Middlemarch

Mr Featherstone’s face required its whole scale of grimaces as a muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.

Fred felt himself to be in a disgusting dilemma.

‘You must be joking, sir. Mr Bulstrode, like other men, believes scores of things that are not true, and he has a prejudice against me. I could easily get him to write that he knew no facts in proof of the report you speak of, though it might lead to unpleasantness. But I could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe about me.’ Fred paused an instant, and then added, in politic appeal to his uncle’s vanity, ‘That is hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask.’

But he was disappointed in the result.

‘Ay, I know what you mean. You’d sooner offend me than Bulstrode. And what’s he?—he’s got no land hereabout that ever I heard tell of. A speckilating fellow! He may come down any day, when the devil leaves off backing him. And that’s what his religion means; he wants God A’mighty to come in. That’s nonsense! There’s one thing I made out pretty clear when I used to go to church—and it’s this: God A’mighty sticks to the land. He promises land, and He gives land, and He makes chaps rich with corn and cattle. But you take the other side. You like Bulstrode and speckilation better than Featherstone and land.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Fred, rising, standing with his back to the fire and beating his boot with his whip. ‘I like neither Bulstrode nor speculation.’ He spoke rather sulkily, feeling himself stalemated.

‘Well, well, you can do without me, that’s pretty clear,’ said old Featherstone, secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show himself at all independent. ‘You neither want a bit of land to make a squire of you instead of a starving parson, nor a lift of a hundred pound by the way. It’s all one to me. I can make five codicils if I like, and I shall keep my bank-notes for a nest egg. It’s all one to me.’

Fred coloured again. Featherstone had rarely given him presents of money, and at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the immediate prospect of bank-notes than with the more distant prospect of the land.

‘I am not ungrateful, sir. I never meant to show disregard for any kind intentions you might have towards me. On the contrary.’

‘Very good. Then prove it. You bring me a letter from Bulstrode saying he doesn’t believe you’ve been cracking and promising to pay your debts out of my land, and then, if there’s any scrape you’ve got into, we’ll see if I can’t back you a bit. Come now! That’s a bargain. Here, give me your arm. I’ll try and walk round the room.’

Fred, in spite of his irritation, had kindness enough in him to be a little sorry for the unloved, unvenerated old man, who with his dropsical legs looked more than usually pitiable in walking. While giving his arm, he thought that he should not himself like to be an old fellow with his constitution breaking up; and he waited good-temperedly, first before the window to hear the wonted remarks about the guinea-fowls and the weathercock, and then before the scanty bookshelves, of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus, Culpepper, Klopstock’s Messiah, and several volumes of the Gentleman’s Magazine.

‘Read me the names o’ the books. Come now! you’re a college man.’

Fred gave him the titles.

‘What did missy want with more books? What must you be bringing her more books for?’

‘They amuse her, sir. She is very fond of reading.’

‘A little too fond,’ said Mr Featherstone, captiously, ‘She was for reading when she sat with me. But I put a stop to that. She’s got the newspaper to read out loud. That’s enough for one day, I should think. I can’t abide to see her reading to herself. You mind and not bring her any more books, do you hear?’

‘Yes, sir, I hear.’ Fred had received this order before, and had secretly disobeyed it. He intended to disobey it again.

‘Ring the bell,’ said Mr Featherstone; ‘I want missy to come down.’

Rosamond and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends. They did not think of sitting down, but stood at the toilet-table near the window while Rosamond took off her hat, adjusted her veil, and applied little touches of her finger-tips to her hair—hair of infantine fairness, neither flaxen nor yellow. Mary Garth seemed all the plainer standing at an angle between the two nymphs—the one in the glass, and the one out of it, who looked at each other with eyes of heavenly blue, deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an ingenious beholder could put into them, and deep enough to hide the meanings of the owner if these should happen to be less exquisite. Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blond by the side of Rosamond, and the slim figure displayed by her riding-habit had delicate undulations. In fact, most men in Middlemarch, except her brothers, held that Miss Vincy was the best girl in the world, and some called her an angel. Mary Garth, on the contrary, had the aspect of an ordinary sinner: she was brown; her curly dark hair was rough and stubborn; her stature was low; and it would not be true to declare, in satisfactory antithesis, that she had all the virtues. Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty; it is apt either to feign amiability, or, not feigning it, to show all the repulsiveness of discontent: at any rate, to be called an ugly thing in contrast with that lovely creature your companion, is apt to produce some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase. At the age of two-and-twenty Mary had certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl, as if they were to be obtained in quantities ready mixed, with a flavour of resignation as required. Her shrewdness had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed and never carried utterly out of sight, except by a strong current of gratitude towards those who, instead of telling her that she ought to be contented, did something to make her so. Advancing womanhood had tempered her plainness, which was of a good human sort, such as the mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes under a more or less becoming headgear. Rembrandt would have painted her with pleasure, and would have made her broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty. For honesty, truth-telling fairness, was Mary’s reigning virtue: she neither tried to create illusions, nor indulged in them for her own behoof, and when she was in a good mood she had humour enough in her to laugh at herself. When she and Rosamond happened both to be reflected in the glass, she said, laughingly—

