21 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 considers Mr Lydgate.

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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Happy listening.

Mrs Wall has been telling Uncle Fred is very unsteady,

Said Mary to Rosamund,

Speaking from a girlish impulse which got the better of her judgement.

There was a vague uneasiness associated with the word unsteady,

Which she hoped Rosamund might say something to dissipate,

But she purposely abstained from mentioning Mrs Wall's more special insinuation.

Fred is horrid,

Said Rosamund.

She would not have allowed herself so unsuitable a word to anyone but Mary.

What do you mean by horrid?

He is so idle and he makes Papa so angry and says he will not take orders.

I think Fred is quite right.

How can you say he is quite right,

Mary?

I thought you had more sense of religion.

He is not fit to be a clergyman,

But he ought to be fit.

Well then,

He is not what he ought to be.

I know some other people who are in the same case.

But no one approves of them,

Insisted Rosamund.

I should not like to marry a clergyman,

But there must be clergymen.

It does not follow that Fred must be one.

But when Papa has been at the expense of educating him for it,

I only suppose if he should have fortune left him.

I can suppose that very well,

Said Mary dryly.

Then I wonder that you can defend Fred,

Said Rosamund,

Inclined to push the point.

I don't defend him,

Said Mary laughing.

I would defend any parish from having him for a clergyman.

But of course,

If he were a clergyman,

He must be different.

Yes,

He would be a great hypocrite and he is not that yet.

It's of no use saying anything to you,

Mary.

You always take Fred's part.

Why should I not take his part,

Said Mary,

Lighting up.

He would take mine.

He's the only person who takes the least trouble to oblige me.

You make me feel very uncomfortable,

Mary,

Said Rosamund,

With her gravest mildness.

I would not tell Mama for the world.

What would you not tell her,

Said Mary angrily.

Prayed you're not going to a rage,

Mary,

Said Rosamund.

If your Mama's afraid that Fred will make me an offer,

Tell her I would not marry him if he asked me.

But he's not going to do so,

That I'm aware.

He certainly never has asked me.

Mary,

Said Rosamund,

You're always so violent and you are always so exasperating.

I,

What can you blame me for?

Blameless people are always the most exasperating.

There's the bell.

I think we must go down now.

I did not mean to quarrel,

Said Rosamund,

Putting on her hat.

Quarrel?

Nonsense with not quarrelled.

If one's not going to get into a rage sometimes,

What's the good of being friends,

Insisted Mary.

Am I to repeat what you've just said?

Just as you please.

I never say what I'm afraid of having repeated.

But let us go down now.

Mr.

Lydgate was rather late that morning.

But the visitors stayed long enough to see him.

For Mr.

Featherstone asked Rosamund to sing to him.

And she herself was so kind as to propose a second favourite song of his.

Flow on thou shining river.

Mr.

Featherstone was still applauding the last performance and assuring Missy her voice was as clear as a blackbird's when Mr.

Lydgate's horse passed the window.

His dull expectation of the usual disagreeable routine with an aged patient who can hardly believe that medicine would not set him up if the doctor were only clever enough added to his general disbelief in Middlemarch charms made a doubly effective background to this vision of Rosamund whom old Featherstone made haste,

Ostentatiously,

To introduce as his niece though he had never thought it worthwhile to speak of Mary Garth in that light.

Nothing escaped Lydgate in Rosamund's graceful behaviour.

How delicately she waved the notice which the old man's want of taste had thrust upon her by a quiet gravity.

Not showing her dimples on the wrong occasion but showing him afterwards in speaking to Mary to whom she addressed herself with so much good-natured interest that Lydgate,

After quickly examining Mary more fully than he'd done before saw an adorable kindness in Rosamund's eyes but Mary,

From some cause,

Looked rather out of temper.

Miss Rosie's been singing me a song.

You've nothing to say against that?

Hey,

Doctor,

Said Mr.

Featherstone I like it better than your physique.

That has made me forget how the time is going,

Said Rosamund rising to reach her hat,

Which she'd laid aside before singing so that her flower-like head on its white stem was seen in perfection above her riding habit.

Now Fred,

We really must go.

Very good,

Said Fred who had his own reasons for not being in the best spirits and wanted to get away.

Miss Vincey is a musician,

Said Lydgate following her with his eyes whilst every nerve and muscle in Rosamund was adjusted to the consciousness that she was being looked at.

She was by nature an actress of parts that ended into her physique she even acted her own character and so well that she did not know it to be precisely her own.

The best in Middlemarch are bebound,

Said Mr.

Featherstone let the next be who she will,

Eh Fred?

Speak up for your sister.

I'm afraid I'm out of court,

Sir my evidence would be good for nothing.

Middlemarch is not a very high-standard uncle,

Said Rosamund with a pretty likeness going towards her whip which lay at a distance.

