Midhurst

“ During the last few years Midhurst has become to some extent a resort for Londoners who appreciate a quiet country town amid beautiful surroundings which may be explored easily. The walks, not only to the Downs on the south but northwards to the lovely and remote hills which culminate in Blackdown, are among the best in West Sussex. South, west, and east the town is well served by the Brighton and South-Western Railways, a single line in each direction. ”

“ After the burning of Cowdray no care appears to have been taken to safeguard any of the contents which remained undamaged. Things, indeed, saved from the fire were taken away to Midhurst by any one who cared to take the trouble, the whole neighbourhood being allowed to roam through the ruins. I myself, indeed, as has been said, possess some relics of Cowdray—several good pieces of carved woodwork (the decoration of the salon) which I purchased near Midhurst from a man whose grandfather, I am very much afraid, had in all probability annexed them without leave. ”

“ Men of honour are not so common in the world—in any profession.”
It was lucky for Mr. Hoopdriver that in Midhurst they do not light the lamps in the summer time, or the one they were passing had betrayed him. As it was, he had to snatch suddenly at his moustache and tug fiercely at it, to conceal the furious tumult of exultation, the passion of laughter, that came boiling up. Detective! Even in the shadow Bechamel saw that a laugh was stifled, but he put it down to the fact that the phrase “men of honour” amused his interlocutor. “He’ll come round yet,” said Bechamel to himself. ”

“ The clergyman's quiet life is going on as before. But in addition to our three old friends we find an elderly man, one Mr. Midhurst, whose days have been spent in diplomacy, who is of a melancholy disposition, and takes gloomy views of life, but who is much skilled in cookery, very fat, and very fond of a good dinner. Also Mildred and Blanche, Milverton's cousins, two sisters, have grown up into young women of very different character: and they take some share in the conversations, and, as we shall hereafter see, a still more important part in the action of the story. ”

“ From Selborne it is but a step across the border into the downs of Sussex—“Green Sussex, fading into blue,” as the poet so aptly puts it. The low sun strikes along the rough hills as we enter Midhurst, nestling in a nook in the downs and reached by rather difficult roads. It is a quiet town with an air of thorough self-contentment; a town of weather-beaten houses with over-hanging timbered [Pg 304] gables, sagging tile roofs and diamond-paned casements ”

“ Has anything occurred to make Miss Midharst disinclined to meet me?"
"She is not very well."
"You were good enough to tell me that some time ago. My question has reference to something else. Has anything of a personal nature occurred to make Miss Midharst disinclined to meet me?"
"You know, Mr. Grey, that when Sir William was here Maud made a promise to him."
"Yes. That she would look upon him as her personal guardian. Is it to that you refer?"
"It is. I believe Miss Midharst wishes to consult her cousin on some subject of importance. She has written to him." ”

“ I should put the matter to the test and had it out with Mildred, Miss Mildred, I should say.”
The emir looked steadily at Mr. Middleton. There was surprise, annoyance, perhaps even vexation in his gaze. With incisive tones, he said:
“How could you so mistake me? Ours is a line whose lineage goes back twelve hundred years, a noble and unsullied line. Could I, sir, think of making my wife, making a princess of my race, a woman who could entertain the thought of stooping to marry a Dago cheap circus man? ”

“ But I always think Middlemarch a very healthy spot. I suppose it is being used to it from a child; but I never saw the town I should like to live at better, and especially our end.”
“I am sure I should be glad that you always should live at Middlemarch, Mrs Bulstrode,” said Mrs Hackbutt, with a slight sigh. “Still, we must learn to resign ourselves, wherever our lot may be cast. Though I am sure there will always be people in this town who will wish you well.” ”

“ By heavens, I'll make him obey, or I'll—"—Here Mr Easy stopped before the word flog was fairly out of his mouth,—"I'll know the reason why, Dr Middleton."
Dr Middleton checked his inclination to laugh, and replied, "That you would hit upon some scheme, by which you would obtain the necessary power over him, I have no doubt; but what will be the consequence? The boy will consider his mother as a protector, and you as a tyrant. He will have an aversion to you, and with that aversion he will never pay respect and attention to your valuable precepts when he arrives at an age to understand them. ”

