for I am determined
that so great an object shall not be shackled by our two physicians. Indeed, I
am encouraged to consider your advent to this town as a gracious indication
that a more manifest blessing is now to be awarded to my efforts, which have
hitherto been much with stood. With regard to the old infirmary, we have gained
the initial point—I mean your election. And now I hope you will not shrink from
incurring a certain amount of jealousy and dislike from your professional
brethren by presenting yourself as a reformer."
"I
will not profess bravery," said Lydgate, smiling, "but I acknowledge
a good deal of pleasure in fighting, and I should not care for my profession,
if I did not believe that better methods were to be found and enforced there as
well as everywhere else."
"The
standard of that profession is low in Middlemarch, my dear sir," said the
banker. "I mean in knowledge and skill; not in social status, for our
medical men are most of them connected with respectable townspeople here. My
own imperfect health has induced me to give some attention to those palliative
resources which the divine mercy has placed within our reach. I have consulted
eminent men in the metropolis, and I am painfully aware of the backwardness
under which medical treatment labors in our provincial districts."
"Yes;—with
our present medical rules and education, one must be satisfied now and then to
meet with a fair practitioner. As to all the higher questions which determine
the starting-point of a diagnosis—as to the philosophy of medical evidence—any
glimmering of these can only come from a scientific culture of which country
practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon."
Mr.
Bulstrode, bending and looking intently, found the form which Lydgate had given
to his agreement not quite suited to his comprehension. Under such
circumstances a judicious man changes the topic and enters on ground where his
own gifts may be more useful.
"I
am aware," he said, "that the peculiar bias of medical ability is
towards material means. Nevertheless, Mr. Lydgate, I hope we shall not vary in
sentiment as to a measure in which you are not likely to be actively concerned,
but in which your sympathetic concurrence may be an aid to me. You recognize, I
hope; the existence of spiritual interests in your patients?"
"Certainly
I do. But those words are apt to cover different meanings to different
minds."
"Precisely.
And on such subjects wrong teaching is as fatal as no teaching. Now a point
which I have much at heart to secure is a new regulation as to clerical
attendance at the old infirmary. The building stands in Mr. Farebrother's
parish. You know Mr. Farebrother?"
"I
have seen him. He gave me his vote. I must call to thank him. He seems a very
bright pleasant little fellow. And I understand he is a naturalist."
"Mr.
Farebrother, my dear sir, is a man deeply painful to contemplate. I suppose
there is not a clergyman in this country who has greater talents." Mr.
Bulstrode paused and looked meditative.
"I
have not yet been pained by finding any excessive talent in Middlemarch,"
said Lydgate, bluntly.
"What
I desire," Mr. Bulstrode continued, looking still more serious, "is
that Mr. Farebrother's attendance at the hospital should be superseded by the
appointment of a chaplain—of Mr. Tyke, in fact—and that no other spiritual aid
should be called in."
"As
a medical man I could have no opinion on such a point unless I knew Mr. Tyke,
and even then I should require to know the cases in which he was applied."
Lydgate smiled, but he was bent on being circumspect.
"Of
course you cannot enter fully into the merits of this measure at present.
But"—here Mr. Bulstrode began to speak with a more chiselled
emphasis—"the subject is likely to be referred to the medical board of the
infirmary, and what I trust I may ask of you is, that in virtue of the
cooperation between us which I now look forward to, you will not, so far as you
are concerned, be influenced by my opponents in this matter."
"I
hope I shall have nothing to do with clerical disputes," said Lydgate.
"The path I have chosen is to work well in my own profession."
"My
responsibility, Mr. Lydgate, is of a broader kind. With me, indeed, this
question is one of sacred accountableness; whereas with my opponents, I have
good reason to say that it is an occasion for gratifying a spirit of worldly
opposition. But I shall not therefore drop one iota of my convictions, or cease
to identify myself with that truth which an evil generation hates. I have
devoted myself to this object of hospital-improvement, but I will boldly
confess to you, Mr. Lydgate, that I should have no interest in hospitals if I
believed that nothing more was concerned therein than the cure of mortal
diseases. I have another ground of action, and in the face of persecution I
will not conceal it."
Mr.
Bulstrode's voice had become a loud and agitated whisper as he said the last
words.
