Middlemarch, Page 35

  CHAPTER XXXIV.

  1st Gent. Such men as this are feathers, chips, and straws. Carry no weight, no force. 2d Gent. But levity Is causal too, and makes the sum of weight. For power finds its place in lack of power; Advance is cession, and the driven ship May run aground because the helmsman's thought Lacked force to balance opposites."

  It was on a morning of May that Peter Featherstone was buried. In theprosaic neighborhood of Middlemarch, May was not always warm and sunny,and on this particular morning a chill wind was blowing the blossomsfrom the surrounding gardens on to the green mounds of Lowickchurchyard. Swiftly moving clouds only now and then allowed a gleam tolight up any object, whether ugly or beautiful, that happened to standwithin its golden shower. In the churchyard the objects wereremarkably various, for there was a little country crowd waiting to seethe funeral. The news had spread that it was to be a "big burying;"the old gentleman had left written directions about everything andmeant to have a funeral "beyond his betters." This was true; for oldFeatherstone had not been a Harpagon whose passions had all beendevoured by the ever-lean and ever-hungry passion of saving, and whowould drive a bargain with his undertaker beforehand. He loved money,but he also loved to spend it in gratifying his peculiar tastes, andperhaps he loved it best of all as a means of making others feel hispower more or less uncomfortably. If any one will here contend thatthere must have been traits of goodness in old Featherstone, I will notpresume to deny this; but I must observe that goodness is of a modestnature, easily discouraged, and when much privacy, elbowed in earlylife by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so thatit is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish oldgentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgmentsbased on his personal acquaintance. In any case, he had been bent onhaving a handsome funeral, and on having persons "bid" to it who wouldrather have stayed at home. He had even desired that female relativesshould follow him to the grave, and poor sister Martha had taken adifficult journey for this purpose from the Chalky Flats. She and Janewould have been altogether cheered (in a tearful manner) by this signthat a brother who disliked seeing them while he was living had beenprospectively fond of their presence when he should have become atestator, if the sign had not been made equivocal by being extended toMrs. Vincy, whose expense in handsome crape seemed to imply the mostpresumptuous hopes, aggravated by a bloom of complexion which toldpretty plainly that she was not a blood-relation, but of that generallyobjectionable class called wife's kin.

  We are all of us imaginative in some form or other, for images are thebrood of desire; and poor old Featherstone, who laughed much at the wayin which others cajoled themselves, did not escape the fellowship ofillusion. In writing the programme for his burial he certainly did notmake clear to himself that his pleasure in the little drama of which itformed a part was confined to anticipation. In chuckling over thevexations he could inflict by the rigid clutch of his dead hand, heinevitably mingled his consciousness with that livid stagnant presence,and so far as he was preoccupied with a future life, it was with one ofgratification inside his coffin. Thus old Featherstone wasimaginative, after his fashion.

  However, the three mourning-coaches were filled according to thewritten orders of the deceased. There were pall-bearers on horseback,with the richest scarfs and hatbands, and even the under-bearers hadtrappings of woe which were of a good well-priced quality. The blackprocession, when dismounted, looked the larger for the smallness of thechurchyard; the heavy human faces and the black draperies shivering inthe wind seemed to tell of a world strangely incongruous with thelightly dropping blossoms and the gleams of sunshine on the daisies.The clergyman who met the procession was Mr. Cadwallader--alsoaccording to the request of Peter Featherstone, prompted as usual bypeculiar reasons. Having a contempt for curates, whom he always calledunderstrappers, he was resolved to be buried by a beneficed clergyman.Mr. Casaubon was out of the question, not merely because he declinedduty of this sort, but because Featherstone had an especial dislike tohim as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the land in theshape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning sermons, which the oldman, being in his pew and not at all sleepy, had been obliged to sitthrough with an inward snarl. He had an objection to a parson stuck upabove his head preaching to him. But his relations with Mr.Cadwallader had been of a different kind: the trout-stream which ranthrough Mr. Casaubon's land took its course through Featherstone'salso, so that Mr. Cadwallader was a parson who had had to ask a favorinstead of preaching. Moreover, he was one of the high gentry livingfour miles away from Lowick, and was thus exalted to an equal sky withthe sheriff of the county and other dignities vaguely regarded asnecessary to the system of things. There would be a satisfaction inbeing buried by Mr. Cadwallader, whose very name offered a fineopportunity for pronouncing wrongly if you liked.

  This distinction conferred on the Rector of Tipton and Freshitt was thereason why Mrs. Cadwallader made one of the group that watched oldFeatherstone's funeral from an upper window of the manor. She was notfond of visiting that house, but she liked, as she said, to seecollections of strange animals such as there would be at this funeral;and she had persuaded Sir James and the young Lady Chettam to drive theRector and herself to Lowick in order that the visit might bealtogether pleasant.

  "I will go anywhere with you, Mrs. Cadwallader," Celia had said; "but Idon't like funerals."

