Middlemarch
over only a few hundred acres.”
It was seldom that Caleb volunteered so long a speech, but his
happiness had the effect of mountain air: his eyes were bright, and the
words came without effort.
“I congratulate you heartily, Garth,” said the Vicar. “This is the best
sort of news I could have had to carry to Fred Vincy, for he dwelt a
good deal on the injury he had done you in causing you to part with
money—robbing you of it, he said—which you wanted for other purposes. I
wish Fred were not such an idle dog; he has some very good points, and
his father is a little hard upon him.”
“Where is he going?” said Mrs. Garth, rather coldly.
“He means to try again for his degree, and he is going up to study
before term. I have advised him to do that. I don’t urge him to enter
the Church—on the contrary. But if he will go and work so as to pass,
that will be some guarantee that he has energy and a will; and he is
quite at sea; he doesn’t know what else to do. So far he will please
his father, and I have promised in the mean time to try and reconcile
Vincy to his son’s adopting some other line of life. Fred says frankly
he is not fit for a clergyman, and I would do anything I could to
hinder a man from the fatal step of choosing the wrong profession. He
quoted to me what you said, Miss Garth—do you remember it?” (Mr.
Farebrother used to say “Mary” instead of “Miss Garth,” but it was part
of his delicacy to treat her with the more deference because, according
to Mrs. Vincy’s phrase, she worked for her bread.)
Mary felt uncomfortable, but, determined to take the matter lightly,
answered at once, “I have said so many impertinent things to Fred—we
are such old playfellows.”
“You said, according to him, that he would be one of those ridiculous
clergymen who help to make the whole clergy ridiculous. Really, that
was so cutting that I felt a little cut myself.”
Caleb laughed. “She gets her tongue from you, Susan,” he said, with
some enjoyment.
“Not its flippancy, father,” said Mary, quickly, fearing that her
mother would be displeased. “It is rather too bad of Fred to repeat my
flippant speeches to Mr. Farebrother.”
“It was certainly a hasty speech, my dear,” said Mrs. Garth, with whom
speaking evil of dignities was a high misdemeanor. “We should not value
our Vicar the less because there was a ridiculous curate in the next
parish.”
“There’s something in what she says, though,” said Caleb, not disposed
to have Mary’s sharpness undervalued. “A bad workman of any sort makes
his fellows mistrusted. Things hang together,” he added, looking on the
floor and moving his feet uneasily with a sense that words were
scantier than thoughts.
“Clearly,” said the Vicar, amused. “By being contemptible we set men’s
minds to the tune of contempt. I certainly agree with Miss Garth’s view
of the matter, whether I am condemned by it or not. But as to Fred
Vincy, it is only fair he should be excused a little: old
Featherstone’s delusive behavior did help to spoil him. There was
something quite diabolical in not leaving him a farthing after all. But
Fred has the good taste not to dwell on that. And what he cares most
about is having offended you, Mrs. Garth; he supposes you will never
think well of him again.”
“I have been disappointed in Fred,” said Mrs. Garth, with decision.
“But I shall be ready to think well of him again when he gives me good
reason to do so.”
At this point Mary went out of the room, taking Letty with her.
“Oh, we must forgive young people when they’re sorry,” said Caleb,
watching Mary close the door. “And as you say, Mr. Farebrother, there
was the very devil in that old man. Now Mary’s gone out, I must tell
you a thing—it’s only known to Susan and me, and you’ll not tell it
again. The old scoundrel wanted Mary to burn one of the wills the very
night he died, when she was sitting up with him by herself, and he
offered her a sum of money that he had in the box by him if she would
do it. But Mary, you understand, could do no such thing—would not be
handling his iron chest, and so on. Now, you see, the will he wanted
burnt was this last, so that if Mary had done what he wanted, Fred
Vincy would have had ten thousand pounds. The old man did turn to him
at the last. That touches poor Mary close; she couldn’t help it—she was
in the right to do what she did, but she feels, as she says, much as if
she had knocked down somebody’s property and broken it against her
will, when she was rightfully defending herself. I feel with her,
somehow, and if I could make any amends to the poor lad, instead of
bearing him a grudge for the harm he did us, I should be glad to do it.
Now, what is your opinion, sir? Susan doesn’t agree with me; she
says—tell what you say, Susan.”
“Mary could not have acted otherwise, even if she had known what would
be the effect on Fred,” said Mrs. Garth, pausing from her work, and
looking at Mr. Farebrother.
“And she was quite ignorant of it. It seems to me, a loss which falls
on another because we have done right is not to lie upon our
conscience.”
The Vicar did not answer immediately, and Caleb said, “It’s the
feeling. The child feels in that way, and I feel with her. You don’t
mean your horse to tread on a dog when you’re backing out of the way;
but it goes through you, when it’s done.”
“I am sure Mrs. Garth would agree with you there,” said Mr.
Farebrother, who for some reason seemed more inclined to ruminate than
to speak. “One could hardly say that the feeling you mention about Fred
is wrong—or rather, mistaken—though no man ought to make a claim on
such feeling.”
“Well, well,” said Caleb, “it’s a secret. You will not tell Fred.”
