Farebrother’s intervention in Fred and Mary’s relationship

Farebrother’s intervention in Fred and Mary’s relationship turns private attachment into a practical question about vocation and self-respect. When Fred returns from college with his degree and asks the Vicar to sound out Mary about his entering the Church, Farebrother agrees to speak with her. Mary makes clear that her affection is real, but that Fred cannot secure her commitment by declaring what he might do: he must first choose a worthy course and prove himself through it.

Background and the Request

Farebrother has just reflected that he might try to make a good clergyman of himself, despite having once wished for a different life. Duty soon takes a less abstract form: Fred, newly returned from college with his bachelor’s degree, comes to consult him, saying that Farebrother is the only friend he can approach. Fred admits that he has loved Mary since they were children and that she has previously asked him not to speak to her about their relationship again.

Fred’s Dilemma

Fred is considering entering the Church partly because he is inclined to follow his father’s wishes, though he had formerly been set against that career. He asks Farebrother to raise the matter with Mary because he believes she might listen to the Vicar and wants to know what she feels. He explains that Mary has especially opposed his becoming a clergyman, and that he cannot give her up. When Farebrother asks whether her answer would determine Fred’s choice, Fred says that if Mary would never have him, he might as well go wrong in another way. Farebrother rejects this reasoning: romantic disappointment would not erase the consequences of reckless conduct.

Fred also believes he has worked to pass his examinations for Mary’s sake and expects that she should recognize this effort. Yet what he offers Farebrother is still a claim about what he could become, rather than an established livelihood. He asks his friend to find out whether Mary returns his attachment, acknowledging that he does not know what to do unless he can learn her feelings. Farebrother accepts the delicate task, aware that carrying out Fred’s request means asking Mary, indirectly, to reveal whether she loves him.

Farebrother Speaks with Mary

At Lowick Parsonage, Mary identifies Fred as the young man Farebrother means. She receives the Vicar’s approach respectfully, telling him that she feels honored whenever he has something to say to her. Before discussing Fred’s prospects, Farebrother explains that the earlier question of the disputed will need not weigh on her conscience: the first will would not have remained legally effective after the later one was burned, and it would have been challenged. He remembers her feelings and offers this clarification before making the case Fred has asked him to present.

Farebrother tells Mary that Fred has worked his way to a degree and must now decide what to do. Fred is tempted to enter the Church, although that was not his former intention. Farebrother says he sees no insuperable objection to Fred becoming a clergyman, and proposes that, after a time, Fred might serve as his curate, with enough work to earn a stipend approaching what Farebrother had received as vicar. But he emphasizes that this prospect depends on Mary’s feelings: Fred has told him that he will not choose a course that diminishes his chance of winning her.

Mary refuses to treat the proposed curacy as a reason to accept Fred’s career choice. She says she cannot promise that she will ever marry him, but she certainly will not marry him if he becomes a clergyman. In her judgment, Fred would be more respectable in a suitable worldly business; the Church would be wrong for him if he entered it merely for gentility. Her objection is not to clerical work itself, but to a man adopting its responsibilities without a genuine disposition for them. The prospect of Fred preaching and ministering to the sick seems to her a caricature of a vocation he would undertake for status.

Mary’s Answer and Its Limits

When Farebrother asks whether Mary would support Fred if he braved the difficulties of making his living another way, she resists being bound by a promise. Fred, she insists, ought not to ask again whether she will marry him before he has done something worthy; saying that he could exert himself is not the same as doing so. Farebrother presses her to be direct because her answer affects more than one person’s future. He suggests that Fred needs to know whether he may hope that she will remain single until he has earned her hand, or whether he must accept the possibility of disappointment.

Mary then makes her affection explicit without turning it into a guarantee. She says that her feeling for Fred is too strong for her to give him up for someone else and that she would not be happy knowing he suffered through losing her. Her attachment has deep roots in their childhood: she remembers his longstanding love and his concern when she hurt herself. She wants to see him become worthy of everyone’s respect, but will not promise to marry him before he does. She tells Farebrother that Fred remains free to choose someone else, placing the decision about his work and future back in Fred’s hands.

Consequences and Significance

Farebrother returns to Middlemarch after delivering Mary’s answer, suppressing his own pain as he carries out what he understands as a duty to both friends. The exchange changes the terms of Fred’s decision. Mary’s affection gives him grounds for hope, but does not authorize him to enter a profession she believes unsuited to him, nor does it substitute intention for achievement. Her answer joins love to practical independence: Fred must find work he can undertake sincerely and become respectable through what he actually does.

The intervention also reveals the difference between Farebrother’s role as mediator and his private feelings. He conveys Fred’s appeal and presses Mary for the clarity Fred wants, even though the conversation makes his own attachment to Mary apparent to her. He does not use that knowledge to redirect her answer toward himself; he helps her speak plainly and carries her response back to Fred. In this scene, friendship and duty require him to facilitate a future from which he may personally be excluded, while Mary’s compassion for Fred remains inseparable from her refusal to promise him a marriage he has not yet earned.