Middlemarch

The Vincy Family’s Social Connections

Lydgate cannot remain long in Middlemarch without encountering the Vincys, since although Mr. Peacock was not their physician, he had many patients among their connections. Practically everyone of consequence in the town is connected to or acquainted with the family, old manufacturers who have kept a good house for three generations and intermarried with genteel neighbors. Mr. Vincy’s sister made a wealthy match with Mr. Bulstrode, though he is considered a parvenu, while Mr. Vincy himself “descended” by marrying an innkeeper’s daughter; yet the Featherstone connection brings money and hope. Both Bulstrode and Featherstone, Peacock’s important patients, have welcomed his successor, though Mr. Wrench, the Vincys’ regular doctor, looks askance at Lydgate’s professional discretion and ensures that every report about him reaches the family. Rosamond silently wishes her father would invite Lydgate, weary as she is of the familiar Middlemarch young men, though she would not voice this and her father is in no hurry to enlarge his table while he anticipates becoming mayor.

Morning at the Vincy Household

The Vincy breakfast table often remains uncleared long after Mr. Vincy has left for the warehouse and the younger girls have begun morning lessons with Miss Morgan. It awaits the family laggard who finds any inconvenience to others less disagreeable than rising when called. On this particular October morning, the same morning on which Casaubon has visited the Grange, the room is somewhat overheated, sending the spaniel to a distant corner, yet Rosamond lingers over her embroidery with an air of hesitating weariness. Mrs. Vincy returns from the kitchen, placid and radiant, until the clock’s warning prompts her to look up from her lace-mending and ring for Pritchard, instructing her to knock at Mr. Fred’s door again and tell him it has struck half-past ten.

Fred’s Arrival at Breakfast

Fred slides in unobserved through the half-open door, warming his slipper soles at the fire, and his mother seizes the moment of his arrival to draw him into the conversation. Rosamond opens by requesting that, when Fred does come down, Mrs. Vincy not permit him to have red herrings, which she cannot abide the smell of at that hour. Mrs. Vincy gently chides her daughter for being too hard on her brothers, the only fault she finds in an otherwise sweet temper, calling her tetchy. Rosamond protests that she never speaks unladylike, but Mrs. Vincy maintains that she wants to deny the boys everything, while Rosamond insists that brothers are “so unpleasant.”

Sibling Banter on Etiquette

The exchange over the phrase “the pick of them” reveals Rosamond’s fastidious propriety and her mother’s self-deprecating warmth. When Rosamond objects to the expression as vulgar and offers “the best of them” or “the most superior young men” in its place, Fred, who has overheard, joins in, declaring that “superior” is becoming shopkeepers’ slang. The banter escalates into a shared game over what counts as slang, with Fred arguing that all word choice is slang and that correct English is the slang of prigs and historians, while the strongest slang of all belongs to poets. Rosamond tries to deflect, Fred proposes a new parlor game of separating slang from poetry, and Mrs. Vincy, admiring, pronounces it all vastly amusing. The siblings then spar over Fred’s demand for a grilled bone and his late breakfast, with Rosamond accusing him of disagreeable habits, Fred retorting that “disagreeable” describes her feelings not his actions, and Mrs. Vincy urging them not to quarrel.

The New Doctor’s Reputation

Mrs. Vincy, eager for news, asks Fred about the new doctor and how his uncle Featherstone likes him; Fred reports that Featherstone peppers Lydgate with questions and screws up his face at the answers, and mentions that he dined at Plymdale’s with Lydgate, who is tallish, dark, clever, and a good talker, though possibly a prig because he is always offering unsolicited opinions. When pressed for a definition of a prig, Fred explains that it is a fellow always making you a present of his opinions, prompting Mrs. Vincy to defend doctors as paid for their opinions. On the question of family, the Vincys learn that the Lydgates are county people and that this Lydgate is a poor second cousin of a richer relation at John’s, which Rosamond acknowledges still makes a difference. She admits she might have been happier not being a Middlemarch manufacturer’s daughter, disliking any reminder that her maternal grandfather kept an inn.