Lydgate was quick in anticipating her he reached the whip before she did and turned to present it to her she bowed and looked at him he of course was looking at her and their eyes met with that peculiar meeting which is never arrived at by effort but seems like a sudden divine clearance of haze.

I think Lydgate turned a little paler than usual but Rosamund blushed deeply and felt a certain astonishment after that she was really anxious to go and did not know what sort of stupidity her uncle was talking of when she went to shake hands with him.

Yet this result,

Which she thought to be a mutual impression called falling in love was just what Rosamund had contemplated beforehand ever since that important new arrival in Middlemarch she had woven a little future of which something like this scene was the necessary beginning strangers,

Whether wrecked and clinging to a raft or duly escorted and accompanied by portmanteaus have always had a circumstantial fascination for the virgin mind against which native merit has urged itself in vain and a stranger was absolutely necessary to Rosamund's social romance which had always turned on a lover and bridegroom who was not a Middlemarcher and who had no connections at all like her own of late indeed the construction seemed to demand he should somehow be related to a baronet Now that she and stranger had met reality proved much more moving than anticipation and Rosamund could not but admit this was the great epoch of her life She judged of her own symptoms as those of awakening love and she held it still more natural than Mr Lydgate should have fallen in love at first sight of her These things happen so often at balls and why not by the morning light when the complexion showed all the better for it Rosamund,

Though no older than Mary was rather used to being fallen in love with but she for her part had remained indifferent and fastidiously critical towards both fresh sprig and faded bachelor and yet here was Mr Lydgate suddenly corresponding to her ideal being altogether foreign to Middlemarch carrying a certain air of distinction congruous with good family and possessing connections which offered vistas of that middle class heaven rank a man of talent also whom it would be especially delightful to enslave a man who had touched her nature quite newly and brought a vivid interest into her life which was better than any fancied might be such as she was in the habit of opposing to the actual Thus in riding home both the brother and the sister were preoccupied and inclined to be silent Rosamund,

Whose basis for her structure had the usual airy slightness was of remarkably detailed and realistic imagination where the foundation had once been presupposed and before they'd ridden a mile she was far on in the costume and introductions of her wedded life having determined on her house in Middlemarch and foreseen the visit she would pay to her husband's highbred relatives at a distance whose Finnish manners she could appropriate as thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments preparing herself thus for vaguer elevations which might untimely come There was nothing financial still left sordid in her provisions she cared about what were considered refinements and not about the money that was to pay for them Fred's mind on the other hand was busy with an anxiety which even his ready hopefulness could not immediately quell He saw no way of eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring consequences which he liked even less than the task of fulfilling it His father was already out of humour with him and he would be still more if he were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and the Balstrodes Then he himself hated to go and speak to his uncle Balstrode Perhaps after drinking wine he'd said many foolish things about Featherstone's property and these had been magnified by a report Fred felt he made a wretched figure as a fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like Featherstone and went to beg for certificates at his bidding But those expectations!

He really had them and he saw no agreeable alternative if he gave them up Besides,

He had lately made a debt which galled him extremely and old Featherstone had almost bargained to pay it off The whole affair was miserably small His debts were small Even his expectations were not anything so magnificent Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the smallness of his scrapes Such ruminations naturally produced a streak of misanthropic bitterness To be born a son of a middle-march manufacturer an inevitable heir to nothing in particular while such men is main-wearing and vian Certainly life was a poor business when a spirited young fellow with a good appetite for the best of everything had so poor an outlook It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bolstrode's name in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's Nor could this have made any difference to his position He saw plainly enough the old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little and also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant terms with Bolstrode Fred fancied he saw to the bottom of his uncle Featherstone's soul though in reality half of what he saw there was no more than the reflex of his own inclinations The difficult task of knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is chiefly made up of their own wishes Fred's main point of debate with himself was whether he should tell his father or try to get through the affair without his father's knowledge It was probably Mrs Wall who had been talking about him and if Mary Garth had repeated Mrs Wall's report to Rosamund it would be sure to reach his father who would have surely questioned him about it He said to Rosamund as they slackened their pace Rosie,

Did Mary tell you Mrs Wall said anything about me?

Yes indeed she did What?

That you were very unsteady Was that all?

I should think that was enough Fred You're sure she said no more?

Mary mentioned nothing else but really I think you ought to be ashamed Oh fudge,

Don't lecture me Rosamund What did Mary say?

I'm not obliged to tell you you care so very much about what Mary says and you're too rude to allow me to speak Of course I care what Mary says she's the best girl I know I should never have thought she was a girl to fall in love with How do you know what men would fall in love with?

Girls never know At least Fred let me advise you not to fall in love with her for she says she would not marry you if you asked her She might have waited till I did ask her I knew that would nettle you Not at all she would not have said it if you had not provoked her Before reaching home Fred concluded he would tell the whole affair as simply as possible to his father who might perhaps take on himself the unpleasant business of speaking to Balstrode