Middlemarch, Page 42

  CHAPTER XLI.

  "By swaggering could I never thrive, For the rain it raineth every day. --Twelfth Night

  The transactions referred to by Caleb Garth as having gone forwardbetween Mr. Bulstrode and Mr. Joshua Rigg Featherstone concerning theland attached to Stone Court, had occasioned the interchange of aletter or two between these personages.

  Who shall tell what may be the effect of writing? If it happens tohave been cut in stone, though it lie face down-most for ages on aforsaken beach, or "rest quietly under the drums and tramplings of manyconquests," it may end by letting us into the secret of usurpations andother scandals gossiped about long empires ago:--this world beingapparently a huge whispering-gallery. Such conditions are oftenminutely represented in our petty lifetimes. As the stone which hasbeen kicked by generations of clowns may come by curious little linksof effect under the eyes of a scholar, through whose labors it may atlast fix the date of invasions and unlock religions, so a bit of inkand paper which has long been an innocent wrapping or stop-gap may atlast be laid open under the one pair of eyes which have knowledgeenough to turn it into the opening of a catastrophe. To Uriel watchingthe progress of planetary history from the sun, the one result would bejust as much of a coincidence as the other.

  Having made this rather lofty comparison I am less uneasy in callingattention to the existence of low people by whose interference, howeverlittle we may like it, the course of the world is very much determined.It would be well, certainly, if we could help to reduce their number,and something might perhaps be done by not lightly giving occasion totheir existence. Socially speaking, Joshua Rigg would have beengenerally pronounced a superfluity. But those who like PeterFeatherstone never had a copy of themselves demanded, are the very lastto wait for such a request either in prose or verse. The copy in thiscase bore more of outside resemblance to the mother, in whose sexfrog-features, accompanied with fresh-colored cheeks and a well-roundedfigure, are compatible with much charm for a certain order of admirers.The result is sometimes a frog-faced male, desirable, surely, to noorder of intelligent beings. Especially when he is suddenly broughtinto evidence to frustrate other people's expectations--the verylowest aspect in which a social superfluity can present himself.

  But Mr. Rigg Featherstone's low characteristics were all of the sober,water-drinking kind. From the earliest to the latest hour of the dayhe was always as sleek, neat, and cool as the frog he resembled, andold Peter had secretly chuckled over an offshoot almost morecalculating, and far more imperturbable, than himself. I will add thathis finger-nails were scrupulously attended to, and that he meant tomarry a well-educated young lady (as yet unspecified) whose person wasgood, and whose connections, in a solid middle-class way, wereundeniable. Thus his nails and modesty were comparable to those ofmost gentlemen; though his ambition had been educated only by theopportunities of a clerk and accountant in the smaller commercialhouses of a seaport. He thought the rural Featherstones very simpleabsurd people, and they in their turn regarded his "bringing up" in aseaport town as an exaggeration of the monstrosity that their brotherPeter, and still more Peter's property, should have had such belongings.

  The garden and gravel approach, as seen from the two windows of thewainscoted parlor at Stone Court, were never in better trim than now,when Mr. Rigg Featherstone stood, with his hands behind him, lookingout on these grounds as their master. But it seemed doubtful whetherhe looked out for the sake of contemplation or of turning his back to aperson who stood in the middle of the room, with his legs considerablyapart and his hands in his trouser-pockets: a person in all respects acontrast to the sleek and cool Rigg. He was a man obviously on the waytowards sixty, very florid and hairy, with much gray in his bushywhiskers and thick curly hair, a stoutish body which showed todisadvantage the somewhat worn joinings of his clothes, and the air ofa swaggerer, who would aim at being noticeable even at a show offireworks, regarding his own remarks on any other person's performanceas likely to be more interesting than the performance itself.

  His name was John Raffles, and he sometimes wrote jocosely W.A.G.after his signature, observing when he did so, that he was once taughtby Leonard Lamb of Finsbury who wrote B.A. after his name, and that he,Raffles, originated the witticism of calling that celebrated principalBa-Lamb. Such were the appearance and mental flavor of Mr. Raffles,both of which seemed to have a stale odor of travellers' rooms in thecommercial hotels of that period.

  "Come, now, Josh," he was saying, in a full rumbling tone, "look at itin this light: here is your poor mother going into the vale of years,and you could afford something handsome now to make her comfortable."

  "Not while you live. Nothing would make her comfortable while youlive," returned Rigg, in his cool high voice. "What I give her, you'lltake."