"There
we certainly differ," said Lydgate. But he was not sorry that the door was
now opened, and Mr. Vincy was announced. That florid sociable personage was
become more interesting to him since he had seen Rosamond. Not that, like her,
he had been weaving any future in which their lots were united; but a man
naturally remembers a charming girl with pleasure, and is willing to dine where
he may see her again. Before he took leave, Mr. Vincy had given that invitation
which he had been "in no hurry about," for Rosamond at breakfast had
mentioned that she thought her uncle Featherstone had taken the new doctor into
great favor.
Mr.
Bulstrode, alone with his brother-in-law, poured himself out a glass of water,
and opened a sandwich-box.
"I
cannot persuade you to adopt my regimen, Vincy?"
"No,
no; I've no opinion of that system. Life wants padding," said Mr. Vincy,
unable to omit his portable theory. "However," he went on, accenting
the word, as if to dismiss all irrelevance, "what I came here to talk
about was a little affair of my young scapegrace, Fred's."
"That
is a subject on which you and I are likely to take quite as different views as
on diet, Vincy."
"I
hope not this time." (Mr. Vincy was resolved to be good-humoured.)
"The fact is, it's about a whim of old Featherstone's. Somebody has been
cooking up a story out of spite, and telling it to the old man, to try to set
him against Fred. He's very fond of Fred, and is likely to do something
handsome for him; indeed he has as good as told Fred that he means to leave him
his land, and that makes other people jealous."
"Vincy,
I must repeat, that you will not get any concurrence from me as to the course
you have pursued with your eldest son. It was entirely from worldly vanity that
you destined him for the Church: with a family of three sons and four
daughters, you were not warranted in devoting money to an expensive education
which has succeeded in nothing but in giving him extravagant idle habits. You
are now reaping the consequences."
To point
out other people's errors was a duty that Mr. Bulstrode rarely shrank from, but
Mr. Vincy was not equally prepared to be patient. When a man has the immediate
prospect of being mayor, and is ready, in the interests of commerce, to take up
a firm attitude on politics generally, he has naturally a sense of his
importance to the framework of things which seems to throw questions of private
conduct into the background. And this particular reproof irritated him more
than any other. It was eminently superfluous to him to be told that he was
reaping the consequences. But he felt his neck under Bulstrode's yoke; and
though he usually enjoyed kicking, he was anxious to refrain from that relief.
"As
to that, Bulstrode, it's no use going back. I'm not one of your pattern men,
and I don't pretend to be. I couldn't foresee everything in the trade; there
wasn't a finer business in Middlemarch than ours, and the lad was clever. My
poor brother was in the Church, and would have done well—had got preferment
already, but that stomach fever took him off: else he might have been a dean by
this time. I think I was justified in what I tried to do for Fred. If you come
to religion, it seems to me a man shouldn't want to carve out his meat to an
ounce beforehand:—one must trust a little to Providence and be generous. It's a
good British feeling to try and raise your family a little: in my opinion, it's
a father's duty to give his sons a fine chance."
"I
don't wish to act otherwise than as your best friend, Vincy, when I say that
what you have been uttering just now is one mass of worldliness and
inconsistent folly."
"Very
well," said Mr. Vincy, kicking in spite of resolutions, "I never
professed to be anything but worldly; and, what's more, I don't see anybody
else who is not worldly. I suppose you don't conduct business on what you call
unworldly principles. The only difference I see is that one worldliness is a
little bit honester than another."
"This
kind of discussion is unfruitful, Vincy," said Mr. Bulstrode, who,
finishing his sandwich, had thrown himself back in his chair, and shaded his
eyes as if weary. "You had some more particular business."
"Yes,
yes. The long and short of it is, somebody has told old Featherstone, giving
you as the authority, that Fred has been borrowing or trying to borrow money on
the prospect of his land. Of course you never said any such nonsense. But the
old fellow will insist on it that Fred should bring him a denial in your
handwriting; that is, just a bit of a note saying you don't believe a word of
such stuff, either of his having borrowed or tried to borrow in such a fool's
way. I suppose you can have no objection to do that."
"Pardon
me. I have an objection. I am by no means sure that your son, in his
recklessness and ignorance—I will use no severer word—has not tried to raise
money by holding out his future prospects, or even that some one may not have
been foolish enough to supply him on so vague a presumption: there is plenty of
such lax money-lending as of other folly in the world."
