Chapter LIII
"It is but a shallow haste which concludeth insincerity
from what outsiders call inconsistency — putting a dead
mechanism of `ifs' and `therefores' for the living myriad of
hidden suckers whereby the belief and the conduct are
wrought into mutual sustainment."
Mr. Bulstrode, when he was hoping to acquire a new
interest in Lowick, had naturally had an especial wish that
the new clergyman should be one whom he thoroughly approved;
and he believed it to be a chastisement and admonition
directed to his own shortcomings and those of the nation at
large, that just about the time when he came in possession
of the deeds which made him the proprietor of Stone Court,
Mr. Farebrother " read himself " into the quaint little
church and preached his first sermon to the congregation of
farmers, laborers, and village artisans. It was not that
Mr. Bulstrode intended to frequent Lowick Church or to
reside at Stone Court for a good while to come: he had
bought the excellent farm and fine homestead simply as a
retreat which he might gradually enlarge as to the land and
beautify as to the dwelling, until it should be conducive to
the divine glory that he should enter on it as a residence,
partially withdrawing from his present exertions in the
administration of business, and throwing more conspicuously
on the side of Gospel truth the weight of local landed
proprietorship, which Providence might ,increase by
unforeseen occasions of purchase. A strong leading in this
direction seemed to have been given in the surprising
facility of getting Stone Court, when every one had expected
that Mr. Rigg Featherstone would have clung to it as the
Garden of Eden. That was what poor old Peter himself had
expected; having often, in imagination, looked up through
the sods above him, and, unobstructed by. perspective, seen
his frog-faced legatee enjoying the fine old place to the
perpetual surprise and disappointment of other survivors.
But how little we know what would make paradise for our
neighbors! We judge from our own desires, and our neighbors
themselves are not always open enough even to throw out a
hint of theirs. The cool and judicious Joshua Rigg had not
allowed his parent to perceive that Stone Court was anything
less than the chief good in his estimation, and he had
certainly wished to call it his own. But as Warren Hastings
looked at gold and thought of buying Daylesford, so Joshua
Rigg looked at Stone Court and thought of buying gold. He
had a very distinct and intense vision of his chief good,
the vigorous greed which he had inherited having taken a
special form by dint of circumstance: and his chief good was
to be a moneychanger. From his earliest employment as an
errand-boy in a seaport, he had looked through the windows
of the moneychangers as other boys look through the windows
of the pastry-cooks; the fascination had wrought itself
gradually into a deep special passion; he meant, when he had
property, to do many things, one of them being to marry a
genteel young person; but these were all accidents and joys
that imagination could dispense with. The one joy after
which his soul thirsted was to have a money-changer's shop
on a much-frequented quay, to have locks all round him of
which he held the keys, and to look sublimely cool as he
handled the breeding coins of all nations, while helpless
Cupidity looked at him enviously from the other side of an
iron lattice. The strength of that passion had been a power
enabling him to master ;all the knowledge necessary to
gratify it. And when others were thinking that he had
settled at Stone Court for life, Joshua himself was thinking
that the moment now was not far off when he should settle on
the North Quay with the best appointments in safes and
locks.
Enough. We are concerned with looking at Joshua Rigg's
sale of his land from Mr. Bulstrode's point of view, and he
interpreted it as a cheering dispensation conveying perhaps
a sanction to a purpose which he had for some time
entertained without external encouragement; he interpreted
it thus, but not too confidently, offering up his
thanksgiving in guarded phraseology. His doubts did not
arise from the possible rela
tions of the event to Joshua
Rigg's destiny, which belonged to the unmapped regions not
taken under the providential government, except perhaps in
an imperfect colonial way; but they arose from reflecting
that this dispensation too might be a chastisement for
himself, as Mr. Farebrother's induction to the living
clearly was.
This was not what Mr. Bulstrode said to any man for the
sake of deceiving him: it was what he said to himself — it
was as genuinely his mode of explaining events as any theory
of yours may be, if you happen to disagree with him. For
the egoism which enters into our theories does not affect
their sincerity; rather, the more our egoism is satisfied,
the more robust is our belief.