“ I should have known it anywhere.”
“He was extremely handsome then,” observed Mildred; “but I fear he must be much changed now. At that time, he thought he should have all his father's property, and expected to marry the beautiful Teresa Mildmay.”
“Yes; I know the story,” said Sir Bridgnorth, “and do not wonder at his vexation at the double disappointment. He has suffered much for his hasty temper. Things look very dark just now; but let us hope all may come right in the end.” ”

“ But he had nothing to do now; he might spend the week with her in Brighton, and they could be together all day. His heart leaped at the thought. It would be amusing to appear before Mildred suddenly with the information that he had taken a room in the boarding-house. He looked out trains. But he paused. He was not certain that she would be pleased to see him; she had made friends in Brighton; he was quiet, and she liked boisterous joviality; he realised that she amused herself more with other people than with him. It would torture him if he felt for an instant that he was in the way. ”

“ They worship you: you are the hope of England in their eyes, and no woman is worthy of you: but they are a pair of fatalists, and if you begin upon Letty Dale with them, you might as well forbid your banns. They will be all over the country exclaiming on predestination and marriages made in heaven."
"Clara and her father!" cried Sir Willoughby.
Dr Middleton and his daughter appeared in the circle of shrubs and flowers.
"Bring her to me, and save me from the polyglot," said Mrs Mountstuart, in afright at Dr. Middleton's manner of pouring forth into the ears of the downcast girl. ”

“ Then, addressing Mildred, he added: “As soon as I can ascertain the amount of his debts, I will let you know.”
“Pay them, dear Sir Bridgnorth—pay them!” she rejoined.
“But they may be very large?”
“Never mind; pay them!” cried Emmeline. “Mr. Carteret shall repay you.”
“No man ever had such a chance,” exclaimed Sir Bridgnorth. “If he does not reform now, he is incorrigible.”
“I have no misgivings as to the future,” said Mildred.
“Well, I sincerely trust all will come right,” observed Sir Bridgnorth. “There seems every probability of it, I must own.” ”

“ Out of the grave came all the dead Puritan ancestors of Mr. Middleton, a long procession back to Massachusetts Bay. The elders of Salem who had ordained that a man should not smoke within five miles of a house, the lawgivers who had prescribed the small number, brief length, and sad color of ribbons a woman might wear and who forbade a man to kiss his wife on Sunday, all these righteous and uncomfortable folk stirred in Mr. Middleton’s blood and obsessed him. ”

“ Now, fortunately or unfortunately, the number of figures which can be cut in the world is practically unlimited; the only difficulty is to cut precisely the kind of figure one would wish. But that merely illustrates the playfulness of the gods. The kind of figure Lord Middlehurst liked to imagine himself cutting was dignified, important, and frock-coated. That is to say, he was to be the man on all occasions to wear the Frock-coat and represent in one gracious person the literal and symbolic in Frock-coats throughout cultivated Europe. ”

“ And lo! the Lady Mirdath turned a bitterness of speech upon me that gave me an utter pain and astonishment; so that I was assured in a moment that she had no true love for me, or she had never striven so to put me to shame before the stranger, and named me uncouth and brutal to a smaller man. And, indeed, you shall perceive how I was in my heart in that moment.
And I saw that there was some seeming of justice in what the Lady Mirdath said; but yet might the man have shown a better spirit ”

“ Margaret rose and placed a cushion at Mrs. Medhurst's back, as she noticed she fidgeted restlessly in her chair.
"Thank you—thank you; that's heaps nicer. How kind of you to notice!" and the sweet smile that accompanied the words transfigured the otherwise cold look of the speaker's beautiful face.
Mr. Medhurst came into the room soon after, and the conversation became more general. Several times he glanced anxiously at his wife, and then he crossed to Miss Woodford:
"Mrs. Medhurst has not been very well to-day, and one thing she enjoys more than anything else is music ”

