Middlemarch

‘Eggs, no! Bring me a grilled bone.’

‘Really, Fred,’ said Rosamond, when the servant had left the room, ‘if you must have hot things for breakfast, I wish you would come down earlier. You can get up at six o’clock to go out hunting; I cannot understand why you find it so difficult to get up on other mornings.’

‘That is your want of understanding, Rosy. I can get up to go hunting because I like it.’

‘What would you think of me if I came down two hours after every one else and ordered grilled bone?’

‘I should think you were an uncommonly fast young lady,’ said Fred, eating his toast with the utmost composure.

‘I cannot see why brothers are to make themselves disagreeable, any more than sisters.’

‘I don’t make myself disagreeable; it is you who find me so. Disagreeable is a word that describes your feelings and not my actions.’

‘I think it describes the smell of grilled bone.’

‘Not at all. It describes a sensation in your little nose associated with certain finicking notions which are the classics of Mrs Lemon’s school. Look at my mother: you don’t see her objecting to everything except what she does herself. She is my notion of a pleasant woman.’

‘Bless you both, my dears, and don’t quarrel,’ said Mrs Vincy, with motherly cordiality. ‘Come, Fred, tell us all about the new doctor. How is your uncle pleased with him?’

‘Pretty well, I think. He asks Lydgate all sorts of questions and then screws up his face while he hears the answers, as if they were pinching his toes. That’s his way. Ah, here comes my grilled bone.’

‘But how came you to stay out so late, my dear? You only said you were going to your uncle’s.’

‘Oh, I dined at Plymdale’s. We had whist. Lydgate was there too.’

‘And what do you think of him? He is very gentlemanly, I suppose. They say he is of excellent family—his relations quite county people.’

‘Yes,’ said Fred, ‘There was a Lydgate at John’s who spent no end of money. I find this man is a second cousin of his. But rich men may have very poor devils for second cousins.’

‘It always makes a difference, though, to be of good family,’ said Rosamond, with a tone of decision which showed that she had thought on this subject. Rosamond felt that she might have been happier if she had not been the daughter of a Middlemarch manufacturer. She disliked anything which reminded her that her mother’s father had been an innkeeper. Certainly any one remembering the fact might think that Mrs Vincy had the air of a very handsome good-humoured landlady, accustomed to the most capricious orders of gentlemen.

‘I thought it was odd his name was Tertius,’ said the bright-faced matron, ‘but of course it’s a name in the family. But now, tell us exactly what sort of man he is.’

‘Oh, tallish, dark, clever-talks well—rather a prig, I think.’

‘I never can make out what you mean by a prig,’ said Rosamond.

‘A fellow who wants to show that he has opinions.’

‘Why, my dear, doctors must have opinions,’ said Mrs Vincy. ‘What are they there for else?’

‘Yes, mother, the opinions they are paid for. But a prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions.’

‘I suppose Mary Garth admires Mr Lydgate,’ said Rosamond, not without a touch of innuendo.

‘Really, I can’t say,’ said Fred, rather glumly, as he left the table, and taking up a novel which he had brought down with him, threw himself into an armchair. ‘If you are jealous of her, go oftener to Stone Court yourself and eclipse her.’

‘I wish you would not be so vulgar, Fred. If you have finished, pray ring the bell.’

‘It is true, though—what your brother says, Rosamond,’ Mrs Vincy began, when the servant had cleared the table. ‘It is a thousand pities you haven’t patience to go and see your uncle more, so proud of you as he is, and wanted you to live with him. There’s no knowing what he might have done for you as well as for Fred. God knows, I’m fond of having you at home with me, but I can part with my children for their good. And now it stands to reason that your uncle Featherstone will do something for Mary Garth.’

‘Mary Garth can bear being at Stone Court, because she likes that better than being a governess,’ said Rosamond, folding up her work. ‘I would rather not have anything left to me if I must earn it by enduring much of my uncle’s cough and his ugly relations.’

‘He can’t be long for this world, my dear; I wouldn’t hasten his end, but what with asthma and that inward complaint, let us hope there is something better for him in another. And I have no ill-will towards Mary Garth, but there’s justice to be thought of. And Mr Featherstone’s first wife brought him no money, as my sister did. Her nieces and nephews can’t have so much claim as my sister’s. And I must say I think Mary Garth a dreadful plain girl—more fit for a governess.’

‘Every one would not agree with you there, mother,’ said Fred, who seemed to be able to read and listen too.

‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs Vincy, wheeling skilfully, ‘if she had some fortune left her,—a man marries his wife’s relations, and the Garths are so poor, and live in such a small way. But I shall leave you to your studies, my dear; for I must go and do some shopping.’

‘Fred’s studies are not very deep,’ said Rosamond, rising with her mamma, ‘he is only reading a novel.’

‘Well, well, by-and-by he’ll go to his Latin and things,’ said Mrs Vincy, soothingly, stroking her son’s head. ‘There’s a fire in the smoking-room on purpose. It’s your father’s wish, you know—Fred, my dear—and I always tell him you will be good, and go to college again to take your degree.’

Fred drew his mother’s hand down to his lips, but said nothing.

‘I suppose you are not going out riding to-day?’ said Rosamond, lingering a little after her mamma was gone.

‘Papa says I may have the chestnut to ride now.’

‘You can go with me to-morrow, if you like. Only I am going to Stone Court, remember.’

‘I want the ride so much, it is indifferent to me where we go.’ Rosamond really wished to go to Stone Court, of all other places.

‘Oh, I say, Rosy,’ said Fred, as she was passing out of the room, ‘if you are going to the piano, let me come and play some airs with you.’

‘Pray do not ask me this morning.’

‘Why not this morning?’

‘Really, Fred, I wish you would leave off playing the flute. A man looks very silly playing the flute. And you play so out of tune.’

‘When next any one makes love to you, Miss Rosamond, I will tell how obliging you are’

‘Why should you expect me to oblige you by hearing you play the flute, any more than I should expect you to oblige me by not playing it?’

‘And why should you expect me to take you out riding?’

This question led to an adjustment, for Rosamond had set her mind on that particular ride.

So Fred was gratified with nearly an hour’s practice of ‘Ar hyd y nos,’ ‘Ye banks and braes,’ and other favourite airs from his Instructor on the Flute; a wheezy performance, into which he threw much ambition and an irrepressible hopefulness.

CHAPTER 12 (#ulink_ead24625-eba9-5198-8b81-e488f37a0202)

‘He had more tow on his distaffe

Than Gerveis knew.’

—Chaucer.