Middlemarch
wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr. Bulstrode said—
“Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles, that we can hardly
enjoy each other’s society. The wisest plan for both of us will
therefore be to part as soon as possible. Since you say that you wished
to meet me, you probably considered that you had some business to
transact with me. But under the circumstances I will invite you to
remain here for the night, and I will myself ride over here early
to-morrow morning—before breakfast, in fact—when I can receive any
communication you have to make to me.”
“With all my heart,” said Raffles; “this is a comfortable place—a
little dull for a continuance; but I can put up with it for a night,
with this good liquor and the prospect of seeing you again in the
morning. You’re a much better host than my stepson was; but Josh owed
me a bit of a grudge for marrying his mother; and between you and me
there was never anything but kindness.”
Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of joviality and
sneering in Raffles’ manner was a good deal the effect of drink, had
determined to wait till he was quite sober before he spent more words
upon him. But he rode home with a terribly lucid vision of the
difficulty there would be in arranging any result that could be
permanently counted on with this man. It was inevitable that he should
wish to get rid of John Raffles, though his reappearance could not be
regarded as lying outside the divine plan. The spirit of evil might
have sent him to threaten Mr. Bulstrode’s subversion as an instrument
of good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a
chastisement of a new kind. It was an hour of anguish for him very
different from the hours in which his struggle had been securely
private, and which had ended with a sense that his secret misdeeds were
pardoned and his services accepted. Those misdeeds even when
committed—had they not been half sanctified by the singleness of his
desire to devote himself and all he possessed to the furtherance of the
divine scheme? And was he after all to become a mere stone of stumbling
and a rock of offence? For who would understand the work within him?
Who would not, when there was the pretext of casting disgrace upon him,
confound his whole life and the truths he had espoused, in one heap of
obloquy?
In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr. Bulstrode’s mind
clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal references to superhuman
ends. But even while we are talking and meditating about the earth’s
orbit and the solar system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is
the stable earth and the changing day. And now within all the automatic
succession of theoretic phrases—distinct and inmost as the shiver and
the ache of oncoming fever when we are discussing abstract pain, was
the forecast of disgrace in the presence of his neighbors and of his
own wife. For the pain, as well as the public estimate of disgrace,
depends on the amount of previous profession. To men who only aim at
escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner’s dock is disgrace. But
Mr. Bulstrode had aimed at being an eminent Christian.
It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when he again
reached Stone Court. The fine old place never looked more like a
delightful home than at that moment; the great white lilies were in
flower, the nasturtiums, their pretty leaves all silvered with dew,
were running away over the low stone wall; the very noises all around
had a heart of peace within them. But everything was spoiled for the
owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited the descent of
Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to breakfast.
It was not long before they were seated together in the wainscoted
parlor over their tea and toast, which was as much as Raffles cared to
take at that early hour. The difference between his morning and evening
self was not so great as his companion had imagined that it might be;
the delight in tormenting was perhaps even the stronger because his
spirits were rather less highly pitched. Certainly his manners seemed
more disagreeable by the morning light.
“As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles,” said the banker, who
could hardly do more than sip his tea and break his toast without
eating it, “I shall be obliged if you will mention at once the ground
on which you wished to meet with me. I presume that you have a home
elsewhere and will be glad to return to it.”
“Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn’t he want to see an old friend,
Nick?—I must call you Nick—we always did call you young Nick when we
knew you meant to marry the old widow. Some said you had a handsome
family likeness to old Nick, but that was your mother’s fault, calling
you Nicholas. Aren’t you glad to see me again? I expected an invite to
stay with you at some pretty place. My own establishment is broken up
now my wife’s dead. I’ve no particular attachment to any spot; I would
as soon settle hereabout as anywhere.”
“May I ask why you returned from America? I considered that the strong
wish you expressed to go there, when an adequate sum was furnished, was
tantamount to an engagement that you would remain there for life.”
“Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same thing as a wish
to stay. But I did stay a matter of ten years; it didn’t suit me to
stay any longer. And I’m not going again, Nick.” Here Mr. Raffles
winked slowly as he looked at Mr. Bulstrode.
“Do you wish to be settled in any business? What is your calling now?”
“Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I can. I don’t
care about working any more. If I did anything it would be a little
travelling in the tobacco line—or something of that sort, which takes a
man into agreeable company. But not without an independence to fall
back upon. That’s what I want: I’m not so strong as I was, Nick, though
I’ve got more color than you. I want an independence.”