"But
Fred gives me his honour that he has never borrowed money on the pretence of
any understanding about his uncle's land. He is not a liar. I don't want to
make him better than he is. I have blown him up well—nobody can say I wink at
what he does. But he is not a liar. And I should have thought—but I may be
wrong—that there was no religion to hinder a man from believing the best of a
young fellow, when you don't know worse. It seems to me it would be a poor sort
of religion to put a spoke in his wheel by refusing to say you don't believe
such harm of him as you've got no good reason to believe."
"I
am not at all sure that I should be befriending your son by smoothing his way
to the future possession of Featherstone's property. I cannot regard wealth as
a blessing to those who use it simply as a harvest for this world. You do not
like to hear these things, Vincy, but on this occasion I feel called upon to
tell you that I have no motive for furthering such a disposition of property as
that which you refer to. I do not shrink from saying that it will not tend to
your son's eternal welfare or to the glory of God. Why then should you expect
me to pen this kind of affidavit, which has no object but to keep up a foolish
partiality and secure a foolish bequest?"
"If
you mean to hinder everybody from having money but saints and evangelists, you
must give up some profitable partnerships, that's all I can say," Mr.
Vincy burst out very bluntly. "It may be for the glory of God, but it is
not for the glory of the Middlemarch trade, that Plymdale's house uses those
blue and green dyes it gets from the Brassing manufactory; they rot the silk,
that's all I know about it. Perhaps if other people knew so much of the profit
went to the glory of God, they might like it better. But I don't mind so much
about that—I could get up a pretty row, if I chose."
Mr.
Bulstrode paused a little before he answered. "You pain me very much by
speaking in this way, Vincy. I do not expect you to understand my grounds of
action—it is not an easy thing even to thread a path for principles in the
intricacies of the world—still less to make the thread clear for the careless
and the scoffing. You must remember, if you please, that I stretch my tolerance
towards you as my wife's brother, and that it little becomes you to complain of
me as withholding material help towards the worldly position of your family. I
must remind you that it is not your own prudence or judgment that has enabled
you to keep your place in the trade."
"Very
likely not; but you have been no loser by my trade yet," said Mr. Vincy,
thoroughly nettled (a result which was seldom much retarded by previous
resolutions). "And when you married Harriet, I don't see how you could
expect that our families should not hang by the same nail. If you've changed
your mind, and want my family to come down in the world, you'd better say so.
I've never changed; I'm a plain Churchman now, just as I used to be before
doctrines came up. I take the world as I find it, in trade and everything else.
I'm contented to be no worse than my neighbors. But if you want us to come down
in the world, say so. I shall know better what to do then."
"You
talk unreasonably. Shall you come down in the world for want of this letter
about your son?"
"Well,
whether or not, I consider it very unhandsome of you to refuse it. Such doings
may be lined with religion, but outside they have a nasty, dog-in-the-manger
look. You might as well slander Fred: it comes pretty near to it when you
refuse to say you didn't set a slander going. It's this sort of thing—this
tyrannical spirit, wanting to play bishop and banker everywhere—it's this sort
of thing makes a man's name stink."
"Vincy,
if you insist on quarrelling with me, it will be exceedingly painful to Harriet
as well as myself," said Mr. Bulstrode, with a trifle more eagerness and
paleness than usual.
"I
don't want to quarrel. It's for my interest—and perhaps for yours too—that we
should be friends. I bear you no grudge; I think no worse of you than I do of
other people. A man who half starves himself, and goes the length in family
prayers, and so on, that you do, believes in his religion whatever it may be:
you could turn over your capital just as fast with cursing and swearing:—plenty
of fellows do. You like to be master, there's no denying that; you must be
first chop in heaven, else you won't like it much. But you're my sister's
husband, and we ought to stick together; and if I know Harriet, she'll consider
it your fault if we quarrel because you strain at a gnat in this way, and
refuse to do Fred a good turn. And I don't mean to say I shall bear it well. I
consider it unhandsome."
Mr. Vincy
rose, began to button his great-coat, and looked steadily at his
brother-in-law, meaning to imply a demand for a decisive answer.
