Middlemarch, Page 24

  CHAPTER XXIII.

  "Your horses of the Sun," he said, "And first-rate whip Apollo! Whate'er they be, I'll eat my head, But I will beat them hollow."

  Fred Vincy, we have seen, had a debt on his mind, and though no suchimmaterial burthen could depress that buoyant-hearted young gentlemanfor many hours together, there were circumstances connected with thisdebt which made the thought of it unusually importunate. The creditorwas Mr. Bambridge a horse-dealer of the neighborhood, whose company wasmuch sought in Middlemarch by young men understood to be "addicted topleasure." During the vacations Fred had naturally required moreamusements than he had ready money for, and Mr. Bambridge had beenaccommodating enough not only to trust him for the hire of horses andthe accidental expense of ruining a fine hunter, but also to make asmall advance by which he might be able to meet some losses atbilliards. The total debt was a hundred and sixty pounds. Bambridgewas in no alarm about his money, being sure that young Vincy hadbackers; but he had required something to show for it, and Fred had atfirst given a bill with his own signature. Three months later he hadrenewed this bill with the signature of Caleb Garth. On both occasionsFred had felt confident that he should meet the bill himself, havingample funds at disposal in his own hopefulness. You will hardly demandthat his confidence should have a basis in external facts; suchconfidence, we know, is something less coarse and materialistic: it isa comfortable disposition leading us to expect that the wisdom ofprovidence or the folly of our friends, the mysteries of luck or thestill greater mystery of our high individual value in the universe,will bring about agreeable issues, such as are consistent with our goodtaste in costume, and our general preference for the best style ofthing. Fred felt sure that he should have a present from his uncle,that he should have a run of luck, that by dint of "swapping" he shouldgradually metamorphose a horse worth forty pounds into a horse thatwould fetch a hundred at any moment--"judgment" being always equivalentto an unspecified sum in hard cash. And in any case, even supposingnegations which only a morbid distrust could imagine, Fred had always(at that time) his father's pocket as a last resource, so that hisassets of hopefulness had a sort of gorgeous superfluity about them.Of what might be the capacity of his father's pocket, Fred had only avague notion: was not trade elastic? And would not the deficiencies ofone year be made up for by the surplus of another? The Vincys lived inan easy profuse way, not with any new ostentation, but according to thefamily habits and traditions, so that the children had no standard ofeconomy, and the elder ones retained some of their infantine notionthat their father might pay for anything if he would. Mr. Vincyhimself had expensive Middlemarch habits--spent money on coursing, onhis cellar, and on dinner-giving, while mamma had those runningaccounts with tradespeople, which give a cheerful sense of gettingeverything one wants without any question of payment. But it was inthe nature of fathers, Fred knew, to bully one about expenses: therewas always a little storm over his extravagance if he had to disclose adebt, and Fred disliked bad weather within doors. He was too filial tobe disrespectful to his father, and he bore the thunder with thecertainty that it was transient; but in the mean time it wasdisagreeable to see his mother cry, and also to be obliged to looksulky instead of having fun; for Fred was so good-tempered that if helooked glum under scolding, it was chiefly for propriety's sake. Theeasier course plainly, was to renew the bill with a friend's signature.Why not? With the superfluous securities of hope at his command, therewas no reason why he should not have increased other people'sliabilities to any extent, but for the fact that men whose names weregood for anything were usually pessimists, indisposed to believe thatthe universal order of things would necessarily be agreeable to anagreeable young gentleman.

  With a favor to ask we review our list of friends, do justice to theirmore amiable qualities, forgive their little offenses, and concerningeach in turn, try to arrive at the conclusion that he will be eager tooblige us, our own eagerness to be obliged being as communicable asother warmth. Still there is always a certain number who are dismissedas but moderately eager until the others have refused; and it happenedthat Fred checked off all his friends but one, on the ground thatapplying to them would be disagreeable; being implicitly convinced thathe at least (whatever might be maintained about mankind generally) hada right to be free from anything disagreeable. That he should everfall into a thoroughly unpleasant position--wear trousers shrunk withwashing, eat cold mutton, have to walk for want of a horse, or to "duckunder" in any sort of way--was an absurdity irreconcilable with thosecheerful intuitions implanted in him by nature. And Fred winced underthe idea of being looked down upon as wanting funds for small debts.Thus it came to pass that the friend whom he chose to apply to was atonce the poorest and the kindest--namely, Caleb Garth.

