Middlemarch

“lose up his eyes and draw the curtain close;
And let us all to meditation.”
—2 Henry VI.

That night after twelve o’clock Mary Garth relieved the watch in Mr.
Featherstone’s room, and sat there alone through the small hours. She
often chose this task, in which she found some pleasure,
notwithstanding the old man’s testiness whenever he demanded her
attentions. There were intervals in which she could sit perfectly
still, enjoying the outer stillness and the subdued light. The red fire
with its gently audible movement seemed like a solemn existence calmly
independent of the petty passions, the imbecile desires, the straining
after worthless uncertainties, which were daily moving her contempt.
Mary was fond of her own thoughts, and could amuse herself well sitting
in twilight with her hands in her lap; for, having early had strong
reason to believe that things were not likely to be arranged for her
peculiar satisfaction, she wasted no time in astonishment and annoyance
at that fact. And she had already come to take life very much as a
comedy in which she had a proud, nay, a generous resolution not to act
the mean or treacherous part. Mary might have become cynical if she had
not had parents whom she honored, and a well of affectionate gratitude
within her, which was all the fuller because she had learned to make no
unreasonable claims.

She sat to-night revolving, as she was wont, the scenes of the day, her
lips often curling with amusement at the oddities to which her fancy
added fresh drollery: people were so ridiculous with their illusions,
carrying their fool’s caps unawares, thinking their own lies opaque
while everybody else’s were transparent, making themselves exceptions
to everything, as if when all the world looked yellow under a lamp they
alone were rosy. Yet there were some illusions under Mary’s eyes which
were not quite comic to her. She was secretly convinced, though she had
no other grounds than her close observation of old Featherstone’s
nature, that in spite of his fondness for having the Vincys about him,
they were as likely to be disappointed as any of the relations whom he
kept at a distance. She had a good deal of disdain for Mrs. Vincy’s
evident alarm lest she and Fred should be alone together, but it did
not hinder her from thinking anxiously of the way in which Fred would
be affected, if it should turn out that his uncle had left him as poor
as ever. She could make a butt of Fred when he was present, but she did
not enjoy his follies when he was absent.

Yet she liked her thoughts: a vigorous young mind not overbalanced by
passion, finds a good in making acquaintance with life, and watches its
own powers with interest. Mary had plenty of merriment within.

Her thought was not veined by any solemnity or pathos about the old man
on the bed: such sentiments are easier to affect than to feel about an
aged creature whose life is not visibly anything but a remnant of
vices. She had always seen the most disagreeable side of Mr.
Featherstone: he was not proud of her, and she was only useful to him.
To be anxious about a soul that is always snapping at you must be left
to the saints of the earth; and Mary was not one of them. She had never
returned him a harsh word, and had waited on him faithfully: that was
her utmost. Old Featherstone himself was not in the least anxious about
his soul, and had declined to see Mr. Tucker on the subject.

To-night he had not snapped, and for the first hour or two he lay
remarkably still, until at last Mary heard him rattling his bunch of
keys against the tin box which he always kept in the bed beside him.
About three o’clock he said, with remarkable distinctness, “Missy, come
here!”

Mary obeyed, and found that he had already drawn the tin box from under
the clothes, though he usually asked to have this done for him; and he
had selected the key. He now unlocked the box, and, drawing from it
another key, looked straight at her with eyes that seemed to have
recovered all their sharpness and said, “How many of ’em are in the
house?”

“You mean of your own relations, sir,” said Mary, well used to the old
man’s way of speech. He nodded slightly and she went on.

“Mr. Jonah Featherstone and young Cranch are sleeping here.”

“Oh ay, they stick, do they? and the rest—they come every day, I’ll
warrant—Solomon and Jane, and all the young uns? They come peeping, and
counting and casting up?”

“Not all of them every day. Mr. Solomon and Mrs. Waule are here every
day, and the others come often.”

The old man listened with a grimace while she spoke, and then said,
relaxing his face, “The more fools they. You hearken, missy. It’s three
o’clock in the morning, and I’ve got all my faculties as well as ever I
had in my life. I know all my property, and where the money’s put out,
and everything. And I’ve made everything ready to change my mind, and
do as I like at the last. Do you hear, missy? I’ve got my faculties.”

“Well, sir?” said Mary, quietly.

He now lowered his tone with an air of deeper cunning. “I’ve made two
wills, and I’m going to burn one. Now you do as I tell you. This is the
key of my iron chest, in the closet there. You push well at the side of
the brass plate at the top, till it goes like a bolt: then you can put
the key in the front lock and turn it. See and do that; and take out
the topmost paper—Last Will and Testament—big printed.”

“No, sir,” said Mary, in a firm voice, “I cannot do that.”

“Not do it? I tell you, you must,” said the old man, his voice
beginning to shake under the shock of this resistance.

“I cannot touch your iron chest or your will. I must refuse to do
anything that might lay me open to suspicion.”

“I tell you, I’m in my right mind. Shan’t I do as I like at the last? I
made two wills on purpose. Take the key, I say.”