This was
not the first time that Mr. Bulstrode had begun by admonishing Mr. Vincy, and
had ended by seeing a very unsatisfactory reflection of himself in the coarse
unflattering mirror which that manufacturer's mind presented to the subtler
lights and shadows of his fellow-men; and perhaps his experience ought to have
warned him how the scene would end. But a full-fed fountain will be generous
with its waters even in the rain, when they are worse than useless; and a fine
fount of admonition is apt to be equally irrepressible.
It was
not in Mr. Bulstrode's nature to comply directly in consequence of
uncomfortable suggestions. Before changing his course, he always needed to
shape his motives and bring them into accordance with his habitual standard. He
said, at last—
"I
will reflect a little, Vincy. I will mention the subject to Harriet. I shall
probably send you a letter."
"Very
well. As soon as you can, please. I hope it will all be settled before I see
you to-morrow."
CHAPTER
XIV.
"Follows here the strict
receipt
For that sauce to dainty meat,
Named Idleness, which many eat
By preference, and call it sweet:
First watch for morsels, like a
hound
Mix well with buffets, stir them
round
With good thick oil of flatteries,
And froth with mean self-lauding
lies.
Serve warm: the vessels you must
choose
To keep it in are dead men's
shoes."
Mr.
Bulstrode's consultation of Harriet seemed to have had the effect desired by
Mr. Vincy, for early the next morning a letter came which Fred could carry to
Mr. Featherstone as the required testimony.
The old
gentleman was staying in bed on account of the cold weather, and as Mary Garth
was not to be seen in the sitting-room, Fred went up-stairs immediately and
presented the letter to his uncle, who, propped up comfortably on a bed-rest,
was not less able than usual to enjoy his consciousness of wisdom in
distrusting and frustrating mankind. He put on his spectacles to read the
letter, pursing up his lips and drawing down their corners.
"Under
the circumstances I will not decline to state my conviction—tchah! what fine
words the fellow puts! He's as fine as an auctioneer—that your son Frederic has
not obtained any advance of money on bequests promised by Mr.
Featherstone—promised? who said I had ever promised? I promise nothing—I shall
make codicils as long as I like—and that considering the nature of such a
proceeding, it is unreasonable to presume that a young man of sense and
character would attempt it—ah, but the gentleman doesn't say you are a young
man of sense and character, mark you that, sir!—As to my own concern with any
report of such a nature, I distinctly affirm that I never made any statement to
the effect that your son had borrowed money on any property that might accrue
to him on Mr. Featherstone's demise—bless my heart! 'property'—accrue—demise!
Lawyer Standish is nothing to him. He couldn't speak finer if he wanted to
borrow. Well," Mr. Featherstone here looked over his spectacles at Fred,
while he handed back the letter to him with a contemptuous gesture, "you
don't suppose I believe a thing because Bulstrode writes it out fine, eh?"
Fred
colored. "You wished to have the letter, sir. I should think it very
likely that Mr. Bulstrode's denial is as good as the authority which told you
what he denies."
"Every
bit. I never said I believed either one or the other. And now what d' you
expect?" said Mr. Featherstone, curtly, keeping on his spectacles, but
withdrawing his hands under his wraps.
"I
expect nothing, sir." Fred with difficulty restrained himself from venting
his irritation. "I came to bring you the letter. If you like I will bid
you good morning."
"Not
yet, not yet. Ring the bell; I want missy to come."
It was a
servant who came in answer to the bell.
"Tell
missy to come!" said Mr. Featherstone, impatiently. "What business
had she to go away?" He spoke in the same tone when Mary came.
"Why
couldn't you sit still here till I told you to go? I want my waistcoat now. I
told you always to put it on the bed."
Mary's
eyes looked rather red, as if she had been crying. It was clear that Mr.
Featherstone was in one of his most snappish humours this morning, and though
Fred had now the prospect of receiving the much-needed present of money, he
would have preferred being free to turn round on the old tyrant and tell him
that Mary Garth was too good to be at his beck. Though Fred had risen as she
entered the room, she had barely noticed him, and looked as if her nerves were
quivering with the expectation that something would be thrown at her. But she
never had anything worse than words to dread. When she went to reach the
waistcoat from a peg, Fred went up to her and said, "Allow me."
"Let
it alone! You bring it, missy, and lay it down here," said Mr.