  "You bear me a grudge, Josh, that I know. But come, now--as betweenman and man--without humbug--a little capital might enable me to make afirst-rate thing of the shop. The tobacco trade is growing. I shouldcut my own nose off in not doing the best I could at it. I shouldstick to it like a flea to a fleece for my own sake. I should alwaysbe on the spot. And nothing would make your poor mother so happy.I've pretty well done with my wild oats--turned fifty-five. I want tosettle down in my chimney-corner. And if I once buckled to the tobaccotrade, I could bring an amount of brains and experience to bear on itthat would not be found elsewhere in a hurry. I don't want to bebothering you one time after another, but to get things once for allinto the right channel. Consider that, Josh--as between man andman--and with your poor mother to be made easy for her life. I wasalways fond of the old woman, by Jove!"

  "Have you done?" said Mr. Rigg, quietly, without looking away from thewindow.

  "Yes, I've done," said Raffles, taking hold of his hat which stoodbefore him on the table, and giving it a sort of oratorical push.

  "Then just listen to me. The more you say anything, the less I shallbelieve it. The more you want me to do a thing, the more reason Ishall have for never doing it. Do you think I mean to forget yourkicking me when I was a lad, and eating all the best victual away fromme and my mother? Do you think I forget your always coming home tosell and pocket everything, and going off again leaving us in thelurch? I should be glad to see you whipped at the cart-tail. Mymother was a fool to you: she'd no right to give me a father-in-law,and she's been punished for it. She shall have her weekly allowancepaid and no more: and that shall be stopped if you dare to come on tothese premises again, or to come into this country after me again. Thenext time you show yourself inside the gates here, you shall be drivenoff with the dogs and the wagoner's whip."

  As Rigg pronounced the last words he turned round and looked at Raffleswith his prominent frozen eyes. The contrast was as striking as itcould have been eighteen years before, when Rigg was a most unengagingkickable boy, and Raffles was the rather thick-set Adonis of bar-roomsand back-parlors. But the advantage now was on the side of Rigg, andauditors of this conversation might probably have expected that Raffleswould retire with the air of a defeated dog. Not at all. He made agrimace which was habitual with him whenever he was "out" in a game;then subsided into a laugh, and drew a brandy-flask from his pocket.

  "Come, Josh," he said, in a cajoling tone, "give us a spoonful ofbrandy, and a sovereign to pay the way back, and I'll go. Honorbright! I'll go like a bullet, _by_ Jove!"

  "Mind," said Rigg, drawing out a bunch of keys, "if I ever see youagain, I shan't speak to you. I don't own you any more than if I saw acrow; and if you want to own me you'll get nothing by it but acharacter for being what you are--a spiteful, brassy, bullying rogue."

  "That's a pity, now, Josh," said Raffles, affecting to scratch his headand wrinkle his brows upward as if he were nonplussed. "I'm very fondof you; _by_ Jove, I am! There's nothing I like better than plaguingyou--you're so like your mother, and I must do without it. But thebrandy and the sovereign's a bargain."

  He jerked forward the flask and Rigg went to a fi
ne old oaken bureauwith his keys. But Raffles had reminded himself by his movement withthe flask that it had become dangerously loose from its leathercovering, and catching sight of a folded paper which had fallen withinthe fender, he took it up and shoved it under the leather so as to makethe glass firm.

  By that time Rigg came forward with a brandy-bottle, filled the flask,and handed Raffles a sovereign, neither looking at him nor speaking tohim. After locking up the bureau again, he walked to the window andgazed out as impassibly as he had done at the beginning of theinterview, while Raffles took a small allowance from the flask, screwedit up, and deposited it in his side-pocket, with provoking slowness,making a grimace at his stepson's back.

  "Farewell, Josh--and if forever!" said Raffles, turning back his headas he opened the door.

  Rigg saw him leave the grounds and enter the lane. The gray day hadturned to a light drizzling rain, which freshened the hedgerows and thegrassy borders of the by-roads, and hastened the laborers who wereloading the last shocks of corn. Raffles, walking with the uneasy gaitof a town loiterer obliged to do a bit of country journeying on foot,looked as incongruous amid this moist rural quiet and industry as if hehad been a baboon escaped from a menagerie. But there were none tostare at him except the long-weaned calves, and none to show dislike ofhis appearance except the little water-rats which rustled away at hisapproach.

  He was fortunate enough when he got on to the highroad to be overtakenby the stage-coach, which carried him to Brassing; and there he tookthe new-made railway, observing to his fellow-passengers that heconsidered it pretty well seasoned now it had done for Huskisson. Mr.Raffles on most occasions kept up the sense of having been educated atan academy, and being able, if he chose, to pass well everywhere;indeed, there was not one of his fellow-men whom he did not feelhimself in a position to ridicule and torment, confident of theentertainment which he thus gave to all the rest of the company.

  He played this part now with as much spirit as if his journey had beenentirely successful, resorting at frequent intervals to his flask. Thepaper with which he had wedged it was a letter signed NicholasBulstrode, but Raffles was not likely to disturb it from its presentuseful position.