Felix Holt the Radical

hen the down

shadow of a h

her, do not gr

t, and build ou

ear the longest

enly, all the l

changeling: th

, since hers wears n

ing now - bu

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year. Already in the village of Little Treby, which lay on the side of a steep hill not far off the lodge gates, the elder matrons sat in their best gowns at the few cottage doors bordering the road, that they might be ready to get up and make their curtsy when a travel

ass had spread itself over the gravel walks, and over all the low mounds once carefully cut as black beds for the shrubs and larger plants. Many of the windows had the shutters closed, and under the grand Scotch fir that stooped towards one corner, the brown fir-needles of many years lay in a small stone balcony in front of two such darkened windows. All round, both near and far, there were grand trees, motionless in the still sunshine, and, like all large motionless things, seeming to add to the stillness. Here and there a leaf fluttered down; petals fell in a s

f the doors which surrounded the entrance-hall, there came forth from time to time a lady, who walked lightly over the polished stone floor, and stood on the doorsteps and watched and listened. She walked lightly, for her figure was slim and finely formed, though she was between fifty and sixty. She was a tall, proud-looking woman, with abundant grey

boyhood, with his hand on the neck of a small pony; and a large Flemish battle-piece, where war seemed only a picturesque blue-and-red accident in a vast sunny expanse of plain and sky. Probably such cheerful pictures had been chosen because this was Mrs Transome's usual sitting-room: it was certainly for this reason that, near the chair in which she seated herself each time she re-entered, there hung a picture of a youthful face which bore a strong resemblance to her own: a beardless but masculine face, with rich brown hair hanging low on the forehead, and undulating beside each cheek down to the loose white cravat. Near this same chair were her writing-table, with vellum-covered account-books on it, the cabinet in which she kept her n

cal specimens. His pale mild eyes, receding lower jaw, and slight frame, could never have expressed much vigour, either bodily or mental; but he had now the unevenness of gait and feebleness of gesture which tell of a past paralytic seizure. His threadbare clothes were thoroughly brushed; his soft white hair was carefully parted and arranged: he was not a neglected-looking old man; and at his side a fi

he library. When they were all put back and closed, Mrs Transome turned away, and the frightened old man seated himself with Nimrod the retriever on an ottoman. Peeping at him again, a few minutes af

oung accomplishments seemed almost ludicrous, like the tone of her first harpsichord and the words of the songs long browned with age - she was going to reap an assured joy? - to feel that the doubtful deeds of her life were justified by the result, since a kind Providence had sanctioned them? - to be no longer tacitly pitied by her neighbours for her lack of money, her imbecile husband, her graceless eldest-bom, and the loneliness of her life; but to have at her side a rich, clever, possibly a tender, son? Yes; but there were the fifteen years of

h year of her life, must find their gratification in him - or nowhere. Once more she glanced at the portrait. The young brown eyes seemed to dwell on her pleasantly; but, turning from

the small group of her own servants had mustered, or that old Hickes the butler had come forward to open the chaise door. She heard herself called 'Mother! ' and felt a light kiss on each cheek; but stronger than all that sensation was the consciousness which no previous thought could prepare her for, that this son who had come back to her was a stranger. Three minutes before, she had fancied that, in spite of all changes

he likeness to herself was no longer striking, the years had overlaid it with another likeness which would have arrested her. Before she answered him, his eyes,

ed, Harold. I am an

ry anxious and eager. 'The old women at Smyrna are like sacks. You've not got clumsy and shapeless. How is it I have the trick of getting fat

at her knowledge of the youth of nineteen might help her little in interpreting the man of thirty-four, had fallen like lead on her soul; but in this new acquaintance of theirs she cared especially that her son, who had seen a strange world, should feel that he was come home to a mother who was to be consulted on all things, and who could supply his lack of the local experience necessary to an English land-holder. Her part in life had been that of the clever sinner, and she was equipped with the views, the reasons, and the hab

haken - crawls about among his books and beetles as usual, though. Well

born old, I think,' said Mrs Transome, a little flushed w

he had been speaking his eyes had been

ld - where is he? How is i

nic will bring him, with the rest of the luggage. Ah, I see it is young Debarry, and n

