Either because his interest in this work thrust the incident of the
signature from his memory, or for some reason of which Caleb was more
conscious, Mrs. Garth remained ignorant of the affair.
Since it occurred, a change had come over Fred's sky, which altered his
view of the distance, and was the reason why his uncle Featherstone's
present of money was of importance enough to make his color come and
go, first with a too definite expectation, and afterwards with a
proportionate disappointment. His failure in passing his examination,
had made his accumulation of college debts the more unpardonable by his
father, and there had been an unprecedented storm at home. Mr. Vincy
had sworn that if he had anything more of that sort to put up with,
Fred should turn out and get his living how he could; and he had never
yet quite recovered his good-humored tone to his son, who had
especially enraged him by saying at this stage of things that he did
not want to be a clergyman, and would rather not "go on with that."
Fred was conscious that he would have been yet more severely dealt with
if his family as well as himself had not secretly regarded him as Mr.
Featherstone's heir; that old gentleman's pride in him, and apparent
fondness for him, serving in the stead of more exemplary conduct--just
as when a youthful nobleman steals jewellery we call the act
kleptomania, speak of it with a philosophical smile, and never think of
his being sent to the house of correction as if he were a ragged boy
who had stolen turnips. In fact, tacit expectations of what would be
done for him by uncle Featherstone determined the angle at which most
people viewed Fred Vincy in Middlemarch; and in his own consciousness,
what uncle Featherstone would do for him in an emergency, or what he
would do simply as an incorporated luck, formed always an immeasurable
depth of aerial perspective. But that present of bank-notes, once
made, was measurable, and being applied to the amount of the debt,
showed a deficit which had still to be filled up either by Fred's
"judgment" or by luck in some other shape. For that little episode of
the alleged borrowing, in which he had made his father the agent in
getting the Bulstrode certificate, was a new reason against going to
his father for money towards meeting his actual debt. Fred was keen
enough to foresee that anger would confuse distinctions, and that his
denial of having borrowed expressly on the strength of his uncle's will
would be taken as a falsehood. He had gone to his father and told him
one vexatious affair, and he had left another untold: in such cases the
complete revelation always produces the impression of a previous
duplicity. Now Fred piqued himself on keeping clear of lies, and even
fibs; he often shrugged his shoulders and made a significant grimace at
what he called Rosamond's fibs (it is only brothers who can associate
such ideas with a lovely girl); and rather than incur the accusation of
falsehood he would even incur some trouble and self-restraint. It was
under strong inward pressure of this kind that Fred had taken the wise
step of depositing the eighty pounds with his mother. It was a pity
that he had not at once given them to Mr. Garth; but he meant to make
the sum complete with another sixty, and with a view to this, he had
kept twenty pounds in his own pocket as a sort of seed-corn, which,
planted by judgment, and watered by luck, might yield more than
threefold--a very poor rate of multiplication when the field is a young
gentleman's infinite soul, with all the numerals at command.