Felix Holt

by George Eliot

  Christian was dismissed with a ‘good-morning’; and while he cultivated some friendly reminiscences with Dominic, Harold sat chewing the cud of his new knowledge, and finding it not altogether so bitter as he had expected.

  From the first, after his interview with Jermyn, the recoil of Harold’s mind from the idea of strangling a legal right threw him on the alternative of attempting a compromise. Some middle course might be possible, which would be a less evil than a costly lawsuit, or than the total renunciation of the estates. And now he had learned that the new claimant was a woman – a young woman, brought up under circumstances that would make the fourth of the Transome property seem to her an immense fortune. Both the sex and the social condition were of the sort that lies open to many softening influences. And having seen Esther, it was inevitable that, amongst the various issues, agreeable and disagreeable, depicted by Harold’s imagination, there should present itself a possibility that would unite the two claims – his own, which he felt to be the rational, and Esther’s, which apparently was the legal claim.

  Harold, as he had constantly said to his mother, was ‘not a marrying man’; he did not contemplate bringing a wife to Transome Court for many years to come, if at all. Having little Harry as an heir, he preferred freedom. Western women were not to his taste: they showed a transition from the feebly animal to the thinking being, which was simply troublesome. Harold preferred a slow-witted large-eyed woman, silent and affectionate, with a load of black hair weighing much more heavily than her brains. He had seen no such woman in England, except one whom he had brought with him from the East.

  Therefore Harold did not care to be married until or unless some surprising chance presented itself; and now that such a chance had occurred to suggest marriage to him, he would not admit to himself that he contemplated marrying Esther as a plan; he was only obliged to see that such an issue was not inconceivable. He was not going to take any step expressly directed towards that end: what he had made up his mind to, as the course most satisfactory to his nature under present urgencies, was to behave to Esther with a frank gentlemanliness, which must win her good-will, and incline her to save his family interest as much as possible. He was helped to this determination by the pleasure of frustrating Jermyn’s contrivance to shield himself from punishment; and his most distinct and cheering prospect was, that within a very short space of time he should not only have effected a satisfactory compromise with Esther, but should have made Jermyn aware, by a very disagreeable form of announcement, that Harold Transome was no longer afraid of him. Jermyn should bite the dust.

  At the end of these meditations he felt satisfied with himself and light-hearted. He had rejected two dishonest propositions, and he was going to do something that seemed eminently graceful. But he needed his mother’s assistance, and it was necessary that he should both confide in her and persuade her.

  Within two hours after Christian left him, Harold begged his mother to come into his private room, and there he told her the strange and startling story, omitting, however, any particulars which would involve the identification of Christian as his informant. Harold felt that his engagement demanded this reticence; and he told his mother that he was bound to conceal the source of that knowledge which he had got independently of Jermyn.

  Mrs Transome said little in the course of the story: she made no exclamations, but she listened with close attention, and asked a few questions so much to the point as to surprise Harold. When he showed her the copy of the legal opinion which Jermyn had left with him, she said she knew it very well; she had a copy herself. The particulars of that last lawsuit were too well engraven on her mind: it happened at a time when there was no one to supersede her, and she was the virtual head of the family affairs. She was prepared to understand how the estate might be in danger; but nothing had prepared her for the strange details – for the way in which the new claimant had been reared and brought within the range of converging motives that had led to this revelation, least of all for the part Jermyn had come to play in the revelation. Mrs Transome saw these things through the medium of certain dominant emotions that made them seem like a long-ripening retribution. Harold perceived that she was painfully agitated, that she trembled, and that her white lips would not readily lend themselves to speech. And this was hardly more than he expected. He had not liked the revelation himself when it had first come to him.

  But he did not guess what it was in his narrative which had most pierced his mother. It was something that made the threat about the estate only a secondary alarm. Now, for the first time, she heard of the intended proceedings against Jermyn. Harold had not chosen to speak of them before; but having at last called his mother into consultation, there was nothing in his mind to hinder him from speaking without reserve of his determination to visit on the attorney his shameful maladministration of the family affairs.

  Harold went through the whole narrative – of what he called Jermyn’s scheme to catch him in a vice, and his power of triumphantly frustrating that scheme – in his usual rapid way, speaking with a final decisiveness of tone: and his mother felt that if she urged any counter-consideration at all, she could only do so when he had no more to say.

