Middlemarch

‘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 to 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 neighbours. 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 greatcoat, 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 14 (#ulink_0e33e146-c1f1-51fe-a85f-bebbaf9ca97b)

‘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 upstairs 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 coloured. ‘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’m 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 eyeing 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,—