“Come into my room, Rosamond, you will not mind the cold for a little while,” said Mary. The two girls had not only known each other in childhood, but had been at the same provincial school together (Mary as an articled pupil), so that they had many memories in common, and liked very well to talk in private. Indeed, this tête-à-tête was one of Rosamond’s objects in coming to Stone Court.
Old Featherstone would not begin the dialogue till the door had been closed. He continued to look at Fred with the same twinkle and with one of his habitual grimaces, alternately screwing and widening his mouth; and when he spoke, it was in a low tone, which might be taken for that of an informer ready to be bought off, rather than for the tone of an offended senior. He was not a man to feel any strong moral indignation even on account of trespasses against himself. It was natural that others should want to get an advantage over him, but then, he was a little too cunning for them.
“So, sir, you’ve been paying ten per cent for money which you’ve promised to pay off by mortgaging my land when I’m dead and gone, eh? You put my life at a twelvemonth, say. But I can alter my will yet.”
Fred blushed. He had not borrowed money in that way, for excellent reasons. But he was conscious of having spoken with some confidence (perhaps with more than he exactly remembered) about his prospect of getting Featherstone’s land as a future means of paying present debts.
“I don’t know what you refer to, sir. I have certainly never borrowed any money on such an insecurity. Please do explain.”
“No, sir, it’s you must explain. I can alter my will yet, let me tell you. I’m of sound mind—can reckon compound interest in my head, and remember every fool’s name as well as I could twenty years ago. What the deuce? I’m under eighty. I say, you must contradict this story.”
“I have contradicted it, sir,” Fred answered, with a touch of impatience, not remembering that his uncle did not verbally discriminate contradicting from disproving, though no one was further from confounding the two ideas than old Featherstone, who often wondered that so many fools took his own assertions for proofs. “But I contradict it again. The story is a silly lie.”
“Nonsense! you must bring dockiments. It comes from authority.”
“Name the authority, and make him name the man of whom I borrowed the money, and then I can disprove the story.”
“It’s pretty good authority, I think—a man who knows most of what goes on in Middlemarch. It’s that fine, religious, charitable uncle o’ yours. Come now!” Here Mr. Featherstone had his peculiar inward shake which signified merriment.