Middlemarch
costume, and our general preference for the best style of thing. Fred
felt sure that he should have a present from his uncle, that he should
have a run of luck, that by dint of “swapping” he should gradually
metamorphose a horse worth forty pounds into a horse that would fetch a
hundred at any moment—“judgment” being always equivalent to an
unspecified sum in hard cash. And in any case, even supposing negations
which only a morbid distrust could imagine, Fred had always (at that
time) his father’s pocket as a last resource, so that his assets of
hopefulness had a sort of gorgeous superfluity about them. Of what
might be the capacity of his father’s pocket, Fred had only a vague
notion: was not trade elastic? And would not the deficiencies of one
year be made up for by the surplus of another? The Vincys lived in an
easy profuse way, not with any new ostentation, but according to the
family habits and traditions, so that the children had no standard of
economy, and the elder ones retained some of their infantine notion
that their father might pay for anything if he would. Mr. Vincy himself
had expensive Middlemarch habits—spent money on coursing, on his
cellar, and on dinner-giving, while mamma had those running accounts
with tradespeople, which give a cheerful sense of getting everything
one wants without any question of payment. But it was in the nature of
fathers, Fred knew, to bully one about expenses: there was always a
little storm over his extravagance if he had to disclose a debt, and
Fred disliked bad weather within doors. He was too filial to be
disrespectful to his father, and he bore the thunder with the certainty
that it was transient; but in the mean time it was disagreeable to see
his mother cry, and also to be obliged to look sulky instead of having
fun; for Fred was so good-tempered that if he looked glum under
scolding, it was chiefly for propriety’s sake. The easier course
plainly, was to renew the bill with a friend’s signature. Why not? With
the superfluous securities of hope at his command, there was no reason
why he should not have increased other people’s liabilities to any
extent, but for the fact that men whose names were good for anything
were usually pessimists, indisposed to believe that the universal order
of things would necessarily be agreeable to an agreeable young
gentleman.
With a favor to ask we review our list of friends, do justice to their
more amiable qualities, forgive their little offenses, and concerning
each in turn, try to arrive at the conclusion that he will be eager to
oblige us, our own eagerness to be obliged being as communicable as
other warmth. Still there is always a certain number who are dismissed
as but moderately eager until the others have refused; and it happened
that Fred checked off all his friends but one, on the ground that
applying to them would be disagreeable; being implicitly convinced that
he at least (whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) had
a right to be free from anything disagreeable. That he should ever fall
into a thoroughly unpleasant position—wear trousers shrunk with
washing, eat cold mutton, have to walk for want of a horse, or to “duck
under” in any sort of way—was an absurdity irreconcilable with those
cheerful intuitions implanted in him by nature. And Fred winced under
the idea of being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts.
Thus it came to pass that the friend whom he chose to apply to was at
once the poorest and the kindest—namely, Caleb Garth.
The Garths were very fond of Fred, as he was of them; for when he and
Rosamond were little ones, and the Garths were better off, the slight
connection between the two families through Mr. Featherstone’s double
marriage (the first to Mr. Garth’s sister, and the second to Mrs.
Vincy’s) had led to an acquaintance which was carried on between the
children rather than the parents: the children drank tea together out
of their toy teacups, and spent whole days together in play. Mary was a
little hoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girl in
the world, making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cut from
an umbrella. Through all the stages of his education he had kept his
affection for the Garths, and his habit of going to their house as a
second home, though any intercourse between them and the elders of his
family had long ceased. Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, the
Vincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for there
were nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though old
manufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none but
equals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which was
defined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressible
theoretically. Since then Mr. Garth had failed in the building
business, which he had unfortunately added to his other avocations of
surveyor, valuer, and agent, had conducted that business for a time
entirely for the benefit of his assignees, and had been living
narrowly, exerting himself to the utmost that he might after all pay
twenty shillings in the pound. He had now achieved this, and from all
who did not think it a bad precedent, his honorable exertions had won
him due esteem; but in no part of the world is genteel visiting founded
on esteem, in the absence of suitable furniture and complete
dinner-service. Mrs. Vincy had never been at her ease with Mrs. Garth,
and frequently spoke of her as a woman who had had to work for her
bread—meaning that Mrs. Garth had been a teacher before her marriage;
in which case an intimacy with Lindley Murray and Mangnall’s Questions
was something like a draper’s discrimination of calico trademarks, or a
courier’s acquaintance with foreign countries: no woman who was better
off needed that sort of thing. And since Mary had been keeping Mr.