n about your standing. There is no other Tory candidate

that,' said Haro

ry candidate can never

not be a To

something like a

most sharply. 'You will n

id! I'm a

ahometanism at Smyrna, and had four wives, instead of one son, shortly to arrive under the care of Dominic. For the moment she had a sickening feeling that it was all of no use that the long-delayed good fortune had come at last - all of no use though the unloved Durfey was dead and buried, and though Harold had come home

ld, and see if there is anything

advertisement while his mother had been going through her sharp inward struggle. 'Uncle Lingon is on the bench

e back to a family who have old-fashioned notions. Your uncle thought I ought to have you to

under his arm; for he had perceived that her words were charged with an intention. 'And you ar

just been branded on the forehead all wonted motives would be uprooted. Harold, on his side, had no wish opposed to filial kindness, but his busy thoughts were imperiously determined by habits wh

r lit from above, and lined with old family pictures 'I thought they would suit you best, as

ing round at the middle room which they had just entered;

ld pay rent,' said Mrs Transome. 'We have been t

been rather

s we have been living

to pay off the mortgages. However, he's gone now, poor fellow; and I suppose I should have spent more in buying an En

meant that, Harold, when I foun

ve hung all her relations round my neck? I hate English wives; they want to give their

ould not reply to words which showed how completely any conception

been used to great luxury; these rooms look miserable

,' he went on, opening a side-door. 'Ah, I can sleep here a night or two. But there's a bedroom down-stairs,

racted insect, and never know where to go, if you alter the tr

om. I can't offer you my room, for I sleep up-stairs.' (Mrs Transome's tongue

nuisance he had to stay behind, for I shall have nobody to cook for me. Ah, there's the old river I used to fish in. I often thought, when I was at Smyrna, th

getting the estate some time, and releasing it; and I determined to keep it worth re

urself about things that don't properly belong to a woman - my father being weakly. We'll s

I am not prepared for. I am used to be chief bailiff, and to sit in the saddle two

under my reign,' said Harold, turning on his heel and feeling in his

ansome, colouring as if she had been a girl, 'you will understand

make them inviting to farmers, and to get sense supplied on demand is just the most difficult transaction

Jabez the footman; those are all the men i

as a neat little machine of a butler; his words used to come lik

ome things about home w

country round here lies like a map in my brain. A deuced pretty country too; but the p

a Radical. I did not think I was taking care of our old oaks for that. I always thou

f the Tory oaks are rotting,' said Harold, with gay carel

at nine. But I leave you to Hi

rself with pain at their parting, and whose coming again had been the one great hope of her years. The moment was gone by; there had been no ecstasy, no gladness even; hardly half an hour had passed, and few words had been spoken, yet with that quickness in we

o herself. No elderly face can be handsome, looked at in that way; every little detail is startlingly prominent, and th

utline), 'an ugly old woman who happens to be his mother. That is what he sees in me, as

the mirror and walked

a loud whisper; 'yet, perhaps,

unchangeable fact. Yet she had clung to the belief that somehow the possession of this son was the best thing she lived for; to believe otherwise would have made her memory too ghastly a companion. Some time or other, by some means, the estate she was struggling to save from the grasp of the law would be Harold's. Somehow the hated Durfey, the imbecile eldest, who seemed to have become tenacious of a despicable squandering life, would be got rid of; vice might kill him. Meanwhile the estate was burthened: there was no good prospect for any heir. Harold must go and make a career for himself: and this was what he was bent on, with a precocious clearness of perception as to the conditions on which he could hope for any advantages in life. Like most energetic natures, he had a strong faith in his luck; he had been gay at their parting, and had promised to make his fortune; and in spite of past disappointments, Harold's possible fortune still made some ground for his mother to plant her hopes in. His luck had not failed him; yet nothing had turned out according to her expectations. Her life had been like a spoiled shabby pleasure-day, in which the music and the processions are all missed, and nothing is left at evening but the weariness of striving after what has been failed of. Harold had gone with the Embassy to Constantinople, under the patronage of a high relative, his mother's cousin; he was to be a diplomatist, and work his way upward in public life. But his luck had taken another shape: he had saved the life of an Armenian banker, who in gratitude had offered him a prospect which his practical mind had preferred to the problematic promises of diplomacy and high born cousinship. Harold had become a merchant and banker at Smyrna; had let the years pass without caring to find the possibility of visiting his early home, and had shown no eagerness to make his life at all familiar to his mother, asking for letters about England, but writing scantily about himself. Mrs Transome had kept up the habit of writing to her son, but gradually the unfruitful years had dulled her hopes and yearnings; increasing anxieties about money had worried her, and she was more sure of being fretted by bad news a

