19 Middlemarch - Read By Stephanie Poppins

Middlemarch by George Eliot explores the lives of its inhabitants as they navigate societal expectations, personal aspirations, and the changing world around them.

In this episode, Fred and Rosamond are out riding when they see a gig belonging to Mrs. Waule, one of their uncle Featherstone’s relations. They observe that, despite being enormously wealthy, the Waules and Featherstones stay close to Mr. Featherstone like “vultures” to make sure that his money doesn’t end up going to the other side of the family.

Check out The Female Stoic podcast, where we discuss this book and other literary works.

Transcript

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

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Close your eyes and feel yourself sink into the support beneath you and let all the worries of the day drift away.

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There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.

Happy listening.

Chapter 12 The ride to Stone Court,

Which Fred and Rosamund took the next morning,

Lay through a pretty part of Midland landscape,

Almost all meadows and pastures,

With hedgerows still allowed to grow in bushy beauty and to spread out coral fruit for the birds.

Little details gave each field a particular physiognomy.

Dear to the eyes that have looked on them from childhood,

The pool in the corner where the grasses were dank and trees leaned whisperingly,

The great oak shadowing a bare place in the mid-pasture,

The high bank where the ash trees grew,

The sudden slope of Old Marl Pit making a red background for the burdock,

The huddle roofs and ricks of the homestead without a traceable way of approach,

The grey gate and fences against the depths of the bordering wood and the stray hovel,

Its old,

Old thatch,

Full of mossy hills and valleys,

With wondrous modulations of light and shadow such as we travel far to see in later life,

And see larger but not more beautiful.

These are the things that make the gamut of joy in landscape to Midland-bred souls,

The things they toddle among,

Or perhaps learned by half-standing between their father's knees while he drove leisurely.

But the road,

Even the by-road,

Was excellent,

For Lowick,

As we have seen,

Was not a parish of muddy lanes and poor tenants,

And it was into Lowick Parish that Fred and Rosamond entered after a couple of miles riding.

Another mile would bring them to Stonecourt,

And at the end of the first half the house was already visible,

Looking as if it had been arrested in its growth toward a stone mansion by an unexpected budding of farm buildings on its left flank,

Which had hindered it from becoming anything more than the substantial dwelling of a gentleman farmer.

It was not the less agreeable an object in the distance for the cluster of pinnacled corn ricks which balanced the fine row of walnuts on the right.

Presently it was possible to discern something that might be a gig on the circular drive before the front door.

Dear me,

Said Rosamond,

I hope none of my uncle's horrible relations are there.

They are,

Though,

That is Mrs Wall's gig,

The last yellow gig left,

I should think.

When I see Mrs Wall in it,

I understand how yellow can have been worn for mourning.

And Mrs Wall always has a black crepe on,

How does she manage it?

Her friends can't always be dying rosy,

Can they?

I don't know at all,

Said Rosamond,

And she's not in the least evangelical,

And not poor,

She added after a moment's pause.

No,

By George,

They're as rich as Jews,

Those Walls and Featherstones,

Said Fred.

For people like them,

We don't want to spend anything,

I mean.

Yet they hang about my uncle like vultures and are afraid of a farthing going away from their side of the family.

I believe he hates them all.

The Mrs Wall,

Who was so far from being admirable in the eyes of those distant connections,

Had happened to say this very morning that she did not wish to enjoy their good opinion.

She was seated,

As observed,

On her own brother's hearth,

And had been Jane Featherstone five and twenty years before.

Now she was Jane Wall,

And that entitled her to a speak when her own brother's name had been made free with by those who had no right to it.

What are you driving at there?

Said Mr Featherstone,

Holding his stick between his knees and settling his wig,

While he gave her a momentary sharp glance,

Which seemed to react on him like a draught of cold air and set him coughing.

Mrs Wall had to defer her answer till he was quiet again,

Till Mary Garth had supplied him with fresh syrup and he'd begun to rub the gold knob of his stick looking bitterly at the fire.

It was a bright fire,

But it made no difference to the chill-looking purplish tint of Mrs Wall's face,

Which was as neutral as her voice,

Having mere chinks for eyes and lips that hardly moved in speaking.

The doctors can't master that cough,

Brother.

It's just like what I have,

But I'm your own sister,

Constitution and everything.

But as I was saying,

It's a pity Miss Fincy's family can't be better conducted.

You said nothing of the sort.

You said somebody had made free with my name.

No more than can be proved for what everybody says is true.

My brother Solomon tells me it's the talk up and down Middlemarch how unsteady young Fincy is,

And has been forever gambling at billiards since home he came.

Nonsense,

What's a game at billiards?

It's a good gentlemanly game,

And young Fincy's not a clodhopper.

If your son John talked to billiards now,

He'd make a fool of himself.

Your nephew John never talked to billiards or any other game,

Brother,

And he's far from losing hundreds of pounds,

Which,

If what everybody says is true,

Must be found somewhere else than out of Mr Fincy's,

The father's,

Pocket.

For they say he's been losing money for years.

Nobody would think so to see him go coursing and keep open houses,

They do.