“That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to keep at a
distance,” said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a little too much eagerness
in his undertone.
“That must be as it suits my convenience,” said Raffles coolly. “I see
no reason why I shouldn’t make a few acquaintances hereabout. I’m not
ashamed of myself as company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau at
the turnpike when I got down—change of linen—genuine—honor bright—more
than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit of mourning, straps and
everything, I should do you credit among the nobs here.” Mr. Raffles
had pushed away his chair and looked down at himself, particularly at
his straps. His chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode, but he really
thought that his appearance now would produce a good effect, and that
he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in a mourning style which
implied solid connections.
“If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles,” said Bulstrode,
after a moment’s pause, “you will expect to meet my wishes.”
“Ah, to be sure,” said Raffles, with a mocking cordiality. “Didn’t I
always do it? Lord, you made a pretty thing out of me, and I got but
little. I’ve often thought since, I might have done better by telling
the old woman that I’d found her daughter and her grandchild: it would
have suited my feelings better; I’ve got a soft place in my heart. But
you’ve buried the old lady by this time, I suppose—it’s all one to her
now. And you’ve got your fortune out of that profitable business which
had such a blessing on it. You’ve taken to being a nob, buying land,
being a country bashaw. Still in the Dissenting line, eh? Still godly?
Or taken to the Church as more genteel?”
This time Mr. Raffles’ slow wink and slight protrusion of his tongue
was worse than a nightmare, because it held the certitude that it was
not a nightmare, but a waking misery. Mr. Bulstrode felt a shuddering
nausea, and did not speak, but was considering diligently whether he
should not leave Raffles to do as he would, and simply defy him as a
slanderer. The man would soon show himself disreputable enough to make
people disbelieve him. “But not when he tells any ugly-looking truth
about _you_,” said discerning consciousness. And again: it seemed no
wrong to keep Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the
direct falsehood of denying true statements. It was one thing to look
back on forgiven sins, nay, to explain questionable conformity to lax
customs, and another to enter deliberately on the necessity of
falsehood.
But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by way of using time
to the utmost.
“I’ve not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things went confoundedly
with me in New York; those Yankees are cool hands, and a man of
gentlemanly feelings has no chance with them. I married when I came
back—a nice woman in the tobacco trade—very fond of me—but the trade
was restricted, as we say. She had been settled there a good many years
by a friend; but there was a son too much in the case. Josh and I never
hit it off. However, I made the most of the position, and I’ve always
taken my glass in good company. It’s been all on the square with me;
I’m as open as the day. You won’t take it ill of me that I didn’t look
you up before. I’ve got a complaint that makes me a little dilatory. I
thought you were trading and praying away in London still, and didn’t
find you there. But you see I was sent to you, Nick—perhaps for a
blessing to both of us.”
Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his intellect more
superior to religious cant. And if the cunning which calculates on the
meanest feelings in men could be called intellect, he had his share,
for under the blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Bulstrode,
there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had been so
many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode had determined on his move,
and he said, with gathered resolution—
“You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is possible for a
man to overreach himself in the effort to secure undue advantage.
Although I am not in any way bound to you, I am willing to supply you
with a regular annuity—in quarterly payments—so long as you fulfil a
promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood. It is in your
power to choose. If you insist on remaining here, even for a short
time, you will get nothing from me. I shall decline to know you.”
“Ha, ha!” said Raffles, with an affected explosion, “that reminds me of
a droll dog of a thief who declined to know the constable.”
“Your allusions are lost on me sir,” said Bulstrode, with white heat;
“the law has no hold on me either through your agency or any other.”
“You can’t understand a joke, my good fellow. I only meant that I
should never decline to know you. But let us be serious. Your quarterly
payment won’t quite suit me. I like my freedom.”
Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down the room,
swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly meditation. At last
he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and said, “I’ll tell you what! Give us a
couple of hundreds—come, that’s modest—and I’ll go away—honor
bright!—pick up my portmanteau and go away. But I shall not give up my
liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall come and go where I like. Perhaps
it may suit me to stay away, and correspond with a friend; perhaps not.
Have you the money with you?”
“No, I have one hundred,” said Bulstrode, feeling the immediate
riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the ground of future
uncertainties. “I will forward you the other if you will mention an
address.”
“No, I’ll wait here till you bring it,” said Raffles. “I’ll take a
stroll and have a snack, and you’ll be back by that time.”
Mr. Bulstrode’s sickly body, shattered by the agitations he had gone