  ‘Now, what I want you to do, mother, if you can see this matter as I see it,’ Harold said in conclusion, ‘is to go with me to call on this girl in Malthouse Yard. I will open the affair to her; it appears she is not likely to have been informed yet; and you will invite her to visit you here at once, that all scandal, all hatching of law-mischief, may be avoided, and the thing may be brought to an amicable conclusion.’

  ‘It seems almost incredible – extraordinary – a girl in her position,’ said Mrs Transome, with difficulty. It would have seemed the bitterest humiliating penance if another sort of suffering had left any room in her heart.

  ‘I assure you she is a lady; I saw her when I was canvassing, and was amazed at the time. You will be quite struck with her. It is no indignity for you to invite her.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Mrs Transome, with low-toned bitterness, ‘I must put up with all things as they are determined for me. When shall we go?’

  ‘Well,’ said Harold, looking at his watch, ‘it is hardly two yet. We could really go to-day, when you have lunched. It is better to lose no time. I’ll order the carriage.’

  ‘Stay,’ said Mrs Transome, making a desperate effort. ‘There is plenty of time. I shall not lunch. I have a word to say.’

  Harold withdrew his hand from the bell, and leaned against the mantelpiece to listen.

  ‘You see I comply with your wish at once, Harold?’

  ‘Yes, mother, I’m much obliged to you for making no difficulties.’

  ‘You ought to listen to me in return.’

  ‘Pray go on,’ said Harold, expecting to be annoyed.

  ‘What is the good of having these Chancery proceedings against Jermyn?’

  ‘Good? This good: that fellow has burdened the estate with annuities and mortgages to the extent of three thousand a-year; and the bulk of them, I am certain, he holds himself under the name of another man. And the advances this yearly interest represents, have not been much more than twenty thousand. Of course he has hoodwinked you, and my father never gave attention to these things. He has been up to all sorts of devil’s work with the deeds; he didn’t count on my coming back from Smyrna to fill poor Durfey’s place. He shall feel the difference. And the good will be, that I shall save almost all the annuities for the rest of my father’s life, which may be ten years or more, and I shall get back some of the money, and I shall punish a scoundrel. That is the good.’

  ‘He will be ruined.’

  ‘That’s what I intend,’ said Harold, sharply.

  ‘He exerted himself a great deal for us in the old suits: every one said he had wonderful zeal and ability,’ said Mrs Transome, getting courage and warmth as she went on. Her temper was rising.

  ‘What he did, he did for his own sake, you may depend on that,’ said Harold, with a scornful
laugh.

  ‘There were very painful things in that last suit. You seem anxious, about this young woman, to avoid all further scandal and contests in the family. Why don’t you wish to do it in this case? Jermyn might be willing to arrange things amicably – to make restitution as far as he can – if he has done anything wrong.’

  ‘I will arrange nothing amicably with him,’ said Harold, decisively. ‘If he has ever done anything scandalous as our agent, let him bear the infamy. And the right way to throw the infamy on him is to show the world that he has robbed us, and that I mean to punish him. Why do you wish to shield such a fellow, mother? It has been chiefly through him that you have had to lead such a thrifty miserable life – you who used to make as brilliant a figure as a woman need wish.’

  Mrs Transome’s rising temper was turned into a horrible sensation, as painful as a sudden concussion from something hard and immovable when we have struck out with our fist, intending to hit something warm, soft, and breathing, like ourselves. Poor Mrs Transome’s strokes were sent jarring back on her by a hard unalterable past. She did not speak in answer to Harold, but rose from the chair as if she gave up the debate.

  ‘Women are frightened at everything, I know,’ said Harold, kindly, feeling that he had been a little harsh after his mother’s compliance. ‘And you have been used for so many years to think Jermyn a law of nature. Come, mother,’ he went on, looking at her gently, and resting his hands on her shoulders, ‘look cheerful. We shall get through all these difficulties. And this girl – I daresay she will be quite an interesting visitor for you. You have not had any young girl about you for a long while. Who knows? she may fall deeply in love with me, and I may be obliged to marry her.’