Featherstone. "Now you go away again till I call you," he added, when
the waistcoat was laid down by him. It was usual with him to season his
pleasure in showing favour to one person by being especially disagreeable to
another, and Mary was always at hand to furnish the condiment. When his own
relatives came she was treated better. Slowly he took out a bunch of keys from
the waistcoat pocket, and slowly he drew forth a tin box which was under the
bed-clothes.
"You
expect I am going to give you a little fortune, eh?" he said, looking
above his spectacles and pausing in the act of opening the lid.
"Not
at all, sir. You were good enough to speak of making me a present the other
day, else, of course, I should not have thought of the matter." But Fred
was of a hopeful disposition, and a vision had presented itself of a sum just
large enough to deliver him from a certain anxiety. When Fred got into debt, it
always seemed to him highly probable that something or other—he did not
necessarily conceive what—would come to pass enabling him to pay in due time.
And now that the providential occurrence was apparently close at hand, it would
have been sheer absurdity to think that the supply would be short of the need:
as absurd as a faith that believed in half a miracle for want of strength to
believe in a whole one.
The deep-veined
hands fingered many bank-notes-one after the other, laying them down flat
again, while Fred leaned back in his chair, scorning to look eager. He held
himself to be a gentleman at heart, and did not like courting an old fellow for
his money. At last, Mr. Featherstone eyed him again over his spectacles and
presented him with a little sheaf of notes: Fred could see distinctly that
there were but five, as the less significant edges gaped towards him. But then,
each might mean fifty pounds. He took them, saying—
"I
am very much obliged to you, sir," and was going to roll them up without
seeming to think of their value. But this did not suit Mr. Featherstone, who
was eying him intently.
"Come,
don't you think it worth your while to count 'em? You take money like a lord; I
suppose you lose it like one."
"I
thought I was not to look a gift-horse in the mouth, sir. But I shall be very
happy to count them."
Fred was
not so happy, however, after he had counted them. For they actually presented
the absurdity of being less than his hopefulness had decided that they must be.
What can the fitness of things mean, if not their fitness to a man's
expectations? Failing this, absurdity and atheism gape behind him. The collapse
for Fred was severe when he found that he held no more than five twenties, and
his share in the higher education of this country did not seem to help him.
Nevertheless he said, with rapid changes in his fair complexion—
"It
is very handsome of you, sir."
"I
should think it is," said Mr. Featherstone, locking his box and replacing
it, then taking off his spectacles deliberately, and at length, as if his
inward meditation had more deeply convinced him, repeating, "I should
think it handsome."
"I
assure you, sir, I am very grateful," said Fred, who had had time to
recover his cheerful air.
"So
you ought to be. You want to cut a figure in the world, and I reckon Peter
Featherstone is the only one you've got to trust to." Here the old man's
eyes gleamed with a curiously mingled satisfaction in the consciousness that
this smart young fellow relied upon him, and that the smart young fellow was
rather a fool for doing so.
"Yes,
indeed: I was not born to very splendid chances. Few men have been more cramped
than I have been," said Fred, with some sense of surprise at his own
virtue, considering how hardly he was dealt with. "It really seems a
little too bad to have to ride a broken-winded hunter, and see men, who, are
not half such good judges as yourself, able to throw away any amount of money
on buying bad bargains."
"Well,
you can buy yourself a fine hunter now. Eighty pound is enough for that, I
reckon—and you'll have twenty pound over to get yourself out of any little
scrape," said Mr. Featherstone, chuckling slightly.
"You
are very good, sir," said Fred, with a fine sense of contrast between the
words and his feeling.
"Ay,
rather a better uncle than your fine uncle Bulstrode. You won't get much out of
his spekilations, I think. He's got a pretty strong string round your father's
leg, by what I hear, eh?"
"My
father never tells me anything about his affairs, sir."
"Well,
he shows some sense there. But other people find 'em out without his telling. He'll
never have much to leave you: he'll most-like die without a will—he's the sort
of man to do it—let 'em make him mayor of Middlemarch as much as they like. But
you won't get much by his dying without a will, though you are the
eldest son."
Fred
thought that Mr. Featherstone had never been so disagreeable before. True, he
had never before given him quite so much money at once.
"Shall
I destroy this letter of Mr. Bulstrode's, sir?" said Fred, rising with the
letter as if he would put it in the fire.
"Ay,
ay, I don't want it. It's worth no money to me."
Fred
carried the letter to the fire, and thrust the poker through it with much zest.
