Middlemarch

CHAPTER XXV.

“Love seeketh not itself to please, Nor for itself hath any care, But for another gives its ease, And builds a heaven in hell’s despair. . . . Love seeketh only self to please, To bind another to its delight, Joys in another’s loss of ease, And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.”

Fred Vincy wanted to arrive at Stone Court when Mary could not expect him. He left his horse in the yard to avoid making a noise on the gravel, and entered the parlor without other notice than the noise of the door-handle. Mary was in her usual corner, laughing over Mrs. Piozzi’s recollections of Johnson, and looked up with the fun still in her face. It gradually faded as she saw Fred approach her without speaking. “Mary,” he began, “I am a good-for-nothing blackguard.” “I should think one of those epithets would do at a time,” said Mary, trying to smile, but feeling alarmed. “I owed money—a hundred and sixty pounds. I asked your father to put his name to a bill. I thought it would not signify to him. I made sure of paying the money myself, and I have tried as hard as I could. And now, I have been so unlucky—a horse has turned out badly—I can only pay fifty pounds.” “Oh, poor mother, poor father!” said Mary, her eyes filling with tears, a little sob rising which she tried to repress. He too remained silent, feeling more miserable than ever. “I wouldn’t have hurt you for the world, Mary,” he said at last. “You can never forgive me.” “What does it matter whether I forgive you? Would that make it any better for my mother to lose the money she has been earning by lessons for four years, that she might send Alfred to Mr. Hanmer’s? Should you think all that pleasant enough if I forgave you?” “Say what you like, Mary. I deserve it all.”

“I do care about your mother’s money going,” he said, when she was seated again and sewing quickly. “I wanted to ask you, Mary—don’t you think that Mr. Featherstone—if you were to tell him—tell him, I mean, about apprenticing Alfred—would advance the money?” “My family is not fond of begging, Fred. We would rather work for our money.” “I am so miserable, Mary—if you knew how miserable I am, you would be sorry for me.” “There are other things to be more sorry for than that. But selfish people always think their own discomfort of more importance than anything else in the world.” “It is hardly fair to call me selfish.” “I know that people who spend a great deal of money on themselves without knowing how they shall pay, must be selfish.”

“And you think that I shall never try to make good anything, Mary. It is not generous to believe the worst of a man. However, I’m going, Fred ended, languidly. I shall never speak to you about anything again.” Mary had dropped her work out of her hand and looked up. There is often something maternal even in a girlish love, and Mary’s hard experience had wrought her nature to an impressibility very different from that hard slight thing which we call girlishness. At Fred’s last words she felt an instantaneous pang, something like what a mother feels at the imagined sobs of her naughty truant child. “Oh, Fred, how ill you look! Sit down a moment. Don’t go yet.” Mary spoke hurriedly, in a half-soothing half-beseeching tone. “Say one word, Mary, and I will do anything. Say you will not think the worst of me.” “As if it were any pleasure to me to think ill of you,” said Mary, in a mournful tone. “As if it were not very painful to me to see you an idle frivolous creature. How can you bear to be so contemptible? And with so much good in your disposition, Fred,—you might be worth a great deal.” “I will try to be anything you like, Mary, if you will say that you love me.” “I should be ashamed to say that I loved a man who must always be hanging on others.” Mary’s lips had begun to curl with a smile, and before she ended, her face had its full illumination of fun. To him it was like the cessation of an ache that Mary could laugh at him.

He stayed but a little while with Mr. Featherstone, excusing himself on the ground that he had a cold. As he rode home, he began to be more conscious of being ill than of being melancholy.

That evening, after tea, Caleb came to the door. “I want to speak to you, Mary.” She took a candle into another large parlor, and setting down the feeble light on the dark mahogany table, turned round to her father, and putting her arms round his neck kissed him with childish kisses. “I’ve got something to tell you, my dear,” said Caleb in his hesitating way. “No very good news; but then it might be worse.” “About money, father? I think I know what it is.” Mary took out the folded money from her reticule and put it into her father’s hand. “I should think that I can do no more than give you the twenty pounds I have saved,” she said. “I am sure my father will not ask him for anything.” Caleb said at last, “I’m afraid Fred is not to be trusted, Mary. He means better than he acts, perhaps. But I should think it a pity for any body’s happiness to be wrapped up in him.” “Don’t fear for me, father,” said Mary, gravely meeting her father’s eyes; “Fred has always been very good to me; he is kind-hearted and affectionate, and not false, I think, with all his self-indulgence. But I will never engage myself to one who has no manly independence.” “That’s right—that’s right. Then I am easy,” said Mr. Garth. “I suppose your father wanted your earnings,” said old Mr. Featherstone, with his usual power of unpleasant surmise, when Mary returned. “I consider my father and mother the best part of myself, sir,” said Mary, coldly.