  He spoke laughingly, only thinking how he could make his mother smile. But she looked at him seriously and said, ‘Do you mean that, Harold?’

  ‘Am I not capable of making a conquest? Not too fat yet – a handsome, well-rounded youth of thirty-four?’

  She was forced to look straight at the beaming face, with its rich dark colour, just bent a little over her. Why could she not be happy in this son whose future she had once dreamed of, and who had been as fortunate as she had ever hoped? The tears came, not plenteously, but making her dark eyes as large and bright as youth had once made them without tears.

  ‘There, there!’ said Harold, coaxingly. ‘Don’t be afraid. You shall not have a daughter-in-law unless she is a pearl. Now we will get ready to go.’

  In half an hour from that time Mrs Transome came down, looking majestic in sables and velvet, ready to call on ‘the girl in Malthouse Yard’. She had composed herself to go through this task. She saw there was nothing better to be done. After the resolutions Harold had taken, some sort of compromise with this oddly-placed heiress was the result most to be hoped for; if the compromise turned out to be a marriage – well, she had no reason to care much: she was already powerless. It remained to be seen what this girl was.

  The carriage was to be driven round the back way, to avoid too much observation. But the late election affairs might account for Mr Lyon’s receiving a visit from the unsuccessful Radical candidate.

  CHAPTER XXXVII

  I also could speak as ye do; if your soul were in my soul’s stead, I could heap up words against you, and shake mine head at you.

  Book of Job

  In the interval since Esther parted with Felix Holt on the day of the riot, she had gone through so much emotion, and had already had so strong a shock of surprise, that she was prepared to receive any new incident of an unwonted kind with comparative equanimity.

  When Mr Lyon had got home again from his preaching excursion, Felix was already on his way to Loamford Gaol. The little minister was terribly shaken by the news. He saw no clear explanation of Felix Holt’s conduct; for the statements Esther had heard were so conflicting that she had not been able to gather distinctly what had come out in the examination by the magistrates. But Mr Lyon felt confident that Felix was innocent of any wish to abet a riot or the infliction of injuries; what he chiefly feared was that in the fatal encounter with Tucker he had been moved by a rash temper, not sufficiently guarded against by a prayerful and humble spirit.

  ‘My poor young friend is being taught with mysterious severity the evil of a too confident self-reliance,’ he said to Esther, as they sat opposite to each other, listening and speaking sadly.

  ‘You will go and see him, father?’

  ‘Verily will I. But I must straightway go and see that poor afflicted woman, whose soul is doubtless whirled about in this trouble like a shapeless and unstable thing driven by divided winds.’ Mr Lyon rose and took his hat hastily, ready to walk out, with his greatcoat flying open and exposing his small person to the keen air.

  ‘Stay, father, pray, till you have had some food,’ said Esther, putting her hand on his arm. ‘You look quite weary and shattered.’

  ‘Child, I cannot stay. I can neither eat bread nor drink water till I have learned more about this young man’s deeds, what can be proved and what cannot be proved against him. I fear he has none to stand by him in this town, for even by the friends of our church I have been ofttimes rebuked because he seemed dear to me. But, Esther, my beloved child –’

  Here Mr Lyon grasped her arm, and seemed in the need of speech to forget his previous haste. ‘I bear in mind this: the Lord knoweth them that are His; but we – we are left to judge by uncertain signs, that so we may learn to exercise hope and faith towards one another; and in this uncertainty I cling with awful hope to those whom the world loves not because their conscience, albeit mistakenly, is at war with the habits of the world. Our great faith, my Esther, is the faith of martyrs: I will not lightly turn away from any man who endures harshness because he will not lie; nay, though I would not wantonly grasp at ease of mind through an arbitrary choice of doctrine, I cannot but believe that the merits of the Divine Sacrifice are wider than our utmost charity. I once believed otherwise – but not now, not now.’

  The minister paused, and seemed to be abstractedly gazing at some memory: he was always liable to be snatched away by thoughts from the pursuit of a purpose which had seemed pressing. Esther seized the opportunity and prevailed on him to fortify himself with some of Lyddy’s porridge before he went out on his tiring task of seeking definite trustworthy knowledge from the lips of various witnesses, beginning with that feminine darkener of counsel, poor Mrs Holt.

