Middlemarch
But how little we know what would make paradise for our neighbors! We
judge from our own desires, and our neighbors themselves are not always
open enough even to throw out a hint of theirs. The cool and judicious
Joshua Rigg had not allowed his parent to perceive that Stone Court was
anything less than the chief good in his estimation, and he had
certainly wished to call it his own. But as Warren Hastings looked at
gold and thought of buying Daylesford, so Joshua Rigg looked at Stone
Court and thought of buying gold. He had a very distinct and intense
vision of his chief good, the vigorous greed which he had inherited
having taken a special form by dint of circumstance: and his chief good
was to be a moneychanger. From his earliest employment as an errand-boy
in a seaport, he had looked through the windows of the moneychangers as
other boys look through the windows of the pastry-cooks; the
fascination had wrought itself gradually into a deep special passion;
he meant, when he had property, to do many things, one of them being to
marry a genteel young person; but these were all accidents and joys
that imagination could dispense with. The one joy after which his soul
thirsted was to have a money-changer’s shop on a much-frequented quay,
to have locks all round him of which he held the keys, and to look
sublimely cool as he handled the breeding coins of all nations, while
helpless Cupidity looked at him enviously from the other side of an
iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a power enabling
him to master all the knowledge necessary to gratify it. And when
others were thinking that he had settled at Stone Court for life,
Joshua himself was thinking that the moment now was not far off when he
should settle on the North Quay with the best appointments in safes and
locks.
Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg’s sale of his land
from Mr. Bulstrode’s point of view, and he interpreted it as a cheering
dispensation conveying perhaps a sanction to a purpose which he had for
some time entertained without external encouragement; he interpreted it
thus, but not too confidently, offering up his thanksgiving in guarded
phraseology. His doubts did not arise from the possible relations of
the event to Joshua Rigg’s destiny, which belonged to the unmapped
regions not taken under the providential government, except perhaps in
an imperfect colonial way; but they arose from reflecting that this
dispensation too might be a chastisement for himself, as Mr.
Farebrother’s induction to the living clearly was.
This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the sake of
deceiving him: it was what he said to himself—it was as genuinely his
mode of explaining events as any theory of yours may be, if you happen
to disagree with him. For the egoism which enters into our theories
does not affect their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is
satisfied, the more robust is our belief.
However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr. Bulstrode,
hardly fifteen months after the death of Peter Featherstone, had become
the proprietor of Stone Court, and what Peter would say “if he were
worthy to know,” had become an inexhaustible and consolatory subject of
conversation to his disappointed relatives. The tables were now turned
on that dear brother departed, and to contemplate the frustration of
his cunning by the superior cunning of things in general was a cud of
delight to Solomon. Mrs. Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof
that it did not answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the
genuine; and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats said,
“Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so pleased with the
almshouses after all.”
Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the advantage
which her husband’s health was likely to get from the purchase of Stone
Court. Few days passed without his riding thither and looking over some
part of the farm with the bailiff, and the evenings were delicious in
that quiet spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending
forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old garden. One
evening, while the sun was still above the horizon and burning in
golden lamps among the great walnut boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was pausing
on horseback outside the front gate waiting for Caleb Garth, who had
met him by appointment to give an opinion on a question of stable
drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.
Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual frame and more
than usually serene, under the influence of his innocent recreation. He
was doctrinally convinced that there was a total absence of merit in
himself; but that doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when
the sense of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and
revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay, it may be
held with intense satisfaction when the depth of our sinning is but a
measure for the depth of forgiveness, and a clenching proof that we are
peculiar instruments of the divine intention. The memory has as many
moods as the temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama. At this
moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the sunshine were all one with that of
far-off evenings when he was a very young man and used to go out
preaching beyond Highbury. And he would willingly have had that service
of exhortation in prospect now. The texts were there still, and so was
his own facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was interrupted
by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on horseback, and was just
shaking his bridle before starting, when he exclaimed—
“Bless my heart! what’s this fellow in black coming along the lane?
He’s like one of those men one sees about after the races.”
Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the lane, but made no
reply. The comer was our slight acquaintance Mr. Raffles, whose
appearance presented no other change than such as was due to a suit of
black and a crape hat-band. He was within three yards of the horseman
now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face as he
whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr. Bulstrode, and
at last exclaiming:—
“By Jove, Nick, it’s you! I couldn’t be mistaken, though the
five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us both! How are you,
eh? you didn’t expect to see _me_ here. Come, shake us by the hand.” To
say that Mr. Raffles’ manner was rather excited would be only one mode
of saying that it was evening. Caleb Garth could see that there was a
moment of struggle and hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode, but it ended in his
putting out his hand coldly to Raffles and saying—
“I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote country place.”
“Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine,” said Raffles, adjusting
himself in a swaggering attitude. “I came to see him here before. I’m
not so surprised at seeing you, old fellow, because I picked up a
letter—what you may call a providential thing. It’s uncommonly
fortunate I met you, though; for I don’t care about seeing my stepson:
he’s not affectionate, and his poor mother’s gone now. To tell the
truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your address,
for—look here!” Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.
Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger
on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose
acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker’s
life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they
must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity. But Caleb was
peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were
almost absent from his mind; and one of these was curiosity about
personal affairs. Especially if there was anything discreditable to be
found out concerning another man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and
if he had to tell anybody under him that his evil doings were
discovered, he was more embarrassed than the culprit. He now spurred
his horse, and saying, “I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode; I must
be getting home,” set off at a trot.
“You didn’t put your full address to this letter,” Raffles continued.
“That was not like the first-rate man of business you used to be. ‘The
Shrubs,’—they may be anywhere: you live near at hand, eh?—have cut the
London concern altogether—perhaps turned country squire—have a rural
mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is ago! The old lady
must have been dead a pretty long while—gone to glory without the pain
of knowing how poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove! you’re very
pale and pasty, Nick. Come, if you’re going home, I’ll walk by your
side.”
Mr. Bulstrode’s usual paleness had in fact taken an almost deathly hue.
Five minutes before, the expanse of his life had been submerged in its
evening sunshine which shone backward to its remembered morning: sin
seemed to be a question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation
an exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of private
vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and conceptions of the
divine purposes. And now, as if by some hideous magic, this loud red
figure had risen before him in unmanageable solidity—an incorporate
past which had not entered into his imagination of chastisements. But
Mr. Bulstrode’s thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or speak
rashly.
“I was going home,” he said, “but I can defer my ride a little. And you
can, if you please, rest here.”
“Thank you,” said Raffles, making a grimace. “I don’t care now about
seeing my stepson. I’d rather go home with you.”
“Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here no longer. I am
master here now.”
Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of surprise, before
he said, “Well then, I’ve no objection. I’ve had enough walking from
the coach-road. I never was much of a walker, or rider either. What I
like is a smart vehicle and a spirited cob. I was always a little heavy
in the saddle. What a pleasant surprise it must be to you to see me,
old fellow!” he continued, as they turned towards the house. “You don’t
say so; but you never took your luck heartily—you were always thinking
of improving the occasion—you’d such a gift for improving your luck.”
Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and swung his leg in a
swaggering manner which was rather too much for his companion’s
judicious patience.
“If I remember rightly,” Mr. Bulstrode observed, with chill anger, “our
acquaintance many years ago had not the sort of intimacy which you are
now assuming, Mr. Raffles. Any services you desire of me will be the
more readily rendered if you will avoid a tone of familiarity which did
not lie in our former intercourse, and can hardly be warranted by more
than twenty years of separation.”
“You don’t like being called Nick? Why, I always called you Nick in my
heart, and though lost to sight, to memory dear. By Jove! my feelings
have ripened for you like fine old cognac. I hope you’ve got some in
the house now. Josh filled my flask well the last time.”
Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the desire for cognac
was not stronger in Raffles than the desire to torment, and that a hint
of annoyance always served him as a fresh cue. But it was at least
clear that further objection was useless, and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving
orders to the housekeeper for the accommodation of the guest, had a
resolute air of quietude.
There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper had been in the
service of Rigg also, and might accept the idea that Mr. Bulstrode
entertained Raffles merely as a friend of her former master.
When there was food and drink spread before his visitor in the