“No, sir, I will not,” said Mary, more resolutely still. Her repulsion
was getting stronger.

“I tell you, there’s no time to lose.”

“I cannot help that, sir. I will not let the close of your life soil
the beginning of mine. I will not touch your iron chest or your will.”
She moved to a little distance from the bedside.

The old man paused with a blank stare for a little while, holding the
one key erect on the ring; then with an agitated jerk he began to work
with his bony left hand at emptying the tin box before him.

“Missy,” he began to say, hurriedly, “look here! take the money—the
notes and gold—look here—take it—you shall have it all—do as I tell
you.”

He made an effort to stretch out the key towards her as far as
possible, and Mary again retreated.

“I will not touch your key or your money, sir. Pray don’t ask me to do
it again. If you do, I must go and call your brother.”

He let his hand fall, and for the first time in her life Mary saw old
Peter Featherstone begin to cry childishly. She said, in as gentle a
tone as she could command, “Pray put up your money, sir;” and then went
away to her seat by the fire, hoping this would help to convince him
that it was useless to say more. Presently he rallied and said eagerly—

“Look here, then. Call the young chap. Call Fred Vincy.”

Mary’s heart began to beat more quickly. Various ideas rushed through
her mind as to what the burning of a second will might imply. She had
to make a difficult decision in a hurry.

“I will call him, if you will let me call Mr. Jonah and others with
him.”

“Nobody else, I say. The young chap. I shall do as I like.”

“Wait till broad daylight, sir, when every one is stirring. Or let me
call Simmons now, to go and fetch the lawyer? He can be here in less
than two hours.”

“Lawyer? What do I want with the lawyer? Nobody shall know—I say,
nobody shall know. I shall do as I like.”

“Let me call some one else, sir,” said Mary, persuasively. She did not
like her position—alone with the old man, who seemed to show a strange
flaring of nervous energy which enabled him to speak again and again
without falling into his usual cough; yet she desired not to push
unnecessarily the contradiction which agitated him. “Let me, pray, call
some one else.”

“You let me alone, I say. Look here, missy. Take the money. You’ll
never have the chance again. It’s pretty nigh two hundred—there’s more
in the box, and nobody knows how much there was. Take it and do as I
tell you.”

Mary, standing by the fire, saw its red light falling on the old man,
propped up on his pillows and bed-rest, with his bony hand holding out
the key, and the money lying on the quilt before him. She never forgot
that vision of a man wanting to do as he liked at the last. But the way
in which he had put the offer of the money urged her to speak with
harder resolution than ever.

“It is of no use, sir. I will not do it. Put up your money. I will not
touch your money. I will do anything else I can to comfort you; but I
will not touch your keys or your money.”

“Anything else—anything else!” said old Featherstone, with hoarse rage,
which, as if in a nightmare, tried to be loud, and yet was only just
audible. “I want nothing else. You come here—you come here.”

Mary approached him cautiously, knowing him too well. She saw him
dropping his keys and trying to grasp his stick, while he looked at her
like an aged hyena, the muscles of his face getting distorted with the
effort of his hand. She paused at a safe distance.

“Let me give you some cordial,” she said, quietly, “and try to compose
yourself. You will perhaps go to sleep. And to-morrow by daylight you
can do as you like.”

He lifted the stick, in spite of her being beyond his reach, and threw
it with a hard effort which was but impotence. It fell, slipping over
the foot of the bed. Mary let it lie, and retreated to her chair by the
fire. By-and-by she would go to him with the cordial. Fatigue would
make him passive. It was getting towards the chillest moment of the
morning, the fire had got low, and she could see through the chink
between the moreen window-curtains the light whitened by the blind.
Having put some wood on the fire and thrown a shawl over her, she sat
down, hoping that Mr. Featherstone might now fall asleep. If she went
near him the irritation might be kept up. He had said nothing after
throwing the stick, but she had seen him taking his keys again and
laying his right hand on the money. He did not put it up, however, and
she thought that he was dropping off to sleep.

But Mary herself began to be more agitated by the remembrance of what
she had gone through, than she had been by the reality—questioning
those acts of hers which had come imperatively and excluded all
question in the critical moment.

Presently the dry wood sent out a flame which illuminated every
crevice, and Mary saw that the old man was lying quietly with his head
turned a little on one side. She went towards him with inaudible steps,
and thought that his face looked strangely motionless; but the next
moment the movement of the flame communicating itself to all objects
made her uncertain. The violent beating of her heart rendered her
perceptions so doubtful that even when she touched him and listened for
his breathing, she could not trust her conclusions. She went to the
window and gently propped aside the curtain and blind, so that the
still light of the sky fell on the bed.

The next moment she ran to the bell and rang it energetically. In a
very little while there was no longer any doubt that Peter Featherstone
was dead, with his right hand clasping the keys, and his left hand
lying on the heap of notes and gold.

BOOK IV.
THREE LOVE PROBLEMS.