Chapter Chapter 14 · 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 humors 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 favor 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.