  The Garths were very fond of Fred, as he was of them; for when he andRosamond were little ones, and the Garths were better off, the slightconnection between the two families through Mr. Featherstone's doublemarriage (the first to Mr. Garth's sister, and the second to Mrs.Vincy's) had led to an acquaintance which was carried on between thechildren rather than the parents: the children drank tea together outof their toy teacups, and spent whole days together in play. Mary wasa little hoyden, and Fred at six years old thought her the nicest girlin the world, making her his wife with a brass ring which he had cutfrom an umbrella. Through all the stages of his education he had kepthis affection for the Garths, and his habit of going to their house asa second home, though any intercourse between them and the elders ofhis family had long ceased. Even when Caleb Garth was prosperous, theVincys were on condescending terms with him and his wife, for therewere nice distinctions of rank in Middlemarch; and though oldmanufacturers could not any more than dukes be connected with none butequals, they were conscious of an inherent social superiority which wasdefined with great nicety in practice, though hardly expressibletheoretically. Since then Mr. Garth had failed in the buildingbusiness, which he had unfortunately added to his other avocations ofsurveyor, valuer, and agent, had conducted that business for a timeentirely for the benefit of his assignees, and had been livingnarrowly, exerting himself to the utmost that he might after all paytwenty shillings in the pound. He had now achieved this, and from allwho did not think it a bad precedent, his honorable exertions had wonhim due esteem; but in no part of the world is genteel visiting foundedon esteem, in the absence of suitable furniture and completedinner-service. Mrs. Vincy had never been at her ease with Mrs. Garth,and frequently spoke of her as a woman who had had to work for herbread--meaning that Mrs. Garth had been a teacher before her marriage;in which case an intimacy with Lindley Murray and Mangnall's Questionswas something like a draper's discrimination of calico trademarks, or acourier's acquaintance with foreign countries: no woman who was betteroff needed that sort of thing. And since Mary had been keeping Mr.Featherstone's house, Mrs. Vincy's want of liking for the Garths hadbeen converted into something more positive, by alarm lest Fred shouldengage himself to this plain girl, whose parents "lived in such a smallway." Fred, being aware of this, never spoke at home of his visits toMrs. Garth, which had of late become more frequent, the increasingardor of his affection for Mary inclining him the more towards thosewho belonged to her.

  Mr. Garth had a small office in the town, and to this Fred went withhis request. He obtained it without much difficulty, for a largeamount of painful experience had not sufficed to make Caleb Garthcautious about his own affairs, or distrustful of his fellow-men whenthey had not proved themselves untrustworthy; and he had the highestopinion of Fred, was "sure the lad would turn out well--an openaffectionate fellow, with a good bottom to his character--you mighttrust him for anything." Such was Caleb's psychological argument. Hewas one of those rare men who are rigid to themselves and indulgent toothers. He had a certain shame about his neighbors' errors, and neverspoke of them willingly; hence he was not likely to divert his mindfrom the best mode of hardening timber and other ingenious devices inorder to preconceive those errors. If he ha
d to blame any one, it wasnecessary for him to move all the papers within his reach, or describevarious diagrams with his stick, or make calculations with the oddmoney in his pocket, before he could begin; and he would rather doother men's work than find fault with their doing. I fear he was a baddisciplinarian.

  When Fred stated the circumstances of his debt, his wish to meet itwithout troubling his father, and the certainty that the money would beforthcoming so as to cause no one any inconvenience, Caleb pushed hisspectacles upward, listened, looked into his favorite's clear youngeyes, and believed him, not distinguishing confidence about the futurefrom veracity about the past; but he felt that it was an occasion for afriendly hint as to conduct, and that before giving his signature hemust give a rather strong admonition. Accordingly, he took the paperand lowered his spectacles, measured the space at his command, reachedhis pen and examined it, dipped it in the ink and examined it again,then pushed the paper a little way from him, lifted up his spectaclesagain, showed a deepened depression in the outer angle of his bushyeyebrows, which gave his face a peculiar mildness (pardon these detailsfor once--you would have learned to love them if you had known CalebGarth), and said in a comfortable tone--

  "It was a misfortune, eh, that breaking the horse's knees? And then,these exchanges, they don't answer when you have 'cute jockeys to dealwith. You'll be wiser another time, my boy."

  Whereupon Caleb drew down his spectacles, and proceeded to write hissignature with the care which he always gave to that performance; forwhatever he did in the way of business he did well. He contemplatedthe large well-proportioned letters and final flourish, with his head atrifle on one side for an instant, then handed it to Fred, said"Good-by," and returned forthwith to his absorption in a plan for SirJames Chettam's new farm-buildings.