  "Oh, my dear, when you have a clergyman in your family you mustaccommodate your tastes: I did that very early. When I marriedHumphrey I made up my mind to like sermons, and I set out by liking theend very much. That soon spread to the middle and the beginning,because I couldn't have the end without them."

  "No, to be sure not," said the Dowager Lady Chettam, with statelyemphasis.

  The upper window from which the funeral could be well seen was in theroom occupied by Mr. Casaubon when he had been forbidden to work; buthe had resumed nearly his habitual style of life now in spite ofwarnings and prescriptions, and after politely welcoming Mrs.Cadwallader had slipped again into the library to chew a cud of eruditemistake about Cush and Mizraim.

  But for her visitors Dorothea too might have been shut up in thelibrary, and would not have witnessed this scene of old Featherstone'sfuneral, which, aloof as it seemed to be from the tenor of her life,always afterwards came back to her at the touch of certain sensitivepoints in memory, just as the vision of St. Peter's at Rome was inwovenwith moods of despondency. Scenes which make vital changes in ourneighbors' lot are but the background of our own, yet, like aparticular aspect of the fields and trees, they become associated forus with the epochs of our own history, and make a part of that unitywhich lies in the selection of our keenest consciousness.

  The dream-like association of something alien and ill-understood withthe deepest secrets of her experience seemed to mirror that sense ofloneliness which was due to the very ardor of Dorothea's nature. Thecountry gentry of old time lived in a rarefied social air: dotted aparton their stations up the mountain they looked down with imperfectdiscrimination on the belts of thicker life below. And Dorothea wasnot at ease in the perspective and chilliness of that height.

  "I shall not look any more," said Celia, after the train had enteredthe church, placing herself a little behind her husband's elbow so thatshe could slyly touch his coat with her cheek. "I dare say Dodo likesit: she is fond of melancholy things and ugly people."

  "I am fond of knowing something about the people I live among," saidDorothea, who had been watching everything with the interest of a monkon his holiday tour. "It seems to me we know nothing of our neighbors,unless they are cottagers. One is constantly wondering what sort oflives other people lead, and how they take things. I am quite obligedto Mrs. Cadwallader for coming and calling me out of the library."

  "Quite right to feel obliged to me," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Y
our richLowick farmers are as curious as any buffaloes or bisons, and I daresay you don't half see them at church. They are quite different fromyour uncle's tenants or Sir James's--monsters--farmers withoutlandlords--one can't tell how to class them."

  "Most of these followers are not Lowick people," said Sir James; "Isuppose they are legatees from a distance, or from Middlemarch.Lovegood tells me the old fellow has left a good deal of money as wellas land."

  "Think of that now! when so many younger sons can't dine at their ownexpense," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Ah," turning round at the sound ofthe opening door, "here is Mr. Brooke. I felt that we were incompletebefore, and here is the explanation. You are come to see this oddfuneral, of course?"

  "No, I came to look after Casaubon--to see how he goes on, you know.And to bring a little news--a little news, my dear," said Mr. Brooke,nodding at Dorothea as she came towards him. "I looked into thelibrary, and I saw Casaubon over his books. I told him it wouldn't do:I said, 'This will never do, you know: think of your wife, Casaubon.'And he promised me to come up. I didn't tell him my news: I said, hemust come up."

  "Ah, now they are coming out of church," Mrs. Cadwallader exclaimed."Dear me, what a wonderfully mixed set! Mr. Lydgate as doctor, Isuppose. But that is really a good looking woman, and the fair youngman must be her son. Who are they, Sir James, do you know?"

  "I see Vincy, the Mayor of Middlemarch; they are probably his wife andson," said Sir James, looking interrogatively at Mr. Brooke, who noddedand said--

  "Yes, a very decent family--a very good fellow is Vincy; a credit tothe manufacturing interest. You have seen him at my house, you know."

  "Ah, yes: one of your secret committee," said Mrs. Cadwallader,provokingly.

  "A coursing fellow, though," said Sir James, with a fox-hunter'sdisgust.

  "And one of those who suck the life out of the wretched handloomweavers in Tipton and Freshitt. That is how his family look so fairand sleek," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "Those dark, purple-faced peopleare an excellent foil. Dear me, they are like a set of jugs! Do lookat Humphrey: one might fancy him an ugly archangel towering above themin his white surplice."

  "It's a solemn thing, though, a funeral," said Mr. Brooke, "if you takeit in that light, you know."

  "But I am not taking it in that light. I can't wear my solemnity toooften, else it will go to rags. It was time the old man died, and noneof these people are sorry."

  "How piteous!" said Dorothea. "This funeral seems to me the mostdismal thing I ever saw. It is a blot on the morning I cannot bear tothink that any one should die and leave no love behind."

  She was going to say more, but she saw her husband enter and seathimself a little in the background. The difference his presence madeto her was not always a happy one: she felt that he often inwardlyobjected to her speech.

