Middlemarch

CHAPTER XXVI.

But Fred did not go to Stone Court the next day, for reasons that were quite peremptory. From those visits to unsanitary Houndsley streets he had brought back not only a bad bargain in horse-flesh, but the further misfortune of some ailment which for a day or two had seemed mere depression and headache, but which got so much worse when he returned from his visit to Stone Court that, going into the dining-room, he threw himself on the sofa. Wrench came, but did not apprehend anything serious, spoke of a “slight derangement,” and did not speak of coming again on the morrow. He had a due value for the Vincys’ house, but the wariest men are apt to be dulled by routine. The next morning Fred rose at his usual easy hour and went down-stairs meaning to breakfast, but succeeded in nothing but in sitting and shivering by the fire. Wrench was again sent for, but was gone on his rounds, and Mrs. Vincy, seeing her darling’s changed looks and general misery, began to cry and said she would send for Dr. Sprague. “Mamma!” said Rosamond, who was seated near the window, “there is Mr. Lydgate, stopping to speak to some one. If I were you I would call him in. He has cured Ellen Bulstrode.”

Mrs. Vincy sprang to the window and opened it in an instant. In two minutes Lydgate was in the room. He had to hear a narrative in which Mrs. Vincy’s mind insisted with remarkable instinct on every point of minor importance, especially on what Mr. Wrench had said and had not said about coming again. He was convinced that Fred was in the pink-skinned stage of typhoid fever, and that he had taken just the wrong medicines. He must go to bed immediately, must have a regular nurse, and various appliances and precautions must be used. Poor Mrs. Vincy’s terror at these indications of danger found vent in such words as came most easily. She thought it “very ill usage on the part of Mr. Wrench, who had attended their house so many years in preference to Mr. Peacock.”

When Mr. Vincy came home he was very angry with Wrench, and did not care if he never came into his house again. Wrench did not take it at all well. He did not refuse to meet Lydgate in the evening, but his temper was somewhat tried. He had to hear Mrs. Vincy say, “Oh, Mr. Wrench, what have I ever done that you should use me so?— To go away, and never to come again! And my boy might have been stretched a corpse!” He swallowed his ire for the moment, but he afterwards wrote to decline further attendance. He reflected, with much probability on his side, that Lydgate would by-and-by be caught tripping too. This was a point on which Lydgate smarted as much as Wrench could desire. He was impatient of the foolish expectations amidst which all work must be carried on. However, Lydgate was installed as medical attendant on the Vincys, and the event was a subject of general conversation in Middlemarch. Some said that the Vincys had behaved scandalously; others were of opinion that Mr. Lydgate’s passing by was providential. Many people believed that Lydgate’s coming to the town at all was really due to Bulstrode; and Mrs. Taft, who was always counting stitches, had got it into her head that Mr. Lydgate was a natural son of Bulstrode’s. She communicated this to Mrs. Farebrother, who told her son, observing, “I should not be surprised at anything in Bulstrode, but I should be sorry to think it of Mr. Lydgate.”

CHAPTER XXVII.

Let the high Muse chant loves Olympian: We are but mortals, and must sing of man.

An eminent philosopher has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent—of Miss Vincy, for example. Rosamond had a Providence of her own who had kindly made her more charming than other girls, and who seemed to have arranged Fred’s illness and Mr. Wrench’s mistake in order to bring her and Lydgate within effective proximity. Therefore, while Miss Morgan and the children were sent away, Rosamond refused to leave papa and mamma.

Poor mamma indeed was an object to touch any creature born of woman; and Mr. Vincy, who doted on his wife, was more alarmed on her account than on Fred’s. Fred’s delirium, in which he seemed to be wandering out of her reach, tore her heart. After her first outburst against Mr. Wrench she went about very quietly: her one low cry was to Lydgate. “Save my boy.” “I have good hope, Mrs. Vincy,” Lydgate would say. “Come down with me and let us talk about the food.” In that way he led her to the parlor where Rosamond was, and made a change for her. There was a constant understanding between him and Rosamond on these matters. Her presence of mind and adroitness in carrying out his hints were admirable, and it is not wonderful that the idea of seeing Rosamond began to mingle itself with his interest in the case. Especially when the critical stage was passed, and he began to feel confident of Fred’s recovery. Morning and evening he was at Mr. Vincy’s, and gradually the visits became cheerful as Fred became simply feeble.

Both father and mother held it an added reason for good spirits, when old Mr. Featherstone sent messages by Lydgate, saying that Fred must make haste and get well, as he, Peter Featherstone, could not do without him. The mother in the fulness of her heart divined Fred’s longing for some word about Mary, and felt ready for any sacrifice in order to satisfy him. “If I can only see my boy strong again,” she said, in her loving folly; “and who knows?—perhaps master of Stone Court!”