  Either because his interest in this work thrust the incident of thesignature from his memory, or for some reason of which Caleb was moreconscious, Mrs. Garth remained ignorant of the affair.

  Since it occurred, a change had come over Fred's sky, which altered hisview of the distance, and was the reason why his uncle Featherstone'spresent of money was of importance enough to make his color come andgo, first with a too definite expectation, and afterwards with aproportionate disappointment. His failure in passing his examination,had made his accumulation of college debts the more unpardonable by hisfather, and there had been an unprecedented storm at home. Mr. Vincyhad sworn that if he had anything more of that sort to put up with,Fred should turn out and get his living how he could; and he had neveryet quite recovered his good-humored tone to his son, who hadespecially enraged him by saying at this stage of things that he didnot want to be a clergyman, and would rather not "go on with that."Fred was conscious that he would have been yet more severely dealt withif his family as well as himself had not secretly regarded him as Mr.Featherstone's heir; that old gentleman's pride in him, and apparentfondness for him, serving in the stead of more exemplary conduct--justas when a youthful nobleman steals jewellery we call the actkleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think ofhis being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boywho had stolen turnips. In fact, tacit expectations of what would bedone for him by uncle Featherstone determined the angle at which mostpeople viewed Fred Vincy in Middlemarch; and in his own consciousness,what uncle Featherstone would do for him in an emergency, or what hewould do simply as an incorporated luck, formed always an immeasurabledepth of aerial perspective. But that present of bank-notes, oncemade, was measurable, and being applied to the amount of the debt,showed a deficit which had still to be filled up either by Fred's"judgment" or by luck in some other shape. For that little episode ofthe alleged borrowing, in which he had made his father the agent ingetting the Bulstrode certificate, was a new reason against going tohis father for money towards meeting his actual debt. Fred was keenenough to foresee that anger would confuse distinctions, and that hisdenial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's willwould be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told himone vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases thecomplete revelation always produces the impression of a previousduplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and evenfibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace atwhat he called Rosamond's fibs (it is only brothers who can associatesuch ideas with a lovely girl); and rather than incur the accusation offalsehood he would even incur some trouble and self-restraint. It wasunder strong inward pressure of this kind that Fred had taken the wisestep of depositing the eighty pounds with his mother. It was a pitythat he had not at once given them to Mr. Garth; but he meant to makethe sum complete with another sixty, and with a view to this, he hadkept twenty pounds in his own pocket as a sort of seed-corn, which,planted by judgment, and watered by luck, might yield more thanthreefold--a very poor rate of multiplication when the field is a younggentleman's infinite soul, with all the numerals at command.

  Fred was not a gambler: he had not that specific disease in which thesuspension of the whole nervous energy on a chance or risk becomes asnecessary as the dram to the drunkard; he had only the tendency to thatdiffusive form of gambling which has no alcoholic intensity, but iscarried on with the healthiest chyle-fed blood, keeping up a joyousimaginative activity which fashions events according to desire, andhaving no fears about its own weather, only sees the advantage theremust be to others in going aboard with it. Hopefulness has a pleasurein making a throw of any kind, because the prospect of success iscertain; and only a more generous pleasure in offering as many aspossible a share in the stake. Fred liked play, especially billiards,as he liked hunting or riding a steeple-chase; and he only liked it thebetter because he wanted money and hoped to win. But the twentypounds' worth of seed-corn had been planted in vain in the seductivegreen plot--all of it at least which had not been dispersed by theroadside--and Fred found himself close upon the term of payment with nomoney at command beyond the eighty pounds which he had deposited withhis mother. The broken-winded horse which he rode represented apresent which had been made to him a long while ago by his uncleFeatherstone: his father always allowed him to keep a horse, Mr.Vincy's own habits making him regard this as a reasonable demand evenfor a son who was rather exasperating. This horse, then, was Fred'sproperty, and in his anxiety to meet the imminent bill he determined tosacrifice a possession without which life would certainly be worthlittle. He made the resolution with a sense of heroism--heroism forcedon him by the dread of breaking his word to Mr. Garth, by his love forMary and awe of her opinion. He would start for Houndsley horse-fairwhich was to be held the next morning, and--simply sell his horse,bringing back the money by coach?--Well, the horse would hardly fetchmore than thirty pounds, and there was no knowing what might happen; itwould be folly to balk himself of luck beforehand. It was a hundred toone that some good chance would fall in his way; the longer he thoughtof it, the less possible it seemed that he should not have a goodchance, and the less reasonable that he should not equip himself withthe powder and shot for bringing it down. He would ride to Houndsleywith Bambridge and with Horrock "the vet," and without asking themanything expressly, he should virtually get the benefit of theiropinion. Before he set out, Fred got the eighty pounds from his mother.