And I've heard Mr Baldstrode condemn Miss Fincy beyond anything for her flightiness and spoiling her children.

What's Baldstrode to me?

I don't bag with him.

Well,

Mrs Baldstrode is Mr Fincy's sister,

And they do say Mr Fincy mostly trades on the bank money.

And you may see yourself,

Brother,

When a woman past forty has pink strings always flying and that light way of laughing at everything.

It's very unbecoming.

Indulging your children is one thing,

And finding money to pay their debts is another.

And it's openly said young Fincy has raised money on his expectations.

I don't say what expectations.

Miss Garf hears means welcome to tell again.

I know young people hang together.

No,

Thank you,

Mrs Wall,

Said Mary Garf.

I dislike hearing scandal too much to repeat it.

Mr Featherstone rubbed the knob of his stick and made a brief convulsive show of laughter which had much the same genuineness as an old whist player's chuckle over a bad hand.

Still looking at the fire,

He said.

And who pretends to say Fred Fincy hasn't got expectations?

Such fine-spirited fellow is like enough to have them.

There was a slight pause before Mrs Wall replied.

And when she did so,

Her voice seemed to be slightly moistened with tears,

Though her face was still dry.

Whether or no,

Brother,

It's naturally painful to me and my brother Solomon to hear your name made free with,

And your complaint being such as may carry you off sudden,

And people who are no more Featherstones than the merry Andrew at the fair openly reckoning on your property coming to them,

And me your own sister,

And Solomon your own brother.

And if that's to be it,

What has it pleased the Almighty to make families for?

Here Mrs Wall's tears fell,

But with moderation.

Come out with it,

Jane,

Said Mr Featherstone looking at her.

You mean to say Fred Fincy's been getting somebody to advance him money on what he says he knows about my will,

Eh?

I never said so,

Brother.

Her voice had again became dry and unshaken.

It was told me by my brother Solomon last night,

When he caught coming in from market to give me advice about the old wheat.

Me being a widow,

And my only son John,

Three and twenty,

Though steady beyond anything.

And he had it from most undeniable authority,

And not one,

But many.

Stuff and nonsense,

Said Mr Featherstone.

I don't believe a word of it.

It's all a got-up story.

Go to the window,

Missy.

I thought I heard a horse.

See if the doctor's coming.

Not got up by me,

Brother,

Nor yet by Solomon,

Who whatever else he may be,

And I don't deny he has oddities,

Has made his will and parted his property equal between such kin as his friends with.

Though for my part,

I think there are times when some should be considered more than others.

But Solomon makes it no secret what he needs to do.

No more fall he,

Said Mr Featherstone with some difficulty,

Breaking into a severe fit of coughing,

That required Mary Darth to stand near him,

So that she did not find out whose horses they were which presently pause stamping on the gravel before the door.

Before Mr Featherstone's cough was quiet,

Rosamund entered,

Bearing up her riding habit with much grace.

She bowed ceremoniously to Mrs Wall,

Who said stiffly,

How do you do,

Miss?

Smiled and nodded silently,

And remained standing till the coughing should cease.

Hey there,

Miss,

Said her uncle at last.

You have a fine colour.

Where's Fred?

Seeing about the horses,

He'll be in presently.

Sit down,

Sit down.

Mrs Wall,

You'd better go.

Even those neighbours who had called Peter Featherstone an old fox had never accused him of being insincerely polite,

And his sister was quite used to the peculiar absence of ceremony with which he marked his sense of blood relationship.

Indeed,

She herself was accustomed to think entire freedom from the necessity of behaving agreeably was included in the Almighty's intention about families.

She rose slowly without any sign of resentment and said in her usual muffled monotone,

Brother,

I hope the new doctor will be able to do something for you.

Solomon says there's a great deal of talk about his cleverness.

I'm sure it's my wish you should be spared,

And there's none more ready to nurse you than your own sister and your own nieces,

If you'd only say the word.

There's Rebecca and Joanna and Elizabeth,

You know.

Aye,

I remember,

Said Mr Featherstone.

I remembered them all,

Dark and ugly.

They need have some money,

Eh?

There never was any beauty in the women of our family.

But the Featherstones have always had some money,

And the Walls too.

Wall had money.

A wall man he was.

Money's a good egg,

And if you've got money to leave behind you,

Lay in a wall nest.

Goodbye,

Mrs Wall.

Here,

Mr Featherstone pulled at both sides of his wig as if he wanted to deafen himself,

And his sister went away ruminating on this oraculous speech of his.

Notwithstanding her jealousy of the Vincies and of Mary Garth,

There remained as the nethermost sediment in her mental shallows a persuasion that her brother Peter Featherstone could never leave his chief property away from his blood relations.

Else why had the Almighty carried off his two wives both childless,

After he'd gained so much by manganese and things,

Turning up when nobody expected it?

And why there a low-wit parish church,

And the Walls and Powderalls all sitting in the same pew for generations,

And the Featherstone pew next to them,

If the Sunday after her brother Peter's death everybody was to know the property was gone out of the family?

The human mind has at no period accepted a moral chaos,

And so preposterous a result was not strictly conceivable.

But we are frightened at much that is not strictly conceivable.