Thus, in riding home, both the brother and the sister were preoccupied
and inclined to be silent. Rosamond, whose basis for her structure had
the usual airy slightness, was of remarkably detailed and realistic
imagination when the foundation had been once presupposed; and before
they had ridden a mile she was far on in the costume and introductions
of her wedded life, having determined on her house in Middlemarch, and
foreseen the visits she would pay to her husband's high-bred relatives
at a distance, whose finished manners she could appropriate as
thoroughly as she had done her school accomplishments, preparing
herself thus for vaguer elevations which might ultimately come. There
was nothing financial, still less sordid, in her previsions: she cared
about what were considered refinements, and not about the money that
was to pay for them.
Fred's mind, on the other hand, was busy with an anxiety which even his
ready hopefulness could not immediately quell. He saw no way of
eluding Featherstone's stupid demand without incurring consequences
which he liked less even than the task of fulfilling it. His father
was already out of humor with him, and would be still more so if he
were the occasion of any additional coolness between his own family and
the Bulstrodes. Then, he himself hated having to go and speak to his
uncle Bulstrode, and perhaps after drinking wine he had said many
foolish things about Featherstone's property, and these had been
magnified by report. Fred felt that he made a wretched figure as a
fellow who bragged about expectations from a queer old miser like
Featherstone, and went to beg for certificates at his bidding.
But--those expectations! He really had them, and he saw no agreeable
alternative if he gave them up; besides, he had lately made a debt
which galled him extremely, and old Featherstone had almost bargained
to pay it off. The whole affair was miserably small: his debts were
small, even his expectations were not anything so very magnificent.
Fred had known men to whom he would have been ashamed of confessing the
smallness of his scrapes. Such ruminations naturally produced a streak
of misanthropic bitterness. To be born the son of a Middlemarch
manufacturer, and inevitable heir to nothing in particular, while such
men as Mainwaring and Vyan--certainly life was a poor business, when a
spirited young fellow, with a good appetite for the best of everything,
had so poor an outlook.
It had not occurred to Fred that the introduction of Bulstrode's name
in the matter was a fiction of old Featherstone's; nor could this have
made any difference to his position. He saw plainly enough that the
old man wanted to exercise his power by tormenting him a little, and
also probably to get some satisfaction out of seeing him on unpleasant
terms with Bulstrode. Fred fancied that he saw to the bottom of his
uncle Featherstone's soul, though in reality half what he saw there was
no more than the reflex of his own inclinations. The difficult task of
knowing another soul is not for young gentlemen whose consciousness is
chiefly made up of their own wishes.