Middlemarch Ch. 32: Vultures Circle the Deathbed

George Eliot

Vultures Circle the Deathbed

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Summary

Peter Featherstone is bedridden, and his blood-relations multiply at Stone Court. Rich Solomon and Mrs. Waule had always been received with family candor; poor Jonah, Martha, and the rest argue that a brother lying there with dropsy must feel blood is thicker than water. All agree someone must watch the premises against the others while Mary Garth carries messages and refusals between kitchen and bedroom, offers ham, and tells hungry kin they are not wanted upstairs.

Jonah installs himself in the kitchen in his best suit; young Cranch squints beside him, and together they follow Mary with cold detective eyes. Fred, warned by Mary, peeks in and flees to the dairy laughing loudly enough for the kitchen to hear. In the wainscoted parlor Solomon and Mrs. Waule sit for hours, dryly near tears over being barred from the bedroom.

When they once enter in black, Featherstone sweeps his gold-headed stick and shouts them back. Mr. Borthrop Trumbull, auctioneer, second cousin, and amateur of superior phrases, alone sees Featherstone upstairs and hints at testamentary knowledge he does not possess. He reads aloud from Mary's Anne of Geierstein as if selling it, praises the ham, and departs bowing while hungry relatives are told they are not wanted.

Solomon decides Trumbull's talk proves Featherstone has left Mary a lumping sum. Mrs. Waule replies auctioneers talk wild, though Trumbull has made money. The chapter is comedy of inheritance anxiety: watchers, refusals, and a dying man's power to divide kin with a stick and a grin while Mary Garth alone keeps the keys, the truth, and Featherstone's grin. Fred's laughter in the dairy is the chapter's moral counterpoint: heirs who flee comedy still depend on the woman who refuses to burn papers for them. Trumbull's auctioneer's bow and Solomon's lumping-sum theory show how rumor manufactures inheritance before the breath is out. Mary will not burn the second will for Fred or kin; the comedy ends with watchers hungry and the keeper of truth still unpaid while Featherstone grins from the bedroom and Trumbull drives off bowing like a man who has sold the ham twice.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Reading the Deathbed Vigil

Serious illness can summon relatives whose concern tracks inheritance more closely than love. Featherstone's kin camp at Stone Court while Mary carries refusals and Trumbull hints at secrets he does not know.

When visitors multiply as someone's power fades, ask what each person gains if the story ends tomorrow and who does the unpaid messenger work.

Coming Up in Chapter 33

At three in the morning Featherstone will summon Mary to his bedside with two wills in his hands and ask her to burn one. The watchers downstairs have no idea how close the fortune is to turning..

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Original text

4,398 wordscomplete

Chapter 32

Vultures Circle the Deathbed

They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk. —SHAKESPEARE: Tempest. The triumphant confidence of the Mayor founded on Mr. Featherstone’s insistent demand that Fred and his mother should not leave him, was a feeble emotion compared with all that was agitating the breasts of the old man’s blood-relations, who naturally manifested more their sense of the family tie and were more visibly numerous now that he had become bedridden. Naturally: for when “poor Peter” had occupied his arm-chair in the wainscoted parlor, no assiduous beetles for whom the cook prepares boiling water could have been less welcome on a hearth…

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Critical Thinking Exercise

10 minutes

Map Your Own Family Money Dynamics

Think about your own family and money situations - not necessarily inheritance, but any time significant money was involved (job loss, windfall, major purchase, medical bills). Write down who said what, who aligned with whom, and what underlying tensions surfaced. Then identify which family member played which role from the Featherstone scene.

Consider:

•Notice how people's stated reasons for their positions might differ from their real motivations
•Consider how financial stress changes family dynamics and reveals hidden resentments
•Think about whether anyone tried to stay neutral and how that worked out for them

Journaling Prompt

Write about a time when money or inheritance created tension in your family or friend group. What did you learn about the people involved, and how did it change your relationships?

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Vultures Circle the Deathbed

Summary