‘What a brown patch I am by the side of you, Rosy! You are the most unbecoming companion.’

‘Oh no! No one thinks of your appearance, you are so sensible and useful, Mary. Beauty is of very little consequence in reality,’ said Rosamond, turning her head towards Mary, but with eyes swerving towards the new view of her neck in the glass.

‘You mean my beauty,’ said Mary, rather sardonically.

Rosamond thought, ‘Poor Mary, she takes the kindest things ill.’ Aloud she said, ‘What have you been doing lately?’

‘I? Oh, minding the house—pouring out syrup—pretending to be amiable and contented—learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.’

‘It is a wretched life for you.’

‘No,’ said Mary, curtly, with a little toss of her head. ‘I think my life is pleasanter than your Miss Morgan’s.’

‘Yes, but Miss Morgan is so uninteresting, and not young.’

‘She is interesting to herself, I suppose; and I am not at all sure that everything gets easier as one gets older.’

‘No.’ said Rosamond, reflectively; ‘one wonders what such people do, without any prospect. To be sure, there is religion as a support. But,’ she added, dimpling, ‘it is very different with you, Mary. You may have an offer.’

‘Has any one told you he means to make me one?’

‘Of course not. I mean, there is a gentleman who may fall in love with you, seeing you almost every day.’

A certain change in Mary’s face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show any change.

‘Does that always make people fall in love?’ she answered, carelessly; ‘it seems to me quite as often a reason for detesting each other.’

‘Not when they are interesting and agreeable. I hear that Mr Lydgate is both.’

‘Oh, Mr Lydgate!’ said Mary, with an unmistakable lapse into indifference. ‘You want to know something about him.’ she added, not choosing to indulge Rosamond’s indirectness.

‘Merely, how you like him.’

‘There is no question of liking him at present. My liking always wants some little kindness to kindle it. I am not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to see me.’

‘Is he so haughty?’ said Rosamond, with heightened satisfaction. ‘You know that he is of good family?’

‘No; he did not give that as a reason.’

‘Mary! you are the oddest girl. But what sort of looking man is he? Describe him to me.’

‘How can one describe a man? I can give you an inventory: heavy eyebrows, dark eyes, a straight nose, thick dark hair, large solid white hands—and—let me see—oh, an exquisite cambric pocket-handkerchief. But you will see him. You know this is about the time of his visits.’

Rosamond blushed a little, but said, meditatively, ‘I rather like a haughty manner. I cannot endure a rattling young man.’

‘I did not tell you that Mr Lydgate was haughty; but il y en a pour tous les gôuts, as little Mamselle used to say, and if any girl can choose the particular sort of conceit she would like, I should think it is you, Rosy.’

‘Haughtiness is not conceit; I call Fred conceited.’

‘I wish no one said any worse of him. He should be more careful. Mrs Waule has been telling uncle that Fred is very unsteady.’ Mary spoke from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgment. There was a vague uneasiness associated with the word ‘unsteady’ which she hoped Rosamond might say something to dissipate. But she purposely abstained from mentioning Mrs Waule’s more special insinuation.

‘Oh, Fred is horrid!’ said Rosamond. She would not have allowed herself so unsuitable a word to any one but Mary.

‘What do you mean by horrid?’

‘He is so idle, and makes papa so angry, and says he will not take orders.’

‘I think Fred is quite right.’

‘How can you say he is quite right, Mary? I thought you had more sense of religion.’