He longed to get out of the room, but he was a little ashamed before his inner
self, as well as before his uncle, to run away immediately after pocketing the
money. Presently, the farm-bailiff came up to give his master a report, and
Fred, to his unspeakable relief, was dismissed with the injunction to come
again soon.
He had
longed not only to be set free from his uncle, but also to find Mary Garth. She
was now in her usual place by the fire, with sewing in her hands and a book
open on the little table by her side. Her eyelids had lost some of their
redness now, and she had her usual air of self-command.
"Am
I wanted up-stairs?" she said, half rising as Fred entered.
"No;
I am only dismissed, because Simmons is gone up."
Mary sat
down again, and resumed her work. She was certainly treating him with more
indifference than usual: she did not know how affectionately indignant he had
felt on her behalf up-stairs.
"May
I stay here a little, Mary, or shall I bore you?"
"Pray
sit down," said Mary; "you will not be so heavy a bore as Mr. John
Waule, who was here yesterday, and he sat down without asking my leave."
"Poor
fellow! I think he is in love with you."
"I
am not aware of it. And to me it is one of the most odious things in a girl's
life, that there must always be some supposition of falling in love coming between
her and any man who is kind to her, and to whom she is grateful. I should have
thought that I, at least, might have been safe from all that. I have no ground
for the nonsensical vanity of fancying everybody who comes near me is in love
with me."
Mary did
not mean to betray any feeling, but in spite of herself she ended in a
tremulous tone of vexation.
"Confound
John Waule! I did not mean to make you angry. I didn't know you had any reason
for being grateful to me. I forgot what a great service you think it if any one
snuffs a candle for you." Fred also had his pride, and was not going to
show that he knew what had called forth this outburst of Mary's.
"Oh,
I am not angry, except with the ways of the world. I do like to be spoken to as
if I had common-sense. I really often feel as if I could understand a little
more than I ever hear even from young gentlemen who have been to college."
Mary had recovered, and she spoke with a suppressed rippling under-current of
laughter pleasant to hear.
"I
don't care how merry you are at my expense this morning," said Fred,
"I thought you looked so sad when you came up-stairs. It is a shame you
should stay here to be bullied in that way."
"Oh,
I have an easy life—by comparison. I have tried being a teacher, and I am not
fit for that: my mind is too fond of wandering on its own way. I think any
hardship is better than pretending to do what one is paid for, and never really
doing it. Everything here I can do as well as any one else could; perhaps
better than some—Rosy, for example. Though she is just the sort of beautiful
creature that is imprisoned with ogres in fairy tales."
"Rosy!"
cried Fred, in a tone of profound brotherly scepticism.
"Come,
Fred!" said Mary, emphatically; "you have no right to be so
critical."
"Do
you mean anything particular—just now?"
"No,
I mean something general—always."
"Oh,
that I am idle and extravagant. Well, I am not fit to be a poor man. I should
not have made a bad fellow if I had been rich."
"You
would have done your duty in that state of life to which it has not pleased God
to call you," said Mary, laughing.
"Well,
I couldn't do my duty as a clergyman, any more than you could do yours as a
governess. You ought to have a little fellow-feeling there, Mary."
"I
never said you ought to be a clergyman. There are other sorts of work. It seems
to me very miserable not to resolve on some course and act accordingly."
"So
I could, if—" Fred broke off, and stood up, leaning against the
mantel-piece.
"If
you were sure you should not have a fortune?"
"I
did not say that. You want to quarrel with me. It is too bad of you to be
guided by what other people say about me."
"How
can I want to quarrel with you? I should be quarrelling with all my new
books," said Mary, lifting the volume on the table. "However naughty
you may be to other people, you are good to me."
"Because
I like you better than any one else. But I know you despise me."
"Yes,
I do—a little," said Mary, nodding, with a smile.
"You
would admire a stupendous fellow, who would have wise opinions about
everything."
"Yes,
I should." Mary was sewing swiftly, and seemed provokingly mistress of the
situation. When a conversation has taken a wrong turn for us, we only get
farther and farther into the swamp of awkwardness. This was what Fred Vincy
felt.
"I
suppose a woman is never in love with any one she has always known—ever since
she can remember; as a man often is. It is always some new fellow who strikes a
girl."