“Certainly not. But I shall carry the other good news—that you can
afford the loss he caused you.”
Mr. Farebrother left the house soon after, and seeing Mary in the
orchard with Letty, went to say good-by to her. They made a pretty
picture in the western light which brought out the brightness of the
apples on the old scant-leaved boughs—Mary in her lavender gingham and
black ribbons holding a basket, while Letty in her well-worn nankin
picked up the fallen apples. If you want to know more particularly how
Mary looked, ten to one you will see a face like hers in the crowded
street to-morrow, if you are there on the watch: she will not be among
those daughters of Zion who are haughty, and walk with stretched-out
necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go: let all those pass, and fix
your eyes on some small plump brownish person of firm but quiet
carriage, who looks about her, but does not suppose that anybody is
looking at her. If she has a broad face and square brow, well-marked
eyebrows and curly dark hair, a certain expression of amusement in her
glance which her mouth keeps the secret of, and for the rest features
entirely insignificant—take that ordinary but not disagreeable person
for a portrait of Mary Garth. If you made her smile, she would show you
perfect little teeth; if you made her angry, she would not raise her
voice, but would probably say one of the bitterest things you have ever
tasted the flavor of; if you did her a kindness, she would never forget
it. Mary admired the keen-faced handsome little Vicar in his
well-brushed threadbare clothes more than any man she had had the
opportunity of knowing. She had never heard him say a foolish thing,
though she knew that he did unwise ones; and perhaps foolish sayings
were more objectionable to her than any of Mr. Farebrother’s unwise
doings. At least, it was remarkable that the actual imperfections of
the Vicar’s clerical character never seemed to call forth the same
scorn and dislike which she showed beforehand for the predicted
imperfections of the clerical character sustained by Fred Vincy. These
irregularities of judgment, I imagine, are found even in riper minds
than Mary Garth’s: our impartiality is kept for abstract merit and
demerit, which none of us ever saw. Will any one guess towards which of
those widely different men Mary had the peculiar woman’s
tenderness?—the one she was most inclined to be severe on, or the
contrary?
“Have you any message for your old playfellow, Miss Garth?” said the
Vicar, as he took a fragrant apple from the basket which she held
towards him, and put it in his pocket. “Something to soften down that
harsh judgment? I am going straight to see him.”
“No,” said Mary, shaking her head, and smiling. “If I were to say that
he would not be ridiculous as a clergyman, I must say that he would be
something worse than ridiculous. But I am very glad to hear that he is
going away to work.”
“On the other hand, I am very glad to hear that _you_ are not going
away to work. My mother, I am sure, will be all the happier if you will
come to see her at the vicarage: you know she is fond of having young
people to talk to, and she has a great deal to tell about old times.
You will really be doing a kindness.”
“I should like it very much, if I may,” said Mary. “Everything seems
too happy for me all at once. I thought it would always be part of my
life to long for home, and losing that grievance makes me feel rather
empty: I suppose it served instead of sense to fill up my mind?”
“May I go with you, Mary?” whispered Letty—a most inconvenient child,
who listened to everything. But she was made exultant by having her
chin pinched and her cheek kissed by Mr. Farebrother—an incident which
she narrated to her mother and father.
As the Vicar walked to Lowick, any one watching him closely might have
seen him twice shrug his shoulders. I think that the rare Englishmen
who have this gesture are never of the heavy type—for fear of any
lumbering instance to the contrary, I will say, hardly ever; they have
usually a fine temperament and much tolerance towards the smaller
errors of men (themselves inclusive). The Vicar was holding an inward
dialogue in which he told himself that there was probably something
more between Fred and Mary Garth than the regard of old playfellows,
and replied with a question whether that bit of womanhood were not a
great deal too choice for that crude young gentleman. The rejoinder to
this was the first shrug. Then he laughed at himself for being likely
to have felt jealous, as if he had been a man able to marry, which,
added he, it is as clear as any balance-sheet that I am not. Whereupon
followed the second shrug.
What could two men, so different from each other, see in this “brown
patch,” as Mary called herself? It was certainly not her plainness that
attracted them (and let all plain young ladies be warned against the
dangerous encouragement given them by Society to confide in their want
of beauty). A human being in this aged nation of ours is a very
wonderful whole, the slow creation of long interchanging influences:
and charm is a result of two such wholes, the one loving and the one
loved.
When Mr. and Mrs. Garth were sitting alone, Caleb said, “Susan, guess
what I’m thinking of.”
“The rotation of crops,” said Mrs. Garth, smiling at him, above her
knitting, “or else the back-doors of the Tipton cottages.”
“No,” said Caleb, gravely; “I am thinking that I could do a great turn
for Fred Vincy. Christy’s gone, Alfred will be gone soon, and it will
be five years before Jim is ready to take to business. I shall want
help, and Fred might come in and learn the nature of things and act
under me, and it might be the making of him into a useful man, if he
gives up being a parson. What do you think?”
“I think, there is hardly anything honest that his family would object
to more,” said Mrs. Garth, decidedly.
“What care I about their objecting?” said Caleb, with a sturdiness
which he was apt to show when he had an opinion. “The lad is of age and
must get his bread. He has sense enough and quickness enough; he likes