20 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, Rosamund and Mary talk.

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

Transcript

Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,

Your go-to podcast that offers you a calm and relaxing transition into a great night's sleep.

It is time to relax and fully let go.

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

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

This is your time and your space.

Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.

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

Happy listening.

Chapter 12 Continued When Fred came into the room,

The old man eyed him with a peculiar twinkle which the younger had often reasoned to interpret as pride in the satisfactory details of his appearance.

You two missus go away,

Said Mr Featherstone,

I want to speak to Fred.

Coming to my room,

Rosamund,

You'll not mind the cold for a little while,

Said Mary.

The two girls had not only known each other in childhood but had been in the same provincial school.

They had many memories in common and they liked very well to talk in private.

Indeed,

This tete-a-tete was one of Rosamund's objects in coming to Stone Court.

Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been closed.

He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with one of his habitual grimaces alternately screwing and widening his mouth and when he spoke it was in a low tone which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be brought off rather than for the tone of an offended senior.

He was not a man to feel any strong moral indignation even on account of trespasses against himself.

It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him but then he was a little too cunning for them.

So,

Sir,

You've been paying ten per cent for money which you've promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I'm dead and gone,

Eh?

You put my life as a twelve-month,

I say,

But I can alter my will yet.

Fred blushed.

He had not borrowed money in that way for excellent reasons but he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence,

Perhaps with more than he exactly remembered,

About his prospect of getting Featherstone's land as a future means of paying present debts.

I don't know what you refer to,

Sir.

I've certainly never borrowed any money on such an insecurity.

Please to explain.

No,

Sir,

It's you that must explain.

I can alter my will yet,

Let me tell you.

I'm of sound mind,

Can reckon compound interest in my head and remember every fool's name as well as I could twenty years ago.

What's the juice?

I'm under eighty.

I say,

You must contradict this story.

I have contradicted it,

Sir,

Answered Fred with a touch of impatience,

Not remembering his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving,

Though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone,

Who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs.

But I contradicted again,

The story's a silly lie.

Nonsense,

You must bring documents.

It comes from authority.

Name the authority and make him name the man who I borrowed the money from,

Then I can disprove the story.

It's pretty good authority,

I think,

A man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch.

Is that fine,

Religious,

Charitable uncle of yours?

Come now.

Here,

Mr.

Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake which signified merriment.

Mr.

Bulstrode?

Who else,

Eh?

Then the story's grown into this lie out of some sermonising words he may have let fall about me.

Do they pretend he's named the man who lent me the money,

Persisted Fred.

If there is such a man,

Depend upon it,

Bulstrode knows him,

But supposing you only tried to get the money lent and didn't get it,

Bulstrode would know that too.

You bring me a writing for Bulstrode to say he doesn't believe you've ever promised to pay your debts out of my land.

Come now.

Mr.

Featherstone's face required its whole scale of grimaces as a muscular outlet to his silent triumph in the soundness of his faculties.

Fred felt himself to be in a disgusting dilemma.

You must be joking,

Sir.

Mr.

Bulstrode,

Like any other man,

Believes scores of things that are not true,

And he has a prejudice against me.

I could easily get him to write that he knew of no facts in proof of the reports you speak of that might lead to unpleasantness.

I could hardly ask him to write down what he believes or does not believe about me.

At this,

Fred paused an instant and then added,

In political appeal to his uncle's vanity,

That's hardly a thing for a gentleman to ask.

But he was disappointed in the result.

Ah,

I know what you mean.

You'd sooner offend me than Bulstrode,

Eh?

And what's he?

He's got no land hereabout that ever I heard of.

A speculating fellow,

That's what.

He may come down any day when the devil leaves off backing him.

And that's what his religion means.

He wants God Almighty to come in.

That's nonsense.

There's one thing I made up pretty clear when I used to go to church,

And it's this.

God Almighty sticks to the land.

He promises land,

And he gives land,

And he makes chaps rich with corn and cattle.

But you take the other side.

You like Bulstrode and speculation better than Featherstone and land.

I beg your pardon,

Sir,

Said Fred,

Rising,

Standing with his back to the fire and beating his boot with his whip.

I like neither Bulstrode nor speculation.

He spoke rather sulkily,

Feeling himself stalemated.

Well,

Well,

You can do without meat,

That's pretty clear,

Said old Featherstone,

Secretly disliking the possibility that Fred would show himself at all independent.

You neither want a bit of land to make a squire of you instead of a starving person,

Not a lift of a hundred pound,

By the way.

It's all one to me.

I can make five codacils if I like,

And I shall keep my banknotes for a nest egg.

It's all one to me.

Fred coloured again.

Featherstone had rarely given him presence of money,

And at this moment it seemed almost harder to part with the immediate prospect of banknotes than with the more distant prospect of the land.

I'm not ungrateful,

Sir.

I never meant to show disregard for any kind intentions you might have towards me.

On the contrary.

Very good,

Then prove it.

You bring me a letter from Bulstrode saying he doesn't believe you've been cracking and promising to pay your debts out of my land,

And if there's any scrape you got into,

We'll see if I can back you a bit.

That's a bargain.

Give me your arm,

I'll try and walk round the room.

In spite of his irritation,

Fred had kindness enough in him to be a little sorry for the unloved,

Unvenerated old man,

Who,

With his dropsicle legs,

Looked more than usually pitiable in walking.

While giving his arm,

He thought he should not himself like to be an old fellow with his constitution breaking up,

And he waited good-temperedly,

First before the window to hear the wanted remarks about the guinea fowls and the weathercock,

And then before the scanty bookshelves,

Of which the chief glories in dark calf were Josephus,

Culpeper,

Klopstock's Messiah,

And several volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine.

