Welcome to Book 3, Middlemarchers!

Summary

These chapters are all about Fred and the Garths! In Chapter 23, we rewind a bit to get a little more context about Fred’s debt which we've seen mentioned in previous chapters. He owes £160 to a horse trader in town by the name of Mr. Bambridge. Fred was too embarrassed to ask his father or any of his other friends to guarantee the debt, so he ends up asking Caleb Garth. He assures Mr. Garth that he will pay him back soon, and Mr. Garth chides him mildly but is surprisingly easygoing about signing the bill.

As we’ve seen previously, Mr. Featherstone’s cash gift to Fred isn’t quite as much as he was expecting, so he’s not able to pay the debt in full. He originally plans to give the bulk of the money to his mother for safekeeping, but decides that he needs to use it to make up the shortfall. Fred convinces himself that he’s likely to have good luck in horse trading, and buys a new horse from Mr. Bambridge and Mr. Horrock. He inspects the horse and it seems healthy, but just a few days after buying it, it reveals itself to have a restless temperament and maims itself. Now Fred has lost the investment and has even less money to repay Mr. Garth.

In Chapter 24, Fred is convinced that his father would refuse to help him, so he goes to tell Mr. and Mrs. Garth directly. The Garths live in a humble home and Mrs. Garth, who was a governess before her marriage, does most of the household chores herself in addition to homeschooling the younger children. Fred is chastened when he discovers that in order to cover his debt, Mrs. Garth will have to use the money she’d been scrimping and saving to provide their younger son Alfred with a better education, and they’ll also have to ask Mary for an advance on her paycheck from Mr. Featherson. Mrs. Garth is disappointed in Fred, but Mr. Garth mostly blames himself for agreeing to take on the debt.