Middlemarch

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, and missed his visits sadly. The old man himself was getting bedridden. Mrs. Vincy told these messages to Fred when he could listen, and he turned towards her his delicate, pinched face, from which all the thick blond hair had been cut away, and in which the eyes seemed to have got larger, yearning for some word about Mary—wondering what she felt about his illness. No word passed his lips; but “to hear with eyes belongs to love’s rare wit,” and the mother in the fulness of her heart not only divined Fred’s longing, but 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! and he can marry anybody he likes then.” “Not if they won’t have me, mother,” said Fred. The illness had made him childish, and tears came as he spoke. “Oh, take a bit of jelly, my dear,” said Mrs. Vincy, secretly incredulous of any such refusal.

She never left Fred’s side when her husband was not in the house, and thus Rosamond was in the unusual position of being much alone. Lydgate, naturally, never thought of staying long with her, yet it seemed that the brief impersonal conversations they had together were creating that peculiar intimacy which consists in shyness. They were obliged to look at each other in speaking, and somehow the looking could not be carried through as the matter of course which it really was. Talk about the weather and other well-bred topics is apt to seem a hollow device, and behavior can hardly become easy unless it frankly recognizes a mutual fascination. This was the way in which Rosamond and Lydgate slid gracefully into ease, and made their intercourse lively again. Visitors came and went as usual, there was once more music in the drawing-room. Lydgate, whenever he could, took his seat by Rosamond’s side, and lingered to hear her music. Rosamond, for her part, had never enjoyed the days so much in her life before: she was sure of being admired by some one worth captivating. She seemed to be sailing with a fair wind just whither she would go, and her thoughts were much occupied with a handsome house in Lowick Gate which she hoped would by-and-by be vacant.

Lydgate found it more and more agreeable to be with her, and there was no constraint now, there was a delightful interchange of influence in their eyes. In fact, they flirted; and Lydgate was secure in the belief that they did nothing else. If a man could not love and be wise, surely he could flirt and be wise at the same time? Rosamond, for her part, had never enjoyed the days so much in her life before: she was sure of being admired by some one worth captivating, and she did not distinguish flirtation from love, either in herself or in another. She seemed to be sailing with a fair wind just whither she would go, and her thoughts were much occupied with a handsome house in Lowick Gate which she hoped would by-and-by be vacant. She was quite determined, when she was married, to rid herself adroitly of all the visitors who were not agreeable to her at her father’s; and she imagined the drawing-room in her favorite house with various styles of furniture. How different he was from young Plymdale or Mr. Caius Larcher! Those young men were Middlemarch gentry, elated with their silver-headed whips and satin stocks, but embarrassed in their manners. Whereas Lydgate was always listened to, bore himself with the careless politeness of conscious superiority.

But he made some enemies, other than medical, by his success with Miss Vincy. One evening he came into the drawing-room rather late, when several other visitors were there. Mr. Ned Plymdale was in tête-à-tête with Rosamond. He had brought the last “Keepsake,” the gorgeous watered-silk publication which marked modern progress at that time. “I think the Honorable Mrs. S. is something like you,” said Mr. Ned. “Her back is very large; she seems to have sat for that,” said Rosamond, not meaning any satire, but thinking how red young Plymdale’s hands were. But now Lydgate came in; the book was closed before he reached Rosamond’s corner, and as he took his seat with easy confidence on the other side of her, young Plymdale’s jaw fell like a barometer towards the cheerless side of change. “What a late comer you are!” she said. “I suspect you know nothing about Lady Blessington and L. E. L.” “I read no literature now,” said Lydgate, shutting the book. “I read so much when I was a lad, that I suppose it will last me all my life.” “Mr. Lydgate would say that was not worth knowing,” said Mr. Ned, purposely caustic. “On the contrary,” said Lydgate, smiling with exasperating confidence at Rosamond. “It would be worth knowing by the fact that Miss Vincy could tell it me.” Young Plymdale soon went to look at the whist-playing. “How rash you are!” said Rosamond, inwardly delighted. “Do you see that you have given offence?”

That evening when he went home, he looked at his phials to see how a process of maceration was going on, with undisturbed interest. To Rosamond it seemed as if she and Lydgate were as good as engaged. That they were some time to be engaged had long been an idea in her mind; and ideas tend to a more solid kind of existence, the necessary materials being at hand.