Read me the name of the books,

Come now,

You're a college man.

Fred gave him the titles.

What did Missy want with more books?

Who must she be bringing her more books for?

They amuse her,

Sir,

She's very fond of reading.

A little too fond,

Said Mr Featherstone.

She was for reading when she sat with me,

But I've got to stop to it.

She's got the newspaper to read out loud,

That's enough for one day,

I should think.

I can't abide to see her reading.

You mind not bringing her any more books,

Do you hear?

Yes,

Sir,

I hear.

Fred had received this order before and had secretly disobeyed it.

He intended to disobey it again.

Ring the bell,

Said Mr Featherstone.

I want Missy back down.

Rosamund and Mary had been talking faster than their male friends.

They did not think of sitting down,

But stood at the toilet table near the window,

While Rosamund took off her hat,

Adjusted her veil,

And applied little touches of her fingertips to her hair,

Hair of infantine fairness,

Neither flaxen nor yellow.

Mary Garth seemed all the plainer standing at an angle between the two nymphs,

The one in the glass and the one out of it,

Who looked at each other with eyes of heavenly blue,

Deep enough to hold the most exquisite meanings an ingenious beholder could put into them,

And deep enough to hide the meanings of the owner,

If these should happen to be less exquisite.

Only a few children in Middlemarch looked blonde by the side of Rosamund,

And the slim figure displayed by her riding habit had delicate undulations.

In fact,

Most men in Middlemarch,

Except her brothers,

Held that Miss Vincey was the best girl in the world,

And some called her an angel.

Mary Garth,

On the contrary,

Had the aspect of an ordinary sinner.

She was brown,

Her curly dark hair was rough and stubborn,

Her stature was low,

And it would not be true to declare,

In satisfactory antithesis,

That she had all the virtues.

Plainness has its peculiar temptations and vices quite as much as beauty.

It is apt either to feign amiability,

Or not feigning it,

To show all the repulsiveness of discontent.

At any rate,

To be called an ugly thing in contrast with that lovely creature your companion is apt to produce some effect beyond a sense of fine veracity and fitness in the phrase.

At the age of two and twenty,

Mary has certainly not attained that perfect good sense and good principle which are usually recommended to the less fortunate girl,

As if they were to be obtained in quantities ready mixed,

With a flavour of resignation as required.

Her shrewdness had a streak of satiric bitterness continually renewed,

And never carried utterly out of sight,

Except by a strong current of gratitude towards those who,

Instead of telling her that she ought to be contented,

Did something to make her so.

Advancing womanhood had tempered her plainness,

Which was of a good human sort,

Such as the mothers of our race have very commonly worn in all latitudes,

And were more or less becoming headgear.

Rembrandt would have painted her with pleasure,

And would have made her broad features look out of the canvas with intelligent honesty.

For honesty,

Truth telling fairness,

Was Mary's reigning virtue.

She neither tried to create illusions,

Nor indulged in them for her own behoof,

And when she was in a good mood,

She had humour enough in her to laugh at herself.

When she and Rosamund happened both to be reflected in the glass,

She said laughingly,

What a brown patch I am by the side of you,

Rosie.

You're the most unbecoming companion.

Oh no,

No one thinks of your appearance,

You're so sensible and useful,

Mary.

Beauty is of very little consequence in reality.

Rosamund then turned her head towards Mary,

But with eyes swerving towards the new view of her neck in the glass.

You mean my beauty,

Said Mary,

Rather sardonically.

Rosamund thought,

Poor Mary,

She takes the kindest things ill.

But aloud,

She said,

What have you been doing lately?

Oh,

Minding the house,

Pouring out syrup,

Pretending to be amiable and contented,

Learning to have a bad opinion of everybody.

It is a wretched life for you,

Said Rosamund.

No,

Said Mary curtly with a little toss of her head.

I think my life is much pleasanter than your Miss Morgan's.

Yes,

But Miss Morgan's are interesting and not young.

She's interesting to herself,

I suppose,

And I'm not at all sure that everything gets easier as one gets older.

No,

Said Rosamund reflectively,

One wonders what such people do without any prospect.

To be sure,

There is religion as a support,

But it's very different with you,

Mary.

You may have an offer.

Has anyone told you he means to make me one?

Of course not.

I mean,

There is a gentleman who may fall in love with you,

Seeing you almost every day.

A certain change in Mary's face was chiefly determined by the resolve not to show any change.

Does that always make people fall in love?

She answered carelessly.

It seems to me quite as often as a reason for detesting each other.

Not when they're interesting and agreeable.

I hear Mr Lidgate is both.

Mr Lidgate,

Said Mary with an unmistakable lapse into indifference,

You want to know something about him?

Merely how you like him.

There's no question of liking at present.

My liking always wants some little kindness to kindle it.

I'm not magnanimous enough to like people who speak to me without seeming to like me.

Is he so haughty?

Said Rosamund with heightened satisfaction.

You know he's of good family.

No,

He did not give that as a reason.

Mary,

You are the oddest girl.

But what sort of looking man is he?

Describe him to me.

How can I describe a man,

Said Mary?

I can give you an inventory.

Heavy eyebrows,

Dark eyes,

Straight nose,

Thick dark hair,

Large solid white hands and,

Let me see,

An exquisite cambric pocket handkerchief.

But you will see him anyway.

You will know this is about the time of his visits.

Rosamund blushed a little but said meditatively,

I rather like a haughty manner.

I cannot endure a rattling young man.