However, whether for sanction or for chastisement, Mr.
Bulstrode, hardly fifteen months after-the death of Peter
Featherstone, had become the proprietor of Stone Court, and
what Peter would say " if he were worthy to know," had
become an inexhaustible and consolatory subject of
conversation to his disappointed relatives. The tables were
now turned on that dear brother departed, and to contemplate
the frustration of his cunning by the superior cunning of
things in general was a cud of delight to Solomon. Mrs.
Waule had a melancholy triumph in the proof that it did not
answer to make false Featherstones and cut off the genuine;
and Sister Martha receiving the news in the Chalky Flats
said, "Dear, dear! then the Almighty could have been none so
pleased with the almshouses after all."
Affectionate Mrs. Bulstrode was particularly glad of the
advantage which her husband's health was likely to get from
the purchase of Stone Court. Few days passed without his
riding thither and looking over some part of the farm with
the bailiff, and the evenings were delicious in that quiet
spot, when the new hay-ricks lately set up were sending
forth odors to mingle with the breath of the rich old
garden. One evening, while the sun was still above the
horizon and burning in golden lamps among the great walnut
boughs, Mr. Bulstrode was pausing on horseback outside the
front gate waiting for Caleb Garth, who had met him by
appointment to give an
opinion on a question of stable
drainage, and was now advising the bailiff in the rick-yard.
Mr. Bulstrode was conscious of being in a good spiritual
frame and more than usually serene, under the influence of
his innocent recreation. He was doctrinally convinced that
there was a total absence of merit in himself; but that
doctrinal conviction may be held without pain when the sense
of demerit does not take a distinct shape in memory and
revive the tingling of shame or the pang of remorse. Nay,
it may be held with intense satisfaction when the depth of
our sinning is but a measure for the depth of forgiveness,
and a clenching proof that we are peculiar instruments of
the divine intention. The memory has as many moods as the
temper, and shifts its scenery like a diorama. At this
moment Mr. Bulstrode felt as if the sunshine were all one
with that of far-off evenings when he was a very young man
and used to go out preaching beyond Highbury. And he would
willingly have had that service of exhortation in prospect
now. The texts were there still, and so was his own
facility in expounding them. His brief reverie was
interrupted by the return of Caleb Garth, who also was on
horseback, and was just shaking his bridle before starting,
when he exclaimed —
"Bless my heart! what's this fellow in black coming
along the lane? He's like one of those men one sees about
after the races."
Mr. Bulstrode turned his horse and looked along the
lane, but made no reply. The comer was our slight
acquaintance Mr. Raffles, whose appearance presented no
other change than such as was due to a suit of black and a
crape hat-band. He was within three yards of the horseman
now, and they could see the flash of recognition in his face
as he whirled his stick upward, looking all the while at Mr.
Bulstrode, and at last exclaiming: —
"By Jove, Nick, it's you! I couldn't be mistaken, though
the five-and-twenty years have played old Boguy with us
both! How are you, eh? you didn't expect to see me
here. Come, shake us by the hand."
To say that Mr. Raffles' manner was rather excited would
be only one mode of saying that it was evening. Caleb
Garth could see that there was a moment of struggle and
hesitation in Mr. Bulstrode, but it ended in his putting out
his hand coldly to Raffles and saying —
"I did not indeed expect to see you in this remote
country place."
"Well, it belongs to a stepson of mine," said Raffles,
adjusting himself in a swaggering attitude. " I came to see
him here before. I'm not so surprised at seeing you, old
fellow, because I picked up a letter — what you may call a
providential thing. It's uncommonly fortunate I met you,
though; for I don't care about seeing my stepson: he's not
affectionate, and his poor mother's gone now. To tell the
truth, I came out of love to you, Nick: I came to get your
address, for — look here!" Raffles drew a crumpled paper from
his pocket.
Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been
tempted to linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he
could about a man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed
to imply passages in the banker's life so unlike anything
that was known of him in Middlemarch that they must have the
nature of a secret to pique curiosity. But Caleb was
peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong
were almost absent from his mind; and one of these was
curiosity about personal affairs. Especially if there was
anything discreditable to be found out concerning another
man, Caleb preferred not to know it; and if he had to tell
anybody under him that his evil doings were discovered, he
was more embarrassed than the culprit. He now spurred his
horse, and saying, " I wish you good evening, Mr. Bulstrode;
I must be getting home," set off at a trot.
"You didn't put your full address to this letter,"
Raffles continued. " That was not like the first-rate man
of business you used to be. 'The Shrubs,' — they may be
anywhere: you live near at hand, eh? — have cut the London
concern altogether — perhaps turned country squire — have a
rural mansion to invite me to. Lord, how many years it is
ago! The old lady must have been dead a pretty long
while — gone to
glory without the pain of knowing how
poor her daughter was, eh? But, by Jove! you're very pale
and pasty, Nick. Come, if you're going home, I'll walk by
your side."
Mr. Bulstrode's usual paleness had in fact taken an
almost deathly hue. Five minutes before, the expanse of his
life had been submerged in its evening sunshine which shone
backward to its remembered morning: sin seemed to be a
question of doctrine and inward penitence, humiliation an
exercise of the closet, the bearing of his deeds a matter of
private vision adjusted solely by spiritual relations and
conceptions of the divine purposes. And now, as if by some
hideous magic, this loud red figure had risen before him in
unmanageable solidity — an incorporate past which had not
entered into his imagination of chastisernents. But Mr.
Bulstrode's thought was busy, and he was not a man to act or
speak rashly.
"I was going home," he said, "but I can defer my ride a
little. And you can, if you please, rest here."
"Thank you," said Raffles, making a grimace. " I don't
care now about seeing my stepson. I'd rather go home with
you."
"Your stepson, if Mr. Rigg Featherstone was he, is here
no longer. I am master here now."
Raffles opened wide eyes, and gave a long whistle of
surprise, before he said, "Well then, I've no objection.
I've had enough walking from the coach-road. I never was
much of a walker, or rider either. What I like is a smart
vehicle and a spirited cob. I was always a little heavy in
the saddle. What a pleasant surprise it must be to you to
see me, old fellow! " he continued, as they turned towards
the house. " You don't say so; but you never took your luck
heartily — you were always thinking of improving the
occasion — you'd such a gift for improving your luck."
Mr. Raffles seemed greatly to enjoy his own wit, and
Swung his leg in a swaggering manner which was rather too
much for his companion's judicious patience.
"If I remember rightly," Mr. Bulstrode observed, with
chill anger, "our acquaintance many years ago had not the
sort of intimacy which you are now assuming, Mr. Raffles.
Any services you desire of me will be the more readily
ren
dered if you will avoid a tone of familiarity which
did not lie in our former intercourse, and can hardly be
warranted by more than twenty years of separation."
"You don't like being called Nick? Why, I always called
you Nick in my heart, and though lost to sight, to memory
dear. By Jove! my feelings have ripened for you like fine
old cognac. I hope you've got some in the house now. Josh
filled my flask well the last time."
Mr. Bulstrode had not yet fully learned that even the
desire for cognac was not stronger in Raffles than the
desire to torment, and that a hint of annoyance always
served him as a fresh cue. But it was at least clear that
further objection was useless, and Mr. Bulstrode, in giving
orders to the housekeeper for the accommodation of the
guest, had a resolute air of quietude.
There was the comfort of thinking that this housekeeper
had been in the service of Rigg also, and might accept the
idea that Mr. Bulstrode entertained Raffles merely as a
friend of her former master.
When there was food and drink spread before his visitor
in the wainscoted parlor, and no witness in the room, Mr.
Bulstrode said —
"Your habits and mine are so different, Mr. Raffles,
that we can hardly enjoy each other's society. The wisest
plan for both of us will therefore be to part as soon as
possible. Since you say that you wished to meet me, you
probably considered that you had some business to transact
with me. But under the circumstances I will invite you to
remain here for the-night, and I will myself ride over here
early to-morrow morning — before breakfast, in fact, when I
can receive any Communication you have to make to me."