“ Middleton, overjoyed and elated at the successes of the day, began to pour into the ears of the prince a relation of the events that had resulted from the gift of the treatise of the learned hakim of Madras, which is in India. He told everything from the beginning to the end.
“In the morning,” he said in conclusion, “I take Mr. Brockelsby home in a cab and get the two hundred dollars.”
“Alas, alas!” said Achmed mournfully, his great liquid brown eyes resting sorrowfully upon Mr. Middleton. “What a corrupting effect the haste to get rich has upon American youth. ”

“ By going to Springfield that night he could take the early train and so reach Dresden the next day, a thing he greatly desired to do, as it was the day once appointed for Mildred’s bridal. He glanced at his gold watch, Mildred’s gift, and saw that it wanted but half an hour of the time when the last train was due. Hastily changing his clothes, and forgetting all about his feeble health, he went down-stairs and astonished his grandmother by saying he was going to Springfield.
“To Springfield!” she screamed, “when you can scarcely set up all day. Are you crazy, boy? ”

“ Middleton, perturbed by a nameless disquiet, was about to rush forth into the tempest and seek other shelter, when a door burst open and, outlined against a glare of light, stood a gigantic man who said in a deep, low voice that seemed to pervade every corner of the room and cause the air to shake in slow vibrations, “Salaam aleikoom!” ”

“ Middleton’s hastily penciled account of the main facts of his connection with the fair Moslem, wherein for brevity’s sake he had omitted any mention of the fifteen hundred dollars the emir had given him for assuming charge of her.
“Of course,” wrote Mr. Middleton.
“I never saw a more beautiful woman,” exclaimed Mr. Crayburn. “By the way, have you noticed any predilections, habits, wants, it would be well for me to know about?”
“She smokes,” wrote Mr. Middleton, not knowing why he wrote it, and wishing like the devil that he hadn’t the moment he had.
“All Oriental women smoke. ”

“ This example cannot be too highly commended to all young men. The amount which would be saved in this nation were all to economize in this way, would be sufficient to buy beer for all the Teutonic citizens of the large state of Illinois. As Mr. Middleton was changing his clothes, the scarabæus dropped from his pocket and as he picked it up, a collar button fell from his neckband, and scrambling for it as it rolled toward the unexplored regions under his bed, he tripped and sprawled at full length, his nose coming in sharp contact with an evening paper lying on the floor. ”

“ Raffles drew a crumpled paper from his pocket.
Almost any other man than Caleb Garth might have been tempted to linger on the spot for the sake of hearing all he could about a man whose acquaintance with Bulstrode seemed to imply passages in the banker’s life so unlike anything that was known of him in Middlemarch that they must have the nature of a secret to pique curiosity. But Caleb was peculiar: certain human tendencies which are commonly strong were almost absent from his mind ”

“ Medhurst was at school and college with me, one of the best and straightest chaps one could ever meet, and we were closely in touch with one another after our 'Varsity days. Then he went abroad for a few years, travelling for the sole purpose of seeing the world—money, of course, being no object. We corresponded at first, and then it dropped, and I lost sight of him, until he surprised me one day by writing to announce his approaching marriage with a girl, half Spanish by birth, whom he had met abroad, and who was staying with friends in town at that moment. ”

“ Mountstuart, cool in a mystification.
"And though she will tell you that I have authorized and Clara Middleton—done as much as man can to institute the union you suggest, she will own that she is conscious of the presence of this—fatality, I call it for want of a better title between us. It drives her in one direction, me in another—or would, if I submitted to the pressure. She is not the first who has been conscious of it."
"Are we laying hold of a third poor girl?" said Mrs. Mountstuart. "Ah! I remember. And I remember we used to call it playing fast and loose in those days, not fatality. ”

“ Speaking some words to Mesrour in the language of Arabia, the blackamore brought in and proceeded to invest Mr. Middleton with an elegant silken habit consisting of a pair of exceedingly baggy trousers of the hue of emeralds, a round jacket whose crimson rivalled the rubies of Farther Ind, and a vest of snowy white. Double rows of small pearls ornamented the edges of the jacket, which was short and just met a copper-colored sash about the waist. After inducting him into a pair of white leggings and bronze shoes, Mesrour clapped upon his head a large white turban ornamented with a black aigret. ”