  She, regarding all her trouble about Felix in the light of a fulfilment of her own prophecies, treated the sad history with a preference for edification above accuracy, and for mystery above relevance, worthy of a commentator on the Apocalypse. She insisted chiefly, not on the important facts that Felix had sat at his work till after eleven, like a deaf man, had rushed out in surprise and alarm, had come back to report with satisfaction that things were quiet, and had asked her to set by his dinner for him – facts which would tell as evidence that Felix was disconnected with any project of disturbances, and was averse to them. These things came out incidentally in her long plaint to the minister; but what Mrs Holt felt it essential to state was, that long before Michaelmas was turned, sitting in her chair, she had said to Felix that there would be a judgment on him for being so certain sure about the Pills and the Elixir.

  ‘And now, Mr Lyon,’ said the poor woman, who had dressed herself in a gown previously cast off, a front all out of curl, and a cap with no starch in it, while she held little coughing Job on her knee, – ‘and now you see – my words have come true sooner than I thought they would. Felix may contradict me if he will; but there he is in prison, and here am I, with nothing in the world to bless myself with but half-a-crown a-week as I’ve saved by my own scraping, and this house I’ve got to pay rent for. It’s not me has done wrong, Mr Lyon; there’s nobody can say it of me – not the orphin child on my knee is more innicent o’ riot and murder and anything else as is bad. But when you’ve got a son so masterful and stopping medicines as Providence has sent, and his betters have been ta
king up and down the country since before he was a baby, it’s o’ no use being good here below. But he was a baby, Mr Lyon, and I gave him the breast,’ – here poor Mrs Holt’s motherly love overcame her expository eagerness, and she fell more and more to crying as she spoke – ‘And to think there’s folks saying now as he’ll be transported, and his hair shaved off, and the treadmill, and everything. O dear!’

  As Mrs Holt broke off into sobbing, little Job also, who had got a confused yet profound sense of sorrow, and of Felix being hurt and gone away, set up a little wail of wondering misery.

  ‘Nay, Mistress Holt,’ said the minister soothingly, ‘enlarge not your grief by more than warrantable grounds. I have good hope that my young friend your son will be delivered from any severe consequences beyond the death of the man Tucker, which I fear will ever be a sore burthen on his memory. I feel confident that a jury of his countrymen will discern between misfortune, or it may be misjudgment, and an evil will, and that he will be acquitted of any grave offence.’

  ‘He never stole anything in his life, Mr Lyon,’ said Mrs Holt, reviving. ‘Nobody can throw it in my face as my son ran away with money like the young man at the Bank – though he looked most respectable, and far different on a Sunday to what Felix ever did. And I know it’s very hard fighting with constables; but they say Tucker’s wife’ll be a deal better off than she was before, for the great folks’ll pension her, and she’ll be put on all the charities, and her children at the Free School, and everything. Your trouble’s easy borne when everybody gives it a lift for you; and if judge and jury wants to do right by Felix, they’ll think of his poor mother, with the bread took out of her mouth, all but half-a-crown a-week and furniture – which, to be sure, is most excellent, and of my own buying – and got to keep this orphin child as Felix himself brought on me. And I might send him back to his old grandfather on parish pay, but I’m not that woman, Mr Lyon: I’ve a tender heart. And here’s his little feet and toes, like marbil; do but look’ – here Mrs Holt drew off Job’s sock and shoe, and showed a well-washed little foot – ‘and you’ll perhaps say I might take a lodger; but it’s easy talking; it isn’t everybody at a loose-end wants a parlour and a bedroom; and if anything bad happens to Felix, I may as well go and sit in the parish Pound, and nobody to buy me out; for it’s beyond everything how the church members find fault with my son. But I think they might leave his mother to find fault; for queer and masterful he might be, and flying in the face of the very Scripture about the physic, but he was most clever beyond anything – that I will say – and was his own father’s lawful child, and me his mother, that was Mary Wall thirty years before ever I married his father.’ Here Mrs Holt’s feelings again became too much for her, but she struggled on to say, sobbingly, ‘And if they’re to transport him, I should like to go to the prison and take the orphin child; for he was most fond of having him on his lap, and said he’d never marry; and there was One above overheard him, for he’s been took at his word.’