What suit of grace hath Virtue¹ to put on

If Vice² shall wear as good, and do as well?

If Wrong, if Craft, if Indiscretion

Act as fair parts with ends as laudable?

Which all this mighty³ volume of events

The world, the universal map of deeds,

Strongly controls, and proves from all descents,

That the directest course still best succeeds.

For should not grave and learn’d Experience

That looks with the eyes of all the world beside,

And with all ages holds intelligence,

Go safer than Deceit without a guide!

—DANIEL: Musophilus.

That change of plan and shifting of interest which Bulstrode stated or betrayed in his conversation with Lydgate, had been determined⁴ in him by some severe experience which he had gone through since the epoch⁵ of Mr. Larcher’s sale, when Raffles⁶ had recognized Will Ladislaw, and when the banker had in vain attempted an act of restitution⁸ which might move Divine Providence⁹ to arrest painful consequences.

His certainty that Raffles, unless he were dead, would return to Middlemarch before long, had been justified¹¹. On Christmas Eve he had reappeared at The Shrubs¹². Bulstrode was at home to receive him, and hinder his communication with the rest of the family, but he could not altogether hinder the circumstances of the visit from compromising himself and alarming his wife. Raffles proved more unmanageable than he had shown himself to be in his former appearances, his chronic¹³ state of mental restlessness, the growing effect of habitual¹⁴ intemperance¹⁵, quickly shaking off every impression from what was said to him. He insisted on staying in the house, and Bulstrode, weighing two sets of evils, felt that this was at least not a worse alternative than his going into the town. He kept him in his own room for the evening and saw him to bed, Raffles all the while amusing himself with the annoyance¹⁶ he was causing this decent and highly prosperous fellow-sinner, an amusement which he facetiously¹⁷ expressed as sympathy with his friend’s pleasure in entertaining a man who had been serviceable to him, and who had not had all his earnings¹⁸. There was a cunning calculation under this noisy joking—a cool resolve to extract something the handsomer from Bulstrode as payment for release from this new application of torture. But his cunning had a little overcast¹⁹ its mark.

Bulstrode was indeed more tortured than the coarse fibre of Raffles could enable him to imagine. He had told his wife that he was simply taking care of this wretched creature, the victim of vice, who might otherwise injure himself; he implied, without the direct form of falsehood, that there was a family tie which bound him to this care, and that there were signs of mental alienation²⁰ in Raffles which urged caution. He would himself drive the unfortunate being away the next morning. In these hints he felt that he was supplying Mrs. Bulstrode with precautionary information for his daughters and servants, and accounting²² for his allowing no one but himself to enter the room even with food and drink. But he sat in an agony of fear lest Raffles should be overheard in his loud and plain references to past facts—lest Mrs. Bulstrode should be even tempted⁷ to listen at the door. How could he hinder her, how betray his terror by opening the door to detect her? She was a woman of honest direct habits, and little likely to take so low a course in order to arrive at painful knowledge; but fear was stronger than the calculation of probabilities.

In this way Raffles had pushed the torture too far, and produced an effect which had not been in his plan. By showing himself hopelessly unmanageable he had made Bulstrode feel that a strong defiance²³ was the only resource left. After taking Raffles to bed that night the banker ordered his closed carriage to be ready at half-past seven the next morning. At six o’clock he had already been long dressed, and had spent some of his wretchedness in prayer, pleading his motives²⁴ for averting²⁵ the worst evil if in anything he had used falsity and spoken what was not true before God. For Bulstrode shrank from a direct lie with an intensity²⁶ disproportionate to the number of his more indirect misdeeds. But many of these misdeeds were like the subtle muscular movements which are not taken account of in the consciousness, though they bring about the end that we fix our mind on and desire. And it is only what we are vividly²⁷ conscious of that we can vividly imagine to be seen by Omniscience²⁸.

Bulstrode carried his candle to the bedside of Raffles, who was apparently²⁹ in a painful dream. He stood silent, hoping that the presence of the light would serve to waken the sleeper³⁰ gradually and gently, for he feared some noise as the consequence¹⁰ of a too sudden awakening³¹. He had watched for a couple of minutes or more the shudderings and pantings which seemed likely to end in waking, when Raffles, with a long half-stifled moan, started up and stared round him in terror, trembling and gasping³². But he made no further noise, and Bulstrode, setting down the candle, awaited his recovery.

It was a quarter of an hour later before Bulstrode, with a cold peremptoriness³³ of manner which he had not before shown, said, “I came to call you thus early, Mr. Raffles, because I have ordered the carriage to be ready at half-past seven, and intend myself to conduct you as far as Ilsely, where you can either take the railway or await a coach.” Raffles was about to speak, but Bulstrode anticipated him imperiously with the words, “Be silent, sir, and hear what I have to say. I shall supply you with money now, and I will furnish you with a reasonable sum from time to time, on your application to me by letter; but if you choose to present yourself here again, if you return to Middlemarch, if you use your tongue in a manner injurious to me, you will have to live on such fruits as your malice³⁴ can bring you, without help from me. Nobody will pay you well for blasting my name: I know the worst you can do against me, and I shall brave it if you dare to thrust yourself upon me again. Get up, sir, and do as I order you, without noise, or I will send for a policeman to take you off my premises³⁶, and you may carry your stories into every pothouse in the town, but you shall have no sixpence from me to pay your expenses there.”