on might resent, and to acquiesce in his evident wishes. The return was still looked for with longing; affection and satisfied pride would again warm her later years. She was ignorant what sort of man Harold had bec

adow which had fallen over Mrs Transome in this first interview with her son was the presentiment of her powerlessness. If things went wrong, if Harold got unpleasantly disposed in a certain direction where her chief dread had always lain, she seemed to foresee that her words would be of no avail. The keenness of her anxiety in this matter had serve

dressed herself without aid; nor would that small, neat, exquisitely clean old woman who now presented herself have wished that her labour should be saved at the expense of such a sacrifice on her lady's part. The small old woman was Mrs Hickes, the butler's wife, who acted as ho

nner, without my hearing it?

ld black velvet dress trimmed with much mended point, in

sary or likely that a goddess should be very moral. There were different orders of beings - so ran Denner's creed - and she belonged to another order than that to which her mistress belonged. She had a mind as sharp as a needle, and would have seen through and through the ridiculous pretensions of a born servant who did not submissively accept the rigid fate which had given her born superiors. She would have called such pretensions the wrigglings of a worm that tried to walk

ting with the son had been a disappointment in some way. She s

n the corridor, and was very pleasant.' 'What

there were some people you would always know were in the room though they stood round a corner, and others you might never see till yo

fectly that Denner ha

something too good to happen that they will go on we

eggs would be addled or none at all, and at the most it is but six to the dozen. Th

me you are afraid of nothing. I have been full of fears all my life - alwa

me, and the debts will all be paid, and you have your health and can ride about, and you've such a face and figure, and will have if you live to be eighty, that

they get it out of tormenting other people. What are

right. Then there's the sunshine now and then; I like that, as the cats do. I look upon it, life is like our game at whist, when Banks and his wife come to the still-room of an evening. I don't enjoy the game much, but I like to play my cards well, and see what

keeping down the obtrusiveness of the vulgar and the discontent of the poor. The history of the Jews, she knew, ought to be preferred to any profane history; the Pagans, of course, were vicious, and their religions quite nonsensical, considered as religions - but classical learning came from the Pagans; the Greeks were famous for sculpture; the Italians for painting; the middle ages were dark and papistical; but now Christianity went hand in hand with civilization, and the providential government of the world, though a little confused and entangled in foreign countries, in our favoured land was clearly seen to be carried forward on Tory and Church of England principles, sustained by the succession of the House of Brunswick, and by sound English divines. For Miss Lingon had had a superior governess, who held that a woman should be able to write a good letter, and to express herself with propriety on general subjects. And it is astonishing how effective this education appeared in a handsome girl, who sat supremely well on horseback, sang and played a little, painted small figures in water-colours, had a naughty sparkle in her eyes when she made a daring quotation, and an air of serious dignity when she recited something from her store of correct opinions. But however such a stock of ideas may be made to tell in elegant society, and during a few seasons in town, no amount of bloom and beauty can make them a perennial source of interest in things not personal; and the notion that what is true and, in general, good for mankind, is stupid and drug-like, is not a safe theoretic basis in circumstances of temptation and difficulty. Mrs Transome had been in her bloom before this century began, and in the long painful years since then, what she had once regarded as her knowledge and accomplishments had become as valueless as old-fashioned stucco ornaments, of which the substance was never worth anything, while the form is no longer to the taste of any living mortal. Crosses, mortifications, money-cares, conscious blameworthiness, had changed th