"Let
me see," said Mary, the corners of her mouth curling archly; "I must
go back on my experience. There is Juliet—she seems an example of what you say.
But then Ophelia had probably known Hamlet a long while; and Brenda Troil—she
had known Mordaunt Merton ever since they were children; but then he seems to
have been an estimable young man; and Minna was still more deeply in love with
Cleveland, who was a stranger. Waverley was new to Flora MacIvor; but then she
did not fall in love with him. And there are Olivia and Sophia Primrose, and
Corinne—they may be said to have fallen in love with new men. Altogether, my
experience is rather mixed."
Mary
looked up with some roguishness at Fred, and that look of hers was very dear to
him, though the eyes were nothing more than clear windows where observation sat
laughingly. He was certainly an affectionate fellow, and as he had grown from
boy to man, he had grown in love with his old playmate, notwithstanding that
share in the higher education of the country which had exalted his views of
rank and income.
"When
a man is not loved, it is no use for him to say that he could be a better
fellow—could do anything—I mean, if he were sure of being loved in
return."
"Not
of the least use in the world for him to say he could be better. Might,
could, would—they are contemptible auxiliaries."
"I
don't see how a man is to be good for much unless he has some one woman to love
him dearly."
"I
think the goodness should come before he expects that."
"You
know better, Mary. Women don't love men for their goodness."
"Perhaps
not. But if they love them, they never think them bad."
"It
is hardly fair to say I am bad."
"I
said nothing at all about you."
"I
never shall be good for anything, Mary, if you will not say that you love me—if
you will not promise to marry me—I mean, when I am able to marry."
"If
I did love you, I would not marry you: I would certainly not promise ever to
marry you."
"I
think that is quite wicked, Mary. If you love me, you ought to promise to marry
me."
"On
the contrary, I think it would be wicked in me to marry you even if I did love
you."
"You
mean, just as I am, without any means of maintaining a wife. Of course: I am
but three-and-twenty."
"In
that last point you will alter. But I am not so sure of any other alteration.
My father says an idle man ought not to exist, much less, be married."
"Then
I am to blow my brains out?"
"No;
on the whole I should think you would do better to pass your examination. I
have heard Mr. Farebrother say it is disgracefully easy."
"That
is all very fine. Anything is easy to him. Not that cleverness has anything to
do with it. I am ten times cleverer than many men who pass."
"Dear
me!" said Mary, unable to repress her sarcasm; "that accounts for the
curates like Mr. Crowse. Divide your cleverness by ten, and the quotient—dear
me!—is able to take a degree. But that only shows you are ten times more idle
than the others."
"Well,
if I did pass, you would not want me to go into the Church?"
"That
is not the question—what I want you to do. You have a conscience of your own, I
suppose. There! there is Mr. Lydgate. I must go and tell my uncle."
"Mary,"
said Fred, seizing her hand as she rose; "if you will not give me some
encouragement, I shall get worse instead of better."
"I
will not give you any encouragement," said Mary, reddening. "Your
friends would dislike it, and so would mine. My father would think it a
disgrace to me if I accepted a man who got into debt, and would not work!"
Fred was
stung, and released her hand. She walked to the door, but there she turned and
said: "Fred, you have always been so good, so generous to me. I am not
ungrateful. But never speak to me in that way again."
"Very
well," said Fred, sulkily, taking up his hat and whip. His complexion
showed patches of pale pink and dead white. Like many a plucked idle young
gentleman, he was thoroughly in love, and with a plain girl, who had no money!
But having Mr. Featherstone's land in the background, and a persuasion that,
let Mary say what she would, she really did care for him, Fred was not utterly
in despair.
When he
got home, he gave four of the twenties to his mother, asking her to keep them
for him. "I don't want to spend that money, mother. I want it to pay a
debt with. So keep it safe away from my fingers."
"Bless
you, my dear," said Mrs. Vincy. She doted on her eldest son and her
youngest girl (a child of six), whom others thought her two naughtiest
children. The mother's eyes are not always deceived in their partiality: she at
least can best judge who is the tender, filial-hearted child. And Fred was
certainly very fond of his mother. Perhaps it was his fondness for another
person also that made him particularly anxious to take some security against
his own liability to spend the hundred pounds. For the creditor to whom he owed
a hundred and sixty held a firmer security in the shape of a bill signed by
Mary's father.
To be continued