Bulstrode had rarely in his life spoken with such nervous energy: he had been deliberating on this speech and its probable effects through a large part of the night; and though he did not trust to its ultimately saving him from any return of Raffles, he had concluded that it was the best throw he could make. It succeeded in enforcing submission³⁷ from the jaded³⁸ man this morning: his empoisoned system at this moment quailed³⁹ before Bulstrode’s cold, resolute⁴⁰ bearing, and he was taken off quietly in the carriage before the family breakfast time. The servants imagined him to be a poor relation, and were not surprised that a strict man like their master, who held his head high in the world, should be ashamed of such a cousin and want to get rid of him. The banker’s drive of ten miles with his hated companion was a dreary⁴¹ beginning of the Christmas day; but at the end of the drive, Raffles had recovered his spirits, and parted in a contentment for which there was the good reason that the banker had given him a hundred pounds. Various motives urged Bulstrode to this open-handedness, but he did not himself inquire closely into all of them. As he had stood watching Raffles in his uneasy sleep, it had certainly entered his mind that the man had been much shattered since the first gift of two hundred pounds.

He had taken care to repeat the incisive⁴² statement of his resolve not to be played on any more; and had tried to penetrate⁴³ Raffles with the fact that he had shown the risks of bribing⁴⁴ him to be quite equal to the risks of defying him. But when, freed from his repulsive⁴⁵ presence, Bulstrode returned to his quiet home, he brought with him no confidence that he had secured more than a respite⁴⁶. It was as if he had had a loathsome⁴⁷ dream, and could not shake off its images with their hateful kindred of sensations—as if on all the pleasant surroundings of his life a dangerous reptile⁴⁸ had left his slimy traces.

Who can know how much of his most inward life is made up of the thoughts he believes other men to have about him, until that fabric⁴⁹ of opinion is threatened with ruin?

Bulstrode was only the more conscious that there was a deposit of uneasy presentiment⁵⁰ in his wife’s mind, because she carefully avoided any allusion⁵¹ to it. He had been used every day to taste the flavor of supremacy⁵² and the tribute of complete deference⁵³: and the certainty that he was watched or measured with a hidden suspicion of his having some discreditable secret, made his voice totter⁵⁴ when he was speaking to edification. Foreseeing, to men of Bulstrode’s anxious temperament⁵⁵, is often worse than seeing; and his imagination continually heightened the anguish⁵⁶ of an imminent⁵⁷ disgrace. Yes, imminent; for if his defiance of Raffles did not keep the man away—and though he prayed for this result he hardly hoped for it—the disgrace was certain. In vain he said to himself that, if permitted, it would be a divine visitation, a chastisement⁵⁸, a preparation; he recoiled⁵⁹ from the imagined burning; and he judged that it must be more for the Divine glory that he should escape dishonor. That recoil⁶⁰ had at last urged him to make preparations for quitting Middlemarch. If evil truth must be reported of him, he would then be at a less scorching⁶¹ distance from the contempt of his old neighbors; and in a new scene, where his life would not have gathered the same wide sensibility, the tormentor⁶², if he pursued him, would be less formidable. To leave the place finally would, he knew, be extremely painful to his wife, and on other grounds he would have preferred to stay where he had struck root. Hence he made his preparations at first in a conditional⁶³ way, wishing to leave on all sides an opening for his return after brief absence, if any favorable intervention⁶⁴ of Providence should dissipate his fears. He was preparing to transfer his management of the Bank, and to give up any active control of other commercial affairs in the neighborhood, on the ground of his failing health, but without excluding his future resumption of such work. The measure would cause him some added expense and some diminution⁶⁵ of income beyond what he had already undergone from the general depression of trade; and the Hospital presented itself as a principal object of outlay⁶⁶ on which he could fairly economize⁶⁷.

This was the experience which had determined his conversation with Lydgate. But at this time his arrangements had most of them gone no farther than a stage at which he could recall them if they proved to be unnecessary. He continually deferred⁶⁸ the final steps; in the midst of his fears, like many a man who is in danger of shipwreck⁶⁹ or of being dashed from his carriage by runaway⁷⁰ horses, he had a clinging impression that something would happen to hinder the worst, and that to spoil his life by a late transplantation might be over-hasty—especially since it was difficult to account satisfactorily to his wife for the project of their indefinite exile from the only place where she would like to live.