"With all my heart," said Raffles; "this is a
comfortable place — a little dull for a continuance; but I
can put up with it for a night, with this good liquor and
the prospect of seeing you again in the morning. You're a
much better host than my stepson was; but Josh owed me a bit
of a grudge for marrying his mother; and between you and me
there was never anything but kindness."
Mr. Bulstrode, hoping that the peculiar mixture of
joviality and sneering in Raffles' manner was a good deal
the effect of drink, had determined to wait till he was
quite sober before he spent more words upon him. But he
rode home with a terribly lucid vision of the difficulty
there would be in arranging any result that could be
permanently counted on with this man. It was inevitable
that he should wish to get rid of John Raffles, though his
reappearance could not be regarded as lying outside the
divine plan. The spirit of evil might have sent him to
threaten Mr. Bulstrode's subversion as an instrument of
good; but the threat must have been permitted, and was a
chastisement of a new kind. It was an hour of anguish for
him very different from the hours in which his struggle had
been securely private, and which had ended with a sense that
his secret misdeeds were pardoned and his services accepted.
Those misdeeds even when committed — had they not been half
sanctified by the singleness of his desire to devote himself
and all he possessed to the furtherance of the divine
scheme? And was he after all to become a mere stone of
stumbling and a rock of offence? For who would understand
the work within him? Who would not, when there was the
pretext of casting disgrace upon him, confound his whole
life and the truths he had espoused, in one heap of obloquy?
In his closest meditations the life-long habit of Mr.
Bulstrode's mind clad his most egoistic terrors in doctrinal
references to superhuman ends. But even while we are
talking and meditating about the earth's orbit and the solar
system, what we feel and adjust our movements to is the
stable earth and the changing day. And now within all the
automatic succession of theoretic phrases — distinct and
inmost as the shiver and the ache of oncoming fever when we
are discussing abstract pain, was the forecast of disgrace
in the presence of his neighbors and of his own wife. For
the pain, as well as the public estimate of disgrace,
depends on the amount of previous profession. To men who
only aim at escaping felony, nothing short of the prisoner's
dock is disgrace. But Mr. Bulstrode had aimed at being an
eminent Christian.
It was not more than half-past seven in the morning when
he again reached Stone Court. The fine old place never
looked more like a delightful home than at that moment; the
great white lilies were in flower, the nasturtiums, their
pretty leaves all silvered with dew, were running away over
the low stone wall; the very noises all around had a heart
of peace within them. But everything was spoiled for the
owner as he walked on the gravel in front and awaited the
descent of Mr. Raffles, with whom he was condemned to
breakfast.
It was not long before they were seated together in the
wainscoted parlor over their tea and toast, which was as
much as Raffles cared to take at that early hour. The
difference between his morning and evening self was not so
great as his companion had imagined that it might be; the
delight in tormenting was perhaps even the stronger because
his spirits were rather less highly pitched. Certainly his
manners seemed more disagreeable by the morning light.
"As I have little time to spare, Mr. Raffles," said the
banker, who could hardly do more than sip his tea and break
his toast without eating it, "I shall be obliged if you will
mention at once the ground on which you wished to meet with
me. I presume that you have a home elsewhere and will be
glad to return to it."
"Why, if a man has got any heart, doesn't he want to see
an old friend, Nick? — I must call you Nick — we always did
call you young Nick when we knew you meant to marry the old
widow. Some said you had a handsome family likeness to old
Nick, but that was your mother's fault, calling you
Nicholas. Aren't you glad to see me again? I expected an
invite to stay with you at some pretty place. My own
establishment is broken up now my wife's dead. I've no
particular attachment to any spot; I would as soon settle
hereabout as anywhere."
"May I ask why you returned from America? I considered
that the strong wish you expressed to go there, when an
adequate sum was furnished, was tantamount to an engagement
that you would remain there for life."
"Never knew that a wish to go to a place was the same
thing as a wish to stay. But I did stay a matter of
ten years; it didn't suit me to stay any longer. And I'm
not going again, Nick." Here Mr. Raffles winked slowly as
he looked at Mr. Bulstrode.