Featherstone’s house, Mrs. Vincy’s want of liking for the Garths had
been converted into something more positive, by alarm lest Fred should
engage himself to this plain girl, whose parents “lived in such a small
way.” Fred, being aware of this, never spoke at home of his visits to
Mrs. Garth, which had of late become more frequent, the increasing
ardor of his affection for Mary inclining him the more towards those
who belonged to her.
Mr. Garth had a small office in the town, and to this Fred went with
his request. He obtained it without much difficulty, for a large amount
of painful experience had not sufficed to make Caleb Garth cautious
about his own affairs, or distrustful of his fellow-men when they had
not proved themselves untrustworthy; and he had the highest opinion of
Fred, was “sure the lad would turn out well—an open affectionate
fellow, with a good bottom to his character—you might trust him for
anything.” Such was Caleb’s psychological argument. He was one of those
rare men who are rigid to themselves and indulgent to others. He had a
certain shame about his neighbors’ errors, and never spoke of them
willingly; hence he was not likely to divert his mind from the best
mode of hardening timber and other ingenious devices in order to
preconceive those errors. If he had to blame any one, it was necessary
for him to move all the papers within his reach, or describe various
diagrams with his stick, or make calculations with the odd money in his
pocket, before he could begin; and he would rather do other men’s work
than find fault with their doing. I fear he was a bad disciplinarian.
When Fred stated the circumstances of his debt, his wish to meet it
without troubling his father, and the certainty that the money would be
forthcoming so as to cause no one any inconvenience, Caleb pushed his
spectacles upward, listened, looked into his favorite’s clear young
eyes, and believed him, not distinguishing confidence about the future
from veracity about the past; but he felt that it was an occasion for a
friendly hint as to conduct, and that before giving his signature he
must give a rather strong admonition. Accordingly, he took the paper
and lowered his spectacles, measured the space at his command, reached
his pen and examined it, dipped it in the ink and examined it again,
then pushed the paper a little way from him, lifted up his spectacles
again, showed a deepened depression in the outer angle of his bushy
eyebrows, which gave his face a peculiar mildness (pardon these details
for once—you would have learned to love them if you had known Caleb
Garth), and said in a comfortable tone,—
“It was a misfortune, eh, that breaking the horse’s knees? And then,
these exchanges, they don’t answer when you have ’cute jockeys to deal
with. You’ll be wiser another time, my boy.”
Whereupon Caleb drew down his spectacles, and proceeded to write his
signature with the care which he always gave to that performance; for
whatever he did in the way of business he did well. He contemplated the
large well-proportioned letters and final flourish, with his head a
trifle on one side for an instant, then handed it to Fred, said
“Good-by,” and returned forthwith to his absorption in a plan for Sir
James Chettam’s new farm-buildings.
Either because his interest in this work thrust the incident of the
signature from his memory, or for some reason of which Caleb was more
conscious, Mrs. Garth remained ignorant of the affair.
Since it occurred, a change had come over Fred’s sky, which altered his
view of the distance, and was the reason why his uncle Featherstone’s
present of money was of importance enough to make his color come and
go, first with a too definite expectation, and afterwards with a
proportionate disappointment. His failure in passing his examination,
had made his accumulation of college debts the more unpardonable by his
father, and there had been an unprecedented storm at home. Mr. Vincy
had sworn that if he had anything more of that sort to put up with,
Fred should turn out and get his living how he could; and he had never
yet quite recovered his good-humored tone to his son, who had
especially enraged him by saying at this stage of things that he did
not want to be a clergyman, and would rather not “go on with that.”
Fred was conscious that he would have been yet more severely dealt with
if his family as well as himself had not secretly regarded him as Mr.
Featherstone’s heir; that old gentleman’s pride in him, and apparent
fondness for him, serving in the stead of more exemplary conduct—just
as when a youthful nobleman steals jewellery we call the act
kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of
his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy
who had stolen turnips. In fact, tacit expectations of what would be
done for him by uncle Featherstone determined the angle at which most
people viewed Fred Vincy in Middlemarch; and in his own consciousness,
what uncle Featherstone would do for him in an emergency, or what he
would do simply as an incorporated luck, formed always an immeasurable
depth of aerial perspective. But that present of bank-notes, once made,
was measurable, and being applied to the amount of the debt, showed a
deficit which had still to be filled up either by Fred’s “judgment” or
by luck in some other shape. For that little episode of the alleged
borrowing, in which he had made his father the agent in getting the
Bulstrode certificate, was a new reason against going to his father for
money towards meeting his actual debt. Fred was keen enough to foresee
that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his denial of having
borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle’s will would be taken
as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him one vexatious
affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the complete