  Most of those who saw Fred riding out of Middlemarch in company withBambridge and Horrock, on his way of course to Houndsley horse-fair,thought that young Vincy was pleasure-seeking as usual; and but for anunwonted consciousness of grave matters on hand, he himself would havehad a sense of dissipation, and of doing what might be expected of agay young fellow. Considering that Fred was not at all coarse, that herather looked down on the manners and speech of young men who had notbeen to the university, and that he had written stanzas as pastoral andunvoluptuous as his flute-playing, his attraction towards Bambridge andHorrock was an interesting fact which even the love of horse-fleshwould not wholly account for without that mysterious influence ofNaming which determinates so much of morta
l choice. Under any othername than "pleasure" the society of Messieurs Bambridge and Horrockmust certainly have been regarded as monotonous; and to arrive withthem at Houndsley on a drizzling afternoon, to get down at the Red Lionin a street shaded with coal-dust, and dine in a room furnished with adirt-enamelled map of the county, a bad portrait of an anonymous horsein a stable, His Majesty George the Fourth with legs and cravat, andvarious leaden spittoons, might have seemed a hard business, but forthe sustaining power of nomenclature which determined that the pursuitof these things was "gay."

  In Mr. Horrock there was certainly an apparent unfathomableness whichoffered play to the imagination. Costume, at a glance, gave him athrilling association with horses (enough to specify the hat-brim whichtook the slightest upward angle just to escape the suspicion of bendingdownwards), and nature had given him a face which by dint of Mongolianeyes, and a nose, mouth, and chin seeming to follow his hat-brim in amoderate inclination upwards, gave the effect of a subdued unchangeablesceptical smile, of all expressions the most tyrannous over asusceptible mind, and, when accompanied by adequate silence, likely tocreate the reputation of an invincible understanding, an infinite fundof humor--too dry to flow, and probably in a state of immovablecrust,--and a critical judgment which, if you could ever be fortunateenough to know it, would be _the_ thing and no other. It is aphysiognomy seen in all vocations, but perhaps it has never been morepowerful over the youth of England than in a judge of horses.

  Mr. Horrock, at a question from Fred about his horse's fetlock, turnedsideways in his saddle, and watched the horse's action for the space ofthree minutes, then turned forward, twitched his own bridle, andremained silent with a profile neither more nor less sceptical than ithad been.

  The part thus played in dialogue by Mr. Horrock was terribly effective.A mixture of passions was excited in Fred--a mad desire to thrashHorrock's opinion into utterance, restrained by anxiety to retain theadvantage of his friendship. There was always the chance that Horrockmight say something quite invaluable at the right moment.

  Mr. Bambridge had more open manners, and appeared to give forth hisideas without economy. He was loud, robust, and was sometimes spokenof as being "given to indulgence"--chiefly in swearing, drinking, andbeating his wife. Some people who had lost by him called him a viciousman; but he regarded horse-dealing as the finest of the arts, and mighthave argued plausibly that it had nothing to do with morality. He wasundeniably a prosperous man, bore his drinking better than others boretheir moderation, and, on the whole, flourished like the greenbay-tree. But his range of conversation was limited, and like the fineold tune, "Drops of brandy," gave you after a while a sense ofreturning upon itself in a way that might make weak heads dizzy. But aslight infusion of Mr. Bambridge was felt to give tone and character toseveral circles in Middlemarch; and he was a distinguished figure inthe bar and billiard-room at the Green Dragon. He knew some anecdotesabout the heroes of the turf, and various clever tricks of Marquessesand Viscounts which seemed to prove that blood asserted itspre-eminence even among black-legs; but the minute retentiveness of hismemory was chiefly shown about the horses he had himself bought andsold; the number of miles they would trot you in no time withoutturning a hair being, after the lapse of years, still a subject ofpassionate asseveration, in which he would assist the imagination ofhis hearers by solemnly swearing that they never saw anything like it.In short, Mr. Bambridge was a man of pleasure and a gay companion.

  Fred was subtle, and did not tell his friends that he was going toHoundsley bent on selling his horse: he wished to get indirectly attheir genuine opinion of its value, not being aware that a genuineopinion was the last thing likely to be extracted from such eminentcritics. It was not Mr. Bambridge's weakness to be a gratuitousflatterer. He had never before been so much struck with the fact thatthis unfortunate bay was a roarer to a degree which required theroundest word for perdition to give you any idea of it.