  "Positively," exclaimed Mrs. Cadwallader, "there is a new face come outfrom behind that broad man queerer than any of them: a little roundhead with bulging eyes--a sort of frog-face--do look. He must be ofanother blood, I think."

  "Let me see!" said Celia, with awakened curiosity, standing behind Mrs.Cadwallader and leaning forward over her head. "Oh, what an odd face!"Then with a quick change to another sort of surprised expression, sheadded, "Why, Dodo, you never told me that Mr. Ladislaw was come again!"

  Dorothea felt a shock of alarm: every one noticed her sudden palenessas she looked up immediately at her uncle, while Mr. Casaubon looked ather.

  "He came with me, you know; he is my guest--puts up with me at theGrange," said Mr. Brooke, in his easiest tone, nodding at Dorothea, asif the announcement were just what she might have expected. "And wehave brought the picture at the top of the carriage. I knew you wouldbe pleased with the surprise, Casaubon. There you are to the verylife--as Aquinas, you know. Quite the right sort of thing. And youwill hear young Ladislaw talk about it. He talks uncommonlywell--points out this, that, and the other--knows art and everything ofthat kind--companionable, you know--is up with you in any track--whatI've been wanting a long while."

  Mr. Casaubon bowed with cold politeness, mastering his irritation, butonly so far as to be silent. He remembered Will's letter quite as wellas Dorothea did; he had noticed that it was not among the letters whichhad been reserved for him on his recovery, and secretly concluding thatDorothea had sent word to Will not to come to Lowick, he had shrunkwith proud sensitiveness from ever recurring to the subject. He nowinferred that she had asked her uncle to invite Will to the Grange; andshe felt it impossible at that moment to enter into any explanation.

  Mrs. Cadwallader's eyes, diverted from the churchyard, saw a good dealof dumb show which was not so intelligible to her as she could havedesired, and could not repress the question, "Who is Mr. Ladislaw?"

  "A young relative of Mr. Casaubon's," said Sir James, promptly. Hisgood-nature often made him quick and clear-seeing in personal matters,and he had divined from Dorothea's glance at her husband that there wassome alarm in her mind.

  "A very nice young fellow--Casaubon has done everything for him,"explained Mr. Brooke. "He repays your expense in him, Casaubon," hewent on, nodding encouragingly. "I hope he will stay with me a longwhile and we shall make something of my documents. I have plenty ofideas and facts, you know, and I can see he is just the man to put theminto shape--remembers what the right quotations are, omne tulitpunctum, and that sort of thing--gives subjects a kind of turn. Iinvited him some time ago when you were ill, Casaubon; Dorothea saidyou couldn't have anybody in the house, you know, and she asked me towrite."

  Poor Dorothea felt that every word of her uncle's was about as pleasantas a grain of sand in the eye to Mr. Casaubon. It would be altogetherunfitting now to explain that she had not wished her uncle to inviteWill Ladislaw. She could not in the least make clear to herself thereasons for her husband's dislike to his presence--a dislike painfullyimpressed on her by the scene in the library; but she felt theunbecomingness of saying anything that might convey a notion of it toothers. Mr. Casaubon, indeed, had not thoroughly represented thosemixed reasons to himself; irritated feeling with him, as with all ofus, seeking rather for justification than for self-knowledge. But hewished to repress outward signs, and only Dorothea could discern thechanges in her husband's face before he observed with more of dignifiedbending and sing-song than usual--

  "You are exceedingly hospitable, my dear sir; and I owe youacknowledgments for exercising your hospitality towards a relative ofmine."

  The funeral was ended now, and the churchyard was being cleared.

  "Now you can see him, Mrs. Cadwallader," said Celia. "He is just likea miniature of Mr. Casaubon's aunt that hangs in Dorothea'sboudoir--quite nice-looking."

  "A very pretty sprig," said Mrs. Cadwallader, dryly. "What is yournephew to be, Mr. Casaubon?"

  "Pardon me, he is not my nephew. He is my cousin."

  "Well, you know," interposed Mr. Brooke, "he is trying his wings. Heis just the sort of young fellow to rise. I should be glad to give himan opportunity. He would make a good secretary, now, like Hobbes,Milton, Swift--that sort of man."

  "I understand," said Mrs. Cadwallader. "One who can write speeches."

  "I'll fetch him in now, eh, Casaubon?" said Mr. Brooke. "He wouldn'tcome in till I had announced him, you know. And we'll go down and lookat the picture. There you are to the life: a deep subtle sort ofthinker with his fore-finger on the page, while Saint Bonaventure orsomebody else, rather fat and florid, is looking up at the Trinity.Everything is symbolical, you know--the higher style of art: I likethat up to a certain point, but not too far--it's rather straining tokeep up with, you know. But you are at home in that, Casaubon. Andyour painter's flesh is good--solidity, transparency, everything ofthat sort. I went into that a great deal at one time. However, I'llgo and fetch Ladislaw."