Among the affairs Bulstrode had to care for, was the management of the farm at Stone Court in case of his absence; and on this as well as on all other matters connected with any houses and land he possessed⁷¹ in or about Middlemarch, he had consulted Caleb Garth. Like every one else who had business of that sort, he wanted to get the agent who was more anxious for his employer’s interests than his own. With regard to Stone Court, since Bulstrode wished to retain his hold on the stock, and to have an arrangement by which he himself could, if he chose, resume his favorite recreation of superintendence, Caleb had advised him not to trust to a mere⁷² bailiff, but to let the land, stock, and implements⁷³ yearly, and take a proportionate share of the proceeds.

“May I trust to you to find me a tenant⁷⁴ on these terms, Mr. Garth?” said Bulstrode. “And will you mention to me the yearly sum which would repay you for managing these affairs which we have discussed together?”

“I’ll think about it,” said Caleb, in his blunt way. “I’ll see how I can make it out.”

If it had not been that he had to consider Fred Vincy’s future, Mr. Garth would not probably have been glad of any addition to his work, of which his wife was always fearing an excess for him as he grew older. But on quitting Bulstrode after that conversation, a very alluring⁷⁵ idea occurred to him about this said letting of Stone Court. What if Bulstrode would agree to his placing Fred Vincy there on the understanding that he, Caleb Garth, should be responsible for the management? It would be an excellent schooling⁷⁶ for Fred; he might make a modest income there, and still have time left to get knowledge by helping⁷⁷ in other business. He mentioned his notion to Mrs. Garth with such evident delight that she could not bear to chill his pleasure by expressing her constant fear of his undertaking⁷⁸ too much.

“The lad would be as happy as two,” he said, throwing himself back in his chair, and looking radiant, “if I could tell him it was all settled. Think; Susan! His mind had been running on that place for years before old Featherstone died. And it would be as pretty a turn of things as could be that he should hold the place in a good industrious⁷⁹ way after all—by his taking to business. For it’s likely enough Bulstrode might let him go on, and gradually buy the stock. He hasn’t made up his mind, I can see, whether or not he shall settle somewhere else as a lasting³⁵ thing. I never was better pleased with a notion in my life. And then the children might be married by-and-by, Susan.”

“You will not give any hint²¹ of the plan to Fred, until you are sure that Bulstrode would agree to the plan?” said Mrs. Garth, in a tone of gentle caution. “And as to marriage, Caleb, we old people need not help to hasten it.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Caleb, swinging his head aside. “Marriage is a taming thing. Fred would want less of my bit and bridle⁸⁰. However, I shall say nothing till I know the ground I’m treading on. I shall speak to Bulstrode again.”

He took his earliest opportunity of doing so. Bulstrode had anything but a warm interest in his nephew Fred Vincy, but he had a strong wish to secure Mr. Garth’s services on many scattered⁸¹ points of business at which he was sure to be a considerable loser, if they were under less conscientious⁸² management. On that ground he made no objection to Mr. Garth’s proposal; and there was also another reason why he was not sorry to give a consent which was to benefit one of the Vincy family. It was that Mrs. Bulstrode, having heard of Lydgate’s debts, had been anxious to know whether her husband could not do something for poor Rosamond, and had been much troubled on learning from him that Lydgate’s affairs were not easily remediable, and that the wisest plan was to let them “take their course.” Mrs. Bulstrode had then said for the first time, “I think you are always a little hard towards my family, Nicholas. And I am sure I have no reason to deny any of my relatives. Too worldly they may be, but no one ever had to say that they were not respectable.”

“My dear Harriet,” said Mr. Bulstrode, wincing⁸³ under his wife’s eyes, which were filling with tears, “I have supplied your brother with a great deal of capital. I cannot be expected to take care of his married children.”

That seemed to be true, and Mrs. Bulstrode’s remonstrance⁸⁴ subsided⁸⁵ into pity for poor Rosamond, whose extravagant⁸⁶ education she had always foreseen the fruits of.

But remembering that dialogue, Mr. Bulstrode felt that when he had to talk to his wife fully about his plan of quitting Middlemarch, he should be glad to tell her that he had made an arrangement which might be for the good of her nephew Fred. At present he had merely mentioned to her that he thought of shutting up The Shrubs for a few months, and taking a house on the Southern Coast.

Hence Mr. Garth got the assurance he desired, namely, that in case of Bulstrode’s departure from Middlemarch for an indefinite time, Fred Vincy should be allowed to have the tenancy of Stone Court on the terms proposed.

Caleb was so elated with his hope of this “neat turn” being given to things, that if his self-control had not been braced⁸⁷ by a little affectionate wifely scolding, he would have betrayed everything to Mary, wanting “to give the child comfort.” However, he restrained himself, and kept in strict privacy from Fred certain visits which he was making to Stone Court, in order to look more thoroughly⁸⁸ into the state of the land and stock, and take a preliminary estimate. He was certainly more eager in these visits than the probable speed of events required him to be; but he was stimulated⁸⁹ by a fatherly delight in occupying his mind with this bit of probable happiness which he held in store like a hidden birthday gift for Fred and Mary.

“But suppose the whole scheme should turn out to be a castle in the air?” said Mrs. Garth.

“Well, well,” replied Caleb; “the castle will tumble about nobody’s head.”