  "You made a bad hand at swapping when you went to anybody but me,Vincy! Why, you never threw your leg across a finer horse than thatchestnut, and you gave him for this brute. If you set him cantering,he goes on like twenty sawyers. I never heard but one worse roarer inmy life, and that was a roan: it belonged to Pegwell, the corn-factor;he used to drive him in his gig seven years ago, and he wanted me totake him, but I said, 'Thank you, Peg, I don't deal inwind-instruments.' That was what I said. It went the round of thecountry, that joke did. But, what the hell! the horse was a pennytrumpet to that roarer of yours."

  "Why, you said just now his was worse than mine," said Fred, moreirritable than usual.

  "I said a lie, then," said Mr. Bambridge, emphatically. "There wasn'ta penny to choose between 'em."

  Fred spurred his horse, and they trotted on a little way. When theyslackened again, Mr. Bambridge said--

  "Not but what the roan was a better trotter than yours."

  "I'm quite satisfied with his paces, I know," said Fred, who requiredall the consciousness of being in gay company to support him; "I sayhis trot is an uncommonly clean one, eh, Horrock?"

  Mr. Horrock looked before him with as complete a neutrality as if hehad been a portrait by a great master.

  Fred gave up the fallacious hope of getting a genuine opinion; but onreflection he saw that Bambridge's depreciation and Horrock's silencewere both virtually encouraging, and indicated that they thought betterof the horse than they chose to say.

  That very evening, indeed, before the fair had set in, Fred thought hesaw a favorable opening for disposing advantageously of his horse, butan opening which made him congratulate himself on his foresight inbringing with him his eighty pounds. A young farmer, acquainted withMr. Bambridge, came into the Red Lion, and entered into conversationabout parting with a hunter, which he introduced at once as Diamond,implying that it was a public character. For himself he only wanted auseful hack, which would draw upon occasion; being about to marry andto give up hunting. The hunter was in a friend's stable at some littledistance; there was still time for gentlemen to see it before dark.The friend's stable had to be reached through a back street where youmight as easily have been poisoned without expense of drugs as in anygrim street of that unsanitary period. Fred was not fortified againstdisgust by brandy, as his companions were, but the hope of having atlast seen the horse that would enable him to make money wasexhilarating enough to lead him over the same ground again the firstthing in the morning. He felt sure that if he did not come to abargain with the farmer, Bambridge would; for the stress ofcircumstances, Fred felt, was sharpening his acuteness and endowing himwith all the constructive power of suspicion. Bambridge had run downDiamond in a way that he never would have done (the horse being afriend's) if he had not thought of buying it; every one who looked atthe animal--even Horrock--was evidently impressed with its merit. Toget all the advantage of being with men of this sort, you must know howto draw your inferences, and not be a spoon who takes things literally.The color of the horse was a dappled gray, and Fred happened to knowthat Lord Medlicote's man was on the look-out for just such a horse.After all his running down, Bambridge let it out in the course of theevening, when the farmer was absent, that he had seen worse horses gofor eighty pounds. Of course he contradicted himself twenty timesover, but when you know what is likely to be true you can test a man'sadmissions. And Fred could not but reckon his own judgment of a horseas worth something. The farmer had paused over Fred's respectablethough broken-winded steed long enough to show that he thought it worthconsideration, and it seemed probable that he would take it, withfive-and-twenty pounds in addition, as the equivalent of Diamond. Inthat case Fred, when he had parted with his new horse for at leasteighty pounds, would be fifty-five pounds in pocket by the transaction,and would have a hundred and thirty-five pounds towards meeting thebill; so that the deficit temporarily thrown on Mr. Garth would at theutmost be twenty-five pounds. By the time he was hurrying on hisclothes in the morning, he saw so clearly the importance of not losingthis rare chance, that if Bambridge
and Horrock had both dissuaded him,he would not have been deluded into a direct interpretation of theirpurpose: he would have been aware that those deep hands held somethingelse than a young fellow's interest. With regard to horses, distrustwas your only clew. But scepticism, as we know, can never bethoroughly applied, else life would come to a standstill: something wemust believe in and do, and whatever that something may be called, itis virtually our own judgment, even when it seems like the most slavishreliance on another. Fred believed in the excellence of his bargain,and even before the fair had well set in, had got possession of thedappled gray, at the price of his old horse and thirty pounds inaddition--only five pounds more than he had expected to give.

  But he felt a little worried and wearied, perhaps with mental debate,and without waiting for the further gayeties of the horse-fair, he setout alone on his fourteen miles' journey, meaning to take it veryquietly and keep his horse fresh.