"Do you wish to be settled in any business? What is
your calling now?"
"Thank you, my calling is to enjoy myself as much as I
can. I don't care about working any more. If I did
anything it would be a little travelling in the tobacco
line — or something of that sort, which takes a man into
agreeable company. But not without an independence to fall
back upon. That's what I want: I'm not so strong as I was,
Nick, though I've got more color than you. I want an
independence."
"That could be supplied to you, if you would engage to
keep at a distance," said Mr. Bulstrode, perhaps with a
little too much eagerness in his undertone.
"That must be as it suits my convenience," said Raffles
coolly. "I see no reason why I shouldn't make a few
acquaintances hereabout. I'm not ashamed of myself as
company for anybody. I dropped my portmanteau at the
turnpike when I got down — change of linen — genuine — honor
bright — more than fronts and wristbands; and with this suit
of mourning, straps and everything, I should do you credit
among the nobs here." Mr. Raffles had pushed away hit chair
and looked down at himself, particularly at his straps His
chief intention was to annoy Bulstrode, but he really
thought that his appearance now would produce a good effect,
and that he was not only handsome and witty, but clad in 9
mourning style which implied solid connections.
"If you intend to rely on me in any way, Mr. Raffles,"
said Bulstrode, after a moment's pause, " you will expect to
meet my wishes."
"Ah, to be sure," said Raffles, with a mocking
cordiality. " Didn't I always do it? Lord, you made a
pretty thing out of me, and I got but little. I've often
thought since, I might have done better by telling the old
woman that I'd found her daughter and her grandchild: it
would have suited my feelings better; I've got a soft place
in my heart. But you've
buried the old lady by this
time, I suppose — it's all one to her now. And you've got
your fortune out of that profitable business which had such
a blessing on it. You've taken to being a nob, buying land,
being a country bashaw. Still in the Dissenting line, eh?
Still godly? Or taken to the Church as more genteel?"
This time Mr. Raffles' slow wink and slight protrusion
of his tongue was worse than a nightmare, because it held
the certitude that it was not a nightmare, but a waking
misery. Mr. Bulstrode felt a shuddering nausea, and did not
speak, but was considering diligently whether he should not
leave Raffles to do as he would, and simply defy him as a
slanderer. The man would soon show himself disreputable
enough to make people disbelieve him. "But not when he
tells any ugly-looking truth about you," said discerning
consciousness. And again: it seemed no wrong to keep
Raffles at a distance, but Mr. Bulstrode shrank from the
direct falsehood of denying true statements. It was one
thing to look back on forgiven sins, nay, to explain
questionable conformity to lax customs, and another to enter
deliberately on the necessity of falsehood.
But since Bulstrode did not speak, Raffles ran on, by
way of using time to the utmost.
"I've not had such fine luck as you, by Jove! Things
went confoundedly with me in New York; those Yankees are
cool hands, and a man of gentlemanly feelings has no chance
with them. I married when I came back — a nice woman in the
tobacco trade — very fond of me — but the trade was
restricted, as we say. She had been settled there a good
many years by a friend; but there was a son too much in the
case. Josh and I never hit it off. However, I made the
most of the position, and I've always taken my glass in good
company. It's been all on the square with me; I'm as open
as the day. You won't take it ill of me that I didn't look
you up before. I've got a complaint that makes me a little
dilatory. I thought you were trading and praying away in
London still, and didn't find you there. But you see I was
sent to you, Nick — perhaps for a blessing to both of us."
Mr. Raffles ended with a jocose snuffle: no man felt his
intellect more superior to religious cant. And if the
cunning which calculates on the meanest feelings in men
could be, called intellect, he had his share, for under the
blurting rallying tone with which he spoke to Balstrode,
there was an evident selection of statements, as if they had
been so many moves at chess. Meanwhile Bulstrode had
determined on his move, and he said, with gathered
resolution —
"You will do well to reflect, Mr. Raffles, that it is
possible for a man to overreach himself in the effort to
secure undue advantage. Although I am not in any way bound
to you, I am willing to supply you with a regular
annuity — in quarterly payments — so long as you fulfil a
promise to remain at a distance from this neighborhood. It
is in your power to choose. If you insist on remaining
here, even for a short time, you will get nothing from me.
I shall decline to know you."
"Ha, ha!" said Raffles, with an affected explosion,
"that reminds me of a droll dog of a thief who declined to
know the constable."
"Your allusions are lost on me sir," said Bulstrode,
with white heat; " the law has-no hold on me either through
your agency or any other."
"You can't understand a joke, my good fellow. I only
meant that I should never decline to know you. But let us
be serious. Your quarterly payment won't quite suit me. I
like my freedom."
Here Raffles rose and stalked once or twice up and down
the room, swinging his leg, and assuming an air of masterly
meditation. At last he stopped opposite Bulstrode, and
said, " I'll tell you what! Give us a couple of
hundreds — come, that's modest — and I'll go away — honor
bright! — pick up my portmanteau and go away. But I shall
not give up my Liberty for a dirty annuity. I shall come
and go where I like. Perhaps it may suit me to stay away,
and correspond with a friend; perhaps not. Have you the
money with you?"
"No, I have one hundred," said Bulstrode, feeling the
immediate riddance too great a relief to be rejected on the
ground of future uncertainties. " I will forward you
the other if you will mention an address."
"No, I'll wait here till you bring it," said Raffles. "
I'll take a stroll and have a snack, and you'll be back by
that time."
Mr. Bulstrode's sickly body, shattered by the agitations
he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel
abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At
that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on
any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when
the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a sudden
recollection —
"I did have another look after Sarah again, though I
didn't tell you; I'd a tender conscience about that pretty
young woman. I didn't find her, but I found out her
husband's name, and I made a note of it. But hang it, I
lost my pocketbook. However, if I heard it, I should know
it again. I've got my faculties as if I was in my prime,
but names wear out, by Jove! Sometimes I'm no better than a
confounded tax-paper before the names are filled in.
However, if I hear of her and her family, you shall know,
Nick. You'd like to do something for her, now she's your
step-daughter."
"Doubtless," said Mr. Bulstrode, with the usual steady
look of his light-gray eyes; " though that might reduce my
power of assisting you."
As he walked out of the room, Raffles winked slowly at
his back, and then turned towards the window to watch the
banker riding away — virtually at his command. His lips
first curled with a smile and then opened with a short
triumphant laugh.
"But what the deuce was the name?" he presently said,
half aloud, scratching his head, and wrinkling his brows
horizontally. He had not really cared or thought about this
point of forgetfulness until it occurred to him in his
invention of annoyances for Bulstrode.
"It began with L; it was almost all l's I fancy," he
went on, with a sense that he was getting hold of the
slippery name. But the hold was too slight, and he soon got
tired of
this mental chase; for few men were more
impatient of private occupation or more in need of making
themselves continually heard than Mr. Raffles. He preferred
using his time in pleasant conversation with the bailiff and
the housekeeper, from whom he gathered as much as he wanted
to know about Mr. Bulstrode's position in Middlemarch.
After all, however, there was a dull space of time which
needed relieving with bread and cheese and ale, and when he
was seated alone with these resources in the wainscoted
parlor, he suddenly slapped his knee, and exclaimed, "
Ladislaw!" That action of memory which he had tried to set
going, and had abandoned in despair, had suddenly completed
itself without conscious effort — a common experience,
agreeable as a completed sneeze, even if the name remembered
is of no value. Raffles immediately took out his
pocket-book, and wrote down the name, not because he
expected to use it, but merely for the sake of not being at
a loss if he ever did happen to want it. He was not going
to tell Bulstrode: there was no actual good in telling, and
to a mind like that of Mr. Raffles there is always probable
good in a secret.
He was satisfied with his present success, and by three
o'clock that day he had taken up his portmanteau at the
turnpike and mounted the coach, relieving Mr. Bulstrode's
eyes of an ugly black spot on the landscape at Stone Court,
but not relieving him of the dread that the black spot might
reappear and become inseparable even from the vision of his
hearth.